“Show-off,” Agna sighed.
“You don’t have to wear those long skirts all the time.”
Agna huffed good-naturedly. Gathering her skirts under one arm, she waded in a few more steps. The water was deliciously cool in contrast to the warm night air. Tiny insects skimmed over the water’s surface. Most of the canoes cut back to the docks, leaving a handful of reluctant stragglers and fishing boats.
Laketon would not be home to her. She could have tried; she could have made the best of it. But it would not be the end of her road now. She wasn’t sure that Wildern would be right, either. Perhaps she would fail and flee back to Murio after all, to take her place as her father’s and Marco’s shadow. But first she had to try.
Keifon spoke, looking out over the lake. His back faced her, arms folded, unreadable. “Do you think it could work?”
“What, moving to Wildern?”
“Yeah.”
“I do think it could work. I know you want it to work, and I know you can make it happen.” Agna stooped to cup the lake water in her free hand. She let it drain through her fingers. She wanted to ask him whether her scheme would work, but to admit that would be to admit that she was trailing behind him instead of behind her father and Marco. She would have to admit that she hadn’t learned a thing from her foolish decision to run after Rone. Keifon would forgive her for that. But she could not face disappointing him. That was its own kind of weakness.
“If I go somewhere that I know somebody… is that weak, do you think?”
That made him turn. “What do you mean? If you didn’t go back to Murio?” His voice absorbed her pronunciation of her hometown and reflected it through his own accent, making violet out of red and blue. “Do you have family in another city?”
She hesitated between truth and pride. “Something like that.”
He tilted his head, looking past her into the future, or the lakeshore, or some version of Nessiny based on books and her own descriptions. She saw the muscles in his calves flex as he curled his toes among the stones. “I think it’s brave to strike out and establish a new branch of the company in a new city. And if your family can support you while you do, that’s not weak. That’s what family is for.” The faint crack in his voice broke Agna’s heart.
She sighed, half a step closer to truth. “What if it’s a friend?”
Keifon half-smiled with a lazy shrug. “That’s what friends are for, too.”
Damn him. “But – is it…” She kicked the stones under her feet. “When I came here, I was stupid. I was a stupid, blinkered girl, and I made bad decisions that I will never be able to take back. I will have to live the rest of my life knowing how idiotic I was. And I never want to do that again.” She risked a glance up to find him staring at her, his hands hanging empty. She dropped her gaze away from the pain in his eyes. When he spoke, she covered her face in her free hand, as if to shield herself from the quiet words.
“You… you think it was a mistake to come here?”
Agna lunged toward the shore, slipping on the pebbles and regaining her balance. Keifon called after her and followed, splashing behind her to the bench. She paced barefoot, her hands coiled into fists.
“No. That’s not it. I don’t regret being here. That’s not what I meant. I’m glad I’m here now. I’m glad I met you. All of that.”
Keifon slowly took his seat on the bench, seemingly satisfied that she wasn’t going to escape. He listened as she continued to pace.
“What I mean is, the decision that brought me here was based on stupid reasons. One doesn’t justify the other. You didn’t want to break up with Kazi, but that’s what brought you here. Do you see what I mean?”
Keifon looked at his steepled fingers, leaning over his knees. “I see what you mean.”
Agna collapsed into the seat next to him. Her furor was spent for now. She didn’t have the energy left to be angry, only dully irritated with herself. She tucked her skirts up to let her feet dry.
The lights were coming on in the distant town. Streetlights traced the streets one speck of light at a time, and the windows of the homes were warm with firelight. Someday, would one of those firesides be hers? Would she make tea for a visitor and talk about books and hopes for the future? It seemed impossible sometimes. But the world was strange. She now sat on a park bench with a dear friend whom she had once hated. That was another thing that Rone’s religion believed: the world was immense, and you could never predict it all.
“I know you don’t believe in the gods,” Keifon began slowly. Agna’s spine prickled at the echo of her own thoughts. Keifon kept his eyes on the opposite shore. “You don’t have to believe. That’s not for me to say. I just – I mean to speak to what I believe. That’s all.” He paused, as if gathering courage. “And I – I think that the gods brought us here. So that we could learn from it, and find purpose in it. Even if we had to suffer to get here. It’s – it was worth it.”
She didn’t believe. She doubted she ever would. But through countless hours of watching him pray to his gods, reading his books, talking into the night, she never doubted that his faith brought him strength. She didn’t have to believe to see how much it meant to him. “So… the good outweighs the bad.”
He glanced at her. His anxious posture settled. “Yes.”
“That’s how the Balance faith would see it, too. The good doesn’t unmake the bad, but it’s outweighed, and that’s the important thing.”
“That’s… that’s how I feel about this. About the things that brought us here.” He seemed about to speak, but nodded and quieted.
“I see.” Agna considered this. It seemed like cheating to let herself go unpunished for her immaturity, for her embarrassing decision to follow Rone like a puppy. But even if she had made the wrong decision, it had turned into something else over time. She had planted weeds and managed to grow a garden.
“It was worth it,” she agreed at last. “And it’s past. I understand.”
Keifon nodded. “And even if you doubt your decision now, it isn’t the end. You can make the best out of it. However it starts.”
“But… I don’t want to make the same mistake again. The same one. That would mean that I’m not learning.”
He shrugged. “Only if you don’t make anything of it. Only if you stop there.” He watched her coolly in the dim light. “Did… did Rone decide to move back, then?”
“What? No. Not that I know of. – Oh.” She flapped her hands, wishing she hadn’t left all the clues scattered for anyone with half a brain to assemble. “Never mind that. It’s complicated. Some other time.”
“Mmn.” Keifon leaned back on his hands. Agna looked away from the line of his arms and stomach, from the way that her shadow fell across his body. “You won’t stop,” he murmured. “I know you won’t. Not until you get what you want.” The shadows around his throat shifted as he swallowed. Keifon shook his head, looking away. “I admire that. That’s all.”
“I don’t think you’ll give up, either,” Agna replied, keen to turn the subject away from herself. “You’ve been through so much, and you just keep going.”
Keifon almost laughed, grimly. “I created most of what I went through.”
“Still.” Agna fluffed her skirts back over her legs and hugged her knees. The edge of the stone bench was cool against her feet. “It isn’t over. Not for you, not for me.”
“Eight months,” Keifon remarked softly.
Agna calculated. The spring festival, or New Year’s. – Oh. Until she was supposed to go back home. That wasn’t what she’d meant. Was it really only eight more months? It had been a whole year since they’d been here last, since they’d sat on a bench in this park and laid their weapons down.
She didn’t want to think about New Year’s. She didn’t want to lose herself in last year, either. “We don’t have to start over, this time,” she said, turning toward him and pulling one knee up on the bench. “So let’s just keep going, and making everything better.”
/> Keifon turned toward her, and she saw his hand shake a little through the Kaveran greeting wave. “Keifon the Medic,” he said. “…Reji Keifon. I will.”
Agna smiled and echoed his gesture. “Agna Despana. So will I.”
He shifted a little on the bench, and his hand rose toward her arm. In stages, as if he hadn’t quite convinced himself, he laid a hand on her arm, leaned in toward her, and looped his other arm around her back. “Can I – can I do this?” His pulse hammered in his throat, alongside her own.
Agna hugged him. “Always.”
He tightened his other arm around her. Tears spiked in her eyes. If he would let her in this close, like Esirel had, she would have to tell him. She couldn’t hold it back for long.
Agna swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. Her voice was weak, but it didn’t have to travel far. “Can I tell you something? It’s… kind of weird.”
“Yeah,” Keifon said, so softly that the skin on the back of Agna’s neck prickled.
She took a deep breath. It would be all right. She had to believe that. The weight of his arms convinced her that he would forgive her for anything. “A-alaste la. Do you remember what that means?” I love you like one of my own. Like my family.
Keifon’s breath hitched. Agna felt something hot spill along her neck. “I don’t—I don’t deserve that,” he forced out. “I don’t…”
“Ssh.” She cradled the back of his head, unthinking, and he stilled. The short hair at the nape of his neck tickled her wrist. Agna kept her voice low. “You don’t get to decide for me. You told me that.”
He snugged his face into her shoulder. “…Yes. I did. You’re right.” After another breath he straightened, and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “Alaste le. Is that right?”
A ghost of a smile curled Agna’s lips. “Perfect.”
“Alaste le,” he repeated, and said it again in Kaveran. “I love you. En da si.” The words bent and slid with his language’s music, the way she could never quite master.
“En da si.”
Keifon chuckled, and wiped across his cheekbone with the heel of his hand. “That’s ‘I sing you.’ – It’s all right. We can keep practicing.”
Agna gave him one more squeeze, burning off her nervous energy. She felt the tension leave his body as though he were a part of her. He was doomed now. He’d have to fight her away.
She pulled back, smiling. They found their places on the bench, side by side. The water breathed against the shore, and cicadas and crickets droned in the distance. The heat of the day rose slowly away from the lake. The air was sweetened with nothing more than grass and lake water, but every breath was joyful in her lungs. She had said it. They would go on together, and work in the clinic and play cards and talk till all hours. She would tell him about her plan someday. Not yet, but someday.
“Reji Keifon?” Agna asked quietly. She had noticed the name he’d used during their facetious introduction. He had never used it before. He had called himself “Keifon the Medic” to her, and their patients, and everyone else in the Golden Caravan. She had heard him call himself Kei in passing – Kei, pay attention – but this was new.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Is that your family name?”
“Yes. In this country they’d say Keifon Reji. Either way, I don’t have the right to use the family name anymore.”
Some strangers she’d never seen had passed judgment on him and found him guilty of failing to live up to their standard. She knew he had done wrong, and had made bad decisions. She had gathered, one scrap at a time, that the family business had failed on his watch. Still, it seemed particularly cruel to strip him of his own name.
“Reji Keifon,” she echoed, taking his culture’s order.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s... strange. It almost seems like another person’s name, now.”
“And when you went into the Army, they named you the Medic?”
“After a while. They had another name for me. Mocking. Zinfan,” he said. “In Kaveran it would be... something like ‘Doomcrow.’ Keifon Doomcrow. Kazi liked the name Kazi Eagle-eye, so...” He gestured, joining his hands like two halves of the same thing.
“Because you were... gloomy.” Are, she thought, without malice. Not all the time.
“Miserable. But...” He watched the emerging stars. “They weren’t wrong. I just hated that they’d named me that. Because it felt like that’s all I could be.”
“I’m sorry. I know it isn’t all you can be.”
“Mmn. Thank you.” Keifon did not look at her, but she could read his slight smile. She had learned this over the time they’d spent together. Her words reached him, and they mattered. Agna wanted to thank him in return, but he wouldn’t understand why.
“And now you’re Keifon the Medic. And if you want to be Keifon Ruler of the World, you can.”
He laughed, at least. “And if you want to be a healer and world traveler and art collector…”
Agna’s heart lurched. She could tell him about her plan. It would be all right. Or maybe he would chide her for being childish and unoriginal. – Not yet. “Yep,” she said, faking bravado. “Official art dealer to the ruler of the world.”
Keifon bent to roll down his pant legs. For a while he lounged on the bench beside her, watching the lamplight glitter off the edges of the lake. Crickets and frogs sang in the dark, throwing shards of sound into the hushed night.
She scooped up her shoes at the base of the bench. “I’m ready to go back now, if you are.”
“Mmn. Sure.” Keifon pulled on his socks and shoes as Agna slipped her shoes on and leaped off the bench. Keifon rounded the bench, and they started down the path to camp, side by side.
“Kei?”
“Hm?”
“Is it all right if I call you that?”
She saw him smile, though he did not look up. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
“How about some cards, when we get back? Nothing for wagers, just for fun.”
“I’d like that too.”
“Good.” She might have bounced a little as she walked, out of sheer relief. It was better than twirling around laughing, which was her first impulse.
“You seem happy,” he said. “I’m glad.”
“Thank you. I think I am.”
The light from each streetlight passed over and behind them, one by one. Keifon’s hand found her arm in the shadows, squeezed, and dropped away. They walked away from the lake in silence together. The edge of the camp drew nearer, ringed in fences and torches. The sparks from the bonfire leaped into the sky. Agna and Keifon found their way back to the tent and played cards by lamplight. It was good to be home.
Keifon: Forethought
Lundrala began as a web of errands, as merchants and guards crisscrossed the camp to deliver their gifts and tokens. Menon delivered small crocks of cheese; Baran brought hand-carved wooden buttons; Agna traded packets of fine writing paper that she had hoarded and bundled with ribbon; Keifon distributed ink that he had mixed in reused medicine bottles. Keifon and Agna’s gifts to one another were kept secret by a mutual, unspoken pact, saved for the last hours before that night’s celebration. Their patients, fewer in number than usual, were in high spirits for the most part. A few even brought gifts and thanks for last year’s procedures.
Even the shower that passed through that afternoon could not dampen the camp’s level of enthusiasm. The bonfire’s firewood had been safely tarped over, and the rain washed some of the humidity from the air. Between patients, Keifon and Agna lingered near the door of the clinic to catch the breezes. Occasionally they tossed questions at one another, testing their respective vocabularies. Rain. Gift. Boredom. Happiness.
The grammar books had been meant as Lundrala gifts, Keifon recalled. His blunder at Midsummer had bought him six weeks of poring over declensions and discussing traditions after lights-out. From Agna’s sly, gleeful hints, it was clear that she’d bought him another gift for Lundrala, but
part of him didn’t want anything else. Only for this to continue.
Behind the vocabulary quizzes and the occasional patients, Keifon’s mind turned over Agna’s enigmatic question about following her friend. She had said very little lately about her friend in Vertal. Keifon had a vague notion that her sister lived in their home city. Perhaps Agna meant to settle near her art agency contact, Marco. Keifon was not sure whether this person lived near Agna’s family. He was, on the whole, a mysterious figure. Still, Agna spoke of him with such enthusiasm that the idea seemed likely. The two of them might colonize a new Nessinian city with their business and found a new generation of art dealers.
Colonize. Generation. Keifon cleared his throat. His mind leaned in telling directions.
The bustle outside suggested an early end to business. Agna caught his eye. “Well?”
“I’m ready to pack it in if you are.”
They packed up their logbooks and supplies, leaving the tent for the second day of the two-day stop. Agna built a fire and shaped the dough that she had prepared that morning. They would bring the bread to the bonfire as their contribution to the festivities. Agna covered it to bake and clapped her hands at Keifon. “Ready?”
He held his elbow out to her, and she laid her hand on his arm. They swanned along like a duchess and her consort, an effect that was lessened by her outcry upon crossing the threshold. “Eeegh!”
“What? – Oh.” The tent floor was damp. Agna danced around the puddle to dry ground as Keifon inspected the walls. Tracing the moisture with his fingers led to a worn-through spot at the corner of the roof. “Leak. Right here.”
“Grr. So who fixes tents? Tem?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. Looks like the pole just wore through. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than fixing clothes. We’d just have to waterproof it afterward.”
Agna made an empty-handed gesture. Keifon stopped short.
“You’ve mended your things before, right?”
“By… taking them to a tailor, yeah.”
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