Vulture (29 page)

34 - Home

Pux huffed, balancing an armful of logs as he plodded into the mess hall, dropping them on the ground at Hyatt’s feet the moment he crossed the threshold. Hyatt paced in circles, surveying the tables and the mulch making up the dance floor. He looked up when he saw Pux, his tanned face cast in shadows. There wasn’t much light inside the mess hall, other than what they created by lighting a fire in the evenings. During the day, squares of sunlight illuminated the whole place but died off around the edges, shadows hiding in corners. Hyatt’s graying hair was matted across the top of his head, his face gruff with gray stubble, his blue eyes hard. He flexed his fingers, lacing them together and stretching them out.

“Thank you, Pux,” he said.

Pux bowed the way he would have in Avristar to Grimand or Desaunius, but when he caught Hyatt’s eyes he stood and pulled his vest taut. “I’m pleased to help,” he answered, trying to seem older. He spent most of his time on Terra conforming to the villager’s traditions and standards. They didn’t treat him badly. The girls were fond of him but unattractive, and the boys were good comrades. Some of the elders were excellent storytellers while others were great when the little ones got sick or fussy. Pux found human children perplexing and weird. The children at the House of Kin were quiet, playful, and always laughing. Human children wailed, screamed, and fidgeted too much. He felt more at ease with the adolescents. Most of them were learning things like spinning, smithing, farming, cooking, crafting, or playing. He found it fascinating. Even though there were so many of them they all had a place. It wasn’t like that in Evennses. With under a hundred kinfolk everyone stood out like a sore thumb, everyone had a specific purpose. He liked that he didn’t have to be anything more than Pux. Nobody cared if he could transport or transmute things; he was one of them, hairy or not.

Hyatt was still pacing, a shadow crossing his face. “Will you be at the feast tonight?”

“Maybe. Aulises is back, so we might not make it down to the mess hall.” He made sure to refer to Kaliel as Aulises whenever in front of the villagers. She was self-conscious about the villagers knowing her real name. Humans had a tendency to forget things, and though Pux didn’t talk to Bethula, Hyatt acted like Kaliel wasn’t a Child of Avristar. The only person who did was Jack.

Hyatt narrowed his eyes. “You’re not sweet on her, are you?”

Pux laughed. “No.” He cleared his throat. Humans were funny with the way they saw things. It was true Pux was always with her but it was like old times back home; he didn’t love her in that way. “Aulises is my best friend.”

Hyatt’s expression didn’t change but he shook his head. “I worry about that girl.”

It was Pux’s turn to be bewildered. “Why?”

“Do you know what she is?” he asked, and Pux heard it in the inflection in his voice. Kaliel was a something, an unacceptable something. He shuffled back and forth, clasping his hands behind his back. He thought of Kaliel being a Flame and the first time he had seen her eyes full of liquid amethyst. A dull ache grew in his heart for Avristar, but he shoved it away.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Pux answered slowly. He kept eye contact so Hyatt wouldn’t think he was lying, he hadn’t told them it was nearly impossible for him to lie. He noticed that about humans—they accused each other of lying far too often, and there were telltale signs of it. He tried to make himself as truthful as he possibly could.

Hyatt seemed defeated. He spread his hands out and looked at them, sighed. “I think she’s making a mistake, that’s all.”

Pux tried not to get upset but the villagers never talked to him about Kaliel before. They didn’t notice all her bottled magic, her wonder, her mystery. They seemed too busy with their own hardships to bother with something they couldn’t comprehend. Yet, a nasty response to everything Kaliel was, was the last thing Pux expected. Hyatt may as well have taken all the joy out of him for good.

“Mistake?” he echoed, not even sure he could find his tongue. It felt like it had fallen out of his mouth and was flapping around like a dead fish.

Hyatt sighed. “We all saw her with the Ferryman. I hoped once she saw what he could offer her she’d get her head straight and pick someone like Jack.”

Pux tried to resist the urge to strangle Hyatt. This time the words really wouldn’t come. He gaped and backed up, shaking his head, not knowing where to begin explaining. It wasn’t even possible without revealing too much. He closed his eyes, thinking about Jack and his fair hair and blue eyes, all the conversations they had in the loft. Kaliel would never be interested in someone like Jack. She’d never look at anyone else; it wasn’t even possible, was it?

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Pux, but she needs to get her head sorted. The villagers have been talking about it. They want her to choose one of the boys. Can you talk to her about it?”

Pux hardened, his hands gathering into fists at his sides. “She belongs to the Ferryman.” He didn’t wait for an answer; he stalked across the mess hall to the opening on the other side, passing Hyatt, who didn’t say anything. Once Pux was outside in the dying afternoon sun he crossed the village, passing the castle and traveling down the path to the barn. He would have called out to Jack, but after what Hyatt said about courting he didn’t want to know what Hyatt told Jack about choosing girls. He climbed up the rungs of the ladder and fell against one of the hay bales.

“Kaliel?” he asked, not sure if she was there yet.

“I made fire turn violet today,” she responded, her voice sounding dreamlike.

Pux started searching for her. She was farther back in the loft than usual. He wended around the stacks of hay bales and found her curled up in a bunch that created a chair, her legs slung up on one end, her black dress hiked, showing off her calves. He wanted to pull it down because if the other boys saw, they might start liking her. He raked a hand through his hair. “Was Klavotesi impressed?”

She shrugged, a lazy smile crawling across her face. “He seemed distracted by something.” She shifted so she was sitting in the crux of the hay bales. Her arms rested on the tops of the bales. Pux slid to the floor and pressed his back against one of the bales beside her.

“Have you seen Jack?” He didn’t know where to begin. He didn’t want her to know, but he didn’t want the villagers telling her themselves. The last thing Kaliel needed was an angry mob. He kept so much of it away from her he wasn’t even sure how she’d take it.

“No,” Kaliel answered absentmindedly. Pux glanced at her forest green eyes and realized her mind was on something else, someone far away. He sighed. She followed. “It wasn’t the same.”

Pux frowned. “What?”

“When I made the fire, it wasn’t the same as blooming flowers. The land responds to my touch but it, the reaction …I don’t think it’s a good sign.”

“I know what you mean,” Pux said, happy they had something to talk about besides villagers and Ferryman. “I tried to turn a brown bird blue and it didn’t work.” He shrugged.

Kaliel raised an eyebrow. “What color did you get?”

“I don’t know if there’s a name for that color. Squashed berries? It was dark, not the blue I wanted,” Pux said.

“It’s because the land is dead inside.”

Pux looked at her, a nervous expression on her face. “Summer isn’t so bad. Winter is coming, but the villagers think of it differently.” He checked to make sure she was listening. Sometimes she was so up in the clouds he wondered if she heard anything he said at all. She was picking at the hay, twisting strands of it around her fingers.

“They say it’s part of the cycle of life. Death and transformation. The land has to die so it can be reborn again. Something like that. Sholto told the story, something to do with the stag.”

“The one they kill and eat?” Kaliel asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah that one.”

“What were you doing listening to stories like that?” She sat up taller, her hands bunched in her lap. She bit her lip, worrying away at the chapped bits caked along the edges.

Pux shook his head. “I told you, they accept me. I’ve spent months getting to know them.”

“You mean moons?” Kaliel asked, seeming more agitated.

Pux nodded. She flew off the bales, stalking back and forth on the wooden planks of the loft. She rubbed her shoulders. “I didn’t tell them about you. They think you’re Aulises.”

Kaliel spun around, her eyes blazing. “And Aulises was a thief’s daughter and a harlot, right?”

Pux was upset, too. Kaliel took Aulises life, and maybe she didn’t know then what Aulises was, but it didn’t matter anymore. He pushed himself to his feet though he knew he would never really fight Kaliel. He loved her too much to get into arguments with her, but they seemed to be happening a lot without him even trying. “Do you want to know what they really think of you?”

She stopped. “They say things about me?”

“They say you should be with someone else. They say the Ferryman isn’t coming back for you,” Pux shot at her. He didn’t want to win, but he didn’t want to continue keeping things from her. It was too hard for him to understand her actions, shutting herself in the cabin, segregating herself from the villagers, moping around. He felt the same way about not being able to go back to Avristar, but there were things on Terra he wanted more.

She was one of those things.

She looked horrified. Tears fringed her eyelashes and her cheeks flushed bright pink. Her lips trembled as she stuck her fist in her mouth. “Krishani is coming back. I know it.” Her words were muffled.

Pux softened. “They don’t know him as Krishani.”

Her eyes met his, ablaze with passion. “Then they don’t know him, and they don’t know me. You said it yourself. They don’t even know my real name.”

“They don’t know who you used to be,” Pux said and realized it was the wrong thing to say as Kaliel sunk to the ground.

“Who I was,” she echoed, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them for comfort. Pux knelt beside her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I meant who you are. You’re still Kaliel,” he mumbled.

She rocked back and forth, making Pux feel uncomfortable and nervous. “No, I’m not the same.”

Pux wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pressed his forehead to her temple. “You’ll always be Kaliel to me.”

• • •

They stayed in the barn for the remainder of the afternoon, talking about less interesting things. Kaliel tried her best to pull herself together. Pux was changing, becoming more like the villagers and less like her best friend. He wasn’t the invalid engaging in foolery anymore. He was stronger, smarter, hardworking, dedicated.

She drifted in and out of sleep when shouts hit her. She waited, and the shouts came closer, passing the barn. The sounds trickled away and she shot up, her stomach wrenching. She thought about the gates. What could be at the gates? She slapped Pux in the stomach trying to get him to pay attention. He dozed off beside her awhile ago and she enjoyed the quiet time they had together.

“Pux!”

Pux flinched, rubbing his eyes and stretching. “What?”

Kaliel scrambled to her feet and went for the ladder. She already had her feet on the rungs when Pux ambled towards her, groggy from the half nap.

“Something’s happening at the gates!” she snapped. Not waiting for a reply, she clambered down the rungs, almost slipped, and landed sort of on her feet. She tried to make her legs work enough to get across the barn and to the fence, but she limped, jolts of prickles shooting from the base of her foot to her knee. She shook it out, panic lancing through her as Pux followed at her heels. She hastily played with the clasp, unlatching it, and sprinted to the double doors. The guards gathered at the towers, assessing the lump of garments on the gravel path in the rocky field. They huddled together, and between their voices she made out what they were thinking. It was a trap, a stranger, someone they should treat with caution.

Kaliel didn’t listen. She didn’t care if it was one of the Valtanyana, the Daed, or something she hadn’t encountered yet. She bunched her skirt into her fists and ran. Her lungs burst, throat burning, begging for air, water, or both. The stranger was farther away than she originally assumed, the land cresting and falling in places invisible to her. She stumbled over a rock and landed on her hands and knees, her heart thumping like a jackrabbit. She went to touch the stranger’s cloak but recoiled.

She recognized the smell—blood, soot, metal and smoke, but also dirt and rainwater. Her breathing thickened as she carefully touched the body and rolled it over. Eyelids were fused shut, the line of his jaw slick with sweat. Charcoal streaked his forehead and cheek. His lips formed a straight line, the upper one cracked and bleeding. A bruise festered under his right eye as a slight bluish purple stained his skin. His midnight black hair slicked behind his forehead, covering his ears and trailing his collarbone.

She gasped. No matter how beaten he looked, it was Krishani. “Help!” she shouted, unable to mask the despondency in her voice. Footsteps neared her. She felt like she was in the middle of a torrent, the noise they made sounding far away. She reached for Krishani as his eyes opened halfway, their dull green and blue gazing at her lazily. He licked his lips as she twined her fingers with his.

“Home,” he breathed as he passed out.

She gulped. “Home.”

The guards pushed Kaliel out of the way. She stumbled to her feet, brushing off her dress and biting her lip. Four of the guards grabbed him by the arms and legs, shuffling together as they moved him into the village. She trailed along behind them, feeling relieved, worried, guilty. She self-consciously glanced behind her at the forest, wondering if Cassareece or Morgana were in the trees, watching her. All she saw were the bright golden eyes of a brown owl as it hooted and stole away into the night, leaving its branch swaying in the wind. She turned, hair whipping around her face and shoulders, and jogged to catch up to them.

Pux laced an arm through hers, walking in step. “Who is it?”

She shot him a glance. It was ironic, considering what he said that afternoon. “Krishani,” she hissed, giving him an awkward glance. “Never coming back, huh?”