“Try again.”
“Okay. You remind me of a pretty bird, willing to sit on the windowsill as long as nobody comes too close, but prepared to fly away if somebody does. A songbird. Perhaps you’re a singer?”
“You’ve obviously never heard me sing. Are all your guesses going to come with a lengthy discussion of my personality?” I asked.
“No. Now be quiet, I’m trying to think.”
The glow from the festival was growing brighter. I heard the distant buzz of music, animals and people blended together.
“Long, thin fingers. Maybe you’re a member of a spinning team?” Rand guessed.
“What’s a spinning team?”
“Usually there’s one shearer, one carder, one spinner and one weaver in a team. You know, sheep to shawl. The teams race to see who can shear a sheep’s wool and turn it into a garment first. It’s pretty amazing to watch.” Rand studied me for a while. I began to wonder if he had run out of guesses.
“A jockey?”
“Do you really think I could afford to buy a racehorse?” I asked in amazement. Only the very wealthy citizens had horses to race for sport. The military used horses for the transportation of high-ranking officers and advisers only. Everyone else walked.
“People who own racehorses don’t ride them. They hire jockeys. And you’re the perfect size, so stop looking at me like I’m daft.”
As we arrived at the first of the massive multicolored tents, our conversation ceased as we absorbed the frenzied activity and panoramic sights that assaulted us. When I was younger, I used to stand amid the chaos and feast on the energy of the fire festival. I had always thought the name of the festival was perfect, not because it occurred during the hot season, but because the sounds and smells pulsated like heat waves, making my blood sizzle and pop. Now, after spending close to a year in a dungeon, I felt the force slamming into me as though I were a brick wall. A wall whose mortar threatened to crumble from the overload of sensations.
Torches blazed and bonfires burned. We walked into a slice of captured daylight. The performance and competition tents were scattered throughout the festival, with small open stands tucked in and around them like children clinging to their mothers’ skirts. From exotic gems to flyswatters, the merchants sold an array of goods. The aroma of food cooking made my stomach grumble as we passed several barbecue pits, and I regretted having skipped dinner in my haste to get here.
Entertainers, contestants, spectators and laughing children ebbed and flowed around us. Sometimes the press of people hurried us along from behind and sometimes we struggled to go forward. We had lost track of the others. If he hadn’t linked his arm in mine, I probably would have been separated from Rand as well. Distractions peppered the festival. I would have followed the lively music to its source or lingered to watch a skit, but Rand was determined to see the results of the baking contest.
As we moved, I examined faces in the crowd, searching for green-and-black uniforms even though Valek had said Brazell wouldn’t be a threat. I thought it prudent to avoid him and his guards altogether. Unsure of who I was looking for, I watched for unusual faces. It was the wrong way to detect a tail. Valek had taught me that the best agents were unremarkable in appearance and didn’t draw attention to themselves. But I figured if a skilled spy followed me, my chances of spotting him or her was small.
We met up with Porter and Liza in a small tent filled with a sweet aroma that made my stomach ache with hunger. They were talking to a large man in a cook’s uniform, but they stopped when we entered. Surrounding Rand, they congratulated him on his first-place win. The heavy man declared that Rand had broken a festival record by winning five years in a row.
While Rand examined the array of baked goods lining the shelves, I asked the man who had won in Military District 5. I was curious if Brazell’s cook had won with his Criollo recipe. The man’s brow creased with concentration, causing his short, curly black hair to touch his thick eyebrows.
“Bronda won it with a heavenly lemon pie. Why?”
“I thought General Brazell’s chef, Ving, might win. I used to work at the manor.”
“Well, Ving won two years ago with some cream pie and now he enters the same pie each year, hoping it’ll win again.”
I thought it odd that he hadn’t entered his Criollo, but before I could deduce a reason, Rand jubilantly swept us out of the tent. He wanted to buy everyone a glass of wine to celebrate his victory.
We sipped our wine and wandered around the festival. Sammy materialized on occasion from the crowd to report some wonder with great delight, only to rush off again.
Twice I spotted a woman with a serious expression. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun. Wearing the uniform of a hawk mistress, she moved with the grace of someone used to physical exercise. The second time I saw her she was much closer, and I made eye contact. Her almond-shaped, emerald eyes narrowed, staring boldly back at me until I looked away. There was something familiar about her, and it was some time before I figured it out.
She reminded me of the children in Brazell’s care, and was more similar to my own coloring than to the pale ivory complexion of most of the Territory’s people. Her skin was bronze. Not tanned from the sun but a natural pigmentation.
Then our aimless group was snared in a flow of spectators heading into a big red-and-white-striped tent. It was the acrobatics tent, where trampolines, tightropes and floor mats were covered with brightly costumed men and women. They were all trying to pass the qualifying round. I watched as one man performed a beautiful series of flips on the tightrope, only to be disqualified when he fell during his solo tumbling run.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rand watching me. His expression triumphant.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re an acrobat!”
“I was an acrobat.”
Rand waved his hands. “Doesn’t matter. I was right!”
It mattered to me. Reyad had tainted acrobatics. The time when I felt satisfaction and enjoyment from performing was gone, and I couldn’t imagine getting any happiness from it now.
From the benches in the tent, our small kitchen group watched the contestants. Grunts of effort, sweat-soaked costumes and thumping feet made me long for the days when all that worried me was finding time to practice.
Four of us in Brazell’s orphanage had taken up acrobatics. We had scavenged and begged for materials to set up a practice area behind the stables. Our mistakes sent us crashing to the grass until the stable master took pity on our bruised bodies. One day we arrived to find a thick coating of dung-scented straw carpeting our practice area.
Brazell’s teachers had encouraged us to discover something we could excel in. While some found singing or dancing to be their calling, I had been fascinated by the acrobatic displays since my first fire festival.
Despite hours of practice, I failed during the qualifying round at my inaugural competition. The disappointment stabbed my heart, but I healed the ache with resolve. I spent the next year covered with black-and-blue marks, nursing sprains too numerous to count. When the festival returned, I passed the qualifiers and the initial round only to fall off the tightrope in the second. Each year I worked hard and advanced steadily. I won through to the final round the year before Brazell and Reyad claimed me as their laboratory rat.
Brazell and Reyad didn’t allow me to practice acrobatics, but that didn’t stop me from slipping away whenever Reyad was on some mission for his father. What did stop me was getting caught by Reyad a week before the festival, when he arrived home early from a trip. I was concentrating so hard that I failed to notice him astride his horse until I finished my tumbling routine. His expression, a mixture of anger and elation, caused the beads of sweat on my skin