Racing the Dark (39 page)

He arrived at the inn just as the sun was setting behind the bamboo groves around the Moka River. He had expelled the water from his clothes, but the dirt clung to them, and he knew he hardly resembled a distinguished guest. The expression of disdain on the face of the proprietor who opened the door to the tall gates revealed this quite eloquently, but her expression changed when she saw his face.

"Oh, your honor," she said, smiling widely, "we were expecting you.

"Of course," Kai said, disliking her instantly. But the grounds of the inn were lovely, and no one here would be so boorish as to stare and whisper.

"I trust you had a nice journey, sir?" she asked, without any obvious irony.

Fire or death? "Lovely."

He cast his mind up to a flock of cranes that had just emerged in a frantic tangle from the reeds by the river. Their calls echoed across the empty fields. He felt their panic and caught a hazy image of a great thing tearing across the sky. He pulled away and shook his head. Something big was coming. Something that reeked of death.

But he supposed that he already knew that.

There was an old saying that Nahoa had been hearing a lot recently: "The Mo'i's house is a place of hidden things." Now, nearly three months after she had married Kohaku, she knew it only painted half the picture. It wasn't just his house that kept things hidden, it was his heart, too. On the ship during their long ride home, everything had seemed like a dream. He had been so open and relaxed and gentle around her, and she had settled naturally into the role of caretaker. He had needed it at first-he had been incredibly weak and awkward in the days just after he lost his hand. But even after he began to heal, he seemed to expect the same level of devotion from her, demanding that she help him undress and pick out his clothes, even though the house had many servants. To be honest, though, she didn't mind-even though in public he acted like the soul of authority, she saw him in his most desperate moments of insecurity. She knew how much he needed her. Sometimes he would wake up late in the middle of the night, sweating and shaking. Sometimes he seemed to be furiously arguing with someone, but of course there was no one else in the room. Mostly, he just begged her, "Has it happened yet?" Usually, she would soothe him and say "no," but one night she actually pressed him.

"Has what happened yet? What are you talking about?"

He looked at her, his eyes glazed over as if he were still halfdreaming. "The dying," he said quietly.

She didn't ask him anything else after that.

It scared her, how little she knew about him and yet how deeply she cared about him. He would vanish for days at a time, and when he returned would behave as though his absence had never happened. He ignored her questions about where he had been so completely that she eventually just gave up asking.

He had been gone for two days now. Whenever he disappeared, the servants would avoid meeting her eyes and protest-far too loudly-that they new nothing of "His Honor." Sometimes, the pressure of being such a stranger in this sprawling labyrinth of a house made her want to open a window and scream. It would have been okay if she had Kohaku to share it with, but over the months he had only grown more distant. Three years ago, when she had left a house with too many children and too little space to become a sailor, she had thought she could never get enough of solitude. Now it wore at her bones until she cried, helpless and alone in the Mo'i's vast quarters.

Still in her sleeping clothes even though it was well past noon, Nahoa paced in circles around the room, unmindful of the tears that fell in a slow drip from her eyes. Her nose began to run and she looked around for something to blow it with. The room was a mess, she realized with mild surprise. Rumpled bed linen was strewn across the floor. Two days' worth of uneaten food trays were stashed in every corner and dirty clothes covered most of the floor space. What in hell had she been doing for the past two days anyway? It was mostly a blur-she remembered calling for amant weed and a pipe the first night she realized Kohaku wasn't coming back home. She must have been wandering in a forgetful amant-induced haze ever since.

"You have to pull yourself out of this," she muttered. She thought about her mother, and how depressed she had been after their father died. She had sat around for days after the funeral, refusing to eat or sleep or cook for her seven children. As the oldest, Nahoa was forced to take on her responsibilities, and for the first time she had gained a real appreciation of the work her mother went through, willingly, every day. This experience had also made Nahoa suspect that she never wanted children. And then, a month after her mother had fallen into her depression, she abruptly levered herself up from her chair and, quite matter-of-factly, began making dinner. She never smiled quite as much, afterward, but she seemed to have recovered.

"Your father wouldn't have wanted me to die for him," her mother said one day years later, when Nahoa asked her. "And I still had all of you. So I decided that the best thing to do was keep busy. The pain doesn't go away, exactly, but ... it's easier to ignore."

That, Nahoa realized, was exactly what she had to do. She blew her nose on a nearby bedsheet and tossed it into the center of the room with the other dirty clothes. Then she straightened up the bed and piled the food trays on top of one another-pausing to eat some cold bread pudding and fried spiced tubers from the night before. Of course, she knew that she didn't have to do this. In fact, the maids would probably be appalled, but she hardly cared. After the main rooms had been cleared, she decided to get started on the wardrobes. Kohaku's, to her surprise, had a huge pile of dirty clothes on the floor. She had assumed the maids cleaned it, but perhaps he had given instructions for it not to be disturbed. She slowly sifted through the pile, smelling the clothes and deciding that most had to be cleaned. They had a strange, musty smell about them-damp and almost metallic. A shirt at the bottom of the pile was by far the dirtiest-stiff and crackly with some hardened substance. She brought it out into the light to see the stain more clearly.

She let out a brief scream of surprise before swiftly stifling it.

The shirt was covered with blood.

After her initial frenzied panic subsided, she became aware of two things. First, that the blood-still a little damp on the insidecould not possibly be Kohaku's. Second, that since she didn't have the guts to confront him with it, she had to find some way to get rid of the shirt before one of the maids discovered it. Unsure of what else to do, she put the shirt inside a sacrifice bag and called for one of her maids to help her get ready to go out. She would have to go to the temple. She had been there a lot recently, to be free momentarily of this house and its frustrations. She wondered if she was gaining a reputation in the city for being a strange religious recluse.

"It's good to see you getting back to your old self, my lady," said Malie, her maid, as she helped her into her clothes. "You've kept too much to yourself lately. If I may, I don't think all of this isolation is very healthy."

Nahoa sighed. "You're right. It's hell." She tried to curb her language in formal situations, but around Malie she felt more comfortable. "But what can I do? I might be first wife, but there's no one around for me to talk to."

Malie pulled Nahoa's hair into a bun and then began wrapping a beautifully woven scarf of gold, white, and orange around her head.

"Well, you know," she said as she fastened it with a few judiciously placed pins. "Ka Nui, the cook-his sixtieth birthday is today and he's having this big celebration in the kitchens tonight. There should be plenty of food and music ... I mean, please don't be offended, I'm not trying to be presumptuous, but I thought if you want-"

"I'd love to go!" Nahoa could hardly stand the rush of grateful anticipation.

Malie smiled. "There, see? That was easy. Now take this and I'll call a carriage." She handed Nahoa a cloak dyed in orange and gold to match the rest of her outfit. It had taken Nahoa a long time to get used to cloaks, since they were mainly an affectation of the rich, but she found-to her embarrassment-that she rather liked the elaborate clothes Malie picked out for her to wear. She had an eye for flattering styles and colors.

Minutes later, she was escorted to her carriage. They spent nearly half an hour negotiating muddy streets-which had been drenched by days of late-winter rains-before reaching the fire temple. A phalanx of temple officiates, carrying large, resin-coated paper umbrellas, scurried out to greet her. They held these over her head as she climbed out of the carriage and began walking up the white marble stairs.

"How kind of my lady to honor us with another visit. Might I ask where you wish to go today?" It was the old head nun, her eyes looking positively beady below the white stubble on her shaved head. Despite the chilly weather, she wore nothing but a faded red wrap around her legs.

"To the high sacrificial fire," Nahoa said tersely. Over her many visits to the temple, Nahoa had grown to hate the head nun. She didn't quite know why, but something about the way she would stare until Nahoa was forced to turn around and meet her eyes, or the overly solicitous way she asked about very private aspects of her life, made Nahoa thoroughly distrust her.

They walked through the main hall of the temple and climbed the stairs to a chamber on the left, where none but the most important visitors were allowed. The nun opened the door to an octagonal room with small fires burning in niches on all eight sides. In the center of the chamber roared a massive bonfire that was never allowed to go out except on solstice eve. Nahoa sat in front of it cross-legged and pulled back the hood of her cloak.

"You have an offering for the great fire?" asked the nun, uncomfortably close to her ear. To Nahoa's dismay, she had settled herself directly to her right.

Nahoa simply nodded and gripped the white sacrifice bag carefully.

"May I ask you what-"

"No, you may not," Nahoa snapped.

The nun's lips crept infinitesimally upward. "I apologize. I forgot my place." But she looked decidedly unapologetic.

Your breasts look like desiccated plums, Nahoa thought to herself. Firmly ignoring the nun, so as not to encourage her further, Nahoa stared into the fire. She longed to get rid of the filthy thing in her lap, but she hesitated. The fire spirit had selected Kohaku to be Mo'i, but would it condone ... ?

She couldn't finish the sentence, even to herself. Yet, what else could it be, with all that blood? She wished she could believe that it was the blood of some animal or something else entirely innocent, but she knew it wasn't true. It was human blood, and any human who had lost so much of it was either dead or dying.

Suddenly, she couldn't handle touching it any longer. With an averted gaze, she tossed her burden into the fire. It crackled and hissed as it burned, and for a brief moment the air filled with the pungent smell of burning blood. Before it dissipated, Nahoa caught the nun's sharp look and bit back a curse.

She bowed her head and began mumbling the prayers she half remembered from her childhood. Eventually, she just fell silent, willing the old hag to leave her alone.

"How have you been feeling lately?" Her oily whisper made Nahoa shudder involuntarily.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Oh? Your appetite hasn't changed at all then? And how about mornings, my dear? You never feel sick in the morning?"

Panic gripped her. For the past three days she had vomited violently into the chamber pot in the morning, only to have her nausea clear up later in the day.

"I feel fine, I told you." Nahoa knew her tone was less than convincing.

The nun nodded slowly. "I see. Well, the changes should be happening soon enough. It's still relatively early, after all."

"What's relatively early?" Nahoa hissed, painfully aware of the guards at the door. She was terrified that she knew what this horrible woman was referring to.

"Why, don't you know? I've heard that you're already three weeks late, but you asked for the rags anyway. Now, isn't that a funny thing for a Mo'i's first wife to do? I'd almost think you were trying to hide it, that you were scared, that you didn't know what to do." She leaned in so close that Nahoa could feel her hot breath on her ear. "Are you afraid of him, Nahoa? Do you regret marrying the one-hand Mo'i? Are you afraid of bearing his child?"

Nahoa slapped her. She didn't flinch. "I love him."

"Yes, but do you trust him?"

"I don't have to listen to this," Nahoa said, standing up. "I'm leaving."

"We can protect you here, my lady. You and the child."

Nahoa put her hands to her ears and stalked out the door.

That night at the cook's party, Nahoa struggled to forget what the head nun had told her. At first everyone had treated her with awkward deference, but after the wine and amant loosened them up, they were very welcoming. She laughed and danced and stuffed her face like she had back on the ship. She found that she had a taste for pickled carrots and rice, even though she hadn't enjoyed them since she was a child. Still, the nun's words were never far from her mind. Much as she hated to admit it, the old hag had been right: she was pregnant, and she had been denying it to herself out of fear. She simply wasn't sure who it was she had married, and her misgivings had doubled since her discovery of the bloody shirt. She didn't believe Kohaku would ever hurt her, but his unpredictability was terrifying.