Breakfast included a plate of spongy flatcakes drizzled with date syrup, a shared bowl of gonda noodles, and cups of cinnamon black tea, with warm camel milk for Rae. Nico cut the two flatcakes into fours. She prepared what they could spare, but it paled in comparison to any meal Kai had out in the Desert.
“Is that it?” Rasia asked, without any sort of tact. Since her clothes hadn’t survived the splash-war and were currently hanging on the line to dry, she sat at the table in one of Kai’s old caftans. “I thought they increased the size of everyone’s rations since the Forging?”
Kai grimaced. Nico stiffened, and embarrassment flushed her cheeks.
“Everyone’s portion has increased, but I still don’t get rations,” he explained. “And I won’t until after the ceremony and even then, until I get a job.”
“Oh.” Guilt marred her face. “I forgot. I should not have gone with Ysai-ji. I left you here to starve.”
His teeth clacked down on her words. He hated their implication—as if he were some helpless baby bird who needed someone to feed him. “It’s not your fault.”
“But I’m your kulani,” she said.
“What?!” Nico swiveled towards Kai. “You’re calling each other kulani now?”
Rasia sat on his right, but she spun the full way around on the woven seating mats to face him. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Are you two insane?” Nico asked before Kai could meep out a word. “Couples together for years barely call themselves kulani. Many don’t even dare without a signing ceremony. Don’t you think this is moving too fast?”
“What does it matter when I’m apparently the only one who cares about him?” Rasia snapped. She motioned toward the food. “You’re the triarch. What the fuck is this?”
“She said bad word!”
Kai dropped his face into his hands.
Nico slammed her hands onto the table, standing up. She pointed at Rasia. “How dare you. You don’t get to charge into this family and criticize me. You have no idea what I have sacrificed to keep this family afloat for the past year. Don’t you, especially you, fucking dare. You didn’t have to stay for breakfast.”
“You invited me.”
“Read the room!”
“Nico. Please,” Kai begged. Her eyes narrowed, and she stiffly sat back down. Rae crawled from Kai’s lap, under the table to Nico. She hugged them like a pillow.
Rasia crossed her arms with a huff. “I won’t stay if you don’t want me here, but I won’t allow your negligence to bring Kai any more harm. Who knows how this week could have affected his magic or his health?”
“What are you talking about? What does any of this have to do with his magic?”
Rasia swiveled hotly back to Kai. “You haven’t told her?!”
He kept his face a blank mask, careful not to leak anything while the right side of his cheek was hot with Nico’s scrutiny. He narrowed his eyes at Rasia in a futile attempt to remind her of the promise to keep his magic a secret. “There is nothing to tell.”
“Tell me what?” Nico crunched every word.
“Kai figured out the secret to his magic,” Rasia revealed without pause. Did she not understand any of his minute eyebrow wiggles? Had she forgotten their promise already? “Apparently, Kai’s magic is so powerful it’s almost parasitic. He needs food to fuel it. Without food, his magic feeds on him instead. It’s why he used to be so sickly before. He found all this stuff out in The Lake of Yestermorrow.”
“You promised to keep it a secret,” Kai hissed out.
“I have.”
“You just told Nico!”
“She’s your jih. You said not to tell the Grankull, but Nico is your jih and your triarch. How can she make sure you’re eating if she doesn’t know these things?”
“Jih is the main person I didn’t want to know!” Kai checked his raised voice and turned in horror to Nico’s shadowed face. She had her shoulders up, in that way, when she was hurt.
She whispered, “You were never going to tell me, were you? All these years, and no one could figure out what was wrong with you. This whole time, you suffered because we couldn’t provide for you.”
“That is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you. This isn’t your burden to bear.”
“Of course, it is,” she snapped. “I am to be the triarch. All of you are my responsibility. You should have told me.”
“You’re dealing with enough as it is, and I am done watching you all suffer because of me.”
“You are my jih and we are a family. Despite what you’ve gotten into your head during the Forging, you need to realize that you can’t do everything by yourself. Nor can I. No one can. I can’t take care of this family alone.”
“How many meals have you missed this week?” Rasia’s words knifed sharp through the conversation. He didn’t like the way she studied the lines of his face. “I thought something was off this morning. You’ve lost weight.”
Kai didn’t answer.
“How many meals have you seen him eat, Nico?” Rasia asked.
“We eat dinner together, but I leave for the haul before Kai and Rae wake for breakfast in the morning.” Nico paused, catching on. She turned to their little jih, and sweetly asked, “Rae, is Kai being good and eating all his food? Or does Kai need all his toys taken away?”
Rae shifted wide-eyed to Kai and back to Nico. Loyally, they whispered, “It’s a secret.”
Both Nico and Rasia shouted. Kai hunched under their raised voices, blending at times to create a monster fused from Nico’s disappointment and Rasia’s outright anger. What was happening? How had the alliances shifted so suddenly? One moment Nico and Rasia were at each other’s throat, and the next they were ganging up on him. He could hardly keep up.
They could yell at him all they wanted, but they haven’t had to swallow down the guilt and live a parasitic existence off their own family. Kai had no regrets. The next he tuned in, both Rasia and Nico had shifted from yelling at him to figuring out solutions.
“We talked about this. There are options. You don’t have to starve yourself. I’m going to take the windship out,” Rasia declared.
“Or maybe there would be more rations for everyone if certain persons didn’t keep illegally smuggling in food for themselves,” Nico argued. “Every hunt is for everyone.”
“Except for Kai. He gets no rations. So, we should do what? Let him starve for your morals?”
“I didn’t say that.” Nico turned to Kai. “I’m selling tah’s stuff.”
Thus far, Nico had sold off her own personal items for the family. They hadn’t touched any of Ava-ta’s stuff for a reason. They feared upsetting Kenji.
“No. We won’t do any of that.” Kai rejected them both. “No smuggling. No pawning. I’ll eat. I promise.” That was a lie. Rasia bought it, but Nico knew better. “I’ll make do until the kull tryouts. As a windeka, I’ll be out of the Grankull for most of the year with the kulls. I’ll be able to eat my own hunt, and therefore won’t be a burden on anyone else. It’s the best-case scenario.”
“What? I thought you had given up on the tryouts?” Nico asked. “You haven’t mentioned it at all since you’ve been back, and you’ve been spending all this time helping tajih with scribe work. We both know that’s a guaranteed job for you.”
“I was going to mention it,” Kai mumbled. Nico was always rushing out of the door for him to really have a conversation with her about it. Or he kept putting it off because to talk about it meant he was really going to try out.
“You haven’t told Nico about that either?!”
“Welcome to my life!” Nico said. She rubbed her temples and squinted at Kai from the table. “Is that what you truly want? To be a windeka?”
“I’d like to try.”
“Then I’ll support you. I’ve promised you that. But have you considered everything? Are you sure?” Kai knew the question jih tried to couch in softer words. What if he failed?
“Tajih offered me a job as a scribe if I fail the tryouts. I’ve already talked with her.” It would be nice if the Forging wiped away all his problems and made all his dreams come true, but he also felt better with a fallback plan. Visible relief washed over jih’s face. She nodded, mollified.
“Fuck that scribe shit. You’re passing the tryouts,” Rasia declared. “And you’re eating.”
“She said bad word!”
“Rasia, don’t curse in front of Rae.”
“Then don’t fucking starve yourself,” she snapped out. “You’re coming with me to the market. I can get you some food. People owe me.”
“What do you mean people owe you?” Nico asked.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” Rasia swiveled back to Kai. “You need to eat. There’s no point preparing for the tryouts if you pass out halfway through. You also need a new pair of pants. The ones you picked up from Timar are ripped, and the ones I gave you are getting short at the ankles. You need a pair that truly fits you.”
“We don’t have the money to-” Kai said, but quieted when Rasia gave him that same look when she threatened Neema with a jawbone.
“We’ll stop by my place and grab some of jih’s old pants. Think he was going to give them to a younger cousin or whatever, but you need them more. We’ll have them resized for you. It won’t cost as much as buying a new pair.”
“He needs new shoes, too,” Nico said, eyes alighting in tentative excitement.
“Hmm. I have an idea for that. We’ll go once my clothes are dry.” Rasia glanced over at him, at the table of practically untouched food, and then tossed her plate at him. “Eat.”
At the order, everyone remembered breakfast. Nico rolled the flatcake in her hands, and the rest of them followed suit. Rasia gulped her tea and watched Kai with an intensity that threatened him with every bite. They cleared the plates, and Rae licked at the date honey on their fingers.
“Rasia, when is your interview?” Nico asked.
“Tomorrow. Why?”
“Do you remember the story we all agreed on? Maybe we should go over the details again. Everyone else’s interviews went off without a hitch, but your kull is the only one left for questioning.”
“I honestly thought I’d never see the day perfect little Nico would be so willing to lie to the Council.”
“They tried to kill me. Several times at this point.”
Rasia’s brows rose. “Have they sent more assassins since the Forging?”
“They tried to attack Nico during the bloodrites,” Kai said.
“But not after you?”
“. . . no?”
“Okay then.” Rasia shrugged, unconcerned. “Nico can handle a few assassins. How close did they get? Did they nick your hair?”
“This isn’t funny. We need to make sure you get your story straight.”
“Fine, whatever. Tell me the story again. I might have forgotten some of the details.”
“I kept it as simple as possible. After our initial kull fell apart, I traveled to the oasis and got several teams together to take down a bunch of gonda at once. The Council mustn’t know I had any run-ins with the scavengers. I don’t want them to know that I know about their involvement. As far as you and I are concerned, after our falling out, we both went to the oasis. I found my team and you found yours. We went our separate ways and did our own thing from there. How you tell the rest of the story is up to you.”
“But I can talk about the scavengers, right? They are going to want to know how I got the warship.”
“Feel free to take the credit for defeating the scavengers all by yourself.”
“I basically did.” Rasia nodded. She turned to Kai. “We might have to talk to the others and make sure we are all on the same page.”
“Not much needs to change, I think,” Kai said. “The easiest thing to do is start with the moment you recruited me. Instead of just me, you recruited everyone who was involved with the dragon hunt at the end. We ran into trouble with the scavengers, got the warship, and killed the dragon. We . . . streamline the story.”
“You know, this would be a whole lot less stuff to remember if we just kill the whole Council.”
Nico scrutinized Rasia at that comment. “That includes your tah.”
“Especially her.”
“No,” Nico said, even though she said it with a hitch of hesitation. “The one time a magic-born indiscriminately killed Council members, they killed him in turn. I need to be smart about this. If the Council learns that some might not have earned their hunt, they’ll no doubt blame it on me, but more importantly, those kids won’t have a chance to show their faces. I picked up more, you know, after the Graveyard. I brought back anyone left alive that I could find.”
“You picked up everyone?”
“There was enough gonda.”
“What are the hunting kulls going to think when they don’t find any survivors? They are going to be suspicious. That was a needless risk.”
“They won’t suspect a thing. People are already calling it a lucky year—what with your dragon and all the gonda—this will only support that,” Nico defended.
Still, Kai was a little worried about the plan. Ava-ta had been powerful, too. She had those she trusted around her, too. But she still died long before she could see any of her children succeed in their Forging. Kai remembered how weak and ill Nico had been after the bloodrites. How could he possibly add his own mess on top of that?
“It’ll work,” Nico said, determined, “if we’re all in it together. If we do this right, the Grankull will never know.”