Work Text:
Amaryllis of Exile has a daily routine:
A pill (made from Behemoth Plantago leaves, powdered and centrifuged to concentrate it, then reconstituted with egg whites).
Another pill (heat-treated mash of Ferdinand’s Duscle tubers, reconstituted with honey to counteract the bitter taste).
A specifically-mixed mineral water that almost looked like one of the magic potions Damien wished she’d use.
A cream (from ghost acacia sap) Rilla rubbed on her face; it had the nice side effect for making her skin soft.
A drop of oil under her tongue.
She’d figured out the first component just in time, two months before her twelfth birthday. She should have moved slower, done a couple more assays, but her voice had cracked for the first time and she had compressed her testing schedule down to a week. She swallowed the tuber pill and thought, dramatically, that either it would work or it would kill her, and that would be that. The third option, a terrible stomach ache cropping up an hour later and leaving her doubled over while weeding the kitchen garden, should have occurred to her while she was designing what she liked to call “the human trial,” but she stuck with this first incarnation of her morning regimen. And her voice stopped breaking. One day, when she was feeling strong, she went on a seed-collecting expedition and found a variant coloration of Ferdinand’s Duscle growing upriver. Substituting those, her stomach aches stopped too.
-
She’d started this project years before. Once a month, a flock of pigeons would alight on her family’s rooftop. Her parents would coax the birds down with porridge bribes, and snatch the carrier tubes off their feet. Then the family would spend the rest of the day poring over letters and monographs written by herbalists from across the four corners of the world, and writing responses. Even before Rilla was old enough to hold a quill, she still participated:
“Our four-year old son—”
“Four and a half,” Rilla corrected.
“Our four-and-a-half year old son has a research question of his own. He tells us to ask what you and the potion-brewers of Navoyan know about the differences between boys and girls (we’ve explained the basics, don’t worry!)”
Two months later, her parents read her the response. The Navoyani told her that they believed humans had more fluids in their systems than previously believed. Mingled with the bloodstream, there were several fluids that different beings possessed in variable amounts, which determined more of physiology and temperament than could be explained by the four humors alone. In girls, one kind of juice predominated, and in boys another did. As best they could discern, girl juice was identical to a compound found in Behemoth Plantago leaves. Rilla didn’t know why she, now four and three-quarters, began making her secret forts under the umbrella-like leaves of the Behemoth Plantago, or why one day in a fit of sad rage she ripped pieces off the astringent stringy canopy and nibbled on them until she threw up and cried. Or why she never told her parents.
-
As she grew, she understood. Understood well enough to introduce herself properly when she was sent to live with family “friends” after her parents were exiled.
“Greetings, Lord Oswyn, Lady Aquila.” At ten years old, Rilla was almost small enough to hide behind the enormous suitcase she had brought with her from home. Almost. She pushed on. “I am the doctors’ daughter you agreed to foster.”
Lady Aquila frowned. “I thought the exiled witches had a son. . .”
“You remembered wrong.” Rilla stared her down. “And they were doctors.”
“Saints,” Lord Oswyn shook his head, “Well, at least the witches didn’t leave an heir to continue their heresy, darling.”
“Actually,” Rilla drew herself up to her full, meager height, “I will be continuing the doctors’ work, which was all very scientific. I will not be doing witchcraft but I will be studying and I’ll do it better than any boy would.”
The lady threw back her head and laughed. “You and our Marc will get along.”
“I’ll stomp on him.”
“Do you have a name, or only determination?”
Rilla had a name, but she’d never said it out loud. She had chosen it in the carriage on the way over, staring out the window as the passing houses grew bigger and fancier. No more Saints’ names or kings’ names. No heroes. No names of the Citadel. The only names that hadn’t betrayed her family in court were names from the natural world. So she introduced herself:
“I am Amaryllis. Amaryllis of Exile.”
-
Damien had never seen Rilla’s morning routine. He would when they married, but she would tell him before then. As soon as she thought of a plan that left no room for error.