Matabar. Book II. Chapter 3 - Pillows and talks

Ardi watched the chimneys of No. 17 on Stonemasons’ Street draw slowly closer, brick by familiar brick. The last—and, in truth, the first—time he had seen the house was in winter, when it appeared as a big, roomy, three‑storey dwelling, warm to the eye, with a broad yard. Back then, the smaller touches—along with the garden—had been hidden from view. Now Ardi could read the details as plainly as letters on a page.

He saw that the carved pine columns holding up the porch had been shaped into great pine‑cones—amusing and anything but ordinary. Apparently the architect had been given leave to experiment. The garage awning drooped like a shaggy eyebrow, so massive and just a little out of place did it seem, and the gates, secured by a broad bar, now flaunted ornate, chromed brackets that gleamed with boastful pride.

The double‑glazed windows stood flung wide, and the wind toyed with the sheer, weightless voile, puffing it into the street as though inviting it out for a stroll. The chimneys of the separate line of fireplaces remained mute, which was hardly surprising.

The white walls had already acquired patterns of ivy—and the scars of a perpetual struggle against it. As for the little garden, despite the handiwork of an operative of the Second Chancery, it looked well‑kept: a handful of cherry trees, a pair of apple trees, and modest flowers thinned by a dog‑rose bush and a bush of red roses.

The window‑sills were colored—made of red brick. Mother had always dreamed of such things. Back in Kavest, her native village, they often coated them with stain, dyeing the wood a deep crimson, and Shaie had grown used to it. Alas, for a matabar’s nose the stain spoiled the scent, locking in a choking odor for years, so Father had seldom made use of it.

“Ardi.”

He turned at the sound of Tess’s voice. She sat beside him, squeezing his hand. Her green eyes had a slight sparkle, and her soft smile was far warmer than the cool light of the stars scattered across the sky.

“I’ll stop a bit early,” said Sergeant Kralis as he pressed the brake and pulled over by the curb at the corner.

He was the first to step out of the car and opened the door for Tess. At once the night—hissing with mountain winds—burst into this new domain and ruffled her fiery hair. With a soft, fluid motion, Tess smoothed back the loose strands. At that sight, for some unfathomable reason, Ardi felt lighter at heart.

The young man slipped out onto the street and helped his companion out, then fetched her traveling bag from the trunk along with his own satchel. Tess carried the staff.

“See you, ” the Gardener said curtly. Ducking back into the car, he turned it around and sped off toward the city.

Ardan, lingering on the corner, stared at the tall structure looming over the low, meter-high fence. Tess stood beside him. For a while they regarded the house in silence. Or rather—Ardi regarded it. As for Tess... she was simply standing by his side. She was like a support pillar for the porch awning itself: beautiful, serene, and the sort of presence without which that awning would surely have come crashing down.

“Everything will be fine,” she whispered, squeezing Ardi’s forearm.

And he… he didn’t know what to say to her. He was about to bring someone he loved into his home. As loud or crude as such a declaration might sound, he could admit it to himself. But this was his person. And he was presenting everyone else with the simple fact of her arrival. What if… what if…?

Then Ardi remembered the look in Tess’s eyes when she gazed north, in the direction of Shamtur. She had probably been plagued by the very same thoughts.

Humans...

For animal packs, as for the matabar, everything was much simpler. But at the same time, for some still unclear reason, it felt to Ardi that with humans, though it was more complicated, it was... more right.

“My mother, brother, and the others don’t know that I work at the Black House.”

Tess nodded. “I figured as much.”

“And they don’t know about the Gardener either.”

“I guessed that too, Ardi the wizard.”

Ardan looked at his companion. She was still smiling warmly, as if she were talking to a small creature that might at any moment turn away from her and bolt back into the woods. Perhaps that was how she saw him?

Ardi could have found out what Tess was really thinking. All he had to do was let the Witch’s Gaze brush against her mind. But that would have spelled the end of their relationship. Not because Tess would find out—no, Ardan could ensure she never realized it. No. That wasn’t it. The problem was that Ardan himself would know.

Within that nuance seemed to lie some very important details about himself and the two of them, but Ardi didn’t yet grasp exactly what they were.

“We can stay out here and enjoy the air a little longer, Ardi,” ess said softly, not saying anything directly, but letting him know he could take as much time as he needed.

“No, he already knows we’re here.”

“Who?”

Ardan felt the strong ropes that had long ago bound his heart tighten and begin to sing like the strings of a musical instrument. His brother was nearby.

“Erti.” For the first time in a long while, Ardan felt his lips form a carefree, almost boyish smile.

Tess nodded and together they walked arm in arm to the gate. There, through the wide-open wicket gate, stood Erti. He was dressed lightly and barefoot, his toes digging into the freshly mown, well-tended grass of the lawn.

He had hardly grown taller in the past half-year, but he had grown considerably broader. No one in their right mind could have taken Ardan’s younger brother for twelve years old. Sixteen, more likely—and even then, only if he’d spent most of those years engaged in hard physical labor and supplemented it with an abundance of red meat. There was simply no other way to explain Erti's massive physique. By human reckoning, he was still just a boy.

Yet here he was: nearly a meter ninety tall, weighing about eighty kilograms, with calloused knuckles, a wild light in his keen eyes, and an utterly mad grin.

Even Tess was momentarily stunned, faltering mid-step. She had clearly expected to see a “younger, twelve-year-old brother,” not this monstrosity.

Ardi and Erti sized each other up with appraising looks.

“You’ve turned into a dried sabre carp,” Ardi said.

“And you into a bloated barrel of that same sabre carp,” Erti replied.

Erti grinned and, without a care in the world, literally leapt outside the gate and clamped onto his brother in a bear hug of steel.

let his satchel drop, holding only his fiancée’s bag, and pulled his brother close. Once again, just as six months ago, he felt peace and tranquility. It was as if a part of himself—one he’d grown accustomed to not thinking about, only occasionally missing—was with him again, right by his side.

“You and I, brother,” Ardan whispered in the language of their forebears. “One pack.”

“You and I. Pack we are,” Erti replied in that same clumsy, broken matabar tongue.

They stood like that for a few seconds before pulling apart. Erti immediately scooped up his brother’s valise from the ground, doing so so nimbly and effortlessly that Ardan once again doubted Grandfather's meaning of "sleeping blood."

In any case, Erti looked like anything but a normal human child.

“Miss Orman,” he said in an extremely grown-up tone, which only made it sound all the more comical.

Ah, well. No matter how his younger brother looked, he was still a child.

“May I call you by your first name?” he asked, puffing up like a turkey. Standing more than a head taller than Tess herself, with shoulders so broad that Shaia had to extend his jackets for him, Erti looked about as comical as one could possibly imagine.

“Of course, Ert,” Tess said, barely holding back a kind laugh. “And may I call you Erti? Or do only your friends call you that?”

Erti didn’t catch the joke and immediately deflated. “Don’t you want to consider me a friend?” he asked, looking as if his whole world had just been turned upside down.

“Of course I do,” Tess hurried to reassure him. Rising up on tiptoe, she reached out and ruffled his chestnut hair.

Apparently, she had also forgotten for a moment that the person in front of her wasn't an adult—or possibly even human.

“Erm, well… good then… I gues…” Erti lit up again, shining as brightly as a New Year’s tree. “Give me… give me this weakling’s stick. Or do you think he can’t walk without it?”

Tess gave Ardi an amused, ironic glance. “I think he’ll manage.”

“Yeah? I doubt that. You probably have to force-feed him.”

“Sometimes,” she smiled. “But usually your brother manages that on his own.”

“Seriously? I remember when we were kids…” Taking the staff from Tess, Erti led his brother’s fiancé toward the house. With the satchel in his other hand, he walked behind them. Ardi felt warmth spreading through his chest—so cozy and thick, like a childhood blanket.

He watched his brother merrily chattering with Tess, and how she laughed, looking neither nervous nor troubled by the fact that beside her was someone just as strange and abnormal as her own fiancé.

“…and Mother literally had to remind Ardi to tear himself away from his books and finally eat,” Erti was saying as they climbed onto the porch.

“Yes,” Tess nodded. “That I can believe.”

Erti hadn’t even managed to touch the door handle when the silent, well-oiled hinges turned and the door swung open, revealing a spacious hall. On the threshold stood their mother, Shaia.

In the past six months she had hardly changed at all. She still looked refreshed and rejuvenated. Her wrinkles were smoothed, and her hair was restored to its original color and thickness. There were just a few new creases at the corners of her eyes and lips. Very tiny ones, yet still enough to remind one that Shaia would turn thirty-seven this year. In just three years, from the standpoint of the state bureaucracy, Shaia would be classified as an elderly citizen, with all the attendant privileges and restrictions.

No matter how much the calm, steady life in Delpas had improved her physical condition, she was aging. Irreversibly and inexorably.

Something cold and barbed sliced through his warm cocoon and stabbed at his heart for an instant, but he pushed the feeling away, not allowing it to spoil this long-awaited reunion.

Tess dipped into an elegant curtsy. “Mrs. Brian,” she said with genuine respect.

Their eyes—Tess’s and Shaia’s—met for just an instant. In that moment Ardi understood with perfect clarity what Tess had meant when she said that his communication with animals looked strange to her.

The way their mother and the green-eyed singer communicated now was just as strange to Erti and Ardi. They didn't utter a word, nor did they make a sound. They gave no outward sign of emotion through expression or gesture. They simply met each other’s gaze. For a fraction of a second. In that moment, they said as much as only two women who love differently but the same man can say.

If before that exchange of glances there had stood on the porch two women unfamiliar with each other, then after it...

“Miss Orman,” Shaia said, with a warm, motherly kindness she had never extended to anyone outside the family before.

“If it's more comfortable for you, just call me Tess,” answered the young woman, whose tone had shifted from respectful to warmly affectionate.

Erti and Ardi exchanged glances and breathed out in relief.

Everything was alright.

“Come in, come in now, it’s already night out,” Shaia waved them inside.

As soon as the door closed behind Ardi, he set his travel bag on the floor, took a few steps forward, and embraced his mother. He held her gently, trying to hold back his strength so as not to break her delicate bones or crush her in his surge of emotion. Still he hugged her tightly, as if he wanted to take with him everything he had missed over the past six months.

Shaia returned the hug in full.

Now, Ardi understood why, in his great-grandfather’s stories, the difference between a mother’s embrace and the embrace of one’s beloved was emphasized so much. It might seem like the same gesture, but it was so different. Completely different.

She smelled just as she always had—of flour and blackberries. Of home. A parent’s home. It was his very first home, from before he found another, one that still remained to be built and protected.

Perhaps this is what growing up is, huh? When a mother’s embrace becomes something you begin to yearn for, once you realize how different it is from everything else the world so brazenly throws in your face.

Ardi was about to say something when a small anomaly collided with his leg. It bore no kennel number or label marking it as an especially dangerous creature, yet it was just as irrepressible as ever.

“Where. Is. My. Toy?!” Kena piped, enunciating each word as she pressed her head against her brother’s waist. “Where. Is. My. Bear?! You. Fanged. One!”

If anyone had grown over the half-year, it was Kena. Thank the Sleeping Spirits, though, that she had grown only as much as an ordinary human girl should. Next to her brothers, that made her look utterly comical.

Yes, they truly had a strange family.

“I’m happy to see you too,” Ardan said with a smile. Bending down, he unbuckled his satchel and pulled out a package wrapped in sturdy brown paper and tied with twine. “Here—”

He didn't even finish before Kena snatched the present from his hands. Plopping down on the floor, she furrowed her brow, setting to work untying the knots with the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth.

Ardan sighed inwardly. She bit the tip of her tongue exactly the same way he did. Or rather, just like their mother, of whom Kena remained a spitting image without the slightest intention of changing. That brought on that cold prick of feeling again, which Ardi mentally pushed away as far as possible, just as he had a few minutes before.

“Big guy, for your information, you can show up on the doorstep not only at night or in winter, but at a normal, decent hour too.”

Kelly… well, now here was someone who had changed more than anyone else in six months. He had simply... filled out. By several sizes. Not only around the waist, but all over. The sharpness and roughness of the Evergale sheriff had disappeared, hidden beneath the gentleness—albeit spiced with a bit of gruff language—of a cadet corps instructor.

And Kelly had also started balding. His forehead was growing higher and higher, aiming to take on the shape of a half-moon as it framed thinning hair.

“Oh, I think I know where all this came from,” the ex-sheriff said, patting his stomach. “Must be the goodies you mailed us along with those letters.”

Ardan shrugged and was the first to extend his hand. Kelly snorted and returned a firm handshake.

“Good to see you, big guy.”

Ardan was surprised to find that he meant it. “Good to see you too, Sheriff,” he replied.

Kelly snorted again, then turned to Tess. “Miss Orman, if you'll allow me, I'd like to invite you into our not-so-humble abode. Forgive us—we haven’t entertained a baroness before, so if anything isn’t quite right, just say the word.”

“Mr. Brian,” Tess replied with another curtsy. “Thank you so much for agreeing to have me. Mrs. Brian,” she turned to Shaia, “your home is just incredibly cozy and your garden is so beautiful. I can smell that a late supper is cooking in the kitchen... Please forgive us if our delay kept you waiting. Mrs. Brian, if I can help with anything in the kitchen or dining room, just give me a couple minutes to shake off the road dust and I’ll be at your complete disposal.”

Shaia and Kelly exchanged a glance.

“What did she ever see in that oaf with fangs? He can’t talk all pretty and smart like that,” Kena said, giving voice to what they were all thinking, as she finally conquered the knot. “Whoa! It really is a bear! So soft! Like a cloud!”

Kena’s carefree delight in her new toy, coupled with that first remark of hers, made everyone present smile and laugh. Ardi felt Tess’s cold fingers—which had been gripping his forearm like a drowning person clutching a rope—gradually grow warm and relax.

Yes. Definitely. He wasn’t the only one who had been anxious.

***

Ardi stroked her loose, copper‑red hair, letting the strands slip between his fingers so they streamed over his wrist like silk—like flame stilled, tangled and strewn across the pillows.

Of course neither Mother nor Kelly would tolerate an unmarried man and an unwed woman sharing the same room—let alone the same bed—beneath their roof. Any finer points—the fact that the two had travelled here in the same sleeper compartment or had long shared a single flat in the Metropolis—were, predictably, of no concern to them.

What happened there was there; what happened here was here. Number Seventeen on Stonemasons’ Street belonged to Shaie and Kelly: their house, their rules, their cadence of life. Ardi and Tess respected that—respected it enough to pass this night together not openly, but in secret.

When the welcome dinner, bright with laughter and stories, finally drew to its close, Ardi wrapped himself in the darkness and, noiseless as mist, slipped into the guest room where Tess had been lodged.

“They seem so close,” Tess whispered.

She lay with her head on his shoulder, back turned to her fiancé and facing the window, pressing her entire body against him, her eyes never leaving the window. Dawn was glimmering outside again. Once more, it flooded the eternally white peaks of the Alcade Range with molten gold.

“I know it’s a trick of the eyes,” the girl continued in a quiet whisper. “The bigger the mountains, the nearer they appear. But still...” She trailed off for a moment. “How long would it take us to get there?”

Ardi breathed in the scent of spring flowers blooming by a brook, hardly thinking about anything at all. When he held Tess, he felt a pleasant emptiness in his head. It was not a fatiguing or suffocating absence of thought, but rather a cool, sobering clarity that allowed him to rest from everything happening in the outside world. It was a world that felt strange and seemed utterly out of place. And very distant, too. It was somewhere out there, far away. To reenter it, he would have to cross the threshold of their room. He had no desire to do that.

“Ten days on horseback, at the same pace we came here,” Ardi answered. “Or two to three days by train, depending on whether it’s a new engine or an old one.”

“So six days to go there and back,” Tess sighed. “We won’t have time.”

“We won’t,” Ardi agreed.

She nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder, like a cat getting comfortable. Ardi breathed in the fragrance of her hair and ran his fingers through it while holding his fiancée. The same old, simple ring gleamed darkly on her finger. Tess wasn’t bothered by the plain design, the cheap metal, or the missing stone from its cracked, crumbling setting.

“And how do you say ‘mountains’ in the Matabar language?” she asked.

“All mountains or Alcade?”

She gave a little shrug. “Both.”

Scenes from the past flashed through Ardi’s mind, of Atta’nha teaching him to read scrolls in different languages, translating them into the Matabar tongue, the very first language she had taught her pupil. By the Sleeping Spirits, how much the she-wolf had managed to teach him in just six years.

“Mountains are ant’ae, and Alcade is Antareman, though that word was borrowed from the Fae language.”

“And how about ‘sky’?”

“Sky is lishaer.”

“Lishaer,” Tess repeated. “It sounds very... you know, like the burbling of water. Sometimes hissing softly, sometimes rumbling loud.”

“That’s exactly right,” Ardi said, placing a gentle kiss on the crown of her flame-red hair. “It’s because of how the Matabar language formed. The sky is reflected in water.”

“Language formed... tell me, please,” she snuffled cutely into the crook of his elbow. “I love it when you talk about things like that.”

Ardan traced his fingers along her back, barely touching her skin. The girl arched like a bow, clinging tightly to his arm.

“All languages, except the Fae tongue, form as conceptual descriptions of the surrounding reality, ” he continued, running his palm lower than decency permitted. “That’s why the first languages are logographic.”

“Logo...graphic... meaning... how?” Tess asked breathily.

“Written symbols used to represent a whole word—a concept. Then, over the course of natural evolution, people began to shorten them inadvertently. First to syllables, then to sounds, which are now known as letters.”

She rolled over onto her other side and ran a hand through his hair. She was so close he could feel her breath on his face. Her pupils had widened, nearly eclipsing the emerald of her irises, and Ardi kept falling and falling into that dark, which wasn't frightening at all..

“Continue,” she breathed.

“The Matabar language, like the tongue of the northern elves, is imitative, not semantic. It imitates the sounds of nature, and so it has no logographic script of its own. There’s no sense in inventing a separate symbol for natural phenomena,” Ardi went on. He could feel her hands on his torso, yet he still couldn’t pull his gaze from her eyes. “The northern elves eventually adopted the writing system of the wood elves who lived on the border of what are now Fatia and the Empire, whereas the Matabar turned to cave painting and—”

“I didn’t mean that kind of ‘continue,’” Tess interrupted, and pressed her lips to his in a kiss.

He drew her closer and…

There was a knock at the door.

The engaged couple froze, still entwined in each other’s arms, both hoping they had imagined it. As if no one in this far-off world was actually hurrying to disturb their small, secluded corner, which held only the scent of the steppe drifting on the breeze through the open window, and their still rumpled sheets.

But the knock came again.

“Ardi,” Erti’s voice sounded from the corridor. It was hesitant and clearly uncomfortable. “Mother wants you downstairs to help chop meat. Dad’s drawing water from the well. Something’s up with the generator. The plumbing’s dead.”

Ardi and Tess exchanged looks, each barely holding back a bout of foolish, nervous laughter.

“Erti, dear, you’ve got the wrong room,” Tess called out, striving to keep her tone as neutral as possible.

From the sound of it, Ardi could tell that Erti was shuffling from foot to foot, wanting nothing more than to race back down the stairs. “I can smell him behind the door, Tess,” he said, and Ardi could practically see his brother’s face glowing scarlet. “And also your… your room, Tess, is directly below our parents’ bedroom. And… you two aren’t very quiet. And… Eternal Angels! Enough! I’m going downstairs!”

He shot off down the corridor, his heavy work boots pounding out in a rapid drumbeat over the groaning steps of the staircase.

Tess slowly turned splotchy red, like a boiled beet. Ardi saw in the reflection of her eyes that the very same blotches were spreading over his own face.

“Oh, Face of Light,” she groaned, burying her face in the pillow. “What a disgrace... what a disgrace...”

Ardi, like a fish tossed ashore, silently gulped for air.

“Can you erase everyone’s memory?” came her muffled moan from somewhere in the depths of the pillow.

“Possibly... probably... theoretically... maybe I could think of something, but...”

“Oh, Face of Light... it's better if you just go downstairs. Let me die of shame in peace up here.”

“And where am I supposed to die of shame?”

“Downstairs!”

She pushed him out of the bed, then quickly wrapped herself in the blanket, from within which panicked prayers to the Face of Light continued to issue forth—halting and disjointed, since Tess didn’t know them by heart.

Realizing he’d have to take the full brunt, Ardi grabbed the clothing strewn on the floor, threw it on haphazardly in front of the mirror, and slipped out the door. On the stairs he remembered his hair and tried to smooth it down. Without wax, though, it looked as it always did—so wavy that it was practically curly and tousled like the fur of an exhausted snow leopard after a long trek on mountain paths.

How could he have forgotten that one of the two guest rooms on the second floor was directly beneath his mother’s and her husband’s bedroom?

Oh, Sleeping Spirits...

Downstairs in the foyer, little Kena was sprawled on the carpet, playing with her new friend, whom she had named Guta. This initially puzzled Ardi, but then he learned that Erti had told his sister about the talking wooden toys that her older brother used to chat with in childhood. Shaia had told Erti about them.

Funny how things come full circle.

And yes, Ardi was doing his best to distract himself from what had just happened.

In the spacious kitchen, separated from the dining area by a prep table, Shaia was already hard at work wearing a house dress with a gray apron on over it. The oven exuded the savory aroma of rabbit roast; on the stove, pots were chugging as they came to a boil for soup and porridge. Judging by the ingredients on the cutting boards, Shaia was planning to make a wild boar soup and bran porridge.

Back in Evergale they could never have imagined having so many different hearty meat dishes cooking at once. With such a variety of ingredients to boot. Not to mention that off to the side stood a massive, bulging thing resembling a metal barrel—the genuine refrigerator. It was currently standing wide open and empty.

“Kelly moved the perishables to the ice cellar in the basement a few hours ago,” Shaia said, pausing in her chopping of a bunch of dill and cilantro. She lifted her gaze to Ardi—a gaze that was far from kind, in fact it was distinctly angry. “Should I mention that the wind howled so loudly through the chimney system last night that we didn’t exactly get a good night’s sleep?”

“I... I... I...”

“Ardi,” Shaia set aside the knife and picked up a rolling pin. “See this?”

“I-I see it,” Ardan stuttered.

Sometimes, in this gentle, calm, ever-smiling woman, one could still glimpse the wife of an Alcade ranger who at any given moment was ready to swing a rifle onto her shoulder, or grab an axe and start chopping in the direction where wolves were growling in the woods as they gathered to visit their henhouse.

Yes, now, after so many years, that young woman almost never showed herself, but still...

“If not for your great-grandfather’s ring on her finger, son, this rolling pin would be landing across your back. I very, very much hope my hint is perfectly clear and that you will stop disgracing me, your father, and your great-grandfather,” Shaia drilled him with a fiery look of righteous wrath. “We did not raise you this way.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Good. Now please help me chop the meat.”

Ardi listened hard and sniffed the air, but it seemed Erti had bolted to the yard to help...

“And stop twitching your nose and ears,” Shaia nearly growled. “Your younger brother ran off outside to help Kelly haul water for the day.”

“Oh... oh!” Ardi exclaimed, pointing over his shoulder toward the basement door. “I can take a look at the generator and try to fix the plumbing. It’ll only take a few hours... maybe a day. Yes... by evening I’d probably be done, but—”

“We still have an active insurance policy, and an engineer from the service company will be here in a few hours,” his mother interrupted, frowning even more than before. “So you won’t get to run away from answering for your impudence. Take the cleaver and get to work on the meat.”

Realizing it was useless to argue, Ardi sighed and stepped up to the worktable. He opened a cupboard and pulled out an apron, slipped it over his, and tied it behind his back deftly. Armed with a heavy knife, he took several meaty bones from a bucket of ice.

The soup was made with a bone stock, so he needed to carve off large chunks of meat from the bones. They could be stewed, boiled, or added to porridge. The small bits could be left on. Besides, before putting the big bones into the soup pot, you could chop up smaller bones and boil them for half an hour to make the broth thicker and more nourishing.

Ardi had known that recipe since childhood. Shaia often used it to feed the family. It was cheap and filling. It lasted a long time, too. A perfect one for Evergale.

After roughly ten minutes of working together, Shaia stopped breathing fire and shooting sparks from her eyes. Her breathing leveled out.

“I understand that life in the Metropolis follows very different mores, son, but…” she said gently. “You two aren’t married yet.”

“Yes, Mother.”

For a few more moments, the only sound was their knives tapping against the wooden cutting boards.

“Have you proposed a date yet?”

“We haven’t gone to Shamtur yet and…”

“Eternal Angels, Ardi!” Shaia rolled her eyes—a gesture Ardi had learned over time could mean anything. “You need to set a date before talking to Lord Orman. And propose that date to Tess. You haven’t done that yet?”

Ardan cursed silently in the Fae tongue.

“I... I didn’t know.”

“Oh Face of Light,” Shaia shook her head. “This is my fault... I never told you about these things. Usually a father would, but... Well, it’s good that you and Kelly have at least started talking a bit now... Poor Tess... choose a date and propose it.”

“Yes... thank you, Mother.”

They continued cooking in silence for a while, then began to chat. After about fifteen minutes, Ardi felt the blood gradually leave his face, and his thoughts stopped whirling in feverish chaos. His heart had settled.

Shaia asked about his studies and about life in the Metropolis, and Ardi told her everything he could. In turn, he asked about Erti, Kena, and Kelly.

Kelly had indeed found his calling at the academy. Working with young minds had become a sort of outlet for him and, importantly, he didn’t feel extraneous. He was still doing truly meaningful work and still bringing home more than enough income to support the family.

Kena turned out to be an outgoing girl, one who easily found common ground with her peers. Only once she got into a fight. It was with a boy on the street (since she attended a girls' school for well-to-do or noble families, of which there were hardly any in Delpas). The boy had made a joke about her brother not being entirely human. The mouthy lad ended up with a broken nose, and Kena’s parents were summoned to the city council to address the situation.

Ardi remembered his conversation with Erti last winter and smiled to himself at how off the mark his metaphor from back then had been.

As for Erti, he wasn’t showing any particular success in school, except perhaps in geometry a new academic subject split off from the general math curriculum, though only in larger cities where teachers didn't have to cover multiple subjects. However, Erti earned high praise at the shooting range and in the amateur boxing club, both of which he regularly attended with his friends.

Of course, Shaia knew nothing about what else Ert got up to with his friends in his free time. Ardi planned to ask his younger brother about it in detail to make sure everything was alright. On the other hand, the Gardener would have warned him if something were amiss. Though, given the situation with the orcs, it was unlikely that Sergeant Kralis had given even a passing thought to some juvenile would-be gangsters. Still, Ardi intended to make sure that the “would-be” part never fell away. Neither now nor in the future.

“Son.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I... I find this awkward to bring up,” Shaia set down the knife and sank wearily onto a tall stool. “If your father were alive, he would have had this talk with you himself.”

Ardi felt blood rushing to his face again.

“Mother, maybe we could talk about your garden or...”

“You know that your father and I had no trouble having children,” Shaia had clearly been mustering her courage to broach the subject and wasn't about to give up. “But usually Firstborns and humans do... how shall I put it... encounter difficulties with this. Except, perhaps, in the case of orcs.”

Ardi didn’t mention that he had already heard something similar from Arkar. Nor did he particularly want to bring up his rather close acquaintance with one of the leaders of the Metropolis’s underworld , either.

“But if you two aren't able to conceive for some time, then you should go...” Shaia clearly steeled herself and blurted out, “to the Elder Mother.”

Ardi almost choked. The mere fact that Shaia knew the phrase “Elder Mother” was shocking enough. The Firstborn called a wise-woman healer who attended births and guided young mothers an "Elder Mothers." They were something like a tribal shamans, but with very different duties

“And how do you know about that?”

“Your great-grandfather told me,” Shaia replied. “You were little then, Ardi. Hector could disappear into Alcade for weeks at a time. Your great-grandpa and I would often sit in the kitchen drinking tea, and he would tell me about the life of the Firstborn. I didn’t understand why at the time,, but now it seems to me he did it just in case. So that if anything happened, I could tell you.”

Ardi involuntarily recalled Cassara’s words that Aror always acted in his own peculiar way, but why—no one knew except him.

Had great-grandfather anticipated that there might come a time in Ardan’s life when neither Hector nor he would be around? He had also tried to sever Ard's brotherly bond with Erti, claiming that the younger brother’s blood was sleeping. Although now it was becoming obvious that, at least physiologically, Erti was every inch a matabar half-blood.

Or was all this simply professional bias from being a Second Chancery investigator and, as so often happens, a very simple explanation would soon be found for a seemingly convoluted question?

“There are no matabar Elder Mothers left, but your great-grandfather said that in hard times when your ancestors’ feuds went too far suitable girls from the mountain tribes were sent to train in the steppes with the orcs. You could ask them.”

“We haven’t been thinking about children yet, Mother.”

Shaia gave him a fond and slightly amused look. It was gentle and tactful, yet it regarded him as someone not overly bright. It was the kind of look only a wise woman could give a man.

“You haven’t been thinking about them yet,” Shaia corrected, emphasizing the first word. “But Tess is a woman.”

“She loves to sing,” Ardi tried to steer the conversation away. “And she wants to perform on stage.”

“Women, unlike men, son, can want several things at the same time... Or have you never seen how delighted she is when playing with children?”

Ardi remembered the scene at the ice cream parlor.

“You don’t even need to answer,” his mother headed him off. “And that too, my dear, is something you should take care of.”

Sleeping Spirits... how did Neviy describe adult life?

The thought of his old mate suddenly blew away from Ardi’s mind. Setting down the knife, he turned toward the open window and sniffed the air. Among the smell of diesel from the idling engine of a truck parked at the gate, he picked out a very familiar aroma. The smell of cut grass and ink.

It smelled like...

“Mrs. Brian,” Tess said, averting her eyes as she came down the stairs, still a bit pink with embarrassment. “Can I help you with any household chores?”

“Of course, dear,” Shaia beamed as warmly and graciously as humanly possible. “You can chop—”

“Mother.”

“What, Ardi?”

“And which firm services your generator?”

Shaia was about to answer, then closed her mouth and sighed a little wearily.

Well of course.

How could it be otherwise?

The Bryans’ generator was serviced by the same company where Anna Polskih’s older brother worked. And, judging by the scent, Anna herself was here as well—because it was she who smelled of cut grass and ink.

FROM THE AUTHOR:
Another chapter edited by me. My editor is returning to work, so gradually we’ll start replacing the already published chapters with fully polished versions.
Thank you for the feedback on how the text feels different!
This experiment was very important for me, as I plan to translate another one of my series into English. Unfortunately, the combined volume of the two series is too large for my editor to handle, so I will edit the new series myself.
Thank you again to everyone who responded and shared their thoughts!