Chapter Twenty-Two Kian #2
I turn onto the small side street where I grew up.
I step through the front door, kissing my fingers and placing them gently against the rosemary hanging from the frame as I pass. It’s a silly tradition my dad used to do with me when I was little, lifting me up to poke at my mom’s drying herbs in the kitchens.
After they were killed, Aunt Ujvala always kept dried rosemary in the kitchen doorway in their memory, even after I moved into the temple. It’s an odd bit of sentimentality for a woman who typically has no space in her life for anything other than practicality and schemes.
I walk through the house, snatching a persimmon.
I find my aunt in the center courtyard, training with Ivo and Ava in the rain.
I take it my little cousin is feeling better.
The way he limped into the forest, I thought it was a significantly larger injury.
He was covered in blood and leaning heavily on Aunt Ujvala.
I watch, standing out of the drizzle beneath an overhang as they beat on each other. “Do you ever take a break?”
“The temple has made you soft if you think life is for leisure.” My aunt sweeps Ivo’s feet out from under him. He lands in a shallow puddle and stays there, groaning. Ava steps back, not wanting to join her twin on the ground. Aunt Ujvala beckons her forward. “The goddess demands perfection.”
I roll my eyes and push off the doorframe.
She knocks Ava on her ass with one quick shove, chuckling as she puts away her sparring gear. The twins are old enough to know by now that until she’s back in street clothes, they should watch their backs.
Just like in real life.
After toweling off a bit, Aunt Ujvala begins to lead me through the labyrinth of connected houses that make up my family’s space.
From the outside, they all look like independent houses, squished together to save space and heat in the coldest months.
But inside, through passageways and barn-sized doors that can be left wide and open or closed up to look like walls, they are connected.
She leads me into the kitchen and points to the table I sat at while growing up. It is soft, worn from use.
“I take Ivo’s going to live?” I ask the moment I’m settled.
She takes out the stolen cheese and bread and mead. “Indeed.”
I wait for her to elaborate. Eventually she sighs and admits, “We went to one of the Spinner priests for healing.”
“No!” Aunt Ujvala hates paying for the temple’s blessings. Ivo must’ve been seriously hurt if she even considered it. “How much did that cost you?”
“Just a couple of the rubies I stole from your dead priest,” she says with a smirk.
I laugh at her audacity, and think again about how nice it might be to come home. “I’m glad he’s well.”
“Me, too.” She tries to repress a small shiver.
She toasts the bread over the fire, then slathers it with rich butter and a thick slice of cheese. She peels the wax seal off the mead and drinks it from the bottle. She holds out the bottle, and I take a swig, too.
“The temples make good mead,” I admit.
“Even better when it’s stolen.” She pours us each a glass and toasts us. “To the power of resurrection, of rebirth.”
I choke on a mouthful of mead. She knows. Of course she knows.
“I’m not surprised.” She continues, “That you have the power of rebirth. After all, it’s what you always wanted. The ability to restore the world to how it should be.”
She makes me sound almost noble, and I duck my head, wishing for the first time that I were wearing the phoenix skull so I could hide within it.
We eat our bread and drink the mead in silence as I take in the kitchen that looks the same as it has my entire life, with its wide hearth and mismatched shelving, all stuffed to the brim with dry goods, flatware and cups and plates and pots and pans and strange-shaped cooking utensils from all over the world. “What else is new with everyone?”
Aunt Ujvala stands and heads to the cellar, gesturing for me to join her.
I follow, wishing “rest” was a word my aunt knew.
I’m tired from a night with no sleep followed by a wet trek from the valley.
But I don’t have the energy to argue with her about why I should stay in the warm, light-filled kitchen.
“Nothing really new that you don’t already know about, apparently.
” In the dank cellar, Aunt Ujvala digs through the root vegetables, picking up a particularly large potato.
“We’ve found buyers for the gryphon agate, and have been gathering supplies to offer in trade, so we’ve set a date to return to the valley to begin negotiations. ”
I’d totally forgotten about my aunt’s goals to reestablish smuggling to the valley, I’ve been so caught up in my own shit. “Great idea to come in with offers.”
“Yes, I know,” she deadpans. “It’s like I’ve been doing this for awhile.”
I suppose I deserve that for telling the matriarch of a successful multigenerational smuggling operation that I approve of her business tactics. I change course. “When do you go back?”
“A week.”
Now it’s my turn to be surprised. A week is soon. But I’m not going to insinuate I know her job better than she does. Again.
She adds, “Check for correspondence about the valley for us, will you? If there are any updates on what the keepers might want or need, or if there are any spontaneous trips planned?”
“Of course.”
It’s been a while since she’s asked me to snoop through the desks of the high priestess and her lackeys. I assumed she had another mole within the temple, feeding her information. But I hadn’t asked for details. Better not to know, in case I’m caught.
Hopefully they know nothing of me, either.
Back in the kitchen, Aunt Ujvala cubes the potato and drops it in the pot of water hanging over the kitchen fire while I tell her about burning down the matching hut.
She knew this as well, of course. There’s a lull in conversation where she has the look of someone who has things to say.
Since she’s not someone who typically holds back her thoughts I turn to go, certain that whatever she’s hesitating to share is something I don’t want to hear.
“Stay.”
“I don’t want my absence missed.” I sound like a petulant child.
“Missed by your pretty matcher?” She salts the potato and stirs. “I saw the way you held her through the streets. You care for her. She feels safe with you.”
Shame floods me.
She shouldn’t. I destroyed her future and community with a single stolen flame. I shove away the feelings. This had to be done. So many more are already hurting. My efforts will help. The ends are worth my means.
“Fine,” Aunt Ujvala waves her spoon at me. “Go. We’ll talk later.”
I nod and run, just like I did earlier with Adela.
If only the phoenix could resurrect my courage.