“Yeah, true. Do you want to get better at reading?”
“Not really. I mean, I guess if I was bored I could. Piret isn’t great at it either. Most of us don’t bother once we get the letters and sounds down.” He didn’t mean for that to sound defensive, and yet it definitely had.
“It’s true though,” she said, seemingly out of nowhere at first. “Things do come together when you say them all out loud. You wouldn’t mind?”
He shook his head, relieved she’d hopped back to the original subject. “I’ve kind of been avoiding putting it all together in my head, but no time for that now. It’d be good for both of us.”
“Is it weird to be so close to the City walls?”
He nodded. “Kass and I went up to them. Right before they took him. He wanted to see what was wrong with the river, so he’d know what to expect in heaven. Stone and fire.”
She was quiet for a long moment, eyes downcast and sad. Then she said, “Fuck them. Fuck every priest and collaborator in the whole City.”
“Yeah,” he agreed wholeheartedly. “Fuck ‘em.”
She flipped through her little book until she got to the first page. “Thanks. Innan has heard it all before, but they’re neck-deep in it, like me. And they’re pragmatic but also really empathetic, so I worry they might be a little too easy on me.”
“I’m not empathetic?”
“You are not. You’re not a soldier anymore, but you have a soldier’s mind. And you’re a survivor; after the cushy life up in the Complex, you managed to stay alive for moons alone in the woods. And you’d barely even seen a tree before. I trust you.”
Hendrik was oddly gratified by this diagnosis of his character. He stuck out his chin a little and nodded. “Go on, then.”
*
“We’re fucked,” Hen said.
Piret looked up from where she was cleaning her sword. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Kajja just laid it all out for me. Piret—if she’s right, this thing might actually be a god. Or as close as anything has ever come. We’re so fucked.” Hen sighed and sank to the ground beside her. Weirdly, there wasn’t a stirring of fear in his belly, not that he could recognize. He just felt the pull of the inevitable. Just like he had before Kass had gone for his inheritance.
Piret frowned at him. “What’s on your shoulder?”
“What?”
She reached out and pushed his shirt, which was untied and open, to one side, then burst out laughing. “Did he bite you? Stone and fire!”
Hen flushed and glanced down. He could barely see the pink teeth-marks there, but he could feel them when he moved certain ways. He could still smell the sweet, herbal oil Dagan had applied before they finally fell asleep, to soothe the faint wound. It was comforting, somehow, that little flash of pain and smell of green to remind him: He was wanted, he was cared for, he had something to live for.
“Yeah, uh. It’s hot,” he admitted. “Like, really hot.”
“If we’re all going to die, at least you die with bite marks,” she drew her hand away and laughed some more.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” he admitted. “But…I don’t want to die, Piret. I wanted to for what feels like a long time. Now, I don’t.”
“Then we better not die.” She set aside her sword and fixed him with a serious, intense gaze. “Right?”
He was about to reply when a figure appeared at the mouth of the cave. Everyone in it, excluding only Innan, who was in another little sub-cave communing with the earth or whatever, froze and stared. Hen couldn’t see the white tower on the figure’s tabard, but he knew the shape of it, the uniform he’d worn since he was 12 years old, the uniform he’d lived in.
Hen reached for his knife instinctively, but Piret stood and strode toward the figure. “Maya! We didn’t know if we’d be waiting a year or a day. Glad to see you.”
Now, Hen felt a pang of fear. As he watched most everyone he loved in the world move to greet a Guardhall soldier who would lead them into the belly of an evil god, he touched the bite mark on his shoulder and held Piret’s words in his mind: Then we better not die.
*
It had been easy to forget how drab Stone City clothes were; the dyes were simple browns and grays with the odd blue or green flair, scratchy homespun from the Ag District’s less fine fibers. Guards always had to look sharp, so Hendrik couldn’t remember the last time he’d dressed like everyone else in the City. Seeing Dagan dressed like that, though…that was difficult. Though he stood like he always did, shoulders back, chin high, smiling, Hen couldn’t help thinking that the golden light in him was diminished by it.
No, that wasn’t right; nothing could diminish it. It was just hidden from the naked eye, when he was masquerading as a Stone City merchant. That was it.
As everyone gathered in the cave mouth with their packs, Dagan and Gareth were deep in conference with Bartolo. Hen turned to look for Kajja, hoping against hope that she might decide to stay back with Innan, after all. He spotted the pair of them farther back in the cave, leaning close and saying something he couldn’t hear. Were they…?
Yeah, okay; they were kissing. Hendrik looked away politely but couldn’t help smiling. If anything could cheer him up on this of all days, it was Kajja getting her heart’s desire. Even if it was just for a day.
“Ready?” Dagan’s sweet voice asked.
“As I’ll ever be. Also, Innan and Kajja just kissed.”
“No!” Dagan glanced around, clapping his hands together and holding them there, eyes wide with delight. “Where?”
Hen nodded back toward the cave. “Don’t look, they might still be there.”
Dagan, of course, looked. He made a little sound like “aw!” and slipped an arm around Hen’s middle. “About time. Innan moves almost as slow as their beloved rocks, but I have never seen them look at anyone the way they looked at Kajja that first night. Always did love a good storyteller.”
“Thought you’d be pleased.” Hen put an arm around his shoulders and kissed his hair. “Are we—?”
“I need to speak to you,” someone cut in.
They turned as one to see Alonza. He was uncharacteristically pale for someone so brown, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.
