Page 111 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

Not yet.Not yet.

OF FORTUNES AND FUTURES

RANNOCH

“Rann!”Silas’s panicked voice pulls me from dark dreams of cracked mountains and angry Gods, and I sit bolt upright, fear coursing through me like lightning, only to realize it’s just a memory. Only a memory, but one that has left me cold and shaking, a clammy sweat coating my skin like oil. There’s no going back to sleep tonight. Sighing, I stand slowly, stretching sore muscles unused to the punishment I’ve inflicted on them in the past few weeks. Two? Three? I don’t know at this point — time is passing in strange, stuttering ways, where days are months long, but hours only minutes.

From across the dim firepit, Kaden is staring at me, giving me time to sort myself before he calls to me quietly so as not to wake Wren or Tahrik. “Poor dreams?”

“You could say that. It’s fine, though.” I make my voice as wry and humorous as possible, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me.Idon’t believe me.

“We’re in a strange place here, friend.” He’s trying to be comforting, but what comfort can be offered to someone who left their people behind where a surging Earth and scourging sky flayed the people’s skin from bones and ate them alive, no souls Guided home. “TheCorpse Bridge is hard even on peaceful minds. Too much blood has been spilled here for there to be no echo of death and destruction, however pretty the trees. However pure the water, as you’d say, right?”

I can’t help but smile reluctantly at his words. We’ve been talking as we’ve traveled, exchanging stories from our past — always cautiously, never ones that expose much beyond what is already known, but he’s a quick study, however much he likes to pretend to be otherwise. He’s especially good at language, picking up our idioms and adopting them as his own, though he never uses them quite right. I suspect it’s because Wren grins every time he uses one justslightlyincorrectly. He’s always gently self-deprecating afterwards, which somehow convinces her to talk him through the correct way to use the phrase. It makes her curiously happy, so I’ve studiously ignored the deadpan winks he’s given me when she leans toward him to teach him. Her laughter is coming more easily these days, and I’d pay a higher price for it than the smug face of a frustratingly friendly Trader.

“Youknowit’s right. No use in pretending when Wren’s asleep,” I say wryly.

His grin is clear even in the faint light cast by the embers. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’msureyou don’t.”

There’s a long pause, long enough that the sound of the fire fills the spaces around us, and then, very softly, “Areyou okay, though, Rann?”

The darkness invites confidences that daylight would hide. “I…I don’t know. I am, as much as I’m able to be. What we left…” My voice trails off, and I shrug. “But I’d make the same decision again, and that’s some comfort, I guess. I don’t regret where I’m going. Only what I had to leave behind.”

“And that one?” He nods toward Tahrik; I didn’t need the prompt though. Wren’s fascinated with every step of our journey, empty eyes drinking in everything around us, every minute of the day. Even the way she moves, despite being sore and tired, is strangely light, as though a physical weight has been lifted from her. And I suppose in away it has, though it’s one I’ll never understand or appreciate. Her shoulders still curl in with fear at times, of course, her face blanks and closes at others. You can’t shed a skin that was sewn to you every day for years in the space of a heartbeat, but when I watch her breathe deeply in a way I’ve never seen before, it makes me fiercely glad I jumped after her.

Tahrik, though… “He’s trying, Trader.” He’s one of my people; I won’t disparage him to someone who doesn’t know the heart of our village.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it, Rann. That’s one thing I don’t doubt. He’s making every effort, I think. But he’s struggling with the space here.” Then, more cautiously, “And with the changes in the way…the way a flower is blooming, without surrounding weeds. I don’t mean offense.” He is being very deliberate with his words, with his footing, and I appreciate his attempts.

Nodding, I sit heavily on the ground next to him. “You have to understand our village, I suppose, to know what he’s going through. He’s never left there. Never on a hunt, even, so everywhere he walked was inside a wall. It felt like an embrace, a comfort. Not to speak for him, but…” Trying to think of how to explain it, I shrug, almost helplessly. “I know you didn’t see much of it, Kaden. And what you did was a poor representation in many ways. But for all its faults, there was music, and laughter. And love. Our Council is not our people, our history not our whole. I’ve tried to remember that, to hold it close in hard times. But Tahrik, I don’t think he needed as many reminders.”

Sighing, I stare at the dirt, attempting to find honest words for our home, and for the Miller. “I didn’t know him there, but it was impossible not to knowofhim. He was requested at every celebration for music, was invited to every table at our festivals. I am beginning to wonder if I haven’t given him enough credit, if in my…envy, perhaps… I’ve overlooked how hard this all must be for him. He loved and was loved there in a way that I don’t entirely understand. And to leave the comfort of that, to come to this…” My voice trails off as I consider what Tahrik has been keeping quiet.

“It’s funny.” Kaden drops his voice, and I cock my head curiously inresponse. “When I was there, I felt so trapped.” Rushing to explain, he holds his hands up, clearly trying to stall any offense, though I wouldn’t argue with him about that anyway. “It’s not meant to provoke you, please understand.” Shaking his head, he exhales sharply. “Sea and Sky know I put my foot in my mouth often enough with Wren at the start. I don’t want to travel the same road with you. But it just felt like relentless pressure against my eyes, my ears, my chest. I couldn’t take a full breath until we left.”

“I imagine that’s how Tahrik feels, just in reverse.”

“He cares for her deeply.” The comment is a thread dangling; to pull on it would unwind an entire cloth. So I’m careful in my reply.

“He does.”

“Did you know? In the village?”

“It wouldn’t have been safe for him if anyone knew, I think. Either of them.”

“Mmm.”

“Just so.”

He’s even more hesitant now, like he’s carrying a pane of paperthin glass. “Do you think they had an understanding?”

“I don’t know. I…I haven’t asked.”

“Did she…did she leave anyone behind her?”

“We all left people behind us, Trader.” There’s so much sorrow in my words that he puts a hand on my shoulder and leaves the rest to silence, even though I know there are more questions filling his mouth.

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