Aki

The door rattled. Instinct drove me to the corner of the room. I spent a moment there, hating myself; it’s cowardice that allows fear to become instinct. The window’s shutters—an assembly of ill-fitted planks much like the rest of the hovel I called home—afforded me gaps to spy through. I peered through the lowest of them, my back against the adjacent wall.

Darkness ruled the sky. Dawn had yet to arrive and conquer the new day. Emerald lights descended from The Leaves, filtered through the city so that they were but shadows of murky green when they reached our modest porch. Kalin stood hunched before the door. Odd, I thought. He looks different. It took me a breath to realize he stood without the precarious sway of his drunken state. It took another to see the tall man who approached him unawares.

Large for one of The Muds but too raw-boned to be of The Roots, the man was on the fairer side of dark and likely a mutt of southern breeding. They say Southerners of pure descent can blend with the night as easily as fire burns. From the way he appeared, as though birthed from darkness itself, I believed them.

Long fingers snatched the scruff of Kalin’s threadbare tunic and pulled, eliciting a strangled shriek from the man. He crashed onto his back, the old planks of our rotten porch creaking under his delicate weight.

“My fault,” Kalin cried. “I’m sorry. Please. I’m sor—”

The dark man dug his heel into the back of Kalin’s hand, ending his pleas for mercy. “Shut it, Likkle, and hand it over.”

The man was bald, a few anomalous clumps of wiry hair clinging desperately to the sides of his head. His skin, as smeared with mud as his boots, deepened his already dark complexion and further emphasized the yellowish rot of his wicked grin.

Kalin raised his head, tears budding in his eyes. “Of course, Rees, of course! I was coming to find y—”

A vicious kick to the jaw rocked him sideways, his groans embracing me with arms of pleasure and shame.

“Didn’t I tell ya to shut it, Likkle?” Rees asked. “Now, spare me yar lies and hand it over.”

Kalin labored to his knees. “Please—”

“Look here,” he said, his voice dripping with lazy malice. “If ya dare…” He crouched down, touching his lips to the back of Kalin’s ear. “I’ll break ya all over again. I’ll break ya till ya don’t care to waste my time, and then again for the fun of it. Ya remember, don’t ya? How I am when I get started? Ya must. Ya can't have forgotten our first time. Not when it was so memorable.”

Dejected, Kalin’s head slumped to his chest. He reached into his loose sleeve and handed the man a small object.

Reese smiled—a grotesque display of crooked teeth. “Good choice, Likkle.” He straightened, looming over Kalin. “But remember, I ain't gonna be so nice as to threaten ya next time.” With that, he turned and left.

All the free-books sing praises for the capital. ‘The City of Gods’, they call it. Lies. The other parts of the city might deserve the praise, but none should be spared for the fetid place I called home. Lowest of the city’s plateaus, The Muds was not akin to the idyllic scenes described by minstrels, bards, and poets, nor like the height of prosperity espoused in all the free books. The Muds was harsh and dirty and dangerous, a profusion of shacks so dense that even the air was restrictive, a place where greed regressed men to animals, freedom was bought with strength, and weakness was exchanged for sorrow. Kalin had trouble seeing the truth of that. Why not struggle with purpose? Why allow them to struggle less for theirs? Why—

The door scraped open. I scurried from the shutter, clambering towards the far wall. Violence was both Kalin’s wound and salve and I did not care to become treatment for the injuries he’d suffered that day.

“Where ya going, Runt?” he asked, calm and without the anger that warned of his strikes. He’d come just as I was ready to leave, early, less drunk than he usually was, more composed than I’d ever seen him—so much so that I could barely see the hate and…that other look in his eyes.

“I was gonna fetch some water, Sir,” I lied.

“Sit,” he commanded. I started for a chair. He pointed at his feet. “Floor.”

The wood of our floor was old. Old enough that splinters jutted out and lay await for soft flesh. I walked carefully to avoid them.

“Now,” he growled.

I hurried to the spot and sat propped on knees and toes. Smaller areas, less skin, less flesh, less pain. Splinters scratched against my knees. One went deep into the large toe of my right foot as my weight settled. I choked off a breath, soothing the scream of pain into a soft groan. He enjoyed my pain; I would not give him the satisfaction.

“You have yar mother’s tongue, ya know,” he said, leaning back on the door. “If I didn’t know ya better, yar lies would sound like truths.” He spoke without the bark of his anger. That terrified me. I knew what to expect from his anger. His calm though…

“No, sir. No lies. I wouldn't lie.” The pain in my foot was a distraction. So was my fear. I would’ve stayed quiet otherwise.

“Ya see, rolls off ya tongue like it’s natural.” He sighed and rubbed at his tired eyes. “I loved ya mother, ya know. Hated her all the same, for all her lies. Hated her for a great many things. Still do, to be honest. But I loved her too, long ago.”

“Why?” I asked, despite my fear.

He flinched at the question, the pain it evoked undulled by the passage of time. His eyes blanked, haunted, like his mind was trapped in the prison of his memories. And as the silence stretched, I stared at the man who raised me.

Kalin was a small man. Selfish, willfully ignorant, and utterly devoid of kindness, he was even smaller than his slight size revealed. None of that I hated him for. Yes, I’d disliked him for it, but it wasn’t why I loathed him. It wasn't even the tiresome way he lived his life or the submissive cowardice he cultivated for survival. It was all of that, and—

“I loved her for the same reason I hated her,” Kalin said. “She was my hope.”

I hated this man, and when he told me that, I hated him most. He must’ve seen my rage, for his flickered in retaliation. But then, contrary to all I knew him to be, he closed his eyes and released a slow breath, relaxing back into that calm that seemed so foreign to me. He slid down the door, head hung low between bent knees, a far cry from the befuddled anger and violence he’d raised me on.

“Ya so much like her,” he said.

“I wouldn’t know, Sir.” He forbade my calling him ‘father’ back when I still wanted to. Now even calling him sir felt dirty in my mouth.

“Well, ya are, and I hate ya for it,” he said. “Like a damn reminder. As if ya being here wasn't enough. I know it ain’t fair, Runt.” He looked up then. Straight at me. Eye to eye. “But life ain't fair and I hate ya.”

My hands made fists atop my knees. Long, dirty, jagged fingernails dug into my palms. I’ll end him, I thought. No excuses could save him from my wrath. No repentance could quench my need for his death. But I was not impetuous. That part of me had died with my innocence. I killed them both before they managed to kill me. And so I held back. I ached to kill him, but I held back.

“Ya look like her,” he said, “talk like her, look at me like I’m dirt like her. Ya never laugh, never cry, never thank me, never loved me. Ya just…so much like her.”

I jumped at him. I felt the splinter gouge the flesh of my toe. I pushed on. The pain was but a whisper. My rage screamed, and for the first time I could remember, I screamed with it.

I swung my fist like a hammer, overhead. He saw me coming and blocked the blow. I was too weak, too young, too hungry, the sensus that trickled from my soul too slow, too meager, too unruly. I swung my other arm. He blocked again. I kept screaming, in frustration, in anger, in hate, in a sea of emotions I’d kept locked away.

His laughter cut through my screams. A cackling laugh of victory. “I knew there was something of me in ya.”

“If there was, I would’ve begged!” My arms kept swinging. “I would have sniveled and pleaded like a coward!”

A blinding white took over my sight. A ringing shrieked in my ears. I couldn’t tell up from down. The world staggered. A weight slammed against my right side. It took me a moment to realize it was my own weight.

The ringing continued, but the world grew darker, finer, more clear, more stable. I looked up.

Kalin stood over me. “Truly a tongue like that cunt of a ma ya got,” he spat. “But unlike her, ya weak enough to be taught a lesson.” He kicked my stomach, his face filled with lines of fury.

It took a quarter turn for him to tire and leave me. My anger raged at my weakness. At his. I was bruised and beaten and in pain. My foot bled. There were new cuts and splinters on my right side from where I fell. Bile clung to my chin from when he struck my stomach and I hurled and heaved the little I’d eaten. My head throbbed. Slap or punch, his strikes were heavier than I’d known. I thought I knew his strength. I didn’t. Not yet. There will be a day, I told myself.

I remembered the academy. I was late. I needed to get up. Needed to fight the pain so that one day I could rid myself of its source.

I got my hands beneath me and pushed. My stomach threatened to retch. I asked it what it had left. It answered with more bile. I got my knees under me. My head swam. I heaved myself up. The world refused to stay still.

I heard snoring. Kalin had fallen asleep. His door was locked. He’d started locking it half a season or so ago when first I fought back. I regretted that. Maybe if I’d shown no sign of rebellion he would’ve felt safe enough to leave it open. Then I could’ve slit his throat as he slept and have been done with it. No! I would not kill him so easily. Or at least, he would not die so easily.

The world settled into place. I put a hand to my temple in an empty gesture to abate my thumping headache. I recoiled at the sensitive lump that grew there.

I ripped off a strip of coarse cotton from my sleeve. My bruised ribs protested. I wrapped the strip around my foot to slow the bleeding. Agony shot a knife of pain up my leg when I tried to put weight on it. I kept the weight on my heel from then.

The long walk to the academy was one I struggled with on my better days. The walk that day was the worst of them. Much of the way to The Bark gate was a haze of pain. I remember the guards being less obtrusive. They liked to make a game of letting me in—a close inspection of my mark, an aggressive search of my person, insults scarcely hidden behind pointless questions. Not this time. This time they let me in with a cursory look and a few offhand comments. Even in my state, I was surprised by the rare show of…whatever it was; I knew better than to accuse them of sympathy.

As if to announce my entry, the second bell rang when I stepped into The Bark. Crowds emerged from homes. Groups of children ran past and threw stones, pointing at me with fingers and insults. I shielded my injured side with my other.

By the time I’d gotten to the academy’s steps, my vision was blurry, my chest ablaze, and my foot a splendor of pain. My tunic clung to my right arm and ribs, sticky with blood. A deep red trickled from the makeshift bandage around my foot.

I put my back against the academy door so my weight, feeble as it was, could do the work of opening it. I backed into the thick, wooden slab and caught a glimpse of Merkus standing across the courtyard. My first thought told me he was late. My second told me it was by design. My third reminded me I was falling.

Too tired to halt my fall, I angled to my less injured side to mitigate the coming surge of pain. The ceiling came into view. I clenched my eyes shut, bracing myself for the coming agony.

It never came.

Bony hands grabbed my sides. A head poked out from under my arm, Old Roche’s bristling hair scratching at my shoulder, a few wisps tickling my neck and cheek. He smiled his kind smile and shook his head in playful reproach. Relief convinced me I loved the man.

“You’re lighter than you ought to be,” he said. “Even my ancient self ain't bothered by your weight. Many a lass would kill you for your secret, me boy.” He laughed then—at his joke or for levity’s sake, I did not know.

“A hard diet and some bloodletting,” I said. “But shh, it’s a trade secret.” I tried to put a finger to my lips. I couldn't. Pain and weakness are a dreadful combination. He laughed again—at my joke or for pity’s sake, I did not know.

Roche carried most if not all of my weight as he led me to class. Though he was more bone than flesh, he felt stable. Strong. Like carrying me took him no effort. I must’ve passed out at some point because I awoke when Roche leaned me against a wall.

“Furthest I can take you, son,” he said.

“Much appreciated,” I said, “but I don't think it matters.”

Silence. My head rose to watch his face. I found none of the kind pity I expected, his incessant smile replaced by blank indifference.

“You better not disappoint me master, son,” he said.

Who was his master? Pakur? Did he hope something of me? I tried to ask. All I managed was a slow blink and a vacant look.

“Life itself is a journey unto failure,” he said, then left, humming an oddly familiar tune.

I entered the classroom. Mistress Leahne eyed me but didn't pause from her lecture. One or two of the students offered me a glance. The majority kept their attention elsewhere. A Mud, injured or otherwise, was undeserving of notice.