you, I’m not his! I never want to hear his name again!” Amorette hissed, her face taking on an entirely different look, one he didn’t know. “You asked what you could do to get me back. Or are you done with me now too?”
Kaie flinched, hurting like it was a physical blow. “I’m sorry. Kosa take me, you’ll never know how sorry. Anything else. But not this.”
She screamed. A horrible, earsplitting sound that brought Ren and Silvy into their side of the building in an instant. Then she beat her fists down up on the sparrow. Over and over, until all that was left were bits and dust.
Twenty
He left before she woke; before anyone in their sad little neighborhood was awake. It was at least an hour before the sun kissed the horizon when he climbed from beneath his blanket and slipped out the hide door. He didn’t know where he was heading. Kaie only knew that he couldn’t stay in their home another moment, that he couldn’t face her silence or glares when she woke.
There was a small stream a ways behind the hill the houses were built into. The well was a much closer source of water, but close wasn’t his goal. He and Vaughan discovered the creek while they were gathering the stuff for his sparrow the day before. It wasn’t a short walk but it took him back into a patch of woods thick enough that he wouldn’t need to worry about stumbling onto anyone else.
Calling it a stream was generous, really. Kaie was fairly certain he could piss harder than the water flowed. But that was okay. It was clean and quiet. That was all he wanted. It took some work to fill his cupped hands and wash his face and neck but he managed. The water was numbing and spilled down his shirt in satisfying rivulets. He filled his hands again to wash his head. He could feel the stubble of his hair growing back already. The way the warmth was holding on, it would be like he never lost it by the time winter actually made an appearance. For the moment, though, it was just itchy.
He was cleaner now but didn’t feel it. Even if he was given soap and a scrubber, he wouldn’t be rid of the filth. The grime wasn’t a physical thing, for all that he wanted to believe it was. He tried again and once more to wash it away. But it clung. Finally, frustration won out. Kaie threw his head back and screamed, at the gods, at himself, at everyone that conspired to place him in this moment. He hated them all. Especially the ones he loved.
Sixteen years of ruin necessitated a great deal of release. The light was shifting from the murky illumination of a night not ready to give up its hold to the soft glow of a coming dawn before he could stop the noise pouring out of him. His throat was sore and it was likely the people back at the shacks heard him, but Kaie really didn’t care. He was still dirty.
“Why?” he demanded of the heavens. “Why do you have to destroy everything? Haven’t I lost enough? Can’t I just have her? One friend, in all this shit you’ve dumped on me? It can’t really be too much to ask!”
Kaie slapped the water, sending beads of water flying in every direction. “I’ve lost everyone. Everyone I love, everyone I even like, except her. Now you expect me to betray Jun or lose her? What in the Abyss is wrong with you?”
He sucked in two deep breaths, trying to get a reign on the anger pumping through him with every beat of his heart. He needed them to hear. They shackled him with this fate; they would know what he thought of it. “I am tired of lying for you, Lemme. I’m sick to death of telling people you care what happens to us while you are content to let Kosa rip your children to shreds. You did this to us. To me. You shoved this curse down on me, and now you’re letting it grind your people down to nothing. You owe me! At least this much, you owe me.”
Kaie dropped his head into his hands, a cracked sob slipping out before he could catch it. If Mother Lemme heard, she was in no mood to answer. He didn’t feel better. He felt worse. For expecting anything more of her and the other gods. For the wicked voice in his mind that said the solution was obvious. Sojun was lost. Amorette wasn’t. He loved her, and he wanted her. So much he didn’t sleep at all last night, locked in fantasies of what would happen if he just said the only word she wanted from him. Yes.
What was so bad about that, really? Who would ever notice the betrayal, save for him? Sojun was gone. If he ever found a way to free the three of them, would his friend even care? Jun chose Kaie over her. He heard it, Amorette knew it. She was unclaimed now. He was free to want her, to take her now, if that’s what they both wanted. Right?
A cracked twig brought his head back up and his eyes combing the trees for the intruder. Kaie spotted her quickly, though he got the distinct impression that she meant for him to find her.
It was the girl with the white blonde hair and the red arms, the one who came to his house every morning and never said a word. She was staring at him, her startling blue eyes peeking out between the strands of hair that hid so much of her face. Kaie felt certain she was there for a while. Maybe before he was. His face flushed, shame and humiliation vying for the worst part of the situation.
“You’re talking about Amorette,” she said.
He ground his teeth, loathing the gods for their propensity to punish. Was he really so bad to deserve such abuse? But he nodded. There was nothing else to be done.
The girl took a slow step forward. It was like she was approaching a deer that would startle if she moved too quickly. Kaie was struck by the appropriateness. He surely felt like running and hiding.
“You love her?” she asked. “For a long time?”
In a low voice, hoarse from his mindless screaming, Kaie answered. “More than half my life.”
“But she doesn’t love you.”
His mouth worked, trying to force an argument past his lips. She wanted him. He knew that. And even if that wasn’t for the same reasons he wanted her, Amorette did love him the way he loved Jun. They were family. But somehow the words never made it out. Maybe it was the look in those eyes. Like she saw right through to the center of him, to what he really was. If she asked he could debate it. But she spoke it like fact and he discovered he couldn’t convince himself she was wrong. There was no lying to eyes like that, even when they were half hidden.
“She told me about him once. The other one. Sojun?”
He nodded, the name like another burning rod pressed to his flesh.
“She loved him. Now he’s not here. She said it was because he loved you best. She doesn’t love you, and you are here. You think yelling at the trees will undo some part of this?”
“Not the trees,” he muttered. “The gods. And I don’t want them to undo it.”
“What then? Should these gods of yours wave their hands and make her forget all about him and know only you?”
“No!” he shouted at her. He worked to control his volume. “No. I need them to take away this feeling. She’s the one thing I ever wanted for myself. She says, if I take her she’ll forgive me. And I want to. Gods, I do! I want to feel good when I hold her. Instead of feeling like…”
“A betrayer.”
He shuddered, her words striking truer than he could ever say. “Why should I feel like that? He gave her up. It was supposed to be me that was gone, and him that was here. I was going to make that happen. But he stopped me. He changed it. Why should I hate myself so much for wanting what he gave me?”
She was in front of him now. He wasn’t sure when that happened. She was good at the careful approach. He was impressed, thinking on what a good hunter she would make. Up until the moment she dropped down beside him. It was such a catastrophe of gravity and limbs that Kaie half expected her to smack him in the face before she was done. It was, without question, the least graceful thing he ever saw. The girl was all sharp angles and awkward movements. Any trace of the careful huntress sneaking up on the deer was gone, erased so effectively it was actually kind of impressive in its own right.
“You hate that she asked that from you. But you want to be with her.”
“I love her.”
The girl rolled her eyes. “You want permission to betray your friend. The one sh
e loved. The one you still do. That’s what you want from those gods.”
He sucked in a long breath through his teeth. He tried to be angry at her.
She didn’t wait to see what words he put together. He was grateful. Kaie wasn’t sure they’d make any sense. “You’re the one my brother calls Bruhani. I wasn’t sure before. But you are, aren’t you?”
He laughed a little, more from relief than amusement. “I didn’t know Vaughan had a sister. And I didn’t know the name was special. I figured it meant new guy or something.”
She shook her head. “It means something.” She flipped her hair back from her face with a single jerk. Awkward, just like everything else about her, but effective. Her face was pointed and narrow. Like a bird. It was a lot like her brother’s face too. It looked much better on him. She reached out and tapped his head twice, a lopsided smile on her thin lips. “He likes you. He doesn’t like anyone in this place. Just me, and now you. That means something, too.”
“Uh… thanks?”
She rolled her eyes again. Such big eyes. Then she widened her smile, as if to say she forgave him. “He says he’s never heard of anyone with so much of the Jhoda running through them. That it’s almost like you’re more than someone who can touch it, you’re something born from it. Like you’re a bit fay. Maybe more than a bit.”
“Vaughan thinks I’m a