Burnt (11 page)

He didn’t understand
at first. He knew something bad was coming from that glowing metal bar but there was nothing to prepare him for what she intended. When the men appeared on either side of him, grabbing his arms and pressing him down, it didn’t immediately register that their actions were connected with her. When she reached down to place her free hand into the middle of his back, pinning him against the floor, things slammed into place. His struggles and screams came far too late and accomplished nothing. And when she pressed the cherry metal against the flesh of his right shoulder, his world exploded in scorching white fire.

Kaie only knew he passed out when he was woken up. Cold water fell down on him, thrusting him back into consciousness with sputtering and flailing. His hair…but no. This water didn’t itch. And there wasn’t any left, in any case.

The woman and her metal bar were occupied at the fire pit. Of the other boys, only two were still standing, all blood drained from their faces. He was grateful, in a grim way, that he was first and wasn’t enduring that extra torment.

One of the two men was standing over him now, bucket in one hand and a thin white cloth in the other. Seeing that he was awake the man tossed him the latter. Kaie nearly mistook it for a towel. Though it was made out of the same material as his new pants, it wasn’t at all the right shape for clothing. While it was more or less the right size for a shirt, there was only one part that could be considered a sleeve.

When he sat there
staring at it rather than put it on the man grew irritated. A moment later the cloth was yanked out of his hands and shoved down over his head. He winced as the fabric brushed against his right shoulder, but he refused to cry out again. The man’s twisted smile seemed to be waiting for just that and he wasn’t going to give the satisfaction.

The shirt was odder than he initially realized. He was correct in his estimate. There was
only one sleeve. The neck simply continued on to swallow his arm and half his chest, leaving them bare.

Done with him, the man moved on to the next boy. Kaie was left
with nothing to do but watch as one after the other each boy was treated to the same as he was. The last two boys received the searing metal against their right shoulders and he was subjected to the scent of melting flesh once again.

It was finished in short order. Each boy was handed a pair of soft shoes. Then they were all being pulled back to their driven out the d
oor like the cattle. Once again Kaie was first out and held by the arm with a grip that brooked no argument.

At the front of the building
he was handed off to a scowling woman wearing a shirt and pants like his own. The cut of the shirt was a bit different, covering her chest more effectively than his own, but otherwise they were the same. Not like the other men and women handling them thus far.

The woman appraised him with an unattractive squint and a sniff of irritation. “You’re Kaie then?”

It was making him nervous, how concerned they all were with his identity. No one else was getting charcoal on their foreheads or being asked their names. But what was the use in lying now? He nodded.

She sniffed again
then scooped up two bags from the ground and dropped them into his arms. One of them smelled distinctly of meat and set his mouth watering. The woman gestured to her left. “Stand there. You lot are hard to tell apart when you first get out.”

Kaie did as he was told, waiting patiently while she handed out two bags to each of the other boys. Then she grabbed his arm, just like the others before her, and steered the line away from the building.

He didn’t see much of the place. There were some buildings in the distance to the north and a clump of trees too organized to be natural to the southwest. Most of what he saw was massive fields of corn and wheat – ones that took his breath away. The woman didn’t give him much of a tour. She marched them past the wheat field, to the east.

The whole area was a mockery of a village. Homes, twelve of them, built into a large stone hill. They were all built out of a shoddy, pale wood that looked for all the world like it was pieced together in an hour. Only two walls for each building, the back of the houses using the hill and the front covered up by large, worn animal skins. There were odd stone constructions, looking a lot like the strange tunnel coming out of the fire pit in the room he just left.
There were two for each house, one on either end, and a few of them were spewing out smoke.

There was a well between the sixth and seventh. The road leading to it from either direction was little more than mud. Ther
e were small patches of green between some of the homes. He couldn’t see for sure but they looked like gardens. Sad, small little gardens.

The woman directed him to the first house.

“This is East Field,” she said to the group. “This is where you live. You’ve got food for half a month. You will not receive more until that time is up. Don’t ask for it. Don’t steal from your housemates or anyone else. Don’t leave your homes unless someone comes to get you. Don’t fight and don’t burn down your homes. I am Boss Josephine. If you need anything, find me. Don’t need anything.”

Then she shoved him through the hide wall of the first building.

It was even smaller inside than out. A big part of that was because the building was divided by a shoddy birch screen and some carefully hung blankets. But he didn’t doubt it would be a small space regardless. There was hardly room for two people to lie down. For the first time, Kaie was grateful that he was small.

Across the room
a form stirred. He didn’t notice the unconscious body when he first took in the space, but he couldn’t miss it now. He didn’t recognize her when she first crawled out from underneath the four blankets. Her head was bald and all the color was leeched out, leaving her skin as pallid as the strange clothes they were both wearing. But when she turned her dark hazel eyes on him Kaie saw all the features he spent his childhood memorizing. “Amorette!”

Her eyes filled with tears
and in an instant she was on her feet and flying into his arms. He folded her in against his chest, noticing the painful pull in his shoulder and taking great care to avoid hers. For a while they just stood like that. He felt her tears spilling onto his new shirt and the shudders running through her small frame as she cried but there was no sound to accompany them.

He wished he could cry with her. It felt wrong that he wasn’t. She was mourning their family, their lives. He should be joining her. Sojun s
urely would be in his place. But Kaie couldn’t summon up the tears. They weren’t there. He was just empty.

She pulled away slowly. He would happily keep her wrapped up in his arms. Maybe forever. But he could see the questions on her face, in her eyes. Stupid of him, to think he would be enough. That she wouldn’t ask the question that would rip him up all over again. And then she would hate him, because he couldn’t even manage to cry.

“Where is he? She told me…That woman who came to see me, with the big dress, she said she would give me Sojun if I cooperated. She said she wanted you. I didn’t think…”

Kaie dropped his gaze. “He took my place. She came for me. Like she told you. But he wouldn’t let me go. He made her take him instea
d.” He should tell her the rest, the part where he was offered the chance to give the two of them some small piece of happiness. The part when he hesitated. The part where he didn’t stop it.

He didn’t need to tell her. Amorette knew. He could hear it
in the way her breathing caught, the way she leaned away from him, the way she pulled back into herself. She knew them both, better than anyone else. Better than they knew themselves. Jun said it all the time. He was right.

“I’m sorry.” He needed to force the words past a thick blockage in his throat. They were hardly a squeak.

In the morning someone came for her. It was a tiny girl, all sharp angles and splotc
hy red skin. She peered at Kaie from underneath long white-blonde hair. Her dark blue eyes caught him in an odd way. Like she was seeing right through him. He smiled at her but she didn’t say a word. Just reached out a hand for Amorette and led her away.

There was a married couple on the other side of their screen. They introduced themselves the night before. Ren, a tall and skinny man with dark skin, gave them a
of couple hand-carved bowls as a welcome gift. His pale and bony wife, Silvy, shared some of their stew. They were both friendly and kind. For them, Kaie tried to act grateful. He
was
grateful. But summoning up that feeling from underneath the numbness spreading its tendrils through his mind was almost impossible. Amorette didn’t even speak. They seemed to understand, or at least accept, that behavior from both of them. They expressed no interest in socializing once the food was served. Kaie was almost as grateful for that.

S
omeone came for them that morning too. They were just as quiet about their departure as Amorette was. The flapping of the skin door was the only indication they’d left.

No
one came for Kaie. He waited, watching the door with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation. But no one else came to his awful little hovel. At some point he realized no one would. That he was going to be left sitting there alone all day.

At first
he spent the time trying to figure out improvements to make to their new home. Ren explained the strange fire pit – he called it a fire
place
– to him the night before and he thought he understood it. But it didn’t seem especially safe. Some of the stones looked like they were on the verge of falling out and the inside was a terrible mess. He could gather some grasses to make a mat for the floor. It was warm enough now, but fall was still new. Eventually it would get cold. When it did a mat would be much nicer than the bare earth he was sitting on now.

All those
plans took about twenty minutes, if that.

There was a small bucket in the corner
by the fireplace. Deciding that if they were going to forget him he could forget the “stay in your house” rule, Kaie grabbed it and headed out to the well.

No one else was there. All the houses were silent, quieter even than the vault. Not a single puff of smoke streamed out of what Ren called chimneys. Not even the sound of a barking dog broke up the stillness.

His grunts as he pulled the water out of the well didn’t do much to accomplish that either. His body still ached from the beatings it took. The healer’s work didn’t put him completely back to right and his treatment since hardly helped. It was hard work dragging that bucket back up. But Kaie found himself biting back the noises. Something about this quiet felt wrong to break. It was so damn empty.

Back in his new home, Kaie went to work cleaning out the fireplace.
He found a pot discarded there along with a contraption like the one Silvy used to hold her own in the fire. Both were dented, abused and filthy. When the fireplace was cleaned out he went to work on them. It took two more trips out to the well and most of the daylight, but he got all three more or less serviceable. Then he went to the spot Ren described the night before to gather wood set aside for the slaves of East Field.

When Amorette returned
he was nursing a fire to life to cook a stew not unlike the one Silvy made. She said nothing. She continued to say nothing through dinner, then laid down on one of the blankets with her back to him and went to sleep. As much as it hurt he couldn’t blame her for it.

The next day the blonde girl came again. He smiled and she stared. Amorette left without a word. Ren and Silvy left without a word. No one came for him.

Kaie cleaned the pot and fireplace. He washed himself and his clothes. He arranged the blankets. It took about an hour and a half. Then there was nothing to do.

The day after that was even worse.

He thought about going crazy. There was nothing to do, nothing to plan. Kaie didn’t know how to deal with it. His mind spun around in circles, going over puzzles he would never solve. Or dwelling on memories of his parents and Sojun, prodding at the pain with the mindless obsession of a tongue poking at a bitten lip. Insanity seemed a perfectly valid way of dealing with it.

That was the day the healer came to see
him. At first Kaie didn’t recognize him. It wasn’t that the kid looked any different. Maybe a little less pale. It just didn’t seem right, seeing him here. He didn’t fit in this sad, empty place.

The boy knocked on the side of the wall as he came in, interrupting Kaie’s silent meditation of the long-cold coals at the bottom of the fireplace. He was carrying a small bundle and offered a smile that never reached his eyes. “I’m glad to see you escaped Lady Autumnsong’s attention,
Bruhani
.”

Kaie scowled. “Glad someone is.” It was more than he intended to s
ay but the boy was the first person to speak to him in two and a half days. The words just sort of spilled out before he thought about it.

“I’ve brought you and your girl more clothing.”

Kaie took the offered bundle without thinking, casting an uninterested glance inside. “What’s with all the shirts here? Do they leave off the right side because they think the gods have some special affection for that shoulder or something?”

The boy made an odd face. “You’re kidding?”

He shook his head. “I spent a few hours trying to figure it out yesterday. That’s the best I could do.”

He expected a chuckle, but the kid didn’t take the bait. “How could they be certain who is a slave, if they can’t see your brand?”

And, just like that, it wasn’t funny anymore. Every night he stared at the dark red welt in Amorette’s flesh, hating these people for placing their mark on her, knowing he wore the same. Thinking about it was enough to make his hands ache for the chance to do damage.

There was no way to fix it. Even if he could get his fingers around the thro
at of the woman who burned them or the one who told her to do so, it wouldn’t take the brands from their shoulders. They were owned now, the both of them. And he couldn’t undo it.

“Are you here to take me to work?” He wasn’t sure what he hoped the answer was. Kaie was eager for anything to end the numbing boredom and
loneliness of his last few days but he surely didn’t want to go happily about his slavery.

The boy’s head shook again. “You’re injured. Less than they think, of course, but you need time to heal. I told them a month. You
’ll likely only get three weeks, but that’s just a bit more than you really need and not unexpected. You’re a waste of money until you’re put to a task. The Mistress only tolerates waste to a point.”

The neglect, which he thought a form of punishment, made so much sense now that Kaie was a bit embarrassed he didn’t put it together before.

The boy flashed another sad smile. “I thought you would appreciate the time to adjust.”

Kaie tried not to grimace. “Thanks.” He thought it best to leave things at that
but his lack of conversation was overriding his better judgment. “I would rather be doing something. I don’t do well, sitting around by myself all day with nothing to occupy my time but contemplating the dirt under my nails. I was almost sold on the losing my mind plan, before you showed up.”

The boy’s eyes widened in such a clear expression of surprise it was actually comical. “You don’t meditate?”

Kaie swallowed his laugh when he realized it wasn’t meant to be a joke. “Gods no. What would I do that for?”

“I thought everyone who can touch the
Jhoda
– old magic – meditates. It helps to focus our abilities, control the wild aspects of ourselves that would make the magics be dangerous. You’re the most powerful I’ve ever seen… How do you manage, without meditation?”

He shrugged. “I don’t.”

It was an honest answer but he could read the boy’s dissatisfaction clearly. What other answer was there to give? The kid clearly considered the
Jhoda
some great gift. Kaie didn’t share that assessment. And the only way he knew to explain it was to share exactly what kind of magic was pumping through him. That wasn’t an option. No one could know.

The boy’s head shook one more time. In amazement or disparagement, Kaie couldn’t tell. He supposed it didn’t really matter. “Well, I guess I’m sorry then,
Bruhani
. I don’t know what to tell you. I could try to visit, if it would help. I doubt I could manage every day but the Mistress’s son isn’t so bad. I’m sure I can slip away for a few hours every couple days.”

He didn’t want a friend,
especially not this one. The boy was meek, cowed, not at all the sort of person who could withstand the punishment the gods were sure to dole out for associating with him. And the kid certainly wasn’t going to help him find a way to get Sojun and Amorette out of this mess. It didn’t seem like a wise decision, according to the boy’s own explanation of the sentiment toward magic users, to associate with one regardless.

But just the thought of another two or three weeks of the silence and uninterrupted boredom was enough to make him start gibbering.
So, once more, his loneliness won out over his better sense. He grinned. “Thanks.” He held out his hand. “Kaie.”

The boy smiled, a true smile that lit his light blue eyes, and took the hand. “Vaughan Talus de Vilde.”

Kaie managed not to roll his eyes at the long name. What was it about the barbarians that they felt a need to tack on so many more parts to the names their parents gave them? It was like adding extra feet. But mocking the boy for it didn’t seem a great way to start things off. “So. Vaughan. Now that you’ve risked life and limb for me a couple times, sticking me in this perfectly miserable situation, I figure you owe me a favor. Want to make amends?”

The boy blinked owlishly. “What?”

“You’re going to help me figure out how make things better for Amorette.”