by K. A. Linde
“Then, let’s settle into our rooms.” Avoca entered the room she would be sharing with Cyrene and dropped her bags on the floor next to her small bed. “You were arguing with Orden, weren’t you?”
“You could say that.”
“You push him too much,” Avoca said.
Cyrene shrugged. “Some people need to be pushed.”
“Men need to be handled differently. Ceis’f needs a tight leash, and Orden needs a long one, but they both require a leash.”
“And Ahlvie?” Cyrene asked.
Avoca smiled softly, and then it disappeared. “He is a man of his own choosing. I believe he will follow you to the ends of the earth if you but ask him.”
“You think too highly of him. You’ve never seen him dicing in a tavern with your life on the line.”
“He is loyal. That is a good quality in a man. You should hold on to him.”
Cyrene nodded. “Well, I don’t intend to let him go.”
“Let who go?” Ahlvie asked, peeking his head in the door. “Did you say my name?” He winked at Cyrene and then walked inside without an invitation.
“Ahlvie! Knock next time. We could have been undressing,” Cyrene chided.
“Is this supposed to convince me to knock?”
Cyrene rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Insufferable.”
“Alas, you aren’t undressing, so I assumed it was safe for me to enter.”
“Just shut the door,” Cyrene commanded.
Ceis’f slunk in behind him and leaned against the wardrobe in the corner. Ahlvie walked right over and plopped down on Cyrene’s bed. She didn’t know how he always seemed so completely carefree. Orden entered a few minutes later, and they set out a plan for the next couple of days.
Ahlvie was set to wander the pubs to seek out any information he could find that would help them. Ceis’f and Avoca were employed to go to the docks to look for a boat setting sail to Eleysia, while Orden was going to check in with the contacts he had in the city.
“And where does that leave me?” Cyrene asked the quiet room.
Orden gave her a stern look, but it was Ahlvie who spoke up, “We want you to stay safe. You’re the reason we’re here. We can’t lose you. With guards still on our tail, I’d feel better if I knew you were here while we were out.” Clearly, they had already discussed this without her.
His pleading look did her in, and eventually, she agreed, “Fine. I’ll be right here. Waiting.”
Ahlvie kissed the top of her head on his way out and whispered, “Thanks,” into her hair.
Sometimes, he reminded her too much of her brother, Reeve. Not that Reeve would have ever approved of this plan.
Cyrene grabbed Avoca by the arm before she left. “If you’re in any sort of trouble, please reach for your power, so I know.”
Avoca nodded her head, relenting. “I will give a hard tug like this,” she said.
A sharp jolt snapped through Cyrene, and she nearly sank to her knees. She had not been prepared for that.
“You will not confuse that for everyday use, I think.”
“No,” Cyrene agreed.
“Good.” Avoca placed her fingers on her lips and then raised her hand to Cyrene in a sign of deference she had not seen since leaving Eldora.
Cyrene returned the gesture, and then Avoca was gone.
Cyrene peered around the empty room with a heavy sigh. Now, she must do the hardest part of her entire mission.
Wait.
Four days.
Cyrene spent four days holed up inside that room before someone returned with good news.
The door burst open unexpectedly, and Cyrene jumped out of the chair she had been attempting to meditate in.
She glared at Ahlvie as he sauntered in, and she threw a pillow at his head. “Will you knock? I was in the middle of something!”
He caught the pillow midair. “Good to see you, too.”
“Well, have you found anything?”
“A rather attractive redhead.”
Cyrene groaned. “You’re disgusting. I don’t want to know about any of that.”
“The little redhead’s father is a wine vendor for the Royal Court, and she let it slip that he has been asked to procure a striking number of barrels of wine for a ball for a royal visitor next Saturday. Now, who do we know that might elicit such a celebration?” Ahlvie asked.
Cyrene sank back into her seat. “Kael.”
“That’s what I assumed, and where Kael is, so is Maelia. We need to get into that castle before we get on a boat.”
They had been waiting for Kael to show up in Aurum since they arrived. Based on the conversation she had overheard in Strat, they knew that Kael would be coming into the city, but this was the first real piece of news they had.
Avoca and Ceis’f had come back the first day with grim news about Eleysian boating. Due to the festival season, which was a monthlong affair leading up to the Eos holiday, travel had stilted between Aurum and Eleysia. A boat carrying travelers had left two days before they had arrived, and several Eleysian fishing boats had decided to stay for the entire season. They hadn’t seen or heard of anyone going to Eleysia, other than a mysterious large ship flying Eleysian flags that had apparently been in port for over a month. No one who they’d asked claimed to know whom it belonged to or when it intended to depart.
When the others returned that night, Ahlvie and Cyrene filled them in on what he had found out, and they set about trying to find a way to get into the ball.
“We’re going to need to hire a boat to take us out of the harbor. Even if it won’t take us all the way to Eleysia because of the festival season, it won’t be safe for us to be in Aurum after we break Maelia out,” Cyrene said.
“We’ll look into vessels leaving for other destinations,” Avoca said. “See if we can manage something that won’t be noticed.”
With their assignments divvied up, the crew returned to their rooms to pass out after another long day. Avoca never seemed to tire, and after changing, she was ready to begin Cyrene’s training once more. It was the only part of the day that Cyrene looked forward to even though she’d had no success locating her magic.
They spent the next two hours dutifully reaching a state of calm and then trying to sense one of the four elements. It didn’t matter that Cyrene had worked all day doing the same thing. Avoca demanded more from her. She always came full of new theories to break Cyrene’s block that she had thought of when she was out working with Ceis’f during the day.
Today, Avoca thought that since they were Bound, Cyrene might have an affinity for earth, like herself. For a solid hour Cyrene reached inward, touched the knot in her chest, and tried to focus it on earth matter. Avoca had even brought a pot of dirt into the room so that Cyrene could feel closer to it. It didn’t help.
“You know, I was thinking,” Avoca said after another failed attempt, “maybe you are more like Ceis’f.”
Cyrene snorted. “I highly doubt that. And, dear Creator, do not let him hear you say that.”
“I just mean, what if our magic complements one another? Ceis’f is better with air and fire. Perhaps you are, too.”
And so their training went on endlessly. Cyrene was no better with air or fire, but Avoca kept coming up with other possibilities that would lead them to more dead ends.
Cyrene had never been good at remaining calm and doing nothing. Now, those were her only tasks until they got out of this Creator-forsaken city. Her anger started bubbling up, which usually brought their sessions to a screeching halt.
“There’s nothing there!” Cyrene cried. “I’m sitting around all day, meditating and trying to find these elusive pulses that you claim exist, but I can’t even come close to sensing any of them! Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
In truth, Cyrene didn’t like being bad at anything. She had always been an exemplary student, and having something that was completely beyond her control was more irritating than disappointing a tutor.
&
nbsp; Avoca just pursed her lips at Cyrene’s outburst.
“Okay. I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but maybe I just can’t do it,” Cyrene offered.
“I don’t believe that.” Avoca stood and began pacing the room. “I admit, I’d be surprised if you could sense anything in this city if you weren’t able to do it out in the woods. I can barely sense the earth in this place. It’s been so trampled and forgotten that the pulse is just a distant hum. Even this earth is…lost.” She toed the pot of dirt.
“If even you can’t find it, then how am I supposed to?” Cyrene asked in frustration. “You’ve set an impossible task for me.”
“I’ve not been in a city in nearly fifty years, Cyrene,” Avoca said. “It is easy to forget in that time.”
“Fifty years?” Cyrene asked, her eyes bulging.
“Yes. Leifs have exceptionally long lives, and at our hundredth birthday, we are given a year abroad with an elder. Most do not even take that year, but I did.”
“So…you’re a hundred and fifty?” Cyrene gasped.
“A hundred and forty-nine,” Avoca corrected.
“Where did you go? What did you see when you left?”
Avoca sighed. “That is neither here nor there. A story for another time. I have no more patience for training tonight. Soon enough, we will be out of this city and in a place more conducive for training.”
“Maybe I should go into the woods tomorrow then.”
Avoca gave her a sharp look and shook her head. “No. We’re very close to getting you out of here.”
Cyrene grumbled under her breath, but Avoca just ignored her and crawled into bed. She was an incredibly light sleeper and seemed able to pass out as soon as she closed her eyes. Cyrene heavily lay back in bed, and for the next two hours, she wished she’d had that talent of Avoca’s as well.
Everyone left extra early the next morning, rejuvenated with a sense of purpose from the news that Maelia would be in the palace soon. Cyrene was alone, eating a small breakfast, when there was a knock on the door.
“Your laundry, Lady Haenah,” a girl called from the hallway.
“Yes. Come in, Elzie.”
Elzie entered the room and set down a bundle of laundry on the trunk at the foot of Cyrene’s bed. “I had your cloak mended and washed three times, as instructed.”
She stood and plucked the cloak off the top of the stack.
It was the disgusting thing Ceis’f had gotten for her on short notice when outside of Strat. Her own cloak had gone missing, and she was glad that she had not brought the ermine-lined red one Edric had given to her as a present.
Thankfully, after a few good washes, this cloak looked to be in much better condition—not anything she would have worn at home, but nothing that would make her stand out in a crowd.
“Very good,” Cyrene said. She dropped a silver Aurumian trinket into Elzie’s hand and then dismissed her.
As soon as the door closed, Cyrene threw the cloak around her shoulders. She tucked her dark brown hair up into a cap that she had taken from Ahlvie’s belongings and then threw the hood over her head. Her own blue dress from Byern fit snug to her body, and without the added bulk of the Aurumian dresses, she felt like she could walk freely for the first time in weeks. As long as she kept her head down and returned quickly, no one would be any wiser that she had left The Lively Dagger.
Cyrene had memorized the comings and goings of Madam LaRoux by the distinctive sound of her gait. Every morning, she would meet with the gentleman across the hall for a half hour and wouldn’t return upstairs until lunch. She never bothered Cyrene. In fact, Elzie was the only person Cyrene ever spoke to in the inn. She wanted to keep it that way.
The familiar clunk, clunk of Madam LaRoux’s steps sounded on the second-floor landing. Cyrene pressed her ear to the door and waited. Like clockwork, Madam LaRoux knocked on the door across the hall. A man welcomed her inside and then shut the door.
Cyrene would have thirty minutes to get out of the building without Madam LaRoux knowing, and then she had the rest of the afternoon to herself before anyone else returned to the inn.
Cyrene slung a bag over her shoulder and slunk out of her room. The hallway was empty, but she encountered a man walking up the stairs. She kept her head low and hoped he’d just walk right by.
“Where ya goin’, missy?” he asked, stopping her in her tracks.
“To collect a tray for Madam LaRoux,” she warbled meekly.
“Well, tell the old hag to bring me some more of those breakfast rolls.” He strode past her and smacked her on the bottom as he passed.
She took a few deep breaths in and out before continuing down the stairs. All she wanted to do was turn around, throw the man back down the stairs, and teach him a real lesson about how to treat a woman. But she couldn’t afford that complication at the moment. So, she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.
Elzie was helping another man, who kept trying to get her to sit on his lap. Cyrene was grateful for the distraction, but it did nothing but fuel her anger. She hurried out of the open front doors and onto the busy streets of Aurum.
It took her a while to regain her bearings in the foreign city. Back home, she had always had the mountains to guide her. Now, she had only the sea at her back and the looming castle on the hill. She located a street that she had taken on the first day, and the map came back into her mind. She retraced her steps, but without Ceis’f there for comfort, she saw what she had missed the first time.
Dirty faces. Hunger. Poverty that clogged the streets. Women and children left out to starve.
She swallowed and kept moving forward. These things didn’t exist in Byern. There was always plenty. That was what the Class system was for. At least, that was what she had always thought before.
Have I been blind to this in my own city?
Either way, she didn’t understand how the King Iolair could rule over people he allowed to suffer while he looked down on them from up high.
It made her stomach twist as she veered through the streets. She didn’t feel safe again until she was out of the winding streets and in the woods. She took a deep cleansing breath. It surprised her how at home she felt out here, considering she had lived her entire life in a big city and only the last couple of months in the woods.
But Aurum wasn’t Byern.
With the city behind her, Cyrene headed deeper into the woods at a brisk pace. If Avoca couldn’t sense the elements pulsing in the city, then Cyrene wanted to be as far away from the city as she could get. Avoca had told her that, once she could sense the pulse of the elements, then she could start manipulating them with more ease. It was the reason Avoca could still use her magic, even in the city. But Cyrene saw little hope for herself in that environment. It would hurt nothing to sit outside and meditate all day. She did the same thing in the room, and she couldn’t spend any more time in it.
She walked until she could no longer hear the sounds of the city and then found a small clearing in the woods. She took off her cloak, removed the cap, and let her long locks fall down nearly to her waist.
Taking a seat on a section of soft grass, Cyrene closed her eyes and opened her mind.
She could immediately tell the difference between the city and the woods, not that she found a pulse. But it was definitely quieter out here alone. Since she was closer to the elements she was attempting to tap into the meditative state came much quicker.
She went through the exercises—earth, air, water, fire.
Each one came back blank.
No pulse. No magic. Nothing.
By lunch, she was starving. She took a short break to eat the bread and fruit that she had brought with her in her pack, and then she got back to work. She only had a precious few hours left before she’d need to return, and she didn’t want to waste any of it.
Cyrene rearranged her skirt and then closed her eyes again to try to reach for her powers. Almost as soon as she reached her meditative state and opened hersel
f up to her magic, she felt something stir within her chest. Her eyes flew open in shock, and she lost whatever had been happening. Her breath came out in short gasps.
“What was that?” she wondered aloud.
It certainly wasn’t the soft flutter she had been feeling all this time. That was like hitting a wall. It definitely was not like the well of energy she’d used to create the force-field pulse. But it wasn’t like any of the pulses that Avoca had said she would feel.
But Cyrene couldn’t just ignore it. If it meant she could feel anything, then it was worth it.
Wiping the worry off her face, she waited until her heart rate slowed again, and then she reached back out for her calm state. It hit her full-on.
A heartbeat. A crescendo.
Not a pulse. A coursing boom that could have burst her eardrums if she had been listening to it outside of this state. She resisted the urge to clutch her head to stop the noise. She wanted the noise.
As she peeled back the layers of what she was listening to, she realized that she had intentionally grasped her magic for the first time. She fumbled with it and then felt it drifting away.
Then, she remembered all of Avoca’s lessons. Instead of trying to direct the magic, she let it direct her. She stopped trying to work with it and just let it set the pulse.
The noise picked up pace, and everything steadied out.
It was a pulse.
A real pulse.
A heartbeat.
Fire.
She was fire!
Yet it all felt so different than how Avoca had described fire. No sizzle intensified with the flame. In fact, there was no flame. The pulse felt like a jumbled mass of confusion. Like the heartbeat was running. Like it was something.
She quickly grabbed her bag, cloak, and cap and then ran toward the pulse that still echoed in her mind. She never released her magic in fear that she would never be able to find it again. Her legs pumped beneath her as she followed the feeling inside her. When she sprinted into a clearing, the heartbeat she had been following started to fade.
“No!” she cried.
She couldn’t let this slip away. She had come all this way. She had to discover what it all meant.