by Kate Martin
Speaking of—“What do you like for breakfast?”
The marketplace was bustling even this early in the morning. It was Alec’s favorite time of day, and his favorite part of the city. The baker kept his door open, letting the scents of fresh bread and sweet treats waft into the streets, and young peddlers roamed the corners shouting their wares to all who passed. It reminded Alec of home, with the salt air on the breeze and the sounds of the ships pulling into the harbor just a few streets down. But home was thousands of miles north-west and two thousand years in the past.
Bri kept close as they moved through the crowds, but all the while he stared at the people with wide eyes and a smile. When Alec noticed him pause a moment and close his eyes, clearly smelling something wonderful, Alec stopped them both and sought out the source.
A few silver coins later and they were sitting on a stone wall by the dock, watching the ships move in and out of the southern sea as they both ate fruit pastries sprinkled with sugar.
“So what’s it like?” Alec asked, wiping his hand on his trousers and not caring that it left a mess behind.
“Hm?” Bri hummed behind a mouthful of food. “What’s what like?”
“The myst. Seeing it all the time? I don’t mean to pry but—well, hell, yes I do mean to pry, but it’s because I’d like to know how I can help more than just out of pure curiosity.”
Bri nodded and finished his pastry. Alec didn’t push, as it seemed the boy was gathering his thoughts.
“Well,” Bri said finally, brushing his hands together and doing his best to not sully the new clothes, “it depends a lot on where I am. Back in the market everything was warm and light, and everyone there seemed to have lovely futures ahead of them. One woman is going to have a baby. I like when I get to see things like that. But then here,” he gestured to the docks, “individual people aren’t so close, so I end up seeing more general futures. Like that ship there, for instance. It’s going to hit a storm the next time it goes out. A few men will go overboard.”
Alec glanced at the ship, it’s sails patched from past encounters, and the men milling about on the deck readying everything for launch. The sky was clear, not a cloud in sight. “And you just see these things? All the time?”
“Yes. I can’t keep it out really, and if someone touches me, then their future is all I’ll see. But if I’m just moving around, the myst will move around, too, and things will pass in and out. Sometimes it gets distracting and I lose track of where I am.”
“I’ll be sure to keep you close then.”
Bri’s cheeks reddened a bit. “I’d appreciate that. If it’s not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all.” Alec cuffed him gently on the shoulder. It had the desired effect and Bri smiled.
“I know Carma is making you take care of me.”
“That’s not untrue, but I confess I’d probably be doing it even if she didn’t make it my job. And I’ve had far worse jobs assigned to me.”
“What’s it like for you? Being soulless. Living for hundreds of years?”
“Thousands. Two thousand, to be precise.”
Bri’s eyes went wide.
Alec leaned back on his hands. “My mortal world was much different than this one. People worshipped in temples, and Cel-Eza was still around. My family kept an altar and prayed to him every day. It’s a good thing my father didn’t live to see him beheaded.” The lesser gods were always rising and falling out of favor with mortals, but Cel-Eza had been the only one to actually die and disappear.
“Is it hard to watch things change so much?”
“Only at first. Then you get used to it. Things change for mortals too, after all.” A gull swooped down where a fisherman was unloading his morning catch.
“Do you think I shouldn’t have done it?” Bri asked after a moment.
“Done what?” He knew what.
“Sold my soul.”
Alec sighed. Of course he thought so, but it wasn’t his life and he wasn’t a kid on the brink of death. He’d been a grown man, watching his loved ones die. “Who am I to judge? I did it too.”
A long silence passed between them.
“Maladoon is inland, isn’t it?” Bri asked. “We’re not taking a ship, are we?”
“We are not,” Alec said, hopping down off the wall and helping Bri do the same. “We’re going by horseback.”
The sun had barely started to set when Alec finally gave in to Bri’s begging and let him dismount.
Bri all but tumbled from the tall horse, catching his balance in impressive time, then clutched his knees while he squeezed his eyes shut and focused on breathing.
Alec dismounted and let the reins of his own horse spiral on the ground. The animals were trained well enough not to run off. “You all right there?”
“I don’t think I care for riding,” Bri said from his spot on the grass.
“You’re just not used to it.”
“I think my legs are broken.”
Alec had promised himself he wouldn’t laugh at the boy for any reason, so he swallowed that impulse when it rose. “I can assure you they are not.”
“Well, they feel like my knees turned to water.”
Probably not a good idea to tell him what his legs will feel like tomorrow. “Like I said, you’ll get used to it.”
Bri straightened up and walked circles for a few moments. “How much longer will it take to get to Maladoon?”
“Depending on how many times we stop, a few days.” He didn’t want to get specific and give Bri a reason to become despondent.
“Okay.” Bri drew in a deep breath, then nodded to himself. “I can do that.”
“Good. So get back in that saddle. There should be a town not too far along this road. We can stay at the inn and have a hot meal for supper.”
With that promise, Bri scrambled back up onto his horse faster than Alec had thought possible.
— CHAPTER TEN —
Dark clouds crept overhead, blotting out the sunlight and dimming the world to a darkness not common for midday. Alec leaned on the horn of his saddle, watching the sky, then the horizon. There seemed no reprieve close at hand. Another storm. There had been an unusual number of them for the summer months. A bad omen, depending on which end of the pantheon one chose to worship.
In his experience, summer storms so close together had never led to anything good. His patron god, Cel-Eza, had been killed by Inaseri during a summer storm. And then his head had been thrown into the northern sea—which now burned and boiled.
Two summer storms in a row was definitely not a good omen. “Do you ever pray to any of the gods, Bri?” Alec asked.
“My mother only ever prayed to The One,” Bri said, watching the sky as well. “She always said that while the lesser gods were to be respected, The One was always watching over us.” He let out a deep breath, and turned toward Alec. “I’ve heard you mutter a name a few times. Who is it you pray to?”
“Cel-Eza.”
“Isn’t he dead?”
“He is indeed.”
“Why do you pray to a dead god?”
“Old habits die hard, I guess. No one is listening to me anyways.”
The first raindrop hit Alec’s shoulder, soaking into the thin material of the shirt he had purchased to replace Carma’s idea of proper traveling attire.
Beside him, Bri shook his head suddenly, and wiped at his nose beneath the brim of his cap. “It’s raining,” he said.
“And only going to get worse, by the looks of it.”
“We have to be almost there, don’t we?” Bri’s hopeful expression was an improvement on the desperate, pleading look that had become the norm. Not one to complain, Bri hadn’t said anything after the first day of riding. His legs had hurt something awful then, and Alec hadn’t begrudged him the groaning he had done. But his dislike of riding, and his fatigue from so much travel had been written on his face.
“Yes. We passed the town not long ago, so we should see the ruins
against the horizon any moment now.”
He had already broken the news to Bri that they wouldn’t be going straight to the town. Though a bed and a warm meal sounded like bliss, they had to find Dorothea first. She didn’t always stay in one place long, and as it had taken them days to ride across the Talconay countryside, there wasn’t much guarantee she would still be where Carma had found her.
The ruins appeared, grey and shadowed, just as the sky began to drop a steady rain. He urged his horse forward, knowing Bri would follow. They reached the mouth of the stone structure, damp and eager for shelter. This is where Dorothea had been running off too prior to Carma’s return—a maze of stone, with no roof, and no quick way through. Dismounting, Alec waved Bri to his side. “We’ll have to lead the horses through with us. There’s shelter at the very center, and that may or may not be where we find Dorothea. You remember what I told you about her, don’t you?”
“I should pay close attention to everything she says, because she might not mean what she says.”
“She might not mean what it sounds like. She speaks in riddles, has for years. I’ve known her since she was a young woman, but she’s always been eccentric.” He chose his last word carefully.
“Is that a nice way of saying she’s crazy?” Bri smiled, and it was the most childlike Alec had ever seen him.
“I can’t tell most of the time. Sometimes it seems she sees things more clearly than any of us. But she’s a witch, and witches don’t see the world the way the rest of us do. They spend too much time in labrynths pulling power. The whole world is a maze to them. In any case, stay close.”
The path was wide enough for the two horses to walk side by side, so Alec took both sets of reins and directed Bri to walk beside him. With the first step within, he felt that power he had felt the last time he had walked this path. It peered at him, as though curious, but then dismissed him. Nothing had changed, he still wasn’t a proper conduit.
Bri wrapped his arms around himself. “What is that?” he asked, as they turned the first corner, watching his feet as he took each step along the green grass. “It hurts.”
“Hurts?” Alec wanted to stop, but he didn’t want to lose time. Carefully, he divided his attention between trying to navigate the maze and listening to Bri.
“There’s something here, isn’t there? It keeps poking at me,” Bri said, rubbing his arms.
“You feel the power here?”
“Don’t you?”
“Well, yes. But it doesn’t hurt me. I’m no good to it. But you shouldn’t be any good to it either. You’re not a witch.”
Bri rubbed at his arms. “It presses against me, like it’s trying to get in, but then it leaves.”
Maybe this is the difference between a human and a soulless. I have absolutely nothing to offer the power, but maybe a human has the potential. So many of them try and fail. And there is the little caveat that Bri can touch the myst…
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the power of any place as a mortal. As long as it leaves and doesn’t actually enter you, you should be fine.”
Bri nodded, accepting that, and wiped the rain from his eyes.
Alec turned them once again, so far proud of the fact that he hadn’t walked them into any dead ends. Unlike last time. He wondered how long it would take Dorothea to detect them, if she was even there at all.
A right at a giant slab of stone, then a left where a juvenile oak had begun to grow, and then another left where Alec found himself staring at a wall. A complicated labrynth had been carved into the stone, one that stretched from far above his head and straight down to the ground. He couldn’t be positive, but he didn’t think he had seen it the last time he had been there. Besides, the etched marks appeared new, unweathered or worn, and the ground carried a thin dust of what had once been the hard stone. Dorothea had been working.
At his side, Bri stared up at the carving. “Is that a labrynth?”
“Yes.”
Bri shuddered. “It feels cold.”
“Dorothea must be up to something.” He took Bri by the shoulder. “Come on.”
A handful of turns later, the rain picked up, soaking them both through, and they were no closer to finding the center of the ruin. Alec stopped them and nearly pulled his hair out trying to get his bearings. With the clouds, he couldn’t quite tell where the sun had gone, and wasn’t sure he still knew which way was north.
Damn Dorothea.
“I think we should go this way,” Bri said, peering around the farthest corner.
“Bri, don’t get too far. If we get separated it could take—”
Bri slipped around the corner out of sight.
Cursing, Alec pulled the horses with him, following Bri’s path. He turned the corner just in time to see the boy take another, then another. He called after him, begging him to stop and wait. The storm grew above them, thunder rumbling in the distance. Alec slipped and stumbled in the new mud, the horses slowing him down. Lightning cut the sky, illuminating Bri just as he disappeared around yet another corner. The horses reared, pulling their reins free of Alec’s hands, tossing their heads and stomping their feet. Unwilling to lose Bri, Alec left them behind.
He shouted for the boy he could no longer see. Thunder shook the ruins, closer than it should have been—the first had sounded so far off.
“Here!” Bri called back to him, perhaps only one turn ahead. “This way!”
Following his voice was Alec’s only option. Through rain and lightning he chased what he could hear of the boy’s footsteps and voice. The thunder grew louder, more frequent. It felt too similar to the last time he had been here with Dorothea during a storm.
Bri’s voice faded to nothing.
One more corner, then two, and Alec found him, pressed up against the wall of the ruin, clutching his chest, breathing as though each breath would be stolen from him. Amidst each labored breath, he wheezed.
Alec grabbed him by the shoulders. “What the hell were you thinking? You can’t run off in a place like this.”
Bri couldn’t answer. He simply lifted one arm, pointing.
Alec followed that gesture and stared at the next wall—at a labrynth with so many twists and turns it hurt his eyes to try to focus on it. And while time had done little to weather it, Alec could tell this labrynth was not new. Indeed, it was very, very old.
Lightning flashed, and that wall disappeared. When the blinding light dissipated, Dorothea stood before them, a gentle glow behind her. She took one look at the two of them and grabbed them both.
“Get inside. Now,” she said.
Dragged within by the old woman’s surprising strength, Alec felt the warmth of a fire and the sudden dryness of the air. His boots clacked softly on a wooden floor. As Dorothea released them to close the door to the outside, he saw they had stepped into a fully furnished living space.
“Are you mad, boy?” Dorothea turned on Alec, no door at her back—just a wall decorated with the same labrynth he had seen outside, as if there had never been a door at all. Her long grey and black hair was loose, falling around her shoulders in waves and strings of braids. What rain had touched her glittered against the dullness of her dress. The same dress he had last seen her in. “Did you not see the storm?”
“No, Dorothea, I missed it somehow. Of course I saw it. I’m drenched from it.”
“Then did you learn nothing from last time?” Shoving him out of her way, she moved past him, straight to Bri.
“It doesn’t feel natural. Is that what you mean?” Alec grabbed Bri, who was still shaking and breathing with some difficulty. He pulled the boy close with the intention of keeping Dorothea from poking at him.
The old witch poked anyway. Bri pressed his back up against Alec’s chest. Alec wrapped an arm around the front of his shoulders, a warning to Dorothea and a precaution to keep Bri on his feet.
Dorothea paid neither of them any mind and leaned in close. She was not much taller
than the young boy and so was able to put her face close to his with little effort. She sniffed the air around him, studied him—or so Alec assumed—then suddenly grabbed Bri by the face with both hands.
She stilled.
Alec tightened his arm around Bri, one bare finger pressed against his collarbone.
At that, Dorothea glanced at him, then back at Bri. Focus left her eyes and she dropped her hands. “Clever. Tricky, tricky girl.” With an eerie chuckle she backed away.
“Who? Who’s tricky, Dorothea?” Between Carma and Dorothea, Alec lamented his decision to sell his soul purely for the amount of frustration he now lived with.
“And you.” The old witch turned to Alec on her way to stir whatever she had cooking in the pot over the fire. “You touch him and drive everything away. A clever escape.”
“You know what he is?”
“Of course I know what he is. Don’t you?” She dropped herwooden spoon without tending to the pot, and pushed her way through piles of books to a shelf of bottles on the far wall.
“I know he can see into the myst. And I know when I touch him he sees nothing,” Alec admitted.
Bri had sagged a bit against him, relying heavily on Alec to keep him standing. His young heart fluttered violently beneath Alec’s arm, and his breathing hadn’t slowed at all. Alec kept contact with him, a finger along his collarbone. Whatever the problem was, the myst wouldn’t compound it.
Dorothea picked through the glass bottles on the shelf, clinking them together and nearly dropping more than a few, before finally settling on one. A crystal clear bottle, containing a bright blue substance. When she turned back to them, it seemed she saw only Bri.