by Terah Edun
Deciding that this would be for another day, Mae said reluctantly, “So we have the elderflowers and instead of using these roving mages magic to counteract the poison flowing in my sibling’s veins they used it to lock the rest of the female children’s magic down. Why? I know the parents of the ill are devastated and would have done whatever it took to ensure a cure took.”
“Maybe they couldn’t?” Rivan said simply.
Mae frowned. “You mean the roving mages?”
He nodded simply.
“Then if they couldn’t cure them, how will we?” Mae asked tartly.
She demanded an answer of Donna Marie with a hard look.
“By unlocking your gift of course my dear,” the foreign woman said sweetly. “Unlocking it and seeing exactly what your family has been hiding along. Because I don’t believe in coincidences. A mysterious ailment blossoming amongst the youngest members of the clan while those same youth are locked away under binding spells they never consented to?”
“It could be a coincidence,” Mae said hesitantly.
She was desperately hoping to stop short of finding out her family as a whole was evil.
Because it was a certainty that the decision to bind each child wasn’t a ruling made in isolation, the whole of the Council of Elders was involved. Both of her parents, living and dead, had been involved. But the idea that those same family members had been willing to sacrifice the ill when they’d had chance to save them? All to store wealth that no one else knew about? That Mae couldn’t live with.
The foreign woman however was not content to let Mae keep her rather fragile hope alive. Not if it meant interfering with her plan to unlock what had long ago been secreted away.
“Oh no,” Donna Marie continued with a coo. “Something is very wrong in your greater holding.”
“Which begs the question why hasn’t anyone discovered it before?” Rivan added in an echo of Donna Marie’s interest. “You’d think the roving mages who came here would have spoken of it to someone?”
“Enough money will make anyone as silent as a clam,” Donna Marie said dismissively as she waved the bunch of elderflowers still gripped in her hand in Rivan’s face.
He smoothly took the clutch of expensive vegetation away from her but didn’t discount what she said.
Instead he turned to Mae and asked, “What about the tax collection officials? They must count all residents of the holding to ensure proper payment is made.”
“They never see the children,” Mae said automatically. “Not the sick ones anyway.”
She knew that just like she what feast days were the best to avoid any chores and eat like a glutton.
“Go on,” Rivan said with a frown.
“Well, why would they?” Mae said. “The adults probably just told them that they had was infection. Their job isn’t worth the collection official’s lives.”
“Yes,” Donna Marie said. “Your family has truly thought of everything it would take to do this casting and to keep it so effectively a secret for generations. So well done and such an intricate cage.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mae asked, not likely how Donna Marie was describing her.
“Well,” the foreign woman continued on eagerly, either oblivious or uncaring of Mae’s feelings on the matter. “You’re like a mockingbird that doesn’t even know its caged and for so long. I can see why they trapped the children in their youth. Easier to manipulate. Easier to control.”
Mae froze but this she couldn’t deny.
Reluctantly she said, “I always wondered what the inked collars really meant.”
“But they had no interest in giving you details?” Donna Marie guessed. “They always put it off for another day?”
Mae frowned. “I wouldn’t say that but they weren’t very forthcoming either. As for self-exploration, there was no one else to ask and the inked collars were just…there. You can’t explore what it’s hard to see, and there’s only so much you can do with tracing the lines across your collar with a finger.”
“True,” Donna Marie said while going back to sounding unimpressed. “Well, I guess it’s time for me to bring you all into the light. Even if the rest of your women seem rather reluctant to be brought up to speed.”
“Meaning?” Mae asked as she crossed her arms.
“You weren’t the first I approached,” Donna Marie said freely. “You weren’t the second. You weren’t even the fourth.”
“What? Did you corner every woman in a dark hallway that you could find over the past two days?” Mae asked in a biting tone.
“Something like that,” Donna Marie admittedly freely.
“Then I guess it’s lucky you found me,” Mae said flatly.
The foreign woman’s eyes gleamed. “I wouldn’t call it luck so much as careful planning.”
4
Mae dropped her crossed arms and her mouth opened in shock. “You knew they were trying to kill us? Were you in on it?”
Mae’s thoughts automatically went to the worst. She couldn’t help it, if this week had taught her anything it was, don’t trust anyone. Blood or no blood.
“Kill you?” Donna Marie asked astonished. “Good gods no. I merely had you tracked.”
“By who?” Mae said.
Donna Marie blinked and looked around the clearing.
“Well,” she said quickly. “He’s not here.”
“The man? Dot, right?” Mae asked tightly.
“Not quite,” Donna Marie said. “And not my local guide either. He was just sent along in the efforts to abscond you here.”
Mae almost muttered ‘if he just picked us up why is my sister still unconscious?’ but she didn’t. From the tick in Donna Marie’s eye, one more delay would send her flying off the handle.
“Who then?” Mae demanded, feeling a bit betrayed. If it wasn’t the strangers, it had to be family. She was related to almost three-quarters of the people within a five-mile radius and only blood was allowed within the greater holding gates. The Darnes clan didn’t trust anyone else.
Donna Marie shrugged. “Let’s leave it at that for now. Getting too deep into any more things will just unnecessarily complicate matters.”
Mae wanted to object but Donna Marie held up a warning hand.
“Let’s go back to the rather irrational fear in every woman in this holding’s eye when I mentioned my offer,” Donna Marie said in a cutting remark. “I’ve never had a woman I’ve approached with an offer of payment in gold turn me down so fast that I’ve barely even spoken my proposition yet.”
“You didn’t offer to pay me,” Mae said, a bit insulted.
“Because you needed something from me,” Donna Marie said in a mildly smug tone. “Besides which, what I’m offering you is worth far more than a few coins. What I’m offering you could make you your own money, as much gold as you want, for as long as you live…as long as you had the magic unlocked within you permanently.”
“But it won’t be…permanent that is,” Mae immediately clarified.
“You don’t want it to be so, so it shall not be,” Donna Marie said in a voice that clearly conveyed how stupid Mae was turn this down.
But for Mae it wasn’t foolish. She was starting to realize that growing up wasn’t just about getting everything you wanted and maybe her family been right all along for turning off her power and the power of others. She still didn’t like it but she wasn’t foolish enough to think that they were all indifferent to the prospect of power. Which meant the elders had had good reason to do what they had done…she hoped.
She still didn’t believe they had traded the health of some of the children in turn for putting all the girls in intricate cages. But until she questioned an Elder from the Council, she couldn’t disprove Donna Marie’s dark theory either. For now, Mae just knew that if she was going to question everything she held dear, then she didn’t want to go into this blind. So she would have her magical gifts unlocked, both to get the cure and to truly find out once and for a
ll what was hidden under all those inked collars.
Once she did the gifts would be locked away again. So this new reality would only be momentary. A day or two at most. She could survive that, she had to. And when it was finished and done, she would come out on the other side just as she always had been.
A normal girl in an ordinary world.
That suited Mae just fine at the moment. She didn’t want to be anything else and no different than the person she already was. She had learned her lesson after being chased and nearly devoured this week and almost thrown off ledge. Being special meant being a target. To keep herself from being killed, she would just have to keep her head down.
No one else was special in her family. So neither would she. She’d just do this one thing, get the cure and go back to her accepted place in her normal family. Well, the regular family that it had been before she’d found out about the crazy members that is. She hated to think of her stepmother as part of the problem, but she had been present in the sickroom with all of the cloaked figures as well.
Mae shook off the thought, she would have to go back to it when she brought her warning before the Council of Elders…and hoped that they would listen.
“You do…want to go back to the way you were, don’t you?” Donna Marie asked in a sly voice. “After this is all over I mean.”
Donna Marie’s question mirrored Mae’s own thoughts so clearly, that not for the first time she had to wonder if she could read Mae’s mind and see the doubts easing forth out of the shadows. Mae quickly beat those doubts back, drowning them out with her internal refrain of ‘Just a normal girl in an ordinary world’ again and again. If she said it enough times, she’d even start to believe it was true. Even though she couldn’t trick her mind into submission, she at least could react to Donna Marie’s outrageous suggestion with a firm denial vocally.
And so she did.
“Yes, of course. I want this over and done with, the sooner the better,” Mae said in false shock.
“Of course,” Donna Marie said while studying her again.
But this time her focus was on Mae’s eyes and it was Mae who looked away in flushed shame. She hated lying but she also both did and didn’t want to be this new person anymore. This girl involved in intrigue and schemes and unravelling dark plots. She wanted to go back to her comfort zone. She wanted to go home. So much that the ache was almost painful. But she also wanted magic in her bones so much that it was driving her crazy. The sooner they got out of this forest and away from this arcane magical intercession, the better.
Muttering to take the focus off herself and on to others, Mae said, “You think they’re foolish Donna Marie but, my family members who turned you down? They’re just practical.”
“How so?” Donna Marie asked in an amused tone as she humored Mae’s words.
Mae turned back to her with fierce pride in her gaze. For once she was defending someone other than herself in the moment and she felt a protectiveness rise within her at the slightest hint of mockery of her blood.
“What happens if something goes wrong?” Mae asked.
“Nothing will go…” Donna Marie started to say but Mae didn’t her finish.
“What happens if all the women you had approached agreed to your experiment and they died or they couldn’t walk or I don’t know…the greater holding went up in flames?” Mae said. “There would be no one to pull in the crops and yes, I know you have your elderflowers but to them that doesn’t exist.”
“Without bodies there would be no one to watch over and care for the kids,” Mae continued firmly. “No one to remember the Darnes history and keep the bloodline going. Without them, we wouldn’t be who we are.”
Her words were passionate but it was a passionate subject. Her family had already lost so many of their young ones. They couldn’t afford to lose the adults as well to experimentation and chance.
Perhaps Donna Marie saw some of that fear in her eyes, because this time there was no biting wit in her words when she replied.
Instead Donna Marie said gently, “I think you’re thinking of the worst possible scenario, when you should be imagining the best.”
Mae snorted in disbelief as she replied, “I’ll let you imagine it for me. Just know that I’m not just doing this because I want your assistance for my own needs. I’m doing this because out of all the people at the greater holding who can be sacrificed, I’m the one that will have the least amount of impact on the success of the commune as a whole.”
For a moment Donna Marie was solemn, then something changed in the foreign woman’s expression.
“You say you’re disposable,” Donna Marie said with something akin to pride gleaming in her eyes. “What I’m saying is that perhaps you’re the bravest of them all. To do this and to not know what the actual outcome will be. You certainly don’t trust me to shepherd you through the process.”
Mae didn’t bother denying it.
“No offense,” she said.
“None taken,” Donna Marie said dryly.
Biting her lip Mae gave a deep sigh, “So as much as I’m ‘disposable’ as you put it within my own family, I’d still very much like to come out of this intact.”
“You do know that is absolutely my goal, yes?” Donna Marie confirmed.
“Meaning it’s possible I won’t?” Mae asked aghast. She was beginning to think she’d been right to worry all along.
“Nothing is certain when you’re dealing with magic,” Donna Marie said mysteriously.
There was the sound of a snort of derision coming from Rivan’s direction but neither woman took their eyes off the other to see exactly what it was he was responding to.
“That’s…not good,” Mae said faintly.
Donna Marie gave an irritated sigh. “You worry more than a horse surrounded by tsetse flies.”
Mae glared at her.
“But I can assure you,” Donna Marie hastened to say. “That I need you as much as you need me and an incapacitated subject doesn’t help me study that beautiful inked tattoo you have on your collarbone.”
Mae replied. “I guess that’s as much of an assurance as I’m going to get from you.”
“Pretty much,” Donna Marie agreed.
Mae shrugged uncomfortably. “Just make sure you don’t break anything inside of me while you do it.”
“I won’t break you,” Donna Marie confidently said. “I’ll set you free.”
“Temporarily,” Mae demanded.
“As you like,” Donna Marie replied casually.
Relief swept through Mae. If she had been approached maybe a few days ago she would have wanted to be free from these restrains forever. But Mae had seen how the mages in her family were using their gifts, and she wanted no part in that. She wanted to go back to being who she was, regular old Maeryn ‘Mae’ Darnes, once she cured her siblings and anyone else who could be potentially sick first, of course.
“If your family’s code wasn’t so stubborn, we would have gotten past this barrier a long time ago, you know?” Donna Marie asked.
She continued on, “Your barrier is about more than fear, its intrinsic to your being this resistance. Almost as if your standing in your family depends on following their every edict to the letter.”
“If I go against what my family stands for, what good am I?” Mae asked defensively.
Donna Marie frowned, “Where I’m from that sort of control is called coercion.”
Mae looked at her hard. “Well, you’re here in the Kingdom of Nardes and its called loyalty.”
Rivan said with a mild curse, “Just leave it Donna Marie, she’s not ready to hear it.”
“If I’d left you where I’d found you, you’d still be in the gutter, begging your mother for a second chance,” Donna Marie called back without even turning around.
Shocked Mae turned wide eyes to Rivan as she wondered what that was about.
Whatever it was, it didn’t sound good.
But his face immediately hardened at Don
na Marie’s words and he walked off into the forest.
“He left,” Mae said shocked.
“He’ll be back,” Donna Marie said dismissively. “It’s still a sensitive topic for him.”
“Then why’d you bring it up?” Mae asked pointedly.
“Because you needed to hear that you’re not the only one with family problems in this clearing and yours are far from the worst I’ve encountered,” snapped Donna Marie. “You just need to grow up and take a stance for once in your life.”
“I am taking a stand!” Mae shouted at her. “I’m here, aren’t I? I stole the grimoire, didn’t I? I’m doing what I can to save my siblings even though it’s the last thing in which my family wants me involved.”
Mae’s voice trailed off with raw emotion at the end as she struggled to not let any tears fall down her cheeks. She was stronger than that. More capable than that. She could get through a damned argument without becoming weak.
She had to.
Mastering her struggle she wiped her hand under both eyes to stimulate the sensation of pressure and halt any errant liquid. Focusing back on Donna Marie Mae said, “I’m not just some child anymore, going where they say, doing what they do. But you have to realize I have up-ended my entire life in the past week. Just one thing, one little thing I want, is to be back to where I was. To save the day and still be the person I’ve always been.”
“And who is that?” Donna Marie asked softly.
Mae thinned her lips as she answered with composure, “Maeryn ‘Mae’ Darnes.”
5
“As much as I’d like to take apart your psyche and dispel your notions of what is and isn’t normal…we don’t have time. So instead we’ll come back to it.”
Mae knew she was right. In fact, Mae was the one who had lambasted the foreign woman for electing to study her inked tattoos over a period of hours rather than minutes. But at the same time, she just couldn’t let the remarks slide without one more inference.
“I don’t think going back to who I was is a bad thing,” Mae said hopefully. “Maybe that means I’m growing up?”