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Chapter 6 - Waiting


I respected my father. I really did. But he was a man broken by a hard life, who tried to heal his pain with drink.

I grew up wanting to believe everything he said about the honor in a life as honest and humble as ours. I had to, just as he had to, because for us it was all there was and all there ever would be. You have to find meaning in labor when you know for a fact it's all you will ever do with the life you're given. You have to be proud of making bricks. You have to hold your head high, or you'll succumb to desperation. You'll think on it too hard and wonder about why you were born so low. Why you have to suffer, and repeat the same hard, back-breaking day, over and over again, for the rest of your life or, more likely, until your body breaks down.

I wanted to believe my father when he said that even if it seemed lowly, the life we led was noble. I wanted to find peace in that.

But over time, it became clear to me that he no longer believed it. The work breaks you, like I said. Not just your body. Eventually, it breaks your spirit. And men with broken spirits lose track of who they are.

My mother hid it from me for a long time. But we lived in a small shack, and eventually I grew older and more perceptive, and her lies stopped convincing me. The first injury, the first really bad one that I remember, was when one of her eyes swelled shut. We couldn't afford a physician, especially with father drinking our coin away, so we worried for a time that she'd lose it.

I hadn't seen the fight, but I'd heard it. I hesitate to call it a 'fight' because she never fought back, but I just don't know any other word for it. Any time she tried to talk to him about the drink, about where our little coin was going, I could all but dictate the series of events to follow. It was depressingly predictable. As a pup I was more able and more willing to ignore it. As I got older and more aware of what was happening . . . of the destructive nature of my father, and the passivity of my mother . . . tucking my ears back and sitting in the corner served less to chase it all away. When I was young I'd fill my mind with thoughts of what I was going to do with my friends the next day, or how many fish I could catch for dinner if I really tried. As I got older, what began to fill that space between my ears . . . was anger.

Being a laborer, being poor and low-caste is humbling, difficult and often painful. But it never made me feel helpless. My father taught me what it meant to feel helpless. And that fear of being helpless again pervades my every action to this day, bubbling up inside me whenever I feel threatened or talked down to, whenever someone challenges me or makes me feel like less of a person. In those moments, I'm that little boy again, sitting in the corner, unable to protect my mother. And it's the worst feeling in the world, all over again.

Any perceived slight can evoke that pang, that stab of memory. And then the anger is there again, like a wound re-opening. My chest burns, my heart rises in my throat, and all I want to do is stop that feeling. That anger is my father's legacy. I don't know if it's in our blood, but I know he gave it to me. If not through inheritance, then through his actions.

And just like him, I've done some terrible things when I was angry. Things I only hope my son will not remember.


There were benefits to the drug. What had seemed almost too clear, too bright and vivid the night before when I was still suffering the effects of it, became a distant haze by morning. I would never not know what had happened - what had been done - to me, but the sharp images were obscured by the mask of the Divine. I'd heard that the Divine dulled minds, that it could erase a man's memory if it was abused, and Chandan had told me more than once that he used the drug to forget, but I'd always reflected on that statement with sadness. Now, I was beginning to understand.

That's not to say I wanted any more to do with it. They say the Divine takes hold in some people, but I'd been force-fed it twice now and I had no lingering desire to use it again. But then, I hate all things that are forced on me on principle. So perhaps that's why.

I drift through the field work that day like I'm still drugged, and maybe I am. I have no way of knowing how long the effects will last. All I know is the fields look like crimson waves lapping at a beach, and Ahsan and I are alone in the vast expanse of the flower sea, his body moving impossibly through the tides at waist-height. Sometimes I just stop and watch him, and his ears twist back towards me eventually, when he realizes I've stopped collecting. And then he smiles at me, his dark eyes growing slim as his cheek fur crinkles.

I'm overwhelmed then by two contrary feelings. I feel lost, adrift. I'm finally coming to the realization I should have long ago. I really have lost everything, and I will never get it all back. The threads I clung to so precariously and desperately for the last few years were ripped away last night when I realized I couldn't even protect myself any longer, let alone a family so long gone. Everything I once had, everything I once was, is gone. Desperate dreams and plans can't undo the past.

Ahsan is the only person in the world who cares what happens to me anymore. And he's the only person relying on me. The only person I can protect. This hyena who months ago was a stranger to me has become the only family left in my life. We're bonded through mutual misery and, I am coming to admit, mutual co-dependence. I need him and he needs me. And after last night, I'm no longer ashamed of feeling that way.

I know to him, it might be more than it is to me. Or at least . . . different. That's a conversation we'll have to have eventually.

I've lost track of him amidst the red again. At some point while my thoughts meandered, he got too far ahead of me and clearly hasn't realized it yet. I flick my ears about, listening for him, but even my hearing is hazy today. Damned drug.

I hear something, at last, but it's several seconds too late and not what I was listening for. The big cat must have been moving beneath the tossing sea of flowers, and he did so expertly, because I am legitimately spooked and stumbling backwards when he rises up from the stalks behind me. The noise of the flowers shifting is the only warning I have, and even that was probably allowed by him.

"Gods!" I grab at a stalk for purchase, snapping it and nearly losing my balance, falling back on my bad foot hard enough that pain lances my ankle. I grimace, and then growl. "What the hell are you doing stalking me?!" I demand of the big, lean cat before me.

The cheetah barely regards my outburst, only stares at me evenly. It's been some time since Raja made any significant appearance in my life, save to keep vigil over me like he does the rest of the workers from across the room. He's like a self-appointed 'king', with the way he regards this place. No one cares enough to stand in his way, at least not if it means they get kicked around by him. I've taken to ignoring him, and I thought I'd be able to stay far beneath his notice, considering I don't keep company with any of the workers he seems to favor as part of his inner circle. Once he dumped Ahsan on me like unwanted baggage, he seemed done with me.

But yet, here he is, prowling upon me in the field.

"I can only assume since you didn't beat my ass," I say with a sigh, "that you just wanted to stalk me to prove you could. Well, good on you. I had my ears forward, you stayed downwind . . . if I were a gazelle, I'd be dead. I admit defeat," I mutter, then turn. "Now leave me alone."

"I was avoiding the attention of the guards, not you," he speaks at my back. I pause, because he just did something he almost never does. Explained himself.

I turn my head, but not my body, granting him some small measure of my attention. "What do you want?" I ask.

The cheetah doesn't respond with words. Instead, he lifts an arm from beneath the roiling flowers, and primal fear briefly takes a stab at my heart as I see the glint of a blade come up with his hand. Is he here to kill me, for some reason?

But . . . no. The blade is odd, and he's not holding it as though he intends to use it. He's holding it out to me. Like an offering.

I turn entirely at that, and look down at the strange weapon. Or, no. Tool? It's hard to say. I think I've seen something like it before at one of the other plantations I worked, but I've never used one. It resembles a sickle, but it's far larger and more durable-looking. I'd say it resembles a scimitar, but it has no guard. It's humble, old and worn, but the blade itself looks like it was recently worked and sharpened.

"We aren't supposed to have weapons," I say, glancing back over my shoulder for any nearby guards. Or Ahsan. Whatever this is, I don't want him involved in it.

"It was my understanding that you didn't give a damn what the rules here are," Raja states.

A few months ago, that would have been true, I say to myself silently. But Raja and I haven't conversed much since then, and he's probably still going on first impressions with me. To be honest, it's hard for me to think at all like I did back then anymore.

"I'd rather not have my collar as tight as yours," I point out. That gets a reaction from the cheetah finally, a curl of one of his lips and turned-down ears. "I can get out in a few years if I just walk the line until then," I explain. "Not interested in fucking that up by hiding your contraband."

"There is no need to hide this," he says. "It is not a weapon."

"It looks-"

"It is a sickle, if anyone sees it from a distance," he says firmly. "And tools do not leave the field, so no one will have a chance to see it closer. The guards do not care what our tools look like while we work."

"Why are you giving it to me?" I ask uncertainly, glancing down at the weapon. "And what is it, actually?"

"It is called a shotel," he states, turning the old, weathered guard in his palm, the blade glinting in the sunlight. "It is built for combat, despite its appearance. It will not bend on a man's skull like the dull, fragile tools they give us. But using it should come naturally to any man who's worked a plantation before. Any worker who has reaped."

My palm itches to reach down and take it. I know this 'gift' must come with some kind of cost. Raja isn't the type to share fortune with any man. And even if this is some odd form of peace offering, it could still get me in a hell of a lot of trouble if his assessment of the guards' perception of tools versus weapons is wrong. And Lochan, for one, seems like the type of man who'd know the difference.

"No," I state flatly. "I don't want it."

Yes you do, my mind screams at me. It's protection. It's a way to ensure that what happened last night never-

The cheetah seems surprised, which is something to see, because I rarely get any emotion out of him other than aggression. He releases the weapon, and it falls to the earth with a dull thud, disappearing beneath the flowers. "I am surprised by you," he says, the edge of a low growl in his voice. "I took you for a different man."

"Why are you trying to give me a weapon?" I demand again.

He's silent a few heartbeats, and his lack of a ready answer makes me nervous. But in time, he replies, in his usual cool voice, "I suppose it doesn't matter if you know, whether you have a spine or not. If you try to tell anyone, I or one of the others will kill you."

My heart jumps. I think I know what he's planning to tell me, a moment before he says it.

"We are revolting," the words come out like the growl of a lion in the seconds before he takes down his prey. "Tommorrow night. We are taking the guardhouse. The manor. Everything."

"Are you mad?" I demand. Even in my wildest years, I never took part in a revolt. I've fought guards, I've bucked authority, I've even tried to escape. But actively fighting the Clan that holds me? Never. They have every advantage. The guards, the weapons, the armor, the knowledge of the land, the buildings themselves are all theirs, designed by them, walked by them, it is their domain. You don't attack hyenas on their own territory. It's suicide.

The cheetah cracks the slightest smile, more eerie than any malice I've seen on his features before. "Yes," he replies without missing a beat. And then he begins to approach me, not stopping when he's inside my personal space, forcing me to take a step back for every step he takes forward. "My kind are meant to run. To roam. To travel Mataa freely, as we always have, for generations. These miserable souls, these piteous creatures here who made their own beds, who cursed their own lives by taking up the Divine or gambling or fucking their lives away, into the Clans' pockets, they deserve to be here. They . . . made. . . mistakes!" He roars the last word, loud enough that I hear it echo across the field, and worry the guards will hear. But there is no fear in Raja's eyes.

"I did not sell myself into this life," the cheetah continues after a few silent beats, his tone now so quiet in contrast with his previous yell that I have to crane my ears to hear it. "I was set upon. Stolen, in my sleep, when I was young. For the express purpose of turning me into a commodity, these beasts killed my brothers . . . killed my mother . . . and sold me to a woman who wanted me . . . for my pelt."

I stand in stunned silence. Not once has the cheetah ever spoken to me about his past, and where he came from and how he ended up here I know to be a topic of hot debate amongst some of the other workers. And here it all is, laid out plainly. I'd long wondered at his unique markings. You don't often see a cheetah with spots that bleed together. It makes him unique. Rare. Special.

And it's why he was kidnapped and sold.

"I'm sorry," is all I can croak out.

"I have fought the life that was forced upon me since then, every day," the cheetah growls, plucking at his tight collar with a claw. "With sheer rage and ferocity when I was young, and then as I grew, by planning, and waiting, and striking when I saw an opening!" He snaps the last bit. "And I have failed, and been beaten, and tortured, and sold again, and watched my debt grow and grow." His voice is little but a rumbling growl now, and I've backed nearly to the end of the row we're in. "They punish us for daring to take our lives back," he says. "For yearning to live free. I will . . . never . . . stop fighting. Until my dying breath."

He stops finally, staring down at me with eyes the same color as the sky. "They made a madman out of me. When you first came here, I thought I saw that madness in your eyes, as well." His gaze grows narrow. "I suppose I was wrong."

I sigh, putting my hand up. "I . . . understand," I say, because I do. "I've fought the Clans before. I still. . ." I close my eyes a moment, wondering how I can be talking someone else out of what months ago I would have embraced, ". . . but, a revolt is just an inevitable road to death. Revolts always fail. For one simple reason-"

"They have a Liberator," the cheetah says suddenly, with a fanged smile.


An hour later, Ahsan and I are baking in the sun in the precious last few moments of our meal break. The heat is hours away from abating, and I'm not looking forward to the last half of the day, but then, that's every day. Oh, some days it's cooler. Some days the work is easier. But every hour we spend in the fields is just misery punctuated by small bits of relief that convince us it's bearable.

The only other options, I tell myself again, are much worse.

Maybe it's my half-full belly, or the remnants of the drug, or the sun cooking my brain, but I find myself asking Ahsan something that serves no purpose to ask.

"Have you ever thought about what you would do if you could escape this?" I turn towards him.

He gives me a sleepy-eyed look, leaning back on his palms, the sun making the white fur along his chest seem far too radiant. "Of course," he replies. "Because one day, I will."

"You're so certain of that," I say, my voice monotone.

"I thought Lochan talked to you about our contracts-"

"I know now what it will take to buy my way out of mine," I assure him. "But yours. . . yours is much worse. You know that, right? I mean, you know numbers. You can read."

He flicks one of his ears, looking away from me. "I know," he says at length.

"So," I say uncertainly, wanting to hear him tell me about how it's going to be alright, for him. How Lochan, or someone else, is going to help him buy his way out. Some trick, to make the figures Lochan told me sound less impossible.

"So," he says, looking back to me with a wan smile, "that just means I have that much longer to figure out what I'm going to do, when I'm free."

"Ahsan-"

"Don't worry about me," he insists. "I got away from the manor. Away from moth-," he pauses, "away from the Matron. This work, I can do. And I'll have you here with me, at least for a time."

"I could stay on," I say before I really think about it. "My contract may be up in a year, but I could stay here. As a paid worker."

He reaches up to toy at his ear, at one of the many holes in it that probably once held gold finery, from his entertaining days. When he eventually looks back towards me, his eyes are dark, plaintive, asking for an answer to something. It isn't the question he speaks aloud, but I can see it. "Why would you do that?"

I know what he wants me to say. I wish I could say it in earnest, but lying to the boy feels worse. Men have lied to him his entire life.

"Because you've taken care of me," I say instead, and I see the slight droop in his ears. "And I want to help take care of you."

"What about your family?" he asks.

I feel my ears flatten at that, and I try not to show how defensive hearing someone else speak on my responsibilities makes me. "My family," I try not to grit out between my teeth, and I can still hear my voice trembling through the words, "is gone."

Ahsan reaches out for my arm, and I don't push him away. "Are you certain of that?”

I shake my head. "They are gone from my life, Ahsan. I gave up the right to protect them, far before I was ever indentured."

"What do you mean?" He asks.

I tip my muzzle down, the crest of my brow cooling my eyes in shadow. "There are a lot of things that happened to you at the manor," I murmur. "Things you don't talk about, even to me. I understand why, and I don't press. Some things happen to us, or we do things and we just . . . don't talk about them. Because it doesn't help."

He seems to understand, and falls silent. I find myself looking back out towards the fields, at the silhouettes of figures rising up from their plots, just barely visible acres away. It reminds me of stories I was told when I was young, of the dead rising from the earth. That's how these people appear. Dead on their feet. Stiff, dark, thin, like the meat's already been stripped from their bones. Even on the best of plantations, this is a hard, terrible life. Even with a man like Lochan, who knows what it means to wear the collar, looking out for us and trying to guide us towards freedom. Legal freedom.

What Raja is chasing is so much more dangerous, but it holds so much allure. All this while that I'd been letting them destroy me, convincing myself I didn't care what they did to me, so long as I didn't allow myself to be subjugated . . . I was accomplishing nothing. But freedom, real freedom, was what I really wanted. I just wasn't willing to make the kind of sacrifices Raja's risked, and is risking now, because I knew it more than likely meant death. And with it, no chance to return to my family.

But if I put that aside, if I accept that I've lost all chance at that, what's really left to protect? Ahsan?

I look over at him, and find he's never stopped looking at me. And when we lock eyes, he smiles. For some reason of his own, I'm sure. But it's every bit of encouragement I need in that moment.

I can still find reasons to be here. Even if all they amount to is a hyena with a kind smile, who for some reason thinks the world of me.

"Have you been drinking the tonic?" I ask him, pointing to the small gourd bottle he's carried with him to the field today.

"It's bitter," he says, sticking out his tongue. "But yes. I think it's working already. My breath's been coming easier."

"Good," I say, not allowing myself to show how relieved I really am. After what I went through to get that medicine, I need to know it was worth it. Ahsan has been good enough not to question why I did it, or to tell me it was unnecessary, and I am again glad for his empathy. He always seems to know when not to say something.

I haven't told him about my encounter with Raja in the field, yet. I probably won't, until the inevitable happens. If we even talk about a revolt, we're likely to get caught up in the whole mess, and that's the last thing I want. Raja is a man who has nothing except the promise of one last desperate grasp at freedom. I don't know how he thinks he has any chance, but as uncertain as I've been about my future over the last few months, I know that throwing my life away for such a small hope is simply not something I'm willing to do. And once again, having Ahsan's welfare on my mind is making that decision easier to abide by. I barely even think about the shotel, left there in the dirt in the middle of the field, as we get ready to go back to our work for the day. Raja left the invitation open to me, regardless how firm I was in my disinterest. He seemed to think I'd have a last-minute change of heart, for some reason.

"Kadar?" I hear the hyena call my name, and I turn to regard him just as he closes the space between us.

Before I can stop him, he's brushes his muzzle over mine in a fleeting kiss. It happens so suddenly, and passes so briefly, I'm almost not certain it happened at all. But the memory of the heat from his lips is still there, his scent still caught in my nostrils. I have very little time to think on it, because he's soon up on his feet and making for the fields, but as I push myself up to catch up with him, all I can do is try to compare it to kissing my wife. It's like a reflex, she is after all the only other person I've ever kissed, and maybe my memories of her have paled with time, but I just can't quite recall them enough to hold them up against the vivid afterimage of what just happened.

"Why did you do that?" I ask the hyena, as I stride up beside him, our claws crunching dirt and sand on our way down the next row.

"Because I wanted to," he states in a strangely self-assured tone, for him. "Not because I felt you wanted me to. I know how you feel about that."

I sigh. "About that," I say. "I do care about you Ahsan, but I think you and I feel differently."

He forces up one corner of his muzzle into half the smile he wore a few moments ago. "I know," he says.

"You do?" I ask, a little uncertainly.

"By now, most men with any interest in me . . . in that way . . . would have taken advantage," he explains, and I try not to wince at how casually he says those words.

"I don't like taking advantage of people," I say, trying to keep the growl out of my voice.

"I think that's why," he says cryptically. I wait for him to say more, but we're starting to approach the end of the row and I've still gotten nothing, so when we arrive, I put a hand on his shoulder and stop him.

"Tell me what you mean by that," I say, and it isn't a request. He looks up at me, except it isn't really up, because we're essentially the same height. It's just the way he carries himself, I have to keep reminding myself. As an afterthought, I add, "And stand up straight."

He corrects his posture some, then replies. "Why . . . you don't want me," he says.

"Ahsan," I blow a breath out through my nose, "it's not that-"

"Not just me," he says. "Your wife, too."

That gets my hackles up, and I utter an angry, "What?" before I can stop myself. He shrinks back a bit, and I try to correct my tone. Sometimes Ahsan doesn't always know what not to say. "I've hardly told you anything about her," I insist.

"You told me you were married, and you are no longer," he supplies. "And that you can't go back to the life you had with her."

My ears droop. "That . . . is true," I say, at length.

"I know there are things we don't talk about, because talking doesn't make them better," he says, almost mimicking my words from earlier. "But you have to at least know them yourself, on the inside, or you'll never know why you do the things you do. Sometimes thinking about the dark times is what helps me get up when I hurt in the mornings, or do things differently today than I would have done then."

"Ahsan, trying to get deep with me isn't going to get me into bed," I sigh.

"We already sleep in the same bed," he points out. But before I can give him an annoyed counter, he says something that stops me dead. "There was a room, in the Manor," he says. "Mother called it 'the black room'."

I'm silent, because what could I possibly say to that? I can tell by the expression on his muzzle that he means to say more, and I'm afraid any word from me will interrupt and forever silence him, somehow.

"When she was unhappy with me," he continues, "when I was being disobedient, or unpleasant to look at, or I wasn't making the guests happy, she'd send me there."

He seems to have trouble getting past this part of the story, so I wait patiently, watching his toes curl in the dirt, his tail twitching at flies. I wait for what seems an eternity and he's still not continuing, so I press, "What was in the room?"

"Nothing," he replies, simply. "Not even a window. That's why it was black. There were shelves on the wall, I think, but they were all bare. Once a day, someone would slide a plate under the door, and every few days they'd refill a bucket of water and open the door for a few moments to clean, but the servants who'd come to do that never spoke to me, even when I yelled at them. Even when I cried at them. Mother said when I was in the black room, I didn't exist. And that's . . . how it felt."

"Days?" I repeat, somehow unable to close my jaw. "How long did you spend there?"

"I tried counting once. Forty meals. Other times longer," he murmurs. "Sometimes it felt like I wouldn't ever get to leave. I can't remember much about the time I spent in there except that I thought a lot. And most of the things I thought about were terrible. Eventually I'd get out, and no one would talk about where I'd been. No one acted like I'd been gone. Mother said it was to show me that the world would keep going, without me in it."

I couldn't understand what he was describing. I'd imagined the sorts of things the hyena had probably been subjected to as a house servant, but all the things I'd pictured were within the realm of cruelties I understood. This was . . . I didn't know what this was.

"Talking about the black room doesn't make me feel better," he says, an edge in his voice. "But remembering it does. When I left, the Matron told me life out here would be intolerable. Worse than life with her ever was. And for awhile, I was just waiting for it to be like that. But it never has been." He looks to me. "From the time we met, you always seemed worried for me, angry at me even, that I'd let someone take advantage of me. And last night, you were angry at yourself. You always have your claws out."

"The whole world will take advantage of you if you let them," I say, trying not to think on the ache in my body, the reminder of how inescapable that reality is. Claws out or no, I hadn't been able to stop Vikram. I hadn't been able to stop myself from being taken advantage of by the men who'd contracted me.

"Not the whole world," he says quietly. "There are good people, Kadar. People will care about you, your situation will and can change. You're waiting for it to get worse."

"It got worse last night," I remind him with a growl.

"And it's better today," he says. "Remember Vikram, and whatever came before, and remember how bad it can be, but be glad for today. Today's different. Something could change. Someone could be good to you, today. Someone could be there for you," he says, and I know what he means to point out. I remember last night well enough. "But, not if you can't let them," he says just above a whisper. "You're waiting for people to take advantage of you. And me. You expect it. You're always ready for it."

"And I still couldn't stop it from happening," I point out icily.

"So why agonize?" He asks in a tone that's more of a statement than a question. "At some point I stopped waiting for it to get worse. And even if it does someday, at least I'm not spending every single moment afraid of it."

"I am not afraid," I growl outright now.

"Yes you are," he replies in a rare show of defiance. Maybe it's because he's been rejected. Even if he did see it coming, as he says, maybe he was hurt by it. Maybe. His eyes look hurt.

Maybe I just want to think he looks hurt.

"I don't know what happened to you, Kadar," he says, before I can get another word out. "And I understand not wanting to talk about things that hurt. But if you can't admit to yourself that you're waiting for everything to go wrong, for everyone to turn on you-"

"They will, and they have!" I bite out.

"-then you'll never trust anyone!" He shocks me by raising his voice, not anywhere near as loud as mine but somehow, I'm still stunned silent. "You're even afraid you're going to take advantage of me," he says, his posture rigid, unused to conflict. "You trust yourself less than I do, and you know yourself better than anyone."

"Maybe that should tell you something," I say.

"You're afraid to hurt people as much as you're afraid they'll hurt you. It's in everything you do. You're always on the defensive," his ears lift up from their flattened state just an inch or so, and his expression softens. "You think I don't know what that feels like? I knew it from the second I saw you. I've never said anything because . . . because I thought you knew, too. But if you can't honestly see it, I feel like I have to say something. Or you'll never understand why."

"Why what?" I ask, bitterly.

"Why it feels like the world's so cruel," he says quietly. "Why it always seems like you're under attack. That's how I spent every day in the Manor. Waiting for it all to go wrong. Waiting to go back to the black room."

"And your life there was horrible," I point out. "Your life there was cruel."

"Life isn't cruel," he insists, "just some of the people in it. You can't assume everyone's going to hurt you just because the people who raised you did."

My eyes widen, and I barely restrain myself from lunging forward and grabbing him. "What the hell do you know about the people who raised me?!"

"I was talking about me," he says, an edge of suspicion in his tone. "But . . . Kadar . . . if I assumed everyone was going to be like the woman who raised me, I'd never have trusted Lochan when he told me life outside could be better. I'd never have left. I'd never have gotten to know you."

"So save your affections for Lochan," I almost snarl. "If you feel like I can't trust you as much as you want me to."

"I'm not judging you, Kadar," the hyena reaches for me, and this time I don't let him close the distance. He seems hurt for sure now, and I get a perverse sort of satisfaction out of that.

"You're talking about me like I'm some kind of coward," I rear back.

"No!" he insists.

"Like I'm afraid of the world," I say, "and everyone in it. And, what, that's why my wife and I aren't together anymore? Because I was afraid of her?"

"You never talk about her, or why you were separated," he says. "But as soon as you found out you could be free of your contract, you gave up on returning to your family. You're afraid of something."

I'm all too aware of the fog of anger as it rises inside me, but the haze of exhaustion from the night before, and the memory of the hyena being there for me at my side the whole while, allow me to push it down. The boy can't know how his words are resonating, the memories they're stirring up. It isn't his fault. He's trying to help, I tell myself, as I swallow down the words that want to erupt from me.

Anger is no excuse.

He's naive. I've known that since I met him. He thinks he understands, but he barely knows the world, let alone my life. He can't understand.

"I am not afraid of being close to you, Ahsan," I say, just barely managing to keep my voice even. "I do care about you. But I won't use you the way they used you. And, I think if you thought about it, you'd realize you don't want that either. You've just been taught to offer yourself to people. You don't need to do that, with me."

"Listen to yourself," he sighs, softly. "You don't even believe that I know what I want. You think I'm still being taken advantage of."

"I think," I say, closing my eyes for a moment, "that Lochan might honestly care about you. Regardless how it started. If you honestly feel like you need someone to fill that role-"

"Wait," he stops me, "how do you think things between Lochan and I started?"

I pause a few moments, before saying, "I really don't need the details."

"He has never taken advantage of me," he says, suddenly sounding vehement. "He helped me escape the Manor."

"Because he wanted to sleep with you, Ahsan."

"Because of his sister," he states, in a hard tone. "Kadar, he saved me because his sister was a prostitute. He couldn't stand the way they were keeping me in that house. He wanted to help me."

"I'm sure that's what he told you," I say, trying to keep the uncertainty out of my voice.

"I came to his bed, Kadar," he persists. "And he was just like you, at first. He didn't want to treat me like the Clan members did. He resisted for a long time, even though I knew he was attracted to me."

I think back on that suspicion I had, the last time I spoke to Lochan. Like Ahsan might not have been the innocent victim in their arrangement. I'd wondered then, and this seemed to confirm it. The conviction in Ahsan's tone was unmistakable.

"Why?" I finally ask. I find it hard to believe the young hyena was simply physically attracted to the Aardwolf. The guard had to have at least twenty years on him, and even if there was no accounting for taste. . . .

"Part of it may have been because I couldn't think of many other ways to thank him," he admits, abashedly. "But, also, I've always genuinely liked him. I've known him since I was young, and I never really thought of him as a potential lover when I was in the Manor. Once I left, he became more of a protector, and I probably wouldn't have pushed it past that, except. . . ."

Something about the way he trails off makes me uncomfortable, so I look at him expectantly, making it clear I want an answer.

". . . well," he sighs, "Raja said I should pursue him."

"Raja?!" I reel. "Why the hell would he care whether or not you were fucking a guard? Was he getting something out of it?"

"No more than you were," he shrugs. "Some of the food. But Kadar, I honestly think it's just because he knew I was fond of him. Raja believes we should take what we want when we can. That's what he told me to do."

"Raja believes in taking for himself," I snarl. "And only himself. He got something out of Lochan, mark my words. You're a fool if you think he was just being kind."

He narrows his eyes at me. "Not everyone takes advantage of other people," he repeats.

My eyes fix on something in the distance, and I point out towards the heat-hazed road down past the fields, “How about you ask Lochan, then? Whether he and Raja made some kind of deal? I guarantee you-“

“Master Lochan is back?” the hyena interrupts me, his ears twisting and his entire body turning towards where I’m pointing. There’s a stab of jealousy when his attention is diverted so quickly from our conversation, from me, and I have to remind myself that I’m not supposed to care. I can’t tell Ahsan one moment that if he wants a lover he should go back to the guardsman he was seeing before he met me, and then resent him for doing just that.

Besides, it’s not as though it’s gotten to that just yet.

The distant, distinctive figure on horseback is a few rows down, and this isn’t the first time I’ve seen him this morning, but it must be the first Ahsan heard of his return.

“He returned this morning,” I say with obvious bitterness in my tone. I’d seen him lingering near the guardhouse when I’d gone out in the morning to wash myself again, still reeking of lion, and I’d instantly hated myself for not just waiting a day to ask him for the medicine I’d needed. I’d had no way to know he was going to be back early, though. He wasn’t supposed to return until the end of the month.

The way Ahsan is looking out over the fields towards the Aardwolf, his bushy tail swaying just slightly, is starting to upset me, so I grab at his shoulder and move him back towards the row. “I wasn’t serious,” I say. “You can go see him later if you want, we really need to get back to work.”

“I want to ask him how his sister is-“

Hoofbeats suddenly break through our conversation, and now that I’m paying attention, I was probably hearing them from a distance for some time, but I was too engrossed to pay much attention. Right now, though, it’s very clear they’re closing in on us, and both Ahsan and I turn to see the four horses rounding the corner in the field. They’re cutting right through the poppies, and the men and women atop them are not Lochan’s guards. . . they’re far too well-armed and armored.

“Clan guards?” Ahsan asks, his voice frightened and confused. I’m at least those two things as well, but I try not to show it, and I don’t push him away this time when he grabs at my arm. The guards don’t have their weapons out, but they’re clearly making a path towards us.

What the hell did we do?

The two women on horseback in the forefront are large, dangerous-looking hyenas, wearing the distinctive camel hide leather armor of the Manor house Guards, falchions on their hips, cold professionalism in their eyes and their demeanors. One of them holds up a hand to halt the others behind her, and looks down at us, taking a few moments to assess us silently.

“What-“ is all I get out.

“That one,” she says, cutting me off, and pointing at Ahsan. “The hyena. Take him.”

"Huh?" The hyena looks between the guards and me, wild-eyed. I yank him back behind me and try to demand an explanation from the guards, but I've barely gotten us back two paces before the two guards in back, a woman and a man, dismount and cross the space between us.

"Out of the way," the woman decrees, pulling what almost looks like a polearm from her back. I hadn't seen it before, but the two guards in back have weapons. . . shit.

"Mancatchers!" I warn Ahsan, throwing an arm up to shove one of the poles aside as she aims it for my neck. The woman's good though, she twists the pole with my arm and moves around my body with two side-steps, bringing it back up to clamp neatly around my collar, just as they were fitted for. I've been in the grips of a mancatcher too many times to count throughout my life, and it's never any less frustrating.

I snarl and thrash, grabbing at the pole and trying to wrench the woman holding me to the side, but the weapon is made to put me at my weakest, and the woman is strong besides. I can hear Ahsan screaming from behind me, crying out for help. Another heavy metal on metal clang tells me he's been caught as well, and a thud a few moments later tells me they've gotten him down on his knees already.

"Ahsan!" I give up on wrenching at the pole, and try to twist my neck to see behind me, but the woman yanks me hard then, nearly sending me down to my knees as well. My legs quake, blood sings through my ears and it takes every ounce of my strength just to stay standing let alone fighting.

An even louder thud, and Ahsan goes silent. I scream for him again, but all I hear is the sandy scraping of a body being pulled along the ground.

"Knock this one," the hyena holding me down says impassively to another of the guards. "He's being difficult."

I open my mouth to yell for him again, and then everything goes black.