Chapter 19 Kidan
KIDAN
Drastfort Prison was Kidan’s least favorite place. The fortress-like brick walls, the constant searches and scrutiny gave her goose bumps. Then there was the smell from the days she’d spent in a prison cell awaiting her trial—concrete and putrid alcohol—before Dean Faris bailed her out.
Kidan and Slen hovered near the wall, letting Yusef and his father stare at one another.
The silence stretched on and Kidan shifted, scratching at the collar of her sweater.
Yusef was never quiet. His very nature was to buzz and emit sound like the crunching of roasted seeds.
The lovely shade of his brown eyes had misted, almost like the night Slen carried him through Adane House, sweater and face bloodied.
The night he’d killed.
Once they passed through the processing, Omar Umil’s eyes immediately went to Yusef’s injured hand.
The stiff way he carried it. His attention drifted higher, settling on the new silver house pin all graduates wore.
Kidan still wasn’t used to hers, the light and dark mountains winking back at her from her sleeve.
“Who?” Omar asked, in a voice rough and unused.
Yusef startled at the sound, then followed his father’s gaze, touching the silver pin on his chest.
“Rufeal Makary,” he said quietly.
Omar studied them all one by one, taking in their silver pins, that intensity about him remained, his lids unshifting, like a lion at night. Slen looked to Kidan, who couldn’t quite breathe.
Finally, Omar… smiled. “That’s my boy.”
Yusef snapped his head up, releasing a disbelieving sound. Kidan exhaled too.
It still took Yusef an extraordinary amount of time to form words. “You… you’re not angry?”
It was a question encompassing everything.
“The Makary vermin have been after us for decades. Trying to dissolve and fold our house into theirs. Imprisoned me. You took one of them down. Angry? I’m proud.”
Kidan couldn’t see Yusef’s face, but he wiped his sleeve across his eyes. The emotion in his words made her own chest tight. “I’m sorry for leaving you all alone here,” he said. “I’m going to make this right. The 13th will pay. I’ll get you out, Dad. I promise I will.”
As the two talked, Kidan and Slen retreated to the back of the wall. Slen studied them intently, a line between her brows.
“I don’t understand,” she said, and they were such rare words, Kidan turned to pay attention.
“Omar was arrested because Yusef testified against him. In the last fourteen years, he didn’t visit him once.
Yusef ignored all the letters, all the attempts to bring him here.
Those are unforgivable mistakes. Omar should hate him. ”
“Some children are lucky,” Kidan said, thinking of Mahlet Adane.
Would she have forgiven her for something like this?
Slen appeared lost in thought, her coffee-colored eyes trained on Yusef, who smiled broadly. A trace of emotion passed over her eyes, almost like longing, a flicked-on lighter before the cool tone returned.
“My brother left,” Slen said.
“What do you mean he ‘left’?”
“He left Uxlay and he’s not coming back.”
Kidan heard the words beneath a hundred layers of stone, thrumming with emotion.
He left me.
Kidan’s hands balled into a fist.
“After everything you did for him.” Her anger was a steel-edged thing, making Slen stare intently at her.
June was exactly like this. Oblivious. Selfish.
This time, Slen’s voice hummed with determination.
“There was always a worry in the back of my mind that one day I might fight my own brother to inherit Qaros House. Wonder if the house would come between us as it did between my father and his siblings. It was the only scenario where I didn’t know how I’d react. Now I know.”
Slen’s fingers rubbed against one another, like plucking the strings of a violin. She was decent at masking her emotions but there were small signs like these that made everything she said ring false, or as if it held alternative meanings and Kidan had to translate it.
“What about your other family members?” Kidan asked. “They won’t stand in your way?”
Only Kidan’s house had two living members. For the others, the rules of inheritance were more complicated. Kidan doubted Koril Qaros had named his daughter in the will.
“Since my father was arrested, the house is temporarily assigned a new inheritor,” Slen explained. “My family will choose soon. It will be between me and my uncle.”
Though her tone was even, her eyes dropped for a moment.
“Do you have a plan?”
She nodded. “My grandfather was the one who changed our profession from agriculture to music. He respects progress and advancement. I just have to prove I have great visions for Qaros House. They’ll back me.”
There it was again, a flicker of desire that Kidan had to watch for. Whatever her plan was, it would have to be big.
She’d always known to be cautious of Slen’s ambition but now she feared it. GK had died because of it, and if Slen gave in to it, what would happen to them?
You can’t trust her, a voice whispered in her ear. A quote from Aseracti. “Loyalty is only for starved men.”
“What about Yusef’s family?” Kidan asked, trying to distract herself.
“No need for a family meeting, his great-aunt named him inheritor when he was seven.”
Though it was quick, there was a slight tension in Slen’s jaw.
As Kidan understood it, a house technically could be claimed by any descendant who matched or severed the established culture.
Even June could take the house from Kidan.
But Uxlay had laws within laws. They demanded a study of Dranacti be completed first, and wills of succession be drafted.
“Are you going to inherit or sever?” Slen asked.
Kidan’s hands shook a little, drawing a square against her thigh.
“I don’t know enough about my mother yet.” Her voice wasn’t as casual as she wanted it to be, a wisp of longing made her sound weak. “You?”
“Inherit.”
Kidan jerked straight. “What? From Koril? You’re not serious.”
There was a resigned look in Slen’s flat eyes. “I received a letter from my father. There was only one message. ‘Wool makers. Music makers. What will you make us now?’ I have more in common with my father than differences. I can match his Four Points of Culture. It is the easiest path.”
Yusef’s cascading laughter drew their attention. It settled beneath Kidan’s heart, making her sick with want. If she had at least one parent to help her, guide her, everything would be different.
“I’m going to wait outside,” Slen said.
She must have had enough too.
Kidan followed her out, catching a brief nod from Omar Umil. He seemed to say the same thing as the last time she’d visited him. Protect my son.
Once Yusef was finished, they made their way to East Corner Coffee in silence. Yusef studied the ground, lost in thought.
Kidan nudged his shoulder. “You okay?”
“Fourteen years in prison.” His eyes swam with new emotion. “He can’t spend another day. I have to get him out.”
If her parents were alive and in jail, she’d have burned down the prison to free them. The crushed leaves below her feet floated up, new air and life flowing inside her. A deep exhale left her. She decided she could no longer avoid learning about her parents.
Once they settled in their spot in East Corner Coffee, Kidan pulled out her laptop and entered her new ID. She inhaled deeply and, for the first time, typed her mother’s name.
After spending her entire life avoiding the memory of her parents, she’d mastered the skill well.
They’re dead. What’s the point? She hadn’t wanted to know how it happened or any detail that would bring them close to her.
All she’d cared about was June.
Until now.
Now June felt farther away than last year. Now Kidan was a graduate, not a girl eaten by guilt at what she’d done to Mama Anoet.
She had friends. A future.
And she had to decide if she would inherit her legacy or sever it.
She was mindlessly scrolling through the results—awards and accolades, pictures of them at the Acti Gala, when she caught a title that made her breath catch.
The Murder of Mahlet Adane and Aman Yisak.