Page 23 of In the Ravenous Dark
Japha languidly stands to take my hand in greeting. They’re in their late twenties, with slightly lighter skin than General Tumarq. A bloodline patterns their warm brown arms. They’re taller than me, flat chested and slim limbed under a deep purple, green, and silver chiton that falls to the floor, artfully woven with peacocks. Their short-cropped hair is near black, and kohl lines their dark eyes. A perfect wreath of angular twigs and iridescent green feathers crowns their head, like a bird’s nest but less messy. Somehow, they pull it off exquisitely.
“Then theyareneither,” I say.
Japha gives me a surprised—and appraising—look.
It’s not a strange concept to me, but I’m impressed the royal family allows Japha to be who they are when there’s such an emphasis on gender roles here in the palace. In the wider polis, no one would complain much. Just as men sleep with men and women with women without creating an uproar, so long as they’re not shirking any childbearing duties, there are men and women who were not called such at birth—as well as those who are called neither. I once knew a street actor so skilled at playing either man or woman that I wasn’t the least bit shocked to find that offstage they were in fact sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, and often neither, like Japha.
“I don’t fault Japha for that, either,” Penelope says, surprising me. “Goddess knows I would be a man if I could.”
“So declare yourself a man,” Japha says without hesitation, in a smooth, cultured voice that doesn’t sound particularly masculine or feminine.
The princess blinks. “My father would never accept that.”
Tumarq smiles fondly at her. “I would…Lieutenant.”
She rolls her eyes but can’t help sparing him a smile in return. “I know, just as you accept Japha. But my father expects usallto do our duty.” She gives Japha a look as she says this.
“Ah, yes, my grandfather likes people in theirveryparticular places,” Japha leans toward me to say confidentially, though everyone can hear. “Until it suits him otherwise.”
I’m only partially paying attention because, with everyone grouped together, I can suddenly see the similarities: Crisea looks a lot like General Tumarq and Japha. Crisea must be Tumarq’s daughter, Japha her half sibling. Penelope’s lover is the man who was married to her sister, Maia. That sister is now dead, having passed on her bloodline to her child Japha, but Crisea was born while Maia was still alive. That strikes me as awkward, never mind that Penelope is still married to my father, if only in words. But neither he nor Penelope nor the general seem bothered.
Japha smiles at me, their eyes sharp, as if they know what I’ve realized. Howtheyfeel about what lies between their aunt and father I can’t begin to guess… and I don’t really care. All I want to do is get out of here.
“That makes you something like my cousin,” Japha continues. “We have otherdearcousins in attendance. Tonight’s feast is in their father’s honor nearly as much as our grandfather Neleus’s. Crown Prince Tyros is to be king, after all.” They mean Tyros’s children, then—and Cylla’s. The children that are the result of their mother’s capture and abuse. Japha sweeps forward and loops their arm through mine before I can protest. “I have been tasked with introducing you, so we can leave those who think and speak as unsubtly as clashing swords to have their own little chat. Are you coming, Silvean?”
My father looks tired and reluctant, but he says, “Of course. That’s the point of dragging Rovan here. I’ll be right behind you.”
And besidehim, I see the dead man.
“No one needs to drag me anywhere,” I say. “Let’s get this over with. Who knows, I might even enjoy it.” I glare for a moment at the silver embroidery on the shade’s right shoulder, refusing to meet his steady gaze, before facing forward.
Japha’s clever eyes don’t miss it. “Still not used to him yet? I’m not, either.” They toss their twig-and-feather-wreathed head. “Mine is right next to me. Even less of an entertaining conversationalist than my father or aunt, that one.”
I peer over their shoulder, unable to see much of anything in the soft light of the banquet hall. But then I blink at Japha. “Wait. How could you not be used to your guardian? Didn’t you get your guardian long before your bloodline, when your gift was first… you know… discovered?” I’m still not used to openly talking about such things.
“My dear, I got my bloodline only three years ago at twenty-four and my guardian at the same time, because I wasn’t meant to have either. My sister, Selene, was.”
I nearly stumble over the long folds of my peplos. “How were you not meant…?”
“I was supposed to be a warrior,” Japha says, with a conspiratorial wink. “So they assumed I was until I proved otherwise.”
I still must look confused, because my father asks me, “Do you know the mandate of threes, as it applies to the noble families of this city?”
I shake my head. I only know three is an important number because of the tripartite goddess.
“If you’re born noble or royal in this city, then you don’t have the burden of manual labor. Therefore you must dosomethingwith yourself, because goddess forbid you indulge in idleness and excess.” My father scoffs at the absurd crowd around us, drinking and lounging before the no-doubt extravagant meal about to take place. “And if your parent has a bloodline, then there are only three proper paths for you: a bloodmage, a warrior, or a priest or priestess in the necropolis.” My father says the latter with marked distaste. “It’s a practice that echoes the maiden with her blood sacrifice, the mother who will defend the flesh of her flesh at all cost,and the crone who has grown acquainted with death. Those are the three faces of the goddess, symbolizing the three parts of us: blood, body, and spirit. That’s why three is the number of noble children said to be most pleasing to the goddess, to serve all forms of her with either sigils, sword, or death magic.”
“I’m impressed, Silvean!” Japha crows. “You know the doctrine better than I do, and I was born here.”
My father measures his breath with the tap of his cane as he continues. “In the royal family, the eldest boy—the heir—most often trains in combat, the eldest girl is often the future bloodline, and the third child, of whatever gender, is for the shadow. Unlike where I come from or within the lower classes here, where the chance to possess the gift is equally distributed, royal women usually inherit the bloodline. Someone in this family, somewhere along the line, decided they made better bloodmages.”
Japha snorts.
“Yes, well, Japha and I prove the lie there,” my father adds.
“For that reason, many of us nobles stop at two children,” Japha says, waggling a pair of bejeweled fingers, “when a bloodmage has probably been born, if indeed the parents are capable of turning one out. If they aren’t, they’ll still have one child to train as a soldier for the polis. Even if the second child only amounts to spouting poetry or whatever frivolity, their parents will still rejoice they don’t have another child. Because who wants their offspring to live among the dead?”
Japha’s mother must have stopped at two—even if their father continued with Crisea.
