by Lyn Lowe
The days were harder. There wasn’t enough to do. Keegan spent most of the time sleeping. Peren was out running food and messages all over the estate. There was too much time for him to think about the ugly white lines branded into her right shoulder. They were supposed to look like half of a leaf, but all Kaie saw was the way it ruined her soft skin. The Mistress did that, the same one who made her run deliveries. Everything in their small little room was tainted by the shadowy figure of that woman, and it made him half mad thinking about how she could take everything from him.
Vaughan’s visits helped. The boy was meek and irritating, but Kaie was grateful for the distraction. The kid offered to tell him about his past, which Kaie refused, and so they spent an hour or two nearly every day talking about the empire that enslaved them.
Months passed with Kaie hardly noticing. Even the hardest days faded from his mind when her hair draped around his head, hiding him away from everything except her eyes. She would look at him, see right through him, and she would smile. He lived for that smile.
The crisp, cool wind of fall grew heavy with the promise of snow. Kaie learned to cook and used a small knife to carve himself a flute. It took a lot of failed attempts and more advice than he wanted, but he liked making music. Keegan loved it too. On the rest days, after they finally crawled out from beneath their blankets, Kaie would make breakfast and Peren would tell a story. Fai tales and myths, mostly. She claimed he told them to her once. They were all new to his ears. Then he would go for a walk around the shanty neighborhood called West Field. The walks gave him time to come back to himself, free of distractions.
He still wasn’t sure what to do with this life he was thrust into. He prepared himself for hatred and violence, instead finding himself a piece of this unaccountably happy family. It was changing him. He wasn’t the man who wrote promises to invisible jailors in his own blood anymore. Almost, he could imagine growing old and content in this house.
That thought stuck in his teeth like a string of meat that refused to be dislodged. This was not his life. Not really. The girl who spent each night in his arms, the baby cooing softly in her lap, they belonged to a boy erased a little less than two years ago. He was borrowing them, but it wouldn’t last. It wasn’t freedom. There was always a Hollow standing still as a statue, just outside the house to remind him every time he felt himself forgetting. Guarding him or against him. Not even Vaughan seemed to know which. They were more constant than sunrise, following him on his walks.
Walks that often turned to runs. Past the twelve shacks of West Field, with their happy children playing in the small drifts of snow and bright colors, around a barren stretch of land he figured was used to grow crops in warmer seasons, to the twelve shacks of East Field. There, things were not nearly so pleasant looking. There were some specks of color in the windows of the shacks, and a child or two could be spotted peering out from behind the hide doors, but the place was miserable. He thought about asking Vaughan about it almost every day, and decided against it each time. Something told him that he didn’t really want to know why the two were so different.
One of the Hollows was always behind him, never outside arm’s reach. No amount of shouting chased the thing away. Kaie even resorted to throwing stones once, but the creature didn’t even seem to notice when one connected with its head hard enough to draw blood. One was always near. It shouldn’t shake him. But it did. He saw the promise in the lines of the men’s stiff shoulders. Everything about his silent, empty guardians whispered of what was waiting. Kissa was out there and when the Namer returned she would come for him. He knew, the same way he knew he could trust the two blondes, that his luck wouldn’t hold a sixth time.
They would be better, Peren and Keegan, if he was dead. Better still if he was just gone. He couldn’t take them. Maybe if Keegan were older. But he couldn’t drag Peren and their infant across a land he didn’t remember in a dash for freedom. That was what drove him out their hide door every rest day, what pushed his feet faster every time. Out here in the chilly air, he was furious. Not at her, but at that stupid, weak version of himself. The one who got her pregnant and left her to pick up his mess with no plan to end it. And the lost, mewling versions who came between that first one and now were no better.
Neither was he. Because, for a minute or two each night, he seriously entertained the idea of waiting for the Namer to return and letting the problem be taken out of his hands. He didn’t want to leave them. He was happy here, or as close to happy as he could imagine.
The thought clung longer on the night the first flecks of snow caught in his eyelashes. And the Hollow behind him, a big empty man he recognized from his last moments in the cell even after all this time, whispered louder than the others.
This will be you.
His feet followed a path his eyes were too distracted to follow. They knew it well. He lost himself in the thrill of the run, with no baby in his arms and no cell walls to confine him. The wind cut at him, but he pushed forward mindlessly.
The sound of the Hollow’s feet hitting the snow dusted earth behind him pulled Kaie back to himself. Each thud was another whisper. You, they promised. You, you, you, you. He pushed harder, ran faster, but he couldn’t escape them. They were always just behind him, insisting and so much steadier than his heartbeat.
He kept going until his legs burned just as badly as his lungs. For a second, he thought he was right back where he started. One house looked the same as another. But it was East Field.
The Hollow stopped just outside of arms reach. The man wasn’t even breathing heavily. Kaie was tempted to hit him. It wouldn’t make a difference, the man wouldn’t try to stop it, but it might make him feel a little better. Instead, he shambled over to the well and drew up a bucket of water.
“Did you get tired of playing house at last?”
He dropped the bucket. It landed with a splash that sent up a thin layer of icy mist. A thick woman approached from the other side of the well. She wore a scowl like it was the natural set of her mouth.
“I see you run through here every week,” she growled. “After you set your brat down for a nap? Before you roll around with that wisp of yours, trying to make another one for our Mistress to drive herself to madness trying to protect? What happen? Did you decide you’re bored and come out here to make trouble again?”
“I’m sure I’m very intimidated. Who are you?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes as she came up beside him. She folded her arms across her chest, making obvious efforts to show off the short blade on her hip in the light of the full moon. “Boss Josephine. I was in charge of keeping you safe, back when that was an option, and apparently cleaning up your mess now that it’s not.”
“Sounds like a real chore. Must keep you terribly busy.”
Her scowl intensified, deep lines forming around her mouth and between her bushy eyebrows. “Busier than I’d like. Are you here to start another riot, boy? A little warning before you start making bodies of my people would be a nice change of pace.”
Kaie sighed and leaned against the well. The cold of the stones seeped into his skin, raising gooseflesh all over his arms in the moments before his back went numb. “Know what would be nice? If there was one person besides me who didn’t know my whole life story. Then I wouldn’t be the only one left out of all the jokes.”
She eyed him with distaste so obvious Kaie almost looked down to see if he was wearing something offensive. “When you lived here, three people died in the span of two days on account of you.”
He shrugged, masking his surprise as best he was able. Peren said one man died. Who were the other two? “I like to stay busy.”
Her eyes rolled. “Last time you started visiting was worse. Almost a year ago, you started dropping in. Your pretty girl begged. Said you were harmless, just wanted to learn who you were before they scooped out all the soft bits of your brain. You’re the only one to move to West Field, so all your people still lived here.”
He didn’t miss the past tense. “And you just couldn’t refuse such a heart-wrenching appeal?”
Josephine snorted. “The Mistress felt sorry for you. Spends too much time doing that, you ask me. It’s going to cost us all more than we can afford soon. Anyway, she told me to let you talk to them. You and the other Zetowan got all chummy. Talked about who you were and your big family and your crazy religion. Gods, I heard about Lemme so many times I near puked over it.”
That name resonated through him like striking a hammer against metal.
“You got them all sorts of fired up,” she continued. “Got them remembering who they were and thinking you were important. When the Namer took you back for another go, they lost their damn minds. Started rioting, trying to get to your cell and break you out. Even found themselves a couple magic users we didn’t know about and convinced the fools to join the cause.”
“What?” Kaie couldn’t conceal his surprise this time.
“Oh yeah. The Mistress is a forgiving woman, more than she should be, but she couldn’t talk them out of their little rebellion. All of ‘em calling for the release of ‘Kaie the Unbroken’ and screaming for blood. They got it. Rivers of it. We had to put the whole of East Field to the blade. We got stuck with twenty new slaves to train up and two Hollows to send to the front lines. Not to mention twenty-seven bodies to bury. Some of ‘em no more than eight years old. So thanks for that.”
“Why?” He demanded, angry at the older version of himself all over again. “Why would I do that? What did I hope to gain?”
Josephine sighed, her posture changing drastically with that one sound. Suddenly, she didn’t look like a brute about to pound his face in, but a tired woman. “To be honest, I don’t think you did it. I listened in, most days you were here. I never heard you speak a word of revolt. There were problems brewing, even before you started coming around again. Zetowan don’t seem to take well to the life.”
Her scowl returned and she poked a finger into his chest, threatening his balance for a second. “But that don’t make your hands clean of the blood. Whether you called for it or not, you were the one they were screaming for. You started that fire in ‘em, no matter what you intended. I won’t let it happen again. I won’t bury my territory another time, boy.”
He smiled grimly. “Well you’re in luck. I like running. Not talking. I don’t care who I was or who lives in these hovels. And I promise, if anyone tries calling me ‘Unbreakable’ I’ll beat them myself.”
“Right. Because that worked so well last time.”
“You said you sent the Hollows to the front line. As in a battle? Is there a war?”
She snorted. “You’re in the Urazin Empire. There’s always a war.” Josephine rubbed at her forehead before crossing her arms over her chest again. “You stay out of East Field from now on, boy. There aren’t none of your people left, and Mistress says I don’t have any obligation to look out for you anymore. Stay where you belong.”
He chuckled bitterly. “That’s the plan, isn’t it? Just trying to sort out where that is.”
She rolled her eyes again. “Gods, your kind are dramatic, aren’t they? Can you even take a piss without hyperventilating over it?” Josephine grabbed his arm roughly and jerked him away from the well, turning him toward West Field. “Start there.”
He took the hint. He walked back the way he came, cringing with each plodding step the Hollow took behind him.
“Kaie!”
He looked back, half expecting a fist for his trouble.
“Mistress told me two Namers are expected in a fortnight. Do what you can for your family before then.”
Six
Keegan was fussy. It was an unusual enough occurrence that Kaie wasn’t certain how to handle it. He made his best attempt at crafting a stuffed animal for his son about a month ago, cutting snippets from the hide door, pulling threads from the edges of their shirts, and filling it with a couple handfuls of sand Vaughan brought for the project. It was just about the ugliest thing in the world, but the little guy seemed to love it. Usually, all it took to win one of those coveted giggles was waving the poor misshapen creature around a bit. Maybe toss in a weird noise, if things seemed particularly dire. But it wasn’t working today, and neither was anything else he tried. Not even the flute. The kid seemed determined to be unhappy.
“Come on man,” he pleaded. “Your mom just left. I know you’re not hungry again already. You’re clean, you’re warm. What in the Abyss do you want from me?”
Keegan pushed himself to his feet, rocking back and forth dangerously. That was happening a lot. Peren thought it was adorable. Kaie found it worrisome. It meant the kid would be walking soon, and that didn’t bode well. He wasn’t going to be around to watch their son when that started, and then she would be stuck trying to chase down a mobile infant while running her deliveries.
“He knows what’s coming.”
Kaie rubbed his face and fought the urge to hit the small man sitting beside him. Two days were gone since Josephine’s warning, and the numbers ticking by in his head were growing more and more insistent. “He’s ten months old, Vaughan. He knows that he likes sticking everything into his mouth. That’s about the extent of it.”
“You’re wrong,” the blonde boy insisted. “He knows.”
“Gods,” Kaie sighed, making a desperate attempt to stop the crying by scooping Keegan up and tossing the little guy around. It tended to result in him wearing spit-up, but it always got a giggle. This time it stopped the constant grating howls, but the laughter seemed reluctant to put in an appearance. He wasn’t about to give up, though. “Why don’t we quit trying to assign my son god-like knowledge and act like he’s just a baby. What did Peter say?”
Vaughan hesitated. It was no secret that the other man was the favorite of the Mistress’s son. Or that the arrangement was one he worked for. It got all of them a good deal of special favors, like fruit for Peren and a house to themselves, though Vaughan was expected to stay in the son’s rooms except during visits. It also got them access to information that, so far as Kaie could tell, no other slave on the estate could get. If the price was high, no one questioned that it was worth it.
“He didn’t know. He says the whole thing is depressing and wouldn’t talk about it,” Vaughan answered with obvious misery. “I couldn’t press it too hard. I can’t get him angry at me. Not now.”
Not, Kaie understood, when the boy’s sister was about to be left alone with kid less than a year old, and no help but what Vaughan could provide by selling himself to the Mistress’s son. “I get it. Don’t press. But you didn’t learn anything? I thought you said the Mistress is trying to get him more involved in managing the estate. Wasn’t there anything about the Namers coming?”
Vaughan shook his head. “He doesn’t have me read all of it. He gets bored of it quickly and then has me read… other things.”
The boy turned bright red. Kaie let the matter drop. He didn’t want to know what the Lord Peter made Vaughan read. “So we don’t know if Josephine was telling the truth.”
“I’d believe her,” Vaughan answered lowly. “We knew the Namer was going to come back. Josephine has no reason to lie, does she?”
Kaie snorted. “How in the Abyss would I know the answer to that?”
Keegan giggled at last then spit up all over the front of Kaie’s shirt. He sighed and kissed the top of his son’s head before depositing the boy back on the blanket. He made it all the way over to the bucket of water, managed to pull off the dirty shirt and dunk the washcloth to clean himself off, before Keegan started crying again.
He sighed again.
“Alright.” He wiped himself off quickly, then returned to the baby. So long as he kept rubbing Keegan’s back, the howls were replaced with whimpers. “So Namers are coming. Multiple. That doesn’t sound promising. What’s the solution?”
“There isn’t one. I’m sorry Kaie, but any other solutions were gone the first time they took you to that cell.”
Vaughan leaned back against the wall, resignation in every line of the man’s body. “Nothing. It’s winter, Kaie. Nothing’s being grown, nothing’s being shipped. Lady Luna won’t return from her trip to Uraz until the spring, and no one travels this time of year. I doubt even bandits bother for another four months. The only people on the roads at all are going to be the Hollows headed for Jorander.”
He stopped. Keegan noticed and threatened to unleash the ear splitting shrieks until he started rubbing again. “The Hollows here? They’re being sent off as well?”
Vaughan shot him a confused look. “Of course. No estate keeps more than two Hollows around at any time. They’re mostly useless and tend to get murdered when they’re left around family and friends. It’s mercy, but the Namers don’t see it that way. There are six here now. So when the soldiers come, four of them will be taken.”
“When will that be? Do you know?”
“Any day now. They were expected weeks ago, but Lord Peter says the roads have been bad lately and…” Vaughan blinked. Kaie watched as realization washed over the other boy. “Oh!”
He grinned. “Seems kind of fitting, doesn’t it? I was supposed to be one of them, after all.”
“Oh no. That’s not a good idea.”
“You said that about training my magic too.”
“And I was right! You have learned nothing but how loud you can yell before Boss Geo comes to see what the commotion is about!”
“We weren’t caught,” Kaie insisted.
“Fine,” the other man allowed, “but how do you intend to sneak in? The Hollows might not say anything, but the soldiers are bound to notice. They aren’t as forgiving as the Mistress; it won’t be whipping or a cut of rations if you’re caught. Someone will come across your rotting corpse in a couple months, and no one will here will even know to mourn you.”