Chapter 4

           Issi woke to the birdsong that sounded from the gardens beneath her window.  The chitters, chirps and warbling cries formed a melody that kindly informed her that she’d overslept.  She burrowed beneath her covers trying to catch the tail end of a dream.

           It’d been a sweet thing about a forest somewhere outside the Grand Mage’s reach. She’d been somewhere beyond his reach. That idea had been too intoxicating to let go.

           She sat up, ignoring how her back complained.  Exhaustion tried to coax her back beneath the covers with whispered promises of warmth and rest.

           Ner found her staring blearily at a scrubbed stain on the carpet, “Seems like he got you a healer, hmm?”

           Issi’s stomach rumbled as the smell of breakfast filled her cage. 

           “Come on,” the maid set the tray on the table, “I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to get up.”

           Issi nodded drowsily, fighting a yawn, “I’m up?”  That didn’t sound right, had that been Egrean?  Gods she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept the night through, her eyelids fluttered.

           The maid smiled, letting her hand brush against Issi’s arm.  Issi was suddenly very awake.  She pulled away as if she’d been burned.  Her heart set a panicked drumbeat between her temples.

           “Now you’re awake.”

           Issi glared at her, “I hope your laundry stains.”

           Ner gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in mock horror, “Oh, the cruelty.  Issi, dear, whatever will you threaten me with next?”  She wiggled her nine fingers, the last, the thumb on her left hand, ended in a stump.

           Issi swallowed an old argument.  The maid lifted a brush from the vanity and Issi braced herself as it ran through her hair.

           “I wish you wouldn’t be so flagrant about it,” she breathed, “Ner, please—”

           The maid didn’t stop, “Issi, what I do is my business.”

           She caught Ner’s reflection in the vanity’s mirror.  The woman stood completely at ease; her eyes trained on the top of Issi’s head. 

           Issi’s attention darted to the door, expecting the Grand Mage to burst through and—

           She squeezed her eyes shut.

           “You’re going to have to breathe,” the maid sighed as she set the first pin in Issi’s hair.

           “I can finish on my own.”

           Ner’s skepticism tried to bore a hole through her skull, “Raise your arms, then.”

           Issi tried a hiss escaped through her clinched teeth before she guided her arms carefully to her sides, “I’ll look subpar, that’s fine,” she grumbled, “He hardly notices.”

           “If I were doing this for him, I’d have left it loose,” Ner answered pointedly, “But the annoying child I used to care for, hated having hair in her face.  I don’t think she ever got used to it.”

           A blush warmed Issi’s cheeks, “I don’t—”

           “Just say thank you.”

           “I…I can’t repay you, Ner,” Issi answered softly.

           The maid tugged at a patch of hair, “I didn’t ask you to repay me, I asked you to thank me.”

           Issi toyed with the fabric of her dress.  She hadn’t bothered to change out of yesterday’s uniform. 

           “Come on,” the maid prompted warmly.

           “Thank you, Ner,” Issi muttered.  It wasn’t enough, if she had the power her master had, she’d give Ner everything her heart desired, make-up, dresses, books, enchantments, weapons.  Anything.

           Ner finished pinning and tipped Issi’s head up, so she caught her reflection, “There, pretty as a summer sunset.”

           Issi rolled her eyes.  Maybe if she could wield her beauty like the noblewomen in the courts, she’d care for it more.  As it was, the way she looked only served to remind her of her mother and siblings. 

           At least, half of it did.  The grey eye she’d apparently inherited from her father ruined the effect on the left side.

           “Can you dress yourself?” the maid asked.

           “Of course,” Issi poured as much disgust into the statement as she could manage.  Ner nodded and they both pretended there hadn’t been times Issi had broken into tears at the mere sight of buttons and lace.

           “Then I’ve spent too long pampering you,” Ner teased, “What are you going to do today?”

           Issi squinted at her, “Get dressed and eat?  Try not to go mad with boredom?”

           “And?” Ner prompted.

           “And…what?  I don’t think there’s anything on the schedule.”

           The maid’s lips twitched downward, “You’re to pick out three pieces.”

           Dread filled Issi’s stomach, “For what?”  It’d been two moons since her master had received any sort of private invitation, and three years since Issi had been allowed to leave the wing, but she prayed that that had somehow changed in the last twenty-six bells. 

           “The King’s Dinner,” the maid answered patiently, “You’re going.”

           Issi bit her lip and tried half-heartedly, “Am I?”

           “I know it’s difficult, but he needs you.”

           He needed her.  Issi’s hands passed absently over the brands that crossed her torso, “I know.”

           “So today, you’ll dress, eat, pick out your pieces and rest,” the maid ticked off the chores on her uninjured hand, “How’s that sound?”

           Issi didn’t respond. 

           Ner’s face clouded, “Are you worried about what to play?”

           It didn’t matter what she chose.  Issi could pick the best pieces, play them perfectly, be pretty and witty and charming, but none of that would matter because the Grand Mage would find something.  Her eyes might linger too long on some lord or lady, or maybe she’d laugh for a beat too long, or bow slightly too low or too high, and he’d hold onto to that mistake, let it fester in his mind and beat it out of her later that evening.  Or worse, he’d find nothing, and use that perfection as a reason to lock her in her rooms and take what little freedom she had left.

           As he’d done after the last King’s Dinner she’d attended.

Issi took a breath and held it.  Four beats in, hold it, four beats out.  She shook her head and offered the maid a small, nervous smile, “I know precisely the pieces I want to choose.”

           Ner studied her for a moment, looking displeased.

           “Don’t do anything stupid,” she warned.  Issi’s hands clenched in her lap, “Get dressed, we don’t know when he’ll be needing you.”

           “Thank you for breakfast.”

           “Don’t string it out,” the maid continued as she stepped across the cage’s threshold, “He wants your decision by midday.”

           Issi glanced at her alchemy clock and found the hands had frozen a few ticks before second bell. She hadn’t wound it.

           It gave a small metallic rattle as she grabbed it, splitting it’s casing with ease.  The exposed gears attempted to move before promptly giving up.  What a stupid, stubborn contraption.  Mechanical in a land starved of metal when a single rune would have had the same effect.

           And it wouldn’t ever need to be wound.

           Issi shut her eyes and imagined hurling the damned thing at her wall.  The edges of its casing dug into her fingers until it creaked a protest.

           She let the contraption drop into her lap.

           It had been the first gift the Grand Mage had given her.  Mechanical because it’d been Egrean in origin, to remind her of her home.  He thought she’d miss it.

           Not the people she’d left behind, of course, Ose’s skies forbid she pine for her siblings and her mother, but the nation that housed them and caged them was something she was permitted to look at with longing. 

Her hand ached.

For a beat she recalled the sketches he had tossed into the workroom hearth, the way the faces she’d drawn had gaped and screamed as the flames ate at them.  Her mama, her sisters, her brother, had begged for her to save them and she’d been desperate enough to plunge her hand into the blaze.

Mage’s fire wasn’t hot, and it didn’t smoke.  But it burned well enough. 

Issi flexed her fingers, banishing the memory.  She grabbed the dainty rose handled key tucked into the case’s home and wound the mechanism, watching balefully as the gears started ticking.

           She closed it and set it on her nightstand.  The Grand Mage was far more likely to see that the clock had stopped, than notice it was a few bells behind.

           Issi began going through the motions of her routine, she dressed, covered her silver markings with a mixture of pastes, and tugged on a pair of gloves to hide the scarred skin of her left hand.

           If she looked in the mirror, she’d find none of the scars her master had left on her body.  Every outfit she had, had been tailored for that exact purpose, plunging necklines that missed the edges of burned skin, ruffles that obscured scar tissue, swaths of sheer fabric that were just enough to hide what lay beneath while giving an impression of shape.  The gloves held similar meaning.

           He didn’t like to look at the brands, the scars, the carvings.  She wondered at times if the memories haunted him, the way they haunted her.  If he ever caught himself talking about how he didn’t wish to hurt her and gag on the irony of his actions.

           She shook her head, dislodging the thoughts.  

Atop her wardrobe sat a thick pile of papers gone yellow with age.  She pulled her dining chair to its side, climbed it and through much wincing and cursing managed to grab the stack.  Her stomach growled as the smell of baked fruit and fresh bread filled her room with single-minded determination.  ,                                                  She flipped past pages of dancing notes, her eyes scanning titles that’d been scribbled out and replaced with pictures.  A snake for the serpent’s lament, a house for the traveler’s return, a dancing couple for the midnight waltz, and so on.

           The first two she picked at random before searching through the rest.  She stopped on a sheet with a tree crawling up its side, the Sailor’s tale sat in neat script beneath the scribbles.  Her finger traced the drawing as she stepped onto the floor.

           It looked like a child had been given free reign with a quill and played across the papers.  Every few notes there was an accidental, or the need for her hand to climb the instrument’s neck, or a slur that very much stretched the realm of possibility.  But despite all that, if someone could somehow coax the piece together, it sang.

           She breathed.  She could imagine it, the song raising softly in the stillness after battles, a dulcet melody meant to carry the souls of the dead along Ipheoth’s roots of mercy to Naya’s gates.  Grant them forgiveness for the sins they’ve committed, the words remained untouched at the bottom of the paper.

           The king of Qasha would absolutely loat