by Lyn Lowe
He didn’t want another friend in this place. The boy was meek, cowed, not at all the sort of person who could withstand the punishment the gods were sure to dole out for associating with him. And the kid didn’t seem likely to help him find a way to get Sojun and Amorette out of this mess. But just the thought of another two or three weeks of the silence and uninterrupted boredom was enough to make him start gibbering. His loneliness won out over his better sense. He grinned. “Thanks.” He held out his hand. “Kaie.”
The boy smiled, a true smile that lit his light blue eyes, and took the hand. “Vaughan Talus de Vilde.”
“So. Vaughan. Now that you’ve risked life and limb for me a couple times, sticking me in this perfectly miserable situation, I figure you owe me a favor. Want to make amends?”
The boy blinked owlishly. “What?”
“You’re going to help me figure out how to make things better for Amorette.”
***
“What do you want from me?”
He attempted a grin, but that was a challenge facing such an unappreciative audience. “Your attention.”
Amorette closed her eyes for a moment, letting out a slow sigh. When she opened them again even her anger seemed to drain away, leaving her looking empty. “Okay.”
It wasn’t the resounding acceptance he’d hoped for, but it was an allowance and Kaie was going to take it. “This is bad. I know that, and I know it’s worse for him…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the name out loud. So he pushed on. “And I know that’s because of me. I should be punished. I get that. But I can’t lose you, Ams. I don’t have anything else. Yell, scream, hit me if you have to. But don’t just slip away. Please.”
She stared at him for a while. He searched for some sign of acceptance in her flat hazel eyes. But there was nothing. After a time, she sat down with her back to the cloth doorway and stared into the dead fire pit. He let the silence stretch on for as long as he could stand it, hoping this was simply her considering his words. But he was terrified this was her answer.
“Say something.”
Amorette’s eyes never lifted from the ashes. “What would you have me say?”
“I don’t know.” Kaie let out a slow breath of air. “Tell me you hate me. Tell me what I need to do for you to forgive me. Anything. Just talk.”
Finally, so slowly he felt each agonizing second, she looked up. Her eyes darted over to his creation then back to him. “I don’t know what to say. I think of things, while I sleep, while I make the bread and wash the dishes, and then I see you and I forget them all.”
His jaw clenched for a moment. “They have you making bread? The best hunter in our family and they waste you with bread?” Her right brow twitched.
After a while she dropped her gaze back down to the floor. The silence stretched. Kaie sighed. He knew it would take more than one conversation to fix what was broken, if there was any way of fixing it at all. But he felt intensely disappointed.
He moved over to his side of the room and looked down at the sparrow he outlined with sticks and pebbles. He’d been so proud of his idea earlier. Now it looked pathetic. He reached down to knock it aside, lacking even the energy to take it apart. Before his hand connected with the construction, her small one wrapped around his wrist. “Don’t break it.”
She was so close he could feel the tickle of her breath. They were never this close. Not when it was just the two of them. His skin tingled where her air brushed him and burned where she touched. He could smell her, underneath the scent of dough and soap, and could almost imagine the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears. And there was no one else there to remind him of how she could never be his. He swallowed hard against an old longing that was so much worse than shameful.
“You like it?” He tripped over the words.
“You remembered.”
His smile fell apart almost the moment it touched his lips. He was too nervous to hold on to it. “Of course I do. I’ll never forget it. I fell half in love with you that day.”
She looked almost as surprised as he was that he’d said it. But Kaie noticed the twitch of a smile at the corner of her lip, and that almost made the deeply embarrassing confession worth it. “At six years old?”
He chuckled, hoping she would take the whole thing as a joke. Or maybe that she wouldn’t and that something would come of it. “Oh yes. You underestimate how irresistible you were back then. Every six–year–old boy in the tribe was falling for you.” The twitch grew until it was on the verge of being something real. His own grin returned in force.
It was truer than she would ever believe. He and Sojun never fought over her. Not really. But they fended off more than a few other boys who were desperate to win her attention. That she chose them to be her closest friends was a boon neither could quite understand, and one they were more than willing to blacken a few eyes to protect. They both knew that ultimately it would be only one of them who won her. For all that they never faced it, it was the first and deepest crack between them.
“I threw a stone at the mother.” Amorette’s voice snapped Kaie back into the moment. “I never told anyone that. It wasn’t an accident that she left. I thought it was funny, and I thought she’d come back. I was the reason he was all alone.”
“It turned out okay.”
She dropped his wrist. He dropped his hand. The two of them knelt there in silence once again. This time he didn’t try to end it. When he felt cool fingers threading between his, Kaie thought he was imagining it. He glanced down at their clasped hands in surprise. She squeezed, just a bit, and then pulled her hand loose.
Kaie thought that was it. She would go back to her side, he would clean up his. But it would be better. Because some of it would be better between them. A start. Except that wasn’t it.
She placed her hands on either side of his face and lifted his head until they were staring into each other’s eyes again. And then she kissed him.
Soft. Tasting a bit of the bread they had her making. Hesitant at first, then more insisting. His heart thundered in his ears. His arms slid around her, snaking up her back and tightening around her waist, pulling her forward until there was no space between them. She came willingly, her every movement yielding. More than that.
Then her cool fingers were slipping under his shirt and tugging at the drawstring of his pants. Kaie drew in a sharp breath as a shudder ran through him. He leaned back and caught up her hands quickly, before his body could make an idiot of him. “What are you doing?” he muttered.
She pulled her hands free. “I thought that would be obvious.”
“It… yes.” His head spun. This wasn’t for him. “But Sojun…”
She hissed and pulled away, wrapping her arms across her chest. “I don’t want to think about him now.”
“He’s my heart’s brother, Ams. What he did for me…This is wrong. He’s not dead. He’s not here, but he’s alive.”
“It doesn’t matter. He chose. I’m not his anymore.”
Kaie sucked in a breath of air and let it out slowly, trying to calm the blood pumping through his him. “It does matter. So this…”
“This is me saying,” she interrupted, sliding her arms around his neck and pulling his head back to hers, “he gave me up. And I want you to make me forget. Just for a little while. Please. Make me forget him.”
Kaie knew he needed to push her away. Every second he didn’t he was betraying Sojun. But then her lips were on his again. It made it almost impossible to think. Her hand slid down his chest, to his pants, and every bit of him was determined not to stop. To let her do as she pleased. To forget. Just for a little while.
With a moan just as much desire as it was regret, Kaie stood up. Amorette reached up for him, reached for his pants at least, but he knocked her hands away. There was something deeply, terribly wrong with him that he was refusing this beautiful woman. One he’d loved since he was six.
“I can’t do this. Jun…”
“Don’t! I told you
, I’m not his! I never want to hear his name again!” Amorette hissed, her face taking on an entirely different look, one he didn’t know. “You asked what you could do to be forgiven. Or are you done with me now, too?”
Kaie flinched, hurting like it was a physical blow. “I’m sorry. Kosa take me, you’ll never know how sorry. Anything else. But not this.”
She screamed. A horrible, earsplitting sound. Then she beat her fists down on the sparrow. Over and over, until all that was left were bits and dust.
Eleven
He left before she woke. It was at least an hour before the sun reached for the horizon when he climbed from beneath his blanket and slipped out the hide door. He didn’t know where he was heading. Kaie only knew that he couldn’t stay in their home another moment.
There was a small stream a ways behind the hill the houses were built into. Vaughan had brought him there while they were gathering the stuff for his sparrow the day before. The well was a much closer source of water, but close wasn’t his goal. It wasn’t a short walk, but it took him back into a patch of woods thick enough that he wouldn’t need to worry about stumbling onto anyone else.
Calling it a stream was generous. Kaie was fairly certain he could piss harder than the water flowed. But that was okay. It was clean and quiet. That was all he wanted. It took some work to fill his cupped hands and wash his face and neck, but he managed. The water was numbing and spilled down his shirt in satisfying rivulets. He filled his hands again to wash his head. He could feel the stubble of his hair growing back already. The way the warmth was holding on, he would likely have a full head of it again by the time winter arrived.
He was cleaner now, but didn’t feel it. Even if he was given soap and a scrubber, he wouldn’t be rid of the filth. He tried again and once more to wash it away. But it clung. The grime wasn’t a physical thing. Finally, frustration won out. Kaie threw his head back and screamed, at the gods, at himself, and at everyone that conspired to place him in this moment. He hated them all. Especially the ones he loved.
“Why?” he demanded of the heavens. “Why do you have to destroy everything? Haven’t I lost enough? Can’t I just have her? One friend, in all this shit you’ve dumped on me? It can’t really be too much to ask!”
Kaie slapped the stream, sending beads of water flying in every direction. “I’ve lost everyone. Everyone but her. Now you expect me to betray Jun or lose her? What in the Abyss is wrong with you?”
If Mother Lemme heard, she was in no mood to answer. Kaie dropped his head into his hands, a broken sob slipping out before he could catch it.
A cracked twig brought his head back up and his eyes combing the trees for the intruder. Kaie spotted her quickly, though he got the distinct impression that she meant for him to find her.
It was the girl with the white blond hair and the red arms, the one who came silently to his house every morning. She was staring at him, her startling blue eyes peeking out between the strands of hair that hid so much of her face. Kaie felt certain she’d been there for a while. Maybe before he was. His face flushed, shame and humiliation racing each other down his cheeks.
“You’re talking about Amorette,” she said.
He ground his teeth and nodded.
The girl took a slow step forward. It was like she was approaching a deer that would startle if she moved too quickly.
“You love her?” she asked. “For a long time?”
In a low voice, Kaie answered. “More than half my life.”
“But she doesn’t love you.”
His mouth worked. Amorette wanted him. He knew that. And they were family. But somehow the words never made it out. Maybe it was the look in those eyes. Like she saw right through to the center of him, to what he really was. If she asked he could debate it. But she spoke it like fact, and he discovered he couldn’t convince himself she was wrong.
“She told me about him once. The other one. Sojun?”
He nodded, the name like another burning rod pressed to his flesh.
“She loved him. Now he’s not here. She said it was because he loved you best. She doesn’t love you, and you are here. You think yelling at the trees will undo some part of this?”
“Not the trees,” he muttered. “The gods. And I don’t want them to undo it.”
“What then? Should these gods of yours wave their hands and make her forget all about him and know only you?”
“No!” he shouted at her. He worked to control his volume. “No. I need them to take away this feeling. She’s the only thing I ever wanted for myself. She says that if I take her, she’ll forgive me. And I want to. Gods, I do! I want to feel good when I hold her. Instead of feeling like…”
“A betrayer.”
He shuddered. “Why should I feel like that? He gave her up. It was supposed to be me that was gone, and him that was here. I was going to make that happen. But he stopped me. He changed it. Why should I hate myself so much for wanting what he gave me?”
She was in front of him now. He wasn’t sure when that happened. He was impressed, thinking on what a good hunter she would make. Up until the moment she dropped down beside him. It was such a catastrophe of gravity and limbs that Kaie half expected her to smack him in the face before she was done. It was, without question, the most graceless thing he’d ever seen. The girl was all sharp angles and awkward movements. Any trace of the careful huntress was gone, erased so effectively it was impressive in its own right.
“You hate that she asked that from you. But you want to be with her.”
“I love her.”
The girl rolled her eyes. “You want permission to betray your friend. The one she loved. The one you still do. That’s what you want from those gods.”
He sucked in a long breath through his teeth. He tried to be angry at her.
She didn’t wait to see what words he put together. “You’re the one my brother calls Bruhani. I wasn’t sure before. But you are, aren’t you?”
He laughed a little, more from relief than amusement. “I didn’t know Vaughan had a sister. And I didn’t know the name was special. I figured it meant new guy or something.”
She shook her head. “It means something.” She flipped her hair back from her face with a single jerk. Awkward, just like everything else about her, but effective. Her face was pointed and narrow. Like a bird. It was a lot like her brother’s face, too. It looked much better on him. She reached out and tapped his head twice, a lopsided smile on her thin lips. “He likes you. He doesn’t like anyone in this place. Just me, and now you. That means something, too.”
“Uh… thanks?”
She rolled her eyes again. Such big eyes. Then she widened her smile, as if to say she forgave him. “He says he’s never heard of anyone with so much of the Jhoda running through them. That it’s almost like you’re more than someone who can touch it, you’re something born from it. Like you’re a bit fai. Maybe more than a bit.”
“Vaughan thinks I’m a fairy?”
The girl’s laugh came out half snort. “He also says you might die if you sit still too long. That you are always moving in one direction or another. Moving, planning, moving. Never ever still.”
Kaie shrugged. “I get bored. Your brother is still enough for both of us, with all that meditation.”
“You know what I think is strange?”
He was answering before he could think any better of it. “I’m afraid to ask. It must be disturbing.”
She laughed again, snort and all, and punched him in the shoulder. Not lightly, the way girls hit to play. It was a real hit that left his skin stinging. “There’s a boy. He is so powerful people think he might be fay. He must be terribly compelling, because even a cautious and fearful person starts trusting this boy without a second thought. He inspires his friend to sacrifice love and future for him. He thinks so highly of himself that he believes his gods will return just to absolve him of some very appropriate misgivings.
“There are a good number of directions he can
move in, and some of them could even bring him a measure of peace and happiness. But, of all those directions, he wants to walk backward, when he already knows everything that waits there will hollow out the greatness in him and leave only guilt and self–hatred. Isn’t that odd?”
She stood up, a process that was every bit as treacherous as sitting down. This time, Kaie actually did catch an elbow in his shoulder. The same one she hit. He wasn’t sure it was accidental, either. “I need to go fetch your Amorette. You are an interesting person to speak with, Bruhani.”
“Wait!”
She kept moving toward the path he followed from the houses with no sign of slowing. But she did glance back.
“What’s your name?”
She rolled her eyes once more before flipping her hair back into place and covering up her angled face. “You haven’t earned it yet. And don’t you ask my brother! That’s cheating.”
Twelve
Vaughan came every other day. Always just after the sun reached its highest point. So, when the hide blanket over the front of the house lifted, Kaie expected it to be the blond boy.
Instead, Kaie scrambled backward. His hand sought anything that might serve as a weapon. His fingers wrapped around one of the bowls the neighbors gave them. He swung it in the space between them. The woman’s nose wrinkled in what could just as easily be scorn as laughter. She made as though to step across the threshold, the hand not holding back the blanket clenched in a fist.
“Thank you, Josephine. That will be all.”
The voice came from outside, well beyond his scope of vision. It was soft and unassuming. It snapped the woman straight in an instant. She tilted her head to the unseen speaker and then dropped the blanket back into place, obscuring Kaie’s view completely.
He crept forward, not at all certain he wanted to find out what was going on, clutching the bowl like a lifeline. Just as he reached the halfway point the hide was jerked open again.
