“Your master instructs you well, Isiilde, surprisingly so given his—well yes, at any rate, I’m sure there was nothing new for you to learn,” Yasimina replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. She lifted the hem of her robes, and climbed the large steps, as graceful and elegant as a queen. Isiilde stood expectantly as the Wise One approached, marveling at the way she moved, flowing like water over rocks. Yasimina always made her feel woefully clumsy.
“I wished to have a quick word with you before you go to your next lesson with Mistress Thira,” Yasimina said, gliding to a halt in front of her student. Isiilde’s heart sank, she had forgotten all about Thira’s lesson and even worse, she would be late for the dreadful class. “I should warn you—some knowledge is better left buried.”
Isiilde stared up at the willowy woman in confusion. “I don’t understand,” she finally admitted.
“I don’t doubt your claim for a moment. I’m sure the Archlord told you that nymphs are daughters of the Sylph, however, when it comes to the Blessed Order, it is unwise to call their teachings into question,” Yasimina confided. “As Kulthin pointed out, the Order has the Guardians backing and your master has always shown a blatant disregard for the younger gods. Though he may be foolish, or brave enough to challenge them, I would not be so quick to, especially when he’s not here to support you.”
The cool voice of reason left the nymph even more confused. Unfortunately, Yasimina didn’t offer anything more than that. The Wise One folded her thin hands inside her robes and continued up the stone steps without another word.
Isiilde gathered her supplies, stuffed her parchment inside her knapsack, tossed the strap over her shoulder, and darted up the stairs, perplexed as ever. Why would an esteemed Order, whose sole purpose was to preserve knowledge, be so quick to dismiss the truth of a matter?
Try as she might, Isiilde did not have time to unravel two thousand years of history. Focused on her goal, she lost her train of thought, forgot why she was confused, as well as ever being confused, and ran for all that she was worth. The running redhead was hard to miss as she darted down the corridors, weaving in and out of the castle’s inhabitants with near panic.
Thira Olander, Mistress of Novices and High Alchemist of the Order. Just hearing the woman’s name made Isiilde shudder, but she was not alone in that regard. Every apprentice and novice, as well as full-fledged Wise Ones, avoided the Mistress of Novices, however, things were different for the nymph, because Thira liked her—like sharks like fish, or snakes like mice.
Isiilde had given up trying to please the Wise One. If she had been a perfect apprentice (which she wasn’t) then it wouldn’t have made a jot of difference, because she was Oenghus’ charge. To say Oenghus and Thira didn’t get along would be like saying the Great Expanse was warm. Isiilde’s connection to Oenghus was bad enough, but even worse, was the fact that she was faerie. In the High Alchemist’s mind, a nymph had no business being on the Isle, no matter how gifted she might be.
Isiilde skidded to a stop, staring forlornly at a reinforced oak door that smelled of spoiled eggs and rotten fish. She curled her nose in distaste. It was the door that led into the Alchemy workshop.
As far as Isiilde was concerned, it might as well have been the Gates leading into the Nine Halls.
Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but she stood her ground, taking a deep breath to gather what small shreds of courage she possessed. Nymphs were not known for their courage, however, this particular one managed to defy centuries of inbred cowardice, and open the door (a crack at any rate).
Thira must have heard the nymph’s frantic footsteps, because when Isiilde ventured a peek inside the ominous workshop, the door was yanked open before she had the chance to run. A hand snaked forward, talon like and vicious, dragging Isiilde into the predator’s domain.
A rail thin, vulture of a woman towered over the nymph, glaring down at her with beady, hateful eyes. An orange puffball of a dog raced to its mistress’ side and began yapping at the nymph’s heels. Isiilde closed her eyes, willing Thira and her loathsome dog Crumpet away, unfortunately, this tactic rarely worked in her limited experience.
“You have interrupted my lecture, nymph,” Thira snapped. Crumpet added to the threat by displaying a fang filled maw. How could a creature be so fearsome when it was so tiny, Isiilde wondered, but any budding answer was quickly trampled by an ominous question. “Do you imagine that your time is more important than the rest of the apprentices combined?”
“I’m sorry, Wise One,” she gulped with a wavering voice. “Yasimina asked to speak with me after her lecture.” Isiilde’s ears wilted and she took a sudden interest in her boots. They were good, sturdy boots, and the leather fit like a glove, but they were of little help at the moment.
“I don’t care if a pit fiend invaded the castle. I will not suffer any more of your tardiness,” Thira stated, calmly. Isiilde nodded quickly in agreement, and turned to leave, but was stopped short by an iron hand curling over her slender shoulder. “I didn’t say you could leave,” the Vulture whispered in Isiilde’s ear, squeezing so hard that she feared her shoulder would break.
Thira steered her to the back of the room. As she was paraded past the other apprentices, she met Zianna’s smirk with narrowed eyes.
“I have a use for you today,” Thira said, sweeping her hand towards a tottering stack of cauldrons. “They’re covered in last week’s grime. I suggest you get on your knees and begin scrubbing.”
“Ah, just where a nymph belongs,” Lord Kulthin quipped.
Isiilde bit back a wave of tears, suffering their gazes in silence, as the insane, suicidal thought entered her head of simply telling the Mistress of Novices—No. It was a grand thought, a noble stand against tyranny, and it lasted a thrilling three-seconds, until Thira spun on Lord Kulthin, her fingers flashing in a complicated weave before a single, harsh word spat from her lips, echoing through the chamber with the finality of an Inquisitor’s judgement.
Lord Kulthin clutched at his throat, gasping and gagging in shock. Weaves of Silence were Thira’s favorite disciplinary tool for minor infractions, and her weaves were infamous for being extraordinarily uncomfortable.
Every novice in the Alchemy lab went pale, quickly turned in their chairs to face front, and hunched over their notes in silence, ignoring the struggling lord. The Vulture turned back to Isiilde, crossing her arms and peering down a beak like nose from her lofty perch.
As thrilling as those three-seconds of defiance had been, they shattered to pieces under those beady eyes. So far, Marsais’ hand and word had stayed Thira’s wrath, but the nymph’s meager allotment of courage had been exhausted when she opened the door, and she had no desire to test the boundaries of her master’s influence. Isiilde suspected that the Vulture would gleefully carry out her famed punishments in Marsais’ absence.
Resigned, Isiilde picked up a wire brush, blackened and caked with unidentifiable substances, and began her chores. Despite the risk of Thira catching them, she felt the occasional set of eyes settle on her as she worked, but their attention quickly flickered away from the youngest apprentice on the Isle. Thira’s instructions were complicated, and the students could scarcely risk missing a key ingredient to a potion that imbued the drinker with a spider like climbing ability. It was a recipe that she would have liked to learn if it hadn’t called for live spiders.
By the time Isiilde had finished scrubbing the first cauldron, which smelled like a nest of squashed cockroaches, she was completely forgotten.
Three cauldrons later, Isiilde turned to the fourth. And her bad day worsened when Crumpet decided to keep her company. Wild-eyed and ecstatic, the mutt hopped from side to side nipping at her heels.
Necessity forced her deeper inside the pungent pot, and as she scrubbed the bottom, the nips turned into a bite. Sharp teeth pierced the leather of her right boot, sinking into her calf. Isiilde gave a strangled whimper and quickly scuttled out of the cauldron.
Crumpet snarled in challeng
e to Isiilde’s smoldering glare, daring the nymph to remove his wretched presence. She batted at the dog with her wash rag, but it only infuriated him.
Thankfully, the students faced forward and no one seemed to notice their quarrel.
“Don’t you dare bite me again,” she whispered in warning, and then turned back to her work, watching the fiend out of the corner of her eye. But in the end, Crumpet attacked without warning, lunging with blinding speed, sinking his teeth in the tender flesh behind her knee.
The nymph squeaked in pain. Chaos seized the reins. A nearby torch fluttered in its wall bracket, popping fitfully in the stale room, loosening a tendril of flame from the wavering mass. A single spark drifted down, settling gently on the edge of a cauldron that was precariously perched on the stack. The bright ember touched the sticky substance coating the cast iron pot. And the mixture ignited, sucking air inside the hollow iron before spewing it out in a great gout of flame.
Isiilde’s pain was replaced by surprise. She jerked in fear, accidentally nudging the cauldron that supported the flaming pot. The fiery pot was dislodged, tumbling down like the first pebble heralding a landslide. It buried Crumpet, caging the beast inside a burning kiln.
The yelping terror that reverberated from the upturned pot demanded immediate attention. Thira’s eyes widened; her cold, remorseless mask slipped, and was replaced with horror—an expression that few Wise Ones had ever glimpsed on the hardened woman, let alone a room full of apprentices.
Thira’s horror terrified Isiilde as if it were her own. She did the only thing she could do—the nymph ran for her life, leaving Crumpet to burn. It was well and good she left the dog to its fate, because Thira went straight for her beloved companion, and the other apprentices were too shocked to grab the fleeing nymph.
Isiilde bolted out of the workshop and down the corridors, heedless of the disturbance her passage caused the castle’s inhabitants. With heart thumping and sides bursting, she took the short cut through the gardens, and down the final, long stretch of corridor before barreling into the infirmary. Wide, emerald eyes searched out the hulking form of her guardian in the long chamber.
Oenghus was bent over a patient occupying one of the numerous beds arranged in neat rows, and she darted as quick as a sparrow to his blue-robed form. Sensing danger, he turned, and his eyes widened with alarm.
“Sprite, what’s a matter?” Isiilde skidded to a stop, doubling over in agony, pointing back the way she had come.
“Oen—” she gasped, but it was all she could manage before a flood of tears overcame her, and she collapsed into his arms.
“Did someone hurt you?” the giant of a man asked, clutching the frail creature gently by the shoulders as he scanned her with a healer’s eye.
Everyone in the infirmary, from sickly patient to Wise One, had stopped what they were doing to watch the unfolding drama. Isiilde continued to point, trying to catch her breath, and control her tears, but it was useless.
Morigan wiped her hands on her apron, tucked a stray strand of dark hair in her orderly bun, and bustled towards the two.
“What’s a matter, Oenghus?” the healer asked, studying the creature and the man for whom she had abandoned Kambe some twelve years earlier. Oenghus shrugged his broad shoulders, as clueless as the kindly healer. However, they could both be sure of one thing; trouble usually followed on the nymph’s heels.
“Calm down, Sprite, just ease up and try to breathe,” he urged, directing a baleful eye at the doors, at which his charge was currently pointing. An instant later, trouble arrived, cradling a smoldering lump.
“I need a healer!” Thira croaked, rushing over to Morigan, and shoving her charred companion into the healer’s hands.
“We’ll need your expertise, Oenghus,” Morigan said with the calm tones that came easily to her trade.
“I’m not healing a bloody dog,” Oenghus spat.
“Curse you, Oenghus, that whelp of yours did this!” the Vulture screeched.
Isiilde darted behind her guardian, terrified by the raw fury in the woman’s tone. Oenghus took one look at the nymph and then his gaze drifted with slow realization towards the mangy, Voidspawn, rat of a dog. With a muttered curse, he took the thing in his massive hands, and began uttering the Lore. His gaze became vacant, as he set about mending the beast with an inner sight. Unfortunately, this left Thira free and Isiilde’s protector occupied.
A crooked hand lashed out, quick as a snake, to seize a handful of the nymph’s silken tresses. Isiilde went breathless with panic as a voice grated in her ear, “You wretch. I’ll see you ousted for this.”
“There will be no violence under my roof!” Morigan wedged her stout form between the two, gathering the sobbing nymph protectively to her bosom.
Thira might be the Mistress of Novices, but this was Morigan’s domain, and no one dared cross her in the infirmary. The Vulture shot hateful eyes at the quivering faerie, but advanced no farther.
“That creature set my Crumpet on fire,” Thira accused, and something truly disturbing occurred, a cold tear rolled down her gaunt cheek.
“It was an accident, I swear it,” Isiilde sobbed into Morigan’s arms.
“Hush now, child,” Morigan soothed, patting her back.
“By the gods, you can’t tell me that you believe the nymph. How many times, Morigan? It’s the same pathetic excuses. I have witnesses—apprentices who will vouch for her crime.”
“There’s no bloody crime,” Oenghus growled, thrusting Crumpet into the Wise One’s shaking hands. “Your canine bedfellow will be good as new after his fur grows back. Though personally I think it’s a better look for him. I always thought he was more rat than dog.”
Thira fussed over Crumpet, who was alive and snoring blissfully, and then met Oenghus’ unwavering gaze with equal distaste. “I won’t let this go unpunished,” she swore harshly.
“You will,” Oenghus demanded. “Or I’ll toss that rat off the highest tower and then you can try to kick my arse out.”
“I’d see you in the arena before bothering with such a nicety.”
If the infirmary had been still before, it was now as silent and chilling as a grave. The breath froze in the audience’s lungs. No one questioned Thira’s threat or Oenghus’ eagerness to answer such a challenge, but what was more, the odds in such a duel would be dead even.
“Don’t tempt me, hag,” Oenghus purred with a twitch of his beard.
“Both of you stop it this instant,” Morigan quickly interceded. “Thira, I’ll ask you to take your leave, and tend to your companion. He’ll need rest and a warm place to recover. You should be grateful Oenghus was here, because there isn’t another healer capable of performing a healing of that magnitude.”
If this was intended to soothe Thira, then it failed miserably, because her cool gaze didn’t waver for a tense minute. At long last the fear inspiring Mistress of Novices turned, and stalked out of the infirmary.
“The woman has some bollocks, I’ll give her that,” Oenghus murmured with grudging respect. Isiilde peeked from the safety of Morigan’s arms.
“Did you do that on purpose, child?” Morigan inquired, firmly. The nymph shook her head.
“Wouldn’t matter if you did, Sprite, truth be told, I was hoping you’d do it long before this.”
“I swear—I didn’t mean to, Oen. I don’t know what happened. Crumpet bit me twice,” she paused to point at her punctured boot, “and then a spark from the torch fell in a cauldron, started a fire, and then the cauldron fell on top of Crumpet.”
Morigan appeared dubious. Unfortunately, this was not the first time the nymph had come in with a similar story.
“I can handle the load here,” the healer sighed. “Take the rest of the day off and see to her bite, Oen. And Isiilde, if I were you, I’d stay away from the castle unless you’re with Oenghus.” Morigan gave the nymph one last hug before bustling off to tend to her patients. Isiilde went straight to her guardian, craning her neck up to meet his gaze w
ith shimmering eyes.
“I swear it, Oen, on my mother’s grave,” she pleaded. “I didn’t mean to, and I’m so sorry I’ve caused you more trouble.”
“It’s not the first time me and Thira have gone at it. We were at each other’s throats long before you came along—we go way back, her and me. Besides, haven’t you ever heard, trouble follows a faerie?” He gave her a wink and a grin, hugging her head to his gut with a massive hand. “Come on, Sprite, let me have a look at that bite, and then we’ll get you home before you keel over.”
Five
THE SAND WAS coarse against the nymph’s silken flesh, her body melted into its contours, and her bones soaked in the offered heat, storing the memory of bliss for the long winter to come. Her fingers and toes curled with the hypnotic rhythm of the lazy tide, and Isiilde sighed, content, at peace, opening her eyes to an unabashed sun. It was in a rare mood today. The sun was victorious for the first, and probably the last day of the year, burning back the misty battlements of the isle, exposing the ancient stone and thick forests.
She purred with languid pleasure and rose to her elbows, squinting at the endless waters. A small army of little lug sailed fishing boats drifted off shore. Sails of white linen hung limp on their rigs.
On a day as calm as this, she was surprised the boats were staying so close to shore—not that they seemed very eager to be about their business. The salty fishermen were no more immune to the effects of the sweltering heat than Isiilde, and it had lulled them into a slothful daze. Their nets hung against the tiny hulls, mostly ignored and rarely gathered up.
A throaty bark disturbed the ebbing tide. Isiilde turned a lazy eye on a herd of walruses who shared her beach. Two of the bulls were arguing over a swath of sand, completely oblivious to the fact that a mile of vacant beach stretched in either direction. Their barking grated on her sensitive ears and she pressed her lips together while they settled their posturing conflict.
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