“Scouting.” River’s lips tilt upwards into a pout. “And they didn’t even say goodbye to anyone. Mama Opal said Shade just stomped into the house and told Axle to get his gear and follow him. Otis says they left right after dusk without anything but their weapons and a couple day’s supply of food.” She doesn’t do a good job of keeping the worry from her voice.
“They’ll be alright,” I tell her.
“I wish I believed that,” River says. She props her legs beneath her chin. “But I’ve lost my brother once. I don’t want to lose him again.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her face pales. “Nothing.”
“Did he leave you?”
Her eyes widen. “Gods, Kyla, how could you think such a thing? He’s my brother. My brother! He wouldn’t leave me.”
“How did you lose him then?”
She bows her head. “It’s not my story to tell. Please, Kyla, you have to understand why I can’t say anything. He’s barely told me much about those years when we were separated. If I breach that trust between us – it’s like I don’t deserve to be his sister. Please understand that.”
Certain that she’s going to cry herself into a frenzy, I take her hand and agree to stop asking. But my nerves tense up. River tells me anything. Asks me anything. For her to be unable to tell me something, it must be serious.
It must be horrible.
Shade and Axle remain absent. I try not to worry. River says they’ve been gone a whole month before and returned with enough food to feed the village through the winter. She says Shade even brought sugar in a neat package for Mama Opal. I sneak a peek at the three year-old bag that Mama Opal keeps in the pantry for special occasions. It’s a Kelban item.
For three days, I withstand the loneliness of training. I commit Shade’s short words to memory. I practice moving my body the way he does. Not the way he showed me. Not the way he’s taught me. The way I remember him moving all those years ago, on a darkened night, with a moon blade in hand. He had been all violent grace and destructive speed. He had been smoke and forest smells against the piss and blood of the foul creatures before me.
On the fourth day, I decide not to go to the ruins. More and more people have noticed my absences, and I have fewer excuses now that Shade and Axle are away. I let myself sleep in and River shakes me awake.
“Come on. I’m going swimming. You should come and meet some of the others.” The minutes she says it we both know what a mess that situation would become.
Besides . . . I can’t swim.
“I . . . I think I’d rather stay here.”
River doesn’t hide her disappointment. “Kyla, you have to make them see you are not a threat. You have to make them like you.”
I am pretty sure screaming and pleading for help as I drown in seven feet of water is not the best way to begin a friendship. They would stand on the bank and watch me die anyway. I do not want their pity. I do not want their friendship.
“I will clean Cedric’s study.” I point to the heavy curtain. “My arm is healed now and it’s a mess in there.”
River looks at my shoulder, where the ostracized symbol winks at her from beneath my sleeve. “Okay,” she says hesitantly and grabs a worn towel from our cot. “If you change your mind . . .”
“I won’t,” I assure her.
She leaves.
I spend an hour among Cedric’s items before Mama Opal calls me downstairs to the wardrobe on the far side of the room. Her hair is messed up and stringy. Behind her is a pile of over-sized garments that smell of dust and age.
“Yes?”
She looks up and blinks, as if suddenly realizing I’m there. “Oh, there you are, child. I was thinking . . . you can’t always wear that tunic.” She gestures at the already stained garment. “I know I used to have some clothes just your size. Suitable clothes.” She regards my waist. “You’re not a skeleton anymore.”
No. Thanks to Shade, I’ve recovered my former health. Healthier, actually.
She heaves a wooden box from the bottom of the wardrobe onto the kitchen table. It is a fine piece of craftsmanship. The wood is tinted red and sandpapered into smooth, glass-like texture. I observe the brass padlock. Mama Opal pulls a chain hidden beneath the collar of her tunic. I had always thought it was a necklace. A key dangles at the end of it. She inserts it into the ancient lock and the lid cracks open. She lets it fly back.
I expected a damp, musty smell to emanate from it, but I smell flowers. Roses. Lavender. Tulips. Daffodils. Flower petals are strewn across the objects within the box. I see bright colors. A hint of lace. A small book.
“If you live under my roof, you’re going to be taken care of,” Mama Opal says. She blinks rapidly, but it doesn’t hide the tremor in her voice. The pain in her features. She removes a neatly folded black tunic with a glossy sheen to its folds and places it in my arms. “Try it on.”
I do. It fits perfectly. When I return, she produces a vest that cuts off mid-bodice and laces it shut for me. It leaves me feeling protected and stylish at the same time.
“The final touch,” she says and removes two objects from inside the box. I blink when I recognize what they are. Wrist-guards Two black, leather wrist-guards She helps me put them on. They stop an inch short of my elbow, allowing me freedom of movement, but offering protection to the rest of my arm.
I feel like a warrior ready for battle when I slip my dagger into the sheath beneath my skirts.
“The clothes . . . they suit you better than they do the box,” Mama Opal remarks. She smiles and stares at me.
I reassess my attire. “It’s . . . it fits perfectly.”
“They were my daughter’s,” Mama Opal remarks fondly. My chest tightens. Her daughter? “It was her favorite outfit. She told me it made her feel strong. Capable. She’d loved going into the woods. She’d be gone for hours. Days, sometimes, with her father whenever he went on what of his little expeditions. She had her father’s spirit. Adventure. Travel. Creativity.”
I want to ask what happened. I want to ask where her daughter is. Where her husband is. But that tight feeling in my chest demands my silence. Deep down, I know the answers to those questions.
“I . . . I think I will go see River,” I say. I stop at the door and turn around. “Mama Opal?”
“Yes, honey?” She looks up too quickly. Her eyes are wet. I see my mother’s face and the courage it takes to hide the pain.
“Thank you.”
Her lips stretch into a smile. “You remind me of her. My daughter, I mean. Same spirit. Same personality.” Her eyes twinkle. “Same habits. Don’t let Shade give you any of his shit, you hear me?”
“W-what?”
“You didn’t think I knew where you went everyday? What you are doing? Who you are doing it with? Honestly, honey, give me some credit. I was young once. I had a daughter who was young. Neither of you, elusive and secretive as you two have been, could hide it from these weathered eyes.” She stares at the wrist-guards on my arms. “Those might help you considerably. I don’t want to see any more ugly red marks on your arms, child. You have enough as it is.” She winks.
Mother and Mama Opal could be twins.
“Who else k-knows?”
She shrugs. “Axle has an idea. River’s getting closer to the truth. Otis might have some suspicions. They are nothing to worry about, honey.”
I believe her.
“Go on now,” she urges. “You’ll miss River!”
Everyone I passed took a second look as I walked by. Hell, most took three or four looks. Indeed, in my new attire, I hardly gave the appearance of the downtrodden foreigner that had been dragged into the village a few weeks prior. Otis nodded approvingly as I passed him at the gate, but behind his admiration, I saw a tinge of memory. He knows whose clothes I wear.
I am half a mile from Agron’s gates when the sound of chaotic laughter pulls me in the right direction. A group of dripping wet boys runs past me, slapping one another with towels, a
nd yelling threats. Behind them, groups of girls walk placidly, by threes or twos. River immediately breaks away from one of them and approaches me, wiping water from her eyes. Her hair is undone from its braid and fans out around her thin face.
“I tore my dress,” she mumbles, mid-laugh, and points at the tear on her sleeve.
A tall boy with close-cut brown hair passes the two of us. He and River share a quick glance and a smile, before he hurries after a couple of his friends. River giggles as soon as he’s gone, and my suspicions are deemed correct.
I know how she tore her dress.
River takes my hand and pulls me towards the forest, away from Agron. “I want to dry off before we go back.” I’m in no hurry to return so I follow her.
The forest opens up into a meadow. It’s small and surrounded by trees, but I can see the sky and the meadow is full of yellow-green grass and flowers. River makes herself comfortable in the middle of the swaying wildlife, combing fingers through her long hair. I plop down beside her.
“Don’t say a word about Rod to Axle. Please?”
I nod. That is one conversation I don’t anticipate having. I doubt Axle would be thrilled to know someone was sticking his tongue down River’s throat. And I doubt “Rod” would be eager for an altercation with one of the village’s esteemed “guardians” for such reasons.
River’s voice is soft and faraway. She rolls onto her back and stares up at the sky. “He’s just moved to the village from one of the mountain regions. Indeed, I should have known he got those muscles from hiking. Says he’s an only child and that his parents will be moving down shortly. The air in the mountains is too unpleasant for them, he says. He knows a lot about wildlife, but he doesn’t like to hunt. Says he prefers healing the creatures to killing them.”
Sounds like a guy Shade would turn up his nose at.
“I don’t know if I’m in love with him or anything,” River says. “But he’s so cute and . . . and I just feel so . . . so out of breath whenever I’m near him. He touched my arm, and, I swear, I could feel it for days after that.”
I nod at her words. I had known that feeling – twice. Once, when I was fourteen. Once on a dark night, in an alley, surrounded by evil, but protected in my hero’s arms.
That was before my hero became the exact opposite of what I’d believed him to be.
“But you would know,” River sighs. “I wish I knew what it felt like. I wish everyone didn’t think I was so flighty. Or that I am too young to think about such things. Look at you. You’re as old as I and you’ve had the experience.”
It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about my fake husband.
“What was your first kiss like?” she asks, sighing languidly on each word.
I try to immerse myself in that moment between Aspen and I. The smells of piss and human excrement around us. The damp air between us. The grip of his hands on my body. The fiery pressure of his lips on mine. The bile rising in my throat. The voice inside telling me that it was wrong. Horribly wrong, and that I didn’t know why.
“It . . . burned.”
River sits up and sighs. “Yes. It does burn. It burns me inside and out. But it enthralls me. Intensifies. Oh, Kyla, I never thought someone would kiss me like that. Kiss me like I was the only thing that mattered. That I was worth it.”
Deep down, a pang of jealousy stabs at my rib-cage. Jealousy that River can experience such real admiration without worrying that the boy is after her inheritance. Jealousy that she reciprocates his feelings.
“Those are Leanna’s,” she says, eying the wrist-guards. The vest. The dress. “Those are hers too. Where did you get them, Kyla? I told you to stay out of Mama Opal’s wardrobe.”
“She gave them to me.”
Her eyes widen. “She did?”
“Yes. She said if I lived under her roof I had to dress proper.”
There is sadness in River’s eyes. She looks away quickly, but it’s too late.
“What?”
She tries to put the matter aside. “Nothing. I just don’t see why . . . I mean . . . those things . . . they should have been burned . . . No! I mean they should have . . .”
“River.” My voice sound stern. I don’t mean it to be.
She faces me again. A tiny stream of tears pours from one eye. The other is full of water that gleams at me in the light.
“She died, didn’t she?” I ask. “Leanna died.”
River nods.
My chest tightens.
“It happened two years ago – a few weeks after Shade, Axle, and I arrived in Agron,” River says. “We . . .”
“Wait . . . you weren’t born in Agron?”
River’s shoulder stiffen. Her eyes dart back and forth nervously like she’s revealed a deadly secret. “No,” she answers softly. “We were not. Axle and I are from Brunt, a little village in the middle of the forest between here and the capitol. Shade, however, he was born in Smoke.”
Smoke. Smoke. I try to place the word.
“You should have killed her, Shade of Smoke!” Dirk had told him that in the council room.
“Smoke is the capitol of our land. Where the King lives. But it wasn’t always the capitol. Not until a couple years ago when we finally decided to build a stronghold. When Shade lived there it was just another village – perhaps larger than most – but a village, nonetheless He never talks about it. Never mentions it except when he speaks of the King and our ‘capitol.’ I often wonder if he really considers it ‘home.’”
Shade had never mentioned the word “home.” Never mentioned a family. Never mentioned anything remotely close to ties of any sort. The only bond close enough to call “human” about him was his friendship with Axle and his quiet respect for Otis, Mama Opal, and River.
“Mama Opal’s husband, Cedric, was a man who liked to travel. Or so we were told. He’d be gone for months on end. Once he was gone for a whole year and believed to be dead, by all but Mama Opal. When he returned he did not speak of his journey. He told no one what he did on his many adventures. He retrieved relics from ancient Kelban ruins. He found new herbs for Mama Opal. In a way, Leanna was a lot like him. She talked a lot more than he did, like her mother. She was kind and gentle with everyone. Innocent. Eager to help. But there was something about her that bothered me,” River says. The smile on her lips wavers. “She would stare at people. Constantly. Like they were prey and she the hunter. She observed every little thing around her. And it scared me. When we arrived in the village, she didn’t speak to me for three weeks, just watched me. How I ate. How I slept. How I walked. Ran. Played. Talked. It drove me crazy! Axle and Shade could leave the village. I couldn’t. I was relieved when she started accompanying her father on his adventures. And then one day I saw her talking to Shade.” She plucks a few strands of grass from the ground nervously.
“It scared me even more. Shade was a different person back then. Quiet. He never talked to anyone. Not even me, if he could help it. He trembled whenever someone touched him. Once he even hit Otis! He started sleeping in the cellar without blankets or light.” River shivers. “Leanna and he – they talked for two hours. Two hours! And the next day, they both went hunting. They both came back with razors. She was smiling like a fool. He didn’t smile, but – oh – you could tell he wanted to. Axle and Shade were on duty for patrol that night. It was also the night that Cedric and Leanna were leaving the village for a journey to Smoke. They didn’t get far.”
I want to tell her to stop. To not finish. I don’t need to know what happened.
But I do.
“One of their guards came rushing back to Agron, screaming at the top of his lungs. Blood was running down his face. He had claw marks in his throat. He died a few minutes after they brought him to Mama Opal. Shade managed to force the information from him – I don’t know how. Axle wouldn’t tell me. No one would. He grabbed that glowing sword of his and went after them. He returned at dawn the next day with the bodies.”
Dead.
“He never told us what happened or what he did to defeat the shadows. He just said that the shadows would not return. Cedric and Leanna were hard to bury.” River turns her head away, face pale with fright.
“Their bodies were torn to pieces.”
It is almost dusk. River and I stumble back to Agron through the thick trees.
River continues talking about Rod – Leanna and Cedric forgotten in her bliss. But I cannot forget. I imagine their horrified screams. Their bodies mutilated and torn to pieces. I remember the shadows from that long ago night. From Agron’s square. How we’d spoke to one another. How I’d understood when no else could. The scars on my neck sting, and I rub a hand over them timidly.
“You okay?” River asks.
“Yes.” I drop my hand by my side again.
“I was asking you a question.”
“I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
“Do you find Rod attractive?”
I force the best image of the tall, lanky, brown-haired lad into my mind. “He’s . . . attractive enough, I suppose?” Certainly not my taste, though, I decide not to add.
“Yes, he is,” River agrees, “but he can hardly compare to Shade.”
I choke on the air I’ve sucked into my lungs. “You . . . you find Shade attractive?”
“Of course. I’m no fool. Don’t you?” She winks teasingly at me before elbowing me gently in the arm. “Come now, I’ve seen the way you look at him. Don’t tell me you haven’t been admiring those sleek muscles and that insufferable frown on his lips.”
I had. But for entirely different reasons then she suspects.
“Your taste in men is questionable,” is all I say to her.
Chapter XX
Once again, Shade is absent when I arrive at the ruins.
I had a feeling he would be. But I had hoped he’d make his presence known to me before returning to Agron from his hunt. I chastise myself for the thought. He has no ties to me. No emotions. I wouldn’t even call our altercations “friendship.” Yet, I had hoped that we’d grown close enough to talk without making riddles of our conversations.
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 33
