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“Tao.”

I must be dead. That’s the only reason I can find for the fact that I cannot feel anything.

“Tao. Tao, wake up. Please.”

I must be blind, too, because I can’t see anything but darkness.

“For the Capital’s sake, are you going to wake up and listen to me?”

I cough. Water gushes out of my stomach like bile. I sit up and clutch my stomach as I vomit the liquid from my lungs. When my lungs are filled with air, I notice Nari, who is sitting beside me with heavy eyes and bloody hands.

“You’re alive.” Her disbelieving gasp reminds me that I had been injured upon escaping the base. I reach behind me to feel the knife’s hilt, but Nari stops me.

“You were unconscious when I found you. You colored that river with blood, it was awful. I pulled the knife out and wrapped the wound.”

“You pulled it out.”

“It was horrendous, and I never want to do it again.” She hides her shaking hands in her lap. “At least you’re alive.”

“You saved me.”

Nari shakes her head. “Only because I needed you. I don’t know where to go from here. I wouldn’t know what to do if you died. I needed you.”

I lean back, but my backside burns. I feign peace and force myself to lie down. As I look up at the stars, I realize the color of the sky is not very different from the back of my eyelids. The world is a mass of black and blue, with gems of light here and there. I am a helpless child with stars for toys and dirt for refuge.

“Why did you save me, Tao?” I close my eyes and listen to Nari as she adjusts herself beside me. The direction of her voice changes. She must be lying down, as well. “Why did you decide that I needed to come with you?”

I try to turn my body so that I can face her, but my wound pulses with a life of its own, so I stop moving and lie very, very still. “If you wanted me to leave you there, you could have told me. Before I was knifed in the back.”

She sighs. “I don’t even know why I came with you. I should hate you. You lied to me. You weren’t a bodyguard, and you never were. You’re a Night dressed like a bodyguard. You’re a traitor. But I can’t believe it, somehow. Even though I’m angry. I can’t believe that’s all there is to you.” She’s silent, and then she speaks again. “What else are you hiding?”

I have only ever lived as two people. Zee, a runt of a boy who was forced to carry out a false mission in Shin and failed because, despite his improvement as a warrior, he depreciated as a human. And Tao, a Night sent to be Nari’s bodyguard who purposefully failed to protect her because he was more concerned about protecting himself.

Which is worse of the two is something I cannot figure. Which deserves to die, I do not know, either.

“I’m a traitor to both sides,” I tell her. “I’m no Night. I’m no bodyguard. I’m a fugitive. And I’m going to make up for the things I did wrong.” I look at her, but it’s dark, and her face is cradled in shadows. “Starting with you.”

But the wound in my back will slow us down. I know I lost a lot of blood in the river. If we stay here a couple of days to allow my body to recuperate, we give the Nights an advantage to find us. I will not tell Nari how delicate my body has become. I will return her to the Capital, even if I have to die as I do it.

I will guarantee her safety. Then, I will disappear forever.

-----

It’s still dark when I awake. I tentatively sit up, closing my eyes whenever the pain threatens to draw me back into unconsciousness. Squinting, I reach my hand out and hope that it will come in contact with Nari’s shoulder.

“Nari. We have to go.” She groans, but does not open her eyes. I shake her. “Nari. If we don’t move now, they’ll find us.”

“You’re hurt,” she mumbles.

“I’m not. Let’s go.” I stand up. Tiny black spiders create a black web in the corners of my vision. After I blink my eyes, they disappear with the night. Dawn is rising. “We need to move.”

Sluggishly, she stands. “You’ve bled through,” she says and touches my back. “Let me change it.”

“We’ll change it later. We need to get out of here.” Looking around me, we aren’t far from the base. We are at high risk of being caught if we do not head for the Capital immediately. I step forward and brace myself for the discomfort I know I will feel in my back.

As we travel, the sun greets us along the way. I wish to shield my eyes from the heaven’s glare, but simply moving my arm is unbearable, so I do not talk and I do not move beyond the repetitive stride in my legs. Nari is behind me. I can see, whenever I look back, that she is watching me. I can feel the blood spread across my back as a warm, sticky mass. I want to wash and change, but that is not my priority. My priority is to return her to where she belongs.

“We’re going to the Capital, aren’t we?” She asks. I do not answer. She snaps a twig off of a nearby branch. I hear it rustle the ground as she drags it along with her. “You’re bringing me back like I thought you would. Why?”

Again, I do not answer. I breathe in and stretch my shoulders back. I would scream if she weren’t here. Needing an outlet for my frustration, I clutch a fist over my heart and stretch the cloth between my fingers.

“Tao. I know you’re hurt. We can stop if we need to. I think we walked quite a ways already.”

“The Nights won’t be walking when they look for us. They’ll be running.” I have a headache, and I am hungry. My collarbones are rimmed with sweat. My mouth is dry.

“You don’t look well.”

“Of course I don’t look well!” I shout. Startled, she drops the twig. “A knife was thrown in my back while I made sure you escaped safely. It doesn’t matter how often you ask about my state of well being. It won’t change the Night’s course, it won’t heal the wound, and it won’t make the situation any better. Do you understand?”

Unintentionally, I made her into a channel for my anger. I give her an apology. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No. It’s all right. I know you aren’t feeling … yourself. Let’s keep going, then – “

I sink against a wide tree and helplessly clutch at its boughs. Nari checks the temperature of my forehead with her hand. Despite what I have done to her, she has so much sympathy. She has so much grace. I can never deserve this woman.

“You have a fever. We need to check your wound and treat it before it becomes worse.”

“How would you know,” I wheeze, “how to do that?”

“I told you,” she smiles. “I wasn’t always the Capital’s daughter.”

With her arms around me, she undoes the strings and pulls my shirt off of me. She turns me around so that she can unwrap the binding around my back. I can hear a grunt of dismay when she sees the festering wound. “How far are we from the Capital?”

“Days.”

“If we find people who are on their way there, with a more convenient transportation, perhaps we should join them.”

“Everyone is looking for me, Nari. I don’t think any citizen would be willing to help a girl with ragged clothes and a boy with an injury.”

“Then I have to treat this. Now.”

“We need to keep walking,” I cough. She forces me to sit on the ground.

“I’m going to find herbs around here that I could use to treat your wound. Although I have to admit,” she says nervously, “I haven’t done this in a while, so forgive me if it’s painful.” Looking for medicine, she runs off into the woods. I keep my eyes closed and focus on the grain of the tree’s bark as it pokes into the back of my head.

I hear a distant snap and open my eyes. I look around me and confirm that I am completely alone. I don’t know if Nari will return. Perhaps she left me here to die, and travelled to the Capital on her own.

My eye catches a red blotch on my chest. I look down and notice that I have a rather large gash where my tattoo once was. I don’t remember how this was inflicted on me, although the rocks by the river might have something to do with it.

I’ve been marked again. It’s so nostalgically absurd, I want to laugh.

“Tao!”

Nari runs toward me with a bouquet of herbs in her hands. Although her face expresses panic, it calms me. As she runs toward me, I realize that I really do love her. I loved Ada, who stole apples when no one was looking and sought to be more than an ordinary girl. I loved the Capital’s daughter, who was as refined as the jewels on her neck and as dignified as her new father. And I love Nari, a woman who dashes toward me with matted hair, grimy clothes, and rough fingers that hold the hope of my future.

I find that I was never a ‘runt’ because I was untalented, or small, or discarded. I was a runt because I did not have the courage to grow up. I did not know that who I was did not need to equal who I could be.

I could be noble.

“Here,” she pants, “I found some – “ She stops. Her eyes are on the gash on my chest.

“Don’t worry about this,” I say. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m not lying this time, it really doesn’t hurt.”

She falls to her knees in front of me, the herbs scattering around us like petals. She stares at the red mark. First, I feel vulnerable in my ness, but when I see the expression in her eyes, I grow in fear.

“I saw a cut like this once,” she whispers. “A long time ago.” I watch her memories return to her like a giant wave. Her mind, like a shore, is engulfed with recollection. As the glaze in her eyes recede, a mixture of horror and happiness replaces it. “He lived in Shin. Dark hair, like you. Tan skin, like you. And a cut just like this, in this exact place.” She touches my chest. Her hands are cold. “You’re him. Aren’t you?” She avoids catching my eyes. She draws a symbol around the gash with her trembling finger. She doesn’t know what to do. “It makes sense if you are. All of it makes sense.” Her hand rests against my heart. “You’re the one who abandoned me.”

Eventually, she looks at me. Without looking away, I answer, “Yes. That was me. My name is Zee.” I lower my head and confess, “Zitao.”