The Crystal Keeper BoxSet

by Laurisa White Reyes

  “A child,” repeated Arik, his voice rising. “So, the leader of the Vatéz armies has a weakness for children, does he?” He clucked his tongue like a disapproving parent. “I suppose you expect me to punish you.”

  Erland finally lowered his eyes. “If that is to be my fate, then so be it.”

  Arik continued walking around the table back to where Erland sat. Erland felt Arik move behind him, felt his breath on the top of his head.

  “No, I won’t harm you,” he said at last. “But you will do what I’ve asked. Ulna will be punished.”

  Arik finished his trek around the table and returned to his seat. He did not continue eating but glared at Erland with eyes of stone.

  “Of course, Minister,” Erland answered. “I will leave at once.”

  “No,” said Arik. “Not yet. You will wait a while longer.”

  Arik’s command surprised Erland. The calm in his voice, however, concerned him more than the fury he had expected.

  “When a village feels safe,” Arik continued, “when they believe the danger is past, that is the best time to attack, my dear Captain. I’m sure your Ulna boy has spent these past weeks wondering if and when you’d come for him. You didn’t. Eventually, he and the others will settle back into routine, their fears assuaged. What is the use of attacking when the enemy is waiting for you? Better to catch them unawares, sleeping peacefully in their beds.”

  Arik once again picked up his fork and stabbed it into a chunk of meat. “We will wait until Ulna feels completely safe, even if it takes a year, and attack then.” After eating the bite of meat, he lifted his goblet. “And to ensure that my Captain of the Guard does not falter in his duties,” he said, spying Erland through the clear, red liquid, “I will go with you.”

  15

  As the days and weeks went by, Jayson exercised his arms and legs while lying in bed, lifting one leg and then the other, then pushing the bottoms of his feet against the wooden ledge of the bed frame. He asked Agnora for bags of flour or grain which he would lift with one hand and then the other. At first, such efforts wore him out, but soon he was able to handle dozens of lifts at a time. Once he was able to sit up in bed without assistance, he would lean forward holding onto a chair and place a little weight on his feet and hold it until his muscles couldn’t take it a moment longer. Then he’d drop back onto the bed in a limp heap, his muscles twitching from the effort.

  But try as he might, he could not stand. And his hands would not stop shaking.

  One morning after he had spent the good part of a month in bed, Jayson called to Agnora for assistance.

  “Could you please…?” He could never bring himself to finish the request, but fortunately he never had to. Agnora, who was laying logs in the hearth in preparation for the morning fire, wiped her hands on her apron and came to his bedside. Without a word or even a hint of displeasure on her face, she handed him the waste bucket, which she always kept clean for his use.

  Jayson hesitated. He had tried to position it himself before, but the tremors made it impossible to hold the bucket steady. Luckily, Agnora had intervened before he could make a mess of himself. She understood, without being told, how much he relied on her. But today, she simply stood with the bucket in her hand.

  “I can’t—” said Jayson, feeling embarrassed that he had to say it.

  For the first time since his arrival, Agnora pursed her lips with the slightest look of displeasure. “You can,” she said and pushed the bucket against his chest.

  Jayson cautiously placed his hands on either side of it, pressing his palms against the worn wood.

  “Now,” continued Agnora, “I’ve got to tend to this fire, unless you want raw eggs for breakfast.” And she turned brusquely and returned to her work.

  Jayson stared at the object in his hands. It refused to hold still, set into motion by his own unsteady limbs. He considered the precarious task before him. Fortunately, he only needed to urinate, but even so, the memory of that first attempt weeks earlier that had resulted with him lying helpless on the floor in a pool of his own piss came back to him.

  He could wait until Agnora was done, he decided. She was busy and needed to get the fire started. So he waited, bucket in hand. He watched patiently as the woman took unusual care in arranging the logs and swinging the iron hook over it. From that she hung a flat skillet from a loop of wire. She stepped aside to examine her work. Most mornings, Jayson paid little attention to the woman’s routine. But today, he was transfixed by her every moment, which came with such ease. Never before had he felt so envious of such a simple thing as being able to grasp something with one’s fingers and lift it. Such things had always come so second nature, Jayson had taken them for granted. Now he yearned to be able to just push a scrap of wood into place in the hearth.

  As if feeling his gaze on her, Agnora turned to look at him. There was an odd expression of decision on her face, and keeping her eyes trained on him, Agnora pointed a finger at the fire.

  “Ignite,” she said, and the logs instantly burst into flame.

  The suddenness of the fire made Jayson flinch. In that same moment, he felt its warmth curling towards him through the air. He gripped the bucket tightly as the realization dawned.

  Agnora was an enchantress.

  In a sudden fit of rage, Jayson threw the bucket across the floor. It landed with a loud clatter inches from Agnora’s feet, then rolled lopsidedly until it came to rest against the stone hearth. Agnora’s eyes remained fixed on Jayson, the corners of her lips turned up slightly in a bemused expression.

  Jayson growled and bared his teeth, the animal side of him pumping through his blood. “You’re a magician!” he shouted. “Teak said nothing about magic!”

  “Teak said nothing?” Agnora’s tone was sarcastic. “Why should he say anything? It isn’t your business what I am.”

  Agnora moved to the table to where a basket of eggs rested. She began cracking them into a bowl one by one.

  Jayson clutched his blankets, his claws bared.

  “My father was an enchanter.” He spit out the words with as much venom as he could, but they seemed lost on Agnora who cracked another egg into the bowl.

  “Yes,” she said indifferently, “he is one of the best. We go way back, Zyll and I.” She smiled, which made Jayson even angrier.

  “Then you know what kind of man he is,” he said. “You know how he abandoned my mother and me, left us because we weren’t human.”

  Agnora picked up a whisk and started beating the eggs. “I know about Lord Fredric’s decree that humans were not allowed to marry non-humans. What a stupid man he is, that king of yours.”

  “He is not my king.”

  “No? Isn’t he the one who exiled you for marrying his daughter? Seems he is the one you should hate, not Zyll.”

  “You know nothing about it!” Jayson roared.

  Agnora stopped whisking and glared at him. “I know more than you think. And I’ll have to insist that while you are in my house, you behave like a human and not a beast.”

  “Haven’t you been told? I’m not human.”

  “You are half human, and that’s enough to act like one.”

  She snapped the whisk against the side of the bowl and turned back to the fire. In a series of quick movements, Agnora scooped a spoonful of lard from a small tub and dropped it onto the skillet. It instantly sizzled, and the smell of the melting fat made Jayson salivate. Agnora poured out the eggs, and with a spatula chopped and stirred them. A minute later, she scooped the soft fluffy lumps into a clean bowl which she carried across the room to Jayson’s bed. But she held it close to her, just out of his reach.

  “You’re pathetic,” she told him. And her words struck him as if he had been slapped. “You’ve been lying in this bed for nearly three months. Did you know that? Or have you lost track of the days and nights that have passed. You believe you are so helpless, but you are part Agoran, aren’t you? And Agorans are a ferocious breed, aren’t they? Brave and fierce
and strong.”

  “Not anymore,” said Jayson. “Fredric has killed our spirit.”

  “Has he, now? Maybe that’s true for most of your kind, but from what Teak and Dianis have told me, there is still a streak of true Agoran will in your blood. But it’s been dormant for too long. Passive as you wandered the fields of Ashlin, only dreaming of the hunt. You’ve gotten too used to hiding, Jayson, too used to suppressing your natural instincts.

  “The Agorans once roamed free on the Isle of Imaness. They were wild and glorious. Your mother was beautiful and full of life. That’s why your father loved her, why they came together and had you. But when Fredric rounded up the Agoran tribes and sent them to the Taktani marshlands so that the humans could take their lands, Zyll had to make a choice. And he made it. He decided to go with his family and the tribes.”

  “That’s a lie!” shouted Jayson.

  “It is the truth!” Agnora shouted back. “But when Fredric’s soldiers found your father among the Agorans, they were about to fulfill the worst part of the king’s decree. They were going to execute your mother—and you.”

  “Execute us? Why?”

  “Did you think humans would kill their own kind? They considered your mother a mere animal, and you, a mongrel, even lower than the dirt. After Zyll bribed the guard to protect you, he left the tribe to make sure nothing like that would ever happen again.”

  Jayson gathered his blanket in his fists. This was the first he’d heard of the story behind his parents’ separation. His mother had certainly never mentioned it, and now he wondered why.

  “How do you know all this?” Jayson asked Agnora.

  “Like I said, Zyll and I go way back. Before Fredric. Before the Vatéz. Someday I’ll tell you the rest of our story, but right now it is time to eat. Hungry?”

  Jayson was still trying to process everything Agnora had told him, what was true and what might be lies, but the pang in his stomach and the growing need to relieve himself were too powerful. He nodded his head. “Yes,” he said. “I am hungry.”

  “Good,” said Agnora. Then she turned away from him and set the bowl of eggs on the table. “I’m going out to collect carrots and potatoes for our lunch. Enjoy your meal.”

  A moment later, Agnora was gone, having left Jayson alone — with his steaming breakfast on the other side of the room.

  16

  The table and the bowl of cooked eggs might have been ten miles away. Jayson could smell it. He could taste the eggs on his tongue. He felt his glands producing saliva, anticipating their flavor and texture. Agnora had set it there, out of his reach, on purpose. And then she’d left him. Alone. At least she hadn’t remained to glare at him or criticize him. It would be his choice to try to reach the food or not. She would eventually come back, feel sorry for him, and let him have the eggs. Wouldn’t she?

  But it wasn’t so much his appetite that gnawed at him now. It was the unbearable pressure in his bladder. The bucket into which he usually relieved himself was on the floor by the hearth. That had been his own doing.

  Idiot, he scolded himself.

  Jayson stared at the ceiling of rough-hewn wood. He’d come to know the pattern of knots and lines and scraps of bark better than he knew his own body, he’d spent enough hours looking at it. How much longer would he be laying here in this bed, staring at this ceiling?

  He closed his eyes, but that only made the scent of the eggs stronger. His stomach grumbled. The muscles in his groin tightened against the urge to pee.

  “Damn it!” he said, finally throwing off his covers. The blankets landed in a soft heap beside the bed as Jayson pushed himself into a sitting position. Then he shifted his legs over the side of the bed and set his feet on the floor. The familiar smoothness connected with the skin on his soles and sent a shiver through him.

  He held his hands in front of him. Already the tremors had begun. He clenched his fists, which seemed to control the spasms a bit.

  “It’s just a few feet to the table,” he told himself. “Five steps. Maybe six.” He would make it to the chair and use it to support himself. He would sit down, eat the damn eggs, every single bite. Then when Agnora came back, he would tell her exactly what he thought of her.

  He leaned his weight forward until he could feel the pressure in his feet, but then he hesitated. What if Agnora wanted him to fail? Wanted to humiliate him? She didn’t know about the first fall, when Teak had found him. She’d never seen him try to stand and then drop like a newborn baby to the floor and wet himself. If he tried now, that’s what she would find when she came home. A useless, worthless man who couldn’t even pee by himself.

  Stay in bed. The thought was stronger than the desire for food. Stay in bed where you belong. You can’t fall, you can’t fail if you stay here where it is safe.

  But then Agnora’s words came to him. You’ve been hiding for too long.

  Hiding. Agnora had no idea how true her words were. It began when he and Ivanore married in secret against her father’s wishes. They ran away together and lived in hiding for a year before they were discovered by Fredric’s soldiers. Then, when Jayson was exiled to Hestoria, he hid himself away because the people here hated Agorans even more than the islanders did. He was different, and the easiest way to live was to pretend he wasn’t alive at all. Then, after he said goodbye to Ivanore on Dawes’ ship, after the Guardians had moved onto Ashlin, Jayson hid from the Vatéz, from Arik. How long would he continue to hide? How long would he pretend life didn’t know he existed?

  Jayson pressed his fists into the mattress and straightened his knees until he was standing upright. His knees felt unsteady and his muscles protested, but he stood. He waited for his muscles to give out like they had before, but to his surprise, they held his weight.

  Now for the first step.

  He didn’t dare try to lift his foot, leaving his weight on one leg. Instead, he slid his right foot forward a few inches. He felt his center of gravity shift as he leaned a little to the side to accommodate the change in position. Once he was sure he was not going to fall, he slid the left foot forward.

  He continued sliding his feet, one after the other, a few inches at a time, until he was close enough to the chair to grasp it. Triumph!

  The effort to get this far had taken more strength than he thought he even possessed. He breathed heavily, and sweat beaded on his skin. The eggs sat on the table right in front of him. They smelled even better now that they were in reach, though it had taken him so long to get there, they no longer steamed.

  Jayson licked his lips. He would sit down. He would eat.

  But then his gaze shifted from the table to the cabin door. He was half way there, he realized. So close.

  His limbs felt weakened by the trek across the floor, but somehow he knew they would not fail him. Not this time.

  He let go of the chair. Sliding his feet even more, he moved cautiously around the table and continued his path to the door. He reached for the handle and saw that his hand was shaking badly. But exerting all his mental capacity, he willed his fingers to clutch the handle, the muscles in his arm to contract and open the door.

  Jayson stepped over the threshold.

  Sunlight spilled over him. He felt the rays of warmth on his skin and closed his eyes, letting the light touch his eyelids. He drew in a deep breath and smelled the scents of snow and pine. He listened to the babbling of the nearby river, the rush of wind through the trees.

  He had made it. He had walked the entire width of the cabin on his own. The realization that his body was healing, that he would not be an invalid forever, filled Jayson with inexpressible relief.

  He looked at his hands, still trembling, but for some reason it didn’t bother him anymore. Eventually, he would regain control over his fingers and legs and arms.

  Arms.

  Jayson pinched the edge of the bandage that still covered his left arm and began to unwind it. Soon, he held the balled-up cloth in his fist. His skin, which had healed over with some scarr
ing but was no longer raw, was free to enjoy the sunshine. He cocked his fist over his shoulder and then threw the cloth ball with all his strength. It flew for several yards before unraveling and gliding to earth like a delicate worm, blending with the dirty snow. He unwound his right arm and did the same, relishing the gentle brush of autumn against his skin.

  Jayson drew in breath after breath. He felt so powerful, he thought he could run if he’d had a mind to, run through the forest all the way to the end of Hestoria, to the shoreline where he would swim all the way across the sea to Ivanore. That would come in time, he assured himself. He wasn’t ready for that yet. One step at a time. For today, there was only one thing left he needed to do.

  Jayson took three more steps to the edge of the porch, unfastened his trousers, and took a piss.

  17

  Ivanore’s plans began to come together. During the weeks following her conversation with Erland, she paid careful attention to which guards watched her when, what time of day they were relieved of duty and replaced by new guards. She tried to communicate with them. At first, the men refused to acknowledge her, keeping their eyes averted and their expressions disinterested. Ivanore was certain their blatant ignoring of her was the result of orders from her brother. But late one night, one of the guards finally began to bend.

  “I’m not feeling well,” she told him. This guard was one of the younger men assigned to her, his skin a smooth cocoa color with thick curly black hair. He took his place inside her door each night after sundown and left before midnight. Ivanore guessed he was no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, which might prove an obstacle since many young soldiers were proud of their duties and took their orders seriously. But Ivanore sensed something different about this boy, the gentleness in his eyes and the way his mind seemed to wander during his long hours as her sentinel.

  “I don’t feel well,” she repeated, and her statement was not a lie. For the past few weeks, she had been plagued with persistent nausea. The boy soldier’s eyes darted to her and away again.