Rafen (The Fledgling Account Book 1)

by Y. K. Willemse

  “Did he want you for a slave? Did he want to keep you under his eye?”

  “No,” Rafen said, not meeting his eyes.

  “I must speak to Arlene about this, Rafen. We will put this in our letter to King Albert. He cannot doubt the veracity of our tale now. If you remember anything more about your interview, please tell me. You will, won’t you, Rafen?”

  “Yes,” Rafen said quietly.

  “You’re a good lad, Rafen.”

  Rafen glanced at his face. King Robert’s eyes were lit with a nervous gleam as he turned to leave.

  *

  Over the next few days, Rafen tried to coax King Robert to tell him more about the Lashki Mirah. The idea that the whole interview had been a dream sequence created in Rafen’s head sent a shudder down his spine. He wanted to know who the Lashki had been before he became immortal, how he traveled, how he fought, and how he had gained his power. King Robert was masterful at changing the topic.

  The Lashki lurked in Rafen’s mind, haunting him when he slept each night. He had killed Fritz and Thomas in the dream. Then he had turned on Rafen, even though he was a mere boy.

  Rafen sometimes had the horrible feeling they were being followed. Still, the Lashki would surely not pursue them all the way to Siana.

  Trying unsuccessfully to focus on some sentences, he gently turned the faded parchment page by the corner like Queen Arlene had taught him. His reading had improved radically in three months at sea, surprising both himself and perhaps even Queen Arlene. Now he was reading Perils of the Mortal, a famous Sartian work most children of the Sianian nobility knew by heart.

  “‘Ahead of him was a light,’” he murmured to himself, “‘and he approached it, therefore.’”

  Rafen ran his fingers over the stiff page and red ink. He was sitting on the bed in Queen Arlene’s cabin. The queen herself often gave him permission to be here. This time, she had left him while she made one of her rare excursions to the deck.

  “‘And lo, on the piebald shore, the woman lay much changed in aspect.’”

  This book was like life: everyone kept dying.

  Someone shouted in the hall, “Land is sighted!”

  Dropping the book, Rafen rushed through the long hall and onto the deck. In the distance, a speck lay on the creased sea. Rafen waited by the railing while Siana grew bigger. Now that his body was more accustomed to the pitching of the ship, to the sunlight and fresh air, he loved being at sea. He spent hours on the deck, sending his spirit flying on the clouds in the endless space between sea and sky. Leaning forward, he held his breath, eyes fixed on the land ahead. He didn’t know if he was happy or not.

  Hours passed. Etana flitted to his side. She leaned against the railing, snapping her fingers and muttering to herself, attempting to do kesmal. As usual, only a few faint bursts of yellow light were the results.

  “Why, why?” she asked angrily. “I did kesmal in Tarhia.”

  “When?” Rafen asked.

  Etana explained how she had transformed into something snakelike on the Tarhian heath. Rafen wasn’t really listening. There was something magical about her voice and eyes. He felt he knew her so well… and she knew him so little. It was frustrating.

  King Robert joined them, now and then glancing at Rafen with concern. Rafen wished he’d never mentioned the Lashki. The king now treated him like he had a rare, fatal illness. Etana fell silent and returned to her finger snapping.

  “Arlene prefers to watch the sea alone,” King Robert said.

  Rafen and Etana gazed at Queen Arlene’s solitary, willowy figure on the upper quarterdeck by the railing. She was tense with disgust. Perhaps King Robert had recently made one of his valiant attempts at affection for her. Rafen turned back to the growing land on the horizon.

  “Soon you’ll be in Siana,” King Robert said to him.

  Rafen’s heart sank for the umpteenth time. Recently, he had been thinking of hiring himself out to people when he arrived. Yet he would be Tarhian in a land that would soon hate the mention of Tarhia, and the only labor he knew was picking up rocks or carrying loads through narrow places.

  Then he gritted his teeth. He would survive. Tarhia was not going to beat him in the end.

  “…and a room, which we will of course arrange, my dear boy,” King Robert was saying.

  “Yes, Sire,” Rafen said absently.

  Etana looked like she was restraining a laugh.

  “I don’t think you heard anything I said.” King Robert eyed him quizzically. “You are usually gratitude itself. I was saying Arlene and I have arranged that you should live with us in the palace, as a close friend of the family, you might say.”

  Rafen thought he hadn’t heard correctly. He tried replaying what King Robert had said in his head.

  “Did you hear it that time?” King Robert asked worriedly. “You’re merely staring at me, Rafen.”

  “It’s all right, Rafen, and you mustn’t be upset because of charity or anything,” Etana said. “Father doesn’t mean it like that.”

  “W-why?” Rafen looked up at the king.

  “Whatever do you mean? Rafen, are you ill?” King Robert said.

  “Why would you do this for me?” Rafen choked, his eyes burning. “I’m a Tarhian… a slave. I’m—”

  “You’re the boy that rescued my daughter,” King Robert said, a smile lighting his face, “and we will be forever indebted to you.”

  Etana’s eyes, brimming with happiness, met his.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  New Isles

  Now Siana was really unfurling. Dark green hills became visible, and behind them, blue and purple peaks scraped the halo of the sky, in which the pearly crescents of the three moons of the Mio Pilamùr hung. A great forest bristled left of the hills. The image of a stony wall appeared in Rafen’s mind, and he itched to run through trees.

  “Those are the Haer Mountains,” King Robert said in a hushed tone, pointing at the peaks.

  Soon they were close enough to see more than landscape.

  “Look.” King Robert sketched some tall wooden walls that surrounded a dense crowd of elongated houses with tiled roofs. A giant clock tower rose amid them. “That’s the city of New Isles, my boy.”

  A number of large fortresses and manors edged the city. On a scarcely perceptible rise nearby, an expansive castle stood, a grand cubic keep surrounded by inner and outer walls. Turrets raised their crimson flags on high.

  “That’s home.” Etana indicated the castle.

  Rafen stopped himself from laughing at the understatement.

  “It is your home too,” she said, catching the look on his face.

  A bustling crowd covered the wharf of the harbor that the Phoenix Wing and the Sianian Crest approached.

  “I told the steward a week ago that we expected to arrive on this date,” King Robert said. “You see, Rafen, in Siana the people are summoned to meet royalty whenever they disembark at the harbor. It saves so much time and bother to address them all together then. Much of the nobility will be there, and I shall be perfectly honest with all of them.”

  The sun glittered on the sea, and the water became a network of patterns, each one a cobweb of jewels. The gulls were crying in the open sky above.

  His eyes shuttered, Rafen let a deep breath expand his ribs. Beside him, King Robert had allowed himself to trail off, mesmerized. Etana looked as if she were dreaming.

  Rafen walked down the gangplank behind Etana as King Robert had arranged. King Robert had taken great care to organize what he called the “procession”. He came first, a group of armed soldiers surrounding him by Alexander’s request. Then Queen Arlene, Etana, Rafen, and Alexander followed. The rest of the crew would join them later.

  “Look, Rafen!” Etana said excitedly. She pointed to five finely dressed young people on the wooden wharf. They stood at the front of the crowd with a large portion of the nobility, who were distinguishable by their attire and mannerisms. “Those are my siblings. That’s Annette. Do you
know, I thought she left me the day of my capture? It turned out one of those horrible Tarhians had distracted her.”

  Annette was a statuesque, elegant woman with straight, night black hair and hooded eyes.

  “Annette’s the oldest,” Etana said. “And that’s dear Robert.”

  She indicated a thin young man thoughtfully chewing his fingernails. “And Kasper, who can be rather stupid.” She gestured toward a mischievous looking sixteen-year-old who was sticking his tongue out at a nobleman in the crowd.

  “That’s Bertilde Calida.” Bertilde was a dreamy, innocent-faced girl with soft blue eyes and buttercup yellow hair.

  “And Bambi.” At nine years old, black-haired Bambi was a chattering imp.

  “All these people are your family?” Rafen stared

  “Yes,” Etana said breathlessly, her face flushed. “I can see them again at last… I’m sure they’ve missed me. After all, I’m the Secra.” She drew herself up.

  Rafen remembered a Secra changed the times with her birth and had unusual kesmalic gifts. Etana had had a whole new age declared because of her, and she was anxious to preserve Rafen’s admiration, despite his seeing her siblings.

  “My people.”

  King Robert had reached the wooden wharf and now walked before his cheering subjects. Etana and Rafen hurried down after him, standing behind the king and beside Queen Arlene against some wrought iron balustrades. Another group of armed sailors surrounded them. Alexander looked torn between hovering around King Robert or Rafen.

  Rafen gazed around the semi-circular harbor at the other ships anchored there: streamlined sailing ships, stinking ships bearing fish, full-bodied sumptuous ships carrying gaudy materials from faraway lands. Merchants and sailors stood amongst the crowd while the king spoke.

  “My people...” King Robert paused, eyeing his audience. He was visibly working hard at a speech. “My people! Perhaps you think you have cause to rejoice. I have returned, and my daughter the Secra is with me. Yet I am faced with a difficult task today. How can I tell you that Tarhia is no longer our ally? How can I tell you that perhaps war is on our horizon?”

  Strained silence fell over the crowd. The nobility muttered about expense.

  “For, my people, it was Tarhia!” he shouted abruptly, so that a number of people jumped. “And Talmon shall pay!”

  The princess Annette, who stood with the other Selsons facing King Robert, narrowed her eyes.

  “Talmon shall pay,” King Robert growled, “if we have to tear his palace apart stone by stone, if we have to muster all the young men in Siana, if we have to offer thousands of doves in the temple for deliverance, if we give all our blood and tears and sweat. I know it sounds dramatic,” he said candidly, “but this is not simply an offense against Siana. This is an offense against the Phoenix who ordained the Secra. This is an offense against the world itself, the world that is threatened by the evil force of Nazt, the world that seeks freedom through the aid of Zion’s Eleven.”

  Although Rafen didn’t understand everything King Robert was saying, he was thinking of Talmon and his Master differently. They weren’t attacking randomly; they had a plan much larger than little princesses and slave boys.

  “Talmon has attacked the roots of all things good,” King Robert went on, “and from this moment, Nazt will not hesitate to capture the hearts of many leaders in the Pilamùric Alliance and the hearts of those who serve them. Our day is the day when loyalties will be tested, when we shall see where truth and goodness lie, and when we shall know what is worth dying for!”

  Rafen thought back to Torius. His blood flamed within him.

  “This is the beginning of the end,” King Robert thundered, “and if we neglect to play our parts we are each and every one of us responsible for the fall of the world!”

  Hours passed before the Selson family had traveled through the city of New Isles. Many of the noblemen wanted to speak to King Robert after his speech, and he had to promise them visits, meetings, discussions. They drove to the palace in a velvet-seated carriage, and King Robert agitatedly told everyone in general how lord such-and-such didn’t believe a word he was saying, and the nobleman so-and-so told him he was exaggerating.

  Beneath his fretting, Queen Arlene murmured in Rafen’s ear, “An ape in king’s clothing.”

  Rafen flushed. He hissed back in his best Sianian vowels, “I think he is brilliant.”

  Queen Arlene looked primly taken aback. Sitting next to him in the carriage, Etana yawned before her mother could respond.

  “Isn’t it boring?” she said.

  “Boring?” Rafen met her gaze firmly. “We’re in Siana. Everything is wonderful.”

  Etana smiled at him.

  The palace was terrifyingly beautiful. Alive with the fresh Sianian air, it was made vivid by tapestries and paintings. The same runes that Rafen had seen on the queen’s cabin door surrounded each doorway in the palace. The high windows were flung open and the breeze wafted in. The ceilings extended far above, diamond chandeliers supporting hundreds of candles hanging from them. Red carpets slid down each flight of steps. While the walls were stone, the framework and floors were wooden. It made Rafen think of trees and living things.

  They passed on foot through the unending outer wall and a garden filled with spreading trees and lush grass. Rafen couldn’t speak. He didn’t want to speak, for fear of breaking the spell.

  When they came to the inner wall of the palace, Queen Arlene said, “Rafen, I’ll send a servant to show you to your room soon. I have business to attend to. Wait there.”

  She left Rafen standing in a large, airy hall with a mosaic floor.

  Rafen then realized how tired he was. The walk here had been over half an hour. This was much bigger than Talmon’s palace. Along the journey, the other princes and princesses had sauntered off, some of them giving Rafen funny looks. And they had every right to. How did one expect royalty to welcome an ex-slave?

  After Queen Arlene departed, King Robert clapped a heavy hand on Rafen’s shoulder. Rafen nearly crumpled.

  “I must speak to my steward,” the king said. “I want you to eat with us, my boy. I’ll see you tonight. A servant will show you to the banquet hall at six.”

  He disappeared as quickly as an overweight man could. One of the soldiers who had escorted them into the palace had mentioned the steward had “let some matters slip”.

  Rafen gazed at the seven white-clad Secrai whom the mosaic on the hall floor depicted. On the far right stood a lone table with a porcelain vase on it. He looked at the wooden beams of the distant ceiling and sighed heavily. The seconds dragged, and he found himself thinking of his phoenix feather. It was ridiculous; he had everything.

  A cold hand gripped his shoulder. Rafen yelped, writhing.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Annette

  The bony fingers released him. Rafen stumbled forward, whirling around to face Annette.

  “What do you want?” he said in his thick accent.

  Annette’s pale green eyes roved his face. “I was interested to see what Tarhia had yielded my father.”

  Rafen’s brows lowered.

  “My father did not mention your name.” Annette’s words had a faint Tarhian lilt. “Pray tell – what is it?”

  “Peter,” Rafen said. King Robert had told him not to reveal his name to anyone untrustworthy; though Rafen was sure the king had not meant his own daughter.

  “You and I both know that your name is not Peter,” Annette said, stooping to look him in the eyes. “Besides which, I am mystified as to how Etana escaped from Talmon’s clutches and reached the Phoenix Wing. It would not – could not – have anything to do with you, could it?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Rafen stumbled backward. Queen Arlene had told him firmly never to speak of Etana’s escape to anyone except possibly the king of Sarient.

  “Then why are you here?” Annette asked.

  Rafen remained silent.

  “You do not give yoursel
f credit,” Annette said. “You are a fool to hide greatness.”

  Turning around, she stalked out of the door at the end of the hall. Rafen breathed shallowly. He wondered if he should tell King Robert about this. Shivering, he started at the sound of faint footsteps.

  “Hello!” someone said.

  He spun around.

  Bertilde stood behind him, her shoulder-length yellow hair tumbling down in shimmering waves and her chubby face glowing. Though she looked only thirteen, she stood over a head taller than him.

  “Well, you’re actually meant to say ‘greetings’ or ‘itizzyohh’. I think that’s how you say it. It’s from another language I’m meant to be learning. Different languages are terribly hard to learn, you know. That’s why,” she said, nodding knowledgably, “the nations – and that’s a very sophisticated word – of the world, the whole world, mostly speak the Vernacular when they meet foreigners. Anyway, I was hoping I would find you. Bambi dragged me off, but I wanted to meet you so much. Did you know you look simply amazing for a Tarhian? Not half foreign. You’ve got lovely eyes. I adore your eyes. Do you like mine?”

  She opened her blue eyes wide and stepped alarmingly close to him.

  “Th-they’re nice,” he stammered.

  Etana hadn’t told him what her siblings were like. So far he was finding them overwhelming.

  “Thank you, thank you very much! Everyone says Etana is beautiful, the beautifulest, and oh, I know she is. I wish I was beautiful too. Isn’t it annoying when little sisters outshine you? She’s only eleven, after all. Don’t you think it would be lovely to be beautiful, with long golden hair, and wearing the most gorgeous dresses and gloves, learning the best of Sianian etiquette?”

  Speechless, Rafen nodded, an image of himself with long blond hair and gloves forming in his mind.

  “What’s your name by the way?”

  “Uh… Rafen – no, Peter,” he said hastily. After his interview with Annette and this latest conversation with Bertilde, he found himself backed into the right wall of the hall, directly beneath a large painting.

  “Peter is a horribly plain name.” Bertilde frowned. “I think Rafen is much, much better! It does sound familiar though. I wonder where I’ve heard it. The ‘ah’ makes it so powerful.”