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Wings Unseen

Page 33

by Rebecca Gomez Farrell


  Nap’s features darkened with the correction, but he straightened more stiffly to make up for it.

  Lorne tsked. “Wrong again, my prince. You may have cut us off, but we are Lanserim as much as we try to hide it. Only Madel could truly tear us asunder, and I am told She withheld Her hand at the signing of Turyn’s Peace.” He paused. “Really, you ought to have more ambition as royalty.”

  “Lorne,” Vesperi whined his name as though it was nothing more than an irritant. Treating people that way, Serra realized, was a luxury Vesperi afforded herself. “Can you stop the cryptic messages and philosophy lessons? No wonder I never seduced you if you were always this insufferable.”

  “Like you could have—”

  She strode over, draping herself over his prone body and spoke again, a purr full of poisoned claws. “Oh, I always could have. But what I want to know”—she walked her fingers up his tunic—“is what we need at Sellwyn and why. Will you not tell me? Please?”

  Nap did not adjust his posture, but the men were swept up by her display. Sar Mertina’s eyes met Serra’s and she stuck a finger down her throat. Lorne, with great effort, lifted his torso off the ground, tossing Vesperi onto the dirt beside him in the process.

  “I will tell you why we must go to Sellwyn, but only if you promise never to pin me down again, darling Vespy. You are not my type.”

  She did not stoop to glare at him. Lorne propelled himself up from the waist into a sitting position. “There is some sort of charm we need there. I do not know what it does, but I know it’s not Meduan and it’s somewhere in Sellwyn Manor. I have been trying to find it for months, but my charge—her brother”—he waggled his arm in Vesperi’s direction—“had no idea what I searched for. When that invalid whelp is strong enough to keep them open, he does not have much of an eye for anything but weapons.”

  An invalid? Vesperi’s brother was crippled?

  “How do you know we need it?” Flivio said. “I would love to believe a man who has a tongue that makes my heart sing, but we met you yesterday and not under friendly circumstances. How do we know this is not a trap?”

  “You don’t.” Lorne sighed. “The Brothers told me to find it, just as they told me to bring fallowent to Sellwyn and to wait here for your arrival. I do their bidding, whether it’s clear or not what they want. Vesperi, a little help here?”

  Janto rose, indignant. “She does not have to defend you.”

  Vesperi’s voice was strong. “It’s fine. I believe him, as loath as I am to say it. And I may have an idea of where we should search. My father had a box of jewelry from before the war. If it is something of value the Brothers seek, it would be in there.”

  “I will lead the way,” Lorne offered. “But I will need the use of my limbs, I’m afraid.”

  “Can’t you show us?” Janto looked to Vesperi, eliciting a laugh from Lorne.

  “You did appear late yesterday, my prince. I had forgotten. Our enchanting Vesperi did not know she was within a day’s walk of home. I am rather surprised she made it over the mountains in the first place. However did you manage, dear?”

  Vesperi directed her fiercest glare at Lorne then shifted it to Flivio who snickered by the fire. A pity her disdain alone could not kill the claren. It was as potent as her magic.

  “Let him walk.” Janto nodded to Nap. The Wasylim swung his sword. Lorne flinched as the blade connected with the rope. He raised his elbows once he could. “My thanks. Now let’s get started. Inhabited or not, Sellwyn is a tenebrous place. If we leave right away, we can avoid nightfall there.”

  Serra spoke for the first time in what felt like hours. “Not until everyone has had some tachery brew. It’s the last we have, and I know our prince would be distraught if we wasted a single drop. Besides, I depend on all of you for my protection. Your reflexes should be sharp.”

  Janto was at her side before she finished speaking. He held out his mug.

  CHAPTER 52

  JANTO

  Sellwyn was lusher than Janto expected after such a long drought. In Meditlan, grapevines ringed the countryside, strung through poles as tall as he was. But this side of the mountains was a world apart. No bitter winds from the gulf beat back the bushes that covered the hillsides. Vines laced their way through the rosewood groves, but radiant pink flowers studded them rather than grapes. Janto could not have imagined a lovelier location for an afternoon horse ride. Reconciling the view with the first skin they passed was difficult.

  It wasn’t the last. Vesperi climbed off her horse each time they sighted another that looked human. Occasionally, she muttered a name under her breath. The last had been Bellick. She had shed no tears for any of the fallen she’d recognized. Most of them she hadn’t known, making them likely to be townspeople or servants. Lorne knew a few of the latter.

  Janto trusted the Meduan man. It was the way he spoke with Vesperi, the affection mixed in with the taunts. Flivio sparred with her, but Lorne made their banter an art form. Janto would have loosed his ropes last night, but instinct was not a sound rationale to give his guards. Those who obeyed his orders deserved to understand the reasons for them, his father had taught.

  They passed at least twenty bodies before the trees thinned and the ground showed signs of wear. Puddles had formed from panicked footsteps left in the mud.

  “How long”—Janto drew his mare close to Hamsyn’s palmetto where Lorne sat behind his friend—“long ago did this happen?” The bodies had not shown signs of disturbance from the elements or animals. Neither had the ones they’d encountered in Lansera, but his group had found those soon after the claren.

  “A week before you arrived. I barely had time to take Uzziel to my father and return before you came.” Lorne led them on a real path now. One-storied buildings appeared, many recently flooded, pools of water visible from doors hanging open. Serra kept a constant watch, her eyes so focused they appeared vacant. Her silence was all Janto needed to know the claren had left. Even after a feast of this size, they fled fast. Their hunger did not abate for long.

  The buildings grouped closer together as they made their way through the town. So did the bodies. Vesperi no longer tried to identify them. She did slow her horse to pick up a broken, clay pot from a scattered pile of many, tossing it back a moment later.

  Her nonchalance concerned Janto. “Don’t you want to check for your father?”

  “We will not find him here. Not among the townspeople.”

  “But if he fled—”

  “He will not be here.” The tone of her voice brokered no argument.

  Sar Mertina called out from where she had ridden ahead of the others, not as trusting of Lorne as Janto was to guide them safely. That was another thing his father had taught him: surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. He joined her and took in the view.

  Deadened ivy covered Sellwyn Manor. The stone visible through it was barely recognizable from decades of dirt and mold, half the rocks probably soft enough to crumble. The manor rose from within a fence of rosewood, as a body from a grave, all slumped shoulders and awkward angles where towers had begun to fall. The sunlight bounced off it rather than light it.

  “That is where you live?” Janto tried to keep the shock from his voice as he addressed Vesperi. He could not picture anything thriving there.

  She shrugged. “This is my inheritance.”

  Serra pulled her horse beside Sar Mertina’s. Then she pointed toward the western wing of the manor, where a light gray bridge arched over what must have been the River Sell. It was the only part of the manor not covered in grime. But Serra had noticed it for another reason.

  “Claren. They are circling the bridge.”

  “Finally.” Vesperi sounded excited. “Let’s go.” She raised her scarf over her nose and mouth and tightened her horse’s protective lace before kicking her spurs into its flank. Serra quickly followed. Janto watched them ride through an open gate, silver sparks already pulsing through locks of Vesperi’s raven hair.

&n
bsp; “Raise your handkerchiefs,” Janto instructed the others. “There are claren past the gate.”

  Serra dismounted near the small bridge, dragging Vesperi off her horse by the arm. Two streams of energy released from the Meduan’s outstretched hands. They were too far to hear the noise, but a cloud of smoke burst into being from nowhere.

  Something nearby smoked, too, and Janto lurched away from it. Two little volts of electricity danced in Lorne’s palms.

  “Could you help?”

  Lorne watched his hands, apparently surprised to see the magic held within them. It faded and disappeared, then he shook his head. “I cannot control it at all, not even as poorly as she does. It is never stronger than this mimicry of what the weapon is, truly. I had never seen what that could be until now.”

  They watched Serra guide Vesperi toward another swarm. She pointed up a tree, and shimmering flames consumed the budding leaves.

  “It is amazing,” Lorne said with awe.

  Serra turned to face them and raised her hand to signal the group forward. Vesperi stood in the middle of the bridge for a moment before going into her home. No, this will never be her home again. Janto would not let it be.

  Hamsyn held the Old Girl ready in his free arm as they walked the horses through the gate. “There may be other swarms lingering. We should not dwell here.”

  Janto agreed. “I will help Vesperi search for the charm. Keep the others close together in case Serra sees something.” Hamsyn nodded, and Janto tied his horse beside the bridge. He grazed his hand over its marble as he walked. Halfway across, a strange warmth and the raised lines of a chiseled carving made him pause, taking him back to Braven and the cabin in the forest. This carving was much more detailed than that burnt outline, but the primary image was the same, a giant bird ready to take flight. A ring of hooded figures surrounded it—Brothers, Janto suspected. Ribbons of the old language bordered the carving, fanciful loops bearing words so familiar to him now: When the silver stag runs free …

  Other carvings graced the bridge, but Janto knew this was the one he needed to see.

  “The bird of creation.” Flivio came up behind him. “My grandfather used to tell stories about it. Said it would rise up again when Lansera faced great peril. He never understood why it had not come during the war. What could possibly be worse than that, he’d said.”

  “Rise up, ye treasured bird of three. Wing him what boons ye foresee.” That the old adage applied to him still mystified Janto. “Everyone’s always thought the boons were treasure, not magic, not the flame and sight returned.”

  “Who doesn’t want treasure?” Flivio shrugged. “I wish my grandfather were alive. I wish I could tell him I served the bird of three.”

  “That might be the most sentimental thing you have ever said.”

  Flivio socked him. Then Vesperi cried out from inside the manor, and they raced through the door together. The handkerchief around Janto’s face could not keep out the wall of incense that assaulted him. Vanilla, spice, and sandalwood so thick they could not be considered pleasant scents, not like the ghost of them on Vesperi’s skin. How had anyone breathed in here? No one did now. Collapsed bodies lay everywhere.

  Sobs echoed down the hall. “I will take the passage to the left.” Flivio swung his sword in that direction. “You take a right at that bend.”

  Janto tried to keep calm, but he had never heard Vesperi sound like that before. More bodies waited in the next room. For a brief moment, he worried Vesperi might be one of them, but that was not the scream of someone under attack from claren. It was a scream of grief. Through a door off an outcropping, he saw her. Her tan clothes were easy to pick out from the dark gray shrouds around them, shrouds that had once been tattered rags when they held people rather than skin.

  She held one corpse up. No torn fabric hung loose around it, unlike the others. It wore a dark green shawl and black clothes. A brass viper clasped the fabric, holding it together around golden sable skin, skin the same color as Vesperi’s.

  So she had found what she looked for. And she’d crumbled from how little it weighed.

  When he placed a hand on her back, Vesperi clambered out of reach. Her hands flew to wipe the tears off her face. It hurt that she felt she had to, but being here, in this place, it made sense why she did. Why she had always hidden herself away.

  “You can cry.” Janto tried to sound soothing. “I will not use it against you. I am sorry everyone you loved always did.”

  Her nostrils flared. “What do you think I am? My mother would not cry like this. It’s weak. And I hate him. This is not sadness … it is … it is relief.” She stretched her lips into a thin line as she lied. Her dishonesty had never been easier to read.

  “No. It is not, Vesperi. Those tears are from grief, and only Madel knows how you could feel that for a man like your father. It is proof, I think, that you are better than he was.”

  “I am not. I could never be, but I tried so hard, so hard …” She wiped furiously at new tears, her voice choking.

  This isn’t fair. No one should have to war with themselves like that, reason away a lifetime of pain and anger with lies so deep-seated they could not see the truth in front of them. Seeing Vesperi in this place … it had been her home. They had made it her home, all Lanserim, when King Turyn signed a proclamation they thought would bring peace. What it brought was this.

  “I am so sorry we did this to you, Vesperi. I am so sorry that Lansera … my family … we failed you. It is our fault you are ashamed of what you feel right now.” He reached for her hand, and she retreated, utter disgust on her face.

  “I am not the product of anything but myself, princeling. I have lived my life exactly as I wanted from the moment I realized what was important. You have not shaped me. Lansera has not shaped me.” She shook, and he could see the flame flowing beneath her skin. Each tear that fell had a silver sheen to it. It was beautiful. She was beautiful. He mourned that she could not see it, the fault of those who gave up on a war fifty years ago and each person since who had willfully blinded themselves to what darkness that peace had grown into.

  Vesperi rustled through the drawers of the vast, onyx-colored desk in the room. She threw each on the floor in turn. The search focused her passions, though a faint silver remained within her.

  He had to risk it. She had to understand. “Vesperi, listen to me. You may have chosen what to do with it, but you did not choose this life. You did not choose to be the daughter of a father who left you to his guards to beat.” His voice cracked. “We did that. We abandoned you. We let you be born in a world where you never had a chance to be anything at all. It was Lansera’s weariness, Lansera’s willingness to end the fighting without a real victory that did this to you. That is what made you who you are. We are the feeble ones, and you have paid the price. All of Medua has paid it.”

  He could picture them, the future generations they had left to the fates, deemed not worth the effort it took to protect them from violent people who lived life by no rules but their own. Women and children huddled in dark rooms like this one, quivering when the door would open and commands be yelled with none of the respect they deserved. Thrown onto soiled beds, laces ripped and metal threads snapped. And the men, the men too, had been left to become monsters. How could they know true desire and ambition came from honor, that there was joy to be taken in hard work and earning the respect of those they protected and loved if they never saw it?

  “There is nothing wrong with Medua! It’s me, Janto. Don’t you see? It’s me.” She languished down to the floor by her father’s shriveled skin again. She caressed it, gave up on stemming her tears. “I could never be what he wanted. I could never be enough.”

  He did not understand how she could touch that shell of a man without shuddering. She was so strong. Were all women so much fiercer than he?

  “Thank Madel you were not what he wanted.” He knelt beside her then gathered her into his arms. She tensed up, dug in her fingers. He restrained h
er lightly. There would be no clawing here, no struggling, no fighting for her life. Only her soul. “You are not wrong, Vesperi. You have never been wrong.”

  She jerked within his hug, as though her whole body rejected his words.

  “You were the strong one, Vesperi. Not us, not him, you. You found a way to make it through this life, to survive it. I cannot imagine the things you have had to do to save yourself. I am so sorry you have lived through them.”

  He had no more words. His throat choked with sorrow for her and for all the Meduans who had never had the chance to live a life of their own choosing, free from cages of fear and anger.

  Vesperi’s sobs calmed as she clung to him. “Thank you,” she whispered into his chest.

  He held her then. Not for long—they did not know if more claren were about. But if he could have, Janto thought he may have held her for hours.

  “Are you all right?”

  She nodded against him.

  “Good. We need to keep hunting for the charm. It is not safe to stay here.”

  She rose, returning to the last few drawers of the desk. “It may be in the cabinet by the door.” She pointed to a narrow, dark wood structure carved to resemble a snake’s hide.

  “What am I looking for?”

  “It is about the size of an apple but shaped like a disc, a medallion. My father—he would wear it sometimes around his neck. I always thought it was one of our family heirlooms, but it is made of the same glass as those relics in Ashra. I do not know if it’s hollow. I have never touched it.”

  Janto opened the cabinet door as another desk drawer clattered to the floor. He expected a haphazard pile of trinkets, but everything inside lay side-by-side with precision. A pen shaped like a serpent sat beside a number of metal clasps engraved with the sigil of House Sellwyn. The next shelf down had a reading glass, an inkwell, and a number of items with barbs coming off them. He had no idea what they were but knew better than to touch them.

  The last drawer fell to the floor, and Vesperi huffed with frustration. “Is it there?”

 

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