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1
For my first while in the castle, Sira teaches me the ropes. And it’s during the Quiet that I learn.
It’s Sira’s duties of washing floors and dusting sculptures and scrubbing hearths that keep her busy much of the Breeze, First Wind and Warmth. She really only finds time to teach me how to be a house slave when the Quiet rolls around, and so her sleep time has been cut into more and more.
She’s been getting grouchier with each Quiet that passes us by. I sort of understand, since I get my sleep during the busier times in the kitchen and it’s hard to find dreams with all that commotion going on just on the other side of the stone partition.
Needless to say, we’re getting testy with each other in the empty Hall this Quiet. I reach for the pitcher of water on the table and she smacks my hand away with a scowl.
It’s obvious to me that, when I slap her hand back, we’ve slipped into bitter sisterly roles—and I already have two of those wretched things, I don’t need any more.
The scowl fitted onto my face is tired and moody. There’s a challenge in my eyes as I watch her. She’s not backing down, though.
As though we never slapped each other’s hands, she pushes me out of the way by edging her hip into my space, then reaches for the water pitcher.
“See?” The snark in her voice is sharper than broken glass. “One hand behind the back,” she points out at my scowl-turned-crumpled face.
One hand behind the back.
I keep forgetting that part.
“I can do it, I can do it,” I whinge and usher her away with a flap of my hands. “Let me try.”
She does.
This time, I make sure to twist my arm behind my back before I reach for the pitcher—and fuck, it’s heavy with only one arm to lift it. Mind you, my arm’s on the weaker side, but still.
A grunt catches in my throat as I lift it.
“No noises,” Sira chides me.
I set the pitcher back down, my eyes rolling to the back of my head and my teeth clenched much too tight.
“Tilt it back into your wrist before you lift it,” she gives me a tip.
But I don’t do the trick right away.
Holding up my hand to mute her, my face twists with a grimace, and my free hand comes up to my chest. Time pauses for a moment—a moment that suspends in the air with all the strings of pain lashing in my chest.
“Wait just a—” My choked words are cut off by a sudden, harsh cough.
I fold over.
Blood splatters all over the toes of Sira’s boots.
I grab onto the back of a chair, holding tight as the hacking fit jolts through me.
Sira doesn’t wait patiently for the coughs to subside. She dampens a cloth with the water in the pitcher, then wipes her boots clean before she stars to run the cloth over the floor.
My coughs have turned dry now, scraping up my throat with the roughness of tree bark. It’s agony, and my eyes clench shut on Sira’s cleaning, tears leaking out the corners.
It’s worse here. It’s been a week now, and I’ve had a fit almost every day, most with blood. I feel weaker, dizzier, fainter. I feel as though the time difference in this world compared to mine is catching up to me, and worsening me somehow. That must be it. Or there’s something off in these lands, something in the air that’s making me sicker.
I don’t know what’s doing this to me, but it’s hardly something to get used to. I straighten my back slowly, as if afraid I’ll trigger another fit somehow, then outstretch my hands for Sira. She wipes them clean of sweat and blood specks before we go back to training. It’s as though I never had a fit at all.
I try for the pitcher again. This time, the weight of the pitcher falls easier into my hand, and it lifts off the table without a slosh of water or a drop spilled.
Beaming, I shoot her a wide smile, then slam the pitcher back down on the white linen that’s draped over the dining table. My smile quickly crumbles. Some precious plates and bowls rattle at the impact. A crystal glass threatens to tumble over, but steadies itself.
