“And you must stay here to help us raise this child, Lukien!”
“I’m here now,” I said without commitment. “Let’s sit.”
We lowered each other to the edge of the fountain. Around us the children played and laughed. The great, white wall of Jador loomed in the distance, separating us from the throngs of foreigners that had come to White-Eye’s home. Foreigners like me. I had washed and scented myself, but White-Eye could tell I was troubled, and there was no point at all in hiding it from her.
“I saw Gilwyn. Did he tell you?”
“He told me. I expected you to come sooner, Lukien.”
“I needed a bath first.”
“No. I meant I thought you’d come home to Jador sooner. You were gone a very long while this time.”
I nodded. “It is nice to be missed, though.”
“You won’t find what you’re looking for in the desert. There is nothing in the desert. Only Jador.” She looked sad. “Jador won’t make you happy.”
“And this scheme of Gilwyn’s? Do you think that will help me?” I asked sincerely. “I have been an adventurer most of my life, White-Eye.”
“Adventure? You don’t understand, then. Purpose is what you need, Lukien. Find a cause and give yourself to it. And when you’re done, return here to us. That’s all we’re saying.”
I looked down at her belly, imagining the child growing within. “I need to see your child,” I said. “I can’t be gone for that.”
“Of course,” said White-Eye. “You must be here for that. I told you-I’ll need your help with this bundle! But there’s many months before the baby comes. Just go and then return. You can do that, can’t you?”
Her words baffled me. Not her question but her statement. I kept staring down at her unborn child. “White-Eye, I’m a fighter. A killer. You want a child who lives in peace. What can I possibly teach your baby?” I thought about it. “A boy should learn how to use a weapon, I suppose. And I’m a good horseman. . I could teach your baby that.”
“Lukien, no,” said White-Eye. “Anyone could teach our baby those things.”
“What, then?”
White-Eye grew unusually serious. “You make me say this? You saved this city from invasion. You destroyed the demon that took away my Akari and made me blind. You are the hero of everyone in Jador. Lukien, boy or girl, you will teach my child the most difficult things of all. Things that cannot be learned from scrolls or stories: bravery and honor. But most of all, you will teach my baby goodness. Because even if you don’t think so, you are a good man, Lukien.”
I sat there. I nodded. But I didn’t argue with her because I could not even speak.
Ever gracious, she allowed my silence. She went back to her macrame, diligently making knots as I sat there beside her and watched the children play.
3
How can I describe Cricket? She’s like a mirror image, the opposite of what you think you see. She’s pretty but doesn’t care at all about looks. She hordes trinkets till they’re spilling out of her pockets. She complains about her chores but does them to perfection, and she loves to be alone but clings to me like bark. Near as we can tell she’s fourteen years old. Sometimes she acts half that age, sometimes twice it. She’ll talk for an hour then shut up tight for days, and no one-not even Minikin when she was alive-can ever figure out what’s going on inside her impish head.
The day we left Grimhold, Cricket was in the mood to talk. She wore the cape we’d made together out of the rass skin, proudly primping it over her little shoulders as her pony sauntered through the canyon. I’d gone to Grimhold myself so we could work on the cape together. When she saw me arrive, Cricket circled me like a child searching for sweets, wondering what I’d brought her. The sun was hot on the black cape as we rode, but Cricket didn’t care. She was full of questions and eager to get back to Jador. I was happy just to see her smiling.
A decent road winds from Grimhold to Jador, through a canyon of sheer, red rock. Inhumans and Jadori have used the road for decades, keeping their alliance secret. Before Gilwyn took over, Minikin was Grimhold’s mistress. She’d spent her vast lifetime searching for the kind of kids Gilwyn had been once. Blind kids or crippled, she brought them all to Jador for an Akari, for the chance to live a normal life. I’m an Inhuman now, too, in a way, because Malator keeps me alive. Without him, my old wounds would quickly kill me.
Cricket isn’t one of us. She has no Akari, and no use for one. She’s not blind or lame or deaf. She’s normal in every way-except for her broken memory-and it’s only because Minikin loved and pitied her that she has such access to our world. Seekers from the Bitter Kingdoms had found her in Akyre. She’d been wandering, they said, starved and alone. No family and no memory of one either. All she knew for sure was her name. Cricket.
I rode beside her on my horse, listening to her explanations. Ahead of us, the two Jadori warriors Gilwyn assigned as escorts bobbed on the backs of their green-scaled kreels.
“It was like a dream,” Cricket exclaimed. “Like it was talking to me. It was screaming, and no one else could hear it.” She turned, imploring me. “That must have happened to you once, right Lukien?”
“No, Cricket. I’ve never had a chicken talk to me.”
“With its eyes,” she stressed. “It knew I would help. I had to!”
“Uh huh.” I nodded, bored with her horseshit. “What about all the chickens you actually eat? Can’t they talk to you? And what about the cistern?”
“He told you that?” Cricket frowned. “Gilwyn’s an ass.”
“Hey!” I reined in my horse.
She kept riding for a while, then stopped. “Sorry.”
The warriors turned around to look at us. “Go,” I told them, waving them on. “It’s all right.”
I rode up close to Cricket. “You want to go live with the other Seekers in the shanties?”
“I’m not a Seeker.”
“Anyone who comes across the desert to Jador is a Seeker, Cricket. And any one of them would trade places with you. You live in the palace because Gilwyn lets you. So show him some respect.”
“I said I was sorry.” She sighed as she got her pony going. “You ain’t been in such a great mood either, you know. Like you got an itch or something.”
“Yes, I’ve got an itch. And I don’t need you making it worse. I come back from the desert and all I hear about is how worried everyone is about you. I’m not your mother, Cricket.”
“What’s itchin’ you, Lukien?”
I still hadn’t told her about Gilwyn’s idea. I’d meant to, but the days just sort of slipped away. “Nothing,” I said, “forget it,” and reached up to scratch beneath my eye patch. Cricket stared, trying to see under it.
“You got an eyeball under there?”
“Of course I do. It’s gone white, that’s all. Sometimes I get a grain of sand in there. Makes me crazy.”
“How’d that happen to you? You’re a handsome man, Lukien. Bet you were pretty to look at when you were younger.”
I smiled, because she was so good at changing subjects. “You’re dodging, Cricket. We’re not done talking about the cistern.”
“I’ll paint it back to normal,” she groaned. “So what happened?”
“A Norvan scimitar.”
“From when you were a mercenary?”
“That’s right.”
“Must make it hard to fight, having one eye.”
“Two would be better,” I admitted. “Doesn’t hurt any more, though. Malator sees to that. Nothing hurts me anymore. Not for long, anyway.”
We both got quiet, the horse hooves echoing around the canyon. The claws of the kreels clicked on the sandy road as their tongues flicked in and out. Cricket looked at me. She wanted a story.
“Norvor’s a lot like Akyre, I guess. Just a bunch of barons fighting for territory now. No real king or queen any more. There’s been fighting in that part of the world since I can remember.”
“Yup,” nodded Cricket. That much she already knew. Everyone figured it was the fighting that took her family away, but Cricket couldn’t remember.