Burnt

by Lyn Lowe

  She was bottom heavy, to the point where it seemed unlikely she could do more than waddle. Her face was a stark contrast, gaunt and heavily lined. Apparently all the food she ate went straight to her hips and left the rest of her body starving. Every bit of her skin was an unnatural yellow. With the flickering light of the fire pit Kaie thought he saw some of the buttery color leaking into the whites of her eyes. Her lips were the only part that seemed immune from the saturation, adopting a faint blue tint instead.

  “Kaie. Son of Alma and Lodan. I expected you two hours ago.”

  He grimaced. She wasn’t going to hurt him. He knew that. But he couldn’t shake the fear. “Yes. I’m sorry Lemme.”

  “At least you’ve brought your witnesses. I half expected you to arrive by yourself, all balls and brass, with little sense behind it.”

  Sojun chuckled and knocked him on the arm lightly. “You know our Kaie. In a minute, he’ll tell you how it’s me and Amorette to blame.”

  “I will not!” Kaie snapped before he could think better of how childish and petulant the retort was. He really didn’t like this place. He struggled to focus on what was going on rather than the floating feeling but couldn’t manage. Kaie felt like things were swirling out of control. Events were unfolding in ways he didn’t appreciate. It was one thing for Sojun and Amorette to laugh at him, but the smirk on the Lemme’s face was too much.

  With some effort he kept the frustration from coloring his voice as he spoke the words of tradition older than the tribe. “I’ve come for my future, Lemme.”

  She dragged her yellowed eyes up and down him. From another woman such a look might make Kaie strut and brag; now it made him poignantly aware that he was still just a gangly child. “Are you certain? The future weighs heavy on those of us who carry it. There is always the choice to leave without.”

  Kaie blinked. His parents spent months preparing him for this day. His father made him memorize every word he was expected to say, and his mother played the Lemme’s part so that he would know what he was expected to hear. This was not in his lessons. They told him she took joy in sharing the visions she saw for the tribe. Now it almost seemed like she was asking him to dishonor himself and his family. Was it a test?

  With no script to fall back on, he opted for the most formal sounding response his addled mind could come up with. “Yeah… Yes I’m certain. I am ready to take up the future you’ve see for me.”

  She sighed and gestured for him to sit down beside her. He did so reluctantly, half suspecting a trap. The moment his butt touched the wooden floor she caught his hand up in her own. It took a great effort not to flinch away.

  Again her behavior took him aback. His parents never told him there would be touching. Maybe some of this oddness could be explained by their relation. He was her sister son, after all. But surely that didn’t account for all of it. The traditions of this were too important for so much deviation for a relative she never met before this day.

  Up close, her visage was even more frightening. Her skin was pulled tight across her face like some sort of grotesque mask and her teeth were colored the same hue as her skin. She could be a monster from the stories his father told on the moonless nights, when he enjoyed scaring the children of the village.

  The urge to recoil away from her touch was nearly overwhelming. Her hand was frail, with no more strength to it than a dying bird. It was feverish and clammy, coating his palm in a slimy sweat almost instantly. He tried not to grimace as she squeezed feebly, imagining she meant it to be comforting.

  “Are you sure?”

  He didn’t say anything partly because he could think of nothing that would further convince her, but also because her reluctance shook him. The fear from earlier mutated and twisted in his stomach, becoming something new and vicious. For a second he really thought about it. She wasn’t testing him, Kaie was sure of that now. The Lemme saw something for him, something terrible. She truly seemed to want him to leave without the knowledge, to leave his future hidden.

  Amorette’s words on the hill dissolved into ones his father spoke years before, joining the churning sea in his head and stomach. A thousand different futures that the Lemme might be on the verge of speaking raced through his mind, each more terrible than the last. Greatness is not the same as goodness, son. Never confuse one for the other.

  Sojun’s hand dropped on his shoulder again, squeezing once. Amorette’s fingers brushed the back of his neck, cool as ever. He could leave. They would follow. They would share his shame without question. They were to see him through this. His failure would be theirs. It would color their lives, just as it would his. No horrible future could justify such a fate for the two of them. Kaie bit down on his tongue before it could betray him.

  The Lemme read his answer in the silence. She turned away from him for a moment. When she looked back Kaie thought he saw a sadness in her unnatural appearance. But she said nothing more about leaving. Instead she leaned away from him and pitched her voice so that it echoed around them and filled the small space with its power.

  “Very well Kaie, son of Alma and Lodan. Yours is a vision of five and it comes in five parts.”

  “First, know that you will love five women so deeply that they will be in your heart on your last day. You will see everything you care about ripped away five times. You will lead men into battle five times; three will leave you broken. You will murder five who deserve it and five who do not. You will die five times.”

  Kaie’s heart slowed until he thought it might stop. His vision blurred as he felt, through the link of her hand around his own, power pulsing through him with every sluggish beat. Her words brought forth a flurry of images in his whirling mind.

  He saw Amorette, her lips turned up in a blissful smile. She was dressed in a strange gray shirt that left her right shoulder bare and fraying brown pants that weren’t quite long enough for her limber frame. Her hair was short, a strawberry cloud framing her beautiful face. She knelt in a stark, wintery world. In front of her was a frozen stream, above her two leafless trees. Red colored the snow around her, dark and terrifying. On the other side of the stream were others waiting for him, but they flickered in and out of sight so fast he was left only with the impression of white blonde hair and dark feathers.

  Then there were soldiers. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. All looked at him, waited for him to lead them. He opened his mouth to speak, knowing he was unworthy. Before a word could slip past his lips the men began screaming. He watched, silent and motionless, as a sea of blood washed over the armies, drowning every soul. People who counted on him, people who needed him, dead while he stood still and let it happen.

  He noticed his hands. The right was bloody up to his elbow, clutching a silver knife adorned with carvings that made no sense to him. In the left, he held a rotting head by hair that he was certain used to be silky and brown. Bloodshot eyes stared up at him, accusing, lifeless. At his feet were bodies. Eight bodies, all rotted, and all there because of him. A scream ripped through him but lodged in his throat.

  “Second.” The Lemme’s voice drew him back to the hut, if only for a moment. The scream died before it could escape and Kaie wasn’t sure if he was glad for that. “Know that you are the phoenix who will father dragons. Your world will burn to ashes again and again. Each time you will rise greater than before, until your children are left with a world of ash and beauty in equal parts. And that world they will rule with a greatness and glory that will dwarf your name in the mouth of history.”

  Now he saw only fire. Everywhere, there was fire. Out of the corner of his eyes, Kaie thought he caught sight of five shadowy figures, dancing in the flames. But when he turned his gaze to them, they vanished with the skill of something that never really existed. He saw no beauty. Only destruction. And all of it was his. All of it came from him. And then he caught sight of them. Dragons. Five of them: red, green, blue, black and white. Ashes filled the sky in great clouds with each beat of their wings. Each was spewing
forth a stream of ceaseless fire from their terrifying maws, keeping the destruction fierce and alive. And they were his as well.

  “Let me guess.” Sojun’s voice sounded forced, but it dragged him back again. Grateful for his escape from the inferno, Kaie jerked his hand loose of the Lemme’s and rubbed his face to rid it of the thick sheen of sweat developing there. “He’s going to have five kids.”

  The Lemme turned a scornful glare on Sojun for just a moment, then she pursed her lips and let an answer fall loose. “Yes. All he is to have, he will have five-fold. It is the nature of his destiny.”

  Kaie shot Sojun a warning look over his shoulder. The comment was not made disrespectfully, he knew. It was just Jun’s way. Sojun dealt with tense situations by throwing out every bad joke to cross his mind. If allowed to go unchecked soon they would all be groaning and the Lemme would likely kick them out of her home.

  It might be better that way. He was supposed to be hearing about leading the tribe; of renewing the accord with the Urazin Empress for another twenty years of peace. The thought of fire, death and ash was beyond comprehension. The images throbbing in his mind, each inhalation of the noxious smoke filling the hut, they left him trembling. They were shaking his grip on the room, undermining his awareness of what was real. Better, maybe, to be tossed back into the village with no more blood-soaked visions clamoring in his head.

  Still, he needed to know. Every terrifying, exciting detail.

  Amorette and Sojun sat down behind him. They weren’t supposed to; they were supposed to stay standing in the shadows to preserve the impression that this was a private thing. But Kaie was so grateful for their silent presence pressing in close to his back that tears sprung to his itchy eyes. The Lemme waited, her glare sliding away as she observed this breach of tradition. But then, after all she had done, he supposed she was less concerned with such things than he was led to believe.

  When the moments dragged on and no further interruptions came she spoke again. “Third. You will have five names, each more true than the last. Kaie the Unbroken. Kale the Whore King. Dane Ironfist. Kaie the Lost. And finally, when all else falls away, you will just be Kaie. First and last son of the Zetowan tribe. Leader of none and all and none again.”

  The visions didn’t come this time. He was relieved. And disappointed.

  “Fourth. You will be the Catalyst, drawing destruction and violence to you everywhere you go. You will meet gods and start wars. All you love will know strife and death. All you hate will know it in greater amounts.”

  “And the last?” It came out as a whisper. Just moments ago, when he first walked into this horrible place, he would be embarrassed to sound so weak and childish. Now the whole world was shifted. He was grateful he could say so much.

  She smiled. “Last, best. You are the one. It is your destiny to fulfill the oath given to us by the High King. You will sit at the right hand of a Winged Queen. Your voice will be heard, your word will be law. The debt owed to our tribe for 4,000 years will find its resolution in you and all will be greater for it. Your mind will forget sooner than you can imagine, but your heart cannot. Fate has written her name down in the core of you. In the dark, terrifying places that you will find yourself, that forgotten promise will sustain you. It will endure long after the food and water are gone.”

  Her vision done, her words spoken, the Lemme turned her back on the three with a finality that did not need to be voiced. His head swirling worse with every beat of his racing heart, Kaie stumbled to his feet and out the door. He didn’t spare the slightest glance backward, even to be sure Sojun and Amorette were following. He couldn’t, for the minute he was able to draw in the crisp, clean air outside, he found himself hunched over a small bush just outside her hut.

  Kaie puked all over it.

  Three

  The moment he was done Sojun wrapped his arm around his shoulders and helped drag him back into the village. There weren’t any rules in regard to not getting sick after meeting the Lemme but it wasn’t going to do his reputation any favors. Soon, he would probably be grateful for the care his friend was taking to avoid that. He might even care what state that reputation was in. Just that moment, though, he was locked in images of fire and death and Amorette kneeling in blood-colored snow.

  “Have you ever heard of anything like that?” Sojun was asking. “Five destinies? And what she said…”

  Amorette shook her head. “I went with Esme. She only talked about the family and having babies. But this? Gods, Kaie…”

  He was supposed to say something. He didn’t know what but it seemed like she was waiting for him to speak. He opened his lips, hoping that what came out would make more sense than anything going on in his head. After of standing there with his mouth agape for several minutes with no sounds forming, he gave up and shut it again.

  Sojun’s chuckle was stilted. “At least some things will never change.”

  Amorette’s brows knit. “What do you mean?”

  Kaie could feel the tenseness in Jun’s muscles no matter how light his friend was trying to seem. “Our Rosy doesn’t do anything by halves. Including his future, I guess. It’s kind of comforting.”

  “Sure,” she agreed with a heavy sigh. “If you think dying five times is comforting.”

  The tone in her voice was off. Flat, like the way someone sounded when they were saying storms were unpleasant. Kaie thought it was just him, but Sojun twisted his head in a way that said otherwise. For a second the air crackled with a tension new to the three of them - or new to him anyway. He got the sense it was not quite so rare for them. They were, he realized with a start, about to fight. It was his fault.

  That jarred him out of the fog. A bit at least. “I saw it,” he murmured. “The things she said. I saw them.”

  It was very effective at putting a stop to the brewing argument. Not a gradual slowing or even an abrupt halt. They truly stopped talking, moving, breathing, everything. For two heartbeats, and then three, his friends were as still as the unchanging mountains that cut up the horizon.

  “What do you mean?” Her words were barely whispers but he heard the fear. It was not a sound he ever thought to hear from Amorette. “You had visions?”

  He shook his head. The simple move seemed to release them. Sojun sagged, his relief visible. Amorette’s eyes drifted past them, her attention shifting in the direction of the Lemme’s hut. She clasped her right thumb in her left hand and rubbed at the nail vigorously and obsessively. It was a gesture he didn’t know and one that brought him no comfort. Kaie didn’t want to inspire more of it but he couldn’t hide the truth. Not from them.

  “They weren’t visions. Not exactly, I don’t think. Just flashes. Like… like memories. Ones I don’t have yet. I don’t know. But I saw it, in my mind’s eyes. The fires, the armies…”

  Sojun turned him with a violence Kaie didn’t know his friend possessed. Before he realized what was happening, he was staring into hard grey eyes that were empty of all the laugher that was supposed to be there. “Don’t. Kaie, you are my heart’s brother. I will walk through those fires with you and there is nothing you can do to stop that. But don’t you ever say such things.”

  “But I saw it, Jun. They weren’t visions, but I saw it. You have to believe me!”

  “I do. Gods help me, I do. We all will. That’s the problem, don’t you see it?” Sojun paused, looking around as if he only just recalled that they were in the middle of the village where anyone left behind might hear them. His friend’s jaw set into firm lines that erased all traces of all traces of the happy boy Kaie grew up with. Without another word Jun dragged him the rest of the way down the path. He pushed them all into the hut Kaie’s father built.

  The hut was very nice, though Lodan was no builder. He liked to say that his mind was not as large as his wife’s and that the histories he kept there filled it up too much for any useful skills like hunting and farming and building. But he did a fine job with Kaie’s new home. The wood was well chosen, care
fully cut and finished. Each piece fit snugly with the ones beside it so that not a sliver of empty space remained between them for the winds to get in. The fire pit was made of dense white stones all smoothed down until they almost seemed a single rock. Lavender and sage were hung all around filling the single room with a wonderful smell that instantly brought to mind the best of his mother’s cooking. Those were touches only Lodan would think of.

  Once the door was pressed firmly into place and the rawhide strip was laced around the peg designed to keep it shut Sojun turned back to them with a troubled face. “Look, it’s bad enough, your destiny. Greatness is one thing, but this…You were just supposed to lead us. This is too much. And if they find out you’ve had a vision…It’s taboo for a reason!”

  “It wasn’t a vision,” he insisted.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Sojun said sadly. “They’ll be terrified. I love you, and I am terrified. If they think you’ve seen a glimpse of the future…”

  Jun didn’t need to finish the thought. It wasn’t the tribe that made it taboo for men to receive visions. It was the god Kosa. The tribe’s Lemme, all of them, were descendants of the First Mother. He was the Lemme’s sister son. He was just as capable of the visions as his mother was. The tribe would not understand that it was not a true vision.

  “They’ll exile me,” he finished in barely a whisper.

  “What are you talking about? They wouldn’t do that! You’re family. We aren’t barbarians. We don’t drive away blood.” Amorette’s voice verged on shrieking. Kaie cringed.

  “No. He’s not family anymore. Dammit, don’t look at me like that Ams! Do you think I’m happy about this? I’m not saying he’s not my family. He is, always. ‘Til my last breath in this life and on past my first in the next. But this changes things. You know it too. You both do. Leading armies, killing people… These aren’t things of the tribe. They aren’t of our family. And if they think you’ll bring down Kosa’s wrath…” Sojun trailed off and dropped his head into his hands for a moment.