Valentos, I’m here, my brave one,
Come home to me…
Fen detested the song. Merely whistling the tune in his presence warranted a death glare on his good days. A punch in the nose when he was in a bad mood. He hated gossip disguised as poetry, hated the license artists took with his pain, just to earn a coin and a quarter-hour of celebrity.
Valentos.
My brave one.
How the hell did they know il-Kheir called him my brave one that day? What pair of big ears on the Cay eavesdropped on the enormous yet fragile reunion of father and son, then went running to tell the tale?
That day belonged to Fen alone.
Those words were his. His father gave them to him.
“Valentos. I’m here.”
The Horselord’s voice crossed the cradle of constant pain where Fen rocked between life and death. He opened his eyes, feverish and broken and Gods, the pain. Flinging itself along his legs and coiling like a snake around his spine. His gaze wobbled over the face looming above him before a barrage of sharp coughs put knives between his ribs.
“Shh,” his father said, his big hand soft on Fen’s head. “Rest, my one.”
“Da,” Tehvan said through his burning throat.
“It’s all right. I’m here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” Il-Kheir slid his arms beneath his son and gathered the hot, damp head onto his enormous shoulder. “No, no, no,” he half sang. “My one, you’re alive, I knew you were alive. Valentos, my heart, I’m here now. You’re going home.”
“Da.” Tehvan’s voice splintered around the most giant of giantwords.
“I’m here, Tehvani…”
He heard his khenom, his soul name, sweet and sing-song in his father’s voice. More beautiful soothing words and enormous hands cradling Fen’s head.
“It’s over now, valentos. You’re with me. I got you back. Shh. My heart, my brave one.”
Fen cried and cried while his mighty father wept on his knees at the bedside. He held Fen in his arms the whole rest of the voyage. Hours? Days? Fen didn’t know but his father never let him go. He told the pain it had to come through him before it could get to his son.
“It’s over now,” he said. “Everything will be all right, I promise.”
In the Horselord’s fierce embrace, Fen found he could stand the agony. He was going home and he was free and his father was here, he’d always be here. He’d fix everything that was broken and he’d never let Fen be taken from him again.
Valentos, I’m here…
“You’re here,” the Horselord said.
Fen opened his eyes and emerged from the past. A priestess was going about the nave, blowing out the candles, filling the air with swirls of smoke.
“I came as soon as I could,” Fen said.
“Not soon enough.” Sevri il-Kheir’s silver hooves rang on the stone floor as he came along the pews and rails.
“I’m sorry, father.” A cold sweat gripped the back of Fen’s neck and dripped from under his arms.
“You owe Kepten True your life.”
“Not a day goes by where I’m not aware of that.”
“Nine days passed where it seemed to everyone you forgot.”
“I only got the message last night.”
“If you were here in Valtourel instead of gallivanting off in Min—”
“The slave trade is a fraction of what it was thanks to my gallivanting. Maybe it means nothing to you but it’s what I chose to devote my life to.”
Il-Kheir crossed his arms. “Your choice, Fen, has always been to fixate on the past. It’s been that way since you were born.”
His pale blue eyes were cold, hard and tight, like a bowstring drawn to its apex. His voice an arcodolori—an arrow of sadness to Fen’s heart.
Where did you go? His eyes traveled from the moonstone around the Horselord’s neck, down to the wall of his crossed arms. The same arms that gathered Fen up on the Cay, rocked him and held him safe, now closed up tight and unyielding. An embrace that once sheltered Fen now shut him out.
What happened to my Da? What did I do to make you turn on me like this?
Don’t you love me anymore?
Fen drew a controlled breath through his nose and counted to three. “You’d also be hard-pressed to find a day when I don’t think about my birth, Father.”
The air pressed hard, filled with the invisible presence of Fen’s mother. Under it, Sevri’s endless grief locked horns with Fen’s never-ending guilt.
Fen never knew his mother. He was born breech and Zoria bled to death before he had all four feet on the ground. He’d been dragged backward into the world and a priestess predicted it would be Fen’s fate to live life looking where he came from, not where he was going.
Fen closed his eyes. When the slave trade is wiped off the face of the map, then I’ll turn around. I’ll face the future when I decide it’s time and not a minute before.
Hooves on stone again. When Fen’s eyes opened, he was alone in the nave with the mariner.
He walked to the bier and gazed down at the resting kepten. Ikharus-Lippé True lay in state in white shirt and breeches, black boots and his magnificent blue coat. This garment was the blanket he tucked around Fen at the top of a spice tree before slipping Fen’s lost ring back on his fivehand. The first step to making Fen whole again.
Not a day goes by when I don’t remember.
Fen’s wings unfurled, extending beyond the length of the bier. He plucked a single feather, one of the median coverts, and kissed it before tucking it in the inside pocket of Kepten True’s coat.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
As he walked back to the pavilion, he passed the palace’s infirmary wing, the arched windows lit up gold from within. Somewhere behind the stained glass, the new kepten lay sick, possibly dying.
Does he even know his father’s gone?
Fen walked on. Solos had slipped beneath the horizon and in the sky over Valtourel, the first stars were blinking to life. The constellation of Nyos shimmered into sight, followed by Minos. A mother drawing her bow and shooting her beloved one. An arrow of sadness into the bull’s dopey heart, over and over again. A love story disguised as battle, told night after night with no happy ending.
Story of my life, Fen il-Kheir thought.
The next morning, he flew with his charm back to Minosaros, where he was needed.
Inside the palace’s infirmary wing, the nurses were beside themselves trying to care for their new patients. If they separated the Ĝemelos from Trueblood, Lejo cried out in agony, Raj thrashed with fever, and Trueblood’s breath stilled to nearly nothing beneath the strange scar ringing his heart.
A giantsbed was brought in so the three sailors could lie together. Stacked on their sides, sometimes rolled toward the sunrise, other times the sunset. But always facing the same way with the mariner’s son in the middle.
The healers spoke to Abrakam about giving the boys fadara for the pain. The conversation was conducted in hushed tones, as the narcotic was illegal and officially none existed in Valtourel. Its unofficial existence came with an unwritten law: fadara was so addictive, it could not be administered for medical purposes without consent.
Trueblood was unconscious and the Ĝemelos nothing close to lucid. Abrakam refused on their behalf and opted to try an infusion of kyrrh.
“Kyrrh’s a salve,” one of the nurses said. “You don’t ingest it.”
“You can,” the centaur said. “I’ve done it before.”
The nurse leaned over his shoulder as he shaved the resin, fascinated. “What if we put it in a nychet?”
A nychet was a small muslin bag, once filled with Nye and dunked in hot water to make an elixir of love and life and happiness. The spice was long gone but the tiny pouches were dried, put away and passed down for spe
cial occasions or esteemed company. It was believed the lingering Nye residue seeped into whatever tea was made in them. A miniature nyellem in a cup.
The Nylanders believed. If he were alive, Ikharus-Lippé True would say Nylanders endured because they believed.
Abrakam shaved kyrrh into one of these treasured nychets and dropped the little pouch into hot water. He stirred in honey. He added all his desperate love and devotion, all his wisdom and lore and knowledge. He held three pairs of shaking shoulders and steadied the cup at the teeth chattering within three speechless mouths. He wept as his large, wrinkled hand smoothed three brows.
Beneath his rough palm, the three young men held each other.
Trueblood lay between the twins. Kyrrh and honey and the love of his people coursing in his veins. The hand of a wise, wonderful centaur on his brow. A pen wrote on the inside of his eyelids in especial beautiful penmanship: He is wise and good with problems. If I am worried and Da is busy, I talk to Abrakam and I feel better.
“Rest, lad,” Abrakam said from across an ocean. “Rest your heart.”
Trueblood’s teeth chattered against the rim of a cup. He swallowed and it burned like the sun down into his chest. Abrakam helped him lie down again.
Against his back, Raj smoldered like banked ash.
Within the circle of his arms, Lejo shivered like moonlight on snow.
Between them, Trueblood dreamed. First, handwriting looped across the back of his eyelids, telling long, complicated stories without end. Then, through the words burst a familiar, blue-black silhouette. Winged with four legs.
Wake up, Pelippé Trueblood.
He opened his eyes. The room was in darkness, only the merest trace of moonlight at the windows. Enough to illuminate one side of the kheirone standing by the wide bed. The silvery beams curled around the apple of her cheek, leaving the rest of her face in shadow. As he stared, Trueblood’s childhood finger longed to ride along the ripples of her hair and trace the curve of her tiny waist.
A four-fingered hand reached to him. Her lips moved but no sound touched his ear.
Gods, you look terrible, ele-Kheir said to his soul.
“Am I dead?” Trueblood said.
The Horsedam smiled. Not yet. How do you feel?
“Terrible. And it’s all your fault.”
I apologize. She didn’t move from the side of the bed, yet she managed to slip into the tiny space between Trueblood and Lejo. She lay cool and dry against his body, her hand soft on his face.
“My heart hurts so bad,” he whispered.
I know.
“I want my father. Please get my Da.”
She put cold, soft hands on his burning chest and kissed each of his eyelids. Your father is dead, Pelippé. My brother took his soul back to the moon. You are the kepten now.
How she stood statue-still at the bedside yet held him in her arms was a mystery he’d contemplate later. Right now he curled into her embrace and cried a river around his already-broken heart. He sobbed until the scars ringing his chest broken open and bled, weeping along with him.
Like a child, he cried himself to sleep, and when he woke, ele-Kheir’s astral presence was still beside him, gentle and immutable.
You look a little better now, she said.
Weak and devastated, Trueblood shivered against her breast. “You’re il-Kheir’s sister?”
Ancestral aunt is more accurate, but sister makes me feel young.
“You’re beautiful.”
Her palm caressed his heart. I ask the world of you and you pay me compliments. If only all humans were this agreeable.
“What’s happening to me?”
You’re taking your father’s place. In all kinds of ways.
“What’s the matter with the twins? What’s wrong with them?”
Their bond was broken.
“I don’t understand.”
It’s much like Nydirsil pulling her roots free of the earth. Your father’s soul was rooted in Raj and Lejo. He was literally ripped out of them when he died. She reached behind to pat Lejo’s head, then ahead to tousle Raj’s hair.
My poor foalboys, she murmured.
“The twins are kheirons?”
Didn’t you know?
“No,” he said, even as a distant corner of his mind disagreed, insisting it knew, it always knew, it just didn’t know it knew.
“Where are their wings?” he asked. “Where is their silver and moonstones?”
Serving another purpose the Horsedam said.
“Why do they have auras? Nobody else sees it, but both their light shines at the corner of my eye. My father had strange light inside him, too. I saw it when he died. What is that? What’s happening?”
Shh. She kissed his head. If you get upset, you’ll hurt them. If you think you’re strong enough to leave a little while, I’ll show you.
“All right.”
Her presence disappeared from Trueblood’s side and now her corporal form stirred next to the bed, turning its back to reveal her wings. Will you honor me by riding, Pelippé?
“The honor is mine.” He slid down the mattress and off the foot of the bed, then mounted ele-Kheir’s back. She moved silvery and cool between his thighs. It made him hard and he was embarrassed, but she laughed as if it pleased her.
“Where are we going?”
Through time, my one. Where stories live.
As she melted through the wall and launched into the sky, Trueblood felt his heart stretch arms back to the receding earth. A child wanting its mother. Somewhere back there, behind him, the Ĝemelos were crying. They pulled and yanked, their light clawing his heart like white-hot gold that sparkled at the edges.
“Gods, it hurts,” he said.
Tell me how.
“It’s two kinds of pain. Raj sort of punches and stabs me, but Lejo aches. Feels like he’s pulling out my soul’s teeth.”
Lejo’s always been the more sensitive of the two. It’s no surprise he let your father anchor deeper into his soul. Both twins are filling the void Ikharus left behind. Filling it with their love for you. Love and memory. She glanced back at Trueblood. Lejo has one memory with you that Raj doesn’t.
Trueblood hid his face against her feathers. “You saw us in bed?”
She laughed. Well, I didn’t watch, that would be impolite. But yes, I knew. She shook her shoulders free of his embarrassment. Oh, stop it. What did Lejo tell you about gelang?
“It isn’t dirty.”
You were beautiful to each other. It was sweet and innocent and trusting and perfect. It meant the world to Lejo.
“Did it?”
It let him discover who he is. Now with your father gone, you’re the most important person in Lejo’s life. He’s clawing at your soul and pulling its teeth because he loves you. Desperately.
Trueblood sighed. “Gelang never did much make sense to me.”
One day it will. Hold tight now.
The kheirone rose and fell, taking them past nebulous castles carved out of the universe. Towers of pink, purple and gold clouds, stars flung across their soft walls. Single stars like diamond buttons on a coat. Fuzzy clusters of pinprick sparkles. Fat, shapeless blobs of red and blue light.
This is Os’s mane, ele-Kheir said.
“Os is a horse?”
Sometimes. In a different part of time, Os is a bird.
She flew at the dark orange eye of a fuchsia maelstrom and out the other side, into a brilliant blue sky. Below them lay the rippling carpet of the ocean, dark gray-green and streaked with white. A five-masted ship cut a wake through the center, towing a gargantuan tree behind.
“Holy horses.” Trueblood’s mouth gaped at the nine branches splitting from the massive trunk. One straight up and four to each side, filling the sky from horizon to horizon.
Four gods, four god
desses and Os, ele-Kheir said. One branch for each, anchored to the sky.
She flew him around and through each limb, naming them.
Solos, the sun god and Lunos, the moon goddess.
Truvos of the sea and his slain sister of love, Nyos.
Wrevos for wisdom. Velos, who presided over the harvest.
Meros, the terrible war god. His serene twin, Helos, balancing birth and death.
Straight overhead at the apex of the tree, the highest branch scraped against the sky, touching the face of Os, who was One.
“The anchoring stars are gone,” Trueblood said. “Truvos made them into rings. Khe wears them on his fingers.”
Not anymore. Truvos finished mourning his love and asked me to put the rings somewhere safe.
“Why you?”
She sniffed. Do you think I’m not worthy?
“I’m sorry. I meant, why not put them back in Nydirsil’s branches? Anchor her to the sky again and fix everything?”
Truvos declared the stars couldn’t be returned until a love like he knew with Khe returned to the earth threefold. He wrote it in stone. Once you write a thing down, it becomes real. He put a destiny into motion and I can’t change the course of the voyage. My job is to keep the ship safe.
“Da says when the job is done well, no strutting is required.”
Oh, but strutting is the best part.
As she made one last spiral around Nydirsil, Trueblood noticed an oddly-shaped tenth branch. He leaned, squinting, and saw it was fabricated—a piece of manmade wood tied crossways where the trunk split.
“What’s that?” he said, pointing. “It looks like a yard.”
It’s the future, ele-Kheir said.
“The world is a ship and Nydirsil is the mast.”
An excellent way to look at it, Pelippé.
She flew away from the tree, crossing time and space. Neatly threading her flight between two nebulous monoliths and emerging above another ocean and another ship.
“Héjo, that’s the Kaleuche,” Trueblood said.
“Yes. But the Kaleuche twenty years ago.”
They squeezed between a crack of the ship and passed easily through the bulkheads and decks, down to the nyellem. Ele-Kheir walked through its wall as if it were water.
The Voyages of Trueblood Cay Page 12