“I didn’t stab it to death. It’ll grow back.”
Ryka lifts his head up and looks at me, smiling. “Sadly, no. It doesn’t just grow back. I’m afraid you just spelled the end for that tree. Bad karma, too, since it’s a prayer tree.”
“Prayer tree?”
He nods. “Look up.”
I tilt my head back and that’s when I notice the thin strips of material tied around the branches higher up. In the dark, they’re all a murky grey colour but I know without a doubt that they will be red in the daylight. It’s just like back in the Sanctuary: a small green halo, clacking away; red ribbons in tiny hands, tying them to branches; Cai and me, the day I killed him. I shiver and focus on the tree. “Well, damn.”
“Yeah. You might not want to own up to that. “Ryka chuckles and lays back down in the grass.
“You just sat there and watched me! You could have said something.”
“I know better than to surprise you when you have something sharp in your hand, little Kit.”
I make my way over to him with a sinking feeling setting over me. Now I’m killing things without even realising it. When I reach Ryka, he is lying on the ground with his eyes closed and his shirt hiked up a little, exposing a strip of skin across his stomach.
“Want to join me?” he asks, his hands rising and falling where they are stacked on his chest.
“I don’t think so. Why are you even here?”
He opens one eye. “I was coming to pray. Dangerous pastime, though, by the looks of things.”
He’s lying, I can tell. “Try again.”
A resigned sigh works out of him as he opens the other eye and heaves himself up into a sitting position. “I’m here to make sure you don’t get skewered on one of Jack’s traps. And before you even start with the, I don’t need looking after, I know everything speech, just take a look at that poor, brutally murdered tree over there and consider how much you really do know about being out here.”
I glance at the tree. Four hundred years of doing just fine and then I come along. “Point taken,” I concede. “I just wanted to warm up my knives. I’ll know better next time.”
“Yes, next time come and see me. I’ll help you train. I told you I’d be up for a rematch any time, didn’t I?” Ryka grins at me, even more pleased when he sees that I am blushing.
“Good night, Ryka.” I turn and set off back towards Freetown, moving quickly in the hope I’ll be able to get a decent head start on him.
“Wait!”
I pause, hands on my dagger hilts. Why the hell did I stop? I should just keep going. I’m about to do just that when he says, “I’m serious. Come on, if you really want to train, then I’ll help you.”
I turn slowly to find him standing a few feet behind me, hands shoved in his pockets. He doesn’t look like he’s making fun of me. Doesn’t sound like it, either.
“Why would you do that? You’ve made it very clear you don’t think I should even have knives in the first place.”
With a shrug, Ryka plucks a dagger from his knife belt and toys with it in his hands. “There are only so many trees out here, Kit. I’m just trying to save the forest.”
“Tell the truth!”
“Okay, fine,” he sighs. “I’m Mashinji now. I’m not allowed to train with any of the other fighters.”
“Why not?”
“I’m just not. It’s part of the rules.”
“I see. So I’d actually be doing you a huge favour, and after you gave me such a hard time about my knives, too, right?”
Ryka spins around, ignoring me, and throws his knife, hard, so that it thunks into a tree trunk. Apparently not ready to admit to such a thing, he stalks off to retrieve his blade while I think. Should I take him up on his offer? It’s not like I have anyone else to partner with. Of course, fighting him would be easier if I didn’t feel so strangely nervous. I have no idea where this bizarre fluttering feeling has suddenly come from. It’s annoying as hell, and gets much worse when I remember my body locking around his, wrestling with him the first time we met. In the darkness, I catch Ryka’s eyes dilating and I’m almost one hundred percent sure he’s remembering that, too. His smile broadens, and my hands start to itch. I can’t let him make me feel so strange. I won’t. “Okay, then. You’re on.” I begin to pace back toward him, but he holds his hand up, stopping me in my tracks.
“Whoa, wait a minute. You have to connect with your weapons a little first. You’ve just thrashed the living hell out of them.”
I quirk an eyebrow at him, wondering what on earth he’s talking about. “They’re knives. Tools. You said as much yourself when we were in the forest. Now, are you going to fight me or not?”
“I was a little pissed off, if you’ll recall. And yes, a weapon is a tool, sure, but it’s also a living thing, has a personality. You need to treat it with the proper love and respect.” He levels me in his gaze, holding out his dagger point-first. The moonlight glints off its wickedly sharp tip. “Close your eyes,” he tells me.
“What? No way!” He’s crazy if he thinks I’m putting myself at such a disadvantage around him. He drops the knife to his side, huffing.
“You’re impossible. Just do it. Close your eyes. I’m not going to hurt you, I swear.”
I study him—the way every muscle in his body is slack, and how his eyes seem gentle—and I find my scowl fading. “Fine.” I snap my eyes closed but I’m too wary to trust him completely. I leave my left eye cracked a little, enough that I can discern his blurry shadow as he makes his way silently towards me. He just stands there, looking at me, for a moment. I have no idea what he finds so interesting, but it’s awkward that I’m standing here with my dagger held out in front of me, and he’s just staring.
“Well?” I ask. He shakes his head and pulls a face, and it’s all I can do not to react. I don’t want him to know I’m peeking, though, so I keep my blank expression trained on my face. He steps closer, and closer still, and with every step he takes I get more and more uneasy. It starts as an unsettled feeling in my stomach, a low flutter that grows and grows until I feel oddly short of breath. When he’s finally standing in front of me, my dagger pointed behind him out toward the trees, I feel like I’m going to pass out. His breath comes out in slow, long exhalations, brushing across the skin on my cheek. Ryka tips his head to one side, and the look in his eyes is so invasive that I can’t do it anymore; I scrunch both eyes shut, unable to bear it.
“That’s better,” he whispers.
I could say something waspish, but I don’t. I just keep my arm raised, my knife out like he showed me, waiting. He shifts around and then I feel it—he presses something against the edge of blade. A slow drawing motion slides up and down my knife, putting pressure against it. My arm moves under the tension, but Ryka tuts.
“Push back. Gentle,” he says softly.
I do as I’m told, and a low hum travels up my arm, flowing like electricity all the way to my shoulder. It’s a vibrating, tingling sensation that feels kind of amazing. The slow movement across my knife becomes rhythmic and I find myself copying the motion, drawing back when Ryka does, easing forward a second later. What he’s doing quickly becomes apparent. I know the feeling of metal on metal, know what two sharp edges feel like together. His knife is working mine, sharpening it. A soft, low, humming sound develops in the silence. “There,” he whispers. “That’s how you make them sing.”
I want to open my eyes, but I’m too trapped to do it. Trapped in how peaceful and strangely intimate the moment is.
“You do this with all your Tamji buddies?” I ask him.
Ryka laughs gently. “Not quite.” He inhales and then I feel him move, closing the gap between us. “I’m going to stop now.” His hand closes around my wrist as the pressure ceases, and I open my eyes to find him staring down at me. I feel ridiculous still brandishing my knife up at him, and since I can’t lower my arm—he still has hold of my wrist—I lower my eyes instead.
“Are you blushing, Kit
?” he whispers.
“I—maybe.” There’s no point in lying; my face feels like it is on fire, and my bright red cheeks must be visible even in the darkness. Ryka narrows his eyes slightly, searching my face.
“Why do you think that is?”
I have no idea why he’s asking me. I mean, how am I supposed to know? Suddenly, far too warm, I panic. I pull back and go to shove my knife back in my belt, but my quick movement startles him. He goes to grab hold of me, following which a searing pain burns into the skin above my hip.
“Ow!”
“Kit! Gods, I am so sorry!” Ryka lets go of my arm and drops his knife on the ground, fumbling with my shirt.
“What—what the hell are you doing!” My cries don’t deter him; he grabs hold of my shirt, lifts it a couple of inches, and then freezes. His whole body goes still.
“Oh,” he says quietly.
“Oh? Oh?! You just stabbed me with your knife, Ry! I’m bleeding, for crying out loud!”
Ryka inches upwards until he is standing straight again, and looks down at his feet. “I did not mean to do that.”
“What, stab me or nearly tear my shirt off?”
“Either. And I didn’t stab you. I barely broke the skin.”
I look down at the bleeding cut just above my hipbone and see that he’s right. It’s only an inch long and a millimetre deep, but still. I’m not used to pain yet, how much it actually hurts, and this fairly innocuous graze stings like crazy. I glare at him, but that doesn’t seem like enough. I follow up my unhappy look with a hard slap across his arm.
“Hey! It was an accident!”
“Yeah, right. I bet you’ve just been itching to get back at me since the woods.”
An odd, crumpled expression flashes across Ryka’s face. “I promise you, if that were the case, I would just kick your ass. I definitely wouldn’t cut you with a knife.”
It takes me a beat to figure out why he’s so freaked out, and when I do all the blood drains from my face. “Oh. Wow. So I cut you, and now you cut me. What does that mean?”
Ryka just looks at me, his brown eyes piercing mine.
“I don’t want to know, do I?”
He shakes his head, a tiny, nervous smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Nope. I’m guessing you don’t.” He ducks down and reaches for my shirt again. I slap his hand, but he shoots me an I’m-not-messing-around look, and I avoid the otherwise inevitable argument by letting him continue. He lifts my shirt slowly and frowns at the single line of blood running down towards my knife belt. With slow, careful movements, he traces his finger along my stomach and catches the droplet before it hits the fabric. He studies it for a second before stooping and grabbing his knife from the grass, clenching his hand—the one with my blood on it—into a fist.
“Why did you do that?” I demand, as he sets off walking towards the trees. “What did you just do?” He throws a smirk at me over his shoulder. The look is ruinous, will be the end of me, I’m sure.
“Nothing, little Kit. Nothing at all.”
DECAY
The next morning I’m woken by a scraping sound against the side of my tent. It’s still dark and I’m particularly unhappy about being woken up.
“Come on, little Kit. Time to get up and train with me.”
It’s him. Standing outside my tent. Dragging his fingernails across the fabric. I hide my head under my blankets, waiting to see if he goes away, but he doesn’t. The scraping continues, setting my teeth on edge.
“All right! All right! Sheez!” I get up, sulking enough that Ryka pretends to cower when I fling back the tent flap and stalk towards the river to wash up. “I thought you were joking when you said you would train with me.”
“You thought, or you hoped?” he replies, leaning against a tree, watching me as I splash cold water onto my face. “I don’t know why you’re bothering with that. You’re only going to get dirty again.”
I scowl up at him, freezing cold water running into my eyes. “Some of us don’t look or feel as great as you obviously do first thing in the morning.”
“I look great first thing in the morning?” Ryka grins and that dimple appears in his cheek, deep and pronounced. A jolt of adrenaline and goodness knows what else makes my heart start flip-flopping in my chest. Damn. Well, I guess I walked into that one.
“Don’t get smart, mister. I’m sorely tempted to climb back into bed.”
“And miss out on the opportunity to twirl those blades of yours around? I don’t think so. You should be nicer to me, Grumpy Morning Kit.”
I scramble back up the riverbank, doing my best to ignore his wicked smirk. It’s tough, though. I end up sneaking a glance at him as he falls into step alongside me. He’s looking straight ahead but his smile hasn’t slipped a bit, and I get the feeling he knows he’s being watched. He ducks his head, his eyes shining brightly, and I see that his hair grows in a tiny, perfect whorl at the back of his neck. Shaking my head, I tear my eyes away and clench my teeth. Noticing things like that is only going to get me into trouble.
“Don’t pretend like I’m not helping you out here,” I say, shoving past him to grab my knife belt from inside my tent. “You’re kind of without a training partner right now, yourself, remember.”
Ryka’s eyebrows pull together a fraction. “Fine, I’ll admit it. You’re helping me out. We should probably keep our little arrangement under wraps, by the way. The both of us could end up in hot water over this.”
“You more than me, I think.”
He shrugs. “Probably. Still, I think it’s going to be fun. Oh, and you’re going to need to bring a bag with food and water. We’ve got a long hike ahead of us.”
“Where the hell are you taking me?”
Ryka pauses when Jack’s voice breaks the silence of the morning, calling his name. I raise an eyebrow at him to see if he’ll respond, and he mirrors me, raising his own. “I’m taking you back to the Colosseum. Now come on, before I get roped into field work.”
*****
We walk for three hours straight, and the whole time Ryka refuses to clarify what he means about taking me back to the Colosseum. All I know is that he’s not taking me back to the Sanctuary, because we’re walking in the opposite direction. A series of questions are fired at me, each one more confusing than the next. Why he wants to know such random things about me is a mystery, and my deep contemplation over each enquiry is a source of constant frustration for Ryka.
“You’re not supposed to think about it, you’re just supposed to know. Come on, what’s your favourite colour?”
“Uhhh…green?”
“Are you asking me, or are you telling me that your favourite colour is green?”
“Um. Telling. I think.”
He sighs, the sound exaggerated and unnecessary. “Okay, since you started feeling again, what’s been your favourite moment?”
“My favourite moment?”
“Yeah.”
“People have those?”
“Sure they do. I have lots.” He looks over his shoulder and there’s that dimple again.
“Well…” I feel really, really stupid trying to think of a moment I favour above all others since I left the Sanctuary. There have been few truly happy moments. “Last night was interesting,” I say, my cheeks burning a little. “The knives, I mean. When you made them sing like that.”
Ryka turns around and walks backwards, hooking his thumbs under the shoulder straps of his bag. I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow his smile just got wider. My cheeks burn, and he shakes his head, laughing at me.
“And what was your earliest childhood memory?”
“I don’t know. I guess…I guess meeting Cai for the first time. We were learning to train, so I must have been around four years old.”
“Huh.” He nods, as though he’s thinking this over, and turns back around. He goes quiet for a while after that, and neither of us speaks. I begin to feel the pressure of the silence between us, like something happened that I
don’t know about, like maybe I said the wrong thing. I could be doing this whole conversation thing wrong for all I know. It’s not like I’ve done it much before, apart from with Olivia, and sometimes she’s just content to be silent. I love her for that. This isn’t like that kind of silence. Maybe I should be asking questions, too. This whole social etiquette thing is far more complex than I had first imagined.
It takes me a while to pluck up the courage to ask a question, and when I do I kind of blurt it out in a rush. “What was your first memory?”
“My father,” he says simply. He doesn’t expand on that, and I don’t push. We walk for another hour or so before he says, “We’re there. Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“For a real city.”
The trees thin out and suddenly I see exactly what he means. A city. A huge, sprawling, ruined, over-run city stands off in the distance, buildings taller than I have ever imagined possible, some standing majestically, others a tumble of ruins, leaning drunkenly against one another. A cracked concrete pathway emerges out of the forest, leading directly into the heart of it.
“Wha—how?” It’s the most amazing, terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. It’s just so big. Sunlight glints off broken glass in the distance, the shards broken teeth in the open maw of countless smashed windows. “What happened?” I’m literally breathless as I try to take it all in, but it’s just too much. I look at Ryka and he’s watching my reaction with a soft smile on his face. It seems secret, though, as though the smile, unlike many of his others, is purely for himself. A smile of pure pleasure.
“Didn’t they tell you about the world before?” he asks quietly. I shake my head, trying to find words, but they just won’t come. “The country was covered in cities like this one before the collapse. In fact, from what I can gather this city was pretty small in the scheme of things.” He considers me for a second before shoving me gently with his shoulder. “Come on, I want to show you.”
And he does.
We spend the next few hours trailing through an obstacle course of crumbling rubble and abandoned items that confuse and intrigue me. Ryka seems to know what most of them are, although a few remain a mystery to the both of us. Large wire baskets on wheels, rusted and stacked in huge piles that tower two storeys high, litter the walkways between the buildings. Peeling orange and brown metal shells of cars lay abandoned everywhere, with fronds of green ferns and vines twisting around their decaying skeletons. The city is dead in so many ways, but alive in so many others. It feels like there are a thousand pairs of eyes peering down on us as we travel towards a destination that only Ryka knows, and it’s hard to work out if there are actual people lurking in the surrounding buildings, or if it’s just the ghosts of the past watching over us.
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