by P. M. Biswas
Loren wilted. And he said he wasn’t like a rose? Blimey.
Soma patted Loren’s leg consolingly. “Tam is obstinate but sincere. It is only her concern for you that makes her say that.”
This was the facet of Soma that would get on Tam’s nerves if Tam wasn’t simultaneously too terrified of and reverential toward Soma to even consider letting Soma get on her nerves. Soma tended to reveal all of Tam’s inner workings when Tam would fain have kept them to herself. Tam preferred it if people didn’t think she was a useless sap, but what Soma had revealed about her implied just the opposite.
Yes, Tam didn’t want Loren to heal her because it would harm Loren, but it was also a genuinely pragmatic decision. It wouldn’t do any good if Loren bled himself and his magic dry before he reached the peak. The mission had to succeed, and the elves were far more crucial to its success than Tam was. That was the honest truth. Tam was nothing if not honest.
“Seer,” said Tam, settling next to the old woman on the wooden log that was Soma’s seat, “may I ask you some questions?”
“Of course you may, Tam.” Soma didn’t sound surprised at all, like she’d been expecting Tam to interrogate her throughout the climb.
“What do you see, when you see us?” Tam had been spending the long, grueling daylight hours pondering this, because what exactly did it mean to have a spiritual “Sight”? “If you, um. Not to be rude, but if you do not see us with your physical eyes, then can you see our bodies?”
“No,” said Soma. “I see only hearts. Minds. Souls. I see the life that surrounds me in the Wanderwood, be it the little lives scuttling in the undergrowth or the lives of birds flitting overhead, or the bigger, lumbering beacon of light that is the Deerwent. Here, on Mount Zivan, I see lives too. It is not sight as you know it, but it is sight nonetheless.”
“What you’ve got isn’t just sight, though. It’s Sight. With a capital S.”
Soma hid a smile behind her hand. “Do you capitalize it in your mind?”
“Y-you can see that for yourself, can’t you?”
“I’d rather you told me, dear.”
“Why?”
Soma hummed. “Your voice is soothing. Innocent.”
“I’m—I’m not innocent!”
“Aren’t you? Child, there wasn’t a mean thought in your mind when I looked into it at the king’s court. And such a delightfully direct mind it was too. Not all those twists and turns that Alfernas’s mind has, coiled upon itself like a snake. No offense to snakes, of course.”
Soma had it aright; even snakes would be offended at being compared to Alfernas. “Are you saying I’m not clever enough to have a complicated mind?” Tam sniffed for show. “And I have plenty of mean thoughts about Loren.”
“I wonder why?” Soma said guilelessly. “It’s rather uncharacteristic of you.”
“What do you mean, you wonder why?” Tam stuck her head out toward Soma, as if bringing it nearer to Soma would make what was in it more readable. “You don’t need to wonder! You can just take a peek and find out for yourself!”
“Like I said, Tam, I would rather you told me.”
Tam tugged at her fraying bootlaces. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Nothing?” Loren said from Soma’s other side, rigid and stilted. “Seer Soma, I am already aware that there is nothing to tell when it comes to Tam’s thoughts about me. Do not jest with me so.”
“I do not jest, my young prince. I only make idle conversation.”
“Idle….” Loren trailed off. “I saw some herbs growing from a nearby outcropping that might allay Tam’s aches and pains. I shall go and pick them.”
Tam made as if to stand. “You don’t have to—”
“Let me do something for you,” Loren growled, and put his hands on Tam’s shoulders to push her back down onto the log. He’d never been this assertive before; it was baffling. “Enjoy your ‘idle conversation’ with the Seer. It is an honor that she chooses to converse with you at all.”
“It is an honor indeed.” Nala rose as well. “I shall guard the prince on his—” Nala sneered in contempt at such a nonviolent activity. “—herb-picking excursion.”
So saying, Nala shadowed Loren as he stomped off to pick herbs.
Tam blinked after him. “A temperamental sort, isn’t he? Prickly about the oddest things.”
Soma chortled softly. “Hm. You are an odd thing.”
Was that a joke? Because if it was, Soma’s jokes were as inscrutable as Emeraude’s. And Loren’s. And Nala’s. Tam mentally bemoaned that she was the sole member of this ragtag band of misfits who had a functional sense of humor.
“Very well, since Loren insists we have this heart-to-heart….” Tam rallied herself for another possibly rude query. “I have a further question for you. How come you look so old? You have wrinkles, even! How did you age? Are you not immortal, as all elves are?”
“I am,” Soma said calmly. “But I am also very, very, very old.”
“Did you just say ‘very’ three times?” Tam whistled. “How old is that?”
Soma was still for a moment, as if calculating a number so vast it bordered on incalculable, and ultimately said, “A millennium. Give or take fifty years.”
The breath left Tam’s lungs in a whoosh. “A mill…?” How did it even feel to live that long? How could Soma keep from going insane? Or from giving up on everything altogether? Again, the vastness of immortality struck Tam with a holy terror. The building oppressiveness of all those years…. It was incomprehensible. “Is that why you have wrinkles? Because you’re just that old?”
“Yes… and no.” Soma raised a hand to her brow, where her wrinkles were most pronounced. “Our magic ages us to match the maturity of our spirits. We cannot die unless we will it, but we will age according to our spiritual growth and according to the depth of our connection with magic. It deepens with age.”
“I’d have more than just wrinkles, if I were you,” Tam said. “I’d have cracks. In my mind.”
“That is why not many of us reach that age, though we are immortal. I am among a handful in elfkind who remember the days shortly after the Stones’ formation. It was different, then. Very different.”
“What was?” Tam asked, mesmerized. “What was different?”
“All of it.” A wistfulness flashed across Soma’s face, and her hands tightened on her knees. “Or perhaps it was only I that was different. I was younger in those days. More passionate. More attached to those around me. I loved and loved, and yet those I loved died for me before I could die for them. So I lived on, aging because I had to, because it was my responsibility as Seer to guide my tribe….”
“You must’ve noticed it after about a thousand years of doing it,” Tam said, “but ‘responsibility’ is about as interesting as watching paint dry.”
Soma laughed outright, her shoulders shaking as she went on and on, tears of mirth gathering at the corners of her eyes. After several minutes, she managed to say, “It is wonderful to converse with you, Tam. I have not laughed like that in years. But are you not committed to your responsibilities too? I have Seen into you, and you are so wrapped up in responsibility that I cannot tell you apart from it.”
“That’s not responsibility,” Tam argued. “That’s just bullheadedness. I want to serve my country, so I will serve my country. That’s that. Nobody can stop me. It isn’t a responsibility so much as it is a—” Compulsion? Passion? “—devotion. Responsibility comes from the outside. Devotion comes from the inside.”
“An intriguing thesis,” Soma said contemplatively.
“It is!” Tam whacked the log for emphasis. “Responsibility is what Loren feels he owes his people—to him, it is a destiny not of his own making and is therefore devoid of joy. That’s why he lies to himself so much. But I’ve stopped lying to myself. There’s no point. Astar drags the truth out of all of us, in the end.” Tam quirked her mouth. “Even if it is only on our deathbeds.”
“You are driven to create you
r own destiny, aren’t you? Unlike Loren. He is learning from you, however, perhaps faster than he is comfortable with, but he is learning.”
“I don’t want him to learn from me. Ye gods.” Tam was appalled. “All I can teach anybody is how to scratch their own ars— Er. What I’m saying is, I can’t teach anybody.”
“Is that what you think?” Soma’s eyes found Tam’s, piercing despite their unseeing, featureless whiteness. “Do you truly think you have nothing to teach?”
“A few spear tricks, mayhap.” Tam shrugged. “Mostly I just wander. With direction, aye, but I wander. What have I to teach but wandering?”
“Wandering is a skill we could all benefit from learning. Too often, we stay stationary until our very souls begin to atrophy.” Soma rested her hands on her thighs, palm up and open, as if she was receiving an intangible gift. A gift from Tam. “After all, only those who wander can return. Only those who are lost can be found.”
“That’s all very well,” Tam responded, “but I’d rather not be wandering and lost. I’d rather just be found.”
Soma smiled—a smile of such luminescent beauty that it brought Tam to a standstill, just to see it. It was more akin to the smile of a goddess than that of a mortal; it had the grace of an ancient soul to it, a grace that could only result from having seen it all. “But you will be,” Soma said, hushed and happy. “You already are.”
Already found? By what?
Tam got the creeping feeling that she didn’t want the answer. It was strangely reminiscent of what Loren had once told Tam—about her heart’s home, and how it was in the Wanderwood, not the human world.
Tam shivered. It was better for her to leave all that mysticism to the elves and concentrate on more practical matters. Someone had to.
Determined not to accept Soma’s very conspicuous invitation to discuss that very mysticism, Tam decided to do some old-fashioned spying on Loren instead. Well, not spying. Probing. Polite and informative probing.
“How does Loren blush?” Tam asked, because it had been bothering her. “If you elves are Silverbloods, then how does he not go silver when he blushes? He goes pink, just like a pale-skinned human would. Why is that?”
Soma chuckled again. “Oh, sweetling. Us being Silverbloods is a myth. Our blood is not silver. It’s red, just like yours.”
Tam gawped. “B-but! What about when Loren healed me and bound his blood with mine? That was clearly silver blood!”
“’Twas the magic in his blood that made it shine silver; it is a sign of health. A sick or weakened elf’s blood may only have a tinge of silver, and after dying, an elf’s blood will become inert, red and lacking in any magic.”
“Then why doesn’t my blood look even a bit silvery?” Not that Tam wanted silvery blood, but…. “Didn’t Loren share his magic with me when he bonded with me?”
“You have elven magic in you, yes. But only a trace. A device as sensitive as the Earthstone would detect it, but it would not be visible to the naked eye.” Soma paused. “Unless it was Nala’s naked eye.”
“I’d rather not envision Nala’s naked anything, thanks. Or Loren’s. Or anyone’s. Ugh.”
As Soma broke out in fresh chuckles, Loren reappeared with a handful of scraggly weeds. Nala slunk in behind him like an exceptionally sulky cat.
“Our Seer has favored the human with her sacred prophecies,” Nala said, as if the sun had favored the undeserving night with its rays. Nala glowered at Tam, then set down her bow and dropped into a crouch beside the fire, warming her slender, bow-callused hands. “It is becoming chilly as we approach the peak. Soon we will need gloves.”
“And hats. And cloaks.” Tam scowled. “As if lugging my own weight around wasn’t tiring enough, now I’ll have to lug the weight of my cloak around too.”
“You were already lugging it around in your pack,” Nala pointed out.
“It’s worse when you’re wearing it. When it’s on you, it weighs you down like it’s twice as heavy.” Tam raised an eyebrow at Loren. “So? Did you find those herbs that will presumably help me?”
“Sit still,” Loren gritted out, as if he was still angry at Tam for not letting him heal her. He kneeled before her and said curtly, “Your legs. Roll up your breeches.”
“Roll up my—” Tam slapped herself on the chest and gasped as if scandalized. “For shame, Prince Loren!” she cried. “Do you always proposition delicate damsels like this?”
Loren flushed, his flush only just perceptible in the low light of the campfire. “You are neither delicate nor a damsel.” He poked at her already-swollen ankles without any gentleness, the prat. “Your breeches. Roll them up.”
“For a man who aspires to be a healer, you have a horrid bedside manner.” Tam rolled her breeches up to midthigh, as far as they would go.
“You are not on a bed, and this is not a bedside.”
“Logside, then. You have a horrid logside manner.”
Loren crushed the sprigs between his fingers until his palms were stained green, and then he rubbed the bruised herbs onto Tam’s legs. They stung at first, and like a startled horse, Tam had to resist the urge to kick Loren in the nose. But Astar would never forgive her for marring one of his prettiest creations, so all Tam could do was grind her teeth and go through it. “What are these sodding herbs?” Tam griped. “They sting like angry bees.”
“Shayari nettlegrass, moonweed, and nightlily.”
“It’s very aggressive for a lily. Nettlegrass, I can understand, but—” Tam jumped when Loren’s long fingers kneaded the cartilage above her right knee, which was so sore that her knee had become stiff and difficult to flex. She’d been putting increasing pressure on her left knee to compensate, and it had given her a subtly waddling gait. Trust Loren to notice; Loren noticed every detail about her. “Just yank my joints out of their sockets, why don’t you?” Tam complained when Loren moved on to her left knee. “It’ll be less painful.”
“What’s painful is your ceaseless whining,” Loren said vengefully. “Where did your warrior’s courage go?”
Tam clamped down on her “whining” and glared at Loren’s annoyingly silky head, gleaming bronze in the firelight as it was. Leave it to Loren to be a total git about this.
That aside, Tam had to admit that when Loren was done with his massage from hell—surely even Nala’s massages wouldn’t be this cruel?—the swelling in Tam’s legs had begun to recede. That nasty stinging sensation had melted into a delicious, oozing heat that sank into Tam’s muscles like a narcotic and eased the inflammation there. The heat entered her veins and flowed up to her brain, which began systematically closing down as much-needed relief flooded her nerves.
“Mm,” said Tam muzzily, “thash good shtuff. Mean shtuff, but good shtuff.”
“You’ve drugged her,” Nala said flatly.
“I… I didn’t foresee that she would be so strongly influenced!” Loren defended himself. He hurriedly unrolled Tam’s breeches because Tam was in no condition to roll them down herself. “I’ve only ever seen these herbs utilized on elfkind. A healer applied them to me when I was seven and dislocated my wrist, but I didn’t react like this.”
“What if she’s too woozy to climb tomorrow? Your Highness?” Nala tacked on, as if only just remembering that she was talking to a prince. Familiarity, it seemed, did breed contempt.
“By then the effects should’ve been absorbed by her liver.” Loren gulped. “I hope.”
“You hope? Your Highness, we cannot afford to lose a day of climbing because one of our party is drugged to the gills.”
“’M not a fish,” Tam mumbled. “Dun’ have gills.”
“You need to sleep,” Loren said, which was about the most obvious thing that had ever been said to Tam.
After Loren laid out the cloak that was Tam’s makeshift sleeping blanket, Tam pitched onto it like a felled tree. For once, she was too blissful to take note of the stones digging into her spine through the cloak.
In the background she heard Som
a, Loren, and Nala conferring in muted tones, but Tam was out before she could make out the words.
“OH, BLOODY hell,” Tam said a week later, when her period arrived. “Literally. It’s bloody, and it’s hell.”
Loren looked at her askance, then said, “Ah. Your monthly cycle.”
Tam waved him off. Her period had been due for a day or two, so she wasn’t unpleasantly ambushed by it, but it was never an event to rejoice about. She glumly retired behind a bush and stuffed the wads of herbs she’d brought with her into her breeches.
Speaking of herbs, Loren’s helped immensely with Tam’s cramps, both muscular and gynecological. It was irritating because Loren kept lording it over her with an infuriatingly smug grin. Tam’s stamina improved day by day as the herbs alleviated the stiffness in her hamstrings and calves.
Tam took over the crushing and applying of the herbs and became more adept at tolerating the sting before the relief kicked in. Afterward, at daybreak, she washed the greenish mush off her legs in whichever stream happened to be nearby, and by midmorning, her body had regained some of the vigor it had lost the previous day. It wasn’t as effective as being properly healed, but it gave her some respite—enough for her legs to support her through the day’s climb.
By the beginning of the third week, Nala was becoming restless, fidgeting with her arrows and going into an agitated state of constant, hyperalert vigilance. Her pointed ears pricked at every noise, and her nostrils flared at every breeze.
“There’s somebody out there,” she kept muttering. “Somebody, but I can’t place them yet. It must be Danis’s army, on the brink of entering my sphere of perception.”
It sounded almost as though Nala would prefer it if the army did enter her sphere of perception, if only because knowing they were there would shore up Nala’s sanity, which appeared to be crumbling. She was jittery and skittish and overly protective, continually turning from her position at the head of their procession to check on everyone following her, like a particularly dour mother duck checking on her brood. She punctuated her visual checking with calling attendance like a schoolteacher.