Seekers of the Wild Realm

by Alexandra Ott

  “You really think it was the Vondur? And that a Seeker is involved?” she asks when I’m finished. She sounds more than a little skeptical.

  “I don’t know either of those things for sure,” I say. “But that’s what it seems like.”

  Runa feeds another stalk of hay to Starlight, considering this. “Why would a Seeker trade dragon eggs to the Vondur? A Seeker’s whole job is to protect the Realm.”

  “Right. I don’t get it either.”

  “You know,” she says thoughtfully, “one of my cousins is a fisherman. He’s down at the docks all the time. I could ask him if he’s seen anything suspicious lately.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t want to alert whoever this person is that we know about what they’re doing. Not yet. They could be dangerous.”

  Runa brightens. “What if I just visit my cousin for the day and hang out around the docks? Then I could keep a lookout myself. I wouldn’t have to tell anyone what I’m doing.”

  “That seems pretty risky, Runa. What if you get caught?”

  “How would I get caught? For all anyone knows, I’m just hanging out with my cousin. Besides, it’s way less risky than you and Ari sneaking around at night and spying on people.”

  “Okay, fair point. But just be really, really careful, all right?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. You telling me to be careful. That’s hilarious.”

  “I’m serious, Runa.”

  “So am I. You literally have people throwing rocks at your house. Sitting around at the docks all day is nothing in comparison.”

  “Okay…,” I say, still not convinced. “I guess if you want to visit your cousin, I can’t stop you.”

  “My dearest, dearest cousin, who I just miss so much since he started working, and I just couldn’t wait to spend more time with him,” Runa says in her sweetest, most innocent-sounding voice. Then, in her normal tone, she adds, “That’s what I’ll say if anyone asks me.”

  “Okay, that was creepy,” I say with a shudder. “You’re way too good at that.”

  “See? I’ve totally got this.”

  I laugh. “I don’t know why I ever doubted you. Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

  “What bad side?” Runa asks in her innocent voice again, and we both crack up.

  * * *

  I spend the afternoon training with Lilja and trying not to think about the rock-throwing incident. When Ari arrives, I don’t tell him about it. But I do ask to take the night off from our usual training session—what I need more than anything right now is proper sleep. Ari looks confused, but he agrees. I spend the entire night in bed for once, curled up next to Elisa and listening to her breathing.

  I don’t see Runa again until the next morning. After the rest of the family gets up, I hurry through breakfast and my chores so I can go find her. Mama waves me off with a sigh, and I sprint up to Runa’s farm.

  “How’d it go at the docks?” I ask as soon as I see her.

  “Hello to you too.” She steps out of her hut, dragging two water buckets. “I’m on my way to the well. Walk with me.”

  I offer to take one of the buckets and fall into step beside her. “Hi. But seriously, what happened?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “It seemed normal. I didn’t see anyone suspicious. Except now my cousin thinks I’m suspicious.”

  “You didn’t see any Seekers around, did you?”

  “I saw Seeker Freyr. He came down and talked to one of the fishermen. But that was all.”

  I tell her about the person Ari and I sensed in the Realm.

  “I think you’re right,” she says when I’m finished. “It probably is the Vondur, or the same person you saw meeting with them.”

  “I know. And whoever they are, they probably took something else from the Realm to trade last night.”

  Runa frowns, biting her lip. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” I sigh. “Maybe once I win the competition, I can tell the Seekers what Ari and I have seen. They’ll have to believe me then, whether I have evidence or not.”

  We reach the well, and Runa lowers her bucket inside. “Speaking of the competition,” she says, “has Johann been giving you any more trouble?”

  “No. Nothing since the rocks.”

  “I’d be careful around him. You don’t—”

  I roll my eyes, cutting her off. “Between you and Mama and Papa, I really don’t need anyone else to tell me to be careful. Don’t any of you trust that I know what I’m doing?”

  Runa raises a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Don’t give me that look,” I protest.

  “It’s just that we know you, Bryn. You have a… tendency to get into trouble.”

  “I do not!”

  “Remember that time Elder Olga chased you out of the bakery with a broom?”

  “That’s not fair! I wasn’t that dirty.”

  “Or the time the bell-ringer dragged you home by the ear for ringing the bells when you weren’t supposed to?”

  “I was just trying to figure out how the mechanism worked—”

  “Or the time you almost drowned when we went sailing with your papa because you thought you saw a sarvalur?”

  “I did see a sarvalur.”

  Runa gives me her skeptical look again.

  “Okay, okay. Maybe I’ve gotten in trouble a couple of times. But this is different!”

  Runa gives the well’s rope a tug, hauling her bucket back to the top. “If you say so.”

  “No, really. I want this, Runa. More than I’ve ever wanted anything. I’m not going to do something stupid and mess it up. Being a Seeker, it’s… it’s everything for me.”

  Runa rests her bucket on the lip of the well, tilting her head toward me. “You really do want this.”

  “Of course I do. I’ve told you that from the beginning.”

  “I know, it’s just…” She looks away, tapping the side of her bucket. “It’s just that you get so excited about adventures you’re going to have, and they don’t always turn out the way you thought. And sometimes you get excited about something for a while and then lose interest in it later. When you said you wanted to be a Seeker, I didn’t know how seriously you were going to take it.”

  “What, you thought I’d quit when it got hard?” I put my hands on my hips. Surely Runa knows me better than that.

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I know you’re stubborn enough to pursue whatever it is you want to do. I just thought maybe you wouldn’t want to do it anymore when it turned out to be harder than you thought. Like, maybe you’d change your mind.”

  “I definitely haven’t.”

  Runa wrinkles her nose. “I can see that. Being a Seeker is all you can talk about now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just that… It’s just that I feel so much like a dragon sometimes, you know?”

  Runa gives me a very confused look. “Um, no?”

  “Like—like the way dragons need to fly, because there’s something in them that’s wild and strong and unafraid. You can’t keep them in a cage. I feel like that sometimes. Like the village is a cage, and I need more freedom.”

  Runa’s expression softens. “What’s so bad about the village, though?”

  “Well, it’s not that it’s bad. Plenty of people like it here, and that’s great for them. But not me. It just feels too… small. When I was out in the Realm, or when I was flying through the air on Lilja, it just felt like the world is so much bigger, like it’s full of endless adventures. When I’m outside the village, I’m free to be whatever I want.”

  “No limits,” Runa says softly, and suddenly she looks sad.

  “What’s wrong?” I say.

  “Nothing. It’s just… I think I know what you mean. Sometimes I want to do something more with my healing gift than just help Papa with the occasional wounded sheep. I want to learn how to do more, the way you’re learning more about using your gift. I could make medicines and help peopl
e who are sick. But every time I ask an adult healer questions, they tell me I don’t need to know. They tell me that girls don’t become doctors.”

  I drop my bucket. “Runa! Why didn’t you tell me? This whole time, you’ve been letting me go on and on about my own dream, and you never said a thing about yours.”

  She shrugs. “What’s the point? It’ll never happen.”

  “Of course it will! Haven’t you been listening to me? You have to make it happen. When they tell you that you can’t learn new things, you learn them anyway. When they tell you that you can’t train your magic, you train anyway. That’s what I’ve been doing, and it’s working. It will work. And if I can do it, so can you.”

  “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

  “Yes, it is! If girls can be Seekers, why can’t they be doctors? I already know you’re the best young healer in the village. Anyone who’s seen what you can do will admit to that.”

  “But there’s no competition to become a doctor, Bryn. There’s only one doctor in the village, not five like there are Seekers, and the only way it will happen is if he agrees to train me as an apprentice. And he’d never take on a female apprentice.”

  “Have you asked him?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there’s your first step.”

  “Bryn. You’re not listening. I don’t need to ask him, because I already know the answer.”

  I shake my head. “You need to be more stubborn. Refuse to take no for an answer. If he doesn’t think you can do it, show him that you can. If there’s no competition, make one of your own. Challenge any of the boys and prove that you’re a more skilled healer than they are. Once he sees what you can do, he’d have to be a fool not to take you as an apprentice.”

  Runa shakes her head. She hauls her bucket from the well, water running down its sides and muddying the dirt at her feet. “Bryn, I’m really glad that your dream is coming true for you. I know you’re going to make a great Seeker. But let’s face it—a girl becoming a Seeker is kind of a miracle. And I don’t think we’re going to get to see more than one miracle.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but she shakes her head again, cutting me off. “Can we not fight about this anymore, please?”

  “All right,” I agree reluctantly. I lower the second bucket into the well, and when I’ve finished drawing water, we head back toward Runa’s farm. “What do you want to talk about instead?”

  Runa smiles. “How about you and Ari?” She’s started putting this weird emphasis on his name every time she says it, like it’s something special. For some reason she keeps insisting that I like him, which obviously I do not.

  “Seriously, it’s nothing. We’re friends now, I guess. But we’re really just training each other for the competition. Once we get to the third trial, our friendship has to end.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s how friendship works.”

  We reach the main path. “Guess I’d better head back,” I say, nodding toward my family’s hut in the distance. Runa’s farm is in the opposite direction.

  “I’ll try to go down to the docks again,” she says. “I’ll let you know if I see anything suspicious.”

  “Be careful. And… just think about the other thing I said, okay? About the doctor.”

  Runa sighs. “Bye, Bryn.”

  When I return home, Mama sends me to the fishmonger’s to pick up today’s catch. The fishmonger’s is my least favorite place in the village—I hate both the smell and the sight of all of those dead fish—but I’m glad to have an excuse to get out of the hut and run.

  Just as I arrive at the village square, I sense a commotion down by the bakery and turn to look. A couple other villagers are rushing across the street and ducking away behind the blacksmith’s, putting as much distance between themselves and the bakery as possible.

  There’s only one person standing outside the bakery.

  A Vondur.

  I’ve never seen one in person before, but the dark cloaks they wear are unmistakable—made of heavy black wool and trimmed in red, with a crimson symbol threaded over the heart. A cloak like that is only ever worn by dark magicians from the mainland.

  This particular Vondur is unremarkable in most other ways, though. He’s stocky and middle-aged, and wears both his hair and beard short the way mainlanders do. He leans casually against the side of the bakery, glancing around as if he’s waiting for someone. Or looking for something.

  I duck behind the nearest shop, out of his line of sight. What could he be doing here, out in the open? It’s not time for the next trading day yet.

  I’m not the only one wondering—a few women standing behind the shop next door are peering out and discussing the Vondur in low voices.

  “… saw the ship dock this morning,” one of them says. “They were just here, what, a week ago?”

  “Seems like it,” says the other. “I heard the council had given them permission to come back, but I just didn’t believe it could be true.…”

  “What more can they possibly have to trade?” the first woman asks, shaking her head.

  “It’s not what they bring, it’s what they want that concerns me,” the other says. “It’s never good when the Vondur show up so frequently.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The way I see it, either the Vondur are trying to trade for something they’re not getting and they keep coming back to put pressure on whoever won’t give it to them, or they are getting something, something they want badly enough that they’ve gotten greedy and are docking as often as possible to get more of it.”

  The first woman gasps. “Surely you don’t think someone might be…” She lowers her voice. “Surely you don’t think anyone is trading things from the Realm?”

  “Of course not.” She hesitates. “But they’ve wanted to conquer this island and plunder it ever since the day they first discovered it. Their magic is no match for the Seekers, but if that should ever change…” She shudders.

  Their conversation veers into a discussion of how much some goods cost from other mainland traders, but my mind spins wildly with everything they’ve said. Could the Vondur be trying to pressure someone into trading with them? Or are they getting something that they desperately want?

  Both options are terrible, for a single reason: the only thing the Vondur want that badly is creatures from the Realm.

  Ari and I were right; that mysterious figure we saw must be trading with them.

  My first instinct is to tell Papa and the Seekers. But I’m getting a sinking feeling in my chest that Ari was right not to trust the Seekers. Because why else would they have allowed the Vondur to return so soon unless at least one of them is in on it with them?

  And I still don’t think I can tell Papa, because I don’t have any solid evidence to go on. Lilja is evidence herself, of course—but she’s evidence against me, too. I can’t tell the Seekers about her without also incriminating myself. If the Seekers find out that I’ve known about Lilja all this time and kept her hidden—if they find out Ari and I secretly went into the Realm…

  There’s no way they’ll let me become a Seeker then. They’ll kick me out of the competition for sure.

  I’m torn. On the one hand, a Seeker’s true duty is to protect the Realm, and that means telling the other Seekers if I suspect someone might be harming the Realm’s creatures or trading its secrets away to the Vondur. But on the other, I don’t have much evidence, and I might be incriminating myself for nothing, and then I’ll lose my one shot at becoming a Seeker. I’ll never be able to get starflowers for Elisa, never be able to help my family, never be able to enter the Realm. I’ll never see a single magical creature ever again.

  It’s too much to risk losing, too much to throw away on suspicion alone. If I go to Papa or the Seekers, I have to be absolutely, one hundred percent sure.

  I don’t have evidence yet. But we have to find some.

  TWENTY

  That afternoon, when Ari meets me
at Lilja’s cave after training as usual, I tell him about Runa’s report from the docks and the Vondur I saw in the village.

  “We definitely need to stay out of the Realm tonight,” Ari says. “If the Vondur are here, whoever is trading with them might be sneaking around again.”

  “But shouldn’t that mean we go into the Realm again in order to see who it is and catch them?”

  Ari shakes his head. “Too risky. If it was just us, I’d say yes, but with Lilja… We can’t risk whoever it is finding her. Not when they already tried to trade her away to the Vondur once.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “We’ll just have to train on the beach.”

  “What are we doing? What did Seeker Agnar teach you today?”

  He smiles, pausing for maximum dramatic effect. Lilja snorts behind me, her breath ruffling my hair and echoing my sentiments. “Just tell me already,” I say.

  “Seeker Agnar told us what the second trial is going to focus on.”

  I straighten up. “Go on.”

  “He said it’s going to be all about spellwork this time, focusing mostly on defensive, boundary, and healing spells.”

  “I knew it,” I say, jumping in excitement. “I guessed the next round would focus on magic!”

  “I don’t know why you’re so happy about it,” he says dryly. “It’s bad news for us, seeing as how neither of us is a healer or a defender.”

  “True,” I say, deflating a little. “Neither of those are spells I know yet.”

  Ari nods. “I think the first round was definitely better suited to naturalist and empathy gifts, and I suppose warrior gifts too. Now it’s our turn to be the ones out of our elements.”

  “And Tomas and Emil will be in theirs,” I say darkly. “At least Johann won’t know what he’s doing any more than we do.”

  Ari waves one hand dismissively. “I don’t think Johann stands a chance at winning anyway. It’s the other two I’m worried about.”

  “Good point. I’m not so sure about Emil. He’s a strong defender, but I don’t think he’s studious enough to learn the healing spells properly. Tomas, on the other hand…”