Chapter 58 Ruh
Ruh
The strange thing about being dead for so long was that life didn’t fit as comfortably as it used to. Perhaps it was the heart in his chest that was not his. Or the time he’d spent as a spirit in the Owa Khel, learning all that he was willing to do to return to the world.
Ruhyan Veturius did not speak of that time to anyone. His mother had tried to ask, and he told her he didn’t remember.
But Ruh remembered everything.
He remembered greeting Nan in the Waiting Place. He remembered the Owa Khel, where his spirit had dwelled while Mauth taught him to seek out the future.
He remembered sending the dreams to Quil, Cero bet-Dafra, Musa, and Empress Helene. He remembered searching for Aiz in the dream world, thinking at first to get vengeance on her before realizing that there was something far better that he could take.
Strangely enough, he’d gotten the idea from Div. When she’d detached from Aiz, she’d left a hole in Aiz’s spirit. One that Ruh, as a disembodied consciousness, was easily able to fill.
He didn’t feel sorry for what he’d done.
Manipulating Aiz. Getting her to hand over her heart.
She’d killed and killed and convinced herself it was for her people.
And while he was a product of his gentle mother and loving father, he was also the descendent of two of the most vengeful women of his time.
The first time he saw the Bani al-Mauth, after Cero brought him back, she hugged Ruh tight. Knew you’d manage it, boy, she whispered. You’re my grandson, after all.
Nearly four months after Ruh’s return, his parents had settled back into a rhythm with the rest of Tribe Saif.
They were graver than they’d been—the loss of Empress Helene and Musa was a great blow to them both.
His father was especially sober, and some days, Ruh would walk or go fishing with him, and he knew Aba’s mind was on his old friends and everything they’d survived together.
Tribe Saif had come to Nur for the winter and were helping to rebuild the city.
Every morning, Sufiyan taught Ruh archery.
When Arelia was here, she chattered with him about her experiments, and they both tried to draw stories out of him.
Zuriya was as enmeshed in her studies as she’d been before the war, though she did repeatedly try to question Ruh about what death felt like.
In the end, it was Karinna who Ruh felt easiest with. And he was always the first person she found when she returned from her long jaunts away.
“Hello, cricket,” she greeted him after coming back from a trip to Antium, before looking at him incredulously. “You devil. Are you taller than me?”
Ruh smiled. “To be fair, Kari, you are very small.”
“Piss off,” she said. “I can still sit on you and make you cry for Ama. Got any food?”
Ama was telling a story this evening, so Aba had spit a goat and a half dozen other Tribes would join for dinner. Karinna followed Ruh to the campfire.
He glanced back at her a few times, worried she’d noticed the group of boys eyeing her and Ruh. There was a time she would have swaggered over to them and challenged them to a fight. With scims, staffs, their hands—it didn’t matter. Anything to put them in their place.
But to Ruh’s surprise, she ignored them and followed him to get a plate of food. They left the light of the fire and sat on the back of their parents’ wagon, listening to Ama tell the story of two friends who fall in love, and the trials they go through when they are parted.
When Ama got to the part where the lovers reunite, Ruh looked over to find that, ever so quietly, his sister had left.
He hopped off the wagon and followed her into the desert. She’d climbed up a ridge and sat at its edge, the wind pulling her hair into a tangled knot as she surveyed the stars.
When he sat beside her, he said nothing.
“I didn’t want to care about him, Ruh,” she said, and he knew who Kari was referring to, because he’d seen the way Cero and his sister had looked at each other. “It took so long to trust him. To make a—a friend. Now he’s gone and it hurts.”
“Perhaps you will see him again.”
“I don’t want to.” Karinna’s voice hardened. “He lives on the other side of the world. Even if I do see him, he’ll just leave again. Leave me behind. I never want to see him. I never want to—to hurt like this.”
Ruh pulled Karinna into a hug, pretending not to notice the tears that soaked his shirt. He didn’t tell her that her wants didn’t matter. That her fate was tied with Cero’s and that Ruh saw that binding as clear as he saw the lines of Loha in the earth.
He did not say they would be each other’s salvation and destruction. He did not say that their story wasn’t over. Not even close.
Instead, he kept silent, for those knowings were sorrowful, and today, at least, he was alive.
His father’s laugh was a distant rumble. Zuriya had left her studies for an evening to listen to their mother’s voice, a sweet song on the wind. Somewhere nearby, Sufiyan whispered secrets in Arelia’s ear as she pulled him toward her for a kiss.
Beyond the circle of firelight, Tas told a wild and almost entirely untrue tale to a young Tribal man who was already half in love with him despite knowing him for about ten minutes.
In a distant, half-built palace, an emperor walked alone, his mind on all that he would do to improve his people’s lives.
The world was as it should be.
So Ruh kept silent about his sister’s future. He held Karinna and thought of all that had passed through him when he’d come back to life. All the things he now knew and wished he did not.
“It won’t always hurt like this,” he said softly. “It’ll get better.”
“When, Ruh?” she whispered.
But as to that, Ruhyan Veturius had no answer.