It was traditional for the sovereign and his or her family to enter the sojourn ship first. Or at least, it had been traditional since my grandmother, the first Noavek leader of Shotet, had declared it to be so.
“My hair itches,” I said to my mother, tapping at the tight braids on the side of my head with my fingertip. There were only a few, pulled back and twisted together so my hair wouldn’t fall in my face. “What was wrong with my regular hair?”
My mother smiled at me. She wore a dress made of feathergrass, the stalks crossed over the bodice and extending to frame her face. Otega—my tutor, among other things—had taught me that the Shotet had planted an ocean of feathergrass between us and our enemies, the Thuvhesit, to keep them from invading our land. My mother commemorated that clever act now, with her dress. By design, everything my mother did echoed our history.
“Today,” she told me, “is the first day that most Shotet will lay eyes on you, not to mention the rest of the galaxy. The last thing we want is for them to fixate on your hair. By fixing it up, we make it invisible. Understand?”
I didn’t, but I didn’t press the issue. I was looking at my mother’s hair. It was dark, like mine, but a different texture—hers was so curly it trapped fingers, and mine was just straight enough to escape them.
“The rest of the galaxy?” Technically, I knew how vast the galaxy was, that it held nine significant planets and countless other fringe ones, as well as stations nestled in the unfeeling rock of broken moons, and orbiting ships so large they were like nation-planets unto themselves. But to me, planets still seemed about as large as the house where I had spent most of my life, and no larger.
“Your father authorized the Procession footage to be sent to the general news feed, the one accessed by all Assembly planets,” my mother replied. “Anyone who is curious about our rituals will be watching.”
Even at that age I did not assume that other planets were like ours. I knew we were unique in our pursuit of the current across the galaxy, that our detachment from places and possessions was singular. Of course the other planets were curious about us. Maybe even envious.
The Shotet had been going on the sojourn once a season for as long as our people had existed. Otega had told me once that the sojourn was about tradition, and the scavenge, which came afterward, was about renewal—the past and the future, all in one ritual. But I had heard my father say, bitterly, that we “survived on other planets’ garbage.” My father had a way of stripping things of their beauty.
My father, Lazmet Noavek, walked ahead of us. He was the first to pass through the great gates that separated Noavek manor from the streets of Voa, his hand lifted in greeting. Cheers erupted at the sight of him from the huge, pulsing crowd that had gathered outside our house, so dense I couldn’t see light between the shoulders of the people before us, or hear my own thoughts through the cacophony of cheers. Here in the center of the city of Voa, just streets away from the amphitheater where the arena challenges were held, the streets were clean, the stones under my feet intact. The buildings here were a patchwork of old and new, plain stonework and tall, narrow doors mixed with intricate metalwork and glass. It was an eclectic mixture that was as natural to me as my own body. We knew how to hold the beauty of old things against the beauty of the new, losing nothing from either.
It was my mother, not my father, who drew the loudest cry from the sea of her subjects. She extended her hands to the people who reached for her, brushing their fingertips with her own and smiling. I watched, confused, as eyes teared up at the sight of her alone, as crooning voices sang her name. Ylira, Ylira, Ylira. She plucked a feathergrass stalk from the bottom of her skirt and tucked it behind a little girl’s ear. Ylira, Ylira, Ylira.
I ran ahead to catch up to my brother, Ryzek, who was a full ten seasons older than I was. He wore mock armor—he had not yet earned the armor made from the skin of a slain Armored One, which was a status symbol among our people—and it made him look bulkier than usual, which I suspected was on purpose. My brother was tall, but lean as a ladder.
“Why do they say her name?” I asked Ryzek, stumbling to keep up with him.
“Because they love her,” Ryz said. “Just as we do.”
“But they don’t know her,” I said.
“True,” he acknowledged. “But they believe they do, and sometimes that’s enough.”
My mother’s fingers were stained with paint from touching so many outstretched, decorated hands. I didn’t think I would like to touch so many people at once.
We were flanked by armored soldiers who carved a narrow path for us in the bodies. But really, I didn’t think we needed them—the crowd parted for my father like he was a knife slicing through them. They may not have shouted his name, but they bent their heads to him, guided their eyes away from him. I saw, for the first time, how thin the line was between fear and love, between reverence and adoration. It was drawn between my parents.
“Cyra,” my father said, and I stiffened, almost going still as he turned toward me. He reached for my hand, and I gave it to him, though I didn’t want to. My father was the sort of man a person just obeyed.
Then he swung me into his arms, quick and strong, startling a laugh from me. He held me against his armored side with one arm, like I was weightless. His face was close to mine, smelling of herbs and burnt things, his cheek rough with a beard. My father, Lazmet Noavek, sovereign of Shotet. My mother called him “Laz” when she didn’t think anyone could hear her, and spoke to him in Shotet poetry.