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Chapter One
They came upon Daita in the haze of late afternoon, when the fields blazed golden in the fading sun’s fire. Few people were about in the village at that time of day, but Nikka’s father called out friendly greetings to all. Daita was a small town, and he was well-liked. Even Nikka, who had good reason to fret, relaxed at the warm replies. Then they were past it, and their own farm loomed ahead. The fields were bare at this time of year, with the harvest gathered and autumn fast approaching. The herd of gako, her father’s main venture, grazed on the remnants; in the distance Nikka thought she could see her brother, checking one of the great shaggy livestock for mites. Gently tugging on the kurek’s reins, her father nudged the cart off the dusty road, slowing as it headed down the path toward the house. The slender brown beast hardly needed prodding: its long, curved horns arced back as it lifted its head, overcome with the familiar scents of herd and home. Seated next to her father, Nikka tensed as they drew close. She sighed, long and loud. “Don’t worry, love.” He patted her back. “She won’t be angry for long.” Nikka raised an eyebrow, and her father winked. “She’ll come around if you give her time.” He drove the cart to the door, and helped her down. Her mother stood in the doorway, scowling. Nikka stared at the ground. “Wash up,” she snapped. “You’re a disgrace.” She nodded once, and went inside without looking up.
The tub was filled, the water tepid. She unbound her braid and let the black waves cascade across her back. She bathed quietly, listening to the argument in the next room. “It’s appalling! What am I going to do with her, Corin?” “Kirsa, be reasonable. She’s only fifteen—” “She’ll be sixteen before winter. More than old enough to marry!” Nikka rubbed soap into her hair and worked up a lather. Washing it was the worst: when unbound, it fell past her knees. She started with the ends. “Maybe she’s not ready.” “She will be soon, if she knows what’s good for her!” Clanging sounds came from the kitchen. Kirsa was cooking supper. “She won’t always have such chances.” Nikka scrubbed faster at her hair. Perhaps if she was hard enough, it would break. Then her father said, “And if she doesn’t want to marry Mevik?” Nikka dropped the soap.
Banished upstairs to her room, she lay on her bed, staring out the window. She hadn’t known it was possible to at once be both seething and numb. Outside, the sun had already set, shadowing the land with night. Beyond her family’s farm, the Western Plains stretched out into the distance, going on forever, or at least until they fell into the sea. This Nikka knew to be true; she’d spent the past half-year in Noren, Tiria’s main port and capital. To the east, the plains ran farther still, meeting the mountains in a sprawl of hills. She turned over and looked at the leather-bound book jutting out of her satchel. A gift from her brother at the New Year, it had been blank, but she’d filled nearly half of it already with her sketches. The thought of it brought a guilty grin to her lips. Drawing in class hadn’t been the only thing to get her kicked out of finishing school, but it had certainly helped. A familiar weight settled on her back. She glanced over her shoulder at the tiny cat. “I won’t do it, Miko,” she told him, though she knew he wouldn’t reply. Only Elei, like her uncle, could expect that from their pets. “I don’t want to marry yet.” Miko hopped down and licked her face. Then he started to purr. Nikka stroked his head as he settled on her pillow, beside her ear. Being with the cat was soothing, but her fingers soon grew restless. She reached for her sketchbook. “Stay there,” she told him. As if he understood, Miko sat still, watching as she took down his small form with her stylus. She sketched his outline first, then marked out the white on his chest and paws. Quick, light strokes for the whiskers, a heavier touch as she filled in the black. Rough edges for his thick, long-haired coat. Faster and faster she sketched, her world shrinking to the book before her. Miko’s eyes flashed— “You’d think he was Lord of the cats,” said a voice from the doorway, “the way he poses for you.” Trance broken, Nikka dropped her stylus. “Bari!” She launched herself from the bed, into her elder brother’s arms. He was well-tanned and dusty, and he smelled of sweat. “Hey now,” he laughed, pushing her away. “I can’t touch you, Nikka. I wouldn’t want to get a fine young lady dirty!” “But I’m not! I was expelled, didn’t they tell you?” She looked up at him and winced, hoping he wouldn’t scold. Though his hair was lighter than hers, his eyes were the same azure blue, and like her own, darkened when angry. She relaxed a little when they didn’t. Bari shook his head disapprovingly, but grinned nonetheless. “Mother’s furious, you know. You’re not to leave the house until after the Harvest Social.” She clenched her fists. She’d expected as much. “It’s not fair, Bari. Why does she do this?” “She married Father. She’s making up for it.” “By betrothing me to Lord Damino’s son?” He spread his hands. “She wants the best for you.” “For me?” Her laugh was bitter. “For her, you mean.” Bari didn’t argue. “Supper will be ready soon,” he told her. “She expects you down there now.” He closed the door behind him as he left. Nikka flopped down onto the bed, startling Miko. He jumped through the window, onto the roof, and looked back at her expectantly. She blinked. “Good idea.” Gathering her sketchbook and stylus, and a woolen shawl from her pack, she followed the cat outside.
* * *
Raya’s aunt let her out of the car across the street from their new school. “I’ll park around the back,” she said. “Meet me there when Homeroom’s over, if you can’t find my class.” Raya shut the car door, and her aunt drove off down the street. She looked around; green was everywhere. Valley Heights was above the town centre, set in the crook where the hill turned steep. The cross-streets went on for a dozen blocks more, but here the forest began, mingling with houses until it blanketed the mountainside beyond. Just a few feet away, a tree-lined trail wound between two houses, ending in a huddle of tall bushes. There wasn’t even a curb on this side of the street: Cars pulled alongside a packed-earth sidewalk to let the students out. This was her new home. Closer to the mountains, North Vancouver was different from the city, a bit more like the Canada everyone bragged about. It was beautiful, but Raya wasn’t yet sure if she liked it. She took a deep breath, and choked. A clan of smokers clustered by the bushes, and the fumes burned the back of her throat. Eyes watering, she dropped her pack on the ground, held a shirtsleeve to her face, and tried to stop coughing. Someone patted her back, and a bottle was thrust into her hands. “Drink it,” he told her. She twisted off the cap and drank. The water went down easier than she expected; she stopped coughing. She wiped her eyes. “You okay?” A boy stood by her, and Raya did a double-take: he was almost as tall as she. He wasn’t dressed in the studded leather that most of the other smokers wore, but a wallet chain dangling from his khakis said he was part of their group. “I think so,” she said. “Too much smoke.” He shrugged. “You get used to it.” Taking his water bottle back, he took a swig before stashing it in his pack. Raya slung her own bag over one shoulder. “Thank you.” She straightened her shirt, and smiled briefly at the boy, but now he was staring at her. She cringed. Most boys gave her looks now that she had breasts, and Raya didn’t like it. She crossed her arms. “What?” “You...” He frowned, and their eyes met; with a start she realized they were the same deep blue as her own. “You’re...” he began again, and forgot to finish. Well, she thought, at least he’s not looking at my chest. She turned away. “What are you staring at?” He blinked. “I—er—sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, a mop of brown bleached paler than her blonde. “You looked like someone I know.” “That’s impossible. I just moved here.” “Hey, Pete!” One of the smokers beckoned him back to their gang. “Who’s your girlfriend?” “Um.” Raya coughed, but not from the smoke. “I have to go.” Crimson-faced, the boy nodded, and she turned away. She stepped in front of a stopped car and looked at the driver for permission; its occupants, two men in suits, waved her aside. She waited for an opening in the traffic, and crossed the street to the school.
Her class was on the first floor, across from the library. At fifteen minutes to go, she ducked inside the latter room, searched out and headed for the fiction section, at the back. There wasn’t much of one: half a wall and a few spinning racks for paperbacks. Raya wrinkled her nose, unimpressed, but glanced through the selection nonetheless. She was reading the back of a book when the image took her: a grey room, bare but for a metal table. She shivered; she only wore a nightgown, and she was small again. There was a man there, a thin man in a white coat— “You like Kerrigan?” Jolted back to the present, Raya dropped the book. A girl had approached. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” She pointed at the book. “You read Kerrigan?” “Oh,” she said, picking it up. “No, I was only looking.” “Well, you’re better off going to the public library. That’s book five, and the school doesn’t have half the series.” “Okay. Thanks,” she added, though she didn’t intend to read them. She wasn’t that fond of Fantasy. “No problem. They’re good books.” The girl grinned up at her. Cropped red hair framed her round face; she stood a full head shorter than Raya. “Are you new here?” “I just moved from New West,” she said. “My—” A bell rang. The girl shrugged. “Homeroom time,” she said. “I’m Shaundra, by the way. You?” “Raya.” She nodded. “See you around.” Raya followed her out of the library, and couldn’t help but laugh when she entered the same homeroom. “Aren’t you a grad?” Shaundra asked, surprised. She shook her head. “I’m just tall,” she said, sitting down at a desk. Shaundra took the seat beside hers. “You sure don’t look like you’re in Grade Ten.” “I get that a lot.” The bell rang again, but the class hardly came to order. Seconds later a teacher rushed into the room, a stack of papers in her arms. “Hi,” she said, as the babble finally dimmed. “I’m Ms. Nada, and I’ll be your homeroom teacher for the year. I bet you’ve been waiting all summer to get back here, hmm?” A chorus of groans answered her. She beamed. “Yeah,” Shaundra whispered, before Raya could ask. “She’s a little loopy.” “Loopy?” Raya hissed back. “Or just sadistic?” The girl shrugged. “A bit of both.” Ms. Nada gave a few announcements, then let the class dissolve into quiet chatter as she called students up individually to provide them with administration packages and locker combinations. Shaundra quizzed Raya on her favorite authors; little else happened until the teacher came to her name. “Ray-ah May-I?” she called. Raya grimaced. Everyone mispronounced her name. “Rye-ah,” she said, correcting the woman, as she’d done for others countless times before. “Raya Ma-ya-ee.” “Oh, sorry, dear. Raya Mayai, then.” She smiled. “You’re Dara’s niece, aren’t you? You look just like her.” Raya reddened. Nodding, she took her papers and sat back down. None of her classmates had snickered too loudly, but it was enough to make her want to be someplace else. Why had her aunt insisted that they move here? Couldn’t she just commute? North Vancouver wasn’t that far from New Westminster, not even an hour unless traffic was bad. Raya could have stayed where her friends were, and they wouldn’t have had to move. Shaundra nudged her. “What was that?” “My aunt’s a teacher.” At the girl’s questioning look, she added, “We live together. When she transferred here, I had to come, too.” “What about your parents?” “Dead.” “Oh. Sorry.” Shaundra blushed and looked away. Raya let her simmer in guilt for a bit. Really, there was nothing to be ashamed of; perhaps she might miss them if she could remember them, but explaining to near-strangers why she couldn’t took far too much time for her to bother. Instead she said, “It happens,” and Shaundra smiled an apology, relieved. “What does your aunt teach?” “Social Studies,” said Raya. “She’s also doing an after-school class, for the Gifted Program.” Shaundra brightened. “About time they brought that back. They axed it halfway through Grade Eight.” She shifted in her seat. “It’s not so bad, you know,” she said, after a pause. “What?” She shrugged. “My dad teaches Math.”
A welcome-back assembly followed homeroom. The principal of Valley Heights gave a boring, start-of-year speech, and then Ms. Mayai, the only new teacher that year, was introduced. Eventually, they were dismissed: the first day back was only a half-day. Afterward, Raya found her aunt’s classroom without much difficulty. The woman was going through papers when Raya knocked on the open door; she looked up at the girl expectantly. “Are you ready to go?” she asked. Raya nodded. Dara stood. Like Raya, she wore her waist-length blonde hair unbound, and she swept it behind her shoulder as she pushed in her chair. She turned to the girl. Raya frowned. As her aunt moved, she found herself jolted to another place and time: she glimpsed a woman not so blonde, whose eyes were hazel, not blue. They were outside, for the wind blew wisps of her hair across her face. Raya stumbled across the grass toward her— “Let’s go, then,” said Dara. She shook her head. Abruptly the scene dissolved, and she was back in the classroom. She nodded, still confused, and followed her aunt out to the car.
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