NOW
Her ring, Kochin’s ID tag. Her revival, his death.
Nhika brushed a thumb over his embossed name, trying to make sense of it. She’d never seen one of these ID tags in person before, but she knew what it meant. It was the same thing as her bone ring, a bid for remembrance, passed on after … after …
After death.
Something happened on that island. She wanted to believe it was a miracle. She wanted to believe Kochin had found some way to bring her back at no cost but the Mother’s benevolence.
More likely, because heartsoothing was a science—had always been a science—it had been a balanced equation. Calories, nutrients, and macromolecules inputted toward a product. Her life … at the cost of his.
No. No. She would not accept it. Someone had an answer for this, whether it was Trin or Andao or Mimi. Nhika left her room for Mimi’s, just down the hall, and rapped her knuckles against the door.
Mimi had already changed into night linens when she answered. With a yawn, she rubbed sleepiness from her eyes. “Something the matter, Nhika?”
Nhika didn’t know how to answer. Her throat wouldn’t open to words. Instead, she merely held up the ID tags by their chain. Brow creasing, Mimi cupped the swinging tags in her palm and leaned close, squinting in the dim gaslight to read.
When the name registered, she dropped the tags. Her eyes met Nhika’s, and every question Nhika had for Mimi was answered at once.
Mimi hadn’t been hiding Kochin’s whereabouts out of spite. Mimi hadn’t known about these tags. This entire household had no more secrets to hide—but Nhika wished it had, because then they might supply some other answer than this, and it would be a matter of sleuthing it out as she always had. But if this was truly all Mimi knew, then the simple truth was that Trin had come home with Nhika, and Kochin hadn’t, and these ID tags meant he was … he was …
“Nhika, I’m … I’m so sorry,” Mimi said, and there was genuine remorse in her brow. She crept forward, reached up, and pulled Nhika into a hug.
It was soft. It was firm. Nhika knew Mimi wasn’t mourning the man who’d killed her father, but her sympathy made it real—because Mimi, of everyone in this household, could never have let her vendetta go, not until her father’s murderer was dead and buried.
And here she was, holding Nhika in her arms without a single word of ill.
The Vens deserved to know.
Earlier, Nhika hadn’t wanted to return to Kochin’s family without him. Now, she dreaded seeing them more than anything, but they deserved to know.
The last time she’d come to Chengton, she’d come by river. Nhika hadn’t realized how close it was to the Congmi countryside manor; they were both in Western Theumas. This time, Mimi drove her.
Mimi stopped the autocarriage when roads became untraversable, meant only for horse carriage. “Are you all right, Nhika?”
It had been a silent drive. “I’ll be fine.”
Nhika wondered if she should’ve been wearing black. She had her fair share of funerals. Nhika wasn’t sure if this was meant to be one of them—she’d simply wanted to tell his family that he … that Kochin …
She wanted to show them the ID tags. They could draw their own conclusions from it.
Bidding Mimi goodbye, Nhika followed the dirt path toward Chengton’s main road. This was familiar, the road that stretched toward the river on one end and rice terraces on the other. Ramshackle houses squatted every so often on either side, placed there with little order, their walls colored by dust and foliage.
Nhika scanned the hillside, searching for the glowing white house at the top. She found the fishing flags first, hanging tall. It felt a little strange, returning to Kochin’s home without him beside her—she’d always imagined they’d come back together. But that was a lifetime ago.
She started toward the hill. The familiar route returned to her, the hike that crossed its way up the hillside and the view that overlooked crystalline water. The lingering heat of the autumnal sun made her appreciate the shade of the tree canopy.
Nhika crested the hill to find that recognizable white house, paint peeling and garden bursting with flora. This moment was a memory pulled from the recesses of her mind—there was the line in the dirt that Kochin refused to cross, followed by the excited barks of a dog behind the door. She took a moment to steel herself—every time she’d come here, it was to be some bearer of cryptic news. When she’d pressed down the rising stone in her throat, Nhika knocked on the door, expecting Auntie Ye to answer.
Instead, it was a young man. For a moment, Nhika almost thought it was Kochin—but no, he was older, his Yarongese features more prominent in his tanned skin, thick lips, and wide nose. She saw Auntie Ye’s softness in him and he was handsome like Kochin, but in a rugged rather than polished way: a brother, then, though Nhika failed to conjure a name.
“Nhika?” he asked breathlessly, surprising her—because how could he know her name?
The man stared at her. Nhika stared back, cupping the ID tags in her palm until they bit. Her lips parted, but the words wouldn’t come—and he was still staring at her, like he was seeing a risen ghost, like …
“You knew,” she said, the words forming by themselves. “He told you about me, didn’t he?”
Still stunned, the man nodded. After a quick glance behind his shoulder, he closed the door and took her by the elbow. “Not here. Come with me. We need to talk.”
The man was still rubbing Kochin’s ID tags between his fingers.
He’d introduced himself as Vinsen, Kochin’s elder brother, and had taken her to a secluded riverbank shaded by palms—a secret fishing hole, somewhere they wouldn’t be disturbed. All Nhika had managed to do was give him the ID tags, and it was as if she’d broken an automaton. He hadn’t moved since.
This place, returning to Chengton … Kochin was written everywhere. She remembered sitting on a bank like this one, his palm against hers, teaching him to soothe. She remembered looking out over the water and fearing he’d left her and accepted a future under Santo’s wrath. She remembered seeing him truly, for the first time, under all his masks. A place like this, blue-green water lapping against hyacinths and the tranquil stillness of the river, was far too idyllic to be haunted by memories of him.
At last, Vinsen let out an exhale that cut the air. “Please, don’t tell my mother. Let me deal with this. She … she’s not ready to hear.”
Nhika nodded. It was a cruel twist; she’d died to let Kochin return to his family. He had barely gotten any time with them at all before war pulled him away. “Vinsen, I don’t understand. What happened to him?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.” Vinsen’s gaze tore off the ID tags, landed on her. “Who were you to him?”
Nhika wasn’t sure how to answer. She was the girl who pulled off the mask. She was the girl who’d kissed him on the operating table. She was the girl who’d died in his arms.
And, apparently, she was the girl he’d defied all laws of nature and heartsoothing to bring back.
“We met in Central,” she began. “He was being blackmailed by a man who exploited his heartsoothing, someone who had eyes on me next. Kochin tried to save me, in his own way, but I like to think I saved him better.”
She tried to laugh at her own joke, but it came out weak and humorless. After all, what good had her sacrifice been?
“That’s what he told me—that you saved him from the city. That you gave up your life so he could come home.” Vinsen sucked in a slow breath. “I should thank you, by the way. He did come home, for a little. That was because of you.”
“Why didn’t he stay?”
“Well, he left because of you, too.” Vinsen gave her a shadowed look, and Nhika pressed her lips together.
“Right,” she said. “I … I guess I don’t understand what happened.”
“I was about to say the same. He left you in my care. There was this casket, some machine designed to keep your body in stasis.”
She knew the one—was all too familiar with it. The thought of being trapped in Santo’s device again hatched spiders beneath her skin, but how had Kochin succeeded where Santo had failed?
“The next time we heard from him was months later,” Vinsen continued. “He sent a letter home. Said he’d enlisted in the war.”
“Enlisted?” Nhika asked. All this time, she had assumed he was drafted. But, if she placed herself in his shoes, she might’ve sought answers to heartsoothing’s oldest taboo on Yarong, too.
“Yes. I definitely cursed him out when I received that letter. It trapped me at home with a worried mother and a dead body—no offense. Now, I wish I could’ve just shaken some sense into him.” Vinsen tipped his head back, his gaze skyward. “Last I heard from him was only a few weeks ago, and then … this.”
“You heard from him a few weeks ago?”
“When he first left you here, he told me that if he ever found the answer, he’d send for your casket. And, three weeks ago, he did.”
“From Yarong?”
Vinsen nodded. “He had an ally on the island—I didn’t ask who. I only spoke with a messenger.”
An ally? It was the first Nhika had heard of it. Her initial thought was Trin, the only person on that island who might’ve known of her death. It was wishful, hoping they were allies. Hoping Kochin hadn’t been the one to put Trin in the hospital.
“You just handed my body over?” Nhika asked, unsure whether she was allowed to feel insulted.
“To be honest, by then I was just … just glad to be rid of the responsibility. He always, always did that—hid from his messes, I mean. Like he didn’t want to see them, but could never let them go, either. It’s just—” Vinsen stopped, as though realizing he was speaking ill of a dead man. “Mother, I could punch him. He’s going to make Ma cry again.”
For how cold his words were, Nhika saw tears in his eyes, though he blinked them away. “Everything he did was for family,” she said. “Family was the very thing his employer had used against him.”
Vinsen went quiet. His eyes were on the water, fingers tight around the ID tags. “Is that so? And you got him out of that?”
“I’ve no family of my own. Figured I had nothing to lose.”
“You lost your life.”
“Ah, well, guess I figured wrong.”
Vinsen let out a sharp scoff, his smile wry. “I’m beginning to see why he loved you.”
His words were soft, and Nhika felt something pang distantly in her chest, an organ long dormant. Loved. But the Mother had never fated Nhika for lasting loves, had She?