Inherit the Flame

Chapter Forty-Seven

Falston gave the watcher training grounds over to Ripka, and a single watcher for each dozen recruits that came for the citizens’ brigade. They were slow to learn, sweating in the sticky desert sun, the monsoon winds blowing in off the northern coast heavy with moisture. But they were passionate, and brave, and in the end that was all Ripka could expect of them.

She sat on one of the benches lining the training ground, watching the last of them get put through their paces in the safe use of a baton, a bandana wrapped around her forehead to keep the sweat out of her eyes. Soreness suffused her, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this at peace.

Lakon spotted her sitting there, broke off his conversation with a watcher administrator, and strolled over. “Pleased with the results thus far, Captain?”

“Better than I could have hoped for. They’re green, that’s for sure, but they’ve got more passion than most first year watchers I ever saw. At least this lot isn’t in it for the pay.”

“Got a lot of opportunists like that, in Aransa?”

She shrugged. “No more than usual in any city. Living in the Scorched isn’t an easy life. I don’t begrudge them signing up if their heart isn’t in it, so long as they do the job and do it well.”

“Those tend to learn to love the work, in time.”

“If they have a strong leader.”

“If they do.”

He cast her a sly look, and she tipped her head back against the wall, chuckling.

“Enough patting ourselves on the back. What are you doing for dinner tonight, Leshe?”

She blinked. “Me? Back to Latia’s, more than like. I owe that woman a fistful of grains for the care she’s given me.”

“Kalliah, my little girl, wants you to come by to eat with us. Been talking about that ‘lady captain’ since the day she saw you come by the station house.”

“Me? Why?”

“She’s six years old, doesn’t have to have a reason. And anyway, the wife and I would like to have you.”

She glanced sideways to the courtyard, where Enard and Honey were putting a few late-night recruits through some basic combat training while Tibal looked on. Falston must have caught the look, because he snorted and said, “They can spare you a night. You’ve done a lot for this city. Let us give a little back.”

“All right, all right. Let me clean up first, I’ll meet you there.”

“Don’t keep us waiting,” he said, and passed her a note with a hasty diagram on it outlining the directions to his home from the station house. She took it and raised both brows at him.

“Sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Always am.” He shot her a wink and headed back toward his people, barking orders with every step.

Ripka shook her head as she stood and waved farewell to Honey, who cocked her head but otherwise didn’t seem to mind. The woman had people to train how to fight. Ripka’d never seen her happier. Well, maybe once, but she was determined to scrub that memory for good.

She washed up in the watcher locker rooms, found some extra clothes kicking around the spares room, and followed Falston’s map to a quaint little mudbrick home with creeper vines growing around the doorway. She hesitated on the walkway, listening to the soft talk and occasional laughter of those within.

Ache filled her from head to toe, every muscle protesting the use she’d put it to over the last few days. She didn’t belong in a house like that. Never had, really. Even when she’d been a part of her family, just her mother and her father, they’d lived in a little one-bedroom stick-built thing way off on the edge of town. Only plant life her mother ever bothered tending was cacti and ground-roots for food, and even those withered after the war. Left to her own devices, Ripka’d only ever taken rooms or rented apartments; she’d even spent a few months in an inn, once. Curtains and vines and girlish giggles just weren’t her thing.

The map crunched in a fist she hadn’t intended to ball, but there it was. And it was getting late, anyway. The others knew where she was, sure, but she was tired straight to the bone. Falston would understand.

Before she could get halfway turned around the door banged open, and Falston came rumbling out, dressed in plain brown clothes instead of his watcher blues, a long pipe dangling from his lips.

“There you are! Was just about to send out a search party. Don’t tell me you got lost?”

“No, Captain. Just took longer than I’d meant to clean up.” She tried to cover the fact she’d been turning around by shifting her weight. The squint he gave her told her that particular effort had been wasted.

He let out a long, smoky sigh, and chucked his head toward the door. “Come on in now, monsoon’s getting sticky and the rains’ll come tonight. Mata says so, and Mata always knows.”

“Mata?”

“My wife! Mata!” He bellowed the last over his shoulder and flowed back into the household. Ripka clenched her jaw and followed. She wasn’t sociable by nature, but there were certain flavors of rude she wasn’t willing to stoop to.

“No yelling in the house,” came a woman’s sharp reply. Mata stuck her head around a hall corner, caught sight of Ripka shuffling across the threshold, and broke into a grin like a thunderstorm.

“There she is!”

“Hey, you said no yelling.” Kalliah, the little gap-toothed girl she recognized from Falston’s office, bounded after her mother, twin braids swinging.

“It’s your father’s bad habit, dear, we’re allowed.”

Falston harrumphed, but hid his smile by taking another long puff of his pipe. “Mata dear, this is–”

“I know who this is.” She bustled forward, scooped the girl up in one arm, deposited the child on her hip and stuck her hand out for Ripka to clasp. Ripka stared. Mata’d moved faster than any trainee she’d seen that day. “Nice to meet you, dear, now come in and sit down. Food’s just getting hot enough.”

Ripka gave her hand a wary squeeze, mindful of her callouses, and was surprised to feel matching ones beneath Mata’s fingers and palms. Mata winked in recognition, then swept away back to the kitchen.

“Pitfire of a woman,” Falston muttered to himself. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“She…” Has hands like a warrior, Ripka wanted to say, but settled on, “seems nice.”

Falston roared with laughter, clapped Ripka on the shoulder, and practically dragged her down the hall to the kitchen table.

The rest of the house was little more than a blur, but the family table spilled over into the kitchen, giving Mata just enough room to maneuver about her business, even when she had Kalliah clamped to her hip. Falston sat Ripka down on a chair with its back to a window and a clear view of the exit. Whether he’d done it intentionally or not, she appreciated it all the same.

“Fal tells me you’ve been doing great work with these new recruits of yours.”

She blinked, taking a cup of sweet-smelling liqueur from Mata’s hand. “They’re quick learners.”

“Great teachers make quick learners,” she insisted.

Falston hauled a huge pot of roast gamebird off the oven-top and placed it with a clunk in the center of the table. Ripka’s stomach rumbled. Audibly. Mata laughed. “Thank you, dear.”

Ripka covered her embarrassment by taking a quick sip of her drink. Honey liqueur. Laced with selium bubbles. She nearly choked.

“Are you all right?” Mata came around the table in a second and patted her firmly on the back. Ripka waved her away, wiping tears from her eyes.

“Fine, fine, just… Where did you get this?”

Falston narrowed his eyes at her. “The open market this morning. Some Mercer from the west makes it.”

“Renold Grandon,” she said, rolling the cup around in her hand.

“Grandon, that’s the name. You know him?”

“He’s Aransan. Long-time ally of Thratia. This been coming into the city for a while?”

“A day or so,” Mata said.

Falston and Ripka exchanged a long, heavy look.

“No business at the dinner table,” Falston said.

She nodded, understanding. When Ripka had arrived in Hond Steading, Grandon’s liqueur had been nowhere to be found, and so she’d focused on the bright eye berry cafes. If Thratia had now begun slipping weapons into the city, it was probably too late to stop them. She’d tried. And she’d missed.

“Can I get you something else?” Mata asked.

“No,” she smiled as she took another swallow without choking. “This is wonderful, thank you. The little bit of home surprised me, that’s all.”

Mata gave her a look that said clear as day she didn’t believe her for a second, but wasn’t about to argue with a guest in her own kitchen.

Kalliah clambered atop a chair and propped her fists on her hips, head high. “I’m gonna be a lady captain too!”

The adults laughed while the girl looked put upon, and the evening fell into small talk and praise of the food. Ripka grew warmer with every bite and sip. By the time they were finished, Ripka felt heavier than she’d ever felt in her life.

She made her goodbyes and dragged herself to the door, sluggish with sleep and food, Kalliah dogging every step she took with made-up stories of the little girl’s exploits as a captain.

Mata ushered the girl off to bed, then rejoined Falston and Ripka on the front step, and pretended rather smoothly not to notice that their topic of conversation had switched from watcher business to the clearness of the night the moment she appeared.

“Pleasure to have had you,” Falston said and clapped her hard on the shoulder.

Mata swooped in, gripped her hand and pulled her into a half-hug, leaning close to whisper lightning quick so that her husband wouldn’t notice, “Look after him.”

She was away in an instant, but the words clung to Ripka like cactus thorns.

“Thank you for your hospitality.” She managed a smile, hoped it looked genuine, then made her escape before Falston could pick up on the shift in her mood. She didn’t want to explain to him that his wife was worried for his safety. Even less, did she want to explain to Mata that what they were doing now was very, very dangerous?

And she’d begun it. She’d reached out to Lakon for help and stood in that forum, swaying the people of Hond Steading to hand over their wellbeing to protect a city that might not be savable. In a week’s time, they could all be dust. And that’d sit on Ripka’s shoulders, if she hadn’t gone and joined them.

A steady monsoon of rain began to fall, warm and thick. She was soaked through before she reached Latia’s house, and all she wanted was a dry change of clothes and a warm bed. When she opened the door, however, what she found was a full house waiting up for her in the living room. Every head swiveled towards her as she stepped inside.

“What’s happened?” she said, reaching instinctively for her weapons belt.

“Nice to see you too, Cap’in,” an all too-familiar voice drawled.

Ripka pushed rain-drenched hair from her eyes and squinted through the low light. Forge and Clink sat alongside Honey on the couch, their grins a mirror of one another’s.

“Holy shit,” Ripka said. “What…?”

“Got a package for you. From that Honding idiot.”

Clink pulled a bundle from her severe, black uniform – a Honding servant’s uniform – and handed it out. Ripka crossed the room shakily, not quite believing what she saw, and undid the string. A handful of heavy, fine parchment with the letterhead of house Honding fell out. Along with a thick, brass signet ring. Detan’s. Had to be.

Forge whistled low. “Guess he’s got ears after all.”

“We’re going to a wedding,” Tibal drawled, and Ripka didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.