“And you told me you weren’t ready to leave the bonehouse,” says a voice, and when Salo shifts his focus beyond the funnel of debris, he sees Nimara shaking her head with her arms folded. “I should have known you were lying and kicked you out days ago.”
With a smirk he slows down the currents and lets the spell die. The air stills, and the leaves drift to the ground. “This place has everything I could possibly want. A lovely garden. Privacy. No chores. Why would I leave?”
“Because the bonehouse is for sick people, which you’re clearly not.”
“True, and it’s thanks to you.”
“You’d better not forget it.”
“I’m serious, Nimara,” Salo says. “I owe you. Not just for the spell book, mind you, but for everything. For giving me the push I needed, for saving my life afterward. For being a good friend.”
She smiles, uncharacteristically bashful, but her smile wanes as something sad enters her eyes. “Are you done packing?”
“Mostly,” Salo says.
“Even the supplies I left in your room?”
“I’ll be able to treat an army if I ever have to.”
Nimara shrugs. “When it comes to preparation, over is better than under.”
“Actually, I was hoping I could ask you one more favor,” Salo says.
“What do you need?”
“You know where the totem staff is, right?”
Nimara peers at him with suspicion. “I do, and I’m certain you do too.”
“Yes, but can you please get it for me anyway? As well as the other totem-related items. I’m sure it’s all there.”
She keeps watching him, studying him, then comes to some hidden conclusion. “One day you’ll have to stop being so weird about that hut. But yes, I’ll get it for you.”
And with those words a great deal of anxiety ebbs away from Salo’s chest. That’s one unpleasant task avoided. “Again, I owe you, Nimara. For this and a whole lot more.”
A twinkle briefly lights up her eyes. “You can pay me back by bringing me something nice from the Jungle City. And it better be good, Salo. Nothing cheap, or you’ll have to go back for something better. Got it?”
He doesn’t know when he’ll come back or even if he’ll come back, so he shouldn’t be making promises. But he smiles and says, “It’ll be the biggest and best gift you’ve ever seen.”
He goes to say goodbye to his stepmother.
Ama Lira is in the middle of teaching a calligraphy class to a group of young girls sitting on little desks arranged beneath a tree outside the grammar school. A yellow kitenge with white patterns covers her body, haltered over her neck and falling down to her knees. She smiles when she sees him approach, a chalky hand falling onto her swollen belly. Ama Lira is still graceful even in the late stages of her pregnancy.
The story goes that a young VaSiningwe fell so in love with his clan mystic he was prepared to flout the rules of propriety by taking her as his wife. But she would not have him, for a clan mystic must be married only to her clan.
To console him, she bore him a son, whom she named after him. And when that only exacerbated his attentions, she found him a young woman and convinced him to marry her. That woman was Ama Lira, and a year after their wedding the twins were born.
Some whisper to this day that the chief never really stopped pursuing the mystic. Some whisper that she was in fact the villain and had bewitched him so he could love no one else. Either way, Salo would not have blamed Ama Lira if she hated the sight of him.
As it is, she has always been kind to him, if a little demure.
They don’t talk much when he pulls her aside to say goodbye—they rarely do—but she tells him she finally learned the sex of her unborn child—or children, it turns out.
“Girls,” she tells him, rubbing her bulbous belly, and she glows with so much motherly pride it makes him smile. “You’ll be a big brother to two beautiful girls. That is why I will pray every day for your return—so they don’t miss you too much.”
Salo has always wanted a little sister, and now he’ll have two. His heart breaks to know he won’t be there to greet them when they come into the world. “I’ll think about them every day,” he promises.
Ama Lira smiles and places a gentle hand on his arm. “Check the kitchens before you go. I’ve packed a little parcel for you.”
He thanks her and hopes that she knows it’s not just for the parcel, or for being one of the few people who visited him in the bonehouse, but also for never making him feel unwanted.
He doesn’t find Aaku Malusi anywhere in the kraal, so he decides to walk down to the Ajaha training glade, driven by an impulse he doesn’t probe too much.
At first no one notices him come to a stop in the trees at the edge of the glade, where he silently watches Niko sparring with a would-be ranger, both of them wielding blunt swords and elliptical hide shields. Niko has strength that can turn brutish at a moment’s notice, but he holds it in check. He’s neither cocky nor domineering, just confident in a way that can’t be overlooked. His sparring partner, on the other hand, a tall weedy boy in a white loincloth, is inexperienced, though light footed like a dancer. Agility is his answer to strength, improvisation to experience.
“Stance,” Niko keeps telling him whenever he improvises too much. “Nice one,” whenever he lands a solid hit on Niko’s shield.
Then the grunts die down, the sticks and swords stop rattling, and suddenly everyone’s looking Salo’s way. Niko pauses midstrike, noticing that something is off. When he turns around to look, his eyes widen slightly with surprise. It’s been a while since they last spoke, and seeing Niko now, Salo realizes he doesn’t want to leave without at least saying goodbye.
In the training glade, Niko glances at Salo’s brothers; they both frown and shake their heads slightly. He twists the hilt of the sword in his hand, seeming to consider their advice, but in the end he drops the sword and starts to walk over, telling the rangers to keep sparring in his absence.
Salo feels a nervous tingle in his stomach as he watches him approach. He once resented everything about the young man and couldn’t stand to look him in the eye. Now he is beginning to understand that it wasn’t resentment he felt but something else entirely.
Something perhaps more complicated.
The sunlight strikes Niko’s red steel greaves and vambraces so that they glitter. As he comes to a stop in front of Salo, he smiles for the briefest moment like he has forgotten everything that has happened these last few weeks, but the smile loses its shine, and his gaze falls to the ground. “Hello, Salo.”
“Hello, Niko.” I wanted to see you before I left, but now that you’re here, I’m not sure what I want to say to you.
Niko shifts uncomfortably on his feet. “I’m glad you recovered. You look well.”
“I’ll be leaving for Yonte Saire this afternoon.”
Niko’s eyes lift, flashing with surprise, but he masks it quickly. “I see.”
“I’d ask you to come with me, but—”
“I can’t, Salo.”
It shouldn’t hurt to hear. There could have been no other answer. Still feels like a knife to the heart. “I know.”