by JA Andrews
He glanced at her with a slight crease in his brow and she gave him a smile that felt like a wince. “Good morning, Mikal.”
“Good morning. Did you finish compiling that information on Napon?”
“I did.” She bit her lip to keep from adding that it had been the most boring thing she’d ever read. “And I wrote a comparison of the two recent dynasties relating to the exports of linen.” Which had been even more boring.
But the worst part had been the exercise where she was to make a small piece of linen float using only vitalle and record her attempts. Mikal insisted on giving her these exercises—exercises that should be simple for a Keeper—in the hopes that someday she’d be able to complete one of them.. All three ways she’d tried had been utter failures. Last night’s frustration rolled back into her. How was one supposed to get energy into something as dead as the air or a piece of linen?
“Modern or classic form?”
“Classic, fully annotated. And I added an appendix including a discussion of two quotes I found from Flibbet the Peddler about Naponese linen.” Because even linen was interesting if Flibbet wrote about it. She’d spent hours copying his colorful, whimsical writing and doodles into her own journal. Like all the books written by the eccentric peddler, this one skipped from one topic to the next. She’d learned about bathing habits of ancient rulers (rubbing with dry dirt), the diet of the desert cactus beetles (scorpion eggs), and that Flibbet’s favorite color was green.
She thought, for just a moment, that Mikal might be impressed enough to raise an eyebrow.
Instead he merely looked at her expectantly. “Did you move the linen with the vitalle?”
She hesitated. “No.”
“Hmm.” The sound might have been disapproving or a mere acknowledgement. “And where is this masterpiece?”
Sini’s gaze flicked out the window. It was definitely past dawn.
“It’s on my desk, quite close to the linens on my bed which I now know are Naponese in origin.” She forced a bright smile in an attempt to counter his disapproving expression.
“I called Sini to come here early,” Rett interrupted. “It’s my fault.”
Mikal’s face softened slightly at the words. The fact that the man was unfailingly kind to Rett almost made up for his frustratingly strict adherence to rules. Almost.
“I’ll bring it to you right after breakfast,” Sini assured him.
“Or you could get it now.”
“Stop plaguing the girl,” a voice from above them called. Keeper Gerone walked down the ramp from a higher level of the library. His robe was permanently floured from his work in the kitchen, and starbursts of wrinkles creased the skin by his eyes. A smile peeked at her through his fluffy white beard. “You know she did the research, and you’ll be impressed when you read it.”
“I cannot be impressed by something I cannot see.” Mikal said. “There is no reason to be wasting time on this map. It has been obvious for years that Lukas is working, not necessarily productively, on some scheme to harm Queensland and the Keepers. It is just as obvious that tracking all this isn’t accomplishing anything.”
Rett’s shoulders sagged, and Sini bristled.
“They’re doing good work,” Gerone said, before she could speak. “Not everyone’s as cynical as you.”
Mikal shook his head. “The young generation is lazy.”
“She referenced Flibbet!” Gerone threw his hands up. “That’s not lazy, that’s innovative.”
“What it is, is late. When you are back to assigning her work, she can turn in everything tardy and crumpled for all I care.”
Sini pressed her lips together. If only Gerone were back to leading her studies instead of embroiled in some strange project with the Shield involving the library roof.
Mikal turned back to Sini. “I’ll wait here while you get it.”
“She can get it later,” Gerone said. “The Shield has a question for you about that dull paper you wrote on metalwork in Napon.”
Mikal frowned. “I expect the essay at my door as soon as possible,” he told Sini. Without waiting for an answer, he crossed over to Gerone and walked past him up the ramp. “Metal strengthening is a fascinating subject.”
“Then why did you write about it in such boring terms?” Gerone asked. He grinned at Sini and Rett and followed Mikal, who was explaining about alloys and tension.
Rett looked after the two old men with a miserable expression. “Are we wasting time on this map?”
“No,” Sini assured him. “Mikal was just…feeling grumpy. The Keepers want to know what Lukas is doing, and we’re the ones who know him. It’s not obvious what he’s doing or why. It’s important to keep up on the map.”
He dropped his eyes to the table. “Did I make you forget to give Mikal your research?”
She laughed. “That paper is the most boring thing I’ve ever written, and Mikal should be thanking us both that his morning wasn’t ruined by it.” She set her hand on Rett’s huge one. “Always call me when there’s news. This is important.”
She pushed away thoughts of Mikal and turned back to the map. This latest report was definitely about Lukas. She tapped her fingers against her lips, studying the blank space on the maps where the moors lay. Where was he headed?
“Lukas would like it here,” Rett said. “We are safe here, and he always tried to keep us safe.”
She nodded, not bothering to answer. Once Rett got started on this train of thought, it would be a few minutes before they could talk of anything else.
His voice dropped. “Like that time he told Killien he broke that shelf of burning stones instead of you?”
She winced at the memory of Lukas’s whipped back. She’d had such poor control over the sunfire then, constantly destroying the delicate stones she and Lukas worked with.
That was one thing she was better at now. The Keepers had spent patient days teaching her ways to control the energy from the sun that none of them could even sense. What she’d never been able to do was all the things the rest of them could. Simple things like lighting candles or moving air were utterly beyond her power. She could never find a path between living things and any object that wasn’t alive.
Even after all this time, if Lukas were to come here, he’d still have to do so many things for her. The thought was more bitter than she’d expected.
“If you could’ve healed then as well as you can now, he’d have been better by morning,” Rett said.
“If I could have healed well then, Killien would have found me much more useful.” She paused. Maybe he wouldn’t have. “Although healing cuts isn’t particularly impressive.”
“I think it is,” he assured her.
His face was so sincere she couldn’t help smiling at him. “I’m just frustrated today about…” It was too much to explain to Rett. The irritatingly impossible exercise with the linen, the way she couldn’t move vitalle for the simplest things. “About lighting candles,” she finished.
Rett looked at her kindly. “I’ll always help you, Sini.”
She patted his hand. “I know you will.” She turned back to the map, ready to talk about something else. The notes along the southern edge hinted at a pattern to Lukas’s movements, and this latest event continued it.
Rett leaned forward. “Do you know where he is?”
Sini tapped her lips, her eyes drawn east again. The pattern didn’t make any sense.
“You do know,” Rett said, his voice growing more excited.
She hesitated, but he was so eager, she gave in. “It looks like he’s moving toward the moors. All of the recent reports have come from the edges of it.” She pointed to the wide blank area covering southeast Queensland and northern Gringonn. “But no one’s going to believe me. There’s nothing of value on the moors.”
“I believe you,” Rett said simply.
Sini smiled at him. “That’s because you’re very smart.”
“No,” he said seriously, “but you are.” The big
man’s gaze wandered around the library. “All the Stronghold needs to be perfect is Lukas,” he declared, pushing himself to his feet and stretching.
A worn, familiar ache pressed into her at his words. Lukas wouldn’t want to join the Keepers at first, but if she could just talk to him…
“I agree,” she said quietly.
Rett patted her on the shoulder as he passed. “Want to see how much the lamb has grown?”
“Not right now. It’s time for breakfast. And I have an essay to turn in.”
Rett paused by the door. Sini set her finger against her candle, letting a stream of pink vitalle flow out of her and into the live flame. It was so simple, once something was already using energy, to add more. The flame burned bright and high with her help, and Rett nodded approvingly before opening the door. When it shut behind him, the breeze caught the flame and it flickered dangerously. She cupped her hand around it, but one final swirl of wind snuffed it out. Sini shoved vitalle toward the top of the wick that was still tinted red, but the pink light dribbled away hopelessly.
She growled at the candle and everything it represented. The fat tower of wax stood like a battlement in front of every other failure. Every object she’d tried to push vitalle into. Every instance of trying to transfer energy into something static. There had been hundreds of tries, but every single one had been a failure.
It was so infuriating not being able to do simple things.
The map lay in semi-darkness. She could barely make out the blank space of the moors and she shoved herself out of her chair. Everything pointed to that empty rolling land, but that made no sense, and that irritated her all the more.
But the idea of the moors had nagged her for too long. She’d ask the twins about it today. A sliver of reluctance wormed into her, but she pushed it away. The twins would listen. They always took her ideas seriously. Even ridiculous ones like this.
She peered at the shadowed map. “Where are you going, Lukas?”
Chapter Two
Her stomach reminded her of breakfast, and she cast one last annoyed look at the map before leaving it in the gloom. Crossing back through the main tower, she found the kitchen thick with the scent of warm bread. Firelight glowed out of the gaping oven in the wall. Setting three plates on a wide tray, she cut off a generous slice of bread for each, adding mounds of soft cheese and liberal helpings of avak jam.
The avak pits Will had brought back from the Sweep had thrived in the valley and the Keepers had a near constant supply of fruit and jam. Keeper Gerone, who was convinced the plant had some sort of magical power, was constantly experimenting with it.
She grabbed three cups of water and headed up the tower. Five rooms past her own, she knocked softly on a thick wooden door. At a word from inside, she opened it and stepped into a cheerfully bright room. A wide door to the balcony was swung open to let in the morning light. Nikolas and Steffan sat, as they always did, at a table just wide enough for the two of them in high-backed chairs, bent over a single thick book. One man wrote on the left page, the other on the right, filling the book with the history of the country of Gringonn. Sini couldn’t imagine there wasn’t already a history of the insignificant country somewhere in the enormous library, but she couldn’t bring herself to point this out.
The twins were nearly identical. Their hair was long and wiry, their faces the washed-out color that skin gets when it’s been facing the world for too many years. Each had a neatly trimmed beard that hung down to his chest. Their hands were gnarled, but they held their pens without any trembling.
Each man was half way down his page, their handwriting also identical. She’d stopped trying to figure out how they did it years ago. While each wrote on their own page at the same time, the book told a single story, moving flawlessly from one page to the next. If the one on the left finished his page in the middle of a sentence, the next word would be found at the top of the right page, written hours earlier by the other man.
The first day she’d asked them how they knew what the other would write.
“I know exactly what I would write.” Nikolas had shrugged. “And I trust he’ll do it correctly.”
Sini had stared at them speechless. “Do you ever…miscalculate?”
Nikolas had given Steffan an irritated look. “On page seventy-three he fit in an extra word. We haven’t decided yet whether we should leave it at both the bottom of one page and the top of the next or sully the book by crossing one out.”
“You’ve only mis-guessed once? How many pages have you written?”
“Today we’ll finish two hundred and thirty-four.”
“Can you…hear each other’s thoughts?”
“No, dear. Our thoughts are all our own. But when you live with someone long enough, you can guess what they’re thinking pretty well.”
She’d pointed at Nikolas’s hand. “You’re not identical. You write with different hands.” She’d felt a little bit of triumph. At least when they were writing, she’d be able to tell them apart.
“Not exactly.” He had laughed. “It would be too crowded if I tried to use my right hand on this side of the page, don’t you think? I’d be pushing Steffan out of the way. But we’ll switch seats after lunch. Wouldn’t want to exhaust one hand too much.”
For the last four years, she had found them here most mornings. They’d finished the fourth volume two years ago, and had been working on the fifth, adding to it daily. She approached them and waited until they paused their writing to look up at her.
“Breakfast?” she asked with a smile.
Steffan gave her a gentle smile over the glasses perched on his nose. “Smells delicious.”
Nikolas closed their book and pushed it to the side so she could hand them each a plate. She pulled a stool up to her side. “Is there anything interesting or valuable on the moors in Gringonn?”
“Valuable?” Steffan asked. “No.”
“I’ve always thought they had a haunting sort of beauty,” Nikolas said.
“As if there was more emptiness there than in most places.” Steffan patted the book. “We discuss the moors in chapter three, volume 2.”
Nikolas looked at her curiously. “Why do you ask?”
Sini hesitated. “Would you think I was crazy if I said Lukas was there?”
The two considered her for a moment.
“We’d be more likely to think you had a reason for saying so, and that your foster brother was the crazy one for wasting time there,” Steffan said.
Nikolas nodded. “Those moors are bleak. Why do you think he’s there?”
Neither man looked skeptical.
“I have no idea,” she admitted. “It just feels like he’s moving that way.”
Steffan stroked his beard. “We’ll think about it.”
Nikolas coughed a wet, painful sound into a damp cloth. His elbow knocked his cup and the water spilled out toward their book.
Steffan jerked his hand forward and a stream of pale blue light shot across the table under the water, lifting and forming into a small bowl. Nikolas righted the cup and Steffan poured the water back into it from his glowing blue air-bowl.
Sini bit her lip. The twins could manipulate air so easily it seemed effortless.
Nikolas peered into his cup. “Thank you.”
Steffan nodded, then turned his gaze to Sini. “Could you see the bowl shape? Or was it less distinct? I was imagining a bowl.”
“It was a smooth layer of light with brighter veins running through it,” she said. “Definitely bowl-shaped.”
“Still blue?”
She nodded. “Yours is always blue.”
“You seem troubled this morning,” Nikolas said.
Sini chewed on her bread slowly. “I want to understand what Lukas is doing and where he’s going.” And how she could bring him here, but she didn’t add that part, even to the twins.
They nodded sympathetically but said nothing, allowing her to continue if she wished.
“And I’m fru
strated again by my inability to move vitalle in the simplest ways. Mikal gave me some exercises to move a small piece of linen, and I couldn’t do it.” She motioned to where Steffan had just picked up the water. “I couldn’t affect the air at all.”
She dropped the bread onto her plate. “I can’t even light a candle. Every single Keeper has been able to light a candle. Half of them started fires as the first sign of their powers. No one has ever had a problem making a path into inanimate objects.
“I am twenty,” she continued. “It’s been eight years since the first time I did magic. Maybe if I had tried before I was taken to the Sweep…Or maybe I never could do the simple things everyone else can.” She almost stopped there, but the twins waited quietly. Like always, their patience drew the words out. “Maybe the Roven broke something in me.”
They were quiet for a moment before Steffan spoke softly. “My dear, we have never seen anything broken in you.”
Anyone else would point out how much power she could find in the sunlight, or how she was perfectly able to put energy into living things, or how could heal better than any of the other Keepers. But the twins never brushed away her words like that.
“We understand the frustration.” Nikolas looked ruefully at the candle at the corner of their desk. “We’ve always felt inadequate around fire. Mikal can manipulate it so effortlessly.”
It wasn’t remotely the same thing, but the camaraderie made her feel a little better.
“It’s nearly impossible not to think of our differences as limitations,” Steffan said.
Nikolas chortled. “We’re a hundred years old and still working on it.” His laugh ended in another thick cough.
She picked up her bread and looked at him critically. “How are you feeling?”
“We have only seventeen pages left in our book.” There was a deep pride in Steffan’s voice.
“That’s wonderful! I thought you two might just keep writing until you ran out of paper.” There were certainly more than seventeen blank pages left in the book.