A cold breeze pushes against me. I glance at the girl a few times and notice she’s been staring at me as we’ve been walking. ‘What is it?’ I say.
She smiles although it doesn’t reach her eyes. It hasn’t yet. ‘Have you got a favourite?’
‘What?’ I repeat.
‘Y’know, a favourite keeper.’
In response, I say nothing.
‘Come ooooon,’ she says, poking my arm. ‘Just answer, old man.’
‘Chosen and kytaen avoid conversing unless they’re discussing battle tactics,’ I inform her. ‘That’s a tradition we should try to keep.’
‘Meh. I’m not conservative. So, you got one?’
‘…No.’
‘Then why’d you hesitate?’
‘What?’
‘You hesitated when I asked you—’
‘No I didn’t—’
‘I wonder who they were.’
‘I don’t have a favourite—’
‘Girl or boy?’
‘Are you trying to irritate me? It won’t benefit you.’
‘Oh ho! You sound scary. Luckily I don’t get intimidated easily.’
‘I noticed—’
‘So, those maidens, huh? Pretty scary stuff. Have you ever fought one?’
Her continuous change of topic bewilders me. ‘I have.’
‘How many underfens overall?’
‘I don’t keep count.’
‘That many?’
I don’t reply.
‘Never really thought of myself having an enemy before,’ she says, with a pondering look. ‘Kind of weird, like I have a permanent adversary on the hunt.’
‘Don’t think your only enemy are underfens,’ I say.
‘What other enemies do we have then?’ she asks.
‘Everyone is your enemy, even the Imperium. Then there’re the Imperial rebels. When they hear about you, expect a lot of attention.’
‘Yeah, I already know about that, believe me. But I don’t need to worry now I’ve got a griffin-gargoyle-dragon-whatever-the-hell-you-are on my team,’ she says. ‘Are there any other enemies I should be looking out for?’ She looks as if she is relishing the idea.
‘Many more,’ I tell her. ‘You have no idea.’
Her grin falters and she remains unblinking as she stares at me, and me at her. Damn them. Damn those eyes. I’ve seen them before in every Pulsar I’ve ever met, and yet hers are something else, something more. Deep with secrets, gleaming with mysteries. She is a mystery, her whole existence is. To not know who she is, to not know of the Imperium despite her family being Chosen, is too strange to disregard. Those eyes that hold many unreachable answers, intent on swallowing me up. I have to stop this. I am too intrigued by this strange phenomenon standing beside me, the wind tussling with her loose locks of copper hair. I cannot allow myself to be captivated by the mystery of Leonie Woodville.
‘Y’know,’ the girl says, ‘I didn’t realise how bigoted my dad was about kytaen—’
‘He’s not. We are a lesser race.’ I don’t know why, but I want to say the opposite of everything this girl says, even if I don’t believe it myself. We are a lesser race only because the Chosen have made it so.
‘I don’t think so,’ she says.
My head snaps in her direction. ‘Stop that,’ I say, standing in place.
‘Stop what?’ she asks.
‘With this thing, this niceness.’
‘What d’you—?’
‘I’m kytaen, a tool. You’re Chosen. We’re not friends. That kind of word doesn’t exist between our two species. Treat me how you’re supposed to and stop this… act.’
A moment passes, and then she says, ‘I see. So there’s going to be no civility between us, eh?’
‘I’m glad you finally understand.’
‘I didn’t exactly overlook your unsubtle hostility towards me.’
‘Then why bother being nice?’
‘I was raised to be polite to elderly people.’
‘Then you should know I’m not old. I’m immortal.’
‘Quit bragging.’
I blink. ‘I wasn’t bragging, I was stating a fact.’
‘It sounded like bragging to me.’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘It sounded like it.’
‘Well it wasn’t.’
‘Old men do tend to brag after all.’
‘I wasn’t bragging!’
She gives me an impish grin. ‘They also lose their temper easily.’
I grit my teeth.
‘Sure you don’t want me to go back to being nice?’ she asks.
‘I’m sure.’
She shrugs her shoulders. ‘I was just showing you a little hospitality, but if the kytaen wants to be a tool, then I’ll treat it like a tool. Stupid pet.’
She walks ahead of me. Even though I seemingly accom-plished a victory, why do I feel like she’s the victor? Maybe because she insulted me. Pet? I’ve heard the most appalling insults towards my kind, well-thought of, complex, gut-wrenching, but pet is so simple that it stabs right through me.
However, I don’t want her words to have any meaning. I don’t want her words to matter to me. So, I attempt to stop these claws of temper coiling around me and follow her back towards the temple.
LEONIE
COLOURS OF SORROW
My eyes are closed a little too tightly and my posture is rigid, struggling to keep my back straight as I sit on the blanket of snow. I can imagine my complexion being a little blue, and my lips feel chapped and raw. My nose twitches, my whole body in fact, and I keep biting my cheek. Oh, right, and I’m only wearing a vest and shorts.
I’m sitting on a platform outside one of the temples I’ve forgotten the name of. A stone barrier encircles us, and I hear the trickling of water from a small waterfall nearby. Statues of stargods surround me, staring at me as if telling me to hurry up. I want to say, ‘I am hurrying up, OK?’ But no, no, I shouldn’t be looking at them. I have to keep my eyes closed.
I can hear O’Sah circling around me, feet crunching in the snow. He’s probably trying his best to keep a straight face, though when I did open my eyes I caught his momentary twitches of irritation. Well, be irritated all you want! It was his idea to torture me, not mine. I’ve been doing this on and off for hours with no improvement. All I can do is sit here and try to ‘find the peace within’ as O’Sah repeats to me every five damn minutes.
I sigh. ‘I ca-ca-ca-can’t.’
‘You can,’ says O’Sah, keeping a rigid smile on his face. ‘You were so close before. You can do it.’
‘I hate to s-s-spoil your insane optimism, but I can’t. I’m fr-freezing to death here!’
‘Not fast enough,’ I hear Korren mutter. O’Sah doesn’t appear to have heard him. Korren is leaning against a column, arms folded with the same frown on his face that I’ve already become familiar with. O’Sah’s human-formed kytaen is beside him, standing in a stiff position as she watches her keeper in silence. I guess Korren’s morbid humour is lost on that one.
‘You need to focus,’ says O’Sah, clasping his hands togeth-er.
‘It’s too co-cold to focus,’ I say. ‘You won’t let me put my c-clothes back on!’
‘They shield you from the environment around us.’
‘For good reason!’
‘You see, meditation, the Art of Reflection, is not only to calm your soul but to connect your soul with the universe around you.’
‘The only thing co-connecting me to the universe right now is my ice-cold b-butt.’
He tries to keep a straight face, but his frown manages to corrupt his smile. ‘Perhaps we’re doing this the wrong way. Every individual has his or her own way of meditating. Standing or sitting, for example, can be the key to meditation. Why not find a position in which you’re comfortable?’
I lie down.
‘Well, that’s not a conventional position.’
I rest the back of my head on my arms and peer up at the blu
e sky. ‘Now what?’
‘Now do as we did before. Focus your mind on the sky in this case, and attempt to find your inner peace.’
‘Inner peace,’ I mutter.
‘All Chosen have a connection to the stream of magic that surrounds the universe. We, as Chosen, can tap into this power in order to regulate our own. From it we find stable ground, clear thoughts and rationality: all things that are important when you’re in battle, important even in dealing with government. Allow the magic within you to guide you to the sanctuary that all Chosen seek. Allow your magic to return to its origins, where you’ll find yourself. Connect with it.’
Though it takes a while, I eventually relax. I try to do as O’Sah says: to allow the magic within me to guide me or whatever, but how can I let some foreign power guide me when the only experience I’ve had with my magic is when I didn’t know what it was and thought it was going to kill me? Doesn’t exactly make you want to go out looking for the thing you thought would cause your end—like, your end-end. Even so, I try to reach out to it, to grasp the entity I’ve always unknowingly possessed within me.
It’s like I’m running through the void of my mind, and I know that beyond it are memories I’ve fought to keep distant. I hear them calling me to remember, and I want to, I do, but I’m scared. I’ve no courage to face them. So I keep running.
I soon understand that the magic I possess is like a playful child, mischievous and impish, and that it’s hiding among my memories, knowing that I don’t want to go into them. I can almost imagine it chuckling at my attempts to coax it out. This is the closest I’ve come to willingly encountering my magic, and I’m determined to contend with it, otherwise what was the point of this exercise? Yes, definitely, I’m determined to win this battle… and yet I’m fearful. My memories are like a jewel, a treasure I’ve worked hard to bury in the abyss of my mind. As precious as they are, they’re too much for me to endure—they’ll only crush me. Still. Still, I have to do this. I have to try. I have to control my magic, that unruly entity that seems to have a mind of its own. If I don’t learn to control it, then I’ll never learn to be an adept Pulsar, a revered Chosen. I can’t let it have a hold over me, using my fear against me. I just can’t.
Oh God. I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m scared.
I walk into the abyss.
I’m expecting to be submerged in memories, to drown under their unmerciful weight. That doesn’t happen. I hear sounds from the past, voices that haunt me, and yes, I fear their voices, I weep for them, but they do not immerse me.
Something warm takes me in its grasp, such warmth I have never known but have forever known. I’m like a lost child, and this warm entity is the path beneath my feet, showing me the way home. It whispers to me, tells me it’s all right, that there’s nothing to fear. Oh, such love! It’s like being cradled in a blanket of starlight. I see nothing, but I feel it flowing through me, becoming me… no, it always has been me.
I’m part of something unfathomable, something ancient and endless. I feel all those who’ve touched this magic and even those who’ve yet to. I feel their loneliness, their happiness, their burdens and their joy. The Chosen that have known this starlight—or will know it as I know it now—we all belong to one another, we are each other.
Then it changes.
I’m still part of the flow of magic, still within it, drifting. However, I can’t help but turn my head back, and when I do, I see. It isn’t the starlight I know is before me, and it isn’t the soft voice that told me it would be all right. No, it’s my memories, and they have come to drag me back. I feel the magic trying to balance my thoughts, to help me fight the fear, but I’m panicking. The memories are tendrils of darkness come to claim me, and they snake themselves around me, chanting, cursing, reminding me of everything I’ve been running from.
It’s all right. It’s all right. That comforting voice, full of love and compassion, becomes distant and faded. I’m falling away from it, back into the darkness. I put my hands over my ears as the memories come at me, screaming for me to listen to them. These are my earthly ties that prevent me from grasping magic, that hold me back, and there is nothing I can do to stop them. I cry out. I cry and cry and cry.
And my eyes open.
The sky is darkening under the heavy clouds. I sit up and my gaze falls onto Korren. He’s looking at me with a curious expression. I wonder what he saw as I was meditating. Though I screamed, I don’t think I did it out loud; I’m sure he’d have a different expression on his face if I had. I look over to O’Sah, who is grinning widely, waiting for my response.
‘Wh-what the hell was that?’ I shout, standing up with a slight struggle.
‘Meditation, my Lady,’ says O’Sah.
‘I’ve seen people meditate before on TV and never once have they done that.’
‘You are Chosen; we work so differently to the powerless. Our inner peace is essential to our survival in a world that presents many dangers. As Chosen, the magic within us is something unruly. We need to calm it, control it, and meditation is the way to do so. The powerless, well, of course they have their own dangers to contend with, but it matters not if they’re in balance with their soul. To us it is the difference between life and death.’
‘I hardly feel balanced,’ I say. ‘More like leaning to one side.’ Which I kind of am.
He smiles. ‘It’s your first try, my Lady. You did especially well.’
‘It took me over four hours. Four hours. And that’s not including the breaks!’
‘Your case is different. You haven’t had training—most practice at a young age.’
‘So all Chosen do this?’
‘No, not all,’ he replies. ‘It’s essential that Pulsar and Thrones meditate often, but others aren’t as strongly recommended to do so.’
The cold bites. ‘H-how long do I have to do this f-for?’
‘Every day for the rest of your life, of course.’
My jaw drops. ‘You’re kidding me.’
‘Kidding?’
‘Joking. Teasing. Jesting.’
‘No, my Lady. Why would I?’
I stare at the ground. ‘It’s just… this doesn’t bring me any kind of peace.’
O’Sah looks at me as if he’s lost where the conversation has gone, but Korren looks at me with that same curiosity, that same intensity he had a moment ago. I feel naked when he looks at me like that, as if my soul is on display. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be read. I don’t want to be analysed.
Thankfully, O’Sah decides to disregard me, and says, ‘Once your magic has developed, you’ll be able to commence a different sort of training—much more exciting, I assure you. But for now we must train your mind so that you can find your—’
‘Inner peace. Yeah, I know,’ I mutter. Pah. Inner peace—who needs it anyway? God, just imagining being chirpy all the time makes me want to gag. I like being tired and angry and melancholy sometimes; it makes me feel like I’m really living.
‘Hey, O’Sah, I want to try something,’ I say.
‘What would that entail?’
‘As a Pulsar,’ I say, with a somewhat forced authoritative voice, ‘I ask you to please train me in combat.’
He hesitates. He would say no—that’s obvious—but if it’s a direct command, he couldn’t refuse ‘his Lady.’
‘I don’t recommend that we—’ he begins.
‘I just want to try.’
‘Such an exercise is pointless.’
The wind comes at me again. ‘OK, you leave me no ch-ch-choice. I demand you train me in combat, ju-just this once.’
With obvious reluctance, he says, ‘As you wish.’ He turns towards his kytaen. The kytaen bends down, standing on her hands and feet, and stems of grass grow from beneath the snow and attach to her. Her skin becomes darker, solid like the bark of a tree, and the vines that were covering her indecent areas extend across her body. Thick antlers protrude from her head, and she looks like she did when I first saw her.
>
I rub my hands together. ‘All right! Let’s do this.’
The kytaen looks to her keeper and O’Sah nods. The kytaen then stomps her foreleg against the ground and, before I can even move, thick stems of grass have entangled me.
‘Hey, come on! I wasn’t ready,’ I protest.
O’Sah steps towards me. ‘Do you know how to free yourself, my Lady?’
I struggle, ripping the grass holding me. It regrows, holding me in place. ‘Evidently not,’ I mutter.
‘Strength is required for a lot of quandaries we Chosen find ourselves in, but our magic is our one ally. Currently, there’s no way you can release yourself from this trap conceived by a mere kytaen.’ He snaps his fingers and the kytaen shrinks the grass back into the ground. ‘I recommend focusing on meditation for now, until your magic has manifested.’ I can tell he’s trying to restrain a smile at the sight of my defeat. When my magic does manifest, I’ll make sure he knows what defeat really means.
O’Sah orders Korren to return me to the temple so that I don’t get my feet cold—bit too late for that—and, with evident unwillingness, Korren lets me climb onto his back, lifting me up off the ground. ‘I’ve never had a piggyback before,’ I say, causing him to frown… well, frown more. I shout goodbye to O’Sah, who will be going back to the other Thrones, no doubt to report my session.
‘You did terribly today,’ Korren says.
‘I didn’t ask for the pep talk,’ I grumble.
‘It’s as O’Sah said: when your abilities do manifest you’ll need to learn how to control them. Meditation, finding your “inner peace” is crucial to doing that.’
‘You sound more Chosen than I do, Korren.’
He stiffens, and I realise it’s the first time I’ve used his name in a sentence.
He says in a firm voice, ‘I just know how things work.’
‘And d’you really believe mediation works?’ I ask.
‘I do, actually.’
‘I don’t,’ I say, tightening my grip around him. ‘I think it’s far from peaceful.’
‘…Because of your past?’
I hesitate before I nod. ‘How can you find inner peace when… when you don’t have any to begin with, when you’ve never known what it was like?’
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