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Freedom sSisters
How many magias are there? I asked.
Four. The fourth magia, Sophia, also wanted you alive.
You re well-informed, my mother said, dryly.
Xanthe shrugged, and let slip a hint of a smile. I have always preferred to
know what was going on. Even if I
wasn t supposed to. In a palace ruled by four separate women, nothing stays
truly secret for long.
My mother pursed her lips and looked down at the ground. I wondered if Phile
or Sophia had instructed Xanthe to protect me if that was how she d managed to
slip me out so handily. I looked at her, trying to assess how nervous she was.
From what I d seen of her so far, I couldn t imagine her acting entirely on
her own. But even in the dim cave, I could see that her hands were shaking. If
she d acted on Sophia s orders, or Phile s, why would she be so nervous?
I took one of the plums. I was sick of plums, after the day before yesterday,
but I was also ravenous. I sat down beside Xanthe, leaned against the wall,
and stretched out my legs. Then I ate the plum, sucking pulp and juice away
from the pit. My mother sat down beside me and massaged her forehead with her
fingertips. I stared at the wall, wondering when I d shake loose the last of
the drug.
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I need to keep my eyes on the target. What is the target? Escape. No! My
target is the rivers. I m going to free the rivers. Escaping is just an
important step toward that goal.
I couldn t very well escape with Xanthe right here with us. She d said she d
go out in a few hours, but I couldn t imagine that she d just leave me here.
Ideas for things I could do began to dart in and out of my thoughts like
insects.
Create a distraction. Wait till night. She can t stay awake forever, she has
no one to guard us. Don t escape at all win Xanthe to our side.
She s half joined us already she kept me alive because I m her only link to
her mother. No, Xanthe is nothing but an obstacle; shed her as soon as
possible. Kill her! She s the only thing holding me here. No, I can t kill
her.
She s Janiya s daughter. I could never face Janiya again&
My mother checked the kettle; there was water, but no tea. Just the plums. She
sighed deeply and took some of the plain water. The cave was warm and stuffy,
and smelled like the canal.
Why did you save me? I asked Xanthe.
Xanthe had been staring at the shaft of light that slipped under the edge of
the cave; at the sound of the question she jumped slightly, then folded her
hands and put them in her lap. She looked me over she was back to avoiding my
eyes. Tell me about Janiya, she said.
What do you want to know? I asked.
You said& that she was mean to you, she said.
Well, for a while. But it was for a purpose, not just out of malice.
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isters/Krit_0553902784_oeb_c10_r1.htm (6 of 17)5-1-2007 1:02:07
Freedom sSisters
Tell me, Xanthe said.
I hesitated a moment; my mother was listening, and she was loyal to Kyros, and
Xanthe was a member of the
Sisterhood Guard, even if she d disobeyed orders and done something that might
cause her to be cast out. But there seemed little enough harm in this, and
besides, if I couldn t walk despite my hunger, despite the lingering
sluggishness from the drugs, my body itched to move
I wanted to talk. My hesitation was brief, and then I
started to tell her the whole story: how Kyros had sent me to infiltrate the
Alashi, how Sophos had raped me and
Tamar had escaped when I did, how the eldress had sent us out with a sword
sisterhood, how we d been tested to see if we d learned yet how to be free,
rather than slaves.
For our first test, Janiya woke us early in the morning and told us that we
needed to go out into the desert and hunt for a particular gemstone.
Karenite, in fact, but I decided to leave that part out. Tamar and I went
straight out and spent the morning searching. And we found some, and brought
it back. And do you know what Janiya said to us?
That you failed, my mother said.
How did you know? Did you guess what we did wrong?
I have no idea what you did wrong, she said. But this Janiya She glanced
at Xanthe, sharp-eyed, then back at me. You think you re smart. You think
you re capable. Janiya would ve wanted to slap you down. So of course you
failed! You d have failed no matter what you did.
That s not fair, I said. We failed because we didn t take water with us, or
food. We just headed out without thinking ahead to provide ourselves with what
we d need. If we d asked for water, we would have passed the test.
My mother shook her head stubbornly. If you d asked for water, you d have
failed for some other reason.
That wouldn t have been fair. Janiya was fair.
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Fair? She sent you out to find rocks and failed you for obeying orders.
What s fair about that?
It wasn t a test of whether we could find rocks, I said. It was a test of
whether we could think like free people.
You were a free person, my mother retorted. You were free for your whole
life.
But I wasn t thinking like a free person.
That s an absurd thing to say. Some free people think the way Janiya wants
them to think. But some free people don t, obviously, since you were free and
failed the test anyway.
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