Wolf's-own: Koan (26 page)

"I had Joori."

The name set a light shiver of
lovepainshameregret
through him, and this he couldn't shove away, because it was in his face, all the time, his failure, his complete and utter inability to give Joori what he wanted, what he needed, when Joori had spent a good deal of his life trying to give Jacin everything they both knew he couldn't have. He hadn't done right by Joori. He hadn't done right by any of them.

Maybe giving them into Malick's care had been the smartest thing, though Jacin couldn't exactly claim it had been a careful decision based on the needs of those he had left. It had been defeat, but he thought maybe he could live with that. It was better that way. He didn't dare want anything different. His wants had always betrayed him, and now he knew why.

You did this, little Ghost.

"You were very close.” Malick's fingers drifted upward, skimming over Jacin's shoulder and up into his hair. “It must've hurt."

Jacin wasn't sure what Malick meant by that. Hurt to be close? Hurt because they weren't anymore? Hurt to love, to be loved, to try and just keep failing?

Yes. That. All of it.

"You depended on each other,” Malick went on. “And then you didn't have each other anymore. It must've been very difficult."

Oh. Right. Another prod, another oblique reference to Asai, even though Malick never said the name to Jacin out loud, even though he very carefully allowed Jacin to stay inside the construct of
not-talking-about-it
except for when Malick tried to talk about it without actually
talking
about it.

The boat yawed a little more insistently, a heavy moment of vertigo, and the cherry blossom petals pelted at Jacin's skin with chill insistence. He pushed himself into the hard mattress and pulled the quilt up more firmly around his shoulders.

Malick was waiting for an answer. Because that was what Malick did. Jacin didn't mind it too much, not anymore. They'd be starting a new life in Tambalon, Malick was giving Morin and Joori a chance they'd never have had without him; Jacin figured giving Malick a few things in return was only fair. And since Malick always took care of Jacin's more... basic needs first, Jacin didn't mind so much. What difference did it make? Speaking these things gave them power, yes, but they were gone and past, so how much power could they have anymore, really?

"I've been hurting Joori since the day we were born,” Jacin said, low and raspy, but not because he was ashamed of the words or the reality he gave them in the speaking. There was no point to shame anymore, and reality would be there whether he chose to acknowledge it or not.

"No, I mean....” Malick's fingers sank firmly into Jacin's hair, tingling at his scalp. “He must have been very unhappy when As— when you were taken away."

When Asai took you. When a stranger with dark eyes and a kind smile came for you, and you took his hand with a besotted whimper and walked away, betrayed the only one who treated you like a person, and the betrayal has become such a natural thing to you now that you just can't seem to stop doing it, over and over again.

Jacin didn't answer. Because he could say things out loud to Malick that he couldn't say to anyone else, but he still couldn't say just anything. Malick wouldn't want to hear that Asai taking Jacin away had probably been the best thing for Joori back then. He wouldn't understand what Jacin meant by it, and Jacin had no hope of articulating it. He just wasn't any good at that sort of thing.

"He can be happy now,” Jacin said. “When we get to Tambalon...."

He trailed off with a frown bunching between his eyebrows. Because sailing to Tambalon had never set that odd little quiver of unease to his gut before, and the icy little spikes of cherry blossom petals hitting his skin were... wrong, somehow.

"It's cold in here."

Malick dipped in to lay a kiss to the crown of Jacin's head. “That's because you won't let me help you."

"You're not—” Jacin cut himself off.

You're not here, you're dead.

He squeezed his eyes shut tight.

You left

Too treacherous. Too...
real
.

"You can't,” was all he could manage. The sharp edges of the words dug right into his chest. He wanted to cry at the brutality of them.

"Jacin-rei.” Soft, warm breath against his cheek; a voice, familiar and deep, and sharp as the breach of a knife to his heart.

Maybe if Jacin kept his eyes closed and pretended to be asleep, Beishin would leave him alone. He didn't want to see Beishin, didn't want to be reminded how badly he'd failed—everyone, even Beishin—didn't want to have to acknowledge it every time he woke to see Caidi sitting on the windowsill of the room in the elegant inn where Malick had moved them when they'd reached Tam....

Jacin scowled and burrowed deeper into the sheets, shoving his body back into Malick to absorb some of his heat. It was fucking freezing in here. He pulled Caidi closer to his chest, chill porcelain thumping lightly into his breastbone as her doll came between them, but Jacin ignored it, tucking her curly head beneath his chin. A soft flutter of papery wings haunted his periphery, but he blocked it out, concentrating instead on the steady patter of petals that quivered over his senses, settled on his skin with a frigid pall that didn't belong, teasing at lids and lashes, so he kept his eyes closed.

"Come, then, little Ghost, you mustn't linger."

His hands closed reflexively, fingers curling in tight, Malick's ring a comforting cold weight against his third knuckle. He pushed himself back into Malick harder.

"You're going to have to try to stay alive, Jacin,” Malick said. “Sucks to be you."

Jacin's eyes snapped open, a snarled
fuck you
ready on his tongue, but it died aborning. The sensation of firm muscle and body heat at his back dissipated immediately, because it hadn't been there—Malick was gone, dead, poisoned, and gone up in a pillar of unbreachable flame and smoke until nothing had been left but black ash that had blown away before Jacin could even gather enough wits to—

"Jacin-rei."

Calm. Amused, perhaps.

Jacin clenched his teeth to hold back a whimper. Said, “No,” and then he couldn't say any more.

The rain was falling steadily, chilling him right through, and his leg was fucking
killing
him. And all of it scattered into a welter of fear and confusion and something else he didn't know how to suss as he lay flat on his back and shook, pinned by Asai's dark gaze. Inches above him, hovering, warm breath heating the cold rain that slithered over Jacin's skin, chilling him further. A shudder wracked through him, paralyzed him, as Asai pushed sopping hair out of Jacin's eyes, and tipped a smile that was both mocking and seductive.

Kissed him.

Soft and searing and somehow unholy in the mess of sensation it provoked. Deep and driving like it had been that once—just once—when Jacin had almost,
almost
had what he wanted in his hands, and Beishin had almost given it to him.

Touch the Untouchable. Love the unlovable.

Pulling away was out of the question. Shoving Asai away was... anathema. Jacin could do nothing but lie there in inch-deep water, let the rain pelt him and the cold pierce him, and accept what he'd wanted for... forever, and wait to wake up to yet another reality he didn't want. The one where his sister had been murdered right in front of him because he'd been too weak to stop it. The one where he'd been
this close
to peace, and been wrenched back because he hadn't suffered enough yet and living was his sacrifice. The one where Malick had promised to love him and show him how to want and
get
, and then had gone up in a self-inflicted pyre that still burned at Jacin's mind like it had been branded.

He didn't know how to feel when Asai pulled back, just a little, just enough to cease contact, and waited until Jacin opened his eyes when he hadn't even realized he'd closed them.

He was so fucked.

"Come, then, little Ghost.” Weirdly affectionate, for all the epithet stung like fire. “Let your beishin see to you.” Long fingers stroked at Jacin's cheek, pausing to slide along the wispy fuzz that traced Jacin's jawline. “They're coming, Jacin-rei. We must away, before they find you."

They
. Jacin wasn't even sure he cared who “they” might be.

"Why are you here?” he croaked, trying very hard not to shut his eyes and sigh as Asai's fingertips drifted down over his throat, trying very hard to make his hands reach for a weapon, kill him again, and again, if he came back.

He couldn't do any of it.

"Because you need me, little Ghost,” Beishin said softly, hot breath sliding over Jacin's icy skin. “Because you need me to guide you. Because you betrayed me and doomed your sister.” A pause, a warm hand set to Jacin's cheek. “I can forgive you your treachery, Jacin-rei. Once. Do not disappoint me again."

A threat inside a promise. Asai had always been so good at that.

"I....” Jacin sucked in a shaky breath, tried to turn his face away, tried not to look in those dark-dark eyes, but he couldn't tear his gaze away. “I don't want you here,” was all he could whisper, weak and far too timid, all but lost inside the patter of rain.

Asai heard it anyway. He chuckled. “Little Ghost,” he said smoothly, “you have no idea what you want."

With a groan, Jacin finally found some strength and shoved Asai away, jolting up on his elbows, the movement sloshing at the thin layer of water that had collected on the pocked slate of the... roof. He'd passed out on a roof. Where the hell was he? The city bled out beneath him, hazy gray, and Jacin didn't know if it was the weather or his vision. The temples of the gods, all six of them, flared up through brakes of hackberry trees in the distance, crouching at the misty feet of the chain of fire-mountains that edged the city. Jacin didn't know if these mountains had names. He hadn't really noticed them much. He hadn't really cared.

Now he couldn't take his eyes off the temples over which they hunkered.

Do you see what you've done to me?
Jacin snarled—silently, because he wouldn't give anything to Asai he didn't have to.
Are you finished yet?

"Jacin-rei, you must listen to me,” Asai said, forceful and irritated. “You cannot stay here. They're coming. I know a safe place. Let me show you."

Not here. Beishin was
not
here
. He was a ghost—not even a real ghost, a figment of Jacin's imagination, just like Caidi was. And even if Beishin was here, he had no power over Jacin, not anymore.

Guilt. That was all Asai was now. The corporeal manifestation of Jacin's guilt, the last scraps of Jacin's heart in pseudo-physical form, a specter, someone he used to love, back when he'd still thought love could save and not doom. His penance for damning another soul, for being what they'd made him, because everything was a fucking trade.

Jacin rubbed at his temples and concentrated on straightening out his leg. “What are you talking about?” Bloody hell, his head hurt, almost as much as his leg, and... his palm. What the hell had he been doing? Was he drunk? No, not drunk—just insane. Jacin almost snorted, but he was afraid it wouldn't end there; he might end up in hysterical fits, and even he had more pride than that. “Who's coming?"

"Does it matter?"

Jacin pondered that for a moment, kneading at his calf muscle through the leather of his boot. “Kind of."

With a growl that was strange, coming from him, Asai knelt and set warm palms to Jacin's cheeks. He waited until Jacin's focus was entirely on the command in the dark gaze.

"Did you learn nothing from your months with a
Temshiel
but how best to writhe beneath him?” Jacin felt his face heat, and he wrenched his gaze away. But Asai took hold of Jacin's shaking hand and held it between them, the stone of Malick's ring dull and plain-looking in the gray of a rainy day. “Your blood is not yours to spill. It calls to them. Every
Temshiel
and maijin who might be looking felt it as each drop teased the wind."

A shudder slithered all through Jacin. He frowned and pulled his hand away. Did he care?

"Wolf's-own all seek you for their thieving god,” Asai went on, anger leaking into his deep voice. “The rest are not far behind. They will use your brothers against you, if you try to return for them.” He paused, dark eyes intense. “They will hold them over your head while you meekly walk into their cage, little Ghost. They will use those you love so that you will allow them to use you. Or worse, lock you away and set the voices back upon you. You're weak, little Ghost—you have never had the strength to stand against such as them. Your strength was in what you offered to Kamen, on your back, but Kamen is not here, is he?"

It stung, humiliated, and froze Jacin to the marrow, all at once. And he had no idea which part horrified him the most—that his mere existence had put his brothers in danger yet again, or that Asai knew Jacin had been whoring himself. And liking it.

Asai leaned in, face cruel, tone derisive. “Did you think the Ancestors the worst of the madness? Did you think the gods and their servants could not invent yet more spiteful methods to control one gullible Ghost?"

Badly rattled, Jacin pushed himself back, water sloshing cold against his thighs and into his boots. He stared as Asai cocked his head to the side, gaze faraway and narrowed at the sky—like he was listening to something that Jacin couldn't hear. Jacin couldn't help the shudder, even as Asai breathed a small sigh of... it looked like relief.

Rain pattered steadily down, runneling into Jacin's eyes and under his already soaked collar, a constant stream between his shoulder blades. The cover of Malick's duster hadn't helped much, though the pine and sage scent of it was a solace that almost shamed Jacin with its intensity. He shivered as he watched Asai, wary and afraid as he hadn't been in all the times Asai had “visited” him before. Jacin was soaked through and getting soggier, and... so was Asai. Breath flowed from Asai's full mouth in thin plumes. Rain dripped in thin rills down his face, off the tip of his nose. Heat vapor rose from his body in thin wisps.