“So that’s not what we’re going to do?”
“It is what we’re going to do, but our main force shall cross far upriver from where they are expecting us to.”
“And then what?” Jaimin asked.
“And then we fight our way toward the city. We must secure both secret entrances to the castle—especially the less obvious one, if we are to use it to take the enemy by surprise. I must be among the first in, since I’m familiar with the passages between the walls.”
“Do you still have your map of the passages?”
“Yes, and we’ve been using it in our briefings, but you know how it is between those walls, with all their ladders and holes in the floor. You can easily get lost, or even hurt, if you’re moving quickly.”
“Kotaret and I have also been through there,” Jaimin said. “We can help guide the troops.”
“I shan’t risk you going in there,” she said. “Elaina wouldn’t approve either.”
“Just keep it on the table.”
“All right, Jaimin. Did you get some sleep?”
“Yes. You?”
“A little.” Nastasha ascended a ladder on the wall nearby and opened a rusty hatch in the ceiling. Daylight poured in. She climbed up onto the roof, and called down: “Would you two like to come up and get some fresh air?” she said. “I shall not even make you put your armor back on.”
Nastasha brought Elaina and Jaimin breakfast, blankets, and some fresh underclothes, and then left them alone on the snow-clad roof of the building.
“It’s so quiet outside,” Elaina said. She was so distracted by the silence and by the gorgeous pink morning sky she didn’t notice a ball of water the size of an apricot had been hovering in the air about a meter before her. It dropped and splashed on the ice-encrusted snow. “Jem! Was that yours?”
“Yes.”
“You melted the snow? Show me how you did it!”
Jaimin reached down and scooped up another handful of snow in his gloved hand. He held out the frosty, jumbled mass in front of him. “Now this is the fun part,” he said. The snow detached from his glove, ascended, and began to rotate slowly. Jaimin sent ripples of energy through the white glob outward from a point in its core. This vibrated the molecules, exciting them into releasing their crystalline bonds. White turned to clear liquid, reflecting the pink sky. Soon Jaimin controlled a compact, perfect sphere.
Elaina was ecstatic. “Hold it there,” she said. She formed her own ball of water in the same way, and sent it out beside Jaimin’s. She had to let a few drops dribble out of it to get it to exactly the same size as his. “Let me try something,” she said. With deft precision, she maneuvered her sphere within a millimeter of his, and then closer. At their closest point, the spheres’ surfaces leapt up and touched one other, forming a bridge. Jaimin and Elaina felt the surface tensions of their spheres pulling, trying to merge the spheres into a single globule, but they resisted, allowing the water to combine in only one spot.
Elaina slid her ball over the top of Jaimin’s, dragging the thin point of connection, moving it down the far side, and then under. She then changed the angle, shifting the axis of her sphere’s caress against his. She stopped hers, and then he circled her ball, massaging its shiny surface with surprising adroitness.
The aerial pas de deux continued. Elaina soon got playful and engaged his ball in a frisky chase. She chased him, they tagged, and then he chased her. And so it went on for a while, until finally their spheres were circling each other so fast that Jaimin lost track of which one was his—and the one that actually was showered to the ground. Elaina maneuvered her lonely sphere into Jaimin’s mouth, and he swallowed it. Its coldness caused him a sharp headache. “Augh!” he cried. She tried not to laugh.
When he recovered, he said: “Do you have any idea how we’re able to control water?”
“I’ll tell you how I like to think of it, but I have no idea whether I’m right. It’s just a theory I have.”
“What’s your theory?” he asked.
“I think matter carries within it the laws it is supposed to follow. Each molecule is expected to behave and to respond to nature’s forces in a certain way, absent any other instructions. But the spirit can reach out to the matter and issue new instructions.”
“Basically telling the matter to disobey the laws of physics?”
“Right,” she said.
“Why can’t everyone do it?”
“Maybe human brains are designed to limit their influence of the spirit on the physical world, so that our environment is predictable and safe. We Celmareans must have, over thousands of years, re-trained our brains not to limit spiritual connections.”
“That’s kind of how the mending ability works, too. Isn’t it?” Jaimin asked.
“I bet it is,” she said.
“Why can Celmareans control just water, then? Why not other matter?”
“Well, my guess is the Celmareans were most interested in water. After all, their island was surrounded by it and they stared at it every day. Perhaps through practice and over generations, they convinced their brains to allow their spirits liberty to manipulate water. But who knows? I may be totally wrong. I should ask my mother.”
“You’ve got the mending from your father and all these other crazy abilities from your mother,” he said. “That’s why your mending is like nothing the world has ever seen.”
“That would make sense,” she said, “but the healing I do—I can’t call it mine. It’s out of my control. The healing energy just passes through me into this world.”
“Like you’re being used?” remarked Jaimin.
“Maybe. But I don’t mind,” said Elaina. “I don’t mind at all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
W hen the sun finally made it over the ridge, the forested Arran slopes, still thickly clad in white, warmed up well above freezing. Upstream on the Kaela, the allies had amassed an impressive force.
The allies’ new drive southward commenced with a roar of artillery that could be heard from the cliffs to the sea and across the expanse of forest. It was also a roar of sacrifice, for the divine healer Elaina was not going to be allowed anywhere near the clash to save the fallen. Not yet.
“It will still be a while before it’s safe for you two to cross,” Nastasha advised Elaina and Jaimin, as she re-secured the hatch atop the ladder. “But don’t do anything that could make you sleepy—either of you. You need to be ready to move out when the word comes.” She climbed down, and left the royal pair alone once again in the empty quarry storeroom.
Elaina seized the opportunity to contact her sister.
“What news of the war?” Eleonora asked, when Elaina shimmered into view.
“Hundreds of men are dying on both sides.”
“And do you cheer when our men fall?” Eleonora asked.
“I don’t find joy in anyone’s suffering,” said Elaina.
“I thought you were raised an Arran girl! You were probably taught to hate us.”
“Arrans aren’t taught to hate anyone,” said Elaina. “Arrans are so peaceful! There’s hardly any crime here.”
“So different from what I grew up believing…” Eleonora said.
“The Arrans deserve to reclaim their home,” Elaina said, “but I feel awful for our Destaurian brothers who were misled into seizing it. They are dying for nothing.”
“I guess there are many things I must look at now from a new perspective,” said Eleonora. “I’ve always felt that some important pieces of the puzzle of my life were missing. I feel I should believe you, and I hope I’m not being deceived by my desperate need to understand why the man I love is rotting away just steps from me.”
Elaina “walked” over to the body of her brother-in-law. “I bet he was a great man. I’d like to hear about him. What’s his name?”
“Camron,” she said. Elaina’s genuine concern helped Eleonora feel less alone. “Cam was always off on secret missions for my father’s generals—probabl
y off spying on you. At home, where it mattered to me, he was wonderful.” Eleonora became lost in her thoughts, and then she asked, “What about you? Are you married?”
“I’m engaged to the Prince of Arra.”
“What? That boy—what’s his name? Jomin? Jaymin?”
“Jaimin,” Elaina said. “And he’s wonderful as well.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Eleonora said. “I’m sure he is. And too bad his father had to go that way. I’m ashamed to admit it, but that poisoning was my idea.”
“What? How could you? Do you know how many people lost their lives?”
“Well, let me clarify: my idea was to poison the royal family. ‘You’ve got an insider,’ I told Denda. ‘Put her to use!’ But it was Isabel who saw the chance to eliminate everyone else as well.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Elaina said.
“Look,” said Eleonora, “for me, it was a chance to get back at Arra for all the raids, and to help Denda kill some of those islanders he despised, so he would quit talking about them.”
“Did Denda ever tell you why he was after the Celmareans?” Elaina asked.
“No, he would never say.”
“And yet you were helping him kill them?”
“Look, I trusted my father. I didn’t press him for why he wanted them dead. Everyone has their secrets, and I respect that.”
“I’m guilty of not asking enough questions too,” Elaina said. “We have that in common. Well, fortunately, Celmareans cannot be poisoned, otherwise there would be even more blood on your hands.”
Eleonora sighed. Elaina was probably right: there was blood on her hands—the blood of many innocent people. But it was still Denda’s fault, mostly. Eleonora was in no mood to start feeling guilty about what she’d done, given the horrible things being done to her.
“Do you even know where we are?” Elaina asked.
“I know we’re in the desert. And probably still within the borders of Destauria. I can’t see anything but sky out that little hole up there. You’re a ghost—why don’t you float on up there and have a look around?”
Elaina thought this was a brilliant suggestion. She tried to will herself upward, like she had done once when she was a spirit on Celmarea. She soon found that if there was a way to float upward in her current body, that wasn’t it.
“Well?” Eleonora said.
“I can’t.”
“Are you trying?”
“Trying something, but it’s not working,” Elaina said. “I’ve been in the spirit world several times, and it seems like here the physics is always changing.”
“Try climbing the walls,” Eleonora suggested.
“You are full of great ideas,” Elaina said. She tried getting a grip on the walls, but her ghostly fingers wouldn’t connect. Nor could she pass through the stone like she had in the Celmarean palace. “No luck,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m not very useful in this state. I’ll have to rescue you the traditional way: come for you in person.”
“But aren’t you far?” Eleonora asked.
“Yes, and I’m stuck in the middle of a war. It may take me a few days to get here, but I promise to get you out.”
“My baby may not be able to wait.”
“I know. I’ll come as soon as I can. I don’t know what else I can do,” Elaina said.
“Can’t you…possess the body of some desert trader to get me out of here?”
“I…wouldn’t even know how to start to do that,” Elaina said, sort of laughing. She sat down cross-legged in front of Eleonora.
“How do you plan to avoid our father?” Eleonora asked.
“I don’t exactly want to avoid him. The divine spirit has given me the ability to heal, and I think I can cleanse Denda of whatever evil is causing him to hate us.”
“Huh. I have the mending ability too, Elaina, and you overestimate it.”
“It’s not…the typical mending ability,” Elaina said. “For all its wonders, that type of mending is limited. There are many diseases it can’t cure. It won’t even help a headache. What I have is complete mending, never seen before. I can restore someone who is dying to full health.”
“You can restore someone’s mind?”
“I can restore everything, everything, everything. I know it can help our father. The problem is, I still need to touch Denda in order to heal him. And it will only work if his life is in mortal danger—if he’s close to death.”
“So we need to nearly kill him in order to heal him?”
“I’m afraid so,” Elaina said.
“Uhh…how do you plan to do that?”
“I’ll have a poison made that should bring him close enough to death.”
“You’re going to poison our father?” Eleonora’s lip curled up in a smile on one side.
“Yes. And I’ll need your help to administer it.”
“My dear sister,” said Eleonora. “I am really starting to like you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
F ollowing new orders from General Lazlo, the Destaurians stepped up their targeting of Celmareans. While the allies were crossing the Kaela River, Nashuda, who was Sima’s son and Myrna’s husband, lost his life to a bolt through the heart. Next, Sima’s son-in-law, Teo, died in the same instant as Teo’s father, Stero, when an explosive shell landed between them.
After these deaths, the allies changed tack from using the islanders as the potent weapons they were to sheltering them like the endangered species they were. Some Celmareans didn’t heed the order to fall back, and needed extra persuasion from Alethea.
Before they were pulled off the front lines, though, the Celmareans had dished out massive damage. Makias’s brother, Talos, had slaughtered dozens of Destaurians by stuffing their lungs with snow and ice. Talos’s wife, Triona, worked with Alethea to shunt the blood from their opponents’ heads, letting others finish them off.
The islanders found countless creative ways to deal death—not trying to be showy, of course, but just being practical. They impaled their foes on water spikes. They strangled them with aqueous ropes. They blinded them by bursting their eyes so the Arrans could slice them with their blades. Although their methods were extreme, the Celmareans were careful not to torture their victims, and they always tried to bring the end quickly.
On hearing the news of the allies’ rapid progress, Elaina and Jaimin strapped their armor back on, left the quarry, and began the trek to the Kaela, led by Nastasha and surrounded by a cadre of guards and soldiers.
Elaina found there was no direction she could look where she didn’t immediately notice a severed body part. She could have closed her eyes, letting Jaimin lead her, but she looked. She took it in. Horrible as it was, it was part of her story. Somehow she felt she needed to see it.
And then, at one point, after all this conscious looking, something changed in her. Death seemed to become part of the landscape—just another natural feature there among the snow’s brilliant sunlit patches and grey-blue shadows, the waxy evergreen shrubs, and the trunks and branches of sleeping trees.
Elaina’s thoughts moved on to her grand plan—turning her father to good to bring peace to the land. The way things were going, she figured, wiping out the Destaurian army could also bring peace to the land, although at a much greater cost.
Jaimin knew her thoughts. “We’re moving quickly now,” he told her. “Our days of hiding in caves and dark rooms are over. This will end soon.”
“I know,” she said.
When they arrived at the Kaela, they found that its surface flowed once more: its icy crust had been shattered by the war.
“It’s up to you here,” Nastasha told Jaimin. “The Celmareans got the armies across the river by supporting the water from below. You can do the same, can’t you?”
Jaimin thought he might try something different. He extended his thoughts onto the surface of the river, with the intent of first slowing the water, and then crystallizing it. The water he stared at soon appeared gelatinized
, remaining stationary as the rest of the river rushed around and under it. Soon, feathery white patches began to appear atop the spot he was affecting. He focused harder. A crust of ice was clearly forming now. Elaina joined him in extending the ice toward the other bank.
As she helped him, pouring more of herself into the team effort, both she and Jaimin began to experience a surprising euphoria.
Wow, she said to him in her mind. Elaina had experienced a pleasurable sensation when healing the gravely wounded, but she attributed that to a universal power flowing through her. In contrast, this sensation of intertwining her will with Jaimin’s outside the body clearly felt human.
Oh, my… Jaimin responded. Keep it up.
The icy bridge grew and firmed, and soon it was strong enough to hold a person. While Nastasha and some of the others began to cross, Elaina and Jaimin backed off into the trees and engaged in a breathless kiss.
Some guards and soldiers saw and were touched. This future king and queen were already capturing their hearts.
“Are you all right?” the prince whispered to Elaina.
“I could get addicted to that feeling,” Elaina said.
“The feeling of kissing me or of building a bridge?” he asked.
“The bridge. I’m already well addicted to your kiss.”
Let’s go, lovebirds, Nastasha said in her mind. Both Elaina and Jaimin turned to look right at her from across the river. Nastasha flushed red with shame. Seriously? Nastasha thought. You heard that?
Elaina crossed the whole way, and then Jaimin crossed. As he passed Nastasha, Jaimin looked her in the eyes and asked in his mind: Can you hear me? Nastasha did have a peculiar feeling at that moment, and she even felt that Jaimin had tried to say something to her, but she couldn’t make out the words.
“We…we shall have to be more careful from here,” Nastasha said. “I’m told there is a new field hospital up ahead, but we are close enough to the front for there to be…surprises.”
Elaina surveyed the forest of the south bank, where the freshest carnage was evident. Several of the trees were still on fire, with their trunks crackling and spitting out glowing embers.
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