Windswept (The Mapweaver Chronicles Book 1)

by Kaitlin Bellamy

  For the first time since Lai had started hissing at him like an angry cat, Fox met her eyes.

  “Don’t talk about him,” he said coldly.

  Lai clamped her mouth shut, her eyes wide with silent apologies. Fox turned back to his work but kept talking.

  “I know you’re just worried, but I can take care of myself. Better than most people here! I have what they don’t, and my Blessing keeps me safe.” And then, he stopped. He let the tip of his pen grow still. “I can’t sense him anymore,” he said, so quietly he barely heard himself.

  “For how long now?” asked Lai, just as quietly.

  A cheer from those playing the story game interrupted briefly, but Fox continued. “Since the second storm or so ... I’ve been checking every day. And I can still smell the Shavid coming, even hear them sometimes. And they’re so close I can practically taste their spices in the air.

  But Father and the caravan ... they’re gone.”

  “Maybe they’re just too far away?” supplied Lai helpfully. “We never did figure out how far your gifts could reach.”

  Fox placed his pen down carefully in the spine of his book, then closed the journal around it. He moved deliberately and slowly, trying to keep the shaking from his hands. “What will I tell her if he’s gone?” he asked. “And forget my own mother, what about theirs?” He looked out at the Thiccans camping out at the tavern tonight. “Mothers of waresmen on that caravan. Their wives, children, sisters ...” He shut his eyes, trying not to see their faces. “I’ve made enough widows for one lifetime.”

  “You didn’t make any of them,” said Lai fiercely. She grabbed his wrists and held them tight, and he looked up into her eyes. “You’re just a kid! You may act like a man, and work like a man, but unless you slit their throats with your own knife, you didn’t kill anybody.” Then she dropped his hands back to the table like they were poisonous snakes, and sat back against the wall, crossing her arms stubbornly. “So just snap out of it, Foxglove.”

  And when Fox didn’t answer, she left. She disappeared into the kitchen, and Fox buried himself back in his work. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t, after all. And perhaps, in the end, Farran was absolutely right: she didn’t belong in his “messy little future.”

  The next morning, Fox left the Five Sides well before dawn. He wasn’t about to give Lai a chance to try and talk him out of his next trip. He packed lightly, figuring to make it to the trapping cabin by late afternoon, just before the storm hit. He was on the road within minutes, forsaking the valley once more for the company of the wolves.

  As he hiked, Fox hummed to himself and practiced sending his thoughts out on the wind. He soon had an accidental following of little birds that he seemed to have called to himself, and that he couldn’t figure out how to send back again. But he didn’t mind. In fact, they made him feel like a hero in one of the Shavid songs, Zedderick Fowlfeather. A man whose strange friendship with birds drove him to try and learn how to fly. He sang a bit of Zedderick’s song to the open woods, his voice swallowed up quickly in the snow.

  And upon his head a hat he wore

  Of feathers fine and dandy!

  And though they did not help him fly,

  They came in rather handy!

  Fox couldn’t remember the words to the last bit, where Zedderick’s failed attempts to take to the sky ended up accidentally saving an entire city. So instead he bounced from tune to tune for awhile, singing everything from Shavid song to Deep Winter ballad, until all at once he stopped. He was no longer alone.

  For a wild and desperate moment, he hoped it was only Farran. But he knew the smell, and it was only half the god’s. He rounded on Lai.

  “What are you doing here?!” he yelled, the birds finally scattering at the sound.

  She detached herself sheepishly from the shadows of a nearby tree, looking properly abashed. But she recovered quickly and spat back, “I might ask you the same!”

  “I have a job to do!” shouted Fox.

  “A job that will get you killed?” she said. “I followed you out here to make sure you don’t get yourself into any more trouble than you have to!”

  Fox rolled his eyes. “No, you followed me out here because you just can’t keep your nose out of it! Mind your own business, and go home!”

  But a shiver ran down his spine, and he knew it was too late for that. The storm was much too close now, and she’d never make it back in time. Fox glared at her, then took her quickly by the arm and began to lead the way, quickening his speed. “Borric’s going to kill me,” he growled. “After he kills you. And then my mother will kill me.” He glanced over into the trees where he knew his nearest wolf guard was keeping pace with them. “And you!” he said to the shadows. “You knew she was there, you couldn’t have warned me?”

  “Who are you —” started Lai.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Snow began to fall. Softly at first, but in thick, wet flakes. And then it grew heavier, hissing against the trees as the wind picked up. Lai couldn’t move as quickly as Fox. She didn’t have a tracker’s steady foot, and she certainly didn’t have Fox’s experience in the woods. Fox began to panic. He’d always timed his journeys just so, always making it to shelter right as the storm hit. But at his pace, not at this struggling, uneven rate.

  “Keep right behind me,” he said urgently. “Step just where I’ve been, it’ll be easier.”

  But even with him clearing the path before her, Lai was slowing down. She couldn’t see as well in the dark, and she was constantly tripping over roots or getting stuck in heavy snowdrifts. Somewhere over their heads, thunder was starting to roll. It was a smooth, almost lazy sound, as if the storm itself knew they didn’t stand a chance, and it was taking its time closing in.

  Fox kept hold of Lai’s hand so tightly their palms were sweating, despite the freezing cold. “Almost,” he kept saying. “We’re almost there. Just a little ways more.” And then, the sky shattered, and Lai screamed.

  To Fox, it was like being caught up in the very clouds. Snow wasn’t falling so much as it was tearing around them in an angry whirlwind. He pulled Lai close, holding her so tightly he was sure she couldn’t breathe, and they ran. Fox struggled to keep Lai upright each time she stumbled. Ice tore at their hair and faces, and the wind began to pelt at Fox’s senses. He pushed it away with all his might and ran with everything he had. And then they crashed blindly into solid stone, and Fox felt blindly for the cabin door handle. He hauled the door open against the wind, and they collapsed inside, letting the door slam shut once more.

  But it wasn’t the familiar room of the hunting cabin that they stood in. As they caught their breath, and Lai slid down the door into an exhausted heap on the stone, Fox stared around in open shock. This was the hunting cabin. Even in the dark, even blind with snow and terror he knew it. His instincts and sense of direction were never wrong. He had opened the door of the cabin.

  But he’d closed the door of the Whitethorn Temple. And now they were standing in the garden sanctuary, countless leagues away.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Lai seemed to take their sudden and inexplicable relocation rather well. After the initial shock and Fox’s brief explanation of where they were, she was keen to explore. She’d never been out of Thicca Valley in her life, and now she wandered around the sanctuary with wonder painted on her face, her cheeks glowing with excitement. She brushed her nose against strange flowers and twisted her fingertips in snakey vine tendrils.

  And then, she led them upstairs, taking Fox by the hand and dragging him along behind her. They emerged into the quiet, flickering darkness of the room above, and despite the strangeness of their circumstances, Fox was still amazed by the temple’s beauty. It was just as he remembered it. The colors; the smells; the soft footfalls of the priestesses and the soft hiss of whispered prayers. The smears of painted light were muted now in the winter gloom, but the feeling of being trapped inside a giant butterfly wing still remained. And as Lai stepped
out into the room, breathless with wonder, the colors caught on her skin and touched it with hints of blue and purple and red.

  Lai looked down at their intertwined fingers, and squeezed Fox’s hand tighter for a moment. Their knuckles glowed momentarily green as the light hit them just so. Then Lai said quietly, “That there are places like this all through the Known World ... it seems impossible.”

  She turned her face up to the domed, twisted ceiling, and smiled. “It’s beautiful.”

  And then she released his hand, and Fox watched her wander aimlessly through the temple, gazing upon each statue or candle as if it were the most wonderful thing in the world.

  Fox himself made his slow, steady way over to the statue of Farran. He wasn’t sure exactly how worship things worked, but he felt certain that if Farran thought he was paying tribute to another god, he would never hear the end of it.

  He sat down at the pirate god’s stone feet, keeping one eye on Lai as he glanced around the temple. There were fewer worshipers here than before. Most of the bodies in the temple appeared to be priestesses, their robes swishing gently back and forth as they walked across the room, to and from various shrines. Many of them he recognized from his last journey to Whitethorn.

  But there was one who caught his eye, and made him feel strangely uncomfortable. He found himself watching her as she re-lit candles and swept the floor. Other women in the temple might have been beautiful – this woman put them all to shame. There was not a single word that came to Fox’s mind that might describe how breathtaking she was. Her hair was soft, long and impossibly black. Her skin was a perfect balance of pale and dark, he thought. Standing in the shadows one moment she would seem strangely pale and ghost-like, but then she stepped into the candlelight and her skin was a smooth, even almond. She was, to put it simply, stunning. But even so, there was something about her eyes ... they were unsettlingly empty. As though they had never, in all her years, been part of a smile.

  Fox couldn’t look at her for long without shivering. Even her scent, wrapping around him from afar, was all at once intoxicating and sickening. Familiar, and unknown. Finally, he stood, trying to shake off the strangeness that had settled over his shoulders and neck. He glimpsed Lai across the room, admiring the statue of Phiira the Seer Goddess, and went to join her.

  “Her followers blind themselves in her honor, you know,” he said quietly.

  “What?” exclaimed Lai in shock, much louder than she should have. Several heads turned their way, and Fox had to stifle his laughter behind his hand. Lai dropped her voice and continued. “They really ... what?!”

  “Not all of them!” said Fox quickly. “And they don’t always actually, physically blind themselves. Sometimes they just veil their eyes when they’re prophesying. Or sometimes, they drink a special tea that takes away their sight. It’s only the truly devout that ... you know.” When

  Lai continued to stare at him, he shrugged and said apologetically, “I read about it in a book.”

  From there, Fox pointed out Thalia, Goddess of the Dance, and Fyllaric, the Shepherd God. He shared little facts and stories he remembered from his wonderful book on the gods, “Asynthum.” They wandered from statue to beautiful statue, and Lai listened with all the interest and wonder of a small child being told a favorite bedtime tale.

  When they came to the statue of Farran, Fox hesitated. He’d been exceptionally careful never to speak of the pirate god around Lai. Somewhere, in an entirely illogical place in his mind, he thought that the very mention of Farran’s name might trigger some strange godconnection in Lai, and she would figure out her whole lineage in one, horrible instant. But he knew he was being ridiculous. And so he began to regale her with stories of her true father, though he was careful to make it sound as though Farran were the greatest god in all the realms. Lai might not know she was his daughter, but Fox felt it was important that she still have a good opinion of the god.

  He was just finishing the story Father had once told him, of the creation of hibbins, when the hairs suddenly stood up on the back of Fox’s neck. They were no longer alone. He turned, and was face-to-face with her. The beautiful, unsettling woman.

  “That story still rubs him raw,” the woman said, half a smile on her mouth and in her voice. But the smile did not reach her empty eyes, and her voice, while beautiful, held a strange sort of sadness. “He doesn’t recover well from insult.”

  She spoke, Fox thought, like a song played with only three notes. Musical, yes, but simply missing something. As she began to tidy up Farran’s shrine, dusting off the stone with a fine piece of cloth and clearing away dead flowers, she hummed quietly. A strange little tune that reminded Fox a bit of some of the Shavid’s sea chanties.

  Lai didn’t seem to notice anything strange about the priestess. Instead, she asked excitedly, “You actually know some of the gods?”

  “Some more than others,” she said smoothly. “My Lord Farran keeps in touch more than most, but I have had the honor of meeting a handful of other, minor deities in my time.” She gazed up at the stone face of Farran, and for the first time her eyes showed something of an emotion. Longing. She then knelt down beside the statue, almost in a prayer-like position, and began to carefully dust his stone boots. And she continued to hum.

  “What are they like?” asked Lai. She seemed fascinated by the whole idea of the gods. “Are there any of them here, now? How do you —” But then she trailed off. She seemed to be listening to the priestess’s song with curious intensity. After a moment, she sank down beside the stone herself, propping one elbow on the statue’s base and watching the priestess hum.

  “Your song is lovely,” she said quietly.

  “It is about him,” said the priestess, raising her eyes to the statue’s face for a moment before returning attention to her work.

  “I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere before,” said Lai. “It’s so familiar ... like something from a dream.” And then, as the priestess began gently, lovingly polishing the toes of Farran’s stone boots, Lai began to hum along. She knew the tune well, so well that she kept time with every note. She closed her eyes and began to sing, softly and gently, as the woman continued to hum.

  There’s a ship with a red sail

  Like sunset at sea

  That e’er I did wake

  Took my true love from me

  There’s a ship with a red sail

  Like blood in my heart

  That while I was sleeping

  Did tear us apart

  And then, Lai opened her now-misty eyes and, ever so slowly, sat up straight. She seemed to have forgotten how to speak properly. Her mouth hung open for several moments, and she gazed at the woman’s face with a mixture of confusion and wonder. “I heard that song every night,” she said slowly. “It sang me to sleep, and kept me calm during the worst of the storms.” She was clasping her hands tightly in her lap, but even so Fox could see them shaking. “I watched you stare out the window and sing it some days, even when you wouldn’t do anything else.”

  And then it hit Fox so completely that he couldn’t breathe. The woman’s smell, her face, the uncomfortable feeling of familiarness that made Fox shudder. Watching them sitting so close, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t figured it out before. And suddenly, he was painfully aware that he couldn’t stop it. No matter what he did, Lai was going to find out the truth. And it would break her.

  The woman didn’t stop humming, nor did she look up as Lai spoke. And then Lai reached a trembling hand out, touched the woman’s elbow, and said shakily, “Mother?” The woman — Lai’s mother — turned ever so slightly to look at her. She smiled again, that soft and vacant smile, but didn’t speak.

  Lai gripped the fabric of her mother’s robe tightly and spoke again. “Mum?” And then, louder than before, in a voice that shook like a guttering flame, “You’re alive?”

  “Of course, my child,” said her mother simply, as if it were an entirely silly question.

  And then Lai flung hers
elf forward and wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist for the first time since she was three years old. She wept openly, but Adella did not hug her back. Instead, she patted Lai’s head awkwardly, as though it was a gesture she’d only ever heard described and never actually seen. And then, after a moment she said, “I’m sorry child, but who are you?”

  Lai pulled back, quickly wiping her eyes and nose with the back of her hand. “I’m ... Lai?” she said. “I’m your daughter.”

  “Oh,” said Adella with a note of apology in her voice. “Yes, that’s right. I did have a daughter, once.”

  All at once, Lai looked like nothing more than a small, lost child. Her eyes grew round with confused tears, and Fox had to make a quick decision. He slipped quietly into the conversation and said, “Her name is Adella.”

  Lai turned her face up to him. “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Borric told me the story,” Fox replied.

  For a moment, their eyes locked in silent conversation. Then Lai said quietly, “It isn’t a story I’m going to like, is it?”

  “No.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  If Fox had thought it was difficult simply to hear the story of Lai’s mother, it was even harder to tell it. “Borric found her on a winter night, pregnant with you,” he began. And on he plunged, for once he began the story he didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to give her the chance to ask questions, or even think of questions. He wanted it to be done, and then he wanted to simply run away.

  And through it all, Adella continued to clean and hum. Blissfully unaware, it seemed, of her daughter. Completely oblivious to the fact that Fox was telling a personal and intimate story about her. No, she simply went about her duties.

  “Borric said she started to fade,” said Fox.

  “I remember that,” said Lai quickly. She was watching her mother now, with a sadness in her eyes that Fox had never seen before. “She would sing when she stared out the window. Days, sometimes.”