Page 102 of The Boy Bride

This was something Lill had not thought about much in the weeks since he left Torakand. At first it had been because he didn’t care; once it was clear that he was hired, the details of exactly who he was working for didn’t matter to him. Later, he’d reminded himself that it wasn’t his place to question his mission.

But now. Well, he was just thinking about this. He’d never actually heard Davanu say anything about killing Vanu. Davanu had been asked to find Vanu a bride, and Arsha had suggested Lill. Davanu himself hadn’t said anything about assassination. It was Lill who had mentioned the Order, disobeying Arsha’s command to say nothing, and Davanu had seemed highly amused. What had he said? Pretty but deadly—you’ll do, or something like that. Of course he would say that. He knew what Vanu liked.

Vanu had got … like a fire wanting something to burn … over watching Lill shoot, over discovering that Lill was a better shot than he was himself. Of course pretty but deadly was what you’d look for in a bride for Vanu. If you knew him well and—as maybe Davanu had—loved him.

“I don’t think,” Lill signed to the empty room, “he wanted you dead, Vanu. I don’t think so.”

He must have drifted off for a little while after that, because he found himself opening his eyes to a dark room, the sky outside the window no longer pink but a uniform deep blue. He lay for a moment thinking how nice it was to be able to fall asleep like this, on a comfortable bed, whenever he wanted. And how strange that he was already beginning to become used to it.

Then he realized that the thing that had woken him was the sound of Vanu coming back to the house; he could hear small noises from downstairs. He rolled up and off the bed, shaking out his hair, and ran to the door, completely forgetting that he had meant to lie in his room and wait for Vanu to come find him.

Vanu was sitting on the edge of the seating platform in the front room. When Lill did that, his legs dangled, but Vanu was so tall that he could sit there with his legs stretched out and his feet planted on the floor, which was how he was sitting now. He had something in one hand, hanging loosely by his side. He looked up at Lill on the stairs.

It was dark in the front room, but not so dark that Lill couldn’t see Vanu was angry. Maybe he didn’t even need to see that; he could just feel it, like a chill in the room, like that feeling that runs down your back when a knife scrapes against stone.

He was something else besides angry, and Lill didn’t know what.

“Is everything—is something the matter?” He came down the stairs to the top of the cupboards. He registered that his heart had begun beating fast.

Vanu set down the thing he was holding. It was a bottle—unstoppered—one of the bottles of Tirtu’s plum wine.

“You killed him,” he signed. His movements were slow and deliberate; the signs were very clear. That appropriately violent gesture that meant “kill.” The sign for “man” that doubled as the pronoun “he, him.”

“No!” Lill protested reflexively. Then, more logically: “Who?”

Drunk. He was drunk. Was he? He wasn’t acting drunk—or, at least, he wasn’t acting like Tirtu or Padunu or Halza had acted when they were drunk. Lill didn’t have much detailed experience of drunk people beyond that.

Vanu signed an unfamiliar name and repeated, “You killed him.”

“I don’t know who you mean. How much of Tirtu’s wine did you drink?”

Vanu snatched up the bottle and threw it. Lill flinched. The bottle shattered at the base of the cupboards, and there was no puddle of dark wine among the shards of pottery.

“All of it,” Lill said, his voice steadier than he expected. “By yourself?”

“When I drink,” Vanu signed, “I drink a lot.”

He stood up. He didn’t sway or stumble. Lill didn’t know what it was about him that was different, but he was like a stranger.

He crossed the room to stand at the base of the cupboards. Lill was looking down at him, the height of the cupboards reversing their usual positions so Lill was as far above Vanu as Vanu usually was above him. It didn’t help.

“Who are you?” Vanu signed. Or maybe “What are you?” The signs were similar; it was hard to say which he meant.

“Your—your—” All Lill could think of, absurdly, was Padunu saying boozily, “whatever you are.” He couldn’t say that.

“A killer?” Vanu signed.

Lill’s body felt ice-cold. He could make no answer.

“You killed”—that name again. “She wrote to tell me she had found out.” Another unfamiliar name. “You killed him.”

“Yes!” said Lill wildly. “I mean, maybe. I’ve killed people. I have. But not as many as you!”

“Is that why you did it? To punish me?”

“What? No, I didn’t even know you then, I—I’ve only killed three people. Xshaka, and that man at the knife shop, and—and⁠—”

“Why?”