Book Four Sneak Peak
(Official name soon to come!)
The streets of Py’aoka lay in a lull, a secretive hush that the falling evening often brought with it of late. Kiara paced herself as she made her way through the village. Running could draw even more attention than simply being spotted. Nevertheless, she hardly went three seconds without checking over her shoulder or squinting into the distance, trying to detect any sign of movement in the failing light.
So far so good.
She could just make out the gap in the tree line that she aimed for. Drawing in a breath, she started making a dash for it when a pair of voices stopped her cold. Without looking around Kiara barreled around a thick tree and pressed her back to the bark. Her heart pounded in her ears. She prayed it wasn’t audible to anyone else.
The voices drew closer, close enough to understand, but Kiara was far too concerned with not getting caught to pick up any of their conversation. She shut her eyes and chewed her lip.
“Please, God, just let me get out of here unseen,” she barely whispered.
She waited, the time ticking by with each throbbing heartbeat, until, finally, the voices moved away. Peeling her sweaty back off the tree trunk, Kiara peered into the street.
Silent as a grave yard. Though that was hardly a comforting thing at all, it was exactly what she preferred right now. Her lungs collapsed with an exhale and her shoulders slumped. Kiara made one more scan of the roads before turning and scampering into the forest.
Safely within the tree line, Kiara braced a hand against a palm tree and used her other to wipe the sweat off her forehead. The forest had fallen silent upon her arrival, but she knew the animals would resume their conversations as soon as they warmed to her. It took only a few minutes of stillness on her part before their voices returned. Kiara dropped her hand from the tree, roving her eyes over the untamed world. Twilight in the forest had become a steadily growing obsession of hers. The night voices spoke to her in a language she couldn’t translate, but could almost understand. She longed to be near the wild peace and savage calm, the tranquility it wore as effortlessly as slipping one's arms into a comfortable coat. Maybe if she listened long enough the nocturnal chorus would have the answers to her questions that seemed to keep multiplying. But for now, just walking amongst it was enough.
She drew a deep breath as she started deeper into the trees, drinking in the wet scents and ever present buoyancy of life.
She walked as far as she dared in the deepening blue hues. Nightfall would come to the forest first, and though she had grown competent, she wasn’t above getting lost. Not to mention she technically wasn’t supposed to be out here. Nothing was considered safe beyond the village streets right now. Well, less safe than even usual. Kiara disregarded the warning bells in her mind, trying her best to ignore the constant presence of the insects, swatting them when she couldn’t any longer. She didn’t much care for perimeters, especially those that others set for her.
Stopping to admire the evening, Kiara brushed the stray curls off her face. She had been pulling her wild mane back into a braid more often than not lately, but a few strands always remained too stubborn to be tamed for long. She watched a few birds settling into roosts, while others—like the spectacled owl, peering at her with its fierce face markings—were only just stretching their wings for a night of hunting.
There seemed to be more creatures awake at night than in the day. Just standing there a moment, she caught sight of an elusive armadillo shuffling over the forest floor and spotted a furry kinkajou climbing higher in a tree to forage.
While all the humans slept, the animals ruled the rainforest, and Kiara liked to linger on that thought.
The guttural call of the potoo joined the night chorus, like a cry for help amidst a song that promised nothing was wrong. Kiara’s chest tightened and her gut churned with a conflict of things.
She tried not to make a habit out of thinking of Deorc—Loukas as Aaron would still have him called—but it was impossible to hear the call of a potoo and not think of a very particular, somewhat sinister one along with his master. And when she thought of Deorc, she almost always thought of Darcy, and thoughts of Darcy had started to bring a twisting in her gut. At first she had tried to ignore it, but it only got worse. It was a sickeningly clammy sense of guilt. She didn’t want to feel it. It crept up on her and refused to let go. The worst part was she didn’t even know why it was hanging around, or so she told herself.
And it wasn’t just Darcy. She remembered—couldn’t forget the dreams she had about Deorc while staying in Tykaraijre. The dreams of him trapped and abused … even terrified.
Dreams are dreams, she would tell herself, but for as long as she could remember hers had always seemed a little more than just nightly thoughts of the subconscious. None of it made sense—hence her piling questions. She and Hadyn were the ones who had been imprisoned—imprisoned by Deorc, no less. Had the dreams been some backwards vision of their future? Or was there more going on behind Deorc’s clever mask of charming smiles?
Without warning, the forest hushed once again, as if with a gasp and a sealing of its lips. Kiara had begun to learn what that meant, and it quickened her pulse. She knew she shouldn’t have left the village, not with everything that was happening. A chill brushed her skin and her hairs stood on end just before a hand grabbed her shoulder. She spun around, fists up and ready to fight.
Big brown eyes blinked at her as the man jerked back. Then he grinned one of her favorite grins in the world.
“Oh, Jasper …” She dropped her fists. “It’s just you.” Then she switched to the silent language her friend communicated with, knowing they should make as little noise as possible beyond the safety of the village.
“SURPRISE ME HOW” she said with her hands then gestured to his injured leg.
Jasper looked down and shrugged. Injury couldn’t hamper a mighty Arokno’s skills.
She rolled her eyes, noticing the fresh paint on his hand. “YOU SHOULDN’T BE OUT HERE”
Jasper repeated her signs with even greater emphasis, adding, “BACK TO VILLAGE GO”
Kiara crossed her arms and planted her feet. Not about to go anywhere if he wasn’t.
Considering her a long moment in the waning light, Jasper slumped and turned, limping into the brush. Kiara followed.
They entered a small clearing where Jasper had a hasty art setup in place.
“PERFECT” she beamed as she signed. “A SECRET SPOT”
Jasper shook his head and wagged a finger, his version of a pointed rebuttal. Kiara raised her brows, blinking, but made no further reply. As fast as his injury would allow, Jasper packed up his stuff in a bundle, grabbed her arm and began tugging her back towards Py’aoka.
“Alright, alright!” she whispered, pulling free and handing him his crutch. “I’ll come with you, just don’t hurt yourself. Here, let me carry that for you.” Kiara grabbed his art supply bundle even as he protested. “Shhh.” She put a finger to her lips, though he hadn’t made a sound, and snatched the bundle.
As they stepped onto the road, Kiara felt both relieved to have made it back to the village safely and anxious to get out of sight. Since she carried his things, she walked with Jasper back to his house, silently cursing the speed at which his limp forced them to travel. Biting her lip she scanned the streets as surreptitiously as she could. It’d be hard not to run into anyone. People were a bit more condensed ever since a section of the east end of the village had been abandoned and the wall was built.
Turning her head, Kiara jumped slightly to find Jasper’s eyes on her. He had fixed her under a concerned gaze. She gave him an innocent smile in return and faced ahead.
At his house, Jasper thanked her and moved to take the bundle back, but Kiara shifted her weight where she stood.
“Can I come in?”
Jasper questioned her with both his eyes and his hands.
“Do friends have to have a reason?” Kiara’s eyes continued to dart up and down the street. “I-I just thought we could chat.”
Jasper narrowed his eyes, following her uneasy gaze. Then as she shifted her expression to pleading, he closed his eyes with an impatience that she knew from experience hardly held any weight. He jerked his head to the door and began hobbling his way up the few steps. Kiara hopped after him, still carrying the art bundle. Jasper took it from her once they were inside and began unpacking things, placing his latest work in progress on the easel in the corner of the room.
Kiara loved Jasper’s house. It had a cozy, but airy feel, meagerly furnished and always freshened by a decent breeze that pulled through the many windows like a cool breath through a woodwind. Things he had collected on his hunts could be found scattered everywhere, and of course the walls were filled with art. Countless more paintings lived in stacks on the floor and tables. Just like her hideaway with all her favorite things and collected treasures, Jasper’s home was a personal museum. She felt a pang in her heart at the thought. It had been too long since she had a special place of her own. Somewhere she could be at complete peace and hear herself think.
“This is great,” Kiara said as he set up his paints, walking around and admiring the art and trinkets. “Just you and me. We haven’t caught up in a spell.…” She continued to babble until she caught a glimpse of a rather large canvas in the next room. “Oh, is this what you’ve been working on?”
She took one step before Jasper gave a small yell and came clunking over with his crutch. He blocked her way, eyes wide.
“Okay.” She flared her eyes. “Not allowed in that room.”
As the pain of the sprint caught up to him, Jasper’s face twisted slightly. He tried to hide it, but Kiara noticed.
She cringed as he turned to shut the door to the off limits room. “Sorry. How’s your leg doing?”
Jasper lumbered back around, glancing at her only a moment before heading for his paints. He made a disregarding gesture.
“Of course.” She crossed her arms and smirked. “Still gotta play the tough warrior. You’ve got nothing to prove to me and you know it.” She chuckled. “So … any news today?”
“YOU SHOULD KNOW SAME AS ME—WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN” he tilted his head cheekily. “HIDING UNDER ROCKS”
“Hiding?” She laughed a little too enthusiastically, snorting accidentally. “What on earth would make you say that? Silly …” Her laughter died down in an awkward sigh as his serious gaze never wavered.
As Jasper resumed the painting he had started in the forest, Kiara flopped into a nearby chair, pulling one of her curls straight and twisting it around her fingers. She glanced up as she caught Jasper side-eyeing her occasionally.
“What?”
“YOU OKAY” he asked with a raise of his brows.
“Hmm?”
Jasper glanced at her again, pausing his brush strokes just a moment.
“I’m fine. What would even make you ask that?”
Jasper recalled to her the day of the celebration before she, Hadyn, and him left on their journey.
“Pfft! This is nothing like that.”
“INTO FOREST SNEAKING—TIME WAISTING WITH ME.”
“Sneaking? Who said anything about sneaking?”
Jasper’s eyelids drooped and he frowned at her.
“Fine.” She waved her palms, fingers splayed. “Maybe I was sneaking. But is it so wrong to want to be alone from time to time?”
“WANT TO BE ALONE OR AVOIDING PEOPLE” He leaned towards her slightly with the question.
Now it was Kiara’s turn to frown. “That’s not fair.”
Jasper resumed painting.
“And so what if I am. Everything’s been so—well, I don’t really have the words for it.” She sighed. “And I just need some time to think, you know?”
Jasper’s brush slowed. He shifted his body to face her, eyes finding hers a moment after, his expression the softest it had been that evening. At length, he gave a small nod.
“Thanks, Jasp. I knew you would.”
The soft rasp of Jasper’s paintbrush characterized the quiet. Kiara chewed her lip and looked out the nearest window to the quiet streets. A torch waved with the breeze. Kiara looked down at her hands where she picked her fingers, eyes stinging, but she refused to cry over this.
“Okay you win. I am avoiding people,” she said quietly. “I’m avoiding my mum. I’m avoiding Suze because I know she’ll just try to get me to go see her.”
“HOW IS THAT WORKING FOR YOU”
Kiara chuckled. “Not very well, as you can imagine. Every morning I get another lecture from her. ‘You cannot hide from your problems forever.’” Kiara botched the Gypsy’s colorful accent.
“WHY NOT SEE HER” he questioned.
“MY MOTHER” Kiara asked. “I THINK ABOUT IT” Kiara’s eyes wandered as her stomach tightened with a sick ache. “I—I can’t. Not right now.” She was silent for a moment. “Then there’s Bartholomew. I’m avoiding him because—well do I have to say? And I’m avoiding just about everyone else because I can’t endure their questions, I can’t look at them and listen to them ask why it’s not the happy ending they all expected.”
Jasper turned to her, actually setting down his paintbrush. Kiara searched his face, never holding his gaze for long. “What?”
Carefully, as if he didn’t want to, he signed with emphasis, “YOU EXPECTED”
Kiara stared at his hands. She had half the mind to play dumb, pretend she didn’t understand the signs, but they were too simple. Jasper knew her proficiency level. She wanted to be angry with him. What did he know? But she knew Jasper. He was only trying to help.
She sighed, shoulders slumping with an exhaustion she hadn’t been able to shake since returning. “I should go.”
Jasper tilted his head in regret and started to stand with her.
“No, it’s okay.” She slapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not mad. I’m not.”
He relaxed a touch. “GET SOME REST—PLEASE” he signed, dark eyes earnest.
“YOU TOO” she signed back with a tired smile.
At the door she paused. “And I know it’s not finished yet, but as always, the painting’s beautiful.”
Jasper looked from his canvas, back to her, and smiled, signing his thank yous and goodbyes.
Kiara plodded back to Suze’s, strolling the long, wide lane, and fighting to keep certain thoughts at bay.
Stopping in the open space between the three buildings, Kiara glanced at the infirmary building, stomach twisting and chest tightening. Images paraded in her head, white sheets and close walls. She could almost smell the boring sameness, the stuck in place monotony.
Stuck.
Kiara couldn’t bear to see her like that. Not yet.
She turned to head to Suze’s when the door to the infirmary squeaked and then clattered back shut. Her heart leapt. For a moment it was so easy to picture her mother walking out with the sure steps that she used to own, shoulders straight and eyes clear. Was it wishful thinking? Was it memories from her past manifesting to comfort her through her turmoil?
Whatever the case, it wasn’t true. It wasn’t even Eleanor.
Hadyn walked straight for the clothesline where sheets blew subtly in the breeze. Her squirrel monkey pal, Viv, rode on his shoulder. The soft evening light played gently on his skin. He wore a clean white shirt with the sleeves rolled partially up, exposing his forearms. She couldn’t remember when his clothes first started fitting him better, but he certainly wasn’t the scrawny street rat she met in the Forbiddens.
Her heart went straight back to fluttering, this time, for entirely different reasons. Reasons she was getting sick of ignoring if she was being completely honest.
It didn’t surprise her that he didn’t spot her. Ever since his concussion he was all but blind as soon as the sun set. It worried her at first, but if that was all that he sustained from that harrowing endeavor with the beasts of the floodlands, she supposed she was grateful.
“Hey,” she said as she walked up.
Viv jumped off his shoulder in a burst of screeching.
“Excuse you.” Hadyn looked down at her confused, but Viv just blinked back.
“What? Kiara shows up and you can’t be seen with me?”
In response, the monkey clambered up to Kiara’s shoulder.
Hadyn frowned at her and turned away. “You’re a villain,Viv.”
Kiara giggled. “Hey, bud.” She scratched Viv’s head. “What you been up to? Keeping Hadyn company?”
“Temporarily,” he grumbled.
Kiara couldn’t hide the smirk pulling at her lips. “Don’t take it so personally,” she said, sneaking up to his side and bumping him deliberately.
He looked down at the place their shoulders had touched, side stepping just slightly. “So, uh”—he blinked, slapping on a grin and busying himself with folding a sheet—“where have you been?”
She shrugged innocently. “Nowhere really. Visited Jasper for a bit.”
He raised an unconvinced brow. “You needed to sneak off to see Jasper? I saw you skulking through town.”
She bit her cheek. “Seeing Jasper might not have been the original plan.”
His eyebrows drooped with a knowing look. Finished with the sheet, he set it down and reached for another. “Kiara, don’t you understand how dangerous it is to just head off alone? Do the killings that have happened mean nothing to you?”
“Of course not! I made sure to stay in the west, away from Tykaraijre.” She swallowed and toed the ground guiltily. “How … how are things?”
Hadyn raised his eyebrows and drew a breath. “As far as I know, not good. It’s strange really.… We sit here, seemingly safe for now, but Tykaraijre isn’t just sitting around. Our scouts just haven’t been able to get close enough to see exactly what’s going on. And though it seems safe, the longer we wait around the worse the situation gets. Sebastien said Aaron plans for another meeting tomorrow.”
Hadyn’s words diminished to background sound as Kiara's eyes wandered to the infirmary doors. It bothered her that her mother was even staying there. She wasn’t injured or sick. But it was one of the only places with an open bed after people had moved from the east end. And with Eleanor’s distrust of strangers it wasn’t like she was going to stay in anyone’s house even if they had the room.
“I’m sure Sebastien would make an exception on visiting hours for you.”
Kiara had been vaguely aware of Hadyn stopping mid sentence. His last words pulled her from her fretting.
Kiara’s eyes darted back to him. She smirked and rolled her eyes. But biting her cheek, her expression grew worried again. “How is she?”
“Good,” he was quick to say.
She held his gaze, eyes narrowing just slightly.
“I-I mean I think. You know, it’s hard for me to know. You should really see for yourself.”
Kiara groaned. “Not you too …”
“Kiara, it’s been a week—”
“Exactly. A week. Except I might ask you add the word ‘only.’ We’ve only been back a week and …”
“And?”
“And there’s a lot to think about—to do! This whole village was turned upside down while we were gone.”
“A lot to do,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Sure. Is that why you were nowhere to be found all day?”
She frowned at him, brows scrunched low and shadowing her eyes in the low light.
Hadyn cringed, turning to grab the last sheet. “I’d watch out, Viv. No one’s safe when she makes that face.”
As if she understood, Viv turned and blinked at her inquiringly.
“I’m just saying, Kiara”—Hadyn dropped the sheet, unfolded, and walked back to her—“the fate of Py’aoka isn’t your responsibility. I have no idea what I’d do in your shoes, but don’t use the village as an excuse for avoiding”—he jerked his head toward the infirmary—“whatever’s going on between you two.”
A sound of exasperation escaped her and she turned away, crossing her arms.
“Hey.” Hadyn pushed his way back into her sight, placing his hands on her shoulders.
Kiara stiffened at the touch, holding her breath as she waited for what he had to say.
“You love her, right?”
Her eyes darted across his earnest face. “Of course I do.”
His gaze locked hers in place, unwavering. “Then fight for her.”
The silence that worked its way between them only seemed to intensify by the seconds. He was right. And in that moment, with his steady gaze on her and his gentle grip on her shoulders, she felt strong enough for the task. Then again, she also felt dizzy. The places he gripped her shoulders felt unreasonably warm.
He had been frustrating her only a moment ago; he didn’t get to make her melt now.
Before she could stop herself, her eyes flicked down to one of his hands. He let go abruptly, stepping back and clearing his throat. But before he stepped back too far, Viv leapt from Kiara’s shoulder to his head. She turned around and scratched behind her ear. Kiara burst with giggles that dispersed the uncomfortable flutterings in her chest. Hadyn pulled the little rascal down, shaking his head.
Kiara hummed with lingering laughter, pulling her lips in. “You said something about Aaron arranging another meeting tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but you’ve been putting so much effort in already. You don’t have to—”
“I’ll be there.”
“Kiara, you’ve hardly rested since we’ve been back.”
“I’ll rest when Py’aoka is safe and Caverna is free. Until then I don’t have time for rest. Hadyn, you’ve been working just as hard as me. Don’t ask me to do what you can’t yourself.”
He sighed. “I just want you to be careful.”
“Why?” She smirked. “I’ve got you for that. Come on, Viv. It’s bed time.” She gave a sharp whistle and Viv jumped abruptly from Hadyn’s arms to scamper after her as she walked to Suze’s.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. And thank you for your patience as I keep working on Book 4! It's been such a wild ride already, and there's so much more to come.
-Ellie