Mist & Whispers

by C. M. Lucas

  ‘I guess so. I mean, how long have we really got until it’s handed over to him? Wade won’t want to keep hold of it, even if he is grieving. The sooner he signs it over, the sooner he’ll come to terms with Iain’s death.’

  ‘Maybe he won’t want to,’ Steph said softly. ‘Grief does funny things to people. Maybe it will make him not want to part with the bookshop yet. Maybe he’ll want to hang on to it as long as he can, as if, like, keeping it will keep a little part of Iain alive. If he gives it up, it’s like he’s really gone for good.’

  Anya smiled. Even if she didn’t think there was much of a chance of that being the case, at least it was a comforting notion.

  OUTSIDE WAS DARK and stale, but that was no measure as to how close to rising it was or wasn’t. Outside was always dark and stale. Still, walking helped Anya’s restlessness. It was nice to be alone with her thoughts, to walk around the camp without the stares. Her fight with Faust had reached every ear in camp and, although the soldiers wouldn’t risk saying a word against the Marked One, their eyes betrayed their true thoughts. She was glad not to have the burning glances penetrating her troubled mind.

  Her walk took her to the east side of the camp, along the path where the cells were situated. Since training had begun, she hadn’t had much chance to visit Lorcan, nor had she had any idea of how to clear his name. She was beginning to wonder whether she really was the right person to take all this on: she was terrible with a sword, she’d barely solved any of the riddle, and she was nowhere near close to freeing either the Virtfirthians or Lorcan.

  Back home, no one cared what Anya did with her life, so long as she kept out of trouble. The care workers, the kids she lived with, her teachers at school – no one expected anything from her. This was the first time she’d had to bear any weight, and right now, ashamedly, she was buckling under the pressure.

  ‘Lorcan?’ she whispered when she reached his cell. She’d gotten used to the heat flaring in her chest every time she was near him and was less apprehensive about it now. If his blood had sparked some venomous reaction, her body hadn’t shown any further signs of it, other than the burning sensation.

  His dragon-eyes looked up, startling him awake. ‘Anya?’ His expression changed as he took in her face and he rushed over to the door. ‘What’s the matter, who’s upset you?’

  Perhaps it was a dragon thing, or perhaps it was just the kind of person Lorcan was, but his senses were astute. That, or she was too easy to read.

  ‘Oh, it was nothing, just a nightmare. I’m fine.’

  He raised a scaly green brow at her. ‘Are you sure it’s not something else? I might be stuck in this cell but my hearing is pretty good.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean? What have you heard?’ She folded her arms and glared at him, though her annoyance wasn’t really his fault. It doesn’t matter how far from school you are; the world is still a playground. And it seemed the whispers had even reached the ears of the outcasts.

  ‘Only that you took down Faust with your bare hands. That true?’

  ‘Maybe, but, he was being really – ’

  ‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘No need to justify it, it’s a good thing. He’s a piece of work, that one. Deserved more for a long time.’

  They exchanged smiles just long enough to bring a flush of colour to Anya’s cheeks. ‘He is pretty mean,’ she said, rubbing her thumb across the mark on her hand, looking anywhere but the Dragon-Boy’s direction.

  ‘How is your quest going?’

  She could feel his eyes still on her. ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one that brought you here in the first place.’ His hand came to rest around one of the bars, and she noticed it too was covered in scales. She only realised she was staring when he quickly pulled it back beneath his cloak.

  ‘Pretty much like all my other quests. Turns out I’m quite rubbish at getting things done.’

  ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, or so they say.’

  ‘Wait – Rome? Ok, how can you not know where England is, yet you’ve heard of Rome?’

  ‘I don’t know the names of many lands beyond this one, but Rome – that’s from an old folk tale, goes back so far no one really knows when or where the stories came from. My mother,’ his voice cracked as her memory left his lips. ‘She used to read me fairytales about brave men, called Gladiators. They fought in a land called Rome. Spartacus and Crixus. They broke free from their captors and stood together, against them.’ He smiled, remembering a funny moment in his past. ‘Me and my best friend, Brey, when we were boys we’d play gladiators all the time. We’d go off into the forest and find the best sticks and pretend they were swords. We would always argue over who got to be Spartacus, though, in the end, I’d always let Brey be him.’ The familiar pain that usually lingered in Lorcan’s eyes returned, and he slid back against the wall until he was on the floor, losing himself in memories of better times.

  Anya sat on the ground beside him and slipped her hand between the bars to rest on his. He flinched as she touched him, but she didn’t shy away. ‘They’re not made up you know. Spartacus was a real man. He and Crixus really did do all those things your mother told you about.’

  ‘Anya, it’s just a children’s story. Heroes to fend off nightmares.’

  ‘Seriously Lorcan, Spartacus was real! And Rome really is a real place. They are part of the world that I am from. We even have peacocks there too.’

  ‘Now you’re mocking me,’ he said wryly.

  Anya pressed her lips together and raised both her eyebrows.

  His face grew serious. ‘You really mean it, don’t you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t lie.’

  For the first time since she’d met him, Lorcan seemed genuinely happy, content in the knowledge that his hero was once a real, living, breathing, fighting man, and it felt good that she’d been able to give him that.

  She made a promise to herself to do something about his imprisonment as soon as this sleep was over.

  A GIANT SAND timer stood just outside the King’s quarters. It was the only thing in the camp that really stood out as different, the only sign that Virtfirth had once seen a more civilised era. Inside, the sand shimmered white as snow, its billions of grains a cascade of crystals. Theone had enchanted it to turn at the end of each cycle, which happened once a sleep.

  Anya watched it turn as she returned from Lorcan’s cell. She grabbed her bag and the uneaten flatbread, and left before the rising gong had chance to wake anyone.

  She’d barely swallowed a single mouthful of the bread by the time she reached the armoury. She had no idea how Feiron was going to react when he saw her and that single worry had her stomach bile stinging the back of her throat. The General hadn’t been the only person she’d disrespected in her blaze of fury; the Smith and his work had also fallen victim to her disparage. She wasn’t going to make his feelings towards her any worse by arriving late.

  Grabbing courage by the balls, she went inside and found Feiron alone, tinkering with a crossbow by the light of a lantern. A slow but short glance from him and a pregnant silence ensued. Crap, I’m definitely in for it...

  With nothing to do but wait for the inevitable telling off, Anya watched him work. His coarse grey whiskers brushed the crossbow’s stirrup whilst his sharp eyes closely inspected the rest of its mechanics.

  Then, as if in sudden danger, he loaded the bow, turned, and fired it across the armoury. The bolt head sank deep into the bull’s-eye of a target; a feat beyond impressive in the Virtfirthian darkness.

  To say it made her jump would have been an understatement. She actually felt her heart stop and feared, for a split second, he was going to fire the thing at her.

  ‘Hmmph,’ he grunted, low and detached. He removed the bolt from its target – a tattered piece of animal hide with circles etched in smudgy charcoal – made a few adjustments, then fired another bolt straight into the bull’s-eye. ‘Better.’

  ‘Feiron, about the swords,’ Anya began. She had to
say something. The suspense was crushing. ‘I really didn’t mean to break them. I’m not even sure how I did it. I’ll help you out round here to work off the damage, just show me how – ’

  ‘I didn’t call you here about the swords,’ he said, and placed the crossbow on a bench littered with weapons and parts.

  The relief was exquisite, like the moment one sinks into a steaming hot bubble bath. ‘You didn’t?’

  He pulled a small wooden box from a shelf above his head and took from it a length of string and what appeared to be a thin piece of coal.

  ‘Lay your left arm there on the table, palm side up.’

  She did just as she was asked, keeping her curiosity to herself.

  He ran the piece of string along the length of her forearm and marked it with the coal by her wrist. ‘Now hold it out towards me.’

  Again, she followed his instructions, and this time Feiron marked the string twice; once, to mark the circumference of her wrist, and twice, to mark the circumference of her arm just before her elbow.

  ‘You may go now,’ he said, and turned back to his work.

  ‘Don’t you want to measure the other one?’ she asked, thoroughly confused by the whole thing.

  ‘Don’t need to. You’re left handed.’

  He was right, but there was no way he could have known. ‘How do you know that? We’ve never said a single word to each other until now, and I haven’t picked up a pen since we got here.’

  He turned to her and as plainly as he uttered his instructions, said, ‘The eyes see more when the mouth is closed. Now go. I’ll fetch for you when I’ve finished making the final adjustments.’

  ‘On that?’ she asked quizzically, looking toward the crossbow.

  ‘No.’

  She lingered for a moment in case he gave any more clues but when nothing more was offered, she left for the pavilion, dreading the imminent sight of General Faust.

  WHEN THE DARKNESS had first taken over the Kingdom, and the King and his men discovered that the castle had disappeared, they sought refuge in the villages with the common folk. This didn’t bother Theone, living in tiny, run-down dwellings with all manner of strangers. He’d lost everything. He was in awe of the kindness his people showed him and baby Harrion.

  Times were trying. Every day, news of more women going missing reached the King, along with eyewitness accounts of skeletal monsters claiming the lives of entire villages. How much the stories changed from ear to ear, no one could say. Bad news travels like an avalanche, beginning with only a few details and picking up many extras on its way.

  By the time they’d missed thirty sunrises and thirty sunsets, the Darkness had seeped into the furthest corners of the land and all the women were gone; dead or missing. No one knew. Many men were lost to insanity, and more perished trying to discover what exactly the dark force was. Like the Potentilla, deadly entities sprung up over the land, successively more evil the closer to Castle Lake one fared. The remaining survivors were forced into the forest; the only place the Darkness wasn’t strong enough to penetrate Theone’s magical defences. The civilian men set to work, building the camp with the only reachable resources: the dying trees of the forest. The soldiers regrouped into new factions and organised missions back into the city. That was when the pavilion was built.

  A large but simple structure, much like the other buildings in the camp, the pavilion was where all the important military discussions took place. A large, polished stone table was the hub of all decision-making, but its use had dwindled with time, much like the people’s hope.

  Today, the pavilion was a mere shadow of its former self. Inside, old parchments with forgotten plans scrawled across them were stuck to the walls, thick with dust. There was a distinct smell of damp, elevated by bowls of fire that levitated around the room.

  Theone made the Royal’s magic look effortless; Anya wondered whether all the Royals had been as powerful as him. He and Harrion were the only winged men in the camp, the physical trait of the Royal bloodline, but she had heard stories around the fire about others in the Royal family. The people of the camp – the soldiers, the cook, the elders, the time keepers, even the King himself – would talk about their memories as if they were someone else’s.

  Steph and Tim were already seated at the stone table when Anya arrived at the pavilion. She found herself unable to stop smiling when she saw Tim wearing his “Geography – It’s where it’s at” t-shirt, the one he was wearing the morning they’d arrived in Virtfirth. It reminded her of their old selves; the people they were before this endless cycle of sloppy sword fights, threadbare tunics and bedtime riddle solving.

  Apparently, Michael had decided that talking Faust around was Anya’s only hope of getting along in the camp, so he’d taken it upon himself to put in a good word for her. Anya didn’t see how it would help though; good words weren’t Michael’s forte.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Anya sighed when Steph explained his absence.

  They didn’t have to wait long before he returned, giving her one of his scolding looks.

  ‘Anya!’ he hissed, as he sat down. ‘Have you been talking with the prisoner?’

  ‘Taken up stalking again, have we?’ She folded her arms and sank back into her chair.

  ‘Well, Faust says he’s seen you talking with him a number of times now and he’s not happy about it. If I were you, I’d stop doing things that put you out of favour with him, particularly if you don’t want him taking things out on us, or the murderer, seeing as you’ve taken pity on him.’

  ‘I’ve told you, he’s innocent! And his name is Lorcan. Anyway, what’s he going do to him? Lock him up? Theone swore they wouldn’t kill him, and his orders are final – he’s the King, not Faust.’

  Michael opened his mouth but was cut short by the arrival of the Generals. Faust took his seat, right of Theone’s at the head of the table, and glared at Anya.

  She glared right back.

  THE MEETING PROCEEDED how Anya had expected. Well, to begin with anyway. Once King Theone had arrived and the lesser of the camp’s issues had been resolved, he turned the discussion to the prophecy. Things weren’t going as he’d hoped, and he wanted to know why. He allowed Faust to speak first.

  ‘I think it’s time we stop putting all our faith into this prophecy and start putting it back in our own men. Some moonstruck old man tells us we will be visited by a “Marked One” and we are to just accept his word with complete troth to his abilities? He obviously didn’t see the future clearly enough because now she’s here, it’s quite plain that this girl is completely incapable of fulfilling any plan of action, let alone a prophecy that will free an entire kingdom. Her own thick skull thwarts the rest of her senses – ’

  ‘Thick skull?!’ Anya cried. ‘That’s rich coming from you!’

  ‘See Sire,’ Faust continued, appealing to the King. ‘She hasn’t even the respect of a half decent soldier.’

  ‘I’m not a soldier!’

  ‘No, you’re quite right about that!’

  That. Hurt.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to fight; quite the opposite. She wanted to fight so badly, her inability to do so left her angry and frustrated. Especially after her vision of that ghoulish battle. How could some of her visions be so acute, and others nowhere near close? Perhaps they weren’t visions at all. Perhaps the Darkness had tainted her mind and she was slowly going mad.

  ‘Now Faust,’ Theone reasoned. ‘I have trusted you unconditionally since you took Eleazar’s place at my side, but on this occasion I believe you are letting your own frustration cloud your judgement. The soldiers in your company took years to train; she has been here only two weeks. Let’s not dismiss the prophecy down to a minor setback. She will improve with time, of that I am certain.’

  ‘How long are we to wait? Another eighteen years? I dare say she’ll measure up in such a time frame. No, it’s time to go back to the beginning. It’s time we started sending out our men; men we can trust to get the job done.’r />
  ‘That’s just it though, isn’t it, Fausty!’ Anya cried, banging her fists on the table. The way they were talking infuriated her, as if she wasn’t even in the room. ‘Your men have tried and failed, and not just once, but over, and over, and over again! If you were up to the task in the first place, you wouldn’t be relying on me.’

  Anya. This was Theone, his voice calm and collected, and spoken only in her head.

  She hadn’t realised she was standing, or that everyone was staring. She composed herself and returned to her chair.

  ‘Let this be the end of it,’ Theone continued. ‘By no means would I ask the two of you to become friends, but our goal here is the same, so you need to find a way you can work together without quarrelling.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sire, but I simply will not entertain this prophecy nonsense any longer. If we truly are due a saviour, this girl is not the one. I will not waste any more of my time on her.’

  ‘Fine. We’ll take her off your hands then.’

  When Anya turned to find out who’d spoken, she was expecting the voice to have come from one of the other generals; Frey perhaps – he’d been quiet friendly during their time at the camp – so she was shocked when Harrion came marching into the Pavilion, followed by three men she’d never seen before. They were definitely soldiers, but something in the way they wore their armour made them stand apart from the others. Particularly the man the end, laden with all kinds of weaponry, a wolf pelt upon his shoulders.

  Theone stood at once. ‘Harrion! What do you mean “we will take her”?’ He turned to the eagle-eyed soldier at Harrion’s side. ‘Gavriel, what is the meaning of this?’

  Gavriel opened his mouth to answer but the words that filled the room were Harrion’s. ‘Father, I’m joining the Stragglers. I’m nineteen now, I should be putting my abilities to good use, not just sitting around here, accepting our fate.’