Heir of Beasts

Ch. 5.2- Wooden Girls and Golden Dust

Karzsaivi, Mishira mouths with distain. Unnatural.

Isam, I think. You're right.

She holds my gaze a moment longer, then looks away, back to her crying son and trembling daughter. I watch her minister to them for a moment: she pulls Kasrin to her, calming her shaking, then murmurs something in Ezskor's ear. He smiles back at her briefly, and I imagine she's fed him some bit of hope. She's the scaffold they all lean against, I realize. She's their strength.

"Under the rule of the Dimaraste we are born, live, and die in the dust!" Sholu calls out. "Our crime is believing that dust golden, and thanking them for it, as the beggar thanks the rich man who tosses him a rotted fruit. Why should we thank them? What have they given us but suffering? Who among us has not grown poorer, and sadder, and thinner under their reign?"

Mishira glares, a tigress bearing her teeth. Ezskor shakes his head slowly, like he can't believe what he's hearing. Airi wipes his eyes and tries to straighten his back, as if he might still be strong. Kasrin just burrows deeper into her mother's arms.

Only Ristalai, the eldest sister, seems immune to his words. I think her stoic at first and admire her for it, but the more I watch her the more I realize the blankness she portrays isn't faked. She isn't fighting to keep from bursting out in a fit of rage, or suppressing a torrent of tears. She isn't wearing a veneer of calm: she is calm.

But maybe calm is the wrong word. Truthfully, she looks dead. Her face is as stiff as a wood carving. Her eyes evince an expression so placid and shallow it might as well be painted on. If it weren't for the gentle rising and falling of her shoulders, I'd question if she still breathed.

Ristalai's apathy cuts me even deeper than Mishira's anger. She's had the spirit crushed form her so thoroughly that even the instincts to rage, to fear, to cry are gone.

Karzsaivi, I think. It's unnatural, whatever has been done to her.

"They sat in their manors while outside their doors people starved to death because the rain did not come," Sholu continues, interrupting my thoughts. "They ate roast duck and aubergine while we ate scraps from the gutter. All because they climbed so high they could no longer see down to the base of the mountain, down to the men and women who sweated and toiled and dreamed at their feet."

Mishira's eyes are hard as bedrock and hot as the forge as she stares boldly at Sholu, defying him without words. He glances down at her and sneers.

"See?" he asks the crowd. "Even now the Kyorin matriarch shows no remorse. She does not bow her head under the weight of her sin, nor does she fall to her knees and atone: she glares at me like I have no right to tell you the truth! Like she is still my better, though she is bound and under guard!"

The crowd murmurs; a few glare at Mishira, and a few jeer. Sholu hushes them.

"Leave them to the vestiges of their pride," he cautions, trying to sound magnanimous. "Let them bury as deep into the sand as they can: the truth will still be heard. If I have to shout it from atop Flat Rock down the mouth of the River Imer, it will be heard!"

More of the crowd cheers, caught up in him. He is a river, a current carrying them along. They don't even realize some external force is manipulating them, the water flows so smoothly. They don't feel the drowning.

But I do. I feel the water licking at my toes and the lead anchor tied around my feet, ready to drag me down. Kasrin feels it, as does Airi: they cling to their mother like she might buoy them in their time of need. But even Mishira is not spared: her rage, her pride, all of it is just a mask to hide her fear of complete submersion.