Aki

Merkus Merkus was a benison for lending me his boots. I’d spent the second half of the day relieving myself of splinters, unable to participate in Master Kurash’s combat class. A few remained, too deep or small for my hands to work out. And so many of my wounds had stopped bleeding by the time I left the academy, some already darkening into scabs. That’s where the boots came in. My foot had only stopped bleeding in large part due to how tightly the laces were tied around my ankle, the lack of blood flow numbing my foot and transforming the sharp throbbing into a muted ache.

The guards at the gate to The Roots returned to needlessly asking for my mark. I had no choice but to oblige. Lifeless bodies, their rot suspended by Surgeon arts, hung from the gates, twisted, bloodied, and broken, a memento of their promise and a constant warning of what happens to those who forget.

The second gate—a smaller, less manned barrier at the foot of The Roots plateau—was a simpler affair. Usually. Two guards stood on either side. One was short, corded with lean muscle, and experienced enough he’d mastered the skill of standing. Him I recognized. The other, a skittish youth near my age, was new to me. He watched the area with nervous enthusiasm, hand on his sword like he was hungry to use it.

I kept my head low and made to walk past them.

“Where’s ya mark, boy?” the young guard asked, grabbing and pulling at my wrist. I staggered towards him, barely keeping my balance.

The older guard, Serg, shook his head and sighed. “Let him go, Lekol.”

Lekol looked back at his partner. “The rules say we gotta check the mark.”

“Did you learn the rules?” Serg questioned.

“Yeah,” Lekol responded.

“Are you sure?”

Lekol hesitated a moment. “…Um, yea…I think. Am I forgetting something?”

“No mark is needed to go to The Muds, Lekol. You’ve been watching me do the checks since you joined me this morning—late if I may add. Did I stop any going that way?” Serg pointed towards The Muds, fixing the younger guard with a how-stupid-can-you-be look. Lekol avoided the challenge, staring down at his feet. “And now, after demonstrating our duties all day, and then waiting until crossings have lulled to a trickle before giving you the lead, you still make the most rudimentary of mistakes the first chance you get. I don’t know how you're gonna survive this charge, Lekol. For the life of me, I don’t even know how you got it in the first place.”

“Why ya gotta make me look bad, Serg?” Lekol whined. “How are the Muds gonna learn to fear and respect me if ya making me look bad?”

Serg knew enough comfort and remembered enough pain to have bred some kindness. He’d shown me some since I’d started crossing the gate. Not enough to ever shirk his duties mind you, but enough that he’d avoided the usual power games many of the guards were so fond of. Lekol seemed too new to authority to escape the selfish mentality The Muds nurtured.

“They’ll learn when you learn to inspire it, boy. Now let Aki through.”

Lekol pulled at my wrist again, shifting me closer to the flickering lantern that hung on the gate wall. He cupped my chin and turned my head this way and that, letting the light hit my face at different angles. “Aki? You’re Aki?”

“Yes,” I said, curious.

“Ya ain't half as handsome as she tells it. Ma said you’d be crossing. Said you’d be here a half-turn ago though.” And I would’ve been, if not for the limping.

“You’re Diloni’s son?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He let go of my wrist and held out a hand for me to shake, smiling. “My friends call me Kol.”

Lekol must have been his father’s son. He had a long face, narrow eyes you’d find hard to trust, a crooked nose, and thin lips that made for a terrible smile—not at all like the bulbous features of his kindly mother.

“Don’t keep her waiting,” Serg chimed. “I doubt she’s wanting to spend any more time in The Muds than she needs to.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lekol said, “I’m getting to it.” He turned back to me. “Ma wants to see you. I think she’s wanting to say her goodbyes.”

“Goodbyes?” I asked.

“Yeah, she’s gonna be living with me in The Roots.” Lekol grinned broadly, squaring his shoulders and puffing out his chest. I trusted him a little more for that, despite his treacherous eyes and terrible smile.

“Now get,” Serg said. “You know where she is.”

I entered the library without Diloni’s notice. That wasn’t difficult. Most of her hearing was lost to a particularly vicious beating she got back when she’d first been assigned to the library. Rumor was, she’d managed to tear a nick into one of the books in her first week as custodian and the sector reeve expressed his displeasure with a wooden leg he’d ripped off of one of the tables. Neither she nor the table ever stood straight again.

Diloni lounged on her old chair, face stuck between a book as it so often was. A small candle lay on her side table next to a cup of watered wine. I’d never known her to risk the books so recklessly. Her impending freedom from such worries must’ve relaxed her fears.

“Leaving?” I said in that near shout I always spoke to her in. She lowered her book and gave me a smile that fought the sadness in her eyes. “So soon and with barely a word of warning?”

“Stop with the hysterics, child.” I liked it when she called me ‘child’. “I know you well enough to know you’re amusing yourself at my expense. It is good to see you. It seems I see less and less of you these days, and now, what with my moving to The Roots, I fear our meetings will be few and far between.”

“I’ll always endeavor to make time for you.”

I walked towards my usual seat beside hers. The book I’d been reading last I was there—'The Fractured Gods: Salvation or Damnation’—still lay where I’d left it. I picked it up with practiced prudence. “It’s been half a season since I left this here.”

“It's been half a season I’ve been waiting for you to visit.”

“The quiet slumber of sleep is as angry at me as you are. It’s been waiting longer and complains to me even now.”

“Yes, dear child, I know. I don’t mean to chide. It’s just that it gets overly lonely here and I’ve sorely missed your company is all.”

“And I yours. I see the ambitious are as scarce here as they’ve always been. It mystifies me how few visitors you get. They should be lining the entrance and fighting for entry.”

Diloni shook her head. “What mystifies me is how you are both so old and so young, so cynical and so naive. To those who live here, child, survival and ambition are one and the same.”

“Just because something is, does not mean it should be.”

Diloni put her book down, her tone growing serious. “Remember, most Muds are born into labor by parents who cannot afford to feed them otherwise. Some are birthed by greed and into slavery. Some are born without the swiftness of mind with which to grasp the complex, the aid of sight with which to see, or the use of legs with which to walk. Some die before they can even take a breath.”

“Excuses,” I said. “You remember how we met.”

Diloni opened her mouth as if to say something, then, thinking better of it, she looked away, harsh lines carved by time and hard-living creasing into a look of concern. Being old enough for grey to invade her hair, she was the oldest Mud I’d ever seen; growing old was not something Muds did.

“Do you?” I asked. “Do you remember my broken leg? My arm when it came off the shoulder and hung by skin alone? The beating that left me all but blind for nearly a season? The first time he…? And I was unable to…?” I took a deep breath to calm myself. “Do you remember?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for? It wasn’t your fault.”

Diloni caught sight of the bloodstains I’d collected since last we met. She looked them up and down, her eyes roaming from one to the next. Besides the plethora down my right side, there were smaller ones around my neck, a smattering on scuffed knees, some on my left shoulder, and others too small and plentiful to count spread across my tattered clothes, each set marked by the shade of their age. “Soon you’ll ascend and he will die a lonely and miserable death.”

“Yes,” I said, my blood hot and my voice cold. We both knew who she spoke of. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“No, child. Do not become a harbinger of revenge. It will change you into the very thing you hate.”

“Not revenge. He will die by my hand and I will balance the scales, or, failing that, push them closer to even.” My tone was harsher than I would’ve liked, but she’d questioned something I’d not allow anyone to question. Not her. Not myself. Not anyone.

She looked nervous now. I couldn't fathom why. “Your father is a product of his circumstances. Do not become a product of yours.”

“More excuses. He is who he chose to be. As am I. As is everyone.”

Diloni sighed in that way wrong people do when they think they’re right but find it hard to prove. “It’s him that makes you wise about yourself and naïve about others. Ask yourself this, does he want to be who he is?”

“Excuses,” I repeated. “But it is what makes you different. No one in and of The Muds can remain as kind as you without being able to find ways to hope.”

Diloni gripped the armrest closest to me and yanked her face closer to mine. “Child!” She paused, surprised at her own outburst.

“Apologies,” I said. “Maybe I’m wrong and it’s your hope that keeps the flame of your kindness alive. Whatever the case, I, having warmed myself by that very fire, do not insult you for it. I only mean it as praise. Who you’ve chosen to be is admirable.”

Slowly, she leaned back into her chair and continued, her volume restrained. “Do not forgo the wisdom of age for the arrogance of youth.”

I shook my head. “Age is not a mark of wisdom. The old only think they are wise because life has taught them lessons in pain. The truly wise attain wisdom with practical cleverness, foregoing the incomplete ramblings of retrospect.”

Silence reigned for a long moment as we held gazes. I watched the sadness in her eyes grow before she gave up and glanced away.

“Leave,” she said.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. Maybe I went too far, said too much. “Diloni, I admit I needn’t have been so crass, but—”

“Leave,” she interrupted.

“Diloni?”

“Leave.”

I sprang to my feet, frustrated and ready to heed her request. She yelped and shrunk into herself, suddenly filled with fear. My brows furrowed in confusion. Why would she fear me?

“Diloni?” I asked.

“Please, I beg of you, leave.”

“Tell me what’s wrong. Is it that I wish to kill him? You understand that I must, right?… Right?”

“Please,” she begged.

My hand reached for her. She pushed herself against the back of her seat, shivering. I froze. “I would not hurt you, Diloni. But I will kill him. No one can change that. No one.” My hate for him was deeper than my affections for her. It was the foundation of my purpose, my ambition, my very soul.

“Please,” she said, and there was nothing left to say or do but leave.

And so I did.

The hovel I called home was not too far from the library. The door stood ajar when I got there. Bone-tired, injured, and preoccupied with replaying the confusing conversation with Diloni, I cared not.

I should have.

“Do come in, Aki. We’ve been waiting.”

My heart jumped and I stood suspended. No fear, just surprise. I didn’t recognize the voice. Experience begat expectation. Kalin and I had never entertained any visitors.

“Come, come, join us. There’s no need to be afraid.” Her sharp voice grated on my ears. She spoke without the liquid pronunciation common in The Muds, her accent rigid and correct, though less like the flourishing conceit of a noble and more like the practical accuracy of an ascended warrior. Master Kurash, who trained us in armed combat, spoke in much the same way.

I walked in. The main room was empty. I noticed Kalin’s door also stood ajar. A soft push swung it open.

She sat on the bed. The striking red of her closely cropped hair made certain I found her before anything else in the room. Cold, dark eyes soon demanded my attention. My mind blanked. If I had any thoughts, I do not remember them, only an emptiness like that of a dreamless sleep. Then she smiled and my thoughts resumed. Or was it my thoughts returned and then she smiled. I could not remember.

I shifted my gaze away, choosing—in so much as I could—to survey the room instead. I’d not seen it before. It was better than I’d expected, yet less than I’d imagined as a child. Consonant, wooden slats covered the walls and ceiling. Dirty rugs of flamboyant quality lay about the floor. A bookcase stood against the far corner next to a writing desk. That startled me. I did not know Kalin could read let alone write.

“We have much to speak of, Aki,” she said. “Come, sit with me.”

I stepped in and closed the door. My heart jumped once more.

Kalin lay slumped against the wall. Jagged cuts and dark bruises covered his skin. His eyes were swollen shut. A nasty tearing of flesh split his top lip and led up to the mangled mass of flesh and cartilage that used to be his nose. He’s dead, I thought, and a flood of anger followed.

“Not to worry,” she said, “he won’t be bothering us. Isn’t that right, Kalin?”

He responded with a soft gurgle of blood, bubbles blooming from the raw flesh at the center of his deformed face. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“I thought you’d taken my kill from me,” I said, more to myself than anyone else; the alternate explanation for my anger was intolerable.

“I guess nature eclipses nurture.” She laughed.

My eyes turned away from Kalin. They just so happened to lock with hers. I felt her sensus slither around my mind. The tail end of my fleeting anger lashed at her and cut her reach short.

“Fuck,” she cursed.

My head throbbed. My sensus was near depleted. Weakness broke my anger and replaced it with fear.

“What makes you think you could’ve killed him?” she asked. “If not for me, you’d have been dead by winter’s end.”

I took a breath to calm myself. Recent times have shown me prone to a lack of control. The woman wore the light-brown uniform of a Heartwood soldier; she could likely kill me with nigh the same ease with which she blinked. “Before the descent, they used to say believing in souls was the arrogance of the mind thinking it was more than it was.’”

“You mean to say that I am blinded by ignorance?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.

I shrugged. “Sometimes an unproven truth is mistaken for arrogance. Until tested, they’re the very same thing.”

“You even have her way with words,” the soldier exclaimed, slapping her thigh. She patted the space beside her. “Come. Sit.”

The bed was more comfortable than I expected—stuffed with feathers. How? Kalin had the least of any working man I saw or knew. Everything else was taken. All he had left was what the godlings had deemed a crime to steal, cheat, or forcibly take from any man with a sanctioned job: food and shelter enough to survive the labor, tools to work, and sufficient clothing for a modicum of decency. Godlings had massacred dozens despite guilt or innocent every time that rule was bent or broken.

The soldier shifted to face me, one of her legs coming to rest on the bed between us. “The time has come for you to be rescued from this squalid hole. As you know, your father is ill-equipped for the task of raising you, and so here I am, at your mother's behest, to bring you to better pastures.”

My Mother! I bit down my surprise and the anger it was soaked in, keeping my mind on the present threat. There’s no reason for her to lie. She has both the power and the authority to dispense with lies. The question is— “Why?”

“You wish to remain with this…man?” She threw a look of disgust at Kalin.

“Answering a question with another is not a particularly elegant form of deflection,” I said. Her jaw flexed and I flinched back. My unedited words and actions were becoming a problem. “But yes, I know what to expect from him. For all the pain he causes me, he would never take my life.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How would you know? He has the right, and, from what I could see, the inclination.”

“I do not know, precisely. He once told me he wouldn’t and I knew it to be true. I’ve always been able to tell with him. I suppose he enjoys my misery too much to be without it.”

She gave me a smile so small and quick it was little more than a twitch. “The truthseeker namat. A useful skill. One of the gifts you’ve inherited from your mother, I believe.”

“He is the only one,” I said. “I’m no truthseeker.”

“Dormant and without skill, any namat is useless against the barest of sensus. But Kalin here is a shell: those unworthy few who cannot parse or imbue sensus—naturally or otherwise.”

Am I a shell? The question was sudden and weighed on me like an anchor to my hopes. I didn’t voice it. Seemingly, there was no need to; my reaction was question enough.

“No, you have not inherited that trait. You have altogether a different problem—if ‘problem’ is the right word for it.” She was right. I could manipulate my sensus. Not much, but enough to know. “As for why,” she continued, “I believe your mother wishes you to culminate your talents in conditions more inducive to your development.”

“I meant why now?”

“Any sooner would’ve been dangerous.”

I stood. “Who exactly are you?”

“I go by the name Rowan.”

I should have been terrified. She was plainly more dangerous than Kalin. More skilled, more powerful, more…well, just more. I should have been quivering in fear, limbs otherwise locked, sweat dripping from my brow, heart pounding. I wasn’t. Instead, I was calm and sure of purpose. My purpose is greater than The Muds, than Evergreen, I thought. Who is she to stand in my way? For a moment I was taken aback by my thoughts. I’d always aimed for the best. One’s potential is rarely exhausted unless you aimed beyond it. This was different. This was not a goal, but a certainty.

“Am I being asked or…” I walked towards Kalin. One of his eyes managed to open a sliver, glistening and threatening tears. None came. “Will I share his fate if I refuse?”

“I am but a lowly servant. Failing my master is not a privilege I am afforded, nor one I wish to partake in.”

“So be it, seeing as I have no choice in the matter.”

She untied a waterskin from her waistbelt and threw it to me. “Drink. I will not have you facing your mother as an invalid.”

I drank deep. Splinters I’d been unable to reach dug themselves out of my skin, cuts mended, bruises faded, sore muscles relaxed, and all the aches and pains of my body were suddenly gone. Never before had I sighed as deeply and with as much relief as I did then.

“Ready?” she asked.

We left Kalin where he lay, brutalized but alive. I trailed behind her at an even distance. The few times I slowed, she slowed with me. The fifth time I did so, she looked back and gave me a look that told me I’d stop. I averted my eyes and dared not slow again.

The guards at the gate seemed a different species when we crossed into The Bark. No loud jeering, no cantankerous squabbles, no bored cruelty. They stood lining the gate, armor polished, spears held straight, hands on scabbards. Even the bodies that hung from the gates were secreted away. I’d always thought them a pack of dangerous wolves. Maybe they were, but they’d shown me that even wolves whimper in the presence of greater power.

There was only one way to escape Rowan: find someone stronger who might be inclined to help me. I knew not of her strength. Foxes, wolves, and bears are all just predators in the eyes of a defenseless hare. Still, I had to try.

The straightest route to The Branches was past the school. I’d made the journey enough times that I could judge the time it took. The pace I’d adjusted to was almost right.

‘Two turns,’ he’d said. I hoped it was so.