#warofshallows posts

#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 010: Diclomatic Business "What do the Dials want from you?" Juva asked. "Admiration, probably." "I asked what they want, not what you are least qualified to receive." Radiv placed a hand over his chest. "That was unnecessarily accurate." Juva gave him a flat look. "Fine," he said. "They say it is a relationship visit." "Diplomatic." "That also." "You know the word?" "I know many words. I don't always let them control me." Juva stood and wrung river water from the edge of her robe. "Dials do not invite Pilas for friendship." "Of course not. They invite us for Piezs, trade advantage, border reassurance, and food in dishes too small for any honest creature." "You make it sound serious." "It is serious. Their tiny food is a cultural wound." "Send someone useful." "They did. Me." "Someone diplomatic." "Again, me." "Someone who will not insult the host within the first hour." Radiv considered this. "Then they have made a poor selection." She started walking along the bank. Radiv followed, pretending the walk had been his idea. "You should come," Radiv said. "I was not invited." "You can be my guest." "You cannot bring the future ruler of Pila Land as luggage." "I bring alarming objects everywhere." Juva kept walking. "If you are going to deal with people who are not Pilas," Radiv said, "you need to see how they lie indoors." "I know how Dials lie." "No. You know how they lie in negotiation halls, where everyone has agreed to wear a useful face. Dial land is different. Even their music can make a lie sound beautiful." Juva slowed. "You said one ruler cannot face what is coming," Radiv said. "You said you see changes before they reach us. Good. Come see them before they reach us." "That is not fair." "No. It is diclomatic." "That is not a word." "It will be after I use it in front of enough ministers." She resumed walking. "What exactly is this visit?" "A reception in the lakeside district. Talks with trade families. A meal with Premier Nita if she wants to look generous. Several conversations in which nobody says what the conversation is for." "They never say?" "Not with words." "Who invited you?" "Nyter." Juva searched the name. "The premier's son?" "Yes." "I have heard he is careless." "He is a Dial. Careless is what they call breathing without a committee." "Radiv." "He is clever," Radiv said. "Too honest when he should not be. He has terrible judgement, which I respect because it often benefits me." "That is your host?" "That is our host, if you come." Juva stopped where the reeds opened and the far bank became visible. Beyond it lay the roads toward other lands, roads Radiv travelled so often that Pila Land sometimes seemed to receive him back in pieces. "You think I need to know him." "I think you need to know everyone who laughs while moving pieces on a board." "And does Nyter move pieces?" Radiv smiled. "No. He knocks them over and calls it honesty." Juva looked toward North Eis one last time. The lives inside it were hidden again behind a single point of brightness. She wondered how many dangers appeared that way from far enough away. "Maybe," she said. Radiv bowed with one arm flung wide, nearly losing balance in the mud. "A glorious beginning to diclomatic success." "Use that word again and I will send you to Dial land in pieces." "Then I shall save it for ministers."

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#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 009: First and Chosen The riverbank returned slowly. Radiv had stopped looking at the water. Juva had stopped looking at him. Both watched North Eis as if the star had been present in the memory and might object to some detail. "You never told me that," Juva said. "You never asked." "I asked about the day I was brought home." "No. You asked the people who enjoyed telling you how impossible you were." Juva accepted that because it was true. Pilas loved the story of her impossible life. They told it in halls, beside fires, and whenever a visitor needed to understand why the next ruler of Pila Land was not to be touched without permission. They always began with Vantack's greatness. They often ended with hers. No one had thought to mention his fear. "Did you hate me?" she asked. Radiv looked offended. "For being small?" "For taking him." He leaned back on his hands. The half-rock shifted beneath them. Neither moved to steady it. "You overestimate your achievements. Vantack was difficult long before you arrived." "Radiv." He sighed. "I hated everyone for a while. That was convenient because I was young and everyone deserved it." "Including me." "Especially you. You were loud, useless and permanently celebrated." Juva nodded. "But no," he said. "I did not hate you for taking him." "Why?" "Because he was not taken." The answer came too quickly to be invented. Radiv rubbed at the drying tattoos along his arm. The patterns had begun to move again, though slowly, as if the memory had tired them. "After the knot, Vantack changed. Everyone knows that. But he did not become less my father. He became worse at ordinary fathering, perhaps. His voice frightened my tutors. He stopped wearing clothes, which made formal meals worse than necessary. He could stand in daylight and still look like a door into a place without daylight." Juva waited. "But when I was afraid, he knew. When I lied, he knew before I finished choosing the lie. When I wanted something foolish, he let me have enough of it to regret myself properly." "That sounds like him." "He did not give you the part of him that belonged to me," Radiv said. "He gave you the part nobody had ever asked him to give." The sentence settled between them. Juva had no answer. Radiv tossed a small stone into the current. The splash was minor, almost polite. "Besides," he said, "if I had wanted to be successor, I would have challenged you years ago." "You did." "That was over the last honey cake." "You screamed succession words." "I was eight. The cake was large. Politics begins somewhere." Juva smiled despite herself. "You were Vantack's first child," she said. "And you were the child he chose." She looked at him. Radiv raised both hands. "Do not make that face. I am not dying of nobility. I enjoy travelling, returning with alarming hair, and allowing important people to underestimate me. It is a balanced life." "Balanced?" "I fall in many directions equally." The stars had fully sharpened. The Tail Moon had not risen, but its coming had begun to pale the eastern sky. Radiv followed her gaze and seemed to remember something. "That reminds me," he said. "What does the moon remind you of?" "Dials." "That is insulting to the moon." "They invited me again." Juva turned back to him. Radiv smiled with deliberate innocence. "Apparently, I am expected in Dial land before the Tail Moon ends."

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I read this and it stayed with me. You might feel the same. #warofshallows

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#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 008: Ranga Becomes Vantack Radiv had seen warriors wounded. He had watched a bull split a rider's leg and seen the rider laugh until the blood made him sleep. Pain among Pilas was rarely quiet. Ranga made no sound. That frightened Radiv more. The brightness between his chest and the infant's body lengthened into threads. They trembled in the air like strands of water pulled upward from a river. No Indev hand guided them. No old song steadied them. They twisted, broke and formed again. Every time they broke, Ranga darkened. At first it was nothing. A shadow under the cheek. A loss of warmth in the hands. Then the colour went from his face as if something behind the skin were drinking it. His tunic became difficult to separate from his body. His hair, his mouth, the lines beside his eyes, all sank into the same deepening black. "Stop him," Tor whispered. Nobody moved. The elder Pila stood with both hands clenched. Later, Radiv would hate her for bringing the basin. Later still, he would understand that she had not wanted cruelty. She had wanted the world to remain a shape she recognised. Ranga reached beyond it with his bare hands. The threads found the infant. Her body jerked once. Radiv stepped forward. "Father." Ranga's eyes opened. For a moment Radiv could still see them. Not clearly. Only two darker places inside the dark that had taken his face. But they were there, and they looked afraid. Not afraid of pain. Afraid the child would not live. The knot tightened. The court changed. Radiv could not explain it then and disliked trying now. It was not light, although everyone saw it. It was not sound, although several Pilas covered their ears. Something passed from Ranga into the infant and became a line neither body could fully own. The infant's chest lifted. Then she cried. The sound was small, furious and wonderfully inconvenient. Ranga fell forward on one hand. The attendants dropped the basin. Stone cracked against stone. The white knife slid across the floor and stopped at Radiv's feet. He did not pick it up. The infant cried again. Ranga lifted her. He had become almost featureless. In the high light of Sky Roof, where every face should have been clear, his body held the blackness of a closed mine. Clothes, mouth and hair had vanished into it. Only his outline remained, impossibly present. "What have you done?" Tor said. The dark figure turned toward him. When Ranga spoke, the voice came from farther away than his body. It entered the floor, the pillars and the bones of everyone who heard it. "I have brought home my daughter." No one answered. Radiv stared at the infant. Her eyes were open now. They did not search the room like ordinary newborn eyes. They looked straight at the black shape that held her, as if she knew the life wrapped around her and had already decided to keep it. The elder Pila lowered herself to one knee. Others followed. Not all at once. Not easily. But one by one the court bent before the blackest Pila anyone had ever seen. Someone whispered the name first. Vantack. Radiv never learned who. Whenever he asked, each witness swore the word had begun elsewhere. It passed through the court until the name Ranga no longer seemed large enough for what stood before them. Ranga held the infant against his chest. Inside his darkness, Juva lived.

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#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 008: Ranga Becomes Vantack Radiv had seen warriors wounded. He had watched a bull split a rider's leg and seen the rider laugh until the blood made him sleep. Pain among Pilas was rarely quiet. Ranga made no sound. That frightened Radiv more. The brightness between his chest and the infant's body lengthened into threads. They trembled in the air like strands of water pulled upward from a river. No Indev hand guided them. No old song steadied them. They twisted, broke and formed again. Every time they broke, Ranga darkened. At first it was nothing. A shadow under the cheek. A loss of warmth in the hands. Then the colour went from his face as if something behind the skin were drinking it. His tunic became difficult to separate from his body. His hair, his mouth, the lines beside his eyes, all sank into the same deepening black. "Stop him," Tor whispered. Nobody moved. The elder Pila stood with both hands clenched. Later, Radiv would hate her for bringing the basin. Later still, he would understand that she had not wanted cruelty. She had wanted the world to remain a shape she recognised. Ranga reached beyond it with his bare hands. The threads found the infant. Her body jerked once. Radiv stepped forward. "Father." Ranga's eyes opened. For a moment Radiv could still see them. Not clearly. Only two darker places inside the dark that had taken his face. But they were there, and they looked afraid. Not afraid of pain. Afraid the child would not live. The knot tightened. The court changed. Radiv could not explain it then and disliked trying now. It was not light, although everyone saw it. It was not sound, although several Pilas covered their ears. Something passed from Ranga into the infant and became a line neither body could fully own. The infant's chest lifted. Then she cried. The sound was small, furious and wonderfully inconvenient. Ranga fell forward on one hand. The attendants dropped the basin. Stone cracked against stone. The white knife slid across the floor and stopped at Radiv's feet. He did not pick it up. The infant cried again. Ranga lifted her. He had become almost featureless. In the high light of Sky Roof, where every face should have been clear, his body held the blackness of a closed mine. Clothes, mouth and hair had vanished into it. Only his outline remained, impossibly present. "What have you done?" Tor said. The dark figure turned toward him. When Ranga spoke, the voice came from farther away than his body. It entered the floor, the pillars and the bones of everyone who heard it. "I have brought home my daughter." No one answered. Radiv stared at the infant. Her eyes were open now. They did not search the room like ordinary newborn eyes. They looked straight at the black shape that held her, as if she knew the life wrapped around her and had already decided to keep it. The elder Pila lowered herself to one knee. Others followed. Not all at once. Not easily. But one by one the court bent before the blackest Pila anyone had ever seen. Someone whispered the name first. Vantack. Radiv never learned who. Whenever he asked, each witness swore the word had begun elsewhere. It passed through the court until the name Ranga no longer seemed large enough for what stood before them. Ranga held the infant against his chest. Inside his darkness, Juva lived.

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#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 007: The Rule of Knots "Make one?" Juva repeated. Radiv nodded. "That is what he said." On the riverbank, the words sounded simple. In Radiv's memory, they struck the court harder than Juva had struck the rock. The elder Pila did not move. Even the attendants holding the basin seemed to forget its weight. "My lord," she said, "a knot is not made by wanting." "Then tell me how it is made." "By Indevs." "And before the Indevs?" No one answered. Radiv had heard of Indevs all his life without seeing one. They came when they chose, carrying infants from places no Pila had entered. They selected a parent, drew a knot from that parent's life and tied the infant to it until the child could sustain a life of its own. The story felt as natural as sunrise or moving water. Pilas did not ask how a law worked when it had held forever. Ranga asked. "If the first knot breaks, why can another not be tied?" "Because the child is shaped by the first life," the elder said. "A second life would not know where to enter. It would tear the child and the new parent apart." "You have seen this?" "It is known." "That is not what I asked." The elder Pila's mouth closed. Radiv remembered a sharp delight. This was the part of his father he had loved most: the way he could hear a sentence pretending to be wisdom and break it open with one question. Another Pila stepped forward. His name was Tor. Radiv remembered him because he always spoke as if the world had personally inconvenienced him. "Even if it could be done," Tor said, "the parent would pay with life. Not warmth. Not strength. Life itself. No Pila would choose such a loss." Ranga looked at him. "What feeling?" Tor hesitated. "The feeling that makes the loss acceptable." Several Pilas looked away. Radiv knew Pilas were not cold, whatever other peoples claimed. They were loyal, proud and devoted in their severe ways. But Indevs chose their children for them. No Pila had ever been required to want a child enough to die for one. Ranga was being required now. "If I try," Ranga said, "will she live?" "If you fail, she dies in pain," the elder said. "She is already dying." "If you succeed, you may die." "May?" "You will die," Tor said. "If not at once, then soon enough." Ranga looked down at the infant. Her skin had taken on a grey stillness. Her small hand had stopped opening. Radiv waited for his father to lower her into the basin. He hated himself later for that. At the time, he simply understood the room. Ranga would resist once more, for honour. Then he would accept the old mercy because rulers were made of laws, and laws were made of decisions no one wished to make again. Instead, Ranga knelt. He set the infant on the floor. Then he placed his right hand over his own chest and his left over the child's heart. "Nobody touch me," he said. Tor laughed once. It came out too high. "You do not know the rite." Ranga closed his eyes. "Then I will learn without a teacher." The court leaned toward him. Radiv saw something move beneath his father's skin. Not blood or muscle. A brightness rising from a depth where no one had permission to reach. Ranga opened his mouth but made no sound. The brightness came out through his palm. For the first time in any story Radiv knew, a Pila began to draw a knot from himself.

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#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 006: The Infant "The ones who had come to end your life," Radiv said. The river moved between them and the far bank as if it had decided not to hear. Juva waited. She had learned long ago that Radiv survived difficult things by talking around them first. If she pushed, he would make a joke. If she struck him, he would make a better one. So she did neither. "I was young," he said. "Old enough to understand fear. Too young to understand why everyone was pretending not to feel it." "Where were you?" "Sky Roof. Lower court. The one with the painted animals that look more intelligent than the ministers." Juva almost smiled. "Ranga had been gone for forty days. Miners had found trouble near the western cuts. A collapse, I think. Or sickness. Nobody told children useful things. They told us to stand straight." "You were never good at either." "I was excellent at looking wrongly grateful." His voice thinned. The memory came slowly, not as a tale he had prepared, but as something folded away for too long. Ranga entered Sky Roof without horns, praise-call or armed announcement. He came through the side arch used by riders, dust on his legs and dried mud to his waist. His travelling cloak was torn. One sleeve hung by threads. In one hand he carried an infant. That was what Radiv remembered first: the size of her. Not crying. No blood that he could see. Only impossibly small against Ranga's palm, wrapped in miner cloth darkened by water and dirt. The court went silent in a way courts were not supposed to go silent. Pilas liked formal silence. It showed discipline. This was everyone reaching the same thought and hating it. Ranga still had his old face then. A broad mouth. Deep-set eyes. Hair bound back with leather. He wore a grey travelling tunic, cracked at the shoulder. Nothing about him looked like Vantack. He looked tired. Then one of the elder Pilas saw what he carried. "My lord," she said, "that child has no knot." Radiv remembered not understanding the horror in her voice. Infants came from Indev hands already tied into a parent's life, already belonging somewhere. A Pila infant without a knot was not only orphaned. It was unfinished. Ranga looked down. "Her parent died in the western cut." "Then she is already dying." "Not yet." The elder glanced at the others. They had a rule ready. Perhaps they had always had it ready. "She will suffer," the elder said. "She is alive." "For days. Perhaps less." The infant shifted inside the cloth. One hand, no larger than two of Radiv's fingers, opened and closed against the air. Radiv stepped forward without meaning to. He had never seen anything so weak. Among Pilas, even weakness usually announced itself with weight. Ranga saw him. For a moment the ruler of Pila Land looked at his son as if asking him to leave. Radiv did not. Two attendants entered carrying a shallow stone basin. Another brought the thin white knife used to end the pain of infants who could not survive. No one rushed. No one wept. Mercy, among Pilas, was often performed with excellent posture. Ranga looked from the basin to the knife. The infant made no sound. "No," he said. The elder bowed her head. "There is no other path." Ranga closed his fingers more carefully around the child. "Then make one." #inkstream

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#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 005: The Second Leader Radiv climbed out of the river and sat on the broken rock. His wet trousers made a defeated sound against the stone. "Let me understand your generous proposal," he said. "You become ruler. I perform the work. You receive the respect. I receive nothing." "You will receive complaints." "How many?" "All of them." "At last, an honour suited to my gifts." Juva sat beside him. The remaining half of the stone tilted under their combined weight, but neither moved. "What do you think will change?" Radiv asked. "I told you. I don't know." "Vantack rules. The borders hold. Dials trade for Piezs. Nevulos keep to their forests. What exactly requires two leaders?" "I did not say two rulers." "No. One ruler and one unpaid worker. A meaningful distinction." Juva watched a dark shape pass across North Eis. It may have been a distant bird. For an instant she saw it as Radiv had seen the world after her touch: not a body, only a boundary around light. "A ruler stands where everyone can see," she said. "That does not mean danger will approach from the front." "If danger has any sense, it'll approach while you're speaking." She nudged his bruised shoulder. He flinched and pretended he had not. "You travel," Juva continued. "You know people I don't. You return with their clothes, their weapons, their hair and half their bad habits." "Only the useful half." "You see what changes beyond Pila Land before it reaches us." "And you see millions of lives inside a star. Between us, we are almost useful." Juva smiled. If Radiv had wanted the throne, Juva would have known how to meet him. Rivalry had rules. It could be watched, answered and defeated. But he had never treated her succession as something stolen from him. He mocked the throne because he did not want it, and mocked himself before anyone could suggest he had not been worthy of it. "You are my elder brother," she said. "You remembered." "I may need you." Radiv's face grew still. Juva could lift him by his hair, throw him through stone and insult every alteration he had purchased across the known lands. Saying she needed him was the one attack for which he had no defence. He looked back at the river. "I still remember the day Vantack brought you home," he said. Juva did not interrupt. "You were tiny. Not ordinary-infant tiny. Tiny even for an infant. He held you in one hand and said, 'Here is your sister,' as if he had found you beside the road." "I know the story." "Not the way I know it." Radiv rubbed the shifting ink along his forearm. The patterns slowed beneath his fingers. "His name was still Ranga then," he said. "He had a face. He wore clothes. And when the others told him what had to be done with you, he looked frightened." Juva turned toward him. She had heard a hundred versions of the day she was given life. None of them had ever said Vantack was afraid. "What others?" Radiv raised his eyes to hers. "The ones who had come to end your life."

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#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 004: Stop Dreaming "I can't see them," Radiv said. "Who?" "All of them. The lives. Whatever they were." Juva rose behind him. "Stand still." Radiv obeyed immediately. That alone nearly made her laugh. He straightened his back and fixed his eyes on North Eis. His hair flattened against his head, dark and motionless. Both hands hung loose at his sides. "Pay complete attention," Juva said. "I am." "Do not move." She stepped away. Radiv waited for her palm. Juva kicked him between the shoulders. He left the bank with his arms still obediently at his sides and struck the river face-first. Water rose in a sheet, briefly erasing the reflected stars. Juva dropped to one knee laughing. By the time Radiv surfaced, she had tears in her eyes. He stumbled through the shallows, hair streaming behind him like red weed. "You told me not to move!" "You moved." "You kicked me into a river." "Then the lesson was accurate." Radiv snatched stones from the water and threw them in rapid succession. Juva knocked each one aside without standing. The final stone she caught and crushed in her fist. "I can't believe you're going to lead Pila Land someday," he shouted. His hair shook itself dry. It settled into a dark red that matched his anger. "At least I am a better choice than you." "If the qualification is having the biggest ass in Pila Land, you're the only choice." "Big ass or tiny brain. Which would you choose?" "You tell me. You have both." Silence held for half a breath. Then Juva laughed again. Radiv tried not to, failed, and sat heavily in the water. The current folded around his waist. Above them the sky deepened from glass-blue to something almost black. North Eis remained bright, but the other stars appeared sharper now. Radiv looked at them without speaking. Juva's laughter faded first. "I can tell you one thing for certain, my big brother." "That you're paying for new trousers?" "One ruler cannot face what is coming." Radiv stopped wringing water from his clothes. The words did not suit the evening. A moment before, the river had held their insults and laughter. Now it seemed to carry the sentence away from them as fast as it could. "What is coming?" Juva looked toward the far bank. She could still feel the lives of North Eis crowded behind its single point of light. "I don't know." "You usually wait until after you know nothing before sounding mysterious." "I am serious." Radiv stood. Water poured from his untearable boots. "Then perhaps Pilas should become choosers like the Dials. We can spend all our time arguing over which leader is least useful." "No." "No to several leaders or no to arguing?" Juva faced him. "I mean you should be ready." "For what?" "To do all the work of a leader without receiving any of its rewards." His smile returned, but not completely. "You always did know how to offer an opportunity."

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#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 003: What Lives in a Star Radiv looked from Juva's face to North Eis. "What am I supposed to see?" "If I tell you, you will only look for that." "That's generally why people tell each other things." Juva crooked one finger. Radiv sighed and came closer, positioning himself just beyond what he believed to be her reach. She stepped behind him. "Stand straight." "You've recently thrown me through a rock. Standing straight is now more ambition than posture." "Pay attention." He raised his head. North Eis shone above the river, larger than the other stars and white at its centre. "I see a bright light," he began. "Round, perhaps, although from here-" Juva placed her palm against his spine. Radiv stopped speaking. The riverbank disappeared. He did not travel through the sky. Distance simply ceased to protect him. North Eis opened. Its white surface separated into lights too numerous to count. Each light contained another, and each of those divided again. Millions of beings arrived in him at once - not their bodies, but the pressure of their living. Hunger. Rest. Fear. Work performed beneath unfamiliar skies. A hand reaching for another hand. A creature dying alone. Something newly born turning toward warmth. He felt lives that lasted a breath and lives that stretched beyond any history he knew. Joy passed through him without belonging to him. So did cruelty. He could not separate one being from the next, yet none of them vanished into the whole. The brightness had darkness inside it. The darkness was alive too. Radiv tried to pull away, but he no longer understood where his back ended and Juva's hand began. His changing hair flashed through colours with no relation to the riverbank: silver, violet, a yellow so pale it was almost sound. Then Juva removed her palm. The world struck him from below. He lay on the ground gasping. Air entered his chest but seemed too small to be useful. Juva knelt and gripped his arm, anchoring him against the spinning earth. "Radiv." He opened his eyes. The river had no colour. Neither did the grass, the rocks or the sky. He saw only their edges traced in radiant white. Juva was a tall boundary filled with light. Behind her drifted forms he could not hold: a black shape, a trembling knot, something that branched into three and vanished before he understood it. He reached toward them. Juva slapped him. Colour returned with the pain. "Stop dreaming," she said. Radiv stared at her. "What was that?" There was no joke waiting in his face. Juva sat back on her heels and waited. "You tell me." "I can't tell you. I don't know what happened." "Then look again." He turned toward the star. His body remained tense, but his expression had changed. He no longer looked as if the sky belonged to anyone who could name it. North Eis was once more a single distant light. That frightened him more than the millions had.

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#warofshallows ## War of Shallows 002: The Cracked Rock Radiv did not move. "Look again," Juva repeated. "I can see it perfectly well from here." "You are frightened." "Of a star?" "Of standing within my reach." He gave her an offended look, then rose with exaggerated dignity. The tattoos covering his arms shifted as his muscles moved, black curves becoming red lines and then settling into a pattern that resembled thorned vines. "I'm frightened of many things," he said. "Your reach is only unpleasant." He took one step toward her. Then, without warning, he struck Juva across the face. The punch knocked her from the river rock. Her wooden shoes dug two trenches through the mud before she stopped. Radiv remained above her, rubbing his knuckles. "Who is the idiot now?" Juva stood. Slowly. She was thirteen feet tall, broad through the shoulders, and dressed in a loose robe the colour of dry red soil. Its hood had fallen back, releasing black hair below her shoulders. Her face was round, dark and weather-burned, its fine lines bright beneath the stars. Nothing about her expression suggested injury. Radiv's smile weakened. "That was a question," he said. Juva stepped onto the rock, caught him by his hair and lifted him clear of the ground. His hair reacted before the rest of him. The green vanished. It bristled like the fur of a cornered animal and darkened to brown. "Juva." "Yes?" "Before you do something unnecessary, remember that I'm the eldest child of the king." "That's what makes it necessary." She threw him. Radiv struck the centre of the stone slab. The crack sounded like a tree splitting in winter. One half of the rock tilted toward the river; the other sank into the bank beneath him. For several breaths he did not move. Juva wiped her palm against her robe. "Does that answer your question?" Radiv rolled onto his back and stared at the sky. "I have several new questions." "Keep them there." He pushed himself upright. He was leaner than most Pilas, and almost nothing he wore came from Pila Land. His trousers were sewn from unfamiliar animal skin. His thin boots bent like cloth but could not be torn. Even his hair had been altered by the Tandens, although Radiv claimed it was an improvement rather than an admission that nature had made a mistake. He examined the broken rock. "You know," he said, "when you become ruler, the land will require rocks." "We will find another." "And brothers?" "One has already proved excessive." Radiv tried to maintain his outrage. A laugh escaped him instead. Juva joined him. Soon they were both laughing beside the ruin of the place where they had intended to sit, their voices carrying over the river until birds lifted from the far reeds. When the laughter passed, Radiv lowered himself onto the half of the rock that remained level. "So," he said, touching the bruise rising beneath his shoulder, "tell me how many stars you can name." Juva remained standing. "It is not important what you name them." "Spoken like someone who knows three." She pointed again to North Eis. "I asked what you see," she said, "not what it is called."

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#WarOfShallows ## War of Shallows 001: North Eis On the evening before the Tail Moon, the sky darkened to an electric blue, translucent as glass. Stars from other worlds remained visible above Pila Land even in daylight, but at this hour they seemed close enough to break loose and fall. Their light gathered in hard, glittering edges. Radiv lay back on the riverbank and studied them with the concentration of someone hoping to be noticed studying them. He raised one arm. "North Eis looks bigger today. Almost as big as one of the Tail Moon's bones." Juva sat beside him on a slab of river rock, trailing the sole of one wooden shoe through the current. The river divided around it. "Since when are you interested in the sky?" "Since always." "That's a very recent always." Radiv lowered his arm and looked at her. His hair had taken the muted green of the grass behind him, although one dark streak remained above his forehead where he had been lying against the earth. "I can name more stars than you can count, you ugly lump of Pila." "Of course you can. Anybody can name stars. Stars are named by idiots and after idiots. You have natural advantages." Juva's laugh crossed the river. It struck the opposite bank and came back thinner, as if someone hidden among the reeds had joined her. Radiv watched her laugh with an expression of patient injury. Juva knew that expression. It usually meant he was planning something childish, violent or both. She turned back to the sky anyway. North Eis did look larger that evening. It occupied a pale space beyond the scattered stars, bright but not sharp, like a light seen through layers of frozen water. To Radiv it was another faraway thing he could tame with a name. Juva could not look at it that way. Even from the riverbank she felt a pressure behind its brightness, an immeasurable gathering she had no words for. Radiv sat up. "You don't even know which one I mean." "I know which one." "Then say its proper name." "North Eis." "That's what I said." "No. You said it like you discovered it." He rubbed his chin and considered this accusation with great seriousness. "Perhaps I did. It may have been waiting all this time for someone qualified to notice it." Juva looked at her brother. He was older than she was and two feet shorter, a fact she considered useful whenever he became pleased with himself. "You noticed a bright object in a dark sky. Vantack will be proud. We should carve the achievement into Sky Roof." Radiv's eyes narrowed. Juva smiled and faced the stars again. "What?" he asked. "Nothing." "You're looking at it strangely." "I am looking at it." "That's what strangely means when you do it." She let the insult pass. Drawing her foot from the river, she watched the last rings travel across the reflected sky. "Come here," she said. Radiv glanced at her hands before moving. "Why?" Juva pointed at North Eis. "Because you have named it. Now look again."

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