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DARYNA
Daryna. The name didn’t feel like it belonged to her anymore as she placed a scarlet line to her neck.
Back in her cottage, Daryna’s chest burst forward from the settee, her head collapsing against her knees. She ran her fingertips along her throat, searching for the cut she’d given herself only moments before. It was gone, the skin smooth. She’d thought that perhaps she would have come back from Torlarah forgetting everything that had happened.
Forgotten Roka.
Wished for it. Prayed for it.
Tears she didn’t even know she’d had bottled up, spilled down her cheeks. She was Kezia. She remembered herself, remembered everything. That was what she had wanted all along, had yearned for, and now she wished desperately to be rid of it.
Heavy breaths came out in a panicked swelling wave. Lifting her head, she reclined her back against the settee and glanced at Pav who was still passed out. In sleep, he appeared even younger.
She stood from the furniture, tilting Pav to his side so he could lie down. Grabbing the wool blanket from the edge of the settee, she spread it across his body. He’d been sweet the short amount of time she’d known him, and perhaps she really wouldn’t have minded having him as a younger brother. But she would never tell him that.
Kezia. Kezia. Kezia. The name repeated over and over and over in her head, a taunting mantra. The person she’d become over the past eight years had blended with the one she’d used to be. She took a shaky swallow.
Maryska.
Her sister was dead—by Kezia’s hand. Her sister had always rivaled Kezia, even though Kezia had always only wanted to be left alone. So it pleased her dearly that Maryska was gone, for what she’d done to Kezia and everyone else.
Anton—who wasn’t dead.
Nahli—who was dead.
As Kezia thought and thought about spells and concoctions, perhaps there was something she could do. Wiping away the last of her tears, she stormed out of the cottage into the dark. With a lit lantern, she went inside the barn where Lilac was busy nibbling on hay. It reeked of animal droppings, and she would clean up after she figured out what she needed to do first. She poured the horse more water then grabbed the shovel leaning against the corner of the barn.
Closing the door behind her, she walked with purpose behind the cottage, farther out to where the two bodies were buried.
Kezia reached the two burial spots. Boda’s body could stay rotting down in the earth for all she cared. Using all the strength of her upper arms, with a hard and fast strike, she dove the shovel into the dirt that concealed Nahli’s body. She pressed on her wooden leg for support while taking her good foot to push the shovel into the ground. The dirt wasn’t as firm as it had been the first time she’d dug the two graves, yet she still built up a sweat.
She shut out her thoughts, shut out the wind, shut out the sound of the shovel going through dirt, and sealed the gate to anything inside of her that was vying to come to the surface and affect her.
The moon gave its final goodbye to the morning as the sun rose and spread its rays on Kedaf. The bright beams offered light but left no hope as Nahli’s face was revealed under its caress.
Kezia’s shoulders fell, and she had to hold herself back from breaking. She thought that perhaps Nahli would have been whole the way Anton was supposed to be, and she could have figured out something. But she wasn’t.
Nahli had already started to decay, and insects had eaten away at her flesh, the smell of rot permeating the air. Kezia threw down the shovel and crashed down to the ground, harnessing her heart for as long as she could.
The blasted organ ruptured with hot lava as she peered down at her leg. It should be the least of her problems, but the wooden appendage bothered her regardless, because it was a reminder of how everything had started. Unstrapping the appendage and tearing it away, she chucked the nuisance to the grass.
“I think you might need that,” a male voice said from behind her. One that didn’t irritate her as much.
Pav.
“I’m glad you woke,” she said, staring forward. “I didn’t want to have to bury you out here, too.” The words came out softer than she’d intended.
Any other time she could have forced herself to sound nonchalant, as though she wouldn’t have cared if she needed to bury him or not. Even before she was Daryna, having a friend was a rarity. And perhaps that was what he was.
Cradling her wooden leg in his hands, Pav moved to sit beside her. “Think of the distance you would have had to hop in order to retrieve this. You have quite the arm.” He held the leg up as if it were a gift. “Hopping on one leg more than two times tires me.”
Kezia huffed and took the leg out of his hand, then strapped it back on. “I tried to dig up Nahli, thinking Roka could be wrong. But he wasn’t.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Pav agreed, sadly shaking his head.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t be hard on yourself. It is what it is. You weren’t the one who killed Nahli.”
“I know, but I’m still part of the cause.”
If only she’d known that Boda was going to kill Nahli, then she could have prevented it from happening. Yet if Nahli hadn’t been in the Bone Valley, then would Maryska have still been queen? For one permanent death to save everyone in Torlarah, she knew the outcome was the right one. But it still left so much for Kezia to hate.
“If you think about it,” Pav started, “anyone can be the cause of anything. Take the day Nahli dropped off the chicken, for example. If I had chatted longer or talked less to her, she might not have died. Even something as small as that could have affected the outcome. So even I can be part of the blame.”
His words didn’t soothe her, but she understood his point. “You better hurry and retrieve your brother. He may suffocate underground if you tarry.” She shooed him away with her hands.
“I’m glad you still have what I’d consider your humor.” Pav smiled, standing. “Wouldn’t have wanted all of Daryna to vanish.”
Kezia felt relieved that Pav would be able to get his brother back after he went through so much to find him. Not only was Anton part of the group that defeated Maryska, but in a way he had helped with restoring her memory. As soon as Maryska was disposed of, the spell on Kezia had worn off.
She smiled at Pav in return. “Thank you.” Either way, she needed to say it. “Don’t worry about our bargain. I won’t be needing a helper any longer.”
“A bargain is a bargain.”
“I think your brain or your swordsmanship can find you a better trade. I’m not going to be the one who holds you back.”
He clutched his chest and laughed. “Aww, your heart must have grown even more.”
“Perhaps.” Secretly, she wanted to rip the organ out and bury it as if it were dead too. A part of her wanted the memory barrier back up so she didn’t have to remember certain parts. Like him...
“I’ll invite you to dinner soon. You can meet my sisters.”
She nodded as he turned to walk away. But there was one more thing to be said. “Pav, I don’t care if you break someone’s heart, because those people mean nothing to me. But watch out for your own, it’s one of the best I’ve encountered. If someone cracks it, let me know, and I can brew you something.”
“To make them go bald?” He smirked.
“Perhaps even a little worse.” And she wasn’t jesting about it, either.
For the rest of the afternoon, Kezia busied herself with work around the cottage and cleaning up the barn. She’d brewed herself several cups of tea, but couldn’t eat anything because of how hard her mind was working.
Before the light through her window pulled back and expelled darkness, Kezia finally challenged herself to return to the grave to rebury Nahli. She even came up with the notion about waking Nahli with a tonic, but it wouldn’t be her, only a rotting corpse who wouldn’t be able to speak.
Tearing the shovel from the ground, she held it tightly in her fists. She scooped up the granules of dirt, her hands vibrating as she held it above the hole. Nahli’s eyes were closed, but they still seemed to beg Kezia not to cover them in darkness.
The nervousness still dwelled within her because it wasn’t something that only belonged to Daryna. It was something she always had to fight. Some days were bearable, and some weren’t. And right then, she could feel it rousing.
An image of Roka’s face, just before she’d slit her throat in Torlarah, crossed her mind. She knew she wouldn’t be able to brew another concoction on her own to go to the afterlife, and that affected her more than she’d have liked.
There was the younger Kezia inside of her yearning to see him again, and yet there were parts of her that loathed him to no end. Everything wasn’t his fault—everything was his fault. It was as if she was holding a flower and picking off petals, determining what the right answer would be.
“I love you,” Roka whispered beneath the stars. “Do you love me?”
“No,” Kezia said, keeping her voice even.
“Lie.” He kissed her behind the ear, his hand brushing her bare stomach. And she shivered at his touch, his soft caress.
It was a lie. She thought she could never love anyone, but then there was him. Her body craved his touch, his words. “Show me how much you love me then.”
His mouth caught hers, and she felt him hard against her. She wanted them to give each other everything, so she pulled his naked body closer.
Her hands shook at the memory. Before they’d made love under the stars, he’d brought her a tambourine, not just any instrument, but one he’d made. And in that gesture, she’d known what her feelings were.
All along, when Kezia was Daryna, she thought she hadn’t remembered anyone, but she had. Because Roka had been the man she’d dreamt about on some nights.
Kezia released the shovel and yelled toward the forest, “Roka!” She hoped there would be no answer—she prayed there would be. “Roka! I know you can hear me.”
A rustling from the bushes and a crackling of dead leaves fractured her thoughts. Roka twisted out from behind a tree, which made him appear as if he were floating. Since she’d seen him last, he’d managed to find a shirt. He now wore a blue tunic, paired with the brown trousers and his bare feet. The fronts of his braids were pulled back, so they all swung behind his shoulders as he took steps toward her, his meerkat tail hidden away like when she’d first met him.
Even though she’d called for him, anger rippled to the surface because he’d been spying on her. “Were you already there in the forest? Watching me?” she hissed.
He said nothing as he moved toward her, not until he stopped only a few paces from her. “Yes.”
“For how long?” She shouldn’t have called out to him, and a piece of her had thought he wouldn’t really come. But another knew that he would—he always came.
“I think the answer will only cause you more anger.” His eyes held steadily onto hers, no longer was he staring at the ground as though he were a child.
“You’re a bastard, you know that?” she screamed.
“You have made that quite clear, three times over, I believe. Yell it as many times as you wish. I deserve it,” he said, his voice soft.
Was he going to continue keeping count, and next time tell her it was number four? Because there would be a number four! And he did deserve it. No matter how much Maryska illusioned herself to look like Kezia, there was no possible way her sister’s personality could have matched hers. He should have noticed that. She would have known if someone was pretending to be him.
“You should have been able to tell that she wasn’t me.”
“I know, I should have. It was ... it was because I was so happy beyond belief that you were there with me. I only thought you were quieter since you were not used to Torlarah. It is a lot different than up here. You had only been one time before.”
That was why the cave in Torlarah had felt familiar, why she knew Maryska’s otherworldly smell in her cottage, and how she knew the spell would get her there. Roka had used a different spell than the one she’d conjured when bringing her before.
But quiet? She’d never stayed quiet around him for too long. There was always something she yearned to say to him, whether with irritation or another word she would not think about. Somehow, he always banished all her insecurities when she was around him.
However, she didn’t need him for anything. She shoved his chest with both hands—he didn’t even stumble backward.
“I hate you!” Kezia screamed, and she meant it at that moment. She shoved at him again. “I hate you! I hate you!” Hot tears filled her eyes, and she fell to the grass, too tired to stand any longer.
Roka’s strong arms wrapped around her, holding her tight. “I know you do. And you can hate me for as long as you wish, but do not cry over me. I am not worthy of your tears, my darling Kezia.” He lifted her chin. “You—only you—are the one woman who has ever made me feel. I was only with her because I thought she was you.”
Kezia absorbed his words, but the thought of his body skin to skin with Maryska tarnished anything she knew they’d had. She wouldn’t even know how to get that back.
Before her heart drummed any harder, she twisted away from him, but his hand reached forward and clasped her wrist.
“You don’t even know me anymore, Roka,” she said. “I’ve changed. Lucky for you, you were buried away and not even awake, while I had to live alone these past eight years, turning into someone bitter. Once you remembered things, not much time had passed, so you may be the same, but I’m not.”
“Kezia, I would take you in any form. Believe me, I’ve been affected by Maryska too.”
She knew he was, but even though she had her memories again, parts of her weren’t fully there. As with her body missing a piece, her brain was just the same.
Back in the traveling caravans, she remembered when she would keep to herself. Her sister never wanted anything to do with her unless Kezia had something she wanted—no matter how minuscule it was.
Kezia had once found a shiny blue stone when she was eight and hid it under her pillow. The next morning it was gone, and she knew Maryska had taken it. Men, women—they all wanted Maryska. Except for one. And even then, she’d managed to take him from Kezia.
She had always preferred spending time with her tambourine, never wanting to be touched by anyone or anything, until Roka.
Now, she hated looking at him more than anything, but she threw her arms around him anyway. She should have expected him to smell like the life and death of Torlarah. But he didn’t. He smelled like cinnamon. The familiar scent circled around her, and she closed her eyes, pretending for that one moment that she was back with him at the caravans when he’d asked for her to be his wife.
She’d wanted it more than anything. And he promised her she could have a thousand tambourines if she wished for them.
Then, there had been the argument with Maryska.
Kezia awoke, drowsy, everything unfocused.
“I heard what you plan to do,” Mayrska said. “You know I always get what I want.”
Her gaze tried to focus on Maryska and just as she saw what was in her sister’s hands, the ax slammed down.
She was too unbalanced and lethargic to scream, only air released from her lips.
“I could have taken a finger, or an ear, or even a toe. But I prefer to take something much bigger to use in my tonic for Torlarah.”
“What?” Tears pricked at Kezia’s eyes from the throbbing in her leg. She couldn’t even move to look.
Maryska lurched forward and shoved something in between Kezia’s lips. She held her mouth closed, forcing Kezia to swallow. She was too weak.
“Roka shall welcome me home,” Maryska purred.
Those were the last words Kezia heard from her sister before her eyes fluttered shut.
Kezia had later woken, without a single memory, in another territory, and inside a covered wagon that Maryska must have put her in. Her sister had always been ruthless, and she should have known back then that Maryska was capable of anything.
Taking a deep swallow, Kezia now focused on Roka. “You truly can’t return Nahli to her body?” she asked, in the hopes that perhaps he secretly could.
“No, it does not work like that.” She heard the heaviness of his words, and she was sorry too.
She wept harder, even though she and Nahli weren’t friends, yet if given the chance, they could have been. But there was something between Nahli and Anton, and through it all, they’d found each other.
Life wasn’t always fair.
Her crying halted as her heart swelled with an emotion that should have made her nervous, but it was the one thing she could do to make amends with herself. It made her think that perhaps her heart wasn’t so hardened after all.
