“Urchin,” he barked, walking toward the door to their shared living space. “Walk. Now.”
“Walking,” Kaleo stammered, catching his knees on the underside of the table and his wings on the back of the chair. Serai rose to her feet as well but Reven shot a glare at her that made her sink back down slowly. He did not want her company, her infuriating patience and tolerance. He felt out of sorts and struggled with his thoughts and emotions. Serai did not need to be caught in the backlash of his own personal demons.
“Uhm… we’ll finish the game later,” Kaleo said as he followed the bard out of the apartment.
Reven did not wait, walking out of the inn into the streets of the city. A summer rain fell from the sky, soaking the unpaved streets with water, churning the red clay into a thick paste that sucked at his bare feet; he’d not bothered with shoes. Citizens danced in the rain, celebrating the rare event. Kaleo caught up quickly, walking silently beside him with his large wings tented above his head for protection. After a few minutes, he extended one of those wings to cover Reven’s head as well.
“Don’t bother,” the bard said. He felt … confused; angry; hurt; uncertain. He walked until he was calm enough to think clearly, taking swigs of the decanter from time to time until they’d walked clear across the whole of Azucena to the foothills of the Sierra Alto mountains. Reven slowed his steps then, winding through a small path until reaching a large manse devoid of light and life.
“What’s this place?” Kaleo asked. There were new clay shingles on the roof that gleamed in the rain and patches along the outer walls that suggested repairs were nearly complete. The manse was now part of Reven’s new relationship with the Azucena cartel lord.
“Home,” Reven answered before walking in to get out of the rain. There were no doors yet, no shutters, and old crates that once belonged to the previous
owner rotting in a corner. According to Luca, a man named Manuel Escado once ruled over Azucena as a duke or viscount or something of the sort. The man died of disease more than two hundred years gone and left the city to the cartel lords to fight over, but none had claimed the old manse out of some strange Mahalan superstition about the dead. Reven had no such quandaries and was tired of living out of an inn. He happily claimed the manse, loitering spirits and all.
“Whose?” Kaleo continued, following the bard inside. Reven rounded on him so fast the poor avian nearly fell back on his rear, hazel green eyes wide with surprise and mouth open to apologize. Reven was going to demand answers, to finally be done with the nonsense in his head when the fight suddenly drained right out of him.
“Ours,” Reven breathed out through a heavy sigh. He dropped heavily to the dirty floor, mud and leaves blowing in from the summer storm. Kaleo looked at him with clear uncertainty as if contemplating a run out the open doorway. There was a small puddle on the tiles beneath their feet and a few vines creeping in through the unshuttered windows. “Sit down, Kaleo. We need to talk.”
The boy’s reaction was priceless. He blinked, mouth dropping with uncertainty as he slid carefully to the floor across from the bard.
“Alright, what’s wrong? If this is about the courier, I swear I didn’t say anyth-”
“Stop,” Reven said. Kaleo shut his mouth with an audible click. Reven listened to the rain for a few moments, drawing enough Power to bring some light into the grand foyer where they sat. He set the decanter down, looking around briefly before settling on Kaleo again with a smirk on his face. “Courier?”
The boy looked as if he wanted to crawl under a rock so Reven pressed on, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. That’s not what this is about. I thought I could ignore the past; that it didn’t matter - wouldn’t matter. But it does. I keep… I keep seeing things in my dreams, when I’m awake. I don’t want Serai to know but I need to know.”
“Know what?” Kaleo asked. He flinched as a large moth flew at his head, batting the creature away. Most things in Mahala were larger than what one might consider normal. Kaleo had only been with him a couple weeks at best, he had not had time to adapt like Reven had; had not learned to adapt as quickly as Reven had because he had no reason to. The boy was not actually an urchin. He was the exact opposite, in fact, which only made Reven’s confusion that much greater. The boy came to Mahala in search of his father. Reven was no fool. Despite never saying it, he knew that Kaleo stuck around because his search was successful. Accepting that, however, meant also accepting that Reven was also not just a bard. He needed the missing part of his life. It was cruel to the boy to ask so much of him, Reven knew. But something had changed.
“The nightmares I have... There is one in particular: I’m trapped, in a room, and… and there are bodies on the floor. They’re looking at me. There’s no life in them. Four usually, sometimes five and now… Who are they?”
“I… don’t know,” Kaleo offered, wings spread wide enough to catch the wind so the feathers would dry. He had no shirt, Reven noticed and only wore one sock with a hole at the toe. Reven frowned at it,
