Wintermore (Aeon of Light Book 1)

by Sethlen, Aron

Yaz, animated and excited, talks with his hands. “Anyway, so Dix, Chilt, and I decided to join the Iinian Guard next spring. It’s official.”

  In deep thought, Deet puckers his lips. “Maybe it’ll be good for you.”

  Grandpa pounds his fist on the wooden cart seat. “Pawns of liars-n-thieves, the lot of them—and givers of death, limps, and scars to boot.”

  “Whatever,” Yaz says, “I gotta get out of this place. I’m no builder like the two of you. And the smell of this town makes me ill, saltwater and fish? Please—”

  “Ha, get ready to be ill, boyo,” Grandpa says. “This work and smell is like sweet-smellin’ roses compared to what you’re lookin’ to get with the old Iinian.”

  Deet cracks the reins. “Yaz, you’re only sixteen, you have time to learn the trade if you just apply yourself. And you know they’re building the rail to Waighton, it might be a good opportunity for you. If it doesn’t work out, the Iinian Guard will always be there for you.”

  “Blades, arrows, and fighting are my skills, Brother, not hammers, measuring, and fish. Besides, the one day a month of conscriptive reserve isn’t enough to hone my brilliant skills with these pathetic amateurs.”

  Grandpa snorts. “You’ll get honed all right, just like my bad hip, and the pain in my knee, and my locked wrist, and my crooked fingers. If honin’s what you want, honin’s what you’ll get.”

  The sky brightens, and Preta counts the trees as they pass by. Birds sing, and Preta hums with the bouncing cart. The road widens as they pass through Nocklin Creek’s stone archway, and Preta blows a kiss at the boy cherub. On the bridge, she watches the rushing water flow over the large boulders below. Preta squints and leans over the cart as something out of place catches her eye. Snagged on a crooked branch, a red sash flutters in the creek’s currents.

  “Preta, how are your studies coming?” Deet says.

  “Oh, doing good, I guess.” Preta sits up and leans forward toward Deet.

  “I can’t believe you’re thirteen and this is your last year—are you excited?”

  “Not really, I kind of wish I wasn’t graduating so soon. School is okay, I guess, at least most of the time. But I don’t know what I’ll do next year yet, since I have to wait another two years before I can start at university.” She rocks her head side to side. “That is if I get excepted.”

  Yaz slaps Deet on his shoulder. “Did you see the pictures she drew? Impressive.”

  Preta smiles. “My teacher says I can study at the Art and Science Academy in Ardinia.”

  “And how in the blazin’ bat brains are you gonna do that?” Grandpa says. “Whose gonna pay for it? And where will you live?”

  “Er—umm—I don’t know. But Ms. Fallow said each township can put in for a special dispensation of admission for one student every year.”

  Yaz reaches back and squeezes Preta’s knee. “Don’t worry, you can come with me to Ardinia, we’ll go together.”

  “Shut up, fool,” Grandpa says. “You gonna take your sister to a barracks camp? Are you out of your mumpin’ mind? Might as well just hand her over to a pack of wolves.”

  Deet tilts his head toward Preta. “Maybe, you never know, maybe you can even be our representative someday, but there’s also the Higher School in Bielston, maybe you can apply there.”

  Grandpa waves his hand in disgust. “Dee, come on now, not you too, for cryin’ out loud, don’t fill her up with hope and dreams. Look, Preta my girl, you can try of course, and we’ll support you 100 percent, but those things just don’t go to the likes of us.”

  Preta, defensive, talks with her hands. “I mean, I was just saying… Ms. Fallow said I have talent and I could go if I apply for the dispensation.”

  Grandpa sighs. “Of course you have talent, you’re a Penter. But you’re also from a modest family on the farthest island in the Republic. You have a life here, a future, and you’re a pretty girl, maybe you can teach, or open a shop, or become a builder like your grandpa and brother.”

  Preta’s shoulders slump. “Yeah, I guess so, I know, Gramps.”

  Yaz swats the air. “Preta can still come with me if she wants to—bugger this fish-ridden place. A bore to death if you ask me.”

  “Stubborn fool, nobody asked you,” Grandpa says.

  Preta leans out the side of the cart to get a better view of Waighton approaching.

  The road widens and transitions to fitted square stones as they enter the main Waighton thoroughfare.

  Brightly colored pastel A-frame cottages and shops of all sizes line the streets. The black slate roofing tiles accentuate the motif. Multicolored flower gardens separate the black brick sidewalks and roads. White-and-black smoke billows out of the chimneys in linear columns. Flowers, fresh baking bread, the sea, and the soot, linger in the air. The streets are awake with men and women moving with purpose in all different directions. Storefront venders point and holler as horse-drawn carts cross men on bicycles dodging the pedestrians.

  A burly, portly woman with a hairy mole above her upper lip pushes a worn grey wooden cart overflowing with coal. “Get your coal here, get your coal, get it before the freeze, supplies-a-short, prices only going up. Get your coal here, get your coal, running out fast.”

  Deet raises his finger high above his head to catch the vender’s attention. “Coal, coal.”

  The woman stops next to their cart. “Two coppers and a half a bucket.”

  Deet’s eyes widen in shock. “Two and a half a bucket? You’ve got to be joking—since when? Last time it was only one copper a bucket.”

  “Since supplies-a-short and winter is coming. What do you expect with all the steam and mechanical contraptions their building? You’re lucky I don’t charge four coppers, or even a silver nib.”

  “Really?” Deet says.

  “Really,” the woman says, not flinching. “Now do you want the coal or not? I’ve got good paying customers waiting.”

  Deet snorts. “Fine, give me three.” He plops seven coppers and a half into the woman’s calloused, black hand.

  The coal peddler smirks with a gleam in her eye. “Three it is.” The woman scoops the coal with a giant wooden scooper and dumps it into a large metal pail. “Where you want it?”

  Deet frowns and flicks his head toward the back of the cart. “In the far left corner.” He leans over to Grandpa and whispers in his ear. “Damned two and a half coppers a bucket, unbelievable.”

  Grandpa nods. “Like I been saying, times-a-changing.”

  The woman dumps the last bucket into the back and slaps the cart twice with her palm. “You’re set—nice day to you.”

  Deet ignores the woman and cracks the reins. “A silver nib—freakin’ unbelievable.”

  The cart stops next to a gaggle of kids huddled outside a cobblestone building with an engraving of an inkwell above the door.

  Preta hops off with her backpack in hand.

  Deet leans over the rails. “Preta, meet us at the Meezer’s after your studies.”

  “I will, no problem, see yah later.” She slithers past the gaggle with her head held low and enters a large classroom, black scuff marks streak the worn varnished wood.

  The tall room, twenty-feet high knotty pine walls, brightens as a slender woman with mouse-like features, long glossy brown hair, thin spectacles, and wearing a light grey sweater and loose brown wool trousers, opens wood shutters letting in the light.

  A large fire blazes in a six-foot-long fireplace at the back of the schoolhouse, and children of all ages carry wood in through the back door and stack it in a neat pile in the corner.

  Preta sits at a small desk in front of a blackboard on rollers.

  The children take their seats, and the teacher strolls by Preta.

  “Good morning, Preta,” the teacher says in a friendly tone.

  “Good morning, Lur—uh, Ms. Fallow.”

  Ms. Fallow smiles, and her kind eyes beam. “I’m sorry you missed class yesterday and were sick. Are you feeling better?”

  �
��Yes, much better, thanks.”

  Ms. Fallow gracefully glides to the front of the classroom. “Class, take your seats, and settle down.”

  Preta taps a black-haired girl sitting next to her. “Hey, Kilsa.”

  Kilsa tilts her head toward Preta. “Hey you, I heard someone tried to kill you in the Nocklin and a boy died.”

  “What? Who told you?”

  “The Detler boy first, and, well, everyone knows.”

  Preta’s eyes bulge with anger, and she grabs Kilsa’s wrist. “How does everyone know?”

  Ms. Fallow waves at Preta and Kilsa. “Girls, if you please, attention up front.”

  They both snap up straight and look forward.

  Ms. Fallow points at a chalkboard with lessons written on it. “Now, class, after the general lesson and practicals in specialties, thirteen-year-olds will pair up with eight-year-olds and study basic ciphering; twelve-year-olds will pair up with nine-year-olds and study arithmetic; and ten-and-eleven-year-olds self-study and complete the problems on the two blackboards. As for our general lesson today—any guesses? Anyone?” Ms. Fallow grins and raises her arms wide above her head. “Government!”

  “Uh—” moans the class.

  “Now, now, class.”

  “Uh—” moans the class again.

  “Now, nine-year-olds, who can tell me the forms of government represented throughout Vetlinue?”

  Preta scans the room, and silence fills the void.

  Ms. Fallow gives up and opens her arms. “All right, anyone in the class?”

  “Of course, Clist,” Preta mutters out the corner of her mouth.

  A medium-sized boy with a reddish pig nose and short, coarse, stringy auburn hair raises his hand. He sways his milky-skinned puffy arm in a circle, trying to get the teacher’s attention.

  Ms. Fallow ignores him and gently taps her foot as if counting in her head.

  The class is silent and no other student raises their hand.

  Ms. Fallow glances from student to student. Her gaze searches for wandering eyes to connect with hers. The students stare in every direction but hers, trying to avoid the teacher’s trap.

  Preta peers into the fire as she counts in her head, buying time before someone is caught.

  A creak in the floorboards triggers Preta’s brain to peek at the noise.

  Ms. Fallow stands with hands on hips right in front of Preta.

  Preta panics. She has me, shoot.

  “Preta,” Ms. Fallow says, “good. Now, what are the forms of government you know of in Vetlinue, and why is ours different?”

  Preta sucks in a vocalized inhale. “Brenton is an island territory within the Republic of Iinia. Iinia is composed of representative elected officials from all the realms within the Republic.”

  Ms. Fallow eagerly nods. “Yes, and?”

  “The kingdom of Erden which is north of Iinia, has a constitutional king with a parliament and a system of lords. And the far northern kingdom of Lasteane is a phylarchy made up of three ancient families holding 25 percent of power each, and the elected army commander holds the other 25 percent.”

  “Good, anymore?” the teacher says.

  “There’s the western kingdom of Bastin across the Estrone Strait and Matar Mountains, which is sort of a republic made up of a patchwork of territorial states, but they still hold onto the lord system. And last there’s Asparsa, lying on the West Sea and west of the Creth Desert, but I don’t know much about them.”

  Ms. Fallow nods excessively. “Correct, Preta, very good.” She opens her arms toward the class. “Would anyone else care to add anything more? No one? All right, class, as Preta explained—”

  Preta’s eyes drift away from the blackboard and they lock onto the fire. Her mind wanders far from Ms. Fallow and government and back to the other night in the forest. She wonders where the boy and the woman came from. From Iinia? Maybe Erden? Her mind transitions back to Yaz’s offer to bring her to Ardinia with him. Excitement grows and her insides tickle at the thought of leaving Brenton with her brother and going to university to sculpt or write or act or paint.

  Ms. Fallow taps the chalkboard with a long stick, snapping Preta from her dream. “Class, any questions? No? All right, start your individual practicals and in an hour get with your partners or continue your studies.”

  The time passes in a blur, and Preta finishes her writing practical and then tutors ciphering and arithmetic to an eight-year-old. Class ends at midday, and Preta heads outside to meet up with Deet and the others for lunch.

  “Preta, wait up,” Kilsa says, trotting behind and trying to catch up.

  Preta slows her pace. “Hey you.”

  “You meeting your brother now?”

  “Yeah, Deet is finishing the Meezer cottage.”

  “How about Yaz?”

  “Umm, yeah—he’s probably there too.”

  Kilsa beams. “Can I—”

  Clist bullies his way between Preta and Kilsa. “Look at Preta, Preta the show-off Penter.”

  Preta’s face twists as if she ate rotten rubbish. “Clist.”

  With flaring nostrils, Clist flaps his arms and body like a gyrating jellyfish. “Real smart, Preta, Preta the show-off Penter. Phylarchy—where’d you hear that one?”

  Preta sarcastically cocks her head to the side. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe a book. You know what those things are, right?”

  Clist’s cronies join the fray. A short boy with two long front teeth like a beaver points at Preta’s chest. “Eh, Preta, you sure know lots of fancy shmancy words.”

  “Better fancy shmancy than simple. Though I guess that’s what you get for being friends with this repugnant, hot-aired, mouth-breathing nitwit—simpletons.”

  Clist slides to within an arm’s length of Preta. He’s so close she can smell the foul odor of his hot, moist breath. Clist’s brow arches with evil intent. “Nitwit, is it? Simpleton? At least I don’t get people killed; like my mother or father or a helpless boy in the woods.” Clist smirks and bounces up and down as his cronies laugh in a bellowing chorus.

  Preta’s hands clinch into shaking fists. Blood rushes to her head, making it throb. A glimmer of aqua-blue light ripples over Preta’s eyes.

  Clist crouches, scrunches his nose, and pretends to cry.

  Preta’s fist shoots forward, striking Clist on the bridge of his nose.

  Blood sprays to the ground.

  In shock, Clist stumbles backward. “What—”

  Preta strikes again, this time with her other fist as she moves forward, stalking him for another blow.

  Clist continues wobbling backward and trips over his own feet, falling onto his butt with a hard plop.

  Preta kicks his stomach and then straddles his torso with her boots. She collapses to her knees, pinning Clist down. Preta swings her arms wildly, striking him from face to body and back again. “Everybody dies—my fault—dies—everybody—die—you die, pig!”

  Ms. Fallow frantically drags Preta off Clist. “Stop it. Preta Penter, stop!”

  Preta stands up light-headed from the exertion. Her face beet red, she breathes in deep, erratic snorts.

  “Everybody dies,” Preta mumbles with spit flying out of her mouth. Her arms shake with fists ready to strike.

  Clist, on the ground and covered in blood, whimpers, rocking side to side.

  Preta eyes him with aggressive focus, no tears, and no sympathy. She’s an animal ready to pounce on her prey for round two if Ms. Fallow releases her.

  Ms. Fallow points at Clist’s cronies. “You there, you three, get him home, now.” She tugs on Preta’s arm. “And you, come with me.”

  Preta resists Ms. Fallow’s tugs. She glares at Clist with rage. Another string of aqua-blue light ripples over her pupils. She catches a crony staring at her.

  The stubby boy’s gaze snaps away, and he fixes his focus on his boot to avoid Preta’s wrath. He crosses his arms and scrapes the dirt with his heel.

  Ms. Fallow tugs again, and Preta finally relents. />
  “What’s wrong with you? That’s no way for a young lady to act.”

  Preta, silent and rigid, doesn’t say a word as she envisions fists and blood and screams for mercy.

  Ms. Fallow forces Preta to look her in the eyes. “Preta?”

  “Oh, all right. He said I get people killed, like my mother and my father and the boy in the woods.”

  Ms. Fallow gently squeezes Preta’s hand. “None of those were your fault. Your father died in war, your mother from sickness, and the boy you never knew. The other day you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t let people get to you like that. Control your emotions.”

  Preta kicks the dirt. “I’ll try, I just—he’s such a—”

  Ms. Fallow places her hand on Preta’s shoulder. “Clist can be a rear-end of a mule, that’s for sure. Though for all our sakes, next time laugh at the mule instead of beating him to a bloody pulp.”

  SALTY TREAT

  Preta and Ms. Fallow reach the end of town and turn onto Fishmongers Lane.

  The fish peddlers stand next to their carts waiting to meet the boats returning with the morning’s catch.

  A hunchbacked old woman no taller than her cart swings a small broom at a skinny, scruffy middle-aged man. “Blet, you blue-nosed filthy rat, get off my spot.”

  Preta and Ms. Fallow giggle.

  “Halona putting Blet in his place, again,” Ms. Fallow says.

  Preta rolls her eyes then giggles. “As usual, though he sure is persistent.”

  The fishermen tie up their small wooden and metal skiffs while others unload fish buckets into large ice-filled metal carts.

  Waves crash over the jagged rocks next to the road, sending a cool mist across Preta’s path. She flinches away to avoid the relentless spray striking her face. Preta wipes her stinging eyes, and salt seeps into her mouth making her lips pucker.

  Ahead, Grandpa sits on a stool while he scrapes a stone block and barks orders.

  Deet peers through a metal measuring instrument as he points, directing two men holding string and spikes.

  Using a long crowbar, Yaz wedges a medium-sized stone block into place on the foundation.

  Deet quickly waves his hand back and forth. “And—there, mark.” He wipes his sweaty brow with his sleeve and grins at Preta and Ms. Fallow approaching. “Here come my two favorite girls.”