Page 102

DYING EMBERS

KADEN

R annoch and I have been sitting in silence long enough that, when Wren and Tahrik’s breathing changes, when it slows and lengthens into deep sighs and then soft patterns, we hear it.

The fire falls asleep at the same time, the occasional crackling of the banked coals whispering in the rapidly cooling night.

Neither of us seems close to sleep or speaking, but things have been pressing on me since our swim today, and the safety of the darkness around us invites words I may not have said otherwise.

“Rann?”

He jerks his head up as though I’ve pulled him from dark thoughts, and meets my eyes across the small fire almost in confusion.

“Wha— I’m sorry, Kaden. I was just…” Scrubbing a hand across his face, he sighs. “It has been a long few days.”

“It has.” We fall quiet again, and I’m reconsidering…well, everything. Everything I’ve known, or thought I knew before the Trade; my chest tightens in something like panic.

“You had a question?” And now it’s Rannoch who grabs me from the mazes in my mind.

“I do. Wren—” He straightens, shoulders tightening. “Her chest and legs…” I’m not sure how to ask what I’m asking, but need to. “I thought maybe it was a tradition…but I saw your faces….what….”

He sighs again. “I don’t know. It looks more the work of your people than ours.” Swallowing hard, staring down at his hands, he murmurs, “Did she notice our reactions?”

I shake my head. “No. None of it. You were both quick to school your faces, and she was lost in the water. It’s not FleshCarver work, though it’s beautiful in its own way. You didn’t know?”

“No. It’s knees up, close and tight on her thighs—” Choking briefly, he clears his throat and continues.

“I wouldn’t have ever seen her naked skin there.

And I’ve only seen her chest once—” He barks a sardonic laugh at whatever expression he sees on my face.

“Not in any capacity you’d ever think, Trader.

Only the once, when she’d been attacked.

I wasn’t exactly studying her skin that night. ”

Settling back against the tree, I stare into the fire. “Why would she have done it?”

“You can always ask her.”

“I can. And will. But I wanted to know if maybe I was missing something. I—” Laughing in a strange echo of Rannoch’s, I shrug.

“I misstep with her quite often. Almost from the first moment. I’d like to avoid that whenever possible for the foreseeable future.

She’s going through enough right now with that one. ”

Rannoch glances over where Wren and Tahrik lay next to each other, and his lips press into a tight line. “She is,” he agrees. “He’s trying, I think. And has her best interests at heart.”

“Does he?” I ask cynically. “You’d know better than I would, perhaps. But I can’t tell.”

“He does,” Rannoch replies, almost gently.

“It may differ from your ideas of what is good for her, but I don’t think he’d do anything to hurt her.

It’s—” He pauses for a long time, long enough that I’m not sure he’s going to continue, before he says, “It’s hard to describe to you how she grew up, Kaden.

Whatever you think her life was, I can promise you it was nothing like that.

She had no one. No one . Other than the bones.

And…well. And I guess Tahrik. I don’t know for how long, or in what capacity, but… ”

“Why did you let it happen?” The words burst from me louder than I intended, and we both jerk our heads around to where Wren shifts, then settles.

“You mean Wren? I’m only 26, Trader.” His voice is harder than I’ve heard before.

“She’s 23, and first heard the bones at 4?

Maybe 5? Young enough that I barely remember.

I was named to the Council only a short time ago.

What do you think I could have done at 9, or 10?

Burst through the stone doors and rescued her against twelve grown men? ”

The anger in his voice is justified.

“I didn’t know. I?—”

“You didn’t know,” he spits out, jaw clenched.

“You think I haven’t watched her these many years, seeing the force of the Council bow her shoulders, seeing her fade day by day, stepping so far into the dead that I wonder sometimes if she’ll ever be able to come back fully?

You have no idea what lengths Silas and I have gone to to protect her, what we had planned for this Storm sea—” He stops speaking suddenly, swallowing hard.

“It’s Wren. Yes. It will always be Wren.

But it’s our people as well, Trader. It’s the children who are starving.

The Offerings. The dying land, the brackish water, the weight of stone pushing us down year after year.

Traditions so tight they choke us and prevent us from seeing anything beyond our borders.

You come from somewhere so different than our home they’re not even grown from the same earth.

Your traditions are carved into your flesh.

Ours are sunken into bone. So your judgment of my choices is… unwelcome.”

Nodding, I apologize. “You’re right. I don’t know your history, only a shadow of it. What I’ve been told differs so much from what I’ve seen it’s a different book in a different language. And I’m sorry. Just seeing her —”

He sighs. “I know.”

“Will you — would you help me understand, Rannoch? As we travel? Would you tell me so I understand ?”

He tilts his head consideringly. “Not her story. That’s hers alone. And I don’t know nearly as much of it as I thought. But I’ll teach you our history as though you were a child in our schools. If you’ll do the same in exchange.”

“A fair enough trade,” I say, smiling and holding out a hand. He stares at it for a moment, then takes it in his own, expression serious.

“We’re making a pact of sorts here, Kaden. A promise of honesty. If I am forthcoming with our story, you have to do the same.”

Forcing the easy smile to stay on my face, I nod. “I will be as open as I am able to be.”

Gripping my hand, he shakes it once, firmly, then releases it. “We’ll start tomorrow. Tonight it’s too late, and we both need rest.” Standing, he grabs a piece of wood and throws it on the fire. “Get what sleep you can, Kaden. I’ll take first watch and wake you for the second.”

“And that one?” I ask, motioning toward Tahrik. Rannoch narrows his eyes and shakes his head in response.

“We’ll let him sleep. He’s struggling right now. I don’t think we need to give him more time alone with his thoughts at the moment.”

Staring at where Wren is curled up near the miller, I nod in agreement. “I know you said he’s trying, Rannoch. But…I think just be cautious. Sometimes our idea of what’s best for other people are in sharp contrast to what is real.”

I can tell he wants to protest, to defend the sleeping man as though my concern about him is a censure on the village as a whole, a commentary on Rannoch’s life and purpose, and feel a strange pity for him when he finally responds, sounding almost defeated.

“I hear you, Trader. And am taking your words to heart. Now. Sleep.”

But I am still awake hours later when Rannoch shakes my shoulder, calling me to the watch. And I know that, though he lays down in the dark silence of the night, sleep is not coming for him either.