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a recurrence of jasmine

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THEY LOCK MY son away and send me before a dying god. 
I am not the first sacrifice: I watched their last attempt fail, the famous bard from lake country whose shanties and epics echoed in the vast stone chamber, sweat rolling down his brow and voice cracking from exhaustion. 
He sang for two days, then froze solid where he stood. 
I must do better, or leave Alexhy an orphan. 
“Your Holiness,” I say, falling to one knee as women of this land do. “How can I be of service?” The flagstones are coated in frost, and cold seeps into my bones.
“You cannot,” he says, voice rumbling from all directions. A blue gem glows at the end of his scepter, lines of power running up his arm, illuminating his eyes. Through it, he kept this wintry mountain valley lush for a thousand years. It is refreezing now, returning to ice as he loses his will to live. “How will you change this taste of dirt and death on my tongue?”
I don’t know. Poets, philosophers, and courtesans have all failed. In desperation, they’ve begun throwing servants from the kitchen before him—like me—hoping something works. What can I do that they did not? 
Well, wit never hurt. 
“Why, with sweetmeats, Your Grace.” 
“Meat comes from dirt and tastes already of death. If you had lived as long as I, you would know its flavor.”
I have no idea what a thousand years feels like. I have lived twenty-two, and already I feel old. “Then perhaps some fresh air, Your Grace. When did you last walk your gardens?”
His Grace snorts. “When last I smelled their dirt and death as well. Do you know how long I kept those trees alive, held in perfect youth?” 
He gestures at the soaring windows. Frost begins to crystallize on the forest of bare branches outside, and my skin prickles with fear. 
Not good. 
“Ah—long! Clearly, quite long.”
“Yes.” The god shifts on his seat, chin slumping forward onto his chest. “Quite long. Too long.”
I wait with nails biting into my palm, wondering if I have failed, if this is when he loses interest and freezes me like the bard. If this is when my son loses his mother. 
Instead, a soft snore emerges from the god’s mouth. The knots in my stomach loosen. Divine snoring. I will take that over death. 
“Good, good,” Vizier Chalmes says, gliding up to take my elbow. “You did well, young Thaylea.”
His gaze is distant, however, and I know I didn’t do well. No one has, in the six months I have been here. There is a funeral for a frozen corpse nearly every day, sometimes two. Meanwhile, the divine empire falls apart. 
And with it, any hopes of saving my son.

They wake me when the god rises, despite the late hour. It’s a cruel reminder of the days after Alexhy’s birth when our patterns of wake and sleep had little to do with the sun or stars. Father gave my son and me eleven days in the caravan—just enough to build up my milk—then sold us into indenture. For bringing shame on our family, he said. 
For ruining his chances of a profitable marriage alliance, more like. But what would my father understand of love?
The god has not moved from his throne, though the air carries the scent of lavender soap, and the floors have been swept. The moon casts gray shadows that catch in the frost on the floor, and the chill scrubs any lingering fogginess from my mind.
“Sandwalker,” he rumbles when I step in. He’s noticed my dark hair and eyes, then. “What could I possibly want from you?”
I don’t know, but I need to answer, so I say what comes first to my tongue. “My name, to start with, Your Grace.”
Silence. I wince. Father always said I speak too quickly. 
“Names,” he rumbles at last. “These are as repetitive as the seasons and years. I want nothing of it.” 
“But you had a name once, didn’t you? You were not always ‘Your Grace’ or ‘Holy One.’” According to legend, the scepter was passed from parent to child, so this god must once have been a child. He’d had children of his own, though they were murdered centuries ago. He never had more.
The god grunts at this and shifts on his massive granite seat, looking strangely small. “I did. None know it now.”
“Do you?”
“Wretch!” he shouts, starting forward. The scepter flares, and veins of frost shoot from where it touches the floor. “Think you I’ve forgotten my own name? I know it!”
I run. 
The vizier blocks the door with an iron arm. 
I beat at him. “Let me out!”
“Back, back, child,” Chalmes murmurs, eyeing the god. “He does not kill out of anger. And your child yet needs you.”
“Don’t use Alexhy as a bargaining piece,” I spit, anger burning past the fear in my breast.
“It is only a statement of fact. Without you, the palace has no need for an infant.”
The thought of Alexhy turned out of the palace in the bitter cold shuts my mouth. I would face anything to keep him from that. Even for a few days. Even for today.
So, I turn back to the god, feet numb from the cold, and force myself to walk closer, steps crunching on the circle of frost. My question made the god angry, but anger is better than apathy. Anger might keep this god alive. I take a deep breath.
“Will you tell me that name, Your Grace?”
“For what purpose?”
I try a smile. “If only to avoid calling you Your Grace all the time.”
He waves a tired hand. “Do not seek to seduce me, young one. The best and most beautiful have tried, for centuries. I am beyond such things.”
“I have never sought to seduce another. If a man does not want me for who I am, I do not want him either.” The words bring up memories, of the fifth son of a minor trader with a limp to his gait and a smile like all the diamonds in the sky. Alexhy’s smile. 
I push them down. 
“That is admirable,” the god says. “I loved such a girl once. She is dead now.”
Frost melts, and I feel a spark of something I have not felt since they pulled me from the kitchens yesterday. Hope. “Will you tell me of her?”
He hesitates, and the dead vines climbing the audience hall begin to green, leaves unfurling in the moonlight. Yes. Maybe this is what he needs. 
The question hangs between us, air warming. Then, the god turns away, and the leaves wilt. “No. Leave me. I must attend her shrine.” 
He stands, and I go, before the frost can come again.

Vizier Chalmes catches me in the door, bony hand on my elbow. “What was that?” he hisses. 
I shake him off. “It was all I could think of. I am a caravan daughter. I do not know pretty songs or dances.”
“No, fool girl. He has not been that alive in months! The vines greened!”
I swallow my surprise. I despise this man, but I can’t let that cloud my judgment. I have apparently done well, and I am too much a merchant’s daughter not to realize that’s worth something. “Then perhaps you will let me see my son.”
“In time.” He releases me, voice cooling. “I am afraid there are still things we need from you.”
“Is appeasing your god not enough? Saving his vines?”
“It was good, but you must continue. Do more.” He fingers something beneath his robes. “He must see that I have brought him comfort in his old age.”
“You? I’m the one doing the work.” I let some snap come out in my voice but keep a firm hand on my real anger. I am only a servant, after all, and he the top of the theocracy. Poor men must bargain with a subtle hand, I can hear my father saying.
“Ah, but I am the one who chose you.”
“From a line of scullery maids. You picked me because I’m from the sands, the most expendable of your expendable servants. A quick distraction while you searched for someone better.” I take a breath. I do not know what drives this man—whether ambition or devotion—but I know something does. The passion in his eyes is for more than duty. I need to find out what it is.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” I say. “No idea what will work.”
“I know that you are working. And that you will continue working until His Holiness is ready.”
My ears perk up. “Ready for what?”
“To choose an heir.”
Ah. Here is the reason he cares—but I need to know more if I’m going to use it. To bargain with my father’s subtle hand. “But there is no heir. They all died centuries ago.”
“There is a ritual.” He draws himself up, gaze going distant. “An old ritual, but still part of our faith. His Holiness can name an adult heir. Naturalize one of us into the royal line.”
“One of the viziers?”
The spindly man starts and glances down the hall. “We are the only ones who could handle the power—but that is none of your concern. Just be ready. I suspect he will call you again, soon.” 
He spins and strides away, indigo robes billowing behind him.
I mull his words as I walk back to the kitchens, fitting them into what I’ve seen in the last few months. Aykuna has been outdoing herself in the kitchens, Chalmes in the audience chamber, other viziers in diplomacy and agriculture—but not to try to save the empire, as I’d thought. To try to prove their worthiness and be chosen as heir. 
I shudder. From what I’ve seen of the viziers, I want none of them taking that power. But this is not my nation, and I have more immediate concerns. If Chalmes sees me as his ride to divinity, I will gladly accept the yoke, so long as I pull Alexhy out, too. 
This is my bargaining chip. Now I just have to stay alive long enough to use it.

The god summons me just after dawn. “How was the time in your shrine, Your Grace?”
“Do not call me that.”
The room grows cold, and fear shakes off the last fringes of sleep. “Then what shall I call you?”
“Verenal. Call me Verenal.”
It is an ancient name, one of the eight words of power used in Haylen’s Epic. More importantly, he trusts me with it. “It is a good name.” 
“It means nothing. It belongs to someone who is dead.”
“But Verenal,” I say, testing the word like a stretch of boomsand, “you are still alive.”
“Out of duty.”
“Nothing more?”
He shifts, skin the color of old parchment. “You have not told me yours.”
I flourish skirts in the way of my people. “I am Thaylea Ashfoot, of the Twelve Dunes Dynasty.” 
He tilts his head back. “Twelve Dunes. Your father is Aylen?”
I stifle a gasp. Aylen was my father’s father’s grandfather—but maybe better not to tell him that. “You have been to the sands?”
“I have been everywhere, seen everything. It has all changed but remains the same.”
He sounds so tired. Or bored? But courtesans and bards have not kept him entertained. Does he want philosophy? “Surely it cannot be both.”
“Look at these flowers.” The god—Verenal—extends his hand, and the vines climbing the north wall burst into white pinwheel blossoms. My nostrils fill with heady jasmine, and I cannot help but stare in awe. He made life with a wave of his hand. 
“Have you seen these flowers before?” Verenal asks. 
“No. They are newly blossomed.”
“And yet you have. Jasmine grows in the shade of your oases. You grew up with it.”
“That’s true, but—these are not those flowers. These are new and beautiful.” My heart beats faster. This is what I need to show Chalmes, to get leverage in our next conversation. His god making things green again. “Is that not worth keeping alive?”
“I once thought so. Perhaps I still do. But thoughts do not desire make.”
“Do you not remember the first time you admired jasmine?”
“I remember.” His voice echoes in the empty chamber. “I was a child then, and my father held the scepter. But that vine is dead, as this one will be, as is my father.”
“And has your desire died too?”
The blossoms close, and he looks in my direction, but there is no anger in his gaze. “What meaning is there in repeating the same things, time after time?”
I think of my son, who hasn’t yet smelled jasmine or held the waxy petals in his hands. “The meaning is born again with each new life.”
“For centuries, I believed that. Tried to experience that meaning again with each new planting, each new vizier, each new monarch in the low countries. But they form patterns, and the patterns themselves make patterns, until in each part you see the whole.”
“That sounds wonderful.” I would like to live to see such patterns. 
“It was, for a few centuries more. Then everything began to look the same and to smell of dirt and decay.”
I hear the desolate tone in his voice from yesterday, after he froze the bard. Not good. “But it isn’t! That pattern can change.”
“I have waited for that to happen. It cannot. Only death releases us.” The gaze he gives me is both terrifying and wholly disinterested. It’s the gaze of a god at milkthistle drifting in the breeze. “I tire of you.”
My stomach knots. My breath frosts. Say something. “You said you see the pattern in each part, each person. Which parts do you see in me?”
His chin flexes. “It is hard to describe.”
“Try.”
“I see pride. Impetuousness. The passion of youth, and the dedication of motherhood. The quick wit of your people, and the anger, too. The love for one who is gone.”
I suck in a breath, feeling suddenly stripped. “You’re wrong,” I say, needing him to stop, to cover myself. “The only one I love is here, in the nursery.”
“Not for your child. For a man. The child’s father, perhaps.”
“Rolend? I loved him, yes. But I do not love him now.”
Verenal watches me calmly, a light in his eyes—amusement? Is he enjoying this? 
I should be pleased—an amused god is not one about to freeze me—but it’s irritating. There is no space in my life for lovers anymore. “It was just for a season, a thing of passion. We could never have been together.”
“Why not?”
“He… wouldn’t have fit in. He wasn’t a trader, not properly. More like a tinker. Or a juggler. Or—I don’t know. He was many things. But Father would never have accepted him into the wagons.”
“And you would not leave your wagons?”
“Of course, I would,” I snap, then realize I never considered it. And that Verenal is asking me questions now.
“But you didn’t. Why?”
That’s personal—but the jasmine blossoms are reopening along the walls, and Chalmes watches from the side entrance, gaze intent. If this is what it takes to earn Alexhy a future, so be it. “They are my family. And Rolend—I loved him, but he was not family.”
Verenal nods as if this is sage wisdom, and I wonder again what pattern he sees in me. “And where is your family now?”
“They sold me,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. 
“And yet you love them?”
I don’t know. Yes. “They are my family.”
Verenal nods again. “I had a family once. A wife who loved as you do. Go now. Be with your child.”
“But—Your Grace,” a voice starts from the side door. Chalmes. 
“Do it, vizier,” Verenal rumbles, just a hint of displeasure in his voice. “I care not for your schemes. Let this woman be with her child.”
“Yes, Your Grace! Yes. Certainly.”
I surprise myself with tears. I told myself I would never cry in front of my owners, no matter what they did to me. 
They never tried kindness.

Chalmes waits in the hallway outside the entrance. “You did well today, young Thaylea.”
I wipe the tears from my cheeks, not wanting this man to see me cry. “Well enough to get you named heir?” It’s blunt, but I’m not in a state to mince words. 
He sucks air, glancing at the door. “I do not wish to be heir. I wish for His Grace’s speedy recovery and that He will reign another thousand years.”
I almost laugh, despite everything. I take a breath, forcing myself to think strategically. I’ve proven my worth. Now I need to use the leverage it gives me. “And if he doesn’t? Someone must take the scepter.”
Chalmes glances around. “Yes. Well. May the worthiest of us be so blessed.” 
“Like the one who brings him comfort in his dying days?”
“Perhaps, yes.” He steps closer—a good sign, according to my father. The signal that posturing has come to an end and the bargaining begun. “If you can keep it up.”
I recognize this for what it is: Chalmes seeking his own leverage, trying to weaken my position with doubt that I can keep doing the impossible. Maybe trying to string this out until he is chosen, without making a deal, leaving Alexhy and me none the better for it.
Fortunately, I have levers of my own. 
 “I think I can. If I choose to continue.”
“Choose?” His eyebrows rise. “You have no choice.”
“Even those of us under indenture have a choice. We can choose life or death. I am already risking my life going in there, when no one has ever survived it. To refuse is not so different.”
His smile is oily, but I read worry in the crinkles of his eyes. “But your life is not your own. You must stay to care for your child.”
Anger flares in my chest--this is why you will never be a caravanser, my father once snapped at me. But I have never been able to change my heart or even to hide it well. So, I have to use it. 
“Better he die,” I snap, “than live under indenture’s yoke. No. If I do this for you, you must do something for me.”
The lines deepen around his eyes, the crow of time sinking its claws in. “And that is?”
I take a deep breath. “Make me your queen.”
“What?” the vizier spits, eyes bulging.
“When you assume the scepter, you will marry me and name my son your heir.” It would not be a union of love, but I have had my fill of those. And this is a better life for Alexhy than I could make elsewhere. 
“Have you lost your wits? That—that’s impossible!” the vizier splutters.
“Nothing is impossible with that much power, vizier. You would be a god. But not without me.” 
The muscles of his jaw work. “Freedom,” he says at last. “The best I can give you is freedom.” 
Hope blooms in my chest. I ignore it. I didn’t expect him to take me up on marriage, but the promise of freedom is too vague. Specifics. The profit and loss of a contract are decided in the specifics. “Tomorrow. I keep him alive until tomorrow, and you release us, me and my son.” 
“Two more days. I need you for two, at least.”
“Two, then. But we’ll need money. Enough for a year or more. And safe passage out of this nation.” In case it does freeze over once I’m gone.
“Fine,” he snaps. “Done. But first, your two days.”
The merchant in me relaxes, deal made, but the servant in me is not done. “My first owner promised me freedom once, in return for a favor. You know how well that went. Proof. I need proof you will keep your word.”
“My word is my proof, girl. I am a vizier of Chuali.”
I would laugh if everything didn’t ride on this. “Then you will not mind a witness. Vizier Aykuna. Call Vizier Aykuna, and let’s have her witness the arrangement.”
His face darkens. “You would question my—”
“This, or no deal, and you can go back to freezing lake country bards while your nation starves.” It’s a bluff—I would not actually risk Alexhy’s life—but I have seen the avarice in his eyes. He will do it. 
His mouth puckers like he’s bitten a lemon rind, then he snatches a serving girl and sends her for Aykuna. I feel better when it is done and better yet at the pleased smile Aykuna wears, witnessing Chalmes’ oath. She will hold him to it. 
They leave, and I hurry toward the nursery.
Two days. Two days to freedom. Two days to a better future for my son.
Two days to keep a god alive.
But first, my son.

Read the full story in The Alchemy of Sorrow