Chương 4: Four Weeks

The stitches came out on a Tuesday. Keth knew because Voss kept a slate by the kitchen hearth, days scratched off with his belt knife, each crossing violent and deliberate, like he was killing time before it could breed. The doctor was young. Younger than Keth expected. His hands shook when he unpacked his bag.

"Sit," the doctor said. Keth sat on the stool, back to the window, morning light falling across his chest. The wound had healed into a raised line, shiny in places, puckered in others. A seam of dead flesh from lip to rib. The seam that shared his name. The doctor snipped the first stitch. The gut-thread had fused to the skin, and he had to tug. Keth didn't wince. He'd learned not to wince in front of soldiers.

"You're healing well," the doctor said.

"For someone who should be dead."

"Voss cauterized it," Keth said. The word came out wrong. Cautewized. The missing shape of his lip turned the r soft. The doctor didn't react. Maybe he was used to wounds. Maybe he just didn't care.

"Yes," the doctor said.

"The Echo of Flame. Precise work. Most would have burned the surrounding tissue. Voss is... controlled." He snipped the last stitch. The thread fell into a metal bowl with a small sound, like a coin into an empty purse.

"You can move," the doctor said.

"But the tissue beneath is dead. Never regain sensation. The lip will heal crooked. You'll drink from the left side. And the letter r..." He packed his bag.

"Some sounds need the upper lip to meet the lower. Yours can't. You'll adapt." He left. Boots fading into the street, joining the morning traffic of people who hadn't been cut open by monsters. Keth touched his face. His fingers found the split first, a valley where the deer's rib-finger had opened him. Hard, calloused, like the skin had decided to become armor. He traced the line down... chin, throat, chest... ending in a knot of raised skin. He stood.

Walked to the mirror by the door it was cracked, cloudy, a soldier's mirror. The face wasn't his. Thinner. The orphanage diet, the healing weeks. The eyes were the same they were dark and maybe too serious for a fifteen year old, but they sat in a face that had been redrawn. The scar pulled the right side of his mouth down, a permanent half-frown. When he tried to smile, the left moved and the right stayed still, like the dead tissue had forgotten how. He practiced.

"Train." Twain.

"Brother." Bwother.

"Ready." Wedy.

"Wall." Wawl. Wrong. Not completely wrong, context would help. But wrong enough to count as Marked or Damaged. Someone who'd been opened and sewn back together imperfectly. He touched the scar again. Then went to find Voss. The yard was empty. Fog hadn't burned off, the stone wall beaded with moisture. Keth walked to the center, where the dirt was packed hard from weeks of training, and picked up the practice sword. Someone had repaired it. Leather wrap around the split, a nail through the crack. Voss's work...

he didn't believe in throwing things away. Keth held it in his right hand. The grip felt wrong. The scar tissue on his palm, the old kitchen knife accident. It had had thickened, and the wood sat differently. He made a few swings. The movement pulled at his chest, but the dead tissue didn't protest. Footsteps behind him.

"You're supposed to be resting," Elian said. Keth turned. His brother stood in the gate, two buckets of water in his hands, shirt soaked with sweat. Harbor run already, the morning exercise Voss assigned. Carry water. Build endurance. Learn to bear weight.

"Doctor said I can move," Keth said.

"Did he say you could train?"

"No." Elian set down the buckets. Walked over. Looked at Keth's face. Really looked, the way he looked at everything now, with that calm that saw too much.

"It's not as bad as you think," Elian said.

"It's worse. I sound like a child."

"You sound like someone who survived a disaster" Elian went quiet. Then he reached out and touched the scar; not the lip, the chest, where the line ended. Warm fingers. Dead tissue beneath. Nothing. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Does it hurt?" Elian asked.

"Not there. Doesn't feel anything."

"Then that's where you're strongest." Elian withdrew his hand.

"The part that can't feel pain can take the next hit. Voss said that. Last week, while you were sleeping." Keth studied his brother. The shadows under Elian's eyes were darker than four weeks ago. The nightmares. The sleepwalking Voss pretended not to notice.

"You look tired," Keth said.

"I'm fine."

"You say that when you're not."

"I'm fine, Keth." The voice wasn't sharp, just final. The way Elian ended conversations he didn't want to have. Then, suddenly, a grin... quick, almost mischievous, gone before it fully formed.

"Besides, you're one to talk. You look like a potato someone stepped on." Keth blinked.

"What?"

"A stepped-on potato. All pale and lumpy." The grin flickered again, then died, replaced by the calm mask.

"Voss will be back soon. He said today's lesson is different."

"Different how?"

"I don't know. He didn't say." They waited. The fog burned off, the harbor appearing beyond the wall.. gray water, gray ships, masts like ribs. Voss returned at mid-morning. Came through the gate with his coat over one arm, right hand hidden in the fabric. The fresh burn from the wall had healed shiny and pink, but Keth saw older burns now.. layered like rings in a tree, years of using the Echo of Flame.

"You're standing," Voss said.

"Good. Sitting makes you soft."

"The doctor said—""Don't care what the doctor said." Voss dropped his coat on the wall, walked to the center of the yard. He carried a bundle under his left arm—cloth-wrapped, long, heavy. Set it down, unwrapped it. A real sword. Not practice. Not wood. Steel, grip wrapped in worn leather, blade pitted with age and use. Shorter than Keth expected. A soldier's blade, for close quarters, for fighting when monsters were already inside.

"Not for you," Voss said, catching Keth's expression.

"Not yet. It's Mine. Showing you what you'll hold, so you understand what you're working toward." He lifted the blade. Light caught the edge—notched, scratched, sharpened and dulled and sharpened until the steel was thinner than forged.

"Four weeks," Voss said.

"You've held wood. Fallen in dirt. Learned that getting up is the only skill that matters." He lowered the blade.

"Today, wood against steel. Not to win. To understand the difference." Tossed the practice sword to Keth. Caught it in his left hand, shifted to right. The leather wrap rough against his palm.

"Block," Voss said. He swung. Not fast. Not the speed from before. But the difference between wood and steel was immediate almost visceral. The steel didn't bounce. It bit. A sliver of wood came away, floating down like a pale feather.

"Again," Voss said. Keth blocked. Another sliver. The repaired crack widened.

"You're afraid of it," Voss said.

"Good. Should be. Steel kills. Wood trains. Fear is what keeps you alive when steel's in your hand." Third swing. Keth blocked, but the impact twisted his wrist, and the practice sword spun from his grip, landing in the dirt with a dull sound.

"Pick it up," Voss said. Keth bent to retrieve it. His side pulled, but the dead tissue didn't complain. Straightened, gripping the sword, waiting.

"Leading with your scarred side," Voss said.

"Told you before. Enemy sees weakness, aims elsewhere. Real weakness is thinking you have one." He swung again. Keth blocked, but this time he shifted his weight, turned his left side toward Voss, presented the dead tissue as a shield. The steel glanced off the wood, and Keth stepped inside the arc, close enough to smell the oil on the blade, the sweat on Voss's shirt.

"Better," Voss said. Stepped back.

"Again." They trained for an hour. Not long by barracks standards, but Keth's body was still healing, and by the end his shirt was soaked, breath ragged, arms trembling. The practice sword was barely holding together—new splits, frayed leather, the original crack a gap showing the grain. Voss sheathed his blade. Didn't praise Keth. Just nodded, once, and said, "Tomorrow, the same. And the day after. And the day after. Until wood breaks and you pick up steel." Walked to the house. At the door, stopped.

"Your brother's running the harbor circuit," he said, not turning.

"Go with him. Not on his back. Beside him. See if you can keep pace." Went inside. Keth looked at Elian. Already at the gate, stretching his legs, face blank with the calm Keth was learning to distrust.

"I'll be slow," Keth said.

"Then I'll be slower," Elian said. They ran. Not fast. Keth's side pulled with every stride, lungs burned, the scar tissue itched with sweat. Elian matched his pace exactly, neither pulling ahead nor falling behind, footsteps a counterpoint to Keth's ragged breathing. The harbor wall was farther than Keth remembered. Or he was weaker. Or both. By the time they reached it, vision spotted with gray, legs uncertain. Elian touched the stone. The same gentle gesture.. window, forge ashes, now here. Then turned back.

"Ready?" he asked.

"No," Keth said.

"Good. Neither am I." They ran back. Slower. Keth's body found a rhythm it wasn't not comfortable, but it was sustainable, a pace his healing flesh could maintain without breaking. Elian ran beside him, silent, breathing so controlled it was almost not breathing. When they reached the yard, Aurelian was there. Sitting on the stone wall, legs dangling, eating an apple more brown than red. Stolen from somewhere.. market, barracks kitchen, Voss's own stores.

With Aurelian, the source was always questionable and never confessed.

"You're both terrible runners," he said.

"Seen crippled dogs move faster."

"We're not trying to be fast," Keth said, bending over, hands on knees, sucking air.

"Then what are you trying to be?"

"Alive," Elian said. Aurelian's grin faltered. Just for a moment. Then it returned, wider, more desperate.

"Cheerful. I like it." Another bite of the apple. Core and all.

"Voss said lunch is bread and fish stew. Also said if I'm still here when he gets back from the garrison, he'll assign me to latrine duty."

"Are you leaving?" Keth asked.

"Am I ever?" Hopped off the wall. Winced—new bruise on his ribs, Keth saw, and a scrape on his elbow. The messenger routes were dangerous even without monsters.

"Going to steal more apples. Want one?"

"No," Keth said.

"Suit yourself." Walked to the gate, stopped. Looked back, and the grin was gone, something else showing through. The same concern that had driven him to desert the barracks, to find Keth, to stay.

"Your face," Aurelian said.

"It's not that bad. Really. Makes you look like you have opinions."

"I do have opinions," "Also you already said it when you joined us." Keth said.

"Yeah, but now people'll believe you." The grin again, lopsided and genuine. Then, quieter: "Seriously, Keth. You're alive. That's... that's good. Okay? That's good." He cleared his throat, suddenly awkward, seventeen years old and terrible at sincerity.

"Anyway. Apples." Gone. Keth touched his scar. Looked at Elian, who was watching the gate where Aurelian had disappeared, head tilted slightly, like he was listening to a sound that wasn't there.

"He's a good friend," Elian said.

"He's a terrible deserter."

"Same thing." They went inside. Lunch was bread, fish stew, silence. Voss hadn't returned from the garrison could be some meeting, some report or some bureaucratic ritual that kept him away for hours. The boys ate without him, stew cooling, bread going stale in the air. Elian ate mechanically, eyes on the window. Keth ate with his left side tilted away from the table, protecting the wound that was no longer a wound, just dead tissue.

"Do you remember her?" Elian asked suddenly.

"Who?"

"Mother." Keth paused, spoon halfway to his mouth.

"No. Too young."

"I remember the humming," Elian said.

"Not her face. Not her voice. Just the humming. The tune she used when she thought we were asleep." Keth set down his spoon.

"You never talked about her before."

"I dream about her." Elian's voice was distant, the way it got when he was somewhere else.

"Not often. But sometimes. She's always humming. And she's always standing in a doorway. Can't see what's behind her. But I know it's not this world." He returned to his stew. Conversation over, as suddenly as it began, and Keth didn't push. He'd learned that Elian's calm wasn't emptiness.... it was fullness, a mind so crowded that only the most important thoughts escaped. They finished eating. Keth washed the bowls.

His chore, assigned by Voss, not because he was youngest but because Voss believed in routine, in order, in small rituals that kept a house from becoming a barracks. The water was cold from the well, fingers going numb, soap bubbles carrying flecks of stew down the drain. He thought about his mother's humming, which he didn't remember, and his brother's dreams, which he didn't understand, and the sword that waited in the yard, which he wasn't ready to hold. Still washing when Voss returned.

Came through the door with the weight of the garrison on his shoulders, the invisible kind, the burden of decisions that would kill people he'd never met. Didn't speak. Walked to the hearth, held his hands near the flames, stood there until the cold left his bones.

"Meeting," Voss said finally.

"Census mobilizing for winter. Early this year. Wild Evolution migrating sooner than expected."

"More patrols?" Keth asked.

"More everything. More patrols. More conscripts. More death." Turned from the fire. Face lined with exhaustion, wrinkles deeper than that morning.

"Training accelerates. Not because you're ready. Because the wall doesn't wait for ready." Looked at Keth. Then at Elian. Something passed behind his eyes maybe assessment, calculation, and something else Keth was too young to name but old enough to recognize as fear.

"Rest," Voss said.

"Tomorrow, the steel." Went to his room. Door closed. Keth and Elian sat at the table. Afternoon light through the window, weak and gray, the color of a sky that had seen too much and wanted to look away.

"Keth," Elian said.

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you survived." Keth looked at his brother. The calm mask, the white knuckles folded on the table.

"I'm glad you did too," Keth said.

"I don't know if I did," Elian said. Then he stood, walked to the straw mattress in the corner, lay down with his back to the room, and within minutes his breathing slowed into sleep. Keth stayed at the table. Looked at the half-eaten bread. The cooling stew. His hands were scarred and small, the hands of a boy who'd been cut open and sewn back together and was still expected to hold a sword. Touched the scar on his face. The dead tissue felt nothing. The living tissue around it felt everything.