Thirty-Three
Warren’s voice drifts through the open door when Solma arrives home. He’s frantic and for a moment, Solma can’t handle it. She stands outside, back pressed against the wood-and-mud walls, and crushes her eyes closed. She’s so tired. Sleep pulls at her mind like kite strings, beckoning her somewhere far away, a more forgiving place.
Warren had a toy kite once. She’d made it for him after she’d been accepted into the Guard. Scraped pigskin stretched across a couple of whittled sticks. It wasn’t like the colorful kites she’s heard about in other provinces. And it was heavy, needed powerful winds to keep it even vaguely airborne. But Warren loved it. He loved it, he said, because Solma had made it for him.
What had happened to that kite? Tangled in a tree, probably. Lost somewh
