Iggy tightened his jaw. Suddenly, he didn't feel ridiculous for wanting to help the animal; he felt ashamed for thinking about leaving.
He held out a hand. I can help you. The wind picked up his words, carried them to the bear.
The animal harrumphed once, then let out a bellow of pain. Furious, it again lunged to the side in an attempt to get away—and fell, panting and moaning, to the forest floor.
Iggy frowned. Have you had enough, or can I help?
The beast's eyes were liquid brown, shining like a child's, but when they latched on to Iggy's own, their meaning was unmistakable. If you hurt me, I will kill you.
It was the best invitation he was likely to get. Iggy approached, fishing through his bag. Wurmroot and blackweed. Good. The herbs would help to dull the pain, once the bear's foot was free, and may even speed its healing.
Getting the foot free to begin with was a different matter.
He rooted through the dirt and underbrush until he found a rock. I'm going to pry the teeth apart. It'll hurt. He looked the animal in the eyes. Do you understand? It will hurt, but it will set you free. Don't struggle, or the jaws may close again, harder this time.
The animal bared its teeth, but it understood. As carefully as he could manage, Iggy took hold of one of the trap's jaws and worked the rock into the cleft. Slowly, straining against the device's old springs, he managed to pry the teeth apart. Now, quickly.
The bear lurched forward, jostling Iggy's hand as it pulled its leg loose. The woodsman jerked his arm back as if it were on fire. The snapping jaws of the trap missed his fingers so barely that he felt the tremor as they clamped closed. The dull clap echoed in his ears as his heart fluttered in his throat.
The bear began to limp away.
"Wait!" Iggy took a step toward the animal. "I can still help you." But even though he had freed the bear from its torment, it didn't trust him. And why would he? He probably thinks I laid this trap here myself. "See, I have herbs. They can help your wound." Iggy pointed at the bundle of wurmroot lying near his pack.
I can help, he whispered through the wind. I don't know why this happened, but I can treat your wound. Please.
The hulking creature paused and looked back at him, pain glittering in its eyes, and gave a low grumble.
Iggy scooped up his herbs and held them toward the animal. Look. Harmless. Let me show you.
As Iggy approached, the grumbling faded. When he had nearly reached the bear, it turned suddenly, and Iggy had a flashing vision of it rearing back to attack him. Then it swiveled itself about and gingerly sat its backside on the forest floor, its wounded foot facing him.
"M'sai," Iggy breathed, his galloping heart slowly calming. "Good."
He didn't have a waterskin to mix mud with, so he made do with the dirt from the forest floor. He crushed the herbs and mixed them into a poultice, spitting into the concoction to give it what moisture he could.
The bear's paw was a savaged ruin. The trap had torn past flesh and into bone. If the wound wasn't healed, it would almost certainly draw spirits, and the animal would die of a slow, consuming fever.
He did his best to clean it, then took the poultice and tried to pack it into the cut. Wurmroot was known for its potency against open wounds, but he felt the blood continue to pulse beneath his hands. No good, he realized. The cut is too deep and the poultice too weak. He crushed more wurmroot into a rough dust and rubbed it in, then wrapped the ankle with his own hands. He felt the blood beating rhythmically against his own flesh, the pulse of the bear's heart straining against the wound. It was a mirror of his own pounding heartbeat.
The same, the wind whispered to him. They are the same. Now the bear's own blood was moistening the earthy poultice, providing the moisture Iggy could not, helping it to form to the wound. Again the wind said, The same.
All things come from the earth.
Somehow, Iggy realized there was more to the mud in his hands than the herbs he had crushed into it. Somehow, he drew on that sameness, borrowed it, and shared it with the wound. He felt the bear's anguish slowly ease, like a sea storm spending itself against the shore.
When he took his hands from the animal's leg and wiped away the bloody mud, the flesh beneath was whole.
Iggy sank back, his hands braced against the ground, his mind spinning. The bear leaned forward and stood up, testing its weight on its new foot, then licked him once on the face before loping into the woods.
Impossible. Only priests could heal wounds with their bare hands. This surpassed everything that had come before. This was a miracle, but he was no cleric. This—
This was witchcraft, his mind supplied.
He scrambled for his pack, his thoughts racing.
It can't be. I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything!
He tore the pack open, ransacking it, imagining being tied to a stake by clerics as he screamed empty protests. Then he found the mirror and held it up, certain of the worst.
His eyes were normal.
Chapter 2
i. Helix
If he had hoped his father's protests would spare him a Meadowday morning at Mellerson's inn, he was wrong.
Mother had woken him just after dawn and sent him off. It had rained overnight, abruptly dropping the temperature from the sweltering high of the day before into something more closely resembling an honest autumn. He had stumbled in, damp and cold, and Mellerson had shown him where the keys were and how to fill in the guestbook when someone checked in or out. Then the older man had left, and Helix had pulled up a chair and nodded off.
He'd barely slept last night. His parents' fight had lasted halfway 'til dawn, quieting now and then only to flare up again. When he did manage to drift off, he'd see Syntal's eyes, green and hypnotic in the dark, and he'd jerk back awake. Once, he'd even stolen across the hall and peeked in on her, but unlike him, his cousin had been sleeping like the dead.
Now the same images chased themselves through his dozing thoughts—his father's rage, his mom's defiance, his cousin's bizarrely commanding eyes—but they had faded enough to allow flickers of Minda's shy but daring smile. Or the way she would bite her bottom lip and widen her eyes at him, transforming every innocent suggestion into a scandal.
By Akir. He had to meet up with her today. It was too cold for swimming now, but maybe—
The bell above the door rang, and a man stumbled through. "Hello," he called, looking toward the empty common room.
"Good morn." Helix waved.
"Ah." The man turned toward him. He had a wild shock of beard and long, bedraggled hair. Except for the pendant of Akir hanging about his neck, he looked like a homeless outcast. A strip of cloth was tied across his eyes, and he clutched a tall walking stick, which he waved back and forth as he approached.
He's blind. "Oh. Sorry," Helix said as he jumped to his feet, shaking the cobwebs out of his head.
"What're you sorry for? Did you make me blind?" The man chuckled.
"What? No, I—I just mean..."
The man reached the counter and waved him off. "Forget it. You didn't mean anything by it. I've been walking all night, I'm drenched, and I must smell like a wet dog. Forgive me. Let's start again." He offered his hand, his head tilted slightly askance. "Brother Matthew, if it please you."
Helix shuffled a bit to take his hand. "Helix Smith."
Matthew had a strong grip. He smiled. "Better, I think. Good to meet you, Master Smith."
"And you," Helix agreed.
"If I may get right to business, Master Smith, I need two things. Firstly, I have a letter for my wife in Keldale. I won't be home when she expects me, and I need to get this sent north as soon as I can." He unslung his pack and fished out a rumpled envelope.
"Well," Helix offered, "we do have a courier that comes through every now and again, but it's not often; maybe every couple months?"
Matthew winced. "I need this sooner."
"Well... my father travels to Keldale on occasion on business. I could try to take it to him."
>
"Bless you. That would be most helpful." Matthew proffered the letter, and Helix took it.
Great. He had no idea why he'd said that; his dad hadn't run an errand up in Keldale since last year. I'll have to just bring it to the courier post. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Irritated, Helix stuffed the letter in his pocket.
"Secondly," Matthew went on, "I need a room, and my companion led me to believe this was an inn."
"Yeah, that's right. Are you staying the night?"
"Three weeks." Matthew leaned his staff against the counter and began rummaging through a pouch at his belt. "I need to pay in advance."
"Oh." Helix fumbled with this information. Mellerson had said his customers were typically just passing through. Three weeks... He ran the calculation through his head, then gawked. The traveler looked like he could barely afford the rags on his back, let alone the final total. "Ah... twelve silver and three heels," he said, feeling like a highway thief.
"Twelve and three," Matthew muttered. "Twelve and three. This'll do it." He set exact change on the counter.
Relieved, Helix swept up the coins. He hated asking people for money. "So, three weeks," he said as he updated the guest book and grabbed a key. "That's a long stay. You're visiting family here, or...?"
"Oh no, no. I don't know anyone in Southlight, I'm sad to say, though hopefully that will change soon." His smile was warm and honest.
"Well," Helix answered with a smile of his own, "I'd say it already has. Right over here. I apologize; he doesn't have any ground-floor rooms. There's a short set of stairs."
"Stairs I can handle," Matthew grunted as he swung his walking stick out in front of him.
"We don't get a lot of visitors out here. Southlight's pretty small. What brings you out?"
"Akir," Matthew answered, his staff clicking along the rim of the next step. "I go where he sends me."
Helix stopped, his heart suddenly thundering. He glanced back to Matthew's amulet. It was a God's Star, the symbol of Akir. He'd noticed it before, but it never occurred to him that the ratty man could be a cleric.
Idiot. You shook his hand? You charged him? As he tried to fight down the rising tide of panic, he remembered Syntal's eyes from the night before. And now, the next morning, some strange old priest arrives in town? What is he doing here?
"Mercy, Father," he stammered, circling his heart. "I apologize. I didn't realize."
Matthew snorted as he made the top step. "Oh, calm down, son. I'm no priest."
Helix licked his lips; his mouth had gone dry. "You're not?"
"Akir, no. I said I do God's work, not the Church's." He scoffed. "They do not speak for God. Which way, then?"
"Ah... here," Helix answered, but his mind was whirling. They do not speak for God? It was the kind of statement that could get you Cleansed. What does that mean?
"I was, once," Matthew went on as he followed. "A bishop, actually."
Helix stopped again. "You were a bishop?" he blurted. Matthew might have said he was once King Gregor.
"Well," Matthew clarified, "nearly. They offered it to me. I'd been initiated at ten winters, and was as faithful as they come for the next twenty, but then something happened."
"What?"
"What do you think?" Matthew gave the wall a sly look. "A woman."
Helix remembered Minda's lips on his fingers, and surprised himself by laughing. "Yeah," he said. "They do that."
"Not just any woman, of course. A gorgeous, compassionate, brilliant one."
"Of course."
"She works with orphans in Keldale. The children no one else will take, the ones that have nothing. That's her calling. Something noble and selfless and wonderful, while I thought mine was..."
He stopped. "You think you know everything when you're young. No, no, don't deny it, I can't see your face, but I know. I was seventeen winters once, too. You think Akir has a plan for you, or your path is laid. You act with certainty. You do what you're told. And then you meet the destiny He meant you for, and it throws everything to Hel." He chuckled.
"I was already thinking about leaving the Church for her when they made the offer. 'Matthew, Akir needs you.' They wanted me to be a bishop of the Tribunal." The mirth in his face faded. "The Tribunal." He stared into his past.
Finally, he murmured, "Do you have any idea the things I've seen the Tribunal do to children?"
"I..." Helix started. I've heard stories, he wanted to say, but the haunted look on Matthew's face struck him mute.
"I say that as if I'm innocent," Matthew continued. "As if I've never done what they told me. Of course I have. That's why they wanted me. I had the fire they were looking for." He shook his head. "It makes me sick, now, to think of it, but at the time, I was torn. I went to the docks. I prayed. I meditated all night."
He held out one hand, palm up. "Become anointed Bishop Matthew?" He held out the other. "Or quit everything I'd worked for and marry the woman I love? Which would you choose, Helix Smith?"
Helix hesitated, still nervous. One didn't speak ill of the Church. At best, it was uncouth; at worst, blasphemy.
He groped for a response that wouldn't leave him compromised. When he hit upon it, he nearly sagged with relief. "You said you prayed—how did Akir answer?"
Matthew grunted. "Safe answer, that. But I can't fault you; it's the same one I gave, wasn't it? Too frightened to make the choice myself. Fine. You want to know how Akir answered?
"He answered by breaking the sky. He answered with silent lightning from Thakhan Dar that left me blind.
"He answered with the Rending."
ii. Lyseira
The knock came an hour after dawn.
Lyseira heard it before her mother did, and it woke her with a start from some vague nightmare. She sat up in bed, bleary and disoriented, wondering if it had been real or part of her dream.
Someone at the door, she mused dully. Could be The Abbot. She swung her legs out of bed and reached for a heavy robe crumpled in a pile on the floor. The temperature had plummeted overnight; she was shivering in her gown.
The deacon, not The Abbot, she corrected herself, shaking her head. The deacon. She pulled the robe on. As she trudged to her door she began the arduous process of pulling her hair, which hung to her thighs, out of the gown she had just put on.
"'Seira?" her mother called.
"It's the door," Lyseira answered. Her throat was rusty; the words tripped in it. She coughed. "I'll answer it." She had worked her hair halfway out of her gown; it hung lopsided, folded in half just below her shoulders. She wished she had time to run a brush through it. Normally she put it up at night so it wouldn't tangle, but last night she'd collapsed into bed without even thinking about it.
A second knock came just as she crossed through the small kitchen and reached the front door. She paused, finally freeing the last few inches of her hair, and checked herself over to be sure she was decent before opening the door.
The man on her doorstep was shaved bald. The contours of his body were lean and hard beneath a loose-fitting, dun-colored outfit. A Preserver, she realized. Her last, clinging bits of drowsiness vanished in a jolt of apprehension.
She had only ever seen one Preserver, years ago, but she had never forgotten. They were sacred guardians, each assigned to protect a cleric of a certain rank. They surrendered everything for their training and their charge. Their ancient arts allowed them to withstand extremes of weather, go for days without food, water, or sleep, and perform awe-inspiring acts of physical violence on command.
For a wild instant she wondered if deacons warranted Preservers; if Father Annish had sent his own to teach her a lesson about insolence.
"I'm looking for Lyseira Rulano," the man said.
Something about his voice triggered an itch in her memory, like she had heard it before. The notion was ridiculous. She stifled it, steeled herself, and said, "That's me."
The Preserver opened and closed his mouth once, as if at a loss. Then he extended his ri
ght hand and seemed, impossibly, to straighten his posture. "I am Seth."
Seth? Her mind leapt. That's impossible. It must be another who shares his name. The Preservers had taken her brother years ago; it was forbidden to return. But she couldn't stop herself from searching his face for signs of the boy she used to know.
To her astonishment, they were there. "Seth?" she breathed.
He mistook her words. "I lived here once, many years ago. I—"
"Seth!" He was really here. Her brother. A blaze of wild hope lit in her chest.
She threw her arms around him. His proffered hand sank back to his side.
"Oh, thank Akir! We thought we'd never see you again! What are you doing here?" She let him go and stepped back, beaming. "Look at you! You're really a Preserver! Oh, tíngala!" She clapped, and marveled again: "Look at you!"
Mom stumbled into the little kitchen. "What is going—?" She halted. "Seth?" she said, an eerie echo of her daughter's voice a minute before.
Seth nodded. Lyseira turned to her, beaming, but she didn't react as Lyseira expected.
"Why are you here?"
"Mother," Lyseira admonished. She knew Mom regretted letting Seth join the Preservers; she'd spoken of it more than once over the years. "It's Seth."
Mother threw her an annoyed look, but when she turned back to Seth, her expression had softened. "Is everything well?"
"Yes," Seth answered. "Don't worry, I haven't run."
Of course. Lyseira felt like an idiot. Deserting the Preservers was a sin, punishable by death, and those who harbored deserters got the same. She was suddenly grateful for her mother's caution.
Relief stole into Mom's eyes, followed by confusion. "Then why..." she began, before shaking the question off. "Never mind. Where are my manners? Come in."
He stepped through the door, and Mom's face broke. She swept him into a hug. A bit of the joy Lyseira had felt earlier seeped into her voice. "Oh, Akir. My little Seth. Is it really you?" She pushed him to arm's length and searched his face. "By Akir, look at you. You made it. I won't lie, when you left here I wasn't sure you would." Memories of the boy he used to be danced in her eyes.
Children of a Broken Sky (Redemption Chronicle Book 1) Page 3