The Theft of Sunlight

by Intisar Khanani

  Bren crosses the room and sits down beside me. “Felt like going for a walk?”

  “I like walks,” I agree before I register what he’s actually saying. Why can’t I seem to think clearly tonight? Or is it still day? The shutters are closed, though, and no light leaks in through them.

  Bren shakes his head. “Did you think you were still a prisoner?”

  “I didn’t know where I was,” I admit, embarrassed. “I figured I would just check.”

  “We left the door open so you wouldn’t worry.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh,” he agrees. We sit together in silence, Bren watching me from the corner of his eye. I should say something before he mocks me, but I can’t think what, my thoughts heavy in coming. Then he says, “I’m rather surprised you didn’t—though perhaps you did.”

  “Did what?”

  Almost despite himself, he says, “Attempt to escape the Scholar.”

  “I did.”

  “What happened?”

  I look down to the carpet underfoot, trace the interwoven flowers and stems with my eyes. “I cut a bedsheet into strips, braided a rope, and climbed out a window.”

  Beside me, I sense him tilt his head. There’s something that catches in my throat at the feel of that, and I don’t want to see the look in his eye. I don’t want his pity.

  “A sentry caught you.”

  “Yes,” I agree. “I am learning to defend myself, but I didn’t—I couldn’t—”

  “You were no match for him,” Bren says. His words are soft, almost regretful.

  “No.” I shift, my gaze drifting from the carpet to his bare feet, the line of his legs, the daggers tucked into the sash at his waist. “Are you—?” No, I can’t ask that. Only I want to know. I need to know.

  “Am I?”

  I make myself go on, voice unsteady. “Like that?”

  He goes still, even his breath paused in his lungs. “Like what, exactly?”

  “Do you take prisoners?” I ask, because I can’t not. “Do you—or Red Hawk—have cells you keep them in, beneath your homes? Do you kill people?”

  My words bleed into the room, and the silence enfolds them. It’s a silence that holds far too many answers.

  “I have killed,” Bren says finally, his voice cool. “But I like to believe it was not unjustly.”

  Like to believe. There are so many things I would like to believe too. “You’re a thief,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  I turn to him, as if he could somehow remake himself just for this one conversation. “But isn’t that—it’s inherently unjust,” I plead. “It’s taking what doesn’t belong to you.”

  He meets my gaze unapologetically. “Yes.”

  I look away, unable to bear the steadiness of his gaze. Yes. Yes, he is unjust. Yes, he has killed. A sorrow wells up in me that I did not expect, that I do not know how to stop.

  “Rae,” Bren says, a faint note of disbelief in his voice. “You’re crying.”

  I shrug. How does one dispute fact?

  “You’ve known what I am since we first met.”

  “Of course I have,” I say, keeping my face tilted away from him. At least I am not sobbing, though I cannot stop this: the steady fall of my tears.

  “Then why do you grieve my words now?”

  Grief. Is that what this is? This hurt that makes no sense, that I can neither swallow down nor dispel? “It must be because I am just a foolish country girl,” I say, careful not to look at him.

  “I never called you foolish,” Bren says softly. “Rae.” His fingers move uncertainly on his thigh, twitching toward me, then back to curl into a fist on his leg. It’s the first uncertain movement I can remember him making.

  I shake my head, swipe at my cheeks. “I’m just tired,” I say, which is a lie and we both know it.

  But there is a distinct relief in the way he turns to me. “Well, let’s get you back in bed, then.” He takes my elbow in one hand and slides his other arm around my back. “Up you get.”

  I stagger to my feet and thump down on the bed, thanks in large part to Bren pushing me in the right direction. I freeze as pain washes over me from my wounded arm.

  “All right?” Bren asks softly, kneeling beside me.

  I nod stiffly, aware that he must have seen my foot by now, though he knew about it already. He’s been adjusting his pace for me all along, even if he misread my limp that first time. I just—didn’t want him to see my foot bare. Well, there’s no help for that now. I let my breath out in a sigh, and he must take that as a sign that I’m all right, for he lifts my legs onto the bed, levels a look on me that has me lying back at once, and pulls the blanket over me. I give silent thanks for that.

  He takes a spare pillow and props my wounded arm on top of it, his touch surprisingly gentle. As he works, I find myself following his arm, the long curving scar that travels the outside of it from his wrist nearly to his elbow. It’s healed but still slightly pink. And even though my cut begins on the inside of my arm, slicing up before curving out, I can’t help thinking we match. I would laugh if I didn’t hurt so much. Who would have thought a horse rancher and a thief would have matching scars?

  “I suggest keeping your arm raised to reduce the risk of the bleeding restarting,” he says. “You lost a lot of blood. We don’t want you to lose any more.”

  “Is that why my legs aren’t working?” With the pain receding, I find myself almost giddy.

  He settles on the edge of the bed. “Nearly thirty stitches, Rae.”

  That sounds like a lot, but I see no reason to admit it. “Could have been more,” I say. For some reason this strikes me as wonderfully absurd, and I find myself chuckling.

  “It’s not a laughing matter.” Bren’s face is stern.

  “I think I’m drunk on relief,” I tell him. “I’ve never been drunk before. It’s actually quite pleasant.” Although it feels hollow, coming on the heels of the grief of hearing from his own lips what he is, what he doesn’t regret. I want so much to forget that conversation.

  He tilts his head forward, his lips quirked down as if he were fighting a smile. “Not drunk, Rae. You had a rather bitter brew the healer made up for you. Do you remember? He said it would ease the pain and help you sleep, but also make you a bit woozy.”

  Now that Bren mentions it, I do recall a somber-faced man with a cup full of the bitterest drink I’ve ever swallowed. As for woozy . . . “I’m having trouble thinking straight,” I say. “I think.” I can push it away, the knowledge of what he is, at least for now, while my thoughts can so easily and repeatedly shake loose of their path, spin away and latch onto new things. My gaze drops to his hair, hanging down to brush the blankets. I reach out to touch it. “Do you know, your hair is much finer than mine? Very pretty. Shorter, though.”

  “Pretty. Now I know you’re not feeling yourself,” he says, watching my fingers twirl his hair. “Or perhaps I should be worrying about my manliness.”

  I let out a shaky giggle. “That’s absurd. I bet you have city girls coming after you in droves. You probably even have a sweetheart hidden away who thinks you’re the light of her world.”

  Bren curls his hand around my fingers, stilling them. “No girls,” he says, his voice so quiet I barely hear it. “No sweetheart.”

  “Surely city girls aren’t that stupid,” I say, smiling hazily. He doesn’t answer. “Come to Sheltershorn, then. You’ll be mobbed.”

  He scoffs. “I’m a thief, Rae. What country family would entrust their daughter to me?”

  “We’ve got plenty of criminals,” I assure him, trying to focus only on the fact that he’s a thief. Nothing more than that, just someone who pinches purses and treasured gold rings. “Kelari Freshna lifts vegetables from the market stalls purely by force of habit. It would be a perfect match.” I shift. I know I should answer him more seriously, but I don’t want to, and my hand feels strangely comfortable in his. “Anyhow, Artemian said Red Hawk has girl thieves as well. You should get t
o know them.”

  “I already have,” he says. He gives my hand a squeeze and gently sets it down on the blanket. “What about you? Will you be going home to some country lover of yours?”

  I laugh. For the first time in a long time, this subject strikes me as funny. “Not likely,” I tell Bren. “If you think country families don’t want thieves, you should see what they think of cripples. Goats will sing before I marry.”

  Bren doesn’t answer. I look up, focusing on his face. He is staring across the room, his jaw clenched. He’s angry. I lift my hand, but I can’t quite reach his cheek. He turns to look at me. I lower my hand at the hardness of his face, the cutting darkness of his eyes as he meets mine.

  “It’s all right,” I tell him uncertainly. I’m not quite sure why he would be furious. It must be what I’ve said about him. Perhaps my tears have bothered him more than I realized; perhaps he despises me for them. Or maybe I’ve just said something else foolish. I swallow, meeting his gaze. “I didn’t mean that about Kelari Freshna.”

  He lets his breath out in a bark of laughter that has none of the lightness of his other laughs. “Never mind Kelari Freshna. You’d better get some sleep. This will all look different to you in the morning.”

  It will? I shake my head. “Bren?”

  He stiffens slightly, just a faint tightening of his shoulders, but I see it because there’s no shirt to hide it.

  “Your name isn’t really Bren, is it?” I whisper. I don’t know why I ever thought it was. No, I’ve known it wasn’t, but I wanted to forget that, even as I wanted to believe a thief would only ever thieve small things, not kill or imprison or meet my gaze without apology while admitting his wrongs.

  “No.” He rises and moves to the door without looking at me. “I’ll send Kelari Bakira in with food for you. You should try to eat before you sleep. It will help balance out the medicine.”

  I don’t have any better name to call him by, so I use what he has given me. “Bren?”

  He pauses, his hand on the doorknob. There is something terribly final in the way he stands.

  “I’ll see you again, won’t I?” I don’t know why it’s so important to me, but I can’t bear to part with him like this, a jumble of emotions and words that don’t make sense, the possibility that I’ve wronged him after everything. Have I? He’d been upset, and then I used his name and that bothered him more. His not-name.

  He turns toward me, his face shuttered, emotionless as a painting or a stone wall. “I’m not sure, Rae. It might be better if you didn’t.”

  He steps out, holding open the door for Kelari Bakira to bring me a tray of food. And then he’s gone.

  I don’t want to have lost Bren’s regard, not because I’ve said or done something, or demanded truths of him I didn’t really want to know. Whatever was in that brew is mixing me up, making me say and think things I would normally keep hidden. Even if he is—even if he has done things I can’t understand, I don’t want—I don’t know what I want. I press my cheek into the pillow, and hope that the morning will bring some clarity.

  Somehow, I doubt it will.

  Chapter

  31

  I wake to a sense of surrealness, as if the room I find myself in is something I once saw in a dream. But it wasn’t a dream, was it? This room, the low bed I lie on, the familiar shapes of the mosaics . . .

  “A drink of water, kelari?”

  I turn my head to the side, my neck stiff. Kelari Bakira—that was her name, wasn’t it?—leans forward from her cushion. At my look, she rises and offers me the glass of water from the bedside table. I nod, and struggle to sit up while she hovers beside me. My arm hurts, a throbbing that immediately drives my worries from my mind.

  Bakira holds the cup to my lips, and I take a few sips, the water cool and refreshing. I glance down at my arm, the white bandage wrapped around it covering the stitches. Twenty-some stitches. And a bitter brew that left me spouting nonsense to Bren in the middle of the night. Had I actually suggested he marry Kelari Freshna?

  “Is he still here?” I ask, desperately hoping she’ll tell me Bren has gone out, that I won’t have to face him again with the absurd things I said last night between us. Won’t have to face what he thinks of me now.

  “The young master?” Bakira asks, setting the glass down. “He said to send for him when you were ready to leave.”

  “Oh,” I manage. But I had told him I wanted to see him again, hadn’t I? Because I couldn’t possibly have left an avenue open for me to escape without facing the humiliation of my words. And actions. I distinctly remember my hand in his hair. Oh God.

  “Let’s get you up, then,” Bakira says cheerfully. Despite her panicked performance of the night before, she proves herself quite competent, helping me to rise and change into fresh clothes. She sits me down on the edge of the bed and brushes and rebraids my hair as I stare at the floor, unfortunately rehearsing as much of our conversation as I can dredge up from the night before. I played with his hair. And grieved that he was only what he ever told me he was. And suggested he find a girl among Red Hawk’s thieves or marry the village shoplifter. I clench my jaw and hope Bakira can’t see the flush warming my cheeks.

  When she is done, I thank her, forcing a smile.

  “Of course, kelari. Here are your things.” She gestures to a tray set beside the bed. It contains my sash, my bone knife, and the archer’s journal.

  “Ah,” I say, and that’s apparently all I need to say, for she fetches the items herself, laying the knife next to me, winding my sash about my waist and tying it there, and passing me the journal to slip into my pocket.

  “The young master sent a sheath for your knife,” she says, fetching what appears to be a leather strap from beside the cushion where she sat.

  “That’s a sheath?”

  It actually is a bit more than a leather strap, it turns out, and Bakira shows herself to have a great deal more knowledge than I gave her credit for, expertly buckling the sheath to my calf and showing me how to reach my knife in its new home.

  Once that is done, she bustles away. She returns with a tray of food and the information that the “young master” will meet me downstairs shortly, where he’s arranged for a carriage to take me back to the palace. At Bakira’s insistence, I choke down a slice of bread with olive oil and herbs, and a few chunks of cheese that stick in my throat as if they were stones. And then there is no more avoiding Bren.

  Bakira leads me downstairs. I follow slowly, grateful to find my foot is only a little more tender than it has been the last day—and, indeed, I’ve managed to avoid any new blisters. A miracle, all things considered. Though I suppose my arm makes up for any shortfall there well enough.

  Bakira gestures me into a small atrium, tiny in comparison to Bardok Three-Fingers’. Bren and Artemian chat together before what I take to be an exit to the street, though the door is closed.

  “Hallo, Rae,” Bren says, catching sight of me. “Sleep off the rest of that medicine?”

  I stop short, and he in turn walks over to greet me, all smiles and laughing eyes.

  “I’m feeling better, yes,” I hedge, my cheeks warming yet again.

  Artemian offers me a sympathetic smile.

  “Glad to hear it,” Bren says, his gaze flicking to my arm, the stitches hidden beneath my sleeves.

  I shrug uncomfortably. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Nothing to apologize about,” Bren says, his grin turning wicked. “I quite enjoyed our conversation. I take it I should visit your village at some point, meet the local thieving population.”

  Why did he have to say that? In front of Artemian too?

  “I wasn’t quite myself,” I reply, voice tight. Can’t he just let me be? I don’t want this conversation—I have no idea why I so desperately wanted to see him again last night, because I cannot imagine a worse meeting than this.

  “No,” he agrees. “I imagine it wasn’t that different from being drunk, though.”

  �
��I’ve never been drunk,” I say, the words sharp with frustration and embarrassment.

  “Then last night must have been very educational for you,” he says, and laughs. “Though if you’d like to play with my hair again, I won’t say no. What do you say?”

  My cheeks burn with twin spots of humiliation, my hands curling into fists. Artemian turns his head away, but Bren is still chuckling softly and watching me, and I hate him, how stupid I’ve been, how stupid he must think me. I hate the sound of his laughter, laughter I’ve heard all my life, but coming from him now—I hate it. My fury sends me forward one sharp step, my fist pistoning out as if I could smash that laughter from him, undo him with my rage.

  The painful thunk of my fist glancing off the bottom of his jaw brings me back to myself. Bren stumbles backward, one hand coming up to cradle his face, his eyes wide. We stare at each other.

  Artemian makes a slight sound. I glance toward him, my fist still raised, my knuckles sending lines of fire up my arm. My other arm is curled against my torso, the wound protected. He stands a pace away, his mouth slightly ajar, his eyes darting between me and Bren. And then Bren starts laughing.

  I pivot toward him, cradling my fist against my chest, furious and hurt. He massages his jaw with one hand and laughs as if I have told him the funniest joke he’s heard in years.

  “Clearly,” he manages to gasp, “I’ve underestimated you country girls.”

  Pain flashes through me, cutting my breath from my lungs and burning my eyes. I don’t have any words. None at all. Nothing that can undo this moment, or fix it, or save me from what I’ve done.

  I turn and flee for the door, hobbling across the distance with my stupid limping gait. I yank it open, grateful to see a carriage waiting on the other side. At least I won’t have the added shame of dealing with his laughter over not being able to find my way out. The driver opens the carriage door for me. Inside, I collapse onto the bench, dropping my head to my knees, my breath aching in my chest. Or is that my heart? What did I just do?

  Someone else climbs into the carriage, sitting down opposite me in silence, and the carriage begins to rattle down the alley. I don’t look up. I punched him. I punched Bren. So hard my whole hand aches with it. I punched—