Wings Unseen

by Rebecca Gomez Farrell

  Work did wonders for distraction; Serra had learned that during the initiation. Standing over the boiling water, she picked up one of their hardened corn cakes. The cornmeal grit was rough against her fingers as she crumbled it to a fine powder that drifted into the pot.

  “I could do that.” Vesperi put down her brush. She would have more room for her smallclothes if she left the brush behind. They did not need more than a comb between them.

  The Meduan jammed a corn cake into her fist and squeezed. Ungainly chunks of yellow-and white-speckled biscuit plopped into the pot.

  “Not that way.” Janto chuckled. “You have to be gentle with it. Rub it between your thumb and middle finger or it will never break down right. Here, let me show you.”

  He placed his hand over hers, using his fingers to guide her own.

  “I can think of other things that roll like this.” Vesperi laughed.

  Revolting. “By Madel’s hand, Janto, why don’t you just take her up on the offer?”

  Flivio snickered, and Janto flushed purpler than a thrushberry.

  “We are talking. Now.” He dropped Vesperi’s hand and latched onto Serra’s arm. The corn cake plunked whole into the porridge.

  “No, we are not.” Serra jerked her arm away. “Just because you cannot admit how you feel—”

  He clapped his other hand over her mouth, reminding her of the first time he had done it when she had gaped after seeing her first Rasselerian. “We are. This is overdue.” Dragging her along, he called back to the others, “We will be back in a little while, I promise.”

  “Can I watch from a distance?” Flivio slapped his knee with merriment.

  As if. Janto had never regarded her with the sheer lust Vesperi drew forth.

  They remained quiet until well out of both earshot and eyesight.

  Only then did Janto loosen his hold, the action almost a dare for her to run, but she merely crossed her arms and glared.

  “We can’t keep doing this. We must have this out.”

  “Have what out?” Maybe it was that woman’s defiance he was so keen on. Serra could give him that.

  “You. Me. What is wrong between us. We have to fix it.”

  “There is nothing to fix, Janto. There is no us anymore.”

  Disbelief punctuated each of his statements. “And why not? This destiny of ours is a shared one. The prophesized bird has three heads and we are two of them. I have learned nothing, experienced nothing that would make me think we have to remain parted. Why do you insist on shattering our dream when it is there for the taking? Why are you so convinced I cannot be your betrothed again?”

  Because you are already hers. “You know why not.”

  “No, Serra, I do not. That is the problem. You say we cannot be together. But we are together. You say our time is over, but I say it does not need to be. Our people would accept a wedding postponement in the middle of a plague. There is no reason we have to go on like this, sniping at each other and tangling Vesperi up in it. She has no place in our relationship.”

  “You really don’t know, do you?” Who could blame him for deluding himself when the person he yearned for was Vesperi? It was not his fault the stag had so ensnared the slayer, that he could not resist the pull between them. “You are falling in love with her.”

  He scowled, taking umbrage at the charge. “That’s impossible. Vesperi is a Meduan. She killed your brother. I would never do that to you.”

  “We are masters of our fates but not of our hearts.”

  When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “You have always been my heart.”

  How could she hold onto her feelings of betrayal when he was so crushed? “You stare at her as though she hung the moons sometimes. When she and Flivio let their insults fly, you regard her with awe. I have never seen you that infatuated before.”

  “That is a lie. I have only ever loved you.”

  “Even if that were true, we could not go back to what we were.” The realization cut through her like a storm front through humidity. It did not matter what Janto felt for Vesperi. That was not the core of the matter. Maybe they could work at it, rebuild their relationship, move past what had happened. But she did not want her life back as Lansera’s princess. Too much had changed within her. No matter how deeply she loved Janto, life held more than festivals and ladies-in-waiting. Talks with Ryn Gylles, learning herb lore, braiding feathers into Lourda’s hair—that was what she wanted now. There were so many places in Lansera she had never been, that she had never considered visiting when she had lived content within Callyn’s walls. How could she know that path was for her when she had never traveled another?

  “Janto, it is too late for our relationship to be what it was. I am so sorry, but marrying you is not what I want anymore. This is about me, not you—it could never be you. Agler’s death, the sight … I am a different person now, and I need to figure out who Serrafina of Lansera is before I could ever become Serrafina Albrecht. Please understand. Please.” She let the tears fall. He needed to know this was not easy for her, needed to know how much he meant to her.

  And he did. His face, awash with tears like her own, hid no anger. A few months apart had not wrecked their bond. It had been forged through years of shared hopes, dreams, and fears.

  A woranbird sounded loud and clear as he drew her close. “I could never hold that against you.” He rubbed her shoulders, knowing how it soothed her. “Your aspirations have changed, even if our love has not. I wish—I wish you could have told me this before, but I understand. I truly do.”

  “Thank you.” His chest muffled her words. “It would kill me if you didn’t. I cannot lose you, too.”

  Time passed as they held each other. The repetitive flex of Janto’s hand on her shoulders comforted as it always had. Janto separated from her with reluctance and a smile. “But none of that means I have feelings for Vesperi.”

  Serra laughed, covering her mouth.

  “Trust me.”

  “Trust you?” His incredulous tone demonstrated that things between them were not fully healed yet. “You did not trust me enough to understand you had to go back to Enjoin. You left me at the altar rather than take the risk I might talk you out of it, rather than trust me enough to know I would not stand in your way.”

  “I have traveled far enough on your rather flimsy convictions about the claren’s breeding grounds for you to accuse me of distrust, Janto.”

  He grimaced, knowing it was true. “What do you want to know?

  My plan is not perfect. I know we will never defeat the claren if we cannot stop them from multiplying. I know the claren exist because of how horribly the Meduans treat each other. I know the advers and their choke hold on the people are the reason such a society persists, the reason someone as strong as Vesperi could believe she is nothing. So journeying to Mandat Hall, to strike the claren where they proliferate, might deal an effective blow. And I have a theory about how we can do it.”

  “Which is what? I have little patience for veiled speech after dealing with the Brothers. Explain what your theory is plainly.” This was progress. Janto needed to talk his plan through with someone, and she needed to understand his intentions so she could properly do her part.

  “I think … I think there is another realm than ours. Maybe a realm of spirit? I do not know, but it is there. On Braven—Serra, I have wanted to tell you about the Murat for so long.” It warmed her heart to know he wanted to share anything with her. “All sorts of magic happened there, but the magic was more a shifting of things between places, here and … and elsewhere, that other realm. Sounds carried straight into our minds rather than through the air. Our paths shifted constantly, making distances unknowable. And the animals … the stag and the granfaylon, and there was something on Mount Frelom … they did not exist solely in our realm. They fluttered between the two, sometimes visible, sometimes not depending on which one they were in. I think maybe Braven is a doorway between here and there. Ryn Cladio mentioned
fissures and you have traveled through them. Maybe they are rips between our existence and whatever the other realm may be. Or portals? Maybe … maybe that other place is where Madel resides. Maybe She reaches Her hand to us from such doorways.”

  Janto’s brow furrowed, but Serra clasped his arm. “I have seen it. Her hand—Madel’s hand—I have seen it. The day when I first saw the claren. Under the temple in Enjoin was a room filled with Brothers, and She was there. Her hand was surrounded by a blue mist, a field of energy maybe. I do not know. But it was there, and streams of it flowed from Her hand like the licks of Vesperi’s flame do from hers. They entered the Brothers’ hoods and renewed their life somehow. The Rejuvenation, they called it.”

  She kissed his cheek and grinned. “I think you are right, Janto. I think there are openings between our worlds, and we must send the flame into them. If the claren spawn in that other realm, then we must destroy them there before they can find a portal here.”

  He hugged her again, releasing her fast enough to avoid any awkwardness. Then Serra realized something else, something that made her clap her hands with relief. “But if there are other places where the worlds meet, then why must we seek the one at Mandat Hall? We could go back to Enjoin where it is safe. There has to be one in that temple room. We could use Vesperi’s magic there. Or we could go to Braven and Sielban could guide us to another.”

  “No, we have to go to Qiltyn. The weapon could be used at any fissure, but that will only kill them when they are young. It won’t stop them from hatching in the first place. Cleansing the temple will be a first step toward renewing Medua. With the head cut off, the body cannot stand.”

  “And how do we cut off the head?”

  He busied himself with wrapping an arm around her and beginning the walk back to camp. “I am not certain yet. I am praying Madel will show me what we can do. Going there feels right to me, so I have to believe the rest will come. I have a few ideas, but nothing is set in stone.”

  “And what are those ideas?”

  His eyes focused on their path instead of her. “I’d rather … I’d rather not share them until I am certain they may work.”

  Fair enough, though she would encourage him later to tell the others and get their feedback. If there were openings between the realms at Mandat Hall, then his plan stood a chance. They needed to figure out how to approach the Guj and his underlings, but they had a few days yet to do so. In the meantime …

  “You really should pursue Vesperi, if you want to. I cannot promise I won’t be jealous, but I want you to be happy, Janto. Who knows how much more time any of us have to be happy.”

  “Shh.” He kissed her forehead. “I have yet to receive those blessings Madel owes me—blessed will he who binds it be. I am owed those before I will believe any of us three are in danger.”

  But we are seven. Serra pushed away the thought. Their guards had also chosen to come, placing their fates in Madel’s hand the same as she, Janto, and Vesperi had. And Madel protected Her children, didn’t she?

  CHAPTER 50

  VESPERI

  Napeler paraded like a rooster as he paced the outskirts of their camp. Vesperi understood him least of all the Lanserim she had met. A wealthy man of his regrettable stature should spend his time in books if he hoped to survive. A poor one ought to have mastered snatching purses by his age, with a healthy sum holed away somewhere wizards could not divine. Yet there he walked, one hand on his sword’s pommel, the other shielding his eyes from the sun. His stance projected a man twice his height, one proud to be on this journey simply because a prince had asked him to come.

  She considered ignoring him—his dutiful reserve more obnoxious than Lokas’s leering had ever been—but Serra and Janto were gone, and Vesperi hated how nervous that made her. They had managed the journey to Medua without incident, though she doubted she had the others’ trust without Janto and Serra to demand it. But nerves were for weaker women than Vesperi Sellwyn. And the others in their little band were playing that obnoxious game again. She would never understand these people’s fascination with feathers. They would toss them in the air for hours, grabbing at the falling fluff like lunatics batting away jocal flies. Those were the people she was supposed to break into Mandat Hall with.

  She targeted Napeler with her sultry eyes. Maybe she could play a game of her own. “Why are you here?” Other than a little jump in his adam’s apple, he did not react. So behaved without a lord in sight.

  “We need someone to guard the area, Lady Sellwyn.” The hard line of his mouth twisted downward.

  Decency was a bore. “I meant here at all, with us. Janto told me you might have joined your town council if you had stayed. That must have taken you a lot of time to arrange.”

  A brief wistfulness took over his features. “There was no arrangement. We vote for our council members. But yes, I had hoped to join them. The vote was in a week when Rall found me. I had to bring him to the prince, so I withdrew my name.”

  “You gave up your spot that easily to accompany him to Callyn?”

  The guard nodded. “It was not a choice. My fellow Murater needed help. We must be there for each other or we would not be worthy of our training.”

  “There is always a choice, is there not? You people make strange ones.” As had she, traveling with them into Medua, so close to home. Meeting her father again with them would be a disaster, but it had to be done. She wished she could shake that conviction, but whenever she tried, she only saw the king bathed in a blue light more luminous than any magic she could wield.

  Napeler jerked suddenly toward a grove of trees off to the east. Rose-wood. So close to Sellwyn already? She took a step in their direction, but he held her back.

  “I heard something. Best let me go first.”

  These nitwits were welcome to risk their necks rather than hers. Their willingness to do so was their best quality. Napeler waved her over after a brief inspection of the grove. The scent of the trees reached her first, nectar and talcum. She pulled back a low-lying branch, careful to avoid the sandy brown leaves tinged with pink around the edges. Definitely rosewood. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.

  “Did you see something, Lady Sellwyn?” Her face must have paled. “Is something wrong?” She probably appeared as shaken as any Meduan noblewoman would be if found outside their manor. Father would be glad to see it, if she were unfortunate enough to see him.

  She stroked one of the oval leaves from stem to tip. It was covered in miniscule thorns, rough as the spikes of a cat’s tongue. If she rubbed the opposite way, they would prick her finger.

  “What’s wrong”—another voice sounded loud and clear from the tree directly above her—“is that we are almost at the Lady Sellwyn’s home.”

  Napeler drew his sword and pointed it upward faster than Vesperi could register the movement. Hamsyn, Flivio, and Mertina took only a few moments to join their swords with his, leaving feathers fluttering in their wake. She followed the line of their weapons up the tree. If she had not already recognized the voice, she would have recognized those legs anywhere, though she had no idea how they could have grown longer—and more lascivious—than when she had last seen Lorne Granich. He stretched them out, testing the weight of the branch beneath him.

  “Stay right there.” Both hands gripped Nap’s sword tightly. “Do not come down.”

  Lorne sighed. “I am one man to four. Surely, you could handle me on the ground if you needed to? I would have to be a fool to challenge you.” He placed a toe on the branch, and Mertina scowled, raising her weapon arm higher.

  The toe was withdrawn. “Whose leave do I need to get out of this tree? There are already too many thorns in my ass. I don’t fancy picking up more.”

  With Serra and Janto gone …

  “You need mine.” Vesperi hoped the guards would support her. “And I’m not inclined to give it.”

  He laughed, tossing his considerable blond hair back as he did. “Let a woman out of Medua for a month and she takes on
all sorts of airs.”

  “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be suckling my brother?”

  “Oh, your whelp of a brother is boarding with my family in Granich. My lord father thought it would help to have a Sellwyn under his wing when the advers put your manor up for sale.”

  “Are you mad?” Nothing like idiocy to calm my nerves. “My father would never sell Sellwyn.” Then she realized Lorne was alone, and something clenched at her heart.

  Lorne tsked, ignoring the swords precariously placed beneath his feet. “You have been gone, but surely your brain has not addled in all the sweet Lanserim air? I always admired that you knew you had wits—the other women have never figured it out. Now think, would your father have sent only me for a welcoming party?”

  Lorne was right. Lord Sellwyn would have sent fifty men or more to hunt her down and bring her home in shackles if he knew of her return. But he never left the manor lands; he would not risk anyone making a play for them in his absence.

  Her skin went cold beneath the gooseflesh. “I do not know what game you play, but I am not going to bat at feathers as these mummers do. Tell me what has happened. Uzziel—”

  “Is at my father’s house, as I said. Must have been all the fallowent that saved him. He did grow quite a taste for it. I had been developing a scheme to get you to consume it, too, when you ran.”

  Hamsyn’s ears perked at that. “Fallowent? You think that protected her brother from something?”

  Vesperi doubted the rancid herb had done anything. If it had, she would have to believe that Lorne had been protecting Uzziel all this time. What good did it do the Graniches to keep her brother alive, unless her father—

  Serra’s tinkling laughter drifted over from beyond the camp, a welcome distraction. She and Janto crested a hill, walking arm-in-arm. Vesperi embraced the jealousy that leapt up at the sight. It felt good, familiar. Unlike Lorne’s lies.