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“I should learn Arike,” Kai said to Salatel.
It was mid-morning, and most of the people riding on the wallwalker were awake. Salatel was sitting next to Kai with her back against the palanquin’s railing, and the rest of Kai’s cadre were nearby. Bashasa was on the other side of the palanquin consulting about something with Ziede and Lahshar. The palanquin was filled with the low hum of conversations. The majority of them were quiet, but a few, like those involving the children, were loud and boisterous.
Kai knew he was an outsider here. He could tell at least a few of the conversations going on nearby were about him. Some tapered off awkwardly when he looked at them, and others, seemingly aware of the fact that he could not understand their words, kept talking with the occasional significant glance in his direction.
The events of the previous night, at the bridge and then later in Bashasa’s tent, had made him realize how tenuous many of the alliances within the Arike families were. He was uncomfortably aware that he might not even notice if they started conspiring against Bashasa in front of him. His lack of knowledge of the language was starting to seem less like an inconvenience and more like a real problem.
“Probably wise, Fourth Prince,” said Salatel. Kai had a feeling she shared many of his concerns. “Who would you like to teach you?”
Kai shrugged. He had learned Imperial from a Saredi elder, in a tent surrounded by a dozen other grim and determined advanced scouts. The situation was so different now that he didn’t think those experiences would help.
“Can’t you teach me?” he asked.
Salatel made a face. “I can try, Fourth Prince, but I’ve never been a teacher.”
Kai huffed a humorless laugh. “I’ve never been an expositor. We’ll figure it out together.”
“All right,” said Salatel, though she still seemed doubtful. She thought for a moment, then pointed to a nearby cable. “What is that?”
“A cable,” said Kai.
Salatel told him the Arike word. Kai repeated it until his pronunciation was close to hers. She found another word, then Trenal pitched in with another. They went on like that through the afternoon, going through all the objects in the vicinity. Kai was exhausted by the end, and fairly sure he would forget most of the words by the next morning, but it was a start.
That was all he could hope for.
“I heard you’re learning Arike,” Bashasa said some time later, gesturing at Kai with the bread in his hand.
Kai had dragged him over to his corner of the palanquin and convinced him to let strategizing wait until they were no longer trapped on a moving wallwalker, while Salatel had helped him shove food at Bashasa until he finally started to eat. Most of the other people on the palanquin were either asleep or involved in their own conversations, so they had as much privacy as was really possible given the circumstances.
“Yes,” Kai tried to say in Arike, then grimaced. Even he could tell his pronunciation was poor. “I’m trying, anyway.”
“That wasn’t bad!” said Bashasa encouragingly. “Who has been teaching you?”
“Salatel, mostly. The rest of the cadre help.”
Bashasa frowned a little in thought. “We could probably find you a proper teacher tonight. I’m sure there’s someone suitable around here. No offense to Salatel, of course,” he added hurriedly.
“None taken, Prince-heir Bashasa,” said Salatel. She looked faintly hopeful at the prospect of having someone else do the job for her.
Kai grimaced. “I’d rather not. Doing this with a stranger would be… awkward.”
“Ah,” said Bashasa. “That’s reasonable. I suppose something like this takes a certain level of trust.”
“Exactly,” said Kai, relieved. Also, it was bad enough that so many Arike knew he couldn’t speak their language — he didn’t want any potential enemies in charge of teaching him. But that seemed a little too pessimistic for this conversation.
“I’m happy to help, if you want to hear more voices,” said Bashasa.
Kai didn’t know why he was startled at that. Probably because it seemed like an Arike Prince-heir and leader of rebellion would have better things to do, but Bashasa had never been what anyone expected him to be. Kai should get used to it.
“Sure,” he said, and Bashasa smiled.
“Has Salatel got you working on verbs yet?” he asked, and the rest of the meal was spent in discussion of Arike vocabulary and grammar.
It became something of a game, as the journey went on, something to pass the time as the wallwalker lumbered forward. Kai would try to remember as many Arike words as he could, and the others — Salatel, the cadre, Bashasa, and occasionally one of the other occupants of the wallwalker — would try to stump him with increasingly obscure or bizarre words and phrases.
Theoretically, it was to help him learn. Kai doubted it was doing much. It didn’t matter whether he could remember the poetic term for the subsections of a word when he was still unsure about how to say “bread.” It was entertaining, though, and the cadre and Bashasa were enjoying themselves, so he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.
It felt a little bit like the camaraderie he had once had with his Saredi family, or perhaps the vague shadow of it. He didn’t know if the thought made him hopeful or just terribly sad.
They were in the Arike city where they had defeated Karanis, helping to clean up the mess their arrival had caused and giving everyone a day or two to rest and celebrate. Bashasa insisted they had the time and room to do so, and at this point there were very few people unwilling to take his word for it.
Ziede, Tahren, and Dahin were sitting in the shade with Kai and Salatel, and Bashasa had come to join them. He was initially there to consult with them about strategy, but Kai and Ziede managed to get him to stay with them after the discussion was over, nominally to settle a dispute on Arike grammar but really for a chance to relax. The question of grammar was settled as a regional difference fairly quickly, and the group went back to their usual game, which Ziede and Dahin had joined in enthusiastically once they learned about it.
Kai laughed long and hard over the Arike word for fruit juice, which sounded similar to the Imperial word for the shit of large livestock, much to the mixed offense and amusement of his Arike companions.
“And how do the Saredi say it?” Bashasa asked, his mock outrage belied by the held-back laughter in his voice.
“Say what?” asked Dahin, still laughing, “Juice, or shit?”
“I’ll leave it up to the Fourth Prince,” said Bashasa with an airy wave that made Ziede give a rather undignified snort. Then they both looked expectantly at Kai.
“We— uh, the Saredi don’t drink much fruit juice.” He told them the closest word for the concept, and tried not to get caught up in the fact that there were no other Saredi here to hold their own against the Arike’s ridiculous system of gendered conjugations. He should have said that they
didn’t
drink much juice — no one was left to have opinions about it now.
Bashasa, oblivious to Kai’s turmoil, nodded seriously.
“And the word for shit?” he asked, straight-faced.
The question startled a laugh out of Kai, despite everything.
“There are several,” he said, and Salatel finally lost her battle against laughter and let out an undignified snort.
“Well, now we have to know,” said Ziede, leaning forward.
Kai told them the words for shit-mud, the shit of a grazing animal, the shit of a meat-eating animal, the shit of a human, and shit that was being used to track something.
By the end, Ziede was laughing uproariously and even Tahren had cracked a smile. Dahin was repeating the derogatory word for human shit to himself with delight.
Kai smiled and laughed and wished, with a desperate longing like an ache rooted deeper inside him than any part of Talimenes’ body, that Adeni or Dae-Fera or Grandmother were here.
“What’s the word for wind, again?” Kai asked one evening, the flapping of the tent canvas in the breeze making the question seem natural.
Bashasa told him. They were alone in the tent for the moment, sitting on the floor with maps and scribbled papers scattered between them. The other prince-heirs and Ziede had left long ago to sleep, but the two of them had remained, debating strategy long into the night.
“What’s the Saredi word?” Bashasa asked.
It wasn’t the first time he had asked for a word in Saredi, or even the second. There was no reason for Kai to mind. But something about the late hour, or the memory of having once done something like this with the other Saredi scouts, or the maps spread out between them with nothing marked in the grassplains but desolation made the loss feel more raw.
“Why do you care?” he asked, and his voice came out harsher than he meant it to. “You’ll never use it.”
Bashasa sat back. There was a furrow between his brows, and his expression was far too empathetic for Kai to bear.
“You don’t know that,” Bashasa said slowly.
“Yes I do,” Kai bit out. “Everyone who speaks that language is dead.”
“Kai,” said Bashasa softly. Kai looked away.
“Just because the language is not spoken as often as it was does not mean it is not valuable. The Hierarchs tried to kill it. There is no reason to let them.” He paused. “And besides, you’re wrong.”
Kai glanced back at him, frowning. “What?”
“You speak the language, Kai. You’re not dead.”
Kai looked at Bashasa. He was so earnest, so determined, so passionate about this language that was almost nothing more now than a part of Kai’s past. Kai could feel the last brittle bits of his composure beginning to crack. He turned away again, his face twisting, but he could not stop the tears from coming.
Kai wept. It was rough and wet and undignified. He curled up, his body shaking with quiet sobs.
Bashasa put an awkward hand on his shoulder. When Kai didn’t pull away, he shifted closer and slid his arm around Kai’s shoulders in a one-armed embrace.
Kai wanted to explain himself, or apologize, or just to say
something
to untangle the terrible mess of awkwardness and grief in his chest, but all the words and languages he knew felt beyond his reach. He leaned into Bashasa’s touch a little and wept.
He did not know how long it was before his sobs finally tapered off into sniffles and then into silence. He knew that Bashasa hadn’t moved. Bashasa’s thumb was tracing gentle arcs across Kai’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” Kai said. Talamines’ voice came out rough and quiet.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” said Bashasa.
They were silent for a few moments. Outside, soldiers were moving. A pot fell and clattered. Someone laughed. The wind still rustled the tent canvas.
“The Saredi had a song about the wind,” Kai said quietly. “It was the first one I heard after I left the underearth. I was cold for the first time, and my cousin laughed and sang it to me.”
“Would you sing it for me?” asked Bashasa.
“I’m… not good at it. Singing. I was never going to be a storyteller.”
“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”
Kai paused. He thought, again, about Kentdessa. “I think I want to.”
Bashasa waited silently while Kai gathered himself. He did not move or pull away. Slowly, haltingly, Kai began to sing.
The song was lilting, a wandering melody that repeated with slight variations after each verse. The words told stories of the wind’s travels, and what it saw and encountered as it flew across the grassplains. Kai remembered elders using it to lull children to sleep when wind fluttered on the tent canvas, remembered making up stupid new verses with Varra and Adeni.
He finished the song and fell silent. The way they were sitting side by side made it easy to look forward and not at Bashasa’s face. He was glad; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Bashasa looked like right now.
“That was beautiful,” said Bashasa.
“I miss them,” said Kai.
“I’m sorry,” said Bashasa. From anyone else, the words would sound like a platitude, but from Bashasa they felt genuine and filled with real grief. “The Hierarchs… they have taken so much.”
Kai sniffled. “Don’t be sorry. You’re the one who’s actually doing something about it.”
Bashasa chuckled a little, part dry and part disbelieving. “If anything, you’re the one who’s doing that. You’ve contributed to the deaths of more Hierarchs than me.”
Kai didn’t know what to do with that. He wanted to tell Bashasa that the only reason he’d done anything — the only reason he’d
been
anything other than a passive and agonized lump of a demon in the Cageling Court — was because Bashasa had been insane enough to believe it was possible, but the words wouldn’t come.
“It won’t bring them back,” he said instead.
I can’t go home,
he thought, but enough of his composure had resolidified to keep him from voicing that out loud.
“No,” said Bashasa, his voice serious and sad again. “We can’t get them back. All we can do now is stop the Hierarchs from taking more.”
Kai hummed a sound of agreement. He had no more words to give. They were quiet for several long moments, sitting side by side as the world fell into the silence of night and the wind continued on its journey. The Hierarchs could not take the wind away, Kai thought, a little nonsensically.
Kai broke the silence. He told Bashasa which Saredi word meant “wind”. Bashasa repeated it carefully, like it was some sort of fragile artwork.
“I’ll remember that,” he said, and despite everything else that was happening, Kai believed him.
Bashasa kept asking for Saredi words, after that. He seemed tentative at first, but when Kai didn’t break down crying again he grew bolder. Others would join in occasionally — Salatel, Trenal, and even sometimes Tahren, though Kai thought that was mostly so she could surprise Ziede.
Bashasa must have been picking up a few things from Ziede in Kai’s absence, too, because every now and then he mentioned a word that Kai had no memory of teaching him. Once, while a stubborn Prince-heir droned on about traditional Arike power structures, Bashasa muttered some Saredi curses that even Kai would have hesitated to teach him. Kai had to try so hard to hold back his laughter that the cousin had stopped and asked if he was all right.
Meanwhile, Kai was making rapid progress with the Arike language. Being around the language so often helped; once he got going, he picked things up much faster than he had in Imperial. It helped, too, that this was the language of his allies and not his enemies. It made it easier to practice.
The day Kai first stumbled through a conversation with Salatel entirely in Arike, he couldn’t help but smile. She was smiling too. Kai felt something like hope unfurling in his chest.
One evening, after a strategy meeting with Bashasa, Salatel mentioned that Kai had made good progress at the language.
“That’s excellent,” said Bashasa, sounding delighted.
Kai shifted awkwardly. “It’s Salatel’s achievement, not mine.”
“Salatel and you have both done wonderfully,” said Bashasa firmly. Salatel smiled and thanked him, then excused herself to find something to eat. Bashasa and Kai were alone except for one of Bashasa’s cadre, standing guard several paces away.
Bashasa considered Kai for a moment.
“What is it?” asked Kai.
“I am proud of you,” Bashasa said in halting, awkward Saredi, and Kai couldn’t help but hug him.
Bashasa returned the embrace after a startled moment. Kai squeezed him tighter, then let go and shifted back. He tried to ignore the embarrassed heat in Talamines’ cheeks.
“Thanks,” Kai said in Arike, and Bashasa smiled.
The journey to the first Rising World renewal gave Kai a feeling of deja-vu.
It was not quite the same group of people that had escaped the Summer Halls together — many had died in the war, of course, and a number of others had joined their ranks in one way or another — but it was close enough to be notable. Even Lashar and Dasara were there, though they mostly steered clear of Kai.
It had been months since he, Ziede, Tahren, Dahin, and Bashasa had all been in the same place at the same time. The war had kept them all busy. Being together and hurrying to an important destination was bringing back memories of the first time they had traveled together.
They were not on a wallwalker, this time, for which Kai was incredibly grateful. Some of them rode on horses, while others walked or rode in carriages. Kai was riding behind Bashasa. It had become something of an unofficial tradition after their entrance to Karanis’ fortress. Theoretically, it was so Kai would be better able to protect Bashasa, but Ziede insisted they only said that because he and Bashasa were too embarrassed to admit that they both enjoyed it.
The soldiers of Kai and Bashasa’s cadres were laughing among themselves, occasionally nudging them or pulling Kai into their jokes. The people weren’t all the same as they had been when they escaped the Summer Halls — some had died or been badly injured in the war, and others had taken their places — but Salatel and Cerala and several others were still here, and Trenal had rejoined them for the occasion. They were speaking mostly Arike, with scattered Imperial and even the occasional word in Saredi.
The Arike words didn’t feel so foreign on his tongue anymore. The language was one of many that had gotten them through the war. Some days, different languages were kept strictly separate — Imperial for politics and alliances, Arike or Saredi or Enalin or any number of other tongues for negotiations or secret conversation or private moments. Other days, like today, the edges of languages blended together like wet paints on Saredi tents. Kai preferred it that way.
Kai knew that many of the Arike were still uncomfortable with his presence, but they kept away from him and his cadre. He had Bashasa’s support — there was not much anyone could say about that.
Ziede and Tahren were flirting again, their horses so close to each other that their knees almost touched. Behind them, where he rode next to Bashasa and Kai, Dahin rolled his eyes at them dramatically. Kai laughed at him, and Dahin reached over to shove him before riding away. Kai used Bashasa’s waist to steady himself in the saddle, and the horse shifted indignantly.
Bashasa turned to glance back at him. His hair was messily tousled by the breeze and a bright smile was on his face.
“Are you all right?” he asked in Saredi, as he often did when he asked Kai things that Kai might not want the people around him to know.
“I’m fine,” said Kai in Arike. For once, he actually meant it.
These people would never be the Saredi. He would never be an Arike, any more than he would be a Saredi or a proper demon again.
But, maybe, they could still be something like a family.
Kai thought he could live with that.