Chapter One: Departing From The Den
“You know what I’m going to say,” his mother said, correctly so. Nilhin nodded and pressed his forehead against her hands. “Your father… he will take care of you.”
“I don’t want my father,” Nilhin insisted, “I just want you. I need you to get better, but… but I can’t afford a doctor on my own.”
“Take the money in my jewelry box and go to your father.”
“I could use it to pay for a doctor. You could live,” Nilhin said. His mother frowned at him, and he looked away, unable to process any of her disappointment in him.
“Your father is a wealthy and powerful man,” she said. “You should go to him. He will pay for a doctor if you ask him. I know he’ll love you, cherish you just as much as I do. How could he not?” She reached out to cup his hollow cheeks and brushed her thumb over his sunken under eye. Recently, ever since his mother got sick actually, no matter what Nilhin could get his hands on, he was starving and oh so tired. Just walking felt like a physical burden. Ever since his mother got sick, nothing had been good or right.
Nilhin had listened to his mother tell him so many stories about his father, and Nilhin should be excited to see the man who stared in such romantic fantasies, but Nilhin was too afraid to lose the only person he had ever truly loved in his life to care about some strange man. His mother saw dozens of strange men on good nights, and they all swore they loved her and would stash her away for forever, but they never meant it. How could Nilhin’s father be any different, besides the fact he was the only man she had let give her a baby.
With a sudden jerk of her body, Nilbi sat up and held her embroidered handkerchief to her mouth. Nilhin reached up to rub her back, his lower lip quivering as he saw her struggle to breathe. She pulled the handkerchief away, and tried to twist the bloodied fabric away from Nilhin’s eyes, but he saw it, and he reached up to wipe the blood staining her lips as well.
“Mother, please,” he begged. “Let me get you a doctor.”
“No,” she said. “Go to your father. Please, Nilhin. You don’t realise how important it is that you find a clan and you stay with them. You need to go and you find your father, and you stay there. That’s the only way you’ll be healthy and safe.”
“I’m scared,” Nilhin said. “Please, I’m scared. I can’t lose you, you’re all that I’ve ever had. All that I’ve ever known, and you want me to leave you when you finally need me so I can find some stranger--?”
“He’s not a stranger, Nilhin. He helped me make you, and for that alone, he’s given me everything I could have ever wanted and more, but I know what he said was true. I know he’ll take good care of you. Has your mother ever lied to you before?” she asked. Nilhin shook his head. “And I’m not about to start lying to my good child, will I? Go to my jewelry box and bring it here.”
Nilhin stood up and picked up her jewelry box. He brought it back to the bed, and she pulled the blankets aside for him to sit down. She pushed herself up against the wall so she could sit up, and she flipped the lid of the ornate wooden box open. She pulled out one of the necklaces her patrons had given her, a beautiful thing made with bright red beads that glistened like fresh blood. She put it over Nilhin’s head before she went back into the rest of the box. She adorned Nilhin with a dozen necklaces, and hooked golden earrings into his ears.
“Mother?”
“You can sell them if you need money. Capvita is quite far from where we rest near the border of Aurumte. He lives there, in Capvita, among the Luc Clan, the most poetic clan in Aishold,” Nilbi said. She stroked Nilhin’s cheekbones and down his neck where her necklaces rested. “I’ve educated you in reading and writing, math and music so that you can fit in among the nobles that live there. You’re smarter than all of them, I know it, and both your poetry and your music is beautiful. Your math skills surpassed mine years ago. There’s nothing you won’t be able to do once they accept you among their ranks.”
“I don’t want to be one of them, I just want… I just want you to be happy, to live. I’d give anything -- my own life -- to make that happen,” Nilhin said. He pushed forward so he could press his face against his mother’s chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and held onto her gown. “Please, I don’t want to leave you.”
“You must,” she said. “This isn’t a debate, nor a bet. You will find your father, Luc Gallus, and he will raise you. I’ve raised you for half of your life, and you’ve grown into a fine young man. Now it’s his turn, and I know he will help you excel in this world. You’ll need his protection as you grow older, and the power of his clan.”
“Why?”
“I wish I could tell you, but it’s better if you don’t know,” she said. She ran his fingers through the back of his hair, her talon-like nails, always painted a luscious red colour for as long as Nilhin had known her, brushed against his scalp. “It’s safer if you don’t know. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be safe, for you to grow up and know how precious and loved you are.”
“Please don’t talk like this will be the last conversation we have,” Nilhin said. “If I have to go, I’ll beg father to pay for a doctor. I’ll come back and you’ll be healed. I promise. Then maybe… maybe it’ll be like your stories, and you can come with us and live in his golden palace. I know that’s what you’ve always wanted.”
“Oh, my silly boy,” she said. “I wanted to live in his golden palace, in Capvita, but only so that you could know a life away from this brothel. I’ve failed you in that, and I hope you’ll forgive me--”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I’ve never wanted a golden palace, not when I have you.”
“Here,” Nilbi said, adjusting Nilhin to rest on her shoulder while she pulled the top off the jewelry box to reveal a pile of silver pieces at the bottom. She pulled them all out in a single handful and held her fist out. Nilhin held his hand out as well, palm up, and his mother dropped the silver into his hand. “This should get you half the way before you have to start selling the necklaces.”
“I’ll be back,” Nilhin said, crawling off the bed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, with a doctor, too. A doctor can fix you, make you better, and then I won’t have to lose you.”
“I’ll await your return then,” she said, her smile faltering. Nilhin wanted so desperately to believe her, but he knew the weariness in her eyes, and he knew by the way she spoke, her sibilant tone, more appeasing than ever before, that she didn’t think she’d last that long. Nilhin wouldn’t let that be the case. He’d race there. He’d do anything he needed to get there as soon as he could, to make sure that his mother was healed. He wouldn’t let this be the last time he spoke with her.
“I’ll keep the madam off your tail,” his mother said, “You know how much she wishes to acquire you. Don’t let that happen. I don’t want you to end up like me. You’re meant for far better.”
“I’ll get you out of here,” Nilhin promised. “You’ll be healed, and we’ll live in Capvita, and you’ll have everything you ever wanted, please, just hold on until I return.”
“I love you, Nilhin,” she said. Nilhin reached up and wiped his tears away with unknown ferocity.
“I love you too, mother,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe, just like you have me.” Nilhin kissed his mother’s forehead. He headed to the door and looked back at his mother. She smiled at him and waved him off. He walked briskly through the halls and down the many steps until he ended up on the steps outside the brothel.
Aunty Ogi and Aunty Dasan were outside, sitting on the steps, fanning themselves as they smoked from their long pipes.
“You look like you’re in a hurry, Little Hin,” Aunty Ogi said. Aunty Dasan tugged on the pants that reached his ankle and he let himself be pulled down.
“I really need to leave,” he explained, “But I’ll be back. It’s very important, aunties.”
“It’s really important, is it?” Aunty Ogi asked. “Why don’t you tell us about it.”
“Mother is sending me out on a… an errand,” Nilhin said. “So I really must be going.”
“I hope you aren’t leaving us,” Aunty Dasan said. “Everyone knows Nilbi is done for, but we’ve all also known that you were going to take her place. Look at you, Little Hin--” Aunty Dasan pinched his thighs, and Aunty Ogi grabbed his flat chest, pinching at his nipples below his shirt. Nilhin knew better than to push their hands away. They might just smack him for it-- “You’re going to be so famous. You might even attract a prince or two to have a night or three in your company. And you should always remember us, the aunties that taught you everything that you’d need to know to please your patrons the best.”
“Aunties, I really need to go,” Nilhin tried.
“Well if you’re sure you’ll be back. In a few months, you’ll be able to start pleasing customers. I bet the madam can fetch quite a high price for your virginity. You haven’t been penetrated before, have you?” Aunty Ogi asked, and Nilhin pulled out of her grasp.
“Uh, n-no, Aunty Ogi. I’ve never even… I’ve never done anything like that. I’ll leave first, please take care of mother while I’m away,” Nilhin said, walking down the steps and then hopping onto the dirt ground. He waved at them, and they waved him off as well. He headed down the streets, clutching his silver to his chest as he figured the best way to use his resources. It would be best if he were to walk or ride a wagon. He did need a map to get through Aurumte, but he may be able to navigate if he asked helpful looking people too.
The city of Atah was behind him once the sun had finally sunken below the horizon, and Nilhin was in the unfamiliar countryside. He continued to walk, prepared to walk all night, but he started to shiver. He had nothing to cover up with or shield himself from the elements should the weather take a turn for the worst. It was summer, but the night was often cold and damp. He had been so focused on getting out of Ya Brothel so that he could return as quickly as possible that he hadn’t considered so much. So much for Nilhin being a smart and resourceful boy. He had already made mistakes that could cost his mother’s life.
There was a small cottage not far from where he was walking, and he navigated around the ponds growing lotus roots and the fields behind it that were flooded and full of sprouting rice shoots. Nilhin knocked on the front door, looking around the destroyed area, filled with broken wooden tools and rusted metal instruments. The doors opened and a haggard looking man answered, a farmer who had been tanned heavily by the sun, and wrinkled by it, too.
“Pardon my intrusion, but I’m on my way to Aurumte. Could this one bother you by asking to sleep on your porch for the night?” Nilhin asked with a smile. Smiling often got him what he wanted more often than when he frowned or expressed some other emotion. “I’ll be gone by morning. You won’t even have to see me.”
“There’s a straw mattress out back you can use,” the man said. “You’re awfully young to be travelin’ alone.”
“My mother sent me out. I assure you that I can handle travelling, uncle, but this one thanks you for your concern. A straw mattress sounds exquisite.”
The man just sort of grunted at him, and led him through his cozy but small cabin and out to the back porch. It wrapped around to the front, so it would be easy to leave. There was a thatch roof above the back porch, unlike the front, and the man motioned to the mattress that was raised off the ground on bamboo legs. Nilhin tucked the silver pieces into his trouser pocket and then he sat on the bed.
“Thank you, uncle.”
The man just scowled at him before heading back inside for the night. Nilhin pulled his legs up onto the mattress and used his hands to pillow his head. He nearly jumped, when the man came back out through the back door and draped a rough woolen blanket over Nilhin’s shoulders.
“Thank you,” Nilhin repeated. The man just made a dismissive sound before the door shut behind him again. Nilhin had never slept without his mother nearby. He slept in her closet at the brothel, so as to not disturb her business during the night, but she was always so close. Close enough that he could get to her whenever he needed her or wanted her. She was several chas away now.
Nilhin had known that he would need to grow up, and that he couldn’t stay with his mother forever, but he felt like he was still too young. He didn’t want to have to depart from her so soon. He didn’t want to be alone or without her, no matter if other fourteen year olds were able to live on their own on the street. He could see them, scrapping around, fighting with dogs and digging through trash bins until they were shooed away, but Nilhin wasn’t raised for a life like that. He couldn’t handle such things, he was sure.
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