On Fire's Wings - Christie Golden [57]
It opened its mouth, and Kevla braced herself for the exquisite agony of its fiery breath. Instead, the monster spoke, and Kevla understood the words. Understood, but could not comprehend their meaning. The noise of the Dragon’s voice shattered her ears, reverberated along her bones, dropped her to the ground in agony.
“DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?”
Kevla was brought awake by the sound of her own scream. She bolted upright, gasping for breath. Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest. Her rhia clung to her, and she realized that she was soaked with sweat.
The light of the full moon spilled in through the small window, silvering and softening the harsh angles of the stacked-up tools. Kevla wiped at her wet face, shivering with fear and mortification.
Even her dreams, it seemed, mirrored her fall from favor and the shame inherent in her very existence. The dragon in her dream had to be the Great Dragon, who lived in the heart of Mount Bari. According to legend, the Dragon sent his flames in the form of molten stone coursing down the steep sides of Mount Bari when the people of Arukan forgot their traditions and laws.
Forget who they were.
DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?
Kevla could hear the bellowing voice in her head even now and she put her hands to her ears, as if the voice were real and could be shut out by something as paltry as human flesh and bone.
Perhaps the dream meant that the Great Dragon was as displeased with Kevla as Yeshi. Perhaps the Dragon felt that Kevla had no right to presume to a friendship with a khashimu, heir to the most powerful Clan in Arukan. She was born of a halaan. She was Bai-sha, her father unknown to her, one of her mother’s clients. She recalled the Dragon’s ferocity in the dream and shuddered.
And then, as she moved to sit up, she saw more evidence of the Dragon’s displeasure.
Blood was all over her thighs.
Kevla went through the motions of her day, but she almost felt as though she was standing outside her body. The only thing that brought her back to living in her own skin was the sensation of torn rags stuffed inside her, to absorb the telltale bleeding. Twice, she had to change them, and fought back tears of misery as she looked at the sodden, scarlet fabric.
Until the moment that the blood had begun flowing from her sulim, she had been cloaked in the safety of childhood. Kevla had dreaded being sent away from the House of Four Waters for disobedience, but now that fate was almost certain. She was now a viable female, able to conceive and bear children, and would no doubt be part of some negotiation with another clan; of the same value as a cart of vegetables or a brace of sandcattle. Or, she mused darkly, perhaps less, as she was Bai-sha.
Kevla shrank from the image. Her mother had never painted the joining of male and female as anything pleasant, and until this moment, Kevla had never given much thought to the subject. Now, it loomed over her like a grim shadow.
She thought she could bear even that, even lying in the darkness while a stranger roughly violated her body, if she could stay in the House of Four Waters. If she could play Shamizan with Jashemi now and then, who never made her feel worthless, and whose delight in her company was genuine.
She felt Sahlik’s eyes on her and once even heard the head servant whisper, “Child, are you unwell?”
Telling Sahlik would only hasten the inevitable. The onset of womanhood varied from girl to girl, she knew. Perhaps, if she kept her bleeding secret, she could stay longer. So she looked up into the concerned face of the maternal woman with eyes that she knew looked dazed and haunted and murmured that nothing was wrong.
The seemingly interminable day finally crawled to a close. For the first time since Yeshi’s commandment, Kevla hastened to return to the privacy of her room. Once there, she removed the soiled rag, replaced it with a