by Lyn Lowe
Lady Autumnsong’s eyes focused again, returning to his face. Kaie could swear he saw sadness in the brown depths. “Correct. You will be confined in a special cell until the Namer is done with you. Then you will be unfit.”
“Even if you kill me, you can’t be sure the witness and the girl who was attacked will be safe. Your niece will be upset, and she might ask for one of them. Or you might need to set a more severe example. But this… If it was just my magic lashing out, they’re not to blame. And you aren’t taking me away, the Namer is. This will keep them safe, right?”
After a long moment, Lady Autumnsong tilted her head in agreement.
“Then this is the solution.”
“Please.” It was such an odd word to hear from a woman like Autumnsong. “Don’t make me do this. Take my alternative. Please.”
“Why do you care? This is better for you, too. Your niece won’t be mad at you for losing me.”
Now he was certain he saw sadness. “I remember every Hollow made from my estate. Every one of them visits my nightmares. I care. Is there nothing I can do to dissuade you? I will send the two away. Sell them. Get them out of Luna’s reach and safe from any further punishment.”
Kaie faltered. That was a solution he never considered. If they were safe, he didn’t need to do this. He would care just as little about Amorette and the others he brought death to with his head cleaved from his neck. And it was so much less terrifying.
Peren and Vaughan had made themselves a home in this place. It wasn’t a good one, but it was a home all the same. They’d found a bit of happiness in tangerines and taking care of each other. There was no promise of that in a new place. There was no guarantee that there would be big spaces for Peren to eat her lunch in on another estate. He could not steal the life they’d found for themselves. He couldn’t risk bringing about the future he’d seen. He owed them so much more than that.
“Mistress Autumnsong, I have magic.”
Vaughan
He stared down at the pitiful lump of flesh at his feet with a disgust Vaughan would have thought impossible eight months ago.
“Will you stop?” He snapped.
The red–haired boy looked up at him. The green eyes were dull. There was no trace of the vibrant man Vaughan had sacrificed so much for. Kaie was gone. He had died in the Namer’s cell. It was clearer, every time he was dumped back into their care. With every return, the creature that had taken his place was weaker and more pitiful. This time, he’d done nothing but weep and snivel, eating their food and relying on them to protect him from the world outside. He didn’t even answer to his name with regularity. Peren was the only one who insisted that Kaie was still inside.
Vaughan sighed and ran his fingers over the dark bruises on his right arm. His whole side ached. He knew it was putting him in a foul mood, but knowing didn’t change anything. “Do you know what my sister is doing right now?”
The boy’s lower lip quivered. His head shook.
“She is speaking to Mistress Autumnsong because of you.” He couldn’t help the anger dripping from his words. Vaughan had spent months trying to make peace with what had happened between Peren and Kaie. Every time he thought he was okay with it, the boy would be dumped on them, more useless than before, and he would lose himself to the hatred all over again.
The boy blinked and looked like a startled deer. “I did something wrong?”
“Do something? You’ve made it impossible for her to stay invisible! She’s practically infamous. The only chance she’d ever have at going unnoticed would be to belong to another household, and that’s not going to happen. Mistress Autumnsong will never let her wear another mark, after all you’ve done.” Vaughan said. He sighed and turned away, unable to bare the dumbfounded look on the face that used to mean so much to him. “Not that it’ll change a thing. You’re still going to lay around, being useless, crying and whining, until the Namer comes back for you.”
“I’m sorry,” the boy murmured. Vaughan watched the red–head curl up and start crying all over again. He made a disgusted noise He should just walk away. Kaie’s old neighbors probably wouldn’t even notice the boy was there. Peren might not be in a position to ask after him for days. By that time, the Namer might return and finally take him off their hands forever.
Instead, Vaughan dropped down to his knees in front of the boy and summoned up what remained of his patience. “My sister believes that the gods want us to take care of you. Most of you might be gone, but she will do absolutely anything to protect even the smallest piece left behind. That’s what’s got her in trouble. A lot of trouble. Everything I have to do for my lord won’t mean anything, if she has to go on like this after…” He took a deep breath and rubbed at his arm again. It wasn’t supposed to be about him. Even thinking about Peter brought back the anger and resentment, and none of it belonged on this boy’s shoulders. None of it was Kaie’s fault. It wasn’t even Peren’s. Vaughan made the choice to go into that room himself, and everything that came after was due to that decision. Letting it twist him up and ruin what he was trying to do now wouldn’t help any of them. It was easy to forget how close the next disaster was now, with her out of sight, but Vaughan knew he’d regret losing track of it in favor of his own problems. If he wanted to try to reach the miserable shell, he needed to keep his focus. “She needs you, Kaie.”
The boy’s eyes lifted up and met his. “Peren is nice.”
“Not to everyone, she isn’t,” he said with a small smile. “Pleasant, yeah. She’s good at pleasant. It keeps people from looking too close. But she saves the nice for people who matter.”
“Do I matter?”
“You did.”
“Not anymore.”
“Not lately,” he corrected. “She thinks you can again. I need you to figure out if she’s right.”
Something shifted in the green depths. It surprised Vaughan so much he rocked back on his heels. It was Kaie looking back out at him. Not the boy, but the intense, compelling man he’d given up on ever seeing again. As if to prove he wasn’t imagining things, Vaughan felt the Jhoda rise up around the red–head, reaching out with the tendrils that sang with power. And then it was gone. The light went out of the boy’s eyes like a door closing.
“I can feel it,” the boy said in the trembling voice that had become so familiar. “The parts that matters. I can feel them in my head, hidden in the darkness. I reach for them, and sometimes I think I have them, but when I close my fingers around all the things that are me, they slide away. I don’t know how to be without them. I’m just… empty.”
Tears stung Vaughan’s eyes. The first time the boy had been returned to them, he had hoped. It was clear that the boy was no Hollow, and that was such a miracle that anything had seemed possible. He’d watched for any sign that his Bruhani had survived what the Namer had done. He’d spent hours watching, scouring every gesture for some signal that could sustain his faith. So had Peren. Even that first time, he’d sensed a current of desperation in her devotion. By the second time they brought the boy back, Vaughan had known better. Nearly nine months had passed since Kaie had left them, and there’d been no hint of him since. Vaughan had found liberation in the hopelessness. It was much easier to hate when he was freed from the burden of waiting. And now that he was done with it, and Peren was making a deal that could not be undone, the sign had finally come. Not to his sister, who’s faith had never wavered, but to him.
It was worse. At least, without hope, there was nothing else to lose. He wouldn’t have to suffer through watching Kaie disappear all over again.
Vaughan fought against a swell of grief that would destroy him. Desperate, he fled back into the emotion that had carried him through the last few months. He couldn’t turn his thoughts in the direction he wanted, and couldn’t lose himself in the hatred the way he needed to. His mind kept jerking back to that moment, and the bright, glittering force that had looked back out at him, the one that had been so much more than a simple man. He could
hold on to the anger, though. That much, at least, he could use as a shield against the pain. Taking a deep breath and blinking the tears away, Vaughan reached out and caught the boy’s chin in his hand.
“My sister and I are survivors. We do what we have to do and make it out the other side, bloody and monstrous but whole and swinging. That is what my mother taught me, and it is what I’ve taught her. I will not let you destroy that, destroy her, because you’re too weak to for what needs to be done. She is better than either of us, better than you used to be even, and she deserves an Abyss’s worth more than the pit you are digging for her.”
Despite his anger, despite his resolve, Vaughan couldn’t help combing the boy’s eyes for another glimpse of the man inside. “What should I do?” the boy asked. “I can’t get it. I try, and I try. I can’t catch myself.”
“I don’t care. You’re letting them make you weak. If it goes on like this, she’ll not survive what’s coming. So I don’t care if you find the person you used to be,” he lied. “You are going to find a way to be powerful again.”
“How?” The boy whispered.
“Fight. Survive. Stop getting lost in what it’s cost you and do whatever is necessary to resist one more day. Then another after that. Fill your heart with hatred, and save it up for the day you can use it to destroy them. And if you can’t do that…” Vaughan dropped the boy’s chin and pulled away. He cleared his throat of the lump that kept trying to grow there, and jerked his thoughts back into line. He stood and paced for a moment, trying to work up the courage to say what his anger demanded. “If you can’t do that, die. When they come for you, make sure they kill you. Because if you won’t fight with us, the very least you can do is die for her.”
Vaughan couldn’t stand to look and see what damage his words had done. He wasn’t sure if he was more afraid that he’d look down and see nothing but the pitiful boy, or that he’d catch another glimpse of Kaie looking back at him. He couldn’t face the consequences of either, any more than he could tell Peren how he’d hurt himself. He left.
He’d brought Kaie to East Field, because no one would think to look for either of them there. The boy was supposed to stay hidden. No one had bothered to explain why, but Vaughan had understood it well enough. Namers made Hollows. If it became known that the one who had come for Kaie had failed, no matter how debatable that failure was, it would call the woman’s purpose into question. He thought it might even make people wonder if the Hollows were necessary at all. No one could meet the boy Kaie had become and think him the danger Unnamed mages were supposed to be. Vaughan was surprised they’d let the boy come back to them at all. The Mistress Autumnsong had played a hand in that. She’d never said why, and he didn’t dare ask. Peren felt a profound amount of gratitude for the woman over the matter, though, and it was for that reason that she’d tasked him with hiding their sometimes–roommate. They’d both seen how much the sight of the boy upset the lady.
It was a risk, of course. The Zetowan had all been settled into East Field a year and a half ago. Vaughan didn’t know how large Kaie’s home had been before the Finders and the Cat, but he couldn’t believe only two of the villagers had known the Bruhani. Still, it seemed unlikely anyone would recognize the boy for who he’d been. He had grown significantly since his first time with the Namer, and he’d wasted away to nothing more than a skeleton. There was little left of the beautiful, charming man who they would remember, especially after Vaughan had wrapped the boy’s telling hair beneath a strip of cloth. It had seemed a smaller risk than taking the boy to the stream or another home in West Field.
He had miscalculated. It looked as though the whole of East Field was arrayed before him now. Clumps of children were whispering and shooting him excited, questioning glances. A small boy stepped forward, wearing a look of determination that was unmistakable. He spoke the question they were all buzzing with, but Vaughan didn’t need to hear it. He knew why they’d come. His anger melted away, leaving him with just the dread that was always waiting in the pit of his stomach. Vaughan’s eyes dropped to the ground at his feet, and his hands twined together as though they had a will of their own.
“Where is Kaie?”
“I d–d–don’t know… Y–you’re m–m–mistaken…”
The door creaked as it opened behind him. Vaughan found himself fighting back tears again, this time for a very different reason.
The boy that had been Kaie shuffled forward, his eyes unfocused and his mouth hanging open. He had the same lifeless look Vaughan had seen in Hollows. None of the children around them noticed. Every one of them was too busy staring at the bright red hair that Vaughan had neglected to cover before storming out.
“Kaie!” The determined boy took another step forward. “Do you remember me? Dorri?”
He got no answer, but that did not deter Dorri.
“Will you tell us? We heard… There are stories that you survived the Namers. Everyone said they were only that. Stories. But we of the Zetowan knew better. We remembered what you said, how our goddess would not abandon us. Did Lemme save you? Is that how you survived? Did she… What does she want us to do?”
Vaughan shook himself out of his fear. If there was a way to salvage the situation, it would not come from standing there and letting the children ask questions of a boy too damaged to answer them. He had to get them both back to West Field without any further incident, and then he had to talk to Peter. His master could come up with some way to smooth things over, and it was worth whatever cost the lord wanted to assign to make sure that he and Peren weren’t subject to a Namer’s displeasure. He grabbed the boy who used to be Kaie by the arm and offered Dorri the best apologetic smile he could manage. “Kaie isn’t –”
“Fight.” A hush fell over the crowd. The boy’s head lifted, and Vaughan’s stomach plummeted. “Survive.”
Vaughan closed his eyes. He listened as the boy parroted what he had said, and heard the mutterings that rose in response. He felt the mood of the crowd shift from curiosity and excitement into one that would destroy them all. The words that he’d hurled out in anger were shaping something that could not be.
Revolt. He had started a slave revolt. One that would certainly be crushed, with the Namer’s forces still on the Estate.
It was too late to stop it. It had been too late, the moment the boy had stepped outside. Before that. His existence was a spark, setting fire to the rebellion that lurked in their hearts. The same rebellion Kaie had woken in Vaughan’s, the day they had met. He wasn’t a boy to them. He wasn’t even Kaie. He had transcended that, and become something greater. He was a hero.
Twenty–Four
Pain tore through him like a stream of fire. He longed to pass out, but couldn’t manage it. He tried to be still this time. The shaking started anyway. He could feel the spittle rolling down his cheek. the warm urine spreading between his legs. But he could do nothing about any of it. Even if his arms weren’t strapped down to the table, such solutions were well outside his abilities.
He tried to hold on to the good memories at first. The girl with the long white–blond hair who kissed him, the sweet smell of lavender, the night when he was able to get well and truly drunk. But those didn’t hold against the Namer’s attention. They tore up like paper.
Desperate, he turned to the ugly ones: the slap of fists against his flesh, the taste of blood on his tongue, the sound of that girl crying when she thought he was asleep, the screams of children dying, and the hazy certainty that he’d felt all of this before. Those lasted a while. They hurt, every one of them, and for a time he could hide there. Mixed in with all the other hurts she was giving him, he could get lost. But she found him eventually. And then she ripped those memories apart just as easily.
He panicked. She was taking everything and leaving him empty. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. He couldn’t remember why. But there wasn’t much left for him to hold on to. She was smashing through unimportant things now. The feel of grass under his feet. The
smell of wooden walls. He didn’t know what to do.
Then he found it. It was small. But, for some reason he didn’t understand, it was strong. Stronger than anything else in him. He grabbed onto it and clung. And for a while he forgot about the pain.
She pulled away, a frown on her face. He forgot what to call her, at first. It came back slowly. Namer. There was someone else behind him. A girl. Young. She darted forward and began wiping his face with a damp cloth. It was cool. It was amazing. He smiled at the girl gratefully. Her eyes locked with his for a moment, then she paled and darted away again.
The Namer rubbed at her temples, looking drained. “What is your name?”
He smiled again. He knew that. It was his thing. His small, strong thing. “Kaie.”
Both the women sighed.
“Namer, how many times can we do this? How many more can he survive?”
“At least one more.” The Namer was pale and severe. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face in a bun so tight he wondered if she was trying to pull it all out of her head. Everything about her was harsh. The sight of her terrified him. He couldn’t remember why. “I am going back to Uraz, to speak with the others. Put him where he belongs.”
The girl inclined her head in acquiescence and began tugging on the belts that held him to the table.
“And Kissa?”
“Yes Namer?”
“No riots this time. I will not tolerate another incident like this morning. And when I return, I will not hear ‘Kaie the Unbroken’ uttered even once. Do you understand? Not once.”
Memories
A girl looked down at him. Her long, white–blond hair formed a tent around them, tickling his chin and ears. She wasn’t beautiful in any normal way. Her face was mostly sharp angles and too pale by half. But her eyes, huge and the darkest of blue, saw right through to the center of him. She smiled, and he knew that she approved of what resided there. He reached up to brush her cheek, filled with the need to discover just how soft that milk–colored skin of hers was.
