by Brindi Quinn
But once the flame is lit, Awyer does not go near it for feeding nor drying. He wishes to remain in the water, at my side, while the cousins fuss over gutting their meal.
In fact, he treads deeper.
In fact, he removes his tunic and tosses it in a wad at Pedj.
In fact, his whole back, obsidian shard included, is visible for all to see.
Pedj wrinkles his bony nose at the wet roll of tunic. “Fixin’ on bathin’?” he says. “Take care you don’t drown or nothin’. Guess this is probably different from the baths what you’re used to.”
Awyer nods. “Eldrade has automated showers.”
Pedj cocks his head.
“Water that falls from the ceiling,” explains Awyer.
“Hoop! In your bedroom?!”
“In a stall.”
“Oh. Gotcha . . .” Pedj takes a moment to visualize. “In the Bloőd cities, we got somethin’ like that. A stall, guess you’d call it. Just ‘stead of water fallin’ from the ceiling, the water whirlwinds all around the box. Swishes smack into all the dirty crooks and washes you clean! Ain’t that right, Mael?”
Whatever ‘dirty crooks’ aside, I am surprised by their claim.
“Your cities are modern?” I inquire via Awyer.
Pedj looks up from the shark that is now split down the belly. “Modern? What, you reckon we’re all like the rustics livin’ on the land? Naw. Them’s just one lot.”
Interesting. The world has changed since I was last free. Then again, a millennium is a great many years.
“Does everyone in your country take to the wilderness as well as you do?” I ask through my ward, speaking of their willingness to camp beneath the stars and fish amongst the lakes.
“Eh? Naw. Probably no. We spent some time growin’ up with the rustics – part of our family lives out there – so’s we’re more used to it than most of the city people.”
I see.
I prod Awyer to speak for me again: “Ask them if–”
“Grim,” he interrupts. “Enough.” Without leaving me time to finish, he dips his head beneath the water. My reluctant ward evades me.
Very well, I will stay above the water. I will keep watch. I will make certain none see his Amethyst-infused arms. I will –
From below, something grabs my ankle, neither shark nor weed nor crab, and I am forced beneath the water.
So much for keeping watch. Upon submergence, Awyer, the clear culprit, smirks through the transparent lake at me.
He has initiated diversion. I am glad.
My hair, grown longer since yesterday, drifts from my face. Dark white. Tinting. It is somewhere between dawn and midnight. Awyer looks at it through ancient eyes as it suspends in the water. Sporting only rolled-up pants, his chest is bare. I have seen him this way countless times before, but never have I thought to look away so badly. Never have I become embarrassed at the sight of his nakedness.
Naefaeries do not become embarrassed.
But I am.
He extends his fingertips to my drifting strands of hair. Below the water, time is still for him, as it is for me. I am held from all sides by a powerful force that can touch me without will. Awyer also wishes to touch me without will. His fingers find the ends of my hair, and they do not stop. They continue on until they are at the side of my face.
He peers at me with an expression I have seen on many previous wards.
Yes, I have seen this face.
Never once has it been directed at me.
SPASH!
I make haste to rise from the water. Into the sky, I shoot. I shall keep going until I remember my place. I shall . . .
“I’m just getting some water. Understand?” An unfamiliar, dialectal voice is speaking somewhere near the ground below. “I think we can resolve this without going barbarian on each other, don’t you?” It is the raspy voice of a man with soul. I scramble to find the man to whom the voice belongs. It does not take any great effort.
Pedj is standing lunged, with hands balled in preparation of casting enchants, beside a Mael who does not seem to notice or care. His to-be target is a man several years older than my ward, standing opposite the fire from the pair of contrasting cousins. Donned in fur and leather – and across his chest a half-plate of tarnished armor – the man appears to be holding a most peculiar scythe-like weapon. A polished cane, the length of an outstretched arm, has been attached to a piece of thin metal resembling, of all things, the webbed foot of a toad. But to grow a foot of that size would require a toad most ancient indeed.
My eyes skim over him and his weapon quickly.
More important than the rest of his appearance, I find, is the man’s face. The warning signs strike me. Gentle eyes, so bright they are visibly blue at even a distance, drill through whatever they pursue. Likewise is his hair a noteworthy blue, faded in some parts to slate, darkened in others to navy.
Yes, the warning signs do strike. Hot and quick.
Azurian. Those holding the power of Azure have been known to tint blue upon over-usage.
Dread. How rapidly I become filled with dread!
Awyer! He is below the water, but will soon come up for air, and when he does, the Azurian stranger will be witness to his Amethyst! I cannot let that happen. Not after experiencing what transpired the previous eve! The Azurians cannot be trusted!
I can let my ward’s vulnerability come to no one.
I shoot below the lake, hoping the stranger is too preoccupied to notice the rippling reaction it brings, and that if he does notice, he will deem it the splash of a shark.
Alas, I am too late. Awyer breaks the surface just as I do.
“No, my fief!” Not inclined to give him up, I wrap my arms around him and force him back under. He, who does not know what I am doing and is not anticipating of me, responds by kicking and resisting.
The man surely sees.
Holding Awyer below as best as I can, I steal a glimpse above the water and hear the man –
“That guy’s drowning over there!”
And with that, the Azurian throws his weapon aside and goes galloping into the water, splashing over to my ward, who is indeed drowning because of my rashness. With strong arm movements, the man fights to pull my fief from my grip. I fight, too. But Awyer is not better for wear. He will drown if I do not give him up. Heavy-hearted, I release him.
The man tugs Awyer through the water and to the shore while I follow behind, defeated.
Awyer is not defeated.
He is furious. It is a rare glimpse of his rage.
“Grim! What are you thinking?! I almost drowned!”
“I could not let the Azurian see your Amethyst! You are wholly exposed! You were foolish to take off your clothes!” I am frustrated. On the verge of something that should not be. Tears are finding their way to my eyes once more.
When Awyer sees them, his rage softens. “It is all right,” he says, placing a hand atop my wet hair. “Do not cry.”
It is no use. There is naught to be done now that the man has clearly seen Awyer’s color.
But though he has seen it, he does not make note. He merely goes about removing the wet fur clothing from his arms and waist and placing it near the fire to dry. I see now that in each of his ears, a chunk of lobe has been removed and replaced by a black plug; and that his chin, beneath the lip, is donned with a patch of slate hair.
“Hey!” Pedj is yet in a fighting stance. “Didn’t say you could help yourself, did I?!”
“Shup, Pedjram,” says Mael, still in the same place as she was. “He’s fine.”
The Azurian looks to her with a kind smile. “Thanks, Lady,” he rasps. Then he looks at Awyer – directly at him in all of his Amethyst glory, yet does not react to Awyer’s purple arms. “Are you okay? You must have done something to make her cross.” He chuckles. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, never anger a woman, especially if they can fly.”
“You can see Mistress?” says Mael, voicing the impossible thing, I, too,
am thinking.
The man removes the wet leather gloves from his hands. “You can’t ever see them unless they’re yours, can you?”
“I can,” says Mael, disappointed. “I see her light.”
“Do you, now?” The man scratches at his patch of chin hair. “I’ve never heard of that before.”
How casually they discuss my nonexistence.
“Oka, oka.” Pedj, equally as suspicious as I, holds up his hands. “You aren’t the least bit cautious of his agent? Not to mention you ain’t seemed to pick up on the fact that the sorcerer you just saved is, oh I dunno, AN AMETHYST USER?!” Pedj glares a gaunt glare. “What’s your game?! What’s is?! Come waltzin’ in here, smack into Bloőd territory, knowin’ well your people are fightin’ ours!”
The man goes about his business, pulling a change of clothing from his large knee-length rucksack. “Are they? I hadn’t heard.”
It might not be all that farfetched, considering war was only declared yesterday. Things may travel quickly on the wind, but the chance is they do not travel THAT quickly. Pedj seems not to consider this.
“Start talkin’!” he orders.
“Ummmm. Sure then. I’m not cautious of his ‘agent’ because why should I be? I’ve met plenty of good ones before. Frankly, there are quite a few good ones where I’m from.”
“In Azure,” says Pedj, eyes slitted.
“No. Well, yes. But no. I was born Azurian, but I gave it up. Enchants . . . spells . . . the whole thing.”
“Don’t look that way to me,” says Pedj. He judges the man’s hair with suspicion.
The man sighs. “It’s leftover,” he says. “My emergence came way before I was seventeen, if you can believe that. It’s rare, but happens, I promise. Unfortunately, since I was exposed to the blue blaze so early, I went in deep. I got hooked. The only way for me to get control again was to give it up completely, so I did. I’ve been enchant-free for over three years now.”
“In Azure territory, they let sorcerers just ‘give it up’?” Pedj is swiftly becoming surly. “Thought both sides were puttin’ us all to good use tryin’ to defeat the Amethyst whores,” he mumbles at the fire. He is bitter over his forced necromancy.
The man shrugs. “I ran away. I took myself out of their affairs.”
“Where to?” pipes Mael.
“The Reck.”
“The Reck?!” gasps Pedj.
Aye, it is a strong claim indeed. The Reck lies beyond the Gated Rise.
“I live there,” says the man.
“You’re sayin’ you go back and forth across the Gated Rise? What, whenever you feel like gettin’ out?” Pedj is skeptical. “Not buyin’ it so hot. Sorry.”
The man shrugs.
“That is where there are other good naefaeries.” The voice of my ward, so steady that it is intimidating, enters the conversation for the first time.
“Yep,” says the man.
“There are good ones where I am from, too,” says Awyer.
“The great Amethyst City?” offers the man.
Pedj and I stiffen together.
The man chuckles. “I do NOT care. Trust me. The last thing I want is to get mixed up in Amethyst-Bloőd business. Plus, there’s that whole thing about Amethyst rumored to be a million times more powerful than Azure, anyway. I kind of feel like making a big deal of it wouldn’t be a good choice for me in this situation.”
He is correct about that.
The man nods to Pedj. “I’ll help you fix that shark if you give me a plateful when it’s finished.”
Pedj is reserved. His cousin, in contrast, is eager. “Great! Then I won’t get on messyin’ my hands!” she says.
The man smiles at her. “Well, you’re a cute little thing, aren’t you?”
Such a compliment affects no one positively. Mael is too detached to accept, and Pedj’s scowl only grows deeper.
“By the way,” the Azurian goes on. “My name is Techton. Where are you all headed? I’ve been everywhere. Maybe I can tell you a shortcut in exchange for the grub.”
“None of your–” starts Pedj, but he is cut off by Mael.
“That way!” She points in the direction her wrist is currently being pulled by the shade bird.
“DO NOT TELL THIS STRANGER!” I cry a cry only Awyer can hear. It makes him jolt.
In some instances, it is vexing to go unheard.
“Really?” says Techton. “Straight that way?”
Mael nods a bobbed nod.
“The Rise is through there, you know.”
“So?” says Pedj, haughty.
“You know the secret to crossing it?” Techton asks.
“We’ll manage.”
But it is a lie, as was made obvious a moment ago when Pedj cried foul over Techton’s admission of the very same thing. The zombie does not know the secret any more than I know the secret. I have seen men climb the Gated Rise. So too, have I seen men fall, entrapped by the scarabs that scuttle the chain.
“You,” Pedj, seeking to move away from the topic, makes order of Techton, “clip the fin.”
In response, the Azurian pulls a knife from his belt.
“Careful,” says Pedj sinisterly. “Slippers are known for the poison what’s held in their fins.”
“Actually, if you boil the fin, it turns from poison to salve. It’s useful if you get scraped up.”
Pedj frowns.
Meanwhile, Mael has shifted around the fire to where Awyer and I are. “Need to talk to Mistress,” she says. “Not here.” She motions to a stretch of grassland a ways away.
The events of the noon have been full. I feel guilted over drowning my ward, and I feel guilted that I feel guilted over drowning my ward. My mixture of compromises aside, Awyer’s secret is known to yet another.
We make our way to the grassy stretch.
“That’s him, Mistress,” Mael says when we are suitably away from the boys. “He comes, too.”
“Him?” I say and Awyer voices. “It is the other person you saw in the water?”
Mael nods a swinging ponytail nod.
“He is to accompany us all the way to the Golden Lands?” I say. “Why?”
Mael shakes her head. “Dunno.”
I have not seen the man in any of my visions. My visions are not so clear. Awyer. The sphinxes. Mael. And that whistling person behind me.
I touch a hand to Awyer’s hot wrist, but am rewarded with nothing new.
“Is there something more you wish to tell me?” I ask.
“Just you. Not Ower.”
“Leave us, Awyer.”
“You have used me and now you are finished with me,” says Awyer. “I understand.”
“Ah?” It comes as a shock that he is offended over his dismissal. When I lay eyes upon his face, however, I see that he is jesting. With me, he is jesting.
I shake my head at him in scolding, and he rubs the backside of his neck and goes to meet the other men. Mael peers into my light.
“Mistress Grim?”
I bob to show that I am listening. She continues,
“You gotta be careful. You can’t get in the way. I seen different ones. Endings. There’s two ‘cause of you. That’s why you gotta be careful. Ower goes to gold for destiny.”
I attempt to decipher the necromancer’s riddle. She is saying in her way that she has seen two possible futures? And that the fault is mine for which comes to fruition?
I must know more from her. Crouching to the sand, I enchant the dirt to accept my fingers that would otherwise pass through. I scrawl a message into the ground:
What do the two futures entail?
But to my message, Mael only squints. “Mmmmmmm,” she hums a moment, and then clicks her tongue. “Nope,” she says when she is finished with examination. “Don’t know those letters.”
Of course not. The necromancers have long had their own secret written language. It is a fact I had forgotten.
She puffs out her bottom lip. “Sorry, Mistress. Tell you this, thou
gh. No matter what you do, don’t go on KISSIN’ Ower, m’kay? S’long as you don’t, you should be fine.”
With that, she leaves, trotting away through the grass that swishes over her bare feet.
She leaves me to stew.
Were I a proper naefaerie, I would shrug away her advice. I, however, am far from proper. I have already done it, this thing she forbids. I have kissed him. In the cavern, upon his forehead, I placed my lips.
The way the airy girl spoke the directive was serious. Curt. Foreboding. Never have I heard of a rule against kissing one’s ward, but then, never have I thought to kiss a ward before.
Never before now.
I have already kissed him once.
And I have thought to do so again.
It is with deeper guilt than I have ever known, that I return to the others. I look on while they enjoy their fish. I contemplate while they converse. I stare at Awyer while he stares at the fire. And when he stops staring at the fire and looks to me?
I yet stare at him.
“What is it, Grim?”
“It is . . . nothing.” But I cannot hide from him forever. “It is something,” I admit.
“You cannot tell me,” he assumes.
“I cannot.”
Stern, he puts both hands on my shoulders. “Tell me.”
I shake my head.
His eyes bore into mine. “Tell. Me.”
Instead of speaking, I set my forehead to his. If he cannot see into my eyes, he cannot tempt my eyes. Taken aback, he ceases his demands. The others around the fire watch us with curiosity. Awyer looks to be having a discussion with himself. He looks to be holding on to something that is not there.
Aye, I am not here. Not really.
I lift from Awyer.
“You don’t mind if I boil up this fin, then, do you?” Techton is the one to break through the silent atmosphere. He gestures to the rucksack at his side. “I have a pot.”
“Do what you like,” sniffs Pedj.
Although he is bothered, it is clear the two worked well side by side. The shark is scaled, gutted, cooked finely. Though I do not eat, the smell reaches me. Infused with water and fire and material life lost, the smell is desirable.
At our sides, shallow in the bank, there is a plopping noise.