Chapter 41 Kidan
KIDAN
After receiving the red band from Professor Andreyas, Kidan caught up to Yusef. He was perched on the ledge before the red sandstone buildings of the Southern Sost, concentrated over his sketchbook, using his left hand to draw. He had earbuds in. No doubt a track by Nina Simone.
Kidan hopped onto the ledge and he jumped, swearing.
Once he realized it was just her, Yusef pulled his earbuds down, his mouth quirking into a knowing smile. “I was wondering when you’d come chat.”
The weather was lovely, sun streaking down in visible rays.
The lighting here was almost magical, bringing out the green in the unnaturally even grass.
Every shade of red from crimson to rust illuminated in the sandstone.
Kidan remembered GK and Yusef sitting here, meditating.
Her gut squeezed. It felt like an eternity ago.
Maybe Yusef came here to remember GK too.
“Who are you going to vote for?” she asked, staring Yusef in the eye.
“Wow, not even an attempt at small talk. At least try to charm me.”
It would be easy to joke this away, sink into their familiar routine, and Kidan wished she could. But every time she found a trace of joy, the world loved to crush it under its heel. She had to become something she didn’t want, guarded, always cautious.
“You look very handsome,” Kidan said with a straight face. “Who are you going to vote for?”
He gave her a small grin. “Better. You know for two people at odds, you and Slen have the same approach.”
Kidan scanned the area for the familiar jacket. “Did she come talk to you?”
He nodded.
Damn, that was fast. “What did she say?”
“I look handsome, and I remind her of a young Picasso.”
“Yusef.”
His smile smoothed out, his tone lowering. “She wants me to vote her way.”
Kidan tried to keep her expression neutral, digging her fingers into the stone. “And?”
In the distance, a few protesters were taking a break, gathered around a bench. Yusef’s gaze lingered there.
“I understand why you both want to win. And one of you will. But what about them? How does either of you winning help them?”
Kidan picked out a few familiar faces from last semester. Most of them were failed graduates of Dranacti.
“Have you ever visited the university lodgings after hours?” Yusef asked, surprising her.
Kidan shook her head.
“If you fail Dranacti three times, your house can no longer shelter you. You move to the lodgings, or as they like to call it, ‘the Reject Pit,’” he said.
“It’s messed up, isn’t it? To remove you from your family because you didn’t understand some fucked-up philosophy?
I used to visit it every day, joke that I’d soon join them until…
I graduated. They come up to me now and think I’m a hero.
They barely sleep, most are drunk or high and keep begging me for help.
And what do I do? I give them the same bullshit answer every graduate gives.
Study hard or look for deeper meanings. Because we can’t tell them the truth, can we? ”
Kidan was silent, absorbing his words. She was seeing him in a new light, a heaviness around his eyes. Was it mastering his house that had faded his carelessness? When had Yusef started to feel the responsibilities of his position?
“Uxlay separates families, Kidan. It destroys relationships. What do I want to do now that I mastered my house? I want to make sure my children never come here. I can’t let them become murderers.
And I don’t want them to be punished for not being one.
I don’t want them to fight over the power of houses. I want them to be free.”
Her eyes blinked, taking in the firmness to his jaw. Eyes made of steel.
Her first thought was: GK would be proud of this Yusef. The bone crinkling sound returned in her mind and GK sounded close, watching them both. He might be disappointed in Kidan, but Yusef was at least doing what GK wanted. Staying off the path of darkness.
“Nothing but dreams.” The words came from behind the thick pillar, flat and cold as a sheet of ice.
Kidan flinched, surprised, before anger spread in her veins. How long had Slen been standing there?
Yusef’s eyes dimmed, though his lips tugged at a corner. “That’s what you said when I told you I’d master my house before you.”
A flare of annoyance lit Slen’s dark eyes. “The only way to be free of Uxlay is to surrender your house to the dean and leave. Otherwise, it’s just a dream.”
“You think I won’t leave?” Yusef challenged.
Her mouth pressed into a line.
Even Kidan was shocked, asking, “You’d throw it all away? After everything?”
“GK did.” Yusef glanced down to his page.
Kidan caught a glimpse of the sketch—a pair of warm reflective eyes and a turtleneck that hid his chin. Slen flicked a glance to it and hardened her jaw.
“GK had nothing,” she said. “He had no family or legacy to sacrifice. It is easy for him to remove himself from Uxlay.”
Kidan’s blood burned whenever Slen spoke about him like this.
“That’s not true,” Yusef said, nostrils flaring. “He saw us as his family.”
“He wanted to put us in prison.”
“He wanted to free us from Dranacti,” Yusef countered. “And we—”
Yusef cut off, turning away.
Fire took over Slen’s eyes, no more ice. “Nothing can free us from Dranacti. You must kill to feed a vampire. It is fact.”
Silence draped over them, revealing the layers of frustration in her tone.
“You want peace?” Slen said, glancing at Kidan, then Yusef. “No more protests? Vote for deanship to be accessible to all Border Houses. Remove the Founding Houses.”
“I almost believe you.” Kidan’s voice was all venom. “You advocating for peace. All you want is Qaros House to climb to the middle position. Just like your father.”
Slen blinked and extinguished the flames of emotion she’d accidentally let slip.
Her left hand went to her bare right hand, touching the scars there.
Kidan regretted her words as soon as they came out, but she couldn’t take them back.
Last semester, Slen had shared about her abusive father reluctantly, in a rare moment of trust and comparing her to him would hurt.
Just like the pain Kidan felt glimpsing Mama Anoet’s cruelty in herself.
Their parents might have been gone but their legacy remained in their blood whether they liked it or not.
Kidan’s mouth dried, and it was difficult to swallow.
Sometimes, Kidan was afraid she had already inherited a culture.
Only it was the wrong one, Mama Anoet’s.
By now Slen must have realized the same thing with her father.
Yusef got to his feet with a sigh. “I have an appointment to see my dad. Please don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”
They watched him go, a shadow of darkness trailing him. Yusef wouldn’t escape what was coming to him as a house master. He would have to choose.
“Did you get your answer, then?” Kidan asked icily. “About which of us has the most power? That’s why you’re doing this, aren’t you? To prove to us you’re not influenced by us.”
Kidan half blamed their studies. Professor Andreyas’s classes always made them rip out their soul, examine all the rotten parts, and then shove it back in. The only problem was Slen had decided it was Yusef and Kidan she needed to rip out of her heart.
Slen leaned against the carved wall and pulled out her cigarette, lit it, inhaled deeply, and exhaled. “No. It keeps spinning between us three.”
Her tone sounded troubled. Like it was all a complicated piece of translation.
“So stop this,” Kidan said, unable to help herself. “Before anyone gets hurt.”
There was no light in Slen’s expression, her form almost one with the shadow’s pillar.
“Someone has to get hurt. It’s inevitable.
Did you know that after the Last Sage died, Demasus could have wreaked havoc again?
Yet he not only chose to keep the promise of Dranacti but began teaching it, just like the Last Sage wanted. ”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“Think about it, Kidan. The Last Sage’s death influenced Demasus’s goodness. I think that’s when we’ll know who has the most power between us all. It’s in how we react to one another’s death.”
Kidan tasted smoke on her tongue. The ash of their future battles. “Do you realize how fucked up that is?”
Slen inclined her head. “It has already happened once.”
Small cinders sparked in the space between them.
Kidan’s brows drew together for a second, then a disbelieving laugh left her. “GK?”
Slen nodded, entirely serious. “His death caused a ripple effect. It made us all act in ways we hadn’t before.
I killed him and yet I wanted to revive him.
” There was a furrow to her forehead. “I knew the risks, the chance of expulsion for conducting a death transformation, and yet… none of it mattered. I did it.”
Kidan had always thought GK didn’t haunt Slen the way he haunted her and Yusef. But maybe she was wrong. Slen carried GK in the back of her mind, trying to understand why she had helped revive him.
Kidan shook her head. “You changing your mind is not a weakness, Slen. You saved him.”
“But it wasn’t him I wanted to save.” Her voice had changed, now reflective and slow. “I was swayed by your vision of our friendship. When you held that knife under my throat in that crypt, for a moment, I wanted to be your friend.”
The muscles in Kidan’s throat tightened. Slen stepped into the light, her black jacket out of place in this weather. Kidan couldn’t find the right words, her mind racing with a thousand thoughts and emotions.
“And now?” Kidan asked, half afraid of the answer.
“I realize being your friend will cost me more than I thought.”
There was nothing she could say to that. It was honest but cruel. They were being punished for what they did to GK. Suffering in hell because of their selfish choices.
When Slen retreated into the path of the outside corridor, Kidan braced herself by the ledge, shutting her eyes. Her emotions threatened to dissolve her, but she stepped toward Adane House. At least there she could get a fraction of peace.
Death is near you, Kidan. Don’t go home.
Kidan froze.
The command echoed loudly, with clinking echoes in her skull. She whipped her head around, expecting to find GK’s soft brown eyes behind her. Only a couple walked on the footpath.
She shook her head and kept walking.
Don’t go home.
Her whole body stiffened.
This wasn’t something she was imagining. It was real. GK was in her mind. She whirled on the footpath, nearly falling, searching for the crinkling sound in the swaying trees and the dark clouds.
Don’t go home, Kidan.
“Why?” she shouted into the air. “How are you doing this?”
Kidan’s head tilted toward the northeast, past Ahnd Cemetery, to the Mot Zebeya Monastery, waiting up a thousand stairs. She had an urge to follow the path. Maybe GK’s voice would be clearer up there. But she would only feel guilty there, seeing all that she had robbed from GK’s life.
Kidan shook her head and walked under the lamps to her front porch. She shook with her key.
Don’t enter!
Kidan burst inside, her boots sliding mud onto the hallway. All pain stopped. All flickers of sensation in her body, worming and gnawing, faded away. She inhaled deeply, thanking the house, walking into her safe haven. Her body becoming nothing but armor.
Her guilt was getting out of hand. Had she actually thought GK was warning her? Because there was no threat at Adane House. Aseracti had crafted a space of relief. If Kidan had her way, she’d never leave this—an absence of noise, of doubt and pain.
Voices echoing from the kitchen interrupted her thoughts.
Susenyos must be home.
Faintly, GK tried to reach her once more.
You’re not safe.
Aseracti snuffed out his voice the moment she willed it.