by Malinda Lo
“So how would you advise that we find our way to the Kell?” Shae asked.
“Follow the Nir. I’m fairly certain it does meet the Kell. You’ll find it that way. That’s as best as I can tell you.” Tulan frowned, tugging at his beard. “You’re going off the map. No one knows what’s up there.”
Chapter XVI
They slept in their bedrolls on the floor of the main hall, pushing the table and chairs to one side, next to the family shrine, to make room. Kaede found the stone floor as comfortable as a feather bed after days of sleeping on lumpy ground, and she fell asleep so quickly she barely had time to enjoy the flatness beneath her back. She was awakened in the morning by the shrill voices of children—Shae’s nieces and nephew—who ran into the room and pounced on Shae’s sleeping form, startling a yelp out of her.
At breakfast, Raesa and Tulan announced that they were going hunting, for they planned a celebration that night and hoped to bring back a deer. Pol volunteered to go with them, and when he asked Kaede if she’d like to come along—“You should see the bow in its natural environment,” he said—she was surprised but pleased, and said yes.
The hound, whose name was Ota, came with them, his ears perking forward as they left Jilin behind and entered the Wood. It was another cool morning, but the Wood held none of the menace it had the night before, and Kaede wondered if she had imagined the sensation of something watching her. Now there were only trees, their gray-brown trunks scaled with lichen, and every so often the sound of a squirrel or rabbit bounding through the underbrush. Raesa and Tulan, like Pol, had quivers strapped to their backs and hunting knives at their waists; they carried their bows and moved with a stealth that Kaede knew she could not match. Her footsteps sounded like a herd of giants compared to theirs, and she feared that Pol had been wrong to invite her. She didn’t want to scare away their supper.
But as they walked, Tulan said to her, “Raesa is a much better shot than I. When we find the deer it would be best if she and Pol move downwind, and then you and I can nudge the deer toward them.”
“So you’ll take advantage of my clumsy footsteps,” Kaede said, smiling.
“You’ll get better,” Raesa said.
Kaede tried to limit the noise she made. She set her feet down as lightly as she could, imagining that she was a cloud, a mist, snaking slowly but surely around the gnarled oak trees. The Wood smelled of damp things: rainwater soaking into fallen logs, softening the bark until it crumbled back into the ground. In the distance, she heard the caw of a crow, over and over.
It was nearly an hour before Ota scented the deer; when he did, his entire body pointed northwest, his legs quivering in excitement. They had long ago left the well-maintained paths behind and were now picking their way down a tiny deer trail. As soon as Ota gave the signal, Raesa and Pol melted into the trees, moving as quietly as they could to avoid startling the deer. Ota vanished after them, and Tulan and Kaede continued on. Soon afterward Kaede saw the flash of a white tail just off to her left. All her senses came alive, and a thrill rippled through her. It was awe-inspiring to be so near to this animal. And yet—her breath caught in her throat—they were going to kill him. Her knowledge of the buck’s imminent death seemed to magnify everything: the beauty of the animal, the smell of the forest, the beating of her heart. Time seemed to slow down. The caw of the crow echoed through the trees like a bell.
Beside her, Tulan crept forward, and the deer began to back away from them. Kaede followed, her pulse racing, and they pushed the deer ahead for some time, always moving in the direction that Pol and Raesa had gone in. With every careful step, Kaede was aware that death was coming closer, and she began to wonder if the buck knew it, too.
And then an arrow struck the deer in his side, and he bolted.
Ota leapt after him, baying, his nose soon dropping to the ground to follow the scent of spilled blood. The deer had been wounded, but it would run in panic for some distance. They could only hope that the arrow had landed deep enough, or else it would be a long and potentially fruitless chase.
Pol and Raesa came out from their cover, and Tulan asked, “Who sent the arrow?”
“Raesa did,” Pol said. “You’re right—she’s a good shot.”
“Don’t speak too soon,” she cautioned him, and they began to follow Ota on a jagged path through the trees.
But they were lucky; the arrow had been true, and it was only another half mile before they found the deer collapsed on the ground, his flanks heaving. Tulan unsheathed his long hunting knife and went to the deer, and before Kaede could catch her breath, he slit the buck’s throat.
Raesa held Ota back from the stream of blood while the deer died.
Kaede halted several feet away. The sight of the dying animal brought back the memory of the creature she had killed in Ento, and for a moment she thought her stomach would turn itself inside out. Cold sweat beaded her forehead. Pol saw the expression on her face and said, “The buck will feed many of us tonight, and more tomorrow. It was a necessary death.”
She swallowed. She knew that Pol was right. But never had the word necessary seemed so cold.
They strapped the deer’s legs to a long fallen branch and hoisted it up on their shoulders, each taking turns to bear the weight on the way back to Jilin. Ota ran between their legs excitedly; he had been given a piece of the warm liver, but he smelled the meat and was eager for more.
When they reached Niran’s home, Kaede slipped away. She felt bruised somehow, as though someone had smashed a fist into an old wound, and she wanted to be alone. There was a garden behind the smithy, and when she saw the rows of low green shoots, a pang went through her as she remembered working with Maesie. There were some things she missed from the Academy: the sea, and Maesie and Fin, and her friends. Beyond the garden, a small path led into the Wood, weaving between bay trees. It was gloomy now, but seeing the way the branches arched overhead, Kaede suspected it would be beautiful beneath the sunlight. She imagined a green tunnel, the leaves whispering in a warm breeze. She ached for the warmth of summer. Though it was now nearly midsummer, it was still as cool as late winter.
The path ended in a small clearing with a stone bench. Opposite the bench was a statue that appeared to have been shaped out of the oak stump rooted there in the ground: a deer’s head. She sat on the bench and stared at it, wondering who had made it, who had imbued such life into the way the ears tilted.
She heard the footsteps some time later, and glanced up to see Taisin coming down the path. She looked a bit nervous, and she held out something wrapped in a white cloth. “I brought you some bread,” she said tentatively.
“Thank you,” Kaede said. It was flat bread fresh from the pan, still warm.
Taisin sat on the far edge of the bench beside her. “They’re eating, if you want to go back.”
The flat bread was good, slightly charred and salty. “I’ll go back in a little while,” she said between bites.
“They’re butchering the deer. I think that Parsa intends to invite all of Jilin here tonight.” Taisin glanced sideways at Kaede. “How was the hunt?”
Kaede’s fingers were smeared with salt and lightly greased with oil from the bread. She wanted to lick them, but thought it might be impolite. She scrubbed them on the cloth and said, “It was successful. No help from me.” She grinned, but there was no joy behind it. “I just followed.”
Taisin could feel the forced cheer coming from Kaede, who regarded her with serious brown eyes, her mouth slowly turning down at the corners as the grin faded. Taisin asked, “Are you all right?”
The question caught Kaede off guard. “All right? I’m—” She hesitated, the words stuck in her throat, and she looked down at her hands, twisting the cloth into a knot. “I didn’t like seeing the deer die,” she said at last. “It is—I thought hunting would be… normal, somehow. But something has to die.”
Taisin wasn’t sure what to say. She thought about telling Kaede that she had seen her first pig butchered wh
en she was a baby; that she had helped every autumn—until she went to the Academy—when her father harvested their meat for the winter. She could say that the deer had died so that they might live, or that its spirit had been released into the world and it would return, again and again, transformed each time into a different being. But it did not change the fact that death came and took things that were not yet ready to leave the world of the living.
She reached out and covered Kaede’s hands with her own, and Kaede looked at her in surprise. Taisin felt Kaede’s fingers loosen on the cloth; her hand turned upward into Taisin’s. Their fingers interlaced. Taisin’s heartbeat quickened; a flush crept across her neck. She saw, as if from a distance, that her feelings were changing whether she wanted them to or not. She sensed that she was about to tip over the edge, and at some point, she wouldn’t care if she was doing the right thing anymore.
But today, she was still in control. She pulled her hand away, taking a quick, determined breath. “We should go back. I told Parsa I would help her.”
Kaede nodded, seemingly unfazed. “Yes. Shae’s family has been very kind to us.” They stood, and Kaede pocketed the cloth. “I don’t think we’ll eat so well once we leave.”
“We should enjoy it while we can,” Taisin said, and immediately felt ridiculous trying to make small talk about surviving the next leg of their journey. But Kaede didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. She had started back down the path and turned to wait for her. Kaede was always polite; she was the daughter of the King’s Chancellor, after all. Taisin suddenly felt every inch the farmer’s daughter—clumsy and foolish.
Taisin balled her hands into fists at her side and followed, keeping her eyes on the ground to avoid betraying her self-consciousness. The path was well maintained, though narrow; the dirt was hard packed in the center, and tufts of brown grasses grew along the edges. And then she saw something that made her stop and turn back. She knelt down on the trail. There was a limp flower bud there, tucked behind a clump of grass—the only splash of purple anywhere in sight. Normally at this time of year, the Wood should be dotted with them, and the sight of this solitary blossom was almost as saddening as it was miraculous.
“Look at that,” Taisin whispered. Kaede turned to see what she had found.
Taisin stroked the flower with one finger and bent her head down close to it, trying to breathe in the air around the tiny growing thing. For as long as she could remember, she had been sensitive to all the shifting meridians of energy around her, and her years at the Academy had sharpened and honed her awareness of them. The last two years, with their summer droughts and winter storms, and now the unending grayness, had been heartbreaking. Before, she had been able to sense the life all around her—in the waving sea grasses that grew on the beach below the Academy; in the oak trees that climbed so slowly toward the sky on her parents’ farm. It had been a steady hum underlying everything; a feeling of constant renewal. But in the last two years, the hum had faded; the lines of energy had become increasingly sluggish. Even the plants in the ground seemed to have given up. It was like seeing all the color leeched out of the world bit by bit. So, given the faintest whiff of rebirth in the form of these wilted, half-opened petals, Taisin could not resist.
She cupped the flower in her hand and called to it, and as Kaede stood over her, watching, the flower grew plump; the stalk lifted itself from the earth as though sunlight poured from Taisin’s breath into its green leaves. The petals opened one by one, each a perfect violet teardrop, and at the center, the flower’s black eye gazed unblinkingly up at Taisin, whose face glowed with the energy unfurling through her.
Kaede could have chastised her, for their teachers at the Academy had taught them from day one that such a display of power was reckless. It was the equivalent of lighting a signal fire on the tallest mountain to announce one’s presence during a war. But at the same time, Kaede understood why Taisin had done it, for it was written clear as day on her face: It made her whole.
Afterward, when Taisin was too weakened to walk back immediately, Kaede sat with her on the forest floor, watching as the purple flower, gloriously open to the air, bobbed in the wind.
That night it seemed as though everyone in Jilin stopped by Shae’s family home. Parsa and Niran seared thin slices of venison and served it with onions cooked until they were sweet. Other villagers brought more of the flat bread, some stuffed with pickled greens or mushrooms culled from the Wood; and one family brought two jugs of home-brewed spirits. Kaede avoided them, for the fumes alone made her eyes water. There was no talk of bad harvests or strange creatures; it was as if everyone had tacitly agreed to pretend that nothing was wrong, and the only thing on their minds was celebrating Shae’s brief return home.
Kaede was grateful for the holiday feel; it drove away the shadows that had clung to her since Ento. She played a game of tacks with Shae’s nephew; she joked with Tali about how much venison he could eat; she watched Con flirting shamelessly with Shae, who laughed at him and said loudly—so that everyone could hear—that he had no chance with her. But the way she turned her eyes back to him gave a different impression, and Kaede suddenly wondered whether there was something between them. The thought was surprising to her, but also a bit funny. Kaede simply couldn’t imagine Shae in court dress at the palace with Con. She grinned to herself and glanced around the room, taking in Pol talking with Tulan, Parsa’s two daughters racing out the door with rock sugar in their fists. Taisin was seated at the table chatting to Raesa, a smile on her face. The smile transformed her. Her cheeks were pink from the warmth of the room; her eyes were shining. She was a young woman still unaware of her own beauty, and Kaede could not look away.
Con pushed his way onto the bench beside Kaede and said, “She’s lovely, isn’t she?” He threw his arm around her shoulders with a brotherly squeeze.
“What?” she said, startled.
“Shae,” he whispered in her ear. “Look at her!”
Kaede gave him a sidelong glance. “Are you being serious?”
“I’m always serious,” he said, ruffling her hair. It had grown long enough now that she usually tied it back, but tonight she had had the opportunity to bathe, and it fell loose, still slightly damp, to her shoulders.
“Stop it,” Kaede said, swatting his hands away and tucking the ends behind her ears. He reminded her of her brothers, and all of a sudden she missed them fiercely.
“Do you think I have a chance with her?” Con asked.
It took a moment for Kaede to remember what he was talking about: Shae. She tried to swallow her homesickness and said with forced lightness, “You have every advantage. Who wouldn’t fall in love with you?”
His eyes sparkled as he gave her a mischievous grin. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy? Are you going to fight me for Shae’s love?”
Kaede gaped at him. “Now you truly must be joking. Why would I do that?”
“You don’t want her for yourself?” He elbowed her. “I know you enjoy her company.”
Kaede shook her head. “I take it back,” she said, laughing. “You’re too much of a fool—Shae will never love you.”
He pulled an exaggerated frown. “You wound me, Kaede. Your brothers told me I could trust you—I shouldn’t have believed them.”
“That’s good. I never believe them, either.” They laughed together, and Kaede felt the tightness within her relaxing. She would see her brothers when she returned, she told herself.
Con’s arm was still around her shoulders, and he whispered in her ear, “I saw you looking at Taisin. She’s especially pretty tonight.”
A flush spread over her face. “You must have been looking at her, too, then,” she said, and Con raised his eyebrows at her in a sly smile.
She glanced away, her eyes seeking out Taisin almost automatically. Taisin was watching them, a thoughtful look on her face. When Kaede’s gaze met hers, Taisin colored as though she had been caught stealing sweets. Kaede broke into a smile, and Taisin quickly turned
away, ducking her head as if she wanted to hide. But scarcely a moment later she glanced back as though she couldn’t help it, and Kaede felt a tremor inside herself as the blush on Taisin’s cheeks deepened.
Con squeezed her shoulder. “I see I won’t have to fight you for Shae,” he said in an amused tone.
She gave him an exasperated look. “She’s not going to fall in love with you if you stay here all night with me.”
He grinned at her. “Good point.” He stood up and straightened his tunic. “We must take advantage of tonight, for who knows what shall come tomorrow?”
Kaede watched him head toward Shae, but she did not make a move to go to Taisin. She finished her tea, one ear tuned to the conversations around her, occasionally glancing out of the corner of her eye at Taisin, who had pulled a little boy onto her lap to play a game of peekaboo with a red wooden ball. Kaede hadn’t felt that tug toward another person in a long time. She certainly hadn’t expected to feel it for Taisin, who was usually so distant and self-contained that any possibility of a deeper connection had seemed impossible from the beginning. But this afternoon, the sight of Taisin’s face after she urged that flower to bloom—she had been luminous. It was as if a door had briefly opened, and behind it there was sunlight, warm and rich and seductive.
But Taisin was going to be a sage, and sages made vows of celibacy. Kaede had learned this in her earliest days at the Academy. Students were not permitted to form romantic attachments to each other—at least not officially, though Kaede had not been the only one to break the rules. But Taisin had always adhered to those guidelines. No one had even whispered about her in the dormitory.
Kaede told herself that what she felt was only a little seed; she would simply not water it. It wouldn’t grow any larger than this tiny prickle of attraction. She wouldn’t let it.
But that night after everyone had left, and they had all spread their blankets on the floor of the hall, Kaede lay awake for some time, trying to make out the sound of Taisin’s breathing in the dark.
