Burnt

by Lyn Lowe

  He nodded. “I will.”

  “Good.” She dropped down beside him on the bale and dropped more stuff into his lap. This time, it was food. At the sight of it, Kaie’s stomach gurgled in longing. Just like with his hands, it was like his eyes were informing the rest of his body of things it should know already. “Now eat fast, before time’s up and you have to go back to your shoveling.”

  Twenty-Three

  She was not wrong, the strange girl who hid beneath her hair. Not about his role in the stables. By the end of the month, with heavy use of the goop she always brought, his hands were healed and Stable Master Stephen apparently ran out of stalls for him to clean and things for him to carry.

  Kaie was taught how to feed the horses. It seemed a simple thing at first, but it wasn’t. One horse was on a special diet to improve her fertility. Two others were old, thus requiring different feed. The one stallion got more food in the morning if someone wanted to ride him, so that he would be a little drowsy when it came time to put the saddle on. And there were others. It seemed each one of the thirty stalls came with special feeding instructions, which he was told once with the warning that a single mistake would see him back in the horse shit.

  She came to talk to him every day. He continued to use the bales, dreading the day they disappeared. It was less about the snickers and darting glances – after a day or two the others seemed to lose interest in him – and more about talking to her. Life here was draining, except when he sat there and ate next to her. It was odd, but then so was she. And it was nice. Relaxing. So he made efforts to keep it interesting for her. It wasn’t about earning her name anymore, though he still hoped to do so. Now he was trying for something else. Something he couldn’t quite find a word for.

  So it was he found himself telling her all about Sojun. She was a great audience, showing far more interest in his boring tales of growing up together than she ever did the grand stories of his family’s history. The more she listened, the more he found himself wanting to share, until every detail of their lives together seemed to be spilling past his lips. Finally, he could think of nothing more to say. He leaned back, looking up at the sky and wondering how quickly the winter would come on this part of the world. It couldn’t be much longer. Wondering why all this talk of what was gone didn’t hurt more. It used to.

  “So you still want the girl he loves?”

  Kaie blinked, his brain taking a second to switch gears. It wasn’t one he was much interested in talking about. But she asked so few questions, he felt obligated to answer. “Yes. He’s probably dead now, anyway. Past caring. I’m not sure why I’m still fighting it.”

  She allowed the silence that followed, but only for a moment. “He’s not dead. I don’t know about the caring.”

  Kaie turned to look at her slowly, trying to figure out how he felt about that information. He should feel something. “You’ve seen him?”

  She nodded, brushing back some loose hairs that the wind kept blowing into her face. “Not as much as Vaughan does. He gets sick a lot.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. So he said nothing. Just ate his pork, saving the stale bread to absorb some of the saltiness the meat would leave in his mouth. She let him, again just for a little while. Three bites.

  “Is it worse? Him being alive?”

  Kaie thought about it a minute. “Maybe it should be. I don’t know. I’m done caring.”

  Her head tilted and her lips pursed. Those big eyes of hers cut right through him, saw all the way to the center. “You’re giving up, aren’t you?”

  It bothered him. The words, her tone, the look in her eyes. He tried to block it out but it bothered him. “He betrayed me, too, you know. Sojun. He told things about me, things that aren’t supposed to be told.”

  “Yes,” she said as though he asked a question. “They all do. The ones who wear the collars. Some of them keep secrets for a while, but sooner or later they tell Luna Autumnsong everything. Secrets, lies, half-forgotten memories…everything. Vaughan says it’s the thing she puts into them. That they will do and say anything to make her happy, so that she won’t take it away. Some of them talked to him about it when she made them sick.”

  Kaie shrugged. He believed her. It just didn’t matter.

  “Are you giving up, Bruhani?”

  It still bothered him. “Maybe.”

  She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her, to meet her gaze head on. The intense blue eyes ripped at him, seeing too much. Demanding too much. “Don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You see them everywhere too, don’t you? The ones with the dead eyes.”

  Kaie grimaced. “Yeah. I’ve seen them.” Every day, he saw one. She kissed him and urged him to give in to what he wanted. He tried to pretend he didn’t see, but he did. He knew exactly what the girl was talking about.

  “These people, the Autumnsongs and the others like them, they take everything that matters. For people like you and Vaughan, they’ll even steal your minds. Make you broken and empty. But they can’t take our hope. No matter how they try, they can’t touch that. Don’t you give it to them like it means nothing. Don’t you become another one with dead eyes. Don’t you dare.”

  He wanted to cringe from her, from those eyes. She wouldn’t let him. “Why do you care? I can’t mean anything to you. I don’t even know your name.”

  She scowled at him. It was a very unnatural look for her, making him wonder if she ever wore it before. “Because my brother cares. For the first time I can remember, he cares about something more than just me. Because you tell me stories and jokes. And because you never asked Vaughan my name. All of that matters and I don’t want to lose it.”

  She held him like that for a long time. Too long. He could hear the laughter coming from the others, knew it was about the absurd image the two of them were painting. He waited for her to release him. Despite this conversation, he didn’t want to risk driving her away. But she seemed content to wait forever. So finally he reached up and wrapped her hand around hers, tugging her grip loose. Her hand tightened – it actually hurt a little – and her face grew determined.

  “Let me go.”

  She shook her head. “Tell me you won’t give up.”

  The girl was strong but Kaie’s time in the stable was changing him, giving him power in ways a lifetime of wrestling with Sojun never did. It took some doing but he extracted her fingers from his face without having to break any of them. She was upset though. He could read it in her eyes. He struggled to think of a way to fix that without making promises he didn’t intend to keep.

  “Tell the truth,” he said. “You care because you think I’m handsome.”

  She snorted. This time, Kaie liked the sound. “You’re too skinny by half. None of those rippling muscles that I like so much.”

  “But?”

  Her tongue stuck out at him, giving her a truly comical look. He couldn’t help laughing. “Fine! You know I do,” she acknowledged. “Not that you need to hear it. Now you’re going to be all cocky and strutting, aren’t you?”

  He laughed harder. “Nah. I promise. I will laugh at you though. For at least a week.”

  She sighed dramatically. Stephen whistled, the signal that their lunch was over. The girl flipped her hair back into her face, the way she always did when their time together was up, and stood to go. Kaie caught her wrist before she could accidently smack him as she scampered away. He squeezed it just enough to get her attention. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  She considered him from behind her curtain, and Kaie found himself wishing he could see her face; get a hint at what she was thinking. After a while, she nodded. “Peren,” she said. Then she tugged loose and was gone.

  It wasn’t until he was on his way home that Kaie realized she’d finally given him her name.

  Twenty-Four

  He never talked to the man who escorted him to and from the stables every day. They worked together, and if Kaie spent any time thinking on it,
he probably knew the man’s name. But since that first day when the man wrapped a meaty hand around his arm, just like they did his first day as a slave, he didn’t like the guy. It was mutual. The man was always the first to start the laughter and always the last to let it go. And there was no question who spoke against him when Stephan entrusted him with the feeding. But he didn’t see any way to solve it by exchanging words. So he let it go.

  Still, the man seemed determined to change the nature of their animosity that day. The grip on Kaie’s arm was much tighter than necessary, and the glares sent his way were more frequent and intense than usual. He got the distinct sense that he was being provoked into a word of protest, one that would give the excuse for violence.

  Kaie didn’t intend to give it. It wasn’t a good day. Those were long gone. But for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel quite so empty. He had the solution to a puzzle, one he cared about. He won Peren’s name. Not because someone else helped him, either. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve it but he didn’t care. It was his victory, and he meant to enjoy it.

  But the man holding him was spoiling for confrontation. They were just drawing on the well when the pressure on his arm jerked and shoved, sending Kaie down to his knees without the benefit of two hands to cushion the impact.

  “Bastard!” The word flew out before he could stop it.

  He was answered with a blow to the side of his head that made the world lurch.

  Kaie scrambled to his feet, blinking against the dizziness from the hit. “What in the Abyss is wrong with you?” He needed to keep his mouth shut. This wasn’t a fight he could win. The days in the stables were making him stronger but he was still the small and weak boy who needed Sojun to do battle for him. The man staring him down was no bigger than his heart’s brother but that was plenty big enough.

  The man spat, splattering his feet with saliva. “You ruined one girl already. You think I’ll let you break another?”

  He tried. Really, he did. But he couldn’t stop himself. “So that’s what we’re doing? Acting like idiots, because you’ve got a hard-on for Peren and don’t have the balls to talk to her?”

  The man blanched. It was all the encouragement Kaie needed to continue his assault. “Does she remind you of a girl back home? Another one you didn’t talk to? Did you see her do dirty things to other guys, wishing it was you? Do you think, if it weren’t for me, Peren would be doing them to you? Maybe pulling you back behind the stable, getting down on her knees for you?”

  The man’s face went from bone white to bright red in an instant. Kaie saw the next punch coming, aimed for his head again. He twisted away, catching it in the shoulder. It hurt for a second, and sent him stumbling backward a step or three.

  “You won’t turn her into a slut like your other girl!” the man bellowed.

  It was his turn to spit. There was blood in it, from where his teeth cut the inside of his cheek. “She doesn’t even know you exist, you sorry sack of shit. With or without me, it’ll never be you who sticks her. She’s got way too much self-respect to settle for filth.”

  There would be no avoiding the next hit. Kaie saw the promise of death in the man’s clenched teeth and tensed muscles. He didn’t flinch from it. If this was the end, so be it. He would make it a nightmare of a fight.

  Kaie smiled.

  “Stop.”

  The soft voice cut through the air like a knife. Both of them froze, eyes locking together in a shared panic that momentarily overwhelmed the battle between them.

  His hands fell open then squeezed closed again, the promised fight and blinding need to flee twisting his body into a storm of vibrating nerves. Slowly, praying silently that he was wrong, Kaie turned around.

  She was just as plain looking as he remembered and her skirts just as big. And the sick, cruel smile playing on her lips was like a bucket of ice water dumped down his back. Her pace wasn’t hurried. She seemed quite confident that her presence was enough to hold them in place until she arrived. It was. The huge man at her side was superfluous. Luna Autumnsong was terrifying all on her own.

  Behind her the hide covering his home fluttered. Kaie saw Amorette’s head peer out just for a second, then dart back inside. But that didn’t make any sense. He left before her and he returned before her. Dinner was always ready before she got home. Always. Amorette and Luna being here, when neither should be, couldn’t be a coincidence. But there was no time to figure out the implications. His nightmare was descending.

  “What is your name?”

  Kaie’s mouth went dry. His lips refused to move. She was going to punish him if he didn’t answer her. And the older Lady Autumnsong couldn’t stop it this time. He was supposed to keep his head down and become invaluable. Instead, he was fighting in East Field, inviting another culling. What was wrong with him?

  “Keegan.”

  Kaie blinked, only then realizing that Luna was talking to the other man.

  Her lips turned down in a frown that still found a way to be mocking. “You hit my puppy, Keegan. That’s not very nice of you.”

  “I… uh… I didn’t know. Ma’am. Mistress. Lady Autumnsong.”

  “You didn’t?” Her head tilted to the left, as if she were considering this answer. Kaie knew better. The truth was written clearly on her unimpressive face. She was eager for blood. This exchange was just a game.

  “No, Lady Autumnsong. I didn’t know he was yours! I would never…no one would…Please, forgive me! Mercy!” Keegan knew it too, by the terror in his voice.

  “Indeed? I suppose you do make a good point, Keegan. I can hardly hold ignorance against a person, else I would have to put down every slave in all of Lindel. Very well. I will forgive you. This one time.”

  The man sagged in relief. Kaie almost joined the sentiment, until he saw Luna’s smirk return. “Puppy, tell me, is this East Field? I get so terribly turned around outside the manor.”

  His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Keegan didn’t see it yet, by the way the man was all but sobbing in gratitude, but the bitch was about to make her move. Kaie wanted to press his eyes closed until it all went away. Moments ago he hated this other man, but that didn’t mean he wanted a hand in what was coming.

  He nodded. There was nothing else to be done.

  She smiled and clapped her hands together, pleased with his obedience. Kaie wanted to be sick.

  “It is? Oh my! I thought, surely I was lost. No one would be so foolish in East Field. Not after my aunt made such a decisive proclamation about the punishment for fighting here. But if I’m not lost and this is indeed East Field, I’m afraid my mercy simply won’t help poor Keegan here.”

  The sob that came out of Keegan sounded like it was wrung loose. Now the man saw what was coming. Too late. It was too late the moment the overdressed bitch spotted the two of them.

  She snapped her stubby fingers. The sound vibrated through Kaie, echoing the click of a latch pressed into place. The flurry of movement that caught up the entirety of East Field that followed was all unnecessary. Keegan’s life ended with that snap.

  Twenty-Five

  It all happened so terribly fast.

  Before Kaie even processed the crowd that was suddenly swallowing him, Keegan was tied to a post he never noticed before. It stood a mere ten paces away from the well but somehow blended so completely with the surroundings that it was invisible. Until someone was strung up on it, arms encircling the expanse and bare back turned to the world. Then it was impossible to look anywhere else.

  The brute who was following in Luna’s wake tugged at the rope wrapped around Keegan’s hands. The man whimpered, and Kaie’s fists clenched in sympathy. The brute nodded and took several slow steps backward.

  The boy beside him gasped. Kaie was distracted for a second, trying to figure out if it was Sorley or some other child. Shouldn’t he be able to tell? His eyes were drawn back to the slab of a man in the center of their mob an instant later. Air caught in his throat.

 
; The first lash of the whip hit the dirt at the brute’s feet. The whole of East Field seemed to hold its breath. Hoping, like he was, that it was just a nightmare? That this would end with them jerking awake, covered in sweat and panting? Or in anticipation? Some of these were his people, his family. He tried to believe it was the former, but he knew better. He could feel the excitement coursing through the crowd. They were as eager for Keegan’s pain as Luna.

  “No!”

  Kaie charged forward, knowing it was pointless. If he was overmatched by Keegan, he was nothing to the brute. But he couldn’t let this happen. This wasn’t because of his curse, or the gods’ desire to inflict suffering. It was his fault. If he just kept his mouth shut the other man would be walking home now. Angry and spoiling for a fight, but safe. And no one else was going to do a damn thing.

  The brute didn’t even glance in his direction, just lifted an elbow at the right moment. Kaie tried to adjust his trajectory but it was too late for that. Momentum carried him into the extended bone. It hit just above his left eye, splitting the skin like a ripe fruit and sending him sprawling.

  Blood spilled down his face, obscuring half his vision, Kaie pushed himself back up. Everyone was staring at him with a look that reminded him of dogs waiting to be fed. He wiped at his eye, trying to come up with some way to make this stop. He took another step forward but hands burst out of the crowd and jerked him backward.

  “Enough!”

  He stared up at the woman hissing at him. Josephine. East Field’s overseer. The whip cracked. Keegan screamed.

  “You have to stop this!” She could. She was in charge here. Vaughan explained that to him, back when they saw each other regularly. The overseer spoke for the Lady Autumnsong.

  Josephine scowled. “I can’t,” she said lowly. “No one can. Poor sot is dead already. Keep at it and you’ll be strung up there after they peel him off. Then you’ll go off with Lady Luna to recover. Is that what you want?”