Chapter 57 Hakara
Hakara
Langzu – Xiazen
Talie showed up again just as we approached Xiazen’s docks at sunset, yawning as though she’d had the best sleep of her life while we’d been fighting for our lives. I had the brief satisfaction of watching her back arch, her tail poofing into a bottlebrush, when she saw Lithuas.
She did a little sideways hop, her ears flat. “Is that her?”
We’d bound her to a chair on deck, her silver hair in disarray beneath the filter. “It is indeed, little one,” she responded. “Are you certain you want to be on the losing side?” Really should have gagged her before putting that filter on. Seemed I could only have one good idea per day.
My bond with Thassir itched at the back of my mind, but not nearly so much as my bond with Rasha.
I wasn’t sure when was the best time to tell my comrades that she was headed our way.
We’d have to encounter her on our way to meet with Talie’s gods in the mountains near Bian.
Even if we somehow managed to avoid her, because of the bond we’d be leading her and Kluehnn first to the gathered gods and then to the Unanointed.
The tension of these fast-approaching decisions hung like a weight about my neck, one I wasn’t sure how to unburden myself of. I still had time, but not enough of it.
We gathered our belongings, Alifra looking as bleak as I’d seen her the night before our raid on the Kashani den.
“I did not say kind things to him, Hakara,” she said, her gaze on the docks as Falin went to secure the ship.
“We left one another in disarray. I wasn’t sure how to repair our relationship.
We have always been friends, and I let that change, and it made everything strange between us.
” She looked at me, her expression helpless.
“I know how he is. If we were together, he would want to continue his legacy, to teach these stories to his children, and there are so many stories. I don’t know if I could burden someone else with that without giving them the choice, the way his uncle did with him. I never really got to explain to him.”
“You’ll get to. I promise.”
She laughed then. “When you say it, I almost believe it. But you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”
I thought of Thassir, the blood pact between the elder gods, the way promises could force uncomfortable and painful compromises that no one wanted. “Maybe you’re right. But it’s a promise I want to keep.”
Falin tied the boat up. I tossed him the rest of the coin Velenor had given us and clapped him on the shoulder. “I hope you find your crew waiting for you safe and sound, and you make so much money you don’t know what to do with it.”
He hefted the pouch of coins and let out a grunt, eyeing Lithuas as we guided her off the ship, a broad hat over her head, a robe about her shoulders, and a veil covering the filter on her face.
That was all the goodbye we got from him, but I couldn’t blame the man for wanting to live an enclosed life, focusing on what was in front of him instead of the larger problems of the world.
We spent the night at an inn in Xiazen, taking turns watching Lithuas as the others slept.
Talie offered to take an extended watch, as long as someone carried her the next day so she could sleep.
I fell into bed in our shared room, completely and utterly drained, the seafood stew I’d eaten for dinner making me feel heavy.
In the morning, as we walked the road out of the city and toward Bian, I took note of the charred hillsides, burned trees blackened skeletons against a cloud-streaked sky.
“My sister is coming,” I said into the quiet. “Today.”
I’d slept, but I didn’t know if she had. I wished I could reach through the bond we shared, tug her closer, whisper in her ear. I wished we could put aside everything that had happened to us in the time we’d been apart.
Thassir let out a sigh as Alifra rounded on me. “You didn’t think to tell us earlier?”
The basket she carried let out a low growl, and Talie’s head nudged the cover open. “The godkiller you fought in the lakebed? Do you know if she’s bringing anyone else?”
I shook my head. “I only know where she is, and she’s getting closer.”
She ducked back into the basket. “This could be bad.”
“Should we throw the blades away, as you promised?” Alifra said, putting a hand to the godkiller blade at her belt.
I touched my own dagger, the one that had once belonged to Rasha. “They’ll have gotten new ones by now. Let me talk to her alone.”
Thassir shook his head. “Absolutely not. She may be your sister, but she’s made it clear that she’s a godkiller first and foremost. You want to talk to her? We all go.”
Alifra gestured to Lithuas. “And bring an entire elder god with us? This isn’t sounding like a good idea either.”
I lifted my hands. “It’s better than leaving her behind and hoping she doesn’t work her way free. Maybe there aren’t any good ideas, just ones that are less bad. We all go. Not to fight. To talk.”
The clouds in the sky darkened the farther up the road we traveled, my bond with Rasha slackening, the feeling in my head like the relieving of pressure when I floated to the surface after a dive.
One cold drop struck my head, then another.
The moisture sat atop the dusty road, gathering into the wagon tracks.
And as more rain fell, the dust became mud.
A line of figures appeared before us, stretched across the road. I counted. Six of them.
“I want to talk!” I shouted across the distance, before anyone could get any silly ideas about crossbows and bolts. “We have Lithuas. She is working with Kluehnn. He’ll want her back. We are here to negotiate!”
Heads bent toward one another, though I couldn’t hear what, if anything, they said through the worsening storm.
And then one figure stepped forward. I squinted through the rain. Rasha? “Only Hakara approaches. We meet in the middle. No weapons drawn.”
It was her. My heart lurched, but I managed to keep my voice steady. “Fine.” I lifted my hands from my belt, glancing back at my companions. “Stay put unless she attacks. I want to see if we can resolve this peaceably.”
We strode toward one another, our bond going quiet in my mind.
One of her horns was missing. It was the first thing I noticed, the sick feeling in my stomach threatening to spill into my throat. A scar marked her scalp where it had been, the skin shiny and purple. “Rasha… are you well?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re here to negotiate, not to ask after my health. So negotiate. Give us Lithuas and we’ll let you leave here alive.”
I wanted, more than anything, to ask who’d done that to her, what had happened.
It felt as natural to me as breathing – and maybe that was the problem.
I’d told our Mimi I’d take care of Rasha, and to me that had meant only one thing: keeping her safe.
I hesitated, knowing I had no real intention of negotiating.
We couldn’t give Lithuas over to Kluehnn.
“It shouldn’t come to this – a fight. We’ve each spared one another once now. ”
“Yes.” Her words were clipped. “Which means we no longer owe one another anything.”
I let my eyes close briefly, the rain pattering around us, seeping past my hair to my scalp. I’d kept moving this entire time, convinced that if I only pushed harder, tried harder, solutions would arise. And for the most part, they did. But this – I didn’t know how to fix this.
For the first time since I’d been a child, I stopped running. I let myself be still.
The pain washed over me, at last catching up.
Losing Mimi and then Maman, losing Rasha.
Did we truly owe one another nothing? Here, in this moment, every beat of my heart the throbbing of an opened wound, I knew it wasn’t true.
I’d pushed all those memories away, making a new narrative for myself, focusing on one thing: finding Rasha.
I loved her, I wanted the best for her, but it didn’t mean I’d been right.
“Maybe you don’t owe me anything, but I owed you more. I had more of a responsibility than to just protect you. I should have listened, I should have raised you to learn to protect yourself. Instead, I left you with no sense of who you were or who you could be without me.”
If I’d done things right, maybe Rasha wouldn’t have felt the need to turn to Kluehnn and the godkillers, to fill in the hole I’d left in her life. I could forgive myself for not going back, for leaving Rasha behind. But this? It wasn’t me that needed to forgive. It was her.
I kept my hands spread, the rain soaking into my tunic. “I owed you more than I gave you. I tied up your identity in mine, and you are, and have always been, so much more than that.”
Something in her expression shifted, though the wariness didn’t disappear.
I couldn’t expect it to, couldn’t expect to just show up here and say the right words and for everything to suddenly be right between us.
“Why are we fighting? Look at the gods. They are selfish.” She gestured to the spot where her horn had once been. “All of them.”
I couldn’t hope, yet this wasn’t the way she’d reacted the last time we’d spoken. This time she said nothing about Kluehnn, about how he was the only one who spoke the truth.
She unfurled a hand toward me. “We can go. Just you and me.”
Wouldn’t say I wasn’t tempted. I wanted to fix things between us, to see if there was anything left to fix.
But I had more responsibilities now – to my team, to the Unanointed.
Mimi had told me to take care of Rasha. I couldn’t be like Thassir, letting one promise rule the rest of my life.
Yes, the gods were selfish, but in the end, so were mortals.
All we could do was to try to do the right thing, to move forward, to recognize that each new moment was a fresh opportunity to change.
“Rasha.” My voice nearly gave out, the rain louder than my words. “I wish I could.”
Someone shouted from behind me.
I whirled to find two godkillers rushing toward Thassir, who was still holding Lithuas. One of them leapt for him.
The other drew a small knife from his belt and threw it. It pierced the filter on Lithuas’s face, casting it away.
In the next moment, she’d shifted to an eel, slipping from Thassir’s grasp. In another flash, she was Lithuas again, blade in hand, silver hair damp with the rain.
I pulled my sword free, just in time to meet Rasha, a fresh godkilling blade in her hand.
Maybe one day I would get tired of fighting. Maybe one day I would give up. But it wasn’t that day. Not yet. And if they wanted to try to take the corestone from me, I’d ensure they’d have nothing to take. “Thassir!” I called. A quick gesture of his hand.
Just a sip of aether, the scent of the ocean sliding past my tongue. It was enough.
The corestone burned within me.