This was a line of reasoning that Agna had heard in a now-familiar voice. She hadn’t heard it straight from the source before.
“Healers and so on are licensed in Kavera,” the councilman said. “You don’t take our assurances as valid? Even with our trade agreements?”
The patrician crossed his arms, sighing. “Trade agreements are straightforward. We can inspect goods at the border, and see that your timber, your grain, your minerals are as they should be. Inspecting human beings is quite another matter.”
“Well, what would it take, then? Extra fees? Licenses from the Kaveran government, guaranteeing that they’ve been vetted?”
The police chief watched the patrician, who did not look back, pondering the councilman’s words as the priest translated them. The rest waited, and Agna tried not to hold her breath. Finally the patrician laced his hands on the table. “What sort of licenses? And what repercussions might we have if they’re not followed?”
* * *
Agna’s heart hammered as she opened the door of the gallery. Two ranks of Kazi’s army lined a path away from the door, holding the crowd back. The chants resolved into an overwhelming roar as the other delegates filed out — Agent Shora, the mayor, the councilman, the priest, and then Kazi, flanked by the patrician and the police chief. The two silent police officers brought up the rear, and Agna and the apprentices stood in the doorway, trying to see what they could past the wall of shoulders and backs.
Kazi stepped to the center of the aisle and raised his unbound hands. The crowd screamed and the army saluted, keeping their swords or knives in reach. “Friends,” he said, and the crowd went quiet. The snow drifted through the afternoon sunlight. “Your passion, your support, have made our countries stronger today. Have made our lives better, one step at a time.” He paused as the cheering died down. “I must return to Yanwei. I leave the pass project in the able hands of my second-in-command, Rilan Bai, and the rest of our hard-working team. We have stood together, and we have prevailed.”
Agna bit back a nervous smirk. Fully half of Kazi’s demands had been denied by the Yanweian government, and the rest had been accepted only with a new mountain of bureaucracy to calm the patricians’ nerves. He would be lucky not to be clapped in irons once they passed the border. But then, watching the crowd, Agna wondered whether he might go free after all. If this was the reception he could whip up after half a year in a foreign country, what sort of following could he command at home?
The next day, the newspaper called it the Wildern Summit. Over Agna’s half-hearted protests, Keifon took one of her unused frames and hung a copy in their living room.
“I was going to use that for my first show, you know.”
He turned, not bothering to hide his smile. “I’m sure you can have another made.”
“Hmph.”
Keifon: Perseverance
The Wildern courthouse had once been the biggest building in the city. It was now overshadowed by the Benevolent Union’s hospital and the newly opened Tufarian church. Its stone walls and clock tower loomed overhead as Keifon craned to read the inscription over the door. Before he could translate from the faux-archaic Kaveran, Agna caught up to him and slipped her fingers between his. “You’ll do fine.”
“Mmn. Thank you. Just… here we are.”
Her smile warmed him from the inside out. “I know.”
He folded his hand into hers as they climbed the broad stone stairs. Inside, he followed the directions he was given, winding through one high-ceilinged corridor after another, past meeting rooms and offices, judges’ chambers and law libraries. Eventually they reached a waiting room, where two Yanweian strangers bent over books and notes. They glanced up, examined his face as he nodded, and returned to their study. Keifon took one of the empty seats along the wall. His head echoed with Kaveran history and law and custom, everything he had studied for the last few months. As he waited, Agna restlessly stood to study the framed lists and laws on the walls.
He watched her back, straight and serene in an aquamarine Nessinian dress, as she drifted from one frame to the next. Her art opening was four days away. After that, after her dream became real, she would stay. He thought about the rings hidden under her clothes, about promises made to strangers. A flicker of uncertainty made him speak up. “Do you think you’ll do this, sometime?”
She turned, her hair swinging; she’d grown it past her shoulders now. “Maybe. In a few years.” It was her elusive code for five years. Four and a half years. After her paper marriage expired. “Sometimes things don’t seem quite real. I still feel like I’ll have to go back to Murio and work for the agency. And, well, if I took Kaveran citizenship, it might cause complications with the inheritance.”
“Hm.” More code. She wouldn’t speak in public about her arrangement with her Nessinian husband. As far as he knew, the only people in this country who knew about it were himself and Nelle. The secrecy seemed wrong, somehow. Someday she might come to terms with the arrangement and what it might mean to her. In any case, it wasn’t his decision to make.
Besides, it was selfish of him to want her to take this step of the journey at his side. Their lives could be parallel but not identical; that was one thing he’d had to learn since he came here. She could marry a stranger and become an art dealer and still remain his closest friend. She was here today, after all. He’d remember to be thankful for that.
He smiled, while she was still watching. “Thanks for coming with me.”
Her eyes softened. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it.” She clasped her hands behind her back. “And when I do take the test, you’ll help me study, right?”
“Of course.” The citizenship didn’t mean anything to the course of their friendship. He could, he’d learned, become friends with a Nessinian royal subject just as easily as a Kaveran citizen or a Yanweian nameless. But it would mean that she, too, had chosen to stay — not only for the next four and a half years, but for the rest of her life.
Keifon dropped his eyes to his folded hands. The rest of their lives would come, in time. First he had to face the test and seal his decision. He’d lived between worlds for long enough.
One by one, the other Yanweians were called into the inner room, and one by one they emerged; one looked grave, the other guardedly happy. Keifon’s heart raced every time the door opened. As the last stranger moved on, leaving them alone in the waiting room, Agna left off her pacing to sit next to him. The weight of her head on his shoulder kept him from drifting off into his fears, though his palm sweated against hers.
“I believe in you, Kei. Don’t worry.”
He nodded, though she might not have seen. She would know.
The door opened one more time. “Keifon the Medic?” The clerk read his name from her papers with clear Yanweian pronunciation.
Agna leaned up to kiss him on the cheek, leaving him blushing. “Good luck.”
“Thank you.” He followed the clerk through the door. Inside was a tidy office, lined with bookshelves and cabinets. The drapes were drawn back to allow the thin late-winter light to reach a potted plant standing next to the window.
Rounding the desk to take her place, the clerk extended a hand toward the chairs that faced the desk. She spoke in accented but fluent Yanweian. “Do have a seat, Keifon. Would you like the test on paper or orally?”
“Uh, orally, I think. Either is fine.” His handwriting in Kaveran had continued to improve, but his nervousness might lead him to flub the spelling on names or places. His speaking was more reliable under pressure. “You can give it in Kaveran, though. I’ve been fluent for a while now.” He tried to sound lighthearted. The truth of it was that he’d studied for the test in Kaveran, and translating what he’d studied would be one more stumbling block.
“So, the oral exam in Kaveran,” the clerk said, sorting through some papers on her desk. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, ma’am.” In the last few seconds as the clerk stacked the pages of the test and readied her pen,
he offered up a silent prayer.
In a calm voice, the clerk walked him through one question after another: Kaveran history and government and law, the structure of the police and courts, the responsibilities of citizens, taxes, rights, representation. If he passed the test, he would report to the courthouse next year to cast his vote for the city council of Wildern — it seemed wrong, somehow, for a nameless, common-born foreigner to be involved in such things, but that was the letter of Kaveran law. If he demonstrated that he understood the workings of their country and gave his vow of loyalty, then the Kaveran government would trust him to have a voice. That was all it took here.
Finally, the clerk reached her last page. “We’re through the hard part,” she said with a smile. “We’ll just go over the information on your application.” She asked him to confirm his personal details — name, gender, birth date, address. She marked off his answers. At the end, her hand slid up the page. “One more thing. We ask this of Yanweian applicants now, after some discussion with our cultural advisors. You’re aware by now that Yanweian naming conventions and birth status have no legal weight in Kavera.”
An invisible steel band closed around his throat. It seemed impossible. It seemed like chaos. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And while we understand that it’s customary in Yanwei for those without surnames to change theirs unofficially, we need an official name to place on your records. All of which is to ask: would you like to keep ‘the Medic,’ or would you like to change it?”
Keifon wet his lips, sorting through the swirl of reactions. It was common enough to change one’s name, that was true; a name didn’t mean anything if it wasn’t attached to a family. He’d picked up two different names in the Army, and stuck with “the Medic,” translating it when he came to Kavera to spare the foreigners’ awkward pronunciations. But he was no longer a medic. He’d been traded to the Benevolent Union, and now that he was on the verge of becoming a Kaveran citizen, he would never serve the Yanweian National Army again. He’d half-expected to keep his name as a remnant of his old life until he married and took his spouse’s name. Now the government of Kavera, as they welcomed him as one of their own, had handed him a chance to define himself once again.
What was he, then? An apprentice, but that wouldn’t last forever. It was too early to call himself a doctor; someday he’d gain that title rightfully. He was an absentee father — though perhaps less absentee than before, now that the roadwork was nearly complete. He was a devoted friend. An orphan. A nanbur player. A follower of Darano. All important parts of his life, and all somehow lacking.
He looked up. “Laimeng, please. Keifon Laimeng, Kaveran order, personal name first.”
“‘Striver?’” the clerk translated, her pen poised over the form.
“Well — ‘one who perseveres.’ It’s not a proper family name, as far as I’m aware.”
“It’s all right. We aren’t concerned with family registries here. Each individual is registered with the government separately.” She asked him to spell it in Kaveran lettering as she wrote it on the form. “Congratulations, Keifon. Are you ready for the swearing-in?”
“I am. Thank you.”
In the waiting room, Agna watched his face, though her expression held no trace of doubt. He couldn’t suppress his smile. She jumped out of her seat and ran into his arms, and his heart hammered against her chest. “I did it. I’m in. And I took a new name.”
“Congratulations. I’m so proud of you. You did what?”
“They let me, when I was registered as a citizen. Keifon Laimeng,” he said. Every time he said it, it sounded a little more real.
“One who… who tries?”
“Mmhm. Perseveres.”
Agna echoed it, and it sounded real in her voice, too. “It’s perfect, Kei.” She held him at arm’s length, beaming. “Let’s go celebrate. The Hill Pony is open again, how about lunch?”
Anywhere. Anything. It didn’t matter. He was soaring somewhere else, somewhere far above his own head. “Yeah. Sounds great.”
* * *
Keifon watched his dearest friend from the edges of the room. She was glorious and glowing in a forest green silk gown, smiling and greeting the investors and healers and librarians who had come to the limited opening of the Despana Gallery. He had helped to hang the art and had read its text three or four times over. It was beautiful, but it was not his focus now.
He remembered to welcome the guests who came by for hors d’oeuvres, and broke his trance to meander through the room. They didn’t have much to give out, though the supplies through the reopened pass had eased some of the burden on Wildern’s stores. They’d done what they could, and offered what they had.
The mail cart had left yesterday, carrying his most recent letter to Nachi. He’d tried to explain what citizenship was in a way that an eight-year-old could understand, and told her about his new name. He was not so forward as to say You can visit Wildern soon; that was still up to her mother to agree or not, and it would not be fair to make Eri shatter Nachi’s hopes. But he told her that his friend Agna would open her museum soon — the distinction between a gallery and a museum was lost half of the time on him, let alone a child. He told her that his friend was smart and brave, and he hoped that Nachi could meet her someday. That seemed safe enough.
Keth Vogal passed him with another tray and flashed him a grin. She’d showed up to help whether Agna liked it or not, and in the end they’d just given up and put her to work. Jaeti stuck to the corners with her acquaintances, telling them about the history display they’d open next in the side gallery.
On the freshly painted walls hung the chronicle of his and Agna’s travels together, as he saw it, anyway: all of the drawings she’d made, from the sketches he’d first noticed when she was still a stranger to the ones he’d watched her draw after they became friends. On one side of each drawing, her sister’s notes in Nessinian explored the herb lore of each plant’s counterpart in their home country, translated on small signs for the Kaverans. On the other side of each drawing, Agna had written about the places where she’d collected the herbs, telling stories of the caravan, the small-town herbalists she’d met, and the expeditions she’d taken into the woods with Nelle. Keifon was there too, hiking through the woods with her, collecting a small, awkward bouquet he’d assembled with Nelle for her birthday. But Agna was in every piece, in every story. She and her sister had created this from afar, and she’d brought it back to Wildern, telling the story of the country she’d left and the one she’d come to love.
When his tray was empty, he headed down the hallway to the kitchen. Bargi began to load toast points onto his tray. “How’s it going out there?”
“Oh, wonderful. Just… wonderful.” He took the opportunity to stretch his neck and straighten his sleeves.
“All set. Go get ‘em.”
“Thanks.”
He found he was eager to return to the party. Agna’s pride shone like the sun, and when she looked up to meet his eyes, he could do nothing else but smile.
Afterword
If you enjoyed The Healers’ Home, or if you did not enjoy it and still got this far, please help out your fellow readers by leaving a review. Reviews help readers to find books that fit them.
We’re not finished with Agna and Keifon yet, and we’re definitely not finished with their world…
The Balance Academy Continuity:
The Healers’ Road
The Healers’ Home
More to come. Visit www.serobertsonfiction.com for updates and extras.
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading. And thanks to:
- my husband again, for letting me bounce ideas off him on the way home from work, and for not calling me childish when I started to literally keep score. (It helped!)
- Em the font wizard, for the awesome cover layout/titles.
- Martha again, for taking time to continue the journey through part two. Let the records show that you were against the D
espanocta plot! I hope book three makes up for it.
A lot of lessons lie between the first book and this one. It gets easier as you go, they say. I’m excited to find out what’s next.
Sign up for alerts when new books come out at www.serobertsonfiction.com.
About the Author
S.E. Robertson lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and their cat. She enjoys quilting, making bespoke teddy bears, gardening, working through her giant to-be-read book pile, discovering new music, and occasionally cosplaying as villainous characters. The Healers’ Home is her second novel.
Contents
Summary
Previously: The Healers’ Road
Part One▪ Agna: The Transfer
Keifon: The Expatriate
Agna: The Wildern Museum
Agna: The District
Keifon: Apprenticeship
Agna: The Association of Academy Alumnae
Keifon: Contributions
Agna: Seventh Healer
Keifon: The Broken Chain
Agna: The Lay of the Land
Agna: Newcomers
Agna: Your Mornings
Keifon: Proving Ground
Agna: Home
Keifon: Father Tufari
Agna: Lifting Burdens
Keifon: On the Path
Agna: Another Attempt
Agna: The Devotees
Agna: The Gathering
Keifon: Lundrala
Agna: The Retreat
Part Two▪ Agna: The Scion’s Return
Keifon: Evening Plans
Agna: The Empire of Herbs
Keifon: The Feather Army
Agna: Despanocta
The Healers' Home Page 48