Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8

by Jacob Falling

  Her whole body burned, and whatever wild magic her blood commanded, it moved her hand and her blade. But though the world might have filled with water, and though she might have seen every blow struck by allies and enemies alike, Tabashi moved as if made of air itself. He avoided her first slash, and the next, and even then the thrust that sent her two steps toward him, which he matched in easy retreat.

  She felt like a foolish child, and the fire which had seemed to fill her body soon blinded her eyes with tears, as if from smoke. She hesitated in her next attack, blinking for clearer vision, but Tabashi did not take advantage. He was still at his full height, his arms wide and out before him, and his head turned from left to right, his eyes using the moment of her hesitation to reexamine the world.

  Still half blurred, she knew she had a moment of chance, and she leaped to the side, lunging at his right hand, her nearest target. But somehow her body stopped in its forward motion, and she stumbled backward a step or two, and her breath left her completely.

  There was a stinging sensation in her chest, just then.

  A spider bite… was her first impression. It took the moment of regaining her balance for her to realize what had happened, as she glanced down to find that the shaft of an arrow had pierced the leather just below her left shoulder.

  Adria stared at the blue fletching of the arrow, it seemed, for some time, before the true pain began. She had fallen to her knees without realizing it. Her pack had fallen as well, but her knife was somehow still within her hand, though she had no way of commanding it.

  Now Tabashi stepped closer, and seemed to loom all around, leaving her in shadow. Their eyes met, and Adria shook her head, in denial, in sorrow... she did not really know.

  Her thoughts had numbed, and she was wholly unable to act, only to feel — and many of these sensations, remarkably, were retreating into some strange distance as well, as if already memory.

  Watemezi… She thought. A distant object, that thing over there…

  Tabashi frowned, and nodded a little. Adria could see the arrows all around them, flying with impossible sloth. She could make out the detail on the feathers, the grain of the shaft. She could even name the birds and the trees from which they had been made. She noted the difference between those of her tribe and those of the unknown enemy, the one in her breast.

  Great Jays... Hickory... Starlings... Traitors... she might have said aloud. Those things… over… there…

  “Scion, you are in... a state of suspension,” Tabashi said, somehow whispering into her ear, somehow at a normal speed, despite what occurred around them.

  Why does he call me that?

  “When one is gravely wounded, the body focuses itself upon the wound, putting other matters of the body and mind somewhat at a distance. One becomes confused, and there is a lessening of feeling.”

  And in the middle of the numb, she felt a wrenching spiral of pain, as if her heart itself had been twisted from her chest. She might have cried out.

  She looked down. The Moresidhe had pulled the arrow from her flesh, and broken its shaft where it had pierced the leather, she realized slowly.

  “But there is something more to this, with you,” he continued. “You are able to suspend yourself in a rather different way than most. It is an... inheritance. Because of it, you are protecting yourself, and even me, though it will take you some time to understand how, and to understand why.”

  He reached around her with the silver edge of her own blade. “Still, you should look upon these moments with particular interest, and remember them well, despite the pain it may bring. It will be valuable, I think, in your future.”

  Then why would you kill me? She wondered absently, without reason. Then she felt a release of pressure as he cut the straps of her leather and pulled it away, and then again as he tore her wool and linen garments from her chest with his enormous hands. He seemed, all along, to be holding her up somehow. He might have grown more limbs, but Adria thought this unlikely. She was thinking with strange clarity, despite the separation she felt from the world.

  And she did think of her future, and she shook her head, then, and she spoke with her voice as a child.

  “I don’t actually want to be a princess,” she said to the strange man. “Not even a Knight, anymore. I think it was very childish of me, indeed. Don’t you?”

  He pressed the bundle of linen from her undergarment against her breast, where her blood flowed freely, and he lifted her arm to cross it over her shoulder. “Hold this tight, little one, and it will save your life.”

  “Like a bundle of apples,” she said, absently doing as he asked. Her voice seemed to come from a distance. Watemezi.

  Distractedly, she again watched the arrows in suspended flight around her. Two of them collided, improbably, and the shaft of one shattered through its center, with a sound like thunder.

  “Beautiful,” she whispered, smiling, turning back to the Moresidhe. “I don’t think I want to die, ever.”

  Tabashi nodded simply as he scooped her up with one arm and held her tight, as if she were half her size. “Scion, your ransom is well paid.” She realized that they were running, and she could see that they were outrunning arrows — though from where her head lay across his shoulder, she could see several shafts protruding from his back.

  “They bit you, too,” she sighed. “I don’t want to be princess. I don’t want to be ransomed.”

  “Heir, there are many choices you may make, and many you may not. Take comfort that you will rarely recognize the difference.”

  “I am not the heir,” she murmured sleepily. “I am the elder, but Hafgrim is the… most... male.” She couldn’t seem to find all the right words, just now. Her eyes were smoky again, or seemed to be filled with silken threads. She tried to wipe them out, but couldn’t find her hands.

  “Am I walking two webs, now?” she whispered.

  “Idonea, You must stay awake just a little longer, or we both may die.” And then he shook her, rather ungently, and some of her numbness changed its shape into pain. She cried out, and blinked the tears away. Still she felt unburdened, lightened, maybe turning to air like the one who carried her.

  “I forgot my bow,” she realized, suddenly panicked.

  “It will remain safe. There is not an Aesidhe of either tribe who would dare to touch it.”

  She made no effort to make sense of this, and was not even certain she heard his words correctly, now. She might be dreaming, except for the pain. Or did she feel pain in her dreams? She could not remember any dreams, just then. Or is this a dream?

  No, she was flying, now, she felt certain, carried from the window of her tower by a great raven. She clutched the apples tighter to her breast so they would not fall. But then she remembered.

  “Wait... I have to say goodbye to my brother.”

  “Where are you going?” Hafgrim demanded sleepily.

  Adria had prepared all her words, and then forgot them as soon as Hafgrim spoke. He took her hesitation as reluctance, which it probably was.

  “Fine, don’t tell me,” he shrugged. “You’ve never trusted me before, why should you now?”

  “I’m just saying goodbye.”

  “Okay, goodbye. Don’t get lost or killed or kidnapped.” He either didn’t know at all what she was trying to tell him, without actually telling him, or he was choosing to ignore it, out of disbelief... out of hurt feelings.

  “I don’t...” this was even more difficult than she had expected. It might have helped if she had any idea where she was going, or for how long. But to admit this out loud, to tell Hafgrim, might make her hesitate to complete her plan. “I need to see what the world is really like,” she said, remembering some of her prepared speech finally. “I live in a tower. I can’t remember anything beyond this city and these mountains — barely beyond the castle itself. We’re supposed to be leaders of Heil
and, and yet...”

  Now it was obvious to him that she meant to really leave, for his eyes blinked and wandered about, and he fidgeted with the hilt of his practice sword, set on a low table beside where he sat.

  Adria’s words left her again.

  “There’s nothing out there,” he shrugged. He was not about to meet her halfway. “All the important people are already here, or visit during Council. We can learn what we need here, as we always have. Or perhaps we may have a summer capital in Highreach...”

  He was already pleading, a little, just as much as his pride would allow him, and Adria felt the first pangs of guilt and regret for what now seemed irrevocable. She felt she had to convince him, or at least try.

  “Of course there is a world beyond Windberth, beyond Heiland, Hafgrim, and, I think, a world within it, that we’ve never seen.”

  “You’re following our uncle?” he said, disgusted, somehow making an intuitive leap. He had been listening to the rumors of the courtiers. His uncle had become his enemy.

  “No...” though she wasn’t sure of the truth in her denial. But anyway, how could she possibly hope to find one man in an unknown world — well, unknown beyond her books and maps?

  Hafgrim was not convinced. “He always loved you.” His tone was a little hurt, which Adria knew could quickly turn to acidity.

  “He is gone, and I know he loved us all, even Father.” She was certain this was true, or had been, once... and that seemed good enough. “Anyway, he’s gone. It doesn’t matter now, right?”

  Hafgrim shrugged and rose, then gave his sword a few practice swings. He was still not very good, but he was beginning to grow quickly. His arms were stronger than she remembered them being.

  “Come with me.” She surprised herself with the suggestion, and was even more surprised that she meant it. But the asking of it made the whole plan seem impossible, suddenly — what little plan there was.

  “What do you mean?” He was purposefully being dense, now, and this angered her.

  “Anyway,” she sighed, and felt she was being cruel in saying, “You will be knighted soon. You’ll have armies to fight for you. You’ll ride out with them and see the world... maybe conquer it.”

  “Yes,” he nodded, oblivious to her humor, almost insult. “Three years, perhaps even two. Sixteen is not too young.”

  “No,” she said, her voice small. She wanted to add that his becoming a knight that early was unlikely. He was a prince, and this was one way, she knew, that a prince would not likely be spoiled. His knights needed to have faith in their commander when the time came, in the one who would be their king. Hafgrim’s following years would be grueling, and now Adria knew she would likely not be there to help him through, even were he to allow it.

  “I will return when you are knighted,” Adria promised. “When father bequests you, I will go with you, though I cannot ever serve as your knight.”

  Her promise was tinged with anger — at him, at her father, at her own weakness. She knew she was crying, but Hafgrim never saw it. He didn’t look at her again. He was dancing about, wooden blade whirling, already the lord of his world.

  “Hafgrim...”

  Adria awoke to pain and the sound of her brother’s name, confused, until she realized she had spoken it herself. And then she remembered the attack, the arrow, and the Moresidhe. She tried to sit up, but the pain in her chest stilled her again, striking out all along her limbs, and finding a second home in the center of her head.

  “Be still,” a voice commanded.

  Tabashi.

  He leaned over to examine her, and her pain subsided as embarrassment filled the space, for she still wore nothing above her waist, and was not as at ease as she had been with nakedness during her ceremonial only... only the day before?

  He touched the skin around her wound, and noted her grimace and intake of breath, then pressed two fingers to the side of her throat, his other hand to the side of his head. There was very little light, perhaps a single candle or rushlight, but he could see perfectly, moving with absolute precision.

  He smelled strange, mossy... or perhaps it was the surroundings. She could feel the damp and the cold, and the ceiling seemed craggy, stone.

  A cave?

  “Breathe slowly, and regularly, no matter the pain,” Tabashi said.

  She did as he asked, and he nodded his head. “Very good. You have a strong will. You can suspend the pain, and this allows your body to keep its equilibrium. That means you will heal quickly.”

  Equilibrium… Balance… Mobility…

  “What am I doing?” she asked dazedly. “I don’t think I understand.”

  “Most of what the body does, it does by itself, without needing your attention. Do you understand this?”

  “Of course.” Adria felt a little insulted. “We still breathe while we sleep.”

  “But you can hold your breath, or you can quicken it, by an act of will.”

  She sighed. He was speaking the obvious, and she was in no mood for trivialities.

  “If you learn how,” Tabashi continued, and his hands seemed to follow the pain of her body as it moved about, his hands just above the surface of her skin. Her skin prickled in response. “You can control many more aspects of your body. You can raise or lower a fever, just as if you were blushing. You can slow the flow of your blood, just as you do your breath. Breath and blood are, in part, the same.”

  “Yes, of course,” she groaned. “The spirit enters the blood from the air, and carries life throughout the body. I know how the humours of the body flow and balance.”

  “You know very little,” he said simply, again in his flat gray manner, without giving or taking offense. “What little truth lives in the concept of humours is almost entirely misused. It would be best to forget.”

  She smiled sardonically. “Ah... and the Moresidhe have surpassed the best scholars of Somana and the Aeman? Paracelsus... Gawain...”

  “You recite your Sisters and their books well, I have no doubt.” Where his fingers traced, pressing spaces along her neck, at the base of her throat, along the underside of her arm, her pain shifted, faded.

  “A small knowledge is the scholar’s equivalent of a small faith,” he continued softly. “It blinds one to a greater understanding. A very little genius and a lot of foolishness fill tome after tome. Despite the precious cost of ink and parchment, it too often goes ill-used. The wisest of our healing cultures are mostly unknown to your Sisterhood and their vanguard of scholarly faith, to the luminaries of Somana, Kelmantium.”

  Images unfolded and folded again before Adria’s eyes. Faces she seemed only to half remember. Or her eyes were closed.

  “Once something is written,” Tabashi sighed, his fingers cupping the back of her head, warm… “It is far too readily assumed as Truth. Tell me, scion, how many books of Aesidhe Medicine have you read?”

  Adria already knew enough of the Aesidhe to realize that the Mechushegiya knew a good deal more about healing than a Sister did. And, of course, they had no written language. She smiled, then, defeated in her obstinacy, as the pain in her head paled into a pinpoint of light.

  “Very well. I take your point, Tabashi. But… I think I have more pressing worries than even this wound. You have saved the flow of my blood, but if your reason for this is what I expect, I might have been better served otherwise.”

  “And what is my purpose, Royal Highness?” He asked flatly, as his hands returned to her chest and cleaned her wound again, placing a new clean white cloth upon it. She had no idea how he produced such things as needed. Her flesh looked nearly as pale as the cloth. Her breasts, unused to the cold, reacted in an uncomfortable manner. Remembering his comment about blushing, she tried to keep her body from such a response.

  “I would imagine I will serve as ransom — either to my Father, or to Taber, or perhaps even to my uncle, though I don
’t know what he might provide to appease your greed.”

  “Then you think too little of him, Highness, and even less of me,” he said, again with little inflection. “Remember that I have at least saved your life — a life which you seem to value less than I, at this moment, even as you place low worth upon Duke Preinon Watelomoksho.”

  He brings enemies and offers respect, Adria thought. I will determine his full faith and credit.

  “Or perhaps you keep me alive merely for your own pleasures...”

  And then he looked at her so sharply, and his hand slipped a little as it bound her bandage to the wound, and she cried out at the pain.

  “You hurt me...” she said sharply.

  He finished his task, watching her face as his hands went about their motions without his attention. Finally he covered her chest with furs that had lain beside her.

  “Is there nothing you can see which would prevent me from destroying you, Your Highness? There is nothing you can imagine that would keep me from pleasuring myself with your helpless body?”

  “I am not helpless,” she whispered, now truly frightened of him for the first time.

  “And what is it that can help you, now, Princess?”

  Even as she reached for her blade, he had caught her hand firmly between his thumb and finger, and just as she remembered her blade was not in its sheath. He had crossed a space several times what her hand had managed.

  His hand could, no... did lift my whole body.

  She trembled, cold, alone, helpless at the mercy of this strangest of strangers. But she forced her gaze to remain steady upon his. She did not cry, and would not cry out again. She would suffer what she must, but resolved to not give this Watemezi the pleasure of knowing the extent of her suffering.

  Tabashi released her hand, and rose, one of his hands raised in the Aesidhe sign of surrender. “Abandon your fear, Idonea. It has no purpose here. Your life and honor are well saved.”