Chapter Eight – Osric
Chapter Eight
Osric
I work on the broken stone bed until my arms ache. Physical effort is the only thing that keeps my thoughts in order.
The border collapsed years ago. I lift the fallen stones out of the sand one at a time, scrape them clean, and set them back where they belong.
The work is slow, and it asks nothing of me except to be present.
That’s the reason I’m out here instead of inside.
If I stop moving, I’ll start thinking, and thinking takes me straight back to the kitchen, to her voice, to the words she said while claiming my stove as her own.
She’s leaving. A few days, maybe a week, and then she walks out of my life with Darina, her bag, and whatever plan she builds between now and then.
My first instinct is to grieve her early, to give up on her now, and endure it the way I’ve endured everything else. I know how to do that. I’ve had practice.
Then I set the last stone into the border, straighten up, and a different thought takes over at the same time as the ache in my back.
A few days is plenty of time, and time is more than I expected to have.
I can’t trap her here, and I won’t pressure her.
If I push, I’m no better than her parents.
But she’s under my roof for a while longer, and while she’s here, I can show her who I actually am.
I can show her my world, my city, the way I live, the control I keep.
Maybe she’ll never want me, and that’s up to her to decide.
What I can do is give her a reason to stop fearing me, so that whatever she chooses, she chooses it without being afraid of me.
I gather the tools and carry them in as the sun drops over the cliffs. I spent the entire day outside, and when Darina called me in for lunch hours ago, I told her I wasn’t hungry. Now I am, and I can’t deny it anymore.
The smell reaches me as soon as I enter the house.
Spice, meat, and something sweet underneath.
None of it resembles anything I’ve ever eaten before.
I stop in the doorway of the dining room.
The table is set for three. In the middle, stands the heavy clay pot I’ve only ever used for boiling water, and around it, they’ve arranged bread wrapped in cloth, a dish of peppers shining with oil, and a bowl of pale roots mashed with herbs.
“Sit,” Darina says, then catches herself, because she’s not used to giving orders. “Please.”
I sit, and Esme takes the chair across from me, looking pleased with herself. I cock an eyebrow.
“I chopped the vegetables,” she says. “All of them. First time in my life.”
“She held the knife in a vise grip,” Darina says.
“I learned by the end.” Esme lifts her chin, but she’s smiling.
Darina fills my bowl first. The stew is dark and thick, the meat cooked soft, and the sweetness I smelled turns out to be dried fruit gone tender in the sauce.
My spice jars have stood untouched since I bought them, because I never learned what to do with them.
Darina clearly knows. I take one spoonful, then another, and when I look up, both women are watching me. Neither one is eating yet.
“It’s delicious,” I say, because it is. “I didn’t know food could be this good. A delight, not just fuel.”
Esme beams at me. It’s fascinating to watch – the way her face lights up, how she smiles with her whole mouth, showing off her perfect, white teeth.
Darina laughs into her bowl, and the two of them trade a grin across the table.
The bread is still warm from the oven, and the peppers carry real heat. It’s the best meal I’ve ever eaten, and I say so again. Darina gives a quiet thank you as she averts her gaze, seemingly embarrassed.
While Esme refills the water, I make the offer I’d come up with while gathering my tools.
“Would you like to see Haara? I could take you tomorrow.”
Esme sets down the jug. Interest sparkles in her blue eyes first, then caution.
“How do Scorpii feel about humans?” she asks.
“Wary,” I say. I could dress it up, but she’d know. “Some are hostile. Most will stare and keep their distance. No one will touch you while you’re with me.”
“Why not?”
“I was a city guard. People still respect me, even though I retired.”
She turns her attention back to her bowl and pretends the answer doesn’t interest her, but she’s stopped eating. So, I tell them the story, the part of it that won’t betray the real reason why I had to retire.
“I was born in Vaara. It’s a harder city, far from here.
I trained young, and when I was old enough, I came to Haara and joined the guard.
I saved my pay and bought a house near the center of the city, close to the bridges.
Then I sold it and bought this one.” I turn my glass on the table. “I needed a change.”
The clicking rises in my throat, and my fingers grip the glass so hard that I’m close to breaking it.
I kill it with a cough, harder than I mean to, loud enough that Esme’s head jerks up.
She gives me a questioning look, and there’s real concern in it.
I drink my water and wave it off. I hope with everything in me that she never connects the sounds I make to her.
But the concern stays on her features longer than politeness requires, and it warms me. I hold on to it.
“Tomorrow, then,” Esme says, and looks at Darina. “If you want to.”
“I want to.” Darina smiles. “Are there really bridges? Across the whole valley?”
“You’ll see them,” I say.
They start planning before the plates are cleared.
They discuss what to wear against the heat, whether the paths might be steep, what a Scorpii market could possibly sell.
I answer when they ask and stay quiet when they don’t.
In the kitchen, they’re loud, laughing and clattering as they clean up.
Two women talking over each other about a road trip.
I realize this is the first time when this house feels like home.
After they’ve gone up to their rooms, I stand on the terrace with the last of my water and take account of the day.
They laughed, cooked, claimed the kitchen, made plans, teased each other, and teased me.
None of that happened by accident. It happened because I told Esme she’s free to go, and then I got out of her way.
This is the first time she’s ever lived outside her parents’ walls.
She grew up rich and owned nothing, not even her own days, and I won’t let my house become the next place she needs to escape.
The day was good for her because I removed myself from it.
It hurts, but if it makes her happy, then I can endure it
I want her near me, but I want her happy more. If I can’t have both, her happiness wins.
***
In the morning, they’re in the car before I even reach it. Their eagerness puts a smile on my face. Esme returns it.
The whole ride into the valley, the two of them talk in the back, and I listen to them with pleasure.
They wonder whether the city has streets or only stairs.
They argue about whether Scorpii children play the same games human children do.
They try to guess what the markets smell like.
Esme laughs at something Darina says, open and unguarded, and it’s hard to keep my eyes on the road when all I want to do is turn around and drink her in.
The last time I drove them down this road, Esme held Darina’s hand as they were both shaking. It’s definitely an improvement.
I leave the car at the lowest level, in the shadow of the cliff wall, and take them up on foot.
Haara rises in layers, and I know every one of them.
Stone paths climb between terraces stacked one above another, carved stairways cut through the rock, and shade cloths stretch against the sun overhead.
I used to walk these paths on watch. Every gate, every well, every bridge on this side of the valley was mine to guard, and I still remember every route.
It’s strange to be a guide in the city I used to protect.
I can’t decide whether it feels good or it hurts.
I show them the city center, where the main stairways meet, and the black stone has been worn smooth.
I show them the entrance to the cistern halls and explain that water is the most sacred thing in Haara, guarded better than any treasury.
We cross the markets slowly, because they refuse to be hurried.
They look at every stall, every hide, every mineral, every piece of desert glass, and Darina asks Esme what half the goods could be.
Esme invents answers with complete confidence, then looks up at me and dares me to contradict her.
I do, she rolls her eyes and pretends she’s annoyed, but secretly, both women love learning new things.
People stare, the way I knew they would.
Scorpii step out of our path and watch the two humans from doorways and terrace rails.
No one says a word to me. A few of them nod in my direction – guards I served with, shopkeepers whose streets I once kept safe – and I return every nod.
There’s no incident, and Esme and Darina are too fascinated with everything around them to be bothered by all the staring.
We come out onto one of the high bridges. The valley opens below us, terraces stacked down the black cliffs on both sides, bridges strung between them, the whole city carved out of stone that would kill anyone else who tried to live here.
Esme walks to the parapet and stops there.
I stay back and watch her. I expect to see fear in her eyes, and I’ve been waiting for it all day, ready to take them home the moment it showed. It never came, and it doesn’t come now.
She leans against the stone and looks out over my city with her lips parted. Then she pulls Darina to the parapet and points at something in the distance. She’s asking questions I can’t hear. She turns in place to take the whole valley in, and there’s no fear in her. She’s fascinated.
I stand where I am, out of her way, with my tail low and my hands loose at my sides, and finally, I let myself imagine that she might not hate my world, that Haara, the desert, and the life I built at its edge could be more to her than a place she must escape.
Esme laughs at whatever Darina answers, and the sound carries to me. I don’t join them. I let her have the view for as long as she wants it.