by G. H. Duval
She smiled as the knock came again. At a 30-second delay, he’d outlasted her estimation of his patience. She murmured her assent, knowing that the flames beside her would carry her quiet words to the visitor at the door. Preon au Feur entered immediately, bristling with the impatience for which he—and so many of his affinity—was known.
He was a towering man, lithe and graceful, and gifted with the double advantage of great beauty and an abundance of confidence. No one, however, would accuse him of being a particularly thoughtful man. Still, he was one of the most talented and most decorated of the Shepherds serving the Firsts, and though he did not serve Wilha directly, with Siare’s recent expansion of Wilha’s authority, she had summoned him.
Which was a shame, because at present, he cared very little for what Wilha needed. In fact, his disappointment was so strong that she could sense, even without the use of her abilities, a deep resentment and anger from him seething just below the surface, all of it directed at her. But even her weakened Sight told her Preon was central to bringing her failures to an end. Even more pressing were Siare’s recent dreams of imminent danger—of Verrider not only being wrong-headed, but corrupted. To find their next First, she needed a hunter. An obedient hunter. And Preon was a patriot to his core—in service to his Commander, at least, if not directly to her. So she would use him, without pause or regret.
If Preon expected her to provide an explanation or an entreaty, he would simply have to bear a bit more disappointment. She couldn’t humble herself now. She knew him well enough to know that he would not respond to that, and to get him invested, she’d have to goad him. Instead of addressing him, Wilha stared into her steaming cup, light cream swirling through dark tea, and whispered across its surface. “She is drowning.”
She let him absorb that for a moment, then said more loudly, “Our next First is drowning.” She took a delicate sip of tea, buying an extra moment of contemplation, her calm demeanor in stark contrast to the urgency of her words.
“I assume you speak in symbolic terms,” Preon answered with a lazy, condescending drawl. But Wilha knew she now had his attention, and even better, his curiosity. Still, she did not look at him directly, drawing out the dance between them. She merely returned to her tea, sipping carefully while moving to her desk, her wealth of long robes rustling a subtle reminder of her station into the quiet between them.
“You needn’t assume anything, Preon,” she said blandly, refusing to reveal her own irritation, her desperation. After another slow sip, she set the cup and saucer gently on a corner of her desk, the porcelain tinkling softly, and made a short sweeping motion over a map she’d positioned earlier. Preon, his impatience threatening to burst, sighed aloud in relief.
Taking her movement as invitation, he quickly joined her at the desk, and looked more closely at the map as Wilha continued. “Something or someone is interfering with her.” Preon huffed but refrained from speaking with a sharp look from Wilha. Despite the maneuvering required of this meeting, even her patience knew boundaries. “However difficult it may be for you to believe that anyone would dare meddle with a Candidate, I tell you that such is precisely the case.”
Preon nodded slightly, the absolute certainty of her voice breaking through his carefully constructed cynicism. Wilha forged ahead lest she lose him again.
“Unfortunately, she is as yet too untrained to discourage the offender properly, so the transgression continues. But there is a glimmer of hope. The meddler cannot hide her from me entirely.”
She allowed the ghost of a smile to play at her lips. “I may not know precisely what is happening, but I do know where it is happening.” She pressed a forefinger to a point on the map south of the capital near the symbol for a large city—a thick circle around the name Hale.
“She is somewhere between here, and…” She moved her finger to indicate another symbol for a small town, “here.” Preon made a derisive sound, dangerously close to a snort, which stopped suddenly when Wilha’s eyes snapped up to meet his directly. He broke contact quickly, for which she was forced to admit some small satisfaction, pretending to study the map anew.
“Hayden’s Corner?” Skepticism dripped from his voice. “I wouldn’t dream of questioning you,” he offered this with a grin, “but Hayden’s is simply not the sort of place I’d expect to find a Candidate for First Seer, Headmistress.” He shook his head. “Now that we know where to look...we’ll start at Hale and work our way back there if need be. If my hunch holds, we should barely be out of Hale before locating her.” Imagine, she thought, almost chuckling, his hunch against the Sight of a Seer.
Instead of addressing his blunder, Wilha said simply, “We don’t question whom Hirute graces with His gifts, Captain.” She moved away from him, going to the lone window in the study—tea once again in hand, dismissal clear in her movements and her voice. She knew she had him now, but just in case his pride needed a bit more incentive...
“And I don’t need the particulars of how you do your job, so long as you do it well. Pick whomever you need for the task and see that you get results.”
“Yes, Headmistress.” For once, Preon’s voice revealed the effort of restraint. His tone was marginally more respectful, but even with her back to him, she knew he had stopped short of bowing to her. Had she secured the girl sooner, she thought, as she should have, he’d not even think such insolence in her presence. She had to find the child, and soon, or the rift that had begun with the resignations of more than a dozen Shepherds would widen, perhaps gathering the Great Houses into their dispute, and not even she could see the final destruction that would come as a result.
Just as Preon’s hand touched the door, she spoke again, simply saying his name. She did not turn from the window but heard him hesitate.
“Do not return without her.”
For if he did return empty-handed, her reign as Headmistress would come to an end with no successor trained to take up the mantle, and Hirute only knew what that would do to their nation. Either way, she knew her crisis had passed and she was ready for whatever came next. She tipped the delicate cup to her lips and watched the gathering clouds as the door closed quietly behind her.
Five
“The Boy laughs at the mistakes of others, while the Man laughs at his own.”
–Helig Ra’d, Teachings of the Great Shepherd
“Stop basking!”
The voice cracked through the air, but the look attached to the command softened the words—amusement obvious on his father’s face. Dodge, who had already begun to bristle, caught the look and smiled, relaxing.
“Yes sir,” he replied good naturedly since he had to admit that he had been basking. A little. He was rarely given full use of his gifts, and complete connection with his Aspect often led him to bemusement and distraction. He could not be blamed for that, he assured himself. Everyone knew that au Cieles were dreamers. In fact, if he had to hear the horrible, almost-insulting phrase, ‘Get your head out of the clouds,’ one more time, he was sure he’d die.
Of all the tasks assigned to him on their farm, using the very air itself to harvest their crops was his favorite. It was, he thought, a special way to enjoy the fruits of their labor and winced inwardly at the pun. With just the three of them, his family had to work especially hard to maintain the farm that was their pride and joy. Luckily (and highly unusually), they were all Shepherds—his mother of water, his father of earth, and Dodge of air.
His father cleared his throat meaningfully and cocked an eyebrow up at him. Up at him? Belatedly, Dodge realized he was hovering a few feet off the ground. Again. Which would have been perfectly fine had he been intending to, but he had not. Sighing, he consciously marshalled the currents flowing about him and slowly lowered himself the ground.
As his unintended display proved, the talent in their family was obvious, and was both blessing and burden. The produce from their farm was just as flamboyantly superior to the more standard fare as was Dodge’s ability to float through the a
ir. The demand that created, however, was increasingly difficult for the three of them to meet alone. While it was a good problem to have, especially in a village where many of their neighbors fought hard for steady incomes, it meant having to rely on others. Non-Shepherds. The “normal” folk who made Dodge feel uneasy about using his Aspect.
For the last two years, his father had hired two boys who were substantially stockier than Dodge to help. They arrived at the beginning of each planting season and at the end of each harvest to help shoulder the load. If things kept up this way, that arrangement would become permanent, keeping the two on year-round. He liked those boys in a neutral way—they were largely invisible to him, in fact. Mostly because that is how they treated him. So long as he didn’t remind them what he was, they seemed fine. He did not understand why they did not startle as much when confronted with what his parents could do, but he did not fail to catch the gaping—or the jaw clenching—when he worked his Aspect in their presence.
Dodge also struggled to understand why his parents had steadfastly refused to hire Spring in place of at least one of the boys. Unlike Dodge, who had to miss months of niche at a time to help with the farm, Spring had completed niche instruction more than a year before, and she now had the time to help if they would only ask. It was common knowledge that she was a prodigy with her earth talent, and she could certainly make work around the farm easier for everyone and produce even better results. Spring, herself, had been enthusiastic about the idea when he had mentioned it to her. She loved the farm, and he knew they would work well together. They were best mates, after all.
Apparently, however, his powers of persuasion began and ended with the wind. In fact, the last time he’d mentioned it, his mother had laughed outright and said that someone with Spring’s abilities did not ‘fuss about with eggplants and melons.’ With that she had left the room chuckling to herself, and Dodge had been left standing alone, fuming. Within weeks of Spring’s graduation from niche, Tahnia had swooped in and claimed Spring as her apprentice.
But Dodge knew better than his mother. He and Spring had been friends from his earliest memories, and he knew that she wasn’t squeamish about working with her hands. She would have loved to work on the farm. He knew it. Even if she had been spending more time with that Lord Jayden lately, it didn’t mean she was turning into a fancy type that would turn her nose up at honest work. His Spring liked eggplants and melons as much as rare herbs or priceless orchids. His Spring would be happy to work beside him. The fact that she had been changing into someone who might not be his Spring for some time was something he had been struggling all year to ignore.
A cry of pain tore him from his thoughts and brought him back to the present. In a glance, he gathered what had happened. He’d lost control of his emotions, and the winds around him had responded without his conscious request. His face went hot with alarm and embarrassment as he surveyed the damage, searching for the source of the scream.
The rows he had been harvesting lay in total disarray, and several crates he’d filled earlier were overturned. Rivers of yellow squash, peach-colored apples, brown pears, and deep-tinted gourds poured from the lopsided openings in streaks, as if an artist had poured his paints along the ground. If the mess had not been such an obvious symbol of his continued lack of control, he would have thought the display beautiful. A crate appeared to move on its own, and he realized that one of the farmhands was partially trapped beneath it.
“Brill!” Dodge cried, rushing over to the fallen boy. So alarmed was he that he forgot to hide his true speed. When he reached the boy, Brill screamed again, but this time in abject terror. Brill writhed, trapped, but trying with all his might to avoid Dodge’s touch. Dodge realized that, to Brill, he must have seemed to dissolve into a blur of movement before seemingly rematerializing as his normal self.
“Do-don-don’t you t-t-touch me! Y-y-you freak!”
Even in a state of fear, even as Dodge worked to clear the crate and debris off of him, Brill managed to muster disgust.
From the moment Dodge had expressed, he had been taught to be deferential, for Shepherds were created to serve and protect, not to be seek glory or reverence. And he had accepted this, been obedient to the tenets of his faith. Always. But as his power had grown, so had the discomfort of his neighbors. For the last two years, it had intensified into barely concealed glances, scowls even, and ugly whispers. Even the boys who relied on Dodge and his family for work, those who saw him day in and day out, did not hide their derision or their fear. As if he were some sort of monster!
Dodge was a good-natured person on most days. In fact, Spring often teased him about his relentless optimism. And that Dodge would feel very, very bad about what this Dodge did next.
“Freak is it?” he asked quietly.
Dodge had been taught by his doyen and the Arbiter, himself, that he was one of the few chosen by God to be special…to be trusted. Not only did these boys refuse to acknowledge his position, they treated him like someone, some thing lesser than they!
Confusion at this behavior had turned to hurt, and today, it poured out as frustration, shame, and anger. All the carefully instilled manners he’d observed to this point vanished, and his raw emotions slammed into his Aspect, which absorbed it and returned it twofold. The voices of the winds at his disposal roared in his mind, the essence of his affinity marshalling the currents about him like an army of defenders.
Dodge’s voice took on a deep, resonating timbre that made him sound not only older but menacing. He liked it.
“You want to see a real freak?” he demanded, standing over Brill and exulting in the wide, roving eyes that rolled with fear as they looked up at him. If they choose to fear me, he thought, they may as well have a good reason.
Dodge balled his hands into fists and punched his arms outward, forming a ‘T’. A wave of power rolled from each fist, and the mess he’d made of crates, fruits, and vegetables flew into the air around him—the ground beneath rippling as the wall of air cleared a path across it. With a thought, the crate pinning Brill to the ground blew apart into dust, which Dodge deliberately settled around the boy, forming an outline of Brill’s body where it lay.
“You!” Dodge barked, and he angled his arms downward so that he rose into the air to hover a few feet above Brill. “YOU are the freak! You are the ones who file into Accord, week after week, and mutter empty prayers to Hirute! You are the ones who rely on us to protect you, to water you in drought, to keep you warm in winter, to keep you fed when the land would starve you, then whisper about us behind our backs! You are the ones who gladly take wages from our hands but flinch at our touch! YOU are the faithless freaks!”
“Dodge!” This time his father wasn’t smiling. He marched over to his son and grabbed at his legs, yanking at him from where Dodge hovered.
His blood up and his temper raging, Dodge strained against his father. Irritably, he glanced down and found his father’s eyes glowing a deep, pulsing green. Channeling his own Aspect, Harlan au Terre pulled once more against his son, and the full strength of the Earth pulled with him. Dodge gasped and his Aspect-tether abruptly closed as the force of his father’s strength, and wrath, snapped him back to himself.
Dodge fell the few feet to the ground, and without the use of his abilities to cushion the fall, he thudded hard against it. He grunted with pain and lay still, drawing deep shuddering breaths as the reality of what he’d done settled into his mind.
It was Harlan’s turn to stand over a boy who lay huddled on the ground. As Dodge marshalled the courage to meet his father’s eyes, the glow in Harlan’s eyes went out, but the shock and disappointment that replaced it made Dodge tremble even more than his anger had.
Without a word, his father turned from him and went to Brill. Inexplicably, Brill did not recoil from Harlan the way he had Dodge. Dodge pulled himself to his knees, still fighting to breathe and accept what he had done. In a state of shock himself, he watched as Brill leaned against Harlan, silent te
ars streaking down his dirt-stained face, and accepted the Earth Shepherd’s ministrations. Brill was so much larger than Dodge that he often forgot that Brill was actually a year younger than he. Only fourteen years old. Despite his height and girth, in that moment, all Dodge could see was a hurt, terrified boy.
“It’s broken, son,” Harlan said to Brill after a gentle but thorough evaluation of the boy’s swollen ankle. He spared a quick cutting glance in Dodge’s direction as he said it, and to Dodge, that look landed as solidly as a physical blow. Dodge’s throat closed with repressed tears, burning with acid that lurched from his suddenly sick stomach.
“I’m sorry,” Dodge managed, his voice barely audible through the tightness in his throat. He thought he might choke on all that he needed to say but could not.
His Aspect banged against his awareness, thrashing and agitated at his distress. It wanted to help him but Dodge new better. The very last thing he needed was any of that power coursing through him right now. On shaky legs, he forced himself to join his father, though he stayed a few feet away for Brill’s sake.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time, his voice was clearer. He hoped Brill would hear the sincerity in the apology…hear his sorrow and shame at having behaved so badly. A part of his mind, that part of himself that was always connected to thoughts of the God he served, turned on itself, circling in horror at what he’d done. Would Hirute strip of him of his abilities? Now that he’d proven himself of such weak and selfish character?
“Ca-,” his voice caught. “Can I help?” he managed to get it out on the second attempt. His heart hammered in his chest. His skin was hot with embarrassment. He had to try to make this right.
Harlan stood before bending to help Brill to his feet. He did not answer Dodge, nor did Brill.
“We’ve no time to worry about your pride, son,” he said to Brill, pulling the boy into his arms and carrying him as if he were a toddler with one arm across Brill’s back and the other beneath the boy’s knees. Such was Harlan’s strength when he channeled his Aspect. Brill flushed but accepted the help.