Forgotten (35 page)

“Help me!” he shouted, shifting so that he could hold Amorette out to him without letting up on his hold on her wrists. “You have to help me stop the bleeding!”

“Kaie…”

He blinked. It wasn’t Vaughan. It was Peren. But that didn’t make any sense. She wasn’t supposed to be here for this. He didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand,” he murmured.

Peren was crying. She reached out and cupped his face in her hand. She was supposed to be somewhere else. She never saw this. Everything was wrong.

She was jerked away. A dark-skinned man with almond eyes dragged her away from him. There was a sword, and the man was going to stick her with it. But that made no sense. There weren’t any dark-skinned men here, just like Peren wasn’t here.

A bright white flare engulfed the world. Everything went silent.

Kaie rocked back and forth, waiting for the girl in his arms to laugh at him. She was supposed to laugh, wasn’t she?

Someone was screaming. He wished they would stop.

He wasn’t dead.

That was kind of surprising, actually. He really thought he was dead. Figuring it was best to sort out why he wasn’t, he forced his eyes open.

It took Kaie some time to make sense of what he was seeing. It was supposed to be the newly cut boards of his hut, still smelling of the tree they used to be.
Weir wood.
Or…that wasn’t right.
Stone.
He was supposed to see gray stone.
And a lamp.

No. Not stone.

That was wrong. All of it was wrong. He never had a hut. And all the stone he should see would be the color of bleached bone.

It wasn’t any of that, though. It was wood, but nothing newly cut. This was polished until it shone, and much closer to his face than it was supposed to be. That wasn’t right at all.

Kaie sat up slowly. Everything was moving. He couldn’t decide if it was him, or the world.

“The world.”

He jumped, banging his head against that brightly polished wood. The surface he was laying on turned, dumping him onto the floor. He shouted in surprise, glaring up at the offending surface.

A hammock.
Why in the Abyss was he in a hammock? What in the Abyss was going on?

A door opened. He jumped again, only seeing the door now that it was moving. Peren bustled inside, looking exhausted. The soot and paint were gone from her face, as were the tears. The burnt hair was gone too. Now her white-blonde locks were turned up into a short cut that actually looked sort of cute. The changes added significantly to his confusion.

“Why are you on the floor?”

He scowled at her. “I don’t know. Why am I on this floor? What’s going on?”

She sighed and sagged against the wall, her relief apparent. “You’re awake.”

“Yes. I noticed that too.”

She smiled and reached out her hands to him. He took them reluctantly, half suspecting some sort of trick. “You were gone so long. You came back last time, but that was before the Namers… I was afraid this time would be different. But I should’ve known better. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“What? Where are we? What’s going on?”

She guided him back to the hammock and sat down on it beside him, lacing her fingers through his and dropping her head on his shoulder. Kaie was not remotely pleased with this arrangement, but he tolerated it in the hopes that compliance would win him some sort of explanation.

“You… got lost. It’s happened before.
Kind of.
But that was a long time ago, and wasn’t at all like this. You…” she cleared her throat. “You were a Hollow, Kaie.”

He laughed.

She shook her head, and the laughter died on his lips.

“I don’t know how else to explain it. Something happened to you when you saw Mola die. You said some things that didn’t make any sense, and then you just sort of stopped. Last time this happened, you were at least responsive.
Sort of.
This time… if we didn’t tell you to eat, you wouldn’t. Vaughan… he had to take you to relieve yourself even. You were a Hollow. Vaughan thought it had something to do with the Namers, like maybe a delayed reaction. He thought you were gone. I’ve never been so scared. Not even when I was burning.”

It all came out in a burst, and it took Kaie some time to understand what she said. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t a Hollow. That wasn’t possible.

She wasn’t lying though. And he remembered… something.

Kaie ground his teeth together. They already took his past. What right did they have to his present?

Kaie shoved it to the back of his mind. He didn’t want to think about it now. There would be plenty of time to sort out what happened.
Later.
After he found out what was going on.

“What happened? Not to me.
With everything else.
I remember Mola…” Did he? He wasn’t sure. Not important. “But where are we and how did we get here?”

“They were going to kill us,” she said. Her voice was just above a whisper. “And then Vaughan came. He washed up somewh
ere else
and came to find us. He saved us. Then I did what you said. I took us all to one of the fishing camps.”

“We found a boat, and took it out just
like you said. And after a day
the ship you said would come showed up. They scooped us up right away. It took a while, explaining everything. But Alex convinced them to turn around.”

“Alex?”

Peren nodded. “Vaughan saved her too, and she came with us. He wasn’t strong enough to heal you, and you were hurt so bad… I know you didn’t want anyone else, but we needed the help. I’m sorry.”

He glanced down at his left leg, remembering the break. It was wrapped in some sort of splint he didn’t notice before, mostly because it didn’t hurt at all. Was he drugged? He didn’t feel drugged.

“So we’re on the ship.”

She nodded again. “Yes, and you won’t even guess where they’re taking us.”

He grimaced again. He knew where the ship was supposed to head.
“Lindel.”

Peren squeezed his hand. “No. Alex pointed out to the captain that he probably didn’t want to be the one telling the Empress she lost the jewel of the Jorander desert. So he offered to take him with us.”

“Where, then?”

“Rokvor!”
She said with a giggle. “This ship is from Rokvor, Kaie!”

He rolled his eyes. He didn’t know what was wrong with Peren, but it was clear the captain was having a great deal of fun at her expense. Or maybe the man actually believed it, in which case he was just insane. Either way, it didn’t bode well.

Rokvor didn’t exist.

“Doesn’t sound like it’s going to end well then,
does
it?”

Kaie jumped again, and Peren gave him an odd look. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” He couldn’t understand why nothing he did seemed to be enough to put an end to it.

He
hesitated,
sure he didn’t want to ask the question that was slipping out of his mouth.
“Peren, who’s Amorette?”

Her whole body grew stiff.
“That girl.”
Peren answered in a whisper. “She’s never going to leave you alone, is she?”

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out who she is.”

She laced her fingers through his hand. He wanted to shake her off. He didn’t. “She’s a girl you loved a long time ago. I told you about her once. She killed herself.”

“And I was there.” That wasn’t a question, but she nodded.

“Poor boy.
Did she break your heart?”

Kaie flinched.

Her hand slipped loose of his and she ran her fingers along the side of his face. He managed not to cringe. He was supposed to be free of her. Why wouldn’t she just be done with him?

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

Kaie sighed, rubbing his head. He didn’t understand anything, at the moment. “I’m just hungry. Is there any chance I can get some food?”

Her face lit up in a smile he didn’t deserve, and she jumped out of the hammock. “I’ll go get some!”

She left the room in a flash, closing the door behind herself.

Kaie turned to the corner of the room he didn’t notice before. There was a stool there, pressed close enough against the single window that it was half shadowed. But he saw the man.

“You’re not real.”

The figure shrugged.
“Doesn’t seem to make much difference, does it?”

The shadowed man tapped his chest. Kaie glanced down at his own, noticing the Aulis. Dread born in the skin touching the thin gold chain washed throughout his body. He tugged, knowing it was futile. If the chain could be broken, Silvertongue would have snapped it in their first encounter.

He’d known it was magic right from the beginning.

He looked back at the man in the shadow. “I’m not going to be able to get this off, am I?” His question came out as a whisper.

The figure shrugged.
“I warned you. Not my fault you didn’t listen.”

Kaie set his jaw and glared at the man.
“Doesn’t matter.”

The man laughed.
“No?”

“I’ve killed you once already, Gregor” he said with a smirk. “I can’t believe the second time’s going to be any harder. One way or another, I
will
be free.”

“You searched thoroughly?”

The man who used to be Sojun nodded. The Namer pursed her lips. She wasn’t angry at him. That didn’t mean safety. Namers were always happy to share their displeasure.

“He’s lying,” a second Namer scoffed.

The first one pressed her lips tighter, making them nothing more than a thin line. Then she turned away from the fire and turned on the man who spoke. “What purpose would that serve him? We’re only going to send him in again tomorrow.”

He sighed. For the last three days, it was the same. They picked a section of the ruins of Huduku,
then
sent him in to sift through the wreckage for bodies. He found plenty of those, but none were the ones they were looking for. If they asked him, he could tell them that it was pointless, but of course they didn’t ask. And it was looking more and more that his task would never be finished.

He was tired of pulling dead soldiers out of collapsed buildings.

“Lying about the Unbroken One,” the second Namer insisted. “He is trying to delay his return to Autumnsong.”

The first Namer scoffed. “You heard what those deserters were saying. And we both know Luna trained him better than that. He wouldn’t lie to us.”

“You said the same about Kissa,” a third Namer said softly. He walked out of the darkness, holding his hands out to the fire as if to warm them. The man who used to be Sojun was surprised. He didn’t know the Namers could feel cold.

“Who?”

“Your apprentice,” the new Namer answered. “Have you forgotten the girl so quickly?”

The first one flipped her hand in dismissal.
“Of course not.
Only the girl’s name.
I waste no energy remembering the ones we take away.”

“Well then,” the new one said, “which is it? Kissa said the Unbroken perished. This one says he was here. They cannot both be telling the truth.
So which one lied?”

The man realized suddenly that this new Namer was a danger to him.
More dangerous than the others.

“I might lie to you,” he blurted. The man was surprised at the words.

It was the other one’s fault; the one the Namers were looking for. He brought Sojun back to life. But Sojun was dead.
Dead, dead, dead.
That was how things were supposed to be. If
it weren’t for the other one, that’s what he would be. He couldn’t even manage to hate the guy, because Sojun loved him.
Heart’s brother.

All the Namers were looking at him, the man realized.
All of them.
In the firelight, he could see so many more sets of eyes flashing in the darkness. They were always careful. They kept their numbers hidden, even from him. He was their tool, but they did not trust him. He was only ever allowed to see four of them.

There were a lot more than four.

“I might lie to you,” he repeated. He ran a hand over his head. His hair was coming back. His mistress would be pleased. She liked him best when he could manage to grow hair. It never lasted long, but he did try to make her happy. “But I would never lie to my Mistress.”

“Why not?”
The new Namer didn’t seem to be trying to trap him. It seemed a genuine question. The man was surprised. He thought they all knew.

“I love her.”

“You don’t hate her for what she’s done to you?”

He nodded.
“That too.”

The first Namer made a sound of exasperation. “This is pointless. It does not make a difference which one of them
lied
. If there is even the possibility that the Unbroken One survived, we must be thorough. She will be furious enough, if we allowed him to slip through our fingers once.
To do it a second time…
No, that is unacceptable.”

“You’re right.” It was the second Namer again.
The one that always made him nervous.
What the man saw in the Namer’s eyes wasn’t a lust for sex. It was a longing for… other things.
Things that terrified him.
“This is pointless. Do you really expect this toy is going to stumble across a red-haired corpse for us to bring back?”

“He won’t, unless we continue sending him in to look.”

“And if he
does,
what then? The goddess will expect more proof of death than that, this time. Even in this forsaken place, there is bound to be at least one other man walking around with red hair. The Empress’s army was here, what, three years?”

“Two,” the first one corrected with obvious anger in her voice. The man noticed she didn’t answer the other question.

The third Namer held up his hands, palms facing outward. It silenced the other two instantly. The man observed this all with curiosity. Did the third Namer outrank the others? His mistress would never spy on the Namers, but she was surely curious. She was always curious. He would remember for her.

“I believe Eileen is correct, and that the Unbroken lives. The evidence is all around us. A week ago, this was a thriving city. Now it could be decades before it will house a population
again. And I feel the presence of old magics… Perhaps even another god. What other force could account for such things but the Catalyst?”

The third one wasn’t done. “
Durmont
is right as well, though. We will not find the boy here.”

The first one sputtered. “What then? Should we give up? Slink back to her with our tails between our legs, begging forgiveness that is beyond her? Will you see us all destroyed?”

The third waited for her to putter out before he spoke again. “No, Eileen. I did not bring us so far, only to see us destroyed before our time. We will find the Unbroken. But it is time for a new approach.”

The second Namer’s dark brow knit into a single line. “What do you mean, Cole? I know of no magic that will point the way to our missing lamb.”

The third one smiled. “You have spent too much time separated from the world, my friends. You think only of what you can do with your magic, not what others can do with theirs.”

“Do you speak only in riddles now?” The second one was growing angry. He wished his mistress was there. She wouldn’t protect him from their irritation. She might even enjoy watching him suffer. Many times, she did. But she would make sure they didn’t kill him. She wanted him alive.

The one called Cole shook his head. “I speak of the Empress’s greatest creation.
The Thorn.”

The second one scoffed, but the man’s breath caught. The Grand Duchess – the Empress’s daughter – was very fond of his mistress. The Thorn rarely interfered with him. But he knew better than to dismiss them. They were everywhere, and saw everything. And any one of them might one day decide that his mistress was a threat to the Empress and kill them both.

“There were four Urazian survivors,” the one called Cole continued. “And one among them is Thorn. I found the message early this morning, left in the traditional place.”

“And the Unbroken One is among them?” The one called Eileen sounded excited. Almost like a person.

“That’s a safe assumption. Fate always crafts her tools carefully. I doubt even devastation on this scale is enough to destroy her Catalyst.”

“Where are they?”

“The message was short. It listed their numbers, and the direction in which they were headed.
Nothing more.
The Empress showed a true streak of brilliance when she crafted her Thorn. Each one of them is loyal past the point of sanity. This one will continue to leave as much information as they can without revealing themselves.”

The second one snorted. “And what would you have us do, Cole? Traipse across Elysium chasing after clues this Thorn leaves behind?”

The first one spun on him. “Would you refuse,
Durmont
? Is your own loyalty so limited?”

Cole lifted his hands again, once more silencing the other two. “It would be my honor to lift every rock on Elysium looking for the Unbroken, if that was our goddess’s will. But in this I think there is a more practical solution.”

Cole turned to the man again. “You saw the
Unbroken
well? Would you recognize his face again, even after many months?”

The voice that was Sojun was screaming. The man fought to ignore it. Sojun was dead.
Dead, dead, dead.
He didn’t get to decide things. The man wouldn’t let Sojun confuse him.

“Yes. I would recognize it after many years.”

The one called Cole smiled. The man tried not to shudder. There were far too many Namers paying attention to him. He needed to go back to his mistress. She would tell him what he was supposed to think. And she would make Sojun be quiet again, like before.

“I’m not one dismiss resourcefulness,” the one called Eileen murmured, “but this one is hardly suitable. Luna is very skilled at crafting tools, but she does not leave them with much functionality. Look at him. He shrinks away whenever anyone looks at him, and he lopes around like some sort of dog.”

“Puppy,” he muttered. No one noticed. That was good. He didn’t mean to say it out loud. That word was only for his mistress.

“Well then, we will have to fill in the gaps, won’t we?”

“And who’s going to volunteer for that,” the one called
Durmont
snapped. “You can’t put pieces of any of us in there. We would burn out the body even faster than Autumnsong is managing.”

“The Lord Peter Autumnsong offered this afternoon,” Cole answered levelly. “He was quite distressed when he learned what happened to his mother. He rather jumped at the opportunity to prove himself to the goddess and avenge her. I have already collected what’s necessary.”

The other two drew in slow breaths. From the darkness around him, the man could hear the others doing the same. He shook so hard he nearly fell. Anything that made a Namer sound concerned was the sort of business creatures like him didn’t survive.

Wetness ran down his legs. The one called Cole stepped toward him.

“Will you allow me into your mind?” The Namer asked gently.

He knew the answer. Everyone knew the answer. They could always go in, no matter what you said. So if they asked, there was only one thing to say; one thing that could make
it hurt a bit less. But that damn Sojun. He was alive and making everything bad again. Before the man realized it was happening
,
words were coming out of his mouth.

“You’re going to make me Hollow, aren’t you?”

Cole chuckled. “No. That is only for the heretics. You’re not one of those, are you?”

“No,” the man said carefully,
crouching
so low his fingers brushed the dirt. “I’ve got no magics. Even if I did, my mistress taught me better.”

“Did she?”

He nodded and tried to swallow Sojun. The boy knew what words were coming next, and hated them. Hated, hated. But the man knew better. Sojun was supposed to be dead. The words were alive. They kept him safe. “I am Kosa’s tool.”

The one called Cole chuckled again. Then he placed a hand on either side of the man’s head. “Good. Now, don’t worry. I’m not going to make you Hollow. I’m going to make you Hunter. You will be whole.”

Then the man who used to be Sojun screamed.