“Well then?” She sounded annoyed.
She found her resolve, lifted her chin, and went down the dirty stone path and through the door. The first thing that hit her was the smell. While not unpleasant, it had a pungent aroma she couldn’t place. She smelled incense, and under that was the stink of cabbage and cat urine.
By the looks of the place, Grimulda threw nothing away.
The main room was littered with jars full of floating animal parts, even brains, and a few human skulls were placed on a shelf in the corner next to seven stuffed cats, all of them black and in a variety of poses.
Something brushed her leg, and she jumped. But it was only a cat, this one also black but very much alive.
The old women said from another room, “Mungo the eighth will not hurt you, child. Come, come into my room.”
Min glanced at the seven stuffed cats, realizing they were the seven late Mungos.
What an odd woman she is. Why am I even here? I must be crazy seeking advice from such a—
“You already made the choice at the gate,” said Grimulda, irritated. “Come and sit. I grow tired of waiting.”
Min followed the voice through a beaded curtain. Except they weren’t beads, they were chicken bones. She shuddered, not wanting to touch the clinking, hollow bones.
“Let me look at you.” Grimulda only had one good eye. The other was missing, and the old hag hadn’t even bothered covering up the empty socket with a patch.
Min averted her eyes so as not to have to stare into that dark hollow.
“You seem troubled,” Grimulda said thoughtfully. “Ah, it’s the eye. Pardon me. I must have forgotten to put it back in.”
Grimulda dug into a jar full of milky liquid, fished out a glass eyeball, and stuffed it in the empty socket. To Min’s amazement, the glass eye moved in tandem with the real one.
The soothsayer might have been in her eighties, but the one eye was bright and her mind seemed sharp, so it was difficult to gauge her true age.
“You are Min Varresh, daughter of the blacksmith, Eddick Varresh,” she said knowingly.
She nodded.
“And your mother was Elzabeth Shoer.”
“Yes.”
“She was an only child, as is your father, as are you. Do you think your father wishes you had been a boy? Is that why you dress like one and keep your hair short?”
She was taken aback by Grimulda’s forthrightness.
“I don’t know if he wanted a boy or not. He has never said such a thing. And I don’t dress like a boy, I dress like a blacksmith.”
Grimulda nodded agreeably. “Sit, and I shall try to answer the questions burning in your soul. But I must warn you, you may not like my answers. Your father didn’t.”
She sat across from the old hag at a small table. The chair was uncomfortable and forced her to sit with a very straight back. She put her forearms flat on the table and tried not to fidget.
Grimulda stared at her as though trying to see right through her head. “The first answer is no,” she said. Her laugh turned into a groan, and the groan became a cough. She spit something brown on the floor.
“What?” Min let out a small laugh. “Aren’t you going to roll the bones or read the tea leaves or something?”
“That is not necessary. When I read your father’s fortune, I saw yours as well.”
“Look, I’m not paying for you to tell me some made-up story. I want a real reading.”
“You need not pay me at all,” said Grimulda. “Future events will find me in your debt.”
“What do you mean?”
The old woman shrugged.
“I was going to ask if I will marry and have children,” Min blurted.
“I am aware of that, and the answer is no, you will never have children.”
She gulped. She didn’t want to marry and have children, not yet, but perhaps someday. “Then I will become a master blacksmith and an old maid, is that it?”
“No.”
“Then why won’t I ever get married and have children?”
“I did not say you would never get married. I said you will never have children.”
“Why not?”
Grimulda pointed at Min’s stomach. “When the red-faced man cut you, he cursed you with a barren womb. I am sorry.”
Her throat tightened, and a sorrow she didn’t expect to feel swelled in her heart. She’d never given much thought to children, given her infatuation with adventure and the Unbound Academy. But now that she knew it wasn’t possible, she felt bereft, cold. She cradled her stomach, wanting to scratch the scar.
Not only had Mazer Vheck taken her mother from her, he had taken her future children as well.
“Will I be accepted into the Unbound Academy?” Min asked, fearing the answer.
“Yes and no.”
“Why won’t you speak plainly?” she fumed, then regretted her bad temper. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”
“Very few questions about the future can be answered plainly.”
“Fine, but you said I would be accepted into the Academy.”
“I also said you wouldn’t.”
She was tempted to get up and forget the silly old woman. Maybe the soothsayer was crazy, maybe this was all nonsense. “You foretold my mother’s death.”
Grimulda rubbed the swollen knuckles on her gnarled right hand. “Your father asked if she would live through the winter. He asked in reference to a fever that had taken her.”
“I remember. She had a terrible sickness that winter,” said Min, her memories of that time like a faint breeze in the fog.
“I told your father she would survive the sickness, but a new threat would arise suddenly and violently. I told him she would only die if she chose to sacrifice her life.”
Her mother’s screams echoed in her mind. Min scratched her itchy scar, which burned like poison nettles. It was snowing that day. She remembered how fair the weather had been despite that. She and Vynessa spent the day playing with the other children, sledding Thomson’s Hill and having snowball fights.
Then the raiders came.
Her father was working through dinner to finish an order of arrowheads needed by the town militia. There had been a rash of random attacks along the coast by the Seadryk raiders, and the mayor promised they would be ready should trouble come knocking on their doors.
They weren’t ready, not at all.
The ships came at dusk, three of them, and dozens of raiders poured forth. Min and her mother were caught unaware, consumed as they were in their baking. It was the day before her father’s birthday, and Min wanted to bake him a special cake. When the raiders broke down the door and tried to take Min, her mother stabbed one of them with a kitchen knife. The raider struck back, piercing her through the heart.
She died instantly.
She still remembered the words the red-faced man had whispered in her ear that day. “I had a dream about you, little one. I dreamed you killed me, but fret not. I will let you live, and I will be invincible until the day you come for my head. But be warned. In my dream you die too.”
Mazer stuck her in the stomach with a small dagger, licked the blood off the tip, and left her clinging to her dead mother. He laughed as he sauntered out the door. “The next time we meet, little one, we both die!”
“Grimulda,” said Min hesitantly. “Will I kill the chief’s son?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether or not you embrace your destiny.”
“What is my destiny?”
“Need I speak the words?”
“Isn’t that what soothsayers do?”
“You know the answer, child. You always have. Whether you embrace your destiny or not, it will embrace you. So be prepared.”
She left the hut more confused than when she’d entered. She wandered the streets aimlessly, mulling Grimulda’s words. The old woman had said Min would be accepted into the Unbound Academy, but she
also said she wouldn’t. She had also told her something Min had already known deep down—she would never have children.
She wanted to kill the son of the Seadryk chief more than ever, but she didn’t want to die in the process. Mazer’s words echoed in her head as she returned home, and they continued to haunt her as she tried to sleep that night.
“The next time we meet, little one, we both die!”
Chapter 3
Min hardly slept a wink that night, so troubled was she over the words of Grimulda, but she dutifully got out of bed when the rooster crowed and put water on to boil over the fireplace. She then prepared her father’s breakfast, something she had been doing since her mother passed. She cooked side pork, yesterday’s potatoes in a mash, four eggs, and made tea. A moment after the plates hit the table, he emerged from his room.
“Good morning Min,” he said as he rubbed his eyes and shuffled to his chair.
“Father.”
They ate in silence, Min dreading the conversation of marriage coming up again. She wished she could tell him what Grimulda had said, but she didn’t have the heart, and he would refuse to believe it anyway.
He awkwardly shifted in his chair, and she saw when he found his resolve. “I will need an answer for Johann by the end of the day,” he finally said.
“The answer is still no.”
He moved his eggs around, forked a piece to his mouth, but then lowered it again. “If not Johann, then it will be someone else. I will not see my only daughter live the bleak life of an unwed woman.”
Tears welled, and she rose from the table and her untouched plate and went to the door. She hated disappointing her father, but she couldn’t do what he asked. She couldn’t be someone she wasn’t, not even for him, whom she loved so much.
“Min?”
She didn’t answer. She stubbornly fought not to cry.
“Min!” he yelled after her.
She ran from the house, unable to speak and determined not to give in.
She ran through the village and realized something odd: no one was moving. Considering the time of day, a surprisingly high number of villagers were gathered in the street, and all were facing south with mouths agape. Some pointed, and others huddled with young ones, their faces twisted with terror.
She turned and looked in that direction, and her mouth fell open.
A wyvern was gliding over the water toward the port with a rider in black armor upon its back. The beast’s wings spread wider than the largest ship’s sails, and when it opened its mouth, a long line of fire spewed forth and lit the anchored ships like tinder.
The people broke free of their shock and ran north, screaming and calling out warnings. Min stood as if in a trance as the black wyvern burned the ships and turned toward the heart of the village.
“Run!” a man yelled as he went by.
She was caught up in the panicked flow of terrified people. She tried to keep an eye on the wyvern as she was pushed and shoved down the street. She lost her footing when a big man barreled into her blindly, and she hit the ground hard. She tried to get up, but people kept bumping into her. She cried for them to stop, to help her, but no one heard her over their terrified screams. Someone stepped on her hand, another accidently kicked her in the jaw.
“Min!”
Her father lifted her from the cobblestones, and she bit back a sob of relief. “Wyvern,” she said weakly.
He threw her over his shoulder and quickly returned to the smithy, which was attached to their house. Hovering over her protectively, he whispered, “Keep quiet.”
A thunderous roar shook the shop, making the hanging chains sway and vibrating through the various metals. There was a chorus of pain-filled cries as a hot wind slammed into the building. Then there was sudden silence, and it was more terrifying than the tumult that had preceded it.
Her father quietly moved to the smithy and returned with a longsword. Together they waited, and she dared to hope the threat had passed, but then the roof was suddenly and violently torn off the building. She looked up into the face of a black wyvern with eyes that burned like the village around it. The rider on its back laughed.
“Run, Min!”
Her father pushed her toward the door, and they scurried out of the building like bugs from under an overturned rock. The world outside was an inferno of chaos. The smell of burned hair and flesh assaulted her as her father pulled her away from the shop. A moment later the wyvern set it aflame. The windows and doors blew off, followed by an explosion that reduced their home to rubble. Black smoke swirled through the streets as the wyvern beat its massive wings, hovering overhead. Min was blinded and choking, and she lost hold of her father’s hand in the tumult.
The building she had been running toward exploded, and the shockwave lifted her off her feet and deposited her in the middle of the street. She landed among charred bodies, which crumbled like long dead coals.
Debris rained down as yet another building crumbled. Pain shot through her leg when something fell on it, and through burning eyes she saw a large beam lying across her leg. She tried desperately to free herself as she searched for the beast’s location, but the lumber was too heavy to move. She thought to use a Burst to unpin her leg, but she was consumed with confusion and fear.
“Min!” her father cried, racing toward her.
“My leg!” she said through the choking smoke.
Her father put down his sword, squatted, took hold of the beam with both hands, and growled as he tried to lift it. Min fought the pain of the scraping wood and pulled free, crying out when a large sliver stabbed her calf muscle. He released the beam, which hit the ground with a loud thud.
“Father,” Min said breathlessly when she saw the wyvern, which now stalked down the street toward them. Its back legs were thick and muscled, and it walked on the elbows of its wings as though they were legs.
Her father took up his sword and straightened to full height as he faced the wyvern. He glanced back at Min and smiled. “I love you,” he said with wet eyes, then he charged the wyvern with his sword held high.
“Father, no!”
She watched helplessly as the wyvern batted her brave father aside like a cat playing with a rodent. He smashed into the brick wall of a half-destroyed building, crashing through it, and she feared the worst.
Despite her terror and concern for him, she laid down in the ashes of the dead as the wyvern approached. Neither the beast nor its rider saw her, trembling practically at their feet. As they went past, she watched the scaly underbelly go by. The wyvern’s body seemed to go on forever, and when she saw the swinging barbed tail at last, she got to her feet and limped to the brick wall her father had crashed through.
She found him on the other side in a broken heap. He was covered in blood, and bones protruded from his legs and arms.
“No, no, no,” she whimpered, dropping to her knees beside him. She lifted his bloody head. “Father? Father! You can’t leave me.”
Miraculously, his eyes opened, and he smiled at her. “Minerva….” he managed to utter, then his eyes went blank.
Tears that had not fallen in ten years poured from her eyes. She cried over her father as the sounds of the ravaging wyvern echoed through the village. Wiping at her eyes, she screamed angrily at the heavens. She saw the long sword in the rubble and picked it up with shaking hands. Without thinking, she rose to her feet and turned in search of the wyvern. It was marching down the street toward the church, spewing flame and devouring villagers.
Min saw Grimulda standing protectively before a group of terrified children. The old woman held up a gnarled staff and shook it at the approaching beast, spewing curses at it and the rider.
“Wyvern rider!” Min screamed as she stopped in the middle of the street.
The rider halted his mount and turned to regard her, then the beast shifted to face her. Min ran toward it, blinded by rage, with the sword raised. The rider laugh as its mount spun, bringing its barbed tail around to shatter Min th
e way it had her father.
She swung the sword hard and released a Burst.
When the wyvern’s tail contacted the blade, its own force was turned back upon it, and the tail suddenly changed direction and crashed into a half-destroyed building. The wyvern roared and bent its neck toward her, releasing a plume of white-hot flame.
She took three running steps and Burst into the air, floating above the fire. She ended the Burst when she was high above the wyvern and came down with all her momentum to impale the beast in the eye, burying her sword to the hilt.
The rider screamed in surprised rage, and the wyvern let out a wailing cry as blood and viscera flew from its destroyed eye. Min Burst again, yanked out the sword, and shot into the air. She back-flipped and landed in a crouch twenty feet from the thrashing creature.
The surviving villagers watched in awe as the wyvern staggered and finally crashed into the side of a building, spewing flames as it died.
Then there was silence.
She panted as a wave of nausea washed over her. She had never repelled such a strong blow, and it had taxed her greatly. She held the bloody blade loosely at her side, knowing it wasn’t over yet. When the rider emerged from the rubble, the crowd gasped, but Min held her ground. Arrows twanged from left and right, striking the tall rider’s black armor, but they could not penetrate it. Three brave villagers charged him, and he cut them down effortlessly with a massive black blade.
“He’s mine!” she yelled at the other men of the militia, who spread out around the rider.
The black knight came closer, regarding her warily.
“You have the power of the Unbound,” he said. He had an Arzzekian accent, and his massive size was of the same lineage.
“Are you afraid to fight a girl?” she asked mockingly and wondered at her brashness. Was she crazy, taking on such an opponent?
He sneered, spit on the ground, and strode toward her.
She waited for the attack, knowing he would try to cut her down quickly.
As expected, the black knight rushed forward and swung with all his might. She sent a Burst through her sword and swung hard, and when the blades met, the power of the black knight’s strike was turned back on him, along with Min’s. Sparks erupted, and the knight’s blade was nearly torn from his hand. He struck again with an overhead chop meant to cut her in half, but a Burst made it rebound from the impact with so much force that it flew from the knight and spun end over end, landing fifteen feet behind him.
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