Legend of the Realm

by Alexandra Ott

  Unfortunately, Ari and I don’t have that option. We run to the chapel and ring the emergency bell. Within fifteen minutes, the other three Seekers have joined us in Seeker Larus’s hut.

  Seeker Freyr is last to arrive. “What’s happened?” he asks as he takes off his cloak.

  Seeker Larus nods at me. “Seeker Bryn was just about to tell us.”

  Ari glances at me, and I can tell what he’s asking: Are you sure you want to take the blame for this?

  I ignore him and gaze at the other Seekers, clearing my throat. “The plague is spreading beyond the quarantine, and I sensed Vondur magic in the Realm.”

  Silence rings in my ears. Finally, Seeker Larus says, “What do you mean?”

  “I went into the Realm alone tonight,” I say. “I wanted to check on the sick gyrpuff. While I was there, I sensed the presence of another person and what felt like Vondur magic. I tried to follow them, and as I did, I found signs of the plague, outside of the quarantine barrier.” Quickly I describe the sight of the stream and the dead plants that surrounded it.

  Seeker Larus is already rising from his chair before I finish. “Ludvik,” he says, “we must extend the boundary at once. This stream, and any other water source it connects with, must be quarantined.”

  “Right,” I say, “and we also need to search the Realm for the Vondur.”

  “How many creatures reside in the area?” Seeker Freyr asks Seeker Larus, as if I haven’t spoken.

  “Sea wolves, unicorns,” Seeker Larus says, ticking them off on his fingers, “possibly some vatnaveras—”

  “We need to find the mouth of this stream,” Seeker Ludvik adds. “If it empties into a larger river, we could be looking at many more infections. One of the central rivers could spread the plague to every corner of the Realm!”

  “Yes,” I say, “but what about the Vondur—”

  “This must be what the phoenixes sensed,” Seeker Freyr says, again talking over me. “Their water source may have already been infected. That’s why they fled north.”

  “If so, the dragons and firecats aren’t safe either,” Seeker Ludvik says. “They all rely on the same water.”

  “But the dragons would likely have sensed it as well, and we haven’t seen them relocate yet,” Seeker Larus says. “There may still be time.”

  “Excuse me,” I say, raising my voice. Finally, the three Seekers turn in my direction. “But what are we going to do about the Vondur? They’re back in the Realm!”

  To my surprise, Seeker Freyr makes a scoffing noise. Seeker Larus at least seems to consider me for a moment, but then he says, almost gently, “Bryn, did you actually see a Vondur in the Realm?”

  “Well, no, I didn’t see him, but I followed him. I could sense his magic!”

  Seeker Freyr makes the scoffing sound again. “With a nature gift? You could detect a subtlety in a human life force while they were still so far away as to be out of sight? And detected it clearly enough to follow it for miles the way you described? Ridiculous.”

  I bite my lip. He’s kind of got me there—Ari sensed the Vondur, not me, because his gift is more sensitive to that than mine. But I have to make them understand that the threat was real. “I know what I sensed,” I say firmly.

  “Bryn,” Seeker Ludvik says softly, and at first I think he’s going to be on my side. “Is it possible that you sensed something else? I know the events of last month have left us all feeling a bit… concerned about the Vondur. It was late at night, and you were in the Realm alone. Isn’t it possible that you just… thought you sensed what you were afraid of?”

  I blink at him incredulously. “You think I’m making it up? You think I was afraid in the Realm?”

  Seeker Freyr stands abruptly, waving one hand dismissively through the air. “That’s enough of this,” he says. “There’s no point in arguing over a child’s imaginings. We must see to the matter at hand and correct the boundary spell.”

  “I didn’t imagine it!” I say, leaping to my feet to face him. He towers over me, and I have to crane my neck to look into his eyes, but I stand my ground.

  He gazes down at me. “Then perhaps you invented it deliberately. Did you think that hallucinating Vondur would be enough to escape censure for rule-breaking this time? Don’t think we’ve overlooked that little omission in your story.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous!”

  “Is it?” He furrows his brow. “Because it sounds to me like you broke the rules to go into the Realm, then realized that the plague had spread and you needed help. Then you added a few details about this so-called Vondur in the hope that we’d all go rushing off to handle this emergency and conveniently forget to address your punishment.”

  “That’s not what this is,” I say, but no one seems to hear me.

  “Now, Freyr,” Seeker Ludvik says, “I don’t know that we can accuse her of deliberate falsity. Perhaps she simply imagined—”

  “I didn’t imagine it!” I yell again. I glance helplessly at Ari, who’s staring at the floor. He looks up and catches my eye, and I know what we have to do. Ari has to confess that he’s the one who detected the Vondur. I bet they’ll believe him. They think I’m a silly little girl making up stories. But Ari? He’s a boy and an empath. They’ll believe him.

  “Tell them, Ari,” I say, and the room falls silent.

  All of the Seekers are staring at us now. Ari seems to fold in on himself under their gazes, shrinking back into the chair.

  “It wasn’t me who sensed the Vondur tonight,” I say. “It was Ari.”

  “Is this true, Seeker Ari?” Seeker Larus asks.

  Ari opens his mouth to speak… and nothing comes out.

  In the silence, my racing heartbeat drums in my ears.

  Freyr makes a disgusted sound. “Trying to cast the blame on others won’t help your cause. Stop wasting our time with this foolishness.”

  He takes a deep breath like he’s gearing up for a rant, but Seeker Larus cuts in. “All right,” he says. “We will discuss the rest of this at a later date. For now, we must go to the stream and determine how far the damage has spread, and then—”

  I tune out the rest of the meeting. Ari glances at me a couple of times, but I stare pointedly away from him, my jaw clenched.

  After everything we went through in the Seeker competition, I thought I could trust him, but I guess I was wrong.

  I don’t have a single true friend on the Council of Seekers.

  So I’ll just have to do things my way. And I’ll have to do them alone.

  THIRTEEN

  After the Council meeting, the older Seekers rush to check out the stream, leaving me and Ari alone. I can barely look at him.

  “How could you do that to me?” I ask after the silence stretches unbearably. “Why didn’t you tell them the truth?”

  “I—I don’t know. I panicked. Not telling them the truth was your idea!”

  “But I didn’t know that they wouldn’t believe me. I needed you to back me up!”

  “What makes you think they would’ve believed me if I’d said it?”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Do you really not know the answer to that? Don’t you see how differently they act toward me? Sure, they still treat both of us like we’re babies, but it’s mostly me they baby. When I say I sensed a Vondur, they think I’m just some scared little girl who imagined things, or worse, that I’m a liar. But if you’d said it—”

  “You don’t know how they would’ve reacted,” Ari says, rising from his seat. “You’re the one who told me you wanted to take the blame for everything, and now you’re mad at me for letting you? I don’t get it.”

  “I think it should’ve been obvious that the plan had changed when nobody believed me and I specifically asked you for help.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I didn’t read your mind and figure out exactly what you wanted. You know, because we always go along with what you want. I told you not to go into the Realm alone, and I told you not to take the blame for it, and now y
ou’re mad at me because it didn’t work out how you wanted?”

  “Really, the empath is complaining about not being able to read minds? I think it was pretty clear when the rest of the Seekers were accusing me of making things up that I needed some support! You don’t have to be a mind reader, or even an empath, to see that.”

  “Well, maybe you should be an empath,” Ari says quietly, “and learn to listen to other people for a change.”

  Before I can respond, he walks out of the hut and slams the door behind him.

  * * *

  As I exit Seeker Larus’s hut, the first rays of dawn are creeping into the sky. I sneak back through the village, down the lane, and inside my hut, falling into bed beside Elisa. I haven’t slept all night, and I forgot just how exhausting it would be. I can’t wait to fall asleep….

  Unfortunately, it seems like mere minutes later when Mama wakes me to help with breakfast. I feel a little like I’m going to die.

  But I will do it all over again tonight, and the next night, and the next—as many times as it takes to get a cure that works and save the Realm. The other Seekers might not listen to anything I say, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll prove them all wrong and cure the plague myself, even if it means I don’t sleep another night.

  The day passes by in a blur as I help Mama with chores around the hut. I tell her simply that I have the day off from Seeker duties, and she doesn’t ask any questions. I even manage to work in a nap in the afternoon, when she catches me nodding off while scrubbing out the soup bowls. As soon as the rest of my family goes to bed for the night, I grab my cloak and satchel, lace up my boots, and head for the door.

  With the stars glittering in the sky overhead, I walk to Dragon’s Point alone.

  I fly Lilja to the same place where I left her the night before, safely outside the boundary spells surrounding the quarantined area. I cross the border just like before and make my way to the gyrpuff cliffs. I still need to find the source of the stream, but first I want to check on the gyrpuff who drank some of Runa’s potion to see if he’s cured.

  The gyrpuff caves are eerily deserted, which isn’t a good sign. Either the other gyrpuffs have fled somewhere, or they’ve all gotten sick and are hiding deep in the caves.

  My heart sinks when I finally catch sight of the little gyrpuff. He’s still huddled in his cave, with no signs of improvement. His breathing is shallow and weak.

  Runa’s potion didn’t work, and I don’t know how much longer he can survive.

  Luckily, I thought to bring some supplies with me this time. If it’s his water making him sick, maybe giving him clean water will help him get better. I withdraw a bowl I stole from the kitchen (which Mama can never know about) and place it right next to the little gyrpuff’s head. I fill it with cool water from my jug, which was drawn from our well at home rather than in the Realm. But I’m not sure the gyrpuff is strong enough to lift his head on his own, so I also coax him with my gift, getting him to open his beak and take a drink. He does manage to swallow a trickle, which seems like a good sign.

  I lay out some more fresh herring to make sure he has plenty to eat too. Unfortunately, there’s not much else I can do. I’m tempted just to sit with him and make him drink clean water all night, but finding the cure is more important, especially if he’s not the only animal who’s sick.

  “Get better, little guy,” I say to him. “I’ll bring you the real cure soon. I promise.”

  I crawl back out of the cave and onto the rocky ledge along the cliff. I reach for a handhold, preparing to climb back up—

  Something rustles in the nest beside me. I freeze, one hand on the rock.

  Another rustle, and a tiny black head pokes up out of the nest.

  A baby gyrpuff.

  I glance around and realize my mistake. In my hurry to get to the sick gyrpuff, I didn’t even notice before that there are discarded eggshells scattered around.

  The egg hatched.

  And the little gyrpuff’s parents are nowhere to be seen.

  A baby this little should never be on its own. The mother might be going to get food, but there’s no sign of that. No food stockpiled in the nest for this baby, and it looks to be at least a day old already. Its eyes are open, and it’s hopping around the nest on its own, tottering awkwardly. If its mama were taking care of it, there’d be a pile of fish here by now. Either its mama is sick, or she fled the nest to get away from the plague and left the egg behind.

  This little baby’s been abandoned.

  I don’t even have to think about what to do next.

  “Hey, little guy,” I say, extending a hand.

  Gyrpuffs are notoriously shy. An adult gyrpuff is more likely to disappear at the first sign of trouble, or shriek at a predator to defend their nest. But babies are different—they haven’t learned to disappear yet, and they’re not as defensive as adults. This baby just looks up at me, cocking his head to the side.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper softly. I keep my hand still and steady, not moving any closer to him. “Come say hello,” I murmur.

  I keep myself frozen in place, letting him come to me. He takes a little hop forward, stumbling on his new legs. When I don’t move, he takes another, hesitant hop, his bright eyes examining my hand. I can tell exactly what he’s thinking: Is this food?

  I release a tiny wisp of my gift, letting him sense my presence. His life spark brushes happily against mine. He likes the feeling of my magic.

  “That’s it,” I murmur. “Just one more little hop…”

  He rustles his feathers and hops again, practically tumbling into my hand. I let him stay there for a moment before I slowly raise him up, closer to my face. He chirps, but he doesn’t seem to be afraid. He studies me with wide, curious eyes.

  “Hello,” I say. “I bet you’re hungry.” With my free hand, I dig some bilberries from my pocket and offer one to the baby gyrpuff. He eats it eagerly right out of my hand. He looks thin, and I have to wonder if he’s been able to eat anything at all since he hatched.

  “Okay, baby gyrpuff,” I say. “I can’t just leave you here all alone with no food. So you’ve got to come with me, all right?”

  He ignores me, tapping his beak against my palm as if to summon more food.

  I hadn’t exactly planned to carry a baby gyrpuff around, so I don’t know how to transport him. Will he be afraid if I tuck him into my pocket? He’s definitely small enough to fit in there.

  I bend down, careful not to jostle the baby from my hand, and pluck some grass from the nest. I stuff it into my pocket, creating a familiar lining for him, and then drop a few more berries inside as well. The baby gyrpuff follows the food with his head, and he doesn’t resist at all when I slip him into the pocket as well. He keeps his head buried inside, seeking out all the tasty food.

  Now I have to figure out what to do next. I had planned to follow the stream to its source, to see if I can identify the cause of the plague. But I don’t want to do that with this baby gyrpuff. If he hasn’t been exposed to the plague yet, taking him closer to its source is risky. Still, if the plague really does originate in the water, then he should be fine as long as he doesn’t drink any of it. If I keep him in my pocket, I don’t think there’s any chance of exposure. Unless I’m wrong about the water…

  It’s a risk I’m going to have to take. The gyrpuff who’s been infected doesn’t have much more time, and neither do any other magical creatures who have been exposed. I need to find the cause of the plague as quickly as possible, so I can also find the cure.

  “Stay in there, Little Puff,” I say to my wriggling pocket. “We’re going on an adventure.”

  By the time I climb all the way back up the cliff, the gyrpuff has settled in, occasionally popping his head out to look around before hiding himself again. He’s mostly still as I trek back toward the stream Ari and I found earlier. It’s harder to locate in the dark, but the trail of dead plants surrounding it is a clear sign I’m in the right place.

  Lit
tle Puff lets out a chirp, and I give him a reassuring nudge with my gift. “Stay in there, okay? Don’t come out.”

  He chirps again, and his head slips back into the pocket.

  I trudge through the dead grass along the stream’s bank, climbing over the increasingly large rocks as I follow it up into the cliffs. The climb is steep, and I scrape my hands trying to get a steady purchase on the rocks. Another chirp issues from my pocket, but Little Puff doesn’t stick his head out again. I wonder if he can sense the dead plants around him, or the plague itself.

  The stream twists and turns through the rocks, seemingly without end. After about an hour, we’re deep within the cliffside, surrounded by rocks. The stream flows faster here, making me think we must be getting close to its source. Little Puff blinks sleepily up at me, clearly wanting to stop exploring and take a nap.

  “Almost there,” I reassure him, following the stream around a bend, but I’m not sure if that’s true or not. “Surely we must be almost…”

  My voice trails off as I round the corner and stare at the sight in front of me. Here, the rocks fall away, and looming out of the darkness is a solid, frozen mass. A glacier, rising as high as a mountain, standing sentinel against the dark.

  This is the source of the stream. Chunks of ice float in the current here, melting into the rest.

  I cast my gift wide, running it along the stream’s current, trying to get a sense for any magic that might be here. The stream is completely devoid of life, as it has been for miles. Anything that lived here before has been killed by the plague, I suspect. But I do feel something, something magical.

  As my gift inches closer and closer to the glacier, my heart pounds in recognition.

  There’s something dark and strange and pulsing inside the heart of the glacier—something that doesn’t feel at all like the magic of the Realm.

  But I know what it does feel like.

  Vondur magic.

  Little Puff peeks out of my coat, his eyes wide, and I gaze back at him in shock.