Page 7

Ten Years Ago

Daeros—Tenebris

I grow braver, bit by bit. Sometimes, when I am performing, I dare to slide all the way down the aerial silks and ropes, to cartwheel across the floor and tumble past the king and whatever dignitaries he’s invited to view his Collection.

My fingers are as quick as the rest of me: I filch hairpins and jewels and, once, a small knife.

The king never speaks a word of praise—not to me, not to anyone. But mostly we’re all locked back into our cages when we’re finished performing. Mostly he lets us live.

I use the knife, first. I cut off my hair, and then I scrape the blade against my scalp again and again, until I have no hair left at all.

I do it because I am terrified my hair will get caught on a chain or a rope or a silk when I’m performing, that I’ll get trapped, choked, that I’ll break my neck.

I do it because I am afraid and because, here, it is the only thing that I can control.

I feel lighter when I’ve done it. Freer.

Like not everything I am has been taken from me.

I’ve been a full month in the king’s Collection before I finally dare to use the hairpins, which I’ve been hiding in the weave of my blanket.

I poke them into the lock on my cage, wiggling and twisting and pushing until the lock clicks open.

Then I’m free, gripping the chain that holds the cage aloft, shimmying down it and shaking with terror until my feet are planted firmly on the floor.

I slip up to the double doors that lead to the rest of the mountain palace but freeze with my small hand on the latch. There are guards on the other side of the door; I hear them shift where they stand, sword belts creaking.

I scamper back across the hall and climb, quick as a spider, up to my cage again before I am quite aware of my intent. I crouch on my sleeping ledge, heart raging in my ears.

But no one comes. My trespass is not discovered.

So the next night, I do it again.

And the next.

And the next.

And the next.

I become aware, little by little, of the others below me. I don’t mean to, but I cannot be wholly, forever alone, with only my own thoughts and fears to occupy my mind.

So I notice the other children in the Collection; I learn their names and their abilities.

I see how broken they are, the cold numbness in their eyes.

There is Corinna, a brilliant Daerosian painter.

Eirene, a Daerosian singer. There are Edda and Frida, twin Skaandans who dance with swords.

There is Tier, the Skaandan boy who came in the wagon with me: He’s a harpsichordist. There is one Iljaria, a young boy named Dagmar, who is blessed by the Red God and can make fire out of anything.

He is kept in an iron cage, the only metal that can dampen his magic and keep the king and his court safe.

The king and the guards call the children not by their names but by their ability: So there is Painter and Singer and Swords.

There is Harpsichord and Fire and me, Acrobat.

But the children tell each other their names, refusing to forget these precious pieces of themselves.

I don’t tell anyone my name. I keep it hidden safe in my soul.

The king has four wives. Pelagia and Elpis are both Daerosian, and Unnur is Skaandan. Gulla is Iljaria, and I hear her story shortly after the king first locks me in my cage.

Gulla was once part of the king’s Collection. She claimed the White Goddess—goddess of music—as her patron, and boasted that she could make the king and his entire court go to sleep with just a note of her magic. She did, and when the king woke up, he cut out her tongue.

And then he married her.

The story makes me sick; it is too like what happened to the Bronze God, who was left mutilated and alone. I don’t like to see her, powerless and mute, trapped in the mountain.

The king has children: four sons, two daughters. They’re young, no older than the children in his Collection. They like to come into the great hall, gawk at us in our cages, poke things through the bars, laugh at us. All except for Gulla’s son.

The first time I notice him is on an evening the Collection is called upon to perform, trotted out like prize horses and made to show our tricks and our teeth.

I perform next to last, confident enough in my routine by now to end it with a flourish at the king’s feet, sweeping him an elaborate bow as I gulp for breath and try to slow the mad pace of my heart.

The king eyes me coolly, his blue eyes sharp against glacier-white skin.

He waves a hand, dismissing me, and as I am stepping back into my cage, I see the boy.

He looks about my own age of ten, his skin a perfect blend of his father’s light and his mother’s dark.

His hair a mix of theirs, too, the loose curls a tangle of white and black.

There are swirls of blue tattooed onto his arms, marking his power as coming from the goddess of animals, whom the Iljaria call the Blue Lady.

He paces to the ivory throne waiting for him in the center of the room, as Daerosian nobles and the king’s wives and children look on. The throne is writhing with snakes.

“Get in ,” barks the king’s steward to me, prodding me in the back with the handle of his whip.

I obey, climbing into my cage, barely aware of the key turning in the lock, losing my balance as the steward hauls on the chain to send me spinning back to the peak of the ceiling.

My eyes are fixed on the scene below, on the throne, the snakes, the half-Iljaria boy.

He sits without fear, the snakes sliding harmlessly around him, hanging on his shoulders like a cloak, circling his brow like a crown.

The king laughs and claps from his place among the onlookers, and the rest applaud politely. The king frowns, displeased that his audience is not as keen on this show as he is. He jerks up from his seat, stalks over to the throne.

“They are not amazed, boy,” says the king. “Of course the serpents do not hurt you, with your barbarian magic. Let them clothe me instead.”

The boy turns wild eyes on the king. “Father,” he says in a hoarse, choked voice. “What if they hurt you?”

“Then I will kill you,” says the king frankly. “So you had better see that they do not.”

The nobles laugh at this. I guess they’re the only ones who don’t realize the king’s threat is not a joke.

The boy stands from the throne. He trembles before his father. He shuts his eyes. Slowly, the snakes slide from him and creep up the edges of the king’s robes. Slowly, they coil about the king’s arms and legs, transform themselves into a crown.

The king turns to his audience. He bows with a flourish while the sweat pours from his son’s head and the snakes hiss with anger. The nobles clap loudly.

Then the show is over. The animal handlers come to shut the snakes in wooden crates. I can’t help but wonder what will become of them.

The noblemen leave and the wives file out until there is only the king, and the boy, who stands there and shakes. The king slaps him, hard, across the face. The boy bows his head, hands clenched into fists.

“Don’t question me again, Ballast,” says the king.

The boy nods, staring at his feet. “I’m sorry, Father.”

The king stalks from the hall without another word, and the boy collapses to the floor.

He weeps, for a while, though his tears are soundless even in this vast, echoing room.

Then he slips away. This is how I learn that the only difference between Ballast and the rest of us is he doesn’t sleep in a cage at night.

But he is every bit a part of his father’s Collection, all the same.