by Bethan Johns
“How do you know it is not going to destroy you?” He asked finally.
“I don’t, it probably will to some degree, but I think it needs me.” I said.
I could feel myself beginning to shake. I truly had no idea what I was getting myself into. Even now I could feel that pulsing riding through my body, calling me back. Calling me back to Faery.
I had almost no logical argument for going back there, for even fathoming the idea that the Tundra could communicate with me. I knew though, somewhere intrinsically inside of myself that it was the truth – my truth. I belonged there. If I did not go now, this feeling would chase me for the rest of my life.
I watched him as he seemed to wage a war behind those calm, liquid, eyes.
He nodded and grabbed me by my shoulders crushing me to his chest.
“I love you Sierade Gwaynten, promise me you will return to me.” He whispered.
“I love you Sylek Darque.” I responded. I kissed his lips softly. I could not promise him I would come back. I had to leave now, before the rising anxiety could take me over. I had to let him go.
It was the hardest thing I had ever had to do.
I buried my face in his chest and breathed him in deeply. Letting out a single sob, I rifted.
I was back in the forest in Faery, I felt the magic entering me again, like an old friend saying hello. It did not stop my heart from hurting. I dug my fingers into the earth and tunneled down until I felt it there, shimmering, silver. It was alive, pulsing. The very heartbeat of magic itself.
All life again went silent, drawing and holding its breath. I touched it tentatively, delicately.
Everything exploded in a blast of silver.
I could feel nothing any longer, no pain, no love. Pure wonder enveloped me. I was not any longer what I had been before. I never would be again. I felt my physical form falling apart, nay, being torn apart. I was being remade, changed. I could feel the history of the universe. I could feel the power filling me.
Such power.
I instantly fell in love with the power. With the knowledge. What many throughout history would have given to have power the likes of which I could feel now at my disposal.
The loneliness, the joy. Emotion is far too small of a word to describe the way the Tundra felt. It was cataclysmic. A single tear belonging to such a being could drown planets.
It was waiting for something. For me.
I let go. I let everything go.
Chapter 2 – Nostalgia
Year 10,100 AC
Sylek
I screamed.
Through the psychic link in my head I felt her die, or at least that is what I thought for the better part of an hour. A time during which I lay prone on the floor waiting for my world to end.
Then, a slight presence, like a tiny whisper.
SIERADE
I bellowed into the link. I got no response.
Closing my eyes, I stumbled like the blind trying to contact her, to touch that familiar link that had been there for seventy-five years. I could feel her, she was certainly alive.
She wasn’t Sierade anymore though. She was energy, she was magic. I didn’t know if I would ever get her back. I knew that even if I did, she would never be the same.
No creature just recovers from what I was feeling.
I thought back to our last moments, remembering that she wouldn’t promise me she would come back. She couldn’t promise me that.
She had known.
I paced for a long while. Then, I sat.
I did not eat for three days. I kept reassuring myself she was still alive, gently touching that area in my head as though afraid it would break if I was anything but delicate.
Eventually I lay back and let myself drown in memories.
The day we had met.
It was during the Lalaskasing Ceremony. At age seven all Howelltie are required to obtain their scars, scars they would carry with them their whole lives. Scars obtained through whipping.
My hands were tied to a post and I could remember the horrific pain of the lashings. I looked next to myself and was startled to find the tiny Fae female, so much smaller than the rest of us. I remember thinking how she shouldn’t be there.
They kept whipping her, but she was Fae, she healed too quickly for the scars to take.
I was whipped for the day and three days later my wounds had healed.
Three days later they were still whipping her.
I had thrown myself in front of them screaming “Use ash tipped whips you imbeciles, she is not scarring.” Even Howelltie children are treated as adults and taken seriously when they show bravery.
Bravery is a weapon.
I received another full day of lashes, but I remember her locking her silver eyes with mine through the blood-soaked locks of her chestnut hair as they hit her with the first ash strike. I remember how she refused to scream with each hit. Her tiny body shaking with the agony.
I stood watch the whole day. I couldn’t bear to leave her alone. Every so often her eyes would find mine and each time she seemed surprised I was still there. Still watching, still waiting.
It was then I knew I would wait forever.
I was the one who took her down from the post and brought her to my groupings tent. I explained to Herxius, our grouping leader, what had happened. He had been pleased “She shows bravery. Keep her.” Was all he had said.
It had taken two weeks for those wounds to heal. Her scars had always shone much brighter than any Howelltie because of her tanned skin.
She wore them with pride.
Howelltie young do not stay with their parents, though they keep and pass on last names as many other cultures do. That is simply for a matter of convenience and to avoid breeding too closely with relatives.
Howelltie are brought to groupings to live in a large group with others our own ages, one adult is present to provide support and food. Otherwise, we are very much left to our own devices. Usually, a grouping had up to forty younglings varying in age from three to twenty-five years.
Herxius was the one who had named her. Sierade for autumn, and Gwaynten for spring. He told me those were the meanings, and that he was sure she represented change.
Herxius very rarely got involved with the younglings in our grouping, if at all. I could remember very few times he bothered breaking up a fight it was simply to avoid the paperwork of a dead Howelltie youngling.
Sierade did not speak much at first.
Eventually she told me her early years were a blur to her. Before the age of three her only memory was that of a pair of blue eyes. Between three and seven she had been with a different grouping, just scrounging what food she could to survive from the scraps the Howelltie children left her.
She told me that none would speak to her, they thought her silver eyes meant she was cursed. She had spent those four years until the Lalaskasing Ceremony completely and utterly alone. Treated as a cursed and lowly animal.
She told me that she was born the day I had found her.
When we had started in school, we both excelled. We were competitive at first, but eventually she began to have a target on her back.
Our teacher; Minax, was well-known for his hatred of the Fae, he would often send her away to be punished for the smallest or even completely fabricated misdemeanors.
She would come back to the grouping tent later than me, covered in bruises and cuts, she would demand I teach her everything we had learned while she was away, lest she fall behind. She would never let me fuss over her wounds or stand to defend her.
“None of the other females have a male protecting her” she would say.
“None of them are being attacked constantly the way you are. None of them are a walking target.” I would respond.
She would look at me with her cursed silver eyes, seemingly holding all the knowledge in the universe at times. “None of them will end up as strong as me Sylek.”
We stuck together through all of our lessons. Equal
s in everything, we worked together to figure out the best ways to use her small form to get beyond my reach advantage for physical training, something the Howelltie instructors never bothered to help her with.
When our fire magic was triggered, hers was always significantly stronger than any around her and she had trouble controlling it.
I struggled to help her, she was always more emotional than I was. Whether that was because she was a Fae or a female, I never knew. I never had any other friends to compare to, nor did she.
She always told me that I had less of the Howelltie fire because I was not as passionate.
I would argue desperately with her about that. She said I did not have the same taste for blood as she did, as the other Howelltie did.
I did. I felt blood-lust. I felt other kinds of passion. But I held myself together at all times. I would never admit to her it was because I was compensating for her passion and bloodlust. Her outbursts were lessened by my quietude.
Eventually the school did bring in a Fae tutor for her, she was simply different and there was a Fae who had heard of her and volunteered.
His name was Geon.
Siera told me that he petitioned for her to be removed from Howelltie to be raised by Fae. He knew of our ways, he knew the future that lay here for her.
His request was denied by the Queen herself. Geon hated seeing Siera come to his lessons covered in bruises and contusions. He would take me aside and ask me to do a better job looking after her.
“She can take care of herself.” I would respond coldly, never admitting that I desperately wanted to care for her, that she would not let me.
The two of us carried on this way for years, many did indeed believe she was cursed, they therefore tended to stay away from me because of my closeness to her. The cursed child and her bodyguard they would say. Little did they know that we were very nearly evenly matched in physical battle and she improved daily.
When we were older she came home one evening and told me, after hours of badgering her about what was wrong, that our mid-level education leader - Balor - and another classmate - Cinder - teamed up to forcibly take her innocence.
I had been horrified. I knew it was part of being a Howelltie female, I knew that part of the test was to fight them off by any means necessary – a coming of age ceremony.
But for two Howelltie males, one who was to teach her for the next ten years, to do the deed was nearly unheard of. There were rules, even for such a vulgar ritual, that were followed. Unwritten, unenforced rules, but rules nonetheless.
Not to mention, she was so small. So much smaller than any of the Howelltie females our age that I knew.
I remembered her face when she told me that they succeeded, but that her earth magic had awakened and the very building they were in fell around them to protect her.
I did what I always did. I remained calm.
She never found out what I did to Cinder. I ensured he disappeared long enough to heal. I ensured he was scared enough to never talk about it.
Sierade was mine.
No one could touch her.
It didn’t take long for her water magic to manifest, Geon continued to tutor her when he could in all of her magics.
We both became stronger, both in magic and physical training, we could outsmart and out battle all in our age rankings. We remained inseparable until our graduation.
She was like a tornado of energy, and I like a solid brick wall. It made sense that my specialty was psychic and hers was fire and physical combat. She was a very small opponent, but she had the swiftness of the Fae on her side that many, especially the large, Howelltie could not match.
I awakened her psychic magic before we graduated so that we could create a link and build it strong. We guessed we would be separated as soon as we entered the military.
We had guessed right.
Throughout the next twenty-five years Sierade had to fight tooth and nail daily to keep her high ranking. She was challenged constantly; however, she also won constantly. We would speak mind to mind each evening, we would talk about our days. When we had time off that connected we would meet at the halfway point between our stations and camp together for a time.
One evening twenty-three years into our fifty-year stint I heard her speak to me.
Sylek, are you alone?
I had my own tent. I was relaxing and reading my book.
Yes
She had suddenly appeared in front of me. I jumped out of my bunk breathing heavily.
“Sierade!” I exclaimed. I ran to her, lifted her, spinning as I crushed her to my chest. Her hands gripped me tightly where they could as I had her arms crushed into her sides.
I put her down after a few moments, holding her out at arms length to inspect her.
She was still small, but she was leaner now. I tried to remember how many years it had been since I had seen her, but I could not. Her tan was darker now, making her silver eyes shine brighter.
I noticed that those eyes were wide and staring me down as well. I was no longer as slim as I had used to be, I was spending more time in the physical training unit at this point. I was wearing only a pair of white, thin, long underwear. I blushed. I knew that my blush would appear crimson on my pale skin, so I turned around only to see her inspecting my shoulders, my back, and lower, in the mirror.
She met my eyes and blushed as well.
I swallowed the blush, shaking myself.
Turning back around “You rifted Si!”
She beamed up at me. “I did.”
“How? When?”
She smirked, and snapped her fingers, holding up a curved scepter, a small curved silver blade I had saved up to purchase for her years before. “I killed three males who were trying to steal it from me, so a unit leader broke all my fingers at the tips.”
I nodded for her to continue.
“Unlucky for him, he apparently didn’t know that creation magic is in the finger tips.” She smiled wryly at me.
I laughed then. She had awoken her creation magic.
“It happened a few weeks ago, I’ve been teaching myself control and how to rift.”
“What has happened to Geon? Could he not give you private lessons?”
She shrugged looking around my tent. “I have heard that he was killed. I think it was the Queen.” Her eyes flashed angrily.
I moved forward and took her hands in mine. Looking into her silver eyes, I saw the things I had missed. The hurt she had not shared with me via the psychic link. The experiences she had that she had blocked from me.
Feeling my anger bubbling up I lowered my eyes, working to settle it.
That was when I felt her hand tentatively laying on my chest. When I raised my eyes, she was again taking in my body. I let her slowly roam her hands gently over my chest and stomach, my arms.
I had taken a fair number of lovers over the years, but I knew she hadn’t. The experience of her first time had scarred her more than any Howelltie female would admit. I always knew that, though she was raised with us, she was different. Stronger in many ways, more delicate in many others.
I knew she had probably taken at least a few lovers, but I watched her trace her fingers lightly over my body and wasn’t sure if she was fascinated that my body specifically had changed so much, or that she never spent much time with a male letting her take the time to explore.
A lot of Howelltie males like to get the job done quickly. We are busy creatures. In contrast, I knew Fae were well known for their lengthy love making.
She finally brought her eyes up to meet with mine and I think our expressions of wonder and anticipation must have matched perfectly because she laughed delightedly. I leaned down pulling her close and kissing her softly. She melted into me, she climbed up my body as I gripped her harder and deepened the kiss.
It felt like my whole life had been leading to this moment. I had loved her since the day her eyes locked with mine at Lalaskasing. I had treasured her wit and her fire. I had wanted
to kiss her a hundred times and never had.
Sierade had walls, walls that were difficult even for me to get through. I was now crossing over the final barrier. The final hurdle that led to her heart. This was the final piece of our relationship that was missing.
It locked into place all at once.
We fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs and hair, ripping each other’s clothing off.
We made love endlessly that night. Neither of us got any sleep, and in the morning the males and even some females in my unit wanted to know the details of the mysterious female I had been having relations with the night before.