Saer gave a more forceful shake of his head.“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“The tracking doesn’t begin to cover it, Saer.You came out of nowhere, out offire.We had to teach you everything, like you’d never seen it before despite that you’re a grown man!You hover where there is death—”
Saer remained calm until Ruki’s last observation, which he cut off with a snarl.“Why do you ask these things now?”
“Are we not friends?”Ruki’s voice spiked.“I’m a man, now.I thought—” Cutting himself off, Ruki frowned, licked his lips, then tried again.“What else do I do to prove I’m trustworthy?”
Saer’s mouth opened, then closed again.He couldn’t refute the claim, because a dangerous truth hummed in Ruki’s words.
When had they become friends?
He opted for avoidance instead.“The villagers put you up to this.”
Ruki shook his head.“No.”
“Your father, then.”
“No!They want to forget how you came to us.They won’t mention anything abnormal about you because they think if they ignore it, it won’t cause problems later on.”
Saer’s temper flared.“Am I abnormal to you?”
“Saer—”
“You believe I’ll cause problems for you?”
“You’re twisting my words.”
“Then leave it alone!”Saer’s final shout echoed across the forest, answered by thunder from the closing storm.
Ruki quieted, but his brown stare remained rooted, his square jaw set.He tried again, softer this time.“If you can’t tell me, Saer, who can you tell?”
The impulse to reveal all sprang to the tip of his tongue, but Saer bit down on it, wincing and turning away.“Tell what?”
Ruki made an exasperated sound.“Who you are,whatyou are!”
Saer shut his eyes, the yearning to connect almost a painful thing pushing against the insides of his ribs.But he had one job.One goal.One master to please.
And Hellsfire, he missed Neyu.The pang of loss and longing hit him, refocused him.
Stall.
When Saer did part his lips and speak, the sound was drowned out by another violent rumble of thunder.Rain fell on the pair.Leaning in closer, the young man raised his voice over the evolving storm.“What?”
Saer shouted in turn.“I can’t tell you.Not now.”
Lightning cracked down, close enough to shake their bodies with its force.A steady downpour of rain soaked through their leather clothing, running in rivulets over their skin and steaming off Saer’s flesh.Even so, Ruki persisted.“If not now, then when?”
Saer narrowed his eyes, rainwater dripping off the ends of his eyelashes and the silver hairs framing his face.
He paused for a heartbeat before making a decision.“When you die.”They would have years before then.Decades.He’d surely find the key to the cure before Ruki’s passing.
“What?”
Saer offered no change of expression, no words.
Ruki blinked as though bewildered.“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“If you swear to try when the time comes, I promise to tell you…who and what I am.”Water slid down Saer’s face, across his long black hair, and down his shoulders and back.He held his hand out to the young man.
