Brightly Woven

by Alexandra Bracken

  “So we’ve declared war against Auster for nothing?” Mr. Porter asked, and I didn’t need to be by the wall to hear him. “On a whim—a guess? Did the Wizard Guard send you out here to search for information?”

  “The Guard is still pursuing Auster as the primary culprit,” the wizard said. “You have to understand that if we go to war with them, it won’t be because they killed our king. With the king dead, Auster’s king is claiming his right to the throne.”

  “By what right?” Mr. Porter said. “It’s absurd.”

  “No,” my father said. “It’s not. The king of Auster is our king’s second cousin, the last of his living relatives, and you know as well as I do that our laws say that a woman cannot inherit the throne, regardless of circumstances.”

  “You said a law had been introduced to change that,” Mr. Porter said, “on the chance that the queen didn’t deliver a male heir.”

  “There was to be a vote on it next month,” Father said. “We can vote it in, but there’s a real possibility that Auster won’t recognize the law as valid.”

  “They’ve been waiting for an excuse to invade our country under legitimate circumstances,” North said. “Saldorra’s soldiers will join their forces. I would say they’re maybe half a day from overtaking your village.”

  “Sydelle!” a voice hissed. I started, tearing myself away from the wall. It had come from outside, slipping through the small hole in my wall that was meant to be a window, without glass or fabric.

  “Delle!” It was Henry. If he had been any louder, the entire village would have heard him. I looked out to see him hunkered down in the mud, drenched straight through his clothes.

  “What?” I asked, annoyed.

  “Are you all right? I waited for you in the market,” he said. “And out of nowhere you appeared with the wizard—I thought you were dead, you were so pale. Did you faint?”

  “Not now!” I whispered. “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. Just go!”

  I didn’t wait to see if he would listen. Two steps later and my ear was back against the wall, catching the wizard’s voice.

  “…and they won’t stop,” North said. “I used the rain to slow them as much as I could—I didn’t realize it would be such a help to you.”

  “You have no idea what you’ve done for us in bringing the rain. I can’t even begin to fathom how you succeeded where other wizards have failed,” my father said. He sounded tired. “Anything we can give in return, anything, we’ll give you.”

  “If you’re still willing to give up what we discussed before, then there’s nothing more I could ask for.” North cleared his throat. “But we shouldn’t stay much longer. Auster and the officials in Provincia have agreed on a two-month deadline to try to resolve this without magic and sword, but I’m afraid it may take me just as long to get there, and I don’t trust the mail service to deliver the report safely.”

  “I insist you stay the night, then. You look worn—even your cloaks need looking after.”

  I sat up a little straighter on the floor, tucking my legs beneath me. I knew what was coming.

  “They all do, I’m afraid,” North said. “I saw a bit more action in Saldorra than I had expected. But wizard tailors are pricey, and I haven’t been across one in a few months. I have an entire country to cross, and less than two months to do it. It’ll have to wait until I get to Provincia.”

  “Nonsense, my daughter will do the same for free.”

  “It requires a bit of skill—” North protested.

  “She’s the best in the village, I assure you,” he said. “Sydelle!”

  I stood quickly, brushing the dust from my dress and hands. He called my name again, impatient as always.

  Only the wizard looked up at me when I entered our sitting room. Jugs of water and plates of our precious bread were scattered on the table’s surface.

  “Sydelle, you’ll mend Mr. North’s cloaks and show him to your room,” Father said. “You can stay with your mother and me for the night.”

  I nodded and said nothing, though it killed me not to ask the questions that were running through my mind. If I embarrassed my father now by opening my mouth, I wouldn’t hear the end of it for months—probably years, knowing his legendary temper.

  North stood and stretched. I waited until he came toward me, close enough to smell the mix of sweat and rain clinging to his clothing and skin, and to see the dark circles under his eyes.

  “You don’t have to mend them,” North said as we entered my small room. “Honestly, they’ve been far worse.”

  I watched him out of the corner of my eye, studying him as I would a book or drawing. How could I not? He was the only wizard I’d ever met—in all likelihood, the only wizard I ever would meet. It seemed so strange to have him look so ordinary. After all the stories I’d read about their adventures and magic, I never expected them to look like any man or woman. There was only one difference, slight enough that I almost missed it, and that was the warmth that surrounded him, a warmth that was so much softer than the heat of our sun.

  “Are you afraid I’ll ruin them?” I asked, assessing my small supply of thread and needles. He lifted the cloaks one by one, and I was startled to see how many there actually were—black, red, green, blue, yellow. Why did he need so many?

  “I’m sure you’re very good,” he said. “But these cloaks are special. Do you know anything about how magic works?”

  I shook my head. “Not in the least.”

  “Well…,” North began. “These cloaks are what I use for magic. If they’re not mended carefully, I won’t be able to use them.”

  I held out my hand, still unable to look him fully in the eye.

  “I’ll be careful,” I said.

  North sighed. “One to begin with, all right?”

  He tried untying them from around his neck, but the strings had become badly knotted, and his gloved hands were shaking so badly that I had to do it myself. The moment my hands touched him, he stilled.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Fine. A bit tired.”

  “Are you sure?” I said, watching him more carefully now.

  He nodded, holding perfectly still as I worked on the stubborn knots.

  “Thank you for bringing me back to the village,” I said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever fainted before. I guess I was more overwhelmed than I thought.”

  “And here I thought you swooned at the sight of me.” He gave me a crooked smile.

  “Do you do this a lot?” he asked, when I had finally pulled the cloaks free and placed them in his arms. I didn’t answer, but accepted the yellow cloak as he handed it to me. They were made from a thin wool: rough but sturdy. I set to work immediately, sinking down next to him on my small pile of bedding. He glanced around the room, at my half-finished blankets and rugs and the small scenes of Cliffton I had created with yellow, brown, and red thread. His eyes fell on the silver circle on my wall, a larger version of my necklace. I would have to pray beneath the one in my parents’ room that night.

  “It’s not much,” I said. “I’m sorry I don’t have a bed for you.”

  “No, no,” North said quickly. “It’s not that. I’m just surprised that you’re a weaver.”

  “Why is that?” I asked, pulling together a jagged tear in the stained yellow cloak.

  “I just meant that you’re very young to be so good. At weaving, I mean.”

  “I’ll have you know that I just turned sixteen,” I said, knotting the thread and cutting the excess. “Aren’t you a little young to be a wizard?”

  “I’ll have you know that I just turned eighteen,” he said, mimicking my tone almost perfectly. “That’s four years out of apprenticeship and two years your elder.”

  So much for wizards and their legendary kindness and courtesy. He was no different than any of the boys I had grown up with.

  “Very funny,” I said. “A wizard and a joker.”

  North shrugged, still looking around. “I
see red…yellow…brown…ah, a little green, and of course our own Palmarta purple—no gray?”

  “Why would I have gray?” I asked, giving him a sidelong glance. “We haven’t seen a rain cloud in years.”

  He glanced up, toward the old blanket I had strung over my bed. What had once been an expertly woven image of Provincia’s castle and its surrounding lake was now faded and stained.

  “Ah, but there’s the castle!” he said, craning his neck for a better look. “That’s a decent likeness. Have you been to the capital?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “That was given to me by a woman who was traveling across the country selling her work. She gave me the blanket and told me to meet her in Andover when I was old enough.”

  “And when will you be old enough?”

  “When I’m born in a different village in another lifetime,” I said.

  “But you want to go,” North said. He bit the side of his thumb, his expression troubled. It was not long before his eyes found the old map of Palmarta tacked up in the soft plaster of my wall. Each circle of string marked a city where Henry had traveled, making deliveries of our yellow dust. With Auster looming to the east and Saldorra to the west and south, our country looked ready to be swallowed whole.

  “What I want will always be different from what everyone else wants for me,” I said, knotting the thread.

  “You’re talented enough, if you really do want it,” North said. “You could support yourself if you settled in a city.”

  I shook my head, surprised at the prick of anger inside me. He could flit in and out of towns and cities at will. I should never have brought the old woman up in the first place, but every time I looked at the blanket, I could feel her soft, wrinkled palms as she had brushed the dirt from my cheeks.

  “Would you leave,” he asked, “if you could?”

  “It’s not my choice,” I said. “It must be nice to go wherever you want. Have you decided how you’re getting to Provincia?”

  He shrugged. “I’m taking the most direct route possible, cutting straight through the center of the country. There are a few cities like Dellark and Fairwell along the way, but I’ll be spending most of my time outdoors. You could start over, buy yourself a new, bigger loom—”

  “Never,” I said. “That’s my loom, and it’s the only one I want to use.”

  The loom had been with me since I was a little girl, watching my grandmother weave her own blankets and stories into it. It was an extension of me, as familiar as the face of my father. It had always been an escape—from drought and from every painful emotion.

  I handed him the yellow cloak, watching as he turned it over in his hands, inspecting my work.

  “Your father wasn’t lying,” he said. “But now comes the real test.”

  He threw the yellow cloak into the air, and it disappeared from sight. Impossibly, a strong breeze blew past us. It shook the hanging blankets and sent my mass of red curls up around my face. A moment later, the yellow cloak reappeared in front of the wizard, floating gently back into his hands.

  The wizard turned his face toward me, his dark eyes studying me with a mixture of shock and fascination. His pale face was drained of what little color it had possessed before, and he twisted the yellow fabric so roughly between his fists that I thought it might tear. He didn’t move—he looked to be barely breathing.

  “You…,” he began, his voice low with disbelief. “You’re really…”

  I waited for him to continue, but the words never came and his eyes never left mine.

  “Sleep well,” I said, standing. “Let me know if you need something. There’s a basin in the corner if you’d like to wash up before praying.”

  “I don’t,” he said.

  “Don’t what?” I said incredulously. “Don’t pray?”

  He lowered his eyes.

  “Sydelle?” he said, just as I was about to step through the doorway. He was still holding the yellow cloak in his hands. “I know you were listening to what I told your father. If you can find the courage to leave, then you need to go soon…before things are set in motion.”

  “Then the war…” I almost couldn’t get the words out. “Then it’ll really happen?”

  “It’s happening now,” he said. “Your village must prepare for the worst. Saldorra is Auster’s western ally. It’s only a matter of time before they reach you.”

  “Astraea will protect us,” I said. “We trade with Saldorra. They’d never—”

  “It would be better if you could protect yourself,” he said, and blew out the candle.

  Hours later, as I turned restlessly on a blanket on my parents’ floor, his words returned, until I was sure that they would be burned there forever, that they would follow me into sleep every night. It would be better if you could protect yourself.

  I listened to the rain and wondered.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I was still awake when the temple’s bells began to ring out in an unfamiliar pattern, and my mother began to cry loudly, brokenly, from somewhere deep inside her chest.

  “Now?” she moaned. “Now?”

  “Up, Sydelle!” my father said, dragging me from the tangled bedding. “Put on your dress and your boots.”

  “What’s happening?” I choked out. The wizard was waiting in the main room, far more alert than he had been the night before. He was holding my disassembled loom.

  My mother took me, wild-eyed and frantic, into my room and began to pack dresses and yarn into a small leather bag.

  “What’s happening?” I cried. “Tell me what’s going on!”

  My mother placed the bag over my shoulder, and I was sure I felt her warm tears drip onto my neck.

  “Be a brave girl,” she said. “I know you have it in you.”

  My father reappeared in the doorway, his face flushed. “Hurry—move quickly!”

  “Tell me what’s going on!” I said. “Tell me!”

  “Those soldiers you saw before in the canyon are here now,” North said from the other room. “You’re coming with me.”

  “I offered Mr. North a reward for breaking the drought,” my father explained, “and he’s chosen you. Do you understand?”

  I was the one crying now, and I couldn’t tell my anger from my fear.

  “Sydelle, tell me you understand,” Father begged, and Mother only cried harder. “You’ll help him get to the capital, you’ll do whatever he asks, you won’t look back.”

  “Do I have no choice in this?” I cried, as the wizard appeared behind my father. The smile on his face was small, but it was still there.

  He thought he was helping me, did he? He thought that he was doing me some sort of favor. A prisoner of my village or a prisoner of a wizard. What was the difference when you could not decide your own path?

  The sound of bells died out, only to be replaced by the sound of a hundred villagers emerging into the early-morning sky.

  “They’re here.” North was suddenly right beside me, taking my arm. I turned toward him wildly, hearing the sound of rolling thunder, of hooves.

  “What’s happening?” I asked. “What—?”

  “Sooner than expected,” my father said. He patted my shoulder twice, as he would a complete stranger. “Go before they find you here.”

  “No!” I said. “I don’t want to leave, not now!”

  North held my things as my father pulled me outside. He had a bag of his own, one I hadn’t noticed before. A fine mist of rain and fog cooled the flushed skin of my cheeks. I watched my mother, still expecting her to speak. She only looked away.

  Henry had come to find me. He was standing a short distance away from our door, his lip pulled back in anger, maybe disgust. I had never seen him wear such a hostile face—ready for battle. I tried to picture the boys I had grown up with in the dark militia uniforms, but the best my mind could conjure up was the image of Henry’s brothers playing in the mud, hitting their sticks against each other as if they were swords.

  The dirt a
nd rocks trembled beneath our feet as the sound of galloping horses and hollering men reached our ears.

  “Go now!” My father pushed me toward the wizard. “Go!”

  “Saldorra!” a woman screamed, and it was all the encouragement North needed. He surged forward, shoving Henry to the side and taking me by the arm.

  “Delle!” I heard Henry shout, and then nothing more. A shroud of darkness wrapped around the wizard and me, and we were falling.

  The earth found us again, its jagged rocks and familiar dust breaking our fall. By the time my vision cleared, North was crouched in front of me with my loom and bag at his side, examining the scene in the valley below. The screams from Cliffton floated up to us.

  We were in the mountains, but how or why we were there seemed inconsequential. I watched as dozens of horses and men in hideous crimson uniforms overran the village below. They flooded the streets like a river of fire, moving among the scattered homes, encircling the crowd of people we had left only a moment before.

  “Did you know?” I cried. “You knew they were coming, you knew they’d—!”

  I couldn’t finish.

  I was too far away to recognize anyone. The soldiers disappeared into shops and homes, dragging the few lingering villagers outside. Chaos fell like a wall of sand, devouring everything at once. Troughs, buckets, pots, and vases were all kicked to the ground, the precious water inside wasted on dust.

  “Why are they doing this?” I whispered.

  “Your village has been dependent on Saldorra for bringing you water.” North cast a sidelong glance at me. “The soldiers need to camp here and wait for instructions from Auster about invading our country. They were planning on exchanging the water for the villagers’ silence about them being there, which is why they can’t let the villagers have their own supply. It’s exactly what they did to Cloverton and Westfield. I warned your father last night this would happen.”

  “You warned him?” My fists lashed out blindly. I couldn’t tell my anger from my fear. “You were the one who led them here! They’re chasing you! You took that information—!”