“Sorry Kirian,” Djerr mumbled, running a hand through his hair. “It was my fault. I didn’t realize we were gone for so long. It won’t happen again.”
Kirian grabbed his pack and swung it over his shoulder, stomping back the way he came. “Well, I found a small town back this way where we can get some more food and supplies. Let’s go.” After a few moments, Kirian gradually slowed his pace until Tarana and Djerr didn’t have to half-run after him to keep up. Soon, they arrived at the town Kirian had described, where the people stared at them as they walked through. When Kirian stopped to talk to one of the onlookers to find where they could buy supplies, Djerr pulled Tarana aside.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked, looking worried. “You haven’t said a word this entire time. It’s not like you.”
She smiled broadly at him. “Of course I’m alright!” she replied. “I was just lost in thought. Sorry.”
He grinned at her, looking relieved. “Don’t worry about it. I understand.” And he quickly hugged her while Kirian was still talking to the man.
After a final word, Kirian turned to the other two. “Well don’t you two look happy,” he grumbled. “I think we should spend the day here, stocking up and resting. Tonight we can get a warm night’s sleep finally and then head out tomorrow morning.” He braced himself for an argument, but Tarana simply shrugged.
“Yeah, fine, let’s do that,” she said.
Kirian looked at her for a moment, then rolled his eyes. “Great,” he said. “Then let’s get busy.”
They spent the rest of the morning shopping and rented a room in the afternoon, where Kirian relaxed while Djerr and Tarana went out to explore the town and the surrounding forest. That night, they slept tightly crammed together on a bed, but warmer and more comfortably than in weeks. All three were quickly asleep.
Tarana was hazily slipping through dreams when she found herself suddenly sitting in Rupert’s cave, feeling harshly aware of what was happening. Slowly getting to her feet, she shook her head to clear the remains of her dreams and spotted him sitting on the bank of a small stream, tucked away in the winding crack between boulders. He waved her over and she carefully climbed over the rocks to sit next to him. She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t feel very rested,” she complained.
He shrugged. “Well, you haven’t been asleep for long.”
“So I’m not asleep now?” She narrowed her eyes and looked around. “My body is still with my friends, right? I don’t want them to wake up and find me gone.”
Rupert sighed loudly and waved a hand at her. “Yes, yes, your body is still there, I’ve only taken your mind for a short time. You’ve still got plenty of time to sleep after that, but let’s get busy. I’ve got years of information to try and teach you in a very short period of time. Back in my day, wizards were brought to the school when they were only 6 or 7 years old and you’re far past that now.” Tarana shrugged and he looked critically at her. “Well, expect to see me every night. You can spare a bit of sleep while we buy some time.”
Tarana blinked, suddenly feeling less tired. “Wait, buy some time? What do you mean?”
“Look, just keep running from the armies for now,” he replied. “I told you, you’re not ready to lead the Wizard’s Army yet and if you get mixed up with them again, it’s going to get even messier than it already is. You can’t hope to crush the ones that hate you if you fall down from exhaustion every time you use the simplest of magic. The problem is you don’t understand how much energy it takes to use your magic, so you’re just grabbing all the energy you can hold and thrusting it out in one huge burst, wasting it all. Of course, the energy has to go somewhere, so you’ve got bizarre side-effects, like that ridiculous burst of light when you were trying to heal that friend of yours.”
“Have you been watching me?” Tarana paled slightly. “And what do you mean the energy has to go somewhere? What are you talking about?”
Rupert looked exasperated. “Of course I have been watching you - that’s my job. And you can’t just make energy disappear. It can be converted to different forms, but it’s a constant in the universe. It can never be created or destroyed.” He groaned at the bewildered expression on Tarana’s face. “Alright, let’s start from the beginning, why don’t we? Every object in the universe is made from the same starting materials…”
That night, Rupert began the first of many lessons, trying to explain to Tarana the intricacies of how the world worked. When he had finished, she instantly awoke and saw the room was dimly lit as the sun crept up over the horizon. Her body was buried underneath the blankets, tucked in between Djerr and Kirian and she felt her eyelids drooping as she drifted back off to sleep. When she woke up again, she was alone in the bed and the room was splashed in sunlight. Stretching, she raised herself up on one arm and blinked several times, trying to see more clearly.
“About time you woke up.” She saw Kirian wiping off a small dusty table in the corner.
She yawned and sat up. “Yeah, guess I was pretty tired. Where’s Djerr?”
Kirian gestured toward the door. “Oh, off grabbing us breakfast.” He paused awkwardly, looking at her without saying anything. Finally, he glanced away. “Say, Tarana, I wanted to ask you…is everything alright between you and Djerr?”
She shrugged. “Sure, why?”
Looking slightly embarrassed, he walked over and sat down on the corner of the bed. “It’s just, I mean, it’s obvious he likes you and he has seemed so overly cheerful in the past day, but you seemed so quiet, it just seems a little weird. Did something happen between you two?”
Feeling her face flush, Tarana stared out the window. “I just, I mean-“
Kirian shook his head. “It’s alright, I know you don’t want me to act like I’m your father or something.”
Tarana looked at him sharply. “Kirian, that stuff I said before, I didn’t mean it. I-I was just upset. I’ve always thought of you like my dad. You took me in when I was all alone, and you saved me when I needed it most.”
“Oh.” A small smile crept over Kirian’s face. “You know I don’t really know how to do this all. I know I’ve made some mistakes, but I just want you to be happy. Look, maybe this has nothing to do with what’s going on with you, but I know you want Djerr to be happy and it’s important to never sacrifice your own happiness to please someone else. It never works and you both end up broken in the end.” The door opened suddenly, and Djerr bounced in holding a small bag. Standing up quickly, Kirian greeted him and went back over to the table, leaving Tarana sitting in bed, looking confused.
“Hey!” Djerr said to both of them and setting the bag down on the table, he hopped out of his snow-covered boots and leapt onto the bed, wrapping the blankets around himself. “It’s freezing out there!”
Protesting as he pulled the blankets off her, Tarana tried to grab them back, but was interrupted by Kirian. “Come on,” he said gruffly. “If we’re going to keep going, we might as well eat and head out.”
They ate quickly and headed back out into the frigid outdoors, slowly crunching through the snow away from the small town. When Tarana would fall behind by a few steps, Djerr would fall back as well, sometimes slipping his hand around hers. In the afternoon, snow started to fall again and continued into the evening, so that they camped in the shelter of a tall needled tree, being careful not to let the fire get too large.
When Tarana awoke in Rupert’s cave again, she groaned. “This again?” she asked, before she even located him. “You know, I think you’re really wasting your time.” She finally saw him, leaning against one of the boulders and watching her with disinterest. “I have no intention of ever leading the Wizard’s Army. I hate those guys. I hate the Citizens’ Army, too. I think it’s all a big fake. If they were really trying to fight each other, they would have ended it a long time ago.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So you think all those people are just pretending to raise armies and fight huge battles with thousands of casua
lties?”
“No,” she sighed. “But I still think there’s something weird going on. Either way, I’m not joining either side ever again.”
“So you’re just going to let them keep fighting until everyone gets swept up into it and suffers when you have the ability to stop the fighting? Well, you will have the ability eventually, anyway. You’re definitely not ready yet. Either way, we can discuss that later. While you’re here, let’s get some work done.”
Wait,” Tarana held up a finger, “one more question. I’ve been thinking all day, and I heard before that only men could become wizards. And well, I am definitely not a man.”
With a sudden pained look, Rupert shook his head. “No, women could become wizards too, just as easily as men. I knew one in my time, far more talented than I, but the academy only accepted boys. The ones in charge were men and they refused to recognize that the women wizards were practicing anything greater than simple tricks. It was ridiculous, but it was the way at the time. Of course, when the people began killing off all the wizards, they killed all the female wizards they could find as well, so it didn’t matter much then, did it?”
Tarana balked at the bitterness in his voice. “So the wizards just left all the girls to fend for themselves? That seems…kind of mean.”
Rupert smiled grimly. “It was mean. The school was essential for young wizards, it brought them among people of their own kind, gave them hope that they weren’t alone. Even before the wizard purge, we were not popular amongst the people at the time. The women had to hide their power in fear of becoming outcasts. I cannot even imagine what they must have gone through. Of course, the male wizards in power at the time came out with all sorts of faked research of how the ability to use magic was due to a mutation on the Y-chromosome, which could not possibly be present in women.”
Blinking, Tarana started to feel lost again, “Wait, what? You’re using weird words again.”
Rupert laughed suddenly. “Alright, I think I found our topic of the day. Have you ever thought about why babies look so much like their parents?”
Once again, Tarana was engrossed in what Rupert was teaching her, although wondering howit would ever be important to her. The lessons continued daily, sometimes building on each other, sometimes completely independent of each other. The weeks passed and she woke up tired every morning, but forced herself to continue on, still worrying the armies might be closing in behind her.
Chapter 12
The wind howled around Djerr and Tarana as they sat on a rocky outcrop, leaning against each other. From where they sat, they could see a vast plain beneath them where the snow was scarce and the landscape was mostly brown with only occasional patches of white. But up where they were, the snow was still piled high around them. Djerr had an arm around Tarana to keep her warm.
“I think I should tell Kirian,” Tarana said, after a long silence.
Djerr looked at her oddly, the snow speckled in his dark hair. “Tell him what?”
“About what I can do and stuff,” she said vaguely. “You know, the magic stuff.”
“Ohh,” he trailed off. “Do you think that’s a good idea? You know how crazy he is about the whole Citizens’ Army thing.”
She shrugged. “Well he’s going to find out eventually, don’t you think?”
Djerr kissed the top of her head. “We could always just go on our own now, you know. Let him go back to his army if he really wants to. It looks like we’re nearly through the winter. We could make it on our own, go find somewhere nice to settle down where we’re not surrounded by all this dumb war stuff. Let them fight it out without us.”
Sighing, she pulled her arms tighter around herself. “I don’t know what to do. There’s all those people being killed, their cities ruined…and I just keep running further away. Do you think there is anywhere where we wouldn’t be bothered by them? They’re just going to keep getting bigger and expanding. Maybe if I told Kirian, he’d understand and help me figure out what to do.”
Djerr pulled her tighter to him and looked skeptical as he stared off into the distance. “I dunno Tara, you know him better than I do.”
“How do you figure?” she asked. “You knew him even before I did and you’ve spent more time with him in the Citizens’ Army and all.”
He laughed. “And you think we talked much? I just feel awkward around him, I stuck with him because he was the only one I knew, but it’s never been like how you and him are.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, his lips startlingly warm against her cold skin.
“Alright, well, I’m going back to camp,” she stood abruptly, Djerr’s arm falling from her shoulders. “It’s getting dark and I want to talk to him.”
She carefully made her way back down the slippery rocks to where Kirian was setting up a campfire and went to stand next to him. Glancing over, he nodded. “Oh, you’re back,” he said. “I was hoping you would get back soon. I want to talk to you about things.” He sat down on a fallen log, motioning for her to do the same. “I know you’re set in your decision to keep traveling this way and you don’t want me to argue with you, but hear me out.”
Tarana opened her mouth, but Kirian lifted his finger. “Wait, just hear me out. We’re running out of money and we won’t be able to go much farther, no matter how much you might want it. Now that the weather is getting a little warmer, it’s going to be easier and faster to travel and if we conserve all the food we have left and spend our money wisely, we should be able to just make it back to where we started. Otherwise, we’re going to be stranded out here, away from civilization. We’ll have to settle down out here, away from everything and everyone we know. It’s not a pleasant place out here, which is why almost no one lives out this way. It alternates between blindingly cold and swelteringly hot, with only a few months of bearable weather each year. It’s been a long time since we started traveling and I’m sure things have settled down by now. If you want, we could still lie low for awhile. I would help you and Djerr.”
Tarana opened her mouth again, unsure what to say or how to begin. “Kirian…” she said in a small voice, “don’t you think it would be a bad idea to let either army find the person they think is this great wizard? I mean, what would they do with him? Djerr was imprisoned when they thought he was the one they were looking for.”
Frowning slightly, Kirian looked down at her. “Of course they did. That’s the problem with them; they think they can have whatever they want, simply by seizing it and claiming it as their own. That’s why I want you to be protected by the Citizens’ Army, so they can’t wrap you up in that again. We both know Djerr’s not a wizard and we can get this whole thing straightened out if we go back.”
Tarana felt herself breathing faster, her heart fluttering uncontrollably. “Kirian, what would they do if they did have someone who could use magic? The person they want to kill- what if they had that person, totally defenseless. The only reason I know beyond a doubt that Djerr can’t use magic, that he’s not this wizard, and the only way I could break him out of the grasp of the Citizens’ Army is because I’m the one that can use magic.”
She felt like she was gasping for breath now and her mind felt fuzzy. She tried to focus on Kirian’s face, which looked unnatural, his expression different than she had ever seen before. His mouth had dropped open slightly, but his lips were moving, trying to find something to say.
She took advantage of his silence, the words rushing out now that she had started. “They know who I am now, Kirian. The people keeping Djerr hostage saw me use magic and everyone must be looking for me now, but I can’t protect myself from a whole army – two whole armies. I don’t want anything to do with them. I just want them to leave me alone.” Kirian’s face looked blank and she wondered if he was even hearing her anymore. She reached out a hand, lightly touching her fingertips to his arm, but he leapt up. Unsure if it was because of her touch or if he had even noticed, she looked pleadingly up at him.
“You’re serious,” he asked, although i
t didn’t sound like a question.
She nodded, almost imperceptibly, then lowered her hand to the hardened snow, trailing a thin line through it that began to steam and melt with a soft hissing noise. His eyes widened slightly and Tarana finally recognized the look on his face. He looked terrified. He shook his head and the look passed.
“That’s it then, we definitely have to go back,” he said firmly. “You’re the key to everything. If you agree to help the Citizens’ Army, you could fix it all. Once they realize you’re not going to try and take over and control their lives, everything will be fine. They’ll help you and protect you from the others and we’ll make everything right.
With a feeling of dread, she realized he was unable or unwilling to see past the beliefs of the Citizens’ Army. She nodded, pasting a smile on her face. “You’re right. I think we should go back and get help from them.” She noticed he was standing a distance away from her now and she rose, turning away, hoping her voice wouldn’t break. “I’m going to go get Djerr and tell him,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She rushed off, back toward the rocky outcrop where she had left Djerr, swallowing the sobs in her throat.
He was still in the same spot she had left him, gazing out at the plains, away from her. Tripping on a rock, she darted forward to keep her footing and almost fell over him. Instead, she knelt down and wrapped her arms around him. “Let’s go,” she whispered into his ear.
He turned, seemingly unsurprised, and cocked his head. “Just us?” he asked. When she nodded, he took her hand and started leading her toward the narrow ledge that led steeply down the cliff. The shadows were long around them and he hesitated before taking the first step.
“Wait,” she tugged her hand away from him and formed a small globe of light, which she handed to him. It shone brightly, then dimmed until it barely lit his hand. “Just tell me how bright you need it,” she said.
He looked at it in wonder for a moment as it brightened again, lighting the path in front of them. “It’s…beautiful,” he said in wonderment, bringing it closer to his face so that it lit up his brown eyes. Then he gently transferred it to his other hand and took Tarana’s hand in his own and they started down the cliff.
The Girl Born of Smoke Page 20