The Claimed: A Clash of Copper and Gold

Chapter 6: Return to Rakim

Ten Years and Six Months Later

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"How much longer?"

"Not long."

"How long is 'not long?'"

I pulled my focus from the dense green forest to glance at the small girl on the carriage bench beside me. Her eyes were the same gray as my father's, but they burned with a life long since extinguished in his. She twisted a lock of chestnut hair around her finger and bounced her knee. I wasn't sure she had ever sat for this long in her life.

I patted the space to my right. "Come closer and I'll show you."

She scooted over to nestle into my side.

"Now let me see your—" She raised her left hand, palm up. "Right. So here is the route we have taken." I traced my right index finger from the tip of her thumb down to the joint.

"Uh-huh." Impatience stained her voice, but her hand remained still.

With my left hand, I reached past her head to point out a series of dusty old roads threading through the hillside. "The Rakim tribe used to mine gold there. That's here." I pressed the pad of my finger just below the crease between her thumb and palm. "And we are headed toward the palace, which is here." I trailed my finger up a quarter inch.

She studied her own palm for a minute, thoughts dancing over her face. I prepared myself for a question about what happened to the gold mine or perhaps about the geography of the Rakim Lands.

Instead, she asked, "Why do people always talk about Najila using their left palms?"

"Legend says the Goddess Rashika formed Najila in the image of her hand."

"Does the legend say it was her left hand?"

I blinked. "No, I don't think so. But the Fooja Peninsula is in the west."

"I know, but look." She made her right hand into a partially-closed fist, palm down with her thumb open at the side. "This way, the knuckles can be the mountains in the north."

I smiled. "Huh. I guess you're right."

"Plus then you have your fist ready in case someone calls Father a Loser King."

My smile dropped. 

"Who called Father a Loser King?"

"One of my friends at school," she said. "Well, he used to be my friend before I knocked two of his teeth out."

"Finny..."

"Don't worry, I have plenty of other friends. And he has plenty of other teeth."

From beside the coachman in front of us, Stro snorted a laugh—quickly transformed into a stately cough.

I made my best effort at a stern face. "What did I tell you about fighting, Finny?"

"But you and Father fight people."

"That's different."

She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "Because I'm a girl?"

"No, because you are ten years old. I was twelve the last time I saw Rakim, and I didn't know anything about fighting then."

"I bet you wished you did, though."

I recalled my unsuccessful efforts to defeat Niako a lifetime ago. Try as I might, I had never been able to forget about his voice, his smirk, the way he had looked at me like some fascinating creature he could never quite understand.