SHIELD OF THE SEVENTH: EXCERPT (draft)
Wherever you are in the Honeycomb, you can hear the hum of electricity. I’m not sure why it hums. Most of the time it’s just background noise, something so common that it doesn’t even register – like the earthy damp scent of the passageways. Like breathing. But sometimes, as it has this morning, the hum changes ever so slightly in pitch; the air changes, too, becoming fresher and sharper; and that’s when I know a storm is coming.
I touch the cool stone wall behind me for reassurance, then catch myself doing it and drop my hand back down to my side. If I were still in training, the Shieldmaster would have pulled me up on it: made me fight a whole round of practice bouts without the use of that hand, or set me to stand in one spot for a day without moving. I can’t protect Euphemie if I’m not alert, and I can’t be alert if I’m fidgeting. And besides, I shouldn’t be afraid of lightning. I shouldn’t be afraid of anything.
I scan the bedchamber, checking it for threats – anything I could have missed in my moment of distraction. But everything looks as it did before. Euphemie, standing in front of the mirror, her handmaiden arranging her braided hair in a complicated crown. Stormglow bathing their faces in yellow light. Beyond them, the antique metal bed piled high with woven seagrass blankets to keep out the cold. My bed is tucked away beneath it; usually I sleep between her and the door. We lock ourselves in at night anyway, but it’s better to be safe.
I draw in a deep breath through my nose and release it slowly. I’m not afraid of lightning. Disliking something isn’t the same as fear.
“Feldspar!” Euphemie calls me, voice high and imperious. She’s just added the final corner flick to the thick gold makeup that lines her eyes. I move smoothly to her side, bowing my head.
“Seventh.”
“Oh, stop that. You know I hate it.”
I look up, meeting her gaze in the mirror, but say nothing. She knows I have to call her by her title when anyone else is present. Alone is a different matter.
“Fine, have it your way.” She sticks out her tongue at me, and I do everything I can to remain impassive, despite my silly urge to giggle. When we were young, our first-nurse used to say that Euphemie and I could almost be twins: two little girls with deep brown skin and warm brown eyes and quick, mischievous grins, whispers and private jokes filling the air between us like electricity. Yet these days, there’s no chance I could ever mistake her reflection for my own. There’s her hair, for a start. The softer curves of her cheeks, the way the makeup brings out the golden flecks in her irises, the fact that I grew tall and broad-shouldered while she stayed small and dainty. And quite aside from all that, it’s been years since I stuck my tongue out at anyone.
As soon as her hair is finished, Euphemie dismisses the handmaiden with a wave of her fingers, before dancing across the room to pick up a scarf to wrap around her shoulders. “Well? How do I look?”
Beautiful. But I say stolidly, “The new style suits you.”
She looks at me expectantly.
“It suits you, Euphemie.”
“So it should,” she says, rolling her eyes. “It took long enough. You’re lucky you don’t have to bother with all that nonsense.”
I run a hand over my scalp. I don’t know what it’s like to have hair. I’ve shaved every day since I was old enough to hold a razor, and before that it was done for me.
“Well?” Euphemie demands. “Don’t you think you’re lucky?”
I nod, and mean it. Not about the hair, so much – even though every Shield has the same bald head as me, I confess that I’ve often wondered what it would be like to feel it growing there. Whether it would tug at my scalp, whether I’d be aware of the weight. But I’m lucky, all the same. I wouldn’t swap my life for anything.
She stares at me a moment longer, then spins away with a shrug. “Fetch your boots, Feldspar. I want to walk to the sunroom.”
“There’s going to be a storm,” I warn her.
“There’s always a storm.” Her face lights up with mocking laughter. “Are you worried about me?”
Yes, I’m worried. It’s my job to worry. Everything she does leaves me fumbling to calculate the risk: if we’re in the sunroom when the lightning hits the Spire, could an offshoot of it smash through the thick glass ceiling? If she accepts an invitation to dine with another Ascendant, might she choke on the food? If we leave the safety of her chambers at all, could someone attack –
But I shouldn’t worry about that, at least. One of the talents that Euphemie has cultivated is the ability to make people like her. She flirts unashamedly with every important person in the upper levels of the Honeycomb, and half the others as well. There would be a general outcry if she were to be eliminated – which, of course, is the point. All the Ascendants try to make themselves indispensable in one way or another. The Ninth has spent her life studying mathematics, on the grounds that no one wants to be named Treasurer anyway – so whoever takes the throne, at least her position is assured. It’s rumored that the Sixth has enough knowledge of the dark arts that you definitely don’t want him as an enemy. Only the oldest and strongest of the siblings, First to Fifth, are secure enough in their own sense of self-worth that they are willing to compete overtly for the throne, jockeying with each other in a series of shifting allegiances that no one, not even the players themselves, can ever quite pin down.
It must make their Shields’ lives very difficult, I should think. Sometimes I catch myself smiling at the back of Euphemie’s head, thankful that I was born at the right time to be bonded to her and not to any of her siblings. Still, lightning cares nothing for popularity, and so I say, “I’m simply concerned that the sunroom is not the safest place to be during a storm.”
“Oh, Feldspar,” she says, with a dismissive twitch of one shoulder. “You always imagine the worst.”
But she’s wrong. I know quite well that the worst is far worse than I can possibly imagine. That’s what makes it so threatening.
I follow her out into the exochamber, tasting again the sharpness of the air. No one in the upper levels of the Honeycomb has chambers at the outer walls – they would be far too cold and damp, pitted as the walls are with vents – but we’re close enough that the circulated breeze is still fresh. It makes me wonder what it would be like to feel it on my face directly, unfiltered by turbines and pipes. But no one could survive outside the Honeycomb for long. If the storms didn’t kill them, the sun would.
I retrieve my boots from beside the outer door and pull them on. Euphemie’s embroidered slippers are already on her feet; she wanders restlessly around the room, touching one object and then another as if looking for something in particular. The corner of the table. A decorated pot. A brush with ochre paint still clinging to the bristles.
“Can I help you with something?” I ask her.
She stops and looks at me, the brush in her hand shedding dry flecks of dark yellow over her dress. “You love me, don’t you?”
“Of course.” I say it simply, because it’s the truth.
“Good.” But she throws the brush back down on the table, and her voice is a touch petulant. “At least someone does.”
“Everyone loves you.”
A little smile touches her lips. “You think so?”
“I know so. Euphemie –”
“Come on.” The fleeting shadow has passed, as it always does. She moves to my side, stretching up on tiptoes to kiss my cheek, though in an absent-minded way that makes me think she doesn’t really mean it. “Let’s go.”
I check I have my knives – though I always have my knives – before opening the outer door and stepping through. Already I’m tense. Night time means that Euphemie is safe, or as safe as she can be. At sunup, when I unlock this door to let in the handmaidens and couriers and whoever else has business with her first thing in the morning, I also admit a weight of fear and responsibility to settle on my shoulders. And when we go outside, it bears heavy upon me until we’re back in our chambers. Euphemie may be popular, and therefore unlikely to be the target of an elimination, but anything’s possible.
I touch the cool stone wall behind me for reassurance, then catch myself doing it and drop my hand back down to my side. If I were still in training, the Shieldmaster would have pulled me up on it: made me fight a whole round of practice bouts without the use of that hand, or set me to stand in one spot for a day without moving. I can’t protect Euphemie if I’m not alert, and I can’t be alert if I’m fidgeting. And besides, I shouldn’t be afraid of lightning. I shouldn’t be afraid of anything.
I scan the bedchamber, checking it for threats – anything I could have missed in my moment of distraction. But everything looks as it did before. Euphemie, standing in front of the mirror, her handmaiden arranging her braided hair in a complicated crown. Stormglow bathing their faces in yellow light. Beyond them, the antique metal bed piled high with woven seagrass blankets to keep out the cold. My bed is tucked away beneath it; usually I sleep between her and the door. We lock ourselves in at night anyway, but it’s better to be safe.
I draw in a deep breath through my nose and release it slowly. I’m not afraid of lightning. Disliking something isn’t the same as fear.
“Feldspar!” Euphemie calls me, voice high and imperious. She’s just added the final corner flick to the thick gold makeup that lines her eyes. I move smoothly to her side, bowing my head.
“Seventh.”
“Oh, stop that. You know I hate it.”
I look up, meeting her gaze in the mirror, but say nothing. She knows I have to call her by her title when anyone else is present. Alone is a different matter.
“Fine, have it your way.” She sticks out her tongue at me, and I do everything I can to remain impassive, despite my silly urge to giggle. When we were young, our first-nurse used to say that Euphemie and I could almost be twins: two little girls with deep brown skin and warm brown eyes and quick, mischievous grins, whispers and private jokes filling the air between us like electricity. Yet these days, there’s no chance I could ever mistake her reflection for my own. There’s her hair, for a start. The softer curves of her cheeks, the way the makeup brings out the golden flecks in her irises, the fact that I grew tall and broad-shouldered while she stayed small and dainty. And quite aside from all that, it’s been years since I stuck my tongue out at anyone.
As soon as her hair is finished, Euphemie dismisses the handmaiden with a wave of her fingers, before dancing across the room to pick up a scarf to wrap around her shoulders. “Well? How do I look?”
Beautiful. But I say stolidly, “The new style suits you.”
She looks at me expectantly.
“It suits you, Euphemie.”
“So it should,” she says, rolling her eyes. “It took long enough. You’re lucky you don’t have to bother with all that nonsense.”
I run a hand over my scalp. I don’t know what it’s like to have hair. I’ve shaved every day since I was old enough to hold a razor, and before that it was done for me.
“Well?” Euphemie demands. “Don’t you think you’re lucky?”
I nod, and mean it. Not about the hair, so much – even though every Shield has the same bald head as me, I confess that I’ve often wondered what it would be like to feel it growing there. Whether it would tug at my scalp, whether I’d be aware of the weight. But I’m lucky, all the same. I wouldn’t swap my life for anything.
She stares at me a moment longer, then spins away with a shrug. “Fetch your boots, Feldspar. I want to walk to the sunroom.”
“There’s going to be a storm,” I warn her.
“There’s always a storm.” Her face lights up with mocking laughter. “Are you worried about me?”
Yes, I’m worried. It’s my job to worry. Everything she does leaves me fumbling to calculate the risk: if we’re in the sunroom when the lightning hits the Spire, could an offshoot of it smash through the thick glass ceiling? If she accepts an invitation to dine with another Ascendant, might she choke on the food? If we leave the safety of her chambers at all, could someone attack –
But I shouldn’t worry about that, at least. One of the talents that Euphemie has cultivated is the ability to make people like her. She flirts unashamedly with every important person in the upper levels of the Honeycomb, and half the others as well. There would be a general outcry if she were to be eliminated – which, of course, is the point. All the Ascendants try to make themselves indispensable in one way or another. The Ninth has spent her life studying mathematics, on the grounds that no one wants to be named Treasurer anyway – so whoever takes the throne, at least her position is assured. It’s rumored that the Sixth has enough knowledge of the dark arts that you definitely don’t want him as an enemy. Only the oldest and strongest of the siblings, First to Fifth, are secure enough in their own sense of self-worth that they are willing to compete overtly for the throne, jockeying with each other in a series of shifting allegiances that no one, not even the players themselves, can ever quite pin down.
It must make their Shields’ lives very difficult, I should think. Sometimes I catch myself smiling at the back of Euphemie’s head, thankful that I was born at the right time to be bonded to her and not to any of her siblings. Still, lightning cares nothing for popularity, and so I say, “I’m simply concerned that the sunroom is not the safest place to be during a storm.”
“Oh, Feldspar,” she says, with a dismissive twitch of one shoulder. “You always imagine the worst.”
But she’s wrong. I know quite well that the worst is far worse than I can possibly imagine. That’s what makes it so threatening.
I follow her out into the exochamber, tasting again the sharpness of the air. No one in the upper levels of the Honeycomb has chambers at the outer walls – they would be far too cold and damp, pitted as the walls are with vents – but we’re close enough that the circulated breeze is still fresh. It makes me wonder what it would be like to feel it on my face directly, unfiltered by turbines and pipes. But no one could survive outside the Honeycomb for long. If the storms didn’t kill them, the sun would.
I retrieve my boots from beside the outer door and pull them on. Euphemie’s embroidered slippers are already on her feet; she wanders restlessly around the room, touching one object and then another as if looking for something in particular. The corner of the table. A decorated pot. A brush with ochre paint still clinging to the bristles.
“Can I help you with something?” I ask her.
She stops and looks at me, the brush in her hand shedding dry flecks of dark yellow over her dress. “You love me, don’t you?”
“Of course.” I say it simply, because it’s the truth.
“Good.” But she throws the brush back down on the table, and her voice is a touch petulant. “At least someone does.”
“Everyone loves you.”
A little smile touches her lips. “You think so?”
“I know so. Euphemie –”
“Come on.” The fleeting shadow has passed, as it always does. She moves to my side, stretching up on tiptoes to kiss my cheek, though in an absent-minded way that makes me think she doesn’t really mean it. “Let’s go.”
I check I have my knives – though I always have my knives – before opening the outer door and stepping through. Already I’m tense. Night time means that Euphemie is safe, or as safe as she can be. At sunup, when I unlock this door to let in the handmaidens and couriers and whoever else has business with her first thing in the morning, I also admit a weight of fear and responsibility to settle on my shoulders. And when we go outside, it bears heavy upon me until we’re back in our chambers. Euphemie may be popular, and therefore unlikely to be the target of an elimination, but anything’s possible.