“Floss said you didn’t have a name, but surely your mother gave you one.”
She shook her head. “She died before I reached namin’ age.”
I didn’t understand, and I hesitated before asking, “She didn’t give you a name when you were born?”
One of the riders, the tough-skinned woman who Floss had found to accompany us, was listening and scooted closer. Her build was solid, and she would’ve reminded me of Eden—the strength she exuded—except that she was bulkier, thicker beneath her heavy layers of winter wear than Angelina’s guard. “Things are different out here, Your Majesty. . . .” I was suddenly aware that there was no more pretense about who I was. “Life’s hard in the Scablands. People don’t bother naming newborns. Too many of them die in their first few years. Disease, mostly. But sometimes undernourishment or even a particularly harsh winter’ll take a babe. Children generally start getting names around their fifth year. Earlier if they’re tougher’n most.” Her Scablander accent was less pronounced than Floss’s and Avonlea’s.
“What’s your name?” I asked the woman, trying to ignore the stab of guilt I felt over the living conditions of the Scablanders and their families. I made a mental note to talk to Max about this place when I returned.
But then I was thinking of Max—about his steel-gray eyes and his soft kisses that tasted like honeyed mint—and a different kind of pain coursed through me. A deeper, more intimate ache that I had to force myself to shove aside.
The woman smiled at me, revealing teeth that were almost too white, and too straight. “Just Zora, Your Majesty, plain and simple. My mama didn’t subscribe to none’a that city naming rubbish. Didn’t see the need to cause trouble where there was none.”
“Were you born out here, Zora?”
“In the Scablands? No,” she explained. “I came to it the proper way, because I broke the law.” She glanced back toward the other men she’d been riding with. They kept as much to themselves as they could now that the camp was teeming with military men. “I was a counselwoman’s daughter,” she said quietly, in perfectly enunciated Termani. It surprised me to hear that kind of eloquent articulation coming from her. She was so rough, almost dangerous . . . at least until the moment she’d smiled. “And I fell in love with a vendor’s son.”
One of the men looked up then. He couldn’t have heard her, but it was as if he’d sensed her. Their gazes held, the connection between them palpable, like a wire that stretched from one to the other, joining them.
“Is that him?” I asked, and Zora started, as if surprised that I’d understood what she’d just said, and I realized she probably had been. Everyone knew I was the Vendor queen. The girl who’d been raised speaking Parshon.
But not everyone knew the rest of the story: that I could understand everyone.
She didn’t answer, just nodded slowly as the man looked away once more. Her cheeks were red now, and I knew it had nothing to do with the fire. It was unlikely she’d meant to reveal so much of her private life to her queen.
I couldn’t stop myself from asking my next question. “Do you ever miss it? Ludania, I mean. Have you ever wanted to leave the Scablands?”
“Everyone has regrets, I suppose. You can’t choose one path without missing out on another,” she said slowly, thoughtfully. “But I can’t say I wish I’d done things differently. It’s a hard life out here in the Scablands, sure, but it was a matter of trading one form of tyranny for another.”
I knew she meant living under Sabara’s dictatorial rule.
She smiled then, her eyes wandering to the other rider. “I think I made the right decision.”
I looked too, noticing him for the first time. He was younger than the other man. Younger than both of them, but similar to each as well. “What’s his name?” I asked.
She stood up, making an attempt to brush the dirt from the front of her pants but it was everywhere, coating everything, and I realized the gesture was more habit than useful. “Jacob. He was the only child we had that ever reached an age where we could name him,” she said, and then she left, joining her family.
I watched her go, determined to change things out here. Determined to give these people a better life.
I turned to Avonlea then, my curiosity unending. “How long have you lived with them? Floss and Jeremiah?”
She dug around in the dirt some more with her stick, pondering the question. “Ten years. Maybe more.” She shrugged. “Probably more.”
I studied her disbelievingly. “How—how old are you?” I asked.
She was silent for so long I thought she wasn’t going to answer me. But after what felt like an endless stretch, she glanced up, her eyes locking with mine. “Last I thought about it, I was in my sixteenth year. So not much older than that, I guess.”
I was almost as shocked by that information as I had been by how long she’d been in Floss’s care. When I’d first met her, she’d looked so much older . . . so tired and worn-down. Knowing the truth, I could see that she’d been robbed of any real childhood.
I tried to imagine Avonlea as a little girl with no name. A child bride taken away from everything she knew and transplanted into a new home, with another family. I thought of the way Floss had treated her. He was demanding and crude and certainly not affectionate. Not what a little girl needed. At best, she was a tolerated servant beneath his roof.