by Kalyn Crowe
Between one thumb and index finger's talons, she surgically pinched the charm and held it out.
I cupped my hands.
She dropped it into them and folded her hands on the outcrop. "You are who emptied this, and I am whom you called Thirteen." She bowed her head, closed her eyes, and covered her heart. "Highest Lady Tempest."
Kepi puffed out her chest and cooed.
Thirteen extended her neck and looked behind us. "Lady Matilda?"
Tilly ran up and warbled. She flapped her wings as she continued with a rhythm of noises.
Thirteen tapped her lips and nodded. "Your true name is unknown to me if one was yours to lose."
This news made her wilt.
Thirteen lifted one long finger. "Yet, who you are is known to four. One who lives into this day."
Tilly pecked the ground and sent a chip of stone flying.
"Hope remains as one more who has not lived remembers all the same." Thirteen peered at Leyla and bowed her head. "Two others who are no more."
I said, "Thirteen, I need to know who the one is you speak of, the fourth person."
She fixed her huge gold eyes back on me. Her pupils set apart only by their increased brightness. "Lady Matilda knows."
She flapped her wings.
"Have you not asked her?" Thirteen tilted her head.
"No." My shoulders sank. "The charm focused on her after showing the path here, but I thought it meant to bring her."
Thirteen bobbed her head. "Yes, yes, of course, Lady Matilda's voice is not for all to understand. Mother could not risk more detail in case someone else opened the past."
I sighed.
"Do you know of the others I spoke of?"
"Who knows who Tilly is?"
She smiled and tilted her head the other way.
"Philomena, and the Voclains."
"Those are only names."
I sat on the outcrop. My feet tired, my mind not much better off. "I couldn't know them. I wasn't alive then."
Thirteen's shoulders lowered. "At least you found me. May I be introduced to your friend and greet the other before we begin?"
Tilly and I exchanged a glance. She pushed at my hand with her beak.
I said, "Sorry, of course."
They still stood by the tree with a puzzled expression each.
Rhys came forward first, and Leyla followed.
He sat beside me cross-legged and bowed his head. "I'm Rhys Fortier, templar apprentice, or maybe not anymore."
Thirteen appeared to sniff him. "Such uncertainty shows much wisdom."
He raised his head and beamed.
Leyla stood still with her scroll in her hands.
"Daughter of the designers." Thirteen bowed to her.
She dipped her head in turn but said nothing.
"Thirteen," I said, "Is this where the Counterbalance is?"
"One is not home if they are on the doorstep."
Rhys chuckled.
She said, "You will know all in short moments."
"I'm sorry, you've been alone so long, I don't mean to sound in a rush. It's just we have friends in danger in Pinnacle."
"Such is its way." She settled in her water like a comfy chair. "Let it not go unsaid; the din of the Tempest is why we all live through this danger."
Kepi cooed.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"She disguises and reveals. Would you have the charm without the Tempest?"
"No. I didn't understand it until recently, and Kepi kept her promise not to guide me here."
She dipped her head up and down like a bird and smiled. "You found me. The charm is empty now." She sounded excited. "Mother bayed her to let you find your way, such as you would need the skill of retrieval to finish what began."
"You checked the charm, with Form, below the water, didn't you?" I said.
"This is so."
"You have an Attunement, it should make you more, well, findable, but that hasn't happened. Can I ask how that's possible?"
"Yes." She waited.
I grinned. "How is that possible?"
"As I said, the Tempest's gust." She closed her eyes. "Mother hid her powers in me. This truth was known only to her. Born from a plan of years." Then she opened them. "To keep me safe."
"Do you mean how Kepi hides Anima traces? Her null zone?"
"Yes, but we must understand, to hide away, one must have a spot, would you say?"
I pushed my hair behind my ear. "I would." At least I thought.
"A wind must come from somewhere. Hers is from the nothing which is all around." She pursed her lips as if she tried to contain a giggle.
Only one place held nothing and everything. "Phase?"
"It is."
"So, you have her concealment, but you can use it to move?"
"To return. It is Tempest's way to use Phase. Phase permeates all things. Connections with holes and voids that affect this world in the ways of winds and blurs."
"Another Anima?"
"No. In this case, a primal version of Apex. She can draw Anima and space to her and use the side effects of the shift." She waved her hand through the air. "The air must get out of the way, but not destroyed. You see?"
Kepi looked proud, not of herself, but Thirteen.
I said, "Isn't all movement associated with Conduction?"
Thirteen hummed. "Yes, but is Conduction not above and in the rising direction, or 'east' as you call it, of Apex, just as Form is also above but the west on the Anima's wheel?"
"You're saying this 'primal Apex' is all three?"
"I am." She held three fingers upward. "Three above." She held a mirrored three fingers under the first set. "Three below."
It looked familiar. "The world tree. It's a metaphor for the Planes."
"One of more accuracy than believed. Yes."
Rhys held his mouth open a little and took in everything. "I thought that was a child's story, but the pictures always show three branches off a trunk with three shoots of roots."
"This is true, Maybe Apprentice Friend. The roots and branches together, all touch."
I said, "That's why there are only three Planes."
"In part, yes. We are in the trunk. The meeting place. The Natural as you call it. All bound by the water of Phase."
"So wait." I unbuttoned my coat and sat crossed legged. "Kepi can cause movement through Conduction and change Form?"
"By way of imbuement and connection of Phase. Yes, little Sister is very quick." She closed her eyes with a smile. "You do not possess her power as I do, but instead enjoy High Lady Tempest's company."
I held my forehead as the wind swept through my hair. I looked up at Thirteen. "I'm sorry you've been alone."
"What was needed was done." She held an even, pleasant expression free of resentment.
It didn't keep the claws of guilt from their deep lunge.
She sang out a sigh. "You are my reverse, my balance. We are both a child and a mother. Never alone, and always."
"What do you mean? Isn't our mother, well, our mother? She made our bodies."
"To understand, first, you must know that I can cast many Anima."
"You have multiple Attunements?"
"I am built of the dead. Five souls and their blood, bound in the bodies from the Rings and Terraces."
Like the types of blood in my dream. "Your body is of both an Abyssite and an Apexial and the Attunements and blood of five different invokers?"
"She just said as much." Rhys looked over and then back to Thirteen. "It's why you're never alone, but always, right?"
She dipped her head.
I said, "You seem to think with one mind, though."
"I have their Attunements, but not their memories and emotions." She gazed at the sky. "All of me is bound together by forgotten genius, old and new."
Rhys fidgeted.
Thirteen said, "Ask your question."
"Well, for your souls, and the others, where did they come from?"
Sh
e widened her big golden eyes. "When 'eleven' and 'twelve' were only numbers and not yet names, Lady and Lord Voclain collected and stored my souls. Lady Tilly went both missing and found at this time."
I swallowed. "The Voclains couldn't have killed invokers for you. Did they collect souls as people died and assembled them in a disk?"
Thirteen nodded quickly. "Sister either remembers or is a good thinker." She arched one brow exceptionally high.
"I'm only piecing together everything now." I picked a dead leaf from my jacket.
Rhys said, "How was Tilly lost and found?"
Thirteen pursed her lips and turned her attention deep below the surface of the lake. She frowned and looked back. "Lady Tilly died."
Rhys and I exchanged confused glances. I said, "In Abyss? Is she Conrad's wife?"
Thirteen pulled her head backward and deepened her frown. "No, no. You do not remember truly? What does Sister know of the soul and the origin for herself?"
"I." I thought about the journal, how I was empty, but no longer. "Did you put my soul in me?"
"I placed part of it, yes. Like my souls, all but the memories, and what emotions I could separate." Her expression darkened. "A strange day." She shut her eyes tight. "A sad day."
Tilly jumped a little and then lowered her head.
Kepi sighed.
It hit me like an echo but louder over time. I gulped as the world grew dull, almost colorless. "I can Weave. No." I stood, and the world spun.
Tilly came to my side before I knew it. Once again, she steadied me.
"It can't be," I said. The pleats of my jacket blew in the breeze. It was my jacket.
Kepi cooed, soft, remorseful.
Thirteen wiped her eyes and looked toward the forest, to Pinnacle. "Mother asked. She said the templars came for her."
How could she have known?
Thirteen looked off to the side. "The baby with still eyes was the only way."
I blinked up at her. "Baby? Me?"
"Your body. The fourteenth. The little living vessel created not for you, but your shell it is now. I used a great shard of Mother's soul to fill it, and so you became." She sniffed. "Sister has built upon the shard with her thoughts and feelings. With new memories."
Leyla opened her scroll. "How did you put part of Philomena in Mere's body?"
"As your parents created any of the Chimeras, they bound the chicken spirits to the others." Her slender hands balled into fists. "I would have died to defend Mother, but it was not her wish."
Leyla grew tense. "Why not all of her soul, her knowledge and memories?"
"Too dangerous to remember then, Cousin."
She looked taken aback by what Thirteen called her.
Thirteen folded her arms around themselves and grabbed at her elbows.
A familiar nervous tick.
She sighed with resignation. "Do not be angry. I swear she asked I kill her and place her ability in you. Then that I save her memories, so, in this way, she might finish her work when ready."
My heart thrashed in my chest. Not with speed or strain, but more with ache and confusion. Both a sister and a mother. She gave me my soul — the same one who dreamed up how to create the Chimeras. The one Kepi came to when she opened the way.
"Mother said I would be safe here, as only the High Lady Tempest held its location. In turn, I must make sure only Sister and friends are allowed here." A blue tear streaked down her cheek. "She worried over me greatly, and over the other children. I loved her. I argued. I," she covered her face, "I killed those people."
I suppose her shape didn't change who she was — a girl lost in this world — my haunted twin.
"I miss her so." She looked up to the sky. "It is as if it happened so near, but it is so far away."
I reached out to her. "So long ago?"
"It is the same." She scooped me from the stone in a fine-scaled embrace.
It was me. I asked Thirteen to kill those people to bear the guilt I shed in my death. "I'm sorry, so very sorry."
Rhys stood by Tilly and gazed up at Thirteen. "It might not mean much, but you didn't ask the templars to come. More important, I think I understand why Philomena did what she did. The same for you."
"You do?" she said.
"Sure. I would rather someone I cared about kills me than to rot away under the brand of heresy or anything else."
She gulped. "Your words are unduly kind. The dead templars cannot say the same, but witnesses would have led to ruin. The world must believe Meredith is Philomena's daughter, or all would be for naught."
He nodded at her. "Sometimes, there isn't the right thing to do."
We spent a few moments in silence. I understood now why Thirteen said I didn't know who I was. To think Philomena lived on in part but didn't at the same time. How would I reconcile such a reality?
The journal said she hoped I would forgive her, forgive myself for what I have done.
Rhys cleared his throat and said, "Thirteen, how did you get in the house that night, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Smaller, only a child myself then. I was about the size of a normal Abyssite, tiny compared to now." She smiled a little. "Thank you for the silly question, Almost Templar."
Another story played out on Leyla's expression. Her beautiful features tightened, and she searched with unfocused eyes.
"Leyla?" I whispered.
"So, what you saw, with my parents, it was real," she said.
The icy grip of guilt welled in my throat. "I suppose so. I'm sorry, I."
Thirteen set me down.
Leyla held up her hand. "It wasn't you even if you have her powers. Why would she kill them?"
Thirteen said, "Why did Mother not free them?"
"Yes." The gold letters showed bolder than I'd ever seen them.
"Just as she died for secrets, they too asked for their death." She studied the surface of the water. "Maybe it birthed the idea she would have me kill her."
Leyla's shoulders raised and fists balled. "What did they know, what was so important they died before their Inquisition?"
Thirteen looked at Tilly. "I am the embodiment of great sin, the loss of the individuals to create one. She was to be the last destroyed, but upon the revealing of her identity and death, a silent revolt began. One the Order could not stop, could not support."
Leyla stayed a tense ball of anger. "So what, they died for you and Philomena? For whomever Tilly is, but what about me?"
Thirteen adjusted. "I am sorry more was undone, Leyla. I did not live when your parents did. In no consolation, their skills live on in your scroll."
She shook her head but seemed to calm some. "It's not your fault. My parents decided it." She took a deep breath. "Wait, their skills?"
"A piece of the parent's souls allows their daughter speech in a world which stole it. Mother helped." She fluttered her eyelids. "She acted to finish it and sneaked it out before the guards returned."
Leyla stared at her scroll.
"It seems I failed to peel all your memories away. I am sorry."
"It's all right," I said. "I assume some things sting deep enough that they become part of the soul."
Rhys stood up and pushed his hair back. "So, we figured they all died to protect Tilly's identity from the Order, but not why."
Thirteen said, "Unfortunately, such was necessary."
"The whole thing blew up when they hid her in the Chimera?" he asked.
Thirteen bobbed her head. "When my souls' collection disk was found incomplete and Tilly's disk empty."
"But it took all three, the Voclains and Philomena, to move her into your soul disk for your creation. She was lost, and they found her when someone supplied her as your last Attunement. The same person who framed them?"
Thirteen's eyes flared, and her smile revealed her fangs. "Yes."
Tilly's real identity was the key. An Apex jailer created the phylactery disks. "The same someone who murdered her and wanted us made."
Rhys nodded. "
So, who is it then?"
Tilly screeched.
I looked up at Thirteen.
"The answer you seek is the most important." She reached out and gripped the stone outcrop. "When it comes, will you continue to do what you must?"
29 - Above
The wind gusted with her question. It blew over my skin, through my dirty coat, and between my thoughts.
I rubbed my arm.
Thirteen settled back into the lake. "One can not tell another to grasp destiny." She lowered even further. The water came to her chin. "They must take it themselves, even as others try to steal."
She looked for something as oddly specific as her. Who I am, what I've done in this life, and my last. I wasn't perfect, but I never stopped. "I'll keep going." I paused and added, "I promise."
Thirteen let the sun wash over her face.
Then, like someone pulled out the support below, she disappeared under the water. Not a ripple formed in her wake.
I lowered to my hands and knees on the outcrop. "Thirteen?"
Only darkness under the surface replied.
A far off thunder sounded. Its vibrations carried through the stone under my hands. In an unrestrained splash, a long silver arm rose from the water. In her palm rested a glittering silver disk.
The rest of her rose until her eyes leveled with her hand. "Mother's memories." She reached forward. "Your memories after you reclaim them."
I climbed onto her fingers and knelt for the disk.
It rested warmly in my hand. Smaller than the boon disks, but it only held part of a soul.
"Did you forget how to remember?" Thirteen tilted her head to her shoulder.
"No. It's just." It all felt surreal and too real at the same time. "What will I see?"
Thirteen cocked her head the other direction. "I can not know, for they are not mine." She braced her hand with the other. "Are they yours even if remembered? Is a life defined by its time or the soul's journey?"
"The journey." I looked at the silvered disk.
"Surely then, those lost souls in me are not so lost. Our parents' sacrifice, not for nothing." Thirteen smiled and looked back to the outcrop, at Leyla.
Tears on her cheeks, she said, "This is another step. Take it."
Rhys said, "We'll be here when you get back." He kept a hand on Tilly.
Her eager eyes locked on.
