That wasn’t exactly an answer, but she’d take it.
By the hearth, Stran’s children were playing with her rag doll constructs while their parents, set off again by Zera’s return, argued in the other room, loud enough that everyone could hear every word:
“You already completed your destiny,” Amurra was saying. “It’s over. Eklor is dead!”
“Of course he’s dead,” Stran said. “Everyone knows this. Everyone except Marso and Kreya and Zera and Jentt. And that’s why I have to go! For them!”
“But it’s crazy!”
Kreya met Zera’s eyes. She’d never been overly fond of that word. It had been used too often as a weapon against those she cared about.And against me,she thought. A better phrase might be: “experienced in the ways life can screw with a person.”
“Amurra,” Stran pleaded, “I had a chance to heal. You healed me! But they’re still stuck in their old pain. If I go with them and prove that the past is the past, I can help them move on.”
“Can’t they move on in a way that doesn’t mean breaking the law and endangering your life? There are guards posted on the wall! Why do you have to risk yourself?”
“If I didn’t help my team when they need me, I wouldn’t be the man you married.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me!” Amurra cried. “You don’t need to be a hero anymore. You’re a father, a farmer, and a husband. Why can’t that be enough?”
Stran’s reply was lost beneath Vivi’s squeal of delight when a rag doll construct danced with another—she had been trying toteach them to dance for the last few hours, while her brother Jen repaired some of their loose stitches. He was neat with a needle.
Quietly, Kreya admitted to Zera, “I don’t know if Stran and Marso are up for this.” She’d been talking with them, arguing with them, and listening to Stran and Amurra argue with each other ever since Zera had left.
Helping herself to tea, Zera sipped and added honey before saying, “We could leave them here. Just go ourselves. You, me, and Jentt. This time we’re prepared—”
“We’re a thousand times less prepared,” Kreya said. “Zero training. Out of practice. Out of touch.” Maybe she was a fool to think they could do this at all. They’d been heroes such a long time ago.
Zera chugged her tea, slammed down the mug, and upended her bag of bones. Glittering talismans spilled out onto the table. “We may be out of practice, but at least we have firepower.”
Gawking at the array of hundreds of gorgeously carved bones, inlaid with gold and jewels, Kreya picked up one of the stealth talismans. She examined the markings, a variation on any she’d ever seen before, with rubies to enhance the grooves. Holding it up to the light, she admired it and barked in a voice loud enough to carry throughout the farmhouse, “All right, people. Enough dithering! Let’s prep to move out! If you’re coming, come. If you’re not, fuck you.” Belatedly, she glanced at the kids. “Pretend you didn’t hear that.”
Both Vivi and Jen covered their ears and grinned.
Kreya hauled out her pack and checked over her supplies. Knives, sharp. Canteen, fresh and full. She was certain Amurra would supply them with food, even if she didn’t want to supply her husband.
While she weeded through her pack, Zera divvied up thetalismans: the strength ones for Stran if he came, speed for Jentt, and an assortment for Kreya and Marso. Each of them would take a few for emergencies, but as she’d done the last time they’d adventured together, Zera would hold on to the majority of them. They’d discovered it was much more efficient to have her distribute them than to ask the others to dig through their pockets in the heat of battle. She always doled out the appropriate talisman to the right fighter—she had an incredible instinct for it. She was like an archer’s quarrel that always supplied the most perfect arrow. Finishing her own task, Kreya watched her. It looked as if Zera had chosen their supplies wisely.
Coming into the kitchen, Jentt added his emergency stash to the pouches that hung around his waist. “These look amazing, Zera.”
“Theyareamazing,” Zera said. “And worth a bloody fortune. So don’t use them casually and don’t waste the power. They’re not infinite.”
He winked at her, whispered a word to a speed talisman, and zipped around the kitchen as fast as a blur of light. When he stopped by the sink, he wore a rag doll construct on his head like a hat. The kids laughed and clapped. Bowing with a flourish, he deposited the construct on the floor. Wobbling, it toddled back to the hearth.
Opening her coat, Kreya whistled to her constructs. “Three of you. Volunteers only.” She didn’t know if they knew the word “volunteer,” but they whispered to one another and three of them tumbled forward, climbed up the inside of her coat, and stuffed themselves into pockets. Raising her voice, she asked, “Amurra and Stran, may the rest of my constructs stay here?”
Vivi chirped, “Ooh, can they? Please, please, Mama! Please, Papa!”
Coming into the kitchen, Amurra halted when she saw her children playing with the remaining dolls, as well as the skeleton bird. Her eyes widened, but to her credit, she didn’t scream. Kreya liked her even more for that. “Will you two be responsible and take care of them?” Amurra asked.
“We promise!” both Vivi and Jen chorused.
“Then yes, they may stay.”
Vivi danced in a circle with one of the dolls, hugging it.
In a lower voice, Amurra asked, “They aren’t dangerous, are they?”
Standing beside Amurra, Kreya watched the bird skeleton bump into a cabinet, switch direction, and bump into another cabinet. One of the rag dolls twisted its head halfway around to watch the bird. Even Kreya had to admit they were a bit unsettling. “I promise they won’t harm your children. Or anyone. Unless I ask them to.” She had a burst of inspiration. “On the contrary, I will instruct them to protect you.”
