The Study Series Bundle

by Maria V. Snyder

  “Not very quick, are you?” the voice taunted from my left.

  I spun Kiki around in time to see a man coalesce out of a blue ray of moonlight. Tall enough to meet my gaze without having to look up, the naked man’s skin was indigo and hairless. His bald head gleamed with sweat and I could see strength coiled in his powerful muscles. But his round face held amusement, and I sensed no immediate threat from him. Pure magical energy emanated from him, so I thought he might be influencing my emotions.

  I drew my bow. “Who are you and what do you want?” I demanded.

  Bright white teeth flashed as he smiled. “I am your Story Weaver.”

  20

  I GLANCED AT LEIF; his alarmed expression had turned to fear. Color leaked from his face as he looked from me to the large indigo-colored man. The man’s painted skin and lack of clothes made me think of Tula’s attacker, but his body was more muscular and scars crisscrossed his arms and legs. But no tattoos.

  With my mental barrier in place, I held my bow ready, but the man stood relaxed. I would be relaxed, too, if I had access to the amount of magical power within his control. He had no need to move; he could kill us with a word. Which begged the question, why was he here?

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “Go away,” Leif said to the man, “you cause only trouble.”

  “Your stories have tangled and knotted together,” Story Weaver said. “I am here as a guide to show you both how to untangle them.”

  “Banish him,” Leif told me. “He has to obey you.”

  “He does?” That seemed rather easy.

  “If you wish me to leave, I will go. But you and your brother will not be allowed to enter our village. His twisted soul causes us pain and you are linked to him.”

  I stared at the Story Weaver in confusion; his words didn’t make sense. Friend or foe?

  “You said you were here to guide. Guide us where?”

  “Banish him now!” Leif yelled. “He will deceive you. He’s probably in league with Tula’s kidnapper and is trying to delay us.”

  “Your fear remains strong,” Story Weaver said to Leif. “You are not ready to face your story, preferring instead to surround yourself with knots. Some day, they will strangle you. Your choice was to decline our help, but your tangles threaten to squeeze the life out of your sister. This must be corrected.” Extending his hand to me, he said, “You are ready. Leave Kiki and come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “To see your story.”

  “How? Why?”

  Story Weaver refused to answer. He radiated calm patience as if he could stand there with his arm extended all night, waiting.

  Kiki looked back at me. Go with Moon Man, she urged. Hungry. Tired. Want Topaz.

  Smell? Bad? I asked.

  Hard road, but Lavender Lady strong. Go.

  I returned my bow to its holder and dismounted.

  “Yelena, no!” Leif cried. He clutched Rusalka’s reins tight to his chest.

  I paused in shock. “That’s the first time you’ve called me by my name. Now you care what happens to me? Sorry, it’s too late in the game for that to work. Frankly, I don’t want to deal with your troubles. I have enough of my own. And we have to find Tula’s attacker before he takes another, so it’s imperative that we meet with the clan elders. If this is what I need to do, then so be it.” I shrugged. “Besides, Kiki told me to go.”

  “And you would listen to a horse instead of your brother?”

  “Until now my brother has refused to acknowledge any connection with me since I have arrived in Sitia. I trust Kiki.”

  Leif snorted in exasperation. “You spent your life in Ixia. You know nothing of these Sandseeds.”

  “I learned who to trust.”

  “A horse. You’re a fool.” He shook his head.

  There was no sense telling him about how I had trusted an assassin, a magician who had tried to kill me twice and two soldiers who had jumped me in the Snake Forest. All four now dear to my heart.

  “When will I be back?” I asked Story Weaver.

  “With the sun’s first ray.”

  I unsaddled Kiki and gave her a quick rubdown while she ate some oats. Then I exchanged her feed bag for water. She drained it, and I placed the empty sacks near her tack.

  Apprehension about this strange trip began to crawl along my stomach. Wait for me? I asked Kiki.

  She snorted and whacked me with her tail, moving away to search for some sweet grass to graze on. Ask a dull-witted question.

  I met Leif’s stony gaze for a moment, then walked over to Story Weaver. He hadn’t moved. Kiki had called him Moon Man. Before I took his hand, I asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Moon Man will do.”

  I studied his colored skin. “Why indigo?”

  A slow grin spread over his lips. “A cooling color to help soothe the fire between you and your brother.” Then, a sheepish look. “It is my favorite.”

  I laid my hand in his. His palm felt like velvet. His warmth soaked into my bones and flowed up my arm. Magic shimmered and the world around us melted. I began to uncoil, feeling my body loosen and elongate as if it transformed into a string. The individual strands that entwined within my life’s story began to separate and diverge so I could see the many events that had formed my life.

  Some of my history was familiar; I sought the pleasant memories, watching them as if I stood outside a window.

  This is why you need me, Moon Man’s voice floated through the scene before my eyes. You would stay here. My job is to guide you to the proper thread.

  Memories blurred around me. I closed my eyes as the visions swirled. When the air settled once more, I opened them.

  I sat in the middle of a living area. Couches constructed of lianas and a glass-topped table surrounded me. A young boy about eight or nine years old reclined across from me on the wooden floor. He wore a pair of green short pants. With his hands behind his head and his elbows jutting out, he stared at the leaf-covered ceiling. About ten bone dice littered the ground between us.

  “I’m bored,” the boy said.

  The appropriate response popped into my mind. “How about Onesies? Or Two Through the Skull?” I scooped up the dice and shook them.

  “Baby games,” he said. “Let’s go down to the jungle floor and explore!” Leif jumped to his feet.

  “I don’t know. How about we go swinging with Nutty?”

  “If you want to play silly baby games with Nutty, go ahead. I’m going to explore and probably make a big discovery. Maybe I’ll find the cure to the rotting disease. I’ll be famous. They’ll probably elect me the next clan leader.”

  Not wanting to miss any important discoveries and ensuing fame, I agreed to go with him. With a quick call to our mother, we left our tree dwelling and climbed down the Palm ladder into the cooler air of the jungle’s floor. The soft ground felt spongy under my bare feet.

  I followed Leif through the jungle, marveling at the youthful energy pumping through my six-year-old body. A part of me knew the truth, that I was older and not really here, that this was a vision. Yet I found I didn’t care, and I cartwheeled down the jungle path just for fun.

  “This is serious,” Leif scolded. “We’re explorers. We need to collect samples. You gather some leaves while I search for flower petals.”

  When he turned his back, I stuck my tongue out at him, but I grabbed some tree leaves all the same. A quick movement among the branches distracted me. I froze, scanning the area. Clinging to a sapling hung a young black-and-white valmur. Brown eyes bulged from its small face, peering at me.

  I smiled and whistled at the creature. It scampered a bit higher, then turned its gaze back to mine and flicked its long tail. The animal wanted to play. I followed, copying its movements through the jungle. We climbed vines, swung and dodged around the big buttress roots of a Rosewood Tree.

  I stopped when I heard a distant voice. Straining to listen, I heard Leif calling for me. I would have igno
red him, playing was more fun than collecting leaves, but I thought he said something about a Ylang-Ylang Tree. Mother would bake us star fruit pies if we brought her Ylang-Ylang Flowers for her perfumes.

  “Coming,” I shouted, jumping down to the jungle floor. When I turned to wave goodbye to the little valmur, it startled and dashed high up into the Rosewood Tree. A feeling of unease settled over me like a mist. I searched the nearby branches, looking for necklace snakes—the main predator of valmurs. With my gaze focused on the tree canopy, I almost tripped over a man.

  I jumped back in surprise. He sat on the ground with his right leg splayed out and the other tucked in close. His hands gripped his left ankle. Torn and stained with dirt and sweat, his clothing hung in tatters. Leaves and tendrils clung to his black hair.

  The adult part of my mind screamed. Mogkan! Run! But my young self remained unafraid.

  “Thank fate!” Mogkan cried as relief smoothed the worry from his face. “I’m lost. I think I broke my ankle. Can you help?”

  I nodded. “I’ll go get my brother—”

  “Wait. Just help me up first.”

  “Why?”

  “To see if I can walk. If my ankle is really broken, you’ll have to get more help.”

  My adult consciousness knew he lied, but I couldn’t prevent my child self from stepping closer. I reached out a hand; he grasped it then yanked me down. In one swift motion he grabbed me and muffled my cry with a damp cloth. He pressed it tight against my mouth, forcing a sweet aroma into my nose.

  The jungle spun around me. Stay awake! Stay awake! I yelled to my body, but the blackness crept closer.

  Struggling in Mogkan’s arms, my adult self knew what would happen next. Mogkan would take me to Ixia, and I would be raised in the orphanage of Reyad’s father, General Brazell, so when I reached maturity they could try to take the magic out of me as if milking a cow. All so Mogkan could increase his magical powers and help Brazell take over control of Commander Ambrose and Ixia. Even knowing the ending didn’t make me feel any better about my abduction.

  Leif’s face in the bushes was the last thing my young self saw before the darkness claimed me. And that was truly horrifying.

  The vision faded. I stood with Moon Man on a dark plain. “Did Leif really see what happened to me?” I asked Story Weaver. “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t he tell our parents?” They could have sent a rescue party, or tried to get me back. Better for them to know their child’s fate than to guess and wonder for years.

  As I thought about Leif, my resentment grew. He had robbed me of the chance to have a childhood, to have a bedroom and loving parents, to learn about the jungle with my father and distill perfumes with my mother, to swing through the trees with Nutty and to play games instead of memorizing Ixia’s Code of Behavior.

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “That is a question you must ask him.”

  I shook my head. “He must have hated me. He was glad to see me kidnapped. That explains his anger when I returned to Sitia.”

  Moon Man said, “Hate and anger are some of the emotions that strangle your brother, but not all. The easy answer is never the right answer. You must untangle your brother before he chokes himself.”

  I thought about Leif. He had helped me with Tula, but he could have lied when he told me why, just like he had lied to our parents for fourteen years. My interactions with him since my return to Sitia had almost all been unpleasant. And the single memory I now owned of Leif before my time in Ixia made my blood boil with fury. Perhaps if I had more memories of my childhood.

  “Why can’t I remember my life before Mogkan kidnapped me?” I asked.

  “Mogkan used magic to suppress all your memories, so you would believe him and stay in the orphanage.”

  That made sense. If I had remembered a family, I would have tried to run away.

  “Do you want those memories back?” he asked.

  “Yes!”

  “Promise you will help your brother and I will unlock them.”

  I considered his offer. “How do I help him?”

  “You will find a way.”

  “Cryptic, aren’t we?”

  He smiled. “The fun part of my job.”

  “What if I refuse to help him?”

  “That is your decision.”

  I huffed in frustration. “Why do you care?”

  “He sought relief from his pain in the Avibian Plains. He tried to kill himself. His need for help drew me to him. I offered my services, but fear twisted his heart and he refused. His pain reaches me still. A job unfinished. A soul lost. While there is time left, I will do what I can even if I have to bargain with a Soulfinder.”

  21

  “SOULFINDER?” FEAR BRUSHED up my spine. “Why do I keep hearing that name?” I asked Story Weaver. We still stood on the featureless expanse. Not unlike the surface of a frozen pond.

  “Because you are one,” he said in a plain, matter-of-fact tone.

  “No,” I protested, remembering the loathing and horror that had crossed Hayes’s face when he had first mentioned that title to me. He had talked about waking the dead.

  “I will show you.”

  The smooth plain under our feet turned transparent and, through it, I saw my Ixian friend, Janco. His pale face grimaced in pain as his blood gushed from the sword lodged in his stomach. The scene switched to Commander Ambrose lying motionless on a bed; his eyes vacant. Then I saw my own face as I stood over an unconscious General Brazell. My green eyes took on a sudden intensity as if I’d had an epiphany. A brief image of Fisk, the beggar boy, carrying packages and smiling. Then a picture of Tula, lying broken on her bed. The images faded as the ground returned.

  “You have found five souls already,” Moon Man said.

  “But they weren’t—”

  “Dead?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know what a Soulfinder is?” he asked.

  “They wake the dead?” When he raised an eyebrow without commenting, I said, “No, I don’t.”

  “You need to learn.”

  “And telling me would be too easy. Right? Takes all the fun out of being a mysterious Story Weaver.”

  He grinned. “What about my bargain? Childhood memories for your help with Leif.”

  Just hearing his name sent waves of anger through my body. My reasons for coming to Sitia had been so simple. First for survival, fleeing the Commander’s order of execution. Second had been to learn how to use my magic and meet my family. Perhaps along the way I might develop a kinship with this southern world. Or perhaps not.

  My plans had seemed straightforward, then my road kept dipping and turning and I kept getting caught in its traps. Now I felt mired in mud in the middle of nowhere. Lost.

  “Your path is clear,” said Moon Man. “You need to find it.”

  And the best way to find something you had lost was to return to the last place you remembered having it. In my case, I needed to start at the very beginning.

  “I promise to try to help Leif,” I said.

  Smells and softness flooded my mind as memories of my childhood came to life. Apple Berry perfume mixed with the musky scent of earth. Laughter and the pure joy of swinging through the air followed an argument with Leif over the last mango. Playing hide-and-seek with Leif and Nutty, crouching on branches to ambush Nutty’s brothers during a mock battle. The sharp sting of hazelnuts on my bare arms as her brothers discovered our hiding spot, launching an attack. The slap of mud as our clan leader dug a grave for my grandfather. The sound of my mother’s soothing voice as she sang me a lullaby. The lessons with Esau on different species of leaves and their medicinal properties.

  All the happiness, sadness, pain, fear and thrills of childhood came rushing back. I knew some would fade with time, but others would stay with me forever.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Story Weaver inclined his head. He held out a hand and I grasped it. The dark plain faded and shapes grew from the ground. Colors r
eturned as the sun’s first light crested the horizon.

  I blinked, trying to orient myself. The clearing where I had left Kiki and Leif had changed. Large circular tents ringed a huge fire pit. Brown animal shapes had been painted on the white canvas of the tents. Dark-skinned people milled about the roaring fire. Some cooked while others tended children. Some wore clothes while others wore nothing. The clothes were all made of white cotton. The women wore either sleeveless dresses that reached to their knees or a tunic and short pants like the men.

  Near the fire, Irys and Cahil sat cross-legged with two older men and a woman. They were intent on their discussion and didn’t see me. I couldn’t spot Leif or his horse, but Kiki stood next to one of the tents. A woman wearing short pants groomed her. Her brown hair bobbed to her neck.

  I jumped when I realized Moon Man no longer stood beside me. In fact, I couldn’t see him anywhere in the small village. Perhaps he’d gone into one of the tents.

  Not wanting to interrupt Irys, I checked on Kiki. She whickered at me in greeting. The woman stopped brushing the dust off her coat. She studied me in silence.

  Who’s this? I asked Kiki.

  Mother.

  “Is this your horse?” the woman asked. The inflection in her voice rose and fell with each word, and there was a slight pause between them.

  I reviewed Irys’s lecture about the Sandseeds from the night before. The woman had spoken first so I guessed it would be all right to answer her. “I’m hers.”

  She snorted a short laugh through her nose. “I raised her, taught her and sent her on her journey. It’s a pleasure to see her again.” She kicked at her saddle on the ground. “She doesn’t need this. She will float under you like a gust of wind.”

  “That’s for me.” And for our supplies.

  Another huff of amusement. She finished brushing her. Kiki turned her blue eyes toward her and understanding flashed on the woman’s face. She whooped and jumped up on Kiki’s back.

  Have fun, I told Kiki as she raced through the tall grass.