by Lucy Hounsom
Kyndra stepped away from her family and let Nediah help her up onto his horse. She sat behind him and gazed down from the animal’s greater height. Reena and Jarand looked fragile against the backdrop of fire and smoke. ‘Please get to safety,’ Kyndra told them.
She didn’t mean for those to be her last words, but Brégenne’s mare leapt away and Nediah’s mount followed. Kyndra flung her arms about Nediah’s waist. She had one glimpse of Reena and Jarand before rain blocked them from her sight.
Nediah’s horse raced through the night, much faster than Kyndra thought it safe to go. It seemed to be following Brégenne’s mare, but woman and horse were rarely in sight. Kyndra tried to work out which road they had taken, but once they had left Brenwym’s sulphurous light behind, there was nothing to illuminate their way. They raced through the darkness and the horses ran as if the fire itself licked at their heels.
Maybe it was the motion of the horse, or the terror of the last few hours, but Kyndra felt herself drifting. Shapes reared out of the night, born of weariness and imagination. She was flying, walking in the sky between the stars. There was a black road and she took it, following as it wound through wind and fire and thick red earth. Light welled up before her. It was the fortress again, its glass-spun minarets catching the sun’s beams and feeding them into the structure beneath. The night was behind her now.
Kyndra opened her eyes to a muddy morning, as the horses began to slow. Brégenne was only a few paces ahead, her mare making for a small rise in the land, where she halted. The terrain here was flatter than Kyndra had ever seen it. Her home in the Valleys was steep and hilly, and Brenwym’s fields stretched to the Feenfold Mountains. They marked the edge of the world as she knew it. Those who ventured there returned with stories of endless peaks, capped with snow all year round.
For the first time in her life, Kyndra gazed at the landscape and didn’t see mountains. She was on a vast plain, a grassland sea that rolled away from their little knoll towards a horizon indistinguishable from the sky. How much ground had the horses covered last night? Nediah’s mount huffed as it came to a standstill and he hopped down energetically. He offered his hand to Brégenne and the woman dismounted. Kyndra tried for the same elegance, but her numb legs got tangled in the stirrups and she fell.
‘Where are we?’ she asked, brushing dry stems from her trousers. The horses looked very pleased to find themselves surrounded by grass. Nediah removed their saddles and left them to graze.
‘The Wilds,’ Brégenne said. She folded a blanket on the ground and sat down. It struck Kyndra how ordinary she looked, a blind woman dressed in traveller’s browns. She found it hard to equate her with the shining being she had been last night.
Brégenne’s words abruptly hit home. ‘The Wilds?’ Kyndra gasped. ‘But that’s leagues from Brenwym!’
‘Twelve, to be precise,’ Nediah said. He emerged from behind the horses with two saddlebags over his shoulder.
Kyndra looked sidelong at the horses. Both placidly cropped the grass that grew on the rise. They seemed fine and not unduly tired. Wondering at them, she rubbed her lower back. The long ride had left her muscles aching. She’d barely slept in twenty-four hours and the pounding in her head was getting worse.
Nediah’s smile offended her. Had the man forgotten the horror from which they’d run? Daylight had brought out the gold in his green eyes and he whistled happily as he unbuckled the bags. Brégenne listened with a long-suffering expression.
Kyndra thought of her home. What did it look like this morning? Perhaps the fires had subsided and the rain hissed on ruined houses that smoked under this same pallid sky. How many lives had the Breaking claimed? Where would Reena and Jarand go to find shelter?
‘Are you hungry?’ The voice was Brégenne’s. Kyndra looked over at her, surprised to hear kindness. So far, she’d seemed as distant as the moon itself.
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘We’ll rest the horses here a while.’ Nediah produced a loaf of bread and a flat, folded packet. His whistle changed to a hum.
‘Will you stop that,’ Brégenne said testily.
Nediah’s song halted, but as he broke the loaf into three pieces and unfolded the packet, Kyndra heard the tune well up once more. Brégenne turned her face away.
The greased paper concealed several strips of pork. Kyndra’s stomach rumbled. Earlier she’d sworn privately not to eat any food offered her, but she had none of her own. And anyway, she couldn’t attempt escape on an empty stomach. She had no intention of going along with whatever the strangers planned for her. Kyndra felt a flicker of dread. What did they have in mind? Where were they taking her?
Nediah smiled at the pork. Then he separated the strips and laid them side by side on the paper.
‘Nediah,’ Brégenne said with a note of warning in her voice. ‘I know what you’re doing. Nothing hot.’
Nediah raised an eyebrow, but instead of rewrapping the pork, he glanced at the sky. For a moment it seemed the sun brightened behind its coverlet of clouds. Light glowed at Nediah’s fingertips and Kyndra heard the crackle of fire. She yelled and jerked back as golden flames burst to life around the pork. Nediah quirked a finger at the meat, which lifted and started to turn in the flames. Instead of burning, the pork sizzled. Nediah watched his floating meal with a look of intense satisfaction.
‘It is fortunate that the safety of Naris does not rest solely on your shoulders,’ Brégenne snapped. ‘You betray our secrets for the most trivial of wants.’
‘She’s seen enough to know she cannot go back,’ Nediah replied mildly, and Kyndra felt a chill. ‘I think your display in front of a whole town poses more of a risk.’
A flicker of unease tightened Brégenne’s face. ‘The town was under the Breaking,’ she said. ‘And you know I had my reasons.’
‘I do.’ Nediah nodded. ‘But you didn’t have to heal the innkeeper.’ He didn’t look at Kyndra.
Brégenne pursed her lips and said nothing. Nediah calmly prodded the pork. A small smile returned to his face.
When it was done, Kyndra studied her meat in a way that would have made Reena cross.
‘It’s not poisoned,’ Nediah said, sounding exasperated. ‘If I wanted to harm you, I’d have done it under cover of the Breaking.’ He wrapped some bread around his pork and took a bite. After a few more moments of scrutiny, Kyndra did the same. The meat was salty on her tongue and tasted of the smokehouse. Nediah watched her, amusement in the glint of his eyes.
It was good to eat hot food. She devoured her makeshift sandwich and then looked on as Nediah peeled strips of fat off his pork. The man handed them to Brégenne, who accepted his offerings in silence.
‘Never liked it,’ he explained when he finished his greasy work. Brégenne laid the fat on her bread and ate it. Nediah winced.
Kyndra knew it was only weariness that blanketed her fear and shock. So many unbelievable things had happened in the last day that a part of her was convinced she must have dreamed them. She gazed at the strangers. Neither seemed the same as the previous night. A few hours ago, Nediah had turned to Brégenne for guidance, but he seemed surer of himself this morning. That didn’t stop Kyndra from thinking Brégenne was in charge – she looked at least ten years older than her companion, despite the strange, smooth quality that graced both their faces.
Nediah wiped his hands on the dewy grass and Kyndra found herself staring. The man’s fingertips no longer glowed. They looked normal, except for an odd golden sheen to his nails.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked abruptly, failing to keep a tremor from her voice.
Brégenne pulled her cloak tighter so that her body was all but hidden in its dark folds. ‘Once you have heard the name of Naris, you cannot unhear it,’ she said.
5
The day passed by in a greyish procession. Mist swathed the land like a vaporous lake and no matter which way Kyndra looked, the view was the same.
Now that they travelled at a more sedate pace, s
he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with her hands. She settled for gripping the saddle’s wide rim, but her fingers cramped in the cold. Whenever the horse stumbled on a rough patch of ground, she found herself clutching at Nediah’s waist. Cheeks red, she quickly let go and mumbled when the man asked if she was all right.
Reena and Jarand were never far from her thoughts and Kyndra hoped desperately that they were safe. She hoped, too, that Jhren and his family had managed to escape the town. Guilt was beginning to hound her over the way she’d treated her oldest friend. Jhren was ready to give you everything, Colta had said. Kyndra remembered the tears in the other girl’s eyes, the hurt in her voice, and felt even worse.
She dug her nails into her palms. Why was everything so messed up? Yesterday morning she’d woken thinking only of the Ceremony, worrying what it would show her. That fear now seemed small and insignificant against the backdrop of last night. Kyndra gazed at the changeless plain and wondered what she was doing here. Every so often, she saw her friends’ faces in the waving grass and blinked them quickly away.
Nediah drooped as evening fell, his energy seeming to set with the sun. Brégenne looked happier. She stroked her horse’s neck and Kyndra heard her whisper thanks. The horse snorted, nostrils huffing. Kyndra watched the animal’s breath dissipate and shivered in the chill air.
When night climbed out of the folds in the land, Nediah reined in. The day’s clouds veiled the stars and only a lighter patch of sky hinted that the moon had risen. Brégenne tipped her head back, her white eyes faintly glowing. Nediah dismounted with none of his earlier grace. He didn’t speak as he lit a small lantern, spread a tarpaulin over the ground and handed out blankets from the saddlebag. Kyndra accepted hers in matching silence. She had barely spoken all day.
‘It will be good to get off these plains,’ Brégenne said, her voice abrupt in the night.
Nediah made a sound of agreement. He sorted through the bag on Brégenne’s horse, pulling out another loaf, a few bits of dried meat and a wheel of cheese. Kyndra was ready for something hot. She ached from the unfamiliar motion of the horse and her mist-damp clothes stuck clammily to her skin.
Nediah laid the rations on a blue cloth he produced from his pocket and sat back on his heels. Kyndra watched him expectantly, but the man didn’t move to heat the food. Brégenne seated herself opposite and started to tear off chunks of bread. ‘Is there nothing hot?’ Kyndra asked.
Nediah snorted. ‘Ask Brégenne. I doubt she will oblige you.’
‘This is adequate,’ Brégenne said, gesturing with a slice of cheese.
Kyndra continued to stare at Nediah. ‘But earlier you—’
‘Don’t rile him.’ Brégenne picked her cheese apart. ‘He’s scarcely manageable as it is.’
‘I’m not,’ Kyndra protested. ‘I just wondered why—’
‘I can’t,’ Nediah said shortly. He reached out and took one of the pieces of bread Brégenne had torn off. ‘Only in daylight.’ His voice was very quiet.
Something clicked into place. Kyndra had only ever seen Brégenne use her power at night; Nediah was the opposite. She thought of the stories and her eyes widened. ‘You’re Wielders,’ she gasped without thinking. ‘Sorcerers from the old world.’
The strangers regarded her in silence. Brégenne’s face was stony.
‘We are not from the old world,’ Nediah said finally. ‘We are from this world.’ The lantern light cast him half in shadow.
‘But the Wielders were killed five hundred years ago, at the end of the war.’ Kyndra felt the pulse quicken in her throat. ‘How is it possible?’
‘This is not to be repeated,’ Brégenne said. Her voice was low and hard. ‘You will tell no one who or what we are. Breathe a word and you will regret it. Do you understand?’
Numbly, Kyndra nodded. Brégenne studied her, dinner forgotten in her lap. ‘Not all the Wielders perished in the Deliverance,’ she said. ‘A handful survived, but they were young, little more than children, and without leaders. So they hid from the world, deep in the tunnels below the ruins of Solinaris. For better or worse, we became a secret people. And now it has to stay that way.’ She nodded at Kyndra. ‘You saw how the folk of your town reacted last night. The world has forgotten that the Wielders gave their lives to halt the war.’
Kyndra privately thought that Brenwym’s reaction was only to be expected, but she kept her mouth shut.
‘It’s the same with the Breaking,’ Brégenne continued. ‘It was once accepted as the price of freedom, a necessary consequence of the power used to save Mariar from its enemies. Now it’s the subject of children’s rhymes, dismissed and disbelieved.’
Kyndra shifted uncomfortably. ‘We don’t disbelieve it. It’s just that the Breaking is something that happens in other places.’
The strangers regarded her silently and Kyndra wished she could take the words back. In the face of her situation, they were absurd.
‘Attitudes like that cause unnecessary deaths,’ Brégenne said finally. ‘Especially since the Breaking is growing worse. What used to behave like a simple, albeit dangerous storm is now a force capable of wiping out whole settlements.’
Kyndra looked into the night, seeing again the killing fire that had broken open the sky. She remembered the screams and cries of pain on what usually would have been a day of celebration. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘We don’t know,’ Nediah said. ‘We’ve just come from the Karka Basin, some leagues to the south-west. The Breaking struck there only a month ago.’ His eyes were sober. ‘Few live in the Basin. The ground is swampy and difficult to build on, so the Breaking did little harm.’
The unspoken comparison with Brenwym left Kyndra cold, as did the sympathy in Nediah’s voice. She doubted the strangers really cared about her town, or how many of her neighbours and their children lay dead.
‘Nediah and I were tracking the Breaking when we arrived in Brenwym,’ Brégenne said. The expression she turned on Kyndra was calculating. ‘I never imagined I would have to intervene to save your life.’
‘It wouldn’t have come to that,’ Kyndra said swiftly. She thought back to last night, remembering Fedrin’s last words, Colta’s accusations. The crowd had taken her up, closing ranks, but surely they would not have—
‘They would have killed you.’
‘No,’ Kyndra protested. ‘I’ve lived there for seventeen years, all my life. They know me.’
Then it is Reena’s bastard’s doing. Must we all suffer for her crime?
The elder’s words returned to her abruptly, and she felt a surge of anger. Yes, Brenwym knew her, just as they knew Kyndra had no father to claim her. Whose crime, she wondered suddenly, had the elder been referring to? Reena’s for producing a child outside wedlock, or her own for breaking the Relic?
Reena’s bastard’s doing.
She remembered a time when, as a little girl, she had run to her mother, ears full of that poisonous word. It was uglier when it came from the unknowing mouths of children.
What does it matter, Kyn? Reena had said. You are who you are, and you are my daughter.
And years later, with a lump in her throat, Kyndra had asked, Don’t you regret it? You know what they say about you. Don’t you regret ever having me?
Reena had studied her a long time before answering. The man who was your father gave me two things – my courage and you. I have never regretted either.
Surrounded by the empty grasslands, Kyndra again felt a lump in her throat and she swallowed. That was all her mother had ever said about her birth.
‘We have seen it before, Kyndra,’ Nediah told her quietly. He shifted position on the tarpaulin. ‘We have seen what fear and superstition can do to a community.’
‘The Far Valleys should never have been allowed to keep a relic of Acre,’ Brégenne said. ‘Even ones that seem innocuous should be treated with caution. I didn’t like the influence it had over so many people.’
‘But it broke,’ Kyndra said, shivering at the memo
ry. ‘Why did it break after five hundred years?’
Brégenne gave her a speculative look that made Kyndra’s skin prickle. ‘Why indeed,’ she said. The shadows cast by the lantern did not touch her silvery eyes.
Later Kyndra lay in a blanket, stomach hollow after the small meal, and considered Brégenne’s words. The woman had refused to say anything else. If she was honest with herself, Kyndra wanted to know more about them, about how they used their power, but Brégenne had made it clear that the subject was none of her business. And anyway, Kyndra thought, I need to figure out a way to escape. She didn’t believe for one moment that the strangers had taken her to save her life.
A bitter night wind scoured the plain. Kyndra huddled deeper in her blanket. Although she’d caught only a few hours’ sleep that morning and felt the weariness in her bones, her mind wouldn’t stop turning. She imagined warming her hands at The Nomos’ hearth, and realized with a jolt that the inn had gone.
Dawn came slowly, sluggish on the heels of night. Half the sky was still dark when Kyndra raised her head a fraction. Someone was standing with their back to her, silent at the edge of a rise. The silhouette was tall and slim: Nediah. He faced east, watching the sky pale. Kyndra stayed still while above her, pink spread into yellow and orange. Then the sun broke free from the horizon.
The man on the hill blazed gold. His bare forearms were molten, dipped in brilliance, and heat radiated from his body, rolling over Kyndra like the tropical wind that blew in the south. Instead of the night song, she heard a roar, as if a thousand voices spoke at once. The roar was dry, desert light and the abiding blue of the sky. It was green and golden, the rush of hooves through trees, the afternoon flight of a hawk. It was everything the sun touched. It was the vast growth of living things. And yet Kyndra sensed a balance between song and roar. They were aspects of life itself.
Kyndra caught a small movement – she was not the only one watching. Knees on the wet grass, Brégenne crouched in her blanket, an unfamiliar tenderness on her face. She stared at Nediah, her lips slightly open, the fading glow in her eyes made golden.