Light in the Darkness

by CJ Brightley

  The second possibility made my stomach squirm. What if I were causing, or at least speeding up, the death of magic?

  I didn’t think I could be causing the decline of magic. Grandfather said it had been going on a long time, long before he was born. However, he’d also said it had been speeding up lately. What if it was because of me — or others like me?

  I swallowed. There was a very uncomfortable, very obvious explanation I had been trying not to think about ever since he’d mentioned that magic was dying.

  I had always wondered what happened to magic after it got swallowed by groverweed. Did it just go away? Did it remain trapped forever? Did groverweed somehow consume it and convert it into something else? I’d always assumed that a groverweed’s magic dissipated into the soil when the plant died. But what if it didn’t? What if any magic absorbed by groverweed became irretrievable permanently?

  If so . . . if so . . . that might explain the gradual decline. There was magic in all fertilizer, so groverweed that sprang up in crops or gardens could always soak up some of it. Even if people killed the plant whenever they saw it, they couldn’t prevent that happening completely. Gradually, all magic would be absorbed, unless the species somehow went extinct, and even then, it would only save whatever vestiges of magic remained.

  I really, really hoped that wasn’t the case.

  Because if it was, that meant I had been actively killing the system for years now.

  On the other hand . . . I could also pull magic out of groverweed. I did it all the time, to stop one plant from growing too unruly. And apparently I could even affect the plant magically. So if groverweed was the cause of the problem, I might very well be a solution. All I had to do was yank magic out of every groverweed I could see, move the magic somewhere else where it could circulate normally, and . . . and . . .

  Well, that was the problem. And do what with it?

  If I tried to keep magic inside me, it would leak out and cause problems within a matter of days. If I tried to use it, nearby magicians would notice someone had used magic, figure out it wasn’t one of them, and then start hunting for the person who had. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think that I could avoid their notice for my whole life.

  And then . . . the Ruler’s death sentence. I didn’t want to die. I really, really didn’t.

  There was the other option, of course: I could take the oath of magic. If I did, I could use magic openly without fear. I could drain the plants and do spectacular things. If groverweed was the issue, that would solve everything.

  On the other hand, I didn’t know if my ability was because I still had status and hadn’t revoked it. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if I took the oath of magic and then lost that ability.

  Besides, unless I had no other choice, I didn’t want to be a magician. I wanted to have my own land, like my parents. I wanted to have vassals to protect, not be at somebody else’s mercy.

  I swallowed, squeezing my top outer skirt. The sheer fabric was still smudged all over the place, but at least my hands were moderately clean.

  “How am I supposed to know what to do if I don’t know what’s going on?” I asked out loud, looking around at the yellow and red fabrics that decorated my walls. “How am I supposed to do anything without information?”

  Of course, nothing answered me.

  11

  Climbing carefully down the stairs in my newly-changed clothes, skin still wet from scrubbing my arms and face, hair still shiny from constant brushing to get the pollen ash out of it, I ran straight into Grandmother.

  “Oh, good!” she said, spinning around. She plopped a large tray which was covered in pastries in my arms. “You can help me! Yaika made a last-minute menu change, and we’re going crazy.”

  Yaika’s the crazy one, I thought indignantly, leaning forward at the weight of the tray. “Where does this need to go?” I asked, leaning over to the side so I could prop my elbow against the banister. Wow, this is heavy. Much worse than usual.

  “Outside, outside, with the other trays,” Grandmother said, waving her hands distractedly. “Don’t ask me where that is. I have to get this caramel sauce finished!”

  She raced back to the kitchen, which was wafting sweltering bursts of delicious smells. I jerked my elbow off the banister and staggered forward, grateful that at least I wasn’t in the kitchen with all that heat.

  Somebody had propped the front door open with a rock, so I nudged it open with my foot and somehow managed to scoot through it without having the use of either of my hands. Outside, I found Mother and Father and a number of vassals setting up the chairs for Yaika’s oath ceremony. Grandfather was arranging floral bouquets on pedestals at the end of each row.

  The dining room table had been lugged out near the front door, so I toddled towards it and relieved my arms of their burden thankfully. There were three other enormous trays out there already, all covered in a different type of sweet. I wondered how many people Grandmother was expecting to feed.

  Some of the guests had already started arriving. From behind, I recognized Jontan’s parents sitting on the front row, the Tricklestream family a few rows behind them, the Woodcarvers from a long way away, several of our vassals . . .

  Wait a minute. I did a double-take. Who’s that?

  Sitting on the back row, in a seat right near the center aisle, was a very elegant woman I’d never seen before. Her skirts were made of a shimmery cream-colored material I wasn’t familiar with, and her hair fell loose down her back, with several looping braids at the top of her head. She radiated status like a furnace on a hot day, her hands were folded tightly in her lap, and she was speaking to nobody. Who in the world?

  I hurried to the back row and slowed my step as soon as she turned to look at me. I bowed quickly, as deeply as I could without toppling.

  “Hello. I’m Raneh, of the Freshgrown family. My sister Yaika is the one taking the oath here. Who are you?”

  The woman smiled. She didn’t get up, or move her hands. “I was invited.”

  Uh . . . “Are you and your family new to the neighborhood?” I asked politely. She had way too much status to only just have bought land, and she was way too old to have only just gotten married. About my mother’s age. Maybe she was the mother of one of Yaika’s friends? Or perhaps she was a widow who had recently lost her husband and children? That might explain why she had enough status for a whole family.

  The woman smiled. “I am visiting.”

  Gah! This was maddening. I knew Yaika had left an open invitation, but I hadn’t expected a stranger to show up. Vassals I didn’t recognize, sure. But a mysterious landowner I’d never seen?

  “Well . . . nice to meet you,” I said lamely, bowing and backing away.

  The woman simply smiled and said nothing.

  I headed to the front row to greet Jontan’s parents. As I glanced back, I saw the woman shift one of her arms to adjust the purple fringe on one of her sleeves. I caught a glimpse of something on her lap that looked like a family signature. I craned my neck, trying to see if I recognized it. There were purple slightly-spiky flowers . . . broad, pointed leaves . . . more of the spiky flowers, these ones more bluish-tinted . . .

  Filias?! She’s wearing filias?! My mind jammed. A Ruler’s heir? What is a Ruler’s heir doing here?!

  I spun around, frantic to find my sister, and charged back down the aisle towards the house. The woman barely glanced at me as I passed, hands folded back on her lap again. I raced across the path in front of our house and reached for the front door —

  “Raneh!”

  I spun around, my heart hammering, and groaned inwardly when I saw who had called me. Genn was walking down the road, a young girl and a scruffy man on either side of him.

  I couldn’t just ignore him. Reluctantly, I pulled my hand from the door handle and walked down the path to greet him.

  “Hello, Genn,” I said, giving him a slight bow. “Are these your father and sister?”

  “Uh, no. These are Dakk a
nd Lilla. My magician and mathematician. Uh . . . I figured you ought to meet them sometime. You know, since . . . if we get married . . . you’ll be living with them.”

  Ah. I looked over the trio. Genn was nicely dressed, even though he’d tied the Weedless signature awkwardly, two ends trailing off his shoulder in a way I was sure the family wouldn’t have approved of. Lilla was extremely short and petite, her white robes tidy, hair pulled up above her head. Her skin was pale, almost wood-colored. Dakk’s clothes were wild and messy, his untrimmed beard speckled with white hairs amid the black ones. He looked dreadful, but grinned in a friendly manner.

  “Pleased to meet you, magician, mathematician,” I said, bowing my head slightly. “You live in the house with Genn?”

  “That’s right!” Dakk boomed, thumping Genn on the back so hard that he staggered forward. “I’ve been the family magician since Leola was a young thing. Shame about her dying. Lilla here’s been family mathematician a few years. Isn’t that right, Lilla?”

  Cringing, the pale girl nodded.

  “Her father’s one of our field mathematicians,” Dakk bragged, rolling up one of his sleeves to scratch his hairy right arm with the other. “Good friend of mine from childhood. So when the opening came up, I said, ‘Hey, why not have your daughter ask for the spot?’ And she took it! Always been a smart thing, huh, Lilla?” He laughed loudly and raucously.

  The mathematician girl seemed to shrink down into herself.

  Genn looked like he was going to die of embarrassment. I just laughed internally. Dakk didn’t bother me. We had a few vassals who were just like him, and one of them often helped Father fix broken roofs before and after the cold season. If Dakk was anything like those men, he’d be perfectly nice, just rough. And not being a landowner, or even statused, he had no reason to worry about manners unduly.

  “Pleased to meet you both,” I said, inclining my head again. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to find my sister . . .”

  “We’ll sit near the front,” Genn said, bowing.

  I ran back to the front door and flung it open, rushing through the house. Unfortunately, Yaika was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t in her room, she wasn’t in our parents’ room, she wasn’t in the sitting room or dining room or kitchen . . .

  “Oh, are you looking for Yaika?” Grandmother asked as I poked my head into the kitchen for a second time. Hurik was in there with her, stirring what looked like a pot of tonna berry preserves. She was ladling caramel sauce over a tray of streaming frizzles. “She said something about going out to the gardens.”

  “Oh! Great! Thanks!” I ducked out of the kitchen and ran back out the front door and down the garden path. Nobody in Mother’s garden, nobody in Father’s garden, nobody in Yaika’s garden, nobody in what passed for Hurik’s garden . . .

  “Yaika!” I cried, reaching my garden gate. She was standing in my now-bare groverweed patch, cutting filias that dotted the mound. “What are you doing?”

  “I need filias,” she said. “You won’t mind. You have so many of them.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “This is my garden!” I cried. “At least ask permission!”

  “You grow tons of filias, and you never use them,” Yaika said, clipping another one down close to the roots. “Don’t be so stingy.”

  I clutched my forehead. I barely had any filias, and I needed those to disguise my groverweed. Not that I could explain that to my sister.

  “You might notice that the ground is almost bare now,” I snarled. “I thinned the plants in preparation for cold season. Don’t take all of them!”

  Yaika tossed her gardening scissors on top of the armful of long-stemmed filias she had tucked into the crook of her left arm. “I think I have enough,” she beamed. “Thanks, Raneh. I really want to show my devotion to the Ruler today.”

  I glared at her. “Does this have anything to do with the Ruler’s heir who’s on the back row right now?”

  Yaika’s whole face lit up. “A Ruler’s heir came? Oh, yay! I was hoping one would! I coated a whole length of the Ruler’s Road with yellow —”

  I stared at her. What?!

  The Ruler’s Road was exclusively used by the Ruler and her husband and heirs, a way of traveling extremely quickly across the whole land. Each slashed across the whole Rulership, going straight from one rim to another, all converging at Central, where the Ruler lived.

  When you needed the attention of the Ruler’s family, you left fabric inside the Ruler’s Road along the wall near the door near your land. Most landowner families had special banners, but really, all you needed was a strip of fabric the right color. Red for crime, blue for land purchase, green for hardship, white or grey for disease (a warning not to visit), yellow for market or social invitation.

  “A whole length?” I asked in a strangled voice. “Yaika! That’s like shouting! That’s incredibly rude!”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” she sniffed, opening my gate one-handed and stepping through it. She closed it again, and it squeaked back in place.

  “Why would you even want a Ruler’s heir here? Don’t you remember what happened the last time you met one?”

  Yaika spun around, her top outer skirt swishing around her legs.

  “Yes, Raneh,” she said fiercely. “I remember. I remember that I made a big fool out of myself and embarrassed the whole family. Now I’m going to fix that by impressing a different Ruler’s heir, earning tons of status, and making us look amazing. Okay?”

  My breath caught in my throat. “Okay,” I said.

  She stormed off in a huff, layers of skirts fluttering behind her as they picked up in a slight breeze.

  Apparently Yaika has something to prove today. I let out a long breath. I guess I should just let her do it.

  12

  Fidgeting in my seat as we waited for Yaika, I tried not to stare back at the Ruler’s heir. It was harder than it seemed. She might be far behind me, way back in the back row, while there were numerous people in between us, but I still felt like she had to be watching me personally. What would happen if I made a tiny mistake? What would happen if I scratched myself, or I sneezed? What would happen if she suddenly decided she hated me?

  I sat next to Genn, my arms trembling.

  “Hey,” he said, touching my arm. “Your sister will do just fine. You’ll see.”

  I smiled weakly. I wished that was the only reason I was worried.

  Father gestured to the musicians, a group of vassals from Jontan’s land who were really quite talented. They started improvising a slow, sedate melody.

  My heart was hammering. I glanced back again. I couldn’t see the Ruler’s heir, but I knew she was there. And where was Yaika? When was she going to appear and get this started? Everyone was here, weren’t they? Or was she waiting for somebody? Why else would she be leaving us to worry this way?

  I glanced back again, sweating, straining to see the Ruler’s heir, and I suddenly caught sight of Yaika. She stood in the doorway, framed by the bright sunlight glinting off her black hair. She waited for a long moment, as everybody noticed others had turned back and everybody turned back to look at her, waiting until everyone had turned back to look at her. And then slowly, she stepped forward.

  Filias were woven into each side of her hair, and she carried a bouquet of more filias in a field of tiny, snowy, stark white speckies. From each side dangled delicate chains of shakeleaf spines and tonna berry husks, a subtle reference to the signature of our family.

  Perfection itself stepped forward slowly, her face glowing with a confidence. My heart ached with pride, and my lips twitched with envy. I wished I’d looked like that at my oath, and I’d just been a wreck. Probably everyone else here was thinking the same thing.

  She paused near us, and our father got up from the second row where we were sitting, and walked the rest of the way up to the front with her. Hush fell over the crowd.

  “Yaika, daughter of the Freshgrown family,” Father intoned. “We come to witness your oath of chil
dhood. Which oath do you choose to take?”

  “I take the oath of status,” Yaika said.

  A sigh went out over the whole crowd. I could tell what they were thinking: it would have been a waste if someone as beautiful as her had chosen to renounce status and become a magician or mathematician instead.

  No one had sighed like that at my oath. I tried not to be jealous.

  Father pulled the Book of Oaths out from under his arm, and held it out to her. It was a book that all landowners had, and most vassals tried to, too. In it were the oaths of status, magic, mathematics, marriage, adoption, land ownership, and even the oath of Rulership, even though only one person in a generation would ever be sworn to it.

  I felt choked up, just watching. Soon, I might need that book myself. Soon, I might be taking the oath of marriage, and then the oath of the land almost immediately after that. Soon, I might be renouncing magic, becoming a true landowner . . .

  I suddenly felt queasy.

  Renouncing magic. In just a few weeks. How could I have forgotten about that?

  I tried to fight my panicked feeling. I probably wasn’t the only person who could do what I did. Surely there were other people out there, working to save magic. Surely . . .

  But then why hasn’t magic stopped dying? my logical mind demanded.

  I swallowed, feeling desperately sick. People would starve if magic stopped existing. Fields would lose their nutrients much faster than we could replace them.

  Carriages would have to work with unenhanced stinksap, which meant long journeys would be impossible to make. Landowners’ homes could no longer be resized, which would mean all social gatherings would have to be held outside.

  And what about the fuel we used for heating our homes during cold season? I was pretty sure that was enhanced, too. I was starting to feel seriously panicky about this.

  I realized dimly that Yaika was speaking, her voice high and resonant as she pronounced each word with perfect clarity, but I could barely focus on the oath she was reading. Who cared? Who cared that she was about to gain status? Who cared about anything if magic was dying?