Kai’s shoulders slackened with relief. Once the deal was struck, the scavengers swept forward to begin butchering the gonda. Timar turned her attention to Kai once the initial tensions had calmed. She looked him up at down, and said, “You stole my clothes.”
“You stole mine first.”
“You stole my sword.”
“The sword was never yours.”
“You forgot something.” Timar removed her bone mask, streaked in red dye, and handed it to him. “You defeated me. It’s yours.”
Beside Kai, Rasia’s brows rose. “Is that how that works? Where is that fucker I killed?”
Rasia stormed off to search the dead bodies. Kai uncertainly accepted the mask, and Timar tapped her fingers atop the bone.
“Every scavenger in the Graveyard recognizes a Han mask. There will always be a place here for you, hani,” Timar said, and then she left.
Kai traced his fingers over the whorls of the wooden mask. Rasia returned with a mask of her own, but hers was streaked in green.
“I wonder how we’re going to sneak this into the Grankull without it being confiscated? I can’t necessarily get this easy up my vagina.”
“Rasia,” Kai said, amused, tired, breathless. He dropped his head down on her shoulder. They sort of just stood there. Everything and everyone rushed around them, unable to penetrate their bubble of peace in the chaos.
“Hey, Kai, you remember when you asked to court me?”
How could Kai forget one of the most embarrassing moments of his life? Right after a near-death experience probably wasn’t the best time to spill his emotions all over a flame.
“Yeah . . .” Rasia drawled out. “Let’s skip all that. Let’s be together. Let’s do the relationship thing.”
Kai jerked back. “You changed your mind? What happened to wanting to experience different people?”
Rasia scratched her scalp, at the thin wisps of hair growing in. “The hardest thing I’ve learned traveling the Desert is that sometimes you can’t take all roads, no matter how much you might wish to. Some will be gone by next season. Others lost and covered by sand, or time. Often, you can’t come back and choose the other path. You’ve got to pick the one you think is right for you in the moment. Maybe it’ll be a dead end, but maybe that’s the one that goes on forever. Whichever the case, if you’re too busy thinking about all the roads not taken, you can’t enjoy the one you’re on. So. I choose you. Let’s see where we go.”
“Oh,” Kai said, covering his face. He laughed to keep himself from crying. His bruised throat ached either way. “I kind of sort of wanted to do the courting thing.”
“You want to invite me to dinner with the parents and waste money on courting gifts?” Rasia snorted. “No, you don’t. It took three years for Kiba-ta to commit to Shamai-ta. I’m not that cruel.”
“I should at least have a namesake for you.”
“We’re not of age. What’s the point if we can’t wear them? We’ll figure something out.” Rasia pulled down Kai’s shirt collar and inspected his throat. “Let’s get you bandaged up.”
“In a bit,” Kai said, before pulling her forward by the hips and kissing her—his partner. No more friends with benefits. No more uncertainties and fears this ride could be over once the Forging ended. They were together.
Sometimes, Kai did achieve the impossible. He thinks he’s getting the hang of it.
Nico ordered Zephyr and Azan to return to the Forging kids and draft their help with the gonda hunt. She ordered Suri to gather needed supplies from the scavengers. She turned to Kelin last, knowing he wanted to talk. Kelin approached her, head bowed.
“I should have trusted you,” Kelin said, “but trust generally comes hard for me. The Flock is home, and I’ve been raised to see everyone outside of it as an enemy. Since the first day we’ve met, you’ve always been true and fair. I respect that. I’m sorry.”
“You’re forgiven. I understand; it was a tough situation. Everyone had their hackles up.” Then Nico smiled, teasing. “You’re a bad assassin though.”
Kelin spluttered. “I would have you know I am a great assassin. Many of us generally have codes against assassinating our friends . . .” Nico smiled at that, and Kelin said after a dramatic pause, “. . . depending on the price.”
Nico rolled her eyes and nudged him. “Why don’t you make use of all that espionage and see if you can find me some dirt on Timar?”
Information was always useful. Certainly, some of these scavengers joined Timar because they had to, not because they liked her. No doubt someone would be willing to talk.
Kelin raised his brows, intrigued. “I’ll see what I can do.”
That taken care of, Nico looked around for Kai and Rasia and found them missing. There was enough water in the Graveyard to easily locate Kai’s whereabouts. The plants pointed the way.
Nico swept aside the linen curtain, which shaded the entrance of a conical dwelling to find Rasia naked and moaning in Kai’s lap.
“ARE YOU TWO HAVING SEX?!!!!!!”
Shocked, Kai tossed Rasia off his lap, and Rasia landed on her back roaring in raucous laughter.
“Nico,” Kai whined, scrambling for his discarded shirt to cover his lap. “Get out, I wasn’t . . . We weren’t . . . I was using my fingers . . .”
Rasia laughed harder, near tears.
Nico narrowed her eyes at him, then turned and stormed back outside. She crossed her arms, embarrassed, and stood waiting for them to make themselves presentable. She had been so focused on her way over here that Nico hadn’t noticed how easily sound traveled from the cone. She very clearly heard Kai apologizing and his promises to make it up to Rasia later.
Rasia demanded the moment they exited the building, “What do you want?”
Nico gathered her composure. “We are going to leave soon to find those gonda. We could use your windship, and I’m hoping you could lead a team.”
“Sounds fun and all, but no. I’ve got more important things to do.”
“More important things . . .” Nico echoed the words, uncomprehending. “What do you mean you’ve got more important things to do? What could possibly be more important than—”
“I’ll go,” Kai volunteered. “If you need Rasia’s windship, I’ll steer.”
“Sounds good to me. Good luck hunting!” Rasia called out, and then scrambled off to her “more important things.”
“But-but-” Nico stammered after Rasia’s retreating figure. Nico turned back to Kai. She glanced at his bandaged shoulder and the bruising around his throat. A few other wounds had been stitched and bandaged up. “You should stay. Your shoulder looks pretty serious.”
“I can use my other arm, and besides, I thought you needed Rasia’s windship. She’s not going to let anyone else steer it.”
Nico rubbed her temples. He had a point, and Rasia didn’t leave Nico any other options.
“Fine,” Nico bit out.
“Fine,” Kai said in turn. Now that all the danger had passed, all the awkwardness and regrets came rushing back in to fill the holes between them. Kai turned his head, shoulders raised. “You can trust me.”
“Can I?”
“I’m never going to put Rasia, and you, in that position ever again. I promise you that.”
Nico clicked her tongue.
“Nico!” Someone shouted for her. Zephyr and Azan had returned with Neema and the other oasis kids. She glanced back at Kai, pulled in two directions.
“We’re not done,” Nico promised him.
“Is this going to work?” Suri asked, rowing the oars beside Nico. They rowed oars into the divots in the road, wheeling the windship through the Graveyard. “All these gonda died due to the actions of our kull. Technically, these kids didn’t kill their own gonda. It violates the rules of the Forging.”
Nico felt again the life of Rianis seeping out of her hands. Apparently, a whole ship had gone down on the Yestermorrow Lake after a mutiny. So many hadn’t survived the trek to the Graveyard. And for what? The Council’s secret agenda? No. Nico refused to let these kids pay for the Council’s crimes.
“We lie,” Nico said, steely. “Some of these kids don’t have the strength to stand, much less the time to recover and hunt their own gonda before Forging’s end.”
Suri agreed. “It’s not fair what these kids have been through. They never had a chance. Maybe when we get back, I can talk to my tah. Find out if she suspects anyone on the Council.”
“What if it is your tah?”
Suri frowned, taken aback by the inquiry. “Tah paid for me to be on your Forging kull. How could it have been her?”
“If it was her, who would you choose?”
“You,” Suri bit out. “How could you ask me that?”
“I don’t know where we stand anymore, Suri.” Before the Forging, Nico never would have thought Suri capable of betraying her and throwing a whole bunch of innocent kids under the hull, but Nico didn’t know anything anymore.
“We might not agree about the Tents, and you might not consider me your friend anymore, but when the ground vibrates, I’ve got your back. I’m not the one who’s put a dagger to your throat.”
“No, just an arrow to my face.”
Suri glanced at her. “I’m sorry about that.”
From the tiller, Kai shouted to pull up on the oars. Their target was dawnward of the main road, into a thicket the ship could not follow.
Nico hacked into the thorny thicket with her spear to cut a path for them. Suri took up the rear, while Kai and one of the oasis kids, Gysen, walked between them. Nico glanced back at Kai. Ava-ta’s sword tapped against his thigh in the sheath Timar had freely handed over as they stomped through.
“How is your shoulder?” Nico asked.
“It’s fine, although I might not be able to help much with the heavy lifting once we get to the gonda. But I figure your magic will take care of most of it.”
Speaking of . . .
“Your magic,” Nico said slowly. “Do you have control of it? I remember, after our argument, for a brief moment I thought . . . and then you caught Rasia.”
Kai went silent behind her, and Nico tried her best to nonchalantly keep moving. She felt his shrug even though she didn’t see it. “It’s more instinctive or emotional. I still don’t have much control over it.”
“Oh,” Nico said, shoulders dropping, sort of hoping. It would have been nice to know at least Kai had his magic to protect him, but how useful was it if it wasn’t reliable?
Nico glanced back at Kai and scanned her eyes over all his cuts and bruises, and for a brief flash, all Nico could see was that sickly jih whose hand she held during coughing fits. “I should have protected you better.”
“This isn’t your fault, Nico,” Kai said. “The blame lies with the person who ordered the hit.”
“You’re right,” Nico said, hacking away at the undergrowth. “I’ve been thinking about that too. After all, if they’re willing to use scavengers to put a hit out on me, what’s to keep them from targeting you or Rae? Once we find these gonda and return home, we will need to be extremely careful—”
“Nico.”
“We’ll need to make sure Rae is in our sights at all times. We’ll set up some sort of schedule. I’ll make the time and we’ll—”
“Nico!”
Nico stopped. Kai gave her a strange, unreadable expression. “I’m not coming back with you.”
“What do you mean? There will be enough gonda for everyone.”
“Rasia and I are still hunting our dragon.”
That made no sense. “Kai, neither you nor Rasia are in the best of health. She can barely walk right now.”
“Why do you think Rasia stayed behind? Rasia’s ‘more important things’ is definitely about the dragon. During the fight, Rasia injured its throat. The dragon can’t breathe fire anymore. Now is the time if any to take Aurum down.”
“But Kai, you barely have enough time to make it back to the Grankull. It’ll take twelve days to get back home, maybe better depending on the wind, but you essentially have three days to slay a dragon. What if you fail?”
“Then I fail and face the consequences.”
Nico audibly sucked in air between her teeth. “Why don’t you and Rasia return to the Grankull and report the dragon’s injuries? Let the hunting kulls handle this. They are trained to fight dragons. They don’t face the same risks that you do.”
“We’ll go on ahead,” Suri said suddenly. Suri and Gysen walked between them and continued the work of hacking themselves a path. Nico grew embarrassed she had stalled things, but another part of her wanted to continue to argue. She didn’t see why Kai had to be the one to risk himself by doing this.
If Kai was so determined, maybe Nico could send the gonda on with the others. “I could go with you.”
“You’re the Ohan. You need to go home. You need to protect Rae.”
“But who’ll protect you?”
“Nico! I know you think you’ve had to take up tah’s mantle ever since she died, and I know you haven’t always been able to protect me, and you think you’re the only person I have in my corner, but I’ve got Rasia, and we do a good job of protecting each other.”
“Didn’t seem like all a good job to me when you seeded her,” Nico bit out, then forcefully rubbed at her eyes. “I know Rasia cares for you. I see that. But what do you think is going to happen when we return home? Forging flames never last.”
“Rasia and I are together. She’s accepted my court. We’re partners now.”
Nico could have rolled her eyes out of her face. “You don’t just accept the court of the first person who propositions you. You haven’t even finished your Forging. Don’t you think you two are moving recklessly fast?”
“I don’t care what you think,” Kai snapped. “You criticize her commitment to me when you were just complaining about her fickleness. No matter what Rasia does, you are always going to find something wrong with her.”
“Ugh. How could you have let her come between us and tear our family apart!?”
“You can’t tear apart what’s already broken! We’ve been messed up since the day I was born. We’ve never been a real family. And I know that Ava-ta . . . that tah was my fault and maybe I don’t deserve this and I’m being selfish and—”
“Stop. Her death was not your fault.”
Kai didn’t believe her. He never believed those words. No matter how many times Nico had said them, she couldn’t get them to penetrate his thick, stubborn skull. Not once had he allowed himself to grieve their tah’s death.
Kai’s fists clenched, and he stared down at the sharp thorns hacked around them. “Tah never let go of me. She never let me leave her side, so afraid I would keel over and die at any moment. She never let me fall or run or play. She pulled me out of school because she feared the bullies would kill me.”
“Those bullies broke your face, Kai.”
“She never let me grow, Nico. She tried so hard to protect me from the world, that I could barely function once she was out of it. I don’t want to be protected. I want to fall. I want to make mistakes. I want to know what I’m capable of. I want to live. On my terms. Tah hoped the bare minimum for me because she thought anything more was unattainable. I am more than the bare minimum, Nico, and yes, you’re right in the fact that it’s impossible for me to walk this world the same as everyone else. I will never be able to define a good life by everyone else’s standards. I have to define it for myself. I have to live for myself, and I am done allowing tah or you to decide that for me!”
Kai shuddered, out of breath by the end of his spiel. Nico shook her head and croaked. “Why didn’t you ever say these things before?”
Kai crossed his arms, tight, away from the prickly brambles. “I knew it would hurt you.”
They turned away from each other, but these pained, uneven silences had always been half of their relationship. The two siblings stood in the middle of the scavenger Graveyard, surrounded by bones and thorns on all sides.
Nico sucked in a big, whole, mature breath. She’d say what she practiced, over and over and over again.
“Thank you,” Nico said, “for helping me understand. If this is your choice, if this is what you want to do, I support you. I am not going to stop you. But for the record, I think you’re being stupid, brash, and reckless. I’ve always known you were capable of so much, and you don’t need sex or a dragon to prove that. You have always been the strongest of us. But if that’s what you need to believe in yourself, go chase your dragons. Rae and I will be waiting for when you get home.” Nico sucked in another big, whole, mature breath. “And I—support—your—relationship—with—Rasia.”
Nico felt like gagging a little at the end there. He was too young. After the Naming Ceremony, new faces were expected to spend years exploring bodies and preferences and pleasure. They spent years chasing flames and seeking courts. Even when they did find someone they wanted to commit to, it was a testing period, a time to be sure you’d chosen the right one. At this speed, Kai would be calling Rasia his kulani by tomorrow.
“Do you remember when Rasia snatched off my shroud in the middle of the market?”
“How could I forget? She violated you. I don’t understand how you could forgive her for that. No one should ever have their shroud taken without their consent.”
“You’re right, Nico, but it happened to me, and I’ve forgiven her for it,” Kai said. “I’ve forgiven her for it a long time ago. Back then when Rasia snatched off my shroud, she was looking for a monster. I’ve never forgotten the disappointment on her face to discover that I wasn’t. Rasia has always seen me. Better than you, better than myself at times. She has always been the one. She is the one. She’s my—”
Nico threw out her hands, alarmed. “Don’t say it. You don’t know. You. Don’t. Know.”
It wasn’t a word you said to just anyone. You had to be certain. Because there was only the one. There would only ever be the one.
Kulani was the only name you ever get to choose.
Kai pressed his lips together, jaw tight. Knowing him, he probably never meant to say it out loud.
“And I’m sorry,” Nico said. “I’m sorry for hitting you. And I’m sorry for the things I said. It wasn’t fair of me. ‘Never’ was too harsh a word. I do believe you and Rasia can slay a dragon, that it’s possible, but it’ll be very hard and very difficult, even more so under these circumstances. The kull tryouts won’t come easy. And tah hasn’t been listening to anyone for two years and I don’t know . . . I don’t know. These things are going to be hard, Kai, and I wanted to make sure you understood that, and that despite the challenges, I’ll be here to support you every step of the way. I promise, no matter what it is.”
“Thank you, jih.” Kai drummed his fingers against his thigh. For a moment, he looked like he was going to say something more but thought better of it. Nico wanted to fight for the words he kept to himself, but he’s said so much already, and Nico didn’t want to ruin this tentative understanding forming between them. Nico promised to be there when he was ready.
Nico said, “I just wished, for once, something came easy for you.”
Kai raised his head and smiled. He said honestly, “Rasia came easy.”
Nico’s brows rose. “Oh yeah? Zephyr missed most of the gorge, so why don’t you catch me up on how you fell for ‘I don’t need anyone’ Rasia.”
Nico lifted her arm, and Kai moved so Nico could wrap an arm about his good shoulder. He’d grown taller.
“Sure,” Kai said. “After you catch me up on whatever is going on between you and Suri?”
Nico rolled her eyes. Of course, he’d notice that.
The siblings walked side by side, together, hacking their way through the brush.