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Now they were all in convulsions. Aussen looked brightly between them, but Kammi just patted her head and said, “Some other time, baby. Like, ten years from now. I’ll tell you then.” She repeated the promise in Zessin.
Once they had managed to control their mirth, Tokah turned to Jayla and said, “Enough of our stories! Tell us about you.”
“Oh yes,dotell us about you,” Cody said.
She ignored him and answered Tokah. “What do you want to know?”
“You’re wearing a soldier’s wristband. And I know you work as a guard somewhere in the city, but that’sallI know. How did you come to be a fighter?”
Jayla half didn’t want to answer and half did. Cody had been careful about trying to pry information from her, always respecting her silences and changes of subject, and she felt a little bad about that. It wasn’t that she had secrets, she just wasn’t used to sharing out bits of herself. But she did understand that real friendship was largely dependent on knowing some of those bits.
“I grew up in Oraki, near the Maratan border. Sometimes the Maratan folk we saw were friendly, and sometimes they weren’t. My father used to call it ‘trade or raid.’ You’d see a party of mainlanders coming toward you, and you wouldn’t know which way it was going to go.”
“What was your family like?”
“Just my parents and brother and me, though I had aunts and uncles and cousins nearby. Most everybody worked on nearby karka farms—planting in the spring, harvesting in the fall, and making charcoal from the shells over the winter. Whole caravans would travel to Marata to sell the harvest and buy goods to get us through the next season.” She took a sip from her water. “I was traveling with the caravan once, with my father and my uncle, when we were raided. Nobody was killed, but we lost everything we’d brought with us. My father said it was because none of the desert folk knew how to fight. So I decided right then I was going to learn.”
“I don’t even know how somebody sets out to do that,” Kammi commented.
“There was a guild house in one of the bigger towns a couple hundred miles away. My mother didn’t want me to go, but my cousin went with me. He dropped out after the first month, but I stayed. I liked it. There’s a different rhythm to the work than there is to farming. A whole different set of skills you need. And there’s freedom, because you’re not trapped on the same piece of land. Some people like the soldier’s life for the fellowship, but it’s a good life for a loner, too. I liked being strong. I liked knowing that I could take care of myself. I liked knowing I could take care of other people.”
“Did you go back to the village to protect your family?”
Jayla grinned. “No. The guildmaster recommended me for advanced training in southern Marata and I wanted to go. And once I earned my bracelet, I got job offers that took me to northern Marata and then Chibain. I went back for visits every year until my parents died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Tokah said. “Where’s your brother?”
“Married and still living in the village. We stay in touch but we’re not close.”
“So you don’t really have ties anywhere,” Kammi said.
“I like the freedom,” Jayla said. “If a job goes sour, I can move on. If I’m curious about seeing a new town, I can just go. So far I haven’t come across a place I’ve liked so much that I wanted to stay forever.”
“Not even Corcannon?” Tokah said, appearing shocked.
“I do like it,” Jayla admitted. “But I don’t know how long I’ll stay.”
“I don’t think I’d ever leave the city,” Kammi said.
“I’d like to see the mountains in Chibain,” Tokah said. “But I think Marata sounds boring.”
“It is,” said Jayla. “But you eat well there. Sometimes food is scarcer in Chibain.”
They asked more questions about where she’d traveled and what she’d seen. It didn’t escape her notice that Cody didn’t pose a single query, though he appeared to be listening intently to everything she said, storing up every word. She was pretty sure he was afraid she’d stop talking if he seemed too curious, and she was a little sorry she’d made him feel that way. On the other hand, she never would have volunteered any of this information to Tokah and Kammi unless she trusted Cody. She wasn’t sure how she’d be able to explain that to him.
So instead she turned to him and asked directly, “Did that answer all your questions?”
He rewarded her with a brilliant smile. “Enough of them, anyway,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll think of more later.”
“Just ask.”
His smile was even brighter. “Count on it.”
She thought he might wait a few weeks, but in fact he barely held off until the end of the day. As he sometimes did, he accompanied them back to Madeleine’s house, then encouraged Aussen to run inside while he talked to Jayla for a bit. So she had a moment to brace herself.
When he turned to face her, his expression was unwontedly serious. “What’s the rest of the story?” he asked.
“Why do think there’s more to it?”
