The travelers stopped at a vineyard, where their advance team had arranged for them to have lunch. After the meal, while Alessa and the men were unhooking the coach—which they would be leaving in the care of the farmer—the farmer’s four boys gave Elaina a quick tour of the winemaking operation.
“Ow come you don’t drink wine?” asked the second youngest of the boys, near the end of their tour.
“Wine is poisonous to me,” Elaina explained.
“Poisonous to him too.” The youth pointed at his older brother, and the other two giggled. “Luckily Mama’s a doctor or Jermy would be cold dead.”
“Learned my lesson, I did,” said Jermy.
“Did you get into the wine?” Elaina had to ask. The three other boys burst into laughter.
“I’d say he did,” said the second youngest. “Fell into the vat.”
“Oh, no! I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I was sick a while.”
“I’ve had my share of accidents in the factory, too,” Elaina admitted.
“You worked in a factory?” Jermy asked.
“Yes. For many years. A milk and cheese factory. I’ve never fallen into a vat, but I’ve dropped things in there plenty of times. Don’t tell anyone…”
“But you’re a printheth,” the littlest one said with a lisp. “How could you work in a factory?”
“I’m a princess, but guess what? I’m also a farmer. I know cold mornings. Late nights. Grueling, repetitive work. The joy of a customer’s praise when you’ve done a good job.”
“No way!” said the littlest.
A door opened at the far end of the cavernous processing room. “Time to go, Your Highness,” Rosner called.
The boys walked Elaina toward the exit. “Wine is poisonous for me because I have a special body,” she explained. “But for most people wine is a great pleasure. Your work here is important for the war effort. You keep everyone’s spirits up. Keep at it, okay?”
“We sure will. And you’ll keep all of us safe, right?” Jermy asked.
“I will,” Elaina said. “I promise.” She hugged them all one by one, ending with the oldest, who was quite shy but who would be thinking about that hug for days.
Elaina’s group could no longer follow the trading road, as it didn’t pass through Wichita. They all mounted horses and rode off toward the southeast, across the trackless wilderness.
CHAPTER SEVEN
While the young purple army cadets and their chaperones finished their supper under an enormous dead tree and prepared to leave Wichita, Aldo snuck his princesses into their new accommodation.
He unlocked a cellar door outside what had been a saloon, and led them down into its cluttered basement. Eleonora stepped carefully down the stone stairs, holding a soundly sleeping Ia in her blanket cocoon.
It was a large space, with only a hint of light from a few windows up at ground level. Someone had once lived down here, for there were dusty chairs, a rug, crates set up as bookcase, a stove, a sink, shelves full of canned provisions, and a few kitchen tools like juice extractors and mixers clamped onto sturdy surfaces.
The food on the top shelf looked new: recently left by Aldo, Eleonora figured. There were fresh carrots, celery stalks, persimmons, a few small sacks of dry goods, and a good-sized wheel of cheese. The canned food on the lower shelves, on the other hand, looked decades old.
“Back here. Come,” Aldo said, calling Eleonora into a small windowless room with a toilet, a water pump, a metal tub, a pitcher and bowls for bathing. “The water’s freezing,” he said, “but the pump works, and I’ve left you enough fuel pellets to last a week. Don’t use wood in the stove under any circumstances, because the smoke will be noticed. Use the pellets. And make sure to keep the flue open.”
They came back out into the main room. “It’ll be cold at night, you can expect, but you have plenty of blankets folded up over there. Sorry I…don’t have anything fresh for you to wear. There’s food—a little of this, a little of that. Don’t eat any of the old stuff, just the new.”
He pulled a scroll from his pack. “Give this to the Arran captain when Elaina arrives. It has the Blackhearts’ patrol routes, camp locations, and a host of stuff useful to a military mind. It might even get you back to Destauria, which is where you’re going, no?”
Eleonora smiled but didn’t answer. “Thank you, Aldo,” she said. “Where will you go? Surely they have discovered your treason by now.”
“I’ll join a trading caravan heading east. But before that, I can return here in a few days for you as I had planned to do…”
“No. Elaina will come for us. Don’t trouble yourself.”
“Don’t underestimate your foes, Your Highness. I tell you again, you’d be better off not returning home. If you do go back, it will take all your island wisdom to see through their schemes.”
“How do you know so much about me?”
“Your father spoke to me about you and Elaina often. Now, I must go. My ride is leaving. Do you need anything else?”
“I’m sure I will,” said Eleonora, “but you go. Be well, and know you will be remembered in Destauria as a hero.”
And Aldo was off.
Ia stayed asleep in her blanket bundle, so Eleonora set her child on a chair and climbed up onto a counter to look out the window. Far down the main street of the dusty ghost town, the juvenile killers-in-training were boarding their wagons. Eleonora watched as Aldo dove into the cargo space when they weren’t looking. The wagons headed off, disappearing into the western dusk.
Eleonora waited a good long time before lighting a lamp.
Far to the north, Jaimin’s group set up camp for the night, pitching their tents in a sheltered gully, on the sandy shore of a river which was starting to ice up. Tall, aromatic bushes and the high gully walls provided concealment. The group had made good progress and were already well into Destauria.
Makias set up a smokeless campfire with fuel pellets, and he and Alessa knelt beside it, roasting on skewers the meat of a few hares the falcons had snagged on their diurnal forages. Elaina lay cozy in Jaimin’s arms, and Maya, who lay on her white cloak on the ground, gazed up at the stars, poking a stick at them and connecting them with imaginary webs. Marco, Rosner, Watnik, and the two Arran soldiers sat around a second campfire playing cards.
“Makias, you’re a naturalist,” Jaimin said. “What lives here? Is anything going to creep into our tents and sting us tonight?”
“Or chew on us?” Elaina added.
“It’s cold tonight,” he said. “Even for this place. The spiders, scorpions, and snakes will probably just stay where they are, under rocks, underground… There may be some hungry foxes scratching around, but they won’t hassle you.”
“What about cats?”
“Not this far out.”
Jaimin had expected a more detailed and interesting exposition of the local fauna from the chief naturalist of Audicia, but he sensed that Makias was exhausted. The day had been long, and everyone seemed more keen on relaxing than on expending energy on conversation.
Maya continued to bridge light years with the end of her stick. “Can anyone learn t’visit to the spirit world?” she asked nobody in particular.
Elaina thought the question might be addressed at her, but she didn’t know the answer, so she looked at Alessa.
“Not just anyone,” Alessa said. “You want to go there, Maya?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Visit my friends. See if my parents are there.”
Elaina got teary at this, so she was glad Alessa had responded.
“You can try to get there,” Alessa said, “but it’s up to the divine spirit whether or not you’ll succeed.”
“How do I convince the spirit?” Maya asked.
“According to our tradition, you must have three things to enter that world at will: purity, selflessness, and purpose. Very young children have purity. Celmareans also have a natural sense for purity that guides th
em starting in their later teenage years. Selflessness is the hardest for most people to achieve. It means you must have no selfish motives—that you’re willing to put the divine spirit’s will above your own.”
“But you said y’have to have purpose too? Isn’t that a selfish motive?”
“Smart kid,” Alessa said. “No, the purpose I’m talking about isn’t yours, it’s the divine spirit’s. There has to be a mission—a task—that the divine spirit wants you to accomplish.”
“Once you have all these things, how d’you enter?”
“Meditate. When Celmareans meditate, they sometimes see an archway. It’s an actual archway we built thousands of years ago to help us cross through the spirit world. I hear other cultures have seen other types of portals, and I’m not sure what you would see. But I bet it won’t let you through unless all three elements are present: Areu, Amenu and Asaru—purity, selflessness, and purpose.”
“Which one am I missing?” Makias asked Alessa.
“It’s your selflessness that’s not strong enough yet. I’m working on you.”
“And what about me?” Jaimin asked. “Can I enter the spirit world again? Without dying this time?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, it sounds kinda hard to get in,” Maya said. “Maybe you can take some messages there for me. Just in case you run into my parents, that is.”
“I sure will,” said Alessa.
Eleonora lit the stove with fuel pellets and heaved a huge iron pot up onto it. Using the pitcher, she shuttled water from the pump to fill the pot several times. She poured most of the heated water into the bathtub, saving the rest in the steel bowls for rinsing. At last, she would have a bath.
Ia was still in dreamland, so Eleonora moved her to a different chair just outside the bathing chamber door and positioned her so she wouldn’t wiggle off and fall if she woke.
Eleonora set her filthy clothes aside, stepped into the tub, and settled in, exhaling deeply, clearing her mind of all thoughts. The warmth of the water was ecstasy and renewal.
After about ten minutes of blissful relaxation, Eleonora reached for the bar of fragrant soap that Aldo had left her. With it, she cleansed herself of the dirt, dried blood, and caked-on fluids. Again in control of her destiny, she felt human once again, not like some discarded object.
She pulled the plug and let some of the dirty water drain.
Next, she washed her hair thoroughly, using the water she had set aside in bowls. She had never before washed her own hair, but she managed now.
For a brief, dizzy moment she wondered whether she had only imagined Elaina. No, Aldo had seen her too, for sure.
Eleonora turned to the last full bowl of water and watched a drop of water the size of a pea rise out of it. The floating drop seemed so natural to her that it took a while for her to realize how unusual such a thing was, and, as soon as she thought this, the drop fell back into the bowl.
“I’m not the same person I was,” she said out loud, pulling a larger sphere out of the bowl with her thoughts, and drawing it through the air toward herself. It circled around the back of her neck, and then settled on her breastbone. From there she dragged it down her skin and split it into three streams. I’m good at this, she thought.
With her mind, she pulled strings of water from the bowl and drew them across various parts of her body, enjoying the power and control as much as the delicate sensation. She massaged her body, controlling three, and sometimes four streams independently. Embraced by aqueous tentacles, the new Eleonora was showing herself to be adept at the Celmarean art of steering water through the molecular matrix. She enjoyed the pleasure of the writhing water, until she heard a few adorable squeaks from the other room, and she knew it was time to get back to Ia.
There was a towel on the wall, and a robe. Both were cold, but she used them. When she came back into the main room, Ia was awake, gurgling, and gazing at the objects on a nearby shelf. “Well, dear, you’ve awoken. And in a way, so have I.” Eleonora smiled on her child, lifted her, and sat down with her on one of the dusty chairs. Through her left breast, and then her right, she shared life.
Ia’s feeding was followed by a period of chores. Eleonora held Ia over the tub, and with the warm water still remaining in the last bowl she washed her baby, at first using only her mind to manipulate the water across the baby’s skin, before switching to a soapy cloth. Afterward, Eleonora couldn’t find anything to fasten the three clean napkins she had layered to serve as a diaper. She ended up tying the ends, but the knots kept undoing themselves. “Well, let’s put that part off.”
After wrapping Ia up in a fresh blanket, Eleonora found a knife and cut herself a slice of cheese, which she chased down with water. Slitting the sacks, she found rice, oats, barley, and some small greyish beans. She had no idea how to prepare any of it. “Do you think Tita Elaina knows how to cook?” she asked Ia. “I bet she does.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Back in Arra, in the darkest hours of the night, Nastasha set out southward into the southern forest on foot, escorted by three bodyguards from the army. She and her guards were clad in winter forest camouflage, including jackets and hoods. Sealed in a tiny syringe within her dagger’s ornate hilt was the poison that could end the war. The syringe was encased in a thin shell—a safety cover—to shield the needle, and also to keep the toxin from being prematurely dispensed.
Nastasha would seek out a certain tree that Maya had described to her. And in a hollow beneath this tree were supposed to be several Shadow Children who could help her the rest of the way into Destauria.
But until she found the Shadow Children, Nastasha was taking an enormous risk.
She knew the purple army could be anywhere in this forest by now, and she and her guards would be no match for the foes’ numbers, weapons and training. Nastasha was ready to die—but she worried far more about her mission failing.
As the group navigated the forest, re-frozen snow and sticks crackled underfoot. There was little they could do about that, except to step as lightly as possible. Every dozen steps they stopped and listened for danger.
Just a half hour into the journey, Nastasha suddenly felt a rush of fear. It wasn’t fear for herself, because she felt exceptionally confident and powerful that night, but it was a sense that those she loved were in immediate and mortal danger.
Elaina, half asleep, heard the cry faintly: “Rocket!”
The next moment everything went white, and a sound too loud to hear shot pain into her ears.
She had been sleeping on her belly, and at once she felt searing heat wash over her back. She’d recently survived an explosion that had nearly killed her. Not again, she thought.
She pushed herself up to her knees and looked around.
The tent above was gone. Everything in sight was in flames. Alessa had just stood up, and Elaina realized that Alessa’s back was aglow.
“Turn around!” Elaina yelled, springing to her feet. Alessa turned around. Her leather armor was thickly coated with burning fuel gel, and her hair was on fire.
Elaina grabbed a blanket and tried snuffing out Alessa’s burning armor with it, but this did nothing to quench the flames. “I can’t put it out!”
Within moments, waves of intense pain were permeating Alessa’s body as the flaming gel burned through to her skin.
“The river!” Elaina told her. “Run to the river!” But Alessa just sank into a crouch, and then fell to the ground, sobbing, incapacitated by the horrible pain.
Another rocket detonated behind them, near Jaimin’s tent.
A flaming arrow whizzed past, and then another.
Elaina had to take charge. She grabbed Alessa’s arm and started dragging her across the dirt the short distance to the river. She forged on with all her farmer’s strength, feeling Alessa’s skin sizzling off as if it were her own.
Some of the tall, dry brush on the riverbank was alight. As Elaina pushed through it, sparks flew, and seed pods crackled and popped as
they burst from the heat. With both hands, Elaina heaved Alessa into the water. Alessa’s body shattered a thin layer of ice and dropped through into the shallows.
Elaina trudged in after her, splashing frigid water on Alessa’s burning clothing, partly with her hands, but also with her mind. Alessa, panicking, tried to stand up. “Stay still! Let me do this,” Elaina shouted.
To her horror, Elaina realized that the water wasn’t extinguishing the fire either. The gel smoldered while underwater, but as soon as it felt air it flared up again. Most of the armor on Alessa’s back had been burned through now, and glowing bunches of her hair were falling off. Broad patches of burning gel ate further through her skin and muscle. “Hold your breath!” Elaina yelled, “I’m dunking you.”
Trying not to get the burning gel on herself, Elaina pushed Alessa beneath the surface and tugged and peeled off what remained of her shirt. Bit by bit, the disintegrating leather and fabric mess surfaced, flared up, and floated downstream, melting for itself a path in the surface ice.
As Elaina worked, white light began to flow from her hands. The healing presence of the divine spirit poured into Alessa’s body, halting the destruction of her tissues, reversing the damage, and casting off the burning gel.
Elaina reached under Alessa and lifted her radiant body back above the surface. The light worked quickly, restoring every one of Alessa’s cells. Even her lost hair re-materialized in glowing strands, as it seemed time was wound backward. And then the light faded.
Alessa’s first few breaths were short and sharp, as her mind caught up with the fact that her body was whole again. “Shhh,” said Elaina.
“Put me down,” Alessa said. Elaina helped her to stand on the slippery river bottom. Alessa breathed a long breath in, and then released it. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m back. Who do I need to kill?”
“Aieeeee!” came another cry, and Jaimin came tumbling into the water beside them. Both his pant legs were coated with the flaming gel.
“Jem, take off your pants!” Elaina shouted. “It can’t be put out.” She waded over toward him.
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