Burnt (14 page)

Kaie hesitated.
There was only one thing he could think of that might explain her interest. “It’s… harmful.”

She inclined her head just a fraction
as acknowledgement. Then she turned and resumed her walk. He watched for a minute, wondering how much of a mistake he made in giving this woman even a hint of his secret. After a slow breath he started following again. Like a dutiful dog.

They walked
for a while. Long enough to make his legs hurt. The limp made walking difficult. And he was out of practice. The trip to the stream and back was the most exercise he’d gotten since waking up in that strange white room. She set a rapid pace, too. When she finally stopped again, his breathing was a bit labored. He considered being embarrassed that this dainty older woman was winding him. Then decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He was supposed to be recovering after all.

She turned on him, lacing her fingers on top of her stomach and tilting her head
a little to the right. This he could read. She was in charge now. “You will work in the stables. Several of the ones who were put down worked there. I am in great need of talented hands. You will be very talented. I do not care what skills you find, but you will find something. You will be so good at it that my stable manager will be happy to tell anyone who asks that you are invaluable.”

“Yeah, ok.” He scratched his head again. He was about to ask something he shouldn’t. He knew it, but he needed to ask just the same. “Why? There are easier w
ays to prevent her from…doing whatever she intends to do.”

She licked her lip just once. That was interesting. A crack in her perfect mask.
“What does that boy know about you?” She sighed and rubbed at her right eyebrow. Another crack. He stumbled into something with that question. He only wished he knew what it was. Kaie pressed his lips closed, giving her no answer. She seemed unsurprised. “We all have our reasons. Slaves, noble women, even the Empress. Reasons for secrets, reasons to hide. Reasons to put you in the stables. Some you get to learn, others you don’t. Now you say ‘Yes Mistress’ and play your part.”

He grimaced. Dog indeed. But, whatever her reasons, she was giving him a lot more than was necessary. Kaie didn’t need any particular insight into her emotional workings to understand that her generosity was at its end now. The words felt sour on his tongue, a new and utterly unpleasant experience. “Yes Mistress.”

She paused as she turned away from him, as though she only just remembered something. Kaie didn’t believe that. This was not the kind of woman who forgot anything.

“One more thing. Whatever this
‘nothing’ that has so captured Luna’s fascination might be, it does not end with you. She mentioned a desire to pair you with women known to be fertile and is requesting that I give her any offspring you manage to father. I can make you too valuable to give to her experimentation, but I cannot extend that worth to infants. I would suggest you take steps to avoid that particular problem.”

The Lady Autumnsong was not interested in seeing h
is reaction to that bit of news and Kaie was grateful. He never gave much thought to children. He was one, technically, until the family accepted him as otherwise. Outside of his impossible desire to marry Amorette, he figured everything after would happen the way Mother Lemme willed it. But the knowledge that the option was removed from him was like a blow to his gut. Another possibility, another future…gone. Suffocated before it drew its first breath.

“If you find the
‘nothing’ becomes something, be sure to inform me. You can speak to Josephine. She is my overseer for East Field, so she is always close. Always watching. Remember that.”

He woke early. Before the sun. Like always. On the nights he slept at all. Amorette was curled up across from him, somehow managing to convey her dissatisfaction with nothing more than the curve of her sleeping back. That was like most mornings too. That used to bother him. A lot of things did.

He thought about going to the stream.
He didn’t want to miss the sister though. And someone would be coming for him. To take him to the stables, where he would need to find a way to make himself invaluable. And somehow the stream just didn’t seem as important as it did those other mornings.

So he laid out breakfast in
stead. Salted pork and cornmeal from the rations he picked up the day before. Sometimes Amorette brought home fruit and bread. He didn’t ask how she got it. He didn’t care. Next year he would add vegetables himself. Ren promised to help him prepare the soil outside their house for winter so that in the spring he could plant a garden. It bothered him, yesterday, thinking of planning for another year of this life. Today was different.

He should proba
bly be frightened about that, but Kaie found he just lacked the energy for that much caring. Eating his breakfast and thinking about a garden was just easier.

His escort came as Amorette was waking, long before the girl would be making her appearance. He felt a bit of regret, certain that this would be normal no
w. Not as much as he expected. Still, it was sad that he would never learn her name.

The stables weren’t close. The walk was longer than
the one he took with the Lady Autumnsong. The work, right from the moment he walked in, was grueling. The Stable Master put him to work lugging the horse equipment – tack, he was pretty sure the man called it tack – and cleaning stalls. He got there sweaty and tired. A few hours in and his arms shook. It was exhausting and repetitive and Kaie lost himself in it.

He only stopped when one of the other workers – hands, he was pretty sure the man called them hands
– took the shovel from him and ordered him to lunch. He followed dutifully, only realizing how badly he hurt now that he wasn’t moving.

The ot
hers were all clustered outside near the north fence, talking and laughing in animated tones. Kaie considered joining. But for some reason the thought of trying to fit in with these men just struck him as overwhelming. So once he was outside he slipped off to the left and found some bales of hay to rest on. He was used to the empty feeling in his stomach now. The need to be away from the others seemed far more pressing than a useless attempt to fill it. Especially after he caught them all glancing his way and chuckling.

He dropped down onto the hay, wincing
as his hands touched it. He looked down, surprised to discover them blistered and bloody. They started throbbing as if the pain was waiting for him to notice it. Scowling at them did little to improve the situation but he couldn’t think of anything else to do about it.

“You are allowed to ask for gloves, you know.”

Startled, Kaie looked up and couldn’t help gaping. Just a little.

“What are you doing here?”

The sister peered at him from underneath her hair as always, but he got the feeling she was grinning. “Following you. You never finished your story. I wanted to find out if Auren won Tiana back. Because that was fascinating.”

He turned his scowl on her. She laughed
, loud and surprising from such a tiny girl, and dropped down on her knees in front of him. “Here, let me see.” She grabbed his hands, not at all gentle about it. Then, after another impressive hair flip, she dug into a bag at her hip. “You’re lucky I heard you were starting here today. It seemed a safe bet you’d manage to hurt yourself, so Vaughan gave me some stuff for it.”

His scowl deepened as she pulled out a small jar and a fist full of bandages.
He tried to take his hands back but she wasn’t letting go. “So you came to heal me up and make fun of me?”

She snorted. “
No. I am enjoying it though. I don’t get to make fun of many people. Or heal. I think I’m going to do it more. The teasing. You don’t mind.” He cringed as she scooped some cream out of the jar and slopped it over his hands. It did feel better. “I bring lunch out to the stables every day. Also a couple other places. But this is my last stop, so I always stay for a while. I bet you’re happy about it. I know you missed me this morning.”

It didn’t seem like something he should admit to.
“You hang out with these guys every day? That must be exciting.”

She tightened the bandage around his right hand, again not gently, and then tilted her head. “I eat with them most of the time. It’s one of the best parts of my day. You don’t like them?”

“Oh no. They’re fantastic. Making me shovel horse shit until my hands bleed, then laughing at me when I come to get lunch. I love them.”

She snorted again. Kaie decided he didn’t like the sound. “Poor boy.
Your charming smile isn’t enough to win them over, so you figure the problem is them.”

“And what do you think the problem is?”

“Those five men are the only ones of twelve in the stable to survive the last culling. They’re brilliant at their jobs, but they can’t manage like this for much longer and know it. They need skilled help. And the Mistress gave them you. They don’t care how beautiful you are. You’re not what they need.”

“Well I didn’t ask to be sent here!”

She shrugged. “None of us did. You’re not the son of some tribal leader here. You’re not special just because you’re alive anymore.”

He was surprised. He never told
her, or Vaughan for that matter, about who he was. “So what? Be content with shoveling horse shit?”

She was quiet as she finished wrapping his left hand. Then she looked up at him, smiled, and flicked him in the center of his forehead. Hard. His hand flew out of her grip and to the injured spot. His hurt exclamation won him another of her loud, barking laughs. “Quit thinking being handsome and having good parents entitles you to something better than the rest of us. You’re the same now, fairy prince. Yes, be content with shoveling horse shit. For now. Until Stable Master Stephen sees how hard you work and
trusts you with something else. Earn your own way.”

Kaie didn’t like any of what she was saying. He didn’t think he was better than the others. He was never the entitled brat she was painting him out to be.
Maybe she was right about earning his way. But not the rest. He thought about being angry with her, but it seemed like too much effort. Instead he just sighed and leaned back against the hay, staring up at the cloudy sky. “If you’re done lecturing me, Vaughan’s sister, I think I’ll get back to what I was doing.”

“Right. The moping.” She climbed back to her feet,
managing to avoid smacking him in the head by mere centimeters. Then she was gone. He sighed and turned his attention back to the clouds.

His solitude was interrupted again just a few seconds later, when something heavy dropped into his lap.
Gloves. Thick leather ones. They were worn, but in fine condition, and fit him like they were made with his hands in mind, bandages and all.

The girl’s expression, when he finally got around to looking up at her, was so curious it verged on uncomfortable. Like he was some sort o
f experiment she was conducting and his reaction was something to be catalogued and analyzed. She didn’t make any attempts to hide it either.

Still. They were very fine gloves. “Thank you.”

The intimidating look faded, replaced with a flash of a smile that reminded him powerfully of her brother. “You take care of those. I’m not good at charming. I don’t think I can get you another pair.”

He nodded. “I will.”

“Good.” She dropped down beside him on the bale and dropped more stuff into his lap. This time, it was food. At the sight of it, Kaie’s stomach gurgled in longing. Just like with his hands, it was like his eyes were informing the rest of his body of things it should know already. “Now eat fast, before time’s up and you have to go back to your shoveling.”

She was not wrong, the strange girl who hid beneath her hair. Not about his role in the stables. By the end of the month, with heavy use of the goop she always brought, his hands were healed and Stable Master Stephen apparently ran out of stalls for him to clean and things for him to carry.

Kaie was taught how to feed the horses. It seemed a simple thing at first, but it wasn’t.
One horse was on a special diet to improve her fertility. Two others were old, thus requiring different feed. The one stallion got more food in the morning if someone wanted to ride him, so that he would be a little drowsy when it came time to put the saddle on. And there were others. It seemed each one of the thirty stalls came with special feeding instructions, which he was told once with the warning that a single mistake would see him back in the horse shit.

She came to talk to him every day. He continued to use the bales, dreading the day
they disappeared. It was less about the snickers and darting glances – after a day or two the others seemed to lose interest in him – and more about talking to her. Life here was draining, except when he sat there and ate next to her. It was odd, but then so was she. And it was nice. Relaxing. So he made efforts to keep it interesting for her. It wasn’t about earning her name anymore, though he still hoped to do so. Now he was trying for something else. Something he couldn’t quite find a word for.

So it was he found himself telling her all about Sojun.
She was a great audience, showing far more interest in his boring tales of growing up together than she ever did the grand stories of his family’s history. The more she listened, the more he found himself wanting to share, until every detail of their lives together seemed to be spilling past his lips. Finally, he could think of nothing more to say. He leaned back, looking up at the sky and wondering how quickly the winter would come on this part of the world. It couldn’t be much longer. Wondering why all this talk of what was gone didn’t hurt more. It used to.

“So you
still want the girl he loves?”

Kaie blinked, his brain taking a second to switch gears. It wasn’t one he was much interested in talking about. But she asked so few questions, he felt obligated to answer. “
Yes. He’s probably dead now, anyway. Past caring. I’m not sure why I’m still fighting it.”

She allowed the silence that followed, but
only for a moment. “He’s not dead. I don’t know about the caring.”

Kaie turned to look at her slowly, trying to figure out how he felt about that information. He should feel something. “You’ve seen him?”

She nodded, brushing back some loose hairs that the wind kept blowing into her face. “Not as much as Vaughan does. He gets sick a lot.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. So he said nothing.
Just ate his pork, saving the stale bread to absorb some of the saltiness the meat would leave in his mouth. She let him, again just for a little while. Three bites.

“
Is it worse? Him being alive?”

Kaie thought about it a minute. “Maybe it should be. I don’t know. I’m done caring.”

Her head tilted and her lips pursed. Those big eyes of hers cut right through him, saw all the way to the center. “You’re giving up, aren’t you?”

It bothered him. The words, her tone, the look in her
eyes. He tried to block it out but it bothered him. “He betrayed me, too, you know. Sojun. He told things about me, things that aren’t supposed to be told.”

“Yes,” she said as though he asked a question. “They all do. The ones who wear the collars.
Some of them keep secrets for a while, but sooner or later they tell Luna Autumnsong everything. Secrets, lies, half-forgotten memories…everything. Vaughan says it’s the thing she puts into them. That they will do and say anything to make her happy, so that she won’t take it away. Some of them talked to him about it when she made them sick.”

Kaie shrugged. He believed her. It just didn’t matter.

“Are you giving up,
Bruhani
?”

It still bothered him.
“Maybe.”

She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her, to meet her gaze head on. The intense blue eyes ripped at him, seeing too much. Demanding too much. “Don’t.
”

“Why not?”

“You see them everywhere too, don’t you? The ones with the dead eyes.”

Kaie grimaced. “Yeah. I’ve seen them.” Every day, he saw one. She kissed him and
urged him to give in to what he wanted. He tried to pretend he didn’t see, but he did. He knew exactly what the girl was talking about.

“These people, the Autumnsongs and the others like them, they take everything that matters. For people like you and Vaughan, they’ll even steal your minds. Make you broken and empty. But they can’t take our hope. No matter how they try, they can’t touch that. Don’t you give it to them like it means
nothing. Don’t you become another one with dead eyes. Don’t you dare.”

He wanted to cringe
from her, from those eyes. She wouldn’t let him. “Why do you care? I can’t mean anything to you. I don’t even know your name.”

She scowled at him. It was a very unnatural look for her, making him wonder if she ever wore it before.
“Because my brother cares. For the first time I can remember, he cares about something more than just me. Because you tell me stories and jokes. And because you never asked Vaughan my name. All of that matters and I don’t want to lose it.”

She held him like that for a long time. Too long. He could hear the laughter coming from the others, knew it was about the absurd image the two of them were painting.
He waited for her to release him. Despite this conversation, he didn’t want to risk driving her away. But she seemed content to wait forever. So finally he reached up and wrapped her hand around hers, tugging her grip loose. Her hand tightened – it actually hurt a little – and her face grew determined.

“Let me go.”

She shook her head. “Tell me you won’t give up.”

The girl was strong
but Kaie’s time in the stable was changing him, giving him power in ways a lifetime of wrestling with Sojun never did. It took some doing but he extracted her fingers from his face without having to break any of them. She was upset though. He could read it in her eyes. He struggled to think of a way to fix that without making promises he didn’t intend to keep.

“Tell the truth,” he said.
“You care because you think I’m handsome.”

She snorted. This time, Kaie liked the sound. “You’re too skinny by half. None of those rippling muscles that I like so much.”

“But?”

Her tongue stuck out at him, giving her a truly comical look. He couldn’t help laughing. “Fine! You know I do,” she acknowledged. “Not that you need to hear it. Now you’re going to be all cocky and strutting, aren’t you?”

He laughed harder. “Nah. I promise. I will laugh at you though. For at least a week.”

She sighed dramatically. Stephen
whistled, the signal that their lunch was over. The girl flipped her hair back into her face, the way she always did when their time together was up, and stood to go. Kaie caught her wrist before she could accidently smack him as she scampered away. He squeezed it just enough to get her attention. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

She considered him from behind her curtain, and Kaie found himself wishing he could see her face; get a hint at what she was thinking. After a while, she nodded. “Peren,” she said. Then she tugged loose and was gone.

It wasn’t until he was on his way home that Kaie realized she’d finally given him her name.