SIX - Hanna
The market was bustling while I waited for Von to return. With my gilded cage left a smoking shell after the attack I was finally free for the first time since I had become the city's cartographer. Every week Von had brought me my earnings but I had no opportunities to actually use them for anything. If I was allowed out of the office he was always with me, and he would only let me leave for official business and the bathhouse, which I dreaded.
Earlier in the day he had again changed my ribbons, but this time he also changed his own. The golden ribbon that occupied the center of my pin and had identified me as someone who couldn't be conscripted by another unit or bothered in any way by the military had been swapped out for the red artisan pin I had been promised. He had dressed-down some other officer to get it, yelling something about farces, immunity, and other things I didn't understand. He said he would explain it later, but I never really knew if he would. I had started to accept that he would only tell me what he had to, and wouldn't tell me if he decided I shouldn't know.
Von's central ribbon was more elaborate and larger than mine, like all of the officers'. It had been gold with a few silver lines embroidered on it, meant to indicate he was an unmarried officer. "This was supposed to be a mutually beneficial system," he explained as he pinned our new ribbons, "but we didn't realize among human kind it is unusual for a woman to ask a man for marriage." He expertly skewered his new ribbon, a gold one like before, but with white lines embroidered on it instead of silver. "Among our kind the woman usually chooses, since there are so many men. I've found the customs of men here very strange," he confessed as he placed his pin on his uniform jacket.
"Make sure you wear that all the time," he reminded me, "although, I am certain within a few days no one will be unfamiliar with you, and they will all know better than to cross me."
I knew I was one of them, but it was still strange talking to the fae. They were rather expressionless most of the time, only the most extreme emotions showing on their faces. When they did feel something it twisted their features, making them more monstrous-looking when they were displeased, or more beautiful when they were happy. When he spoke about his soldiers his expression often turned dark. I knew that he regretted bringing them here.
"Why don't we just go back?" I asked him, anticipating his line of thought. He chewed on his lip and gazed out the window before answering me.
"Because there's nothing to go back to, Hanna. If I had known they were going to be this way, I wouldn't have brought them here in the first place."
"What do you mean there's nothing to go back to?" I hissed, stricken. Thunder clapped in the distance, something that would become a regular occurrence in Damaqas. That wasn't what any of us had been told. We were always told they were here because they were lonely and looking for companionship, only fighting us because we wouldn't just accept them.
"I can't tell you now," he whispered, "but when I can, I will tell you everything. I promise."
"Tell me something," I demanded, another clap of thunder sounding closer this time. He drew a hissing breath between his teeth and looked to the sky as if the gods would help him. Finally he glared at me and swore me to secrecy.
"No one else can hear about this. It will cause a panic. It's in their best interests that the humans not know, because they will think it's all of us and not just the Seelie."
He held his finger in my face while he said this and just as before when Fentris had done it, I had to fight the urge to bite his finger. I nodded instead, glaring right back at him.
"The Seelie got into something, I'm not sure what. It corrupts fae and infects humans. It doesn't seem to do much of anything to adults but it kills children. Every city they've taken over has suffered for it. We can't let them get into Damaqas but they grow closer every day, Hanna. So listen to me, do what I say, and stay away from the Seelie. There's no telling who has it."
I tried to accept his explanation but it still didn't sit right with me. "Why fight them, then? Why risk catching it, bringing it back-"
"Disease and war always go hand-in-hand, Hanna," he snapped at me. "If we didn't fight them, who would? The humans?" He laughed one of his snotty, princely laughs, then softened a little as sadness descended over his features.
"So that's it, we can never go back?" I asked, privately mourning that I would never know the world that I had come from. He nodded and gave me a pitying look as if he understood, but I'm sure for him it was worse. "It would almost certainly corrupt us," he whispered. "I will tell you more when I can. Please trust me."
And so now I sat in the market and waited for him while he had his meeting, wearing my new ribbons, smelling the spices that I could suddenly afford, mouth watering over meals that I could eat whenever I liked. My inability to actually get outside and use any of my money meant that I had a healthy purse by the time I was finally free. I wondered how long I would be free for, though. I knew the military didn't really see me as someone who was enlisted. I was more like equipment to them, and that was before they knew I could summon the sea to squash their enemies.
I'm sure my status is not about to improve,
I thought.
Rising, I resolved to buy a silk dress that my eye kept going back to as I waited for Von. Maybe I could get away with wearing what I wanted to, since they wouldn't treat me like I was enlisted or let me have the benefits that usually came with being a soldier.
You're still just a woman to them,
Zeidani's words came back to me over and over. I wondered if that would still be true if I summoned a tidal wave into their offices, then pushed the thought away before I accidentally did it.
The merchant directed me to a dressing area in the back of her stall and I was pleased to find the dress was a little large but would fit nicely when I had recovered from my illness. My stomach growled as I pinned my ribbons to the dress and folded my uniform. Cinnamon wafted over me as I paid the merchant, beckoning my stomach to growl again. I followed the scent to a stall selling little cinnamon cakes and cookies, where I bought a dozen of the little cakes and a dozen of the cookies. I asked to have them sent to the villa, and then I thought about my father and brothers at home, mourning my mother alone. I purchased a dozen more of each and asked the baker to send them to my father. They were more than happy to do so. It was strange for me; I had never bought a single cake or cookie in my life, yet here I was buying four dozen of them as if it were nothing--and it
was
nothing.
I wasn't sure if Von would like them but I would eat them all by myself if he didn't. Unexpectedly he appeared at my side and sniffed the air. "What is that?" he asked, and I told him about cinnamon and how my people, these people, had fought wars over it. "I believe that," he said, then bought a cinnamon cake without realizing I already had a dozen on their way home.
We sat on the edge of a fountain and shared the cake. I asked him if the meeting had gone well, but he didn't want to talk about it. I sighed. He got up and bought another cake, and we shared that one, too. Finally he put his arm around my shoulders and whispered in my ear, "It went better than I had hoped it would, honestly." When I looked at him he was beaming, but on the walk back to the villa the evening turned sour.
"What do you mean, 'I'm the one with the tempest'? Like you own me now?" As he'd recounted the night's events he'd let that little gem slip, sending my temper through the roof.
He rolled his eyes so I stomped ahead of him, my shoulders set, determined to get to the villa before him. The streets of the Silk Quarter, especially around the officers' villas, were still full of soldiers since most of the Military Quarter had burned down. Once they saw my face they shot a worried glance at Von, who walked quickly to keep up, but seemed to understand I didn't want him to walk with me. I knew with his height he could easily outpace me if he wanted to, but he was smart enough for once to hang back. Electricity crackled in the air and the night sky lit with flashes of lightning, rain beginning to pour down on the desert city once more. I had my foot on the first step of the villa when he finally caught up to me and grabbed my arm.
"Hanna, make it rain harder so no one can hear us talk."
I was confused, but so angry with him it wasn't a difficult request to fulfill. Rain slammed onto the cobblestones, each raindrop bursting into a dozen more and within minutes the gutters were running like rivers. Inside the villa he moved about shutting windows while I angrily bit the head off of a cinnamon cookie shaped like a rabbit. Even with the windows closed and gale force winds beginning to howl outside, he still looked over his shoulder and all around the villa. Exasperated with his paranoia I opened the pantry door and pulled him inside.
"There's barely room enough for both of us, so there's no spy in here," I hissed as he barely managed to shut the door behind himself.
"Something strange is going on, Hanna." He looked thoughtful for a minute and then continued, "They still won't let me into the cartographer's villa."
"You? I thought they wouldn't let me in there."
He shook his head. "I've never been in it. Not even when Zeidani was tortured, and died."
