Salvage by Alexandra Duncan Read Free Book Online Page B

from Hannah’s fan lands on my knuckles. She doesn’t have to say a word. I’m being undignified, smiling like an idiot for the whole galley to see. I rub my hand and wrestle my face back under control. But even the threat of my great-grandmother’s fan doesn’t keep me from stealing glances at Luck until it’s time to clear the table.
    I don’t see Soli until after dinner when the ther women usher us into a visiting room piled thick with woven rugs. I kneel alongside them. Soli sits on the other side of the circle, but I only recognize her by the way her face lights up when she catches sight of me. She’s near tall as her brother, but she’s hidden her ears behind her long hair, done up in marriage braids. Her own pendant hangs around her neck—black, but with a shifting sheen that changes colors, like a drop of oil. She grins and mouths something. We need to talk .
    Hannah and Iri and the Æther women produce collapsible looms from their inner pockets and begin setting up their weaving. A bubble of panic rises in my chest. Modrie Reller said nothing on bringing a loom, but of course now it seems clear she shouldn’t have to say something so simple to me. I feel in my pockets, as if by some miracle one might appear. Nothing.
    â€œAva,” Iri says lowly. She has been sitting beside me all this time, slowly unwinding a skein of algae-green wool.
    I look up. Iri silently holds out the pieces of an extra loom for me. The tight feeling in my chest eases. I don’t know why Iri looks out for me, except she never did have smallones of her own before my great-grandfather died, and none of the men aboard the Parastrata have tried to take her as a wife, maybe out of respect for my great-grandfather. I nod my thanks, quickly snap the frame together, and reach into the common thread basket for a skein of my own.
    â€œOur colors please your eye, then, Parastrata Ava,” Soli’s mother says without looking up from her own weaving.
    I glance down at the yarn in my hand. The thread is the Æthers’ smooth red silk. It shows bright against my dark green skirts. “Yes,” I say. “It’s. . . it’s some beautiful.”
    â€œBeautiful, she says.” Soli’s mother smiles to the women beside her, then turns back to me, her face suddenly solemn. “But if you use it long enough, you might start to think it dull.”
    I recognize some kind of test in that, even if I don’t know what it is exactly.
    â€œNever.” I lock my spine straight and look at her evenly, drawing on my imitation of Modrie Reller. “Firstwife Æther, I’m not some changing girl. I won’t go shifting on you and yours.”
    She watches me with eyes half lidded. All around us the looms clack softly, and the other women peer sideways at us over their handwork.
    Finally Soli’s mother nods. “Right so, then.”
    I let the air out of my lungs. I’ve passed. The other women return their attention to their weaving and murmured conversations. Soli rises and picks her way to me. My jaw drops. Soli’s long red skirt swells over a soft, rounded lump at her waist. She’s gotten herself pregnant.
    â€œSoli, when? Who?” I grab her hand as she eases down beside me. I want to throw my arms around her, I’ve missed her so, but the older women wouldn’t stand for such a display. I settle for squeezing her hand tighter. “Tell me everything.”
    â€œLet me hold your thread for you, sister,” Soli says aloud, but her face is bright to bursting with news, her cheeks flush. She leans close as she unwinds the skein. “His name’s Ready, the requisitions officer. We had our binding close on half a turn past.”
    I glance down. I’ve seen lots of women pregnant on the Parastrata , and even some births. Soli looks too far gone for half a turn. “That’s some fast.”
    Soli giggles, sounding a