Once Was: Book One of the Asylum Trilogy

by Miya Kressin

  The Lady’s gifts are as numerous as the stars. Among them, the highest praised are those of the dream-walkers. Should you find yourself to be one of the blessed oneira, prepare yourself for a life of hard work. She only gifts this task on those of extreme strength and talent.

  The First Lessons: The Path Ahead

  When the blacksmith refrained from meeting my gaze, I crossed the distance to his side and rested a hand upon his work-strengthened arm. He was warm beneath my touch from his work and the fire. Cade chanced a brief glance at my dirt-smudged face, and I saw a faint blush spread across his cheeks. It took away all the years since I last saw him. Unlike our last encounter, I had the words of Cade’s patron God running through my veins, encouraging me to stoke the fires between us despite my uncertainty of my own emotions. The divine forge had burned away any true fear of what was contained within Cade’s heart.

  “Is everything alright, Master Smith? I would not have you fall ill on my watch.” After growing up together and so many years apart, I desired to force my way into his arms like the old friends we were, but hard times were upon us all. I was not welcome in this city, maybe not in my own home. Cade was too important to me to endanger his life because I longed for a soft bed and a warm welcome.

  His lips pulled up into a half-smile, one that was tight with worry. When he spoke, it was a whisper of sound that danced between the crackling chunks of hardwood set among sizzling embers of the forge’s fire. “I am just glad to see you home safe, my Lady. Two of your Sisters were interred just days ago. Asha refused to answer any questions. She contacted their former families and had the bodies transported. She left alone, taking Sheelin’s ferryboat with her.”

  Locked on his prior statement, I felt my rage coming to the fore of my thoughts. “What do you mean, former families?” It had always been a painful pride to bear a priestess. Looking back upon the street priest, Avarin’s welcome speech, and the whispers, my anger gave way to curiosity of how far the poison had spread. Was not even Sheelin to be spared? “Cade, what has happened here?”

  He made a deliberate motion of pulling my hood up, his sun-darkened skin carrying a salty musk that filled my senses as he walked me through the courtyard joining our two properties.

  “The war, Roseen. It has reached our shores at long last. I’ve been fearing for your life with each announcement made by the soldiers inside Madani. There are four in the city at any time, one at the gate, one patrolling, and two ready to relieve them on the next shift. There is a full squadron stationed an hour’s hike to the south supervising the construction of the true wall.”

  Despite sensing that I would regret hearing the next words he spoke, I opened my heart to receive them. Cade’s already dark eyes carried the depth of a hopeless night as they bore into mine. “We have been forced to turn out any children with visions to the waters. Under orders of the army, I’ve had to hold back fathers as they watch their daughters drown in the evening tide.”

  The anvil floating on the water in my aisling; Cade held them down even if it was not his hand that forced the children’s faces beneath the waves. I shook my head to clear the memory of the vision. I had thought I would return to find him gone, not one of the harbingers of death. I did not require Cade to explain what had occurred; my abilities as an oneira showed me the hidden truth. The girls intended to be initiates had been drugged with potions before being cast over the edge of the rowboat. Cade’s arm caught me around the waist to hurry me before releasing, and in that moment I was inundated with all the pain washing through Cade’s heart like the dark tide.

  It ebbed around the shelter I offered for a moment as we stepped between the forge and my parents’ abandoned home. The roses between our properties had become overgrown in my extended absence. Though no roses still bloomed upon them, leaves and stems formed a bower of green. Despite care, the trellis-lined path to Mother’s dye garden caught my cloak as we walked. A thorn found itself ensnared within the surplus fabric of my hood and twisted into the threads. No sooner had I reached to lower my sweater’s hood and release the snag, Cade grasped my arm with a painful squeeze.

  “I beg of you, Lady. Do not show yourself here. I would not desire you to be taken by the soldiers. Your kind are not welcome any longer. Asha left for your blasted island after burying her sisters. She told me you would return and that she left you a message.”

  The call. She had felt it, too, or perhaps she had been the one to send it. When I ignored the first twinges of it, Bas had then come to me, demanding my return. Either way, I shrugged, feeling insolent. I did not appreciate being told what I would do. “You told me yourself that I’d return.” At my words, I caught the faintest red grace his cheeks again.

  “Aye.” My eyes fell onto his chin as he rubbed at the unshaven shadow growing there. “Well, I thought you would listen to the other things I said also, Roseen.” He still harbored a flame for me in his heart after all these years. I had thought, or hoped, he would have found a bride while I was away. This could not end well for either of us, despite Aya Wayland’s intentions. Cade’s life was here in Madani with the forge I would never ask him to abandon, and my life was beneath the stars while a part of me still longed for the binding of my youth.

  “You knew when you asked that my heart was not my own to give.” Cade had been one of the witnesses at my lakeside impromptu binding to Fion. As a child, I did not realize how cruel that was to him.

  Cade opened my door for me and ushered me inside, barring the door shut with his broad back propped against the aged wood. “I knew that then, and I know it now.” His crossed arms and the pout of his full lips gave him the look of a stubborn child. “I also know that you’re harboring hope where there is none.” Closing my eyes and turning away from him did not stop the words from coming.

  “Aristeer fell last year. Any unmarried men were forced into the army. Fion was not one of those who marched on our town. He’s either married or dead, Roseen.” His voice was hard as he told me what I knew to be truth.

  I knew that the binding between Fion and I had been severed two years ago; my constant sense of his well-being snapped through me like a loom’s warp thread stretched to its limit before breaking. Before that day, its presence was strong enough to lead me to him upon a direct path across the shortest distance. At the time of my awareness I was not free to determine the meaning. It was after our stolen days within Liand’s camp and my subsequent escape, and I was on the other end of the mapped lands.

  Knowing in my soul that he was lost to me in this life was different than hearing it, and I felt tears welling up unbidden. My friend’s words brought hidden truths to light, sending a cascade of broken dreams over my cheeks. I brushed at the tears with my sleeve, my tattoos showing in the dim light.

  Cade’s footfalls creaked on the old boards as he crossed the room and pulled me back against his chest. I could smell the wood smoke and his sweat, as well as the tang the iron left on the skin of its worker after so many years. His arms went around me, resting just beneath my breasts, as he gave me the only comfort he could. Cade pressed a kiss into my hair, and just that simple action reminded me of all the hurt I had seen in his eyes when I left last time. The same hurt that pushed me to escape Madani without saying good-bye.

  *

  “Don’t go. Stay here, with me. We can be wed. I’ll be a good husband to you.”

  A younger version of myself, one only slightly less hard, looked up into his brown eyes. “I can’t stay. My soul is pulling me to the road, Cade.” I wasn’t ready to stay in just one city yet; my work was undone and harder tasks awaited me if I returned to Sheelin. “My heart is not here.”

  He nodded and stroked my face, imparting a dismal sadness with his touch. “Your heart is in Aristeer, I know. But you have mine; you always have. If you must travel, do it, but come home to me in between. We can make this work.” He meant that he would make it work no matter what I did.

  “But, Fion—” I tried to make Cade see reason, to see
that I loved Fion, but he interrupted me with strong words I knew he meant.

  “If you come across him in your travels, I won’t begrudge you a night in his arms. It would hurt, but I would know that I’m the one you come home to. I’ll keep you safe from the war. We can move to the inner lands where the people care not which religion you follow. Or if I must, I’ll leave this life behind and go to Sheelin with you. They no doubt could use a smithy on site.” I didn’t stop his planned words to explain that any men on the island are smiths. “I will share you with our Goddess, and with Fion if I must, but please, Roseen, let me walk this life with you.” Cade’s large hand cupped my chin and tilted me up into his kiss. Strong hands held my face as if he thought I would break like a fragile egg, and his lips commanded mine to answer his in resounding passion. The heat of the forge was nothing compared to that within his veins.

  I broke away, breathless. The love I felt for him was not that of romance, not yet. “Cade, as long as my heart harbors hope, it cannot be given elsewhere.”

  He nodded and turned from me, but not before I saw his soul shattering before my eyes.

  *

  The Cade of my memories and the one holding me now merged into one. Aching comfort melted through my clothes at his touch, the strength leeching out of his body and into mine. I felt his warm breath on my ear as he whispered, “My offer still stands, Rose.” Cade released me and set about opening the shutters on the side of my house that bordered his forge and the small cottage he had built for himself out back. “I break for dinner at dusk. If you wish to dine with me, there will be enough for two.”

  I had never felt more alone in my life as I did when he walked out the door.

  *

  Empty though it stood, the building with its assorted dust-covered furniture was still mine. Even now, I can smell the old, bound books I sent to my parents on my travels—some of my own making and others I purchased with the meager funds I earned as a healer.

  Turning to face the front of the home, I remembered Mother’s first loom and the great wheel she kept in “the display,” what she called the front window of her shop. That section had been opened up into the house by Father and was used by Cade as storage for the forge. Dust now swirled around my feet, my boots requiring new soles before I left if I could inconvenience Cade to take them to the cobbler.

  Some part of me, the one that knew what awaited me on Sheelin if I allowed the High Priestess and Oracle their way, wanted to return to the island in the guise of acceptance. Long days of traveling and healing had left my body in need of pampering to restore my spirit. Having another healer purge my energy of any lingering illness from patients would be a decadent delight to my senses. To be waited upon by an attendant from the abbey bearing creams and oils to soften weathered flesh could only be seen as pure luxury.

  Lying to the women who run Sheelin in Bas’ stead, even considering it, was enough to make my chest clench. I had become the queen of omission and word twisting but denied myself the true telling of falsehoods, even to save my own skin. Perhaps a day or two resting in my old home before I allowed Bas to pull me onward again would heal my nostalgia for the past and remove the longing from my heart.

  Despite my desires, my first action had to be attending to whatever had called me home. That specific longing, now a dull ache from Bas’ claw, would not end until my task was complete. If Asha had left a message of explanation for me, it was time I reach out for it. Bas would not look with favor upon me if I denied Her ways again. She gave me powers and could take them away if I did not behave in accordance to my vows as Her priestess. My way of life is with thanks to Her.

  Dreams are the realm in which I am a demi-god. No physical walls can stop me from the unseen world. Mental walls, however, can stop me from accessing my own thoughts. Taking them down would be as simple as going to sleep in a familiar bed.

  Walking to the room that had once upon a time been mine, I was unsurprised to find the cloth draped mattress dusty from lack of use. Cade had left the house undisturbed since my last visit.

  Making a path of footsteps to the small room that I was conditioned to feel like a child upon entering, I stepped into the pale gold room belonging to my parents. Mother’s tapestries still covered the walls, their bed stripped down so that a handful of old sheets covered the wooden slats and fraying rope that would have suspended a mattress filled with unusable wool from the wheel, straw, and herbs to drive away moths and any vermin from our neighbors.

  My eyes fell upon the rustic comfort of my parents’ mingled efforts. An iron rack stood upon the frame of a broken spinning wheel, the distaff stoic in its disuse, a faded quilt of old wool and cotton tufts wrapped in an oiled cloth to protect it. It was the only one left, it had been one of the three Mother had made. Father took his with him to Bivii, and mine had been bartered for a month’s lodging and food in a small village outside of Aristeer shortly after the Wall was erected around it.

  Important cities to the spread of Liand’s poison were enclosed behind a physical barrier of brick and mortar; others, like Madani, have been merely protected by his soldiers as materials are gathered to extend the Wall. Whether Liand’s Divide, as it is known, is meant to keep priestesses from leaving Sheelin and accessing possible initiates, or simply to denote which cities the army has conquered, I am unsure. When I was under Liand’s employ, he was not one for idle chatter. He inquired of my day before dismissing my response, poured me a glass of wine as he ate dinner, fed me small pieces as if I were a child or pet, then motioned me to his private sleeping quarters.

  Our mornings had their own patterns. Healing treatments, a bath, breakfast with the soldiers in which I was seated between Liand and his hussy of a sister, Kayade. May she burn in a special level of the Smith’s forges for a long portion of eternity. The damned golden thread she wove into my hair after I clawed her following another binding kept me from doing anything but my full healing abilities and limited dream viewing. Liand’s command that I wear it or die was the only thing that kept it in my hair.

  My hair.

  I unbound the waves and could still feel the scorched scars where the thread had bound me. With my hair down, I shed my clothing until I was only in a sweat-stained chemise that would have to make do until I had rested. I could rummage through the storage chest for Mother’s old shifts later.

  Twisting my hair into a loose bun until I was comfortable enough upon the dusty mattress and covered with the blanket, I stared at the ceiling. Cade had resumed his work, I heard the first blows of the hammer, a pause as he inspected his work, reheating or cooling as necessary, then more hammering. He was up to something; that much I did know. The short swords on display for sale did not gleam like my father’s nor the earlier work of Cade’s I had seen. The one blade I touched felt fragile somehow, and I was certain it was unbalanced. Disappointment would have filled me to see my father’s soul, his forge, used on sub-par creations, but I knew Cade well enough to see that he was putting up a facade.

  Yes: he had his part to do, whatever it may be, as I had mine to do—a part that began with me attempting to sleep. I closed my eyes, letting the sunlight filter through my eyelids as it made me see glowing red from the blood within the small veins there.

  *

  Deep breath in, held for two heart beats, then out.

  “Asha,” I whispered.

  I reached out across the water I had woken beside this morning, and let the magic carry me.

  “Share your message.”

  I felt the cold depth carrying me across cool waters, the sun warming my face. It was peaceful as I floated, the temperate dichotomy sandwiching me in between their layers as Bas’ claws pulled me to where I was needed in this dream realm. With a choking gasp, the claws ripped through me like swords and threw me onto the shore. Blood dripped onto the sand, and I knew my physical body was likewise damaged.

  “Someone, anyone, help me!” I begged with blood foaming on my dream-self’s lips.

  Chapter Si
x

  I dreamt all of you long before you come to my island. One day, you will dream all my dreams and those to come after me. Dream well, my sisters. Dream of a beautiful world.

  From the First to the Last, a Book of Wishes

  Asha stood over me, her hands running across my wounds as she sucked on a green leaf. She reminded me so much of Kira, or even Sesha, that she blurred from one form to another. Even so close to me that we were touching, she was out of focus, as if I had put on smudged spectacles or were looking through multiple mirrors to see what was going on outside of my sight. “I saw that you would come home, Child, but you answered my call too late. Now you have no home to come home to.” I felt my injuries begin to close under her touch, the cold itch of Asha’s magic healing me from the inside out. My head ached as I tried to look around, forcing myself to see what was happening on Sheelin. The magic holding me there was not strong enough. It was a broken memory placed there for me to witness.

  “I took the last boat. You must find your own way home to us.” The image flickered, showing me in perfect health though sore, beside her in the main temple. The large statue of Bas in the reliquary stared down Her feline nose at me. Asha’s voice fluctuated in volume, as if she was having a hard time maintaining the vision to me.

  “You know the way; are you strong enough to take it?” Her eyes widened, and she turned aside with her mouth open in alarm. A man came up behind her, one too out of focus for me to identify. The vision darkened, setting me back into the icy waters before the light surrounded me again.

  Asha’s voice came back, a whisper this time. “Sister-child, the way of the road is in your heart, and to it you will return. The Oneira has seen it; so shall it be.” A glimmer of fire scorched me in Asha’s gaze, making me hold my tongue when I desired to say where Sesha could shove her vision.