The Unforeseen One

by Lexy Wolfe

  She closed her eyes. “No, it really didn’t. Only Forenten ever came to the town I grew up in, and Naveene’s training focused on serving the highborn of Forenta. But I didn’t like them. I didn’t want anything to do with them. Most were cold, and some were just…cruel. I was so happy when you and Ash brought the others, especially Storm and Skyfire. But I guess I never acted the same for them as I had been trained to do for the highborn.”

  “Untrue. You learned to accept and adapt to their cultural habits instead of trying to make them behave more like Forenten. An error Miss Kelafy admitted to herself.” Almek paused as they navigated around an uneven section of the almost invisible trail Bella followed. “If you failed in anything, it was not trying to see the world through their eyes. Perceive it as they did.” He leaned over to pat her knee in reassurance. “As a Guardian of Time, that is a skill you will find invaluable. Understand others’ views as much as your own.”

  “Like Skyfire’s?” she asked in a small voice. He did not respond as her shoulders slumped, knowing the answer to her question already.

  SOMETIMES I WONDER what you see in that girl, Kailee grumbled, as Skyfire brushed his drizzen’s hide with a stiff brush. Surely you could do better than—

  He scowled, keeping his attention fixed on the dull shine in his mount’s hide. “You know my heart and my mind, yet you still ask me that?”

  Just because we share a connection doesn’t make you more comprehensible to me. This Forentan girl is distracting you. It is my business if she would cause you to falter. I will not allow her to be the reason I lose you to death. He glared, baring his teeth.

  “Who in the world are you talking to?” Ophilia stopped at the edge of the clearing, holding her hands up as both desert beasts hissed at her, teeth flashing menacingly. “Hey now. You don’t want to hurt me. I’m part of his and Storm’s tribe. They’ll get grumpy.” When the pair subsided, glowering sullenly at her, she blinked in surprise. “Wow, that worked.”

  “Why wouldn’t it have worked?” he asked, terse as he returned to brushing.

  Ophilia shook her head as she hopped up onto a flat rock to watch him. “Well, I didn’t think they’d understand. They’re just animals.” The two drizzen fixed malevolent looks on the Forentan woman. She hesitated in uncertainty. “…Aren’t they?”

  Skyfire paused in his work, regarding her. He rested his elbow on the back of his drizzen, chin in palm, he studied her with pity. “I forget how much you northborn separate yourselves from the land.”

  Affronted, Ophilia demanded, “What is that supposed to mean?”

  It means you are an idiot, Kailee muttered in Skyfire’s mind with a sniff.

  “It means you assume if something is not human, it is not intelligent,” Skyfire stated firmly to both his Totani and the woman. Kailee made a disgusted sound, but did not comment. “They may not understand everything we humans do, but animals are not completely ignorant.” He thumped the drizzen on the shoulder. “Some are smarter.” His expression turned droll when the drizar pranced in place, bobbing his head. “Most are more humble.”

  “But don’t you…eat drizzen in Desantiva?” Ophilia wondered. “I mean, how can you eat something that might be as smart as a human?”

  He shrugged. “I doubt you could understand.”

  “Because I’m a nasty, stupid northborn?” The woman crossed her arms with indignation. “Honestly, if that’s what you think, Lyra could do better than someone like you who thinks so little of her or her people.” Skyfire’s eyes went wide at the unexpected, blunt critique, then dark at the insult.

  Even Kailee was impressed. Well, what do you know? There might be some intelligence in that pale little head after all. Or at least backbone.

  “Go on.” Ophilia gestured at him. “Prove your superiority and tell me all about how you could eat something that is intelligent. Make my eyes glaze over,” she challenged, gesturing dramatically over her face.

  Skyfire ground his teeth together, not noticing the desert mounts looking between them. “How can I explain to someone who believes there are different levels of worthiness in the living? We all must eat to live. Some things give their lives so others may live. We appreciate and thank them for their sacrifice, knowing one day, it could be us who sustains them.”

  Ophilia’s eyes widened in horrified shock. “Desanti eat…each other, too?”

  “Feh. Treewalkers would think that.” He gestured dismissively, turning away from her to a cleared area to train. “Of course we do not.”

  “Then it sounds hypocritical to me,” she countered, crossing her arms. Kailee snickered at how the Forentan girl’s challenging frustrated Skyfire. “If all living things are equal then you’d think you’d eat people just like anything else. I thought your people hated hypocrisy.”

  “Do you think humans are as strong as drizzen?” he growled. “Drizzen can and do eat anything and everything. But if it makes you feel superior to the warrior folk, we did once. What remained of the tribes would go to war and the dead or defeated fed those remaining.

  “It nearly destroyed us. Humans eating humans caused disease and sickness. We nearly went extinct in the years following the Great War before the Changewinds swept Desantiva and made what was left alive into what it is today.”

  He unsheathed his dual-edged sword, tawny brown eyes flashing in anger. “Our dead are burned when there is enough fuel to spare. If there is not, their bodies are left for scavengers in times of plenty or given to the tribe drizzen to sustain them. We are a part of the land, and the land is a part of us. We are born from it and then we return. That is my people’s tradition.”

  The Forentan woman blinked, her shoulders sagging from her challenging posture as Skyfire’s reality sank in. Silent, she ran through as many scenarios as she could imagine to suggest another way. Her expression was bleak. “Oh. I…see.” She turned away, eyes shut tightly.

  Kailee’s amusement faded to grimness as Skyfire’s mind touched on very old memories. Yes. Now you know the truth.

  Fists held at his side, sword trembling in the light, Skyfire looked to the sky. “The tribes turned on each other because there was nowhere to go. They could not lay down and die to end the torture of living. Our will to survive is ingrained too deeply.”

  Ophilia frowned, worry in her expression. “…Who are you talking to?”

  “To my Totani. The spirits have been kind enough to leave me in peace since we returned from testing.”

  “Spirits? Oh, so that’s what Terrence meant. Can you see people’s souls, too?” She asked her question with keen curiosity, no judgment in her voice. “Wait. Nevermind. Of course you can. That’s how you know if people are lying or not.”

  Skyfire stared at her. “You believe me?”

  “Well, yes. I mean, it makes sense. My people are all in their heads, and as much as we want to believe we’re all cold and logical, we are feeling beings. I figure being alive is all about emotions. But yours are emotional and stuff. And it, uh, seems like your people are a lot closer to death than mine.” Her cheeks turned pink as she fumbled trying to explain herself. “Not that I think Desanti are murderers or anything. Well, I used to but that’s because I’d never met Desanti and er…”

  “Well, you’re not murderers. Killers! Not…not that you do that without reason. Or a lot. Only now and then, right? Killing is necessary sometimes, but murder is bad and you and Storm aren’t bad. Just really temperamental and I’m really making this sound horrible, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, you are.” He looked at his sword for a time, then sheathed the weapon with an air of resignation. “But you are sincere.”

  “You can tell?” He gave her a sardonic, sidelong look. “Oh. Yeah. That answers my question then, huh? About whether you are able to see people’s souls, too.” She added in hopeful tones, “At least I am sincere?”

  He walked toward the thick grass. “Do you think that will make me like you?” He scowled at her. “You do nothing but antagonize Lyra. Are you
here to torment me while she is away on an errand? How would Terrence put it? Antagonism by proxy?”

  She laughed wryly. “Ah, my mother would be so proud of me. I can tick off everyone who crosses my path.” The woman reached up to undo her loose braid, running her fingers through her hair. “I would have been such a disappointment if I’d stayed with Naveene to finish servant training. Lyra and I have a difference of opinions on the duties of servants in Forenta.”

  The pair settled onto the grass, watching songbirds flit through an evergreen bush, its waxy leaves gleaming in the sunlight. Skyfire glanced down at her. “You were a servant?”

  “Gods, no. I wanted to go to the Magus Academy. I was smart enough in everything else, but I couldn’t grasp how to manipulate the fabric of the world.” She picked up a stone, tossing it into the air where it hovered above her palm for a minute as she murmured a spell, then let it drop. “I could see things, but not do anything. I couldn’t even light a damned candle, and only the worst Forenten can’t do that much.” She smiled fondly. “Not until Terrence helped me.” She looked sideways at him. “He admires you a great deal, you know. And worries about you, especially after that incident with Lyra at breakfast.”

  He did not look at her, his arms draped over his knees as he watched the birds. “Even if I did not have Citali’s gift, I would be able to tell. Dzee chose him to be her Githalin. It is not a bond forged lightly.” When she put her hand on his upper arm, he looked at it, then at her with a slight frown of confusion.

  Her eyes searched his. “Do you know what it means to be a servant in Forenta? What it really means?” she asked.

  “They take care of those they are supposed to. Ash had hired Lyra because Miss Kelafy insisted we needed a personal assistant and she was the only one Storm did not try to choke.”

  Ophilia blinked, then threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, great mother, I wish I could have seen that! Who was it? Was it Joxan? He was always such a simpering, aggravating twig. I could never stand his condescending attitude toward everyone.”

  “I do not know. We had only just arrived. He was sent away to keep from agitating Storm more. There was much to take in, and we were both on edge.” He frowned at her. “What is wrong with being a servant?”

  “Nothing!” Her expression turned grave. “So long as you have a good master. There had been fewer of those when I was growing up. I can’t imagine it’s improved in the short time I’ve been gone.”

  She sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “Masters like Ash or Terrence, take care of the people beholden to them. They respect them. They don’t abuse them.”

  “…Abuse?” He tensed. “Lyra was abused?”

  “Not unless you or Storm did, no. Naveene is known for providing, ah…‘pristine’ young servants, which is why some older masters favor those he’s trained.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know.” She whispered in his ear, “Virgins.”

  Skyfire sat upright, eyes darkening with anger. Ophilia flinched back. “They force themselves on the unwilling—?”

  “I can’t say they don’t,” she admitted. “According to rumors, some are really twisted. Men and women, doesn’t make a difference the gender, it’s the rank. The higher the social status, the less a lowborn has any power to deny whatever their contract holder wants.”

  The man fumed darkly, fists clenched. “That is slavery. To take another’s freedom from them—”

  Ophilia put a hand on his arm soothingly. “It isn’t to us, really. It’s expectations. Very few question how things are. Fewer challenge it. Most try to use it to their family’s advantage or at least make the best of the situation since they don’t see any other way.”

  “It is still giving up one’s freedom to another, willing or not. What possible benefit could such an atrocity give?”

  “Social status. Families who are stronger in magic. See, lowborn can’t marry into highborn families. It just isn’t done. So the only means for lowborn to improve bloodlines is through the bastards born to servants and taken in by their birth families. Most assume that any lowborn who manages to become a mage has highborn lineage. And having a mage in the family raises social status. If a lowborn shows enough strength to be a threat to the heirarchy, they will try to determine their lineage. So the highborn family has the option to steal them from the lowborn, er, accept them into the highborn family.”

  “These highborn lacked respect for Ash because they considered him beneath them by birth, despite his skill and strength? But accepted him when they learned he was one himself. Then they argued because of his views.”

  She nodded. “It’s why Terrence makes them angry and crazy, too. No evidence of highborn lineage because there isn’t any. They can’t force him into a family to control him.”

  “He had been Avarian and Zhekali’s son in another life.”

  “Indeed. But we Forenten have no way of determining a soul’s lineage, if such a thing has true impact.” She smirked. “Who’d have guessed previous lives could carry so much weight over the human vessel, hm? Probably be best they don’t find out. No doubt if they learn the soul can have as much influence as the bloodline on native strength, they’ll start attempting to discover how they can control who gets reborn in what family.”

  Skyfire got to his feet and began pacing. “I do not understand why no one questions this! To have no right to challenge such demands and be forced to sire or bear a child. To possibly not want that child to exist!” He shook his head. “I have no words to—!”

  Ophilia smiled faintly, watching him. “I see why Lyra agreed to let Ash take her contract on your and Storm’s behalf. Handsome and noble in action and word. If you’d have been born Forentan, you’d have been damned near perfect.”

  He looked over sharply. “‘Let’? You said lowborn have no choice.”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “We’re Forenten. It gets complicated. Traditionally, yes. We cannot go against the demands of someone of higher status than us. It is greatly frowned on if you do not obey someone who holds your contract. If they say jump, you ask how high. Tell you to spread your legs…” She coughed at his darkening expression. “You got the idea.

  “However, there are more lowborn than highborn and they know if they push too far and regularly abuse people, the lowborn would damn tradition and turn on them. But Lyra was training with Naveene, and Naveene has a lot of influence. A lot. No highborn family wants the scandal of being blacklisted by him, so they do not touch any of those who train under him.”

  “She could have chosen not to come to work for Ash?” Skyfire asked, his words slow and measured.

  “Mm hm.” Ophilia shrugged. “I’m surprised you didn’t take advantage when she threw herself at you. I am sure she must have. It’s obvious even to me she’s more than willing to do anything you ask.” She noticed his ominous but questioning expression, holding up her hands. “Hey, she’s one of those who tried to work within traditions. Why do you think there is friction between us? She thinks I should be more accepting. I think she is an idiot for—”

  “Go. Away,” Skyfire growled. Ophilia opened her mouth to say something, then quickly got to her feet and hurried out of the clearing.

  Kailee mused. Forenten are such an odd people. She flinched back at his anger and went silent as the man took his frustration out on a nearby dying tree.

  There you are.”

  Terrence nearly jumped out of his skin with a yelp, fumbling the journal he perused. He shut his eyes when it hung in the air, sighing before taking hold of it, feeling time flow around it again. “Thank you, Ash.”

  A faint smile curled the dark-haired mage’s lips. “Forgive me for startling you so badly. I did not think I had picked up Storm’s stealth that well.”

  Focused on the journal as he closed it gently and slipped it back into the shelf, Terrence shook his head. “I cannot say if you have or not. I was not paying attention to anything around me. And since Petal has to stay out beca
use she can’t be quiet to save her life, she wasn’t here to warn me.” He rested his forehead against the smooth stone shelving. “Failing to keep aware of my surroundings. I’ll never hear the end of it from the Desanti.”

  “They would also point out you can’t improve without practice. And that little good can come out of the archives.” He studied his former student’s profile. “You have been avoiding me. Have I done something to upset you?”

  The younger man looked up, eyes wide. “No! Of course not, Mas—” He stopped himself, biting his lower lip and looking away, cheeks red.

  “‘Master’?” Ash frowned. He started to chide him, then stopped. He put a hand on the other’s shoulder. “What is wrong, Terrence?”

  “Why did the great mother say I was a master? Or name me Illaini?” Anguish filled his quiet voice. “I am not even good enough to be a Githalin, but Dzee had no other options. She represented the magic within the land and because Desanti were stripped of what was her focus, I was the best she could find.” He threw his hands in the air, walking down the aisle away from Ash. The other followed in silence, listening without judgment.

  “I had almost believed I had earned my senior journeyman rank. I was beginning to think I was the person Dzee needed to be her Githalin. But the next thing I know, the world turned upside down and for gods know what reason, the Knowing One named me a master and made me another Illaini.”

  He spun on his heel to look at the other man, hands held toward him. “I am nothing like you! I cannot hold a candle to your strength or experience or your damned heritage. You are Ash Avarian. Avarian himself reborn! What am I?”

  “A better man than I was at your age.” The calm serenity of Ash’s voice caught Terrence off guard. He flinched when the older mage put a hand on his right shoulder over the hidden silhouette tattoo that marked him as a Githalin. “When we all believed Dzee to be a darkling, you offered her a chance to prove herself otherwise.”