When I came back into the building, Rod was the only one within view. Sitting on the counter cross-legged, the blade out in front of him, he was so intent on his study of her sword he barely acknowledged my presence. I got a slight guff of noise from him as the door shut, then nothing. I glanced around the shabby room, my skin still feeling tight and awkward. I walked around the counter, seeing Layla passed out on the floor. Her sides were moving at an easy, even pace, her breathing slow and regular.
I felt a prickling along the nape of my neck, hearing the echoes of someone speaking as if from a memory. I didn’t recognize the voice. Layla murmured something in response, and the voice faded away. I shook my head and moved back to the door, looking more out more of habit than need. The roads were still empty, dust hanging in the light of the sun.
“You shifted back,” he muttered as he worked. I nodded. “Any particular reason?”
“Better this way,” I lied. “Easier to breathe.”
“Skubo, haaryc-chaciec?” We traded a glance, his words switching to a different homeworld language. The sounds weren’t quite right, but it was well enough to be understood. Rod was certainly…gifted when it came to linguistics.
He was asking if I wanted to talk about Layla’s little speech. If I wanted to talk about the Half-Blood rumors. But I wasn’t in the mood. So I gave my head a shake, staring at him.
“No,” I said in plain english. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Rod gave a short shrug, looking back down at the sword. “Ucha-sluchacak, strach?”
I snorted, turning back to the road. Listening ears, he asks. Likely the cause of his switch. Neither of us thought Layla knew Aanmon, but Darius must have taught her some key words. It was his clan’s language, after all. But Rod was currently using Reumto, a language from the north. It’d be an unfortunate miracle if Darius taught her anything in this tongue. So Rod’s switch wasn’t entirely off-base.
But I still wasn’t interested in talking about my past.
“No,” I said again. “I’m not afraid. I’m just…not interested.”
“Iohem-toe,” he said, continuing in Reumto. “Iohem-nie Boiohpa-umtoroto, yrana. Rac Solrou-toe, Umtoroto nahioni?”
There he goes. Speaking about Layla’s father and the Halfbloods, asking if I thought Layla had any idea. If she had any inkling that I was related to her father’s death at all, I doubt she would be sleeping mere feet away. “No, I don’t. Canrahlns-rankst, rohanitoe.”
An easy warning from me. I was confident he could keep a secret. He glanced at me before shifting his seat with a slight groan, adjusting the glasses on his nose to a slightly different angle. “You know me,” he said, switching back. “A regular Bonynhni.” There was a short silence. “Pabnac-umtoroto, nekhem. Niepako-aktywny acat-toe.”
Gods, would he give it a rest already? I had spent the sunup moments calculating just how far I could go with her, how fast she’d find out the rumor that got her father killed was because of actions I took to hide myself. I didn’t spread the rumor, didn’t direct anyone to any other half-bloods. But I hid. I made sure no one looked in my direction, and in result they found someone else to fit the rumors.
“Bopautrt huliotnipa.”
“No,” he answered evenly. “Haco-pa-toe. Bacycnie-pa-toe. Skura-acranie-pa, haaryc-kab-bacycnie. Nacnekhem-umtoroto, Nesa Ashi.”
Nesa Ashi.
My name. My homeworld name. A spike of emotions shot through my gut at hearing it, hearing it alongside a list of my personal shames. I audibly growled and turned to him, reaction before thought as I bared teeth and snarled out, “Kasiiamp kkb npek! Pakashin!!”
He shook his head. “Testy. Kill me and you’ll be hard-pressed to find another.” He shifted the blade again, tilting it as he looked down the length. “Especially now that I’ve made progress with this.”
I pulled, struggled to let myself be distracted by his redirection, but bees still buzzed in my head due to his use of my name. I hadn’t heard it spoken in too long, and when it came to him it wasn’t long enough. That name was a curse depending on who spoke it, and it certainly didn’t do me any favors in the life following its gifting when I came of age.
I took a sharp breath, letting it out audibly and in a puff-cheeked blow directed at Rod, who ignored it and kept looking at the blade at different angles. Eventually the bees calmed and I was able to follow his lead. “What progress?” I asked flatly, still irritated.
“The script.” He tapped the first set of symbols, saying, “This is a location.” He tapped the second set of symbols. “And this is a person. I think. It’s either a name or a title. It’s almost like a…signature?” He looked up at me with a little one-shouldered shrug. “Don’t know how this helps find the killer, unless the killer also made the blade and signed it, but it might be a place to start. Maybe whoever this is knows something about…whatever this is really about.”
“Great. So where is the place and who is the person?”
He shrugged. “I dunno.”
I stared. Felt my lip curling just a bit as a tooth began to warp and sharpen.
“Hey, I translated this under pressure of annoyance and throat-ripping,” he said, pointing the sword at me and waving it around. “I at least deserve a coffee instead of that face.”
“Right. A coffee. Because you’ve deduced that you dunno words?”
“Done more than you,” he grunted, looking at the blade again. “Look, I’m not up on all the basic languages from your crazy-ass worlds. But I think I’ve got this, and translated correctly. The location seems to describe a place of ash and breath, guarded by pick and hammer. The second set just says something like ‘with authority to make echoes’ and references ‘Isq’ at the base… Which is what makes me think it’s a name or title.”
“It’s a forge.”
We both stopped, Rod leaning over the other side of the counter. “Excuse me?”
Layla hadn’t moved, but was clearly awake and listening. Her voice got louder as she spoke up. “The location. Ash and Breath is reference to a forge, pick and hammer are the tools.”
“I thought you didn’t know this language.”
Layla sat up and glared at him. “I don’t. But that’s how my father described it when I was little. The name scared me until he explained it was a blacksmith’s forge, a place to make weapons.”
“Ah.” Rod sat back a moment as Layla stood and stretched. “And…you happen to remember where it was?”
She shook her head. “I was too little. Didn’t pay attention to the location. It was…” she cocked her head for a moment, as if searching for the memory. “There were trees around. Symbols on the ground, carved into the dry dirt at the tree’s edge. The path was dirt and rock, and it led…there was an old white fence covered in vines. There must have been a clearing, because the moon was bright on the ground. You could see every drop of dew against the grass.” She shook her head sharply, cramming a palm against the edge of her eye and trying hard to make it look like she was only rubbing an itch. She ended it with a sniffle as she reached for her sword, sheathing it and giving Rod an annoyed look, daring him to say something.
He just gave her a smile and sat back on his hands. “Well. Good thing for you I know exactly where that is.”
“Great. Do you know exactly where Darius is?”
