by Kim Wedlock
"Be quick," he said, already moving back towards the trees and waving Aria after him, "got it." They disappeared, leaving the two exchanging confused looks behind them.
"Do you have any ideas?" Aria asked as they made for the edges of the refugee camp. "Because I think she might be a bit old for fairy tales."
"She doesn't want to read 'cityfolk books', which I think means anything that would reinforce her already poor opinion of us."
"We're not all that bad," Aria protested, somewhat hurt.
"No, we're not, but greed and hate aren't accepted as easily in her culture as in ours. As far as I can tell, the tribes' current conflicts are unusual. So best to play on the safe side and not to get her anything that normalises that kind of thing, which only leaves us with fairy tales."
"But there's hate and greed in fairy tales - my daddy always pointed it out and told me never, ever, ever to do it."
"Yes, but fairy tales aren't as...murky as other types of stories. Greed and hate are never condoned or accepted as a normal detail of life."
"I don't think her people have never felt greed. They must have. Someone had a bigger share of dinner than another, and they wanted to even it out, at least. That's normal, isn't it?"
"Yes, but that's not the kind of greed we're talking about. We're talking about the kind of greed that pits people against one another, family against family, all for the sake of personal gain."
"I see..."
"I hope you do. Now come here." She giggled as he lifted her up onto his shoulders, and he pointed as they walked towards the striking array of fiery flags billowing over the old walls, and away from the tree on the other side of the road and the body swinging from it.
The narrow alleys did little to calm the race of Rathen's heart, but at least there were fewer eyes, and on such a bright day, the shadows were even darker.
There were probably fewer people gathered than it seemed, but every settlement across the country and likely beyond would be bustling and spirited for the next two weeks, growing steadily more boisterous as each day passed. Midsummer, he'd learned as he walked around, was twelve days away, and celebrations of the sun, life and fertility would be at their peak on the First of August, complete with dawn prayer, midnight fire dancers and all the sanguine experiences that followed. It was, in short, an exhausting occasion, and one that seemed to start sooner and last longer every year. But it was a spectacle all the same, and he usually entertained Aria with a few fire spells and his own attempts at the seasonal flaming tarts - though he never could manage it without burning the whole thing to a cinder, so he amazed her with the wonderful cheat of magic instead.
But even if the crowds were but a shadow of what they would become, they were still much too great for Rathen's nerves. How dearly he missed the Wildlands. He'd managed to make it a whole month without stepping foot in a village, town or city. 'And the last time I did,' the thought rose undesired, 'the Arana almost had us.'
But he had a job to do, and he decided it would be easier, quicker and much more distracting if he just got on with it.
He extended his mind and searched for magic. It wasn't hard to find; a few masses of elven spells conjoined with the Order's repairs, in which there was nothing unusual or out of place at all. And so he knew he could discount them. Either Salus's spell would stink only half as much of arrogance as the elven spells, or its construction would be clumsy and uneducated, elven tutors or not. Magic wasn't something that could be learned in a month - nor, in fact, a year. Not if it was to last.
He wandered from alley to alley, taking backstreets and empty roads as he searched with his mind's eye until, at last, something began to take shape.
It fit in far too snugly - a testament, he supposed, to Salus's teachers - but it wasn't perfect. It was clumsy, and it did have a strange pseudo-elven arrogance to it, but it was also simple enough to function - and simple enough to read.
The closer he could get to it, the better.
He followed it like a bloodhound. He knew he was drawing nearer when its chains became more tangible, and he began to make out the commands, ignoring as he passed all other spells that hung like a smog around the town. He shifted around corners, detoured around busier streets, but it seemed to be leading, ultimately, to the town centre. That didn't really surprise him, he supposed - where better to survey all around than from the very middle?
He stopped at the edge of the square, hidden in another shaded lane. He didn't need its exact location, he was close enough to get everything he needed.
Once he'd made certain that he was out of sight and out of reach, a part of the very shadow itself, he focused in on the spell once again and began the tedious business of picking it apart.
He'd been at it for only two minutes when the sudden sensation of magic engaging tugged at his senses from the far side of the square.
Rathen spun just in time to see a plume of fire erupt into the air.
Blood thundered in his ears, and he swallowed his heart back down before it could leap from his mouth. The concentrated silence in his mind reverberated with a single grievous understanding.
"No..." He watched the plum with wide eyes as a scream shattered the merriment. Then another plume burst into existence, followed immediately by yet more screams. Then another. Then came a cry that froze him to his core. 'Mages! Mage attack! Run!'
In that moment, Bowden's square had transformed. Where people had only seconds ago been enjoying music on keyed harps and wheel fiddles and the ridiculous yet remarkable performances of fire-eaters and -breathers, they now scrambled, wailed and careened all around. The square had set itself alight in frenzy, and the festival banners themselves appeared like a suspended inferno.
Horses screamed and squealed in the chaos, startled and stampeding, dragging their carts or pulling them over; people fled in all directions, knocking over things, stalls and one another as they raced over the stones made slippery with spilled and trampled stock.
A fire-eater's flame was lost from her hand as she tried to save a young boy from the path of a terrified horse, and so another fire began to grow, and much without the aid of magic. It spread rapidly, torching the wooden stalls, their fruit, cloth, spices and toys, and among it all rose an acrid, toxic stench as things that should not have been burned were consumed the quickest.
And then came the mages. Three figures from the north, two from the west, and two more from the south-east, their faces twisted in foul enjoyment, all weaving their fingers into signs of destruction - designed, he could see, not to injure a living soul, but to strike terror instead, to burn homes and businesses and leave innocent people with nothing. Nothing, but an equally burning hatred.
He felt that terrible primordial force rising from deep within his being, and knew immediately that this was not born of helplessness. It was born of rage. Just as it had been four days ago in the presence of Anthis's insults.
His fury rose further at the thought of losing control of himself and escalating the carnage to bloodshed, so he squashed and stamped it back down with all his might. Whether it was 'gifted' as a means of deterring or ending violence, or as a means of causing it, he didn't care. That beast could not surface.
He snuffed it out as easily as he had the last time.
Rathen shrank back into the shadow as mages drew close, but they neither saw nor sensed him. Of course they didn't. Even had they not been so focused on their onslaught, they were too used to the presence of magic and the sensations of other mages casting their spells. He could have been a talentless beggar as far as they were concerned.
But...he could feel their magic. He could feel their power. And he outmatched them.
He could stop them.
His hands rose, his fingers began to twist, but before his spell could take shape, they were gripped and stilled by another pair of hands.
His eyes jerked up into Garon's and he read the overwhelming force of their reprimand. And he knew, in the same twisted way that stopped him from s
aving that poor tan-skinned Ivaean, that he couldn't help them.
'We're not heroes, little one.'
No. They weren't heroes at all.
Reluctantly, but obediently, he followed Garon back down the lane, away from the square, and out through the gates to vanish with the rest of the city amongst the panicked refugees. And rather than rage over the foolishness of these hot-headed young mages, he found himself fretting silently instead over the most recent bout with his affliction. The transformations suddenly seemed much easier to suppress - but they also seemed to have become equally as reactive.
And what he could have done with it, single-handedly among that catastrophe...it didn't bear thinking about.
Like many others, they fled Bowden without a backward glance. It wasn't until they'd crested the eastern dell that they spared a moment to look, but the terrible majesty of fire and lightning crackling and flaring well above the defining walls, and illuminating the rising smoke like a bleak theatre curtain, only made them feel sick with hopelessness. Knowing that the general opinion of mages being to blame for the roving magic had driven a handful to act out like this struck Rathen and Petra the hardest.
But while Petra took it on as personal motivation, it only added to Rathen's distress, and his recent conversation with Aria began repeating itself even louder in his head.
It wasn't difficult for the others to notice how shaken he was. He was quiet and withdrawn, he offered no input on Garon's brief account of occurrences, he shared nothing of what he'd learned in Bowden, if anything at all, he didn't seem to notice Aria's slip of the tongue that revealed her own presence in the city, and when they finally came to a stop for the night he absorbed himself eagerly in his notebook despite it being a frequent source of exasperation. But no one wished to interrupt him or his brooding cloud of distraction, for it was clear he preferred its company.
After they'd eaten the fresh cheese, boar and bread - Rathen seemed to have forgotten about his own in what appeared now to be genuine concentration - they each went about the same post-supper ritual of patrol, meditate, watch and read.
But this time, Garon found himself distracted.
Perhaps it was the meeting with Taric. He'd not seen his colleague since the White Hammer had granted him permission to tackle this issue, which had turned out to be far more serious than their commander had presumed after all. But the encounter seemed to spirit him back to simpler times, and for that he found his mind wandering and his patrol less than effective.
When he spotted Petra up ahead, climbing nimbly onto a rock with the aid of a tree branch to peer deeper into a ravine without risking exposure at its edge, his feet came to an involuntary stop. She must have heard the slightest scuff of his boot.
She whipped around sharply, first with readiness, then with disappointment, and the vague and fleeting pang that came from that increasingly common look lingered with him a moment longer than usual. He realised that it was his own strange kind of disappointment.
It bit a little deeper as she looked back along the length of the ravine indifferently. "Yes?"
"Nothing," he replied quickly.
"Good. Keep walking, then." She looked up again when he failed to do so, but the cutting edge of her eyes convinced him.
He sighed to himself and continued his patrol, and this time a small and ridiculous voice rose from the depths of his being. It was a voice he'd not heard in years, and yet it had somehow retained the same power to bait him. "Your hair," he said, surprising himself as he surprised her, and she whipped around in startlement again. His pride reasserted itself, quickly hiding away his own perplexity. "It's faded. The colour."
Her brows drew together slowly, and she glanced at the lengths of copper that fell over her shoulders. She turned him a strange look. "So? It stands out too much. It's better this way."
"I suppose you're right."
"Mm." She stepped down from the rock and turned to resume her course.
"Petra, wait." He ignored her bristling impatience as she turned back around. "I've been...unfair to you. I apologise - I didn't intend any hostility."
Her eyebrows, high just a moment ago, dropped into a deep knot, and her lips curled into a bitter smile as she folded her arms in her decision to entertain him. "Yes you did. You're smarter than that. ...What is this, anyway? I finally back off and keep my distance from you, and now you're seeking me out? Why? So I might drop my guard and make myself a target again?"
"No," he replied earnestly, "not at all."
"What, then? Or does it just suit you now? You witnessed something in that city and now you need comfort?"
"No, it--"
She laughed sorely. "Actually, I don't care. You won't find it from me. I've tried to be the better person, but I'm physically tired of it. I'm not playing any more. So go and bother Eyila if you want someone else to crush. I'm sure she'll put up as good a fight as I have - you should get endless entertainment."
"Petra, will you stop it?"
"Sure. The moment you leave me alone."
He stood there for a helpless moment, racking his brain for the best thing to say or do to calm her down, the best way to persuade her to accept his apology - to force her to, if he had to - but her cold, scornful hazel eyes stalled and obliterated his every thought until, finally, he simply walked on past her with a frown of defeated confusion.
Anthis watched from a distance with pity - though he wasn't quite sure who he felt more sorry for. But before he could decide, a terrifying idea was already weaving itself together in his mind. Watching Garon's beating should have shut it down immediately, but instead the inquisitor's sheer incompetence only spurred it on, and he found himself arriving at a simple conclusion that he decided not to delve beneath the surface of. In short, he could also be brave, and as he found himself quite averse to being compared to Garon, he decided he could also be more successful.
Clutching his papers tightly, he turned away from the bags and headed off into the trees, his pace quickened either by excitement or dread. It didn't take him long to find Eyila; he spotted her distinctive form up in the sprawling boughs of a hornbeam. Despite leaving the Wildlands, she seemed to have developed a habit of seeking her refuge in trees rather than upon rocks whenever she had the chance. Perhaps she was growing fond of the forests, at last, or perhaps the wind really had just been stronger up in the canopy over these past four evenings. He wasn't exactly in a position to know.
Seeing her now, though, her torso bare, her hides and cloak draped over the branch beside her, his previous resolve quite suddenly evaporated.
He stood staring up with reddened cheeks at her dimly silhouetted back for a long, doubtful moment. He couldn't see if she was crying. Perhaps she really was just meditating, in which case he really shouldn't intrude. He wasn't sure how much her faith played a role in it, or whether it was her own personal way of winding down, like Petra and her whetstones or Aria and her climbing. He couldn't presume it was more or less of either, but it was important enough to her to maintain the habit. He had no right at all to interfere.
He sighed quietly and turned away, moving off silently back through the woods.
Then turned around and came right back, clamped his papers in his mouth, and began climbing the tree.
Eyila flinched above him, and she sniffed and fidgeted and threw on her cloak, hurrying to compose herself as he pulled himself up and sat wordlessly on the branch beside her. She smiled at him. It was the least convincing smile he'd ever seen. But he returned it all the same, and looked off ahead into the night. They sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Y'know," he said at last, startling her, "something's been bothering me." He turned and met her quizzical expression with one of suspicion. "You seem to know an awful lot about your gods. All the ins and outs - more than any normal worshipper or devout reasonably should."
"Among my people, everyone is involved," she explained rather readily, and his eyes narrowed ever so slightly further.
"No, no i
t's more than that...you're almost consumed." An uncertain look flickered across her face, but it leaned in an instant towards offence. He realised his mistake. "I mean dedicated," he amended quickly, "very dedicated. And the wind seems to...actually...respond to you."
"Nonsense." Again it was too quick.
He turned in his spot and regarded her with increasing speculation. "You saved us in the desert through prayer. Rathen felt no magic - he said so. None at all. And you've done it since. And blessed the harpies in the same sort of way the priestess did to us in your village." He saw a wash of heartache dull the stubborn denial in her eyes and regretted the mention immediately. But he pressed on anyway. "Wind magic, too, without any signs. Even Kienza seems to know something - she said...sss...saya'a...lo toa... The harpy matriarch said the same thing."
She smiled at him curiously. "You remembered that?"
"I'm an academic," he shrugged. "I know how to mentally file things. What does it mean? If you don't mind."
"It...I wouldn't know how to translate it. It's a phrase of reverence. To a priestess."
"A priestess?" Then it all clicked elegantly into place. His eyebrows rose and inferiority began railing ferociously at his confidence. "I see..."
Dejection dulled her sigh as she cast her eyes back out through the crooked tree trunks. Anthis knew in that moment that the walls he'd never noticed were about to come down, so he turned her his full attention. "It was all I ever wanted," she said after a moment, almost to herself. "To dedicate myself to Aya'u - I was so sure I'd been born for it. I studied and trained with the other girls for five years, and it all came so naturally. I progressed quicker than any of them - people said I had the heart of a priestess, some that I was destined to succeed the Sayaah, our head priestess. But I was only an acolyte at that point, I had to gain attunement with the wind first; only once I could hear every word and warning that glided upon it could I finally take my oaths and become a true Priestess of Aya'u. I could decipher the coming of the most dangerous sandstorms, detect the strength of the turning seasons, encourage the winds if they are needed...guide the spirits onto the Winds..." She paused wistfully; Anthis waited. But when she spoke again her musical voice had a cutting edge. "But then my magic rose and ruined everything."
