Burnt

by Lyn Lowe

  With a moan just as much desire as it was regret, Kaie stood up. Amorette reached up for him, reached for his pants at least, but he knocked her hands away. There was something deeply, terribly wrong with him that he was refusing this beautiful woman, one he loved since he was six.

  “I can’t do this. Jun…”

  “Don’t! I told you, I’m not his! I never want to hear his name again!” Amorette hissed, her face taking on an entirely different look, one he didn’t know. “You asked what you could do to get me back. Or are you done with me now too?”

  Kaie flinched, hurting like it was a physical blow. “I’m sorry. Kosa take me, you’ll never know how sorry. Anything else. But not this.”

  She screamed. A horrible, earsplitting sound that brought Ren and Silvy into their side of the building in an instant. Then she beat her fists down up on the sparrow. Over and over, until all that was left were bits and dust.

  Twenty

  He left before she woke; before anyone in their sad little neighborhood was awake. It was at least an hour before the sun kissed the horizon when he climbed from beneath his blanket and slipped out the hide door. He didn’t know where he was heading. Kaie only knew that he couldn’t stay in their home another moment, that he couldn’t face her silence or glares when she woke.

  There was a small stream a ways behind the hill the houses were built into. The well was a much closer source of water, but close wasn’t his goal. He and Vaughan discovered the creek while they were gathering the stuff for his sparrow the day before. It wasn’t a short walk but it took him back into a patch of woods thick enough that he wouldn’t need to worry about stumbling onto anyone else.

  Calling it a stream was generous, really. Kaie was fairly certain he could piss harder than the water flowed. But that was okay. It was clean and quiet. That was all he wanted. It took some work to fill his cupped hands and wash his face and neck but he managed. The water was numbing and spilled down his shirt in satisfying rivulets. He filled his hands again to wash his head. He could feel the stubble of his hair growing back already. The way the warmth was holding on, it would be like he never lost it by the time winter actually made an appearance. For the moment, though, it was just itchy.

  He was cleaner now but didn’t feel it. Even if he was given soap and a scrubber, he wouldn’t be rid of the filth. The grime wasn’t a physical thing, for all that he wanted to believe it was. He tried again and once more to wash it away. But it clung. Finally, frustration won out. Kaie threw his head back and screamed, at the gods, at himself, at everyone that conspired to place him in this moment. He hated them all. Especially the ones he loved.

  Sixteen years of ruin necessitated a great deal of release. The light was shifting from the murky illumination of a night not ready to give up its hold to the soft glow of a coming dawn before he could stop the noise pouring out of him. His throat was sore and it was likely the people back at the shacks heard him, but Kaie really didn’t care. He was still dirty.

  “Why?” he demanded of the heavens. “Why do you have to destroy everything? Haven’t I lost enough? Can’t I just have her? One friend, in all this shit you’ve dumped on me? It can’t really be too much to ask!”

  Kaie slapped the water, sending beads of water flying in every direction. “I’ve lost everyone. Everyone I love, everyone I even like, except her. Now you expect me to betray Jun or lose her? What in the Abyss is wrong with you?”

  He sucked in two deep breaths, trying to get a reign on the anger pumping through him with every beat of his heart. He needed them to hear. They shackled him with this fate; they would know what he thought of it. “I am tired of lying for you, Lemme. I’m sick to death of telling people you care what happens to us while you are content to let Kosa rip your children to shreds. You did this to us. To me. You shoved this curse down on me, and now you’re letting it grind your people down to nothing. You owe me! At least this much, you owe me.”

  Kaie dropped his head into his hands, a cracked sob slipping out before he could catch it. If Mother Lemme heard, she was in no mood to answer. He didn’t feel better. He felt worse. For expecting anything more of her and the other gods. For the wicked voice in his mind that said the solution was obvious. Sojun was lost. Amorette wasn’t. He loved her, and he wanted her. So much he didn’t sleep at all last night, locked in fantasies of what would happen if he just said the only word she wanted from him. Yes.

  What was so bad about that, really? Who would ever notice the betrayal, save for him? Sojun was gone. If he ever found a way to free the three of them, would his friend even care? Jun chose Kaie over her. He heard it, Amorette knew it. She was unclaimed now. He was free to want her, to take her now, if that’s what they both wanted. Right?

  A cracked twig brought his head back up and his eyes combing the trees for the intruder. Kaie spotted her quickly, though he got the distinct impression that she meant for him to find her.

  It was the girl with the white blonde hair and the red arms, the one who came to his house every morning and never said a word. She was staring at him, her startling blue eyes peeking out between the strands of hair that hid so much of her face. Kaie felt certain she was there for a while. Maybe before he was. His face flushed, shame and humiliation vying for the worst part of the situation.

  “You’re talking about Amorette,” she said.

  He ground his teeth, loathing the gods for their propensity to punish. Was he really so bad to deserve such abuse? But he nodded. There was nothing else to be done.

  The girl took a slow step forward. It was like she was approaching a deer that would startle if she moved too quickly. Kaie was struck by the appropriateness. He surely felt like running and hiding.

  “You love her?” she asked. “For a long time?”

  In a low voice, hoarse from his mindless screaming, Kaie answered. “More than half my life.”

  “But she doesn’t love you.”

  His mouth worked, trying to force an argument past his lips. She wanted him. He knew that. And even if that wasn’t for the same reasons he wanted her, Amorette did love him the way he loved Jun. They were family. But somehow the words never made it out. Maybe it was the look in those eyes. Like she saw right through to the center of him, to what he really was. If she asked he could debate it. But she spoke it like fact and he discovered he couldn’t convince himself she was wrong. There was no lying to eyes like that, even when they were half hidden.

  “She told me about him once. The other one. Sojun?”

  He nodded, the name like another burning rod pressed to his flesh.

  “She loved him. Now he’s not here. She said it was because he loved you best. She doesn’t love you, and you are here. You think yelling at the trees will undo some part of this?”

  “Not the trees,” he muttered. “The gods. And I don’t want them to undo it.”

  “What then? Should these gods of yours wave their hands and make her forget all about him and know only you?”

  “No!” he shouted at her. He worked to control his volume. “No. I need them to take away this feeling. She’s the one thing I ever wanted for myself. She says, if I take her she’ll forgive me. And I want to. Gods, I do! I want to feel good when I hold her. Instead of feeling like…”

  “A betrayer.”

  He shuddered, her words striking truer than he could ever say. “Why should I feel like that? He gave her up. It was supposed to be me that was gone, and him that was here. I was going to make that happen. But he stopped me. He changed it. Why should I hate myself so much for wanting what he gave me?”

  She was in front of him now. He wasn’t sure when that happened. She was good at the careful approach. He was impressed, thinking on what a good hunter she would make. Up until the moment she dropped down beside him. It was such a catastrophe of gravity and limbs that Kaie half expected her to smack him in the face before she was done. It was, without question, the least graceful thing he ever saw. The girl was all sharp angles and awkward movements. Any tra
ce of the careful huntress sneaking up on the deer was gone, erased so effectively it was actually kind of impressive in its own right.

  “You hate that she asked that from you. But you want to be with her.”

  “I love her.”

  The girl rolled her eyes. “You want permission to betray your friend. The one she loved. The one you still do. That’s what you want from those gods.”

  He sucked in a long breath through his teeth. He tried to be angry at her.

  She didn’t wait to see what words he put together. He was grateful. Kaie wasn’t sure they’d make any sense. “You’re the one my brother calls Bruhani. I wasn’t sure before. But you are, aren’t you?”

  He laughed a little, more from relief than amusement. “I didn’t know Vaughan had a sister. And I didn’t know the name was special. I figured it meant new guy or something.”

  She shook her head. “It means something.” She flipped her hair back from her face with a single jerk. Awkward, just like everything else about her, but effective. Her face was pointed and narrow. Like a bird. It was a lot like her brother’s face too. It looked much better on him. She reached out and tapped his head twice, a lopsided smile on her thin lips. “He likes you. He doesn’t like anyone in this place. Just me, and now you. That means something, too.”

  “Uh… thanks?”

  She rolled her eyes again. Such big eyes. Then she widened her smile, as if to say she forgave him. “He says he’s never heard of anyone with so much of the Jhoda running through them. That it’s almost like you’re more than someone who can touch it, you’re something born from it. Like you’re a bit fay. Maybe more than a bit.”

  “Vaughan thinks I’m a fairy?”

  The girl’s laugh came out half snort. It was strange. “He also says you might die if you sit still too long. That you are always moving in one direction or another. Moving, planning, moving. Never ever still.”

  Kaie shrugged. “I get bored. Your brother is still enough for both of us, with all that meditation.”

  “You know what I think is strange?”

  He was answering before he could think any better of it. “I’m afraid to ask. It must be damn disturbing.”

  She laughed again, snort and all, and punched him in the shoulder. Not lightly, the way girls hit to play. It was a real hit that left his skin stinging. “There’s a boy. He is so powerful people think he might be fay. He must be terribly compelling, because even a cautious and fearful person starts trusting this boy without a second thought. He inspires his friend to sacrifice love and future for him. He thinks so highly of himself that he believes his gods will return just to absolve him of some very appropriate misgivings.

  “There are a good number of directions he can move in, and some of them could even bring him a measure of peace and happiness. But, of all those directions, he chooses to walk backward, when he already knows everything that waits there will hollow out the greatness in him and leave only guilt and self-hatred. Isn’t that odd?”

  She stood up, a process that was every bit as treacherous as sitting down. This time, Kaie actually did catch an elbow in his shoulder. The same one she hit. He wasn’t sure it was accidental, either. “I need to go fetch your Amorette. You are an interesting person to speak with, Bruhani.”

  “Wait!”

  She kept moving toward the path he followed from the houses with no sign of slowing. But she did glance back.

  “What’s your name?”

  She rolled her eyes once more before flipping her hair back into place and covering up her angled face. “You haven’t earned it yet. And don’t you ask my brother! That’s cheating.”

  Twenty-One

  The next week passed much like the ones before it. Amorette did speak to him. Sort of. It was, of course, what he wanted. Except the only times she said anything was when she tried to convince him to sleep with her. Not every night but most. He managed to scrape together enough self-control to say no, but it was always a near thing. And it got harder each time, especially when she started crying herself to sleep after he refused her.

  He missed Amorette. She was right there, across from him every night. But, even if she was willing to talk to him, Kaie found it increasingly difficult to find something to say. Each morning slipping out to avoid her grew a little easier. He wanted her so bad he ached with it. All he ever needed to do was say that one word. But saying anything else seemed impossible. And that was what he missed: their conversations. He resented her for taking that from him sometimes. More than sometimes, when he was being honest with himself.

  No matter how difficult the mornings were, Kaie always returned before the girl came to get Amorette. Her arrival was the best part of every one of his days. His puzzle. She would watch him, those big blue eyes half hidden underneath her mass of white-blonde hair. Some days she would talk to him, some she wouldn’t. She refused to give him any hint about how he might earn her name, but she was quite good at giving him enough encouragement to try the next morning. He told her jokes, shared his favorite stories and asked her all manner of caring and considerate questions. But she did not budge. It was wonderfully frustrating.

  Vaughan came every other day. Always just after the sun reached its highest point. The boy was more regular than bowel movements, and Kaie found he appreciated that more than he expected. He was surprised to discover how much he looked forward to those visits. They were almost as important as the time spent with the boy’s sister.

  So when the blanket over the front of the house lifted, Kaie expected it to be Vaughan. He looked up from a design he was making in the dirt in front of him, anticipating another enlightening conversation about the sister. But it wasn’t Vaughan. It was the woman who put the brand in his shoulder.

  Kaie was scrambled backward, his hand seeking anything that might serve as a weapon, before he consciously processed this new development. His fingers wrapped around one of the bowls his neighbors gave them. Knowing it for perhaps the most absurd defense ever attempted, he swung it in the space between them as warning. The woman’s nose wrinkled in what could just as easily be scorn as laughter. She made as though to step across the threshold, the hand not holding back the blanket clenched in a fist.

  “Thank you, Josephina. That will be all.”

  The voice came from outside, well beyond his scope of vision. It was soft and unassuming; he barely heard it over the pumping of blood in his ears. But it snapped the woman straight in an instant. She tilted her head to the unseen speaker and then dropped the blanket back into place, obscuring Kaie’s view completely.

  He crept forward, not at all certain he wanted to find out what was going on, clutching the bowl like a lifeline. Just as he reached the halfway point the blanket was jerked open again.

  Kaie found himself staring at what was once a beautiful woman.

  She was around the same age as his mother, he supposed. Older, probably, but not much. Her long brown hair was pulled back from her slender face in a style that managed to look both ornate and simple at the same time. Her rich brown eyes were framed by wrinkles, as were her full lips. Despite her age, she was far from ugly. Age was coming on her gracefully. She was, his father would say, quite handsome. And despite the fact that her beauty was clearly fading, she didn’t make any attempts to hide it with garish makeup or flashy clothing the way some older women of his tribe were known to. Her dress was obviously of fine make but it was not bedecked with beads or feathers, or anything else intended to distract from the one wearing it.

  She didn’t belong in his new world.

  She seemed oblivious to the inappropriateness of her presence as she stepped into his house with a dainty grace he imagined must take years of practice. He gawked as she surveyed the room without a trace of disdain or disapproval. When she was done, she fixed her gaze to him once again. “I imagine you are wondering who I am.”

  It was the same soft voice from before. The clues snapped into place. He set the bowl down cautiously and climbed back to his fee
t. It wouldn’t do to cower before this woman. “You’re the Lady Autumnsong.”

  He thought he caught a slight lift to her right eyebrow, but it was gone before he could be sure.

  “Yes. Do you know why I am here?”

  “No.” He bit back everything else he wanted to say, not quite ready to see how far he could push the one responsible for his enslavement. There would be time for that later.

  She gestured to the doorway. “I am going for a walk. You will accompany me.”

  He wanted very much to argue. Compliance would mean he accepted her ownership of him, and that was most certainly not true. But he was curious. And a little bored. And, honestly, he wasn’t sure he was ready to make an enemy of this woman. He didn’t know enough. Not yet.

  She did not glance back to see if he was following. Kaie struggled to swallow his irritation at her arrogance as he trotted along like a dutiful dog.

  “This area is very quiet now, isn’t it?”

  It took him a second to decide if she was asking him or simply making an observation. “Uh, I guess. Are other places different?”

  She shot him a backward glance informing that she, in fact, was not speaking to him before. The expression wasn’t angry. Not exactly. But it did make him feel distinctly uncomfortable. “Yes. I make it a habit to visit my holdings regularly. Most of them are quite vibrant. I do what I can to make them bearable and the residents make them home. This place though…”

  They were at the well. She stopped and turned around, crossing her arms over her chest and looked through him. Kaie got the feeling she was caught up in some unpleasant memory. “You met my niece, Luna. She is a brilliant girl. Anything she sets her mind to, she accomplishes with a flourish.