by Aderyn Wood
But technique doesn’t matter today.
Dale looked back at Jaral who still held his gaze on Agathina, and something shot through Dale’s heart like hot venom. She scowled, angry and guilty at once. Angry that Agathina was besting her in every way and guilty that she could feel such jealousy about her best friend.
“Novices!” Sa'r Coneril’s voice boomed over the muted sounds of the hall and everyone went quiet. “When you hear the battle drum the war has begun. Remember, no magic. When you are cut you are done. The fight will last for as long as there are fighters to fight. This is war!”
Dale scanned the audience again. Rhys wasn’t there. Odd. Then she caught her mother’s eye and saw her loving smile. Dale gripped her sword. She needed to make her mother proud for once.
The drum sounded. A loud, deep beat that made Dale think of Unseelie monsters sweeping over the Arcadian mountains. She shook her head and focussed as war cries and ringing steel rushed through the hall. A blade swung in front of her – a broadsword belonging to the dwarf Fedryll. He was an apt fighter, but Dale had bested him before. She deflected a heavy thrust and the clang of steel on steel sang to her, heightening her senses. This was it. Battle. Screams and grunts surrounded her, and the space already stunk of sweat. But it all fell away; her sword was all there was. She spun, lunged and thrust, and cut through the brace on Fedryll’s forearm. Blood surged and spilled to the ground. He dropped his sword and looked up, mouth open, eyes wide, filled with confusion and surprise – the type of expression someone might wear the moment they realised they were to die.
“I’m sorry, Fedryll,” she whispered, but her heart was beating like a frenzied horse and her sword hand was eager for more play. This she could do. This she was good at.
A tap on her shoulder and she spun. Athadnar stood there being his usual polite self. He was a farmer’s son from a tiny hamlet in the west. A good farmer, but a poor swordsman. “Want to fight me, Dalendra?”
She shook her head. “Athadnar, it’s not like asking someone to dance." Her lips curled down. “This is war!” She flicked her sword and a heartbeat later a crimson line bloomed on his chest, the mail between his shoulder plates fell open and blood slowly filled the crevices of his armour.
Athadnar wore that same expression, confusion, wonder, as Fedryll had.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
But Athadnar just shook his head. “It’s all right. This is war, just as you said.” Then he stalked off the battle ground, dodging the melee, to the safety of the novice stalls.
Eleana cut and thrust toward her, and Dale smiled. She was a worthy opponent. They'd duelled many times since Sa’r Coneril first observed them and considered them an equal match. Dale knew her weaknesses and strengths, and Eleana knew hers. But, strangely, Eleana had chosen to wear chainmail rather than her usual leather. A bad choice, Dale thought. She’d not had enough practice. Dale flared her nostrils as she raised her sword to strike.
Eleana raised her sword in response and Dale feigned a thrust and jumped back. Eleana, too encumbered by the mail couldn’t alter her movement quick enough and she followed through with her strike, hitting nothing but air. Dale was light as ever on her feet. She danced a turn and then another until she stood behind Eleana and sliced the white skin of her neck. Crimson droplets dotted the ground.
“That hurt, Dale.” Eleana said, then she grinned. “Well played.” She picked up her sword and jogged to the stalls.
The minutes turned into the better part of an hour, and the novices thinned dramatically as the ring of steel lessened and more left the battleground. Dale took a moment to survey the field. Fifteen, maybe twenty remained. She had to keep her strength.
“Dalendra!” a familiar voice came from behind and she spun to see Agathina advancing toward her. Dale frowned, surprised that Agathina was still in play.
“You’re still here, Agathina! That’s great.” Dale smiled.
But Agathina’s mouth curved in a snarl, wolflike. “Don’t patroninse me.” She raised a sword.
No, Dale thought, she didn’t want to fight her friend. Not with so much awkward tension between them.
In war, no one is your friend. One of Sa’r Coneril’s lessons now made sense.
Dale raised her own sword and lunged.
Agathina’s strikes were coming fast. Too fast. Dale’s arms were aching with the pain of keeping time. Her feet were moving backwards now as Agathina advanced on her and her blows grew harder.
Dale puffed, how had her friend become so strong? She squinted as she just managed to deflect another pounding. Something wasn’t right. Dale opened her second sight for the briefest of seconds and the distraction nearly cost her a cut to her shoulder. But she saw clearly that Agathina’s aura burned a silvery light, drawing on aether – she was using magic.
Dale dropped her sword. “Agathina, no!” but it was too late, Agathina’s sword met her cheek. It sliced through with a searing sting. Dale's hands pressed on the wound and blood glistened red on her fingers. She looked up.
Agathina straightened her shoulders with a satisfied smirk.
“You were using magic,” Dale whispered.
Agathina shrugged. “That is what happens in war. Enemies fight enemies with dirty tactics, and friends betray friends.” She squinted, then reached out and touched Dale’s face whispering a spell and healing her cut in a second.
“If you liked Jaral, why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered before picking up her sword and leaving the field.
Dale touched her cheek. No more blood, nor pain – the cut had healed. Agathina was still upset, but Dale would have to explain later. For now there were only five fighters left and then only four when Casstio struck Lepyr from behind.
Dale picked up her sword and jumped at Casstio with anger bubbling. She was sick of being nice. Of being Jaral’s toy to flirt with and of being the so-called god damned saviour. She swung and thrust, and within a heartbeat Casstio's sword had dropped from his hand. Dale nicked his leg as he fell to the ground.
One other remained. He wore black leather armour, and a black enclosed helm. The two of them circled each other. Like lions about to fight. And then she pounced. He didn’t waste time on sword swings, he moved with poise and accuracy designed to maintain his energy. It was a style of fighting she rarely saw. Only with Sa’r Coneril himself. But he was still in the stalls.
Dale was tempted to open her sight here too, to see if she could recognize the mysterious opponent’s aura, but strictly speaking, she wasn’t even supposed to do that.
“Who are you?” she whispered instead.
But her opponent responded with a sword thrust and Dale pounced back, avoiding it by a hair’s breadth. She needed to be more careful. She circled him in time with his own steps. He swung again and she parried and danced away. But something about the way he fought seemed strange. Something wasn’t right.
Then it came to her when she made a mistake and left her arm out a fraction longer than what she should have. He wasn’t fighting to his full capacity. He wanted her to win. How dare he! Anger surged and she struck out plunging her sword deep into the flesh of his leg, hitting bone.
He screamed and went to the ground, his sword clanging loudly. He clutched his bleeding leg with both hands.
“No! I’m sorry.” Dale ran over to him and gabbed his helm, lifting it off. A flush of dark curls bloomed. Rhys.
“I’m sorry!” she said, tears in her eyes. “Rhys, why did you let me win?”
He looked up at her with his black eyes. “I didn’t,” he hissed.
She glanced at his leg. The blood was coming out too fast. She must have struck an artery. She moved to his knee and placed her hands on his wound. “I’m going to heal this.”
He looked at her, his face contorted, a picture of pain, his skin unnaturally pale.
Dale opened her sight and concentrated on the wound, the bone sealing, the blood clotting, the flesh knitting together. Her own blood pulsing around her body wa
s a vivid sensation. She sensed every visceral part of herself as well as her own spirit in the true realm and it was electrifying. She poured her own energy into Rhys and willed his health to return.
Then she opened her eyes, parted her hands, and gasped at the sight before her. The wound had healed. There wasn’t even a scar. Her eyes widened. She’d done it! Her magic had worked.
She looked up and a circle of people now stood around them. The healing master, Sivylla, crouched to inspect the wound and poked a finger at Rhys’s knee.
“Let me through.” People stepped aside for the queen. “Rhys, are you well?”
Rhys looked a little dizzy still but his eyes showed he was no longer in pain, “I am well, Your Majesty. Thanks to the Princess.” He smiled, and Dale bit her lip.
“You healed him?” her mother asked.
Dale nodded. “Yes.”
Her mother smiled, a broad grin full of pride. “I knew you could. This is the beginning.”
6
Dale stood in the growing darkness, indecision making her hands knot as she paced. She watched the door to the infirmary – a large wing on the first floor of the palace. It used to be a reception room once, but when her mother became queen she made it the infirmary to comfort the sick and provide the best healers, food and medicine. Of course, ill-health was rare in Arcadia, but war was changing that.
Footsteps rung on the marble floor and Dale could make out Kietra, one of Ma’r Sivylla’s novices approaching. In the gloomy corridor, she carried a tray of food.
“Good evening, Princess, I’ll put some lights on in a minute.”
“Good evening, Kietra. Is that tray for Rhys?” Dale asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
“It is, would you like to take it in to him?”
Dale nodded and grabbed the tray.
It was even gloomier inside the infirmary. Through the large windows, the ruddy sky marked the early evening hour and twilight cast a rosy glow around each room. A few dwarven folk who'd suffered broken bones or burns from Unseelie attacks in the north took up some of the beds. They'd fled to Arcadia with the councillors. Dale walked quietly through the corridor until she came to the last room on the right. Rhys was lying in his bed, his eyes closed.
“Moooot.” Up on the shelf, above Rhys’s bed, sat his hysbryd – the white owl. His large black eyes stared at her just like Rhys always did.
Dale gave him an awkward smile. “I’m sorry about what I did to your master,” she whispered.
The owl blinked and resumed his stare.
Dale opened her second sight. Rhys’s aura pulsed a steady blue, and among the bluish cloud-like haze a silvery line connected Rhys to his owl – the hysbryd bond. Dale snapped her vision back and blinked. He was tired, but strong. He would be all right with some rest. While she had healed his wound, the pain from the injury and the spell itself had drained his energy. And Ma’r Sivylla ordered him to rest overnight in the infirmary to ensure there wasn’t any infection. She would check on him through the night.
Dale put the tray down on the table and turned to observe him further. He looked like some beautiful piece of art, and it took her breath away. Just like the first time she saw him on Earth when he arrived at St Nino’s. Prudence had tried to get her claws into him, but the whole time he was there, Dale had no idea that it was to protect her.
“Dale?” His lips moved, and a smile broke on his face as his eyes fluttered open. “I thought I sensed you.”
Dale swallowed. Sensed? “Ah, I just wanted to say I’m sorry about what happened.” The butterflies erupted in her stomach and she was thankful for the gloom that hopefully hid her blush.
“You don’t need to apologise. I am perfectly well, thanks to your healing spell.” His smile was wide and beautiful.
Dale glanced at his legs that were covered by the linen sheets. “You have no pain?”
“No, the healing was perfect.”
Dale bit her lip. “I don’t understand my magic. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t.”
Rhys nodded. “I was a little the same when I started.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but that was when I was very young. I’ve had years of practice.” He reached out his hand and put it on hers. The familiar warmth of it sent a thrill of shivers along her spine. “Your magic will come, you’ll see, you’ve only been training for a year.”
Not you too. Dale exhaled a sharp breath. “But, the other novices, they’ve been studying sorcery for the same length of time, and they’re already very apt. You saw what Agathina did today, changing into the wolf. That’s something only the masters can do, or sorcerers like yourself, or Ness.” Dale gasped and looked away. She didn’t mean to bring up Ness; she didn’t want to deal with that sadness too.
But Rhys clutched her hand. “You need to have faith in yourself.”
Dale shook her head. I don’t want to talk about faith again. “Today, in the combat, I know you let me win.”
Rhys frowned.
Dale slid her hand away. “So, you did let me win. Why?”
Rhys sighed. “I wanted them all to have faith too.”
She turned and looked out the window. The city was glittering now and the silver moon had just begun its ascent into the starry sky. To the east the waterfall cast a curtain of mist over the stone cottages.
“Dale.”
She stepped toward the window. “I don’t blame them. Their doubt.” Her voice was shaky and no matter how she tried, it wouldn’t steady. “But I just can’t stop thinking of those whose lives have been wasted because of me. Ness. Cat. Gareth.” Tears formed and flowed down her cheeks.
“Dale. This self-doubt you have is poisoning you.”
She turned. “What am I supposed to think? My magic doesn’t work. I can’t even light these damned lanterns. Something the others could do after our first week of study.”
“Try,” Rhys whispered.
“What?” Dale wiped her eyes.
“Try to light them. It’s getting dark in here, I can barely see your lovely hair.”
Dale frowned. “But what’s the point in trying? I know I can’t do it.”
“And I know you can.”
Can I? Fear stifled her will to try. If she failed to light the candles, it would be more proof. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. And she left, her footsteps ringing as she hurried away.
Dale climbed the stairs to the Emerald Tower. Her mother had given her the keys and told her she was now the rightful guardian of the prophecy stone. She tried not to scoff at the thought. At the oak door she inserted the little key and, as before, the door opened without a sound and with a force of its own.
The moon’s blue glow shone through the glass windows and lit the little room. The emerald sparkled.
Dale put her fingers to it. It’s warmth was something of a comfort to her – and bloomed deep within – a sensation both strange and familiar, like it called to her. She resisted the urge to pick it up and slip it around her neck. She frowned. Why do I want to wear it as a necklace? It wasn’t a jewel to be worn as an ornament.
“Can you reveal anything to me now? Now when it is dark and I need some answers. Can you tell me straight – am I really the saviour? And if so, why isn’t my magic working properly?”
But the emerald sat silently on its pedestal. No words written in light. No chorus of voices. All she heard was the gentle rush of the waterfall as it fell in to the River Umbrael, the river of protection. A chord on the wind from a lute or a harp accompanied it. A strange sound. There’d been little music since the war.
Dale took a deep breath. “Well, what of Ness? Can’t you tell me if she’s alive?”
The chamber remained silent. The prophecy stone would give no answers tonight, but the question made her think of her sprite. It’d been a long while since she sent Esme off to look for Ness one last time. Dale ran her fingers through her hair. She would summon Esme in the morning.
Dale locked both doors to the tower and
walked through the orangerie, breathing in the sweet scent of orange blossom on the night air before entering the palace. She climbed the five sets of stairs that took her to her mother’s chambers. Usually, at this late hour, her mother would be alone. Most nights the queen used the time to meditate. Although, since the war Dale had noted her mother spent more time at her desk studying maps or in the library reading old books, a crease lining her brow as she concentrated. Tonight, Dale wanted to talk to her about everything. About her doubts, about the traitor, about the war, about Ness.
She stepped onto the ornate landing fringed with a balustrade of wood carved with a forest setting. A similar theme decorated the rugs on the floor and the tapestries along the walls. Two wall lanterns illuminated the marble statues – one of a horse, the other a stag – that bordered the only door on this level of the palace, the entrance to the regent's chambers. Dale stepped closer. Her mother’s door was ajar, and soft lantern light and muted conversations spiralled through it. Dale stepped closer and crept beside the statue of the horse, listening and recognising the voices of some of the council members.
“Are you quite sure, Your Majesty? The Unseelie have made it all that way?” It was the philosophy master’s voice. Dale recognized Atapole’s typical superior tone.
“Of course I’m sure. I’ve only scried tonight. Hemlyn has informed me they had to cede the valley and there have been many casualties.” Her mother’s voice was different, impatient, frustrated.
“The valley was an important part of our defence.” It was Sa'r Coneril’s voice. “How many have we lost?"
“At least a thousand.”
“Then it is time. We must leave tomorrow.” Sa’r Coneril’s tone was flat, determined.
“But we haven’t finished our business here as yet.” It was Ma'r Sivylla who spoke.
“We have as good as finished. We will take our new recruits with us when we leave, and meet another two thousand soldiers at Schyn Pass, and do our best to stall them at Flaneryl’s Gap. It is a natural defence and the new sorcerers and soldiers will help us to protect it from the clutches of the Unseelie horde. With winter coming, perhaps the walls of ice will aid our defence.”