Wind Magic

by Nicolette Jinks

  Kragdomen rose out of the cliff side, both carved into its natural caves and build up with stone masons and carefully cut blocks. The builders gave preference to the Gothic architecture with pointed arches and lead-lined window panes reminiscent of those which belonged in a church. Being here, this time as a resident, changed my outlook.

  Before, it had been a castle, a place teeming with strange people and mysteries. Now it was to be my home, massive and needing care with an eye to the future. So many of its corridors warranted exploring, and so did its history.

  But there was pride in being accepted to living here, too, and joy. And fear. Before, if someone didn't like me, it didn't matter. Now I sought acceptance and felt keenly the gap which was between me and the people who had grown up in this place.

  At the moment, there weren't people lingering outside on the ramparts or out in the fields below. For that matter, the skies were clear, just a robins-egg blue with little tails of cirrus clouds dispersed between clumps of white fluffy cumulus.

  “Not ready to go yet?” he asked after a few minutes.

  “I don't know if it feels like I'm coming home permanently, or if I'm intruding.”

  “It feels a bit strange to me as well.” Mordon smiled and started to say something else, but coughed instead.

  “Not how you planned bring home your bride?”

  He slung an arm over my shoulder and gave me a tight squeeze. “We can call it a break in tradition.”

  I chuckled, not out of amusement but because I felt obligated to. For his sake. Still we didn't move, we just held there, waiting...no, not waiting. Being. It's a different thing to wait than it is to simply be.

  Gradually, we continued on the trail. Twenty minutes later we came through the wildest part of the gardens that Nest tended. I’d come through here in the past, unaware that it represented the well-being of the people in the colony. Each person had a plant they were tied to. Nest knew who was what, but she told no one else. Except once, she’d told me a name.

  “Wait,” I called to Mordon.

  He stopped in his tracks, intrigued rather than alarmed.

  We’d come to the pair of rosebushes. One was a deep, true red; the other, a silvery blue. Both arched over a bench, but I could not have reached that bench today. A dense vine climbed over rock and trail, enveloping the bench entirely. The worst of it was that it assaulted the red rose bush as if strangling it.

  “What is that?” Mordon asked.

  “Morning glory.” I checked the leaves. “The wild kind is called chokeweed or bindweed.”

  “Is this the wild kind?”

  “Guess we’ll know if the flowers are small when it blooms.” I grabbed a handful of it and yanked, feeling the satisfying rip of roots releasing topsoil. Before I could grab another handful, the space left vacant was regrown right before my eyes. I wondered what to do now. “That would be why Nest hasn’t weeded it yet.”

  I threw the weed on the ground.

  Mordon nodded, his brow furrowed in thought. I didn’t like this. Someone, or something, was going to cause trouble.

  We made our way to the nearest stone tower. Mordon ducked into a low door, and we walked through a round room with gardening tools lining the walls. Up a few steps, we entered a hallway with glassless narrow windows. Our feet scuffed, echoing through the slender hall made in the walls of the castle. An opening let us out into an alley against white daub-covered buildings.

  Presently we stepped into a street with timber frame shops whose upper stories hung a few feet over the river rock cobbled street below. The daub in between brown timbers was painted in varying shades of white, cream, and green. Rectangular-paned bay windows jutted from the face of a single stone building at the far end. Signs swayed from iron arms, advertizing various goods.

  “Wow!” I felt as if I’d walked into a Victorian shopping scene.

  Mordon slung an arm about my waist to pull me close. “Have I never shown you the Shambles before? How negligent of me.”

  A group of sixteen-year-old boys sauntered by, laden with books in linen satchels. One punched the other in the shoulder, starting a bit of horseplay. I stepped to avoid the smallest of the group, and others noticed Mordon.

  Mordon raised a single eyebrow.

  They straightened up in a heartbeat, breathing a little hard, and bowed to him. “Lord Mordon. Lady Feraline.”

  “You young misters are behaving like hatchlings.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry.”

  “Are you going to your apprenticeships?”

  “Yes, sir.” They waited in clear anticipation, wanting to know if they were in trouble.

  “Best hurry,” Mordon said.

  They dipped heads and bolted. Mordon put out a hand to the smallest boy, stopping all four. “Mister Woods, you are taking a very long route to the glass maker’s. I advise against it.”

  The boy resisted giving lip, simply saying, “Sir,” as he turned to go back the way he came. The remaining boys continued without excess exuberance.

  “Killjoy,” I teased Mordon.

  He smiled, held out his arm for me to take. A nearly-adult girl in a clean apron stood with a tray of quartered muffins before a buttery-scented shop whose windows advertised Fields’ Bakery and Confectionery – Finest in Stock.

  “Uncle Mordon, we got blueberries from Ferdinand today.” She held out a plate with exploded berries embedded in a white muffin with lemon rind.

  “Thank you, Kit,” he said and gave one to me.

  If I was expecting sweet, I got tart. Kit would have said more, but was soon distracted with other people.

  Once we were beneath a sign for a toy dealer, I asked, “I didn’t know you had a niece that old. Nieve’s child is an infant.”

  “Kit isn’t tied by blood. She came as an orphan at about four years old. The Woods family found her by the dam which is a few hours flight upriver. We never found anyone missing her, and we suspect her mother committed suicide. The dam is a hotspot for that. So she was raised with the Woods, but she would speak to me alone for years. She called me Uncle. I think she thought I was someone kind from her early years. She still doesn’t like conflict or raised voices, so I believe her early life was not happy. The transition here was difficult, and I never tried to stop her from calling me Uncle.”

  “Oh.” I glanced back to find her laughing with a middle-aged couple. “She knows the truth now?”

  “Yes, but it changes nothing. She’s not a shifter, but she does have a knack for weights, measurements, recipes. I think she may be a bit fey.”

  “Possibly.”

  “We could do to have more diversity.”

  I gazed around at the relaxed people tending to their grocery lists, checking the windows of delis and produce shops. I realized I’d found exactly what I thought I wouldn’t—a bakery in the heart of the Colony, a population whose tastes ran adverse to sugar and sweetness. Was this simply because there wasn’t an influx of people to bring in new products and ideas?

  “Several of the feys decided to stay after the Wildwoods burned,” Mordon continued. “They’ve set up shops. One sells clothing—spider silk and the like. A couple others opened an apothecary, they hope to work closely with you. The rest banded together for a garden supply. They’re being received well. By most people.”

  “Let me guess. Some people aren’t happy with the ‘interference’?”

  “You can’t satisfy everyone, and civil progress has historically always been unpopular,” Mordon said, guiding me off the Shambles and towards the center of the colony. “In a few years, everyone will see their lives aren’t over and will continue as normal when they have a new topic to anger them.”

  We stepped into a full-blown market where farmers sold their produce on tables and hobbyists displayed their colorful treasures. Musicians played violins, metal drums, and flutes. A whooping, whirling dance floor occupied the area around the castle well, drawing a crowd.

  Mordon led us around the noisy crowd, approachin
g a mammoth building with stone columns. Though the town square had been transformed by the weekly market, the Mead Hall was as it had always been.

  Inside, giant windows were filled with stained glass and the massive chandelier high overhead rotated slowly with its many crystals. Benches and chairs lined rough hewn tables. People got their food from a cooking fire in the middle. I was met with a waft of roasting lamb—and something else, something nutty and green. Soft voices rose and fell in conversation from a cluster of six people at a table, drinking brew or ale in this odd time when some people were in the middle of their work while others were ending a long summer night in the field.

  Candles burned in nooks and crannies, seemingly kept alive no matter what the hour. Wax had been allowed to build up in layers: purple, red, white. Chimes hung in the entryway, tinkling from time to time.

  A big, burly man got up from the table. “Mordon. Glad to see you, boy.”

  “And you,” Mordon said, clasping his father’s forearms.

  “Sit with us, and you as well, chicklet,” Aeron said. He introduced me to others at the table.

  “We were thinking we have a Watcher ready to go into the wide world,” Aeron said.

  “Excellent,” Mordon said. “I was thinking it was time to return.”

  That caught my attention. “You’re giving up King’s Ransom?”

  He shook his head. “Temporary closure. The recent market troubles are coming to a head, and I think it’s best if I’m not there to stir the pot. Once matters calm, I can hire a manager.”

  Aeron nodded once, his eyes moving to me as he addressed Mordon, “So, you plan on staying home?”

  “I think it may be for the best. I’ve made no secret about my ties to Kragdomen, and I think our next Watcher would be best served if they kept a low profile.”

  “Agreed. And does this mean we are to celebrate a mating flight?”

  Mordon stilled, thinking. “I do not see why not. Fera?”

  I shrugged. “I’m totally ignorant, but it sounds self-explanatory. I guess so?”

  “If you would like to settle into a permanent place here, we make a mating flight in view of witnesses. If you don’t want competition, then we don’t have to arrange any.”

  “Uh. I don’t think I’d stand up too well against competition,” I said frankly. Mordon chuckled and I realized my mistake. “Oh. Um. Uh. I think not.”

  I remembered the chokeweed on his rosebush in Nest’s garden and wondered if this mating flight had anything to do with its upset.

  “We can go very basic. A simple flight with the two of us one evening. Have them throw a couple more lambs on the spit for a feast, accompanied by the usual ceremonial cream brew. It will be the least fussy flight in ages.”

  I relaxed instantly. “Sounds good.”

  “We’ll go in the air a couple times to build up your wings. Do you think we should set a formal date in a week or two?”

  “A week. Just get it over with. Formalities.”

  Aeron turned to the others. They shrugged. A week, two weeks, a month. It didn’t matter to them.

  Aeron began to talk about the coming wheat harvest, about how much hay they would have to store up for the livestock for winter, about what the surplus was that they could sell and where. Beneath the table, Mordon took my hand and gave it a squeeze. The butterflies in my stomach calmed fractionally.

  As we stood to leave, Aeron faced us again. “Why don’t you take Fera out and around? Show her the currents and scenic flights.”

  Mordon grinned. “That sounds like a plan.”

  Chapter Nine

  The clifftop hike was steep and well-worn, but the breeze kept the sweat off my shoulders. At least, it wasn’t horrifically hot as we climbed to the top of the rocky face. It was beginning to cool from the heat of the day though not yet time for another meal, a time when many people were situating children for their after-lessons practice. In the fields below, it was a quiet day with utter stillness, though up here a good stiff wind whistled through the boulders.

  Mordon guided us over the lip of the canyon rim, where the breeze blew over dried grasses, and there we stopped for a breather. As my heart rate quieted, I sat down and watched the clouds drift through the blue sky. I saw swallows fly in their swooping way, taking mouthfuls of mud from the river and canals to make their mud nests with. Large damselflies hovered over a seep spring which trickled over the canyon’s edge.

  And then Mordon stirred from his place leaning against a boulder.

  I rocked up onto my knees, then climbed onto my feet. Mordon held out a hand to support me, and reached for the sky.

  He said, “I cannot decide which is better, flying or shifting. They both feel wonderful.”

  Wonderful? Weird. There were many things I would call shifting, but wonderful was not amongst them. I supposed that when I thought of it as the process of being able to go from one body to the next, then yes, it was wonderful. But did it feel that way?

  Now that I studied his expression, I saw in his silent wonder and still smile that he meant exactly as he said. He really did find it wonderful. Sometimes I felt so inadequate, as if I should already know all of these things that others did. Particularly when I was here in the drake colony, with people who had been around shifting their entire lives. It took all my effort to suppress the feeling, and then to fight the blush when I admitted,

  “I don’t like shifting.”

  “I love it. It feels like stepping into a hot bath.”

  He wasn’t looking at me. The comment had barely registered, as he was so lost in his own thoughts and reflections. Irritation got the better of me.

  “Well, good for you. For me it’s itchy scales, stretched tendons, and painful muscles.”

  He froze, at first not understanding what I meant, then I watched as a furrow formed over his brow and his eyes drifted over my face and skin. “Truly?”

  I licked my lips and swallowed hard. “Sometimes it’s tolerable, but it's not comfortable.”

  Mordon closed his eyes, exhaling slowly while rubbing his fingers against his hairline.

  I remembered what it was like to be woken out of a nightmare to find that my skin was hardening to scales, my nails growing out to claws. When I wanted to shift, it wasn't anything more than uncomfortable, the way my skin and muscle stretched and bones distorted; but when I didn't plan on doing it, every twinge became a stab, every tug a searing pain. Once I was in the dragon form, occasionally my body tensed and cramped like a hundred growing pains.

  Mordon's lionlike eyes opened, watching me with a sympathetic smile. “How often?”

  “Four times so far. Twice in one day, the first time that it felt like that.”

  His hand enveloped mine, warm and solid and secure. “Everyone goes through it.”

  I raised a skeptical brow. “Really.”

  “Yes, usually when they're a child.”

  Great. I tried to pull back, but he held my hand harder and continued, “Or, it happens after they've started to shift. During periods of prolonged stress, it can start again. If you can fly or stretch, it relieves some of the discomfort.”

  “Discomfort? When was the last time you had to endure it?”

  “When I thought I lost you the first time, all those years ago.”

  I studied him, not entirely sure we were thinking of the same thing. “When I lost my magic?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was a kid.”

  “I didn't know your age, and we were friends. Someone I could focus on and talk to through thoughts, images, whispers. I didn't know who was replying, all I knew was that we did communicate, and we shared things I told no one else.”

  We hadn't talked about those times since the concept of a doppelganger was first introduced to me by Denise in the typical roundabout almost-inarticulate adolescent way. Mordon had never brought up the subject so directly, and I felt awkward to be the first one to start the conversation. I squirmed in my seat. “I thought you were imaginary.”


  He smiled, his eyes distant and unfocused. “You were too contradictory to be imaginary. And always up to doing one thing or another. It was my intention to meet with you, but you had very intriguing reasons for not making the trek.”

  I blushed. “All made-up, I'm sure. Didn't want to admit that my parents would have said no way.”

  “I'm not sure what I would have done if we'd met before we did.”

  The image of a young adult Mordon meeting with a twelve-year-old version of me made me smile. I'd had a huge crush on him, and had made no effort to hide that fact. He'd been cheeky and had never told me if the affection was returned, but I suspected it was. The age difference would have been bad news at that time. But now … actually, speaking of age difference, how much difference was there? “How old were you when I lost my magic?”

  “Old enough to be humbled from cocky arrogance. Young enough to not know how to find you through our connection.”

  “How old are you now?”

  He laughed, the sound uplifting my spirits instantly. “Do you care?”

  “I've been wondering.”

  “Do I have to say?”

  “There's not, like, a whole generation difference, is there?” I tried to look horrified. According to what Denise had said, the gap should be less than ten years, but I knew that jumping to the wrong conclusion would prompt Mordon into talking.

  “No, nothing like that,” Mordon said. “I was twenty-two when you lost your magic. A double-number year is always ill luck.”

  “So, there's ten years exactly. Huh.” I remembered a conversation I'd eavesdropped on between Mordon and my father. “You must have talked fast to get my dad to not skin you alive. He’d hit the roof, if he knew our ages.”

  “I was not wholly honest with him. It would be for the best if he remained unenlightened.”

  “Does this mean that you'll get all old and crotchety and I'm still going to be young and sprightly?” I asked.

  He couldn't keep from the initial burst of a grin, but it faded as a more serious thought gave his voice a sad edge. “Fera, about that. I'll live for a long time, but we don't know about you.”