An Accident of Stars

course – and what had Saffron been thinking, to go along with
it! Did she even understand what she’d got herself into? Godshit,
thorns and arsegullet all, preserve me from the impetuousness of
children!

But despite herself – despite every frustration and
inconvenience of the last few hours, up to and including being
stuck in a confined space with Yasha – she was grudgingly
impressed by the pair of them. Unwillingly, she recalled her fight
with the matriarch by the side of the Envas road, and the hard
words Yasha had flung at her: Those children saved all our lives,
and ensured we were free to fulfil our purpose. You demean
them; you belittle their competence. And maybe she did, but if
so, it was only because she feared for them.

Abruptly, Matu spoke, his voice eerily conversational given
the silence that preceded it. “I know what it means to sit the
trial. The question is, do they?”

Yasha snorted angrily; the sound was not quite laughter. “Are
you any less ignorant, Matuhasa idi Naha? Belonging to no one,
beloved of no one – what do you know of the Council of
Queens?”

“I know why the Shavaktiin call you the Queen Who
Walked,” he said softly.

For an instant, Yasha tensed. Then her lips twisted – a small
smile, bitter with resignation – and some of the rage went out of
her.“You know nothing,” she repeated. As though in
unconscious mimicry of Gwen, she tipped her head back to the
wall. “Let me tell you a story, Matu, as you esteem them so.
Over star and under ocean, far away yet not so far – that’s how

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you Kenans begin your moon-tales, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Matu, when it became clear that she really did

want an answer. “That’s how a story ought to begin.”
“Consider it begun, then,” said Yasha, and closed her piercing

eyes. “Over star and under ocean, far away yet not so far, in the
sparse, unpeopled plains of Veksh, a girl was born who longed to
sit the Council of Queens. Her life, she felt, was simple and dull,
with no promise or prospect in it to compare with the glory of
power wielded in Ashasa’s name, and no city within a two-day
walk whose sights could equal her dreams of Yevekshasa. Of
course, older and wiser women told her that the Council was
beyond her means. As her mother’s only child, they said, she
ought to learn a useful trade instead – which politics was not –
and take over the family finances, raising her daughters in turn
to serve Ashasa with humility and strength. But the girl was
determined, and where others said no, her own mother said yes.

“Child, she counselled, the strength of the mother is known
by the strength of her daughter. Do not stint your ambitions for
the sake of my heart, but embrace them, so that your strength
might become our strength.

“And so the girl listened, and so she grew. And in due season,
she came to Yevekshasa, sought audience with the Council, and
undertook the necessary tests and rituals for one who was not a
priestess’s daughter to sit the Trial of Queens – which,
eventually, she did. By then, of course, the girl fancied herself a
woman, and so set about proving it through her queenship.”

“Yasha–” Matu attempted.
“Bored already?” Yasha shot back. “And here I thought

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moon-tales were meant to soothe fractious children. But then
you claim to already know the ending. The truth of my life is no
surprise to you.”

“Yasha–”
“They would’ve seen Trishka dead, her magic spent in
Ashasa’s service no matter the cost to her body. I refused to let
them take her. My strength was her strength, I said, and there is
no strength in death. But Ashasa’s Knives were pressuring the
Council; they wanted it bound in law that any child with magic
was theirs to claim. The queens were split, with only a few key
votes undecided. Then Tavma a Ruyun showed the gift too. But
the jahudemet is dangerous. In courting the Knives, Ruyun
pushed her daughter to excel, to garner the power that comes
with acclaim – and in so doing, Tavma’s reach exceeded her
grasp. She lost control of a portal, taking others with her as she
died.
“She was twelve years old; Trishka was only eight. And still
the Knives claimed I owed them my child on the Council’s
behalf, in penance for my pride. Had Tavma had an agemate
with which to train, they said, she never would have been lost.
Ashasa had clearly intended their magic to work in tandem –
why else would two queens have been blessed with such gifted
daughters? Bad enough I’d let a Kenan man father my child; I’d
refused Ashasa’s will, and ought to be ashamed of myself. The
Council sided with Ruyun and the Knives – in sympathy for the
former’s grief, in fear of the latter’s strength – and I was given a
choice: my daughter or my status.
“I chose Trishka and exile. In retaliation, the Council

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confiscated all my lands and chattels, including my horses. They
thought that if we couldn’t ride, we couldn’t leave at all, because
of Trishka’s frailties; that the ignominy would shame me into
surrender. Instead, I took my girl from Veksh on foot; I carried
her from Yevekshasa right to the heart of Karavos. And the
Shavaktiin called me the Queen Who Walked.”

For a long moment, Yasha fell silent. In the strange glow of
the Vekshi lights, the matriarch looked as nakedly human as
Gwen had ever seen her. Her shaved, bowed head, the age-
mottled white of her skin, the flaccid line of her jaw all made her
look soft, as though the iron in her spine had melted. And then
she straightened, her hawk’s stare fixed on Matu, and she was
Yasha once more: irascible, canny and wholly impervious.

“Suppose you were telling the truth, Matuhasa. Suppose I’ve
told you nothing you hadn’t already learned elsewhere.? Repeat
any part of the tale while I yet live, and I swear by the Mother
Sun’s blood, there will be consequences. Do we have an
understanding?”

Slowly, Matu nodded. “We do.”
“Good,” she replied, and as though a switch had been flipped,
she turned fiercely to Gwen. “And you, Gwen Vere – will you
swear to me you knew nothing of Zechalia’s plans?”
Gwen bristled. “If I had done, I’d have stopped her.”
Yasha snorted. “You’d have tried. The girl is stubborn as a
fox, and near as wily, but he Trial of Queens would be beyond
her even with the aid of a competent proxy, which hers is not.
Your Safi might walk and talk like a Vekshi woman, but
underneath she’s an alien. She knows nothing of what she’s

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about to face. They need help.”
“And what do you want me to do about it? Unless you’ve

conjured up some brilliant plan for sprouting wings and escaping
out that window, there’s precious little we can do to help from
here.”

The matriarch stared flatly at her. “All these years spent
among us, and still you’ve barely more sense than the girl. Have
you forgotten the strength of the ilumet?”

“If I thought for a minute you’d trust Kikra–” the Shavaktiin
dreamseer, “–with your secrets, then maybe–”

“Not these Shavaktiin, no. But you and I both know there’s a
more trustworthy option available.” Yasha raised a brow in
pointed invitation.

Gwen’s mouth went dry. Surely not. “I… I don’t know what
you mean.”

Yasha’s expression softened, albeit while retaining her
trademark exasperation. “Motherhood changes more of us than
our bodies, Gwen. After so many years, did you honestly think
me oblivious?”

Now it was Matu’s turn to stare. “You have children?”
“Child,” Gwen rasped. “Just the one. My son.” She forced
herself to swallow. “Louis. He’s a Shavaktiin, a dreamseer.” She
turned her disbelieving gaze back to Yasha. “Though how you
knew that…” She broke off, belatedly realising the absurdity of
asking such a question of a woman she knew to be a spy.
With a certain slow dignity, Yasha said, “Matuhasa is not the
only one of us with a knack for discovering hidden things. You
clearly wished it kept a secret, and so I said nothing. But given

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our current circumstances–” and here her eyes flashed, sharp
and hard, “–I judged our immediate needs to outweigh your
privacy. Do you disagree?”

Almost, Gwen did so on principle. It rankled to think that
Yasha knew of Louis at all – and did that mean she likewise
knew of Jhesa and Naku? Gwen was afraid to ask, lest the
question itself tell Yasha what she didn’t already know, but that
was a problem for another time. Right now, she squared herself
to helping Zech and Saffron and said, “No. I do not.”

Yasha gave a short, pleased nod. “Just so. Here, then, is my
suggestion: sleep. Walk the dreamscape. Your Luy has a gift for
the ilumet: call him to me, and I’ll use him to reach Zechalia.”

“And if I can’t?” Gwen asked, her mouth abruptly dry. “If
my… If I can’t find Louis, or if he can’t find you?”

Yasha’s eyes glittered. “Then Safi a Ellen will surely be dead
by morning.”

Though Mesthani led Saffron and Zech from their cell, she didn’t
stay with them long. Barely a minute later, she handed them
over to a trio of priestesses and disappeared without a word,
leaving the nameless women to lead them further into the mesa,
down and down through endless stone-hewn halls. Before long,
Zech began to slow; her injured leg was clearly causing her pain,
but even when Saffron took her arm, concerned, she shook her
head and carried on, determined. Abruptly, they emerged into a
natural cavern, its round shape made maw-like by a profusion of

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stalactites and stalagmites. The only illumination came from a
type of iridescent slime that covered the stone in places, letting
off an electric blue light that mimicked the burning core of a fire.
At the cavern’s heart was a pool of water, almost perfectly
circular and overhung by two immense, parallel stalactites that
resembled nothing so much as fangs. From time to time, their
tips wept droplets of fluid into the water – like venom, Saffron
thought – and their tiny splashes were magnified as eerie,
discordant echoes. In this strange, sunless place, the priestesses
stripped them both naked – not ungently, but with a calm,
detached reverence that was wholly unsettling – blessed them in
Ashasa’s name, and told them to enter the water. Real fear
blossomed in Saffron then. Being undressed by strangers was
one thing, but after everything that had happened, standing bare
before a trio of matriarchal women felt vastly less threatening
than submerging herself in water whose uniform darkness
betrayed its depth, and which might contain any number of
dangerous things. Almost, she baulked – but then she looked
across at Zech, her eyes drawn of their own accord to the terrible
scar on her leg, and somehow managed to find her courage.

The water was ice cold, the pool so devoid of swallowing’s
that they couldn’t walk in, but had to sit down and slip in like
seals, with nothing to hold them up. Zech shivered and clung to
the edge, unable to kick her legs to support herself. Saffron trod
water, gasping with cold – and then, at the implacable command
of the Vekshi women to go under, go under, deep as you can,
she sucked in air, shut her eyes, and dove. The water closed over
her; pressure pounded her head and lungs, while icy ghost-

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fingers stabbed at the flesh of her wounded hand, and still she
forced herself downwards, denying her fear, compelled by a
stubbornness she hadn’t known was in her. At the furthest limits
of air and strength, she opened her eyes to absolute blackness.
She saw nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing but cold that froze
her flesh and burned her lungs, and in that instant she knew that
if she spun around, she wouldn’t be able to orient herself; that
she could die swimming down instead of up, and be lost to two
worlds forever.

And then she exhaled, and the bubbles of her breath shone
silver in her vision, trailing upwards like a string of guiding stars;
and Saffron kicked and followed them, swimming up and up and
up, compelled by the sudden, desperate fear that she’d swum too
deep, that she couldn’t see the surface – and then she burst free
of it, gasping for air and splashing in the silence of the cavern.

“I’m alive,” she whispered – in English, in Kenan, in Vekshi,
the triple incantation hissing from her lips like a prayer, while
beside her, Zech’s mottled skin shone like quicksilver as the
priestesses pulled her from the pool. Alive, alive, alive. There
were four of them now – the last had arrived while Saffron was
underwater – and two piles of clothes lay folded on the stone.

They dressed in silence; or were dressed, rather, the
priestesses reclothing them as deftly as they’d stripped them.
Though her skin prickled with goosebumps, Saffron no longer
felt the cold. It was as if she’d passed into some altered state, and
as a triple-braided cord of yellow, red and white was bound
around the waist of her undyed cotton shift, her shoulders
inexplicably straightened. Whatever came next, she could handle

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it.
Soon they were being led down again, through endless paths

that honeycombed the mesa’s core. Saffron and Zech exchanged
occasional glances, but didn’t speak. The paths themselves
differed wildly in type and texture, some little more than tunnels
in the raw, rough stone, while others were paved and squared
away, their walls adorned with tiled mosaics or stuccoed paint.
Only their descent remained constant; where the floors were
sloped, they sloped downwards, and the stairs they took went
down as well. The last such flight consisted of broad, steep steps
that took two paces each to cross, descending without deviation.
The roof overhead was curved and smooth, the way lit by globes
of light set in the walls.

Without any warning, the world opened up again, revealing a
cavernous, oblong hall lined with massive columns. Way at the
end was a pair of giant doors, each one flanked by a pedestal
topped with blue-white flames. Three strange queens stood
there, distinguished as such by their crowns and robes. At the
foot of the stairs, their escorting priestesses halted, and without
being told Saffron knew they were meant to walk the rest of the
way themselves.

The queens greeted them each in turn, cupping their hands
to Zech’s cheeks, kissing her forehead, then doing the same to
Saffron. The first queen was so old that her stubbled hair was as
milky as her eyes, but though she was blind, her movements
were sure and quick as a bird’s. The second queen was middle-
aged, round-faced and curvy, but when she gripped Saffron’s
cheeks, the strength of her hands was undeniable. The third

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queen, the youngest, looked to be in her late twenties; the right
side of her face was smooth-skinned, but the left was shiny with
burn scars that extended well past her ear.

“Who sits the Trial of Queens?” the eldest asked.
“Zechalia a Kadeja,” Zech answered.
“And who serves as proxy?”
“Safi a Ellen,” said Saffron, swallowing nervously.
“Come, then,” said the middle-aged queen, “and be tested.”
“In Ashasa’s name,” said the youngest.
“In Ashasa’s name,” Zech echoed, and a heartbeat later,
sensing it was requisite, Saffron copied her. In Ashasa’s name.
Beyond the doors was another cavern, but one that
completely dwarfed the room with the pool. The space was so
big that it might have gone on forever, the rocky walls studded
with glowing crystals, red and gold and white. It took Saffron a
moment longer to realise that the phenomenon was a natural
one: unlike the globes illuminating the higher levels, these
crystals were a native part of the stone. Some few were as large
as the stalactites had been, while others were small as fingernails,
but all of them emitted light, and all of them were beautiful, the
pale rock shining like gold.
“Kneel,” said the eldest queen, and Saffron knelt.
Beside her, also kneeling, Zech shone with a mixture of
determination and courage, unflinching as the second queen tied
a blindfold over her eyes. It was made of plain linen, totally
unremarkable except for its length, unspooling like a ribbon as
she moved to Saffron’s side and bound her eyes in turn with the
opposite end. Saffron’s pulse ticked up at that, though she didn’t

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