by E E Rawls
Cyrus spotted a satisfied curl on the man’s lips, and she frowned up at him.
“There’s one more thing I should probably mention,” Gandif said and tilted his head to the frothing clouds above. “The Draev Guardian Academy can be your teacher and temporary home, but...”
There was a long pause, and Cyrus tensed.
“...The school is mostly for boys.”
There was a longer pause, and then she exclaimed. “Eh? You’re telling me this now?” Grass caught at her shoe, tripping her.
Seeing the look on her face, Gandif cleared his throat. “Ahem. Sorry, missy, but Elemental Manipulation mostly happens in males. Rarely is it in females, which makes you quite unique.” He rubbed his nose.
“I don’t want to be unique.”
“There’s one or two girls born with Ability, now and then. You might see some at the school. But if ya really want t’ blend in with the crowd and not draw attention to yerself, then I suggest you pretend to be a boy.”
Cyrus balked. Could he not see how terrifying this was? It was bad enough kids teased her for looking like a boy, but now she was going to play being one?
“And anyway, you’ll be safer as a male.” Amusement lit in Gandif’s eyes. “The last thing you’d want is some vempar boy falling in love with you.” He laughed like it’d be the funniest thing, and she scowled.
Like it or not though, he was probably right. The better she blended in with the students, the safer her half-human secret would be.
“Fine. It shouldn’t be too hard for me. I always got boy roles in school plays. I must be a natural at it,” she muttered.
“That’s the spirit!” He slapped her back. Then he raised a hand pointing beyond the sea of grass. “There she be: Draethvyle city!”
Cyrus squinted to see through the gathering mist. There it was: wall, towers and spires rising from the land like a decorative crown. The city was built upon the only thing that could be considered a hill in the expanse of grasslands.
She inhaled. This was it, a new beginning. No turning back. She strode with determination in her steps.
A strange fallen statue among the lulling sway of grass caught her attention as she passed it—the clay head of an eagle.
Part 2
Aken
Chapter 4
“Hmm hm-hm hmmm~”
Seven-year-old Aken-Shou hummed a lively tune as he made his way along the snow-covered path through the woods. The chill breeze brushed his sun-bright hair about his shoulders, bangs falling over his left eye as the rest pulled back in a half-ponytail.
He glanced up at the trees which were dark in the fading light, their limbs like arms and fingers reaching through the shadows. Snow floated down silently, one snowflake landing on his eyelashes. Blankets of white had already caked the ground and now reflected an eerie light as twilight drew near.
Aken shuffled down the path as it curved and lowered. A small lantern swung back and forth on the ash pole propped across his shoulder. He continued humming the cheerful song, lantern swaying.
“Taters taters, I dream in my head
They float around as I lie in my bed,
Hot and mushy with buttery sauce
Before they eat you, gobble them hot...”
Krnch.
Aken paused at the sound, and his pointy ears twitched to listen behind him. Stories about the Wandering Wraith and other myths filled his head, and fear welled inside him.
He turned to see what had made the sound, but nothing was there. Only snow and the silent woods.
“...Huh.” His brow furrowed. “C’mon, keep focused,” he told himself. “I gotta get home with these herbs before Mom gets mad.” He patted the bundle tucked inside his winter coat, then tugged the wool scarf closer around his chin. “Man, my fangs are gonna fall off from all this stupid, freezing cold. I hate winter!”
Krnch.
The sound came again, from the right.
Aken looked through the corner of his right eye, but still nothing was there.
A chill brushed up his back. Earlier on his trek to the herb grower’s house, the woods had been nice. But now that daylight was almost gone... ‘I just gotta hurry,’ he thought to himself.
Skrnch-chnk.
Again the sound of someone—or something—approached from behind.
He nervously looked left.
Trnk.
He spun around.
K-krrk.
He shifted back, pulse racing. Creaking twigs and crunching snow seemed to be coming from every direction at once.
He turned round and round, gripping the lantern pole like a weapon, scanning the trees.
And then it jumped out at him.
“Uwah!” Aken stumbled back and held the pole ready.
A black squirrel sat pawing the snow at his feet, and it cocked its head and blinked dark eyes up at him.
His grip on the pole relaxed. He suddenly felt very stupid, all that fear over a squirrel.
The furry critter tilted its big fluffy ears, and made a chattering noise like laughter, before bounding up a tree to perch on a branch. It seemed to be grinning at him. Aken pouted, and was tempted to grab a rock and throw it. “Cheeky rodent, I oughta make a scarf outta that furry tail of yours.”
The squirrel chattered more laughter, and with its tail flicked snow off the branch at him.
“Gah! Why you—”
A dark shape grew out of the corner of Aken’s eye, and he stilled. He wasn’t alone.
Aken leaped to the side, away from the shape. But his foot slipped on a layer of ice and he fell backwards, landing against the base of a trunk, scraping his elbows on crusty roots.
“Ah—ah! Stay back, I’m warning you. I’m a scary vempar!” Aken shouted at the wraith-like shape, and struggled to get back on his feet, gripping at the roots behind him for support. “I’m warning you!”
The looming form wrapped in black shrouds waited before him, a wraith come to steal his life.
“Now now,” spoke the wraith, “Surely a child like you wouldn’t harm an old, traveling faeryn like me, reh?”
Aken scrambled up to his knees and blinked to clear his vision. The black shroud fizzled to a dark cloak with the hood drawn up, tattered and worn with age—just like the hunchback beneath it. The hunchback’s voice creaked and wobbled, either trying to cackle or chuckle, but it sounded like a cat trapped in a trashcan.
A faeryn, not the Wandering Wraith? The old man’s skin was blue, and he looked ready to fall over from the slightest passing breeze, now that Aken could see him clearly. But appearances could be deceiving; he wasn’t about to let down his guard.
“Why’s your skin blue? I’ve never seen a blue faeryn,” Aken questioned.
“That’s because my kind are rare now. I’m a moonlight faeryn. But don’t go telling people about it,” insisted the elder through a croak. “What is your name, child?”
The black squirrel chirped suddenly, bounding from the tree to land on the faeryn’s creaky shoulder. A bony hand offered an acorn, which the squirrel snatched up without hesitation.
Aken frowned. “It’s Aken-Shou...erm, sir.”
The man’s already wrinkly forehead wrinkled deeper, and his face of blue-lake skin cracked a smile. “So, it is you,” he breathed.
Aken cocked his head.
“The False Guardian, whose destiny is tied with the Swan Princess,” he furthered, with a distant look to his eyes.
Aken waited, then made a sound in his throat, and the moonlight faeryn’s far-away look returned to the here and now.
“I am a watcher of the stars, a listener of Lord God. And I have been sent to return something to you, lad.”
The squirrel’s tail flapped like a furry flag on the old perch.
Aken blinked. “Okay?” Was this man growing senile as well as old? Return something. What, and from who? Nobody cared about him.
“Keep this.” A blue hand held out to him a leather-bound book, in surprisingly good condition for how
yellowed and ancient the pages were.
Aken took and examined it curiously. It was thick, with a title marked on the spine.
“A Bible?” He blinked. “Uh...well...it’s, erm, I mean... I’m pretty sure this never belonged to me. So I don’t know what you mean by returning something. And anyway, my parents’ll get mad.” He felt the leather gingerly, a series of questions running through his head.
An older kid at school had said the Bible was one of several books of ancient history from another world, and that it was written by the Creator, Lord God. It sounded cool. Dad got mad at the very idea, though, and called people who believed such things idiots.
Why was a faeryn traveler giving him this?
The hunchback held a finger up to his cracked lips, “Let this be our little secret.”
“Not to be rude, but you aren’t making any sense.”
“It does not have to make any sense, right now.” The man opened his other hand, where a tiny glass orb shone in his palm, as if a star had been trapped inside it. “A spark of light, a star to guide the way through the darkness in your mind, Aken-Shou. With this, you will find the reborn princess.”
The orb rolled into Aken’s hand. “Sure...” he said as he stared at its clear, glossy surface.
“Best hurry home, now, lad! It’s getting dark,” the faeryn said, drawing his hood closer, pulling Aken’s attention away from the orb. “And do bring a more, reh, dangerous weapon with you when traveling alone.” He eyed the lantern pole, clearly amused.
Aken sniffed in protest, even if the comment was accurate. “Do you live around here?”
“No, no.” A blue finger rubbed the squirrel’s head. “I doubt you’ll be seeing me again, any time soon.”
“Oh. How come?”
The man’s smile tilted down a fraction. “My time as Oracle is done, my part to play in this world finished. My gift will pass on to another, soon—a young moonlight faeryn, like me,” he said.
Aken cocked his head, but the man motioned with his hand.
“Hurry on home. You will understand all of this when the time is right, when you are older.”
The squirrel gave another laughing chirp, grinning and flapping a paw to mimic its humanoid companion.
With items stuffed in coat pockets, Aken waved uncertainly to the old hunchback before hurrying on through the snow-packed path, lantern bouncing behind him. The cool, dark of dusk shrouded all else.
HUFF-HUFF-HUFF. Aken-Shou tried to run through the deepening snow sucking at his boots, plodding up to the door of a wood-shingle, two-story house. It stood among a jumble of other wood houses, stalls, and tent structures that made up the Outskirts—a ramshackle district hugged against the city’s eastern wall.
Draethvyle, capital city of the Vemparic Kingdom, was made of decorative stone, spires and peaked rooftops. But the Outskirts wasn’t inside the city, and everything was wood, tent or crude brick—not pretty stone. Plain and bland, built for practical use instead of beauty. Simple homes, just like the one before him that looked ready to crumble from rot.
Aken eyed what bit of the city’s high, seamless wall he could see from the dirt street that wound its way to the eastern gate. His house sat near the dividing line of the wall, where durable stone melted into wooden unkempt structures, and nice roads became dirt streets and dusty paths.
A white flake tickled his nose. The snow was drifting heavier through the thickening sky now. He looked up one last time before opening the crude door.
Aken entered. To the left, the combined little kitchen and dining room had the woodstove burning—warming the chill air that followed him inside.
“It took you long enough,” came Mom’s voice from the kitchen corner.
He placed the bundle of herbs on the scuffed dining table—a plain, rectangular slab. Dad wasn’t there, again.
“Sorry, Mom.”
She marched over, ladle propped across her narrow shoulder. “I couldn’t get dinner started without these! To think I had to wait for a lazy lout.” She picked through the herbs, tight-lipped.
Mom was blond, with pretty features—Aken’s coloring and eyes took after her. But she was a busy woman who didn’t waste time on things or people, and affection wasn’t in her nature.
“Here. Drink.” She set a glass of red-colored liquid on the table, a little spilling.
Aken pulled off his gloves and drank obediently. “Mm, can I help you pick berries next time? If the juice is this good, the raw berries must be even more good!” He attempted a cheerful smile and waited for a response.
“...When you’re older,” Mom said through a breath. Then she focused on adding herb leaves to a soup pot boiling over the stove.
“Will Dad be back soon?” he asked. “There’s lots of snow outside. It’d be fun to build a snowman or something.”
“No. Even if he was, he wouldn’t have time to play games with you. Life is more important than play.”
Aken hid his disappointment. He reached a hand inside his pocket, to show her the cool glass orb the old faeryn had given him, then thought better of it. She either wouldn’t pay attention, or would think he was making up another fantasy tale.
Instead, he trudged up the creaky staircase to his room in the attic. The ceiling slanted on both sides with the roof, making the small room feel even more cramped. There wasn’t much but simple furniture, and a sunken bed against the wall under a square window.
He set his lantern on the sidetable, and opened the top drawer. His collection of tiny clay figures rattled inside. He placed the Bible in with them. Seeing the clay made him sigh and brought back a memory from several years ago:
“Mommy! Look, look what I made!” Five-year-old Aken said excitedly, tugging her over to the side of the street where he had molded figurines from the wet dirt. They were supposed to be birds, but rather lopsided and lumpy. Still, he held one up.
“Look! Watch dis, when I focuses in it.” He positioned his free palm behind the bird, and thin strings of glowing essence connected from him to the clay. “I cans make da birdie move! See see?”
The dirt wings made awkward flapping motions, and Aken was grinning with pride. But Mom...she slapped the bird away.
“We don’t do things like that, Aken-Shou! Do you want to bring us unwanted attention?” she snapped, eyes alight. “We can’t have that! We can’t have eyes on us, right now...” Her shout faded to a strangled mutter under her breath. Then she eyed him once more.
“To have power is to be shunned and feared, you little idiot.” Her mouth tightened. “Behave, and keep this strange thing with clay to yourself. I better not catch you doing this again.”
And with that, he remembered her kicking away the other dirt sculptures he’d so carefully made before marching off.
Now, eyeing the glass orb in his palm one last time, he put it with the clay figurines he’d made since that day and kept hidden.
Aken climbed over his bed to reach the window, settling down, resting elbows on the windowsill, chin in hands. From here, he could see over the wall into the city, and could just make out the palace towers, and the spires of Draevensett: the elite Draev Guardian League Academy.
Draevensett was a school of high prestige, well known throughout the kingdom. A school only Ability users could attend. You had to have Elemental Manipulation Ability. Aken longed to go there, to train and become a Draev Guardian, become a powerful protector of the kingdom and vempar kind. Draevs were feared and respected for the unique power they possessed.
Mom had called Aken’s strange gift with clay useless, something not fit for Draev Guardian training. She and Dad would never let him go to Draevensett, and it felt like his dream was slipping away.
“I won’t give up,” he murmured.
He would practice with clay, no matter what they said. He would find a use for it.
He stared beyond the foggy glass to the quiet world of dusk beyond, snowflakes dancing like little pixies as they gently floated from their heavenly home in t
he clouds.
‘False Guardian...Swan Princess...’ Aken wondered at the hunchback’s words and what they could mean.
Chapter 5
Years later, a cool autumn breeze found twelve-year-old Aken-Shou at the edge of the school playground. Kids were either on rickety swings, jumping rope, or sharing the latest gossip, while he was busy shaping clay into birds, and soaking in the colorful leaves and dappled sunlight.
His peers were keeping at a distance, just like always. They didn’t talk to him unless it was to say something rude, and the adults eyed him with suspicion.
Scourgeblood many called him and his parents. He didn’t understand why, and neither Dad nor Mom would explain; they just kept to themselves, secluded, and warned him never to make a scene.
Mom had been adamant he stop using clay because it would draw attention and bring the Draev Guardians. When Aken tried to ask her why having the Draevs’ attention would be a bad thing, she just shook her head.
“Everybody respects the D.G. League,” Aken argued. “If I could join them, it’d be a good thing!”
Dad, who was at home for once, fixed him with an iron gaze that made him fall silent. “Not for you, it won’t,” he said, and Aken shrank back. Dad exhaled, as if not wanting to explain. “Our blood is different from other vempars, see? And it makes them fear us. The city would never accept you as a Draev. We’re—” He stopped short and shook his head. “Just do as you’re told, Aken-Shou, for our sakes. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Aken didn’t ask again, but he kept thinking about it. Even today, as he molded clay.
“Hey, pretty boy!” hollered Denim.
Oh great. Aken groaned. No school day could be complete without the second cousin to the prince harassing him.
Denim was a lean kid with gelled-up black hair, and was a real magnet charmer with the girls. He swaggered over, a group of followers tagging along like faithful puppies on his heels.