by Lyn Lowe
He rubbed his eyes, wishing he didn’t need to answer that. Wishing he never thought about it, didn’t know the answer. “Probably.” Unless he stopped caring, like he was trying to do. Like Peren told him not to.
She nodded. None of this was news to her. None of it seemed to touch her. “There’s room for that girl when you’re busy hating yourself. Peren. Isn’t there?”
Kaie blinked. That surprised him. “What?”
“Do you love her, Kaie?”
Vaughan drew in a slow breath. Kaie tried to sort out what was unfolding. “No.”
Amorette laughed. It wasn’t the husky sound he loved so much, the one that always sent ripples of longing through the pit of his stomach. This one was hard. Brittle. Then he understood for the first time. This was not the girl he loved. It wasn’t the girl with the dead eyes either. This was some other creature using her as a shell. His girl, Jun’s girl, she was gone. “You will. You’ll love five women with a passion that will never leave you. I always knew I was the first. Even when we were six. But she’s supposed to be the second. That stupid, ugly girl is supposed to take away everything I want. Ruin it all.”
He swallowed hard against a host of questions that weren’t important, choosing carefully the one that was. “What have you done?”
Amorette smiled. It was lopsided and unnatural. Like something painted on. Then, slowly, she unfolded her arms. Something fell from in between them. It clinked as it hit the dirt. Kaie stared down the strange round, reflective thing without comprehension.
Vaughan was up in an instant, moving with more ferocity than Kaie knew he was capable of. “That’s Peren’s mirror! What did you do to my sister?”
“Nothing,” Amorette answered. But it wasn’t her voice. It was high pitched and cracked. Nightmarish. Even if he was able to stop caring again Kaie was certain the sound of it would still send a chill all the way to his bones.
Neither boy waited to hear any more of that voice. They raced to push through the blanket and into the snow. Kaie fell in behind Vaughan without a word, not knowing where Peren lived but sure her brother did. Not thinking about Keegan or the lockdown. The snow, falling since morning, seemed to turn against them. The light dusting was fast transforming into a real storm.
They headed west, opposite the stables. In minutes they were cutting through fields of wheat into a group of houses both completely new and utterly familiar. The same wood, built into the hill just like on his side, even an identical well. But here there were those personal touches so lacking on the other side. Bright colors, flowers, vegetable gardens. He could hear the faint sound of laughing children and maybe even music. Mostly, though, he heard the sound of his own breath coming in bursts and someone crying.
Vaughan led them straight to a house with bright yellow flowers surrounding it, pushing through the blanket door without slowing. Kaie was right on his heels.
It took him a moment to take in the scene before him. Whatever he expected to find, the brute from yesterday was not part of that. He needed several seconds to find Peren, collapsed into a tiny ball at his feet. She was where the soft sobs were coming from.
Vaughan launched himself at the man and was tossed aside with nothing more than a shake of his arm. Pulling up short just shy of the exact same thing, Kaie watched as the large man landed a kick into Peren’s back with a casual brutality. There was no time to run and get help. One look at the small girl made it clear she was fading fast.
Her only response to the new abuse was to roll across the dirt from the power behind it. Her cries were those of a broken animal, past awareness of what was being done to it. But he was still no match for the brute in a direct confrontation. No matter the strength his work in the stables was giving him, Kaie was quite conscious of the fact he didn’t possess any of that rippling muscle Peren was so fond of. Yesterday’s lesson drummed through his mind and the cut above his eye.
So he made a different plan.
The brute was focused on Peren, only granting Vaughan attention when being directly attacked. Exactly the way the man focused on Keegan. Kaie still wasn’t getting any notice. His years of wrestling Sojun – who was both bigger and stronger than him – finally paid off for more than just a false arrogance. Letting out a low breath of air, filled with a wordless prayer to any god that might be listening he dropped his head and charged forward.
He aimed himself for the brute’s legs. The sole advantage in a confrontation with a man as large as this one was his center of gravity. His victories over Sojun were false, he recognized that, but that didn’t make all his tactics poor ones. Some of them, he felt certain, were legitimately effective. Effective or not, they led to only a few debatable wins against a much smaller man. And Jun held no desire to do him harm. Both those thoughts screamed in his head in the split second before he collided. But Kaie didn’t let himself hesitate.
He hit hard. The smack into the back of the man’s very solid legs made his head ring. For one awful second, Kaie thought it was going to be as ineffective as Vaughan’s attack. Then the brute toppled backwards. He rolled out of the way at the last second, avoiding being crushed by less than a breath.
For all that he seemed shocked by his new position on the ground, the brute was swinging the instant he hit. Only one connected as Kaie scurried out of reach but it was enough to make his entire shoulder go numb.
A quick scan around the room confirmed what he saw earlier: there were no more weapons in this house than in his own. It was bigger, with no divider sectioning off the place for a second resident, but that offered no advantage he could think of. He needed to figure out something. The brute would only be down another second or two. Then the gravity advantage would be gone. Without it, Kaie’s only chance was fleeing through the fields in the hope the other man would tire before he did, which seemed unlikely, or that someone else would intervene, which seemed even less. So, with nothing else to do, Kaie plunged his hand into the fireplace and wrapped his fingers around the first burning log they found.
He felt the kiss of heat up along his arm, but no pain flooded through his system. There was no time to wonder about it. Kaie swung as hard as he could, bringing the wood down across the man’s head. There was a crack and the smell of burning hair filled the small room in an instant, but no scream came. The man just dropped back down and went limp.
Kaie dropped the log and blinked down at his hands. The left, the one he swung with, was perfect. The brute was hurt. Maybe dead. And there were no burns on his hand. No marks. Only the numbness in his right shoulder.
Peren cried again. It jerked him out of the haze his mind was threatening to get lost in. He shook his head free of it, stepped around the brute, and dropped down to her side. He was afraid to touch her. He didn’t know where she was hurt but was certain it was bad.
“Vaughan!” he shouted.
There was no need to call him. The boy was right behind him. He spared Kaie the quickest of glances, just enough for him to notice the small trickle of blood leaking out from beneath the white blonde hair. Then he wrapped his hands around her shoulders.
Kaie recognized the hold. He saw it with Sojun and felt it himself. He knew what Vaughan was doing. But he saw nothing. Felt nothing. The boy felt the old magics on him, but Kaie was blind to it. He could do nothing but watch and hope that something was happening.
After a few agonizing and endless minutes, the crying stopped. She didn’t open her eyes, didn’t react to them, but she seemed to be sleeping rather than unconscious. Worried he might be interrupting something important, Kaie risked catching Vaughan’s eye again. “Is she ok?”
The boy glanced up for just a moment. “Yes. I couldn’t fix everything… not all at once. It took so much of the Jhoda to keep your hand safe.”
“You…” He shook his head again. Of course. “You should have saved it for her.”
Vaughan frowned and ran a finger through her blood-soaked hair. “I know.”
Kaie’s hands twitched with the same need
to touch her; to be sure she was still there. Still vital. But there were other things to do. “I have to go.”
Vaughan nodded once. “I know that, too.”
“Are you guys going to be ok? With…him?”
“Go. Set this right, Bruhani. Or I will.”
Twenty-Nine
Despite walking back and forth between the compound and his little shack, the sudden storm robbed him of the certainty as to which way he was heading. Frustrated tears sprang to his eyes but he wouldn’t let them fall. They’d only freeze, anyway. He tossed the blanket across the door aside and pushed forward against the angry wind that filled the inside of his nose and throat with icy needles. He walked all of ten feet before he stumbled and, for a moment, thought he was going face-first into the growing drifts of snow pooling around his bare feet.
A wiry arm wrapped around his shoulders and righted him. A second later Vaughan’s face was close enough to his own that Kaie could hear half-muttered curses and it nearly conjured up a smile. “Thank you.”
“I won’t let her kill you,” Vaughan replied lowly. He supposed that was all the explanation needed, and he wasn’t about to press his luck. The boy seemed to suffer from none of his own confusion. Apparently, having decided to help, Vaughan was eager to be done with the whole thing. The kid dragged them both along through the snow with a trajectory so certain Kaie almost believed Vaughan could see.
The storm, in all its sudden anger, could only have come from the gods. It beat at them with a ferocity of months of winter suppressed for this one moment, rendering their thin clothing less than laughable. It burned through his chest with a frozen fire that threatened to unman him and erase him from the world with the ease of swatting away an ant. In the swirling white world Kaie was forced again to face his own helplessness. If it were not for Vaughan he would be lost utterly.
When the boy stopped his unforgiving pace, Kaie pulled away and stumbled forward, nearly colliding with the well. Vaughan shouted a warning – one that was so muffled he nearly missed it – just in time to stop him from careening down. His breath coming in painful gasps that were fueled only partially by the close-call, he pushed on.
Now that they were close the confusion dropped away like shed clothing. The vision back in the Lemme’s hut burst into his mind’s eye with the same brutality of the first time. Kaie remembered the image of Amorette kneeling by a frozen stream – remembered and gods help him, understood. He locked on to the place in the snow where she would be waiting, an arrow loosed and hurtling toward the target.
As he drew close to the small space of earth nestled between two weeping trees heavy with the wet drifts gathering in their boughs, the snow parted like curtains drawing back. For a time Kaie could do nothing but stare on at the beauty from his vision brought to life.
She knelt, as he knew she would. Her back was to him and her short, light red hair swirling about her like fire against the stark white world. He tried to approach silently, a part of him terrified of disturbing what seemed almost a sacred moment, but his shivering body was in no mood to cooperate. His chattering teeth gave him away and her head turned just enough for him to see her profile.
Had any lips ever looked so red?
“I knew that you’d hate me,” she said.
His eyes drifted to the snow spread out before her, but the stark red puddles were nowhere to be seen. Letting out a slow, shaking breath of relief, he wrapped his arms around himself and plunged his hands into his armpits for what little warmth they offered. “You knew that I loved you,” he replied, surprised at how even his voice was for all the chattering. “There was no reason to do that to her.”
“There was every reason!” Amorette screeched in the voice that wasn’t hers. “I did so much, gave up so much. For this. And she was going to ruin it all. I watched you smile at her every morning! Tell her jokes and stories. Our stories! You wouldn’t even look at me this morning, but that boy says her name and you start smiling and laughing! She was taking you away!”
With effort that cost him dearly, Kaie set aside the rage at what was done to Peren. There would be time for that, so much time for that. Right now he needed to get back in to the fire. He could feel the cold deep in his chest, knew the dangers that came with it. He and Amorette were going to freeze to death out here. No matter what she did, he couldn’t bring himself to wish that on her. He loved her still. “I don’t want to talk about her right now.”
“What then? Are you here to spout more garbage about how lost we both are? Are you going to promise to keep me safe when the people come to drive you out of East Field?”
“It wasn’t garbage,” Kaie insisted. Guilt twisted in him, more vicious than the cold. She was right. He barely gave thought to protecting her. Instead he slept with her. Even though Ren and Silvy were bound to hear, even though doing so painted a target on her for anyone who wanted to hurt him. But he would do better. So much better. “You’ll be safe. I’ll figure some way.”
“And all I have to do is open my legs whenever you desire it.”
“No! That’s not what this is! You don’t have to do anything you don’t want…I thought you wanted that.”
She laughed again, this time with a harsh pitch that sent off warnings all down his spine. “You have the cock, don’t you? I remember you sticking one in me. You’re all sweetness and honor now, but I know better. I know how long it takes your kind to turn. Selfish, vicious monsters, all of you. Already, you’re tripping all over yourself to claim me. Like a dog marking his territory. Just like all the others.”
“Gods, Amorette, that’s not what I want! Last night was a mistake! All I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is for you to be happy!”
“You want more than that,” she hissed. “You’ve wanted more than that for years, don’t try to pretend different. I saw the way you looked at me, even before I understood it. And now that you got a taste, you’re trying to figure out a way to get more. If I don’t let you, you’ll just take it. Until you love someone else more. Then you’ll leave me all alone, used and broken.”
“I wouldn’t!” The tears were coming now, and nothing he could do about it. They froze on his cheeks just as he knew they would, but more kept coming.
“You would,” she answered flatly. “Just like him. Your ‘heart’s brother’ right?”
Kaie’s anger returned, mixed with all the hatred and guilt that bore down on him every day since he failed to take that collar. “Sojun gave up everything for us!”
“For you!” She shook her head. “I asked him, before I let him take me that first time, if he would chose you over me. He promised me he wouldn’t. He swore it. But when the time came, it was you he loved best. Always you.”
Kaie shook, though he didn’t feel the cold anymore. “You’re wrong.”
She laughed. That awful, wicked laugh. “No I’m not. He loved you best. And then he gave me to you. Like I’m nothing more than a whore, to be passed around whenever it suits you. But I won’t be your whore, Kaie.”
“You’re not a whore. It was done to you! The gods know –”
“I don’t love you. From the first time you touched me, I’ve been using you. I hate you. Just looking at you makes me want to be sick. Pretending to want you was the vilest thing I’ve ever been forced to do. But I had to do it. You had to know!”
He didn’t want to ask. Gods, he didn’t want to. But the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Know what?”
“Enough. I’m done talking to you. Go away.”
“Not without you,” Kaie insisted. “You’ll die out here, with this storm.”
She tilted her head toward him again. There were no tears on her pale cheeks and no emotion he could discern either. “Get out of my sight.”
“No.”
She shrugged. “Fine then.”
One of her hands lifted and for a second Kaie thought she’d called down some sort of magic. But the flashing light in her palm was no spell, only a mirror catching some gli
ttering light hidden in the snow behind him. Peren’s mirror. “I told her I would let her have you. Before I gave her to Samuel. But only if she bought it. This is what she paid to fuck you, Kaie. This is what your seed is worth. A piece of dirty glass. Now we’re both whores.”
“What are you doing?”
“What I’ve planned.” She cackled. “Now you’ll know what it’s like to be alone! You’ll love four others, but I’m the first! And no matter what those others say or do, you’re going to remember this! You’re always going to know what it feels like when the person you love won’t love you back! When every kiss, every touch was just a lie!”
She took a breath and turned back to the frozen stream. And then, at the sound of the glass breaking, Kaie understood. He knew where the red on the field of white would come from. “NO!”
But it was too late.
Even as he darted forward, the Amorette dug the glass deep into the skin of one wrist, then the other, splitting open the flesh with the same skill she’d used to gut her kills in the life before the soldiers.
Thirty
Kaie dropped to his knees and gathered her up into his arms, sobs joining the tears as he held her unresisting frame against his chest. He pressed his hands to her wounds, but the blood pulsed through his fingers with a speed that made his efforts useless. “Why? Gods dammit, Ams, why?”
She laughed again, that same high-pitched desperate sound that set his chattering teeth on edge. “You’ll go to her when I’m dead,” she whispered. “You’ll ask for the collar. I told her I could make you. Now you will. I broke you. The one he loved best. You tell him that, when she takes you.”
Kaie heard her speak but the words rolled off him like water. They made no impression. His eyes combed the empty white world, watching the dark red puddles from his vision form and grow in the snow at his side, seeking some miracle that would save her. “Vaughan!” he screamed. “Vaughan, help me!”
Time stretched and danced, seeming both unbearably long and impossibly short with each fading pulse of blood spilling through his fingers. When the boy materialized from the ether he didn’t know if it was an instant or an hour after he called. However long, it was too long.