Kaie didn’t want to stare at the strange cloth ceiling. He didn’t want to look at the strange dark patch on the left, didn’t want to be stuck wondering if he was ever going to move again. “Don’t go.”
It took him a minute to figure out the grimace Jun gave was meant to be a smile. “I’m not going anywhere. Not letting you out of my sight, remember?”
That seemed important, too. Kaie didn’t want to remember why, but he didn’t want Sojun to leave. He couldn’t make that frightened look come back. “Where are we, Jun? Wasn’t there… there was stone, right?”
The other boy nodded slowly. “The vault. Kaie, you were…” Jun was trying to smile again, but he thought he saw tears in his friend’s eyes. “Rosy, if I knew you could fight like that, I never would’ve wrestled with you.”
“Don’t.”
Sojun blinked. “Don’t what?”
Kaie sighed. Don’t lie about him being strong. But that wasn’t important. He needed to focus. “Where are we?”
Air hissed out from between Sojun’s teeth. “I don’t know.”
His friend was lying. Kaie was absolutely certain of it. But that didn’t make sense. Why would Jun lie? Barbarians lied.
Who caught them? That was important.
Kaie squeezed his eyes closed. He didn’t want to think about this. But it was too late. He asked himself the question, now the answer was coming. A scream. The world erupting. Fire. Gods, so much fire. Sojun’s face, painted with blood and ash. A little girl. Devin? A cat. Kaie grit his teeth, trying to hold it back. And then…
And then…
The bellow burst out of him before Kaie really grasped the meaning of his memories. His head was overflowing. Images. Sounds. The smell of the Lemme’s burning flesh. The slippery feeling of Toman’s brain. Tears burned tracks down his battered face. He couldn’t stop them. He couldn’t stop the fires, couldn’t save the Lemme. He couldn’t even die.
“Hey! Quiet!”
He started at the harsh voice that came at them from somewhere out of his small window of sight. Sojun’s hand dropped across Kaie’s mouth.
“A mistake sir,” his friend answered the shout. “We’ll be quiet.”
Kaie watched in confusion as Sojun’s shoulders slumped as the hand went away. “What’s going on Jun?”
The other boy’s eyes shifted in the direction the shout came from. “Let it be. Get some sleep. There’ll be time for the rest later. I know you want to figure this out, but… Rosy, you’re hurt. Bad.”
He laughed, but it turned into a painful cough. “I noticed.”
“I mean it. I didn’t think…You weren’t wrong. I was afraid…I did everything I could. But I’m no healer. And they wouldn’t give me anything to help. Not even the damned bloody shirt I wrapped around your head before.”
“Sojun.”
“Kaie, please!”
He said nothing else. He just watched his heart’s brother, waiting. Jun’s head dropped into his hands. Defeated. Jun was so strong. But now the boy was broken. “We’re caught, Rosy. The Finders have us. We’re going to be sold. Slaves. We’re slaves.”