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“I’m taking nothing from you, Caspyn. You’re a good man in ‘dere. You done good. Keep doing good.”
I set my jaw and stepped off the ferry, the old man focused on the rope. He was right; in Waide on the Water I was a good man, everywhere else, however…
I looked down at the deep purple stain on my boots, the color soaked in so deep I wasn’t even sure Jayse could get it out. No one could. Just like all the other killings, like all the other times I had been hired to do the same.
My soul was covered with those specks, all of them soaked in so deep there was no scrubbing them away. They were a part of me, and I liked them. From the second I faced that Fae guard in my home they had become part of me, I had changed. I was more than a Fae killer; I was an assassin. I was a dark shadow on the world, a warning of what was to come, a memory of things that I hoped never to be. On my Qit, and to Tayln, I was just Caspyn.
I was a fool to think those parts of me could stay separate forever.
The Wave Walkers had gone down toward the fish yard, the scent of fish flooding from the yard and covering the Qit as it always did. The smell of home.
I inhaled deeply, some of those nerves loosening as I walked straight, toward the center of town. The residents welcomed me, waving and calling me by name. I waved back, even though I was more careful than I usually was to hide my eyes.
They had all known me since I was a child selling trinkets with Jayse and Jack in the square, there was no reason to hide that. Yet Tayln’s words were digging in.
I really did need sleep.
I burst my way into the small shop that Jayse and I ran, ready to hand off the bag for her for cold storage and make my way to bed. Instead, I was stopped in my tracks by an absolute nest of blonde hair and lanky limbs that slammed right into my chest.
Jayse stood there, leaning against the counter like she always did, the assortment of goods that we sold on the wall behind her as she smiled at the child that was now trying to curl herself around me.
“Caspyn!” Amari’s shrill shriek echoed through the tiny store as she squeezed as hard as she could. “I thought you’d never come home!”
“I always come home, Amari.” I wrapped my free arm around her, squeezing her against me. She squeezed back, but did not release, clearly she was not done with the hug yet.
“I was only gone a fortnight, Ri,” I sighed, trying to pry her off as Jayse thankfully came around the counter to relieve me of both head and bag.
“Welcome home,” she beamed, her wide smile wrinkling her eyes and sending the freckles on her nose into a dance. “Good hunting?”
I nodded, still trying to pry Amari off of me, “Yes, it took longer than I expected, and a good four days on a wagon home.”
Her nose wrinkled more as both the smell from the bag and my meaning hit her.
“I’ll prep this then.” She stepped closer before she drifted to the side and into the back room where the hollow in the floor she had made helped to keep the heads cold.
“Alright, Ri, that’s enough. I’m dead on my feet and you are going to knock me to the ground,” I sighed, finally succeeding in prying the child from me and setting her back enough that I could at least get a good look at her.
Her hair was a tangle, her green eyes smiling, her skin covered with the sheen of salt and sun that the children of the Qit always had. Children in the villages were covered in dirt, ours were always covered in salt. Ri was no exception, she spent most of her time in our store, or at the pier with the Wave Walkers.
Amari was not my child, although she was with us often enough that some may have confused it. She lived in a house on the edge of the Qit with her mother. The same house that I would be born in seventy and some odd seasons from now. The same house I had barged into on that first day.
I had made friends with the couple there, thinking at first that they were my great grandparents or such, but they had moved to Turin in search of better work, leaving Amari and her mother to take the house. At first, I had thought Amari was my grandmother, but my great-grandfather had been pivotal in my grandmothers’ life. The stories that my mother had shared with me were full of adventure and grand accomplishments. He had done so much before a traumatic death had pulled my grandmother down a different path, his death fueling her to build her life in Waide. Amari’s father was not present, and he certainly hadn’t died in some accident before we had met, so it couldn’t have been her.
By the time I realized it, Amari had already latched herself on to us. At least she gave Jayse company for the weeks I was gone.
“Fine, but Ma told me to bring you and Jayse for dinner when you got home. Will you come?” She stuck out her lip in a pout. She knew exactly how to get me to bow to her whims, not that it took that much anymore.
“And miss out on your mother’s fabulous sea snail stew? I wouldn’t miss it.” I tapped her nose and grinned, which sent her squealing, smiling, and spinning all at once.
“Yay! I’ll go tell her! See you tonight!” Amari was out the door in a whoosh of wind as the door opened and closed with a grinding creak that all hinges on the Qits had, leaving the shop in a heavy silence.
There was always something about the shop that felt empty without Amari, perhaps it was because she reminded me so much of Lily. She looked nothing like her; but her spirit, her joy, was the same. Even though the world was falling apart, Lily always smiled. Amari faced as much heartache, but she only found joy. It was why I let her stay even after I knew she wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t need a child poking around, after all. I didn’t need any of them. But they kept me focused on what my true mission was. They kept me from being lost in the death that surrounded me.
Amari and Jayse.
And Jack.
Jack, whose picture still hung in the shop, the single red candle we had purchased from the minister in town still lit below it in our hopes that he would find his way to the gardens of the Goddess that waited for him in the afterlife.
