The Kindreds, Volume 1

The Eighth, Pt. 7

The girl didn't talk much, and only communicated to Sada with rough gestures and glares. If Sada made a wrong turn or went the wrong way on one of the ladders that connected the upper and lower cells, she would impatiently say 'no,' but then she was silent again. Sada tried to meet it all with good grace, and managed to restrain herself from conversation after the first few attempts proved unfruitful. That was hard, but her exhaustion made it easier. The day had been long, and her butt ached from sitting for so long on hard clay flooring. Mostly, her heart was tired. It had been dragged through fright, excitement, wonder, joy, hope, sorrow, and more in the span of one day, and both she and it needed rest.

Finally, Orla led Sada down a ladder of sticks tied together with long grasses and gestured at the corner of the room. There was a grass matt in place of a bed, thankfully thicker than those they had sat upon to eat supper. The room did smell of dirt, but it was a pleasant smell. The smell of Troll men was slightly mildewy, but it wasn't unbearable. It reminded her of how the stables at their Centerton manor smelled when they first took up residence. It also felt familiar in a distant, aching way, though she could not place how. This cell was on the outside of the Trolls' dwelling, and a slit of a window opened one clay wall up to the night air. It was warm and smelled of sap and rain to come.

Sada thanked Orla and made her way to the window above the pale green matt. It was too small to stick her head through as she wanted to, but she dropped to her knees and slipped her fingers over the sill. It was powdery beneath her hands.

There was a shuffle, and Orla cleared her throat.

"Thou won't be stayin' long, will thou?" she asked curtly.

The harshness brought Sada's fingers to her hair, but when she turned she had a smile on her face. "Only for the night."

Orla nodded, glancing around the room. "Just don't want thou takin' advantages of my mother's hospitability is all. She has a lot on her mind but she's too kind to say so..."

"I would not think to overstay my welcome nor ask your mother for any more than she offers me. I thought it rude to refuse her invitations of supper and a room."

Orla scoffed aloud. "Shore. Thou look like one of them fairfolk princesses the Gom' brodir warns the cubs about. They sure look pretty an' fair 'nough, but their hearts art cruel an' takin'. Anyway, that's just what the old man says, what do I know?"

How to be cruel, Sada thought, but she held her tongue, bit it even. The pain there masked the pangs in her chest. Switches and stones may make me groan, but tongues shalt never harm me. Is that the way the saying went? Sada thought that in reality, it was reversed. Bring forth the switches, but keep your harsh tongue from me, she thought dully. She made herself smile at Orla, forced her throat to open and speak.

"I am no princess. If I were, perhaps I would have a gown to wear that is not caked with dirt and grime." She laughed lightly, but Orla seemed to find it as humorless as she did. "And by the morning, perhaps even before you wake, I will be gone."

"Thou and thou's fancy speech. I'm too dirty to be a princess, that what yer sayin?"

"No!" Sada cried, "that's not –,"

Orla sneered. "Fraid of a little dirt? I'll be workin' in it 'fore you wake, fair lady. Mayhap I'll even sew thou a gown of it, would thou like that? No, too fair for it, much too fair. I hope you art able to find some enjoyment in this men's room, but it is far from a princess's way o' livin' ain't it?" She sniggered and clambered up the ladder of sticks, leaving Sada to stare after her.

"I am no fair lady," she whispered when the girl had gone.

Suddenly the view of the forest through the little window was no longer beautiful, and the gentle breeze was now harsh on her skin. She shivered and dragged herself to the corner to huddle against the clay wall.

Switches and stones, switches and stones, she thought morosely.

It is not the ladies who cry that find themselves with a place upon the throne...Why do you let yourself be so weak? the voice of Memory tickled her mind, and it did nothing to calm the aching in her chest.

"I am weak. Orla will wear the crown, she does not cry. I, the princess, will be on my knees serving her. Maybe I was a fair lady in Ettedon, but it matters not. For I will be stuck in Elt forever, and here I am nothing but a flesh-cub."

As Sada sat there, she realized what the smell of the room reminded her of: Gabe. The guards when they met her after training in the barracks. John when he took off his helmet and let his sweaty hair down. She never thought she'd miss such a scent, one she'd covered her nose at before. But now it made her feel so close to them that she realized just how far they were. Sada fell asleep with tears on her cheeks and sorrow in her heart. The worst part was, she liked it. 

.  .  .

Sada

Om' Modir sat peacefully in her queen cell. The new cell was almost finished being constructed, and she watched her daughters work happily, one hand resting on her warm belly. The life there was growing quickly and strongly. Soon, her abdomen would become mishappen from all of her daughter's kicking. She only prayed that the Kindreds would allow this Young Queen to live, or take her as a vessel if she did not.

The last child been a terrible sight, one to make not just a mother shudder, but anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity. It had kicked inside her until it hadn't. Then it bit and clawed with hands too big for its body. Trolls were born soft, but this one had been stony and cracked from the moment it slithered from her womb to the dirt. The birth had been painless, and that at least had been some small blessing. But when she held her daughter—the new queen—up to the light, her eternal smile had flickered and her face drooped.

The little Troll was long-limbed and as lanky as a Faery, with hands that ended in claws rather than chubby round fingers. The legs were skinny, unable to support its round body. Its face was half-formed, but what was there had been twisted into a sneer as it glared at its mother. And the color. The cub was black and purple like bruised fruit, and its insides oozed out of cracks that were too big, in the way old Trolls oozed when they were dying. In the way Old Mother herself would soon die. The eyes had perhaps been the most awful part. They were not black but purple, with gleaming irises like one of the fairfolk. And within their sickeningly beautiful depths shone evil. She was certain it was not a cub who was looking at her, but something on the other side of the world, using it as a vessel in the way Kindreds might use Spiritkin as theirs. Old Mother couldn't bear to touch the thing anymore, and she threw it down with a groaning cry. It kicked once, said "Omma," then died.

Even thinking of it now, she still rubbed her belly with a smile. The life here did not feel evil. She had kept herself mostly constrained to the insides of the Dwelling so that she wouldn't expose herself to whatever dark force had certainly infected her womb. She also refused to use her Boon unless the command was either short or necessary. Now she called her daughters working on the new queen cell into her own. When they entered, she touched her eldest daughter, Aba, releasing a new command and manifesting her Boon into something physical and separate from herself in the way only Troll queens could.

The command was sleep, and it manifested into a pleasant scent of wildflowers and dreams that clung to the earthen skin of her daughter. Everyone she passed would immediately receive the command of their mother and queen.

Aba's eyes grew moist and droopy with fatigue. By the time she and her sisters had bid Old Mother a restful night and the blessings of the Kindreds, they all had the same look in their inky eyes. They trudged from her cell, buzzing mildly and bumping into each other as they went, to spread her command and then follow it themselves.

Om' Modir smiled after her cubbies, then she waddled to the circular clay chamber at the end of the room. The blossoms had been freshly changed, and white petals welcomed her in. Old Mother crawled into the cell within her cell and followed her own command to sleep, wondering if the human girl was doing the same.