Wolf's-own: Koan (7 page)

It had taken weeks for this one to heal properly. Malick had been frustrated, cursing more than once through his teeth about magical healing and Tatsu's perceived failure to use it with the precision and motivation necessary. Jacin hadn't said anything. Malick wouldn't have wanted to hear it. Malick would have looked at him the same way Joori did, and Jacin could barely stand it from Joori. So Jacin had just kept his mouth shut and eventually stopped picking and poking at the scabs, seeking that bright pinpoint of pain whenever he needed to know if he was real or not. Anyway, Malick always seemed to show up seconds after the blood started to ooze, like he could smell it or something, so it never did Jacin much good.

Sometimes, he thought about asking Malick for his knives back—partly to see if Malick would hand them over; partly because Jacin
needed
those little doses of
here
and
real
sometimes—but Jacin wouldn't be able to hide the cuts now, they all watched too closely, and he didn't want to see the way they'd all look at him if they knew. And he wasn't really sure if he'd stop once he'd started that first satisfying slice, so it was best he didn't have them. Anyway, he'd found other ways to confirm his reality, and Malick was nicely obliging.

Jacin thought maybe Malick knew, probably even understood, and he wanted to take some twisted kind of comfort from that, but he didn't let himself. Every time he reached for something real, it was taken from him, destroyed, so he'd learned not to reach. He might not be perfect, but he wasn't stupid.

He started a little when the ember of his smoke seared into his fingers. A low curse rumbled from his mouth as he jammed the butt into the saucer and swiped at the ashes he'd let fall to the bedding while he hadn't been paying attention.

"You put another hole in that, and Malick will kick your ass,” Caidi told him cheerfully.

Jacin wheezed a little snort, said, “No, he won't,” and he settled back in to stare at the ceiling. He thought about going over to the washstand for the liquor, but he had a little bit of a haze going now, and he didn't want to ruin it.

Malick wouldn't kick his ass. Malick wouldn't do anything to him except for those things Jacin asked him to. Malick wouldn't even touch unless Jacin touched first, even when he
knew
Malick wanted to, because Jacin could see it, and Malick didn't bother to hide it. Still, Malick waited for permission, even when Jacin
needed
it all taken from his hands,
needed
someone to tell him, show him, lead him, make him.

"Why d'you think he keeps me around?” he asked softly. He'd been wondering that for a while now. Jacin didn't think it was for the obvious reasons, or Malick would have found a way to lose Joori and Morin along the way. Malick was
Temshiel
, he didn't need a mortal with whom to pass his time, and certainly not one as unpleasant to be around as Jacin knew he was. And yet, here they were, living on Malick's koin, this little inn holding more luxury than Jacin knew his brothers had ever seen, and there was the promise of an actual house, a home, in the next day or so.

Jacin kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, kept waiting for Malick to tell him what sort of trade was required of him this time, kept waiting to find out whose neck was next on the block—Joori's or Morin's—and he thought waiting for the betrayal was perhaps more painful than the betrayal he knew
had
to come.

"I don't know what he
wants
with me,” he breathed, hoarse and through his teeth. “What am I to him?"

"He's told you that.” Caidi sounded a little annoyed, but Jacin didn't look at her to confirm it. “Why can't you believe that he loves you?"

Your
Temshiel
pretends at it, all the while hiding from you what you are, keeping perfection from your grasp, because it suits his god...

"Because he can't,” Jacin snapped. He should've gotten that bottle after all. “Because he doesn't. Because I made him... it was part of the trade.” And Malick was still holding up his end, for some reason, and Jacin didn't think he wanted to know why. “He doesn't know what it is, he's said as much, and I don't....” Jacin trailed off. Even if Caidi was a figment of his own imagination, he didn't really want to say that part out loud. Even if he knew it was true, he didn't want to give it power by speaking it and
making
it true.

"You don't deserve it?” Caidi finished.

Jacin only shut his eyes. Figured. He couldn't even trust his own delusions to not betray him.

"Everyone deserves it, Jacin. Even Asai deserved love once. Except he used it when he got it, because that was what he was."

A snort he couldn't help gusted from Jacin's mouth, and he lit himself another smoke to cover it. “And Malick won't, I suppose. If I were to offer it.” He eyed the bottle again before he flopped back down to the mattress and took a long drag. Fuck it. Liquor only drove the lethargy deeper, and the temporary muffling of his thoughts never made the headache worth it. Anyway, Caidi wouldn't go away just because Jacin was muzzy. She'd been waiting for him, here in this too-luxurious room at this too-luxurious inn, when they'd arrived in Mitsu almost two weeks ago, and so far, she only seemed to go away when Malick was around. Otherwise, she just hovered about, nattering at him, making him think about things he didn't want to think about, tricking words and confessions from him he didn't even know were down there somewhere. The only good thing about Caidi not-really-haunting him was that she somehow managed to silence Beishin once she started in on Jacin, so Jacin just kept not asking her to go away.

"Do you know why I love you?” Caidi asked. It was soft and spoken kindly, but it sent a bit of a frisson up Jacin's backbone.

"No,” he whispered, because he'd never been able to figure it out. She'd only been a little thing when Asai had taken Jacin away—no, when Asai had bought him, bought him from his father, and that
still
stung like fire, but it was the truth, and dressing it up in less appalling words was worse than useless; it was gutless—but Caidi had been far too young to have formed any attachment to Jacin back then. Jacin had been surprised that she'd even remembered him when they'd been reunited. Doubly surprised that she'd latched on to him the way she'd done. Jacin had loved only a half-remembered image of a towheaded toddler, but Caidi had been a reality for which he hadn't been prepared, and so he'd been helpless to shut her out. He wanted to regret it but he couldn't. Wanted to shut her out now, because knowing she wasn't real was killing him, but he couldn't do that, either.

"Because,” Caidi told him evenly, “you love so big, even when you don't want to. Because you can't help it. And because you need it back, but you don't know how to take it.” There was a pause, but when Jacin didn't fill it, Caidi went on, “You stepped in front of a sword for him, you saved his soul, but don't forget why he was risking it in the first place."

Jacin shut his eyes.

That was actually the one thing he'd never been able to explain away, where Malick was concerned. He almost wished that he could, so he could finally settle everything into neat lines with predictable end points, know what to expect, but that one too-big-to-ignore fact loomed over the conclusion and made one plus one equal four hundred and seventy-two. Malick had been forbidden to even touch Yakuli, and yet he'd meant to kill him. For Jacin. It was... inexplicable. Hope crouched at its edges, and Jacin shied away, because hope had never done anything but fuck him over in the end, and that was the worst kind of hurt.

Caidi
tutted
a little. Jacin could hear the heels of her shoes knocking against the wall beneath the windowsill, and he thought it was a little strange that his mind would conjure something like that, but he'd learned not to analyze the things his mind came up with too deeply. He never liked what he found.

"You think Malick doesn't know how to love, Jacin. But his problem is that he loves too much, just like you, it's why Wolf chose him, and everything he threw around so carelessly for over a century is now narrowed down on you. You have to learn how to figure out what to do with it."

Sometimes Jacin thought maybe this really was Caidi, maybe she really was a ghost who just knew too much, because there was not a single word in what she'd just said that could possibly have come from Jacin's own mind. It threw him, clogged up whatever he might have been thinking of saying into the back of his throat where it tangled with the smoke and the remnants of the liquor and
burned
. His eyes teared.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to be here,” he said, throat tight. “I don't know...
how
to be.” His hands fisted. “And he won't
tell
me."

"That's because you're supposed to decide that for yourself,” Caidi chirped.

Jacin rolled his eyes. “That's what
Malick
says.” It was very nearly a sneer. Because Jacin really, honestly hated Malick for it sometimes.

"Well,” Caidi put in with a sigh, “since there seems to be a consensus, maybe you should start trying to figure out how to do that, instead of wallowing in why you think you can't."

Right.
There
was his guilty conscience talking. Maybe she was half ghost and half Jacin-being-self-pitying.

"He wants something from me.” It sounded so weak, so shaky, that Jacin was almost ashamed, but
fuck
, it seemed to be Caidi's purpose to drive him to this kind of lost despair-through-hope at every opportunity, so shame seemed rather beside the point. “Maybe he does... love me...."

He doesn't love you. Why do you go on lying to yourself, Jacin-rei? Why do you go on letting
them
lie to you?

Not Beishin, but an echo of him, and yet somehow it didn't hurt any less.

Jacin swallowed and squeezed his eyes tight. “But it won't matter in the end, because he brought us here for a reason. I just don't know what it is yet.” Jacin had been waiting for Malick to tell him what it was, just to get it over with, but Malick just kept not doing it, instead lulling Jacin with touch and comfort and showing him things he'd never had before and knew he wouldn't have for long, even if he took hold of them with both hands. Except Jacin had learned not to reach, so he didn't. Malick might be all kindness and gentle acceptance now, but he was a predator right down to bone—Jacin had seen that down in the baths of the Girou, and there was no mistaking it—so there had to be something else coming. “He wants something from me,” Jacin whispered.

"And you'll give it when he asks,” Caidi told him gently. “Because that's what people do for each other. You don't know your own heart, Jacin, and you have no idea that it's not really yours anymore."

Jacin's eyes snapped open, and he narrowed them over at Caidi. “What the hell's that supposed—?"

He stopped, because she was gone. He didn't know why it surprised him when she did that, but it did. It kept him guessing—
was she real? was she a ghost? was she his own sick mind making sure he didn't forget what a failure he was?
—and he hated the doubt more than he thought he hated the dreams that Caidi's recent presence had seemed to stir. Joori thought it was some kind of new, cyclical depression, but it was really just exhaustion, because Jacin would much rather not sleep than watch her splatter on the cobbles over and over again, with Beishin's accusations still ringing in his ears and Beishin's blood warm and sticky on his hands. Nothing seemed quite so effective at dredging up things he didn't want to see-remember-think-about-know as Caidi telling him none of it was his fault, that he could be an actual person, that he deserved—

He cut that one off and flicked the ash from his smoke into the saucer. Believing he deserved it would make him want it, which would make him see it where it wasn't. He didn't know what it looked like when it was real, and he was too cowardly to risk what was left of him on something that wasn't.
Of course you know what it looks like
, Caidi had told him just yesterday.
Your brothers love you,
why can't you believe others could too?

Because they don't
, Jacin had snapped back, and she'd shaken her head at him in frustrated disappointment, but he'd known at least
that
for truth.

Joori loved someone who didn't exist anymore, maybe never did; Morin tolerated his “freaky” brother, because what choice did he have when his “freaky” brother's pseudo-lover was the one feeding, housing and clothing him? Jacin sometimes wondered if the too-intense obsession-fixation-halfway-hysteria he had with keeping them close and safe and alive was actual love or just some new twist on his own circuitous delusions.

Maybe if Jacin had had the opportunity to see Joori and Yori together, he would have some idea what that sort of love was supposed to look like. Because Joori really had loved her, which was something else Jacin couldn't think about, because if he'd been just a little quicker in that alley, Yori would still be alive too.

"You put another hole in that quilt,” Malick said from the door, low and carefully neutral, “and I
will
kick your ass. The inn's already going to charge me for mending it the first time."

Jacin only flicked more ash into the saucer and took another drag. He didn't jump because he wasn't surprised. When Caidi disappeared like that, Malick generally made an appearance not long after. Which was one more tick in the not-his-imagination column, because how the hell would he know to make his own personal phantasm disappear before he even knew Malick was going to show up? Then again, Malick also managed to banish Asai, too, like he used to silence the Ancestors, so maybe it was just the way it was with him. Jacin wouldn't pretend to understand
Temshiel
magic, even if it wasn't supposed to work on him. He had a scar that should have been a fatal wound just below his ribs that said otherwise. Sometimes he still hated Malick for it. Most of the time, he was just pathetically glad that Malick was willing to touch him and at least pretend he loved him.

"Who were you talking to?"

Malick was still at the door. Jacin couldn't see him unless he shifted from his sprawl on the mattress, which he didn't, so he didn't know what look Malick was giving him. He rather suspected it was one of those wary-compassionate ones, though, so it was just as well. Jacin thought about answering Malick's question and decided he didn't want to, so he didn't. He merely dragged himself up off the bed, shambled slowly over to the washbasin and refilled the teabowl. He sucked on the smoke until the ember was bright and long, almost to his fingertips, then dropped it into the stale water and diluted tea in the basin.