Forgotten

by Lyn Lowe

Peren was watching him with a sad, amused smile. “Are you going to tell me to be smart?”

  “No.”

  “How about fast and strong?”

  “There’s no need,” Kaie answered. “I’m sorry, Peren. For all of this. If I thought dying would make it better…”

  “Then you still wouldn’t do it. You can pretend you’re all filled with righteousness and self-sacrifice, but I know better. Maybe that was you before, when you were my Fairy Prince but not anymore. You’ve figured out how things work, and I’ve figured out what you are. No matter how bad it might get, so long as you’re alive, there’s a chance to make things better. When you’re dead, you’re just dead.”

  He smiled, amazed. “So what am I, then?”

  “That’s easy,” she said. Her eyes danced mischievously. Kaie got the feeling there was some great joke he was missing. “There are sheep, who fall in line the instant the ropes are around their necks and never dream of freedom. There are fighters, who rail against their fate with every breath and die bloody. Then there’s you and me and Vaughan. You’re one of us now. A survivor. We do what we have to, and we come out the other side.”

  “You think so?”

  “Of course. Five visits to the Namer, and you still think in sentences? What else could you be? Really, the only thing I can’t figure is why it took me so long to put it together.”

  Kaie’s grin grew, a strange reflection of the ache in his chest.

  “Did you really dream about me?”

  The question caught him unprepared. He blinked at her, trying to fathom what she was asking about. Taking pity on him, Peren smiled as she slid back against the wall. “When you first came back here, you said you dreamed about me. Was it true?”

  He chuckled and scooted around until he was beside her. After a second, he dropped his arm around her shoulders and she pressed up tight against his chest. He would miss this the most. Or, well, second most. “Yes.”

  “That’s really weird. Kind of sweet, but mostly weird.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “It really was.”

  They were quiet, but only for a second. That’s all that was left to them, and he was sure she felt it just as much as he did.

  “I’m thinking about kissing you.”

  He blinked again. He couldn’t even count how many times they kissed in their months together. Every inch of his skin knew the feel of her lips. But this was different. It might be their last kiss. For some reason that made it feel even more important than the first. “Oh.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  That didn’t take much thought. “Yeah.” Then, because that seemed a terrible answer, “yes.”

  She twisted around and caught his hand in hers, holding it at the wrist just like he did her brother’s. Her face was serious, but her eyes were laughing. “I will. But only if you promise me something.”

  “Anything.”

  An eyebrow rose. “I’m tempted to make it impossible, just to teach you better than that.” Then she smiled again. “But I’ll stick to what I want, this time. Promise that you’ll come back to me. I can’t stop you from going, and I can’t keep you safe. You could die out there, and I might never know. But if you promise you’ll come back to me, I’ll believe you and I won’t worry.”

  He gripped her wrist for a second, amazement rendering him mute. It was possible, even after the revolt that killed all the people of East Field, that he had hundreds of people somewhere with such faith in him. If they all piled in to the room, parents and friends and people who had a lifetime of memories to share with him, not a one of them would mean as much as this girl. She was more than just the mother of his child, more than just the woman he shared his blankets with. There weren’t even words for what she gave him. He could stare into the endless blue depths of her eyes until he died, and want for nothing.

  But that wasn’t an option. He was leaving and couldn’t pretend he knew what came after that. Kaie couldn’t lie to her. “I don’t know what this thing between us will be, after I leave. I don’t know what will happen to either of us. But I feel a powerful need not to disappoint you. So if you want me to come back, I will. I don’t know when or how, but I’ll find a way.”

  “Promise?”

  “Always. Even if means climbing out of my grave. I promise. I swear it, by Lemme, goddess of fate.” He didn’t know where the words came from. They lit her whole face.

  She kissed him.

  There were no fireworks. The world didn’t shift beneath them. But the kiss was warm and deep. Her arms locked around his neck and her fingers twined through his hair, just like Keegan’s. She didn’t pull, though. It felt good. So did wrapping his own in her hair. It was soft as down feathers. She laughed against his lips, and he felt the vibrations through his own mouth, making it almost like the sound was coming from the both of them. So many kisses he lost count, but this was the one that mattered. This would be the kiss he remembered.

  She sighed and dropped her head against his chest. Kaie breathed in the smell of her hair, trying to commit that wild scent to his memory. He had so little, and he wanted her there, for whatever was coming.

  “I don’t kiss every boy I meet.” Her voice was soft. It made him smile. Kaie wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

  “Well so far, I’ve kissed one out of three of the women I’ve met.”

  She shoved him with her shoulder, but he could tell she was grinning. “My point being, I didn’t do it just because you’re as charming as you think you are. You’re special, Kaie. And I know you can bullshit. I just watched you do it to my brother. But I don’t think you’d do it to me. So I kissed you with the expectation that you keep your promise. I want you climbing out of graves.”

  “Of course. Any I might happen to find myself in. At least five times.”

  She giggled and slid away from him. “Smooth-talker. Now go. I can hear your plan starting, and I wouldn’t want to make you late for your own escape.”

  He slid his fingers through her hair, one last time, then stood. Just as she said, he could hear the first rumblings of his plan. Shouting, even a scream or two, echoed from across the field. He needed to leave now. He would give anything to stay.

  Almost anything.

  “Kaie?”

  He stopped, afraid to turn around. Afraid she was going to ask him to stay. If she did, he might not be able to go.

  “I love you. I just thought you should know that.”

  His throat tightened. The words left unsaid burned on his tongue.

  Kaie walked through the hide door.

  Nine

  The night was warmer than any in weeks. The new snow drifts weren’t quite melting but it were transforming into a dirty slush that spilled over the shoveled pathway and soaked through his thin shoes in an instant. It didn’t change the plan, but it certainly made it less pleasant. Slogging through the slush and mud did slow him down a bit too. Not enough to cause problems, but plenty to increase his frustration.

  The Hollow followed at his heels, as always. Tonight it was the same one he threw a rock at. Kaie didn’t like it but one was the same as any other in the end. After two months he remembered the faces of all of them. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  By the time they reached East Field, five of the houses were engulfed in the inferno Vaughan started. His ‘Resistance’ made sure the ones to burn were empty, two still uninhabited from the riots and the others home only to a couple adults eager to help. Vaughan was supposed to signal both of them before setting the slow-burning fire at the corner where each house met the stone hill. They should be well hidden by now. Later, they would join the confusion swallowing East Field as people scrambled to put out the fire. But for right now, Kaie needed them missing.

  He didn’t waste any time with the bodies running around like a stirred-up nest of insects. Mostly children younger than him, not one of them mattered. He’d rather them not get hurt, but he wasn’t about to waste any energy working toward that. Josephine was easy to spot
. One of the few adults in East Field, she towered over the others, an angry giant. Kaie shoved through the panicked crowd until he was at her side, Hollow close behind.

  She was holding a young boy’s arm so tight her knuckles were whiter than the kid’s face. Kaie couldn’t make out what she was shouting but wagered to guess it was something about putting out the fire.

  “What’s going on?” he hollered. “I saw the light from halfway across the field!”

  Josephine turned on him with teeth bared and a gleam of hatred in her hard brown eyes. “You! You did this!”

  Kaie took a step backward, unprepared. She wasn’t supposed to suspect him. Everyone knew he went running across the fields every day. Lately nights as well. He didn’t go into East Field anymore, as per her orders, but he made sure to stop close to the invisible border. His presence here should look like nothing remarkable.

  “You are a blight!” she continued. “Seven years, I run East Field with only one incident, then you come along and the wrath of the gods descends on my charge!”

  He breathed a small sigh of relief. He could handle being bad luck. “Blame me later! Tell me how to help now!”

  The fury on her face peeled back, revealing a mask of grim resignation. “Already have ‘em pulling up water. Unless you think you can make ‘em move faster, there ain’t much to be done but gather the children and keep ‘em from setting themselves on fire.”

  Kaie nodded like he was listening. He wasn’t. “What about the houses? Are there people in there?”

  She shook her head, sadness flashing across her face so quickly he almost thought he imagined it. “The first two. But not anymore. Look at those flames. Nothin’ we can do for ‘em.”

  Setting his face into what he prayed looked like determination, he grabbed her arm. “The first two houses? How many?”

  The back of her free hand collided with the side of his face. Kaie staggered, sparks flying across his vision. “They’re gone, you idiot! No one else is dying tonight!”

  He struggled to get a hold of his thoughts, shaking his head as firmly as he could manage. “No one has to die at all! I owe East Field a debt. If you won’t help me pay it, I’ll do it without you!”

  She spit, the liquid hitting the ground right of his foot. Kaie expected to see the anger glaring at him when she looked back. But it was something else. Appreciation, maybe. Respect. Laughter, something that would be giddy and high-pitched, bubbled in his throat. It was all he could do to keep his teeth locked against it.

  “Two,” she said at last. “Ren and Helga. Ren’s in the first house.”

  Kaie nodded then darted off to the fire on the other side of the well. He kept to the worn, muddy path as long as he could, just in case anyone was paying attention. Anyone other than the Hollow. It was likely unnecessary, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. Not tonight. Only at the last moment did he turn off the path and dart to the far right side of the first house.

  Starting fires, running into burning buildings, dragging around a Hollow and tricking East Field’s overseer, none of it compared to the danger of this one moment. The huge manor, invisible in the night, was not so far away that they wouldn’t hear of this fire. By now people were probably running for East Field to help. They would be coming from behind him. He was very visible against the backdrop of the blaze.

  He ran his hands along the seam where wood met stone, looking for the opening. He could explain his presence and why he was heading into the fire, but there would be nothing to make his nervous probing look less suspicious. And it would put a quick end to his plan.

  For one heart-stopping moment Kaie was certain Vaughan forgot to blow the hole in the wall. His brain scrambled, searching for another plan to get him into the house. The hide covering the door was burning too high, too hot, to risk pushing through. There was a good reason Josephine gave Ren and Helga up for dead. Even if he managed to get in, he would never get out again. This was the only way. And the damn kid forgot.

  Something gave underneath his fingers. With a sharp crack loud enough he heard it over the roar of the fire, the wall splintered apart. It cut up his hand. He rushed inside, tugging the neck of his shirt up over his face.

  The room was so thick with smoke he couldn’t even see the flames. He was coughing immediately, body-shaking hacks that drew up a grey sludge from his lungs that Kaie felt certain he didn’t belong outside his body. Even crouched low to the ground, there was no breathable air. He would get a handful of minutes, if that, of consciousness. Then he would be dying on the floor of an empty house.

  Kaie didn’t intend to spend that much time inside. He was just waiting for his shadow. There was a large stone left for him in the corner near where he entered. He snatched it up and pressed his back against the stone – the only wall that wasn’t burning. The Hollow walked right into the blow as if he were invisible.

  There was a moment where their eyes met. Kaie’s heart stopped as time stretched. The Hollows were just men. Their minds were emptied out and they didn’t react to pain, but they weren’t gifted with supernatural abilities. A blow to the head should drop one of them just like it would any other man. He waited and prayed that he wasn’t wrong.

  Something passed through the Hollow’s flat brown eyes. Something Kaie couldn’t put a name to; a spark. For an instant, it was a man Kaie was looking at. Then the eyes shuttered closed and the Hollow toppled backward. He jerked the other man into the room, gasping and coughing against the thick black smoke clogging his lungs. He was running out of time. His head was spinning and he could hardly breathe. But he was almost done.

  Kaie tugged off the Hollow’s shirt. It was different than his own. There was no opening at the shoulder. It was a solid piece of black fabric that buttoned all the way up to the top of his neck. It was big on Kaie and took some creative maneuvering, but he got it on. He dropped his own shirt on top of the fallen man.

  “I’m sorry,” Kaie murmured. “And you’re welcome.”

  He shoved the Hollow as hard as he could, sending the man rolling into the fire. There was no scream, no struggle. The Hollow’s brown eyes fluttered open, but he didn’t move to climb out of the blaze. Swallowing hard against an urge to be sick, Kaie shoved his way out of the burning building and back into the blessedly cold air of the night.

  The only thing guiding Kaie as he hurried down the poorly-lit path was the rough description Vaughan gave him while they planned. The boy was a lot of things, some of them even useful, but this proved not to be one of those things. Counting steps was pointless. Vaughan’s strides were too short. Kaie knew that, but he couldn’t help ticking off the numbers anyway.

  21 steps for Vaughan would translate into how many for him? 10? 15? Twice, he almost walked past the turn he was supposed to take. But he couldn’t stop. Numbers rattled around in his head, refusing to be silent.

  Avoiding the increasing amount of traffic heading for East Field wasn’t easy, but it was far from the most difficult part of his night. No one was looking for bodies heading toward the mansion, and his new attire lent itself to hiding in the shadows. As long as he darted out of the light when he heard someone approaching, eyes glossed right past him.

  It meant his feet got wet again. More wet. His toes went numb and his whole body was shaking long before he turned the right corner – at last – and found the stables where a wagon full of Hollows was waiting. Kaie took in a slow breath, trying to control his shivering and tried to make his face completely blank.

  “I knew it.”

  Kaie spun around, slipping in the slush. His frozen feet found nothing to grip and he headed down. He was caught before he landed. His relief at avoiding a drop into the slush was short-lived. Kissa was the one holding him up.

  “The moment I heard about the fire, I knew it was you,” she said with a scowl.

  “Congratulations. I’m sure you’ll get a fine pat on the head for catching me,” he sneered, tugging his arm out of her grasp. She didn’t try to hold him, which conf
used Kaie a little. Their last interaction was seared into his memory and he was fairly certain she needed to touch him to make him pass out. At least she seemed to. Without any Hollows around to grab him this time, he couldn’t understand why she would be willing to give up her ability to fight so easily.

  “It’s not as comforting as you think,” she mused with the same scowl. “It means I’ve been in your head too much; that I know you too well. You and your great declarations of freedom. You are driven to big displays of defiance the way others are drawn to candy.”

  He shrugged, taking a slow step backward. All for nothing, if she called out to anyone that might be around them, but he needed to try. If there was any chance of salvaging this plan, he would try. One death was more than he wanted, but Kaie wouldn’t hesitate to add another. He wasn’t going back with this girl to have his mind stolen all over again. “What can I say? Fire’s pretty.”

  Kissa rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest. “I’d say it’s going to get you killed, but I don’t imagine you’re going to live long enough for that.”

  “My prospects are looking significantly slimmer, I admit.” He took another careful step back. It was risky. Without any feeling in his feet, Kaie couldn’t tell if he was stepping on solid ground or something that was going to trip him up again. But he kept going anyway. “Still, I think I’m going to surprise you.”

  Kissa sighed and shook her head. Then her hand darted out. Kaie jerked backward instinctually, nearly falling again, keeping his head out of her reach. Except she wasn’t aiming for his head. Instead, she snagged a button on his new shirt and popped it open. Five more quickly followed. Before he knew what was happening, his shirt was undone.

  “What, did you dress yourself in the dark?”

  “Yeah, actually,” he answered. “Sort of. There was a lot of smoke.” Kaie was very confused. It only got worse when she tugged and twisted the shirt until it sat more loosely around his shoulders.

  She scoffed and started doing up his buttons again. “Of course you did. Gods help me, you’re not going to be happy until we’re all dead, are you?”