The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

Chapter 14: Elise

I’m not welcome. I’m akin to a weary traveler arriving at an inn, one who is turned away already at the gates. I’m akin to a tramp with an incurable disease that no one wants close to his loved ones in fear of contagion. I’m akin to a criminal who has broken the holiest of laws, one who has been judged before weighing the evidence. I’m akin to a woman who has knowingly betrayed the Crescent Empire.

My sisters and I no longer dance. Instead, after breakfast, my sisters play singing games. I don’t attempt to join their company anymore, but remain by the oval table and patch whatever garment has once more fallen into disrepair. If I were to try and partake in their activities, they would politely shuffle to make room for me. But none of them would pass me the clap. Or they would pretend not to hear my rhymes. Or then they would skip my turn altogether. These days, I’m more invisible to them than the fading ghosts.

The ghosts aren’t with us today. If they were, there would be a gap between Alina and Celestia. They would whisper ill words about me. They would call me a traitor.

In a sense, that is what I am. I have thought of our options long and hard, and now my mind is made up. I must find the courage to persist, to make sure we do the right thing, even if it goes against what Celestia, the Crescent Empress, believes.

The clapping stops, the game ends. Alina and Merile giggle as they cuddle the two dogs. But when Alina notices me looking at them, she turns her gaze down as if my shadow were of more interest to her than what I might have to say. Merile wraps an arm around our little sister and bares her teeth. It’s a warning. She doesn’t want me talking to them.

“That was such great fun,” Sibilia exclaims as she moves on to tend the dying fire. Though her enthusiasm is as far away from genuine as possible. We all know what awaits us. Some of us hide it better than the others.

“Yes,” Celestia replies as she settles in her customary place on the sofa by the windows. She crosses her elegant hands on her lap, straightens her back. “That it was. Please, while you are at it, do toss a few more logs in. It is feeling a bit damp here.”

With each passing day, Celestia and Sibilia look wearier. Though I haven’t been privy to their schemes since I played my part in the wedding ceremony, I know what they are up to. Sibilia is strengthening Celestia.

It is foolish of my sisters to think that they could defy the gagargi’s will. I have tried to reason with them, to no avail. As a result, I have been shunned out of the family as if I were no longer their sister. But regardless of what they might prefer, I’m still a Daughter of the Moon. I do miss Celestia, Sibilia, Merile, and Alina, I do long for their company, and I don’t want our ways to part in anger.

For only a day or two can remain before the gagargi sends for us.

The sheet of paper and the pen burn in my dress pocket. Captain Janlav was suspicious, rightfully so, when I asked for them. He thought I intended to write a letter, smuggle it out of the house, plead with someone, anyone to come to our aid. I swore under my father’s name that I wasn’t planning any such thing. I went as far as to tell him the truth. Upon hearing from my lips that he and the guards are now closer to me than my own family, he took pity on me.

Of course I would love nothing more than all of us leaving this house together and living our lives happily ever after. But if worst comes to worst and the gagargi holds Celestia accountable for the deal she made with him, my sisters and I really need to decide which one of us goes with her.

And so, I abandon the chair, the oval table, the needle and the thread.

“Sibilia,” I say in a gentle voice as I approach the fireplace, for my steps are silent and sure.

My sister flinches away from me, teeters on the divan’s edge. She bends to pick up a poker, prods the pathetically burning logs. The fire spits sparks as if to despise my very attempt to talk with my sister. As if it knew that I chose her because she has the softest heart, because once we were best friends.

“You don’t need a poker to protect yourself from me.” And I laugh girlishly, as if her defensive mannerism hadn’t hurt me deep inside.

Sibilia turns minutely toward me. Her gray eyes are watery, but not because of the smoke.

“I have something for you.” I offer her the sheet of paper, the pen clipped against it. I pray the Moon she doesn’t toss it in the flames, at least not before she has read my question.

Sibilia bites her lower lip. She has always kept a diary, but five days ago, she simply stopped writing. Either she ran out of paper or ink. Or both. Not of things to say.

“I shall just leave them here,” I say, smiling benevolently. My sister, she’s not stupid. She knows there’s more to my kindness than a simple act of consideration.

And that there indeed is. If I can turn her to my side, then I have a chance of reassuring also my younger sisters, and then potentially even Celestia about the benefits of my plan.

Sibilia comes to me, as I had hoped she would do, after we’re done with lunch. She takes a seat at the end of the oval table, farther away from me than I would prefer, but even this is better than nothing. My sister’s excuse is a button that has come loose on the coat I sewed for her during the winter.

Celestia eyes us from over her teacup’s chipped brim. It may be that Sibilia told our sister about the question and received her permission to proceed. It may be that neither came to pass. We aren’t exactly forthcoming with information in this house.

If I were to wager a guess, I would say that Sibilia didn’t tell her. For she fidgets with the needle for quite a while, until Celestia decides to stretch her legs and stroll around the room, before she slips the sheet of paper and the pen back to me.

My question stands bold and prominent on the very top.

Are you still upset with me?

Her answer is one simple word and yet a triumph in its own right.

Yes.

For this isn’t the end, but the beginning. I quickly ink another question. I must not let the momentum slip.

Why?

She glances at me, her gray eyes bulging, as if she’s wondering why I even need to ask. But she accepts the pen, scrawls.

I don’t know you anymore.

I feel like laughing out of relief. For I was wrong about her! My sister is still so silly! But such a burst of emotion would only drive her farther away from me. And so I write in my elaborate, clear hand.

But you do know me. I’m the same Elise as always.

She reads my words, forehead wrinkling. Her hair gleams red-gold as she shakes her head. She disagrees with my statement, a reaction I didn’t expect.

Perhaps in order to bridge the gap between us I have to push her just a little bit harder. I write at the beginning of the next line an offer she really can’t refuse.

Can we still be friends?

She doesn’t reply.

“Tabard…” Sibilia muses even as she stumbles on her hem. She manages to recover her balance at the last moment by taking support from the railing that our trailing fingers have worn smooth. “May I ask you something?”

It annoys me that Sibilia speaks with the guard, but wouldn’t earlier reply to my simple question. My gaze meets briefly with Celestia’s as she glances over her shoulder to check that our sister didn’t hurt herself. She shakes her head at me, as if she did indeed know what I tried earlier, even as she ushers Alina and Merile down the stairs.

“Sure,” Tabard replies, cheerful, though every day the stairway feels narrower, darker, like a tunnel diving deep underground, to gloom that no one should call their home.

“When you take the dogs out, where exactly do you take them?” Sibilia asks when she reaches the second-floor landing. Alina and Merile run through the hallway, towing Celestia with them. They’re eager to get out, to breathe the air there, even if it tastes of rotting leaves.

Tabard stares after them, unconcerned, for Beard is waiting by the next stairway. “We let them out in the garden and that’s it.”

Nothing more sinister, then. Celestia would have us think Gagargi Prataslav and all loyal to him are evil, though the beneficial reforms he has initiated for the good of our people are right here, before our eyes, depicted in the posters that she doesn’t want us to even glance at. Plentiful harvests divided equally, to feed every man, woman, and child. No more soldiers sent to pointless wars. No more families torn apart. It’s because of him and the Great Thinking Machine, but she refuses to hear of that, can’t look past what he once did to her, an unjust deed perhaps, but a necessary sacrifice, no doubt.

“Never in the forest?” Sibilia keeps her gaze riveted on her clacking sabots. She didn’t reply to my question. Even she might not side with me, but do as Celestia dictates.

“To be snatched by the wolves?” Tabard chuckles as we reach the last flight of stairs. He’s oblivious to what’s to come so soon. Unlike me.

I half expect to find the door leading to the cellar ajar. It’s closed still, thank the Moon, though it may not stay that way for long.

“Last one in the garden is silly,” Alina decides.

And she and Merile race toward the open back door with the dogs at their heels. It’s gray outside, and yet the light paints a beam against the bare floorboards. Sibilia and Celestia follow this path.

“Missus,” Tabard addresses me, hesitant. He tugs at the front of his faded blue shirt. “Everyone must go out.”

“Oh?” I hadn’t realized that I had halted, but that I had. I force myself to glide toward the gray light. I’m not afraid to die, the opposite. But if Celestia’s plan, whatever it may be, doesn’t work, I refuse to stay behind in this house, to follow Captain Ansalov’s soldiers to the cellar, there to stand against the wall, to be shot dead.

For I’m of more use to our people alive than any of my sisters.

I let Tabard escort me to the porch. Captain Janlav is there already, smoking. I bum the last drag of his cigarette. Tabard and Beard are smart enough to realize that their company isn’t required. They amble after my sisters, rifles strapped against their backs.

It strikes me how carelessly, in such accustomed manner, they carry death with them. It is as if they have forgotten what a single bullet can do, what it means for it to pierce flesh and bone, and then sink into stone that shall not bear anyone’s name.

“Did it work?” Captain Janlav asks. He takes in my sour expression, sighs. “At least you tried.”

Wisps of smoke drift from between my parted lips. In the garden, the purple bloom of thistles has been replaced by thorny spheres. The pale flowers of widow’s lace have shriveled to ugly brown. I see the world such as it is, not as the idealistic version Celestia prefers. “Can we talk?”

Captain Janlav glances at my sisters, at Tabard and Beard. My sisters are playing Catch the Goose, though the grass under their feet has waned.

“In private,” I add, though during this hour, we’re supposed to be out. No, that isn’t how it is. My sisters and I aren’t allowed to go out at other times, but the agreement with Captain Ansalov doesn’t dictate that we couldn’t stay in if we so decided. Celestia herself did so on a few occasions after her private audience with the gagargi. It really doesn’t matter anymore if we deviate from the routines built to comfort my younger sisters.

Captain Janlav must have reached the same conclusion, for he turns on his heels and says, “Follow me.”

And I think, he shouldn’t have told me. For what feels like ages ago, I decided that I would follow him wherever he would lead me. Now, this decision overcomes everything else, anything else, I might feel.

It’s dim in the library despite the duck soul lamps hanging from the high ceiling. I halt at the doorstep, for though I have visited many a great house before, countless libraries each more splendorous than the previous, the sight of this one takes me by surprise. With everything that has happened in this house, I expected the library to be unkempt or even demolished, but instead it’s orderly and clean. The guards have made do with what they have, just like us. The shelves no longer line the paneled walls, but are placed adjacent to them, to form… the closest thing that comes to my mind is novice gagargi’s cells. And the shelves don’t bear books anymore, rather starched sheets have been hung against them to provide privacy. To our right, at the end of the room, a round table has been placed before the unlit fireplace, with an unfinished game of cards waiting, mismatched sofa chairs set in a circle around it. There are no mirrors on the walls—the ghosts can’t enter the room. They will be blind and deaf to whatever happens here, and that serves them right.

A lanky shape springs up from one of the sofa chairs. A low, trembling voice—Boy—asks, “What’s she doing here?”

Captain Janlav strolls to the youngest of the guards. He places a reassuring palm on his shoulder. But it’s not this that has Boy gulping. He was brooding already before we arrived, no doubt crying after Sibilia’s kindest rejection of his affections.

“She’s with me,” Captain Janlav says, nodding toward the open doorway where I chose to linger. “Now, lad, get out, will you?”

As Boy scampers up the aisle formed by the shelves, it occurs to me that I never learned whom it was exactly that Sibilia fancied. I decide it doesn’t matter anymore, she wouldn’t let me help her. I step further into the library, allow Boy past me. He halts only to push the door closed behind him.

And just like that, Captain Janlav and I are alone, and I feel better and worse.

For a part of me hopes that everything, even our time together, would come to an end sooner. I cling to the hope that somehow my sisters and I might yet avoid the inevitable fate that awaits us, and I’m certain I’m not alone in this thought. But I am alone.

“What is it that you wanted to talk about with me?”

The distance between us has grown too long. Summoned by his voice, I skim toward him. But I speak only when a mere two steps separate us. “I will go with Celestia.”

His brown gaze lights up. “She’s agreed to go to him? At last!”

“No… Not yet.” It hurts me to see disappointment drawing his expression taut.

Sometimes I wonder how everything became so very convoluted, when eventually it’s in my and my sisters’ power to make the world right again. But it’s as if Celestia were beyond reason now. She has no intention of cooperating with the gagargi, and yet she insisted on going through with the wedding ceremony. Though Sibilia is not a trained gagargi. Who knows if the bond she forged between my sister and our father will really last?

“But I will make her change her mind,” I say, and mean it. Since Celestia is now the empress, to a degree at least, she must think of what’s best for her empire, not her family. She must go to the gagargi, stand by his side at the equinox ceremony, and bring an end to the war she started. And if she refuses to bear the gagargi’s seed, if the future of the empire becomes thus threatened…

Echoes of gunshots slash through the library, sharp and vicious, and then he’s there, the man I once loved, his arms so firmly around me, his voice so soft in my ears. “Do not fear, Elise. They’re merely practicing shooting.”

As they have done every single day since Merile’s folly.

“I’m not afraid,” I reply, though that isn’t the entire truth. I dread so many things, one more than the others.

If Celestia won’t fulfill her duty, it becomes mine, and I won’t shy away from doing what I must do to protect our people. And that’s why I need her to go to the gagargi, why I need to go with her, to be there, to take her place. Unlike her, I will be willing. I will force myself to be. But even so, the gagargi may choose to put me under his spell, and I may become but an empty shell of myself.

Captain Janlav meets my gaze. “I’m in awe of your courage.”

For a moment I can’t speak, for I’m bewildered at his statement. My courage? What courage? I have waited for too long to make up my mind. And then I laugh, and I don’t even know why I’m doing so. But it feels so good to laugh, to be the carefree Elise once more, though that I never was.

“What are you laughing at?” he asks.

“I have no idea!” I clasp his hand. And it’s so warm and familiar, his skin against mine so stirring. An idea comes to me, a yearning, to be more precise. I have felt so alone for so long…

It’s a blessing to know what I must do at last. But I’m not ready. Not yet. Though I’m prepared to sacrifice myself for the better of the empire, I don’t want the gagargi to be my first man when there may never be more than necessity, no tender feelings between us.

“Come!” I gently pull Captain Janlav’s hand. He, at least, I once loved. “Come with me.”

“Where?” he asks, before realization dawns upon him. Why not be young and foolish this once, when there’s no guarantee of tomorrow? Why not!

He takes the lead, and together we run to the very end of the aisle, to his cell. We shed our clothes, autumn trees shivering leaves, even before he parts the curtain. When we fall onto his bed it’s just his skin against mine.

Afterward, we lie side by side, sweaty and out of breath. I enjoy his closeness, the warmth of a man caring. For a long, long while only my heart feels empty. I will soon be leaving my sisters behind, and though they might think otherwise, I take no pleasure in this.

Even though I dread ruining the precious moment that I long to last forever, I must speak, ask him, “When I go with Celestia, is there really nothing you could do for my sisters?”

It’s well past the time for me to hope that someone would come to their rescue. I know they won’t be able to escape, and even if they somehow could, they couldn’t possibly find their way through the wilderness. They would starve or die of exposure. But if they remain in this house, their fate will be equally grim.

Thus, his reply takes me by surprise. “Tabard and Boy have volunteered to stay behind.”

It’s something, I guess, but not enough. “And what power will they hold over Captain Ansalov’s commands?”

He turns to his side, to face me, his chest wide and muscular. He has a red scar on his left side, a slash from a skirmish fought not so long ago, no doubt in my mother’s name. “Nothing but foolish dedication.”

He’s so close to me that his breath tickles my throat. No matter what awaits me, my father has granted me more than I deserve, and I feel guilty when I know my younger sisters will never receive such blessing. “As wonderful as that is, it might not be enough. Is there really nothing more?”

He brushes a lock behind my ear. He thinks of lying; I can tell that from the tenseness spreading across his shoulders. I lock gazes with him. Don’t. Don’t lie to my face.

“If they were younger, if they were smaller, if they could pass for peasant girls…” His voice breaks.

“I see.” There’s no hope for my younger sisters. There’s nothing more I can do for them, and I can but accept it.

“I’m sorry.” Captain Janlav’s pine brown eyes fill with water. He must wonder if I’m angry at him, disappointed in his lack of a better plan.

“It’s all right,” I say, planting a kiss on his worry-wrinkled forehead. Our mother broke the empire. It’s up to my sisters and I to fix it, regardless of what that might require from us. But until then…

“Kiss me again,” I whisper, allowing myself one more fleeting moment of this terrifying, selfish pleasure. “Just kiss me again while there’s still time.”