Free Burnt by Lyn Lowe Page A

it,” Jun said wiping at the ash and blood mask with wet hands. “You can’t ever go along with someone else’s plan. Not even if it’s in your best interest.”
    “I’ll stick to your next plan. Promise.” He could tell Sojun wasn’t angry. There was no trace of any emotion in the other boy. Somehow, that made it worse. He wanted to apologize, but there was nothing he could say to put any of it right. “How bad was it?”
    Sojun grimaced. “Your roof fell on me. When I got out, the village was burning and everyone was screaming. I thought I was stuck in a nightmare. They were waiting for people running. I saw Bridgett’s clothes catch fire. A man cut down Ned while he was trying to put them out. Then the man killed Bridgett, too. I couldn’t move. I just watched.”
    Kaie closed his eyes against the image. Bridgett made the best bows. And the clothes Ned made always seemed twice as colorful as anyone else ’s. Their children were still babies, the oldest only just walking. And Sojun, his heart’s brother waking like that because he left him. He spit out words, any words, to keep those images away. “Navin. I watched one drag Navin right past me.”
    “But you saved the Lemme.”
    “We saved the Lemme,” he amended. It was weak; a flimsy shield thrown up against the shame and guilt of watching their family torn to bits by a ruthless beast. But it was all there was, and Kaie refused to keep all for himself.
    “Dahlia.”
    They jumped at the cracked voice cutting into their conversation. Both boys turned to the large, slumped figure a few feet away.
    “My name,” she croaked. “It has been nearly twenty years since someone called me that. If I am to die here, I would have it be as myself.”
    Kaie sat up, shaking his head. “You’re not dying, Lemme. Dahlia. We’re safe here. You said so.”
    “For a time,” Jun added lowly. Kaie avoided looking at his friend. The other boy was terrified. It wasn’t fair to be mad at him for that. Not after everything. But he was.
    “You’re the heart of the tribe,” he insisted. “For us to live, you must live.”
    She smiled faintly, but her eyes would not meet his. “Of course.”
    Kaie began to say something more, something comforting and meaningless, when a sound echoed through the cavern and snapped his mouth shut. He and Jun both craned their necks, trying uselessly to search beyond their circle of light for what sounded like someone’s shoe scuffing against the stone of the floor.
    Kaie pulled himself to the Lemme’s side, determined to throw his body between her and any danger. Jun crouched, hands clenched into fists. His friend’s face was twisted with the same fear that was there since entering the vault, amplified a thousand times. They both knew the stories, knew what came next. This was when the lost souls rose up to smite them for their trespass.
    It wasn’t a spirit that turned the corner, holding a flickering lamp over its head. It was Toman. Kaie sagge d with relief but Jun’s tension didn’t diminish in any visible way.
    “Sojun? Is that you?”
    “Da? What are you doing here?”
    Kaie didn’t know Toman well. He spent much of his time holed u p in his home, making the lamps or out here replacing them. Jun didn’t speak of him often and in all the years of their friendship, they only spent time at Sojun’s house a handful of times. Never when Toman was there. Kaie always got the sense that his friend was ashamed of something and, despite more than a decade of curiosity, never pressed the matter. So he could only wonder why Sojun seemed so upset now, instead of grateful to find his father alive.
    “ Devin had a bad night,” Toman replied lowly, as though trying not to be overheard. It wasn’t necessary. Kaie did know Sojun’s younger sister, and was quite aware that she wasn’t born well. Her mind wasn’t altogether in the world. On occasion she would fly into fits of screaming and flailing with no clear cause. Sometimes the