Our parents’ questing has been a part of our lives since we were young children, and the routine of their absence is normal for us. When we were much younger, Mouli and Luca would stay with us, but now that we’re older and can take care of ourselves, the caretakers keep to their duties of cooking and caring for the grounds while Rian and I spend our days at the Academy and training. I try to comfort myself that this time is no different than all of those other ones, but I’m too unsettled by Redemption to believe it.
I tap a little louder. Elliot always sends a bird with progress messages in the morning, and Rian and I have promised each other not to check the hall for it unless we go together. I’m anxious to read the note today. I need to know Mum and Da are safe. I rap again impatiently, and finally the latch rattles softly as it’s lifted and the door slides open. I peek inside and can just make out a bristle of auburn hair over the nest of blankets on Rian’s bed across the room. One slender finger creeps up over a rumpled fold, pointing in my direction.
“Hey,” I say, leaning in to squint through the dim morning light. He flicks his finger and the door wriggles on its own, threatening to slide closed, but I block it with my hand. “Doing magic with your eyes closed,” I say. “Impressive.”
“Why are you not sleeping?” Rian’s groan is muffled by his pillow.
“How can you?” I ask as I drum my fingers. “Come on, it’s morning.” He groans again and shoves the blankets away. I glance at his chest to see whether the Mark has grown, but the shirt he’s slept in is laced too tightly for me to tell. He yawns and stretches and rubs his eyes, and makes a great show of being annoyed I’ve woken him so early. I’m used to it. He’s like this every morning. When he finally comes to the hatch ruffling his short-cropped hair, he leans dramatically against it and glances past me toward my windowsill.
“What’s that?” He points over my shoulder and I turn to look.
“Oh, a fairy house.” I say, feeling my cheeks go red. “Princess Margary made it for me. I’m supposed to put a sugar cube inside.”
“A fairy house?” His lips curve into a half smile. “It won’t work,” he says. “They’re repelled by metal, you know.” I tear my gaze away from his lips to his sleepy hazel eyes to see if he’s joking, but his expression is as grave and serious as I’ve ever seen it. We stare at each other for a long silent stretch, and then he bursts out laughing. “It’s just too easy to get you,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ll meet you downstairs.” He slides the door closed and I grumble to myself as I make my way through the dark house and out the kitchen door.
Rian steps into the outside corridor the same time I do, and having just seen the chaotic state of his room I wonder how he can look so impeccably neat in his deep blue apprentice robes. I could swear I had seen them tangled in the nest of blankets on his bed. I suspect magic had a play. We fall into stride together and walk in comfortable silence to the guild hall. The table is laid with a simple breakfast spread of fresh rolls, cheeses and fruit. The message is already smoothed out on the table beside a map and two dishes containing the remainder of someone else’s meal. Rian picks up the note and reads aloud as I help myself to a warm roll.
“Excellent pace yesterday, uneventful night. Believe we have found the boundary. Will reach by midday today. All is well.” Rian gives the note to me and takes a handful of berries for himself. “See? Nothing to worry about. They’ll return the treasure today and ride hard for home. If all goes well, they’ll be back in a week. Maybe less.” He leans across me over the map and points to where it seems they should be now, based on the updates they’ve been sending. Ceras’Lain, where the elves live, is to the southwest of Cerion. Kythshire is rumored to border it in the far west, but its whereabouts are a well-guarded secret. The land is sacred. Legend and children’s stories say it is the home of the fae, but nobody has claimed to see a fairy for centuries aside from the occasional madman or imaginative child. Most everyone believes they were wiped out. I agree with them. If fairies were real, then why would they hide themselves away?
“And if it doesn’t go well?” I ask as I reread the note, which is smaller than the palm of my hand. The writing on it is tiny, and I wonder how Elliot manages it. I turn it over to see Bryse and Cort’s freshly scrawled initials on the back. That would explain the empty plates. They must have finished their own breakfast and moved on to the sparring square next door already.
“You worry too much.” Rian sighs and holds his hand out. “It’s going to go well.” I press the note into it. One of our duties when a note comes to the hall is to make sure every member has seen and initialed it, and then deliver it to the palace so they can be informed of the progress of the quest. Rian tucks the paper into the pocket of his robes.
“I can do it today,” I say as we finish our quick breakfast and I follow him to the sparring square. Through the wall I can hear the faint rhythmic clang of metal on metal and occasional shouts. Rian pauses with his hand on the door.
“I don’t mind,” he says. Ever since I told him about what happened with Prince Eron, he has insisted on delivering the notes to the palace himself. “I wish you would tell someone what happened,” he says quietly, tipping his head toward the door.
“Tell them what, the prince breathed on me?” I roll my eyes, trying hard to make incident out to be less than it was.
“Don’t try to play it down, Azi,” he scowls. “He put his hands on you.” I want to tell him it was nothing, that I’m not bothered by it, but I can’t. Not when I’ve spent countless hours going over every moment in my mind in an effort to figure out exactly what the prince was trying to lead up to. What might have happened if he hadn’t been interrupted by the princesses? What did Sara say when she said he’s been acting strangely? I feel Rian’s eyes on me and I look up into them. Instantly I feel safe.
“Just think about it, okay?” he says. “They ought to know.” He slides the door open and we step through, and I press my knuckles to my lips to keep from laughing at the scene that greets us.
Cort stands in the center of the ring, his deep brown skin already shining with sweat. He has attached Bryse’s massive shield to one arm, and it’s so huge he has to rest the edge of it on the dirt floor to keep it upright. In his other hand, he wields Bryse’s enormous sword, which is comically larger than the graceful dual blades he normally favors. He whips his long braids over his shoulder and braces himself behind the shield unsteadily. The tip of the heavy sword lowers ever so slightly as he stands at the ready. Opposite, Bryse charges him. Clenched in Bryse’s giant fists, Cort’s delicate swords could be toothpicks.
The much larger man’s thick biceps ripple beneath his stony gray skin, and he snarls and brandishes the small weapons in a poor attempt at Cort’s swashbuckling style. They clatter fervently against the shield behind which Cort barely has to duck to stay protected. Occasionally Cort peeks to gauge the attack while Bryse moves slowly around him, slashing. Then, catching an opening, the smaller man reaches around the shield with the great sword and taps Bryse on the knee. “Touch!” He cries and pops up, letting the shield fall forward. He shakes out his arm, loosening it up.
“Bah!” Bryse catches the shield before it crashes to the dusty floor. “You got lucky,” he says. Rian and I clap. Cort offers a bow with a flourish, and Bryse taps him on the top of the head with the flat of his fist. “Showoff.” Rian approaches them and checks to be sure they have both seen the note, and then he heads off to find Brother Donal and Gaethon to collect their signatures on his way to the Academy. I cross the room to the weapon stand, pick up a random sword and a whetstone, and sit at the bench.
“You going to sharpen that one again?” Bryse causes a tremor which rattles my teeth as he drops down onto the bench beside me. “S’been sharpened by you three times this week. You could probably split the last hair on Donal’s head with that one, you could. Keep sharpening it and there’ll be nothing left.” He chuckles. I look down at the pristine blade in my lap. He’s right. I’ve sharpene
d every sword, axe, and dagger in the hall in the past week, more than once. I’m meant to be shadowing my knight, but she isn’t here, and I can’t be with her. Instead, I’ve polished armor and groomed horses and oiled tack and scrubbed floors and organized maps and split wood. It’s hard work, but at least I don’t have to spend any more days at the arms guild with Ragnor. Bryse pats my shoulder with his enormous hand and when I look up at him, his smile is kind and understanding.
“Go get your chain,” he says as he takes the sword and stone from my hands. “The two of us are bored out of our skulls. We could use some fresh meat to practice with.”
We spar together through the morning hours. I hold my own fairly well; it’s refreshing to have partners who are so skilled but don’t want to murder me. They certainly don’t go easy, though. It isn’t the first time we’ve had bouts together, but after a couple of hours it’s obvious to me they were being cautious in the past, when I was just a child with a sword. Today, they’re far more relentless. Cort uses all of the tricks I know against me, and then dozens of new ones I’ve never seen him perform before. Bryse doesn’t let up after a few good hits, but instead tenaciously forces me to keep up my guard as we circle the training square, swords clashing. I hold my own, and we are all grinning and laughing as they face me two against one. By the time Mouli comes to scold me for missing lunch, I’m soaking with sweat and every muscle in my body aches, but my heart is swelled up and I’m grinning like a fool.
“Y’know Az,” Bryse says around a mouthful of cold roast as he sits beside me, “there’s nothing that says you have to wait around for Lis. A squire’s a squire. A knight’s a knight.” I take an enormous bite of leftover turkey sandwiched inside a sliced breakfast roll and look up at him as I chew. Bryse would be a terrifying-looking man to a stranger, but his heavily scarred face and strong brow are so familiar to me that I have never been afraid of him.
“Aha, and here it comes.” Cort chuckles on the other side of me and takes a bite of cheese. At my questioning look, he winks. “He’s trying to steal you away from your lady knight.” The mention of my mother casts a shadow on my mood, and I take a long time to swallow. Bryse is also a knight, and he’s right. As a squire I’m not tied to any single knight.
“Why not? Just until she returns, of course.” I agree. I catch the two exchanging a glance, but they quickly look away from each other.
“Here, I’ll show you a trick with the shield.” Bryse brushes crumbs from his lap and strides to the center of the ring. I set down my roll and reach for my sword, and as my hand closes around the hilt, a sharp pain jolts through it and up my arm. Specks of darkness form at the edge of my vision. The room starts to spin, and my ears are flooded with blood-curdling screams. I throw the sword down in pain and it all goes away. Cort leans to pick it up for me and offers it hilt-first. He looks concerned. He says something and claps me on the back, but my ears are still ringing from the screams and I can’t hear what he’s saying. I grasp the hilt and the pain comes again, up my arm, into my neck, jolting my body. I keep my grip and the room starts spinning, spinning. The darkness closes in on me. The screaming thunders into my skull. I loosen my grip and my sword slips away and all of it stops abruptly. I drop to my knees. My stomach churns, and my lunch revisits me, and then everything goes black.
Chapter Five: Homecoming
A cool breeze, rich with the scent of ripening wheat, washes over me as I’m cradled on a soft bed of grass. Above me golden fronds wave gently, brushing at the perfect blue sky. The breeze sends flakes of gold leaf glittering across the blue, wafting and dancing and dazzling my eyes. I am washed over with serenity as I watch the way the light plays blue, gold, and white. The colors bring me comfort, and I lie in silence among the grass and the wind. I watch the flecks move and swirl and imagine being carried off with them, way up into the deep blue sky. This place is my peace, it is all that matters to me. Time stretches slowly as the warm sun passes across the sky. I listen to the soft rustling of wheat mixed with the distant song of birds, the tapping of a woodpecker, the hum of a cricket playing like a symphony. Slowly, sky blue transitions to pink and orange and lavender.
The light wanes and the stars arrive one by one, winking onto the black night sky in a spray of sparkling diamonds. A smiling sliver of the moon shines down over me, washing everything in blue and white and gray. All around me, the golden fronds sparkle with dew. I feel the cool drops kissing my hair and my face and my arms and legs. The moon is high, and the crickets’ song blended with the peeping frogs stills to an eerie quiet. A soft rustling tells me someone approaches, but I’m not afraid. The wheat and the dew, the breeze and the moon will protect me. Rian’s smile eclipses the moon, and he comes closer and closer and presses his lips to mine. I close my eyes, and when I open them again it isn’t Rian, but Prince Eron. I try to move, but my body doesn’t respond. I feel the roots of myself dug deep into the earth. I have lain here for so long that I am one with the wheat and the grass and the soil. The Prince hovers over me and my eyes drift to his bare chest, where blue-black lines swirl and undulate and grow. They crawl up to his neck and across his arms. His hands graze my shoulders and the Mage Mark blackens his fingers and twists them into roots which wind and grow and twine around me. It doesn’t occur to me to fight it. I am safe, just an observer as the prince’s blackened body is swallowed up by the coiling form of a tree trunk, and the roots encase me and burst upwards, stretching knobby fingers, reaching wiry branches to touch the diamonds in the sky.
My roots are strong and calm, my branches sway among the stars. The sun rises and sets and rises again so many times I lose track of the days and the nights. The crickets’ song comforts me; the woodpecker taps a soft rhythm. In the quiet of a cool autumn night, I’m visited by a tiny creature dressed in white gossamer and down. Her rainbow wings cast prisms of light over the bark of my tree and I am reminded of the dancing flecks of gold leaf and the wafting fronds of wheat against a crisp blue sky. She resembles my mother with her delicate nose, the soft curve of her cheek, and the constant kind glint of a smile in her blue eyes. Her blond hair shimmers as her wings carry her up to look into my face. She rests a miniature hand on the bridge of my nose and peers deep into my eyes, tilting her head this way and that as if looking for something hidden deep within me. We smile at each other and then she gestures to a bright star which streaks overhead, twinkling with thousands of colors. I reach out a hand to catch it and it settles gently in my palm. It is a diamond, beautiful and pure, a match to all of the thousands I have watched twinkling above me for so many nights. The fairy flutters down and closes my fingers around the sparkling gem. Then she opens her mouth to speak.
“Azaeli Hammerfel, enough of this! You wake up right now!” Mouli’s voice startles me. I’m shaken by the shoulder and torn away from my tree and my wheat and my stars. Suddenly I’m painfully aware of the deep hollow feeling in my stomach. My head is pounding. My arms and legs are heavy. My mouth feels as if it’s full of sand. I try to push my eyes open but my lids only barely flutter in response. “Oh!” Mouli’s voice pounds in my ears, driving daggers through my aching head. “Oh! She’s up!” She fusses at my blankets and pats my face with a damp cloth.
“Luca!” She calls and my ears ring with each syllable. I hear her rush from the room and I let my eyes shut again. I try to conjure the beautiful place again, but it’s too distant now, an ancient memory.
“Ow,” I whisper as I squint at the blur that is Mouli. Any more noise like that and I swear my head will split wide open. She drops a bundle on the chair beside my bed and comes to my side again.
“Let’s sit you up slowly, dear, and get you changed. You’re soaking wet from fever.” She unties the laces of my nightgown and falls back with a cry, her hands clapped over her mouth. “Azi! Explain this!” My thoughts are jumbled, torn between two places. Dazed, I follow her scandalized glare to the bare skin over my heart, where a very small blue-black tendril swirls and twines in contrast against my pale whi
te skin.
“I don’t...” my mouth is too dry, my voice too hoarse. My bedroom is too enclosed, too crowded even with just the two of us in it. I close my eyes. I think of the tree. I wriggle my toes, imagining the roots which felt so real, so strong and protective. Beneath the blankets, I clench my fists and feel something hard and unyielding press into my palm. I roll it between my fingers, trying to figure out what it is. It is smooth and cool, and when I focus on it, I’m reminded of the stars against the midnight blue sky. The fairy. The shooting star. The diamond.
“Luca! Send for Gaethon!” Mouli shouts, and I groan again as she rushes back downstairs. When I’m sure she’s a safe distance away, I pull my hand free of the blanket with great effort, feeling as if I haven’t moved in a week. The jewel is the size of my thumb, and when I hold it to the beam of sunlight that streams across my bed from the open window, it catches the light in colorful prisms that remind me of the fairy’s wings in my dream. I watch it dance and gleam for a long time, thinking about what it could have meant. I’ve never had a dream so real before, never longed to go back to it as much as I long to now. It was so beautiful.
Mouli returns and helps me change out of my damp nightgown and into a dry shift. I clench my hand around the diamond, careful not to drop it or to let her see it. Something in my heart tells me it’s meant to be a secret. She helps me to my bedside chair and presses a cup of water to my lips, which I take and drink gratefully. I close my eyes again while she changes the bedclothes. I’m shaking and weak, which seems strange. “Mouli?” I ask. “How long was I asleep?”
“Six days, poor dear.” She slides into the small space between me and the foot of my bed to tuck the ends in.
Call of Kythshire (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 1) Page 5