Page 73 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Seventy-Three

Khana jerked awake, sweat and tears staining her fur and wool blankets, the ghost of hands on her skin.

“Really?” she snapped.

Next to her, Sava yawned and pushed himself onto an elbow. “Nightmares again?”

She grumbled swears. Apparently, she could kill Yamueto, but she couldn’t kill her dreams.

“Sorry,” she said, wiping her face with a sleeve. “Go back to sleep.”

“Do you want–”

“No.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “I just need a minute. Sleep.”

He grumbled, lying back down.

It’d been two days since the battle. The first night, they’d slept in their own homes. She’d asked Sava to spend the second night with her. She didn’t regret it, especially when it meant falling asleep in Sava’s arms. But it did mean she had to grope for her clothes in the dying embers of the fire.

She found her dress by the lute case leaning against the wall. The joy and gratitude she used to feel whenever she saw it wasn’t there anymore. Yesterday, she’d tried to play. The skills were still there; she could do the scales and play the most complex of songs. But that burning love, that need to express herself in the audio art, was gone. All that was left was apathy.

Modesty covered, she crept out of the room and shuffled downstairs. Dawn was still hours away, but she wasn’t getting back to sleep tonight. She wanted tea and maybe some light to work on a bit of sewing.

She expected the kitchen to be dead at this hour, but a soft light came from the oven that led her through the dining hall.

“Haz?” she yawned.

He looked up from his teacup. “Couldn’t sleep?”

She shook her head. She didn’t bother asking him if he’d tried getting any rest. His rumpled sleep clothes and messy hair told her the attempt had failed.

“Was it Sava’s snoring?” he teased, pouring her a cup of tea and sliding it across the counter.

“If he snores, it’s quiet enough for me to sleep through it,” she said, sitting on the stool next to him. “How insulted do you think everyone will be if I sell the lute and return their money?”

“Well, they get to see my charming face every day, so it all evens out,” he said with a grin that quickly vanished. “I’m sorry. I still think you shouldn’t have given that up.”

She sipped her tea, letting the sharp flavors sink into her tongue. “It was hard. Music is what got me through Yamueto. It’s one of the few things that kept me going, that gave me some bit of joy in my life. But while I think I’ll always miss it, I don’t need it anymore. Not since I came here.”

He smiled. “I’m glad.”

They drank tea, warming themselves by the fire.

“Why are you up?” Khana asked.

“Eh. Still thinking about the fact that I was dead for a while and then had to kill the woman I once loved,” he said with faux casualness. “Also, I was pulled into a spirit realm I didn’t even know existed to broker a deal with the entity of Death itself while telling off an emperor for making several bad life choices. Three times in a single day. And we just won a war. And my grandmother died this month. You?”

She shivered. “Nightmares. I thought that when I killed Yamueto, they’d be gone. But… apparently he never will leave me alone.”

Haz slowly opened one arm, and when she nodded, gave her a half-hug. “Even after Bhayana and I broke up, I still woke up scared that I did something that would make her punish me. It takes a while to remind myself that that’s not going to happen.”

She rested her head against his shoulder. “Does it ever end?”

“I’ll let you know if it does.”

The town came to life as Khana prepared the dining room for lunch. A few customers waved to her, calling out greetings. A couple called out a friendly good morning, witch or even her name. Others avoided her altogether.

Well. You can’t win them all.

It proved to be a slow day. Which was good, because the Poison Darts trickled in, Lueti being first. Her eyes were back to normal and sparkling with far too much energy for such a slow day. “Good morning, darling! Sleep well?”

“Well enough,” Khana said, getting the tea.

“Did you hear? Pabu Pinnsviri finally passed away. They say the shock of his granddaughter’s betrayal did him in.”

Khana tried to scrounge up a bit of sympathy, but could only muster a trite, “May he rest in peace.”

Lueti snorted. While the Poison Dart Frogs had, of course, all dived back into the spirit realm to negotiate with Death for her soul, they’d almost been unnecessary. Lueti had been in Pahuuda long enough that she had befriended and offered help to almost every whore – former and current – in town, and they’d been eager to pay her back.

Xopil came in next, face flushed red. “I figured out how to land without almost crashing!”

“Proud of you,” Haz said drolly from the kitchen.

He had managed to convince Tlastisti – and the entire rest of the town – to keep the behemoth. Or at least make sure it didn’t eat anything and any one that it shouldn’t. Khana had scraped together what she remembered about predatory night creatures and guessed how much it needed to eat (a truly obscene amount every week), and Xopil took the beast out to hunt over the tundra, picking off elk and moose. The behemoth itself stayed in a cave in the mountains, about a two-hour hike from the town. Hunters had once used it as a rest stop, though that probably wouldn’t happen anymore.

Sometimes Khana wished she had used her deals with Death to relieve herself of her memories in the imperial palace. But times like this reminded her why that was a bad idea. She was the closest thing to an expert on night creatures, Reguallian politics, and witchcraft that Pahuuda had. If the cost of that was a few nightmares and having to tell Haz how she’d first met Bhayana by playing the dumb immigrant girl, so be it. Those terrors were gradually dying, anyway.

Neta came next, with Athicha, Itehua, and Yxe, and finally Sava. Heimili waved Khana and Haz off as the Poison Darts (and honorary members) claimed their usual corner. Khana sat with a grateful sigh, leaning back on Sava.

“What are you going to do?” Lueti asked her. “Now that you don’t have music?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. Without the emperor on her heels, she no longer had to steal moments of joy while constantly running. Didn’t have to run at all. It was bizarre.

“I was thinking of finding someone to teach me how to do tapestries,” she said.

“Bo-ring,” Itehua scolded.

“They are not! They’re beautiful! And someone has to record everything that’s happened.” She was already trying to figure out how to accurately portray all the different colors of Death’s dress. Or perhaps she should go with the Tsermayu depiction?

Sava tightened his grip around her. “Ma will tell you she’s not the best at tapestries, but she can definitely get you in touch with people who are.”

Pleased, Khana burrowed deeper into his chest. “Would you all be mad at me if I gave away the lute?”

“Not at all,” Lueti promised. “In fact, one of the boys who offered to work for me knows how to play.”

“One of the boys?” she echoed.

Lueti, Itehua, and Yxe grinned.

“We figured it out!” Yxe cheered. “There’s a building for sale downtown. If the three of us pool our money together, we can buy it and turn it into our own business. We’ve already talked to the owner, and he’s agreed!”

Khana squealed and hugged all three of them. Athicha gave a polite clap while Haz whooped.

“So you’re all running it?” Neta clarified.

“ Lueti’s running it,” Itehua corrected. “I’m security. Yxe’s our treasurer.”

“Does your mother know you’ll be working in a brothel?”

“I’m a veteran soldier. I can handle a brothel,” Yxe said, though his face turned pink. Apparently losing his fear of public speaking did not mean losing his sense of embarrassment.

The serji grinned. “They’re going to eat you alive, boy.”

“No, they won’t! I can already say cock and vagina without blushing.”

“Baby steps,” Sava encouraged. “Are you doing anything with your money, Haz?”

He motioned to the inn. “Just giving it to my baba. We might get a few more wooden doors installed.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s what we should’ve done: we should’ve taken a bunch of wood from that town.”

“Haz. We were fighting for our lives and assassinating an emperor,” Khana retorted.

“And most of our fighting was in a wooden building!”

“You’re welcome to go back there.”

“Xopil? Care to fly me?”

The big man barked a laugh. “Not a chance.”

“What about you, serji?” Lueti asked, getting everyone back on track.

Neta took a long draw from her horn of mead, letting the tension build. She smirked. “They’re promoting me to midya.”

All of them burst into cheers. Xopil hugged her, almost knocking her and Athicha over. “First Reguallian midya in Pahuuda! In all the mountains!”

Khana grinned. The Ghuran military wouldn’t know what hit it.

“You’re getting transferred back to Yellow Battalion next week,” Sava promised.

“Why not stay with Red?” Khana asked.

“Blue and Yellow are the only full-time battalions. All others are made up of reserves and are disbanded during peacetime.”

“And we all know Blue has the best soldiers,” Haz complained. “So why isn’t she with them?”

Sava grimaced. “Because the Old Family Masters threw a fit. Said all the Blue midya positions had already been held or promised to ‘proper’ Ghuran soldiers and there was no room for her.”

Khana didn’t know the sign Athicha made, but she would bet her boots that it was either stupid or idiot .

Neta held up a hand before Haz could get going. “I seem to recall that none of you were considered ‘proper’ Ghuran soldiers when we met.”

That quelled them.

“I don’t know who to pity more: the folks about to go through your training, or the other midyas when they realize you’re going to gut them,” Itehua commented.

“Pity my commanders, when I become their commander.”

“Those assholes deserve no pity.”

They continued to chat. Khana leaned against Sava and watched the unit celebrate, sipping her tea. Well, everyone but Neta, Xopil, Sava, and Athicha had been discharged, so she supposed they weren’t a unit anymore. But they were her friends, practically her family at this point.

Watching all of them get excited about the future, she realized that she herself had a future she could look forward to. There was a place for her here. People who cared about her and who she cared about in turn. A future of joy and contentment and maybe some tragedy, but also healing and love.

She was home.