Making Peace, page 23
“And tell you what, we need some results. It’s been hard going these last few days. Or weeks, or months, or whatever. I mean, it’s been hard since I got here. But it’s been especially hard with Capt—“ I caught myself, “…with everything.”
Silence reigned in the room, not even my breathing audible anymore. A flower girl had taken up residence on one of the street corners outside, selling what was left of the goods in her little handbasket. She had a riot of color in her little basket: beautiful blooms I had recently learned came from the mountains just outside of town. She held her long-stemmed flowers out to people, calling for attention. Folks seemed to be mostly ignoring her.
“Seems like things are pretty rough for everyone right now,” I continued to apparently no one. “We’re just drifting along, waiting for an answer. In the case, I mean.” My hand clenched and unclenched, unable to keep itself still. “Well, maybe in more than just the case.”
My restlessness got the best of me and I pushed away from the window. I walked over and pulled the chair right up to Shield’s bedside, perching on the edge of it and leaning over to look down at my boots. “See, the thing is, everything is really awful right now. It’s just miserable. The whole crew is at odds, off and on. Some of us are good right now because we had a laugh. But what about tomorrow? Next week? Vapor coming back to us really gave Sen and me a reason to keep peace and work together. Will Sen and I be at each other’s throats again if she’s not around?
“What about me? What am I supposed to do now? My debts have piled up back on Garden, and if I go home without money in my pocket, the loan sharks are gonna smell me coming. I haven’t said anything before, but my debts are sky-high and I need a bestseller. That’s why I’ve stuck it out here so long, through all this misery. If I owed even half of what I do, I’d have skipped town a long time ago before I started to care about you Keepers. My original liaison was Captain, and he’s gone right now. Ugly does the best he can to hold the Keepers together, but he’s wrapped up in taking care of you. Cora is gone.
“And now you’re gone, too.” As these last words came out, my hands knotted into fists. I gritted my teeth. Where before I could barely force myself to speak, now words started pouring out of me. I couldn’t stop them, part of me afraid of saying something hurtful and another part of me eager to cause hurt. “And that’s just such crap. You know, it really is. You promised you’d be there for me. You said you knew how hard this was, but you’d be there. And now what? It gets brutal, it starts looking bleak, and you bail on us? You leave us all to deal with it on our own?”
My fist slammed down on the side of Shield’s mattress. It felt so good that I did it again. “You said you were my friend, and…” Something was choking me, my throat closing up.
“I’ve killed people, Shield. I’ve killed them. I see their faces at night, the ones I can remember. I can’t even remember exactly how many, because I blacked out after the fire. It’s all a blur. I just see myself cutting and stabbing and faces and screaming, and I can’t make any of it stop. I try to sleep at night, and my head spins until I throw up. I wake up at the slightest sound, and my first thought is that one of them have come back from the dead to make me pay for killing them.”
I took a shuddering breath, my entire body spasming with the effort. I wasn’t looking at Shield anymore; my face was pointed down at my boots, but I wasn’t really looking at anything outside of myself. I was seeing faces and blood.
“And I’m supposed to go back after this. Back to Garden, where people have therapists for disappointment at work and where my worst concern is how to coordinate outfits on a budget. And I’m supposed to forget all this and be normal. How can I do that? How can I ever be normal again? How can I even go home now? Oh…” I gasped, feeling my head pounding. I squeezed my eyes shut. I made to stand up, stumbled, fell. I found myself sitting beside her on the bed facing her, my hands knotting in the sheets beside her. “Why did you leave me, Shield? Why did you leave me like this?” I managed to gasp out. I couldn’t breathe, my throat closing, vision dimming. I was gasping for breath, body hunching over, shuddering.
There was a rush of cloth, and then a feeling of soft warmth against my face. Shield wrapped me in her arms and drew me to her breast. Her hair swirled around us, still in movement from her sudden motion. She rested her cheek against the top of my head, drawing me deeper into her body with the tightest embrace. She started humming and rocking us. All the tension went out of my aching muscles and I collapsed into her.
All at once I was seven years old again, my sister holding me as I cried about our lost parents. Before meeting Shield I hadn’t thought about Katie in so long but, in that moment, I remembered the smell of her perfume, the feel of her nightgown as we’d hide under the blankets. She’d wrap me up tight to make me feel safe again in a world which was very much not safe for either one of us, but somehow she made it feel okay.
My eyes went wide, then began to burn, the agony growing in them until it burst forth and tears flooded my eyes, spilling over in waves. I couldn’t hold back, and I sobbed into Shield’s chest. At first the sobs were choked, the sobs of a grown man who can’t let himself cry. As every pain of the last few months was wrenched forth, as I grieved for every life lost and every innocence broken, that inhibition of manhood was stripped away and I simply cried like a child. It went on and on, and somewhere along the line her humming turned to sobs too, and we rocked and wept.
The sunlight was still coming through the window, tinged with orange in the dying light of day. I pushed back from Shield to get some breathing room. She looked down at me and smiled, dried tears covering her cheeks. I found I was smiling back, my heart lighter than I could ever remember. Recovering some semblance of pride, I pushed myself all the way back and sat up. We sat looking out her window at the city bathed in early sunset light. She drew a steady breath and, at last, there came the voice I’d been waiting to hear.
“I have not handled this all so well, have I?” She smiled and glanced at me. I laughed and shook my head. Was I saying no, or telling her not to worry about it? Maybe both, which I think she understood.
Shield took my hand and squeezed it, looking deep into my eyes. “I didn’t mean to leave you, Belkan. I’m so sorry that I did. I won’t ever do it again.” She looked so sincere and so stern I almost laughed again. She held my gaze for a few seconds longer, then turned her head to look out the window.
Shield drew another steady breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “It is very, very hard, this life of ours. Maybe all soldiers feel this sense of having lost a connection to the simple things of life. You feel it, as do I, and Ugly. Perhaps it’s the cost we pay in caring for others so intensely that we have to be on the front lines, to protect them by whatever force is necessary. It does not make us less than what we were, only different than what we were. In rediscovering the simple things we feel are denied to us, perhaps we can learn to be more conscious of the precious nature of life.”
She wasn’t looking at me, but I nodded anyway. “Maybe that’s true.” I thought for a moment. “Yes, I’m sure it’s true. No one else is as aware of how precious those simple things are. They aren’t gone, I just can’t take them for granted like I used to. I need to learn to appreciate them consciously.” She nodded, still looking at the sunset, and I realized that was exactly what she was doing right now.
I needed to know. I shouldn’t ask, but I needed to know. “What happened to your family?”
She didn’t stiffen, or scold me for asking. I thought she might, but instead her face remained peaceful. After a few moments, her lips started moving, her voice low.
“We lived on Garden together, my husband, my two sons, and I. We were part of a large family there: very influential in higher circles. And we were so happy.” She folded her hands in her lap, her eyes misted over with memory. “We had close affiliations with other families, including some not so reputable ones. Our family believed other people will rise or fall to your expectations, so we took it on ourselves to work with families who had made mistakes but took steps to show they had learned from them.”
She pursed her lips, the first sign of distress during her speech. “I was working with a friend from one such family. I was visiting her home and overheard a business deal which was akin to treason against the ruling aristocracy of Garden.” She paused as a bird flew by outside the window, trilling a mournful call at the end of day. Then she resumed. “My friend begged me to say nothing, and I agreed so long as she made sure her family stopped what they were doing. She agreed.” Her hands shook, and I covered them with my own.
She drew a breath, shaky but firm. Her eyes hardened. “Someone in her family must not have trusted I would keep my word. Assassins came for us that night. During the attack, our home was set ablaze. I was a Valkyrie but I mostly did charity work. I’d never had to fight and couldn’t help defend. My husband fought them off and was mortally wounded while killing the last assassin. The house was burning and there was no way out. My husband sealed me and the children into a small escape tube and launched us, but the fire had damaged the tunnel…” She trailed off. I thought she wouldn’t continue, but then she did, in a small voice. “I was the only one who survived the crash.”
I didn’t know what to say. I took refuge in turning my gaze outside in the street, where the flower girl was packing her leftover flowers into her basket.
Shield drew another breath. “The fire had covered up the crime, so when I filed a report about what happened there was no proof. My family believed me, but the authorities could not act without evidence. And my friend who had asked me to spare her family, she acted like she didn’t know me. I became an object of pity within my own family. A Valkyrie without her husband or her children is a woman without a reason to live.” A sad smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I couldn’t stay there anymore. I wanted to be free to find them and be with them again, but I don’t have it in me to take my own life. I got on the fastest outbound flight I could find, and that brought me here.
“I drifted for a while, spending my money, until I heard a story about people who keep the peace between warring Houses, who preserve families and protect the downtrodden. I didn’t have much to offer when I started, but Captain made a place for me. He stationed me with Cora and tasked me with keeping up the barracks to help the fighters have peace of mind at home. I started training so I would never again be unable to protect the people I loved. In time, Captain had me test my skills in the yard, then get some training in combat. Ugly taught me how to fight and how to protect others.”
She turned to me, smiling, still a little sad but strong and resolute even in her sadness. “And so here I am all over again. Assassins came for my new family in the night. People I loved died, and my new home burned down, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I felt like I had lost everything all over again.”
I shifted position, taking her hands again and holding them between us. “You didn’t lose everything. Ugly, Vapor, Sen, and I are still here. And we need you more than ever. The whole team is falling apart without you.”
Her eyes widened at my words. “I know. I forgot that, and I’m sorry. I have been so focused on the past, on my children. I thought I had nothing left to live for. But I have a new family now, don’t I?” She smiled, really smiled, the biggest smile yet, and it finally reached her eyes.
“I feel like I finally have a family again, for the first time in a long time,” I told her, and I meant it. “Even if I had to endure all of this, I am glad to have found this place. You, Vapor, even Sen: you’ve all become important to me. And I don’t want to lose that. I can’t imagine losing it twice like you did.”
Shield squeezed my hands.
“But I don’t want you to feel alone anymore, Shield. I don’t want any of us to feel alone anymore.”
We sat in amiable silence for a while longer, watching the sun sink to a pinprick on the horizon. At some point, I lit one of the candles on her bedside table. I asked Shield if she was hungry. Before she could answer, the door clicked open behind us. We both turned to silently watch Ugly walk through the door, his attention on the full coffee mug in his hand. He walked a few steps into the room before raising his eyes. When he saw Shield sitting up he froze midstride with the mug lifted almost to his lips. Several seconds went by in dead silence, with Ugly utterly frozen and a smile slowly growing across Shield’s entire face.
Suddenly the frozen scene broke, and the mug crashed to the ground. With a shout, Ugly threw himself at the bed, sweeping Shield up and into his arms. He held her up in the air and twirled her across the room, both of them laughing like children.
Shield threw her arms around Ugly’s neck and pulled herself in close to him, resting her head on his shoulder as they came to a stop in the middle of the room. They held each other there, eyes closed. Her hands were clenched in the shirt draped across his wide back. His hands stroked her hair and encircled her waist.
I decided to leave them there like that, wrapped in their moment. Neither of them stirred as I made my way out the door and headed down the hall. I rejoined Vapor and Sen in the common room and shared the good news, then had to grab Vapor by the back of the collar and hold her in place when she tried to rush up to see Shield.
“Let them have their time,” I said.
Vapor thought about it and agreed.
Sen dealt another hand of cards and called for the staff to bring us a round of drinks.
My heart had never felt lighter or more full of warmth than when I went to bed that night. I slept like a baby, with not a dream in sight.
CHAPTER 32
THE NEXT DAY, most of us split up to investigate the various brothels where Ina might have been hiding. Sen and Vapor took half of the list while Ugly and I took the other half. Shield did not have Vapor’s magical resilience to pop right out of catatonia and back into action. Shield chafed at being left behind and we had to force her back into bed, but she finally yielded. Sen, Vapor, Ugly, and I all left headquarters separately to prevent drawing attention as a group of armed Keepers.
So it was that Ugly and I found ourselves walking through the muddy streets, cobblestones clicking under our heels. It had rained during the night, one of those sudden and brief torrential downpours Tiers is known for. Maidens calling out and trying to approach us had to step carefully around the puddles, which gave us plenty of time to move on before they could get ahold of us.
Ugly led me to a part of Maiden Lane down toward the east end: a less fancy and varied neighborhood than the district’s riotous center. Buildings followed the more utilitarian stone and wood design I’d grown used to seeing in the city.
Despite our dreary surroundings, several times during our walk I caught Ugly suppressing a smile. I could guess the reason, since it was probably the same thing making me smile this morning.
“Good to have Shield and Vapor both back, huh?” I asked.
He grunted in what I assumed was an affirmative and let a grin split his grim face, scars stretching with the unfamiliar effort. A bit of gladness did his visage some good, the scars looking less severe like that. It surprised me to realize how glad I was to see him smile. His voice rumbled, full of feeling. “Shield’s the heart of our cell, Bel. Me and Sen, we bull rush straight through obstacles. Vapor is a little better. She uses her wits more than we do. We’re all hardheaded, and we do what needs to be done without much regard to the human cost. But Shield, she holds us together. We would have lost a lot more Keepers without her around to help them figure themselves out.”
I had to agree with that. “Bullheaded you may be, but you two seem to do pretty well. What she sees in someone like you, I don’t know.”
Ugly glanced at me, took in my teasing grin, and barked a short laugh. “Women want a man who’s been forged into something hard, even brutal. I’m not perfect. Hell, I’m not even good, when we get down to it. But I’m decisive, and I do what’s necessary. That’s what she’s looking for. She’s got enough softness for two. I’m hard enough for ten.”
Ugly fell quiet. A thoughtful look crossed his face, and ancient battle wounds on his cheeks and brow stretched to exaggerate the expression. A maiden started to call out to us but lowered her hand quickly after seeing what was probably a terrifying expression on a walking scar exhibit.
When did I grow so accustomed to him that I can see the man underneath the layers?
“Truth is, Bel,” Ugly started up again as our boots splashed through rain puddles, “men don’t deserve good women. Soft, hard, friendly, brutal, none of us deserve good women. Either we’re too weak to do them any good, or we’ve done terrible things to become as hardened as they need us to be. The thing about good women, though, is by their very nature they push us to be more than we’ve settled for. They make us want to find gentler solutions. They remind us humanity has value beyond being a resource to be spent or a vulnerability to exploit. They make us want to be better men. A good woman encourages men to strive harder every day.” He gestured to the brothels around us. “Women like this, whether they charge for services or not, they don’t inspire us to do anything but empty out a few resources. Money or time, that’s all they really ask of us. A good woman doesn’t ask; by her very nature, she demands better of you. And she finds a way to help you reach that improvement, through nurturing and encouragement.”
Ugly fell silent at that, and the sounds of the street filled the void in my ears where his voice had been holding my undivided attention. Women calling, laughing, the splash of boots in water, bright banners and signs snapping in the wind, groans and passionate screams from open second story windows: all these things filled my ears again, but I wasn’t really hearing them. I was considering his words, remembering the way Ugly and Shield were last night, laughing and twirling and finally just holding each other in silence. I was happy for them. That sort of love was not something I’d ever known.
