Naira could hear the slight catch to Matoh’s voice as he tried to speak. There was pain and vulnerability here in the depths of this memory they had stepped into, a memory secret and vital to Matoh.
“I remember ...” Matoh had to pause. “I remember her pointing at the Red Tower and saying something to me. I can’t remember what she said, but for some reason, I think it was her telling me about what she was fighting for. She was crying. I remember her crying.”
Matoh dipped his head and swallowed hard before he spoke again. There were tears in his eyes. “It was the day she left for Istol.”
Istol. The place where the Union Wars were finally decided. The Unionists had finally broken the Navutian fleet and pushed onto the very shores of Navutia. It was also the place of where the Silver Lady, heroine and symbol of the Union army met her valiant end upon Navutian spears.
It was a story every child knew. A story about how Matoh’s mother died, and he would have heard it over and over again for his entire life and had to live in the shadow of a martyr and a legend.
Naira didn’t know what to say, so she reached and took his hand in hers.
Matoh looked down, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly. He squeezed her hand in response. But he didn’t let go. “It’s why I wanted to be a knight. That memory above all else.”
He looked at her then, and she nodded. “I understand,” Naira said, and they looked out over the bay for a long drawn out spell. They listened to the waves crash against the stone cliffs below.
“I have a moment like that,” Naira said softly. It felt right to share. To reciprocate what Matoh had given so freely. It should have felt strange as Naira never talked about this sort of thing with anyone, but with Matoh, it felt like she could. “There was this woman, a corsair, dressed in her red uniform. What she was doing on the docks of Blossom Bay I don’t know, but she was there and seeing her changed everything. I remember how she walked down the docks with such confidence, such pride. And her ship. It was amazing. It was the first time I had ever seen anything so grand. It made all of the fishing boats seem like bits of flotsam. As soon as I saw her, I knew I wanted to be her. She was so strong, so confident, and you could just feel how she had seen so much more of the world. She was everything I wasn’t.”
“But you are here now, and that will be you someday,” Matoh said simply, and he meant it.
It was the best thing anyone had ever said to her. She smiled and squeezed his hand.
They sat down on the grass together, not speaking, just listening to the quiet rhythmic sounds of the night as they sat together with their backs resting against the warm stone. Above them, Adel slept.
“You did good,” Naira said quietly and shifted her weight so she sat closer to Matoh. “Thank you for looking out for her.”
“I’m glad I could share this place, and show you my city. Hopefully, you know a bit more of who I am now.” Matoh smiled at her.
“I’m glad you shared with me.” Naira’s whole body buzzed with excitement, joy, giddy exhaustion and fear all at once. She snuggled in closer to Matoh, finding how wonderfully she fit under his arm and against his chest.
Adel shifted above them, and Matoh looked back over his shoulder. He sighed, “I guess we should get back and get her to a bed. It’s going to be a very early morning.” He made to get up. “I can carry her.”
Naira put her hand on his arm, not quite sure but plunging ahead anyway. “She’ll be fine for a few more minutes,” Naira said, trying to sound calm and collected, but a warm, exciting glow was filling her. “I just, I–.” She turned so she could look up into his eyes.
Her heart fluttered, she took a quick breath and heard his own excited breathing.
Then he leaned down and kissed her.
How long that moment was, Naira would never truly know. An eternity wrapped into a few long heartbeats. But it was perfect.
His hands held her with a gentle strength so comforting she could have melted into them. The warmth of his skin on hers. Every touch lighting flames of excitement. She gripped him back, moving into him, feeling Matoh’s hard body against hers.
His lips found hers again, making Naira forget to breathe.
Their lips parted, their heads rested gently together, rolling and playfully caressing each other with the wonderful pressure as they drank in the intoxicating sensation of the other.
“Wow.” Matoh pulled in a long breath. Their noses touched, making Naira smile.
“Yeah,” was all Naira could muster. Her entire body tingled, and she could smell the warm earthy undertones of his body. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. She was wonderfully floaty as if the entire world revolved around the warm cocoon of emotions they had magicked into existence between themselves. They stayed like that for a while, just breathing, touching and feeling, trying regretfully to collect their wits back into some semblance of coherence.
“Wow,” Matoh said again, and they both giggled.
Naira looked into his eyes, wanting nothing more than for his hands to keep exploring, wanting them to tear her clothes off. She wanted to do the same to him, to snake her hands beneath his shirt and feel the firm curves of his chest, the muscles rippling above his stomach and so much more. She felt so alive.
She could sense the animal desire in him, felt it. The beating of his heart, the radiant heat of his skin, the desire in his eyes.
It was then Adel began to snore.
Loudly.
Naira and Matoh snorted in an attempt to stifle their laughs. They dropped down onto the grass together, silently giggling at the situation as their eyes spoke longingly across the distance now between them.
“Oh.” Naira’s sadness at the loss of the moment almost made her physically ache. But it was then that she saw a lightening of the sky in the east. It was very, very late. Or very early, depending on how you saw it. “Right. Back to the real world.” She shook her head, trying to shake away the lovely fuzziness which had enveloped her. “We should probably get to your Dad’s place. We’ll have to be up and going in only a few more hours.”
Matoh groaned but was smiling. “Aah, you’re right. I never want the dawn to come. I want to stay snuggled up with you against that rock forever, but you’re right.” He smiled at her. Both understood the shared longing they had felt and been denied.
Matoh got to his feet, brushing off some loose grass before offering his hand to help her up.
They couldn’t keep the enormous grins from their faces.
Matoh went over to Adel and gently picked her up. Adel shifted her weight, still mostly asleep and put her head on his shoulder, snoring even louder than before.
Naira laughed again, then looked out over the bay once more. “Thank you,” she said and took Matoh’s hand in hers. “Thank you for tonight. It was perfect.” She went up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek, and then long and soft on his lips, drinking in the sensation once more.
She could see the colour seep into his cheeks for a moment, but not from embarrassment. “I agree. Perfect.” Matoh’s smile made her heart skip a beat.
The rest of the night slipped away under the spell they had woven. Neither stopped smiling for the duration of the journey back to Matoh’s father’s house.
Harold Spierling had seemed surprisingly alert and receptive considering he had been woken in the unsociably early hours of the morning by an unexpected and impromptu visit from his son and two strangers. Once Harold Spierling had set Adel and Naira up in ‘the boys’ rooms’ as he put it, with fresh sheets on the beds, he said good night and ushered Matoh downstairs to sleep on the sofa.
Naira knew tomorrow would be hell from the lack of sleep, but she accepted it gladly. She wouldn’t have traded tonight for anything in the world.
She finally fell asleep while wondering if she had just fallen in love. She hadn’t gone looking for it, and if she was honest, it was the last thing she needed while training to be a corsair, but as she fell asleep, all the logical reasons
in the world seemed laughable when compared to the spark she had felt with Matoh.
15 - Fathers
War was so ingrained within our very fibre that I could not alter it without introducing an incredible amount of uncertainty into future projections.
Thus, the keys were given an alternate purpose, one more akin to our darker nature and conducive to the collection of thousands of blood samples throughout the generations.
-Journal of Robert Mannford, Day 106 Year 19
Adel
Spierling Household, New Toeron, Bauffin
Adel woke before the rising sun, as she always had and panicked slightly at the unfamiliar surroundings. She was in a bed rather than her bunk at the Academy. She pushed herself up onto her elbows to look around. The quiet silvery light of a sky about to burst into colour from a waking sun filtered in through the small window at the far end of the room. A dresser sat beneath the window covered with books. A desk or workbench took up most of the length of a wall to the side of the bed and was littered with scraps of metal, lengths of cut wire, rivets, small cogs, cut lengths of wood, off-cuts of canvas and an assortment of tools and sketches. She saw one particular sketch, tacked onto the wall above the desk, of a meticulously labelled triangular winged glider. Measurements and sums were scrawled all over the paper.
Her uniform sat on the chair beside the bed. A small note sat on her folded clothes. “We’re at the Spierlings. We were out too late to get back, I’m in the room across from you. Matoh’s sleeping downstairs. Naira,” Adel read to herself and blinked away some sleep. Memories of their adventures last night trickled back to her, and she smiled. It had been fun.
Then she realised how much trouble they’d get back into if they weren’t there for morning exercises. Panic began to rise in her, and the stone bracelet on her wrist started to glow orange.
She went through one of the exercises Fellow Callahan had taught her, focusing on her heartbeat, feeling the flow of energy through her and entering the bracelet. Calm and slow, she focused on a beat slower than that of her heart, her mind filled with images of cool placid water, of a slow drip onto that reflective pool. She saw the ripples and slowed them in her mind as well. Her breathing slowed, and she opened her eyes. The bracelet’s glow dimmed, and the energy’s tingle running through her body lessened.
Fellow Callahan. Adel no longer knew what to think of him. She needed him and the training he was giving her. It was helping control the energy, helping to control the pain of it. And she was getting stronger too, her siphoning was now faster and sharper than it had ever been. Yet, he was a Quinnite, part of the same religious sect of Singers as her father. A father who had been training her since birth to be some sort of messiah, this Arbiter. And her mother … why hadn’t he told her?
So many secrets and all of them centred on who she was: descendent of Anastasia Quinn, the Dread Queen; only surviving heir to the Bauffish throne now occupied by the Mihanes, and chosen one of mysterious Quinnite order. It was all too much, too insane to believe, yet the more Adel tried to remember her childhood, the more it all began to click into place. They had lived on a ‘farm’, yet they never concerned themselves much with working the land. There were always strange visitors who infrequently came to talk to her father, who would then leave just as quickly as they came. All the training, every day, and the more she talked to her classmates, the more she realised just how different her life had been.
She was lost. She didn’t know who she really was any more. Up until a few weeks ago, she had thought she was just a farm girl with a father who was training her hard to get into the Academy.
She wished she could go back to those days, back to the simplicity. Training had been hard, but she had understood it. And deep down, she knew her father loved her. He had been severe but never cruel. And they had shared their moments, he would encourage her when she thought she could take no more, pat her on the shoulder when he was proud, comfort her when she was sad, laugh with her when she would surprise him and surpass even his expectations. She remembered him carrying her around when she was young, riding on his shoulders when she was too tired to walk any more during their hikes. There were not many moments of levity or warmth, but there had been some. He had never truly lost his temper with her, and he had never said a cruel word to her.
It was all a mess. She was a mess. Her memories were so tied up with emotion and confusion that she had no hope of making any sense of it.
It was then she heard a soft footstep below her somewhere. Matoh must be up as well. She sighed, taking a shuddering breath in, only then realising she had been crying.
The damned bracelet was glowing again.
She went through her breathing exercise, made it dim once again and threw the covers back. The sooner they got back to the Academy, the better, she might as well get going.
Adel dressed in the soft pre-morning light and stepped quietly into the hallway.
The house was silent. She had always felt like this moment before everyone woke was special, as if every part of it was joined in a calm stillness, waiting together for the sun to unfreeze the world and start it into motion once again.
She found the stairs down and made sure to step softly on thick wooden steps. She had always been proud of making it up or down a flight of stairs without so much as a creak.
Despite her stealth, a man was waiting for her at the table downstairs. There was a plate of eggs, sliced ham and a hunk of brown bread at the seat across from him. The man was not Matoh, and Adel sleepily remembered meeting his father last night.
“Morning,” he whispered into the stillness.
“Good morning, sir.” Adel stood waiting at the bottom of the stairs, soft light from the beginning of the sunrise filled the room through the large shop front windows, and Adel felt the warmth on her cheek.
“Please, sit.” Harold Spierling gestured to the seat across from him with the plate of food in front of it. “Do you drink tea? Or, I have some milk?”
“Milk would be excellent, thank you.” Adel sat and waited for Mr Spierling to sit again before touching her food.
He was studying her with squinted eyes. “I can see him in you. Leonard, I mean,” Mr Spierling said as he sat a tall glass filled with milk in front of her. “You move like him too. Like a cat ready to pounce.”
Adel stopped chewing and spoke before she remembered she had a mouth half full of food, “You knew my father?”
“I don’t know how many people knew your father, he walked his path alone for most of his life, but he was at Istol, same as I was.”
“My father was at Istol?” Adel asked, again reminded of how many secrets her father kept from her.
Harold Spierling narrowed his eyes at that. “Of course, he was. He was the Arbiter. Halom’s holy warrior on this earth according to the Singers. Though, when I talked to him, he wasn’t too concerned with righteousness. We were on the same boat, and he found me, said he wanted to ask me a question. I figured he wanted me to relay a message to Nat or something.”
“Nat?” Adel asked.
Mr Spierling laughed. “Yes, Nat. Or the Silver Lady, as everyone else called her.”
Of course, Adel thought. Nat for Natasha Spierling, the Silver Lady. It seemed odd to hear about the famous heroine referred to so familiarly.
“Anyway, Leonard wasn’t much for talking as far as I knew, at least not about anything other than scripture, so it surprised the heck out of me when he asked, ‘How do you do it?’
“‘Do what?’ I said. I was a bit surprised he was talking to me, you see. Everyone was sort of afraid of your father. He has an intensity that unsettles people.”
Adel nodded at that. She had seen the same reaction from people back in Blossom Bay when they went to market. People laughed nervously and seemed to break out into sweat around her father.
“Leave your child behind, knowing you might never see them again?” He asked me, but I was confused.” Mr Spierling gave a crooked smile. “I thought he was ha
ving a go at me for something, that he was judging me for leaving Wayran and Matoh behind and sending them to stay with the Kozlovs in Palisgrad. But then I saw the look in his eyes. He was haunted, talking about himself. So, I told him, “Because, sometimes you have to fight to make the world you leave behind a better place than the one you lived in.”
“‘Part of me agrees with that,” he said, “but another part wants to take her as far away from the world as I can and kill anyone who tries to find us.”
“I laughed at him then, the wrong move, of course, thought he was gonna kill me for a moment. “Of course you feel that,” I told him and then pointed to everyone on the boat. “We all do. That’s the point of all this. It’s not about righteousness, about honour, not for the High King, for this union, or even for what’s right. It’s about our kids, Leonard, protecting them.
“He seemed to accept that. Seemed a bit less haunted. We talked for a bit longer, he told me no one was meant to know about his daughter, and I told him I wouldn’t tell. Strange that he believed me, but he took me at my word. Though I suppose, a man like your father, he would have found out if I did tell and track me down.” Mr Spierling laughed. “Never thought of it like that before. Good thing I did keep my trap shut. Anyway, sounds like he did try to run away from the world after it was all said and done, but here you are, so he must have found at least a little faith in the rest of us.”
Adel didn’t know why, but she had a lump in her throat and found it hard to speak. “How much else do you know? About …” She didn’t know how to ask.
“Oh, I know. I was right there in the mix of it all. All the stuff about the Quinnites and there was that rumour about who your mother was. I like to think I have a better sense than most at being able to see how things are put together. It all seemed to add up in my mind, but I knew better than to tell anyone my theories. Nothing but trouble if I did.”
Adel felt her heart racing.
Mr Spierling was analysing her now, his sharp eyes uncovering all the secrets she thought she was hiding.
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