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The hour was not yet late, but the Queen had taken advantage of a brief lull to retire to her rooms and rest. The palace around her hummed like a contented beehive, busy with the preparations for tomorrow’s festivities. But, for a few minutes at least, no one seemed to require Reim’s personal attention. It was good to have this moment to herself, away from the cacophony of noise and scent and bustle that had taken over the palace. Lately she had found herself feeling restless, poised on the cusp of change as she was, and though it was not worry that kept her awake at night Reim found nonetheless that her thoughts were too unquiet to permit easy sleep.
Her window was open. Reim followed the noise of the city, the cool breeze against her face with its faint flavour of salt beneath the other city smells. Her window seat was lush brocade, luxuriously detailed beneath her fingertips. She was told it was purple, though that description held little meaning for Reim beyond that it was the colour - albeit not the shade - that she and her brother shared. More pertinent were the patches her hands had worn smooth with habit, the tiny tactile stories told by threads against her skin.
She leaned her head against the cool frame of the window. The breeze tugged at the wisps of hair escaping from her braids, wound in a coronet about her head. Somewhere in the streets below, someone was baking; the air was sweet with the scents of honeycake, cinnamon-spiced apples, caramelised sugars. Reim breathed it all in and felt her muscles unwind.
Her city had been through a lot in the past year. There had been changes, some more subtle than others, and yet although changed Valnon remained entirely itself. It was more as though Willim’s Song had stripped away the chaff, excavated something shining and strong in her city that had been previously entangled in all the loss and fear engendered by war. People had been reminded again of the song that resonated at Valnon’s heart, the song that Reim still felt echoing in her bones.
The soft, deliberate chiming of bells called Reim’s attention. The sound came from her hallway, still some twenty paces from the door. It was a courtesy, as though Reim could have missed the quiet padding of soft slippers against the hall rug, the shushing sound of fabric catching against fabric coming closer. A clinking sound, bangles sliding down a wrist and catching, clattering, against the curve of a forearm, and then a quiet knock. It was done with the middle knuckles, not the base knuckles, light enough to suggest some measure of hesitation on the part of her visitor.
Not Nilan, Reim thought. Nor Jerdon, although she had half-expected him. Nor was it one of her maids, not with that chiming jewellery and its calculated sounding.
She touched her fingers to her lips, found herself smiling, and called, “Come in.” The door swung open and Reim smelled the ghost of lemons and patchouli, too faint to be anything but borrowed. She turned her head slightly.
“Rekbah,” she said. There was no question there.
Another soft chime of bells and fabric swishing against itself - a curtsey. “Your Highness,” Rekbah said, and Reim turned more fully towards her, rising to her feet. Rekbah was cat-footed, but the deliberate murmuring of her bells, the slide of her hair over bare shoulders, the tinkling of her bracelets, all served to give the Queen a sense of where she stood, turning the girl into a study of sound. She sensed no urgency in Rekbah, no cause for alarm, only a simmering excitement given tongue by the soft whispering of her belled ankles
“This is an unexpected surprise,” she murmured, warm and without rebuke. She was fond of her physician’s ward. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Your birthday,” said Rekbah, her bracelets clacking against each other as she moved her arms, some extravagant musical gesture. Reim could hear the smile in her voice. “Most of your gifts are arriving tomorrow, Highness,” she added, and Reim felt her move closer, “but this one-” her fingers, warm, brushed Reim’s arm, and the Queen of Valnon raised her hands, palms up, her smile quirking, “-is special.”
It was a box, square-shaped and half a handspan wide, wrapped in cloth that was gauzy and fine to the touch. Reim curled her fingers around it, catching the whisper of Temple incense trapped in the weave. Her heart gave a sudden surge, though she was sure she did not betray it.
“This is not from Jerdon,” she said, sitting back down in her window. She set the box on her knees, moving the fabric aside to explore the carved top of it with her fingers.
“No,” Rekbah agreed. “But he asked me to bring it.”
Reim could feel the eager curiosity radiating from the other girl, but she lingered over the box itself. Following the carvings with her fingers yielded spirals that curved and fell in waves. Perhaps senseless to the eye, Reim thought, but a pleasure to feel.
“There were a lot of sweets being prepared downstairs,” Rekbah observed. She clapped her hands together lightly, bracelets chiming, “It’ll be such a beautiful celebration, Your Highness. Everyone is talking about it.”
“Everyone?” Reim said, fingers finding the delicate catch on the box. She felt the air shift as Rekbah craned forwards, smelled lemons again, faintly, telltale markers of Rekbah sharing Jerdon’s home though they would have been indistinguishable to anyone without Reim’s keen senses.
“The whole city,” Rekbah said, assured. She sounded pleased as a kitchen cat, able to offer these scraps to the Queen. “It will be so good, Your Highness, to have something to celebrate.”
Something to celebrate, Reim thought. They already had that. A Dove who could Sing Down Heaven. But that had been celebrated with hushed, breathless awe, in comparison to which the Queen’s birthday was to be a more human, earthy event, redolent with pastries, music, dancing and revelry.
She had been quite outshone, Reim thought, smiling to herself. She opened the box, and here the scent of cassia and frankincense was stronger. Rekbah drew in her breath, taut with impatience.
Reim’s fingers found cold metal, curving and smooth. It took a moment of two for her to put together the curves and lines into a bracelet, two fingerwidths wide and tight enough that it would fit more like a cuff against her skin.
“Oh,” said Rekbah, softly. “It’s… pretty.”
Disappointment struck a flat note under Rekbah’s tone, unspoken, and Reim guessed that the bracelet had not lived up to Rekbah’s expectations of splendour. She turned it over in her hands, tracing it with careful fingers. It was entirely smooth, even to Reim’s sensitive fingertips. But of course, the very smoothness that made it so sumptuous to Reim’s touch would have made it plain to someone who saw it with their eyes rather than their fingers.
It was with her fingers that she found the inscription on the inside of the bracelet.
At first she missed it, because it wasn’t words she felt with the tips of her fingers. It was music, and it was so lightly embossed it was as though it were whispered against her skin.
Reim imagined what it would sound like, sung out, and knew that her imagination was a pale echo of the true splendour it would hold in the Dove’s hauntingly lovely voice. She held her brother’s gift to her in her hands and felt the echo of its song in her heart, in her bones, a sweet ache in her throat.
“Thank you for bringing this to me,” she said, quietly.
Tomorrow she would receive a lot of gifts. Formal, elaborate, beautiful things. She was grateful to Jerdon for having the foresight to have this one brought to her privately.
Rekbah cleared her throat, in a way that made Reim suddenly aware of her expression. “You’re welcome,” said the girl, a trifle awkwardly. “Would you- do you want me to-?”
“Please,” Reim said. She slid the bracelet around her wrist and held it out, so that Rekbah could fasten the clasp. Her hands were warm and quick, her fingers light.
“There,” she said, sounding satisfied. Whatever Rekbah had initially thought of the gift, she was evidently pleased by Reim’s reaction to it. Reim had no doubt this would be conveyed to the Temple in short order, but she would give her own thanks privately.
They spoke briefly after that. Rekbah had news of the Temple, and Jerdon’s most recent travels, which Rekbah was under pains not to share as Jerdon wished to share his stories with the Queen himself during their next visit. This didn’t, however, stop Rekbah from sharing choice details which Reim was sure Jerdon would have omitted in his own telling to the Queen.
Throughout, she was conscious of the bracelet cool against her wrist. Willim’s song lay against Reim’s pulse, against the steady beat of her heart.
The Dove of Valnon had done a lot for their city. And with it, Reim had gained a brother and so much more.
When Rekbah took her leave, bells murmuring, Reim leaned her head sideways against her window, thinking of what gift she could give Willim in turn.
Below, her city murmured with life, its song ebbing and flowing and as ceaseless as the sea.