Judgment call, p.1
Judgment Call, page 1
Judgment Call
Shards of Sevia, Volume 5
E.B. Roshan
Published by Roshan Publishing, 2022.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
JUDGMENT CALL
First edition. September 23, 2022.
Copyright © 2022 E.B. Roshan.
ISBN: 979-8201878504
Written by E.B. Roshan.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
The Characters
Author's Note:
Chapter One: Preen
Chapter Two: Preen
Chapter Three: Preen
Chapter Four: Kiva
Chapter Five: Preen
Chapter Six: Preen
Chapter Seven: Preen
Chapter Eight: Kiva
Chapter Nine: Preen
Chapter Ten: Preen
Chapter Eleven: Preen
Chapter Twelve: Kiva
Chapter Thirteen: Preen
Chapter Fourteen: Kiva
Chapter Fifteen: Kiva
Chapter Sixteen: Preen
Chapter Seventeen: Preen
Chapter Eighteen: Preen
Chapter Nineteen: Kiva
Chapter Twenty: Kiva
Chapter Twenty-One: Preen
Chapter Twenty-Two: Kiva
Chapter Twenty-Three: Preen
Chapter Twenty-Four: Kiva
Chapter Twenty-Five: Preen
Chapter Twenty-Six: Kiva
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Preen
The End
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Also By E.B. Roshan
About the Author
The Characters
Preen Enda: Kiva's fiancee and Rama's widow
Kiva Manjali: Preen's fiance, second cousin and wealthy landowner
Rama Enda: Preen's deceased husband, former bull-rider and Rayad member
Sitabi Enda: Preen and Rama's three-year-old daughter
Arjun Rastikar: Preen's older brother and guardian
Sufya Rastikar: Arjun's Sevian wife
Lashmi Rastikar: Preen's mother (Arjun and Sufya's baby daughter is also named Lashmi, after her grandmother)
Dr. Peter Neyrev: Sevian doctor of anthropology and friend of Preen's deceased father, Amin Rastikar
Oksana Neyrev: Dr. Neyrev's wife
Erkan Durband: traditional tattoo artist and refugee, friend of Preen and Rama
Desh Durband: Erkan's deceased brother, Rayad member
Sanjit Sind: Preen and Rama's old enemy, Rayad member
Manish and Rani Sind: Sanjit's elderly uncle and aunt
Padmi Farhanji: Rais of Dor (province and city) and refugee
Semyon Deshi: Rayad sniper and Rais Padmi's bodyguard
Author's Note:
In the early 1700's, nomadic Tur tribes from Western Asia conquered the land and people of the region now known as Sevia. They ruled it for over two centuries, until the Sevians, a Slavic people native to the region, rebelled against them in 1920, and again in 1953.
After a decade of bloody fighting, the Sevians recaptured the majority of the country, including the capital city of Dor, and drove most of the remaining Tur into the northeastern mountains.
Today, the nation of Sevia is divided into three provinces, symbolized by the three red stars on the national flag. The largest province is Dor. The two smaller provinces, Tur Kej and Tur Fen, function as semi-autonomous states under the rule of Tur Raises (leaders) who are elected for life from the Tur royal family of Farhanji.
Chapter One: Preen
In Sevia's Tur Kej mountains, winter freezes out fall by the end of October most years. Soon I'd be doing the wash in the kitchen instead of the yard. But that day was perfect. It smelled like lemon soap, like dirty things coming clean. It smelled like the color of the beech tree at the end of the yard—such a bright yellow it made me squint.
I swirled clothes around in a big plastic tub and thought about how fast the year was going. Too fast. The New Year and my wedding just around the corner—and I wasn't ready.
My little girl, Sitabi, played by the tubs, popping soap bubbles.
"Kiva's my daddy," she sang, splashing in the water.
That made me jump and drop a dripping towel in the dirt. "What did you say?"
Sitabi flinched. I'd scared her, moving so quick.
Wait, I told myself. Breathe.
She made a face as I brushed the hair out of her eyes with wet fingers.
"What did you say about Kiva?"
"Kiva's my daddy. My very own daddy." She stuck her finger in her mouth.
"He's not."
Rama, her real daddy, bled out on a dirty sidewalk in a city far from our Tur Kej farm. He died in a place she'd seen but didn't remember.
"Why not?" Sitabi stared at me with Rama's dark eyes. Funny how she favored him. No hazel eyes or round cheeks or freckles. Not even one little thing like me. A breeze lifted her hair—she even got those curls from him.
"Did Grandma tell you Kiva was your daddy?"
"No." She looked away. "Kiva told me."
A hot, salty taste rose in my throat. "Kiva told you he was your real daddy?"
Sitabi hunched her shoulders and nodded.
Had Kiva really said that? I punched both fists into the floating clothes. Water splashed onto my sweatpants and made me shiver. "Well, if he did, he's wrong. That isn't true. We've talked about this before. Don't you remember?"
"No." Sitabi slid two more fingers into her mouth.
"Kiva's not your real daddy. But he's going to be your adopted daddy when we get married."
"After the New Year?" Her tense little body relaxed.
"That's right. When we light candles and bake the poppy-seed cakes." I wrung out an undershirt and tossed it into the rinsing tub.
"After the New Year he'll be my real daddy," Sitabi said.
"No."
"No?"
"Kiva loves you very much, but he's not your real daddy. He's not the man who...made you." I bit my tongue. She didn't have to know everything, not yet.
"Oh," said Sitabi. She took her fingers out of her mouth and lifted the sleeve of one of her uncle Arjun's plaid work shirts out of the washtub. I pushed it back, planning what to say.
"A man made me?" Sitabi asked.
"No."
How to explain? Maybe Sitabi needed to hear the story as much as I needed to tell it. "God made you. He makes all babies and gives them to mamas and daddies. But He didn't give you to me and Kiva. He gave you to me and Rama."
"Who's Rama?"
The man who abandoned her and tried to kill me. My first love. "Rama was your real daddy. You have his curly hair."
I reached for her again but Sitabi ducked away.
"Stop it!" she squealed. "Your hands are all wet."
I fished another shirt from the washtub and wrung it out. The skin on my hands felt like shriveled fruit.
"Did you marry Rama at the New Year?" Sitabi asked.
I waited, thinking of what Mother had told me. 'You have to move on, or that precious little one will pay for your mistakes, too.'
"Did you?" Sitabi bounced on her bare toes.
"People don't always get married close to New Year's Day. We got married in the summer. Summer after you were born."
Rama and I met the day he won the bull-riding contest at the autumn fair in Duna. He'd hung onto his bull for longer than I thought anybody could. When he finally hit the ground, I'd been holding my breath so long I saw stars.
With part of his prize money, he bought me heart-shaped pink balloons, the shiny foil kind. We walked around the fairgrounds together and played some of the games.
I'd never tried to put all the bits and pieces of our story together. Not so they'd make sense, anyway. Maybe if I told myself the whole thing from beginning to end, I'd understand how things had gone so quick from pink balloons at the fair to that sweaty afternoon in the hayloft.
My mother was right. Rama's daughter should know who he had been. But not yet.
I didn't know if Sitabi was still listening, but I kept talking. "I was in love. I was scared—and lonely. When you get grown, you better have more sense than I did."
Rama and I shared our first kiss behind a clump of juniper trees between the farmhouse and the cattle barn. After that, the thought of marrying anyone but him was like soda with no fizz.
Rama told me I was his only one forever.
I told him I'd been promised to Kiva Manjali since we were children.
Kiva's family already owned most of the land we Rastikars pastured our herds on. He was tall and handsome. Kind. Generous. Good without trying too hard. The perfect husband—except he wasn't Rama.
I focused on the bubbles in the wash water, so I wouldn't have to look at Sitabi. She was too young to know that the wedding should come before the baby. Would she be ashamed of Rama and me someday?
A few weeks before my father died, one of our rich neighbors offered him ten cows for me. Father was half out of his head with pain and too weak to refuse.
My older brother, Arjun, took one look at the fat, greedy face of that neighbor fellow and told him to forget it.
The man didn't seem to understand what 'No' meant. He kept coming back, pestering Arjun and Mother both. His eyes followed me everywhere. Them, and his hands. Once I dreamed him with spiders for hands.
That's when Rama made his plan. Rama said if he got me pregnant, my family would let us marry without a bride price. He would never have been able to afford the one my family needed, so it seemed the only way.
The barn was usually empty on those long summer days, so we climbed into the hayloft. We scrambled over piles of dusty bales to the very back.
Rama tried to be gentle. It hurt some, but that wasn't why I cried. When I tried to explain, Rama didn't understand. He got mad at himself for hurting me and left me lying there in the hay.
"Mama?" Sitabi's squeaky voice brought me back to the washtubs. "Where's Rama? Where's my real daddy?"
"He died."
"Rama died?"
"Yes."
"A long time ago?"
"Not so long."
Sitabi was quiet. Those dark eyes didn't show me what she was thinking.
"You were little the last time you saw your real daddy—probably too little to remember. But he loved you very much. He named you Sitabi, like the princess in the story, because you were his princess."
A flash of color down by our barn caught my eye. Kiva walked out into the sunshine, brushing dust from his red plaid shirt. I'd hoped he'd stay busy helping Arjun until I had the wash hung out because I didn't want to talk with him right then.
Sitabi took a second longer to notice him. When she did, her face lit up. She spread her arms and sprinted toward him down the dirt path.
"Kiva! I want a ride," she yelled. "Give me a shoulder ride!"
"No, not now." Kiva said, laughing. "I'll make you stink and your Mama will be mad." Those two loved each other like they shared blood. What was wrong with me that I didn't smile to see that tall, handsome redhead with my little snip of a girl? Why couldn't I be happy that I had another chance at love and a good life? Everybody else was.
I leaned close over the washtub, swirling the clothes around like I was doing something important. A blue dress of Sitabi's rose to the surface. Rama had bought it for her when we lived in Dor. It was too small now, but I still let her wear it.
"Preen!" Kiva called, waving to me across the yard. "Need some help?"
As he came close, the smell of sweat and muck wafted off him—sour, but not a bad sour. He was breathing hard from loading the cattle trailer, and strands of matted hair hung in his face.
"You finished quick." I pushed the clothes up and down in the cloudy water.
"We're only bringing Brown and those three yearlings to the fair this year. Didn't Arjun tell you?"
"No." I focused on the patched, rolled-up sleeves and the sweat stains at his armpits. Easier than looking into his face. If our eyes met, he'd know right away I wasn't happy with him. If I wanted him to understand why, I'd have to explain. When I was alone with my little girl, finding the right words came easy, but add another person and my tongue tripped itself up.
"So loading wasn't a problem," Kiva said. "Even though Brown likes to put up a fight." He laughed and stretched. The muscles in his arms bulged under black tattoos. "Gets meaner every day. I'm going to be sore tomorrow. And—" He turned to show me a big smear of manure down the back of his jeans. "Sorry. More work for you."
"You slipped?"
"Twice." He laughed again.
Sitabi laughed, too.
"Nothing like a little tussle with a bull to make me thankful I don't make my money riding," he said.
I dropped Sitabi's blue dress into the rinse tub and wiped my wrinkly hands on my sweatpants.
"You've got to give me credit for some sense. Didn't want my brains shaken into porridge."
I frowned so he'd know he'd said the wrong thing.
"I actually did want to be a bull-rider when I was a kid," he added quickly. "Crazy bull threw me five meters the first time. I didn't have the guts to get back on." Kiva stopped, maybe sensing that not all the coldness came from the breeze. His smile disappeared. "Preen, what's wrong?"
I made myself look into his face. "Why did you tell Sitabi you're her father?"
Those green eyes of his clouded. "Well, obviously I didn't mean—"
"Why would you say that?"
"As far as she's concerned, I am her real father. The man who put her inside you didn't deserve the name."
"I could understand that coming from her grandmother, but you?" I tried to cough the scratchiness out of my throat. "The little thing's so confused."
"She wouldn't be confused if you didn't keep bringing up Rama."
Sitabi began dropping bits of hay into the wash water.
"Stop it," I snapped.
She didn't.
I smacked her.
Our eyes filled with tears at the same time. She ran into the house, bawling, but I stayed where I was.
"Why does everyone want to pretend that Rama never existed?" I bit my lip so hard it started to bleed. That hurt less than trying to hold in my sadness. "We were married more than two years. He was her father."
Kiva reached for me. "I just want everything to be all right again. To be like it was before."
I shrugged his hand off. "Before? What does that even mean?"
"You're mine," Kiva said. "You've always been. There's nothing you can do that would make me love you any less."
That was true. If there was, I'd already done it.
"And Sitabi makes the deal sweeter." He smiled.
He could melt me with that smile if I let him. Only— "You'd take a sponge and wipe the last three years clean away if you could."
"You're right. I would." The green in his eyes went steely-gray.
"If you did, there'd be no Sitabi," I said. "Don't you understand? No Rama—no Sitabi. No Rama—no me." My parents had picked Kiva for me. I'd picked Rama for myself.
"Why, Preen?"
"I loved him." My voice sounded like gravel. I loved Kiva too, even though it wasn't the same. Couldn't ever be the same, not after how me and Rama had ended. Someday he'd understand. Maybe.
He grabbed my hand and squeezed my chapped knuckles so hard it hurt. "I loved you first. Long before that piece of—"
I set my teeth. "So it's like when kids fight over a toy? 'I saw it first!' 'No, I touched it first!'"
He let go. The pink sunburn on his nose and cheekbones turned red. I ducked back to the washtub before he got the idea to reach for me again.
"You better go clean up before we eat, if you're staying. I need to get the wash on the line."
He didn't leave.
I didn't want him there, but I also didn't want to be alone with nothing but the slosh and slap of the clothes. So I was glad he didn't leave.
"I'm going to buy you a big automatic washing machine," Kiva said. "It will fit just right in our new kitchen."
"Mmmm."
"I heard the appliance place got a shipment last week. They should still have some good ones. I'll get a dryer, too, if I can."
"We've got the sun. Don't need a dryer."
"But what if I want you to have one?"
Chapter Two: Preen
The day of the Autumn Fair in Duna, we all got an early start. The light coming through the window still looked grey when the alarm on my phone beeped.
Outside, someone cranked the generator and it began its all-day rumble. A second later, the tea kettle whistled from the kitchen.
I got up and washed my face. Since I'd shaved my head for Rama only a few months before, I could still smooth my hair down with wet fingers.
Sitabi's little bare feet stuck off the edge of the mattress we shared on the guest room floor. I shook her, but she kept snoring.
That gave me another minute, so I dug around in my jewelry box, looking for earrings. My fingers brushed a velvet bag at the bottom. I didn't have to open it to know what was inside. Kiva's fifteenth birthday present to me—a silver nose ring set with jade that had once belonged to his grandmother.
Since coming home from Dor, I hardly wore traditional jewelry anymore. I lifted it, balancing the weight on my palm for a moment before slipping it into my nose. Seeing his gift on me would make him smile.
If Kiva wanted to go back to those easy days, before Rama and Dor, maybe the best thing for Sitabi and me was to go along with him. He was certain he could be so good and kind that I'd just have to forget I'd ever loved anybody but him. Maybe he was right—but he didn't know the whole story.
When I finally got Sitabi to rouse, she squeezed her eyes shut and started to whimper. I gave her a little shake. "Crying girls don't go to the fair."
