“They loved it!” Liam announced as he walked back stage. “Brilliant, mate, just brilliant - - lovey, did ya get the bauble?”
The thief-taker asked the last of Ajana, sidling up to her in a bit of stupor. He was drunk.
“Of course I did, without thanks to you,” she replied, bangled hands on decorated hips. She reached down to grab the satchel, keeping it at her side instead of handing it over like Liam wanted.
“Wha’?” Liam lilted. Ajana shoved him off, dropping pieces of costume in her wake, firmly grasping the satchel as if to keep the bauble for herself. “Wha’s wrong wiv’ ‘er?”
“You smell, Liam,” Reven replied. “Kaleo.”
“Yes?”
“I see no belongings, do you have any?” Reven asked. Kaleo only made a face of annoyance.
“I did but that beast of a human dragged me off before I could grab them. I highly doubt there’s anything left. Why?”
“Well, then we’ll be going shopping tomorrow.” “We?” the boy asked, dodging around Liam who peered at him through bloodshot eyes.
“Yes, ‘we’. I can’t have my urchin apprentice actually looking like an urchin. I’ve a reputation to maintain.”
“You… want me to stay?” Kaleo asked. Reven could hear the stifled excitement, the desire to hope being forcefully squashed down because it was too dangerous to have that kind of hope. Then Liam crushed it in one fell swoop. Kaleo glanced at his feet, his face flushed with shame and lingering adrenaline that made the bard’s ire begin to rise on the boy’s behalf.
“Are you mad!” Liam shouted. Reven glared with so much hate in his eyes he may have set Liam on fire on the spot. “The bloody hells ya need a kid for! An’ why tha’ kid! Pick a diff’nt one ya blasted loon!”
“I am not a loon ,you drunken shit, I am your bloody cash cow! That applause you heard was not for you, but the coin has already hit your pockets hasn’t it? And if you want to keep it that way then you’ll not say a single gods-dammed word or I will take my urchin, my drummer and quite possibly my dancer, too, and walk away to watch you wallow in your own piss while you beg for scraps on your own! Are we clear?”
Reven moved so close to Liam their noses practically touched. He smelled the liquor, felt the fear and anger that kept Liam’s mouth shut. The argument would come later, but for now Reven maintained the high ground, walking out with Serai and his new apprentice right on his heels. Ajana loitered a bit longer, then followed Reven, satchel in hand, and look of disgust on her scarred copper face.
***
Kaleo listened to the bard rail at the drunken duende man and smartly bit his tongue. He did not argue when the bard stormed out of the theatre, did not utter a single syllable and simply followed in stunned silence. The man looked like Gannon Oenel, but different enough to make Kaleo really wonder. The man’s hair was much shorter, for one, with darker coloring to it than the pale blond Kaleo remembered. He was darker in skin, too, and there was a scar near his brow that had not been there before. One thing remained the same, the one thing that made Kaleo’s stomach turn itself into a thousand knots - the man’s eyes. Kaleo would know those eyes anywhere. His sister had the same eyes, their father’s eyes.
“… you to find? What is that, it’s pulsing,” the bard said, gesturing at the satchel that the dancer held close to her breast. Kaleo felt it too, a subtle thumping like a heartbeat that made him feel a little dizzy. And hot. He was sweating and thoroughly exhausted. Every step he took was a struggle, his leg throbbing painfully with each step. He’d ignored it in all the rush and ruckus of the performance, but it was not so easy to do anymore.
Kaleo…
He did not answer his audeas, maintaining a solid lock on the bard walking just a few steps ahead of him lest he wake and find it all to be a dream. He needed proof, needed something solid to hold on to, to truly know that this man, this short-tempered strumpet was, in fact, Gannon Oenel.
“It is a gem,” the woman answered. “It bothers you, my love?”
“It’s annoying. Is it expensive?”
“Very,” the woman smiled. The bard smiled back. He then growled and glanced back at Kaleo who immediately dropped his gaze. “I will speak with Liam.”
“Don’t bother,” the bard said. “I’ll pay him myself. I’m altering my part of the contract with Luca, Ajana. I’m done letting Liam command me - or you, if you want it.”
The conversation continued, with the scarred woman smiling in appreciation at the offer given. It was an ongoing problem, the tension between the drunk duende and the bard. Kaleo ignored it as it was not his place to listen. The other woman with the cerulean eyes kept pace with Kaleo, staring at him until he glanced in her direction. She continued to stare, making Kaleo very uncomfortable. He wanted to ask what she wanted, why she stared, but was afraid to speak. He wasn’t entirely sure his voice would function with all that had happened the last few hours. His father had gone to Mahala but Kaleo saw no sign of Azure anymore and, clearly, the bard had no clue who Kaleo was. That knowledge hurt, though it was not unexpected given what he’d learned from Zuri. Mama said that his father had gone mad, had run from the Chateaus de Soie out of fear with a lack of recognition clear on his haggard face. In the end, it didn’t matter. A lack of memory would, honestly, explain a great deal, but a lack of memory did not make things any less difficult to sort out.
The red-haired woman continued to stare until Kaleo finally stared back, eyes narrowing at her. She twitched her lips curiously, not quite a grin, but not quite a pout either; somewhere in between. It was a woman thing. Kaleo could duplicate it when he shifted to the form of a woman ,but otherwise it was simply annoying. He did not feel up to a staring contest with an overly curious woman who looked barely older than himself.
Not that he had to, his vision blurred the longer he stared and his steps wavered several times.
“All right there, urchin?” the bard said, glancing back behind him as they walked. “Kaleo?”
Kaleo looked at him but could not respond. Instead, he felt the world tilt, the ground rushing up to greet him.
Chapter Twelve
“Kaleo!”
He looked up and smiled, the waves of the ocean washing up around his knees and soaking his pants.
“Child, what are you doing? I’ve been looking for you for over an hour.”
“Digging for shells!”
When he looked back down, the waves were no longer clear and beautiful. They were a wretched color of crimson, the shells replaced by gaping skulls that made him scream and fall back into the dark.
“I’ll come back, I promise,” Gannon said, taking him by the shoulders. “I need to go get Navid and your cousins and Aunt Jo. Protect your step-mother. Stay by her side. Promise me?”
“No, you have to stay! Please!”
“NO!” Kaleo cried out. He sat up in a rush, making his head throb and the whole room pitch. He looked down at himself, at the blankets around his bare body. The room was dark save for a single candle in the window that cast a narrow pool of light that did not reach the bed. A damp rag fell from his brow, prompting him to really look at his surroundings. There was a small table near the bed with a ceramic bowl atop it and woven mats that lined the floor. The single window was large with wooden shutters that were thrown open to allow a cool breeze. The flame on the candle danced and leapt on its wick, making swirling shadows on the white-washed walls. He did not recognize the room or its furnishings, or even the small bits of scenery he could see just outside the window. Most of it was desert just beyond a tiny outside garden with wilting plants hanging from a trellis.
Fionn, where are you?
Here, little one. In the garden.
That made Kaleo feel a little better. He wanted to go to the window to see the chimera, but knew he did not have the energy for it. He glanced beneath the blanket at his leg, wrapped in a bandage that was stained pink. It no longer hurt, nor did it appear to be so angry and mottled as it did before.
Where
am I? Kaleo asked.
“Feeling better, urchin?”
Despite asking a question, Kaleo did not expect a verbal response and jumped as a result. He turned toward the voice, heart in his throat, to see the bard standing in the doorway. He wore no tunic, exposing a tattooed chest that was riddled with scars. Kaleo felt his stomach flip. The tattoo was of a tribal phoenix; a mark given to all the male nobility of the Phoenix Empire upon their thirtieth year. Kaleo remembered a time when he ached to be thirty so he could have his tattoo as well. It would never happen now, but it was the proof he needed. The bard was, in fact, his father. Kaleo only barely remembered that a question had been asked and nodded mutely, afraid that he would not have strength enough to actually speak without blubbering.
“That was a rather nasty wound on your leg,” the bard continued, moving in to the room. Kaleo watched him. “How did you come by it?”
“Fell out of a tree,” Kaleo forced out. His voice was barely a croak, throat dry. Reven smirked.
“A tree?” he repeated. “Better at the guitar than flying, are we?”
Kaleo felt himself flush, looking down at his lap. He could not tell the bard the truth, the man would think him mad. The blanket he held was twisted up in his fists, knuckles practically white. He forced himself to let the lightweight fabric go, tucking his hands beneath his arms instead.
“The fever broke this morning,” Reven continued. “I’m fairly positive that Azrus tried to take you a few times. Though, I’d wager you could use a decent meal or two or the Lord of the Dead will come knocking at your door again.”
Kaleo did not want to think about food. He still had a giant knot in his stomach and a lump in his throat that threatened to suffocate him. Still, he managed to clear his throat and say, “Thank you. I’m sorry if I put you out.”
Reven shrugged. “Think of it as an investment. You can work it off over time.”
That made Kaleo look up and really stare hard at the bard leaning against the low chest of drawers. He studied Kaleo as much as Kaleo studied him. The recognition he’d hoped for was entirely absent, but there was genuine concern in the bard’s eyes for Kaleo’s well- being.
“You still want me to stay?” Kaleo asked with a frown on his face.
“Why would that have changed?” Reven answered. “You didn’t set anything on fire, you took my bed for two days. I took Liam’s. It worked out in the end. Would you rather not stay?”
“No!” Kaleo answered quickly; perhaps a little too quickly. He bit his tongue and looked at the blankets again before speaking, afraid to look at the bard. “No,
I want to stay. I don’t really have anywhere else to go anyway.”
“Good,” Reven said, pushing off the chest of drawers just as the woman with the cerulean eyes came in with fresh rags in her arms. She wore no clothes. Kaleo averted his eyes so fast he swore his head would spin right off, cheeks burning so hot he had to shut his eyes. “Oh, don’t bother. She hates clothes. If you’re going to stick around, urchin, just get used to the strange goings of this place.”
Kaleo cracked an eye open to peek and winced, face so hot he swore he would fall into another fever.
“What?” the woman said, looking down at herself. She set the rags down on the table with the ceramic bowl and looked again.
“Nothing, love, perhaps we can revisit very simple coverings now that we’re adding to our number? We just got the boy well, I don’t need you putting him into another fever because you abhor pants…”
The conversation continued even as the bard guided the woman back out of the room with a look of apology thrown in Kaleo’s direction. Kaleo grinned once he’d gone, feeling that lump in his throat slowly vanish.
***
Kaleo sat out in the garden, hands over his ears as the two olven men inside the house argued at full volume about him. Mere hours had passed between Kaleo’s return to coherency and the raging battle of words being fought in the small living room. Hours of staring at a man that wore his father’s face but was entirely opposite of who Gannon Oenel was. Reven Si’ahl was brash and cantankerous. Not that Master Roe was much better. The thief-taker did not like Kaleo. He glared and muttered under his breath. The argument was now a full hour in with Master Roe throwing accusations that Kaleo was lying to Reven, that he was after something and needed to be sent to the cartels. The counter argument was not much better. Reven liked Kaleo, wanted him to stick around, and would not allow anyone to tell him what to do with his urchin. But, there was more than just argument over Kaleo. There was argument over division of duties, of things that were clearly long over due to be discussed; Kaleo just happened to be the unfortunate catalyst that set off the explosion of heated words and shaking fists.
“… can’t remember wha’s bottom from top but yer gonna believe this winged brat at face value!!” Liam roared. “Li’l shit’s not worth the trouble yer puttin’ in ‘im!”
The comment made Kaleo look up from where he sat. The women of the house remained upstairs, pointedly ignoring the arguing men. Kaleo liked the two women. They were both unique in their own right, both lovely without being beautiful. They also seemed to know which battles to fight; this was not one of them.
“Why do you care! I will be the one paying for him; I will be the one feeding him; I am the one doing everything! He doesn’t affect you in the least! In fact, he’s going to help make you more money!” Reven threw back. Liam sneered in disgust, shaking his head.
“Wake up, mate. He’s not who he says he is - and neither are you,” Liam snarled. Reven punched him.
Kaleo took that opportunity to leave, listening to the shouts chase him out into the desert.
Kaleo walked until he was so far from the small row home that he could barely make out the light in the windows. The desert called to him, the fine white sand hiding its own secrets. A few odd trees that had no bark or leaves stood in random groupings. There were stiff-looking shrubs with poky needles all over them and bright blue blossoms at their tips or the occasional mound that looked like a bunch of matted fur rather than an actual plant. Kaleo made sure to steer clear of those, just in case. Instead, he walked until finding a small oasis. The pond was mostly dried up with only a tiny puddle of water left at the center. But there were a few of the not-trees, and one or two stunted palms that might offer respite from the sun in full daylight. In the dark of night, they were just nice to lean on.
All right, little one?
The chimera was not far, coming into the tiny oasis mere minutes after his initial question. The beast towered over Kaleo, his double wings tucked against his sides. He walked up to Kaleo and bumped the young avian’s brow. Kaleo threw his arms around the chimera’s neck and cried.
What happened?
“Nothing,” Kaleo said through his tears. “Just… I dunno I guess I expected… more? Liam hates me. He knows something but…”
Kaleo’s attention was diverted by an orange-blue flame that lit up the night sky briefly and then alighted on Fionn’s head. The chimera seemed to arch a brow - if he had brows - but did not fight the small phoenix. Kaleo’s tears of loss turned to tears of anger.
“And where have you been!” he hollered, voice cracking. “You were supposed to protect him! To make sure things like this don’t happen! Did you decide to take a holiday! Why haven’t you told him! Helped him! That’s your job, you stupid bird!”
Kaleo… Fionn cautioned. He could not hear Azure like he could Fionn. It was a specific bond between audean and audeas. Still, Azure shrank on Fionn’s head, even trilling sadly. The phoenix was Gannon’s audeas. His presence here suggested that despite a lack of memory, the bond the tirsai man had with the phoenix, at least, remained intact. Azure was such a common fixture in Kaleo’s life, always at his father’s side. Kaleo had never known a time for the pair to be apart. Where one went, so did the other. When one failed, the other was supposed to pick up the slack. Somewhere along the way, that system broke down.
Someone’s coming, Fionn s
aid.
“Go,” Kaleo said to his audeas. “Go, I’m fine.”
He watched the chimera leave. Azure took flight into the air, pinwheeling upwards until he was nearly invisible among the night sky. The young avian scrubbed at his face and flopped back against one of the stunted palms, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his wings around himself to create a physical barrier.
“I can still see your head, you know,” Reven said, making Kaleo look up with his eyes. “You don’t blend in very well. Too much teal on brown.”
Kaleo smirked despite his foul mood.
“Don’t let Liam get to you,” the bard continued, settling in on the sand across from Kaleo. “He’s an ass to everyone.”
Kaleo remained silent, glancing up only when Azure returned to alight atop Reven’s head. The bard sighed, glancing upward despite being unable to actually see the phoenix perched on his crown.
“We discussed this,” Reven said. “My head is not a perch. - - Because I said so. And don’t call me that.”
Kaleo blinked, scrubbing at his eyes again. So, things were not as they were before.
“You have a phoenix?” the young avian hazarded.
“It’s a parrot,” Reven retorted in dull tones. “A very bright, annoying, little parrot.”
Azure pecked at Reven’s head in retaliation. Kaleo snorted a laugh when the bard winced and rubbed the sore spot on his head, kicking Azure off to the sand. Instead, the bird wandered over to Kaleo, preening the avian’s wings as if asking permission to enter the shield. Reven watched, Kaleo opening his wings enough to allow the bird to hop up onto his knees and then his head. It was something Azure would do often when angry with Gannon. Apparently, he did it when angry with Reven, too.
Ashes to Embers Page 11