Realm of Ruins

by Hannah West

  “Ris, ef samenil,” he answered.

  “Efrindaren eft linathir.”

  “We don’t have any coins to give you,” I said.

  “She’s looking for her daughter,” Mercer replied.

  “Well, she followed us and I don’t like it.”

  “It seems she only speaks Old Nisseran,” he said. “That’s strange, isn’t it? And I feel as though I’ve seen her before.”

  “You said yourself we shouldn’t trust anyone, and I agree.” I tried to force him back toward the camp, but the woman spoke faster, recapturing his attention. Mercer furrowed his brow and rubbed his knuckles along his chin. I barely recognized any words, but when the woman reversed a concealment spell and an elicrin stone appeared around her neck, I recognized the threat.

  “The Moth King sent her,” I said, pointing my dagger at her throat.

  The woman hooked her arm through my elbow and twisted until I had no choice but to surrender my weapon. With a flick of her wrist, she impaled it through an empty cask outside the tavern across the street. The cask rolled over the cobblestones until it struck the base of the statue with a hollow clunk.

  “Ef gemeren ilen heval,” she said fiercely.

  “She said she’s not going to hurt us,” Mercer said, unfazed by the exchange. “She keeps mentioning her daughter.”

  “Eft linathir,” she repeated with a fervent nod. “Bristal.”

  “Bristal?” I repeated.

  “I know her. I know her from somewhere,” Mercer said, narrowing his eyes. “But it can’t be right.”

  “What?”

  “I think she’s the one who saved me. When I was…meant to be the sacrifice.”

  An outrageous theory struck me. I tried to dismiss it, but it lingered. “Wait,” I said, peering at her elicrin stone in the vague lantern light. Just as I suspected, its facets gleamed the stunning color of amethyst. “No. No, this isn’t possible.”

  “Do you know her?” he asked.

  “I’ve never met her. But I think she may be my ancestor.”

  “Someone from Arna?”

  “This is ridiculous, but…” I decided to try the name. If I was wrong, she wouldn’t know how mad I’d been to even think it. “Callista?” I ventured.

  Shock registered on her face, and then she smiled in disbelief. “Callista,” she agreed, her hand on her heart.

  I laughed in astonishment. “This is not possible,” I repeated.

  “Who is she?” Mercer asked, impatient.

  “She’s…she’s Queen Bristal’s mother, but she came from a time long before Bristal waged war against Tamarice. Callista created—creates—portals. Not just from one place to another, like King Tiernan, but from one time to another, as I told you once before. If she saved you and that’s the last thing you remember…”

  “It means she sent me here,” Mercer finished.

  She cocked her head, waiting for an explanation.

  “But she doesn’t seem to recognize me,” he went on. “She hasn’t mentioned our encounter.”

  I massaged my forehead, utterly confounded. “All right…” I muttered. “She doesn’t remember you…perhaps I’m wrong. Unless…unless this is before that for her.”

  “What?”

  “So, in my time, Callista is long dead. That elicrin stone she’s wearing is nothing but a piece of jewelry, a family heirloom Ivria gave to me before…” I trailed off. “Yet here Callista stands, and there’s that elicrin stone. Maybe in her lifetime, saving you hasn’t occurred yet. She could be going anywhere, or any time after this.” He answered with nothing but a dubious look.

  “She was born before the Elicrin War,” I explained. “Some five or six hundred years ago, after your time. She didn’t use her gift much because it muddles things, obviously. But during a dangerous battle, she opened a portal for her daughter, Bristal, and sent her through to keep her safe. Amid the chaos, Callista didn’t know where—or rather, when—she’d sent Bristal. After the war was won, she went looking for her through time. Which is what she’s currently doing. Looking for her daughter.”

  Callista waited patiently while we discussed this, nodding at the sound of Bristal’s name.

  “Do you know if she ever found her?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. She stopped looking and went back to her own time, where she gave up her elicrin stone to age mortally with the other victors from the war. But we could tell her where—I mean when—Bristal is.”

  He turned to speak to Callista. I’d always found Old Nisseran delicious to listen to, perhaps because I only knew spells and a few old songs, which made me think of the entire language as powerful and whimsical. But I had heard more shades of it since meeting Mercer, and it sounded so fluid and complex on his tongue.

  “I told her we could help her, but not until she answers our questions,” he explained.

  As the two of them launched into an animated conversation, I took the opportunity to examine my forebear. The roundness of her features hadn’t been handed down through the generations, but I took pride in the few similarities I found. Callista was known to be an incredible warrior, fearless, and honest. Her power was too awesome to live on in her abandoned elicrin stone, but the residue of magic it did hold reflected her noble nature.

  “She hasn’t visited my time yet,” Mercer said, confusion wrinkling his forehead. “She’s never heard of the Moth King.”

  “Maybe we’re the reason she goes back,” I suggested. “Maybe this moment changes everything.”

  “You think she knows to save me and opens a portal for me because…we’re here now? I’m only here because she sent me.”

  “And she sent you because you’re here. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, do they? If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t have known that I should kill the Moth King.”

  “So we need to tell her where to go. But she’s on a mission to find her daughter. Why would she care about what’s happening in a time that doesn’t concern her?”

  “I know her legacy. She fought against traitor elicromancers who threatened to conquer Nissera. She risked her life for this realm’s peace and freedom. She’ll do it again.”

  Callista watched us, her eyes perceptive and curious in the lantern light.

  “What if I ask her to go back even further?” he whispered. “What if she could go back to when the Moth King was just a child, to when he was vulnerable, if he ever was, and find a way to kill him before he establishes his reign?”

  I shook my head, feeling more and more certain of what we needed to do. “No, you have to tell her what we know has happened already. Tell her to interrupt the sacrifice and stop the elicromancers from killing you at the hideout in Yorth. Tell her to create a portal to send you through to the sixty-fifth year of the Age of Accords, day”—I did the math in my head—“ninety-three. She has to send you to me so I can save you.”

  Mercer loosed a breath of disbelief. The wonder of it all, the chance and fate, seem to strike us both at once.

  He spoke to Callista again. Her dainty eyebrows drew together as she listened. I continued to admire the reality of her presence when Mercer turned back to me. “She understands. Now, tell her about Bristal. Explain who you are. I’ll translate.”

  “Bristal was my grandmother’s grandmother,” I said. “She was raised as an orphan in a small village after you sent her away. She got kidnapped and taken to the Water by people who wanted to exploit her magic, but she survived and became an elicromancer, a Clandestine who could take on any form. She resisted and defeated a dark elicromancer who waged war on the realm.”

  Mercer related this to Callista while I spoke. I watched the revelations register on her face.

  “She was a hero,” I continued. “In fact…” I turned to glance at the statue in the center of the square. It depicted a young woman with a spear in her grip and an elicrin stone hanging from her neck. Her long hair streamed in a ghostly wind. “That’s a statue of her going to battle.”

&nbs
p; Callista’s mouth dropped open as Mercer’s explanation caught up to mine. Her eyes filled with tears as they rose to regard the statue in the dim light. She stepped forward to run her fingers across the name inscribed on the statue’s base.

  Mercer and I looked at each other, awestruck. Callista hurried back to us and clasped my face in her hands, searching it. She whispered something I could tell was as bittersweet as the song she had sung.

  “She says she sees her in you, and knows it’s the truth,” Mercer said. “She’s been searching for Bristal to bring her home. But now that she knows what became of her, she’ll stop searching. Leave her where she is.”

  “Will she go back to save you?” I asked.

  Mercer relayed the question to Callista. The dreamy, lost look in her eyes faded. She donned a sober expression and looked back at the likeness of her daughter. She said slowly, “Ris. Pren ef drenniar fir eft eglen var shevnen magrar elicrin.”

  “She said she will,” Mercer said. “And after, she’ll return to her own time and give up her elicrin stone.”

  I didn’t know this woman, this foremother of mine, but I felt a sense of loss at the idea of a farewell, perhaps due to the question budding in my mind: What if I could take a step back through time, just one small step, and stop Ivria’s death? What if I could stop the eradication of the Water?

  As quickly as the thought sprouted, a wiser part of me tore it from the soil and ground it underfoot. If the Water remained, I would not have this power meant to contend with the realm’s greatest enemy, the power that led Mercer to see my role in this. And I would not know Mercer himself.

  Callista fit a hand on each of our shoulders. Her grip was strong. “Lon yerwev,” she said, and kissed my brow.

  She approached the statue. I could only see the back of her head, but I sensed she was smiling, filled to the brim with emotion. Then she slipped away, agile and swift, disappearing down a narrow strip between two buildings.

  Mercer and I hurried after her. By the time we turned the corner to glimpse through the portal to the past, nothing remained of it but a shrinking sphere of glimmering light.

  * * *

  Lon yerwev. Be brave.

  The twitters of the dawn birds seemed to echo Callista. I stretched, dismissing the regret brought on by the sense of a squandered opportunity. I knew Callista would not have allowed Mercer or me to travel back and undo what was already done. If she wouldn’t even go back in time to undo losing her daughter in the first place, then she knew a heavy cost came with convoluting history.

  A succulent smell drew me out of my thoughts. I opened my eyes to find Kadri hunkered down by the fire, roasting a plump rabbit on a spit. A bow and a quiver crowded with white-tipped arrows lay at her side.

  “Did you go hunting?” I asked, my voice husky with sleep.

  “I did,” she said, defiance obscured in her placid tone.

  “You’re supposed to be resting.”

  “I was hoping to prove my worth so you wouldn’t be rid of me like a pair of torn, crusty stockings,” she said. Afterward, she bit her bottom lip and avoided my gaze.

  “How did you know—?” I asked.

  “The astrikane.” She attempted to subdue a feverish shiver. “It’s the only vision I’ve had that’s been less than delightful. It must have really wanted to warn me I was about to get packed up and shipped back to Beyrian.”

  “I’m sorry, Kadri,” I said, glancing at Mercer for a little help. He was still asleep, of course. “I promise, I intended to convince you. We weren’t going to tie you up and force you. Where did you get the bow?”

  “I traded for it.”

  “We,” Glisette amended, returning from refilling the skins. “We gave the peddler an astrikane leaf and a lock of hair from each of us.” She ran her fingers through a short, blunt section behind her ear before tucking it away.

  Instinctively, I reached up and found that a lock of my hair had been cut from my nape. Swallowing hard, I told myself this was not the time to engage Glisette in argument. She resented me for failing to tell her about Callista before she had departed forever, citing the fact that she too was a descendant, though she couldn’t quite determine how many greats came before granddaughter.

  Glisette and Kadri both crossed their arms, inviting me to rebuke them. I snubbed the bait, choosing instead to appraise our surroundings. The morning still looked like night. The sky was a gray-purple bowl trimmed with fire, the moon nearly perfectly round but for a sliver of darkness cutting into it. The camp of strangers we’d chosen to imperil thanks to the urgent aches in our bellies remained sleeping and shrouded in mist, but I knew not for long.

  “How many astrikane leaves do we have left?” I asked.

  “Three,” Kadri answered.

  “Three?” I repeated. “And have you been treated this morning?”

  Kadri shook her head. That strange pallor roosted behind her russet cheeks, and her black hair had relinquished its enviable luster. While Glisette watched the roasting meat like a wolf watching a lamb frolic, Kadri refused to look directly at it and breathed through her mouth to block the smell.

  “Kadri…” I said softly, and she faced me, her remonstration crumpling. The sore on her neck didn’t seem any better than yesterday, and I thought I smelled a staleness. I fought the temptation to hide my face inside my collar. “I will not bury you out here.”

  “I know,” she said, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I understand.”

  Unfortunately, the decision wasn’t ours to make. We waited by the road long enough to snatch the attention of a coach traveling south, but it already bore two passengers. The driver insisted he would travel no farther than the border due to the danger of illness, and he doubted any drivers would feel differently. “Besides that, I’ve heard the border tolls are getting steeper, and a dead elicromancer’s jewel won’t satisfy the guard,” the coachman finished, sealing Kadri’s fate.

  As the snap of reins whisked the coach down the rutted road, Glisette said, “I hope the Moth King gives Ambrosine a magnificent horse that shits right on her shoes.”

  “It’ll more likely be some sort of mythical gryphon,” I muttered sourly.

  “All the better. Should we wait for the next coach? We can walk back to the village and buy a portrait of me and I’ll start giving royal commands. I’ve missed wielding power.”

  “Not to underestimate your influence, but I don’t even think a threat of execution could have forced that driver over the border,” I said.

  “So, what now?” she asked.

  The three of us looked at Kadri, who seemed to want to curl into herself like a hibernating creature.

  “We walk,” Mercer said, massaging sleep from his eyes.

  “And we don’t trust anyone,” I said, echoing his mandate. “Unless that anyone happens to be an ancestor who walks through portals from one age to another. Or an elicrin Healer we stumble upon in the depths of the forest…”

  “If this journey has proven anything, it’s that the unexpected can happen,” he said.

  Kadri slipped an astrikane leaf onto her tongue and waited for us to plunge into the tight-knit greens of the expansive forest.

  * * *

  Kadri only slowed us down when the visions overcame her. A shiny seal of dreaminess would slide across her eyes and she would snake around the trail the other three of us had blazed, murmuring to apparitions and smiling at phantoms. Rayed’s name tore out of her lips once in anger and distress, and we understood she had seen a vision of his betrayal. Glisette explained the attack at the summer cottage in more detail, and I didn’t have to look back to know that the news of Rayed’s treachery came as a powerful shock to Kadri.

  She was quiet after that and somehow kept pace, which fooled me into forgetting that an astrikane leaf was plucked off and used each day—until we had arrived at the third day and none remained and there was no forgetting it.

  On that day, my mind began to proffer strange visions as well. It wasn’t f
or lack of food or water; with Kadri’s bow and the fresh streams that carved through the forest, we made do.

  But I began to fancy that the trees grew taller and wider as we walked, and that they spread farther apart, each the undisputed ruler of her own kingdom. Flitting shapes visited my periphery without lingering to introduce themselves. The flowers and toadstools in our path grew vivid in color and glittered with fat, impossible drops of dew. No one remarked on the changes until suddenly we stood in a corridor of trees so immense that it would take more than three dozen linked arms to encircle one of their trunks, and a yellow flower bigger than my head suddenly flung itself into my path.

  “Where are we? It feels like there’s someone here,” Glisette whispered.

  “You see this too?” Kadri asked, cupping an enormous white flower with purple leaves and a spattering of pink freckles.

  I realized then that the sun was creeping away from its center point in the wrong direction—that we were moving in the wrong direction. We were supposed to be walking north with the sun bearing down on our left by now. I had been meticulous enough to use a guiding stick for most of the journey, but today the sun glared so brightly through the canopies that I hadn’t. Somehow I’d managed to veer us off course.

  A massive dark shape cantered between the trees straight ahead. Panic beset me until I realized it was a horse. The markings on his hide revealed that it was one the blights had commandeered. Last we saw those horses, they were wild-eyed and tormented. But this one swung his head to blink lazily at us. His gleaming black mane and tail had been plaited into neat nets strung with flowers. He flicked the tail in lethargic satisfaction before trotting forward and greeting me with a wet nibble on the forehead.

  “How—?” I started.

  A vine crawled over the toe of my boot with a life of its own, lashing around my ankle. Rustling behind me suggested that the others were encountering the same problem. I struggled to pry the sinewy green bonds from around my limbs to no avail and ripped out my dagger before it was too late.