"Questions"
Sai awoke in an empty room.
It was like he was floating as soon as he regained consciousness. Like there was nothing else, only him, and if he swam and swam for miles in the void he would find himself at the exact same patch of nothing where he had started.
He wouldn’t sit up. What was the point? It was all still empty and nothing and…
“Goodbye.”
Sai sat up in his bed, in his room, in the family home, and accepted that his father was gone. Like a wood joint sliding perfectly into place, the world clicked together around him, his furniture popping into view, then the light from the window peaking in, and then Sai was home.
He knew if he lay back down, if he slipped, he would fall through a crack in the boards and end up in that empty place again. So Sai put two hands beneath him, pushed up, and slipped his legs over the edge of the bed.
I’m not doing this, he told himself. I can’t. Have you already forgotten everything Dad said yesterday?
Sai got up. That little motion, slipping from sitting to standing, was all it took. He could do this. He would not have to search his heart to know the pain that was sinking into every part of it right now, but he would also not let it rule him.
Dad left; he always left. He had wanted to stay, and Sai would believe that. Sai’s eyes fell to the box on his bed, flat beside where he had slept. Memories replayed in his head: strange red threads, the thin blue one, then his father.
Then sleep. Then Sai was back out of the past and took the box up over his shoulder. He rested a hand on it and focused on the things he had seen last night: the threads. Like it was second nature, they appeared as he thought of them, so long as he was touching the box.
Red threads unfurled from his chest like a winter blossom, thin tendrils seeking the exit to his bedroom. He watched them, and in doing so found the thin white and blue thread again. He brushed it with his fingers, and when he did something resonated deep within his chest. Pulling away, it faded, and drawing close it reappeared.
Sai blinked and realized he had been crying without knowing. He wiped his eyes and strode for the door. Veins were not an option for him—either they were out of reach, or they were too heavy a thought for his heart right now. Carpentry and his work with Lev would take time out of his day, but beyond that, he would dedicate all of his time to uncovering this mystery his father had left for him.
There would be no failure in this, no matter how long it took. Even if it forced him out of comfort, like Dad said, and into a place where he could change. Even if it tried to kill him. He would know. So that once Dad returned, Sai would be triumphant. Sai inhaled with a hand on the doorknob, opened the door, and left the fear behind him.
Today, he would try.
Usually, the morning after his father left, the house was quiet. But not today. It had been long since they’d all felt the absence, and perhaps they all had a moment like Sai this morning. They would all move forward, one way or another.
Theo, it seemed, was moving forward by training. Sai heard his grunts through the walls, and the deep, reverberating pound of his staff.
Mom and Hanako were in the kitchen, Mom teaching his little sister how to slice one of the springfish Theo had caught into even chunks, and then to marinate them in a blend of spices and oil. Hanako followed along, face screwed up in intense concentration. The result resembled what one of the farm dogs two columns down leave of the fish, had it gained purchase for even a few seconds. Sai smiled despite himself and met Mom’s eyes.
She held his gaze a moment. In that heartbeat, there played on her face intense weariness, and deep, deep pain. Then she smiled and instructed Hanako again, and the two continued on with the lesson. Sai left the house in silence.
The wind was calm. Sai looked up; the green wisps had returned to their dance, swirling happily overhead now that the storm was a day past. He wondered whether any of the little eddies had gone with his father.
There was a tugging in his chest at the thought, but he straightened his shoulders and exhaled. Some, he knew, had remained here with him. And maybe, if he ever left, some would come with him, too.
Sai hefted the box, the strap digging into his shoulder, and struck out to find Lev. He had a question to ask.
“What do you know about relics?” asked Sai as Lev sealed the gearbox of one of Rakuken’s towering windmills. His friend dusted off his hands—though much of the grime remained—and arched an eyebrow at Sai.
“They’re certainly not my specialty, but, in a manner of speaking we have them all over Rakuken.” Lev patted the door to the windmill behind him. “All the windmills run on them, and you could say that each lightning rod is one, since there’s no one actively Controlling the wind in a cone, we just have to get the reaction started.”
Sai frowned and was reminded of the box hanging from his shoulders. “If not one of the three—Solid, Liquid, or Breath—then could a relic create another effect? Say, like threads hanging in the air?” Something akin to excitement bubbled in as he said the words, holding desperately to the hope that he still might have a chance at a Vein.
Lev’s brows drew together, and they together walked from the mill as its huge blades cut through the air overhead. “Threads? Perhaps that could be Solid, if they were physical. But this is all hypothetical without context; Sai, what are you really asking? Whether you might have a Vein other than Breath? I believe we talked about this before.”
Sai kept step with him, clutching the box on his shoulder. “No. I mean…maybe, but what I really want to know is if you’ve seen anything like it before. Threads, I mean. What are the for?” A broad-shouldered man passed by them with a retinue following earnestly behind him. It was the reza, Tharon. Sai watched him quietly; Lev didn’t pay him much mind.
“That doesn’t sound like a relic I’ve heard of. But again, I am no expert in that area. Perhaps you could talk with Rane; she knows more about this than I do. But she’ll want context, too, Sai. If you hint at some new relic and don’t tell her what you’re talking about, she’ll get antsy. You do not want to have an antsy Rane on your hands.”
Sai smirked. Lev pretended like his comment was one of exhaustion and frustration, built up over many arguments running deep into the night, but there was a fondness in it that he couldn’t hide. Even now, Lev was burying his face in his tool bag just so Sai wouldn’t see the signs. “Yeah, I get it. Thanks.”
Lev shook his head as Sai left. Sai wanted to go straight to Rane and learn more about relics, maybe make some headway on the box, but he couldn’t. Reza Tharon was climbing the bridge to his home pillar. He hurried after the group.
The reza was already yelling when Sai reached their house. “What, he’s gone again?” The tall man threw a hand into the air and scoffed. “The day before?” Sai hid the box behind his back as well as he could.
Mom was at the door, arms folded, face a mask of creases and barely restrained fury. “I will tell you again,” she said, her words growing clipped with her old accent, “my husband goes where he pleases. You hide on your little pillar, waiting for him to leave, before you come to me with a confrontation. He is not the coward. You are.”
Tharon’s fists balled. A thin man clutching a book behind him reached a hand to Tharon. “My reza, you cannot—”
Tharon wheeled on the man, eyes bulging out of his head. “You will not tell me what I can and cannot do!” He spun back to Selene and hissed through clenched teeth, “When he returns, oh…your husband will face consequences. He will not trample on my laws any longer.”
Selene narrowed her eyes. “I will tell him.”
Tharon exhaled, pushed the thin man out of the way, and stormed down the steps of their home. He saw Sai, scoffed, and shook his head. “Get out of my way.”
Sai stepped aside and watched the man go. His retinue followed behind, not meeting Sai’s eyes. When Sai looked back at their house, Selene was staring at him. Her thin blond eyebrows drew together, and with a sigh all the fury went out of her. “Come inside, Sai.”
He obeyed.
His mother slumped into the nearest seat beside their dining table and rested her head on the palms of her hands. Sai took a chair opposite her and lay the box next to him. Selene massaged her eyes then pulled her hands free and looked at her son. “How are you and Theo? You two haven’t talked yet.”
Sai nearly opened his mouth to ask, How did you know?, but that was fruitless. Mom knew everything. He settled for, “Not good.” When mom didn’t interrupt him, he went on, “I keep meaning to, but he’s stubborn and spends all his time training to look good for tomorrow when I’m pretty sure he already got in.”
His mother raised an eyebrow. She saw right through him. “Theo would be none too happy to hear you taking guesses at his Choice.”
Sai’s cheeks flushed red in sudden embarrassment, and he looked away. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious. He wants to show me up and get into the corp when I couldn’t.”
“It’s dangerous to play with assumptions.” Selene laid her hands together on the table—one on top of the other. “I’ve told you that before. Don’t ignore it because it’s easy.”
“I know. But…fine, yes, I can talk to him. Better to get it straight now, before his ceremony.”
Selene nodded and lifted herself from the table. “That’s right. And take Hanako down to the shop tonight. She’s been good and could spend some time with you. I’ll get two jins for you to spend on her.”
Sai smiled as his mom walked away, weaving past the kitchen and toward her bedroom. Sitting there, arms and elbows on the table, feeling the wood grain under his fingers, Sai was hit at once with the realization that his father was gone again. And that tomorrow, his brother was going to have his Naming ceremony without Dad. Theo’s grunts and shouts echoed through the house, broken by short bouts of panting and the shuffling of feet. There was an anger in his voice.
This was the worst time to talk to him. Sai got to his feet anyways.
Theo attacked a leather and straw training dummy with vigor in the training room. The room was an addition by their father and mother, who enjoyed sparing in their youth. Then dad was out of the house, and mom grew older, and the room was passed on to Sai, Theo, and Mirai. Hanako was still too young to be allowed inside.
Long straw mats lined the floor, woven together with olive green bryne thread. Two large windows were set into the side of the room opposite the hallway, but the storm shields were still up and Theo hadn’t bothered to take them down, which cast the place in a dark haze. What beams of light made it through the slats in the stone shields lit up clouds of dust, kicked up further by Theo’s shuffling and swinging.
Sai leaned against the frame, not stepping inside with his boots still on. “Theo,” he said. Theo did not turn to him or stop swinging at the dummy.
“What,” his brother responded through breaths, “you actually want to talk about it?”
Sai’s eyebrows fell without him wanting them to. “You left before we got Mirai’s bow free. You left before we were free. Had that fire spread, what then? Would you keep running?”
Theo exhaled sharply and drew his sword across the dummy in a diagonal slash. He paused, narrowed his eyes, then swung at it again. “Would you have fumbled with the bow long enough to get both you and Mirai killed? I told you both to drop it. You didn’t listen. You did the stupid thing and fed Mirai’s fear, and tried to remove it without breaking it. What good that did.”
Sai’s fists clenched, but he breathed in, then out, and let the hands ease. In a fight, anger can mean death, his father reminded him. Talking with Theo these days was as close to battle as Sai would willingly get. Their afternoons of sparing were in the distant past. “Your Naming ceremony is tomorrow. I don’t want to have this between us when you’re through with it. When you’re a man. This…is a splinter that needs to be removed.”
Theo huffed and finally looked at Sai. “I’ve been a man for longer than you, Sai. Age does not matter. I protected Mirai until she stopped listening. She—you even—can’t act the fool and expect people to keep bending over backward for you. This will not be resolved until you understand the truth of it.”
Fire brewed in Sai’s stomach, his chest, ready to burst. He wanted to storm onto the mat, boots or no, and take up one of the training swords and fight Theo head on. That impulse was stupid, horribly stupid, and in trying to shove it down he lost control of his mouth. Out of the depths of his frustration, he found himself quoting his mother, “It’s better to fail trying than to not try at all.”
Theo threw down his sword and looked at Sai from across the room. His mouth, eyes, and brows were pinched in fury and disgust. “What’s better is to do the right thing, not whatever you think is nice,” he spat.
Sai stopped a retort from leaving his mouth. This was how it always was, these years. Yet the world waits for no one. Sai straightened his shoulders and turned, showing Theo his back. “I tried. That’s the most I can do.”
Theo did not respond.
Sai left the room and didn’t turn back. He couldn’t help him like this. He didn’t even know if Mom could. Still fuming, he stopped at the main room, placed a hand on the wall, and exhaled. Dad and Mom had taught them both, usually through the same means, and yet somehow Theo always took whatever position was opposite to Sai’s. He couldn’t stand it. Sai drew in a breath and put the thoughts away. He might not be able to reach Theo, but he could do something nice for his other siblings.
He found Hanako playing make-believe with Feyri, one of her friends from another pillar. Sai greeted the two of them and told Hanako about their plans for the evening. She stared up at him, mouth an open smile. “Yay! I want to get something for Theo!”
Sai put on a smile, but couldn’t help from remembering the bitterness in Theo’s face. “That sounds great, Hanako. Come inside when you’re ready.”
She nodded and scurried off with Feyri, mimicking firing a bow while Feyri danced back and forth like some predator. Hanako was likely playing her alter ego, Hirai, which she swore was not just Mirai with longer hair. Feyri growled and snapped, playing her part well, until the roles got all gummed up and both Hanako and Feyri were hunters and monsters at the same time. Sai watched the pair for a while before heading inside.
When Hanako was ready, he took her down to one of the lower market districts, and together they toured shops that sold toys, trinkets and snacks. Hanako gravitated to a stand selling instruments, and Sai nervously laughed at the owner and steered her away, reminding his sister of what she had wanted to get earlier. She quickly moved on and when they found a wooden cube puzzle that required one to remove the pieces in a certain order then put them back together again.
Sai only had to pay a half-jin for it, so he also bought a pair of deer rolls for them to munch on as they looked around. Hanako alternated between taking little nibbles of her snack and fiddling with her puzzle as they strolled through the market. Sai noticed a woman with long brown hair tied in a messy bun standing in front of a low stall. It was Rane, the relic specialist Lev had mentioned. She argued furiously at a long-nosed boy manning the stand, and there was an array of metal tools spread on the table between them. The boy had an stuffy, uncomfortable look on his face and kept glancing into the tent behind him to see when someone would relieve him of his post.
Sai approached as Rane was finishing her point. “Would you believe that?” she was saying, and set down a small metal rod with two handle-looking protrusions on its sides. “They don’t use brass for the inner casing anymore, just a copper-iron alloy! It rusts if you leave it out, which screws up the fragile mechanisms inside.”
Rane noticed Sai and the stall boy gave a pleading look to him with his eyes. “Hello, Sai. Hey Hanako!” Rane said.
Hanako glanced up from her puzzle, saw Rane, and gave her a hug. “Hi Rane! We’re looking for a present for Theo.”
“For the ceremony? That’s very nice.” Rane smiled at Hanako, then Sai. “How are you and Lev?”
Sai shrugged. “Okay, I guess. One of the lightning rods broke during the storm.” Rane’s eyebrows went up, but Sai continued. “Lev and I got a replacement, but he promised to take it down to you when he gets the chance. I had a question for you though, concerning relics.”
Excitement fluttered in Rane’s hazel eyes, and she abandoned her fruitless argument as Hanako wandered off to find a stall selling books. “I’m all ears.”
“My dad gave me this box—and no, I can’t open it—and I’m trying to figure out how it works. Well, more specifically I’m trying to find out what’s inside.”
“Without opening it?”
Sai grimaced and pulled the box from his shoulder, holding it out to her. “That’s the trick. But you can’t tell anyone about it!”
Rane’s eyes widened when they landed on the box. She splayed her fingers over it, face full of awe. “It’s axial wood! What makes you think it’s a relic?”
Sai was taken aback that she recognized the type of wood so much faster than he did. He collected himself and explained his experience with the box the previous night and that morning. Rane frowned and narrowed her eyes. “Threads dancing on the wind, huh? Could be Solid, or even Liquid, depending on how they looked. Can you show me?”
Sai focused on the box, remembering the threads, and they appeared. “There,” he said.
Rane blinked. “I don’t see anything.”
The red threads were there, waving out from his chest, and the longer white one was still visible, this time arcing across the market and toward the bridge off of this pillar. “I…you don’t see them? Right here?” he waved a hand over his chest.
Rane sighed and cocked an eyebrow at Sai. “That’s not funny. Did Lev tell you to do this?”
“I’m being serious! You can’t see them, but they’re there. I…okay. I’m sorry for bothering you, but do you know of any other relics that could do something like that?”
“I’ve read of some designed by the Alliance that command more than the three states of matter, but I doubt we’d have something like that all the way out here. They’re far to the east across the sea, and you know the reza when it comes to imports.”
Sai glanced at the white thread again. It ran off of the plateau and toward the gate connected to the mountain. If he wanted to travel across the sea, that’s where he’d have to go. Sai frowned. “My dad travels a lot. But…anyways, thank you for your help, Rane.”
She nodded absently, still stuck in her thoughts. “See you around, Sai,” she said.
Sai slipped the box over his back and found Hanako handing their second steel jin to a stall owner, who in turn gave her a book. She smiled and showed it to Sai. The cover of the book read, The Troubling History of Threyda, an Anthology. Hanako held it close. “Theo mentioned this last time we were here.”
Sai smiled at her and ruffled her hair. While he was here, he put a hand down on the stall’s table and leaned in. “Do you have any books on relics? Like, any that don’t deal with the states?” Maybe he could find one here, in Rakuken.
The man shook his head. “The reza don’t like Alliance books too much. You could check the trade district, but you’d probably have to request it. That’s a pretty penny, ordering books.”
Sai let out a sigh and thanked the stall owner. It had been worth a shot. He couldn’t afford getting a book delivered here just for Tharon to turn it away. Hanako was already flipping through the one she had bought, and Sai squeezed her shoulder.
“That’s a perfect gift.” In truth, he couldn’t see what Theo found so fascinating in these books. He and Mirai hunted together: that he understood. Hanako was young enough that make-believe in the outdoors still captivated her. But Theo desired to do two things in his free time: read and practice, like he was training for something. But Theo had already passed his test.
Sai grimaced as they left the market. Tomorrow would be the day, and neither he nor Theo could hide from it anymore. They would both be fully accepted, Named adults. Which meant that, if the time came and they had to work together, they could not squabble like boys.
From tomorrow on, if they fought, they would fight as men.
That's chapter 4! We're back to the present day for a bit. There would normally be another character's perspective in the book by now—Avis, a hunter of valkrin in Carlen—but I'm not as confident about her opening as I am Sai's. Eventually I'll post it to give a taste of her character as well.
As far as Sai's story goes, the most I'll post on the blog (most likely next week) of the story is Chapter 5! The rest will have to wait for the full book.
Cheers!