“It’s all sweat and muscle.” Mike gripped the edge of the table. “But I hear what you’re saying. They’re making an ‘us’ and a ‘them’. Maybe out of envy.”
“If it’s out of fear, that’ll be worse,” Niamh said.
Digger took a step back, deliberately dialing down his intimidating mien. “You’ve been staying away from town, Niamh.”
Fort Farm was on the outskirts of Apfall Hill.
Stella twisted her hands to clasp Niamh’s.
“Heck damn,” Mike swore. “Niamh, who’s been causing trouble?” He’d been solo parenting since his boys were young. His ex-wife had taken off when Jarod and Craig’s brother, Ryan, got cancer. Ryan had died a year later. Mike’s default setting was to protect.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Mike opened his mouth. Then clamped it shut when Stella began talking.
“Apfall Hill has changed,” she said softly, regretfully. “My old friends are gone. A couple of old enemies, frenemies as you girls call them, are hanging on. But in a choice between living here, surviving on memories, or going to somewhere safe where you all can build a better life, I’m going.”
“Dad?” Jarod prompted.
“Of course I’m going with you.”
Jarod hugged him. Craig thumped his shoulder. Digger gave him a nod of respect, while Niamh smiled.
It was Niamh’s smile that Mike seemed to get hung up on. His face reddened. He switched his gaze to Rory and me. “So?”
I shot up from my chair and created a group hug with him and Jarod. “Rory’s the one with answers.”
Digger chuckled. “As a newly married man, you should enjoy that attitude while it lasts.”
I poked my tongue out at him. But we needed the release of the subsequent laughter.
When we sat back around the table, our attention turned to planning the move.
“What can we bring with us?” Craig asked.
Rory had his arm loosely around my shoulders. “I’ll hold a portal open and arrange for people to help cart things, so you can bring anything you want. There will be employment for those who want it or you can arrange your own livelihoods, so keep that in mind.”
“You’re suggesting we bring the animals?” Digger asked.
“If you want a smallholding, yes. That is, a small farm on the town’s outskirts. You could raise enough for your needs.”
Mike leaned forward. “As humans, could we own property in Justice?”
“Yes. In the first place, I’d suggest leasing from the pack. We could reach an agreement for you to purchase at a later date.”
You built a new life step by step.
“How long do we have for the move?” Digger asked.
Rory looked at me. The people around the table mattered to him because they mattered to me. “Yana and Berre can stay here a couple of weeks if you need that time to come to terms with the change, emotionally. From a practical standpoint, I can have the contents of the house, barn and sheds transported tomorrow.”
Jarod and Niamh gasped. Mike rocked backwards.
Stella nodded slowly. “Long goodbyes are hardest.”
“Yes.”
Rory’s clipped response reminded me that he’d said goodbye to his family and pack of origin to join the Migration through the Rift to Earth. Beneath the table, I put a hand on his thigh.
“Stella?” Niamh said uncertainly.
Of us all, I think Stella was the bravest. She faced life unflinchingly. Uncompromisingly. On her terms. “If the apocalypse hadn’t happened, I’d have expected to leave the farm sometime soon, either to hospital or a nursing home. This is better. It won’t be easy.” Her gaze panned around the table, searching each of our faces, our souls. “We take what we can with us.”
Mike’s hands jerked.
Stella noticed. In fact, she seemed prepared for that reaction. “Part of us will feel guilty at our good fortune and want to leave things for the people who take over the farm. Someone will move in here. It has running water.” Thanks to the windmill that pumped water for the house and barn. “But it’s enough that Rory and Amy are offering us a new home. We don’t need to come as beggars dependent on charity. We take what we have.”
“We have food, tools, livestock.” Craig began the list.
Jarod continued it. “Furniture, clothes.”
“Books,” I said. “Musical instruments. Being able to entertain yourselves and others counts.”
Craig was the magician of the group. “Guitars. The piano hasn’t been tuned in years, but maybe…?”
Digger stuck with practicalities. He studied Mike. “Could we leave tomorrow?”
Everyone inhaled. Different lung capacities meant staggered sighs as their breaths whooshed out.
Finally, Mike answered. “We’ll do it.” He looked at Rory. “We appreciate Berre and Yana staying on watch.”
I had a thought. “What about the patrols?” Members of the informal town guard met at the barn for the northern patrol route.
“They’ve changed the station to next door, to Angus’s,” Jarod said, and to Mike. “That should have told you how weird the town’s gotten.”
Mike grunted. “I’m going out to the barn. I’ll sort through what we’ll take and leave.”
“The blacksmithing gear.” Craig nodded at Rory and me, and headed out after Mike.
“All the animals,” Jarod said. He stayed in the kitchen.
Rory stood. “Amy and I will return to Justice. You need to talk without us—me—listening. You have the mirror.” He nodded to where the silver hand mirror hung on the wall. It was a two-way communication device, linked to a matching mirror back at the magistrate hall. Istvan had enchanted it so that I could communicate with my family. “Any questions, concerns, decisions, someone’ll be monitoring the mirror. Probably Peggy, although Oscar will manage the logistics of your relocation.”
Oscar was a goblin, a former Elysium army quartermaster, the steward for the magistrate hall, and a member of Rory’s Hope Fang Pack. Our pack.
“If you need any help with recovering Amy’s dad, or with the militia, we’re here,” Digger said.
Jarod added a loud, “Absolutely”.
I tried to smile my thanks, but my mouth wobbled and I ended up pressing my lips into a thin line of control. I’d just uprooted their lives, and they were worrying about me.
Stella patted my arm. “We’ll join you tomorrow. Meet your father.” She patted Rory’s arm. “Take her home, now.”
He swept me out the door without further discussion.
I inhaled the cold air with its hint of wood smoke.
Yana and Berre waited on the driveway where they had a view of the house and barn. When we joined them we were far enough away from the house to talk privately.
I paid little attention to Rory updating our packmates on events; namely that my family would be joining us in Justice. I was suffering emotional overload. I barely managed a smile for Yana and Berre’s enthusiastic approval of the decision. I clung to Rory, borrowing his strength.
He smoothed a hand down my back. “We’re going home, now, heart of mine.” He opened a portal back to Justice.
I hadn’t expected people to be waiting for us. By the jolt that ran through him, nor had Rory. He tugged me forward. As we entered the yard at the magistrate hall, the one between the kitchen and the guard quarters, people crowded forward.
“Well?” Peggy reached us first since everyone automatically gave way to the head cook.
“They’re coming,” I said.
Rather more coherently, Rory expanded on my answer. “Amy’s family will join her and make their home in Justice. They’ll arrive tomorrow. They’ll be bringing with them most of their belongings, both from the house and their farm. Oscar, if you could arrange for transportation? I’ll open a portal at seven tomorrow morning.”
“They’re going to farm?” a dozen voices asked. “Where?”
“The pack can take on more land,” Rory began.
Tineke interrupted. The elf wasn’t pack, but she was a friend. We’d met at the human familiar trials and she’d always been sympathetic to humans. As a member of the Reclamation Team—the Faerene responsible for breaking down and returning technology and other materials to the earth—she felt a terrible guilt for her role in breaking down humanity’s twenty first century global society, and the death of most of us. She was dealing with those emotional scars and others that I didn’t know about, but which seemed to be the barrier to her relationship with Lajos progressing as he obviously wished it would.
He stood beside her.
I counted him a friend, but knew that he’d sacrifice me in a heartbeat if I somehow threatened Tineke. That was fair. I’d do the same if he posed a threat to Rory.
“Amy’s family can lease my land,” Tineke said. “They won’t fit in my house.” Her home was a two room cottage.
“I can raise my house next door,” Lajos said.
Tineke gawped at him. “You said you weren’t…you’re living in a tent!”
“I don’t have a family to fill a house, to make it a home,” Lajos responded, quietly. “A tent doesn’t reveal that lack so echoingly.” He turned to me. “I could commit the resources to raising a house if your family were interested.”
Given how the Faerene rationed magic this early in their Migration, his admission meant that he’d played a significant role in battling the Kstvm and sealing the Rift. Rory had raised the Hope Fang Pack House via magic having been allocated a substantial amount of magic for his actions as a leading warrior in the battle.
“It would be an ideal solution.” It placed my family at the edge of town on Justice’s west bank, but kept them as part of the community. “If you’re both sure?” I looked between the two elves.
Lajos had used his land to plant a herb garden. Tineke had merely fenced hers preparatory to acquiring animals in the spring. Although the rules of founding a new town like Justice meant that land claimed (and houses raised) had to be utilized immediately, some leeway was given to Reclamation Team members. It was both an issue of fairness—Reclamation Team members shouldn’t be penalized from getting a start on Earth because of their work for the good of all—and a kindness that recognized and respected the emotional impact of their duty.
“I’m sure,” Tineke said.
Lajos nodded.
“We’ll discuss the matter with Amy’s family now,” Rory said. “Mirror communications. If you were to raise the house soon, I could open tomorrow’s portal directly to it.”
“I can help with the raising.” Tineke accompanied us into the kitchen, and sat down at the table as Rory grabbed the silver mirror hanging near the counter.
Everyone would have followed us, but Oscar intercepted them to organize tomorrow’s relocation.
Peggy poured hot water into a massive teapot and swished it around. One of her assistants put a cookie jar on the table.
I sat beside Tineke. “Is there anything I can help with for the house raising? Do you need supplies?” I wouldn’t know how to obtain them, but Oscar would.
Tineke snagged a hazelnut cookie. “I have access to resources, especially if Lajos is willing to have a timber house?”
“I am, and I have resources of my own.”
“Jarod?” While we ate cookies and waited for the tea to brew, Rory activated the mirror and outlined Tineke and Lajos’s joint offer of leased farmland and new home.
“Yes.” Digger claimed the mirror from Jarod. “We could wait and ask everyone, check with Mike, but you wouldn’t put the offer to us if you didn’t think it best for our family.”
Rory smiled. Our family.
“Thank you to Tineke and Lajos. We will look after your home and land. One moment! Stella has some housekeeping questions.”
While Digger handed their mirror to Stella, Rory hastily passed ours to Peggy. “You can coordinate things with Oscar.”
“Curtains,” Stella said through the mirror. “Should we bring ours?”
“Uh, no tea for us.” Lajos tugged at Tineke’s jacket sleeve. “Let’s go. I want to decide on house plans.”
She followed his apprehensive gaze to its wary focus on Peggy and the older middle-aged goblin’s excited domestic chatter with Stella. Given that goblins lived a human lifespan, while elves as well as werewolves, dragons, griffins and unicorns could live for centuries, Tineke and Lajos were likely older than Peggy, but they accorded her the respect due to a senior. In this case, that meant they went in fear of her roping them into a discussion on household management.
They slid away, escaping the kitchen.
Rory grabbed my hand and led me out, too.
Peggy rolled her eyes at our shenanigans. She let us go, though, which should have alerted us to the fact that others waited to pounce.
Radka stood squarely in our path. The nymph was half Rory’s size, but easily equaled him in attitude. She’d recovered, at least outwardly, from her ex-boyfriend’s role in a criminal plot to drain Earth’s magic, and that of human mages in particular, under the misguided belief that a few elect Faerene could transcend via an overload of magic.
According to Shardists (that is, followers of the Reunionist faith), via transcendence a person became akin to an angel and could travel between worlds, passing through healthy shields without need for a rift. For their perversion of that belief, Radka’s ex-partner, Hemlock, and the Shardist chaplain of Faerene Atlanta, Dux Cyril, had been soul marked by the Hearts Tribunal on Elysium. It was an extreme sort of shunning. No one would be able to approach or communicate with them, not even each other. But they weren’t dead. They had a chance to work out their salvation, alone.
Radka had embarked on the Migration with Hemlock. They may have fallen out of love since, but his fate, and what he’d done to deserve it, hurt her. It made her doubt her own judgement that she had loved him. Yet in her courage, Radka had truly wished Rory and I well at our wedding, yesterday.
“Istvan’s not here,” Radka said. “Piros took him hunting.” Which, given that Piros was a dragon and Istvan a griffin, meant they were flying. Flying was an efficient method of traveling vast distances, especially when you added their magical abilities and the fact that translocation was possible during flight. They could be anywhere, doing anything.
I raised an eyebrow at Rory, surprised that Istvan wasn’t here entertaining—or at least, listening grumpily to—the lingering wedding guests while waiting for news from Rory and me, and from Nils. Once the wedding guests departed, Istvan would return to Atlanta and the court circuit. Justice, especially magic-related justice, had to be upheld.
Istvan believed in the profound importance of establishing the foundations for a strong magical system in the early years of the Migration, and he was deeply committed to doing his part as one of the Faerene’s strongest magicians.
I might have silently questioned Rory with a raised eyebrow as to Istvan’s absence, but it was Radka who answered my curiosity.
“Mayor Bataar and Sabinka,” the deputy mayor for Justice, “called an impromptu town meeting. Istvan decided his presence might be perceived as distorting the meeting’s outcome. Hunting was Piros’s suggestion. I suspect that Piros has more than one issue that he wishes to discuss with Istvan privately.”
Given Piros’s position on the Faerene Council, any issues the dragon raised were likely substantive.
Would any of them relate to me? I rubbed at my right shoulder. My problems with the militia, my dad’s hostage status, and my adopted family’s relocation were huge to me, but probably not overly important in the grand scheme of things.
Denial was more than a river in Egypt…one that now had sphinxes living on its banks.
“It’s a closed meeting,” Radka said. “Justice citizens only. Bataar forbid non-resident gawkers.”
I propped a shoulder wearily against the stone wall of the corridor. “Does everyone know about my father’s letter and the postscript added as a threat?”
“
The warning to ‘Be ready’?” Radka tugged at her cuffs. “Yes. We all take it as a threat.” She hesitated for a second. “We can’t think of any means by which humans could offer a real threat to us. The difficulty, which some are seeing as an opportunity, is the timing of the militia’s action in passing on the letter with that ‘Be ready’ postscript. Bataar was negotiating with General Dabiri when the threat was issued. It was issued by implication rather than outright offence, but implication is sufficient to justify hostile negotiation liberties.”
Rory’s weight shifted to the balls of his feet, into an attack stance. While Radka’s words meant little to me, they had a profound effect on him. The two Faerene stared at one another.
“Amy is a citizen of Justice.” Radka was shorter than me, and delicate as nymphs tended to be. Yet she unflinchingly faced the dominance rolling off Rory. She was Istvan’s head clerk for her professional skills, but also because of her courage.
She reached forward and squeezed his wrist. It helped her confidence that she trusted him and recognized that his reaction wasn’t directed at her. He wasn’t the type to shoot the messenger. She released his wrist and explained the legal complexities of the affair to me. “A threat against you by a representative of a group involved in negotiations with the town means that in legal terms the town is threatened. You’re a citizen of Justice. In the first century of a migration, the law is clear. We can’t afford to fight among ourselves. So contracts must be upheld, including the implicit one of fair dealing during negotiations.”
“Which includes no threats,” I concluded, grasping the obvious. “Rory, why is this so upsetting?”
“Because those morons, the militia—”
“Who don’t understand Faerene law or custom,” Radka interjected.
Rory wrapped an arm around my waist. It didn’t feel lover-like. It felt as if I was grounding him. I existed as a living reminder for him to keep his temper. The militia’s threat against me had his newly mated protective instincts on edge.
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