Free Bloodmind by Liz Williams Page A

up my name and Seliye’s very quickly. The words for ‘water’ and ‘hot’ were soon to follow, then ‘food’ and ‘light’ and
‘want’. Once she had regained consciousness, Seliye and I spoke in front of her for hours, using simple terms, repeating whole conversations. We were used to this – we’d had
a lot of practice. I could see the patterns settling into her mind, as she silently mouthed the words after us, as the men’s language that she’d heard all her life gradually started to
make sense. It was a good thing to see, as satisfying as the grinding of grain. If we were to teach a small child, how quickly would she learn? We’d often discussed this, but we had no
experience of it: we thought that the learning process might be even faster, but maybe it was just that these grown women were making up for lost time. But no one pregnant had ever made the journey
from the north. Not made the journey and lived, that is to say.
    And now Khainet was standing on the platform at the far side of the bell tower, flanked by the goddesses on the wall. I saw her gaze drift towards them, wondering, as if afraid to believe. We
had told her how we saw them, but I did not know what she thought. Her white hair streamed down her back; I had never seen anyone so beautiful.
    Seliye stepped forward and spoke in a strong voice.
    ‘Khainet. Do you take this name?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What does it mean?’
    A lost look from the newly named and I said quickly, ‘It means whatever you wish it to mean. It is your word.’ Who knows where she got it from? Perhaps it was a word in the
men’s tongue. But now it would be a word in ours.
    Her voice faltered at first, but then a breeze stirred our hair, a hot draft from the ochre sands, and she said, ‘It means – it means the mountain wind.’
    ‘All right,’ Seliye said. She reached out and took Khainet’s hand. ‘From now on, from this day, the word “khainet” means just that. We have a new word!’
    And the women made soft sounds of approval, a hissing whisper. But I could see that Khainet was starting to falter. We had brought her up here in the early evening, that favourite time when the
shadows were long, but as that wind had proved, it was still hot, the air between the gusts baking our lungs. A look passed between Seliye and myself and together we led Khainet down the steps of
the bell tower to her chamber below, not far from my own. Later, she could choose a place of her own, if she wished. She looked back over her shoulder at the silent goddesses as we left, that same
disbelieving glance, and it made me sad, but it also made me smile.
    The day after that, we went to the shore. On the way down the steps, Khainet had given a longing look towards the black sea, and I noticed it.
    ‘Do you want to go?’
    She turned to me at once, eagerness clear in the bright blue eyes. ‘Is it possible? Is it safe?’
    I’d laughed. ‘Nothing’s ever really safe here, Khainet. But it’s safe enough.’
    I took her down on foot, with one of the off-duty gate guards who fancied a trip herself. It was mid-afternoon, with the ancient bricks breathing heat. I’d brought a scarf for her, to keep
the dust from her hair and face. We don’t like to cover our faces here in the colony; it’s too much of a reminder, and I thought she might baulk at it, flinch. A lot of the women did,
before they grew resigned to its practicality. But Khainet took the scarf without a word and wrapped her pale hair in its sky-blue folds.
    ‘Where do you get the – the stuff from?’
    ‘The thread, you mean?’ She was examining the weave, twisting it between her scarred fingers.
    ‘The thread,’ she repeated after me, softly.
    ‘It comes from the efreet nests. They spin it from mucus- the fluid in their beaks – and wind it around twigs. If you soak the nests, once the young have flown, you get skeins
of this substance. We dye it with plants. This blue, for example. It’s a little brown