But one day I might.
Chapter 5: Celestia
I watch my sisters play Catch the Goose in the garden through the window of the room I share with Sibilia. Even though the sun has reclaimed its brightness, the lake is still covered with translucent gray ice that the slowly warming days haven’t yet managed to melt. Here, behind the Moon’s back, winter lasts long, spring is feeble, and summer comes only when all hope is lost. This is the time of the year when my people starve, when my aviating kin freeze from their feet to shallow waters. And yet, as Elise, Merile, and Alina run down the slippery paths, they look happier than they have been in weeks, if not for months.
It is curious how soon people get accustomed to new circumstances. Even though my sisters and I have been through some hardship, it is nothing compared to that which my people must suffer in the inevitable aftermath of Gagargi Prataslav’s coup. I am certain he has exerted his wrath upon those loyal to my family, regardless of rank and personage, age or gender. I know this is just the beginning. Once the initial resistance has been crushed, he will start enforcing his rules upon my people, state new laws and put them into action. The cost of that will not be light.
Outside, Elise the goose catches Alina, lifts her up, and spins her around. Though glass and distance stand between us, I know that my little sister squeals with glee. A year ago this time, she wouldn’t have been considered a full human yet. If the law the gagargi has in his mind had been in place then, he would no doubt have demanded that she be fed to the Great Thinking Machine, to fuel the mechanical creation that tirelessly crunches through numbers and instructions to distribute every resource available equally to all corners of the empire.
It is insanity, the equal redistribution of resources a logistical impossibility. The gagargi’s promises may sound good in the ears of those who feel oppressed by the way the world works. But taking something one’s family has possessed and cherished for centuries, dividing lands and property earned by hard work, sending one’s fathers and mothers and sons and daughters to the other side of the empire because the machine so decides, will bring only mayhem in its wake, not the time of plenty.
I can’t let this happen to my people.
Neither this idea of equal redistribution of resources nor the law he plans on setting in place to fuel his foul machine comes from my father, regardless of what the gagargi might insist. I know by heart every single line of the holy scriptures. Our souls anchor to our bodies at the age of six, when we announce our names for the first time. But that doesn’t mean that it would be by any means right to extract souls from children younger than that. For I remember knowing my name already before my sixth name day. Elise knew hers before as well. She whispered it to me, boldly, accompanied with a smile. The thought of the gagargi going through with his plan, of enforcing the law to tax every other child, chills me more than what he did to me.
I lost a part of my soul. I may not ever be able to bear children. I will never fly again.
The hollow of my stomach aches as I lean against the windowsill, my palms flat against the cool, white stone. Even after three months, sometimes I still wake up to blood dripping through my nightgown, occurrences Sibilia has noticed, but hasn’t dared to ask about—I must make sure she doesn’t mention them to anyone, not even Elise. But even more frighteningly, I find myself thinking that I should have let the gagargi’s seed grow into a baby. Residues of the spell he imposed on me still linger behind. Perhaps it is because I couldn’t fully reclaim my soul, because in my body dwells now the soul of a swan he killed on the night of the coup.
Be it as it may, considering everything that unfolded after that night, what happened to my soul and my body doesn’t matter. An empress must place her empire above her own needs, and at this point, my people are the ones who have suffered the most, and will continue to do so. I don’t need Elise to tell me that too much blood has been shed already, that if the fields aren’t plowed in time, if the mines don’t remain open and the factories productive, our people will soon perish of starvation, exposure, and poverty. I have no right to feel sad for the demise of my mother or my seed, for blood spilled on the palace floor or trampled on dirty snow. That is a luxury that I am not entitled to. Not anymore.
A magpie, a bird blessed by my father, lands on the other side of the glass, and I think it might be the same one that has been watching our dance practices lately. Its charcoal gray beak parts, but the pane between us prevents me from hearing the croaks. I tap the glass with my forefinger, but the bird is bold. It cants its black head toward the garden where my sisters play under the half-watchful eyes of Captain Janlav and Boy. The wind tugs at the hair of my younger sisters, and yet they beam with smiles. Merile’s lean dogs bounce from one girl to another, the silver-black dog slightly faster than the copper brown one. They could run for miles and miles without tiring. But my sisters and I, we can’t, not even after months of building up our stamina with the daily dance practices.
“My sisters trust in me,” I say aloud, for words spoken have always borne more weight than those said idly in one’s mind.
There is no one around to hear me but the magpie. The door of the room I share with Sibilia is closed. Now that it is finally warm enough to spend time outside, the guards take full advantage of this. I can see Beard and Belly and Tabard and Boots smoking cigarettes on what will be untended lawn come summer. “I will not fail them again.”
Ever since my seed’s demise, I have been working on a new plan. Given the information and resources available to me, this new plan is not as refined as my previous one, and I consider it riskier by a wide margin. But it would be more dangerous to stay here, in this house that was built here for one and one purpose only, to isolate those deemed dangerous, but perhaps one day useful, from the rest of the empire, with no letters ever reaching them, no hawks knowing the way. When the gagargi summons me, and summon me he surely will, my sisters and I must be long gone, even if it is by foot, through the wilderness that bears no other name than that sung by swans when they compare the most favorable routes across the empire that one day still will be mine. It will be mine, and under my rule it shall be as great as it ever was under my mother’s rule.
The magpie taps at the glass with its beak, three clicks too regular for them to be a coincidence. I meet the beady gaze of this curious bird. A thought comes to me, one that may or may not prove to be a significant realization. There is a grain of salt in some stories. “Are you sent by my father?”
My swan-self knows the way through the wilderness, to the Southern Colonies that the gagargi has ever despised. Even though I can’t know it for certain, I believe that there my sisters would be safe. The southern rulers and princes yearn for things only I can promise: a child conceived together—though this might remain but a promise—tax alleviations for a negotiable period of time. I am even willing to consider granting them autonomy, provided they agree to protect my sisters and support my campaign to reclaim my throne. This magpie could be a herald of my father, a confirmation for this plan, one I would much cherish.
The magpie taps at the glass again, twice this time. Then it takes off, blue and white wings beating slowly, the long, black tail glistening. I don’t know if this constitutes a yes or no or neither. I do know that I am desperate enough to leave this house, that my plan is so feeble still, that I am ready to welcome help in any shape or form that it might arrive.
Even so I am not foolish enough to rely on my father providing us sustenance on our daring journey to come. Regardless of what old stories may say, his light doesn’t fill one’s stomach. Otherwise my people would have never starved and turned against my family.