Inkblots: A Tale of Magic, Adventure, and Romance

XXII. Courage and Pain

Kit flashed a rare, unguarded smile at her. "Well, yes," he said indulgently, "though I've never seen a giant one. But there are whirlpool shapes wherever an eddy flows the right way against the ship."

She marveled at this information for a moment. The image of a cold, wet, expansive sea was in such contrast to the dusty desert around them. However, the dry heat quickly imposed itself on her imagination, and Alia quickly drew her attention back to the ongoing interrogation—for that was her intention with this line of gentle questioning. "And the being was a water spirit," she murmured. "Have you ever heard of other elemental spirits?" She couldn't recall any such thing being mentioned in her Librum classes.

Her companion snorted. "I wouldn't know," he said. "That's your area of expertise." His voice softened. "But she embodied water as much as I would say any person could."

Alia tripped again. "Person? She was a person? The Book said she was a spirit!"

Kit's expression grew stony and closed again. "As I said, your area of expertise."

The slim girl bristled at his clipped tone. "You know," she said angrily, rounding on the distant-looking Hero, "this won't do."

He quirked an eyebrow in an irritating fashion. "I'm sorry?"

Her chin lifted angrily. "You need me for whatever knowledge I've gleaned, but I require the same of you. You have to stop dodging the— the— BLASTED questions and acting as though I know so much more! As you well know, they weren't exactly dying to give me their secrets at the Librum, and I need you to tell me what you know! Blood of the Unnamed Gods, Kit, WE NEED TO TAKE THIS PLACARD TO THE LIBRUM AND FIX THINGS!" Her voice began to quaver. "We need to solve the magic."

Suddenly conscious of the scene she was making, Alia put her arms back at her side and started walking slowly again. She hadn't meant to yell—until she hit her limit on being treated like a child. But Kit didn't move.

"And what should I tell you?" he said in a low cutting voice. "Should I tell you that she was a person? That it was a glowing little girl who I sliced open and watched the life leach out of? That she was scared and didn't look like she wanted to hurt anyone and cried as she died? Does that help you solve your fun little academic mystery?"

With a flat, unchanging facial expression, Kit started walking forward at a steady pace. When he passed by Alia, he neither turned his head nor adjusted his speed. After one small, frozen moment, she started after him again, feeling sick. The nausea took long, silent moments to subside, broken only by the crunch of feet on the reddish soil and brown plants. Though she hadn't seen it herself, the image of a dying girl was frozen in her brain.

The desert seemed less exotic and more empty, hot and still under flat midday light. Alia walked on blankly, pain from a million terrible thoughts rushing over her.

At last, a tiny selfish thought began to wiggle at the back of her mind. She was growing hungrier fast, and Kit carried the food. He never looked back, nor checked to see if she still followed. Luckily, his pace was slow enough for her to maintain, but he still didn't speak.

But how could she minimize his pain for the sake of her lunch? For that had been clear in his sharp words. She shouldn't have pushed him so far. He shouldn't have had to kill simply because the Council wanted him to. Had the water spirit truly been a threat? They would never know. Neither of them deserved to have the pressure of restoring Beldara's magic on their shoulders.

Hot tears prickled at the back of Alia's eyes. She wanted a hug from her Mami—but more than that, she wanted to be sure that a hug from her Mami could fix this pain. The thousand hurts of her childhood paled before the sheer unfairness of this moment. For a few indulgent steps—or maybe more than a few—Alia let the stinging water squeeze out of her eyes and run hotly down her sunburned cheeks. Tears slipped out for Kit's pain, and for the downfall of her homeland, and for her lonely scared Mami at home, and then poured out for her own helplessness.

But as grief does, this slowly and almost unnoticeably faded. At last, her eyes dried and she was able to breathe more steadily.

Kit paused ahead, gauging his shadow and resetting his bearings. Alia hurried ahead, ignoring her sore, swollen eyes, even though they were probably obvious and red.

"Kit," she said.

The golden-haired man turned to look at her, nose cutting a sharp mid-day shadow across the planes of his cheeks.

"Kit," she repeated, swallowing. "I'm sorry."

He nodded—just barely, a slight incline of his chin and its scruffy beginning of a beard.

"I am," she said helplessly. "I shouldn't have pushed. You— You shouldn't have had to deal with it. None of this should have happened." Her voice began to quaver again at the end of the last sentence, but she tamped down the emotion and stood tall under the shimmering sun. But just as she felt a little bit heroic, her stomach cramped with a hunger pang, and she winced and clamped a hand to it.

Kit snorted. "We ought to break for lunch, I suppose," he said with easy humor.

Was this forgiveness? Alia couldn't tell—but if not, at least it was a reprieve of some sort. And it meant food! Her stomach rejoiced, and she shoved all other thought away.

Answers! Or an answer, at least. What other unplumbed depths of thought is Kit hiding? Are there any clues that could solve the reason that the magic broke? And how do you feel about poor Alia, forced to grow up so much in a short time?

In an RL note, I'm sorry about being behind on this update--the writer's block was strong with this one! The good news is I have written a chapter ahead, so you're guaranteed another update within the next week :) Thank you everyone for your votes and comments!