Burnt

by Lyn Lowe

  “Help me!” he shouted, shifting so that he could hold Amorette out to him without letting up on his hold on her wrists. “You have to help me stop the bleeding!”

  “Kaie…”

  “Don’t say it!” he screamed over her cackling laughter. “Just help me!”

  Vaughan dropped down, tugging off his shirt and ripping it in half with smooth and sure motions despite the doubt written plainly on the kid’s face.

  When the other boy offered out the ragged strips to bind her wrists, Amorette shrieked and began struggling against him. Kaie cried out wordlessly, trying to hold her still enough for Vaughan to wrap her arms, but her strength was disproportionate to the life spilling out of her. Her foot caught the boy in the stomach and sent him toppling backward with an oomph. She broke her hands loose from his hold and used them to rake scratches all over his chest and back. They stung for all of an instant before going as numb as the rest of his skin, but Kaie’s blood was soon mingling with her own.

  For all its intensity, the struggle didn’t last long. Fierce as she was, Amorette could not overcome the weakness Kaie could see slipping into her. When he finally caught her arms again he couldn’t help but feel how slow her heartbeat was becoming. When Vaughan slid back down beside them she hardly managed a tired flail. They managed to get her wrists bound, though the blood stained the cloth almost instantly.

  Kaie rocked back and forth clutching her close to him as her laughter began again. It was weaker this time, soft enough that he could almost mistake it for the husky and warm one he barely remembered from the day on the hill. He could almost pretend everything was going to be all right and that when she healed it would be his Amorette again, not the bitter and manipulative woman who was giving up everything just to break him.

  Vaughan climbed back to his feet but Kaie could not join him without letting her go. The boy gave up on convincing him of the wisdom quickly and instead went about yanking down sticks and branches from the trees over them. It sent down showers of collected snow but they were being covered with so much already that it hardly made a difference.

  In short order Vaughan was constructing a crude fire pit in the middle of the snowstorm. Kaie kept his doubts about the effectiveness of the efforts to himself, mostly because he was terrified that one word would break the spell of the silence and cost him Amorette. There were no storms like this back wherever his home was but it didn’t take an expert to see that the wood was wet and frozen, unlikely to catch fire even if they had flint to start it with. And there was no kindling to speak of, which would make the task even more impossible.

  When Vaughan leaned over the rough-looking pile Kaie expected nothing. But fire burst into life with an explosion of heat and light that sent the wildling toppling backward.

  He gaped, blinking at the pink and blue after-image floating around his vision, temporarily blinding him. In his agony over Amorette he’d forgotten what Vaughan was. What he could do.

  Vaughan sat up from where he’d fallen, rubbing snow and soot off his face and avoiding looking Kaie in the eye. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to be so…explosive. But it’s been a long time since I’ve channeled so much, and with all of this…”

  He thrust Amorette back out toward the wildling. “You can fix her! Really heal her!”

  Vaughan shook his head slowly. “No. Even if I wanted to, no.”

  “What do you mean ‘if you wanted to’? Fix her!”

  “It doesn’t work like that!” The shout startled Kaie. Vaughan never spoke above a low murmur. But the boy was no mouse now. “I don’t ‘use magic,’ I touch the Balla Jhoda. The Spirit of Life. I have no spells to control it, no hand motions to twist it to my will. It doesn’t do what we demand of it, only what my heart asks of it. I want to help you, Kaie. Because of what you’ve done, and because you are my friend. But my heart will never, never desire to save this creature. Not after what she had done to my sister.” He glared. “Or have you forgotten already?”

  He did. For a minute, maybe two, he did. And he couldn’t feel guilty about it. Kaie shook with the need to force the matter. But he remembered Peren now, so he did nothing. He longed to argue, to defend Amorette. But the truth of Vaughan’s words poked at the wounds she’d dealt to all of them.

  He slumped over Amorette, trying not to notice how her breath was barely coming now. “She can’t die, Vaughan. She’s all I have left.”

  “If I could spare you this, I would. If it was in my power, I would.”

  Kaie sobbed and buried his face in Amorette’s shoulder. She didn’t react to the movement at all. He listened as her heart slowed and then stopped.

  The fire burned bright and fierce, melting away the snow and thawing the ice in his blood. Sensation returned painfully as he tried to will air into her lungs and life into her heart. By the time he was finally forced to face the fact that it was just a body in his arms, not the girl he loved, even his chest felt mostly normal again. Vaughan, without his shirt, continued to shiver, but otherwise it almost felt like the fire had banished the winter itself.

  The ground stayed frozen though.

  “I can’t bury her.”

  It was the first thing he’d said in a long while. Maybe hours. Vaughan jerked out of a doze, visibly startled. He frowned and turned to look at the fire again. The boy seemed entranced by the blaze. Kaie wondered in a detached sort of way if it was because it came from his magic or if it was some other obsession entirely.

  “We could build her a pyre. That’s how my people do it. We give our loved ones back to the Jhoda. They join back into the stream of life, and they give us our magic.”

  Kaie nodded. He looked down at the corpse in his arm that was growing cold despite the fire. “Can I have the mirror?”

  Vaughan darted over to where she’d dropped the shards of glass. The boy hesitated before picking up the largest, the one she’d used to open her wrists, but eventually brought all the pieces to him. Kaie clutched that one tightly, hardly noticing as it cut through the skin on his palm.

  Then he climbed to his feet and tossed the bloody carcass and bits of glass into Vaughan’s fire. All except the biggest one. The fire was too small by half and didn’t resemble a pyre at all, but it was enough. After a moment where it seemed it would be smothered by the additions, the magical blaze fought free and eagerly set to devouring it all.

  Kaie sobbed once then turned away and vomited.

  Thirty-One

  They waited until the wind stopped tugging at their hair and the fire of the pyre was nothing more than hot red ash. The flames lasted a long time. Vaughan’s power was great. Great and useless. As the last of the fire flickered out the last of Amorette’s bones collapsed in on themselves. Vaughan turned his head away but Kaie watched as the ashes rose up to embrace all the bits of the girl he loved.

  There were things to be done. Not a one of them felt important but he knew that would pass. If not for him, for Vaughan and Peren. They both suffered enough for the death of this last piece of Kaie’s world. He wouldn’t see them punished more. So, with much effort, he forced his mind to work through those things and come up with a plan.

  Unable to shake free of the sense he was wading through water with Kaie led Vaughan back to the well then left him with the instruction to gather the blankets and bowls from his shack and return to Peren. Vaughan didn’t ask why or what he would do. It was a small favor, one the boy was likely not even aware of, but Kaie was grateful.

  He stumbled around for a little while after that, unsure of where he was going. Every time he tried to come up with a way to move forward his thoughts would return to that cackling laugh or his eyes would drift down to the blood that coated him. It was useless, he supposed. Even when he was thinking clearly he never sorted out where Josephine was. Things were all messed up now and he was certainly not thinking right. He was stupid to even try finding her.

  It didn’t matter. Just as he was ready to give up and collapse in the snow, she found him. Always near. Alwa
ys watching. He remembered.

  Kaie told her what happened, all of it, in a voice flat and alien. Her sneer faltered and vanished as he went. Another time he might find that satisfying. Another time he might lie. When he was finished she was silent for some time. He slumped down against the well, trying to remember how he got back there. He thought about how easy it would be to just fall asleep and let the winter take him. Better than facing what Amorette left behind.

  Josephine grabbed his aching shoulder and jerked him back to his feet. It took a little while for her barked words to sink in, for his mind to make sense of them. She wanted him to take her to the place. No, not where Amorette burned. The place where Peren was attacked. That’s right. That’s why he told her. She was going to take care of Peren and Vaughan, to make sure they didn’t get in trouble for the dead man Samuel.

  He blinked and they were in the other version of his neighborhood. The one with color and flowers. Except the flowers were all buried underneath drifts of snow. Still, he was certain it was the other side. At first he suspected the sudden change in location was due to magic, but Josephine was behaving like nothing happened. After a few seconds of confusion Kaie realized he led her there the normal way. He just didn’t remember the trip.

  Disconcerted and struggling to focus, he sorted out which house used to be surrounded by yellow flowers by tracking a set of footprints coming from the same direction they were. It was more instinct directing him than any conscious realization that the prints belonged to Vaughan.

  They were inside the house. The body and the two he was trying to protect. Peren was awake. She looked up at him with those huge eyes, comb pausing halfway down its path through her hair. The corners of her thin lips turned upward, just the barest hint of a smile and for a second Kaie found an anchor. Whatever she saw, when she looked into him, it wasn’t a monster. His head cleared enough to hear what Josephina was saying.

  “… not a favorite. But she will still raise trouble over this. Gods, you and your bitch picked the worst time for your little melodrama. Mistress won’t be back for another five weeks.” The woman sighed heavily.

  “What does that mean?” Kaie asked, because it felt like he should.

  “It means you keep your head down! Only do it this time!” she snapped. “If we are very lucky and the gods like you very much, Master Peter will find just enough backbone to keep Lady Luna’s fingers off you that long. Chaos’s balls, I will never understand why Mistress is willing to waste such effort keeping your worthless ass safe.”

  “Me neither,” Kaie muttered. But Josephine wasn’t listening to him. She was tugging and jerking on Samuel’s body. Large as it was, she still managed to get it up and somehow hoist it over her shoulder.

  “Can he… can Kaie stay here?” Peren asked.

  He didn’t want to stay. He almost said so. But Peren’s eyes were locked on him, asking him for something. She was beaten because of him. Because she gave him a puzzle to solve when he needed one. Because she ate lunch with him so that he wouldn’t be alone. He couldn’t deny her this. Not today.

  Josephine eyed them all with clear irritation. “Keep him from making this worse.”

  Peren nodded, her eyes never leaving his.

  “Fine.”

  The second the woman was out of the room, Kaie dropped to the dirt. He was stuck. Anything he did now would be Peren’s fault. He couldn’t finish his plan. Without it there wasn’t anything holding him up.

  Kaie ran his thumb over the edge of the glass, mindless of the cut it made or the way his blood mingled with Amorette’s. He lost himself in the past. What he saw was too vivid, too solid, to be memories. It was a vision and he embraced it.

  Two boys were racing. They were young. Six. With a start, he recognized the children he was watching. Sojun, towheaded back then, and his own auburn curls bobbing along ahead. He was always ahead. The kids were heading for their hill. Even back then, it was theirs.

  They skidded to a halt, their twin expressions of shock so similar it was comical. There, on their hill, was a stranger, a tiny girl with a burst of strawberry hair that caught the light and made a fiery halo around her delicate features. Which were, at that particular moment, twisted into an expression of angry determination.

  “You’re going to fly!” she announced to her feet. He concentrated on the image. That wasn’t right. As he focused, the blurry shape on the ground fleshed out. It was a sparrow, the sparrow, just a baby and all alone.

  “Kosa take you, you stupid bird, fly!”

  The boys’ mouths dropped open so in sync with each other it almost looked rehearsed. Little girls didn’t speak that way. No one but adults said the Destroyer’s name out loud. Everyone knew it was bad luck.

  She spat more curses at it, not one less shocking than the first. Then she began stomping her feet and screaming at it. Both boys watched the scene, neither sure what to do about this tiny terror losing her mind because a baby bird wasn’t flying.

  The red-haired boy was always the more daring of the two. He was the one who cautiously approached. Before he made it three whole steps, the girl spun on him, sticking out her finger in such a convincing imitation of an angry adult that the boy’s face paled. “You stay right there! This stupid sparrow is going to fly, and I will not let you scare him before he does!”

  Sojun was the first one to laugh, but it didn’t take the other boy long to follow. Soon both of them were rolling on the ground, laughing so hard they could barely breathe. The girl grew increasingly angrier, until she finally came over and started kicking them both.

  Sojun grabbed her foot, tugging her down, too. In short order, all three of them were entrenched in their very first wrestling match. He knew what came after that. Both boys were entranced with the screaming, swearing, spitting girl who lost her temper at a baby sparrow. She resisted their overtures at friendship for a while, but they were accustomed to getting their way.

  He blinked again and the room was dark. The fire, still burning in the middle of the shack, was the only light left. He rubbed his eyes, making sure the sudden change was not a mistake of his vision. But the darkness stayed.

  There was a blanket around his shoulders. Kaie was afraid it was one from his home, one that would still smell of Amorette. But it wasn’t. It was newer, thicker. And it didn’t smell like bread. His shoulders slumped with relief.

  A bowl dropped down in front of him. He couldn’t tell if it was one that Amorette used. There was salted pork inside. He couldn’t remember the last meal he ate without any pork. There were vegetables, too. That was new. And… fruit?

  A soft noise came from the back of his throat at the sight of the orange in the bowl. Gods. Fruit! His fingers were in the bowl, fishing out the soft, fleshy substance and popping it in his mouth before he even finished processing this impossibility. Sweet juice exploded on his tongue, and for one blissful second, Kaie didn’t think about anything else.

  “It’s called tangerine.” Peren was hovering over his shoulder. For some reason, Kaie expected her to be sitting across the fire. “Vaughan brought it to me for my Birthing Day yesterday.”

  “Your birthday?” It was hard to focus on now, when the past was so close. But he felt like he should, for her. She got hurt because of him.

  Peren nodded and plopped down beside him. She hit him twice in the process, but it didn’t bother him as much as usual. “Yup.”

  “How old are you?” She must be young. Twelve, maybe. Just a girl. All sharp angles and awkward movements. Except she seemed so old when she talked. Wise. Like his mother, before the fire. And the way she looked at him…

  Peren chuckled. “You got my name. You haven’t earned that one yet.”

  He blinked. Another puzzle. He tried to sort out if he liked it this time. “Where’s Vaughan?”

  She pointed to the rest of the food in his bowl. Not seeing any reason to do otherwise, Kaie obeyed her unspoken order and continued to eat his food.

  “He doesn’t stay here.”
r />   “Isn’t this his house?” He asked around a bite of pork.

  She nodded. “Since we were children.”

  It was like pulling out fingernails. “So why doesn’t he stay here?”

  She tilted her head, the way she did whenever he asked something she didn’t expect. “Because he stays with Master Peter.”

  Kaie blinked. “Uh…oh. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s not like that,” she said quietly. “Well, it is. But not really. It’s how he protects me. That’s why I don’t share this house, and how he gets me fruit for special days.”

  He grimaced. “Vaughan’s a whore.” It was just a word before, one he heard others bandy about but one that meant little to him. Now it was more.

  “No.” Peren pulled away from him. She wrapped her arms around her knees. She should be angry at him but she wasn’t. Somehow, Kaie knew she wasn’t. “There are only two ways to survive this life. Either you’re important to someone with power, or you are invisible. I’m invisible. Vaughan tried to be invisible, but that didn’t keep me safe. So he found a way to be important. He’s not a whore, Kaie. He’s a survivor. Just like you. Just like me.”

  “Amorette…”

  “She wasn’t,” Peren answered before he could finish his thought. “She cared about the wrong things. You have power. She was important to you. But she wasted that on things that don’t matter. Things that aren’t real.”

  “She was trying to hurt me. Because I hurt her.”

  Peren shook her head. “No. Life hurt her. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Kaie laughed. It sounded brittle. Like Amorette’s laugh, at the end. He dropped the bowl and shrunk down into the blanket. “It was. Just like the man, Samuel, and Keegan before that. I killed them all.”

  Her arms were around him. He wasn’t sure when that happened. He didn’t want to need it. After a minute of trying not to, though, his eyes pressed closed and he leaned into the comfort she was offering. “No.”