City of a Thousand Dolls (24 page)

Finally she could speak the question she’d waited ten years to ask. “Where are my parents?”

The lines of pain on the man’s face deepened. “Dead. Soon after they sent you to that horrible place.”

Nisha’s face grew hot. “No. They were supposed to be here.”

Finding her family had always meant finding her parents. They were supposed to be alive somewhere, waiting to explain, to tell her why they’d abandoned her. “How do I know that what you tell me is true?”

The man took a deep, heavy breath. He strode to Nisha’s side. Tugging the red scarf from his neck, he draped it over her wrist, touching the scarf the Shadow Mistress had given her. The two fabrics were identical. And Nisha could see it on the uncovered skin—he had a tiger mark to match her own.

“I swear by the Horned God and the Sacrificed Bull that I am your uncle. Your father was my brother and my friend. Please, let me carry you outside. Aishe says you need air. And I will try to explain.”

Nisha still wanted to know about her parents and her past, and there were no answers in the tent. “All right … but what is your name?”

The man bent and gathered Nisha into his arms. “I am called Stefan. I am
Kys
of the Arvi clan.”

“You’re the
Kys
?” Nisha asked. “Does that mean you’re the leader?”

“In a way.” Stefan’s arms were strong, and he carried Nisha gently, tucking the bright, soft blanket around her. This close, she could smell a trace of sandalwood. It was so like her vague memories of her father that the tears threatened to come back. She’d wondered if the memories were real. Sometimes it felt like they were stories that she’d told herself during lonely nights, fanciful tales with no basis in reality. Now she knew they were true, and she clung to Stefan as he pushed his way out of the tent.

The first thing Nisha noticed was the noise. The camp was full of clattering pots, shrieking children, the ringing of hammer blows, and the barks, squeals, bleats, and lowing of more animals than she had ever seen in one place before.

A tiny girl dashed past with a smaller boy hard on her heels. ”Da!” she squealed, followed by something that sounded very much like “Save me!” Nisha could feel the laugh in Stefan’s chest.

“My children,” he said to Nisha with obvious pride. “Sonja is always tormenting her brother and then trying to get me to save her.”

Nisha watched the children with interest as they tussled. Little boys especially were unfamiliar to her. Nisha rarely saw men in the City except visitors or temporary hires like Josei’s assistant Tac. And there were no younger boys at all.

Boys were more valuable than girls, as they carried on the family name and inherited property. Orphaned boys would find a welcome anywhere, because they made good laborers and good apprentices. Some childless couples would even search for orphaned boys to adopt. There was no need for a City of boys.

The children were full-out wrestling now, and it was impossible to tell who was winning. Their giggles reminded Nisha of chasing Tanaya through the hedges, tickling Sashi with a grass stem as her friend tried to meditate, taking her first clumsy dance steps as Vinian looked on. Those days seemed far away now.

“Will he hurt her?” Nisha asked.

“Maret?” Stefan smiled. “No. Sonja may be small, but she can fight. Would you like to meet your cousins?”

The idea of having cousins was so strange to Nisha that it was a moment before she could manage a smile. “Let them play. It’s been a long time since I heard laughter like that.”

Her uncle’s arms tightened. “Did they hurt you in the City?” he asked. “Did they mistreat you or try to change you in any way?”

“No,” Nisha said, feeling an unexpected shame. The City hadn’t wanted her, her parents hadn’t wanted her. Where did she belong?

“Good,” he growled. “People who would twist a child should be beaten. I never should have let my brother leave you in that madhouse. But that’s fixed now. You’re here, and that’s all that matters.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

“The healer is gathering herbs in the forest,” Stefan said. “I’ll carry you to the edge of camp, and we can wait there for her.”

The camp was a rambling gathering of wagons and tents, as active as a honeycomb full of bees. The air smelled of leather and animals, and the steam from the various cooking pots added a hint of ginger to the air. The spindly-legged goats were everywhere, outnumbered only by children, who played various games, fetched water and wood for the adults, and tried to keep the goats from eating everything in sight.

“Those goats are our main livelihood,” Stefan explained as he carried Nisha past a group of old women carding piles of fluffy goat hair. “The Arvi are the best spinners in all the clans of the Kildi, and we make the finest cashmere in the Empire.”

The women nodded and smiled at them.

“Are
all
these people from the same family?” Nisha asked, a bit dizzy from the noise.

Stefan nodded. “We are all Arvi. These are your father’s aunts, uncles, and cousins.”

Nisha watched the Kildi go about their business, each one with a blood tie more binding than rope. “It must be nice, belonging somewhere like this.” The wistfulness of her own voice surprised her, and Stefan’s voice softened in reply.

“A Kildi without clan is like a crane without a flock. But those days are over. You’re not alone anymore.”

Nisha wanted to believe him. But too many questions were still unanswered.

“If you are my uncle, why did you leave me in the City for so long? Why didn’t you come and get me?”

“I tried,” Stefan said, his brows furrowing in anger. “Right after your parents died. I went to the harridan who runs the place and begged to get you back. She said it wasn’t safe for you to leave yet. Safe! As if you were safe there with those unnatural people, bending you into whatever they thought they could sell you for!”

Stefan’s anger blended into shame, and he looked away. “I was still reeling from my brother’s death, you understand, and I was furious that he had taken you to the City without telling me first. So when she told me to get out … I left.”

Stefan carried Nisha past a row of flat wagons heavy with supplies. A handful of small donkeys with limpid eyes grazed nearby. One donkey wandered over to them, ears alert. Nisha put her hand to the soft muzzle and received a wet snuffle in return.

“Left?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

Stefan let out a breath. “I mean we all left. I packed the camp and took us to the wild places in the east.”

Nisha stared at him. “I was there for ten years! You never once came back to make sure I was all right, that I hadn’t been turned out or sold?”

“I lost my temper.”

“For
ten years
?”

Stefan didn’t answer. Instead he carried Nisha to the edge of the camp. Here the forest spilled into the clearing, and the noise of the camp was surrounded and overcome by the silence of the trees.

Stefan lowered her to the base of a tree. Nisha hissed as the movement sent another wave of pain through her leg.

Her uncle rubbed his hand over his face.

“Nisha, the City of a Thousand Dolls represents everything that’s wrong with the Empire. The way they groom girls to accept the fates chosen for them, the way they give them no choice and then sell them … we would rather send our children to other clans or to be raised by the elderly than give them up to that. I was furious with my brother for leaving you there. And then he died.”

Nisha was unable to hold back the question anymore. “How did they die? And
why
did they leave me at the City?”

Stefan sat next to her, cross-legged. “To explain that, I have to tell you who your parents were. Your father was the Master Trader of our clan. He had a smile that made you trust him at once, and a silver tongue that could sell you anything. He was in charge of all the buying and selling, including the trade we did with the City of a Thousand Dolls.”

Disgust wrinkled Stefan’s face. “I confess, I was more than happy to let him handle that. That place has always made my skin crawl. Your mother usually went with him. She wasn’t Kildi. Emil had fallen in love with her on a trip to Kamal and brought her home.”

“Tell me about her,” Nisha whispered.
Am I like her? Did she love me?

Stefan smiled and put a hand on her head. “Your mother was strong and graceful, and she moved like the wind over the river. She had been some kind of warrior, but she never talked to anyone but your father about her past. I saw her fight a few times, and she was as deadly as she was beautiful. Your father called her Shar, which means tiger-cat in the old tongue. And since it seemed fitting—the tiger is the symbol of the Arvi clan—that’s what we all called her. She worked hard and made my brother happy, so to us, she was family.”

The earth under Nisha was cold and hard, and she pulled the cashmere blanket tighter, ignoring her aching leg. “What happened to them?”

Stefan shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “We camped here, as we did every year at that time. Your parents went on a routine trading trip to one of the fishing villages, somewhere they’d been a thousand times before. You had a touch of fever, so they left you here. They were gone a long time—much, much longer than they should have been. When they did return, your father’s eyes were like those of a hunted thing. They said they had broken a cart axle, but I knew they were lying. They didn’t leave the camp much after that, and they grew quieter and quieter, always looking over their shoulders.”

Nisha’s throat felt tight. What could have terrified her parents so much?

Stefan continued, “One morning the children found a dead grouse, lying on its back with wings spread out in the middle of camp. I assumed it had been killed by a wolf or a fox, but I was standing next to your mother when she saw it, and her face—Before or since, I’ve never seen anyone so frightened. The next day your father disappeared into the woods with you. When he came back, you weren’t with him. When I pressed him …”

The man’s grim tone suggested he’d done more than pressed.

“When I pressed him, he said he’d left you at the City of a Thousand Dolls, that it was the safest place for you now. I couldn’t believe it. I demanded he go and get you back, but he refused. He said you would be safe, that he and your mother had made sure of that, and that if anything happened to them, I was to leave you there for at least one year. The next day your parents were gone. Their bodies were found on the road to Kamal.”

There was silence as vast as the forest beside them. Nisha felt empty, as if the story had hollowed her out. Her parents were dead, and she couldn’t even tell them how much she hated them for leaving her. Or how much she had missed them and wanted them back.

“How could they just leave me there?” The words splashed out of her like spilled tea.

Stefan started to pace. “Your parents loved you,” he said. “I don’t want you to doubt that.”

Too late
, Nisha thought. “They might have been trying to protect me. But they abandoned me instead. I didn’t even know who I was.”

“I’m sorry,” Stefan said. “When that woman slammed the door in my face, I snapped. I was angry at my brother and angry at the City, and it was childish and stupid. But this year, you would be sixteen. You would be old enough to leave the City. I wanted to see if you were still safe. So we came back. And when I saw you outside the walls that day … looking so much like your father, and moving with your mother’s grace … I knew then that I was wrong. That you belong here with us, and you always have.”

Nisha looked out at the woods, at the pale trunks crowding close together, a wall as high and intimidating as any she’d ever seen.

“What about my friends?” she asked. But the words came out so quietly that Stefan didn’t hear her. And before she could ask again, they were interrupted by a voice from the woods.

“There’s my new patient. I’m glad to see you awake again, Nisha.”

A woman with a guarded smile stepped from the woods. She was sleek and dark, her hair black as a cormorant’s wing. She wore a muted brown-and-green tunic, different from the ordinary Kildi clothing Nisha had seen so far. Nisha saw no obvious Kildi mark on her skin.

The woman quickened her step and knelt down to feel the heavy cast on Nisha’s leg. “My name is Isita, camp healer. How is the pain?”

“Bearable,” Nisha said honestly. “Aishe gave me something for it. How long will it take to heal?”

The healer raised her head to Stefan’s in surprise. “You did not tell her?” she asked.

The Kildi man shifted. “She didn’t ask. I thought it might be better explained by you.”

“I don’t understand.” Nisha looked from the healer to her uncle and back again. “Is it broken?”

Isita sat back on her heels and sighed. “Nisha, the boulder that fell on you landed right on your feet. Another stone protected your left foot, and it’s merely bruised. But your right foot is a different tale.” She shook her head. “You can thank the Ancestors that your foot wasn’t crushed. As it is, your right ankle and your right heel are both broken. I set the ankle and stopped the infection, but I couldn’t completely set your heel.”

Nisha stared at the healer for so long that her eyes stung. She’d spent enough time at the House of Jade to know that even the best healers couldn’t do much for a broken heel. She wouldn’t be able to put weight on her foot for at least a season. No more running or dancing or fighting. Even when it healed, she might have a limp for the rest of her life.

No one would want her now. Not as an apprentice, not as an assistant.

Maybe not as a wife. The thought of losing Devan when she’d only just recognized her feelings for him sent a pain through Nisha deeper than the one in her foot.

Isita touched her shoulder. Stefan had slipped away, leaving Nisha and the healer alone. Her smile had faded a little, and in her eyes was a sadness that Nisha didn’t understand.

“I knew your parents. They did me a great service once.” She touched Nisha’s leg just above the cast. “I would give much to be able to mend this, but I can’t. I can relieve your pain, though.”

The woman’s fingers were light on Nisha’s skin.