Burnt (4 page)

“I figure,” Sojun began as he helped Kaie gather wood from the pile his father left and arrange it in the fire pit, “the most important thing to speak on is the oath.”

Kaie pressed the dried grass in along the bottom of the pile, taking longer than was necessary as he sorted through his thoughts. “You shouldn’t be doing this.
I shouldn’t let you. If you lie you and Amorette will be exiled too. You won’t be family either.”

Sojun’s easy smile didn’t look quite as convincing as usual. “There won’t be any driving off. We just have to sort o
ut the right things to speak on and the right ways to say them. Then everything goes on like it’s supposed to.”

“Until the fires and the armies,” Kaie muttered. “It’s lying, Jun. The barbarians lie to family. We keep no secrets, harbor no dishonesty.”

“I know the words Kaie,” Sojun growled as he handed him the flint, not playing at happy and carefree anymore. “If you know another way, tell me. Love of the gods, tell me. The tribe is our family but it was you and Amorette that put me together again after mother left. Without the two of you, my family is broken. I won’t have that. Not again. So if it’s a choice between being a barbarian or saying goodbye, I will lie happily. So will Ams. And when we’re done, things will be right. Like I said, with the three of us together.”

Unbidden, the Lemme’s words sprang to his mind.
All you love will know strife and death
. How long would his friends stay by his side, when they were faced with nothing but sorrow for it? Had it started already? Maybe it was his fault that Jun’s mother left the family. Or maybe the Lemme was just an old, sick woman and her mind was leaving. Maybe his whole destiny was nothing more than the ravings of a dying woman.

He tried to believe that for all of a minute. He also tried to figure out some words that could touch on the depth of his gratitude or the guilt he felt fo
r already ruining his friends, even if none of it was his doing. Not yet, at any rate. Not until the glimpses of his memories caught up with him. As he blew the sparks to life he gave the task up as impossible.

“I haven’t seen you this serious in years, Jun. It’s scarier than anything that old terror had to say. If you don’t crack a painful joke soon, I’m liable to start puking my stomach out all over again.”

The younger boy smiled but the expression didn’t touch his eyes. “I’m sorry. I think I used up all my wonderful jokes this morning.” Sojun sighed heavily. “Honest, Kaie, I can’t think of anything to laugh at in this. My sense of humor left at the thought of you seeing visions of ashes and dragons.”

“They weren’t visions,” he ins
isted, then sighed himself. “I know what you mean.”

Sojun nodded grimly. Kaie didn’t know if
it was in acceptance of his non-visions or if it was just a general nod of acknowledgement of the whole horrible mess. “So. I need you to pull yourself together and help me think this through, Rosy. You’re the one who traded Delia for her own flowers. We’ll need that silver tongue to get through this.”

Kaie rolled his eyes. “That was ten years ago. And she only did it to keep me from crying.”

“Exactly,” Jun insisted. “You had her so convinced you were about to start sobbing I almost believed it. You know you’re good at making people think what you want them to. So quit obsessing about why we shouldn’t and start figuring out how we will.”

Despite everything, Kaie couldn’t help but to smile. That was a good day. And no matter how he denied it every other day, Jun was right. He was good at making people believe what he wanted without ever lying. “Alright. You’re right. The oath is the most important part.”

Sojun grinned and nodded. “We’ll leave of the part about ‘none and all and none again’ right? That sounds kind of ominous.”

He shook his head. “That’s good stuff. She flat out said I’m to lead the tribe there. If I’m supposed to marry a High Queen, they’ll expect me to lead.”

“But the ‘none’ part is kind of creepy.”

Kaie flexed his hands over the fire, wondering how awful it would be to have a summer birthing day. The fire was as much ritual as every other part of these days and, while he was lucky enough that the weather was starting to turn, it was still warm enough to make his home a bit stifling. How much worse would it be if it weren’t cool outside? “No, it makes sense. My mother leads now. Until she steps down, I lead no one. When someone else takes over for me, it will be no one again. It makes it sound like I’ll live a long time.
Long enough to have an heir and step down, too.”

Sojun nodded, cracking his knuckles. “It does make sense. And sounds good. I guess I’m seeing phantoms when there’s just an old woman being cryptic.”

“I don’t think that’s what she was doing, Jun.”

The other boy pursed his lips. “Maybe not. But everyone else will. That’s all that matters.”

Kaie watch the fire growing to consume the wood they arranged. That was true enough but only if the Lemme said nothing about her visions. So far as he knew she didn’t tell anyone but the person involved. And the witnesses, of course. But that was when everyone was honest. There was no telling what she would do in this situation.

He needed to go back and see her. The thought made his stomach roll
all over again in all kinds of uncomfortable ways. But there wasn’t any getting around it. If he was going to lie, to let his friends lie, he needed to be sure it wasn’t all for nothing. For all they knew, she saw their deceit coming and was already planning to tell the whole village.

Part of Sojun’s job today was to keep Kaie in his home. They all heard stories of people running away from an unwanted fate by escaping to the woods. The tribe didn’t hold anyone hostage. If that’s what he wanted, they would let him go. But, since those people invariably tried to return to the family after a day or two, it was understood that sometimes the future took some time to adjust to. That was why he was given two days. And his witnesses were supposed to ensure he didn’t do anything to hurt himself in the meantime. None of which mattered now, except that Sojun wouldn’t let Kaie run back to the Lemme. Not when there was a chance he would be seen, and certainly not alone.

He needed to wait until Sojun fell asleep before returning to her foul-smelling hut. He was going to ask her if he was a seer. She could tell him. And if she said no, there was no reason for the dishonesty at all. But if Jun was there with him Kaie knew he would lack the courage. He wouldn’t be able to face his friend, so eager to risk everything for his sake, if her answer was yes. Not knowing what Kosa would do to everyone who sheltered him.

But he didn’t want to think that. She was probably going to tell him he wasn’t a seer. They weren’t true visions, after all. Men saw directly. Not seas of blood or dragons setting the world ablaze.

When Fate, the goddess Lemme, first left her mark upon her descendants, there were men and women in equal numbers. They were tasked with leading the children of Elysium along the paths she envisioned for them.

But the genders perceived the future differently. Women saw in parables. Their glimpses of past and future were richer, could encompass far more possibilities, but they were cloaked in imagery that could take many years to sort out properly. Even then, only the gifted daughters could truly decipher what they saw. Men experienced no such troubles. While their sight was shorter than that of their sisters and mothers, they
could see events the way they would unfold. Real death, real birth, real conversations. They were able to know exactly what was coming and often when. Because of the differences, the two genders drifted, neither finding much value in the way the other dealt with the future.

Then came the most gifted seer. His name, once forbidden, was now utterly lost. Not even Lodan could recall hearing of a single soul who knew it. His story remained as a warning to all that would follow in his shadow.

He was remarkable, able to see far longer and deeper than any man before him. As he grew into his ability he could surpass even the gifted daughters. And he was celebrated in every corner of Elysium for it. Until he saw Kosa, god of destruction, the one who would swallow the world on the last day.

Always before, the movements of the gods were hidden from mortal sight. The days when they warred over souls was ended. Each god held the Accord, limiting their interaction with their children and settling their disputes with their Guardians. But Kosa,
who was always fond of trickery and lies, wasn’t content with waiting for the final days to reclaim the power he lost in the Accord. He began moving slowly, extending his influence by such small degrees that no one noticed. Even Lemme and her partner Maal never voiced concern over the web Kosa was weaving.

How the seer first realized it was also lost to history. But when he did, he did not wait to determine the best way to unhook Kosa’s claws from the mortal world. He acted, ripped them out with no thought to the damage done. He shared his visions with every ma
le seer he could find. Together they undid all Kosa’s carefully crafted plans. In a single generation, nearly all of the god’s followers were dead. Those remaining were so deep in hiding that no one was ever certain what became of them.

Kosa was enraged. He moved to smite all seers from
Elysium in an instant. Lemme was stirred to action, for she would never forget her children. She stood between Kosa and his vengeance, and she would not be moved. Turmoil raged in the abyss for a hundred years. The war that the Accord put an end to rose up again, pulling in the mortals as well. Soon all life was once more at the brink of extinction. Kosa, fat with his power, was preparing to open his jaws.

In the last moments, Maal’s voice was heard for the first time in mortal memory. It said one word. “Stop.”

When time resumed, a new Accord was reached. A compromise which left all parties unhappy was agreed to and bound in the blood of gods. Kosa was forbidden to kill Lemme’s line. But on the males he placed a horrible curse. They would be the center of his ire until the day the last of her descendants perished. Any who gave them shelter would suffer and die horribly. Kosa would punish all they loved, as he could not punish them, for the mistake that one man made.

If Kaie was a seer then
that was the fate waiting for Sojun and Amorette. For the whole family. And he would survive it. He would watch as their misery unfolded, knowing it was because he loved them. Except he wasn’t a seer. They weren’t visions. Men saw directly.

“What do you think it means, Jun? What the Lemme said?”

“It means you’re almost more trouble than you’re worth, Rosy.” Sojun dropped his hand on Kaie’s shoulder in the same comforting gesture from a few hours and another lifetime ago. “More than that, I’m not going to think on.”

Sojun fell asleep quickly
but it was the longest wait of Kaie’s life. His friend was out almost the moment the sun was low enough that the light stopped streaming in from the holes in the thatched roof. It was a couple of hours; more than enough time for Kaie to drive himself crazy.

Just like every night spent together since they were three years old, Jun snored
. He also slept so soundly that there was no worry of waking him. Kaie could leave singing loud enough to wake the whole village and his friend wouldn’t even stir. He didn’t sing though. He slipped out of his house as quietly as if it were his mother asleep on the floor by the dying fire. He never once got past her but trying as much as he did meant that he was plenty good at sneaking around.

Impossible or not, the village seemed e
ven quieter than before. Silent, like right before a storm that ripped apart everything in its path. It was probably just because of the gnawing fear nestled in the pit of Kaie’s stomach. Still, he couldn’t shake the image from his mind as he slipped past one darkened hut after another.

He was back at the Lemme’s in less than half the time it took the three of them to walk the distance in daylight. The path he took was a large part of that. More often than not, he was bypassing the road worn into the earth by the village’s feet walking the same places day after day in favor of a more direct
route for one that passed dangerously close to the silent huts and took him through a garden or two. Not getting sick all over the place helped a lot too. But, with the way his insides were clenching and rolling, Kaie couldn’t rule that out as a possibility for this trip.

There was light seeping out from beneath the Lemme’s door. The sight of it drew Kaie up short. He almost turned back. He wanted to catch her unprepared, maybe even to wake her. He wanted the upper hand. It didn’t matter that she was an old woman, or that she was visibly sick. She was terrifying. Coming in when she was ready for him again was not an ideal arrangement. Besides, on the off chance that she really was just being cryptic before, he couldn’t think of any better way to avoid it this time then to rouse her from a sleep as deep as Sojun’s.

He needed to be sure. Before he could let Jun and Amorette risk everything for him he needed to be certain the Lemme wasn’t going to give them away. Somehow, he needed to convince her to stay quiet. Even with his mother.

Kaie pushed back in to the horrible smell.

She was sitting by her fire watching the door. When he stepped inside she locked her yellowed yes on him for all of a moment. Then she dropped them to tend to the flames.

“I expected you two hours ago.”

Despite all the curdling fear and tightly wound urge to flee Kaie found himself smiling. There was something wrong with him, that he planned to sneak up on a woman who saw into the future. “Yes Lemme. I’m sorry.”

She poked the fire with a fat stick, one too large for her fragile hands. The wood slipped from her fingers almost immediately. Kaie dropped to his knees and fished it out of the fire pit before it went up as well. Small flecks of heat glowed angrily as he set it aside.

Before he thought about what he was doing, he took over the whole task for her. Fingers darting in and around the flames with the culmination of sixteen years of fascination with the dangerous beasts, Kaie nudged the logs until they were settled properly. The fire threatened to die out completely. But he waited patiently. Its dramatics unanswered, the blaze flared up again, this time burning more evenly in the new arrangement. Once the need for constant care was abated he sat down across from her.

The Lemme’s eyes were locked on him as though he just did something profound. He felt heat rising i
n his cheeks under her scrutiny and was on the verge of protesting that it was nothing. It was, after all. His father did the same thing all the time. He nearly said so when she took pity and spoke first.

“I almost gave up on you coming.”

“I almost didn’t,” he confessed. “I didn’t want to.”

“I hoped you wouldn’t. I hoped you would refuse your friends.”

Kaie rocked backwards. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be shocked. It didn’t make much difference if he was. All he could manage to dredge up was a detached surprise. “I would be exiled. Driven off into the woods for the Finders to take away.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Are you going to tell the family what you’ve seen for me? If I let them do what Sojun wants?”

She sighed and sank back away from the light a little ways
. “No. Your destiny is your own to do with as you like. If you choose to conceal it, I will not stop you.”

“You think I should tell them?”

“I think it does not matter.”

That got a bit more than surprise. “How can it not matter? It is my family, and I have to decide whether I’d rather lie to them for the rest of my life or lose them all in one moment!”

“In the end, what must be will be. Whether you lie or leave will not change that.”

“Then I guess you’re right. It doesn’t matter
. Nothing matters if I can’t change anything about anything.” It was an immature statement. He knew it but he didn’t care. This was his life, his family, and she was spouting out stupid comments that said little and meant less.

She sighed again, the same sad sound as before. “What you decide matters, Kaie.
Some things are written by Fate and cannot be altered. But that doesn’t make your actions meaningless. You will remember this moment someday and remember the decision you made. It might not change the here and now, but it will change how you see yourself then. That matters.”

Kaie scowled. She was the Lemme. It wasn’t his place to doubt her. But it was all so convenient. It was a great way to convince him to do what she wanted without telling
him what to do, to make him obey with nothing better than a promise of some vague reward ‘someday.’ It was manipulative. He wasn’t a fan.

The fire cracked.
It startled Kaie out of the languid state he was starting to float in. Alarmed, fear raced down his spine as he recalled the other reason he was here. The more important one. The one he would really rather forget.

“Am I a seer, Lemme?”

Her head shifted forward into the light again. It made her look like she ended at the neck, just a head levitating. It was disconcerting. “Can you see the flames? How about the rocks? Me? What does that make you, if not a seer?”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean.”

“You mean do you share my ability.” She considered him a moment with the same appraising gaze from earlier in the day. “It’s possible. You share my blood. And your mother was quite good at perceiving possible futures. That’s part of the reason she was destined to lead the tribe. It takes someone who thinks several steps ahead to keep us safe from our enemies in this age. So yes. It is possible.”

Kaie scowled at the fire, not daring to turn the expression on her. “I need to know better than possible. I saw it. What you spoke of before. When you spoke the words, I saw them in my head. Does that mean I’m a seer?”

She stood and it took so much effort that Kaie knew it pained her a great deal. Slowly, she waddled over to his side. He wanted to get up, to help her, to run away. But he was rooted in place. Transfixed.

When she was beside him
she took his head between her hands. He tried not to think about the way her skin felt pressed against his own. He tried not to notice the smell of her, powerful enough at this distance to overpower the scents that made his mind float loose. Like sweat and refuse boiling beneath a surface of cloves and smoke.

She stared down into his eyes for a long time. Kaie managed to hold
himself still. Mostly. He wanted to run from the hut. He wanted to submerge himself in the icy waters of the stream that ran just outside the village until all trace of her smell was gone. Then slink back into his new home and wake up Jun. They could come up with some new plan, one that didn’t involve lies and schemes, and greet Amorette with grins and jokes in the morning.

“You have your mother’s eyes. Brightest
green I’ve ever seen.”

He didn’t know what he was supposed to say that, so he said nothing. The Lemme didn’t seem to notice.

“I had forgotten how young you are. How small and weak.”

Kaie’s grimace hit her with full force that time. He was the smallest boy his age. There weren’t even that many girls his age that couldn’t peer over top his dark red hair. Most of the kids kept the comments and giggles about it down to a polite whisper, but not always. There were one or two who took no small amount of pleasure in pointing out just how tiny he was at every opportunity. Sojun kept things from getting out of hand.
Sojun was the great strong protector who kept Kaie and Amorette safe, whether they wanted him to or not. Whether it made things worse or not. “My father says he was as short as I am when he was my age. He says he didn’t grow into his height until he was nearly at his eighteenth birthing day.”

“His twentieth, more like. How he won your mother, scrawny and useless as he was in those days, was a mystery to everyone.”

Kaie’s indignation grew with his discomfort. “I’m stronger than I look.”

“You’d have to be, wouldn’t you?”

He thrust his chin out, giving no thought to how childish the gesture would look. “I’m fast. No one in the village is faster than me. And Sojun and I wrestle all the time. I beat him almost half the time.”

“Oh? Half the time, is it?”

“Almost,” he admitted grudgingly. Of course, that wasn’t true either. Sojun worked hard to hide it but Kaie knew his friend held back with him. He watched him wrestle every other boy in the village at one point or another and knew what Jun’s best was. That wasn’t what he brought out in his friend. But Jun wanted him to think he was strong, and Kaie didn’t want his heart’s brother to know it was useless.

The Lemme saw that. Her eyes, which he thought were blue once too, said it all. He could fool so many people. Sometimes even himself. But he couldn’t fool her.

“You will be given the choice between sacrificing yourself or the ones you love over and over again. You draw pain to yourself like a magnet draws metal. It is the nature of your soul.”

“So it’s true,” he whispered, his eyes dropping down to the dirt and staying there. He couldn’t stand to see the truth
in her gaze. “I am a seer. Cursed.”

“Cursed? I imag
ine you would call it that. But just as you draw the pain, you will draw joy such as the rest of us only dream about. You cannot have one without the other. It is a balance.”

“I don’t und
erstand.” Kaie was reaching now, looking for some way to keep it from being the truth, any reason. “How can I be a seer? I’ve never had a single vision before! And the ones I had… they weren’t direct. There won’t really be a sea of blood. There can’t be, right?”

She sighed. “You are untrained. Your glimpses have always been haphazard and insignificant. Still, your mother recognized them for what
they were early. She came to me demanding the truth. A mother should never know her son’s destiny, but because I loved her I spoke it anyway. I was young and did not really understand how such a small thing could change so much.”

“You… my parents knew? This whole time?”

The Lemme nodded. “Because they begged, I worked with Lodan to find a way to keep it hidden from you. Scent was the key. Just as they help enhance the visions, they can dull the memory of them, until they can be mistaken for dreams. Lavender, sage and weir wood.”

Kaie screwed his eyes
shut against the stinging tears that burned a path down his cheeks. How long? When did his mother start cooking with lavender and sage? When did they replace the wood of their home, saying the old was damaged by a storm and insects? How many times did they convince him to bring Sojun over for dinner with them, instead of eating with his friend’s family? How many years did his family hide the truth from him?

“You asked if I thought you should tell the tribe of your destiny,” the Lemme continued. “How should I answer? Your parents tried to protect you, and so built for you a cage to hold back what you are. Should I advise you to hold the bars of your prison tight around
you as long as you can? I know better than any that you will always feel displaced there. No contentment will find you with part of yourself locked away. So should I tell you to break free? It will bring down so much more suffering than any soul should have to endure.”

“What then
?” Kaie croaked. “Tell me something. You have to give me something.”

“I did,” she said softly. “I shared pieces of my vision with you, let you see what I have seen, knowing it would bring some
thing of your own forward. I gave you the truth. That is all I have to give.”

“It’s not enough,” he murmured.

She dropped her head into her hands, as if to cry. “Oh Kaie, you do not know me. I realize this. But I know every facet of your soul better than if you were my own. I would spare you all of this if it were in my power to do so. Even knowing the good, I would protect you from the bad.”

“Why?” He was not asking for her reasons. He was asking for the gods’ reasons. Why would they permit him to be born with the power inside him, knowing wh
at it would cost? Why curse him when they were the ones responsible for his existence? Why was he being punished for something he would never choose?