Savitar smiled. “That’s why the first thing I want to teach you is fighting.”
Didn’t akri already know that? Simi had learned that before she was born. At least that was what her brother told her whenever he was mad at her.
“Why fighting?”
Savitar laughed as they walked. “Because you’re going to need it. There’s a war coming, Acheron, and you have to be prepared for it.”
“What kind of war?”
Savitar didn’t answer as he lightly shook her. “Little one, I need you to return to your akri and stay on him while he fights. Don’t worry, though, it’s only pretend fighting. No need for you to come off him to protect him.”
Simi nodded sleepily before she obeyed. She drifted onto akri’s arm.
“Move up, Simi,” Savitar said to her. “Go to his neck where you won’t be hit.”
Good. The Simi didn’t like to be hit.
“Can she feel a blow when she’s on my skin?”
“Yes, she can. And if she’s stabbed while she’s there and it wounds you, it will wound her, too. Guard your demon, boy.”
3
“Why is akri so sad, akri?”
He smiled as he adjusted the blanket around her while she was lying in bed with her legs propped up along the wall. Her wings were spread out and akri was careful not to hurt them.
“I just wish I had a better world for you, Sim. Most of all, I wish I could bring your mom back for you. I know you miss her.”
“Does akri miss his matera? Is that why you’re so saddest?”
Sighing, he took her hand and toyed with her fingers. She didn’t know why, but that always made her happy. His hand was huge compared to hers, but then she was just a small simi and he was a grownie man. “No. Unlike you, I didn’t have a mother to love me when I was little. The woman I thought was my mother was very cruel.”
Simi sat up so that she could crawl into akri’s lap. “The Simi is sorry, akri.”
He folded his arms around her and held her close. “It’s fine. I’m glad I have a mother now. I just wish I could really see her.”
“We’s can go see her. Just find an Apollite bolt hole, and we goes straight to her realm.”
He laughed. “That wouldn’t work out well for the humans.”
She snorted at the very thought. “Pfft! They’s dumb. What we care for them smelly things?”
He shifted so that he could hold her while he leaned against the wall. “I don’t know, Sim. They weren’t exactly nice to me, either. A part of me is just cruel enough to want to unleash my mother.”
“Then what’s stopping you, akri?”
“Ironically, you are.”
Simi moved her head so that she could look up at him. “The Simi? How come?”
He cupped her cheek in his warm, calloused hand. “You remind me of what I was like as a boy. Back when I had a brother. And it makes me hate the people I was around so much, because I will never understand how they could be so cruel to me and Styxx.”
Simi was aghast over something she never knew. “Akri have a brother?”
“Did. But things … no, people, came between us.” He let out a bitter laugh. “Then we came between each other.”
She didn’t quite understand what he was saying, only that it made him hurt deep in his heart. “Simi’s sorry, akri.”
