It was a routine they started in the boy’s earliest visits. Lady Autumnsong’s son taught the boy to read and often lent books as gifts, which made Vaughan easily the most educated slave on the estate. Perhaps in all of Lindel. Thoughts of escape were becoming less pressing with each day but Kaie knew that understanding the world he was snared in would be necessary if he ever wanted to try. The boy just seemed to enjoy speaking to someone. He was a decent teacher.
“So, since that point, Uraz has been a matriarchal society. It actually went really well for a long time. Decades or centuries. I don’t really get access to the histories, so I’m limited to what I’ve been told. But at some point, probably due to a drought or blight of some sort, their resources became too strained to support the population. So the Empress turned her eyes to her neighbors. No one seems to know what the name of that first country was but everyone says their military was without equal.
“People say it took a full fifty years and half the populace of both countries before Uraz turned the war in their favor. I don’t have any idea what they did, but they did in a day what they hadn’t managed in all the rest of the 50.
“That acquisition eased the strain on the resources. For a while. But Uraz had a taste for conquest. So I can’t imagine it was long before they went at it again. And now, some 400 years later, they control the whole of Asperan, Ysil and Bordoc. All that’s left of Lindel is a few isolated cities and a handful of tribes. Then I expect the Empress will go after Jorander. It won’t be long before the Urazin Empire stretches from one horizon to the other. Then maybe it will turn on itself and fall to pieces. Just like the Empire of Ancients.”
Kaie paid attention with half his mind, but the rest was weighing the choice before him. He considered his next words carefully, still not sure he really wanted to say them. “Peren told me you’ve seen Sojun. The one who took my place.”
Vaughan’s eyes dropped like rocks thrown into a pond. They locked on a spot in the fire and refused to budge. “Of course you know.” He sighed. “She wasn’t supposed to tell you.”
“Why not?” He should probably be angry about it, but in truth Kaie was just curious. He still wasn’t sure what he wanted to feel about Sojun being alive. The numbness he felt about almost everything was firmly in place and he didn’t really see a need to dislodge it. Not yet. Peren’s words snuck in sometimes, when he allowed himself to think about what that numbness meant, but he wasn’t going to do that now.
“He’s not your friend anymore. Not really.” Vaughan answered slowly. “He’s her creature now.”
Kaie considered this information carefully. “I want to see him.”
The other boy shook his head. “No. You don’t. I know, whatever you want from him, you think it’s important. But he can’t give it to you.”
“Who says I want anything?”
Vaughan flashed one of his quick smiles. “Of course you do. You want to set things right. That’s who you are.”
He shook his head. “There’s no setting things right. Not between us. Not anymore.”
Vaughan chewed his lower lip. “You’re right. But you don’t really believe that, do you?”
Kaie thought about it. Did he? “I don’t know. Maybe. I just want to see him. I’ll figure the rest out.”
The other boy fidgeted, rolling a stone between his fingers the same way Kaie always did. He wasn’t sure if he was flattered by the imitation or irritated. He didn’t get the chance to decide, because before Vaughan said anything more Amorette returned.
Twenty-Eight
Her cheeks were ruddy from the cold. He could see gooseflesh up and down her arms that she wrapped around herself for warmth. Her strawberry hair, only starting to get a bit of length to it, floated around her head like a halo of light. Her eyes flashed vibrantly. His heart climbed up into his throat at the sight of her. Not the empty thing he held in his arms that morning, but the girl he loved returned from the dead. Just like the night before.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
Kaie almost laughed. It seemed everyone wanted to know how he felt about Amorette all of a sudden.
Vaughan cleared his throat, the very image of awkwardness, and climbed to his feet. “I’ll go.”
“No,” Amorette snapped, turning her intensity on the unsuspecting boy. “I want you here. Sit down.”
Vaughan did as he was told. He always did. Amorette turned back to Kaie, waiting his answer as though they were never interrupted.
He answered. Honestly. “Sometimes.”
She didn’t react. She probably knew that answer already. She knew him so well. “And the others? Do you hate me those times, Kaie?”
He shook his head. “No. Only myself.”
Amorette ran her hands up and down her arms, trying to get warmth back into her flesh. He wanted to help her. To pull her into his arms and hold her there until she was comfortable. Until she was soft and happy. But he didn’t.
“But you don’t care about me, in those times, do you?”
“No,” he admitted. “Not really.” Maybe he should leave it at that. He got the feeling it would be kinder. Now that he saw his Amorette back in her eyes he was almost overwhelmed by the love of her. Now was one of those times and he needed her to understand. “I can’t. You only talk to me when you want me to sleep with you. Otherwise it’s just grunts and sighs. Last night was the first time you’ve really looked at me since we’ve been here. I know what all that means, and it’s not that you love me. I don’t blame you. But every time you cry I hate myself more. This morning, knowing what I did, I hated myself more. There’s no room in me for much else when I’m feeling that.”
“You’re going to hate me too eventually, aren’t you?”
He rubbed his eyes, wishing he didn’t need to answer that. Wishing he never thought about it, didn’t know the answer. “Probably.” Unless he stopped caring, like he was trying to do. Like Peren told him not to.
She nodded. None of this was news to her. None of it seemed to touch her. “There’s room for that girl when you’re busy hating yourself. Peren. Isn’t there?”
Kaie blinked. That surprised him. “What?”
“Do you love her, Kaie?”
Vaughan drew in a slow breath. Kaie tried to sort out what was unfolding. “No.”
Amorette laughed. It wasn’t the husky sound he loved so much, the one that always sent ripples of longing through the pit of his stomach. This one was hard. Brittle. Then he understood for the first time. This was not the girl he loved. It wasn’t the girl with the dead eyes either. This was some other creature using her as a shell. His girl, Jun’s girl, she was gone. “You will. You’ll love five women with a passion that will never leave you. I always knew I was the first. Even when we were six. But she’s supposed to be the second. That stupid, ugly girl is supposed to take away everything I want. Ruin it all.”
He swallowed hard against a host of questions that weren’t important, choosing carefully the one that was. “What have you done?”
Amorette smiled. It was lopsided and unnatural. Like something painted on. Then, slowly, she unfolded her arms. Something fell from in between them. It clinked as it hit the dirt. Kaie stared down the strange round, reflective thing without comprehension.
Vaughan was up in an instant, moving with more ferocity than Kaie knew he was capable of. “That’s Peren’s mirror! What did you do to my sister?”
“Nothing,” Amorette answered. But it wasn’t her voice. It was high pitched and cracked. Nightmarish. Even if he was able to stop caring again Kaie was certain the sound of it would still send a chill all the way to his bones.
Neither boy waited to hear any more of that voice. They raced to push through the blanket and into the snow. Kaie fell in behind Vaughan without a word, not knowing where Peren lived but sure her brother did. Not thinking about Keegan or the lockdown. The snow, falling since morning, seemed to turn against them. The light dusting was fast transforming into a real storm.
They headed west
, opposite the stables. In minutes they were cutting through fields of wheat into a group of houses both completely new and utterly familiar. The same wood, built into the hill just like on his side, even an identical well. But here there were those personal touches so lacking on the other side. Bright colors, flowers, vegetable gardens. He could hear the faint sound of laughing children and maybe even music. Mostly, though, he heard the sound of his own breath coming in bursts and someone crying.
Vaughan led them straight to a house with bright yellow flowers surrounding it, pushing through the blanket door without slowing. Kaie was right on his heels.
It took him a moment to take in the scene before him. Whatever he expected to find, the brute from yesterday was not part of that. He needed several seconds to find Peren, collapsed into a tiny ball at his feet. She was where the soft sobs were coming from.
Vaughan launched himself at the man and was tossed aside with nothing more than a shake of his arm. Pulling up short just shy of the exact same thing, Kaie watched as the large man landed a kick into Peren’s back with a casual brutality. There was no time to run and get help. One look at the small girl made it clear she was fading fast.
Her only response to the new abuse was to roll across the dirt from the power behind it. Her cries were those of a broken animal, past awareness of what was being done to it. But he was still no match for the brute in a direct