The Continent (The Continent #1)(41)

All this talk of death—so casual, so indifferent—makes my stomach turn. “Your dog,” I say, attempting to change the subject. “He is called Aki?”

“Yes,” Keiji says. “It means ‘loyal,’ in the old words.”

“I trust he’s a good companion?”

Keiji hooks an arm around Aki’s middle and nuzzles the dog’s neck. He receives a slobbery lick along the side of his cheek in return. “He might stink a little, but I keep him around.”

I try to muster a smile, though my muscles feel weighted down. “Keiji,” I say, “I appreciate your visiting, but I’m having rather a hard time. With all that’s…happened. Would you be terribly offended if I asked you to go?”

He smiles. “You like the glass?”

“It was very kind of you to think of it.”

“We’ll be back, you know. Me and Aki.”

“Please,” I say, “it’s probably best that I just focus on recuperating. There’s no need to—”

“We’ll be back,” he says, and winks at me. “See you, Vaela.”

Keiji, true to his word, and to my private consternation, arrives with Aki at roughly the same time the following day.

“Come outside, Vaela,” he says. “Winter is melting away—you need some sunshine.”

“No, thank you,” I say. “I’m really not inclined to—” Here, he crosses the room and swings the drapes open wide. I squint in the glare, my eyes unaccustomed to the light. “Could you close those please?”

“Can’t sit in the dark all day,” he says.

I am beyond irritated. I feel as though he is intruding on my grief, stepping over it as though it does not exist. I climb out of the bed and pull the curtains closed, then turn on my heel. “Keiji, I would prefer to spend my time here alone. I don’t wish to hurt your feelings, but I must ask you to leave.”

He sits in the wooden chair, unfazed. “Talk to me for just a minute, Vaela. Then, if you want me to go, I will.”

I stare at him for a moment, fuming, but sit stiffly at the foot of the bed. “What is it?”

“I lost my parents, too. And three brothers.”

I turn my head and close my eyes. “I can’t talk about this.”

“You don’t have to talk,” he says. “Just listen. You’re not alone. It will get better.”

“It will never get better.”

“It will.”

My shoulders tremble. Who is he—who is anyone—to speak of my suffering? Who can know the particulars of my grief, the searing agony of it? I glare at him, my eyes like daggers. But then…I see his pain. So small he is, bright like a flame, and yet his hurt mirrors my own. And I realize that I have stupidly ignored the fact that Keiji, too, has lost his family. At ten years old, he has been through far worse than I. He has never known peace, only danger, and loss.

He understands. As much as anyone ever could.

I chew on the inside of my lip. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He holds out his hands. “Me either.”

“You will talk, and I will listen.”

“I will come every day to see you,” he says.

I sigh. “You will stay only briefly?”

“An hour at most.”

“All right, then,” I say. “If you must.”

I must be, at best, a dismal and taciturn companion, but Keiji does not seem to mind. He comes day after day, never staying too long, never at a loss for words. He talks and talks and talks, while Aki lies at his feet, furry eyebrows arching up and down from left to right—listening. The dog listens to him. And so do I.

He speaks at length of his desire to become an itzatsune like his brother, describing for me the arduous training that is required. He tells me of the Annic Days, a period of some fifty years—long ago—in which the Topi and Aven’ei each withdrew from conflict, only to resume when a freakish drought in the south pushed the Aven’ei into Topi territory. He complains about his schoolwork, he tells me of adventuring with friends into the Southern Vale, he brings me new bits of glass for my “collection.” And I, in my black sorrow, unable to tolerate even a sunbeam from the window, see a light within Keiji, and can abide it. My father had the very same light: an effortless brilliance that could draw others to his side, dampen an argument between friends, and calm those who were beyond reason. Keiji and my father, they would have been kindred spirits.

Weeks pass, and though Keiji and Aki visit every afternoon, Noro—to my surprise and disappointment—does not come at all. I feel this keenly at first—another hurt added to the injuries of my heart. I cannot think why he would stay away, having acted such a friend in the days before my convalescence. I ask Keiji about it, but he skirts the subject, saying only that Noro has been repeatedly deployed to the mountains. I accept this, but as I delve further into my own dark imaginings, I remember Noro’s comforting presence on the journey to Hayato and I wonder: why does he not come when he is home?

In the beginning, in those first long days, I thought I would never wish to leave the healing room. I was certain that I would be content to spend the rest of my days curled up with my heartache, blanketed in my memories. But as the weeks slipped by, I realized that I could not, as Keiji had noted early on, spend all my time in the dark. Not forever. Even the most terrible agony must be diminished by time, and today—my forty-second day at Eno’s—today, the grip of my grief was finally lessened.