34. COLDIS
34
COLDIS
Col could tell Hyran was slowing, circling, but he kept his cheek pressed to the crook of the kinetomancer’s neck, channeled. It was easier than it had ever been with anyone, and Col didn’t just sense the leveling point of his Guardian, it was a beacon in his mind, easy to reach from any point.
They came to a stop after minutes. He must’ve been searching. Going by a map is one thing, but how he keeps track of where he is when he runs like this I have no idea.
Hyran didn’t let go of Col’s legs immediately, but when Col looked up, he recognized the house set in the center of neatly maintained fields. The horn cat that seemed to roam as it pleased wandered on the garden path as from the front door, Rose walked out, jaw set and eyes narrowed.
“Rose!” Col waved.
Rose’s expression shifted. “You, ma? Why are you back, ma? And why with another, ma?”
“That who we’re here for? He was in the other boat the day we met.” Hyran’s voice was a whisper.
“Sort of. Let me down.”
Hyran did, gently, carefully, but he stuck close to Col, kept touching, hand on the small of Col’s back. On the path ahead, Anandas came out of the house as well and pushed past Rose. Behind Anandas, another blue-skinned, yellow-eyed Hound poked his head out and carefully took a few steps forward. This one stayed behind Rose though.
Not that many earrings in that one’s ears. Maybe that means he’s not as murderous?
“What happened to you, ma?” Anandas asked, not stopping as he approached them.
Rose caught up with him. “Don’t ask that. We gave succor. We are done with them, and in case you can’t tell, that one is a new city dweller, a different one. He keeps bringing more as if we need them here. Pah.”
Anandas made a whooping noise at Rose. “You are not too same to me anymore. I can tell humans apart now, sweet Rose, so I won’t accidentally kiss another. Col. Why is there blood on your hands, ma?”
Col looked down at himself. He hadn’t even noticed, couldn’t even quite remember when it’d happened. He’d searched for a pulse in the first person he’d gone to, had found none… I should’ve put on gloves. You’d think I paid more attention in first aid class. They tell you to put on gloves, always. Now I got blood all over Hyran’s uniform.
“There was an attack. A town near Cuprea—north of here. A town in the north. Hyran is friends with them, and we went there to talk with them, found they’d been attacked.” He pointed to his right. “This is Hyran.”
The second Hound said something in the Hound language, and Rose responded in kind.
Anandas snorted, looked at Col, then Hyran. “You came here for help.”
Col nodded, fists tense at his sides. “We can’t do anything. We can’t bring them into the city, and we can’t bring people out to help.”
Col wasn’t sure how to read Anandas’s expression exactly. Sadness? Disgust? Pity?
Either way, the Hound made a sharp noise.
“To have so much and share so little. Such fear and despair. Walls have strange powers over humans.” He turned to Rose. “Bring my bag.”
Rose gasped. “But—”
Col stepped forward. “I’ll stay here. This Guardian has imprinted on me. He’ll come back for me, and he won’t endanger me by endangering Anandas.” Col looked up at Hyran whose jaw had dropped as if he were only just realizing he’d have to leave Col behind to take Anandas anywhere.
Hyran made a strangled noise. “Say what now?”
Anandas nodded once. “You are a smart leader, Col. I did not know city dwellers understood the custom of hostages, but it is a thing we do. A thing we trust in. Like succor.”
Rose dashed forward and took Anandas’s wrist. “I sure don’t take fucking hostages to buy your safety. Anandas—”
“Rose. My Rose, I am called to heal.” The Hound put his free hand on Rose’s chest, looking calm in a way Col couldn’t but admire. “I have to come when called. You’re afraid when there is no need.”
“There’s no need because I’m not leaving Col here as a hostage.”
Anandas gave Hyran a very level gaze, and the other Hound simply seemed curious. They don’t have dramas out here. This is probably just as good as any drama if you’re watching without a stake in it.
“You said you’re bound, ma?” Anandas asked lightly. “To him, ma? A speedling, ma?”
Col groaned. Speedling is distractingly too cute. “Yes. Hyran, these people saved Karmine. They helped Vin, and Loquin, whether that one deserved it or not. You don’t have to be confrontational. And I know you care for the people of that town bleeding on those tables. I will be safe here. Rose?”
The outsider rolled his eyes. “I don’t hurt you. I don’t want Anandas going with you though.”
Anandas said something in the Hound tongue, and the other Hound jumped to it, jogging back into the tiny house.
Hyran shook his head. “Coldis, I’m not leaving you. This is wrong. It’s all wrong. It’s not supposed to be like this. I promised that I would protect you.”
Hyran was trembling. His entire body was tense. He’s a Guardian, the imprinting is new, so new that we should be spending time together in a safe place so he can settle. That doesn’t seem to be something we do in this family.
Col stepped up to Hyran and put his hands on his Guardian’s chest. “I should’ve asked my little brother how he dealt with Senny early on. He’s an S-classer, you know, very protective even without imprinting. I don’t think he would’ve been able to do what you did.” Col took a deep breath. “You put your own comfort aside when you moved to the suite with us. And you’ve supported me ever since I got over my concussion.”
Hyran snorted. “You don’t just get over a concussion, Col.”
Anandas clicked his tongue. “Concussion, ma? I left you healthy. You go to the cities, back behind the walls, and you hurt the most important bit of you.”
Hyran let out stuttering sigh. “I told him that. He said he was fine. It was all my fault, really. Not much of a Guardian, if I can’t even save my Conduit without dealing him a concussion.”
Col took Hyran’s hands. “But you are. And you are my Guardian. You’re going to help save as many of those people back there as you can by bringing Anandas to them. Now.”
The other Hound came back with a backpack and a pouch as well as a bow and quiver. Anandas’s things.
“I can go now,” the Hound said. “Rose will make you tea. And he will be nice. Concussions need a long time healing, and being nice helps them heal. Yes, ma?”
Rose groaned. “Yes. Yes, and you promise to come back here quick.”
“Always. I swear it by the distant stars we all come from.”
Col looked up at Hyran. “You take care of him and bring him back, right? I’ll be waiting here while Rose and I and this new Hound have tea.”
“That’s Anandas’s younger cousin,” Rose said. “He has a name too. Avan. Not Hound.”
Col looked at the Hound. That’s a coincidence. And it’s just a name. “Yes, of course. We’ll get acquainted over tea. Hyran?”
Col could tell the toll this took on Hyran. His fists were balled, his jaw tight. I was right about him. So much like Vin when it comes to endurance.
“I’ll take the physician,” Hyran finally said. “I won’t be long. If anything’s wrong, you have your screen on you.”
Col nodded. “And my gun. I’ll be fine.”
Hyran looked none too happy when Col handed Anandas his goggles, a look mirrored by Rose. The Hound then climbed on Hyran’s back. The younger Hound—Avan—and Anandas exchanged a few words, then all that was left was for Hyran to run.
“The sooner you leave, the faster you’ll be back here,” Col said.
Hyran nodded. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then stopped, nodded once again, and ran. He and Anandas became a blur until they were gone.
Col turned and did his best to smile politely. “I heard there was tea.”
Rose rolled his eyes. “I am to blame for this. I wanted to go for the medical supplies that day. If I had not, you’d all be good bone fertilizer by now.”
“I’d make poor fertilizer,” Col said.
Rose shrugged. “Nah.”
The younger Hound gave Col a shy smile, just like a Conduit being assigned a strong Guardian for the first time, and said, “Hello. I’m Avan.”
“Hello, Avan.”
Rose groaned. “He wanted to learn from Anandas. He’s learning our language now. Come, I make tea. You can tell us how your concussion happened.”
Col followed Rose, whose strides were longer. Avan fell in step next to Col.
“That’s a bit of a tale.”
Rose snorted and held the curtain to the house open for Col and Avan.
“Then maybe you won’t have time to finish before Anandas returns to me. That would be best.”
While Rose went about making tea, Avan pointed at Col’s hands. “Wash, ma?”
“Oh. Yes, please.”
Col went to the room with the sink and washing facilities. During their first stay, everything there had struck him as painfully rudimentary but functional at the same time. While being in here for the first time, he’d had a memory of sitting in a large metal tub when he was a child, the water warm, and some floating toy next to him. My life before I became a Conduit.
Avan followed as if the Hound wasn’t sure Col was capable of washing his own hands, going so far as to hold out the wash paste to Col.
“Are you a healer like Anandas?” Col asked.
Avan bit his bottom lip and then gave a slow nod. He hummed but tugged on his left ear.
“Yes, I heal, but—”
He glanced at the door and opened it to say something to Rose, who stuck his head in while Col was drying his hands.
“Avan is learning to become a healer, but he hasn’t gotten rings for assisting during a birth or helping someone who wishes it die. He doesn’t want to pretend he is something he isn’t.”
“Uh, okay. Healer in training then.”
That didn’t seem to help with Rose’s sour mood. “Yes, but it’s all really important for a Darkling. Healers are well-regarded and respected, and you can’t pretend you know how to treat a life when you haven’t help start or end it.” He glanced at the young Hound. “I’ve seen him boss people around though, so he’ll make a good healer.”
Col huffed. “Our physicians are like that too.”
Rose crossed his arms. “Then why are you running around with the speedling while recovering from a concussion, ma?”
Avan interjected something in Houndish, and Rose responded.
“What?”
“Avan agrees with me that with a concussion, you should be resting, and your physicians should have made it so. Come, the tea is ready. And I want that tale of yours.”
Col followed Rose back to the hearth he’d sat down at not too long ago, a strange familiarity that wasn’t at all uncomfortable settling in him. He was handed a cup of the same tea they had shared before.
Avan smiled at him. “Drink. Taste is good.”
Col nodded. “Avan, you have an unusual name.”
Avan looked at Rose, who translated, clarifying the word unusual .
“Not unusual,” Avan began, but then shifted to Houndish.
“He says it’s a family name on that side of the family, but says it’s funny you ask, because it has a story going back to before the city dwellers were city dwellers.”
Rose and Avan had a bit of an exchange then that had Rose roll his eyes. Col listened and wished he knew the Houndish tongue, at least enough of it to know what was happening. The only thing he could glean was that Rose was annoyed, maybe something to do with being anxious about Anandas being out to heal. In contrast, Avan spoke calmly and smiled a lot at the human with the oddly colored hair.
Rose cleared his throat. “This young healer says, because of his royal standing, I should tell you the tale of his name first even if I want to hear what happened with you. He’s just like Anandas, always in the right and not budging.”
Avan spoke and paused.
“Before there were walls and the city dwellers became what they are now, Darklings sought trade with them. Love had already fallen here and there between the two, and on occasion, the humans traveled Darkling paths, so it made sense to build and deepen relationships.”
Avan gave more of his tale, settling into a rhythm with him talking and Rose translating.
“Then, there was discord among the humans. They had disagreements among one another and fought. Their leader—not a king like the Darklings have them but a man who thrived on the vastness of his power—wanted nothing to do with Darklings, hating them with a passion grounded in nothing.
“The leader was bound like your speedling is bound to you, and it made him stronger. There was also cruelty in that binding, and the leader’s friend saw it.
“The leader’s friend kept regrets in his heart only he himself knew, but he helped the bound soother—the Guardian pet—bringing him to a Darkling healer just like Avan and Anandas. The healer, after the bound soother consented, broke the bond and set the young human free. Or so they all thought.
“The leader came looking for his formerly bound soother, and he left carnage in his wake, slaughtering humans who disagreed with him and Darklings alike. He was enraged, and his rage could not be stopped. When he found the soother, he took him.
“Avan says that in the tale as it is told in his family, the healer who set the formerly bound soother free, saw the young human as he was taken back, saw him hold a knife to his own heart and lack the courage to push it in. That healer, he survived, and he carried the guilt of not being able to help the young human a second time and set him free at last. When the human leader took his soother back, joy drained from that soother’s eyes, and he turned to a husk in the human leader’s hands, powerless to that man’s power.
“The leader’s friend tried to appease the leader for a while. It was around the time the walls were built. The leader would not let himself be calmed, and as the story goes, the leader cut pieces off the soother he kept caged, and none of those pieces ever dimmed his rage. The soother, it’s said, would not ask to be forgiven. He bore his pain in silence because silence was the only weapon he had left.
“The friend eventually left the walls and joined those Darklings he called friends. Love grew from that, and he fathered a child of royal blood with Vasha, who was just as a winter king for seven seasons. Vasha gifted his human lover the privilege of naming their first child. They named him Avan, and Avan too ruled as a winter king. Like his father, he was just.”
Rose rolled his eyes. “Avan says the other Avan also spoke two languages and spoke them well, so that is yet another reason why he is learning.”
Col was gripping the mug in his hands so hard that his knuckles stood out white. His mind was reeling.
“That’s just a story,” he said.
Rose shrugged. “They take lineage stories very seriously, especially with winter kings in their heritage. And it’s not as if it’s important. That is hundreds of years in the past. Although, imagine, Guardian pet, if there were no walls keeping you trapped and you could get your own people to help you instead of coming back here.”
Col nodded absently. He put his mug down on the floor in front of him, focused on his breathing, glad that he’d meditated so much with Vin and could get calm easily enough now that he really needed it.
They’re not talking about Wilan. This isn’t real. It’s just a story the Hounds tell themselves, and I have to forget about it.
He told himself over and over, snapped out of the confusion inside his head but barely when Rose once more asked to be told everything that had happened since that day on the river.
So Col told Rose, if only to distract himself.