Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) (27 page)

Something in his face shifts, and then he laughs, a quiet, disbelieving chuckle. “You’re still saving people.”

I shrug, embarrassed by his amusement, unsure of his words. I’m not really saving
people
, just one person whom I care about very much. Has that somehow convinced him of my identity? “I’m no hero,” I say stiffly.

He shakes his head, gestures to the cushions. “Please, sit.”

I do, and he takes a seat a alongside the wall, turned to face me. “I remember you well. You look different now — hollowed out
,
but…”

“But?”

“Stronger,” he admits, shrugging away the contradiction. “You couldn’t pass for a young man anymore.”

Is that a compliment? It hardly feels like one.

“Your face is etched in my mind. I doubt I’ll ever forget you. To us, and especially to Alia, you were —
are
a hero.”

“She’s well, then?” I ask quickly. The image of her lying crumpled in her cell, drained to within a breath of her life, has haunted my dreams often over the last year.

“She’s recovered,” Tarek says. “She’s not the same, of course, grown older, more serious. But we’ve all changed.”

It would be hard to remain an innocent child after such an experience.

“I’m sorry,” I say, even though it isn’t my fault. Even though the fault lies with his other sister, Saira, and the betrayal she agreed to in a foolish bid to out-politic her father and gain Blackflame’s support. And, ultimately, it lies with Blackflame himself.

He shrugs. “We’re alive and,” a gesture to the room, “well. If I could bring my parents back, I would. But some things cannot be undone.”

No, they can’t. I know that well enough.

“Why didn’t you send word to your friends?” he asks. “We would have heard from them, if they learned you’d survived. We asked to be told.”

I look away, letting my gaze wander over the cushions, the carpets. Why didn’t I contact them? Why did I focus solely on my mother? “I didn’t remember them at first,” I admit. “I was weak for a long time after I escaped. Finding a way to contact them from where I was, without bringing attention to them — it seemed dangerous. Not worth the risk.”

He stares at me. “You didn’t think they’d care?”

“I was already dead to them. They would have grieved and moved on by the time I remembered anything at all.”

Tarek leans back against the cushions. “I think you misjudge the depth of your friendships.”

I don’t have an answer to that. I feel suddenly sick with myself. All those months studying in Stormwind’s valley, spying on my mother and sifting through my memories, and I never considered that I was being selfish. Not that I should have left, or even that I could have contacted my friends among the Shadow League easily without sharing a blood tie, but surely I could have found some way to send word that I had survived and moved on? That our decisions, Saira’s betrayal, did not actually mean my death.

“Allow me to offer you tea,” Tarek says, “And refreshments.” A serving girl, hovering at the entry, takes this as permission to enter and crosses to us. She sets a silver tea tray down on the low octagonal table between us. The tray is filled to its edges with a teapot, small drinking bowls, and plates of pastries, dried fruits, and nuts. The girl serves us quietly and efficiently.

Tarek sips once from his cup, waiting until she disappears from view. “The help that you need,” he says slowly. “Who does it relate to?”

I consider my possibilities. I need help, am almost desperate for it. But involving the Degaths would be monumentally stupid. They are still a noble household, and still standing against Blackflame with all the legitimate power at their disposal. And as the Ghost said when we first set out to save them, a resistance against Blackflame requires the voices of those with the power to speak, as a complement to the work of the Shadow League itself. Whether or not the Shadow League exists here is irrelevant. I have no doubt it’s still at work in Karolene.

“It’s better that I tell you as little as possible,” I say finally. “I was hoping there might be a group of people here … like those who helped your family in Karolene. Those are the people I need.”

“Then you are willing to leave unsatisfied?”

No. I bite my lip hard. He doesn’t trust me. There’s no hope of involving him. Which means his words aren’t an offer of help but a thinly veiled invitation to leave. I force a smile and set my tea cup down. “I was never unwilling to leave, but I do thank you for your hospitality.”

He raises a hand. “Stay, finish your tea at least.” And then, “Will you not tell me where you went after you escaped Kol?”

“I was taken in by a healer living in a rural valley. I spent most of the last year with her. She made me her apprentice once I was well enough to help her.”

He laughs, a genuine, deep-throated laugh. “I wouldn’t have imagined a street thief settling into being a country healer’s apprentice.”

“Why not?” I ask, irked. “I wasn’t a street thief by choice. I did that to survive.”

“And healing? Was that a matter of survival as well?”

Is he mocking me? I take a deep breath, make myself answer. “In its way, yes. It was also a means to making a living, rather than simply scraping by day after day.” Stormwind
had
insisted I learn a great deal of herbs and healing. I could easily pass as a healer’s assistant at this point — or even a rather mediocre healer — selling my knowledge to keep myself while still hiding my talent.

Tarek looks slightly abashed, but his gaze doesn’t waver. “Then it’s this healer who’s in trouble.”

I underestimated him, his ability to parse conversations and strategize. Or perhaps I didn’t think clearly enough about meeting him, about who he has become in the year since I broke him free from his cage and sent him fleeing through Blackflame’s gardens to safety. “I thought you couldn’t endanger your family.”

“No,” he agrees. He sets down his cup and rises, waiting expectantly for me to stand. I don’t know what other argument I can make, what I can do without directly involving the Degaths. And they’ve already suffered enough losses. I could demand that they help me — Tarek has enough honor to know that he owes me his life, his family’s lives. But I can’t do that, and he won’t offer it himself.

I follow him out the door, leaving behind my half-drunk tea and half-eaten pastries with a twinge of regret. I should have eaten faster. It’s the best meal I’ve seen since the caravanserai.

From the foyer, I can hear more clearly the faint noise that had teased the edge of my hearing in the room: a girl’s laugh, and the sharp bark of a dog. Tarek opens the front door, stepping to the side and holding it for me.

“I am sorry I can offer you nothing more,” he says as I step through.

I nod, my eyes going to the two young women on the garden path. The elder wears a housedress, a long flowing gown of bright yellow, embroidered with red flowers, bell sleeves serving to emphasize her delicate wrists and long, tapered fingers. A matching scarf wraps around her head in a crown, setting off her long neck and the elegant line of her shoulders. The younger is on the cusp of womanhood, her form still small and her clothes simpler
,
though equally bright— orange and yellow and white.

“Alia?” I whisper just loud enough for Tarek to hear, as my gaze finds her neck, the pale scars barely visible as she looks toward me. I beam at her, happy suddenly in a way I forgot I could be, my feet light and my heart singing. This girl is vibrantly alive, laughter on her lips and eyes dancing, as unlike the girl in my memory as the living are to the dead. She looks up, and her face stills as she catches sight of me. She tilts her head, glances at her sister, voicing a question.

The dog at their side huffs softly and trots toward me. It’s a somewhat fluffy golden creature, with perky triangular ears and dark fur around its eyes. Its legs, also darker, appear slim under the puffy fur of its body. My brow furrows as I study it, taking in the ringed tail, the bright eyes.

The women follow after the dog. As they near, the elder, who can only be Lady Saira Degath, says, “Hitomi?”

I dip my head, raising my hand toward my heart, and then the dog launches himself at me — except he isn’t a dog. I take half a step back, yelping in surprise, as the dog-man grasps my arms with a shout, his face coming into focus as a man’s barely a hand away from my own. I stumble, and if Tarek’s hands hadn’t whipped out to steady me, we would have gone down in a heap.

“Hitomi!” The dog-man, now fully transformed, shouts, still gripping my arms. He’s surprisingly strong, given how slim and short he appears.

“Y-yes…
.
” I make myself focus on him.

“Well,” I hear Saira say to her brother. “I guess it really is her.”

I know this man, his bright brown eyes, his shaggy chestnut hair mingled with black. I know him both as a man and a dog … no. Not just any dog. A black-masked tanuki. “Kenta?” I say, my voice uncertain.

He laughs and steps back. He isn’t wearing a shirt, and all that passes for pants are a pair of tight leather — half-pants? Leather is the easiest material for a shifter to take with them when they shift, and it takes some time for younger shifters to do even that. I’m grateful he managed that much.

“Thank you,” Kenta says, glancing quickly at Tarek. “I almost didn’t believe your note, but I shouldn’t have doubted it.”

“I am only glad you received it and came so quickly.”

Kenta nods, turns his attention back to me, his lips parted in a smile that shows two rows of almost human-looking white teeth, the tips slightly sharper than they should be. “We thought you dead. Why didn’t you send word?”

I shake my head, still staring at him.

“Come in and put on some clothes,” Tarek says from beside me, “so my sisters can stop admiring the floor and look at you again.”

Kenta laughs, reaches out to grasp my shoulders. I startle, not at all ready to be hugged by an unclothed man I barely remember. His fingers just brush my shoulder before he drops his hands, still chuckling. “Just making sure you’re not a ghost.”

“No,” I assure him.

“You
are
certain it’s her,” Saira says from behind him
.

I glance over his shoulder at her, but Saira is studiously looking at the ground to avoid the sight of her barely clothed friend. Alia, however, watches me solemnly, eyes unwavering. She no longer looks a child at all.

“Absolutely.” Kenta taps his nose. “I know my friends’ scents. It’s not something mages have managed to glamor yet.”

“Good thing you’re a tanuki,” Tarek says, gesturing us back to the sitting room. “And forgive me, Hitomi, for not welcoming you more warmly at first. You understand my concerns.”

“Perfectly.”

Kenta steps away to rifle through a carved wooden trunk set against the wall. A moment later, he swings a sage green kimono around his shoulders, sliding his arms through the wide sleeves and wrapping an earth brown obi around his waist to hold the folds in place. He turns to us and bows with a flourish, while I consider the implications of his keeping a spare set of clothes here.

“And now,” Tarek says, still waiting at the door with his sisters, “we will leave you to talk.” He nods toward me, “The room is warded, so no word you speak will pass these walls.”

“I thank you,” I say.

“It is the least we can do,” Tarek says. “I hope we will meet again when the troubles that occupy you are past.”

“I look forward to it.” It seems as likely as my attending Huda’s sister’s wedding in the desert in a month’s time, but I can at least pretend I have such hopes.

Tarek bows slightly and withdraws a step, waiting to close the door for his sisters. Saira hesitates in the doorway. I cannot read her expression, the hollow weight of her gaze. She betrayed her family once, and the Shadow League, and while her parents are gone, I wonder what she thinks now, seeing me apparently returned from the dead. She has aged in a way that has nothing to do with the passing of the days. Her eyes are deeply shadowed, the light in them more like darkness than anything. Without a smile on her lips, she seems adrift, bereft. I wonder how hard it was for her to find a place in her family again, whether her siblings will ever truly forgive her.

“Lady Saira,” I say hesitantly.

“I am … grateful that you found us,” she says, her words awkward in the space between us. With a jerky nod, she departs, her slippers whispering to silence as she hurries away.

Tarek reaches to shut the door, his expression cool and still.

“Thank you,” Alia says suddenly, one hand out to stop the door. “And I’m sorry.”

I look at her in confusion. “What for?”

“Kol would never have noticed you if you hadn’t tried to protect me.”

Tarek’s features tighten, but he does not look at me. A year, I realize. A year she has lived, blaming herself for my death. I make myself smile, though it is a small, sad thing. “But I am glad he did, my lady. If he hadn’t, I would have remained in Blackflame’s power, and he would have killed me long before anyone else could have helped me. So you see, together we traded that future for one I could escape.”

Alia stares at me, her lips parting, closing again as she struggles to find words.

“I thank you for that,” I tell her. “And I would do it again a hundred times, no matter the consequence. But … I am so very glad to see you well.”

She smiles tremulously. “I am glad to see you
,
too.”

I dip my head, touch my hand to my heart. To my surprise, she returns the gesture, as if we were of equal standing.

“Please come see us again,” she says.

“I will try,” I promise.

Tarek smiles at me with unexpected warmth. Then he ushers Alia out and closes the door, leaving me alone with Kenta.