She looked away in shame. “But I was wrong. It’s not enough to want to lead; you have to make the right decisions. I’ve tried, really I have, but…”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t do what Athel could. I can’t lead like she did.”
“I can’t either,” Currant admitted.
Barberry sat down on a chair, her eyes pinched. “At the time, I thought she was betraying us. Now that I look back, I think what Athel did was very brave.”
The others nodded.
“She tried to prevent this from happening,” Escallonia observed quietly. “She was trying to save us, I see that now.”
“She was trying to save all of us, the men too,” Orlaya added.
Calla looked up, her eyes swimming. “So, what do we do now? It’s too late to take it all back, the men are gone.”
“We’ve got to get the men to return,” Toyon Lotebush said without hesitation, holding up her bandaged hand. “The forest is nothing without them.”
“I never thought I’d say it, but I agree,” Escallonia declared.
“So do I,” Rockrose seconded.
Photenia Cypress shook her weary head. “We couldn’t get them back by force even if we wanted to. We don’t have the military assets.”
“Even if we did, it would be wrong to force them to return,” Iris said sadly.
“Yes, it would,” Rosemary Balsam agreed.
Authum Boronia perked up, a bit of grime falling off her hair. “Perhaps we could ask them.”
Barberry shook her dusty head. “Why would they come back, after the way we treated them?”
All the women lowered their eyes in shame.
“I wouldn’t come back, if I were them,” Orlaya admitted.
“Is there nothing we can do then?” Rosemarin Gladoilus inquired desperately. “The forest is dying, our people are dying. Are we just to stand by and do nothing?”
“We have to try,” Camellia Peony insisted, leaning on a crutch to take the weight off her injured leg. “We must do something.”
There was a rustling and moaning from the bed in the next room, and Orlaya sprinted in to attend to her mother. The High Priestess opened her eyes, her skin burning with fever. “Delphinium! Delphinium, where are you?!”
Orlaya took the old woman’s hand and squeezed it as hard as she could. “I’m here, mother.”
The High Priestess relaxed. She lay back down, staring blindly at the sky poking through the withering branches. “Do not blame yourself, young one,” she whispered. “This is my fault.”
The other women crept in, concern on their young faces.
“I have doomed us all,” the High Priestess muttered. “Delphinium, daughter, I have a task for you. Very important…very important.”
Orlaya closed her teary eyes. “Anything, Mami.”
“I…I have a message for you to relay. You’ll need to go to an island that still has a functional crystal array. Timmeron, perhaps. From there, you can send a message to our men, wherever they ended up.”
“What should I say to them?”
The High Priestess reached inside her robes, and pulled out her signet ring, bearing the seal of the holy church. She took Orlaya’s hand and placed the ring inside of it.
“This is an official declaration, from the Holy See of the church itself. It must be added to our scriptures, recited with the others on our holy days…”
Orlaya sniffed. “And the message is?”
The old hands grew limp. “Tell them…we are sorry…tell them…we were wrong…”
The High Priestess’ hands fell away, leaving the ring in her daughter’s hands. Her eyes became empty, and her breathing ceased.
Orlaya fell on her mother’s chest and wept.
“The men will never come back. Not after the way we treated them.”
* * *
“Here’s your first round,” Kudzu said, setting down the hard-carved crystal wine flutes in front of the men. They all stared at them as if they were a chore to be done.
“Thank you, son,” Willowood said, patting the young man on the head.
“It’s just Zuu now,” he corrected, swatting his father’s hand away.
Willowood looked at the others. “It’s just Zuu now, apparently,” he repeated in jest.
Akar was taken aback. “They grow up so fast.”
“You guys are looking like a bunch of old trees,” Kudzu teased. Already his shoulders were broadening, a spackling of thin stubble decorating his chin.
“And look at you,” Yarrow shot back, his broad beard sporting a few grey hairs. “Just a young sapling still and already you bite at your elders’ ankles.”
The young man frowned. “Please don’t compare me to some stupid tree. I’m a person, okay?”
The comment took all the men back a little.
“You know, you really should take care when talking about the forest,” Hollis suggested. “The Nallorn trees of Wysteria have feelings too, you know?”
Kudzu shrugged as he picked up a pair of empty plates. “Who cares? They’re just stupid trees.”
Willowood bristled as that. “You should guard your tongue, my son.”
The young man chuckled, shaking his head as if they were crazy to scold him. “Why? The plants here can’t hurt us; they’re just little bushes and stuff. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Yes, but you should still show some respect.”
Kudzu wiped the table down. Years of lacquer and use had worn down the carvings to faded bumps. “Respect? For what? The Nallorn trees? To what purpose? They’re probably all dead by now, anyway.”
He slapped his father on the back condescendingly. “Don’t be so superstitious, father.”
The men gawked at him as he walked off to attend to the other tables. The reliefs on the walls were cracking, the floorboards creaking, the lanterns rusting, yet for all the free time they had, no one could find the energy to repair them.
Willowood looked regretful. “The young ones. Many of them don’t remember the forest at all. The sound of the wind rustling through the leaves. The smell of the pollen in the air…”
“Like fresh honey,” Hollis recalled.
“Yeah.”
“The way they stood over us. Watching us, always watching us…night and day, searching for any disloyalty,” Akar reminded them.
Yarrow chuckled. “That was dark.”
“Well, what should I say? You guys are getting nostalgic. Don’t forget, those trees were our prison guards.”
The others half nodded in weak agreement.
Willowood watched with somber eyes as his son went from table to table, waiting on the navy personnel. “Sometimes I feel bad for him.”
Akar furrowed his brow. “You do? Why?”
“He just talks with his friends all day. He plays his music. He dances. He has his books, his gardens, his hobbies. Sometimes we go have lunch on top of the tower together…but behind it all, I see an emptiness in his eyes.”
Cane’s eyes lowered. “He’s lonely.”
Akar tried to force a smile. “How can he be lonely? He has all of us.”
Willowood leaned against his crutch. “He’ll never know what it feels like to fall in love. By the time he’s of age, all the navy women here will be too old for him.”
Akar scoffed darkly. “Who’d want them, anyway?”
“Hey!”
Akar turned and noticed some of the navy women at a nearby table, scowling at him.
“No offense, of course,” he blurted out.
The women stood up indignantly and walked out.
“Jerk!” they hissed.
Akar threw up his hand. “Bah! Who needs you, anyway?”
The five men sat quietly, each lost in his thoughts. Above them, the nearly completed tower blocked out
the sun completely, leaving them in a world of perpetual shadow.
“It wasn’t all bad, was it?” Cane asked aloud.
Akar snorted. “Yes, it was. I mean, seriously, have you guys forgotten what they did to us?”
Hollis ran his finger over his flawless chin. “You know, even after all this time, I still remember the day Rose Lotebush and I were married. She looked so beautiful.”
Yarrow ran his fingers though his beard. “Yes, I remember. I helped harvest the flowers she wore in her hair.”
Hollis picked up a spoon and looked at his distorted reflection within. “I may have been her third husband, but I was her favorite. For the first three months, she let me stay by her side constantly. We were inseparable, night and day. Those…those were good times.”
Akar slammed his palm on the worn table, startling them all. “No, they weren’t!” He pointed to his nose, crooked after having been broken. “Was this a good time?”
Without waiting for a response, he grabbed his shirt and lifted it up over his head, revealing the deep white lashing scars on his back. “Was this a good time? Seriously, I ask you.”
The other men looked away. Another nearby table emptied as the navy patrons quietly excused themselves.
Akar redonned his shirt. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. We need another round.”
He lifted up his hand, calling for more.
Hollis grabbed his stomach. “No, please, no more wine. I’m ill of the stuff.”
“All right, then. How about a game of…”
“No, I’m tired of games. I’m tired of songs,” Yarrow complained. “I’m tired of dancing and pretending it’s fun.”
“Do you even hear yourselves?”
Cane was a little more diplomatic. “It was fun, Akar. It was fun for a long time. But now…I dunno. It just seems…pointless.”
Willowood nodded, his eyes distant. “I don’t have a single wall in my house that isn’t covered with a mural. I’ve filled it up. There’s nothing left to paint. So, yesterday I got out some white paint with the intent to cover one up and start fresh. I was all set to go. I had the brushes and everything. Then, I just…stopped, and walked away.”
Cane settled lower in his chair. “There doesn’t seem to be much point to it. I’ve furnished my house with everything I could think of. It’s as lavish and beautiful as I ever dreamed. But at the end of the day…it’s just me in there by myself. Alone.”
Akar tried to be understanding. “I’m sorry none of your family survived the tidal wave. You know that, right?”
Cane wiped his eyes. “Yes, I do. You have always been a good friend to me.”
“But how can you call all of this pointless? Is living free pointless?”
“Is existing in a cage living?” Yarrow argued.
“Compared to the lives we lived before?”
Akar waited for someone to respond, but none were willing to answer.
“The answer is yes,” Akar said desperately. “Yes, this is better than what we had. If we had stayed on Wysteria we’d all be dead right now. The stillness would have taken each and every one of us, and you know it. And half our sons gone too, from overwork and starvation.”
He stood there breathing heavily over them, looking from one to another, but none would look back at him or respond. Finally, Akar sat down in disgust and drained his wine.
Cane breathed heavily. “Even still…I miss her.”
Hollis brushed a long strand of red hair from his beautiful face. “Your wife?”
Cane nodded. “Holly Elderwood. I miss her smile. I miss the way she would laugh when our boys would wrestle on the floor.”
Akar ground his teeth. “Are you sure she wasn’t just happy to see them fight for her sport?”
Cane shook his head. “No, she loved our sons. She wouldn’t even consider buying from outside the family. She bore them herself, even though she was Kisatriya, because she wanted them to be ours.”
Yarrow was impressed. “That is rare indeed. You were a lucky man.”
Cane pushed his flute away. “In public, she was everything her station required of her. But, you know, there were times, private times, when she was away from her duties and prying eyes. In those times she’d let down her guard, and she would sit and play with our boys. Talk to them, really talk to them. In times like that, she didn’t seem like a matron, she didn’t seem like an owner, she seemed like a real mother to them.”
All of the men sat and thought quietly, their expressions becoming soft.
Akar stood up, knocking his chair back. “Now look here,” he said, trying to control his voice. “You guys need to purify yourselves of these thoughts, okay?”
Yarrow clucked his tongue. “So, what, we can’t speak our minds around you anymore? Have you become our new Matron?”
“You’re dishonoring the memory of all the men who died so we could escape!”
Yarrow stood up, his fists clenched, his muscles tight, his eyes aflame. “Because we are friends,” he said carefully, over-enunciating every word. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. But, next time, I won’t.”
For a moment, the two men looked at each other as if they would fight, neither backing down.
Without a word, Akar spun around and stomped off, nearly taking the faded door off its hinges as he barged through it.
The other patrons in the room looked on in shock. Yarrow ignored them. He breathed heavily, trying to control his rage.
“He’s right, you know,” Willowood said cautiously.
“WHO CARES?!” Yarrow yelled.
He kicked his crooked chair and sent it flying into the wall. “I can’t go on pretending anymore! I’m sick of this food, I’m sick of this drink!”
He picked up his wine flute and threw it on the ground. Kudzu grabbed a broom and dustpan to clean it up, but then thought better of it.
“I’m sick of this place!” Yarrow roared, looking up at the dark tower lording over them. “I feel like a rat in a cage!”
“We shouldn’t blame Akar,” Willowood said, trying to steady his friend. “Remember, this wasn’t the plan. The plan was for us to stay on Wysteria as equals, but the women wouldn’t have it. This place was a backup plan. We should be grateful to Akar for setting it up for us.”
Yarrow ignored him and stomped outside, mindful to take a different route than Akar had.
The other three men sat in silence while Kudzu cleaned up the mess. At the edges of their hearing, they could detect the other tables whispering and gossiping.
It was Cane who broke the silence. “I miss home. I miss the forest.”
Hollis nodded. “But how could we ever go back there?”
Willowood looked up at the tower. “We can’t. We are a people without a home. Even if we left here, even if we found some other place, it would still not be home. We’d just be trading one cage for another.”
They all lowered their eyes, gloom and despair settling around them like a fog over their hearts.
“We can never go home. Not after the way they treated us.”
* * *
“Hurry and load the ship!” Athel yelled, spurring the men and women to work faster. “Grab as many as you can, get a sampling of everything.”
Mina ran up, horror on her face at what she saw. The crew were gathering up dragon bones from the shallow graves, carrying the long heavy pieces of corpse up the gangplank and into the cargo hold.
“Athel, what are you doing?”
Athel ignored her. “Talliun, I think I saw some scales over beyond that hill, grab some men and bring a bunch.
“It will be done, my Lady.”
Mina put her hand on Athel’s shoulder. “Sweetie, we can’t desecrate dragon graves.”
Athel turned to her with bloodshot eyes. “Can’t we?”
“No, it�
��s the ultimate taboo.”
Athel looked out into the distance sadly. “I know it is. But, I’ve done worse, so why stop now?”
“No, you haven’t. You’ve always been measured, careful. This is just…reckless.”
“Of course it’s reckless. Do you understand how desperate our situation has become?”
Athel reached down and snatched up a claw. “Now that the dragons are gone, their magic is gone too. That means there doesn’t exist anywhere on Aetria a power that can cut the bonds that hold Veritus and JaArian prisoner, except for the residue left in these.”
She tiled the claw, the material shimmering faintly in the weak sunlight.
“If we can render it all down, we might, we just might be able to get enough of it concentrated to cut through divine shackles.”
Athel tucked the claw into her pocket. “If the dragons disapprove, then those ungrateful beasts can come back here and complain to me themselves.”
Mina stepped back, her tail wrapped around her leg. She looked over as the men and women tore free rib bones and talons. “It just feels wrong.”
“No, what was wrong was me assuming that people would do the right thing.”
Athel turned away, her eyes darkening. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
Ryin ran up, sweat beading on his face. “The hold’s nearly full.”
“Good, go to Margaret and help her set the quickest course to your family’s lands.”
“My family?”
“Yes, did you not boast once that your Ohma had the best forges on Ferrus?”
“I…may have said that.”
“Well, we’re about to put that to the test. We’re going to need some powerful fire indeed to forge dragon bone.”
Ryin’s lips stretched into a smirk. “Well, all right then, I’ll get to it.”
The ground shifted beneath their feet, the stone cracking and shrieking, jets of steam hissing up through the fresh fissures.
“It’s the curse,” Mina blurted out. “We disturbed dragon graves.”
Isle of Wysteria: Throne of Chains Page 23