explain it to you properly. That paste I told you about is really quite fascinating. It will cause some rather undesired effects at first. Pain, to be sure. And likely some unpleasant hallucinations. The hunger is not beyond possibility, though statistically unlikely. But, should I find the proper mix, these things will pass. As I said before, the paste will absolutely change you. Your body will become accustomed to it, and then it will come to need it. Should you ever lose access to it, all that unpleasantness will return. It is hard to accurately gauge, of course, but I do believe it is worse in the absence. And should you go too long without, your body will simply cease to function. It is all very fascinating.”
She turned her gaze from Kaie for the first time, glancing at Peter for just a moment. “Have I covered all the required information?”
The man was still and silent for a while, the pale face revealing no trace of emotion or thought. Then Peter nodded. “Yes. You have properly explained. The Empress will be satisfied that he was informed before giving his consent.”
Kaie couldn’t help another shudder. Bad as what the girl described, it must be ten times worse, a hundred times worse. What else would spur an Empress who condoned slavery and all that entailed to demand consent from someone before they wear it? No matter how he tried to come up with a way out of this mess, he couldn’t shake that knowledge. Not anymore than he could think past the image of himself screaming, chewing on his own hand. It made him want to throw up.
She smiled again. “Good. Now. Puppy. You will ask to wear the Lunin.”
Kaie couldn’t help it. He laughed. “And I suppose, after that, I’ll ask you to remove my tongue and poke out my eyes?”
The girl held up her hand to stop him again. “Now, now. No need for all that drama. You will ask, and the more you fight the more foolish you will feel when it comes time. Now is when you ask me why I am so sure of this.”
The trap was so obvious he almost laughed again. His every instinct was to throw it back in her face. But he wasn’t in a position to avoid it. The Lunin or simple slavery – which seemed so damn appealing now that he knew the alternative – would get him. Did it really matter which snare he stepped in?
“Why are you so sure?” Again, Sojun asked the question Kaie couldn’t bring himself to. Again, he found himself grateful beyond words. And again, the girl didn’t react to the other boy. Her smile was for Kaie alone.
“Your…brother…You love him very much, don’t you? I hear he loves as well. You and a girl. What was her name again, Peter?”
“Amor –”
“Amorette,” she interrupted. “That’s right. Sweet Amorette. She is rather pretty, in a quaint sort of way. And loyal. To one of you, anyway. Do you know, she didn’t stick to that brother lie for a minute? She told me all about you two.”
Kaie’s heart froze in his chest. Both boys stopped breathing for more than a couple of seconds. “You’re lying. Amorette is dead.”
The girl tilted her head to the left, the smirk dancing on her lips. “Am I? Gosh, that doesn’t sound like me. Peter, does that sound like me?”
“No Luna,” the man responded in a flat voice. “You don’t lie.”
“No I don’t, do I?” She winked. “Now, normally she would have no hope of getting the one thing she wants. More than anything.” The girl pitched her voice in a way that was clearly meant to sound like Amorette.
“She will go to the house, perhaps the kitchens. Her beloved Sojun, with the size of him, is headed straight to the fields. My aunt will probably sell him to some soldier looking to make herself some strapping children in no time. Amorette may be lucky enough to never know the touch of another man, but like I said, she is rather pretty. My guess is that some visiting noble’s son will take her for a night or two. Just long enough to get a child on her. Then she’ll have to take the very first man who’ll marry her, no matter if he is kind or cruel.”
She took the Lunin out of Peter’s hands and held it up as though it were a trophy she won. “If you ask me for this, though, they will have a different story. I will ensure that my aunt places them together. They can marry and have as many squealing babies as she can stand to spit out, if that’s their wish. Neither will be sold off, and I will see to it that her chances of being forced to bed a noble drastically reduced. That is far more than most slaves can ever dream of.”
The trap ran far deeper than he feared. He expected threats of death or dismemberment. He wasn’t prepared for the offer of hope for the only two people in the world left that he loved. He couldn’t say no. Even if Sojun wasn’t sitting beside him, he couldn’t possibly say no.
He turned to his best friend, trying to will everything in his heart into words. Devastation was easy to read on Jun’s face. He knew what was coming. Everyone in the damn room knew. And then something else snapped into place. A look Kaie knew well. The dread in his stomach welled up and nearly choked him. “No! Jun, no! This isn’t for you!”
Sojun pushed away from Kaie and stumbled to his feet. “I’ll do it.”
Surprise didn’t look much different on the girl. She tilted her head to the right but didn’t even blink. “You?”
“No!” Kaie gasped. “This is mine!”
Sojun spun on him. “It’s not. I was there. You’re meant for something else.”
He meant the Lemme’s vision. The one that was nothing but ash now. The family was dead, gone. Burnt up. The future she saw for him was lost in the vault of the dead, along with her. And now Jun was about to throw away everything for it. “Stop it! I won’t let you!”
He climbed to his feet as well. It wouldn’t be hard to convince the girl to take him instead. He was the one she wanted. Before he could say the words, Jun’s fist connected with his throat. Kaie collapsed backward, gasping and choking on blood and shock.
“You’ll do the same? For him and Amorette?”
Luna was looking Sojun up and down, as though seeing him for the first time. “You would choose this boy over the girl you love?”
“I would.” Jun’s voice was hard and flat. It was how he sounded every time he took the blame for one of Kaie’s schemes. Every time he stood between Kaie and one of the bigger boys and took their hits for him.
“I already chose him. Why would I bother with you?”
“Because you need him to ask for it, and I won’t let him.”
Her lips narrowed a fraction of an inch. Kaie wanted to shout for the Lunin, but his voice was caught behind the damage done by Jun’s fist. “Removing you, then, seems the more logical option.”
“Why? You need someone to ask for it, and I do. And I’m worth more alive than dead. To someone, at least,” Sojun said lowly, stealing his observations. “To you too. I swear to by the names of all the gods. By the blood of Zetowan. You will be glad you took me instead. Please.”
Kaie needed to speak. Now. He could see Luna taking measure of Sojun’s words. In another moment, she would take him. All Kaie needed to do was ask, and Jun would be forgotten. Only two words and things would be right. Take me. But they wouldn’t come. No matter how he worked his lips or pushed the air through his throat, no sound came out.
“I’ll do the same for them,” Luna agreed.
His best friend’s life ended with the quiet snap of the Lunin’s catch.
Sixteen
Air whistled in past his teeth. Every breath filled his mouth with a taste so foul it made him gag. But the alternative was worse. Breathing through his nose coated his whole throat with the noxious odor of the thirty odd bodies pressed up against him. That made him well and truly sick. Twice so far. It didn’t make the smell any better.
The wagon lurched and rumbled over some rut in the road, sending everyone in the back stumbling. Kaie winced as his head smacked against the wooden side. It took a lot of luck and hard work to get himself a spot there, but he was starting to regret it. Having something to press his back against other than the milling children clinging to him wasn’t worth cracking his head against the wood with every bump
.
Sojun wasn’t exaggerating. When he was shoved into the wagon not an hour after watching Jun leave, Kaie was struck by how very young everyone was. In the corner opposite him, furthest from the back, he thought he saw the hunched shoulders of someone close to his age but all the ones around him were at least two years his junior. It didn’t make any sense. Even if the Finders chose to leave the adults he couldn’t understand how they could so accurately target an age range in a population close to six hundred. There were plenty in his family near adulthood or only just entering it like him. And why bother anyway? Surely adults were better suited to hard labor than six-year-old children.
No answers were coming. Not from the boy gripping his hand hard enough to cut off circulation, not from the soldiers who slammed the back of the wagon shut just after shoving him inside. Kaie was no more enlightened about what was waiting for him at the other end of this wagon ride then he was when he first woke in the tent.
He hated it, all of it. The puzzles that wouldn’t be solved, the blindly following a path set by someone else, the wagon, the children looking up at him as though he was going to be their salvation… He knew he was supposed to care. They were his family too, just as much as Jun. They were here and needed him while his best friend was out of reach. But the stench and the crying was too much to bear. It made his head throb even