The Seer (Blood & Fire Saga Book 1) Read online

  The ground stayed frozen, though.

  “I can’t bury her.”

  It was the first thing he’d said in a long while. Hours, maybe. Vaughan jerked out of a doze. He frowned and turned to look at the fire again. “We could build her a pyre. That’s how my people do it. We give our loved ones back to the Jhoda. They join back into the stream of life and give us our power.”

  Kaie nodded. He looked down at the corpse in his arm that was growing cold, despite the fire. “Can I have the mirror?”

  Vaughan shuffled over to where she’d dropped the shards of glass. He hesitated before picking up the largest, the one she’d used to open her wrists, but eventually brought all the pieces to him. Kaie clutched that one tightly, hardly noticing as it cut through the skin on his palm.

  He climbed to his feet and set the bloody carcass and bits of glass into Vaughan’s fire. All except the biggest one. The fire was too small by half. It didn’t resemble a pyre at all. But it was enough. After a moment, the magical blaze fought free and eagerly set to devouring it all.

  Kaie sobbed as he watched the core of his childhood burn away, taking all the bright innocence of the girl he loved along with it.

  Seventeen

  The fire lasted a long time. As the last of the flames flickered out, Amorette’s bones collapsed in on themselves. Vaughan turned his head away and left. Kaie watched as the ashes rose up to embrace all the bits of the girl he loved.

  He stumbled around after that, unsure of where he was going. Every time he tried to come up with a way to move forward his thoughts would return to that cackling laugh, or his eyes would drift down to the blood that coated him. Just as he was ready to give up and collapse in the snow, Josephine found him. Always near. Always watching. He remembered.

  Kaie told her what happened in a voice flat and alien. Her sneer faltered and vanished as he described everything. When he was finished, she was silent for some time. He slumped down against the well, trying to remember how he got back there. He thought about how easy it would be to just fall asleep and let the winter take him. Josephine grabbed his aching shoulder and jerked him back to his feet. It took a little while for his mind to make sense of her barked words. She wanted him to take her to the place. No, not where Amorette burned. The place where Peren was attacked.

  He blinked, and they were in the other version of his neighborhood. The one with color and flowers buried underneath all the snow. After a few seconds of confusion, Kaie realized he led her there. He just didn’t remember the trip.

  They were inside the house with the body and the two he’d been trying to protect. Peren was awake. She looked up at him with those huge eyes, comb paused halfway down its path through her hair. The corners of her thin lips turned upward in the barest hint of a smile. For a second Kaie found an anchor. Whatever she saw, when she looked into him, it wasn’t a monster. His head cleared enough to hear what Josephine was saying.

  “… not a favorite. But she will still raise trouble over this. Gods, you and that bitch picked the worst time for your little melodrama. Mistress won’t be back for weeks.” The woman sighed heavily.

  “What does that mean?” Kaie asked, because it felt like he should.

  “It means you keep your head down! Only, this time, actually do it!” she snapped. “If we are very lucky, and the gods like you very much, Master Peter will find just enough backbone to keep Lady Luna’s fingers off you that long. Takuu’s balls, I will never understand why Mistress is willing to waste such effort keeping your worthless ass safe.”

  “Me neither,” Kaie muttered. But Josephine wasn’t listening to him. She was tugging and jerking on Samuel’s body. Large as it was, she still managed to get it up and somehow hoist it over her shoulder.

  “Can he… can Kaie stay here?” Peren asked.

  Josephine eyed them all with clear irritation. “Keep him from making this worse.”

  Peren nodded, her eyes never leaving his.

  “Fine.”

  The second the woman was out of the room, Kaie dropped to the dirt. He was stuck. Anything he did now would be Peren’s fault.

  Kaie ran his thumb over the edge of the glass, mindless of the cut it made or the way his blood mingled with Amorette’s. He lost himself in the past. What he saw was too vivid, too solid, to be memories. There was the perfect clarity of reality, like the events were unfolding in front of him that very moment. It was a vision. He embraced it.

  Two boys were racing. They were young. Six. With a start, he recognized the children he was watching. Sojun, towheaded back then, and his own red locks bobbing along ahead. He was always ahead. The kids were heading for their hill. Even back then, it was theirs.

  They skidded to a halt, with twin expressions of shock. There, on their hill, was a stranger, a tiny girl with a burst of strawberry hair that caught the light and made a fiery halo around her delicate features. Which were, at that particular moment, twisted into an expression of angry determination.

  “You’re going to fly!” she announced to her feet. He concentrated on the image. That wasn’t right. As he focused, the blurry shape on the ground fleshed out. It was a sparrow. The sparrow. Just a baby and all alone.

  “Kosa take you, you stupid bird! Fly!”

  The boys’ mouths dropped open. Little girls didn’t speak that way. No one but adults said the Destroyer’s name out loud. Everyone knew it was bad luck.

  She spat more curses at it, not one less shocking than the first. Then she began stomping her feet and screaming at it. Both boys watched the scene, neither sure what to do about this tiny terror losing her mind because a baby bird wasn’t flying.

  The red–haired boy was always the more daring of the two. He was the one who approached. Before he made it three whole steps, the girl spun on him, sticking out her finger in such a convincing imitation of an angry adult that the boy’s face paled. “You stay right there! This stupid sparrow is going to fly, and I will not let you scare him before he does!”

  Sojun was the first one to laugh, but it didn’t take the other boy long to follow. Soon both of them were rolling on the ground, laughing so hard they could barely breathe. The girl grew angrier and angrier, until she finally came over and started kicking them both.

  Sojun grabbed her foot, tugging her down, too. In short order, all three of them were entrenched in their very first wrestling match.

  He blinked again and the room was dark. The fire was the only light left. He rubbed his eyes, making sure the sudden change was not a mistake of his vision. But the darkness stayed.

  There was a blanket around his shoulders. A bowl dropped down in front of him. There was salted pork inside. He couldn’t remember the last meal he ate without any pork. There were vegetables, too. That was new. And… fruit?

  A soft noise came from the back of his throat at the sight of the orange color. Gods. Fruit! His fingers were in the bowl, fishing out the soft, fleshy substance and popping it in his mouth before he even finished processing this impossibility. Sweet juice exploded on his tongue, and for one blissful second, Kaie didn’t think about anything else.

  “It’s called tangerine.” Peren was hovering over his shoulder. “Vaughan brought it to me for my birthing day yesterday.”

  “Your birthing day?” It was hard to focus on the present, when the past was so close. But he felt like he should, for her.

  Peren nodded and plopped down beside him. She hit him twice in the process, but it didn’t bother him. “Yup.”

  “How old are you?”

  Peren chuckled. “You got my name. You haven’t earned that one yet.”

  He blinked. Another puzzle. He tried to sort out if he liked it this time. “Where’s Vaughan?”

  She pointed to the rest of the food in his bowl. Kaie ate it dutifully.

  “Isn’t this his house?” He asked around a bite of pork.

  She nodded. “Since we were children.”

  “So why doesn’t he stay here?”

  She tilted her head.
“Because he stays with Master Peter.”

  Kaie blinked. “Uh… oh. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s not like that,” she said quietly. “Well, it is. But not really. It’s how he protects me. That’s why I don’t share this house, and how he gets me fruit for special days.”

  He grimaced. “Vaughan’s a whore.” It was just a word before, one he heard others bandy about but one that meant little to him. Now it was more.

  “No.” Peren pulled away from him. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “There are only two ways to survive this life. Either you’re important to someone with power, or you are invisible. I’m invisible. Vaughan tried to be invisible too, but that didn’t keep me safe. He found a way to be important, instead. He’s not a whore, Kaie. He’s a survivor. Just like you. Just like me.”

  “Amorette…”

  “She wasn’t,” Peren answered before he could finish his thought. “She cared about the wrong things. You have power. She was important to you. But she wasted that on things that don’t matter. Things that aren’t real.”

  “She was trying to hurt me. Because I hurt her.”

  Peren shook her head. “No. Life hurt her. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Kaie laughed. It sounded brittle. Like Amorette’s laugh, at the end. He dropped the bowl and shrank down into the blanket. “It was. Just like the man, Samuel, and Keegan before that. I killed them all.”

  Her arms were around him. He wasn’t sure when that happened. He didn’t want to need it. After a minute of trying not to, though, his eyes pressed closed and he leaned into the comfort she was offering. “No.”

  “I said I didn’t care. When Vaughan asked. When she did. I told her I didn’t care about her.”

  “But you loved her.”

  “Not all the time.” He let out a long breath. “Gods, I killed her. If I loved her like I used to, like Sojun loves her…”

  “Then she would still be dead.” Peren’s fingers were in his hair. She stroked his head, the way his mother did when he was small and sick. “What she did, it wasn’t something you could stop. You need to know that. Those deaths are because of her. Not you. Never you.”

  He was lying down. When did that happen? His head was in her lap and she was still stroking his hair. He didn’t want to need it. “I’m alone. I’m going to wake up and be all alone. Every day.”

  “No,” Peren murmured. “I’ll be here when you wake up. I promise.”

  ***

  She was there when he woke up. With breakfast in another bowl. He ate the tangerine first.

  Peren peeled off his clothing, stiff with dried blood. She cleaned him with a cloth and water. She wiped a patch of his body, dropped the cloth into a bowl, wrung it out, and then wiped another patch, until he was clean. He was naked, and her beautiful, intense eyes took in every bit of him. But there was no sexual element to it. She was taking care of him because he needed it, even if he wished he didn’t.

  When he was clean she dressed him in new clothes. They weren’t the same as his old ones. They weren’t made out of the same soft material. They were thicker and itchier. Made for winter weather. But his right shoulder was still uncovered. She draped the blanket over him again. Kaie laid back. After a while she climbed under the blanket with him. She pressed up against his back, wrapping her arms around him. He didn’t want to need her there.

  The days bled into each other. He spent most of them locked in the past, losing himself in one vision after another. All of them were of Amorette. Most were of himself and Sojun too. The worst ones were of her and Jun alone. Their moments together were nothing like what he imagined.

  The first time was right after Sojun’s mother left. That day was burned into his memory as intensely as if it were his own family that fell apart. He recognized the clothing they wore, the colorful ribbons decorating the village for Spring Festival, and the panicked animal look in his best friend’s eyes. He didn’t know they met on the hill, though, after he went home to bed.

  They spoke for a while. Or Amorette talked. Jun sat there, staring off into space. It was all the boy did that whole day. Kaie and Ams spent hours trying to coax a word, but Sojun was somewhere else. Right up until the kiss.

  He wanted to pull away from the vision then. Watching her tenderness for his heart’s brother was like a knife shoved through his gut. He forced himself to watch.

  The kiss brought Jun back to the world with a visible start. “What was that for?”

  “Because you were hurting,” Amorette murmured shyly. “And because I am sorry.”

  Sojun shook his head. “I don’t have anything to give you tonight, Ams.”

  “I’m not asking you for anything, Sojun. Not tonight. Tonight I just want to be a girl and a boy on a hill.”

  The words burned like ice pressed against his flesh. He knew everything between himself and Amorette was a lie. She’d told him so. But knowing that even the words she used belonged to another time, another boy…

  And they worked as well on Jun as they did on Kaie. The two were kissing again.

  “I love you Amorette.” Sojun seemed surprised by the words. Kaie wasn’t. Amorette wasn’t either. She smiled knowingly and slid her long fingers through light brown hair.

  “Do you love me best?” she asked at last.

  “Best?” He was as confused by this question as Jun looked to be.

  “If you had to pick, if it were me or Kaie, would you choose me?” She slid her hands into Jun’s pants as she asked. By the groan that came from his friend, Kaie didn’t need to guess what was going on.

  “Yes,” Sojun rasped. Amorette beamed. After that, they lost their clothing the way snakes shed their skins. Kaie forced himself to watch. Every kiss, every thrust, sent ripples of icy agony through him. He wouldn’t let himself turn away.

  When it was done he pressed the glass against his thumb again, seeking another vision. Over and over, he found them. He watched Amorette tease her sisters until Esme ran crying to their mother. He watched the girls fight over their interest in him and Sojun. He learned how territorial Amorette was over the both of them, and how determined Esme was in her crush on Jun.

  He watched the three of them on their hill. So many hours spent up there, talking and wrestling, coming up with pranks and plans, scaring each other with stories about the vault behind them. Imagining what it would be like when they were adults.

  He watched her hunt. Beauty and grace suffused everything she did in the woods. Even her kills were elegant. Anything she set her sights on fell. She was relentless and skilled, the best hunter of their generation. Maybe of the tribe. And she didn’t shy away from cleaning the kills, the way some of the other children did. She dove into it with the same enthusiasm she did everything.

  And he watched her and Sojun. So many times. They snuck back up to the hill after the village was asleep, more times than he could count. It didn’t matter to them, that sex was supposed to wait until they were adults. Or maybe it did. Maybe it made it more exciting.

  Sometimes they fought. That surprised him. They argued in public, of course, but this was different. These were real arguments. The kind that loosed Amorette’s temper and often resulted in a flurry of fists pounded against Jun’s chest. More often than not, they were about him. Over and over, she asked those same questions:

  “Do you love me best? Would you choose me?”

  When he answered at all, Jun always assured her that he did. That he would. But as the visions grew closer to the night of the soldiers, Kaie couldn’t help but notice that Sojun answered less often. Sometimes his friend would stop the questioning by pulling her in for a kiss that started up another painful scene. Other times his friend would just walk away, leaving Amorette sputtering and fuming.

  It was, none of it, how he imagined. She wasn’t perfect. But she was so terribly real. Living and breathing in his visions, more vital than anyone he knew before or would again. It hurt, watching her. Hurt more than any physical pain he experienced. And he drank i
t all in like a man dying of thirst.

  Eighteen

  The sound of her soft sobs sent a shiver through him. For a second Kaie was back in that moment. The one where he swung and a man died. With effort, he fought his way free. He didn’t want to think but he needed to. It was so much easier, just falling back into another vision. But Peren was crying and he needed to know why.

  “Are you hurt?”

  His voice was jagged and hoarse. Startled by the sound, Kaie realized he had no idea when he’d used it last. Peren gasped then fell into a fit of coughing. She got it under control quickly. The tears didn’t go away but they mingled with a strange, strangled laugh. She caught one of his hands up in hers and pressed it against her cheek. “You’re here!”

  He glanced around the room, confused. “Yes… was I somewhere else?”

  Peren nodded. “For a while.”

  Kaie shook his head. “You’re crying. He hurt you. Are you okay?”

  “He…” Her eyes widened. “You mean when I was attacked. Yes, I’m okay. I was just sad. And a little scared.”

  He frowned. “Because of me. Because of how I’ve been?”

  She nodded and released his hand. Peren’s head dropped for a moment, her hair closing around her face. Kaie felt more awkward than she was. He remembered his time with her but it was foggy. Like a dream. And now he didn’t know what to do to make her stop crying.

  “Hey.” He gathered her up into his arms. She slid into his lap, folding her legs up and pressing the side of her face against his chest. She was so tiny. Half his size. He remembered her holding him but couldn’t figure out how she possibly managed it. “It’s okay. Peren, I’m okay.”

  It was his turn to stroke her head. “You were so lost,” she whispered. “I didn’t know how to find you.”

  Kaie pulled in a slow breath. “I’m sorry. Please, don’t cry.”

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sucked in air through her nose, snot making a strange honking sound. Slowly, she slid away. Her tears stopped and a pressure in his chest eased. She wiped her eyes one more time and flipped her hair back out of her face.