For the third night in a row and with tears in my eyes, I drift away into an uncomfortable sleep filled with dark riders, burning houses, and the king stabbing my sister.
I’m still sitting in my chair.
But I’m still holding Jolie’s hand, too.
~~~
I awake with tearstains on my cheeks and Buff punching me in the shoulder.
“I brought you breakfast,” he says, and he doesn’t even call me a sissy-eyed snowflake-lover for the tracks of white salt on my face. That’s how I know everything’s changed.
“How’s your gut-slash?” he asks, and I know what he means. It took him asking me that three times before I realized he was asking about Jolie, not me. After all, Jolie’s the gut-slash that hurts me the most, deep under the surface, in the pit of my stomach, worming and gnawing away.
“No worse, no better,” I say, my standard response that I hope will change one day soon.
He nods and we’re both silent for a moment, just watching Jolie sleep. “So, uh, you said something about breakfast?” I ask. I’m not hungry but I need something to distract me.
“Rolls again,” he says. “Harder than rocks. Less tasty too,” he adds with a grin. He hands me a hunk of bread from his satchel. It really is like rock.
For a few minutes we scrape at our rolls with our teeth, trying to get some kind of sustenance from them. Watching Buff gnaw away, I almost laugh, but my lips don’t turn up so quickly these days. “You make these?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.
“Shove it up your snow-blowin’ arse!” Buff says. I glance at Jolie, who’s as silent and motionless as ever. If she can hear us, she’s getting a topnotch education on the intricacies of cursing. Buff’s as good a teacher as anyone.
“Sorry,” Buff says, covering his mouth with a rock-roll. “It’s easy to forget your…gut-slash is there sometimes.”
“Stop calling her that,” I say, feeling a flash of heat for the first time in three days. “Her name’s Jolie.”
“I know, it’s just hard—”
“And quit forgetting she’s there,” I interrupt. “She’s still a person. She’s still my little sister.”
Buff nods a heavy nod and right away I know I’ve been too hard on him. It’s not like he doesn’t have problems of his own. It’s not like he doesn’t care about Jolie. The fire in me dies quickly, like it was no more than a spark anyway, and I find myself backtracking. “Look, man, I’m sorry, it’s just…seeing her here like this, day in and day out, it’s getting to me.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Dazz. Everyone’s on edge. It’s natural. And she’ll…Jolie will come out of it. I know it.”
“Thanks,” I say, nearly breaking a tooth as I try to bite into the roll again.
Buff grins. “Alright, alright, I made them. But only because Darce was busy cleaning my father’s injuries.”
“How is he?” I say, wishing I’d asked right away. It’s so easy to get stuck in the snowdrift of our problems sometimes, so deep and cold that you can’t see anything else at all, even the important stuff.
“The slash he took from the rider should’ve killed him,” Buff says. “Even the healers can’t explain how the rider, in that position, didn’t manage to do more damage. It’s like he only did enough to keep my father from hurting him, so he could get past and on to the castle. The men he was with had similar injuries, none of them fatal. They’re healing up nicely.”
“That’s good,” I say, managing a weak smile. “And his leg?”
Buff frowns. “Not so good. When the horse stepped on him, his leg shattered into a whole lot of pieces. He won’t be able to work for a long time. But even that…” Buff trails off, staring at Jolie.
“What?” I say.
Buff tilts his head thoughtfully. “It feels like even that was an accident, like the rider didn’t want to hurt him badly.”
Now I frown. “Buff, that rider was lighting houses on fire, stampeding through the village with a sword, chopping down good men like your father. That’s no accident. It was the Stormers who took the children, too. I told you what the king said, they wanted my sister to marry one of their boys. They were going to force her to obey him. They’re evil.”
“The king was evil,” Buff says, “he might’ve lied to you.”
I close my eyes because I know Buff’s right. “Some of it was the truth,” I say. “He had no reason to lie.” Like the part about my sister being betrothed.
Buff sighs. “I know, I’m just saying it’s weird. My father said the horse was bearing down on him, about to stomp all over him, and then the rider pulled up sharply, like he didn’t want to step on him. The horse turned as best it could, but wasn’t able to avoid my father’s leg.”
“He still trampled him,” I say. “He still slashed him.”
“But didn’t you say one of the riders saved your life? That he left you with Jolie and gave his life to hold back the guards? That he told you to save her? Why would he do that if they wanted your sister? It doesn’t make sense.”
Vivid memories flash through my mind: the rider, dark-robed and menacing, stepping toward the king and my sister; his words, “You’re here for the girl?”; then, watching him leap past me and into the flow of guards, fighting them back while I barricaded the door. He did save my life. Maybe Jolie’s too. But why?
“He thought it was over,” I say. “He thought he’d killed the king, which apparently was what the Stormers were after in the first place. And he didn’t take Jolie because he knew he couldn’t possibly escape and abduct her.”
“Maybe,” Buff says. “But no one else in the village died. Other than the castle guards, casualties were zero. The Stormers massacred or injured almost every guardsman and then galloped off with their own injured on their backs. They could’ve taken over the entire village if they’d wanted—but they didn’t.”
“But the burning,” I say.
“Only houses with no one in them.”
“But why?”
Buff cringes, closes his eyes—opens them. Says, “I don’t know.”
“Aren’t the people angry?” I ask.
“At King Goff mostly,” he says. “Now that the truth is out, people are saying he brought a curse on our country.”
“I meant, aren’t they angry at the Stormers?”
Buff chews his lip. “Yes and no, but mostly no,” he says. “Sure they’re angry that they have to rebuild, but mostly at Goff for bringing the curse on our people. Already the Stormers are falling back into myth and legend. There are rumors that they rose out of the ground, formed from clay, and returned to it, like inhuman shadows.”
“I saw them. They’re as real as you or I. They’re evil,” I repeat. “Child stealers. Don’t you get it?”
Buff nods. “I do, but the rest of the villagers won’t be so easily convinced. At least they didn’t get your sister.”
“Thank the Mountain Heart,” I say.
“Do you want to know what’s been going on at the castle?” Buff asks, changing the subject.
I raise my eyebrows. I’ve been so set on watching Jolie and praying for her to wake up, I’ve almost forgotten there’s a whole world out there, one that’s broken into a thousand pieces. “The king?” I say.
Buff nods. “You gave him quite a beating, but he survived it. The truth is out though, and already the people are calling for his head on a platter. A consortium’s been created with an equal number of representatives from each of the Districts, which the White District folks aren’t too happy about, but given the situation they haven’t fought it too hard.”
“Who’s included from the Brown District?”
There’s a twinkle in Buff’s eye. “Yo, for one,” he says, and I smile. I couldn’t think of a better choice. He’s always had more wisdom and kindness than most.
“Good,” I say. “What’ll this consortium do?”
“Decide on what’s to become of the king, and then what’s to become of the Icers. Yo says they’ll be announcing the king’s execution any day now.”