Chapter 56 S’rsha #2
S’rsha forced herself to tell Arelia, Sufiyan, and Tas first, for she needed to build up her courage. Then she told Elias, who, with Ruh looking on, agreed with alacrity to get her the gold he owed her.
She only needed to tell Quil.
Her chance came a week after they reached Antium, when every tree in the capital appeared to be flaunting a different color of autumn.
Earlier that day, Elias had found her in a garden, attempting to help raise one of the many statues that had fallen.
He pulled her aside and offered her a large sack of coins.
“Your payment,” he said. “Well—as much as fit in a bag. The rest is in a chest in your room. Thirteen hundred marks total.”
S’rsha huffed in irritation. “No bonus? I did spend six months longer with that creature than I anticipated. And I kept it from eating everyone.”
“There’s a fine stallion awaiting you in the western stables.
Head west to a town called Cyrium, along the River Rei.
I booked you passage all the way to Navium, and then from Navium to the Southern Isles.
Unless…you plan to stay.” His gaze fell on Quil, passing through the garden and deep in conversation with his Blood Shrike, a group of court advisers arguing with each other as they trailed him.
Elias took his leave and S’rsha found herself watching Quil, who’d stopped beside an empty patch of garden.
She wondered what he was telling his Shrike.
Wondered how the treaty negotiations with Cero were going.
She was curious about the business of ruling, perhaps because when she was young, she’d thought she would lead Kin Inashi.
Hopefully he was getting regular sleep and good meals. She frowned—he looked leaner than he should. The Empire had dug deep into old winter stores, but it would take a few harvests for the food supply to stabilize.
Say goodbye quickly, a voice within urged her. Find your inn. Heal. Recover. Make it simple.
But he’d been her Adah and she his. Things would never be simple between them.
She made her way to Quil just as the Shrike and his other retainers departed. His face lit up when he saw her.
“I see Elias finally paid you,” he said.
“Yes.” S’rsha looked around at the carpenters, the gardeners—anywhere but him. That still hurt far too much. “And you’ve been busy. The reconstruction seems to be going well.”
“It’s only been a week,” Quil said. “But the Mariners and Ankanese are sending aid. And with all the Loha we’ve found, we should be able to rebuild stronger than before.
The Jaduna have sent crafters to help. Raani Sh’ban dispatched a group of Inashi to hunt down the pirates who raided our southern cities.
” He tried to catch her eye. “I’ll meet with her tomorrow. Would you like to come?”
“I’ll be leaving in the morning. It’s time.”
His face fell and his pulse quickened at his throat. He didn’t want this.
“I know you’re headed south,” he said. “But—what if you found an inn here? There will be so many people who need a place to stay in the city.”
“I need—” Skies, it all made sense to her when she’d planned it, but now she felt a fool.
“I need time, Quil. What happened between me and Div, what happened in my mind”—she shuddered—“I need to come to terms with it. I need to forgive myself for old sins. For letting Div manipulate me. For what happened with R’zwana. And—and for what happened with us.”
“It took two of us to make the coin, S’rsha,” he said, “and two of us to break it. I understood your reasons. I agreed with them. I know you have much to contend with. But don’t take on the guilt of our broken Adah bond. I still say we don’t need the coin to love each other. We never did.”
She put her hand to her heart. To the ache that had lived there since the Adah coin shattered. “Can’t you feel it?” she said. “Those pointed edges?”
He smiled, but it was sad. “That’s just love,” he said. “The deeper it runs, the closer it cuts.”
His dark hair fell across his cheek as he looked down at her. She wanted to push it back. To let her fingers linger on the warmth of his skin. To bring her lips to his and know that it was the first of ten thousand kisses.
Gently he took her hands. For a moment, she wondered if he’d ask her to stay again. She hoped he wouldn’t. Because she wasn’t sure she could say no, and she needed to.
“I understand you require time. And I—” His voice faltered, and he cleared this throat.
“I hope you will take whatever time you need to heal. But when you’re ready—if you’re ready—you are always welcome wherever I am.
” He drew a line up her bare arm, featherlight across her face, before smoothing back her hair.
“You will always have a home with me. You—you are always part of my blood and my bones and my body, S’rsha. Adah coin or not.”
She nodded, her chest tight, and pulled her hands away before she lost her nerve.
The next morning, she set out before dawn. But when she’d gotten halfway to the stables, she heard footsteps behind her and turned to find Sufiyan and Arelia, hand in hand. Despite her sadness, she smiled. About bleeding time.
“I cannot believe,” Sufiyan said, “that you would leave without saying goodbye.”
S’rsha fidgeted. “I—”
“Have no excuse,” Arelia said. “Good thing we know you.” She tilted her head, and her face softened. “Must you go, S’rsha? You don’t have to be alone, you know. We’re here.”
“So is Quil,” Sufiyan said with a complete lack of subtlety.
S’rsha glanced down pointedly at their clasped hands. “The newly coupled always want everyone else to be coupled. Don’t worry. I said goodbye to him. But now—” She shrugged. “Now is not our time.” She forced a smile in the face of their twin looks of disappointment.
“Come visit me sometime,” she said. “I’ll bake you a cake.”
They walked her to the stables, which were bustling, even this early in the morning. After they’d taken their leave and S’rsha was saddling her new mount, she heard a familiar sound. The tinkle of Jaduna coins. But when she turned to look, there was no one there.
The Southern Isles were beautiful in the late fall, temperate and breezy, with the occasional rain shower to break things up and stunning sunsets every night.
S’rsha was warmly welcomed by the community, without a single question asked about her past. She saw Ankanese and Karkauns, Martials and Mariners, all living in relative peace.
After a few weeks of exploring, S’rsha met an old woman struggling to run an inn that had been in her family for the past century.
It was on the southern coast of a larger island, near a port that would bring in business.
It had a dozen rooms, a large kitchen and bakery, an apartment for S’rsha, and a nearby market.
The first night S’rsha had the place to herself, she thought she would be—not happy, perhaps, but satisfied. Finally, after so much waiting, she had a home. It will take time, she told herself. Months, maybe.
But as fall eased into winter and winter into spring, as she reckoned with all that had happened to her, S’rsha found that the Isles didn’t truly feel like home.
She fell into a rhythm of caring for guests and managing a helper or two, of baking breakfasts and stocking up enough at market so she could feed all who stayed under her roof.
The work was satisfying, for a time, though not enough to fill up the emptiness in her heart. Here and there, she heard snippets of news from the Empire. But rarely anything about Quil other than that he was thought well of by his people.
Sometimes, she dreamt of him. Dreamt that she awoke to find him beside her, sleeping. She dreamt that he gave up the Empire for her. She would awake, shuddering, for she didn’t want that. He loved his people. He needed his duty. It felt wrong to dream about taking him away from that.
Then, one day, many months after she’d moved and long after she’d made peace with at least some of the demons plaguing her, she woke up and she wasn’t alone.
Someone was prowling in her room. S’rsha already had her daggers in hand—she slept with her knives—but she wasn’t as fast as her intruder.
Steel slid against her throat. A person materialized out of the dark.
Someone lean, fast, and heavily cowled. S’rsha tried to get a glimpse of a face, but all she caught was a flash of pale blue iris, a high cheekbone, the hint of an old scar.
“Don’t even think about it,” a voice—strangely familiar—said. “Sit down, S’rsha Inashi-fa. I have a proposal for you.”