“Ah. Yes, well … then you triggered a spell. A spell I had painstakingly constructed for you, a spell to bring you back to me, just in case this had been his plan all along.”
“His plan?”
“Dougal.” Dougal? She’d only ever met him once … that she could remember, the evening before her sixteenth birthday. Her mother had barely spoken to him all through the meal, though he was seated at Rhea’s right, a spot formally reserved for Chancellor Madoc, who hadn’t been in attendance at dinner that evening. Lord Dougal Rudan, Chief of the Cascadian Guards, Chancellor of the Midlands. Her mother’s brother. Her uncle. “The only man, the only person of whom I know could take you, and keep you from me all these years. He was actually here by invitation. I had thought to use the opportunity to mend some old wounds.”
“But if you knew he had me …”
“I could never prove it.”
“And the spell? It’s the backlash that’s caused the memory loss?”
“Or, if he had you under spell to keep you with him, it’s interference. My spell was powerful enough to overcome his, perhaps.”
“But not without consequences.”
“Yes. It seems. I am sorry.”
“Why do you think it’s your brother? Does he want to be Apex?”
Her mother laughed harshly, and very unspiritualy. “No. He doesn’t think we should be governed by Spirit. He believes magic is a tool, not a way of life.”
“And, because of my prophecy …”
“Yes, his interpretation of your prophecy was always different from mine. I just didn’t know he’d … had I known, I would have … I would have … I didn’t know.”
“How could you not know?”
“He’s strong, agile, a master sword-fighter, practically invulnerable with incredible healing powers.”
“But not a mind mage, just a magic wielder.”
“Yes, but it would be foolish to underestimate him even if he does not possess our type of power. We share the same blood, we are in fact … twins.”
Twins. That was news. She’d known her mother had two siblings. Almost every history lesson ended with the Apex’s glorious unification of Cascadia under the Worship of Spirit. This unification was brought about by Rhea, her brother Dougal, and their sister, Rowen. But if siblings were rare, twins were unheard of, though, supposedly, it hadn’t always been so. Stories of the Before spoke of the overpopulation of the Vanquished, who all but destroyed everything they needed to survive. And still now those without magic, or the Lackings, bore more offspring than those with magic … Theo pulled her thoughts back to the ramifications of Dougal as Rhea’s twin.
“Which makes crafting spells to block you much easier.”
“Yes, paired with his natural resistance.”
“And,” she glared down at the scars that were now barely discernible on her hands, “he sees me as a solider of spirit.”
“Yes, rather than the manifestation of spirit that I know you to be.”
“A soldier to be used against you.”
“Yes, if sending you against the castle was an attempt on my life.”
“And why would that be?” The question seemed to give her mother pause, but she used the moment to turn from her contemplation at the window and return to her desk.
“I told you,” Rhea answered, as she settled in her chair and began looking at her paperwork once more. “We disagree over ruling through the Worship of Spirit, our faith, or ruling as … as …”
“As what?”
“As the world was ruled in the Before.”
“Before? My uncle wants to return to the world to as it was before the rise of Spirit? He wants to … to … reinstate the governance of the Vanquished? How does that make any sense?”
“I don’t know, darling. Can we leave it at that now? I have so much to do.”
Cascadia doesn’t run, doesn’t survive without me. That was the underlying context of her mother’s request. It was always the underlying context, and she was just a terrible person if she asked for too much attention, if she diverted her mother when the people of Cascadia needed her every moment … this happened every time she started figuring things out. Her mother closed down and turned her away.
“Is that it? He kidnaps me, keeps me for ten years, and I stand here missing half my life.”
“There is no need to be dramatic about it. I’ve sent an envoy. I’ve requested his attendance. Without your memories it is difficult to know anything for sure.”
“And if he does come? What then?”
“Would you have me go to war, Theodora?” Her mother’s quiet, pointed question was delivered without judgement. This coolness was always a warning sign that she’d gone too far or asked too much. As if she condoned war! Peace had reigned for over thirty years. Even the marauding clans and separatist enclaves of the continent didn’t brave the mountains or her mother’s magic to attack Cascadia. She understood the balance Rhea had fought for and maintained.
“I guess it made sense, when I was sixteen, to keep me separate from how things are … how things run, but I am twenty-six now.”
“Next month.”
“A month makes all the difference, does it?”
“No, darling, but allowing yourself time to heal, before burdening yourself further, that makes all the difference.”
Reasonable. It was difficult to argue with a mother who was supposedly just worried for her daughter, but Theo did have a sinking feeling that, healed or not, Rhea wasn’t going to be forthcoming about anything that had to do with the running of the country. Affairs of the state weren’t a figurehead’s business. She was just the ‘Manifestation of Spirit’, according to her mother’s interpretation of the prophecy etched into her spirit or, as the some of the Vanquished had called it, her soul. What right did she have to know anything? Or to make any decisions or choices?
“One month. Or until I am healed. Then we will talk about all the things you don’t want to say.” It was childish, but Theo didn’t bother to wait for an answer, which would most likely just be more platitudes.
She didn’t slam the door on the way out, so that was one maturity point in her favor.
CHAPTER FOUR
Restless after the barely useful confrontation with her mother, Theo slipped by the guards, and wandered out to the stables. Hugh was there, training a yearling with the help of his horse, the Beast. Not wanting to be caught watching him, she chose to wander away through the pasture and to the edge of the forest.
She felt a little bad about constantly slipping by the guards, who, granted, were only there for her own protection, but she found it terribly difficult to organize her thoughts while surrounded by the energy of other people. And the reason she was always surrounded by people; her prophecy.
Everything was always about her prophecy.
Every little thing.
Her entire life was controlled by a series of words and images read by a sensitive mind mage at her birth, when she was eleven, and again on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. She is the fountain through which Spirit flows. Her strength shall unite air and fire, earth and water, with human and beast. Through her, all become Spirit, and Spirit reigns. Her mother had obviously decided that the image of the fountain meant Theo was the manifestation of spirit, and had been grooming her since birth to reign through Spirit. And, as she just discovered, her uncle obviously believed that strength was the pertinent word. She’d been previously unaware of this divide between the siblings. She’d always thought that Rhea ruled without question, but obviously her brother, Dougal, was someone who also wielded a great deal power in Cascadia.
So everyone else knew who she was except her, or rather, who she was supposed to be, except her. Not only was she missing ten years, but she also wasn’t totally settled with what she remembered from before. She didn’t want to be the person her mother was grooming her to be, and yet was there any other choice?
While she de
sperately tried to connect all the missing pieces, her wandering led to the edge of the forest and soon she found herself surrounded by trees. She felt the castle’s protective wards brush over her as she passed through, but even this didn’t give her pause. She was drawn toward the cliffs and their unmatched view of the ocean. She’d always felt safe there. It was her place.
The path was well worn, but still mysterious as it twisted through the tall cedars and firs. The dry needles underfoot cushioned her footsteps. The bark was rough underneath her fingers. It was calm and quiet here. At first, the sun barely penetrated the canopy of trees, but then the view before her cracked open into the expansive wild blue of the Salish Sea, and the cloud-streaked azure sky. The muffled, almost ancient stillness of the forest was swallowed by the crash of the waves thundering against the cliff face hundreds of feet below.
It wasn’t until she stood on the very edge of the cliff, with only the blueness of the water and sky and wind in her peripheral vision, that she realized that her skirt was damp practically up to her calves, and that the light sweater she’d grabbed did little to stop the sea breeze from cutting through her. Was it unseasonably cold, or was her body just accustomed to being warmer?
She could feel the castle with all its energy still looming behind her, even though miles of forest stretched between her and it, and, despite the cold, she found she didn’t have any desire to return to the endless questions and concerns. Out here with her feet solidly planted on rock that even an earthquake would have a difficult time disturbing, she didn’t feel like an endless, bottomless, questing question. Here, she could breathe, could open her arms to the wind and let it, somehow, breeze through her beleaguered brain. Here, she could lower the shields she had to constantly enforce when surrounded by so many life forces.
Theo drifted, almost as if she was actually levitating, though her feet hadn’t left her rocky perch. A whale — an orca — breached far off shore, and its pod rhythmically followed it to the surface to then dive once again. They were singing to each other, and Theo could almost understand their language. If she pushed and intruded, she might even be able to ride their minds as they traveled south along the coast. The freedom of such beckoned, but no matter how lost she was, she wasn’t a whale. She also wasn’t an interloper.
According to the history of the Vanquished, a great island once sat just off the main coast, but when Spirit rose to reclaim the world, it became unanchored and drifted, or was driven, away, so now the sea stretched almost endlessly to the other side of the world. Below, across the inlet that became the mouth of a mighty river, a city had grown out of the ruins left behind by the Vanquished. This port was the largest city in the NorthWest, and the second largest within her mother’s kingdom of Cascadia.
She opened her mind further — searching though the city and even beyond, before she even recognized it herself — for the man of her dream, whose name might be Ren, though he hadn’t told her so. In fact, she hadn’t been able to feel him at all during the dream, as if he wasn’t even there. She’d only felt his companion, the dreamwalker, who’d been powerful enough to break through the castle’s wards and project Ren into her dream, when most dreamwalkers had a difficult time presenting even a solid image of themselves. Perhaps she’d lifted the name ‘Ren’ from the dreamwalker?
But, if Ren actually existed, he didn’t do so within the range of her mind mage powers. He was either very well shielded, beyond her reach, or a figment of her imagination.
∞
They were behind her, closer than they should have been, before she felt them.
“Think she’s trying to off herself?” a man asked, and then turned his head to spit a mouthful of something; grass, or some sort of magic herb. She lifted the answer off his thoughts. He wasn’t talking to her.
“Nah, why wander away from the castle to do yourself in?” a second man answered.
“Maybe they watch her too close?”
“If they did, would they let her be here?”
Too late, she realized her rather obvious error in leaving the protection of the castle’s wards. What had been safe as a child, was perhaps no longer so. She wasn’t certain she’d been gone long enough for anyone to notice her absence. Even if they had noticed, the castle grounds were extensive.
“It’s her then?”
“That hair is hard to miss, what with it flying all around like some sort of beacon. Plus the tracker thing is pointing right at her.”
Tracker thing?
She turned away from the cliff edge, acutely aware it didn’t feel at all comforting to have it at her back.
They weren’t as close as they’d felt in her mind. They stood on the edge of the forest, watching her. Hunters by their garb. Days beyond a good sleep, a bath, and hot food by their general dishevelment and gaunt faces. One of them held a rock that did seem to be glowing red in her direction. He also sported a scar in the shape of an X on his cheek, which marked him a traitor.
They were without personal magic, or ‘Lackings’ as they were commonly called, and in possession of a very expensive, very rare magical object. She could tell this just by the pulse of power the so-called ‘tracking thing’ emanated. If their earlier conversation and the general run of their thoughts hadn’t alerted her, this would have.
They were staring at her, mouths agape, like children seeing the stars or chocolate pudding for the first time.
“That’s her?” the one without the scar, Sammy — his thoughts named him — asked in a superfluous whisper.
The traitor, who didn’t project his every thought as loudly, didn’t respond. She wondered at his mark. Did he get it raising arms against the Worship of Spirit? Or, inciting distrust? Or just for stealing food for his starving family? He wasn’t in prison, so his crime hadn’t been considered extreme. Still, it bothered her, to mark a man thus.
“She’s pretty, kind of like she glows, just a little bit, all over,“ Sammy mused.
“She don’t glow!” the traitor snapped, as he tucked the tracking stone into one pocket and pulled a knife free from his belt with the same hand.
She looked closer at Sammy, thinking he must have a bit of magic, or at least a connection to his spirit enough to recognize, at least visually, her ‘glow’. Maybe Lackings weren’t completely bereft of magic. Maybe the mind mages that identified them as such during their Rites of Passage — and labeled them for life — weren’t sensitive enough.
How hard would it be to live in this world without magic? Oh, there was work, family, and comfort in the Worship of Spirit, but the opportunities wouldn’t be the same —
“So we’re supposed to just kill her?”
“Dead or alive. We just have to deliver proof.”
“Maybe we could pick the alive option? ‘Cause I think she might stop glowing if we —”
“She ain’t glowing. I told you.”
“Okay, but —”
“No. We kill her quick and get it over with. We keep her alive, then we got to deal with people trying to rescue her. Kill her and then everything gets better for us, for the world. You know what the Preacher says. You know why we took the assignment. Get yer knife.”
Sammy, rather reluctantly, pulled out his knife. The traitor stepped forward, only to have his progress halted by his friend.
“But why is she just standing there, watching us? Can’t she understand what we’re saying? Isn’t she supposed to be super powerful? She hasn’t done any tricks yet.”
“She’s glowing, ain’t she?”
“But you said —”
“Never mind. She’s wounded, hurt, maybe she don’t have access to her powers, whatever it is, we got a job to do.”
Wounded, he said. Like he’d been told, because she certainly didn’t look wounded. Which means that the castle, for all its mighty defenses, had a leak. A human leak, because magic shouldn’t be able to penetrate. In fact, how did anyone know she had a habit — ten years ago — of wandering though
the forest? These men had been camping nearby, just waiting for her to leave the wards and for their tracking device to light up. And now they were going to kill her. Try, at least.
“Who is the Preacher?” she asked, not expecting a verbal answer, but hoping their thoughts would betray their leader. They were surprised by the question or perhaps by her speaking at all. She was surprised to discover they had mental blocks that obscured those particular thoughts. Someone had impeded them from revealing information about this Preacher. Not only was it a technique she didn’t recognize, but she had no idea it was even possible to selectively alter another’s brain. Perhaps her mother had not been completely forthcoming in her mind mage training.
“That ain’t none of your business.”
“Yeah, you’re just a troublemaker. Your death will fix it all.” Despite his words, Sammy seemed a little unsure about his doctrine.
“Ah, yes. I’d heard that some interpret the prophecy that way … that my death will restore balance, that if I am the Manifestation of Spirit, then my death will destroy all the active magic on earth. Seems a little farfetched to me. There’s spirit in the stone beneath your feet.“ This observation seemed to startle Sammy, and he lifted his feet like he’d prefer to place them elsewhere or not need them to stand. “The trees sway with spirit.“
“That’s enough! We ain’t here for you to talk us confused.”
“Very well, then.” Her acceptance caused another round of hesitation on their part and she wondered about the traitor again; was he a killer? He could have served his time. The scar did look older. Was that why this Preacher sent him?
Then, as one, with their knives held aloft in front of them, they stepped forward. As they moved closer, they spread out to either side, in case she tried to run by them, Theo supposed. They were corralling her. She wondered if they’d been farmers before … she wondered how close she would let them get …
Something blurred in her peripheral vision.
A large body with wings swooped around her once, and then slammed its massive clawed feet into the rock between her and her would-be assassins.
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