3.

 

Ayae stood before an empty leather pack and felt hollow.

The feeling had not come to her until she returned to her own home. In the dark, Ayae could only see the outlines of the damage that had been done to her house, and once she closed the door, she felt a slow crumbling inside her. It was not sudden, not as if the floor beneath her had given away, but rather it was gradual, a brick here, a piece of mortar there, and she thought to stop it by going to bed. But then she had woken, she had reached across the empty expanse of the bed for Illaan and, touching nothing, allowed herself a moment to rationalize his behavior, to approve of his treatment of her. She could understand it just as she could understand the damage done to her property, just as she could understand the cold looks the neighbors gave her. She could. She could … but only for a moment. She felt the walls of herself continue to collapse. She knew that rationalizing Illaan’s behavior was a betrayal of herself, an admission that she was not strong enough, not old enough, to hold the curse that had been dropped on her, but yet …

Yet she reached out, touching the edge of the empty pack.

“I have to leave.”

Orlan had said the words to her after she had woken. He had knocked while there was still dark in the sky, before the morning’s sun had risen.

“I know you want me to stay.” He stood in front of her, his ink-stained fingers holding her own. “I would like to do so, now. Maps need to be redrawn, contracts need to be met—but first, I must see why our shop was attacked.”

“Because of me,” she whispered.

His hand tightened. “No, not because of you. The man who entered the shop was meant for me.”

She knew he was lying. He had, she thought, always been a terrible liar. Instead, she said—because he was not Olcea, because he did not need her—she said, “Let me come with you.”

“Ayae.”

“I don’t want to feel their eyes on me like this.” Her voice was so quiet she barely recognized it, a weakness she hated. “I have tried to get rid of it, I have tried to ignore it, I—”

“This is your home,” he said, sternly. “Do not let them take it from you.”

But she would.

She remembered Olcea’s words, remembered the sight of Samuel walking out her door, she remembered the look on Illaan’s face, and she knew that it had already been taken from her. All that was left was for her to fill the leather pack and leave.

But where could she go? She wanted to be anonymous again so she crossed off Yeflam: the Keepers lived there. She would have to go beyond the sprawling city, across Leviathan’s Blood, before she felt even vaguely safe to start life anew. The journey would take months and cost a fortune she did not have. She would have to find work along the way.

Going north was no better. She would have to go past Faaisha, up into the colder countries, toward Leviathan’s End, before she was free. West offered Ooila and perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad. Sooia was separated from Ooila by a huge expanse of ocean, but it was her birthplace’s closest neighbor and untouched by war, at least so far. But what would she do while she was there? There would be no work. The moment she left Mireea she would stop being an apprentice cartographer and she would be—she would be—

“Cursed.”

Ayae shook her head, touched again the lip of the empty pack, and wondered what she could put in it. What clothes did you pack to start a new life, to begin again with nothing? With no answer coming to her, she was saved by a knock on the door.

“Hi.” The baker’s apprentice, wearing his brown uniform, scratched the backs of his dirty hands nervously. “Hi,” he repeated.

“Jaerc, I’m sorry I—”

“No, no.” He raised his hands. “No, please. I—I came to apologize.”

Holding the door, unsure what to say, she stepped aside and let him in. Stepping past her, he glanced from the fireplace to the door to the bedroom and the empty pack that lay there. Turning to face her, his hands clasped together tightly.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, preempting him. “The mistake was mine.”

“No.” His mouth was set firmly, and his gaze never left her. “No, it wasn’t. I shouldn’t have let Keallis talk to you that way.”

“She was right.” Ayae leaned back against the door. “I mean, everything she said is true. You and I both know that.”

“No.” Again, his voice was firm, sure. “No, it’s not.”

“Jaerc—”

“You’re going to leave, right?” He nodded to the room. “That’s you packing, yes?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Yes.”

“That’s not right.” His fingers straightened, pressed against his thighs. “I know it’s not right. This is your home. I spent all night trying to sleep and couldn’t because I knew when you left, you didn’t think that. Keallis may have said you weren’t wanted here, but that wasn’t right. She has no power to tell you where you can and can’t stay.”

“I am cursed,” she said softly. “It’s not about choice.”

“It is,” he said, again with that certainty. “I don’t mean to speak out of line. I don’t want to tell you what to think. But this has not stopped being your home just because you’re cursed.”

“What if it isn’t any more?”

“I had a brother,” he said, the resolve in his tone never failing. “He was born seven years after me. He was my little brother. When he was five he was half my height, and when he was five, flowers grew wherever he walked. Not many, and not for long, but you could see them. He thought they were funny. He would make patterns, like a kid would. He didn’t understand what was going on and he didn’t know that people would be frightened. My parents thought that everyone would turn on him, so they kept him inside. They locked him up. He was just a little kid and soon he was afraid of everyone and didn’t ask to go outside. The flowers just followed him around the house. Until the flowers started growing on him and he got sick.” Jaerc hesitated for a moment, his flat fingers curling, then straightening, physical signs of his indecision. “The flowers would bulge up under his skin. We tried to cut them out, but they were rooted deep like a wart, like a huge wart that was attached to the bone. It was awful.”

“Did he die?” Ayae asked, thinking of her own burning skin.

“Yes.” The apprentice baker took a deep breath, a steadying breath. “But that’s not why I’m telling you this. I’m telling you because Mum and Dad had to go to someone because they couldn’t help him alone. I don’t know who they talked to first, but I remember that there were people coming to see him every day, some who were scared, but all who wanted to help. People who said that it wasn’t his fault. Lady Wagan said—”

“Lady Wagan?”

He nodded. “She came at the end of the first week. She came at night and had the old healer Reila with her. She sat with Mum and Dad while her healer examined my brother and told them that she would do all that she could, that whatever we needed she would try and provide. She said that they should not have hidden it in the first place.”

It will not be long until a kindness is said. Lady Wagan’s words. Quietly, Ayae said, “Why would she say that?”

“We live on a dead god,” Jaerc said. “She said that. I remember it so clearly. She said that Ger’s remains tell us what happens when you stand alone, when you forget that you are part of a larger community. We mustn’t ever do that, she said. She was so sure when she said it, I remember thinking how comforting it was, how right she was. She could have said a lot of things, like Keallis. She could have said that my brother was strange and unnatural. That the best thing would be for him to die. But she didn’t. Instead, she paid for medicine for my brother, sent witches and healers and, after he died, came to the funeral and stood in the back. Afterward, she hugged me and said I should help my parents.”

As he finished speaking, Jaerc approached Ayae. It was only then she realized that she had sunk down the door, that she had collapsed against it. That silent tears ran down her face. It will not be long until a kindness is said. With a gravity that she had not thought that a baker’s apprentice would have had, he reached down and pulled her to her feet.

“That’s why you can’t leave,” he said.