Free The Sand Prince by Kim Alexander Page B

did it myself. I'm not a baby, you know."
    She raised a brow and smiled slightly. "Very well. Repairs are your job, then."
    ***
    R huun continued, "Two nights ago Mother ... was cross with me, and I found it, the place you showed me. I put it away. It's still there, I think. Um, can you teach me to sew a seam? And thread a needle?"
    The old woman looked a bit surprised. "Well done, and a fast mind. Sewing lessons, yes, I think we can do that as well." She reached out her hand and gently laid it on his shoulder. "I am sorry you will have so many opportunities to practice, shan ." He knew she didn't mean sewing.
    Then she smiled again and pointed at the doorway. "You missed a spot."

Chapter 9
    ––––––––
    E riis City
    8 years after the War of the Door, Eriisai calendar
    40 years later, Mistran calendar
    The Quarter
    After sending Rhuun home after his first needle-threading lesson, Mother Jaa sat for a while with her favorite white mug. It was porcelain, and it came from the other place. Hellne had gone through her things in a frenzy after her baby was born, giving the young maid Diia many of the gifts and trinkets from her "special human friend." Diia had passed many of them to her family, and Jaa had gotten this thickly glazed white cup. She'd been told it was made of melted glass, and was almost unbreakable. Her hands told her it bore a network of fine shatter marks, but that made it unique and to her, far more beautiful than if it had been perfect.
    Jaa thought about the look on the boy’s face when she talked about his mother. She didn’t need eyes to see how he longed to know how he came to be... different. She recalled the day Hellne's travail began. One of her household guard found the young queen laying half in and half out of her dryroom, unable to even get to her bed. She had no women to assist her, she’d sent her few surviving maids and ladies back to their homes. Diia told her it was because Hellne didn’t like the eyes people cast at her ever growing belly, even though the story put about talked of the sacrifice Her Grace was making, allowing those women to work alongside their own families instead of serving hers.
    Even though she was growing old there was nothing wrong with her memory, thank Light and Wind. And Rain , she added to herself with a sour chuckle. Since the day in her own long-gone youth when she'd traded one sort of sight for another, she'd been expecting the call to come: the Queen needs her young maid after all. Diia, the girl with back-country folk must come at once; the Queen is in distress, you must come and bring the women who can help bring a child into the world. Bring those who can stand guard along the way and insure that the child—or the mother for that matter—do not wander off the path of life, into the Veil. Bring the one who knows how to deal with pain. That last one was Jaa herself, who held Hellne's head and helped her find a place to put her agony. The infant was among the largest they'd ever seen born alive, and Hellne was, typical of her race, a small woman. It was understood that the idea of her ever bearing another child was extremely unlikely, and so this one must survive. Once it was clear both mother and child were going to live, Hellne insisted they hold it up and show her—eyes, hands, feet, a cap of dark hair. Jaa wondered what Hellne hoped to see, and what she feared. In any event, the Queen found the baby's appearance satisfactory, and nodded, then lay back exhausted. They laid the child on her breast. Mother Jaa was correct in telling Rhuun that Hellne was happy to see her child—see it finally outside her body.
    Once she could complete her toilette unaided, she dismissed them all. Diia would be ultimately hired back when Rhuun was about six months old, and she never left again. Jaa returned to her little house here in the Quarter, and began to wait.
    And now the boy was growing, and he seemed to have a talent for putting things in their place,