by C S Vass
Rodrick didn’t seem to hear her. He leapt towards the door and immediately tried to open it, but it did not budge. “Sealed with magic,” he swore.
A second chord from an organ blasted over them, even more intricate than the first. Notes on top of notes octaves apart echoed through the room.
Rodrick began kicking at the door like a madman as the music began to play in earnest. Fiona didn’t know what was happening, but there was true power in those notes. She had never heard anything like it. There was an ancient ache in her bones, some ancestral memory of a power so dangerous that it had been sealed into her blood as memory from a distant past.
Rodrick took a flute out form underneath his forest green cloak and began to play. She never knew he could work magic. More lies. She rose, and while her muscles screamed with protest she got out of the bed.
Rodrick was too busy working his song to see her sneak behind him, and she grabbed the flute while he was playing a rough series of notes to get the door open. It was searing hot, and her hands burned as she touched it. All the same she managed to hang on even as blisters formed across her palms and ripped the instrument away from his lips.
“I’ve had about enough of your insolence Fiona!” he shouted. The intensity of the organ was like a tornado around them. It felt as though several people were playing all at once. In the distance they could hear explosions. The school walls shook.
“I won’t let you make a ruin of this city,” Fiona said through gritted teeth. How exactly she planned to stop him, she could not have said. Her legs wobbled and she was barely strong enough to hold her body up. But still, any time she could buy Shifter could potentially make the difference.
Just when she was about to lunge at him the door burst open. Geoff Hightower shot through like a spear, followed by several men. Rodrick turned and ran towards the window. Fiona reached after him arms extended. She may not have had a weapon, but there was no way she was going to allow him to escape. She would wrestle him to the ground and hold him there with her bare hands if she had to.
Arms stretched like an eagle she prepared to tackle him to the ground when a flash of silver sliced through the air. Hot pain seared Fiona’s face, though she could not have said what happened as she fell to the ground. There was shouting, and a warm wet trickle that blinded her eyes.
The shattering sound of glass breaking stirred her, but Fiona could not see. She tried to move her legs, but felt as though she were paralyzed. There was more shouting, but she could not make out words.
She put her hand on her face, and when she looked at it saw that it was covered in blood.
Chapter Twenty-One
Fiona knew that she had been asleep for an extremely long time. When she finally came to the first thing she realized was that the pain of cuts and bruises had been replaced by the pain of cramps and aches from staying too long in bed. She opened her eyes, to the sad smiling face of Donyo Brownwater.
“Quite an ordeal we’ve all been through,” Donyo said. “I’m happy to see us both on the other side of it with heads firmly attached to our bodies.”
“What happened?” Fiona asked.
Donyo chuckled. “What happened? What hasn’t happened might be an easier story to tell you. Though I suppose taking the easy route doesn’t exactly fit your personality.” He turned to the open door and called, “Shifter! She’s awake! Get the others!”
“Where are we?” Fiona asked groggily.
“Why, your favorite place in the entire world,” Donyo said with a smile suggesting that it was anything but. “Sun Circle’s castle. I took the liberty of making sure you had different sleeping arrangements than when you first came. It somehow didn’t feel like you would appreciate that.”
Fiona tried to smile but she found she wasn’t in the mood for jokes.
“I will tell you outright,” Donyo said. “You’re fortunate to still have a head, however, it was a near thing. You were cut with a silver blade and, well…here see for yourself.”
Donyo held up a small reflecting mirror for her to look in. There was a long ugly cut that extended straight across her forehead. The skin around it was brittle, almost petrified. But it wasn’t just that…had those forest green eyes ever looked so tired? Had her pale skin ever truly been that pale? Who had she become?
“It will heal,” Donyo said, sensitively. “But there will be a scar, to be sure.”
“I’m lucky to still be alive,” Fiona said after a long awkward pause. “Fiercewind…she died for me. For the city.”
“Yes,” Donyo said. “She did. A good woman.” Then he blurted out, “We were lovers once, you know.”
Fiona would have slapped him for his imbecility if she had had the energy. But when she looked into his face she was shocked to see tears streaming silently down his fat cheeks.
“Erm…really?” she asked. If she had ever been more uncomfortable in her life she could not have said when it was.
“In another life, long ago,” Donyo replied. “A sad and stupid tale, one that I might tell you someday if you like. But not today, I think.”
Fiona nodded her head. She understood all too well not wanting to go into painful memories.
“What happened after I passed out?” she asked. “How long has it been?”
“Three days,” Donyo replied. “There will be a long tale for when you’ve recovered, but the short of it is…we won. Shifter destroyed the magical barriers that sealed the Moonwood away. They are no more. The forest’s magical energies are no longer contained within the city. The twins had been trapped in the Moonwood by Raesha’s treachery, but once the barrier sealing the Moonwood broke so did the prison Raesha had created. As for Haygarden, well, nobody quite seems to know who controls Haygarden but Sandra Redfire has been giving order and so far nobody has seen fit to question them.”
“Fiona strained to sit upright. “I can’t believe it. What…” she didn’t even know what to ask next.
“What indeed,” Donyo agreed. “If you find out, be a good woman and let me know. Gods know I could use a little direction about now. For the moment I’m inclined to listen to wiser heads such as Sandra and Hightower.”
As if on cue Geoff Hightower strode into the room the second his name was mentioned, followed by Shifter and Sandra.
“Fiona,” Sandra said, kneeling at her bedside. “You have done so much in service of the city. How can we ever thank you?”
“When I find out I’ll let you know,” Fiona said.
Sandra closed her eyes and a painful look crossed her face. “You have yet to forgive me. I understand.”
“You fight bravely girl,” Hightower said. The old knight looked tired, but strong as ever. “Just as I would expect.”
She was in no mood for the compliment. She knew they were all just trying to be nice, but she didn’t see how any of this could ever be made to be right.
“What of my…where’s Rodrick?”
Sandra and Donyo exchanged a nervous glance. Sandra said, “He’s gone, as is Downcastle. They’ve fled the city, along with Lovewood and some other Vaentysh Boys. We know not where to.”
“Not to worry,” Hightower said. “We’ll find them. You count on that. For now it’s enough to know that the prisoners they had taken have been located in the basement of Lovewood’s manor. They are weary, but unharmed for the most part.”
Fiona looked into the old knights green eyes, green like hers and yet so very different. An enormous feeling of guilt washed over her. “Lord Hightower,” she said. “I owe you an apology.”
“Oh?” the old knight said, a look of curiosity on his face.
“I eavesdropped on you and Headmaster Fiercewind when you were speaking with her in your chambers. I thought you were discussing Kevin Lovewood. Had I not been so quick to accuse him, maybe none of this would have happened the way it did.”
Hightower was silent for a long while. Surprisingly, a smile broke out over his face. “You were in the room the whole time?” he asked. “And neither H
elena nor I knew it? That’s quite bold young one, even for a Sacrosin. You know now that we were speaking of Thrushling, not Lovewood.”
“Yes,” Fiona said. “By the way, what happened to him?”
The room grew silent. Fiona looked at each face, but none would look back at her.
“Dead,” Donyo said, after a long while. “He hung himself after the fighting. His body was discovered by a city guard.”
To her own surprise Fiona was saddened by the news. Monster that he was, and even though he tried to have her framed and executed, she had not been entirely able to erase her memories of him as a kindly professor. That made her worry. If it took this long to lose that image of Thrushling, then how long would it take for Rodrick?
“You needn’t apologize, Fiona,” Hightower said. “You’ve shown extraordinary bravery and leadership in a time when the city was sorely lacking in both. Those are the qualities I would seek in the Commander of the Brightbows, a title I happily offer you.”
The rest of the room looked astonished, but Fiona hardly even had a feeling in her bones. At last she said, “No thank you.”
“No thank you?” Hightower stammered. “I just offered to make you a Lord, one of the most powerful people in the city. You don’t want to think about it, at least?”
“No,” she said, even more certainly. The room looked at her open-mouthed, and so she felt she was obligated to offer more of an explanation, though she did not want to. “I don’t want to follow in his footsteps.”
“To be sure,” Hightower said quickly. “But listen, child. A man of great good or great evil might plow the same field. Tis the man, or woman I should say, and not the field that determines if it’s sown with salt or sown with barley.”
“Fiona,” Sandra Redfire said, “Given everything that’s happened…much uncertainty lies ahead. “You are not obligated to do anything, you’ve done so much already, but the Tellosian Empire and Laquath can smell weakness a mile away. And there’s no telling what the remaining Vaentysh Boys might do. Not to mention the magical forces that will be unleashed on the world in the coming weeks and years. Surely you should think about this offer, and about the good you could do?”
“It wouldn’t have to be the Brightbows,” Hightower said. “We could create a new force, one that you can mold to your own vision. Gods know we’ve had too much of the old order dictating our institutions. Please, child, think on it.”
For some strange reason she found herself looking to Donyo Brownwater, the only one who had been silent on the issue. He simply shrugged and said, “You do what you want Fiona. As for me, I’m getting a strong cup of bitter black ale.”
“Spoken like a true man of the people,” Sandra said with a roll of her eyes.
Fiona took a deep breath. She did not want to think about this right now. She had too many hurts, and she didn’t even know with certainty if she could properly feel all of them yet. “Maybe. Perhaps one day.”
Sandra opened her mouth, perhaps to protest, but Hightower placed a firm hand on her shoulder. “Aye,” the old knight said. “Maybe honors me beyond words, Fiona. I’ll happily accept your maybe. Take all the time you need.”
“We should start by giving you some of that time now,” Donyo said, as he rose. “We’ll check on you soon. You do have one more visitor, however.”
“Martin?” Fiona asked, her heart racing. “He’s alright? Tell him to come in!”
Lord Hightower sighed and Sandra and Donyo exchanged sad glances.
“No,” she breathed. “He didn’t…”
She could not bring herself to ask. If Martin had been a casualty of her brother’s actions, she would never be able to forgive herself for dragging him into it.
“Martin Lightwing will live,” Hightower said at last. “He is in no condition to see anyone at the moment. But the lad is strong, Fiona. He will recover. Don’t worry about that.”
She gave a sigh of relief. “Then who?”
Donyo gave her a nervous look. “Your friend, the Lady Sasha. Would you like to see her?”
Fiona felt her heart ache once more. She had almost forgotten about her. There was so much to say to Sasha Rains, but there was still such animosity that came to mind as she thought of her. “Tell Sasha not now,” she said at last.
“Not now,” Donyo repeated, but with a look that seemed to offer her a last chance to reconsider. For a few painful seconds Fiona realized she wanted nothing more than her friend to run in and embrace her. But so much had happened. She didn’t know if she could handle all of that, not yet anyway.
“Not now,” Fiona said, more certainly. “But tell her not to leave the castle. There are certainly some things I would like to tell her, when I’m ready. I expect that will be soon.”
We’ve reached the end of Song One but we’re far from the end of the whole ballad. To get get updated on the release of Song Two you can sign up for my newsletter at csvass.com. As a bonus I’ll even send you a free short story.
Info on free short story: I’m looking forward to writing the tales of a young Geoff Hightower. If you would like to hear about his early days as a wandering swordsman on the outskirts of a war-torn society, sign up at csvass.com and I’ll send you the first short story, The Silent Groan of Falling Stars, free.
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About the Author
As the traditional advice so strongly insists, I was going to write this section in the third person. I then considered that writing epic fantasy (hell, writing any fiction at all) probably already makes a person seem crazy enough. So forgive me for the lack of formality.
I’m a longtime lover of fantasy, having grown up on Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. I could have told you I’d be writing books as a career when I was six, though I probably would have stubbornly disbelieved anyone who told me I wouldn’t publish one for another twenty years. I live in New Orleans and am eagerly awaiting the end of the broiling summer months almost as much as I’m eagerly awaiting the release of Song Two.