I am drawn out of myself for a time as we enter the city. I want to see how Thyrion is affected, how society works, how the people live. The Kyzers didn’t split the city into Sections as we do in Jalseion, but their management of the lives of their people was an experiment, no less than ours. Everything is experiment. In Jalseion, we just call it by its proper name and keep proper records of the consequences.
Large retailers and hotels and other commercial establishments occupy this area, obviously, as visitors often enter by this main road, and they seem to have largely escaped the explosion, if not the general disorder afterward. Some boarded windows, some crooked signs. The light is dim and fitful within. The thoroughfare leans heavily, sick and exhausted, but keeps its chin up. Because that’s what you do.
That’s what you do.
“We’re here,” I say. “Do you plan on walking until you hit a wall?”
“We need a place to sleep,” Bron says.
I point to the nearest hotel. “I believe they may take strangers in for a night. A hunch. Unless you’ve become a mountain man and prefer to sleep in an alley somewhere.”
He comes close. Nyasha hovers nearby. “They’ve guards there. See?” He points. “The place was probably expensive before. Now what’ll it cost? We’ve nothing to pay with. This place looks nice, but it feels like the Grunt. The people are frightened and suspicious.”
I summon Nyasha. “You’ve been here. Where do we sleep?”
The girl puts on a brave face, but I stop listening even before she speaks. She’s planning to invent lots of words for “I don’t know.”
“I won’t sleep outside again,” I say, making the obvious clear for Bron. “We’re not in the wild anymore. I won’t pretend we are.”
“Of course.” That hint of barely concealed irritation burns hotter than before, I’m sure. He will be done with me, sooner than later. Everyone is, eventually.
“Well?”
“We continue on. Into less frequented parts of the city. We’ll find a place.”
I nod. It’s not a plan. It’s floundering. But I take it. It’s movement, and I need movement. I want to end this journey; but I leap at the chance to delay that end just a little longer.
Bron didn’t need my permission. I see that. He waited for it, but he had made up his mind. I think he would have tried to coerce me, if I had not agreed. The fool.
I trudge forward, following.
When did I fall behind and he take the lead?
* * *
It is nearly dark. In a city of millions, the streets are dim and almost in shadow. There is rough laughter somewhere, a few houses full of rowdy entertainment. Elsewhere, hush and suspicion and the faint scurry of rats. I see their eyes in the alleys.
I ache terribly. My hip throbs. I soak the pain in, let my temper simmer, let my thoughts turn dark with the world.
Nyasha walks alongside Bron, like an only daughter with her father, speaking quietly. Bron deserves her. He can lick and wag his tail for her now, instead of me, and it’ll make them both happy.
“I’m not sure,” I hear her say. She’s lost, but she always finds it convenient to spin her ignorance in her favor. “I can’t see any of the landmarks in the dark.”
“We need to settle in somewhere,” Bron says. The man hardly speaks, and when he does, it’s to offer such wonderful nuggets of wisdom.
“You can find a house in the middle of nowhere, but in the greatest city on earth, now that’s really hard!” I laugh. I don’t know why.
Bron looks at me for a long time. Then he turns to Nyasha. “You don’t know the way?”
“No,” she admits.
He continues to stare at her, and she looks away.
“Nyasha,” he says. “Look at me.”
She does. Of course, she does. She would follow the idiot to the moon.
And he seems to wait for something.
The decision is made without thought. I start walking. I will leave them. Suddenly, all I want to do is leave them and walk into the night. It’s where I belong, where I long to be.
“Calea, wait.”
I halt at his voice, raging. “Enough talking. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” he says again. He’s pleading. Does he think that works on me?
“You can catch up if you want.”
I push on, boiling. I wipe my hand across my eyes.
I hope I never see them again.
I listen to their voices, to see what they will say about me, whether they will say anything about me. Bron’s voice is low, and I only catch some of it. He wants Nyasha to say something. And Nyasha answers in that desperate little voice she uses that reminds anyone, if they could possibly forget, that she’s just a hurt little girl.
I’ll never need to hear that voice again. She had her use. So did Bron.
So did I.
Bron is suddenly at my side. He touches my arm. His fingers are warm. It is almost as if he brings me back to solid ground, as if I had been slowly descending into the earth until his hand brushed me.
“I know where to go. This way.”
I follow, Nyasha at my side.
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