Burnt (12 page)

“What do you want from me?”

It took some work. Vaughan stayed longer than his allotted time, helping Kaie gather branches and pebbles from around the compound. The boy didn’t stay to arrange them around Kaie’s sleeping space, but that was for the best. It took him four tries to get them looking the way he wanted before he gave up on perfection and settled down beside Amorette’s blanket. He was finished moments before she pushed her way inside, her arms red and her lips turned down in a scowl.

Her purposeful stride hitched and faltered as she took in the state of their home. For a second, he was pleased to see a bit of the girl he knew flash into her eyes. Her surprise, her enjoyment of the humor. But then the other look slammed back into place. The look he saw in Ren and Silvy’s every night, and the one Vaughan wore when they first met. The one he thought of as the dead look. Her scowl returned with ferocity.

He attempted a grin, but that was a challenge facing such an unappreciative audience. “Your attention.”

Amorette closed her eyes for a moment, letting out a slow sigh. When she opened them again even her anger seemed to drain away, leaving her looking empty. “Ok.”

It wasn’t the resounding acceptance he hoped for, but it was an allowance and Kaie was going to take it. “This is bad. I know that, and I know it’s worse for… him…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the name out loud. So he pushed on. “And I know that’s because of me. I should be punished. I get that. But I can’t lose you, Ams. I don’t have anything else. Yell, scream, hit me if you have to. But don’t just quietly slip away. Please.”

She stared at him for a while. He searched for some sign of acceptance, something he recognized, in her flat hazel eyes. But there was nothing. After a time, she sat down with her back to the cloth doorway and stared into the dead fire pit. He let the silence stretch on for as long as he could stand it, hoping this was simply her considering his words. But he was terrified this was her answer.

“Say something.”

Amorette’s eyes never lifted from the ashes. “What would you have me say?”

“I don’t know.
” Kaie let out a slow breath of air. “Tell me you hate me. Tell me what I need to do to get you back. Anything. Just talk.”

Finally, so slowly he felt each agonizing second, she looked up. Her e
yes darted over to his creation then back to him. “I don’t know what to say. I think of things, while I sleep, while I make the bread and wash the dishes, and then I see you and I forget them all.”

His jaw clenched for a moment. “They have you making bread
? The best hunter in our family and they waste you with bread?”

Her right brow twitched. But she didn’t respond. After a while she droppe
d gaze back down to the floor. The silence stretched. Kaie sighed. Vaughan warned him not to expect much. He knew it would take more than one conversation to fix what was broken, if there was any way of fixing it at all. But he felt intensely disappointed.

He moved over to his side of the room and looked down at the sparrow he outlined with sticks. Pebbles for the eyes and beak, as well as a little in the body in his miserable attempt at making it look more colorf
ul. He was so proud of his idea earlier. Now it looked pathetic. He reached down to knock it aside, lacking even the energy to take apart and arrange it in the pit Amorette found so damn fascinating like he planned.

Before his hand connected with the construction, her small one wrapped around his wrist. “Don’t break it.”

She was so close he could feel the tickle of her breath. They were never this close. Not when it was just the two of them. His skin tingled where her air brushed him and burned where she touched. He swallowed hard against an old longing that was so much worse than shameful. But he could smell her, underneath the scent of dough and soap, and could almost imagine the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears. And there was no one else there to remind him of how she could never be his.

“You like it?” He tripped over the words, awkward in a way he never was with her.

“You remembered.”

His smile fell apart almost the moment it touched his lips. He was too nervous to hold on to it. But the warmth of the memory gave him back some measure of speech again. “Of course I do. I’ll never forget it. I fell half in love with you that day.”

She looked almost as surprised as he was that he said it. But Kaie noticed the twitch of a smile at the corner of her lip, and that almost made the deeply embarrassing confession worth it. “At six years old?”

He chuckled, half hoping she would take the whole thing as a joke. Or
maybe that she wouldn’t and that something would come of it. But that was something he couldn’t want. Not ever again. “Oh yes. You underestimate how sexy you were back then. Every six-year-old boy in the tribe was falling for you.” The twitch grew until it was on the verge of being something real. His own grin returned in force.

It was truer than she would ever believe. He and Sojun never fought over her, not really, but they fended off more than a few other boys who were desperate to win her attention. That she chose them to be her closest friends was a boon
neither could quite understand and one they were more than willing to blacken a few eyes to protect. They both knew that ultimately it would be only one of them who won her, and for all that they never faced it, it was the first and deepest crack between them.

“I threw a stone at the mother.” Amorette’s voice snapped Kaie back into moment. Where the only girl he ever fantasized about was still incredibly close and clutching his wrist in her cool hands. “I never told anyone that. It wasn’t an accident that she left. I thought it was funny, and I thought she’d come back. I was the reason he was all alone.”

“It turned out okay.”

She dropped his wrist. He dropped his hand. The two of them knelt there in silence once again. This time Kaie didn’t try to end it. He got the sense that if he did he would lose her.

When
he felt cool fingers threading between his Kaie thought he was imagining it. He glanced down at their clasped hands in surprise. She squeezed, just a bit, and then pulled her hand loose.

Kaie thought that was it. She would go back to her side, he would clean up his. But it would be better. Because some of it would be better between them. A start. Except it wasn’t it.

She placed her hands on either side of his face and lifted his head until they were staring into each other’s eyes again. And then she kissed him.

Soft. Tasting a bit of
the bread they had her making. Hesitant at first, then more insisting. His heart thundered in his ears. His arms slid around her, snaking up her back and tightening around her waist, pulling her forward until there was no space between them. She came willingly, her every movement yielding. More than that.

Then her cool fingers were slipping under his shirt and tugging at the drawstring of his pants. Kaie drew in a sharp breath as a shudder ran through him. He leaned back and caught up her hands quickly, before his body could make an idiot
of him. “What are you doing?” he muttered.

She pulled her hands free gently. “I thought that would be obvious.”

“It…yes.” His head spun, his body screaming for him to shut up. To let her do what she wanted. What he wanted. But this was wrong. This wasn’t for him. “But Sojun…”

She hissed and pulled away, wrapping her ar
ms across her chest. “I don’t want to think about him now.”

“He’s my heart’s brother, Ams. What he did for me…
This is wrong. He’s not dead. He’s not here, but he’s alive.”

“
It doesn’t matter. He chose. I’m not his anymore.”

Kaie sucked in a breath of air and let it out slowing, trying to calm the blood pumping through his him. “
It does matter. So this…”

“This is me saying,”
she interrupted, sliding her arms around his neck and pulling his head back to hers, “he gave me up. And I want you to make me forget. Just for a little while. Please. Make me forget him.”

Kaie
knew he needed to push her away. Every second he didn’t he was betraying his best friend. But then her lips were on his again. It made it almost impossible to think. Her hand slid down his chest, to his pants, and every bit of him was determined not to stop, to let her do as she pleased, to forget himself. Just for a little while.

With a moan just as much desire as it was regret, Kaie stood up.
Amorette reached up for him, reached for his pants at least, but he knocked her hands away. There was something deeply, terribly wrong with him that he was refusing this beautiful woman, one he loved since he was six.

“I can’t do this.
Jun…”

“Don’t! I told you, I’m not his! I never want to hear his name again!” Amorette hissed, her face taking
on an entirely different look, one he didn’t know. “You asked what you could do to get me back. Or are you done with me now too?”

Kaie flinched, hurting like it was a physical blow. “I’m sorry. Kosa take me, you’ll never know how sorry. Anything else. But not this.”

She screamed. A horrible, earsplitting sound that brought Ren and Silvy into their side of the building in an instant. Then she beat her fists down up on the sparrow. Over and over, until all that was left were bits and dust.

He left before she woke; before anyone in their sad little neighborhood was awake. It
was at least an hour before the sun kissed the horizon when he climbed from beneath his blanket and slipped out the hide door. He didn’t know where he was heading. Kaie only knew that he couldn’t stay in their home another moment, that he couldn’t face her silence or glares when she woke.

There was a small stream a ways behind the hill the houses were built into. The well was a much closer source of water, but close wasn’t his goal. He and Vaughan discovered the creek while they were gathering the stuff for his sparrow the day
before. It wasn’t a short walk but it took him back into a patch of woods thick enough that he wouldn’t need to worry about stumbling onto anyone else.

Calling it a stream was generous, really. Kaie was fairly certain he could piss harder than the water flowed. But that was okay. It was clean and quiet. That was all he wanted. It took some work to fill his cupped h
ands and wash his face and neck but he managed. The water was numbing and spilled down his shirt in satisfying rivulets. He filled his hands again to wash his head. He could feel the stubble of his hair growing back already. The way the warmth was holding on, it would be like he never lost it by the time winter actually made an appearance. For the moment, though, it was just itchy.

He was cleaner now
but didn’t feel it. Even if he was given soap and a scrubber, he wouldn’t be rid of the filth. The grime wasn’t a physical thing, for all that he wanted to believe it was. He tried again and once more to wash it away. But it clung. Finally, frustration won out. Kaie threw his head back and screamed, at the gods, at himself, at everyone that conspired to place him in this moment. He hated them all. Especially the ones he loved.

S
ixteen years of ruin necessitated a great deal of release. The light was shifting from the murky illumination of a night not ready to give up its hold to the soft glow of a coming dawn before he could stop the noise pouring out of him. His throat was sore and it was likely the people back at the shacks heard him, but Kaie really didn’t care. He was still dirty.

“Why?”
he demanded of the heavens. “Why do you have to destroy everything? Haven’t I lost enough? Can’t I just have her? One friend, in all this shit you’ve dumped on me? It can’t really be too much to ask!”

Kaie slapped the water, sending beads of water flying in every direction. “I’ve lost everyone. Everyone I love, everyone I even like, except her. Now you expect me to betra
y Jun or lose her? What in the Abyss is wrong with you?”

He sucked in two deep breaths, trying to get a reign on the anger pumping through him with every beat of his heart. He needed them to hear. They shackled him with this fate; they would know what he thought of it. “I am tired of lying for you, Lemme. I’m sick to death of telling peo
ple you care what happens to us while you are content to let Kosa rip your children to shreds. You did this to us. To me. You shoved this curse down on me, and now you’re letting it grind your people down to nothing. You owe me! At least this much, you owe me.”

Kaie dropped his head into his hands, a cracked sob slipping out before he could catch it. If
Mother Lemme heard, she was in no mood to answer. He didn’t feel better. He felt worse. For expecting anything more of her and the other gods. For the wicked voice in his mind that said the solution was obvious. Sojun was lost. Amorette wasn’t. He loved her, and he wanted her. So much he didn’t sleep at all last night, locked in fantasies of what would happen if he just said the only word she wanted from him. Yes.

What was so bad about that, really? Who would ever notice the betrayal, save for him? Sojun was gone. If he ever found a way to free the three of them, would his friend even care? Jun chose Kaie over her. He heard it, Amorette knew it. She was unclaimed now. He was free to want her, to take her now, if that’s what they both wanted. Right?

A cracked twig brought his head back up and his eyes combing the trees for the intruder. Kaie spotted her quickly, though he got the distinct impression that she meant for him to find her.

It was the girl with the white blonde hair and the red ar
ms, the one who came to his house every morning and never said a word. She was staring at him, her startling blue eyes peeking out between the strands of hair that hid so much of her face. Kaie felt certain she was there for a while. Maybe before he was. His face flushed, shame and humiliation vying for the worst part of the situation.

“You’re talking about Amorette,
” she said.

He ground his teeth, loathing the gods for their propensity
to punish. Was he really so bad to deserve such abuse? But he nodded. There was nothing else to be done.

The girl took a slow step forward. It was like she was approaching a deer
that would startle if she moved too quickly. Kaie was struck by the appropriateness. He surely felt like running and hiding.

“You love her?
” she asked. “For a long time?”

In a low voice, hoarse from his mindless screaming, Kaie answered. “More than half my life.”

“But she doesn’t love you.”

His mouth worked, trying to force an argument past his lips. She wanted him. He knew that. And even if that wasn’t for the same reasons he want
ed her, Amorette did love him the way he loved Jun. They were family. But somehow the words never made it out. Maybe it was the look in those eyes. Like she saw right through to the center of him, to what he really was. If she asked he could debate it. But she spoke it like fact and he discovered he couldn’t convince himself she was wrong. There was no lying to eyes like that, even when they were half hidden.

“She told me about him once. The other one. Sojun?”

He nodded, the name like another burning rod pressed to his flesh.

“She loved him. Now he’s not here. She said it was because he loved you best. She doesn’t love you, and you are here. You think yelling at the trees will undo some part of this?”

“Not the trees,” he muttered. “The gods. And I don’t want them to undo it.”

“What then? Should these gods of yours wave their hands and make her forget all about him and know only you?”

“No!” he shouted at her. He worked to control his volume. “No. I need them to take away this feeling. She’s the one thing I ever wanted for myself. She says, if I take her she’ll forgive me. And I want to. Gods, I do! I want to feel good when I hold her. Instead of feeling like…”

“A betrayer.”

He shuddered, her words striking truer than he could ever say. “Why should I feel like that? He gave her up. It was supposed to be me that was gone, and him that was here. I was going to make that happen. But he stopped me. He changed it. Why should I hate myself so much for wanting what he gave me?”

She was in front of him now. He wasn’t sure when that happened. She was good at the careful approach. He was impressed, thinking on what a good hunter she would make. Up until the moment she dropped down beside him. It was such a catastrophe of gravity and limbs that Kaie half expected her to smack him in the face before she was done. It was, without question, the least graceful thing he ever saw. The girl was all sharp angles and awkward movements. Any trace of the careful huntress s
neaking up on the deer was gone, erased so effectively it was actually kind of impressive in its own right.

“You hate that she asked that from you. But you want to be with her.”

“I love her.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “You want permission to betray your friend. The one she loved. The one you still do. That’s what you want from those gods.”

He sucked in a long breath through his teeth. He tried to be angry at her.

She didn’t wait to see what words he put together. He was grateful. Kaie wasn’t sure they’d make any sense. “You’re the one my brother calls
Bruhani
. I wasn’t sure before. But you are, aren’t you?”

He laughed a little, more from relief than amusement. “I didn’t know Vaughan had a sister. And I didn’t know the name was special. I figured it meant new guy or something.”

She shook her head. “It means something.” She flipped her hair back from her face with a single jerk. Awkward, just like everything else about her, but effective. Her face was pointed and narrow. Like a bird. It was a lot like her brother’s face too. It looked much better on him. She reached out and tapped his head twice, a lopsided smile on her thin lips. “He likes you. He doesn’t like anyone in this place. Just me, and now you. That means something, too.”

“Uh… thanks?”

She rolled her eyes again. Such big eyes. Then she widened her smile, as if to say she forgave him. “He says he’s never heard of anyone with so much of the
Jhoda
running through them. That it’s almost like you’re more than someone who can touch it, you’re something born from it. Like you’re a bit fay. Maybe more than a bit.”

“Vaughan thinks I’m a fairy?”

The girl’s laugh came out half snort. It was strange. “He also says you might die if you sit still too long. That you are always moving in one direction or another. Moving, planning, moving. Never ever still.”

Kaie shrugged. “I get bored. Your brother is still enough for both of us, with all that meditation.”

“You know what I think is strange?”

He was answering before he could think any better of it. “I’m afraid to ask. It must be damn disturbing.”

She laughed again, snort and all, and punched him in the shoulder. Not lightly, the way girls hit to play. It was a real hit that left his skin stinging. “There’s a boy. He is so powerful people think he might be fay. He must be terribly compelling, because even a cautious and fearful person starts trusting this boy without a second thought. He inspires his friend to sacrifice love and future for him. He thinks so highly of himself that he believes his gods will return just to absolve him of some very appropriate misgivings.

“There are a good number of directions he can move in, and some of them could even bring him a measure of peace and happiness. But, of all those directions, he chooses to walk backward
, when he already knows everything that waits there will hollow out the greatness in him and leave only guilt and self-hatred. Isn’t that odd?”

She stood up, a process that was every bit as treacherous as sitting down. This time, Kaie actually did catch an elbow in his shoulder. The same one she hit. He wasn’t sure it was accidental, either. “I need to go fetch your Amorette. You are an interesting person to speak with,
Bruhani
.”

“Wait!”

She kept moving toward the path he followed from the houses with no sign of slowing. But she did glance back.

“What’s your name?”

She rolled her eyes once more before flipping her hair back into place and covering up her angled face. “You haven’t earned it yet. And don’t you ask my brother! That’s cheating.”