Nowhere else in Soläna did they mix so much except here in the central square. The families from the south wore threadbare clothes, a few had leather vests on top, but mostly all were brown in color except for the occasional stain from coal dust. The younger women looked as if they had at least tried to scrub their faces clean and get the dark powder out from under their short fingernails while the older women seemed to have called it quits long ago.
The women from the north were far different. Their frames weren’t bony at all, some were even downright buxom, and their clothing was much nicer, made out of materials that I didn’t know the names of. Their clothes were also a tad more colorful, as far as Lunakans go, since no one can really compare to the rainbow spectrum of Auklia. Every northern Soläna woman had her hair curled in a different way, no doubt with one of those heat-up things I’d seen in some of the mercantiles. I always thought it was stupid in the past. Why spend hours every day on something that wouldn’t last?
And yet now, I didn’t know what to think as my mind effortlessly distinguished between the noble and lowly women. I had always compared myself to the ones who looked like me, the ones from the south. I had foreseen a similar future for myself. Marrying another farmer, preferably, or a miner. Never quite having enough money but enough to send kids to school and not go hungry.
With all this Allyen business, every sense of the word “future” was wiped away. What did it mean for my life now? Every person in this town would fear me just like the Royals because of this magic. Would I be able to keep the farm? Would I be able to stay with Rosetta and Keera? Would I succeed against Rhydin, or would I die? Everything was unknown now, and I certainly didn’t like it.
Keera and I barely made it back up to the flowing Canyonlands when I noticed a plume of dust getting closer to us from the direction of my farm. In five seconds flat, Rosetta’s round, red face was barreling down on me, her high voice screeching hundreds of questions and accusations that I couldn’t really follow.
Unfortunately, I noticed Sam behind her, confusion in his eyes and shadows underneath them. Rachel was with them, and at that moment I remembered that she had spent the night with Rosetta to keep her safe. What was Rosetta so worked up about then? I pushed her shoulders out to at least an arm’s length so that I could focus on her. “Rosetta, slow down will ya? I don’t understand screaming sisters.”
The blonde just sputtered, no words able to form themselves, her hazel eyes scrutinizing me in every degree to make up for it. She took a deep breath, putting her hands on her hips in typical Rosetta-fashion, and carefully pronounced her loud words. “You. Left. Me. Home. Alone!”
Sam’s eyes widened with understanding, and his voice suddenly shot up to levels I hadn’t heard since he was at least twelve years old. “You were out all night?”
And then I had two people screaming at me. Marvelous, wasn’t it? I withstood about two seconds of their rambling, Rachel smiling uncomfortably behind the two of them, until I conjured up the loudest voice I possibly could. “Hey!”
Both Rosetta and Sam were instantly silent, staring at me expectantly.
I took a deep breath. “Rosetta, you were not left home alone. Why do you think I sent Rachel to stay with you? I’m sorry, we went to Grandma’s last night and…Keera started not to feel well, so Grandma had us stay the night.” Keera gave me a look for using her as my excuse, but what else could I say? Hey, we went to Grandma’s last night, and I figured out I have magic and some crazy sorcerer dude is out there trying to kill me so they needed to keep me safe? That was so much better. I went on, “I asked Rachel to come out to stay with you because I knew you’d be upset. That’s better than nothing, right?”
Rosetta merely rolled her eyes, not interested in listening to logic, and began to stomp on toward where her schoolteachers awaited down in the canyon. Sisters. Sam seemed to be appeased although I knew him well enough to see the hint of skepticism in his expression as he turned to stare down Rachel.
My best friend merely smiled and shifted her bag a little higher onto her cloaked shoulder. “Well, now that everything is as it should be, I should be headed home myself. I’m sure Luke and James will be eagerly awaiting their breakfast. See you soon!” She winked at me as she passed, heading back toward the canyon.
For a split second, I wondered why she winked until I felt a weight drop in my pocket. She had given me something. Something else to screw up my life perhaps? The wink was a little much, I decided to tell her later.
Next to me, Keera turned back into the young girl who trusted nobody, quietly staring at Sam and somehow judging what kind of person he was. I realized that I hadn’t introduced them yet, so I firmly moved Keera out from behind me and held her shoulders. “Keera, this is Sam. He helps me with the farming, and he’s a very good friend of mine.” I turned to Sam, who just stood there with a small grin on his thin face, “Sam, this is my cousin, Keera. She’s going to live with me now.”
Sam placed a hand on one of his knees as he slightly leaned forward, the other hand extended toward Keera. This way, his head was level with hers since he usually towered over everyone. He smiled that crooked grin of his that reminded me ever so much of our childhood and said, “Nice to meet you, Keera.”
Keera’s blue eyes still seemed unsure as she stared at the tan, calloused hand in front of her, and when she looked up at me, I wondered. After everything that had happened to this twelve-year-old, how many people did she really trust in this world? Only Evan, probably. And maybe me now?
I took her left hand and squeezed it, hoping that the message would get across that Sam was truly one of the people I trusted the most. She had nothing to fear from him. And yet when I looked back up at Sam myself, I wondered again. Apparently, there were tons of people around me that were out to kill me. Who all could I really trust? I couldn’t tell Sam about the whole Allyen thing. At least not yet. It felt weird to be keeping secrets from my childhood friend.
Keera looked back at the tall man who patiently waited in his crouched position and met his eyes. She smiled very little, but for her, it was a lot. She placed her small, delicate hand into his seemingly huge, hard one. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Mr. …?”
“Greene, but you can just call me Sam.” He smiled and then straightened back to his normal height.
When he and Keera began to walk toward the house, I snuck a look into my pocket. A tiny glass bottle sat cradled in the fabric, a small piece of paper rolled up inside. Rachel left me a note. Meet me the day after the festival at my brother’s livery. Was it really so important that she couldn’t just tell me in person later? Or so secretive that she couldn’t say it out loud in front of Sam and Rosetta? What else could they possibly need to reveal to me?
When we reached the house, Keera quietly went inside to take a nap, exhausted from the long night. Sam said he’d meet me at the field, but when I turned around the corner to grab my seed sack and pole, I felt heat blaze through my ribs.
On the very back corner of our little house was a set of pretty significant scorch marks. The way the black smears danced across the wood in a specific direction was suspicious to me. Even I was smart enough to know that kind of mark didn’t come from a little prairie fire. Someone had done them. That kind of mark would only come from someone able to project flames. Magic fire. Fire magic.
Rachel said that one of the people after me was a Mineraltin. I knew enough about magic to realize that many Mineraltins had a disposition for having fire magic. Rachel was right. Someone was going to try and kill me last night. They tried to set my house on fire. With me and my family in it.
Rachel must have put it out. She protected Rosetta just like she said she would. If I had been in there and Rachel hadn’t been around, people would have thought it was an accident. Just another grassfire. Not murder. I nearly sank to my knees my legs became so woozy. This was real. The threat was real. All of it real.
“You okay?” Sam’s voice appeared out of nowhere, scaring me further out
of my skin. He just looked at me until I started breathing normally again. “Y’know, Lina, we really need to hurry if we’re gonna get this seed in the ground in time for the festival.”
“I know I know… I’m sorry.” I sighed heavily, still feeling like I was in the pit of doom as I numbly reached for my pole.
“Is there something you want to talk about?” Sam’s eyes were genuinely filled with concern, and for a second I wished we were little kids again and I could just hold his hand and spill my guts. But I couldn’t. I had to protect him. Nobody could know about the fire. Or the murderers.
“No.” I barely whispered, not used to lying to someone I’d told nothing but the truth to for the last ten years. By the twitch of his brow, I knew he could tell I was lying.
As I watched him, a light pair of feet perched on my shoulder. I turned to see Birdie, its eyes bright as it looked at me expectantly for something. Sam’s brow furrowed further when he looked down again to see the small black bird on my shoulder. He changed the subject, “Huh. Never seen a bird like that before. Never seen any kind of bird that’ll sit on your shoulder like that either.”
I fought the urge to shrug so I wouldn’t bother Birdie, but I felt somewhat better simply knowing that I didn’t have to lie about this. “I don’t know. It started coming around a few seasons ago. It built its nest in the tree next to my house. I figured it was from Auklia or something because it isn’t like the sparrows and stuff we have around here.”
Sam glared at it, “I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Sam. It’s a bird. Relax.”
“I don’t think so.”
I rolled my eyes a little bit and crossed my arms. The shift caused Birdie to fly up, and the next thing I knew, there was a sharp little pain in my neck. I felt the weight of my locket release from my neck and the cool silver slide down inside my tunic to rest against my stomach, my sash stopping it from going to the ground.
Blood was on my fingers when I pulled them away from the wound Birdie had given me, where it had broken the old shoelace that had held my locket for so many years. When the bird started to fly back down, I waved it away. “No, bad bird! Shoo!”
Sam merely looked at me cleverly, as if he had somehow foretold this. “See? I wouldn’t let that bird hang around, if I were you.”
I sighed and turned away from him so I could fish my locket out of my tunic. When I held it in my hand, still cold regardless of the hot day, I remembered the importance of this little thing. This was what Rhydin was after. This was what he was willing to kill me for, that his people were willing to set my house on fire and burn me alive for. The only thing he needed to subject not only Lunaka, but Auklia and Mineraltir as well to his control. I needed to protect it better, even if it was just from Birdie.
As I turned back to Sam with the locket still in my palm, his brown eyes lightened in recognition. “I didn’t know you still had that old thing. I always wondered if you still had it.”
“Yeah. It’s kind of important.” The only response that made some kind of sense spilled out. It killed me to continue lying to him, but I had to protect him. This thing was trying to encompass my entire life, and I had no idea what the future held anymore. I could be killed at any time, and I certainly wasn’t going to allow Sam to be a dead innocent bystander.
“Have you ever been able to open it?” He asked curiously, eyeing me as I stared down at the little antique thing that meant life or death to me. “I haven’t seen it since that night I found you in the forest.”
My head snapped up to look at him. Why had he seen it that night? The night I couldn’t remember when Rhydin tried to kidnap me. “No, I’ve never been able to open it. You saw it that night? How?”
Sam shrugged, not knowing how big of a deal it was. “It was just the one time it wasn’t hidden. Anybody could have seen it. You always have it out of sight now.”
“It’s just really important. If anything happens to it…” I trailed off, unable to find a lie that would work or a truth that wouldn’t reveal too much.
Sam ignored my silence. “I guess you’ll have to find something sturdier than a shoe string then.” He laughed a bit, little specks of light dancing across his face as the foliage above played in the sun.
I tried one last time to dig my fingernails in the hinge to open the locket, but I knew it was hopeless. I knew now that it wouldn’t open until the right time. Perhaps, when I was ready for this whole concept of magic. Maybe, when I actually learned to use it. But, personally, I knew I was nowhere near ready.
We walked out to the field together after that. As I hefted the heavy burlap bag into place on my back and tied a big knot in the front, Sam began to work to his whistle, his body easily settling into the rhythm he’d known since he was old enough to help his father. My mind didn’t have a rhythm anymore.
I grabbed my pole and began to stab it into the dried-out plow lines, needing some kind of monotony to relax my mind and my stomach. I dropped a few seeds that several months from now would become wheat and covered them with the leather toe of my boot. These seed sacks were the last ones. Once they were planted, we’d be ready to attend the festival and celebrate the finish. Rosetta always looked forward to it so much every year, I tried to tell myself. The attempt at normal thoughts failed. I was still just as paranoid as ever.
After a few minutes, Sam piped up. “Um, Lina, are you going to the festival with anyone?”
I looked up at him. “Well, I’m taking Rosetta and Keera obviously, and I’ll probably run into Grandma and Rachel at some point in the night-…”
“No, uh…” He interrupted me, his eyes very carefully trained on the ground. “I mean, are you going with anyone?”
Realization almost physically slapped me in the face. My mind was so clouded, and it resulted in a light blush. “Oh. Uh… No, I’m not. Nobody’s asked me. I didn’t figure anybody would.”
Sam’s gloved hands chafed around his wooden pole, more jittery than I’d seen him for a very long time. “Do you want to go with me? Er… I mean, would you like to go with me?” He finally looked at me with pure terror in his eyes, and I saw how much bravery this was costing him.
I smiled, glad that my face was already red from the sun. “Of course, Sam. I’d love to.”
Chapter Six
T he day of the festival finally arrived, and I tried to busy myself with things that were once “normal”. As soon as lunch had been cleared from the table, Rosetta was a whirlwind. She danced around the small house, the wooden floorboards squeaking at different pitches as she donned her carefully chosen attire – also known as, the only nice dress that hasn’t been eaten by moths or decorated with Lunakan dirt. Every year before this she had worn one of my old dresses that I had outgrown, but Rosetta had finally gotten too big for those as well. She made herself a new dress with her own money, earned from dusting shelves at the library. It was cotton, a…dare I say it… pink floral pattern. I hate pink. I told myself that every single time my mind began to wander to other more disparaging things. I hate pink.
My old dress had now been passed to Keera, who was actually rather excited for this festival. Rosetta had been ranting about it for a couple of weeks, about all the lights and booths and dancing. The dress Keera wore was the same shade as her sky-blue eyes. Rosetta was now standing behind her, impatiently trying to braid some kind of up-do into Keera’s midnight hair. I laughed every time Rosetta missed a curl and had to go back to get it. She was a perfectionist, always would be. Sadly, I began to wonder if this would be the last Spring Festival I’d get to take my family to…
I hate pink.
A few hours later, there was a knock on our front door. Keera had been ready long ago, but even as I walked toward the door to answer it, Rosetta was biting her lips and pinching her cheeks to make herself “prettier”.
I took maybe ten minutes to get ready. I wore one of my mother’s old burnt orange numbers, cinched at the waist. She had been much taller than me, but it worked.
Rosetta insisted on braiding my hair as well, although I made her promise not to go as immaculate as last year. This time she gave me a braided bun, and I stopped her before she could do anything else.
Outside the door were Sam and Mikael, probably in the nicest shirts and sets of trousers that they owned. Sam even had a tie on, which meant that the apocalypse was probably around the corner. Although, maybe the apocalypse’s name was Rhydin… I hate pink.
Sam smiled at me sheepishly, not quite letting it turn into the crooked grin I knew so well, but I could tell he was just as fidgety as when he asked me to go with him. I felt my face grow a little warm.
Instantly, Rosetta and Keera ducked underneath my arm, Rosetta taking Mikael’s hand as if it was the most normal thing in the world and Keera, anxious to see this festival she’d heard so much about, moved next to them restlessly. Sam and I watched the three of them run off without us, especially the couple. I chuckled, “Looks like we’ve got a problem on our hands.”
Sam stared off at them after I spoke, at the boy he had taken in and my little sister. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
I looked up at him skeptically as we began to walk. His smile grew so I reached up as far as my short arm could go and cuffed him on the head as I’d done for many years. He exclaimed that it hurt, but I didn’t believe him. Somehow, I didn’t think my little, bony hand could possibly harm his rock of a skull. I only wished that we could stay like this forever.
When we entered the streets of Soläna, I marveled at their transformation. I had seen them hanging the paper lanterns and streamers all season, but none of that compared to seeing them all lit up by the Lamp Master. Now, each lantern had a small beautiful light within to illuminate the floral pattern printed on their delicate paper. The lights sent a warm glow down onto the dark cobblestone streets and all the farmers dressed in their holiday best.
Since it was a kingdom-wide festival, there were farmers from all over the plains. A few from up north that weren’t dressed any different than usual, a bunch from down south around the lake, and even some fishermen from the Canis area that dabbled in farming as well.
The Allyen (The Story of the First Archimage Book 1) Page 7