by Liam Reese
Croenin watched as he approached a castle, a village sitting at its feet. Both were surrounded by forest, a thick wall of trees that seemed to serve as protection from the outside world. He felt himself drop, approaching the castle’s dark stone walls at a breakneck pace. As he grew closer, he began to panic, willing himself to stop or at the least slow down. Croenin shut his eyes, waiting to slam into the stones, but that didn’t happen. Instead, as he slowly opened them, he saw that he was surrounded by stone walls, traveling much slower now down a dim hallway. It looked similar to the keep of the Faero Ursi, and he held his breath. This must be where Ayne is, he realized. Then, voices wafted from further down the hallway. He panicked for a moment as two figures rounded the corner, but as they walked past him, Croenin realized that he must be invisible.
“I played till my fingers bled,” complained a short, squat woman in a long, red gown. She opened and closed her hands for good measure. “I thought they’d fall off!”
“I know,” rasped her taller, tawny-haired companion. “It’s a miracle I didn’t lose my voice mid-song. Something must be wrong. I’ve never seen him so unhappy.”
“Doesn’t give him the right to make us perform for that long,” the plump one sniffed.
Suddenly, Croenin was shot forward. He squinted as he barreled through more walls, catching split-second glimpses of life within the castle. Every face he saw looked miserable and pale. Yet, every room was draped in tapestries, silver ornaments, and other decadent items. Even though he saw very little, he soon began to feel strange. Something is very wrong with this place, he told himself.
“Stop!” A shrill voice startled him as he came to a halt.
He feared he had been discovered until he realized it came from the young woman in front of him sitting on a plush canopy bed. Her face red and angry, she gripped the arm of another girl, her fingernails digging into the thin, pale arm in her grasp. Croenin felt himself swivel, and there, her arm being clasped painfully tight, was a wide-eyed, pale-faced Ayne.
“I told you to stop! That’s enough for today!” The girl said.
Ayne looked at her levelly, trying to keep her voice from trembling. Croenin wondered if her voice wavered in anger or fear. “Your husband said you must look your best for this evening. He has something special planned.”
“And I told you that I’ve had enough!”
She rose, brushing a dark curl from her face and shoving Ayne backward. Croenin watched as his sister caught her balance, curtseyed low, and mumbled “Yes, miss.” He began to move once more as she left the room, following a few feet behind her. She looked back over her shoulder at the room as the fuming girl slammed the door, suddenly smiling to herself. She began to hum, glancing around the hallway and running her hand along the stone wall. Croenin was confused. She shouldn’t have been happy with how the girl was treating her. He wondered if she was up to something. Perhaps she had wanted the girl to dismiss her, or—
“I’m so glad you’ve figured it out,” Ayne said softly, humming once more and slowing her pace.
Croenin’s heart leapt into his throat. Is she talking to me?
“Yes, silly. Who else would I be talking to?” Ayne’s small smile grew. “We’re evenly matched, you and I. Though you wouldn’t think it if you’d watched us until this point.”
What do you mean? Croenin found he couldn’t speak, but that didn’t seem to matter.
“I mean I’m just as powerful as you, and you as me.”
That doesn’t worry you?
“Why should it?”
The prophecy says that I win. I keep the Age of Oryn going.
“The prophecy isn’t set in stone.”
If Croenin could, he would have rolled his eyes. Isn’t that what a prophecy is? It’s something that’s supposed to happen.
“If that were the case, you’d know much more than you do now. What’s more, you’d know that there are ways around prophecies.” She chuckled to herself. “And you’d know all the players in this game, just like I do.” Her smile fell at that, and she swallowed thickly, as if suddenly reminded of something terrible. She quickly wiped the look from her face and returned to teasing her brother.
That makes no sense.
“It doesn’t have to, dear brother. Not when you’ve got more than just magic on your side.”
And what else could you possibly have?
She stopped, then, whirling around to face him. “I have time, Croenin. I can stall and stall as long as I need to in order to set up more little games for us to play.”
And how can you do that?
“I make things happen. For instance, I needed more time to set things up here, so you had to stay in bed until I had everything in place.”
You…you made me get stabbed?
“And I can do more than that. Just you wait.” She turned and began walking once more. “Oh, it looks like our time is up.”
With that, Croenin felt himself being pulled backward, and he began hurtling through the walls of the castle once more. Everything moved in reverse now, as he was pulled out of the castle, back over the village, and back over the settlements, trees, and villages below him. He was suddenly slammed into the stone floor of his room, coughing as the wind was knocked out of him from the force of being thrown backward.
“There, lad, you gave us all a scare!” He heard Saed’s voice exclaim as he came back into himself.
He was lying on his bed, the large man standing over him. Next to him stood Captio, a frown on his thin face.
“Do you have these fainting spells often?” He asked, placing a hand on Croenin’s forehead.
“No,” the young man replied. “This has never happened.”
He sat up, feeling dazed. If the two men hadn’t been there, he would have cursed himself. Why didn’t I ask who the ruler of the castle was? Then came the cynical voice. And then what? Tell Captio the right castle to go to? What would you say when he asked how you knew? He had to admit, the voice was right. There was no way to point Captio in the right direction without letting him know of his strange vision, and that would open up much more than Croenin was willing to share with the man.
“Well, perhaps we’re working you too hard. Saed tells me you’ll excel under his guidance, and I am inclined to believe him. For now, you’ll train with just Saed, alternating days. He seems more enthused about your progress than Clythair. We don’t need you to be an expert fighter for our mission, only that you’re able to hold your own should the need arise. If what Saed is telling me is accurate, you should be more than prepared by the time we leave.” He glanced at his swarthy companion. “Get some rest. You’ll see me in my office tomorrow morning. Come along, Saed.”
With that, he left, Saed following close behind. Once his door was closed, Croenin laid down to process what had happened. He felt a little less unequal compared to Ayne, now that he knew they were equal in power. He just wondered if that meant that their abilities were the same. She makes things happen, he thought. Could I do the same? He realized he wouldn’t know where to begin, even if he could change the world around him. He stared at the ceiling, willing Saed to come and visit him, to tell him stories about his own adventurous life as he occasionally did, yet the man did not come. Maybe I can’t make things happen, he sighed to himself. He suddenly remembered a story his mother told him about the Aes Sidhe one night when he was young.
It was a story many children knew, meant to scare them from wandering off or trying to leave the village. The story of the Two-Faced Man was an old one, probably dating back to before the Age of Oryn, back when the rare traveler was in constant danger of being accosted by the Aes Sidhe. Croenin, unable to sleep one night, had gone into his parents room and woke his mother. She took him by the hand and led him into the main room of their cottage, sitting him on her lap and beginning her tale.
“Not long ago, during the war, a man separated from his family was journeying from one settlement to another in search of his wife and children. As he was walking
through the woods, another man approached him from the opposite direction. He asked the first man for a bite to eat, but the first man, scared of running out of provisions, told him no.”
“What did the second man do?” Croenin remembered himself asking.
“The second man turned his head around,” his mother replied, grinning as Croenin’s eyes widened. “And he revealed another, horrifying face on the back of his head.”
At that Croenin had hidden his face in his hands, feeling as if he might see the Two-Faced Man standing in a darkened corner of the room. He had kept his eyes closed, quickly covering his ears as his mother continued the story, though not before she told him that the Two-Faced Man also comes for naughty children who leave their beds. It wasn’t the most pleasant childhood memory, but it served as one of his earliest lessons about the Aes Sidhe, that they could bend reality to their will. Can Ayne do the same? He wondered. Can I?
3
The day of the mission arrived faster than Croenin believed it would. His decryti lessons with Captio and weapons training with Saed gave him a routine that made the time pass quickly, but even with his training he felt unprepared. He knew that the two men had done well in teaching him all they had in such a short time, and he was growing fond of them. He watched Saed as he approached the brothers outside the keep. The large man reminded him of his own father, burly and dark-haired. Croenin wondered if his own father might have been kind like Saed had he not been under Haega’s spell. The man had been so patient during their training, entirely unlike his father, who was always ready to hit him over the head for any little mistake.
Croenin shook his head, thinking instead about his own, personal form of training when not with either of the men, lying on his bed and willing his consciousness to find Ayne. But, whenever he neared the castle she was in, he felt himself stop. He also was unable to move out past the castle, to see what lay around it. Somehow, he realized, Ayne was blocking him from seeing where she was. Sometimes, though, he would suddenly barrel forward, finding himself in her own private quarters. She would wave to him, smiling, before he was thrust back outside of the castle. He knew she was toying with him. This is all a game to her, he told himself bitterly in frustration one night after being blocked for the umpteenth time.
Croenin put those thoughts from his head as he stood now, with Captio, Saed, and two other brothers outside the Faero Ursi’s keep. They were all outfitted in the regalia of the Faero Ursi, Croenin included. He felt awkward in the burlap pants and shirt, leather armor and gloves partially concealed by an emerald cape. On the front of his leather breastplate was stamped the insignia of the Faero Ursi, the snarling bear. Croenin watched as two more brothers brought horses for them, and Croenin grew nervous. He hadn’t ridden since he was a child, and then it had only been his neighbor’s pony. The horse that was brought to him was larger than any horse Croenin had ever seen. In fact, he realized as he looked around, all of the horses were bigger than normal horses. Captio saw his frown.
“They’re Beltor horses, bred originally by the Sidhe for battle,” he explained. “Be careful. They’re normally friendly but they do bite.” He swung himself up into the saddle. “And they’re carnivorous.”
Croenin gulped and mimicked the master’s movements, nearly falling as he did so.
“Don’t go breaking any bones before we get there!” Saed guffawed as he let his own horse trot past the young man’s.
Croenin smiled weakly in return. He felt uncomfortable in the saddle, the hard leather already making his backside hurt. Captio and the others began to set off, so he checked his saddlebags, making sure they were belted on properly before giving his horse a soft kick. It lurched forward, settling into a slow walk, and Croenin felt a bit more at ease. I can do this, he told himself. If I could learn to use a weapon, I can do this.
“Do they have names?” He asked Saed after a while as he came up beside the large man.
“Of course. Mine’s is Celyre, Captio’s is Fortyre. yours Mordyre.” He paused, “Swiftness, Bravery, and…Biter.” He laughed.
Croenin rolled his eyes. Of course they gave me Biter. “And the others?” he asked, trying to take his mind off his already stiff back.
“You’ll have to ask them. I’m not sure actually.”
Croenin kicked his horse once more, moving up in the small party to where a bald, dark-skinned brother named Aulys rode next to another short, wiry brother named Carus.
“Good day brothers,” he began. Though he’d seen them around, he’d never spoken to them before.
Some brothers were loath to speak to younger members, but Croenin could tell by Aulys’ and Carus’ good-natured grins at his awkward opening that this would not be the case. The brothers answered Croenin’s questions gladly, and soon the whole party, with the exception of the ever-serious Captio, were engaged in conversation. They rode through the forest, and Croenin listened intently to the brothers’ stories. Unlike Clythair, the two men didn’t have a criminal entrance into the Faero Ursi. Both, like Croenin, had life debts to the brotherhood, Aulys after being saved from a pack of wolves, and Carus after being abandoned roadside by his parents as a child.
“Times were hard,” he merely said, shrugging. “They had six other mouths to feed, and I was the youngest. I was left just outside of Conclatum, so it was ensured I would be found quickly.”
“Do you ever miss them?” Croenin had asked. Though his own parents hadn’t been very loving, he did still think of them often.
“I barely remember them. I couldn’t pick them out from a crowd now. Most of what I remember was being hungry all the time.”
The party was silent for a time, his statement setting a somber mood over the whole conversation, before Saed prompted Aulys to tell the story of his first mission. Both men shared stories of their own initiations after learning this was Croenin’s first time out, gleefully telling him of their own mishaps early on in their careers.
“My third time out, I galloped after a bandit, let myself get distracted, and clothes-lined myself on a tree branch,” Aulys said, laughing.
“You think that’s bad? I got my horse stolen my first time out alone! I had to walk from Conclatum back to the keep! Took me weeks,” Carus countered. He turned to Croenin. “Trust me, kid, you can’t do much worse than that!”
“Hush!” Captio spoke for the first time, holding up a hand.
The group was silent, and Croenin held his breath. He heard nothing, and glanced at the others. They all had one hand at their waists, and Croenin realized they were reaching for their weapons. He did the same, and just as he did they burst through the trees. Ten men, bottom halves of their faces covered with white cloths all ran toward them. Captio’s horse reared back, and he quickly drew his scimitar, striking one down as he lunged, dagger drawn. Carus and Saed both drew their own swords, kicking their horses and meeting the attackers head-on. Croenin whipped his head around and watched, panicked as Aulys whipped out his crossbow, taking out three with ease. He drew his own weapon, surprising himself as he thrust out his arm. The chain and head of his flail caught the arm of one of the would-be attackers, causing him to yelp in pain and drop his weapon. Croenin pulled, kicking his horse, and dragging the man behind him as he galloped forward, before turning his horse and flinging the man into a tree. He quickly rode back toward the group, where the last of the men had been subdued.
“Everyone accounted for. No injuries,” Saed said softly.
“Good,” Captio responded. “Well done for your first time, Croenin.”
“Thank you,” he replied, and was silent, adrenaline coursing through his veins.
They rode in silence for a while after that, Croenin shaking slightly, amazed at his own quick response to the attack. Though he’d done well sparring with Saed over the last two weeks, he hadn’t expected to do so well in a real fight. He’d always let his nerves get the better of him as a child, shying away from skirmishes with other boys and choosing to hide instead. He was starting to feel
better about what lay before him, more confident that he would be able to hold his own in order to get to Ayne, though he refused to think about his own death. He focused instead on listening to the forest around them, falling back a bit in the group. He was still a bit on edge from the attack.
“Captio,” he said, “How often does something like that happen?”
“Not very often,” came the response, “it seems we were just lucky.”
Saed snorted at that, and Aulys and Carus chuckled.
“Calm down, lad,” the burly man told him. “There are dangers in traveling these roads, yes, but few are armed as we are and even fewer trained to fight.”
Captio looked at Croenin steadily. “It is alright to be afraid, Croenin,” he said, “as long as you don’t let fear overtake you in the moment.”
They rode for a few hours more until darkness began to fall. Captio halted the small party, and they dismounted, leading their horses through the trees.
“I had hoped to get further before dark, but this will do for now,” he said, leading them into a small clearing. “We’ll stay here for the night and set off at first light.”
Croenin frowned. “You’re not worried about wolves?”
“As long as a fire is lit, they won’t bother us,” Saed said, putting him at ease.
The night was uneventful, as were the next few days of travel. Captio had been right, it seemed. The most eventful parts of the day for Croenin were when they passed other travelers or other Faero Ursi out patrolling the roads. As he watched other travelers pass, carrying large rucksacks of provisions, Croenin realized he had been woefully unprepared for a long journey when he set out from his village months before. He also realized that they had yet to pass any man traveling alone. He felt embarrassed for his past self, so naïve and setting himself up for failure. I was making it easy for my sister to delay me, he thought. He briefly wondered if the masked men from the first day of their trip had been sent by Ayne, and told himself that he shouldn’t let his guard down. Nothing’s happened since, but that’s probably because she wants to surprise me. He glanced at his brothers. They all seemed relaxed, and he wondered if that stemmed from being experienced or if they too had grown complacent in watching for danger. Croenin watched Captio, who scanned his surroundings every few minutes, and felt more secure. Even if the others aren’t paying attention, we can always count on him.