Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
The next several days saw Khana withdrawing from the town. She didn’t go out exploring anymore, not leaving the inn, or even her room if she could manage it. Children pointed and screamed at her when they saw her on the street, like she was a nightmare made flesh. Adults stared and whispered to each other. Many made holy or religious signs when she passed them. When she tried to work, the customers didn’t even look at her, turning away or spitting at her feet, calling her death-bringer and soul-sucker. Heimili had to relegate her to kitchen duty, limping through the dining hall himself.
Khana considered that a blessing. She’d been shocked when she’d left the town hall, fully expecting to be kicked out of the inn. But Haz dropped an arm around her thin shoulders and said, “Thank you for thinking of my lovely cloak before your life. I doubt it’s worth enough coins for that, but I appreciate the sentiment!”
The touch, friendly though it was, made her freeze, and her mind went blank for a moment. “Oh… you’re welcome.”
He immediately let her go, blinding her with a gap-toothed grin. “Can magic make you wash dishes faster?”
The question completely threw her off-guard. “Uh, not to my knowledge?”
“What about bread? Can it make bread cook faster?”
“No.”
“Then what even is the point?” he grumbled. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“…Me too?”
Heimili limped up behind them. “You. Next time, tell us this thing, yes?”
“Er, yes,” Khana said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for any of this…”
He waved her away. “Bah. Some secrets, good. Others, hurt. You, help Amati with rooms.”
And that was it. Khana continued working, handing over the fifty coins demanded by the chief when she sent men to collect. She kept her eyes down so she wouldn’t have to see the people shy away from her or curse her. Even her fellow Reguallian refugees avoided her. She hadn’t seen Xopil since the trial, and Amati barely tolerated her.
“Death-bringers are signs of bad luck,” she said as she and Khana changed the blankets in one of the rooms. “They either carry misfortune or are a sign that it will follow. So, which are you, girl?”
“I don’t know,” Khana admitted.
Sava didn’t return to the inn. She refused to analyze why that hurt as much as the rest.
Three weeks after the trial, Khana worked alone in the dining room, replacing the old floor cushions with new, clean ones. Heimili started on the day’s stew in the kitchen, letting it cook over the fire for hours. Amati and Haz were both out shopping, bargaining with farmers.
The front door creaked open. Footsteps on the stone. Khana swapped the next cushion, keeping her eyes on her task. She stumbled through her Ghura: “I get Heimili.”
“I would rather talk to you.”
She jumped, looking up. “Sava?”
He gave a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his neck. His black beard had grown out a little thicker, but he’d continued to keep it short and trim, framing his face in a way that made him look older and sophisticated, even when his expression reminded her of a puppy. “May I come in?”
He spoke Reguallian, so she did the same: “Of – of course. This is an inn.”
Khana wiped non-existent dust from her dress, a shapeless piece of wool she’d spent her meager funds on. Heimili still gave her tips, but they’d taken a hit since her trial. She almost wished for her old Reguallian silks. They made her look less like a lost little girl. “Tea?”
“I would like that.”
She fetched a pot, almost running over Heimili in the kitchen. He raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t argue as she gathered what she needed and returned to the dining room. Sava had sat on a cushion near the fireplace and removed his quiver, bow, and wolfskin cloak, revealing his thick, muscled arms. She had only brought the one cup with the pot, and he frowned as he watched her pour. “You, too?”
“Oh, you want me to… of course. Hold on.” She hurried back to the kitchen to get another cup, ignoring Heimili’s odd look, and returned. Sava took the pot before she could grab it, pouring her drink himself. She sat on the cushion across from him, back ramrod straight.
“How are you, Khana?” he asked.
“I’m all right. Your Reguallian has gotten better.”
He gave a small smile. “I kept my lessons. My mother does not like me coming here now. She thinks it says our family ‘favors’ you.”
“Then why are you here? You could get in trouble, Sava!”
He made a face. “I waited long enough. Haz is my friend, I don’t like politics, and I don’t think you’re evil. An evil Khana lets Xopil die.”
“A better Khana would have stopped him from getting stabbed in the first place,” she muttered into her cup.
Sava shrugged, not arguing, but not agreeing. “Maybe you join militia? Soldiers are respected around here.”
“Like how Xopil got respect?” she dared to ask.
He nodded to her. “Truth. But that’s still better than if he wasn’t enlisted.”
“I’ve seen enough armies, soldiers, and blood. I don’t need to join in. But thank you. I’m sure your army is quite good.”
He chuckled. “Not my army.”
“You lead the men, don’t you?”
“Only the archers.”
Khana briefly considered learning archery. Maybe Sava could teach her himself. She banished the thought. She was too scared to leave this building; she’d be eaten alive on the field.
“Do you like it? Leading the archers?” she asked.
“Sometimes, the soldiers are great.” He gave her a deadpan look. “Other times, they are children.”
She giggled. “Really?”
“One time, my friend Athicha decided to put a quiver on a goat…”
Khana could’ve sat in front of that fireplace forever, listening to Sava share his stories of the militia, of hunting, of his first struggles learning Reguallian from random refugees. Heimili limped in at one point to replace their teapot, and when Khana reluctantly offered to go back to her duties, he shook his head. “We have a guest. You are doing your duties.”
“What about you?” Sava asked, after Heimili went back to the kitchen. “How did you know you were a witch?”
“It’s a boring story,” she admitted.
“So are mine.”
Khana huffed, but it was with a smile. “When I was thirteen, I was walking with my friend Guma by the river. There’s very little water in the desert. You have to be very careful when you’re out of sight of a river or lake, because you can die of thirst so easily. Even the plants know this. Here, in Pahuuda, animals can eat grass and plants without worry. But in the desert, many of them have little spears. Spikes. One is called a cactus: a round, ugly thing that is covered in spikes, so animals cannot eat it and steal its water. I was talking to Guma and wasn’t watching where I was looking, so I stepped on one. Barefoot.”
Sava hissed. Khana pointed at him. “Yes, that is exactly what I did. After my initial shout, I breathed in sharply, and that’s how I first absorbed aji – er, saviza. Life force?”
“Rabala,” he said.
“Rabala.” She tested the new word, storing it in her growing dictionary of Ghura. “The cactus turned brown and died, and the wounds on my feet healed.”
“Were you happy?”
Khana’s bright nostalgia faded to melancholy. “No. All witches must report to Emperor Yamueto. No exceptions. Guma and I hid it for as long as we could, over a year. But when my parents found out, they killed her for treason and sent me to the capital.”
Sava blinked. “Your parents killed your friend?”
“It’s the law.”
He blew out a breath, looking down at his tea. “Wow.”
She’d never told anyone that story. Sava’s reaction made something settle within her.
A woman burst into the dining room, almost ripping the door from its hinges. Khana stiffened as she frantically looked around, then pointed at her. “You! You’re the witch?”
“Yes…”
“I’m from the brothel. One of the girls gave birth last night, but she’s dying now. The physician says she doesn’t have long.”
“Oh,” Khana said, confused. Then, “Oh!” when she realized why this woman was here. She jumped to her feet, almost spilling her tea on Sava. “I need my boots!”
That was how early autumn went for Khana. As Tlaphar desperately tried to fight off the Empire, she became Pahuuda’s unofficial witch. People still ignored her, but they stopped spitting at her feet as she was called to heal more and more frequently. A hunter breaking her leg on the mountain. A man getting stabbed in a bar fight. The Pinnsviri patriarch dying of old age, again and again.
There were no nearby plants with enough life force to be useful, not unless she drained an entire field of barley or potatoes, so she always had to use an animal. Sometimes, especially near the farms, one was ready and waiting for her. Other times, she had to send someone out to fetch one and hope her patient didn’t die in the interim. Once or twice the people offered their own life force, which she took, but never fatally. A very, very few times, the illness or injury was serious enough that she conjured the aji herself, giving memories to Death to heal ruptured organs or – in the case of an archery accident – an arrow through the lung. She made sure to make those deals away from the patient and any witnesses, pretending to go out looking for an animal. If the town realized she could conjure life force out of thin air, they’d demand she do it more and more often. She didn’t know how much of herself she could lose.
She hadn’t seen it the first time she returned to the spirit realm, or the second. But the third time, she noticed that her colorful spirit body was just the tiniest bit duller than last time, the light not quite as bright. Death gave her a grim smile and explained, “You’re selling pieces of your soul. Sell too much, and it takes its toll.”
She no longer remembered the color of the dress she’d worn when she’d first arrived at Yamueto’s palace, or that time a kind-hearted concubine had taught her the names of the empire’s northern provinces. Losing those memories did not affect her, but she was still scared of the deals she made. Terrified that one day, she’d have to trade something that truly mattered, like the way Guma would mutter nonsensical curses over the littlest things when all other adults were gone, just to make Khana and the other children giggle. Or Sita’s favorite music to listen to while she worked in the library. Or just how terrifying Yamueto could be. The second she lost sight of that, she would grow stagnant. She’d stop running. And he’d catch her.
Not once did Khana demand payment for her services, especially not from people who struggled to get so much as a sickly goat for her to use. It didn’t feel right. She may not believe in gods, but she did believe that some things, like witchcraft, were gifts. Not something to be monetized.
It also didn’t feel safe, her position in this town too precarious for her to rattle it further. They already hated and resented her for her powers; demanding money to use them when they were needed most would be putting salt on the wound.
So, most people sent her off with nothing. A few pressed a casserole or loaf of bread or dried fish in her hands. When she saved a farmer’s son from illness, the farmer said that he’d sell Heimili anything he wanted for half its value. One woman gave her a nice dress that no longer fit her daughter.
More refugees came in from the mountains as autumn loomed and Pahuuda celebrated a harvest festival with singing, dancing, and one last massive hunt across the tundra for elk and moose.
Those refugees brought the news Khana had dreaded to hear: the once free kingdom of Tlaphar had fallen to Yamueto. Now, only the mountains separated her from the Reguallian Empire, and a tundra guide was still well outside her price range. They were now all charging her double. She was stuck.
“No one who’s tried to get through those mountains to conquer us has ever succeeded,” Haz assured her. “And that emperor is an idiot if he thinks he can beat Jadok and Dhunhada.”
Jadok was the Ghuran god of winter, wind, and the moon, lover of the sun goddess. Dhunhada was sometimes called “Mother Mountains,” as she was their goddess of stone, the harvest, and the earth itself. Khana didn’t have faith in either of them.
The only true bright spots in all of this were Sava and Haz. Haz continued to make her feel welcome, telling silly jokes and teasing her and the customers in turn. Being around Sava made Khana feel almost safe, even as her stomach fluttered and her face heated whenever he smiled at her. The quiet times were best, as Khana could set aside her other duties and play host to him, even if it was just for a few minutes at a time. But a close second was when it was busy, and the other patrons got Sava to play his flute. He was shockingly good, and Khana would whistle the tunes for the next couple of days to keep her spirits up.
The good feelings never lasted though. Khana always knew, deep down, that it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down. And as the first chill winds of winter began to blow, it crashed hard . For, after once again visiting the Pinnsviri patriarch to extend his life a little longer, the town discovered its first night creature.