Snowblind {complete}

Wet - Storm

A few days after Lanna's encounter with the lemon, the humidity broke and blessed rain poured from the sky. The concubines squealed in horror as their early morning walks were disrupted.

Finally, the last wet season of the year. Water fell in hammering waves. These rains would last for many weeks and the gardens would soon be a mire unsuitable for delicate feet.

Despite the welcome relief from the heat, Lanna felt uneasy. Her body twitched and she experienced headaches of increasing severity.

'Must be the air-pressure change,' Chowa diagnosed and gave her assistant enough pain remover to help until she adjusted.

Frez took Lanna aside and only had to utter one sentence before she understood.

'There will be storms soon.'

Thunder and lightning. Yes, now he had told her she could almost feel the sparks in the air. Chowa was also right – Southern people were sensitive to changes in the weather. Knowing a blizzard approached saved lives.

When thunderstorms hit the south in the thaw, the clans greeted them with rapture. Rain, a welcome change from snow. When the ground defrosted enough for water to sink into the soil, furs and boots were cast off. The lichen-covered earth under bare feet felt sublime. Long hours of light, warmer days. Bliss. The perfect excuse for the biggest celebrations of the clan year.

Storms could give headaches and cause lethargy, but Southerners had long ago learnt how to counteract these symptoms. The festivities began when the first clap of thunder shook the skies. Everyone would race to the centre of the village to dance – wild, joyful dancing for as long as the storm lasted, using the rhythm of enormous skin drums to set the pace.

The exercise eased the pressure in sore skulls, and come the end of the storm those who had partaken of the dance were cured – moods lifted, the headaches merely a dull throb. Sweat-lodge talk said that the only other way to cure the storm sickness was a good shafting. Lanna wasn't entirely sure that was true or if the dancing in the rain led to such a thing anyway.

However, this left Lanna with a problem. Imperials didn't dance, not like she did. Chowa wouldn't react well to a storm dance. Frez again provided the answer.

'First two years here, I danced on my own,' he explained. 'After that, I grew accustomed to the storms and no longer need to indulge.' He smiled, a wistful cast in his eyes. 'Part of us will always be primitive, I suppose.'

Lanna could have kissed him. If a committed Imperial like Frez had to dance, then a half-hearted one like her needed to.

She planned her dance with care so that she would be undisturbed. She hoped the storm would start in the evening or she would be unable to concentrate on her work.

As it happened, deep booms of thunder woke her in the first hour and the darkness of the halls aided her in slipping into the gardens. The sleepy sword maidens thought her to be walking in her sleep at first, dressed as she was in her sleeping attire. Once Lanna proved lucid, they let her go about her business, thinking her on an errand.

Lanna crept towards the garden with mounting anticipation.

I may be alone, but that doesn't mean I can't have fun, she thought, giggling to herself as light flashed through the screens in the dark main hall. The hair at the nape of her neck stood on end and her hands twitched almost uncontrollably. When she got past the last guarded door and stepped out into the rain, Lanna nearly wept with relief.

There could be no lingering. She broke into a trot and splashed through the sodden garden towards the wall. Hidden from view of the palace by a bend in the masonry, she came to a halt and looked up into the black sky. It was so dark Lanna felt truly alone. A beautiful sensation yet tinged with bitterness.

Her hands rose without her asking them to and rain pelted her smiling face, running down her neck, plastering her linen gown to her skin. It washed away all traces of the Imperial and left the Clanswoman to dance in the dark.

Her hands snapped together as a crack of thunder rang through the sky, informing her feet to begin. She spun, body and arms twirling with her, then held the pose, back arched, and imagined the rhythm of the drums – the rolling, fast beat that relentlessly drove the dancers on through the storm. Her body swayed, hips dipping and rolling, arms intertwining with a sinuosity to rival an eel. Her feet stomped in time to the internal beat and she was lost.

Her body revelled in the rain caressing her skin in warm rivulets, her feet splashing through the mud, uncaring of her white garments. She felt her mind drift and sweat mingled with the rain. Bedraggled curls whipped around her face sodden ropes.

And there it was, that shadowy flutter on the edge of her thoughts, but she did not reach for it, and it did not advance on her. If anything, it seemed content to stay on the fringes of her mind, observing.

The pressure in her head built. Not pain. More akin to energy begging for release. A bowstring pulled too far, humming with pent tension. The storm intensified and so did her dance. Her feet flew across the ground; muscles heated and burnt.

The cloudless eye passed over her. A brief flash of moons and stars and she screamed, as was the custom.

It was said her voice would be heard in the heavens and the ancestors would be pleased to see her strength and defiance of the elements that battered her body. The storm moved on, easing, and her dance lost intensity. Minutes later she stood shivering, laughing up at the sky, her body tired but throbbing with life, her thoughts clear and sharp.

She returned to the hall, ignoring the gawking sword maidens, and collapsed wet and happy onto her sleeping mat.

***

Two days after the storm a box arrived. Lanna frowned at it. Her treatment of the Emperor was complete and Ashioto prepared for the solstice, spending most of his time in the Hall of Law.

The black box with silver trim turned out to be from the Ninth. Chowa peered at Lanna, eyes narrowed to slivers of dark suspicion.

'What have you done to annoy her now?'

'I have no idea,' Lanna whispered, mystified. Chowa placed the box on Lanna's workbench, pushing the royal jelly preparation to one side. Lanna schooled her features and opened the box with an air of confidence she didn't feel.

Within, a tie of blooms she had only ever received from the Emperor. Wisteria – 'attend me'. The other flower she didn't recognise: a raggedy purple one with multiple heads on one stem. Chowa frowned at the box.

'Viscaria?' she queried and gave Lanna another hard look. 'Have you taken up with the Ninth?'

'What?' Lanna squeaked. She would gut herself first.

'Viscaria – invitation to dance,' Chowa stated. Lanna felt the blood drain from her face. There was no way Ceseed could know. Even if she did, why would the concubine even care?

Chowa folded her arms and tilted her head, her gaze not leaving her assistant's face.

'I believe this is the moment you enlighten me?'

Lanna felt her shoulders slump. There was no point in denying anything.

'I may have done something ill-advised...'