The Nameless Accounts: Kin (2)
There were eight of us living in my home: myself, my five brothers, and my parents. Yes, seven family members, an unusual number for an akor’mar: so plenty of people have informed me, as if I didn’t know it already. Most akor’mar couples are lucky, after all, if one of the spouses doesn’t “disappear” before their first decade is out. It is also the norm for akor’mar children to slay each other during the constant rivalries and plays for power between siblings of like ages. We have never been the most loving of sorts, and the higher ranks can get away with multiple divorces and unions, replacing old heirs with new as the whim takes them or a favored offspring gets themselves offed.
As rats among the beggars, my family was different. Our strength was not in our bloodlines, but in our numbers. If it was sheer practicality or something deeper that kept my parents together, I couldn’t say. My memories of them are faint, as they were often out on business of their own, sometimes leagues away from the city. In many ways, my brothers were more parents to me than my real parents were.
There was Drenix the disciplinarian, the strongest and most dominant of us all, though he was only second-born. Solae the worry-wart, Drenix’s eternal side-kick and his twin, though the name does not mean the same thing to akor’mari as it does to humans; multiple children per conception is our way, though they do not come out as identical. Then there was Vornyrr, who was fully grown before I ever drew breath, and often away with Father, as was his right as the eldest, sole survivor of his first crop. If he had a twin or triplet siblings, he never said. And finally there was Neddryn, the last, the runt, but the most filled with spirit and cunning. My twin. You may have heard his name before, though he does not come into this story. I long ago bid him our last farewell.
Those were the four brothers I knew the best. There was also a fifth, born four out of six. We don’t speak his name…
If we survived our siblings, it wasn't the last danger a young akor’mar ever faced. Like cities anywhere in Talmenor, the main danger in Vuzsdin came from other citizens rather than wild beasts. Many of the upper classes considered us low-born a blight and wanted us eradicated. It was never widely known to anyone outside the Den I think, but they would hunt us, round us up like Little Folk cattle and drive us into another part of the city. No one knew what happened there; those that were taken never came back.
Rumors abounded, of course. Some spoke of torture, others of a quick, clean culling. The more cynical talked about slavery to the twisted desires of the high priests, of magical experiments created for the pleasures of their demonic minions.
For my family's part, we never forgot those we lost. After the fourth-born was taken, we still celebrated his birth, set his place at the table, kept his bed aired out and clean. We acted as if he were only out on a very long trip, and someday would come home to see us, with a bow for Father and a kiss for Mother, and food for the rest of us.
We knew he was dead. We were not delusional. But we couldn’t think of it in that way through the high parts of the cycles, with the press of danger surrounding us already. The number of people you could trust was small enough without dwelling on those lost.
