Dragon Your Bones, page 13
Nico’s cheeks flushed, embarrassed. “I’m the Ohan now. I shouldn’t waste time on such childish habits.”
Kai blinked at her, waiting.
Fine. Nico rolled her eyes and said, “Good night, beautiful ibis.”
Kai said, in turn, “Good night, tenacious camel.”
“Good night, noble addax.”
“Good night, fierce hawk.”
“Good night, wild horse.”
“Good night, laughing jackal.”
“Good night, clever fox.”
“Good night, mighty crocodile.”
“Good night, big jih.”
“Good night, little jih.”
“Good night, Great Elder.”
Good night, Nicolai Ohan.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Jijih, someone’s in the house.”
Kai jolted awake, hooked Rae under his arm, rolled to the ground, and squeezed through the trap door under his bed. His heart pounded as hard as the time he once watched Ava-ta eviscerate an assassin sent to kill him in his sleep. He remembered the sound of tah’s vines ripping through flesh, and the intruder’s startled dying gasp. He remembered how the blood spread across the stone floor to drip through the cracks of his hideout and rain down on his head.
Kai licked at the salty sweat above his lip as they stewed in the dark. He dared to whisper, “Is Nico up?”
“Sleep.”
“I’m going to go get her. Stay here.”
“No!” Rae shouted.
Kai quickly pressed his hand over little jih’s mouth, but Rae leaked faint whines through Kai’s fingers. If discovered by an assassin, Kai wasn’t sure he could protect them. He slayed a dragon. He was supposed to be stronger, but he was not willing to bet his jih’s life on it.
“We’ll go together,” he decided. He knew these halls better than any intruder. “But you have to be quiet.”
Rae nodded against the thin linen of Kai’s sleep shift. Kai hiked Rae tighter to his chest and rocked his balance to his thighs. He prepared to spring from under the bed, swipe his dagger from the top-shelf, and sneak his way to Nico’s bedroom. He lifted the trap door the exact moment a shout rang throughout the hallway. “Kai! Where the fuck are you? Is this another dead-end?!”
At the familiar voice, Kai crumpled against the sharp edge of the trap door’s entrance. “It’s Rasia,” Kai told both Rae and his frayed nerves. “It’s just Rasia.”
And yet his heart still pounded. His throat remained tight. His body refused to uncoil.
“Who Rasia?” Rae asked.
Rae peeked out as if under the covers after a nightmare looking for monsters. Kai hooked an arm around his little jih and climbed out of their hiding spot, which used to be a wine cellar in the storage closet of Kai’s room. He tried to place Rae on their feet, but the kid refused and wrapped their arms gonda-tight around his chest.
“It’s okay,” Kai soothed. He hefted the eleven-year-till more securely onto his hip, and then hunted Rasia down to confront her about the intrusion. The relief of the situation had washed away, and anger took its place.
He followed the sounds of Rasia’s vocal frustrations at the intentional maze of their home. Thousands of years ago, a magic-born had erected and designed these walls specifically to ward off intruders, because although an adult’s magic is powerful, the children not yet come into their magic are still vulnerable. The layout made sense to those who had been raised within its walls, but guests and intruders, and even Kenji on brief occasions, were endlessly lost. Kai was grateful for the small measure of protection, but he had seen it fail far too many times to feel entirely safe.
“Why is this the same dead fucking end?!” Kai found Rasia kicking a wall.
When they returned from the Forging, Rasia had been carried away on the tide of her family and triumph. After hearing nothing from her in days, Kai honestly thought he had been forgotten. He was admittedly caught off-guard that he wasn’t. Tucked within his small corner of the Grankull, it was so easy to believe the Forging had been a distant dream. But here was Rasia, like a splash of cold water.
She turned with a groan on her heel. Then her eyes brightened and greeted him with unreserved excitement. Kai’s anger wavered, but Rae’s outright terror kept it from dissipating completely.
“You should have checked-in with the sentry,” he said.
Rasia’s sprint to reach him slowed, petering off as the smile dropped from her face. She gave a wry sharp-edged laugh. “Check-in with a sentry? Why the fuck would I do that?”
“You scared Rae.”
You scared me, but Kai didn’t want to admit to that.
She glanced at the young budchild. “They’ll get over it. Let’s hangout.”
She walked down the hallway, expecting him to follow. Kai’s jaw tightened as he struggled to keep pace with her while holding at least ten bricks of another person. He knew this was a huge ask. Most households didn’t have assigned sentries, and this was Rasia, with little patience and always doing what she wanted. And yet, most people didn’t invade other people’s homes without warning either.
“Rasia, you need to check-in with the sentry,” he insisted.
“You mean the one asleep at your front door?” she spun around a corner, the wrong one. He could barely catch up to correct her. “Why is this place such a maze? Anyway, I was thinking we could swing by the market today, and then the training fields to get some practice for the kull tryouts. We still have a lot to do to get you ready. I know-”
“Rasia, stop,” Kai snapped.
She halted, finally.
He didn’t know why it was all too overwhelming—why now Rasia was suddenly too much. He needed a moment of pause. He needed time to adjust to the interruption of his carefully maintained routines. He was still fucking light-headed from her unannounced entry.
Her annoyed glare shifted to one of concern as she took him all in. She slackened, and then pouted. “I just . . . wanted to spend time with you.”
“I know. I know.” Kai knew he didn’t sound convincing. At the crack in his voice, Rae jumped from his arms and charged at Rasia.
“Meanie!” Rae punched her in the stomach.
Kai scrambled after Rae and tugged them back. Rasia looked shocked at first, as if all this time Kai had been carrying a doll around and not a real person that might come to life at any moment. Then her eyes narrowed. She pointed at Rae. “Next time, I’m going to bite you.”
“Enough,” Kai said. “Rasia, I still need to feed Rae breakfast and give them a bath before we can do anything. Rae, hit her again and no toys for the rest of the day.”
“What’s going on?”
Nico peeked her head from the adjoining hallway. Her hair frizzed sleep-mussed around her head. She looked so much better than the days following the bloodrites. His memory still lingered on the paleness of her on that moonlit night, as if she had seen Death and had been cursed from describing it.
Rae raced from Kai’s arms to Nico’s. The toddler climbed around her like sprouting vines on a trellis and proclaimed, “She was being mean to Kai!”
“The brat punched me in the stomach!”
Nico gave Rasia a half-awake stare. “You probably deserved it. Why are you here? It’s hardly past first drum.”
“I’m here because I was going to blowjob your jih awake, but I couldn’t find his fucking room.”
“Rasia!” Nico slapped her hands over Rae’s ears.
Kai snatched Rasia’s hand and pulled her down the hallway. Rasia cackled madly as he wound her back around to the front of the house. He kissed her to attention in the serving room.
“Good morning to you too,” she said and licked her lips with a hyena grin.
“If you refuse to go through the sentry, let me at least show you how to get to my room.” Because he had to face it—Rasia was never going to have the patience to check in with the sentry, and if she was going to flit about as she saw fit, she might as well know how to get to him without scaring his little jih half to death. He led her through the maze and narrated the twists and turns.
“What have you been up to?” Rasia asked.
“I’ve been here, watching Rae. Nico was conscripted into helping with the Forging haul. She has been working the wingfields.”
Everyone had been excited to see the dead dragon, at first, until it dawned on everyone the amount of work it required. From what Kai understood, they were still chopping up Nico’s gonda when the dragon arrived. Then there was First Harvest and all the preparations needed for the Naming Ceremony. Children were pulled from classes to help the tanners. Sentries were re-assigned from their posts. Everyone, from weavers to brick-makers to merchants, had mobilized to organize the sudden influx of food and resources. With Rae on his heels, Kai had assisted tajih with scribe work, while most of her employees cataloged the dragon bones.
Thankfully, all the chaos had finally calmed.
“I figured you were busy with the same,” he said.
“Technically.” She shrugged. “The healers were running low on a few herbs. But they didn’t have the staff to send a kull out for it, considering all the help needed with the haul and all the kids recovering from Forging injuries and whatnot. On behalf of the Council, tah volunteered jih to go after more. I decided to join him. I wasn’t going to stay here and deal with all the haul-madness. I tried looking for you before I left, but the sentry said you weren’t in.”
“Oh,” he said, surprised by the fact she had come looking for him. “I might have been with tajih. I was helping her at the temple.”
Rasia ran her hand along the sepia brick wall. Her fingertips danced over tapestries and the colorful mosaics. She peeked her head into all the rooms they passed: the library, the storage, the lounging rooms. Kai automatically hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her from wandering into the dojo.
“We’ll come back,” he promised.
Rasia walked backward atop his feet and clung to his hips. “How did things go with Kenji-shi? How did he react when he found out you killed a dragon? I bet he was real impressed.”
“He doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“He left with the hunting kulls once the warship pulled in.”
“Oh. That sucks. Well, I’m sure it will be fine once you tell him how you slayed a dragon. Kenji-shi always listens.”
“He’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll tell him then.” The moment that they had slayed the dragon, Kai began imagining all sorts of ways how the conversation would go. He was equally both terrified and anxious, and tried placing as few expectations on the conversation as possible. Maybe, Kenji would finally call him by his name.
When they reached Kai’s room, Rasia threw her hands up in exasperation. “I might need to make a map.”
“At least it’s not behind the secret door.”
“Wait. There’s a secret door?”
“. . . yeah? It leads to the inner chamber where Nico sleeps.”
“I’m making a map.”
Rasia wandered around his bedroom. He followed her nervously, suddenly self-conscious of the cramped and narrow space not even big enough to accommodate a window. It was odd, having Rasia in his room. To have her roaming her fingers over every surface and exploring it through her endless curiosity. His stomach churned with anxiety.
What if she asked why he lived in an obviously re-purposed storage closet? Or why he didn’t sleep in the inner chamber with his other siblings? Or why it was in a random nonsensical corner of the maze? His makeshift bed, built atop a shelf for earthenware, barely accommodated Kai and Rae, much less Kai and Rasia. Kai didn’t know how she fit—in his bedroom, in his routines, or in his life. He feared it would not be big enough for her.
Over her shoulder, webbed the cracked wall where Kenji had thrown him the day before the Forging. The adobe brick floor where she stood, at the edge of her heel, tinted dark from the blood of the intruder his tah had once killed. No. Rasia didn’t fit wandering the wicker and mudbricks of his nightmarish existence. He suddenly and urgently didn’t want her in his room anymore.
“Rasia,” Kai called out. He moved to grab her, but she had already turned and flounced on his pallet of linen stuffed palm-leaves. With a jackal grin, she roamed her eyes down Kai’s figure, interested in only one thing in the room. Her face dropped in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. He stuffed away all the fear and anxiety. She didn’t seem to care about the details or the obvious questions he didn’t have answers to. With a relieved sigh, he fell upon her on the bed. Despite all the chaos she brought with her, it was one of her traits that he appreciated the most. He missed the ease of her underneath him. He missed the soft smiles she only gave to him. He missed their tangled limbs. Rasia was easy in a way the rest of his world wasn’t.
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to this,” Nico said.
Kai peeled away from Rasia, flushed and lip-bitten, to find Nico at the door. Rae’s brown curls peeked from behind Nico’s legs. A little distance seemed all the permission for Rae to come jumping into the room. They leaped onto Kai’s lap and squeezed Rasia out of the way. It was painfully obvious how Rae was unaccustomed to being anything other than the center of Kai’s attention.
Nico glanced at him, and immediately he knew what she was thinking. He subtly shook his head, but Nico was too prideful not to be a good host. She asked, “Would you like to join us for breakfast?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Rasia agreed. He winced at her thoughtlessness.
“Kai, why don’t you give Rae a bath? I should be done with breakfast by then,” Nico said and rushed from the doorway before Kai could take back Rasia’s words.
He sighed, then looked down at Rae, who harrumphed at the idea of bathing. He tickled their sides until the grumpiness broke into rolling giggles. “You heard her, bath time.”
“NO!” Rae rolled, slid down Rasia’s back and, as if they didn’t do this every day, ran screaming out the door.
“Rasia, do you mind?”
“Gladly.” She pounced up and raced out of the door.
Kai sat there, taking a much-needed moment. He clutched his head, still feeling a little faint and dizzy, and hoped if he sat still long enough, the room might stop spinning. He soon heard a screech. His cue to get up.
Rasia met him, jogging down the hallway, with Rae kicking over her shoulder. “I don’t get it. All my little cousins run away from me too. Am I really that scary?”
“Depends on the day,” Kai answered diplomatically. He up-righted and grabbed Rae from her arms, who sobbed betrayed and faux-traumatized.
“Where are we taking them? To the lake? To the bathhouse?”
“No, we have a bath here,” he said.
Her brows rose.
Kai led Rasia through the maze toward the inner chamber. He pressed the patterned tiles in the wall and the secret door receded. Compared to the rest of the house, the space and opulence of the inner chamber reflected a by-gone era when the Grankull had no Council and the magic-born had ruled absolutely. Very few non-family members had ever stepped inside of it.
Murals of histories, of wars, and legends that gradually turned the land more arid and stained with magic, decorated the walls in bright splashes of color. A magic-born from a long time ago had carved the artwork. It still buzzed with magic at night, sometimes shifting images and scenes in the corner of the eye.
“Is this . . . us?” Rasia touched the painting of a warship sailing toward the Grankull. Kai studied the image over her shoulder and was unsurprised by its appearance. It must have shifted last night—perhaps the only thing in this entire house which anticipated Rasia’s arrival.
“It does that. The wall reflects the past, even that which happened a few days ago.”
Rasia slid her hands along the images, pointing out scenes from stories she knew and studying others she didn’t recognize. Eventually, they made it to the bath. Red flowers from the large poinciana tree that grew on this side of the house floated atop the water. Rays of sunlight cascaded over the room, blooming warmth through the patterned ceiling slats above.
“You have your own private lake,” Rasia said, astounded. “I didn’t know this was a thing that could exist.”
“Some great-great-great-granta used his magic to funnel water from the cistern to the bath.” Kai walked around the corners to burn the kyphi incense. They didn’t have much left and only used it for special occasions, but the bath soon swelled full of the relaxing aroma—warm and sweet, and a little spicy. The smell always reminded him of his tah. She always wore it thick in her hair and on her skin.
“Your house is so . . .” she scrunched her face. “Magical.”
He had never thought of it that way. Except for his tajihs’ place, he had never been invited over to someone else’s house to compare. Until the Forging, all he knew were these adobe walls.
Items clinked and clanked to the floor. Kai dunked aside the splash Rasia made as she jumped into the bath. She swam naked laps around the pool. A scattered trail of clothes, leather belts, her khopesh, and daggers trailed the floor in her rush to undress. She moved a lot better now, and he noted that her Forging injuries had finally had some time to heal.
“What other cool things do you have back here?” she asked. The necklace he had given her sparkled wet between her collarbones.
“There are some old relics and stuff, but for the most part it’s just the bedrooms.”
“How come your bedroom isn’t with the others?”
He froze. His tongue felt heavy with the answer. Rae exclaimed beside him, “To have a place where I can hide from my nightmares!”
