Free Brood of Bones by A.E. Marling Page B

fly-pen.”
    At the sight of her hitting the girl, my hand rose to my mouth, and I held back a sob. I wondered how Faliti could strike something so precious, could abuse a gift given by the Ever Always: a child of her own blood.
    Deepmand shifted beside me in a clink of metal, and he tugged at his beard.
    I left the bedroom before I had a fit. Descending the ladder almost killed me even after Maid Janny had climbed up to hold my shoulder.
    Once safe on the ground floor, I said, “I will dine here.”
    “Surely not, Enchantress,” Faliti Chandur said, walking down the ladder. “We’re reduced to drinking tea and eating field peas, nothing I could serve you.”
    “Maid Janny will retrieve my meal. And tea is the only suitable drink for women of childbearing years.”
    Janny muttered, “And who’d want those years?”
    She returned from the carriage with a basket and my ottoman, and she helped manage my skirts while I approached the padded stool. Faliti could use a normal chair, which she did, setting in front of herself a bowl of eggs and rice.
    Faliti asked me, “Why did that enchantress choose you, anyway? Those years and years ago. Out of all of us working the rice paddy, she picked you.”
    “She saw me sleeping in the rain.”
    “That’s not a reason.”
    “I have significant aptitude for enchantment.”
    “I don’t believe it. She could’ve taken any of us to your land of fancy dresses.”
    Janny cut my broccoli florets into quarters, and she shucked greater beans, which had been steamed. She placed a napkin and silver fork into my hands.
    “That can’t be what you eat,” Faliti said. “That’s food fit for the muddies working fields.”
    “After a certain point,” I said, “quality of sustenance is independent of cost.”
    “You’re mocking me. You came to this house to gloat and mock my ill fate.”
    My hands began to tremble, so I hid them under the table. “Faliti Chandur, you are fortunate beyond measure.”
    She barked a laugh. “You call unpainted bricks and only one servant fortunate? And look at you, the woman with the city in her hand, and you never had to stoop for it. You never were forced to carry a man’s child or weep over a miscarriage!”
    The bowl of egg and rice smashed against the wall, and I stared from its dribbling yellow chunks back to Faliti. She sat still and composed as if she had not just thrown her meal.
    She asked, “Did the priests really make you the Flawless?”
    “I am not flawless.”
    “Well, I know your plan, Resha. You will try to take Harend from me, but I won’t let you. He’s mine and still will be no matter how many gems you flash in front of him.”
    I glanced at her marriage necklace, a twined chain of gold bearing a diamond. “Faliti Chandur, you will refer to me as ‘Elder Enchantress Hiresha,’ or not at all.”
    I struggled up from the ottoman then left the house.
    As Deepmand drove me uphill, I pondered the potential truth of Faliti’s claims. My dream held more than my laboratory, and one of its other rooms contained a portrait of Harend; I had thought to one day wed him even though he was married to Faliti.
    I saw no point in marrying anyone until I could stay awake between kisses.
    The carriage stopped at the God’s Eye Court, and acolytes and petitioners gathered as close around me as they dared. “Lady Flawless, I have a dispute over aquifer shares.”
    “And I represent a man wrongly trampled on the very streets of this city.”
    “The bridal price hasn’t been paid for my daughter.”
    “Quiet!” I raised my hands, my sleeves fanning out in a spectrum of fabrics ranging from red to green to purple. “I am only interested in babies, mothers, and—most to the point—babies inside mothers. Acolytes, you will make reports of women’s general health, size, weight, and how many per thousand have miscarried and quickened.”
    The day simmered, and I strained to remember what I had planned next to say.
    “Make special note of