Windswept (The Mapweaver Chronicles Book 1)

by Kaitlin Bellamy

  “Where are we?” he asked finally.

  “Every temple has somewhere ... safe.” Farran was a few steps behind him, running the tips of his fingers along a line of soft yellow petals. For a moment, it seemed as though the flowers were trying to wrap around his hand, but Fox blinked and they were still again. “Somewhere for the priests and priestesses to commune with their gods. It’s called the sanctuary.”

  “Is it normal for you to pop up in places like this?” asked Fox.

  Something of a darkness passed over Farran’s face as he said, “Not these days.” And then his expression cleared as he said, “But for you, I make a special exception. I thought it was important that we meet in person, sooner or later. Luckily, it was sooner. And I bless the winds that brought you here today. Saved me the trouble of having to brew up another dream. A thing like that takes power, don’t you know. And to spirit you away without anyone noticing ... quieting the wind so she wouldn’t catch on ... I owe a lot of people rather big favors.” He laughed almost nervously.

  “And why is it so important that you meet me?” said Fox. “I have done what you said. I’ve started practicing, learning. But why? And why do you take such an interest?”

  For a moment, it looked as if Farran wouldn’t answer. And then he said quietly, “You prayed to me. And sometimes, you get exactly what you ask for.”

  Fox thought back to that long night in the cabin, waiting for the Desolata. He remembered asking the Pirate God Farran, the last god he’d heard his father talk about, to get him through the ordeal safely. And then ...

  “The wolves,” he said. “You sent the wolves to me.”

  “A life for a life,” said Farran. “I saved two of you that night, and helped you save the valley you love so dearly. In any ledger in the world, that makes you in my debt.”

  “But I’m only fifteen,” said Fox warily. “What could I possibly have that you’d want as payment?”

  “I told you before,” said Farran, plucking a deep red flower from the earth and running it through his fingers. “I have my reasons. And it’s not for you to know. But a god like me takes great pains to stay unnoticed, and there are certain favors you might owe me.”

  “For how long?” said Fox. He may not have understood the ways of gods, but he certainly understood the ways of debt. Father had been careful to explain it to him from a young age, telling him stories of waresmen and traders who made costly mistakes and ended up forever enslaved to the people who helped them get back on their feet.

  “That remains to be seen,” said Farran. He crushed the head of the flower in his palm and let the broken pieces fall back to the ground. “Think of it more as ... an agreement between friends. You help me, and I help you. Don’t underestimate the benefits of having a god on your side. Especially in your line of business.”

  “Father doesn’t have a god looking over his shoulder, and he does just fine.”

  “Then I’m not talking about trapping, am I?” said Farran. He began to wander deeper into the underground garden, and Fox watched him from a cautious distance. “I told you that you were meant for more. And as for my interest ... even a master craftsman needs tools.”

  “Do I have a choice?” asked Fox, a hint of irritation creeping into his voice.

  “Of course you do,” said the god smoothly. “Just like I had a choice to save your life, or to let you be gutted by a bare Desolata hand.”

  “You said my path ahead was filled with blood,” said Fox quickly. His bluntness seemed to take the god by surprise, and Fox hurried on before he lost his nerve. “Can you stop the people I care about getting hurt?”

  Here, Farran paused for a long while. They stood boy and god, among the flowers, staring each other down until, finally, Farran spoke again. “Some things cannot be changed. And the future isn’t always clear, even to us.” And then, quite suddenly, Farran froze. He cocked his head to the side, as if listening intently to something only he could hear. Then he said, “They’ll be looking for me soon.”

  “Who — ” Fox began, but Farran cut him off.

  “Listen, there are things more important than you. Or even me. You have to trust me when I say that you’ll want me in your corner one day. And another thing ... ” He hesitated for a moment, and then drew closer to Fox. “We both share someone ... very important. You might think about how all this will affect her.”

  As Fox wracked his brain, trying to think of who he and Farran might have in common, he suddenly realized he could smell the pirate god’s scent, in a way he’d never been able to in his dream. It, like the purple flowers, was strangely familiar. Comforting, in a homey sort of way.

  Like he’d smelled it every day for his entire life. And as Fox breathed deep, a picture came to mind. And he knew at once who Farran meant.

  “Why do you smell like her?” he asked in a whisper, almost terrified to know the answer. “Why do you smell just like Lai?”

  There was something like regret on Farran’s face. “I can’t protect her the way I would have wished. Not with things the way they are.”

  “What things?” demanded Fox. “Why do you need to protect her? What’s she to you?”

  Farran’s form began to flicker again, and Fox knew the god was about to disappear completely. But as he faded, Farran said quietly, “Borric’s a good man, taking care of her as he has all these years. But some day, it won’t be enough. Her lineage, her true lineage, will catch up to her. And he might regret ever taking them in.” By now, Farran had disappeared completely, and just his voice remained, echoing around the strange garden. “She looks just like her mother, you know.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Maps

  The journey home was pleasant enough. Fox mentioned nothing of his strange encounter with Farran, and he and Father chatted easily. But while Fox smiled and joked gaily, his mind was far down the road. It was miles over the horizon, in Thicca Valley with Lai. And, even more than that, with Borric. A friend, a second father ... a liar.

  Farran had said Borric “took her in.” He said Lai’s “true lineage.” The implications were so enormous, Fox couldn’t quite wrap his head around them. But by the time their cart looked down into Thicca Valley once more, he’d come to terms with the general upshot of it all: Lai was the daughter of a god.

  When Lai herself came to greet him that night, wanting to hear all about his first successful outing, Fox kept a warm smile stretched across his face. He answered all her eager questions, and was rewarded with an ecstatic hug when he presented her with the gift he’d bought. The little carved bird. And when she left well after dark, his eyes followed her home.

  Back to the Five Sides, and Borric Blackroot.

  He slept poorly that night, tossing and turning in his nook until almost dawn, when a dreamless sleep finally washed over him. When he awoke a few scant hours later, he had made up his mind. He might not be ready to talk to Lai about any of this, but by Spirit’s shackles, he was going to find out the truth from Borric.

  Fox waited until Lai was out for the day, stationed out on the hillside with Widow Mossgrove’s goats. And then, he slipped through the Five Sides and found Borric sitting in the empty common room, polishing tankards with his feet propped up on a table. Fox slid silently onto the bench across from him and didn’t speak. He simply sat, unsure of exactly how to start.

  After a moment, Borric said genially, “Something on your mind, my boy?”

  “I’ve just ... been thinking,” said Fox carefully. He felt that anything he said might come off as much more accusatory than he meant. But finally, he took a deep breath and said, “There’s a certain trust that comes with friendship. And Lai is my best friend. I’d never want to hurt her.”

  Borric lowered his tankard and rag to the table. “I know it,” he said slowly. “What’s this about, lad?”

  “Borric,” said Fox, “I want to know about Lai’s real parents.” The words came out calm and evenly, much more steady than Fox himself was feeling.

 
; To his surprise, Borric seemed unshaken. In fact, he seemed more relieved than anything. He ran his fingers through his bushy black hair and said, “How did you find out?”

  “I met someone,” said Fox. “Someone ... important. He seems to have taken a personal interest in her.”

  Borric chuckled darkly. “I should have known it would be him. Gods never know when to keep out of it.” He cast a glance at the kitchen door, then shifted in his seat, stretching out his legs along the bench and propping his back against a wooden beam. Then he said, “I don’t know everything, but I’ll tell you what I can.”

  He nodded at the stairway that led downstairs, to the storage rooms. “It was just down there that I met her. A young woman called Adella, pregnant full to bursting. And sick. Sick enough I was worried that childbirth might kill her.”

  “Why was she there?” asked Fox.

  “Hiding out from the winter,” said Borric. “Her family had put her out, ashamed that she was pregnant with no husband. She was traveling south, looking to start a new life when she got caught in the storms. I took pity on her, and took her in. Cared for her in the last few months of her pregnancy. I grew rather fond of her. She was excellent company when she was having her healthy days. She was bright and witty, and spun the most beautiful stories and songs ...” He smiled softly at the memory. “And clever to a fault. I see a little more of her in Lai every day.

  “I married her in secret, a quiet ceremony in Deep Winter when no one was around. By the time Lai was born, the rumors had been spread that I’d been married. And since no one knew exactly when, it was perfectly reasonable to assume that I was Lai’s rightful father.”

  “Did you know who it was?” asked Fox.

  “Not at first,” said Borric. “And I didn’t ask. It was a painful subject, and neither of us seemed eager to bring it up. But Adella began to fade. She stopped laughing, she stopped smiling. She forgot to feed Lai, or watch after her. She simply sat, staring out the window, singing old sea songs for hours. Days. And she told me who he was. And when your heart and soul belong to a god, sometimes there’s no turning back. Every part of her wanted, needed, to go and find him.

  “When she left, I played the mourning husband. I told everyone she’d died in an accident, so Lai wouldn’t have to grow up knowing the truth. But I wasn’t surprised. I’d known for months that Adella couldn’t stay. She belonged to Farran.”

  For a moment, Fox let it sink in. Then he asked, “So what does that make Lai?”

  “There are many children of gods, scattered through the known world,” answered Borric. “Half gods, demi gods. She may be entirely mortal. Or she may discover, one day, that she is something more than mortal.” His eyes met Fox’s. “Like you.”

  “I’m not a god,” said Fox at once.

  “But you are truly Blessed,” said Borric. “You have something in you the rest of us can only dream to understand. You are meant for more.”

  “You sound just like him,” said Fox dryly.

  Borric chuckled. “How was it, meeting the great Captain Farran, terror of the seas?”

  Fox sighed. Once again, life was moving far too fast for his age, and he felt he was talking man to man rather than boy to barkeep.

  “Raised far more questions than it answered,” he said. “Why, have you met him?”

  “A handful of times since Adella left,” said Borric. “He likes to check in. But he prefers to do it in dreams, rather than hauling his godly self all the way down here.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed,” said Fox, sure that he could expect even more of the strange dream visits, now that he and Farran were in “agreement.”

  For a moment, the two sat in silence. And then, Borric said, “I love her more than my own life. She is my daughter, no matter her bloodline.” There was a fierceness in his voice that Fox had never heard. A protectiveness that made Fox shiver. “And the truth would break her very spirit.” They locked eyes, and Fox held his chin up.

  “It’s not my secret to tell,” he said. “She’ll always be your daughter, as far as I’m concerned. I just want to keep her safe.”

  Borric bobbed his head respectfully, almost a bow. “Then we are on the same side.”

  Fox left the Five Sides a little while later and headed home. He was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to take a nap, and not wake up until all of this made sense. But instead, he made himself useful in the kitchen, helping Mother set out a hearty dinner. He listened as Father talked over plans for their next hunting trip, and joined in as they counted down the weeks until summer ended. But his mind was haunted by one clear, painful thought: Lai had been abandoned.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Over the next few weeks, Fox found himself watching Lai more closely than ever before, looking for any hint of god-like behavior. Any clue that her true lineage might be leaking through. He wasn’t sure quite what to look for, but was convinced he would know it when he saw it. He started to become irrationally concerned if she came down with the slightest hint of the sniffles, worried about what might happen if a mortal were afflicted by a divine illness. After two weeks of well-concealed terror, Fox resolved to track down a book that might help him better understand the nature of the gods at the first opportunity.

  But Lai remained ever herself, stubborn and lively and bright, and Fox’s one true confidant. For while his parents, Borric, and Picck might know bits and pieces of what Fox was going through, Lai was the first one he went to whenever he made a new discovery. When his Blessing began to manifest itself more strongly, or if he found he could do something new. The two of them would sit together on the hillside among the goats; Lai with her loom or needlework, Fox with his rapidly-filling book of scribbles. And they would talk over everything.

  Midsummer morning was no exception. Fox was sprawled out on the grass, nose buried deep in his own notes. “It feels like there’s something I’m missing,” he said. “I may be Windkissed, but I don’t seem to have connections to any Shavid power I’ve ever heard of.”

  Lai tore her focus away from the little wooden goat she was carving. A gift for one of the Mossgrove boys. “Well that’s not true,” she said easily. “Music and dance isn’t all they do. They’re connected to the wind, aren’t they? And so are you.” She began to tick off on her fingers, lightly tapping the tips of each with her whittling knife as she counted. “You can smell the weather coming, sometimes even from days away. You hear and smell and even see things that are happening somewhere else, all because you can sense them on the wind. And, there’s the wolves.”

  Fox ignored her, pretending to be engrossed in his own scratchy handwriting. He had, of course, told her about the role the wolves had played in the destruction of the Desolata. And how he felt they’d been watching after him ever since, silent watchdogs in the shadows. What he had not told her was how Farran had sent them to his aid. In fact, he’d been especially careful not to mention a word about the pirate god to anyone but Borric.

  Who he really longed to talk to, above anyone else, was Neil. Apart from being Fox’s friend, he was a scholar. He knew the ways of magic better than Fox could ever hope to, and Fox wished more than anything that he could work through all of this with Neil by his side. To help him understand, and puzzle it out. But instead of brooding over the mysterious whereabouts of the Shavid, Fox decided to distract himself by practicing his newly discovered power.

  It had happened a week before, when Fox was tracking a particularly crafty bunch of quail. He’d been testing the direction of the wind, making sure the animals couldn’t catch his scent. He’d held up a handful of forest debris. Dead leaves, grass, dirt. And he’d released them slowly into the wind, watching them float away and shifting his position in frustration, for he’d been tired and just wanted to head home. And then, mere moments later, the birds had come waddling up to him as easily as though they were begging to be caught.

  Now, Fox crouched low to the earth and plucked a few blades of grass, holding them carefully between his finger
s. He aimed himself at the small herd of goats, and thought long and hard about how much he wanted them to come. And he released his handful, watching the green scraps float across the hillside. The goats’ heads perked up, and they came trotting obediently over. And Lai, grinning broadly, began to scratch one of them behind the ears.

  Again and again they did this, releasing the goats to wander the hillside and calling them back again with Fox’s trick of the wind. Lai tried it once, with no luck, and instead watched Fox with amazement and joy painted all over her face. He practiced until he no longer needed the grass. He could simply feel the wind’s path through the air, and whispered his thoughts into it.

  “How are you doing it?” asked Lai finally as they let the goats be.

  “I can only guess,” said Fox, closing his journal and sprawling out on the grass beside her. “I think the wind can tell them what to do. And since I can talk to the wind, I can ... manipulate that, somehow.” His head hurt from so many tries in a row, and he rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know how far I can reach, or who else might accidentally hear. For all I know, I could use the wrong trail and tell the Desolata themselves to show up at my door.”

  “Trail?” asked Lai.

  “Oh,” said Fox sheepishly. “Yeah ... that’s how I see the wind, sometimes. Like hundreds of little paths through the woods, all crammed together. And I just have to pick the right one.”

  Lai frowned slightly. “Doesn’t that get exhausting? Seeing everything, all the time?”

  “A little,” admitted Fox. “But I think I’m learning to control it. Watch.” He sat up straighter and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, letting the sounds and smells of the valley come crashing in on him. But instead of overwhelming his mind and senses, Fox sorted through them carefully, like spices on a shelf. Arranging them in his mind, keeping them all in a row, acknowledging them on his terms. “There’s a handful of children playing in the mud at the riverbank. Three ... no, four of them. And a miner is taking a bite to eat outside in the fresh air. Smells like berry corn cakes, but not Picck’s.” He sorted through the images and feelings again, looking for specific things and people this time. “My father is in his workshop, packaging our newest beaver pelts for our trip next week. Mother is making pheasant for dinner. Your father is chopping wood for the bonfire tonight, and Picck and Rose are having a late-morning picnic, just a few hillsides away. And ...” He opened his eyes. He wasn’t breathless, or flat on his back on the earth like he used to find himself after so much wind-reading. Instead, he was calm and upright, as though he’d merely been describing pictures on a parchment page. Except, there was one thing he’d sensed that he hadn’t counted on. He turned to Lai, momentarily speechless. Then he said, “Rose is pregnant.”