Page 16 of The Scattered Bones

The Lessons

SEASON OF THE THAW, CYCLE 78920

The footsteps drew closer, and while he didn’t speak, I heard him all the same. ‘Hurry up.’

My fingers ached, the picks clicked, the footsteps echoed like a deafening countdown, and I felt alive. My skin crackled with electric energy, my breathing coming in short huffs. I’d never been so nervous. I’d never experienced such an intense thrill, but if I didn’t get this door open before they detected us, Kaid would endure the brunt of the punishment. I threw him a panicked look, but he slid his skilled hands behind his back, his message clear. ‘Only you can save us now.’

I forced myself to focus despite my anxiety, picturing what would happen to my friend if they caught us together. The image spurred my fire, and I twisted my fingers until I heard the telltale click of triumph. With as much stealth as I could muster, I shoved the heavy door open and rolled inside. Silent and deadly as a shadow, Kaid slipped in behind me, and we pushed the door closed just as the female guard rounded the corner. I slapped a hand over my mouth, afraid my heart would beat out of my chest and fall off my tongue if I didn’t, and the second the footsteps faded into nothingness, I collapsed on the floor in a fit of laughter.

“You’re learning fast.” Kaid crouched elegantly before my prone form.

“What if I didn’t pick the lock in time?” I giggled between my fingers. “Were you really going to just sit there and not help?”

Kaid stood without an answer and shrugged, mischief in his eyes. I’d asked him on a whim to teach me the ways of the thief, but he took his role as teacher seriously. He pushed me to learn everything he had to offer, and together, we were working our way through the temple. Each night, I grew stronger as we climbed further. With each adventure, I opened more complex locks. We stole nothing. I didn’t want to. I only wanted to use my hands as he did so that his skills would forever live within my muscles.

“You should pledge to the House of Varas. You would make a worthy thief,” he said as if I had unlocked gold. “It smells like you in here.” He took a deep, reverent breath. And that’s when I noticed it. The fragrance. This was no treasure horde.

“Incense,” I explained, pulling myself from the storeroom floor. “They burn it at the altar.”

“I like it.” He inhaled again, his body angling toward me.

“Here.” I grabbed a few sticks. The priestesses would never notice their absence, and I extended them to Kaid. “We broke in. Might as well keep something for our efforts. Take these to remember me by.”

“I need nothing to remember you.” He accepted my offering, his hand engulfing the incense until his fingers were a hair’s width away from mine, and suddenly there was no air left in the storeroom. It was only him and me and the fraction of an inch separating us. One move, one simple shift, and I would know what his skin felt like. His palms were calloused from his service, and I spent too many nights wondering if his touch would be as rough as his hands. Or would it be gentle, full of warmth and care?

Kaid pulled the incense from my grip and turned his back on me, and the air painfully inflated my lungs. If I hadn’t seen his features, I would have been heartbroken at the rejection, but I’d seen his face. Desire filled his eyes, a heat unlike anything I’d witnessed before. Yearning battled restraint, and his face was a painting of war. His heart challenged his mind in his expression, his dedication to my purity beating his own hunger bloody. It was the first time I ever noticed his control slip. The first time I saw craving in his eyes, and the storeroom shrank. I felt claustrophobic, suffocated, crushed. Standing feet from Kaid, knowing that beneath his surface ran a burning longing, frayed my edges. There was no window, no escape. Just me and the man who had become my best friend. The man I couldn’t stop dreaming about. He kept his back to me, his dark form so much taller than mine, but I refused to look away. I didn’t want control or order. I didn’t want loneliness. I didn’t want my spirit snuffed out the moment I turned twenty-one, leaving him to mourn my disappearance.

I stepped forward without thinking. In the darkness of the storeroom, we weren’t a vessel and a thief. We were Kaid and Sellah. Friends. Confidants. Hunger. Why was it wrong to know what his touch felt like? Why was it a sin to witness the smile that engulfed my being? If they caught us together, they would torture him for staining a sacred vessel, but he hadn’t stained me. He made me whole and happy and beautiful. He made me Sellah. Kaid was the only person who let my true self bleed to the surface.

“We should go before the guard circles back.” His voice broke the spell as he reached for the door, and I followed with burning cheeks.

“You did well,” he said as he twisted the handle. “Thank you for the incense. Maybe you can practice what I taught you and steal more for me? Enough to last the cycles that Hreinasta keeps you. Then I can burn it whenever I miss you.”

I would steal this entire storeroom for him.

Six

Can you swim?” The Stranger’s voice is full of doubt.

“No.” I shake my head even though he isn’t here to see me. I grew up in Szent, locked away in my parent’s home and then the temple. Land surrounded the holy city, so it was a lesson Kaid never taught me.

“You’ll need to learn,” The Stranger says, his sentiment painfully obvious. “Oh well, no time like the present.”

An unseen hand shoves me, and I tumble chest-first into the cool, crystal water. My lungs restrict, my body spasms, and an unpleasant rush of water shoots up my nose. I cough, inhale more, and sputter as I flail and kick and roar. That gods damned man. If I ever lay eyes on him again, I’ll gut him like I did that tiger.

“What’s wrong with you?” I scream as my head pierces the surface. My spastic limbs seize hold of the stones, and I haul my soaked body out of the water. The Stranger doesn’t answer, but I feel his chuckle ripple through me.

“I hate you,” I spit.

“Come, come, my child,” he laughs. “Did you drown?”

“I could have!”

“But did you?”

“No,” I concede.

“You did well.” His voice in my mind calms to a serious tone. “You didn’t drown, and you kicked your way to the surface. I believe you’ll learn quickly.”

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