Song of Sundering

by A. R. Clinton

  The differences in the building reflected the people in the city. Seeing the starkly different structures stacked and woven together made James feel like he had finally found a place that made sense—a place that built on differences. Peering down at Prin from the north, James felt more at home than he had in the past ten years. The name of Prin itself seemed to imply that the city itself had the intention to merge everything together while keeping it unique. ‘Prin’ was a series of sounds common in both Illara and English, but had no meaning in either language.

  The small group from Century continued their descent down from the crest of the hill overlooking Prin to the first set of walls that surrounded the Source tree fields. Prin’s minor fortifying wall farther out from the city was only around five meters high, made of reformed stone, the work of Illara source, until it ended in large metal posts with wide bases that tapered off near the top. Thick and crudely crafted hinges for the gate contrasted against the smooth octagonal edges of the posts. It was easy to see where the Terrans had repurposed material and what they had created crudely from scratch when rebuilding Prin.

  Despite the conflicting appearances in the craftsmanship, the gate itself was as beautiful as it was sturdy. Unable to cut and move wood on a massive scale, the first settlers relied on Illara source, creating something unique. Source-casters formed the door from multiple aspens, grown where the gate needed to stand and woven together with Ambercasting. The bottom of the gate looked like the trees had grown side by side at the trunks, but the branches at the top grew together, braiding the trees into a single unit and creating the shape of the arc. The survivors had bound the trunks with ropes at the base and cut them from their roots, which still stood in the ground below the gate.

  James’ attention swung around to his father as the group of people sent to meet them emerged from the gates. Kingston had met with Ayna Shae a few times before, and they communicated on the SatNet frequently, but James had seen none of the party in person before today. Ayna had rolled out the welcome wagon for them, greeting the Century group at the north gates with her daughters and husband, as well as two diplomats from colonies with whom they also traded.

  Ayna Shae introduced the first diplomat as Vitulus Löwing. He wore a deep emerald gown sewn from velvet. The embroidered detail around the collar extended down to his waistline. His protruding stomach made the slimming lines of small embroidered symbols bulge outward. His colony to the south-west of Prin, Chateen, was half-dead to Xenai, while the survivors were dying of starvation. Century had sent them a few cows and baskets of produce on the promise that they would forge metal again soon. It was a bargain that Kingston had not wanted to make, though he had when James pointed out that many within the colony still opposed being ruled by Prin. A kind gesture now, to aid their survival, could result in Century gaining skilled metalworkers when Chateen inevitably fell. Vitulus looked every bit the incompetent ruler that James had imaged him to be.

  Deman Dekro was not as round in the middle as Vitulus. The man had a natural leanness to him which was exaggerated by the pure black robes he wore, embroidered with swaths of large but precise stitching of a dull matte black thread. His colony was fairing no better than Chateen. Finorri would survive, not because they had plenty of food or supplies, but because they had mines. The Xenai had tried to open trade up with them before, which gave away the simple fact that they wanted the mines, but for very different reasons from the Terrans. They did not need to refine the ore that was found, but they still showed an inexplicable interest in the unrefined ore. If they took over Finorri, they would enslave the population rather than kill them. Until the mines ran dry, they were safe. James considered the hawkish appearance of Deman appropriate for a man willing to abandon his people to such a fate.

  James wondered what Stateswoman Shae thought of these men, who appeared to be living quite well in Prin, but let thousands of people atrophy away to the circumstances outside the city walls. He met each man’s hand with a firm shake and a smile. Deman winced slightly at the vigor of James’ handshake, which made James smile wider than he had when greeting Vitulus. Perhaps he should give them credit that they may have had plans to bring their people to Prin just as Century did. Perhaps, the future would prevent Century’s people from coming and others would see him and his father in the same light as these two men.

  No, these men made different choices.

  He turned then to greet the Shae family, following the introductions made by Ayna. Ayna’s husband, Jo, had gracefully and carefully fallen out of the spotlight. He had never been a politician, but like Ayna, had inherited the role from his parents, who had both served the Illara within Prin. The two races, human and Illara, had a lot to fight over. The Shae family had represented the Illaras before the Sundering. Ayna’s parents had come into prominence after the Sundering by nearly single-handedly saving the humans that later formed Prin. A tentative peace had formed between the two races when their parents announced a marriage between Ayna and Jo. Married hardly a month later, Ayna fell pregnant just as quickly.

  Ayna’s step-daughters were full-blooded Illaras. He shook their hands politely, immediately catching the tension that lay in them toward their Terran step-mother. They were stiff and awkward. They eyed him suspiciously. He could feel their animosity at another half-breed—like their step-sister—taking their precious world from them.

  James turned to meet the third and last daughter. He tried to hide his surprise. Her reputation preceded her. The SatNet and the little world of Prin and their neighbors all knew the name Shara Shae. She was the most powerful Source user that the Illara had ever trained. Until recent reports of her hand in thwarting an attempted escape by a Xenai prisoner, the stories of her were tame and he had never understood why people considered her to be the most powerful Sourcemancer in Sunterra. Granted, Inari were gifted, in general, and the stories of Shara took this to a new level.

  Source had limits in what it could do. The Illara had quickly found after the Sundering that their inability to manipulate man-made materials with Source put that at a disadvantage in this new world. The most gifted Illara tried and failed. Most Inari were more in tune with the world around them than their Illara parents. They were sturdier—heartier, as the Terrans would say. They were still thinner and taller than their Terran counterparts, and were easy to spot as not quite Illara and not quite Terran. But the merge of the two races had spawned something with new powers. Inari could use Source with organics and natural material, but the strongest ones could sense the basic components in fabricated items and manipulate them—to a limited degree. Usually some sort of heat transfer, positive or negative.

  Then came Shara. A gifted child from two powerful families. She was the perfect peace between the races—a peace made of flesh and blood. A wild peace that could manipulate the world around her. Or, his favorite story of her, use a sweets platter and some Stromcasting to fly around her backyard on her birthday.

  What no one had mentioned was how beautiful she was. James was so taken off guard that, in that moment, stunning was a more appropriate description. Her near-white hair framed her face in soft curls. Her pale skin contrasted against her black eyelashes and made the intensity of her blue eyes border on uncomfortable, but somehow James did not want to look away. He shook her hand, surprised by her firm grip—a contrast from the gentle grasp her mother and step-sisters had offered. She smiled, and he resisted the urge to pepper her with questions to gain some insight into her beyond the rumors and tales he had heard.

  His father nudged him. The rest of the party had moved while he’d been thinking of engaging Shara in conversation. He sheepishly took a few quick steps to catch up to the rear of the group as they headed towards the Shae estate where they would stay temporarily.

  They had eaten an awkward meal that afternoon at the Shae home with the large group of politicians around them and he had tried to engage Shara in conversation, drawing her into the surrounding conversations when he could, despite two pe
ople being seated between them. Each attempt had resulted in a polite response that stopped any conversation from blooming.

  It took him the rest of the day to get past situations that required small talk she seemed unwilling to engage in and to stumble onto a topic that interested her: training. He got her to sit on a loveseat to the side of the room with him as they exchanged basic information about methods and how they had each trained. Shara eyed him after a few minutes, “So, what was your biggest fuck up?” she asked, as she popped a chunk of melon into her mouth.

  “While training?”

  “No, during sex.” Her face did not indicate that she was joking, other than her arched eyebrow.

  “Well, there was this one time, I was tying this rope around—”

  She laughed and waved her hands in the air, “Yes, yes, during training!”

  “Oh, so there was this one time, I was practicing lunges, because, it seemed like the thing to do. It was an early morning, and I had just finished some chores out by the pastures, and some of the other handlers for the cattle were about doing their duties. I thought little of it until I messed up a lunge, lost my footing, and toppled into a fence. It was one of those split-rail fences, with the two planks of wood, so it fell right over. Spooked the hell out of the cows. They all ran around and when I jumped up they decided the best strategy was to get away from me by running out of the hole I had created. We spent hours rounding them all back up, then a few more repairing the fence. I wasn’t allowed to practice by the cattle anymore.”

  Shara laughed, “Thats not too bad. At least the cows didn’t attack you.”

  “No, but I earned the nickname the Cow Warrior. References to my cow herding abilities still slip into conversations all the time in Century.”

  “James, the Cow Warrior, has a nice ring to it. I think I’d prefer something like Champion of Fences, though, because you did actually defeat the fence.”

  “True. And what would your nickname be from a training blunder?”

  “Shara, Rupture-er of Ears and Homes. It’s not nearly as interesting.”

  James coughed, “Yeah, sounds boring. How did you earn that one?”

  “Well, Hafi and I were practicing some hand to hand combat, and I planned to use Source to cause a pressure change to disorient him enough to land a blow. He lets me cheat like that. So, I prepped the cast and moved in to hit him with it and then take my swing. As I let the source go, I realized it was a lot more force than I had intended. I tried to redirect it so it wasn’t landing straight on him, and I did. It still clipped him with enough force to rupture his ears. And I accidentally redirected the full force to our house. Actually, the wall we are sitting next to.” She reached up and patted the bricks gently, “Relatively new compared to the rest of the house. This whole side of the house had to be rebuilt after I ripped it off the house frame. They also forbid me from practicing nearby.”

  James laughed, “Man, that would have been incredible to see.”

  “Can you imagine the cows’ reactions?”

  Perhaps enlisting in the army to kill Xenai can wait just a bit longer.

  22

  Shara

  Shara whirled around, her hair floating in the wind as it streamed out behind her. Her eyes fell upon the row of scarecrows in the practice field. She yelled at the scarecrow nearest to her, as if it had personally murdered her entire family, then began.

  She grasped the air, tightening her connection to the source and focusing it on the wood and hay and fabric that made up the poor dummy. Centering the pressure of the air in its chest, she ripped it apart from ten paces away before unsheathing the daggers at her hips and launching herself toward the next scarecrow. She flew through the air, suspended inches above the golden, dried grass, gaining momentum rather than losing it as she held the form for a kick. Rather than kicking the dummy, she threw her first dagger. The dagger reached its mark as she grasped at the air with her empty hand and jerked upwards, pushing her body up while she moved to angle it down. She crashed down, dagger first, into the ‘brain’ of the last scarecrow, wrapping her legs around its torso and tumbling to the ground with it. She rolled and pushed herself back to her feet, whirling around again to view the devastated dummies behind her.

  A clap rose from beside her. She turned to find Hafi and James Cross had ended their conversation and turned to watch her. She felt a blush of embarrassment creep up into her face, feeling silly that she had forgotten about them and gotten caught up in her imagined battle. They had witnessed her intensity toward the destruction of inanimate objects. She played it up, dropping her hands to her side and pulling up skirts she was not wearing in a faux curtsy. Holding that position, head down, she heard Hafi chuckle. She smirked up at him, then sauntered over to the fence.

  “What are you slackers up to? Clearly, not practicing.” She glanced at Hafi, hoping he would be her social lubricant.

  He smiled at her and clapped James on the back. “James here was just telling me about how good he is with a sword.”

  Shara arched an eyebrow at the boy. “Bringing a sword to a source fight?”

  He matched her smirk. “Are you going to teach me about how bad an idea that is?”

  Shara stepped back several paces, unable to resist the urge to show off. She maintained eye contact with James as she flung her arms out to her sides and concentrated on the charge building up in the air and on her palms until they crackled and bristled with energy. She shot it up into the air beside her in short, repeated bursts of lightning.

  He laughed at her, hopping lithely over the rickety fence and unsheathing his small sword. He held it comfortably in his gloved hand, letting it hang beside him as though it was a natural extension of his arm. The hilt had intricate designs carved into it that weaved over each other until the top of the hilt came to form the head of a snake. Runes were carved into the blade itself, starting just an inch or two below the hilt where a sharp spike was formed in the metal on each side. The runes would dampen the effectiveness of any Source casts used against it. It was an excellent sword to bring to a source fight.

  Shara focused on her hands again, the tingling growing in her palm again. She placed her hands together, palms out toward James, but slightly off-center from his chest, so as not to kill him if he missed the catch. She let the power ripple forward, channeling it into a bolt that arced from her hands to James.

  He brought the sword up in front of him with one hand, bracing against the power of her ability with his other arm. The electricity shot into the sword. The runes lit up, flashing sparks of blue and yellow before fading away. He winced and pulled his bracing arm away from the blade, shaking it down at his side. His leather glove had a deep burn mark that matched the width of the sword.

  Shara smiled at him. “Another?”

  He fell back into a defensive stance, but prepared this time to brace with both hands on the hilt. She let the charge build in her hands again, releasing it in a spherical formation this time.

  Let’s see how the sword handles something that can’t be cast directly.

  The sphere of lightning traveled through the air at a slower speed which allowed her to Ambercast against the dry grass at James’ feet, thrusting it up into the path of the lightning ball. The grass caught fire and Shara controlled the burn. She continued feeding it grass as it moved toward him. Her lightning ball became pure flame just as it hit the sword. She watched as the sword lit up in red and orange hues, absorbing the energy of the Source, but the burning grass immediately extinguished when it touched the runes, scattering the embers around the point of impact. Black cinder spots appeared on James’ clothing, along with small holes where embers had successfully landed. He jumped back, dropping his sword to pat at one spot that had penetrated deeply enough to hit his skin.

  He shook his head. “Alright, you win. For now. We will have to do this again when I am properly armored up.”

  He smiled at her and she found herself smiling back, “I look forward to that.”


  Hafi nodded toward James, “We have very few rune swords in our ranks. Do you mind?” He gestured towards it and James balanced the sword on his forearm, offering the hilt to Hafi. Hafi turned to Shara, “I just want to see how my armor absorbs the shock. Aim carefully and don’t hold back.”

  Shara charged up another bolt of lightning as Hafi sat down, pulling both knees up to his chest. He placed the sword parallel to the ground in front of his knees, halfway up his shins. Bracing it with his palm out behind the hilt with one hand and the other palm out holding the tip of the blade.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  Hafi dug his heels into the muddy grass, “Do it. Don’t miss.”

  She let the shock fly forward; the sword lit up again, the bright flash completely obscuring Hafi from her vision. The light was so intense that she could barely make out drag marks in the grass where the force had pushed him back a few feet. She resisted putting her hand over her eyes and squinted to watch a pulse of blue and yellow flash from the hilt to the tip of the sword and a discharge of electricity arced out of the end and looped back on both sides of the blade until it found the spikes just below the hilt where the first rune in the series was carved. The sword continued to pulse for a second as the power dissipated.

  James’ face was frozen with his mouth wide open and his eyes darting between the sword and Hafi. Hafi glanced over and saw the boy and started laughing so hard he fell back into a seated position in the grass. Shara giggled, “I take it you’ve never seen what your sword could actually do?”

  James shook his head, “I had no idea—how did you...?” He turned to Hafi, “You could have died if it hadn’t worked!”