Ashes Slowly Fall

by Katya Lebeque

  For the first time, her frailty and the eye didn’t matter to Vanita. She ran like the wind. She ran like Ash. Heedless of her thin shoes and delicate chest, she sprinted as loudly as she dared through the grass and bones both, amongst the blackened stump-land of former forest and right up the Rhodopalais drive. She ran beyond tired, beyond fear. Without quite meaning to, she ran home to her Mother and to the ghosts there.

  It was early dusk when she reached the ramshackle outside of her wooden beams against the front wall. She didn’t bother going around to the kitchen, but just slipped inside where she had not yet finished. Her legs were suddenly lead now, her chest on fire and wheezing, and the pain behind her left eye socket was a throbbing, sharp anthem almost keeping time with her racing heart.

  It was all she could do not to collapse right there, in the front parlour, but she had to see if her Mother was alright. If bandits had come while she was out… Urgency drove her aching feet forwards and she realised dully that where she stepped there was blood on the stairs. From her feet.

  “Mo-Mother?”

  But her mother was safe and alive, sitting in her bed. Anita almost fell to the floor with relief and tiredness both. But her mother did not seem to notice.

  “Well? Did you get food?”

  “No.”

  “Did get help?”

  “There is no help. No.”

  A sigh in the quiet dark. “You were always such a disappointment to me, Vanita.”

  The room slowly turned to black.

  ***

  Miles and miles away, another woman with the same blood in her veins was standing before a looking glass.

  The dress she was surveying was fine, just like all the other dead woman’s dresses, this one the blue of a rushing river trapped beneath ice. Nonchalantly, she reached for her Expansion iron blade and slipped it neatly under one sleeve. A knife was always needed at court. When –

  There.

  What was that sound? Her mind was elsewhere, it was on her sister, she must have imagined it. She could have sworn she heard the faintest of footsteps just in front of her, even though the walls were inches thick and there was no adjoining chamber on that side of hers. There was only the looking glass there, staring mutely at her.

  As quietly as she could, the girl in the silk dress with hard eyes walked towards her reflection and waited. There, on the other side of the glass, was the unmistakable sound of breathing.

  Slowly, deliberately, Ash heard feet behind her looking glass step backward, where there should only be wall, and walk away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Pathfinder

  Sometimes things need to be rebuilt.

  Vanita stood squinting up at the curlicued remains of the front room windows. The sunlight was dancing across the sepia-toned wooden beams remaining above them. Beauty, even here, in destruction. It was the inspiration Vanita needed to ignore the pulsing pain behind her eye and pick up another more broken beam from the floor.

  “What are you planning to keep out? The average horse could make it through there.”

  Vanita sighed, trying not to listen, and placed the beam alongside the one she’d just placed against the wall where the jagged carrior hole started. Wincing slightly, she took the shreds from her second to last dress and tied the beam to its neighbour.

  “It’s not about keeping marauders out, Mother. It’s about the chill. It’s near on Autumn and the winds will pick up soon. This will help to keep some cold out and some warmth in.”

  “Humph” was all the reply she got. She was starting to miss her mother’s vocabulary being limited to “hmm’.

  In spite of herself, she looked over her shoulder at the raggedy, half-dressed hag the lady of Rhodopalais passed for these days. Rebuilding her mother certainly hadn’t worked. Vanita had sat her down firmly this morning, at the tattered remains of her vanity table. Even after the world had ended, this woman had readied and groomed herself every single day, not a hair out of place, armoured in correct dress before she so much as went downstairs in her own home.

  “This is what you do,” Vanita had insisted. “You start with brushing your hair, like this. You have done it all my life. That’s what you do.”

  “Oh yes I know, idiot girl. But what is the point now? In those years I looked impeccable and now that I look back I see nothing but failure, for all my hard work. You were born without talent and I never had another child. I failed my sister, coming here, being sent here. Now it’s too late – no one will marry you like that and anyway, you’re barren. So why brush my hair?”

  Words like swords, words like walls. But they hadn’t made any sense. “Firstly, you must still have your head affected, because you don’t have a sister. And you proposed to Lord Cerentola, not the other way around, you weren’t “sent” here. And lastly, I’ve never… I mean, I am not married, I haven’t… so how could you know I’m barren?”

  But it had done no good. Her “mother” had just shaken her head. “Not that kind of barren,” she’d said, even though those words made even less sense. The black-speckled and dusty reflection of her face had looked at Vanita through the safe barrier of the mirror. Vanita saw only sadness there.

  Vanita shook herself back into the present and reached for more wood. She looked up again for the reassurance of the light playing on the beams and windows again, but the sun’s angle had changed already, and she saw no beauty there.

  “I married your father because it was my duty, of course. I was sent to him. That was what was foreseen. But oh, he was a good kisser! It was no trouble at all making a baby with him! Not like the second one.”

  “Mother, good lord! Can you just stop talking please?”

  “I cannot. I don’t know why but I cannot. It is most embarrassing. I would never have revealed any of this to anyone, least of all to you. None of this would have happened if my stupid sister –”

  “For goodness” sake you do not have a sister!”

  “Of course I do. I have lots of sisters, just none that you know about. It was supposed to stay that way. But as I say, none of this would have happened if my stupid sister had not decided to become all religious and refused to do what she was trained to. And then gone and died, too. Then I could have stayed with the good kisser.”

  “I believe she was more my sister than yours, Sister,” said a bright voice from the behind them.

  The coppery hair, the same orange robe. It couldn’t be… But it was. Ash’s aunt had come back to Rhodopalais.

  “Enrosa.” Mother didn’t sound the least bit surprised. “I thought I saw you coming.”

  “Oh please, Jadene, give me some credit. A rusty old thing like you? I let you see me.”

  “Well, you Cerentola girls were always more gifted than I was. But so weak! Look at you now, a puppet of the palace. Pah!”

  Despite these nonsensical statements, the pathfinder calmly walked over to Mother and took her chin in one hand, tilting her face upward and commanding her to look to the left and then to the right. Mother only smiled at her icily, eyes never leaving the other woman’s face.

  ‘Enrosa” smiled an icy smile back. What on earth was going on here?

  “Do you know anything about phrenology, Vanita? Anything about anatomy of the head?” the Pathfinder called over her shoulder.

  “No.”

  “I heard your mother, her ramblings, and pieced together how she protected you all and was then hit on the head, losing consciousness. Broca’s region, as well as the amygdala, were hurt. This was why she couldn’t talk and seemed so changed. For many it is irredeemable, but fortunately she was hit on the head in a similar region again, which sparked working order again. Only she was also hit on the prefrontal area here, and somehow this damaged her capacity for inhibition.”

  Before Vanita could speak, her mother waved her hand impatiently as if she understood this science-talk and it bored her. “Why are you telling her that?” she asked disdainfully. Then, in a whisper so loud Vanita could hear it eas
ily, she added: “Have you seen something?”

  “I’ve seen what I have seen and it’s no concern of yours. One thing I did manage to see recently was the sheer failure you managed with actually being a mother to your poor daughter for once, when she most needed you and when my niece wasn’t there to clean up after your… personality.”

  Stony silence as the women continued looking at each other. It was as if Vanita wasn’t even there.

  “I – forgive me, Pathfinder, but I thought you said you would never come back here?” It was more an attempt at changing the topic of conversation than anything else, but Ash’s aunt took the question seriously, spinning to face her.

  “I said that I would never see Ashlynne again. That is not the same thing. I have been keeping to my travels, staying away from the palace these past weeks in order to keep that prediction true whilst Ash is at court. While I was nearby, so to speak, I sensed something and thought it best to… investigate.”

  The idea of “travelling” for more than the sickening hours Vanita had already endured yesterday was enough to make the mind reel. “Investigate what, Madam Pathfinder?”

  “Goodness, there is no need for titles and theatrics, Vanita. We are family here. I wanted to check up on an old Pathfinder, for one.”

  “But – don’t the Pathfinders all live in the palace? Is the other one travelling too?”

  “No. It is a closely guarded secret but, in actual fact, the Royal Pathfinders are only the visible tip of the proverbial iceberg. They largely live out among society, hidden in plain sight.”

  Vanita’s head, which had begun to ache again, was clouding over with this new and confusing information. Then, suddenly, an idea occurred to her and the clouds parted.

  “If there’s a Pathfinder near here then she can help us! If you perhaps ask her, she can somehow help us to get food? We have none.”

  Enrosa chuckled. “I highly doubt that. Some Pathfinders do not practise their art and allow themselves to get… old.”

  “Still, if there is a chance that she can help… Please. Where is she?”

  Ash’s aunt watched her without responding, seeming to weigh Vanita with her eyes. Then, some invisible signal was passed over her shoulder across the room, and she shrugged.

  “I suppose I’ll need to tell you, then.”

  “Yes, please, where is the other Pathfinder?”

  “She is in this room.”

  No thought, no breath would come. Not for what seemed like years. “Not possible,” Vanita wheezed, looking between the Pathfinder and the woman who was, who had always been, her mother, now staring daggers at the shiny orange robes.

  “It is the path of Pathfinders to glimpse and guide the future for the country’s greater good. But not all the future is determined by those in the palace, Vanita. So, for ages past, the Pathfinder’s way has been to send their own into families it was glimpsed would be important someday – usually noble houses with an esteemed line that would make decisions.”

  “How dare you!” Mother spat, still glaring fiercely at Ash’s aunt and, oddly, not refuting anything she said. “It is forbidden to speak of this to the barren, what have you done?”

  “What have I done? It’s not what I’ve done but what I’ve seen, Jadene. Something you were too blind too, a fact sadly humorous given your daughter’s wounds. I saw a disturbance in the previous fabric of Path-sight we had. I looked for the disturbance and saw… an owl. And so much blood. A ringing pain in the head and then strange dreams. Strange men. “Remember Gelanne’.”

  The words settled in the dust on the floor. It was as though Vanita could see them. Clearly, the Pathfinder could.

  Gelanne. The word brought back a tide of memories. At this, it was too much. “I need air,” Vanita breathed, shivering, and walked outside, completely forgetting to be afraid.

  Two hours ago, Vanita would never have thought she would go outside ever again. She could never have guessed at things said inside her own home that could scare her more than she’d already been scared.

  And yet she was shaking, mind whirling, as she stood in the sun and leaned against her own fallen timbers” barrier.

  At last, when she had finally thought she would not come, the Pathfinder, or one of them at least, appeared by her side. “Vanita, are you alright?”

  A choked, stunted laugh came from her throat and she turned to stare at her sister’s aunt. It seemed to be the stupidest question she’d ever heard, so she didn’t answer it. Instead, she decided to ask one of her own, careful to look away as she said it to hide the tremor in her voice.

  “So, my mother is a Pathfinder, has always been a Pathfinder? And so, have you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Ash’s mother?”

  “Also a Pathfinder, before her devoutness to the Christian faith meant in her mind renouncing her Pathfinder magick. Which I found strange, since I am a Christian myself, but there you are.”

  “But that’s…. That’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is… this house, and a meadow nearby, and a childhood full of memories… While Ash and I were playing in the gardens and being taught embroidery and dance and dressed up in clothes and went to parties… You were all, all this time, behind everything – you were Pathfinders?”

  “Yes. You never knew because, every once in a while, a daughter is born to a Pathfinder who is without any of the Path’s talent – what we call “barren’, a rather unsightly term. It seemed both Ashlynne first, and then you, were born “barren” and it is forbidden to tell the barren anything of this because without Path-sight they cannot understand. Still, I’m sorry for today, for the shock of how this has happened. But it is time you knew. We should have known long ago, but these are strange times.”

  “Knew what exactly?” The thing that it was had already taken some shape in her mind, fact laid upon fact like stones until they built something. But she needed to hear it said aloud. “If what you say is true, why are you telling me this now?”

  “You know why Vanita. You must have guessed. Because you are a Pathfinder too.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  A crow

  Strange, how the colours of the world, one minute familiar, can suddenly brighten and leave you dizzy, faint, unsteady. Vanita felt like she was going to fall, nausea rising in her throat. She sank gracelessly to the ground and leaned heavily on the timber behind her, panting.

  The Pathfinder seemed to understand what was happening for her, because she did not register distress, but only sat down beside her companionably and continued speaking, as though they were chatting about dresses.

  “Most girls show their affinity for the Path by the age of five years old. Those that reach seven without any sign are termed barren and are trained in some of the lessons, like basic self-defence and histories, but not all. A very rare few only come into their own after a severe trauma awakens their Path-seeing “eye’, so to speak.”

  “Like my attack by the owl.”

  “Like your owl attack, yes. Once I sensed you, this new talent come to bless the Path, I had to tell you. You had to know.”

  “Know what, exactly?”

  “That you are a seer, Vanita. It is a Pathfinder’s gift, and a prized one. That you are powerful.”

  Powerful. The word thrummed with truth like a strummed harp, clicked within her like a key in a lock turned home. Powerful – there it was, in the open at last. Vanita gasped, despite having mostly known already, breathed it in as if it were her first breath on earth.

  Funnily enough, in that significant moment she thought of Ash. A kind of quiet, tender anger rose up in her like a hidden wound pressed upon. As long as she could remember, Ash had been able to pull any bow, had been silent in long grass, had thrown contemptuous glances back in the fiery rage of anyone. All their lives, that was what they had both known to be power. And the way Vanita had played intricate games, had noticed the various colours of water as it fell or longed to hear her sister’s secrets… The way she had wanted to
embrace the world instead of protecting herself from it … That was weakness. And it had been a lie. All the while Ash and her hardness had been as sharp as glass but as brittle as it too, where Vanita had been pliant. Ash had been the one walk tall through the world with her hands outstretched, scornful of any dark room.

  The anger welled, then subsided and deepened into a crisp sadness. It was not aimed at Ash, or for her, no. It was at the whole world.

  “What can I learn to do with these seeing powers?” she said at last, more to distract herself from the uncomfortable thoughts than anything else. It was working already. Ideas of deeds and other powers leapt up like fishes into her churning mind. But the Pathfinder just shook her head.

  “That is not how the gifts work. They are badly named, in fact, for what they are. Your seeing power is not a limb or a tool, nor a puppet or a pet. It will obey you and stay with you now that it has been born – it must, in a way you are its mother – but it is a relationship in which both your two wills must find a way to coexist. Sometimes it will not come, inexplicably, while other days it will bound from you like a puppy. Together, slowly, you and your seeing will learn to work together.”

  Vanita looked down. “I’ve never been part of a team. I’ve had people fighting at me and fighting for me, but never with me. In a way, I’ve always been alone. And as for being a mother –”

  “I know Vanita, I know. It is not fair, nor easy. But try to imagine how you would want to be treated and then extend that to your new sight, guiding and encouraging without smothering it. To teach others to see for themselves, that is the highest duty of any Royal Pathfinder – who knows? Perhaps you could be a Royal Pathfinder someday.”

  “What?”