Fairmist

by Todd Fahnestock

  He frowned, not sure if she was mocking him.

  “Or is it the prophecy that drives you?” she asked quietly.

  Grei snapped his gaze to her. “What prophecy?” He tried to make his voice convincing.

  Her eyes were implacable black points. Ringblade. Mistress of secrets. “Do you know what the words mean?” she asked.

  He hesitated. Adora’s mantle of secrecy hovered over him, imperative, and he did not trust Selicia. But Selicia might know something he did not. “Adora was going to tell me,” he said.

  “Ah,” she breathed suddenly, as though she had just realized something. Her quiet surprise was like a shout from anyone else. She leaned forward. “I should have seen that. Adora is Mialene. The princess escaped the Debt of the Blessed. How?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said too quickly, shocked by her sudden jump in logic. How could she have figured that out? He hadn’t said anything about anything! His cheeks felt hot.

  “Mmmm.” Selicia nodded. “Then she didn’t tell you. She was leading you.”

  “Leading me?”

  Selicia was silent for a moment, then nodded to herself. “Of course. It is the meaning of the last line of the poem. You need her to send the slinks back. Her blood. Baezin’s blood.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The last line, Why a princess lay down for his charm. What did you think it meant? That she makes love to you?” Selicia’s dark gaze held his. “No. She must die so everyone else can live.”

  His scalp prickled hot. He thought of his mother. He thought of Julin and Fern. And now Adora. Sacrifices. Blood and more blood.

  “I won’t do it!” He jumped to his feet, clenched his fists. A light wind ruffled the tall grass behind Selicia.

  “Some must sacrifice to give us the chance to live,” Selicia said in the same quiet voice, unruffled by his sudden movement. “It has ever been so. That is civilization. The many cannot survive without the sacrifice of the few.”

  Grei chased the thoughts from his head, fought them with everything he had. He didn’t believe that. Life couldn’t be built on the deaths of others.

  But Selicia’s words harried him like birds. The prophecy said he could stop the Debt of the Blessed. He could achieve what he had always wanted. There would be no more Julins. No more Ferns, dying so everyone else could drink and hide behind masks. All it took was one last sacrifice.

  He shook his head. “I’m not that man,” he whispered.

  “Then what will you do with her once you get her?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Stop the slinks. Some other way.”

  “Bold words. Others have tried. How will you be different?”

  “Somehow.”

  She nodded, and he felt her absolute lack of faith. He had no plan, no idea what he was going to do.

  Selicia looked down at the ground between her feet. “Why not go to the emperor?” she asked softly, then glanced up at him, and he couldn’t decipher her expression. Curious? Beseeching? Was this why she had stopped trying to capture him? To try her hand at persuasion?

  “Instead of dragging me to him in chains, you could just walk me up to his door. Is that it?” He tensed. The woman could strike unbelievably fast. Would she try to capture him again if he refused?

  She shook her head as if she could read his thoughts. “I am yours. But if your goal is to stop the slinks, then you and the emperor are aligned,” she said. “That is all he wants.”

  “The emperor and I are not aligned. We will never be aligned.”

  “You will defeat the slinks, you say. Somehow. You say this like a man who has never met a slink.” She watched him.

  “I’ve met two,” he said. And he had been helpless against both. He’d been driven into unconsciousness by the first slink seven years ago, and the second had burned his forearm to a cinder. He would be dead if not for Blevins. He had no idea how to fight slinks.

  Selicia nodded at his uncomfortable silence.

  “The emperor is worse,” Grei said. “Do you even know what he’s done?”

  “He sacrificed his own daughter and almost his sanity trying to stop them. It is all he thinks about,” she said.

  “He killed a Faia. Maybe more than one.”

  She went silent, looking at him with narrow-eyed skepticism. “What would make you say that?”

  “Because that’s how the Badlands came to be. It wasn’t a fire. It was the emperor killing a yellow Faia. The trees showed me. I lived the memory. It’s why nothing grows there. And I can’t tell you which is worse: the slinks slaughtering hundreds of our people or the emperor killing one Faia. It’s appalling. It’s hard to even imagine.”

  She didn’t speak again. Eventually she got up, erased all traces of their camp and dumped the fish carcasses into the river.

  Before the sun had cleared the distant horizon, they were on the move again. Selicia guided them through the fields, keeping Baezin’s Road just out of view.

  By day they traveled. At dusk, Selicia hunted or fished, and Grei built a small cooking fire, usually in some natural hiding place, either behind hills or trees or in a divot in the land that gave some cover.

  Selicia was a superlative hunter. He’d never seen anyone so good. Mostly, they ate fish. The Ringblade could catch a half-dozen fish with just a hook and a piece of thread. Some days, she also brought game from the fields, a few groundhogs, a half-dozen squirrels, even one flying hare. She did all of this with just her mysterious knife, and she always hunted for less than an hour, between the time the sun began to set and full dark. Grei had known hunters in Fairmist who went into the South Forest, spent the entire day, and only emerged with a rabbit or two. And the South Forest teemed with game compared to this land.

  He assisted when he could, trying to forage for roots and other leafy greens they could eat, but he soon realized how ill-equipped he was to survive in the wild, especially with only one arm.

  Every morning, she would do her dances, and Grei would watch. He was drawn to them, and his admiration for her grew. He took to waking just so he could see her move. Sometimes the dances were fiercely contained; she spun and struck within a five foot square space. Sometimes they were grand and sweeping, covering great distances.

  Her grace and precision made him hold his breath. He had never seen a person move like that. He didn’t know a human body could move like that. Highblades trained for years to be the skilled fighters they were, but this was something different. This was a way of life, and the more he watched her, the more he realized that these movements were a part of everything else she did during the day.

  One morning, after she had bathed and returned to the camp, he said, “You never stop.”

  She glanced at him, then sat down and unwrapped a piece of cooked squirrel she had saved from the previous night. It was always the same. She hunted, divided what was caught between them, then ate half of her part and saved the other half for morning. She always offered him part of what she’d saved, but after the first few days, he realized his selfishness and started saving half of his own dinner for breakfast.

  “It is what I have left,” she said.

  He felt a sudden pang of guilt. She had given up her “circle”, her sisters, her life, for him. He forced the guilt down, forced himself to remember what she had done to Adora and Blevins. But it was difficult, looking at her, realizing day by day that everything she did, everything she was, had been only to serve the empire, to serve all of them. Including him.

  She was ruthless, but in an odd way she was also selfless. He wondered if he was the unreasonable one, refusing to collaborate with the emperor. Insisting on going his own way when there were more people he could help than just himself, Adora and Blevins.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Don’t you ever want to rest?” he asked.

  She finished her bite of squirrel and swallowed. “I am resting.”

  He laughed. “I mean like other people rest. Let go.
Take a moment to stop working. Stop the dances. Relax. Smile.”

  She nodded, looked at the ground, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Well?” he said.

  She seemed to consider staying silent, but then she looked up at him, and her black eyes pinned him.

  “Relax like other people?” she said. “Other people are selfish.”

  He felt himself flush. “You mean me,” he said. “You mean I’m selfish.”

  “The few must sacrifice for the many. I must. Because I have the power. Because I was born stronger, faster. I use my gifts to serve others.”

  “I’m traveling across the empire on foot,” he said. “I would give anything to find Adora!”

  “You have the power of a Faia. You say you wish to stop the slinks.” She shook her head, and he felt the weight of her judgment fall on him. “But you do not use this power. You do not train. Not once have I seen you do this.”

  Grei had been reluctant to use his magic since the battle in the Badlands. It had dulled his mind, taken away his sense of self, everything the delegate’s torturers had tried to do to him.

  “You don’t know anything about it,” he said.

  “I know you are the Whisper Prince. And perhaps that means you are destined to succeed in your quest. Perhaps that is all you will need. But if I were you, I would explore all of my weaknesses.” Her gaze moved slowly and intentionally to his burnt arm, still wrapped in the now-filthy cloth. “It is a horrible thing,” she said softly. “To discover your weakness only at your moment of need. This is how the inexperienced die in battle.”

  Rage leapt inside him. “Is that how you got your scar, then?” he lashed back. “Did you lean on your weakness?”

  She sat so still that she might have turned to stone. “No,” she said. “I leaned on my strengths. Every strength I had. I fought better than I have ever fought in my life.”

  “But he beat you.”

  “He beat me.” Her gaze was intense. “But he would have killed me. Instead, I kept my life and two scars to remind me.”

  “That you lost?”

  “That there will always be someone better. That I must live at the edge of my ability, or next time I will die, and not just walk away with scars.”

  Grei’s rage left him so suddenly that he felt hollow. For years he had fought against his father, hated the Debt of the Blessed, hated the emperor who would instate something so foul, even though Grei knew the reasons. He had always felt there had to be a better solution, but he had never found one. This brutal woman did not hope for some answer; she found one, even if the answer was flawed. A prickle of shame heated his cheeks. He looked at her, scarred and ropey, unwilling to give in, and he suddenly felt so small he wanted to die.

  She went back to eating, as though the conversation was over and Grei was a child who stubbornly refused to be dismissed. After a moment, he stalked away, winding his way down to the river.

  I have been selfish, he thought.

  Selicia had exiled herself from her own life, but every morning she rose and worked hard at her dances. Because it was what she had left, because it was what she could do. Every morning, Grei woke and worried over Adora. But what was he doing to ensure that when he found her he would be able to help her? Would he run into her arms and ask her what he should do next?

  He looked at the rushing water of the Fairmist River for a long time, and the thoughts bubbled in him like boiling stew.

  With a deep breath, he opened his heart and reached out to the water. He reached past the fear that he would become a blithering idiot, that he was doing something wrong. He searched for that feeling he’d felt at Fairmist Falls.

  Sparkling, happy images flowed to him. The river reveled in its purpose. To rush along, to cut through the earth, to reach the ocean, to give life to all things along the way. To flow.

  There was sentience there, but not like Grei’s own mind. There was no worry. No effort. There was no “trying” to do something. There was only doing. There was only purpose. The river was itself, cool and wet and flowing, and that was all it longed to be. It reached out to everything it touched, giving giving giving.

  Its language thrummed through him, and he was reminded of how he felt watching Selicia dance. The intrinsic grace. The resulting beauty. Selicia, the river, neither could be anything else but what they were.

  And the river felt him, too, knew that Grei was a visitor. He closed his eyes, trying to feel its mind, and little images welcomed him, glimmers of sunlight on rippling water. They asked him what he needed. They were excited to help. To give. To flow.

  He thought of the seven great bridges the Faia had made in Fairmist.

  Can you do this? He thought, holding the image of the Blacktale Bridge. Can you make this?

  He heard laughter from the rollicking water. He heard whispers from the wind as water and air talked to each other.

  Grei opened his eyes.

  Arcing gracefully over the Fairmist River was a shimmering water bridge, a translucent replica of the Blacktale. Each piece, from the carved flagstones to the thick hand rails on each side to the pillars, were perfectly wrought in shimmering water, direct from his memory.

  It made him dizzy, just looking at it, and he reached out and braced himself on the trunk of a tree. He did not feel the ill effects he had in the Badlands. His mind was clear and light. He felt refreshed.

  Hesitantly, he put a foot on the shimmering slope of the bridge. It was hard as stone. He took another step, still cautious, then walked to the middle. He could see the river rushing below his feet, distorted by the translucent bricks.

  He laughed and stood in awe over what he and the river had made together. He saw movement to his left and turned. Selicia appeared at the river’s edge.

  He descended the arch until he stood next to her. He felt he should say something, but he couldn’t seem to think in human words. All he could hear were the joyful murmurs of the river at Grei’s happiness.

  Thank you, he thought to the water. Thank you. He sent it an image of the bridge becoming the river again, flat and rippling and doing what it was born to do.

  The water bridge collapsed, sending a wave of water downstream and overflowing the banks on either side. The spray soaked them, and the wave washed over their boots. He and Selicia leapt up the bank. The water receded.

  He grinned and looked over at her. His vision automatically went deeper, went inside her. She was amazed. This boy can do the impossible. What an asset he might be to all the citizens of the empire. With him, the emperor could defeat the slinks.

  But behind her excitement was staunch control. She still kept some of her emotions tightly under rein, and it made them harder to see. Still, a few things leaked through.

  He needs discipline. Defeating slinks will not be this easy.

  “I will work at it,” he said. “I promise.”

  She looked at him, knew immediately he was reading her thoughts. He felt fear from her at this, and it dampened his joy. He closed his vision to her heart and promised himself he would stop doing that unless he was invited. Taking what was not freely given was a crime, the opposite of what he had just done with the river. He remembered the river’s joy at their collaboration.

  It hit him then. That was why his mind had been dulled in the Badlands! He had forced himself upon the elements he sought to change. He had stolen the identity of the swords, the lock, the ground. He had ripped them away in his need. It was a crime, and the punishment was losing his own identity just like he had taken theirs.

  Flush with his new realization, he turned to Selicia. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She nodded. They watched the river together for a time. Then she said, “I will make you a deal. We will both train in the mornings. You watch me dance, then I will watch you do this.”

  He nodded and extended his good hand. She took it and they shook.

  “Deal,” he said.

  Chapter 35

  Grei

  They broke
camp and continued on. Grei felt invigorated. He turned his gaze on everything, listened for the whispers of the grasses, listened for the whisper of the ground. He stumbled once, trying to understand and speak back to the disjointed song of the wind, and Selicia looked over her shoulder at him with a crease in her brow.

  “Practicing,” he said.

  “Perhaps practice walking first?”

  “Was that a joke?” he asked her, striding faster to catch up. “Did you just make a joke?”

  She said nothing and kept walking.

  Days passed and they slipped into a companionable rhythm. Selicia danced. Grei practiced his magic.

  As they neared Thiara, the wild grasses became cultivated fields. Some grew food, but most were cotton.

  “We have reached the edge of civilized Thiara,” she said. “These are the Felesh Plantations, and we must be careful. The closer we come to the imperial city, the harder it will be to hide in open places.”

  “What about the city?”

  “Once we are in Thiara, I can hide us. There are many secrets there,” she said.

  They made camp that night in the hollow of a tall, sandy embankment that was well hidden from the fields and the road. Grei cleared out a few crabs before settling against the curving back wall. It was damp and filled with the noise of the river, but warmer than Grei had ever experienced. He had taken to walking without his shirt during the day because of the heat. There was also a scent on the air: thick, salty, part decay and part fresh. Life and death at the same time.

  Selicia joined him, opened a cloth filled with carrots and turnips and divided them in half.

  “What is that smell?” he said.

  She glanced at the vegetables, then looked at him.

  “No. In the air,” he said. “Salty. Cloying. Like fish left too long on the bank.”

  “It is the sea. Have you never traveled west before?” she asked.

  “Never beyond Fairmist. Well, the Lowlands and the Highward, but that’s all.”

  “Come.” She scooted to the river’s edge, and he followed.

  The sun had slipped behind the hills to the west, which were dotted with white marble outcroppings. The dying purple light touched them, making them sparkle like diamonds.