The Foretelling Read Online Free Page A

you happen to blink.
    When my mother knelt to drink from the stream, the slave hurried before her and drew the water for our Queen. She got down on her hands and knees. I heard my mother say,
You don't have to do that. You're free here.
    Instead of asking for a blessing, I crouched beside the rocks. I heard the river rushing as though it was inside my own head. I had never heard such kindness from the Queen, certainly never for me.
    I saw that the swirling things tattooed on the slave's body were snakes; in some places this was the mark of a woman forced to give her body away to men. There were scars down her back and arms, made carefully, purposefully, to bind her to her owner. I could see sorrow all over her. Her name was Penthe — it sounded like a breath when my mother said it.
    My mother didn't turn from the slave's sorrow as she turned away from me. I knew love when I saw it, as clearly as I knew sorrow. Penthe took my mother's hands. There was blood and dirt caked on the Queen's hands, but Penthe kissed them both, at the wrist, in the place where we are tattooed for the very first time.
    I was jealous to see that my mother could love someone.
    Penthe shared the Queen's tent from that first night. If anyone thought it improper for a Queen to lie alongside one who'd been a slave, they didn't dare speak of it.
    I didn't realize until the next morning that Penthe had not come to us alone. Sleeping in that crumpled heap by the side of the Queen's tent was Penthe's daughter, Io. I was sneaking up to hear what went on when two women were in love, when I stumbled upon her. A chalky girl with the same long red hair as her mother. The henna tattoos covered half her face and most of her arms. She was my age, but the tattoos were the mark that she'd been used by men. I had already decided to hate Penthe, and I quickly decided to hate Io as well. Meanness rose inside of me. I thought of the blessing I hadn't gotten from my mother.
    Don't look at me,
I told Io.
    She did not truly understand our language. She stared at me and wouldn't stop.
    Our people had been taught not to get too close to the Queen, out of respect, certainly, but also out of fear. Because I was to be next, people knew to avoid me as well. The girls my age especially had little to do with me, more so since I had become the best rider of all. They got out of my way and that was fine with me. I did as I pleased, alone, the way I liked it. Always alone.
    But Io knew none of this; she followed me from the beginning. She called me
sister,
though I ignored her. She was afraid of things and I laughed at her. Why shouldn't I? She was nothing to me. A wisp. A frightened slave. She cared nothing about being a warrior. She was especially afraid of horses. While we were training, Io sat sewing with thread made from a horse's tail, fixing a tear in my tent. When she saw Cybelle's beehives she was so terrified by the buzzing within, she hid behind a tree. I must have wanted her to be afraid; that day I helped Cybelle smoke the bees away and I fanned the smoke in Io's direction.
    When the bees chased her, Io screamed and ran and I laughed. I had no need of a sister or anything else.
    I've never seen you so mean,
Cybelle said.
Will you be a cruel Queen when your time comes?
    We were coated in mud to make sure that the bees, our good neighbors, wouldn't sting us. It was wise to be careful even with the best of friends.
    Isn't every Queen cruel?
I asked.
Even among bees? As for Io, let her run. All the way back to the north storm country where she belongs.
    The weak are cruel,
Cybelle said to me.
The strong have no need to be.
    However mean I might be, Io insisted on following me. Cruelty didn't seem to matter in this case. She remained convinced she belonged to me; even when I rode my horse as fast as I could, she ran after me, trudging along until she was covered with yellow dust with bits of grass threaded into her red hair.
    Worst of all, Io had taken to sleeping outside my