"Is something wrong?" he asked, and she noticed he had his sword.
"No I . . . "
"You just went to the outhouse so I figured well there must be something wrong for you to rise so soon afterwards and this time you took your boots." He sat down on the stoop with her and started putting his own boots on.
The water sounded loud to her, so loud she thought he might hear it, too. "Do you hear the water running?"
He listened carefully then nodded.
"It's the middle of the night. Why would anyone be showering?" she asked.
"It's a good question. You lead I'll follow."
Not too surprisingly their trek took them to the men's showers. "We will wait 'til they come out and see who it is," Kasiria said.
"Or
I
could just walk in and see," Jabone offered.
"Oh yeah," Kasiria said, smiling at her own silliness. Of course Jabone could go into the men's showers.
He was, after all, a man. She motioned a hand towards the door and Jabone walked in. There was a stifled scream and then Jabone walked out laughing.
"Well?" Kasiria asked.
"Well . . . either Eric has had the oddest accident I've ever seen or he's no more male than you are."
"Eric!" Kasiria said in disbelief. "Why he gave me as much grief as any of the other men. When I think about it more than most. Are you sure?"
Jabone laughed again. "I know what a woman looks like, Kasiria."
"Well I'll be damned." Kasiria laughed too then.
"Eric" ran from the showers, so quickly dressed that even Kasiria could tell he was a she now. Of course it was just because she knew now and knowing could see feminine features where she hadn't before.
"Kasiria . . . sergeant I can explain," she said. "I was alone, the military it was my only choice . . . and I just thought it would be easier this way and . . . "
"I understand all that, but what I don't understand is why you would help them gang up on me," Kasiria said.
Jabone looked at Kasiria and answered her question. "What better way to hide who she was than by taunting you? They weren't likely to find out she was a woman as long as she was as upset by your presence at the academy as they were."
"What are you going to do with me?" Eric asked.
Kasiria actually wanted to stomp her into the ground for making her go through all the shit she'd gone through on her own instead of standing up and being counted. How much different her experience at the academy would have been if she'd had even one comrade to share it with.
When Kasiria was quiet too long, Eric asked, "Are you going to tell on me?"
Kasiria thought on it only a moment. "No, why should I? You want to live this useless lie to make life easier for yourself, then you do it. You want to continue to put me down, me and my unit, then go on if that helps you hide your true self. Come on, Jabone, it's late and we need sleep."
Jabone followed her away. "Tarius the Black hid as a man in the Jethrik army," he reminded.
"Tarius the Black had no choice. It is only because of her that the laws were changed so that me and that . . . that thing could join in our own right."
Jabone nodded, seeming to fully understand her anger. "Do you ever get mad at anyone Jabone, at anything?"
Jabone thought about it, then he smiled and nodded. "Oh yes. I was furious mad when my madra ordered me not to come here." Then his features turned dark suddenly and Kasiria knew he was capable of great rage. "My mother told a story of what a Jethrikian man had done to her that made my blood boil and I find I don't really trust any of them because of that. Where I come from . . . well men don't force themselves on women."
"It happens too often here, perhaps there is something to be said for not being so sexually repressed as we are here," Kasiria said. They had reached the barracks and she looked at the door with sudden loathing she was wide awake and she just wanted to stay up and talk to Jabone.
As if reading her mind he said, "I don't think I can go back to sleep right away."
"Me either, you want to go on a walk?"
He nodded and they just started walking around the garrison. They wound up in the stables where Jabone lavished attention on his horse instead of paying attention to her. They had lit the small oil lamp by the door as they came in but had she had normal human eyes she would have still been barely able to see. Kasiria took a perch on a gate and just watched Jabone.
"Lex isn't used to being pent up like this. He's used to running in pastures knee deep." He ran his hand over the horse's neck. Kasiria was riding an academy trained horse she had yet to get attached to. "He was glad to be ridden today."
"Perhaps in a few days we could go out again. I'm sure you also get tired of being pent up."
"Is it that obvious?" Jabone asked.
"It wasn't 'til I saw you all in the woods today. You just all took off without even looking back and I realized you must just spend most of your days running wild across the Kartik," Kasiria said.
"Is that a bad thing?" he asked.
"Not at all. In fact I'm a little envious. I have lived inside walls my whole life. I think that as much as anything else is why I wanted to join the Sword Masters so that I could just get outside the walls," she said in a far-away tone.
Jabone nodded that he understood and said, "There are all kinds of walls."
"Do you have a rank at home?" Kasiria asked, changing the subject.
"Rank?" Jabone asked, patting the horse on the nose one last time and then walking over to stand in front of her. He looked up at her and Kasiria almost forgot the question she had just asked wondering at how smooth his dark skin was. Kartik men had very little if any facial or body hair, Jabone had none that she could see. He didn't shave, of this she was sure.
And I grow hair and fangs and claws and . . . my isn't that attractive.
Jabone smiled and again asked, "Rank?"
"Yes . . . oh yes you know like I'm a sergeant."
Jabone sighed. "I have a title I don't much care for, and it would mean nothing to you here. What is rank or title really when all are the same? It's just like a name and I already have a good one."
"You're a follower of the Nameless God," Kasiria said, taking a guess. She hadn't listened much better to her theology lessons than she did in language class.
"Yes, as are Tarius and Ufalla. I don't know what gods Jestia follows if any. It doesn't matter. All is one, and one is all."
Kasiria tried to figure out what he meant and couldn't. She must have looked as confused as she felt because he laughed. "Everything is the Nameless One and nothing is the Nameless One and all things are part of the Nameless One but they aren't the Nameless One," he explained, and if possible she was even more confused. Jabone tried again seeming to have endless patience with her. "Is the king more important than you are?" he asked.
"Yes," Kasiria said.
"No he isn't. Are you better than the boy who cleans the stable?"
"Yes."
"No you aren't. Are men better than women?"
"No," she said without hesitation.
"Right because all are the same, all are part of the Nameless One, and how can any part be greater or lesser than any other part? If a stable boy is called king he is still a stable boy. If a king is called a stable boy he is still a king. But it doesn't matter because all are the same," Jabone said.
It obviously made perfect sense to Jabone and the fact that she had no idea what he was trying to say just drove home how foreign he actually was.
Still he obviously wasn't ready to give up on her. "Eric is a woman. If she pretends to be a man she will be treated differently but does that make her a man?"
"No."
"And if they give you a rank and people treat you differently because of it are you no longer Kasiria?"
"No, of course not."
"So why should anyone treat Eric differently or you differently? All are the same."
Kasiria's scalp tingled as she finally got it. They didn't believe in divisions by classes or sexes or rank or religion because to them everyone was the same. It was why they always made a point of saying that the Amalites' religion caused their wickedness, why they had tried to save them by separating them from that which caused them to do evil because the Amalites also were the same. It was only their hateful beliefs which made them different. She smiled and nodded at him. "I get it, what's more I like it, and it makes sense."
Jabone smiled big then. "So . . . we'd better try to get some sleep." He reached his hands up to help her down, lifting her at her waist and lowering her to the floor as if it was little or no effort. She shouldn't have allowed him to, should have explained that it wasn't proper, but she didn't and as her feet touched the floor she looked up at him and he was looking down at her and the last thing on her mind was what was proper.
Then he just kissed her. He didn't ask he just did it. She'd never actually been kissed before but that didn't stop her from trying to kiss him back. She was sure she was doing it all wrong but he obviously knew what he was doing because her whole body felt like it was on fire.
"We'd better get back," Jabone said as his lips left hers.
"Yes," she agreed, when she'd found her voice and thought.
Yes we better get back before we break rules my country men haven't even made up yet
.
He took her hand and started leading her out of the stables. He blew out the light as they passed it and just kept leading her by the hand back to their barracks.
"Jabone, why did you kiss me?" Kasiria asked carefully.
"Because I've wanted to since the first time I saw you," he said simply, and that was it all he said, all he was going to say.
"Jabone . . . No one can know about this," Kasiria said.
"I know," he said.
"Seriously, Jabone."
"I know," Jabone said.
"Jabone, I'm not . . . We need to go to bed . . . I mean, we need to get some sleep."
But she literally ached when they were back in their barracks and in their own beds. She looked at where the two girls were sleeping together and wondered if she could convince Jabone that she was cold. too.
* * *
When the horn blew in the morning only Tarius was already up and the rest of them weren't in any hurry to leave warm beds. In fact Kasiria went back to sleep and it was only Tarius calling out, "Hey, the horn blew," that got her out of her bed.
She looked at Jabone's sleepy face and he looked back and smiled at her, she smiled back. Then as she threw her gear on and joined the others in a dead run for the middle of the compound wondered just where the hell she was supposed to put her memory of that kiss and whether he was going to do it again or not.
They lined up way after everyone else and looked half dressed. In fact Jabone and Ufalla were still trying to get their swords to hang right. Derek gave her a hard look and she looked at the ground afraid he'd see her guilty face and figure out what had happened and what she was thinking, everything that she was thinking.
She felt completely undone, like anyone looking at her could just guess everything she was feeling. Then she saw "Eric" looking as tired as she and all the rest of her unit—except Tarius—did and she felt some better.
So . . . You left me to hang in the wind and then went out of your way to help Thomas make it impossible for me to command my unit and now look, after all your lies it seems we're in it together after all because you're hiding things and I'm hiding things but you have to sweat because I know your secrets, but you don't know mine.
She saw Ufalla and Jestia whispering to each other and tried to hear what they were saying. She did but it didn't help because they were of course speaking in Kartik.
I have got to learn Kartik. Where were you two last night and what could you possibly have been up to in the middle of the night?
She wondered if she should just confront them about it but then decided they'd probably just lie about it anyway.
Their day was busy with lessons and sword practice 'til they—who started the day tired—all just wanted to go to bed. They had showered and met in the mess hall for the evening meal. They were all quiet except Tarius who was talking a mile a minute about what she couldn't be bothered to listen long enough to know. She saw Eric covertly watching them and wondered for the twentieth time that day what her real name was. She looked up at Jabone and he smiled at her and then just went back to eating.
So, was that it? He kissed me and now what? Is he going to do or say anything else about it?
They had all told her he had a crush on her, and they all apparently knew she had a thing for him so what was going to happen now? And did she really want it to? She was scared of what she was feeling, she who had never been afraid of anything was scared to death of the feelings she had for this very strange man. Did she love him or was her body just ready to couple? An urge brought on by the beast inside her. That he was beautiful in a way no other man had ever seemed beautiful to her there was no doubt, but was that something special and if it wasn't could she just engage in casual love making and then just move on never looking back as the Kartik's seemed to do?
Even if I'm feeling something more than just attraction there's no way of knowing that he is. I wonder . . . I don't even know how old he is. Didn't Ufalla say that and he and Jestia were the same age?
"Jestia how old are you?" she asked.
"Eighteen," Jestia said. "Why do you ask>"
"Just curious. You seemed older than the others," she lied.
"I'm the oldest," Tarius said, more than a little perturbed. "I'm twenty, Jabone and Jestia are eighteen and my sister is just seventeen."
Now this actually did surprise Kasiria because the truth was that because of the way they acted she would have thought that Ufalla was older than at least Jestia.
"How old are you?" Tarius asked.
"I'm twenty-three," she said, and immediately thought,
He's only eighteen. I'm twenty-three, an old maid by Jethrikian standards and he's only eighteen. What am I thinking and can I make myself stop thinking it? My father would absolutely come apart at the seams if he knew what I was thinking. I'm coming completely apart because I know what I'm thinking.