by Cathi Shaw
Brijit sat on her bed and stared at the pendant in her hand. Could it be that Grandmamma was of the Kurunii? And if so, what did that make her? Was she the granddaughter of a witch?
“Brijit?” Serena said softly. “Are you okay?”
Brijit looked at Elsa. “What do you know about Kurunii in Five Corners?”
Serena spoke before Elsa could, “Brijit, we covered a whole unit on them in third-year history class.”
Brijit shook her head. “I didn’t. Remember, Raspella had me go on a special training assignment in the Lowlands at that time. I was exempt from the winter term that year.”
They stared at each other in shock. Brijit couldn’t help wondering what other subjects she had missed the year Raspella sent her away to train.
Elsa licked her lips and seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “Listen, Brij, what we know of the Kurunii is only what the Elders and our instructors have told us. In small villages they are revered for their leadership and healing skills. So don’t panic. But I do know this,” she paused and looked at the pendant in Brijit’s hand. “That symbol can only be worn by direct decedents of the Kurunii. All others would be burned by the pewter. It is a magikal talisman, meant to protect.”
Serena interrupted, “Is it possible the child could have been burnt by the symbol, like a,” she searched for the word, “like a brand?”
But Brijit shook her head. “It didn’t look like a brand. It looked like, like a tattoo that the Army members have. But only one and about this small.” She held her thumb and index finger together.
“Whatever the symbol is, I think, given the child was killed, we can assume it is the mark we heard them talking about this afternoon.”
Brijit’s head was spinning, but she forced herself to focus on what Elsa was saying.
“What did they say about it?” she asked.
“They said the mark was beginning to appear, just as the Prophecy predicted. And that measures were being taken to eliminate the problem. But they didn’t know if those measures would be enough.”
“Did they say why I was being sent to The Rift?”
Serena shook her head. “No. But it was clear that they weren’t happy about the decision to send the chosen apprentices there.”
Elsa nodded. “They didn’t seem very happy with the Elders at all, actually. One might think they were talking on the verge of rebellion. It was pretty strong language they were using.”
Brijit was surprised. She knew there were some Coimirceoirí instructors who didn’t like the amount of control the Elders had over Five Corners, but she hadn’t expected the headmaster and mistress of the respective schools to be in that camp along with some of their top instructors. No wonder they were meeting in secret.
“They also talked about the Elders trying to take control of the Alliance, whatever that is,” Elsa said.
Serena nodded. “Yes, they said they had to bide their time but that the Draíodóir were becoming especially resentful of the Elders and their high-handed ways of doling out magikal licenses outside of Séreméla. They seemed to think that would bring the Draíodóir over to their side.”
Brijit swallowed hard. If the Draíodóir were involved, this could get very ugly, very fast. This ancient sect of druids was the most powerful of the magikal wielders in Five Corners. Each of them was born with an ability to harness magik. They were feared by most of the people in Five Corners, and even the Elders were leery of them. Grandmamma had never had anything good to say about them. And this was the first Brijit had heard of anything called “the Alliance.” Alliance with whom?
The knowledge they had before them was very dangerous even if they didn’t know exactly what it all meant. If anyone found out that three students knew as much as they did, Brijit had no doubt their lives would be in danger.
“We can’t let anyone know about this,” she said urgently.
Serena and Elsa nodded.
“Do you think anyone knew you were there?”
The emotion in Serena’s turquoise eyes was serious. “I think if anyone knew we were there, we would be dead by now, Brijit.” She paused. “But Raspella does know you were aware of the child with the mark, and it appears the Elders, at least, know what your grandmother is.”
She left the question unasked, but it hung in the air as if it had been verbalized. If they knew that Brijit was Kurunii born, why had they brought her to the Academy, trained her, and allowed her to see what she had seen? Why had she been selected as the Academy apprentice by the Elders, against her instructor’s advice? What role did she play in all of this?
Chapter Four
The girls stayed up most of the night, trying to decipher what their combined knowledge might mean. By the wee hours of the morning they were no closer to unraveling it.
Realizing that sleep was now impossible, Brijit turned the conversation to their futures.
“Where are you two going?” she asked, wondering if her friends’ assignments would allow them to communicate with one another. It would be nice to know that her friends were only a letter away, especially with the added burden of knowledge the three of them now shared.
Serena’s slight smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Bermgarten.”
Brijit felt a spark of happiness for her friend. Serena had wanted to go there for so long, and now her dream was coming true. Brijit was just sorry that the revelations of the last day and half had stolen some of Serena’s excitement in her placement.
Underneath her joy for her friend, she felt a sense of relief. Bermgarten was a major center. It would be easy to get word to Serena if she needed to.
Elsa didn’t look as happy. “I’m going North,” she said quietly. “To the very foot of Pinefrest Mountains.”
Brijit looked at her in surprise. It was unheard of to send an apprentice to such a remote location.
Elsa gave a wry smile. “I know. I have no idea what they are thinking, but I am going into the frozen North with one male Coimirceoirí.”
Serena nudged her and laughed, “At least you got assigned a handsome one!”
Normally that would have been enough to spark a giggling conversation about the merits of the boy being sent with Elsa, but not today.
Elsa just rolled her eyes and murmured, “True, but still, it’s so remote.”
It was one of the most remote placements Brijit had ever heard of. For Elsa, it would be torture. She thrived on being surrounded by people.
“Okay,” Brijit said, trying to shine some light on the situation. “Both Elsa and I will be remote and unable to communicate with one another. But you will be easy to get a hold of, Serena.”
Her friend nodded.
“How much do you think we should rely on our partner Coimirceoirí?” Elsa asked uncertainly, her usually giggling face unsure. “I mean, it’s not like I will have a lot of friends in the Pinefrest Mountains to talk to. It would be nice to know I had at least one person I could trust to talk to about important things.”
Brijit considered what Elsa was asking. It would be dangerous for any of them to share their concerns with others, at least until they were certain they could trust them. Still, she had to admit it would be nice to have an ally they could each rely on, especially since they would be out of contact with one another for so long.
“I think we have to just see what we can learn about our partners and then trust our own instincts,” Brijit said.
Both the other girls nodded, looking relieved.
But Brijit wasn’t sure their Coimirceoirí partners could be trusted. The idea of sharing what she knew with the stony-faced Weylon Forborrow was less than appealing.
To be honest, she wasn’t sure what she thought of the male initiate who had been chosen. She hadn’t had any time alone with him and while they had been marched from the convocation hall he had been disinclined to talk. All she knew of him was what her friends had said, which was hardly anything at all, just that he was the most gifted student in half a century.
And that was another thing. The most gifted…they certainly had advertised that fact a lot. But why? She suspected that both the Elders and the instructors had ulterior motives for spreading such news. She had never heard advance praise for chosen apprentices, and this just seemed to be too much. Everywhere she turned there were whispers about what a “gifted” student he had been. But they were so vague – no one even mentioned what it was that made him so special.
From his appearance, Brijit surmised he was a warfare expert. She shook her head in annoyance at the predictability of the Elders. A female apprentice who was an empath and a healer and a male who was a warrior – it was stereotypical in the extreme. But she couldn’t say that she was really surprised. The more she had learned of the Elders over the years, the more old-fashioned and archaic their society seemed to be.
#
Weylon Forborrow looked at the reddening morning sky with a feeling of foreboding that he couldn’t shake. Red skies in the morning never signaled good things.
Soon they would be on their way. He had no idea where they were going, but he would bet his life that it was not to Séreméla. He had stayed up most of the night conversing with Gregor, trying to coax information out of his old instructor and gauge whether or not he knew anything. But the man was unflappable. In the end, desperate for someone to talk to, Weylon had found himself waking Finn in the wee hours, shaking him until he finally opened his eyes a crack, groaning.
“Weylon, I’m sleeping,” Finn protested and pulled the blankets over his head.
“Finn, wake up,” Weylon said jerking the blankets off Finn’s bed but keeping his voice low. They were in a twelve-bed dormitory and he didn’t want them to be overheard by the other students. “We need to talk.”
Finn sighed, ran his hands through his hair and then reluctantly sat up.
Weylon gestured to the door and Finn nodded. Once they’d made their way to the common sitting area down the hall from the dorms, Weylon told Finn about his unproductive conversation with his instructor.
“Do you think Gregor was hiding something, or do you think he truly is in the dark about the Elders’ intentions?” Finn asked.
Weylon shrugged. With his gifts, he could usually sense when someone was hiding something from him. He hadn’t sensed that his instructor was hiding anything, but Gregor was a master at shielding and he was well aware of Weylon’s abilities. He didn’t put it past the old man to keep secrets.
“I don’t know.” Weylon frowned. “But I do know one thing: we are not going to Séreméla. There is no way.”
Finn raised his eyebrows. “Why do you say that?”
Weylon gave Finn a look. “Three Elder warriors armed to the teeth. Not the usual way they collect their new Coimirceoirí.”
His friend nodded in agreement. “Well, there is that. In fact, that whole production at the ceremony was a bit over the top, even for Elders. But, Weylon, what do you think their intentions are?”
Weylon looked out the window at the sky that was slowly growing brighter, the red and pink streaks eerie against the blue. “I don’t know but the rumors we heard about The Rift could be true.”
Concern flickered across Finn’s face. “That would put all of Séreméla in jeopardy.”
Weylon nodded in agreement. The Rift was largely unheard of in Five Corners. But some of the Coimirceoirí, particularly those who were trained as warriors, were privy to more of the Elder secrets than other students.
Séreméla, the Elders’ home, was a tropical paradise on the edge of Five Corners. Although he had never been there, Weylon had heard the stories that said moving from anywhere in Five Corners into Séreméla was like stepping into a magikal realm. A bitterness flowed through him. From all he had learned, he had no doubt that the Elders used copious amounts of magik to maintain their paradise while the rest of the land suffered.
Weylon frowned in disgust. The Elders were constantly punishing the rest of Five Corners for using any kind of magik, but they used it in spades for their own comforts. It was unfair and wasteful. Magik could be used to do good, but responsible practitioners always knew there was a price to using the dark power. They did so sparingly. Even the Draíodóir, the Druid sect famous for their magikal powers and distrusted by most of the residents of Five Corners, were careful about when and where they used it. But the Elders seemed to see themselves as a society that deserved different rules than the rest of Five Corners. It was unfair and unjust. And it had the potential to hurt all of the land, not just Séreméla.
What most of Five Corners did not know was that on the western side of Séreméla lay a vast wasteland bordering on a black and toxic sea. Known only as The Rift, it was rumored to house monsters of indescribable horror. Some said The Rift was the reason Séreméla had been created – the only way to stop the darkness from advancing had been to create a magikal buffer, which the Elders had done centuries ago under the guidance of their last great queen: Aibhilín.
But the Elders had been without a queen for too long, and some said their hold over Séreméla was weakening while they continued to use copious amounts of magik to maintain their lifestyle. Rumors abounded about the evil that dwelled in The Rift. Most claimed that one day it would break free of the bonds that held it and swallow up the land.
Of course, it was all legend and rumor. Weylon had no real reason to believe it was true. But whispers had continued to come out of the West. And the Elder Council was becoming more and more nervous. He had heard that the Elder ruler, the current Crown Prince, had taken to disappearing for long periods of time, and his consort, pregnant with their first child, was guarded at all times.
Weylon’s mouth twisted. The Elders hoped that their princess was carrying the elusive girl-child who would save their kingdom. Or so the Prophecy – another legend that most of Five Corners wasn’t privy to – supposedly stated. Weylon had never seen this Prophecy, but he knew there were those in Séreméla who followed the fragments that had been translated religiously, adhering to everything the Prophecy supposedly said and claiming that the future of all of the land would be determined by the words on those scraps of parchment that still existed.
The Elders took the known pieces of the Prophecy as law. But a complete copy of the ancient text had not been found, and much of the writing on the scraps had never been translated. At first this was because it wasn’t seen as important to modern-day Séreméla but later, as the Prophecy’s following grew, the Elders found they were unable to translate the bits of the document in their possession because it was written in an ancient Elder dialect that was almost completely forgotten today. Only the Draíodóir and a few ancient Elder scribes knew anything about the dialect, and none of them were fluent in it.
It was due to their devotion to the mythical writings that the Elders had been waiting for a female ruler for twelve generations. Of course if the first child born to the current royal family was a boy, he would be much loved, but it was understood that he would only be a Crown Prince, like his father. The Elders had been without a queen for many years, and their hopes lay with the child sleeping in the princess’s womb. Only a queen could make decisions for the Elders without needing guidance from the Elder Council.
As Weylon understood it, not everyone wished this girl-child would come. There were some who wanted the princess to give birth to a son. Then there would be no official ruler, just another Crown Prince who would be guided by the council. The Elder Council was split between wanting a queen and wanting to continue to make most of the decisions for the people.
It was more than politics behind the Elders’ wish for a queen. Weylon did not understand it all, but he sensed the growing desperation in the Elder Council members who had met with Gregor and the other senior Coimirceoirí. There had been many closed-door meetings that Weylon could not access, even with his abilities. Those meetings had been carefully shielded, which was suspicious. He had heard snippets of the Prophecy mentioned as well, but when he had pushed Gregor on the topic, his mentor had
become angry and silent.
There was so much Weylon did not understand, but he knew enough about politics to know that he and the Coimirceoirí female apprentice were stepping into a potentially dangerous situation.
Finn shifted beside him, sensing his dark thoughts. But Weylon kept them to himself. The less his friend knew, the safer he would be.
“Do you know where you will be sent?” Weylon asked, changing the topic abruptly.
Finn nodded slowly. “The Wastelands.” His tone was flat.
Weylon looked at his friend closely. Finn looked miserable. “Why would they send you there?”
It didn’t make sense. The Wastelands were on the outer reaches of the Outlands. While they were farther south than The Rift, the land there had been touched by the evil, long ago. Nothing grew in that part of Five Corners and as a result, almost no one lived there. It was unheard of for the Elders to send two Coimirceoirí there.
“I don’t know,” his friend answered with a dark expression. Finn was a gifted Coimirceoirí, not as talented as Weylon, but, in any other year, he would have been one of the top picks of the class. He just had the misfortune of being Weylon’s peer.
“Who are they sending with you?” Weylon couldn’t help asking, trying to imagine which of the silly girls would be accompanying his friend.
“No one.”
Weylon stared at him in disbelief. “They never send Coimirceoirí apprentices on assignments alone.”
Finn gave him a bitter smile. “I guess they do now.”
Chapter Five
Just before dawn, Brijit had hugged and said goodbye to Serena and Elsa, promising to send messages to Serena in Bermgarten when she could. Elsa promised to do the same. If either of them were moved to less remote locations, they would contact each other through Bermgarten.
On the way to the stables, Brijit had detoured to Raspella’s rooms, hoping to have one last word with her instructor and try to get a better feel for where her true loyalties lay. She was surprised to find her mentor’s door slightly ajar when she arrived. While she didn’t mean to eavesdrop, before she could turn away she heard angry voices that gave her pause.