Kensei Jon's Arc

Chapter 35 of 49

Kensei looked at the ruined bread and made a decision. "We don't wait," he said. "We walk. We find people before dark." He had coin in the pack, more than enough. But coin bought nothing out here. Only trees and mud and empty road. If they spent another night exposed and hungry, with the cold in Ha-ni's blanket, they might not come through it a second time. He tied Ha-ni against his chest. Jeon-min shouldered the pack and pointed north. They walked all day. The sun crossed and started down. Kensei watched the light drop behind the hills and counted the hours he had left. Ha-ni grew heavy and warm against him. Near dusk she woke and worked her mouth. "Ah-pa," she said. Then, slower, "Hungry." She said it plainly, the way she said everything, a thing she had just found out about her own body. "I know," Kensei said. His stomach hurt too. "Soon." He did not know if it was true. The road bent and he saw nothing but more road. "You're lying to her," Jeon-min said. He did not soften it. "Don't lie to her." "Then help me not lie," Kensei said. He walked faster. The hills opened. Smoke rose ahead, thin and gray against the fading sky. Then rooftops. A settlement, low houses along the road, lamps already lit in the windows. Kensei's legs nearly gave under him. "There," Jeon-min said. He gripped Kensei's arm. "Before dark. We made it." They came in as the last light went. A woman stood in a doorway, watching two strangers with a baby. Kensei's old fear rose, the fear of being seen. He pushed it down. He held up coin in his open hand. "We have money," he said. "We need food. A room. My daughter is hungry." The woman looked at the coin, then at Ha-ni's face against the red cloth. She stepped back and opened the door wider. "Come in out of the cold," she said. Inside there was a fire and a pot. Kensei paid her, and she filled bowls with hot barley. He fed Ha-ni first, small spoons, blowing on each one. She ate and stopped crying and grabbed his finger. "Warm," she said. "Full." She said it like a discovery. Jeon-min ate fast, then slowed and looked at Kensei across the bowl. "Tomorrow the border," he said. He set down his spoon. "One day. That's all that's left." Then he frowned at the coin still in Kensei's hand. "But the woman said something. The pass north is closed. Guards turn people back. No papers, no crossing." Kensei went cold. He carried papers for a life in the fifth city. He did not know if they meant anything at a border he had never crossed.