by Kyle West
After I was grounded for the third time, I stayed there and closed my eyes, my chest heaving from exertion.
“Come on,” Aela said. “Again.”
I stayed on the ground. “How do you move so fast?”
She reached out a hand, and I paused a moment before taking it.
“It’s not that I’m moving faster,” Aela said. “I just know what I’m doing. I can read your form like a book. I know where you’ll be weak in two seconds, just because I’ve done this so many times before. You can’t be afraid of looking foolish. Just take that as a given, and the rest will come easier. You’ll soon learn that failure is nothing to be afraid of, but something to be welcomed. Failure is the greatest teacher.”
I nodded, letting her know I understood the lesson. Though Aela was only a couple of years older than me, at nineteen, it seemed as if she was ten years wiser.
“Listen,” she said. “You are doing better. You remember our first day?”
“I’m surprised I do,” I said. “You’d think somewhere in all that clobbering I might have lost a bit of my memory.”
“That’s why we’re sticking to Treeform. It’s boring, yes, but I remember when I was like you, wanting to master everything. But the person who tries to master everything masters nothing.”
“Treeform it is, then.”
The first bell tolled once, signaling that breakfast would soon start. I looked at the Sanctum, its gray stone brighter than before. The sunlight was catching the highest branches of the Great Silverwoods, and the sky was brightening from gray to blue.
“Let’s clean up,” Aela said. “And same time tomorrow. We don’t have to do this anymore if you don’t want. You’re probably good enough to make it to the initiates’ finals, even if we stopped now. Give me two more weeks, though, and I can guarantee you the initiate’s crown. You have talent; that much is clear.”
I thought of my parents back in Colonia — how they could be in danger. I was useless here, and I’d be useless if I didn’t learn how to fight the best I could in the limited time I had. It was crazy to think I could become a blade master in just a few short weeks. I didn’t expect that. Then again, there was the secret that only I and a few other people knew.
I was Anna. Everything I had learned about my identity two months ago was still incredible to me, but if it was all true, maybe I had some sort of advantage. After all, it was Anna who founded the Seekers. She had developed the very sword forms the Seekers used to this day. I didn’t have that knowledge, but perhaps if I kept practicing, it would trigger Anna’s memories. I was having dreams, after all, so who was to say my memories of how to fight wouldn’t come back?
I didn’t know whether it would work, or whether it would be dangerous. It was worth a try, though, and Aela had told me herself that I was progressing quickly.
At the same time, I still didn’t want to admit any of it was true. My dream last night had been the first real evidence that what I had learned at the reversion was true. I wished life could go on as normal — at least for what counted as normal — but I knew it was too late for that.
“Shanti?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I still want to learn.”
“Good,” Aela said. “Because I really appreciate you mucking the gutters for me.”
My nose wrinkled at that. Aela had been given a particularly unsavory task for her work assignment this week, and I had agreed to take three hours a week off her time. In exchange, Aela had given me an hour of her time every morning. It was generous of her, but I still think she got more out of the deal.
We both went inside to head to breakfast.
CHAPTER THREE
I ATE BREAKFAST WITH ISA, Aela, and Deanna. They were who I usually sat with these days, mostly because Isaru kept himself distant and Ret and Samal usually did a good job of annoying me. Isaru often stayed up so late in the library that he arrived at breakfast red-eyed and not in the mood for conversation. Any time I brought up how he was pushing himself too hard, he brushed me off. He spent almost every spare hour he could in the library, researching who knew what. After a few weeks of this behavior, I gave up even trying to bring him back to reality.
“How goes the training?” Deanna asked.
“Good, I suppose,” I said.
“Maybe we can practice sometime,” Isa said. “You’re probably at my level now.”
It was hard to imagine Isa, who was smaller than me, being at my level. But she had been here six months longer than me, so I supposed she probably was.
“That’s a good idea,” Aela said. “You can join us tomorrow, if you want.”
“I don’t know,” Isa said. “That is quite early. Seeker Marlene has me writing these horrible papers. I’ve been studying in the library almost every night for the past two weeks.” I could see the exhaustion written on her face. “It’s probably too late for me to make a decent showing at the tournament, but I am going to enroll for the archery.”
“I wonder if Isaru is entering,” I said.
“I haven’t seen him practicing,” Deanna said. “Nor have I seen his name on the registers. So far, only six initiates have signed up and there’s only space for eight.”
“You’ll have your work cut out for you,” Aela said. “There’s Nabea, who’s had the benefit of training before even coming here. Isaru would have the same advantage if he enters. Samal looks good as well — there’s a good chance that he’ll make the finals. Then...there’s Alaric.”
I looked at the table near to me, where the red-haired Alaric, both well-muscled and long-limbed, laughed boisterously at something Samal had just said. Both Ret and Samal had become fast friends with him, and they spent almost all their free time practicing in the Grove.
“Alaric will take it,” Deanna said. “He might even be good enough to compete with the apprentices.”
“Where’s he from, anyway?” I asked.
“He’s from the Kingdom of Mongar, in the Eastern Range. Only a few hundred miles from here, actually. It’s still part of the Wild, but many of its people are non-Elekai.”
“Mongar,” I said, remembering what Augur Grenwold had taught me. “It’s the crossroads between the Red Wild and the Eastern Kingdoms.”
Deanna nodded. “It’s a small kingdom. A city-state, really. A lot of the Eastern Kingdoms are that way. There are about a dozen that are larger, but there are hundreds that are small and vassaled to a more powerful kingdom. Mongar is different, though, because a great deal of wealth passes through it. They are a martial people, and field a large army that allows them to control a lot of the kingdoms surrounding it.”
“The Mongarians built the Sanctum, too,” Isa said. “They have skilled stonemasons.”
I watched Alaric quietly, wondering how on earth Aela believed I could best him. I remembered what she had told me about Treeform. So long as my defenses weren’t broken, I could wear down a larger and stronger opponent. Looking at Alaric, though, I didn’t see how it was possible.
It was then that the bell tolled twice, its reverberations sounding through the open front doors. Everyone rose from their seats to bus their dishes. I made my way to the Seekers’ Dome, dreading Judge Kais’s extended monologues. He had moved from the formation of law in Old Colonia, and was now talking about the formation of law among the Annajen and the Makai during the Third Century. I dreaded studying for his tests most of all, but thankfully, Isaru was usually there to assist me. As an Annajen and the king’s son — in fact, his very surname was Annajen — he already knew quite a bit about Haven law, even in regard to the city’s history.
Isaru joined me quietly as we made our way down the corridor. We entered the Seekers’ Dome. Its grandeur no longer held me in awe and had become a part of the landscape. Sunlight spilled in through the upper windows, lighting the mural of the Final Battle of the Ragnarok War, illuminating the paintings ringing the wall on the second-floor balcony. A group of initiates had already gathered at the bottom, where the portly Judge Kais was w
aiting.
Shortly after our arrival, he looked up from his dais and began giving his lesson. I took care to remember everything he said. Initiates more advanced in their studies took copious notes on paper with charcoal pencils. Even if I had come a long way in two months, I still struggled to write as quickly as them. I could trust Isaru to record anything I missed.
It would be months yet before I was proficient, though. Most Elekai children learn to read and write in Espan, but I had gotten nothing more than the basics — lessons from my mother when I was young, and even so, I hadn’t gotten a lot of practice. I’d probably learned more about writing and language in the past two months than in all the previous years of my life.
In time, the lesson came to an end, and Isaru and I began our journey to the Grove outside. Rather than teaching us inside, Sage Alan had tasked us with collecting samples of xen and categorizing its different varieties. On the surface, it appeared all xen was the same, but careful examination and dissection of its surface revealed different patterns. Depending on the type of xen, it could be turned into different kinds of medicine, or even into foods that could only be made from xen. Sage Alan wanted his pupils to learn hands-on when possible, and usually, Isaru and I worked together.
We kept quiet, scanning the forest floor and bypassing most of the xen we found. We had already gathered these types, and Sage Alan wouldn’t be impressed unless we found something different, and explained how it was different and what purpose it served. The silence was starting to get awkward, but the truth was, I was a little peeved with Isaru because he wasn’t making as much time for me anymore. I wondered if it had something to do with what happened at the reversion, but I didn’t want to bring that up. I was still trying to accept it myself, so perhaps it wasn’t unimaginable that Isaru was having difficulty, too. He had seemed to accept it readily enough at the time, but it was possible his opinion had changed.
It was only when we had entered the bright sunshine that Isaru broke the silence.
“So...” He let the word hang in the air while I continued to scan the ground. “Anything new with you?”
I started to shake my head, but then I remembered my dream. I decided to keep it back for now.
“Not really. What about you?”
He shook his head, and we spent the next couple of minutes in silence. Isaru knelt next to the trunk of a nearby spiral tree, examining the xen for a moment before standing up again.
“We’ve gathered this kind before,” he said. “Let’s check down by the South Spring.”
We turned in that direction. The Grove was silent and cool. Normally, a din of birdsong would be filling the trees, but it was mostly quiet, save for a woodpecker hammering into a tree from high above.
“I had a dream last night,” I said.
Isaru’s head half-turned toward me, waiting for me to go on.
“It was a memory from Anna’s life, although I don’t know what I was supposed to get out of it.”
As we plunged deeper into the trees, I explained the details.
We stopped when we arrived at a thin stream flowing through the trees, running over and around rocks worn smooth over the centuries. Both moss and xen covered the stones, and the stream was narrow enough in most places for one to take a single, wide step across. A dark, but shallow, pool lay upstream from our position — the South Spring. The water wove through the trees until it reached the wall, barely discernible downstream. A grate had been built in the wall to accommodate it, where it made its way to the Silverstream in the canyon right outside the Sanctum’s front gate, the same which the stone bridge passed over.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“I think your memories are returning,” Isaru said.
I frowned. “My memories?”
“Well, not your memories. Anna’s.” Isaru waded into the stream, kneeling down and using his scalpel to cut off a small piece of xen covering a stone beneath an inch or so of running water. After he had put it in his gathering satchel he stood back up and looked at me. “That’s what I think, anyway. There probably wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the dream — certainly, it didn’t seem like anything was being specifically communicated to you.”
“You think?”
“Maybe. Is this the first time you’ve dreamed since the reversion?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
I joined him in the stream, after taking off my boots, and together we made our way in the water toward the spring. The water was cold, but wasn’t unpleasant. By the time we were scanning the nearby rocks again, I continued.
“None of us have talked about anything. I was beginning to wonder if anything had even happened.” I paused. “Of course it happened. It’s just...I wish it hadn’t.”
“I understand,” Isaru said. “It is a heavy burden.”
I didn’t want to be reminded of it, but I supposed there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
“Is it hard to accept it?” Isaru asked.
I knelt down to examine a patch of nearby xen, just barely above the surface of the stream. “Is this what we’re looking for?”
Without even looking long at the xen, Isaru shook his head. “Fons xen only grows beneath the water.”
I nodded, and we continued on.
“You never answered my question,” Isaru said.
I was hoping he wouldn’t push the point. “I don’t know, Isaru. I guess, yeah, it’s a bit hard to accept. What if I told you that you were actually someone who lived four hundred years ago, and not only that, someone who people today think is a god?”
Isaru gave an amused smile. “I’d say you were crazy.”
“You know what I mean,” I said. “If I had inarguable proof that I was right, what would you do?”
He waited a moment to respond. “I don’t know. I honestly...don’t know. There’s no precedent for that, is there?”
“That’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it. I would ignore it if I could, but every time I meet with Isandru he harps on and on about it. I’m tired of hearing about it.”
Isaru nodded, as if he understood. I knew he didn’t really understand, but it still felt good to be listened to.
“I know what it feels like to be thought of as someone you’re not,” Isaru said.
I looked at him, curious. “What do you mean?”
He exited the spring, and sat down on the grassy shore beneath a tall ash. I got out to join him. I waited for him to continue.
“I’m the Prince of Haven,” he said. “My whole life, I never wanted to be.”
“Why?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be what anyone would want?”
“Not me, I guess,” Isaru said. “I think, in the past, my reaction to that has been to run away. To run away a lot. As soon as Jorla could fly, we’d go all over — sometimes days at a time. I hated...” He paused, seeming to stop himself. “I hated being controlled, being told how I was supposed to act and who I was supposed to be. The person...” He trailed off again, seeming to consider whether or not to go on. “The person my father wanted me to be...the person he wants me to be...isn’t me.”
He looked at me. His face was neutral, but he wasn’t fooling me. I could see pain in his gray eyes.
“He wants you to be the Prince, and you don’t?”
Isaru shook his head. “It’s not that. Not exactly.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “It’s just...different now. My father and I just don’t have much in common. My mother...”
Isaru had never mentioned his mother, and I didn’t know whether he was going to talk about her or not.
“Were you close?” I asked.
Isaru nodded, looked as if he would speak, but in the end, said nothing.
I remembered a little of what Isa had told me about her. Her name was Kaia, and she was a Samalite, at least officially. Some said she was a Wilder, and the only thing that was ever said with certainty was that she had silver hair and was beautiful. She had also died while I
saru was young of a mysterious illness. Beyond that, I knew nothing.
“She died when I was ten,” Isaru said. “She could talk to dragons, too, and more besides that. She came from a tribe called the Invi.”
“Where do they live?”
“North, and west. Further north than even the Samalites.”
“Very remote, then.”
Isaru nodded. “She would tell me these stories of incredible things. Things I would never believe. I would believe them when I got older, though, if only to honor her memory. Things are different when you go that far north. People exist closer to the Red Wild. Their connections to the Xenofold are stronger. She told me that they often rode Radaska up there, and there were these wars with the Mindless...apparently, the wars never stopped up there. But anytime she talked about her home — a hold called Invia — she did it with nothing but happiness.”
We sat there for a moment. I wanted Isaru to keep talking, but I could tell that the subject was sensitive and that prying would close him off.
“I probably shouldn’t say this,” Isaru said, “but my mother didn’t really seem to be happy in Haven. I don’t know how she came to meet my father — or even what she saw in him.” He gave a short laugh — not amused, and somewhat bitter. “Maybe she saw nothing in him at all. I’ve often wondered if she was forced into it.”
“Forced into it?”
“It’s not specifically required for a king to marry into another noble line, of Sylva or of the Samalites,” Isaru said. “Over the years, that’s led to too much intermixing. It’s common for nobles to take wives from a lower strata of society, and noble men sometimes look to Wilders of especially pure blood if they want to continue their line and have strong children. It wasn’t acceptable years ago, but it is today, because of the risk of siring a severed child.”
“Severed?”
“A child of Elekai parents with no connection whatsoever to the Xenofold. It’s rare, but it’s happened to enough people that it is a consideration.” Isaru shrugged. “I don’t know the whole story, and I don’t dare ask, even if I’ve wondered many times. Wilders often can’t live long in civilization, if they’re forced to move. No one really knows why my mother got sick, but my father wouldn’t allow her to return to her people, insisting that his doctors and his medicines were the best.”