by Sam Farren
“Wants me to leave?” Castelle asked. “She—she wants me to take Brackish across the ocean, doesn’t she? You do realise that clause was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, do you not? House Greyser shall rule over all the Islands of Fenroe, so long as Brackish is upon its soil. It’s—it was Ava Greyser’s idea of a joke. We live on an archipelago. You get on a boat, you sail away, and you end up on yet another part of Fenroe, over and over. Brackish cannot be removed from the archipelago, and neither can the Greysers.”
She hadn’t set her eyes on Layla in over eight years and already, she was saying goodbye. She was being jostled from one island to another, and that wasn’t enough. The blood in her veins sung. She was a pawn again. Just a pawn in a political game she’d had no say in.
“Regardless,” Eos said. “It is the law. Most have disregarded it, but whispers of discontent end as a roar. There are those who support you, Princess. Who believe the Kingdom – or rather, their purse – was better under the rule of the Greysers. They are few and far between, but they still have their wealth, their influence. It would not be difficult to throw Fenroe into turbulent waters. It is a young country, Princess, still finding its feet. A symbolic gesture could mean so much for the archipelago.”
Castelle sunk down the bed.
“Every time I think this is starting to make sense…” she muttered. “I’m still being used, aren’t I? By my parents, my fathers, and now by my cousin.”
“It is not so,” Eos said, rising to her feet. “You have a choice in this, Princess. You know the truth. You know what is hoped of you, but what happens next is up to you. If you wish to stay here, you may. Reed and I will help you find a home of your own. Perhaps she could teach you to irrigate wounds.”
“Is that a joke?”
“No, Princess. As ever, it is the truth,” Eos said. “If you tell me what you wish to do, I will do everything in my power to make it happen.”
Flat on her back, leg at an uncomfortable angle, Castelle covered her face with her hands.
What did she want to do? What did she want to do?
She might’ve once been a Princess, but it was the first time anyone had ever asked her that.
How was she supposed to answer? How was she supposed to make sense of this? One responsibility had been left to rot on her shoulders for fourteen years, and now another piled atop the remnants, taking her from everything she’d ever known.
Or not from the things she’d known. From the maps she’d studied, preparing for battles that would never be waged. From the world her fathers had spoken of, from a promise they’d never intended to keep.
“I want to see my cousin,” Castelle said. “I want to see Layla. Nothing else matters. Nothing.”
Chapter Thirteen
More than a broken leg had kept Castelle in bed.
In the month that followed, she began making rounds of the cottage, using the walls and her crutches for support in equal measures. Reed yelled from the kitchen that she’d better not be putting weight on her leg, but Castelle couldn’t waste months doing nothing. Layla was in Yarrin, and that meant crossing the rest of Llyne, two smaller islands, and three stretches of sea.
Reed plied her with books, with brief histories of the last fourteen years, and Castelle studied them with the same intensity she’d lost herself to records of wars and rebellions, back in Laister. There was a distance between her and what she read, something sharp and humbling that wasn’t owed to time and ink alone. No matter what she read, how many dates she memorised, Fenroe was not hers to save, to set on another course.
Still, she read. Ports had been rebuilt, temples had been reopened, hoards of gold were spread throughout the common people, and the uprising of schools, hospitals, libraries and orphanages marked the end of the monarchy.
Death was no punishment, in the annals of history. With every page she turned, there was praise for the rebels who’d forced their way into her dining room. Castelle read and read, not stopping until her eyes ached, until the last candle burnt out.
What could she change? What did her grief matter? The Kingdom was thriving, and the people were intent on glorifying the black-and-white transition to a new ruling class.
Of an evening, she ate with Reed and Eos. Reed was ever coming and going, attending to calls across the broader area, spirits always avoided, but she sat at the table at least once a day. Eos had little to say, but would nod or shake her head when prompted by Reed.
It was as risky for Eos to leave the cottage as it was for Castelle. Reed’s neighbours might turn the other way, but there were plenty of travellers moving through this part of Llyne, and merchants brought wares to the village on their way between the port and larger cities.
Being confined to the cottage didn’t suit Eos. She didn’t fidget, didn’t do anything more than clasp her hands together under the table, but there was a stillness to her that drained the dark from her eyes.
“Why do you never eat the same meals as us?” Castelle asked one evening, pointing her fork at Eos’ bowl. “Reed always has leftovers.”
The stews Reed made, meat left to soften all day, were the one thing Castelle had to look forward to without fail.
Eos’ food wasn’t plain by comparison, but always took on another shape. Her plate was covered in roasted potatoes, accompanied by a large mushroom, stuffed with nuts, herbs, and finely chopped vegetables.
“I… do not eat animals,” Eos said slowly.
“What? You don’t?”
“You’ve spent how long here?” Reed asked. “You really didn’t notice?”
“I noticed that she ate strangely! I simply wasn’t certain how,” Castelle said. “Well, that certainly explains everything we ate on the road. Bread, fruit, rice, beans—not even a block of cheese in sight.”
Reed laughed to herself as she tore off a chunk of bread. Eos stared at her dinner, cutting the potatoes with the side of her fork.
“Why?” Castelle asked. Her own forthrightness had caught her off-guard, of late. Not everything could be answered by a book, and if she kept asking, she might finally get a satisfying answer. “Is it a—well, I mean, culturally, do you…”
Reed raised her brow, but said, “In this case, it is a Yrician thing. But maybe try finding out if it’s an Eos-thing first, okay?”
“Very well,” Castelle murmured. “It’s merely that I always heard so many things about the Yricians and what they did on land belonging to others. How they would steal cattle from farms, eggs from coops, that sort of thing. Which—gods, Reed, let me finish. Which I realise is absurd, but it’s the lasting impression I’ve been left with.”
Eos pushed her potatoes around with her fork.
“The land does not belong to anyone,” she said. “Territories, borders, city-states; it is all meaningless. You cannot claim the earth. It will forget the name of countries and continents alike. The land does not belong to Norians, Fenronians, Yricians, but it provides for us. It provides for the animals, too. As long as the world provides, then I do not need to cut countless lives short to extend mine.”
Castelle forgot her stew.
“You’ve never eaten meat? Cheese? Eggs?” she asked. Eos shook her head. “And all Yricians are the same?”
“Not all. Some have integrated into Nor and Fenroe. Some make homes of cities and live as the locals do.”
“Is that wrong of them? Do you think they should respect tradition?”
“Tradition is only a word used to make things seem older and give them an importance they do not deserve,” Eos said. “I cannot judge it. Yricians are a people without a country, by our choosing, and things have never been easy for us. If there are those who wish to shirk their nomadic roots, that is of their own choosing. There is no betrayal in it. Everyone must live their own life.”
Reed, having heard it all before, continued making her way through dinner.
“I see,” Castelle said. “And where do you live, when you are not kidnapping Princesses?”
“I…
do not live anywhere. I live upon Fenroe, without roots. I thought you would understand this by now.”
Castelle paused, drink between her hands. It was difficult to understand anything about Eos when she said so little about herself. It was not that Castelle thought Eos had a house waiting for her somewhere, but she could not imagine Eos as part of some Yrician tribe, packing up their yurts and moving on when one particular patch of land no longer provided.
“I didn’t think you were…”
“That kind of Yrician?” Reed offered.
Castelle pressed a hand to her neck, skin turning red.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Castelle hurried to explain. “I suppose I don’t know enough to make assumptions, but… Well. I had assumed Eos lived here, if I’m to be honest.”
Reed and Eos’ appetites returned to them with vigour, and both shovelled food into their mouths so as not to speak.
“Not necessarily in the present tense,” Castelle added.
“It has been several years,” Eos conceded.
“She’s always welcome here,” Reed said.
Castelle nodded, smothering the urge to ask more questions with food. Nothing she’d been told about her own family or the state of Fenroe had been true, so why should anything she’d heard about the Yricians have a firmer place in reality? Castelle understood why her questions were cutting; everyone who laid eyes on Eos let curiosity override their manners.
Still, she wanted to know. She wanted to put every misconception to rest and let that desire shove her foot firmly in her mouth.
“There have been reports of people asking after a scarred Yrician and a woman with long, red hair all over the other islands,” Reed said, changing the subject. “That’s good news and bad. It means they’ve moved on, that they haven’t followed the trail here, but they’re still swarming around.
“But they’re not dropping any names. Not mentioning that they’re after a Greyser. That’s something, honey.”
Reed brought back similar news, most days. She never mentioned who her contacts were, only that they could be trusted, and Castelle laid awake at night, praying her fathers’ lackeys wouldn’t resort to smashing windows and raiding houses.
They wouldn’t. They had to be smart about this, had to find a way to keep attention off themselves, but that didn’t make sleep come any easier.
“You’ll have to be careful, when you finally move,” Reed said. “In fact, Eos and I were thinking, maybe…”
Castelle glanced at Eos. She sat straighter but said nothing.
“Maybe you should cut your hair, honey.”
“My hair? What? Why?” Castelle blurted out. “Can’t I—can’t I wear a hat? A hood? Autumn isn’t far off, after all.”
“No good. If people are looking for a girl with long red hair, they’re not going to pay too much attention to one with short hair. But if they see someone in a hat or a hood with a couple of long strands poking out, they’re gonna know you’re hiding something.”
“What about Eos? What about her face?”
“Eos knows how to look after herself.”
Castelle had picked up both pieces of cutlery, at some point. She gripped the dull metal tightly, staring at the spot on the wall directly between Eos and Reed.
Hair. It was just hair, and reaching Layla was more important than that. It was more important than anything, least of all how she looked. It was only hair, but her mother had loved it so. It was as soft as hers, as vibrant. She had always pulled Castelle into her lap and brushed her hair through, lamenting that Marigold was too old to appreciate the attention.
She’d brushed Castelle’s hair before dinner, that night. Castelle often ran her fingers through her hair, focusing on that memory whenever the image of her mother sat at the table, bloodied hand on her jaw, Isha Brookes towering over her, threatened to overwhelm her.
But it was just hair, and it made her look like someone whose head had ended up on a pike.
“We’re not leaving yet,” Castelle muttered, pulling her hair over her shoulder. “It’ll be weeks before I can walk properly. I can barely get around the house.”
“You’re getting stronger by the day,” Reed said, knowing to drop the matter.
That evening, when she could not bear to delve into the recent past, Castelle propped herself up with a novel. The Spirits of Langore was a standard story of death, haunting, and vengeance, and didn’t require her to focus with more than one eye. Eos and Reed’s voices drifted through the walls, rising with tension, if not disagreement.
Castelle rolled onto her other side. She couldn’t have eavesdropped on the Yrician if she wanted to, yet she plugged her ears with her fingers. How many people had suffered to keep her safe? Eos and Reed may well have been strangers, yet they were risking themselves for her.
It wasn’t right. It didn’t add up.
She should’ve been left in the temple, cut off from the world.
Her fathers couldn’t have kept her indefinitely. It could’ve taken another decade or two, but eventually, she would’ve started questioning them. She would’ve demanded to march out into the world, would’ve grabbed the false-Brackish in the heat of an argument, and thought herself fit for a throne that no longer existed.
She wouldn’t have got far. Either her fathers wouldn’t let her leave, or the outside world would run her through. Her fathers wouldn’t have given up the life of luxury they bled others for so easily. They would’ve found some poor other girl, propped her up in Castelle’s place, and had all of Laister bow to a false Princess.
Castelle flipped back a handful of pages. She hadn’t taken a single paragraph in.
She had to stop thinking of them as her fathers. They weren’t. They never had been. Father Ira had held her in his arms as they fled the castle, had kept her close on the journey to Laister, and Father Damir had bestowed all of his knowledge upon her, that she might fight back against an unjust world, but they weren’t her fathers.
They weren’t. They weren’t. Her father had his throat slit, and the Lords had taken advantage of that. Their schemes were underway before his body was cold.
And yet—
Castelle couldn’t dismiss fourteen years of having no one but them. She couldn’t forget the way her heart had jerked in her chest when they’d asked, years in, if she’d come to think of them as her fathers, for they loved her as their own child. The only blessing to come from the tragedy was that she was part of their family, now.
Castelle snapped the book shut, pulled the covers up to her ears, and fought her way into sleep.
It rained for nine consecutive days and nights, circling between downpours and drizzle, overshadowed by thunderclaps. A nearby hill gave itself over to a landslide, catching a caravan of merchants. Reed left for the better part of three days to help, and Eos spent the entire time at one window or another, watching for figures on the horizon.
It was impossible to talk to her. Either Reed was around to unintentionally intrude, or they were alone and Castelle could not give a voice to the questions burning within her. Her leg was getting better by the day as she alternated between overexerting herself and staring at walls. They could not stay there forever, but the world beyond the cottage was as unknown as the world beyond Laister Forest had been.
But in the dead of night, it was easy to believe she could say all the shapeless things inside her head to Eos. If only Eos would come to her, as open as she’d been all those nights ago, allowing herself to have a past, not simply the solemnity of the present.
Castelle left her bed behind. Sleep wouldn’t come and she needed the practice. She knocked one of her crutches over, wood hitting wood, and paused, waiting for the house to wake and assassins to come pouring through the shutters.
Silence. Only silence. Not even the bleating of sheep that’d blurred into the ambience of the day.
The cottage had two bedrooms. Reed’s, and one for guests. Reed had a small practise further downhill, and those who stayed with he
r generally weren’t so bloody. For the most part, Eos had been sleeping in the living room since their arrival, bags bundled in the corner of the room, blankets folded neatly across the arm of the sofa each morning.
Castelle’s wanderings would’ve taken her no further than the kitchen, had the living room door been closed. There was no dark shape on the sofa, no one stood with their elbows pressed to the windowsill. Castelle held her breath, listening for life within the house, but not even a floorboard creaked.
Light shimmered, turning the room pale blue along its edges.
Brackish glowed through the thick canvas of Eos’ bag.
Castelle sat on the sofa because the sword wanted her to. It could not possess her until she took it into her hands, but it could want, it could hum and sing and lure her closer, closer.
Castelle folded her arms over the side of the sofa, rested her chin on the back of them and stared down at it.
Pick up the bag. Pull out the blade, safe in cloth and twine. Take it out into the night, across the land, across the seas, away from the forest, from the box it had been locked in, do something for the Kingdom, something, something, anything! Lay it all to rest.
Her thoughts, Brackish’s thoughts. What was the difference?
“My leg is still broken. We wouldn’t get far,” Castelle said.
The sword pulsed brighter. Broken bone was nothing the spirit couldn’t overcome.
“Can you hear me?”
Another flash.
It had heard all she’d said to Eos, all she’d struggled to get out. Not that it mattered. The sword already knew everything about her by virtue of being a spirit. There was no act the living put on that the dead couldn’t see through.
“Do you want for company?” Castelle asked. “Once for no, twice for yes.”
The spirit-sword doused itself. The room collapsed into a darkness Castelle’s eyes wouldn’t adjust to, and the thoughts in the back of her head stopped buzzing. The spirit had retreated inside itself. Castelle laid on the sofa, eyes on the ceiling, knowing Eos could return at any moment.