Page 51

His question hardens my smile into a thin line, cold and smirking. “We do not. There is no justice in the village.”

I know he hears the double meaning, but doesn’t know how to ask, or maybe more accurately, doesn’t know what to ask. He settles for, “Why? ”

I shrug. “The Bones,” I answer vaguely, and he frowns.

“The Bones?” he asks, confused, but there are questions I cannot answer. “It’s eerie here…” The words are quiet, almost a breath, but I am used to listening to the dead, so it is no strain to hear him.

“In the shadow of the Council House?” I ask, and he shakes his head.

“No. We have buildings three times the size of this.” It is hard to imagine. “In the shadow of the bones,” he says, shivering, and I frown, pulling away from him.

“There is nothing eerie about our dead, Trader.” I was a fool, giving into his smile and sunshine. I should know better. And for him to find the bones, my bones, offensive….my chest tightens.

His face darkens, jaw clenched. “By putting them into walls? Not properly honoring them?” he rebuts, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I…I was told the ways you… honor …your dead are different than ours. It is hard to see. I’m sorry. It was insensitive of me.”

“You should not speak so confidently of things you clearly do not understand.” My words are cold, all camaraderie forgotten. To insult the bones is…it’s unthinkable.

“You’re absolutely right.” There is no hesitation in his voice, just open apology.

“It is a mistake I won’t make twice. You have my word.

” I’m not used to men admitting fault in our village, but I hear no mocking in his words, only sincerity.

“Can we go back, Flame? To when my foot didn’t fit so completely into my mouth? ” His tone is pleading, playful.

I don’t understand the expression, but nod cautiously. “Do not insult the bones again,” I warn, and he nods, before jerking his head up at a rumble from the mountains above.

“What is that?” His fear is unexpected.

“A stone-song, nothing more. Just the mountains saying the village has grown loud. A warning, if you will.”

“They should listen to the warnings, but fools will be fools.” He glances in the direction of the town square, where music is echoing down the streets, strange instruments I have never heard bouncing off stone walls in staccato patterns.

Shaking his head, he sighs. “Will they ever learn?” It is about more than the mountain’s call.

“You can squeeze a stone to dust before it gives water.”

He cocks his head curiously, as though he hasn’t heard the expression, but I may be misunderstanding his movement. “Water is a scarcity here?”

His words have an odd inflection — half-question, half-statement, as though he’s saying something he already knows the answer to, but wants to check that his information is correct, and I narrow my eyes.

“We were all told about the basics of your culture while on the road here, to help make things easier for the Trade, and to help us avoid unnecessary conflicts. Clearly I am an astoundingly good student.” He holds up his hands self-deprecatingly, and rolls his eyes.

“I can’t lie to you. I’ve always been terrible at school.

It may not be immediately obvious to you, but I’m more brawn than brain.

” Grinning at me with his entire heart, his green eyes dance in amusement, and my world shifts on its axis.

“Will you try to teach me something anyway? I promise to pay more attention to you than my instructors back home. In fact,” his voice drops to a rumble like the mountain-song, a laughing secret between the two of us, “I promise not to take my eyes off you, Flame.” His smile is a sunrise.

It’s not so much forgetting to breathe as suddenly being incredibly conscious of it, of the rise and fall of your chest, the expanding and contracting of your lungs, the stuttering inhale that you hold for half a second too long before it rushes from your lips in a trembling sound.

Kaden waits, just watching me, thinking I can’t notice his reaction, and the tiniest smirk at my response is enough for me to steady my beating heart.

“What lessons would you like to learn?” I ask blandly, and feel an unusual surge of satisfaction at the rueful twist of his lips.

“You wouldn’t ask if you knew the answer I want to give, Flame,” he laughs under his breath. Lorcan’s awareness sharpens against my spine, his teeth scraping my skin.

Little Keeper.

Protector ?

Hmmm.

It’s not an answer to my question, not a rebuke, not…

well, it’s not really anything. Maybe a caution, at the most. He says nothing more, but I step back from Kaden’s orbit anyway; the light of his sun is pulling me in too close for warmth I am unfamiliar with, and I will end up engulfed and burnt to ash if I am not more careful.

“Down there is the central keep. That should be where everyone is. There are more most likely on their way even now.”

“Well then, we’ve overstayed our welcome here, if we’re that close.

” He shrugs, glances at me, and elaborates.

“You said you don’t want to be around other people?

And you’re the only people I want to be around.

So where else can we walk?” Kaden’s eyes dart back up to the black columns, and then down the hidden square behind bone walls, but he presses his lips together in a firm line.

He is clearly making an effort, but I think the Gardens may push him too far.

“I can show you the cisterns? Or some of the shops, perhaps?”

“Wherever, Flame.”

Casually, and without obvious thought, he reaches out and takes my hand again, but waits for me to lead him. It’s so unusual, his clear confidence in me, his patience with my pausing. There is no demand, just an ask, and it’s almost uncomfortable.

Making up my mind, we cross the dirt and leave through a little stone archway.

Curling right, we walk close, close to the wall, the bones all whispering quiet greetings to me as we pass.

Kaden’s hand flexes around mine briefly, and I glance back at him, concerned.

The hairs on his arm closest to the wall are standing up; I tilt my head, frowning.

“I’m alright. I bumped against a…um–” clearing his throat, he continues, studiously cheerful, a stark contrast to his natural ease from moments before. “I’m just trying to get used to the differences. It’s not...I…I am trying.”

There’s a cautious apology in his voice, and I come to a full stop, turning to face him.

It does him credit that he doesn’t look away from the full-moon white of my eyes.

“You don’t need to feel bad for feeling unsure, Trader.

Our ways are not yours, our customs are not yours.

As long as you don’t insult the bones you will have no arguments from me.

I don’t expect you to be at ease. Just not dismissive or disparaging. ”

“I thought–”

“You would not put a stone in water and expect it to swim, Trader,” I interrupt gently.

“Your attempts to understand are a gift. You can be apprehensive; I’m sure I would be in your place.

Our best learning is done where our feet are unsteady.

As long as you have an open mind not clouded by judgment, I am happy. ”

His shoulders relax as he inhales deeply, eyes still locked on my own. A faint, faint line appears between his brows, almost non-existent, then he reaches out a massive hand and lightly detangles a small twig from my wind-wild hair without saying anything.

“Shall we continue?” I ask, words almost swallowed to my heart they are so quiet in this suddenly too small space.

“Yes please, Flame,” he replies, just as close to silence, and I nod, turning away.

We walk for a few minutes, not long at all, until we come to the far curve of the mountain wall.

Against it are four enormous stone cisterns, each large enough for an entire Council House and half of another.

They are massive, carved, like the Council House, directly into the face of the mountain.

“Here are our cisterns,” I say, voice too loud, trying to break free from the strange moment before.

Kaden tilts his head, studying them. “Are they — how do they work?” He’s clearly confused, as most would be I think.

“Our winter rains and snows are poisonous.” Frowning, I try to think of a way to explain.

“Our people used to be miners. You know this?” Kaden murmurs a sound of understanding, so I continue.

“We haven’t mined much since the Trades stopped…

” There is an uncomfortable silence and I rush to fill it.

“But long ago, it was the main job in our village. When the Storms started, someone in the town realized that the mountain rocks filtered the water over time enough to be drinkable. It’s not— it’s not like the water you bring with you.

The mountains remove the impurities but leave the essence, eggy and sulfurous.

And then, sitting in the cisterns, the wa ter picks up new flavor…

a taste of blood, from the metals in the mountains.

Our water is not…it’s not pleasant. And there isn’t ever enough of it. ”

“Is there no — what would you call it — clean water here?” He hasn’t taken his eyes off the cisterns, or his hand from my own.

“There are two, sometimes three wells that go deep enough into the earth to strike pure water. The well in the square, which is the Council’s well only, that has pure water, though it sometimes runs dry.

The well by the Children’s ward. And then there is a well far from town, but only the Hunters have been there. ”

“Those hold enough for your entire village? For crops and bathing and…I don’t know. Water things?” he asks, and I smile.

“No. These are but four of the twelve cisterns.”

“Of course twelve,” he turns from the mountain to smile at me, and I can’t help but mirror him.