Garden of Silk

In full alignment with my expectations, I hunted alone that night. Hearthome was three days away at a mortal pace. I’d asked Finder why Azalea had brought him with. The man was evasive at best, understandably so, but I was able to piece together that Azalea needed him to navigate.

Which was categorically bizarre. She knew of the demon Rosa, and by extension what had been happening in that unimportant town. But she hadn’t known what road to take.

How then had she found me at the start of this whole mess?

Some sort of mythical precognition, an informant only she knew, a secret society? Nothing made sense short of Azalea being other than what she said she was. A demonic sect spy? The Sect Leader had briefly inspected all of us—I refuse to believe Azalea could have fooled someone so powerful.

Perhaps a high-ranking member of the Sect in disguise? I doubted it—there was a raw sort of sincerity that shone through whatever walls she put her real self behind.

With snares set for overnight, I returned with my catch of two rabbits, cleaned in a stream. That I’d killed them using thrown needles felt like cheating. On my way back, I passed Azalea, carrying my spare clothing in a bundle with hers.

“Laundry,” she said simply. “Cultivators might not sweat the same, but that’s not gonna stop dirt.”

I stopped in my tracks and blinked. “Since when do you do laundry?”

“Since I stopped making Camillia do it. So not for too long and not often.” She adjusted the bundle, flicking a dangling sleeve back up on top. “Unless you suddenly do laundry, too?”

“No, I do not.” I bit my tongue before I volunteered myself to learn. Truth be told, I wanted a little alone time away from Azalea.

She left with an I-told-you-so look and a stuck-out tongue, and I watched her go for a few moments. As she was, except for her laborious hairstyle, she almost seemed normal. Perish the thought.

Unfortunately, the moment I returned to the fire, I was reminded of our other companion’s presence. Finder sat on a log, cross-legged, whittling a stick. Perhaps whittling was the wrong choice of words, as he wasn’t creating something so much as chopping away.

He was already side-eying me the moment I came into view, and he looked openly once I started skinning. The knife Fletcher had given me wasn’t perfectly suited to the task, but the worn grip grounded me as I worked.

“Didn’t take you for the type to do manual labor.” Finder’s voice’s tone wasn’t offended, just a timbre of carefully cultivated consideration.

“Oh?” I replied tersely. “What gave you that sort of idea?”

For just a moment, his eyes locked with mine, then he looked into the fire and tried to hide a hard swallow. “Your accent. You’re highborn.”

“Correct.”

“And yet you can skin a rabbit.”

“Poorly.” I turned my effort to show him. There’d be no salvaging this pelt. “But I can get fur off.”

“Forgive me for asking, but…” Finder looked in the general direction of where Azalea had gone.

It wasn’t difficult to see what he was getting at. Nor was it difficult to see his ploy. Leave a question unasked, plausible deniability, and whatever I interpret the situation to be, he gains insight.

Clever… but unpolished. “Can you read?” I asked back, completely avoiding the question for absolutely no other reason than the love of the game.

“A little.”

I nodded. “Most can these days.”

Finder nodded.

It was pretty clear neither of us was going to have a real conversation, but he was clearly feeling me out. There were obvious reasons which were probably right, and I didn’t feel like taking a shot in the dark. At the very least, it was good to know that Enic’s group was competent.

“I really am sorry about Keeper, by the way.”

My comment startled him, and his mask broke. The man underneath was tired and afraid, and he looked at me with a half smile that said he was tired of trying. “I’m surprised you remembered her name.”

“I just heard it earlier today.”

“But we’re fallow.”

“And that does nothing to diminish your status as a person.” I quoted Father, something he’d oft repeated when I was younger that I’d heard less and less over the years. But those words would never leave my heart. Perhaps he’d changed his tune after his prodigal son had been defective. Or perhaps something else had forced his hand.

Speculation would get me nowhere, so I focused on my grisly work.

It wasn’t until I’d made it to the second rabbit that Finder spoke up again. “Was it quick, at least?”

I nodded. “It was. Faster than I’d been able to stop.”

“Would you have?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I turned to look. Finder’s eyes were rimmed red, and his shoulders slouched like a man defeated. There was no way I could live with myself if I lied to him. “You’re right not to believe me. If it was her or me, I would’ve picked myself.”

He chuckled wearily. “Yeah, that’s the way of things, isn’t it. Still… thanks for the closure. We don’t get a lot of that in our business.”

“You’re welcome.” I wasn’t about to counter candid words with cold indifference.

All the same, the conversation died there. Azalea returned with clothes she’d partially dried and we bedded down for the night.

The morning was even colder, the frost riming the trees louder than any snowfall. Winter was only going to get deeper, and here in the Kingdom of Hearths, we knew that all too well. We’d need to find shelter, for Finder’s sake at least, if the temperature didn’t climb. He was shivering in the morning, though he tried to hide it.

All day, Azalea avoided me. The awkward sort of truce that developed between Finder and me ensured anxiety never truly left my mind. As luck would have it, the night after next saw us taking shelter in a hunting cabin while the snow fell outside.

Finder couldn’t hide his fatigue and collapsed to sleep by the fire, brows knit with some bad dream or another. I had an unfortunate inkling it was about me, Azalea, or both. My instincts as a demon had many times considered him “fearful, unworthy prey,” and he was doubtless sharp enough to ken on to what our association with him implied.

Not that he’d put together what I was, but he doubtless assumed—correctly—that we were no friends of the Sects, and therefore dangerous in an unpredictable way. All the same, we’d another night ahead of us by Finder’s count, and the frayed edges of my patience were not going to hold me up much longer.

I tapped Azalea on the shoulder once we’d finished eating, set a bowl out for Finder, and pointed at the door.

She mouthed back “What” and then shook her head.

So I grabbed her arm.

“No.” She hissed. “Not until I’ve… we’ve. Not until I’ve figured everything out.”

“Azalea,” I hissed back glancing at Finder. A moment’s concentration told me he was out cold but I didn’t trust it. “We need to talk. I’m not going to go into whatever viper’s den we’re headed toward without… a discussion.”

“There’s nothing to discuss. I’m just shaken, that’s all. You almost died, silly!” The smile plastered on her face was so fake even a street merchant would balk at selling it.

I looked at her, looked at Finder, then looked at my pack. I thought of Ash’s advice and what little she taught me. Maybe I ought to go looking, maybe I ought to find other Penitent demons and leave this madness with Azalea behind.

My heart ached.

“Alright.” I let go and walked to the door, slinging my pack over my shoulder. Finder had my bedroll, but he could keep it.

When I pulled the door open, snow and frigid air blew inside. Finder shivered in his sleep, and Azalea looked up at me with wide eyes, lavender drills blowing everywhere behind her.

“Good luck then, Azalea.”

And I closed the door.

***

Finder was having a nightmare. A burning train plunging off a cliff, Keeper slipping away into the void again and again as an iron grip pulls his hand the other way. Then a frigid wind blew the fire out, plunging the train into blackness as he roused.

Carefully, Finder kept his breathing even, barely missing something Silk said before the door to the cabin closed.

“This can’t be happening,” Azalea muttered. “How did I screw it up so much? How did everything change so much? Rosa and Gale too, and now Talon’s still got his friends is he even going to…”

Soon, she’d figure out he was awake, and a shiver ran down his spine. She’d been so much milder with Silk around. And if she finds out I’m listening…

Finder forced a yawn, the sound quickly becoming very real. In an instant, Azalea stopped. He picked up the soup bowl and the red-eyed maniac fixed him with a glare.

“Were you listening?”

He yawned again and took a spoonful. “To what now? Heard you mumbling somethin’ or another after the door closed. Do we need more firewood?” Salt was the only seasoning, but damn was it enough.

As Finder ate, Azalea stared into the fireplace, biting her bottom lip so hard that it bled. Probably enough force to snap me in half, Finder thought darkly.

“What’s eating you?” he asked, if only to avoid becoming the target of her ire.

“He—she left. And none of this makes sense anymore. I don’t know what’s going on…” Her voice was fragile, shaky.

File that slip of the tongue away. “Well, we’re in a cabin in a snowstorm.” The snark would distract her. Maybe kill him, but it’d stop whatever was building.

“But how did we get here?” she mumbled.

…Or not. Damn, this girl is actually crazy. “Did you two have an argument when I was out?”

“No—I mean, I don’t think so… Wait, that’s none of your business?” Her eyes snapped into focus and she turned to look at him faster than he could blink. “Maybe you’re the problem?”

Faced with impending death, Finder found himself… tired. Just tired. Tired of this broken world, tired of losing friends and comrades to children with powers no mortal should wield. And so he stared back into those eyes, unblinking.

“Lady, I don’t know what the fuck it is you’re talking about. You keep saying the strangest shit like you’re not even really here with us. Right now, here, we are in a cabin. You just had the same rabbit stew I’m having, and I’d bet it tasted like salt and iron because they weren’t drained properly.”

When she didn’t kill him, he pressed his luck “You’re a cultivator, and I’m a nobody. This world sucks, and it’s gonna need some serious turncoats if anything’s gonna change. You said you were on board, but I gotta wonder if your head really is in the clouds. Now either kill me, let me eat in peace, or go running after your friend. Because I don’t think they went off to get wood or you wouldn’t be staring at me like I’ve grown another head.”

“You… You’re…”

“A confidence man? A moron? Hungry? Fucking exhausted?”

“N-no… yes.” Azalea stood up. “I have to go.”

And she ran out the door before Finder could form a coherent reply.

“Who in the ascended realm ends a conversation like that?” he mumbled to himself as he finished off his stew. You know, Silk’s cooking’s not the worst I’ve had.