Myths and Magic: An Epic Fantasy and Speculative Fiction Boxed Set

by K.N. Lee

  There was something in his face, in his manner that reminded her of a dream. A feeling of deja vu swept over her. I’ve seen that smile somewhere before. I know that smile. But that’s impossible. Mathilde had never been to Norwava.

  She had never visited the seaside.

  Their little family lived in Capenhan, far enough from the ocean that boats were a thing of wonder, a method of travel that existed only in fairy tales. She never thought to see the actual ocean. Yet here she was, standing there, staring at this fisherman like she knew him. As if he had known Mathilde her whole life.

  A tingle in her body shook her natural balance. But it wasn’t exhaustion.

  It was the thrill of discovery.

  “Who are you?” She whispered at the exact same moment he did. Their words—mirrors of each other. Wonder turned to confusion. The silence felt icy, odd between them. Mathilde didn’t want the moment to end.

  Yet there wasn’t a second to spare. She had to flee. She had to survive.

  And saving Johan and Fritz—that was the only pathway left to the magic of the Vidartan.

  “I--,” she started to say. “I must... go.” The last words barely escaped her lips, falling to the water like mist.

  He stood motionless for a few moments and then the words and the upside-down world they lived in hit him full in the face.

  “Go,” he urged her. “Fast as you can. Go, girl.”

  Still, he didn’t stop looking at her.

  Like he had never seen a woman before? Like he had never met another human. Like she was a mythical valkyrie or a dragon princess, straight out of legend, he stared at her face, struck to the quick.

  Mathilde blushed. She was none of those things. She was only the daughter of Enrich Shawsman, refugee. Vidaya. Hunted. Despised.

  All the air in the ocean and along the wharf disappeared as she pulled away from his gaze. As soon as the immediacy of their connection broke, the air felt harder to breathe. The electricity between them sparked madly.

  She longed to stay.

  Mama needs me. I must leave. I have to...

  “Run,” he said, unable to tear his eyes from her upturned face, framed by wild red hair. “While you still can, girl. Run.”

  He offered her his hand. The moment their fingers met, there was a jolt. A burst of unknown power lit them both. An impossible ignition that spun her mind away from fear and confusion.

  “Run,” he repeated as she stepped into the boat. The dinghy rocked under her weight. Holding on to the sides, she settled into the bow. She looked at his face, already receding into shadow.

  Bewildered by the loss of her father, Mathilde’s veins coursed with an eerie, devastating feeling. Yet, beyond that tragedy, she also felt a certainty that made no sense: I just met the love of my life. Mathilde knew it was true.

  On a forsaken dock in the middle of a war that demanded her blood, she had connected with the heart of a stranger. And I will never see him again.

  The spot on her hand continued to feel off, tingling where he had touched her. Oddly, her mind was clearer than it had been for months.

  “Mathilde,” she sighed as the boat pushed off the docs. “My name is Mathilde.”

  She doubted he heard her words, across the lapping water.

  All the same, her heart sang.

  2

  Torn Edges

  His eyes.

  That was all she thought about for the next two days. Him.

  The stranger on the ship who set her free, who sent her off into the underground of Norwava. Without a name, she had nothing to call the smuggler, nothing. Only the memory of that peculiar moment when their eyes met and the whole crazy world stopped.

  “Mathilde,” her mother called from the other side of the room. “Help Johan pack. Our mountain guide is supposed to arrive before sunset.” Mama tousled the unruly hair of Mathilde’s little brother Johan. No one smiled. The border that led to the frontier lands beyond Norwava was tantalizing close.

  Just over the next mountains.

  That was it—the last leg of their escape. The precious safety that Papa had died to protect. The moment when none of them would have to hide anymore.

  Soon.

  So very soon, Mathilde thought, her sorrow over Papa dimming most of the joy that should have been in her heart.

  “Come here,” she smiled at Johan, taking him by the hand.

  “Let’s see what you have packed,” Mathilde whispered, unrolling the thin cloth that was the only protection each boy had from the chill night air. Inside the bundle, she found a plain pair of pants, and one shirt. A single pair of glasses. And the three blue-collared shirts of the Vidartan priests. One by one, she touched the fine embroidery that covered the collar and sleeves. Each symbol had layers of meaning. Each colored thread told a part of the story of the vidaya. And held untold secrets of their own.

  “Why do I have to carry these dumb shirts?” Johan asked petulantly. “They’re heavy and don’t even fit me.”

  Mama gasped from across the room, her disappointment obvious. Johan cowed under her disapproval.

  “I left behind so much else.”

  “I know. I know,” Mathilde said, patting his back reassuringly. “I know, Johan. You made sacrifices. We all did.” She pulled his dirty face to hers.

  Eye to eye, Mathilde captured his spotty attention.

  “Johan, you must remember, there will be other toys. There will never be another Vidartan. Not until you and Fritz are ready to wear those shirts and to read from the Geisproma. We keep the shirts. We keep our promises. Until that day, you and I—we are gate keepers, we are the guardians.”

  Johan sniffled a little at the lost toys, at their vanished life, at the warmth of a familiar fireplace none of them would see ever again.

  Fritz clambered over to where they stood. His hair stood straight up—a wild thing of its own mind and will.

  More strawboy than child, Mathilde thought.

  She could almost smile at his enthusiasm.

  Of all of them, Fritz managed to hold on to his joy. He lit up with each new journey, each person who helped the four of them sneak further and further from the baying dogs of war. Fritz was precious like that. And his clear, hopeful face was the last light in Mathilde’s heart. Her brother’s hope and the eyes of that strange man on the distant docks.

  Touching the fine clothing, Mathilde felt closer to Ethan and Edgar. Closer to Papa, holding the sacred clothes of long-dead priests.

  “Another vidartan priest will come. My brothers, we will not fail.”

  I will give my life to protect them.

  Grabbing Johan by the arm, Mathilde startled him with a gigantic hug, pulling the little boy close. As if love was enough to see them safe. As if joy was an armor around their little family. The last defense they shared that could protect innocence from the grasping claws of death and hatred.

  She was determined to try.

  There was a loaf of hard bread in the storage room where they had been left. Two tin cups and a dripping, rusted sink.

  Catching as much of the water as they could, the four of them softened the old bread and filled their bellies.

  Waiting for the knock that signalled their final guide, the day dragged on and on. Below ground, still the gutter windows shone with enough sunlight for the desperate family to mark the time.

  Dusk came and went. No guide appeared. Mama clung to Fritz and Johan with the fierceness of a springtime bear. Mathilde counted the minutes and then the seconds. Time got stuck, thick as churned butter.

  Mathilde tried to resist her curiosity, but finally she was overcome with impatience.

  “I have to look,” she whispered. “I’m worried.”

  “No. No,” her mother replied, shushing her. “Mathilde, stay. We cannot risk being seen.”

  “We dare not wait for a trap, either,” Mathilde retorted. “Our guide should have been here already. We have to know what went wrong. Johan and Fritz must be protected.”

&nbs
p; Mama said nothing. Cold, hard truth.

  Smuggling brought out the worst in people. How much is one human life worth, anyway? How much trust does money buy?

  Bracing her hand on the door jamb, Mathilde pushed open the lock. It opened without any resistance to a dimly lit lower cellar room. The light came from the top of the stairway across the short hall. She didn’t know where it led.

  They had not entered from that direction. The city, the language, and the songs were all unfamiliar. Strangers would be easy to spot. Careful. Careful.

  Men were laughing, somewhere near by. Above her head, a jaunty tune played from a windup piano. She could tell it wasn’t a man who played as the notes went wrong in the same section of music, over and over.

  Clearly, no one cared what music they listened to up those stairs.

  Near the top of the landing, some man shouted for more beer. Under a tavern, that’s where we are hiding?

  Mathilde pushed her back against the far wall as one man stumbled down the ten steep steps.

  “I’ll finish that conversation with you as soon as I am done with this. Gotta drain the dragon,” he shouted up the stairs, his words slurred. His intentions clear, the drunkard barely navigated the stair way without stumbling.

  Mathilde had nowhere to hide. No time to retreat.

  The well-dressed man blinked twice when he saw her, standing there.

  Looking her up and down, the wobbly man slurred his request, “Why are you in the men’s room, lass?” he managed to ask, clearly confused. Then, his eyes rolled up.

  He fell over, unconscious.

  Several boxes of supplies were crushed by his faceplant. His snores seemed rather blissful.

  Mathilde stood there, frozen. The noise of his fall would draw attention. And that spelled ruin.

  Grabbing the sloppy drunk, Mathilde searched his pockets for any item that might help. Seconds ticked by. The man had two handkerchiefs, one blue, one white. She thought furiously about her options. Then she tied both of them over her hair.

  That will have to do.

  The upper door opened.

  “Otto? Is that you?” a woman called down the stairs. Thick wooden clogs thudded on every step as she slowly descended, holding onto the railing.

  “Otto?” She asked again, peering down the stairs. Her ample bosom proceeding her into the darkened room. When her gaze cleared the lower ceiling, the gray-haired woman stopped.

  Mathilde stood there, shaking.

  Discovered. Again.

  “What’s a wild flower like you doin’ down here, miss?” the woman asked. Her blue eyes narrowed as she looked at the drunken man and the girl who stood there, uncertain.

  “I declare, you’re more delicate than a blossom, aren’t you?” The woman examined Mathilde, taking in the clothes, the bound hair, the handkerchief that covered up every trace of her dangerous red locks. Stepping closer, the woman reached out to touch Mathilde’s face.

  Mathilde flinched away.

  “There, there. You are a beauty. You’ve got no point down here, do ya? We need help upstairs with the newcomers. You’ll do for now. Let’s see how the evening goes.”

  Mathilde blinked her surprise, a wild animal captured in a snare. She did not reply to the big woman’s demands. But she didn’t object either.

  The woman nodded at something. Mathilde knew she was not fooled. Mathilde was no local girl. This woman knew there were secrets.No respectable girl stood under a bar, lost to purpose, unprotected.

  The question was: what would the woman do? Is she dangerous?

  Am I?

  Her plump hands turned Mathilde’s face right and left, looking at the lines, like Mathilde was for sale. Which perhaps she was.

  “Take this,” the woman demanded. Pulling off her own apron and outer skirt. Both were way too big for Mathilde. But that didn’t stop either of them from covering up the old stained skirt and bodice.

  Finally, Mathilde stood there, the skirt double-wrapped around her slender frame. “Speak to no one. Other than taking orders, you’ll do whatever I say. Dishes and sweeping, for now. Do well, and we’ll get some meat on your bones when the rush is over.”

  Reaching back to Mathilde’s surprised face, the woman’s expression softened for a sliver of a moment. “Child,” she spoke low and fierce, “...face the fear head on. That’s how you win. That’s how you live.” With one beringed hand, the older woman pushed back a stray red lock from Mathilde’s forehead, sealing it under the covering of the borrowed handkerchief.

  “Otto won’t mind. And I’ve got use for you.”

  Turning back up the stairs, the woman walked half way and then looked back, “You comin’? Ain’t nobody gonna save you except yourself, little thing.”

  Mathilde gulped in the shadows.

  Alone.

  Hunted. Caught. Buried in the cellar, lost to all she knew. Who knows when the guide will come? She didn’t. But Mathilde was determined to protect Johan, Fritz and Mama. She straightened her overskirts, checked her hair, and ascended to work.

  Escape would have to wait.

  3

  On the House

  No one saw her.

  No one noticed a serving wench.

  “Beer!” and yet more requests for food, corn, bread, sausage. Mathilde listened and repeated it all to the cook behind the bar. The tavern was full to overflowing with men in uniform. Drinking their cares away, hoping for a moment to forget their duty and grab a gossamer bit of peace. The men were hungry, thirsty, obnoxious. But she never felt threatened. She brought the food. Took their requests.

  No one laid a single hand on her body. Though quite a few men looked at her as she hurried about the room. Their glances were admiring. Pointedly, Mathilde did not see them.

  Even with her hair covered, Mathilde’s face was the pale cream of milk. And her eyes were greener than the grass in springtime.

  Some men noticed.

  Mathilde looked away. She did her job. She did whatever was asked by Bertha the big buxom woman who concealed a strange girl in the middle of a battalion’s carousing.

  Every corner. Every booth. Every chair and most of the walls were filled with the dogs of war.

  Black uniforms. White backgrounds, blood red fields of sun symbols decorated every arm-band. Every jacket collar, casually hung across the backs of sturdy tavern chairs.

  Mathilde saw them all. They did not see her.

  Hide in plain sight.

  She did. Moving among the soldiers, Mathilde was a plain gray cat perched above a pack of rabid wolves. They don’t see me. They can’t see me. Over and over, she repeated those words. She ignored their presence.

  Work. Listen. Blend.

  “Here is your beer, sir,” she spoke simply, keeping her eyes averted. As if anyone could hear my accent in all this racket...

  I am safe. For now.

  The player piano played on. The machine followed the scroll of paper that wound inside its glass heart, guiding each note in perfect time. Mathilde gritted her teeth as the favorite song of Hollyoak played again and again.

  No one really cared.

  The music was a vent to let off steam than anything else. Even soldiers needed to rest. Killing children was hard work.

  “Girl,” a voice called out, one seat over from the last order. “Girl, I’ll be needing…” and then she couldn’t hear what he said.

  In fact, he stopped speaking.

  Turning to him, she began, “Sir, what can I get y-you?” but only managed to stumble through the end of that question.

  His eyes.

  H—his. Eyes.

  Panicking, Mathilde said hurriedly whatever came to her mind, regardless of what made sense. She blurted, “A beer? I’ll get one right away.” The words sloshed out of her mouth like she was the drunken fool downstairs.

  Like she had lost all common sense.

  Speeding through the surrounding noise, the wall of uniforms, the laughing men, Mathilde was seized on by a fear wrapped around a
coal of delight. Him.

  How is he here?

  The smuggler from the docks?

  A hundred miles or more ago… she left him on a distant fog-filled pier. Their intense, powerful connection lost during the flight of fear and war.

  He could not be here.

  If he is here, it’s a trap. We are betrayed.

  She grabbed a glass. It slipped out of her trembling hands and shattered on the floor.

  Her fingers shook even as Mathilde watched the pottery bounce and bounce against the tiles, breaking off a little more each time. The mug was ruined. Smashed to smithereens. Broken. Useless. Each shard sharper than a knife blade.

  Blood ran down her leg where shrapnel had cut her. Ricochet.

  Mathilde didn’t hear the sound of the mug as it fell. She didn’t hear the shattering.

  She didn’t feel the blood, running down her leg.

  How is he here? She kept asking herself. How? He sat in the tavern, in a room full of elite Hollyoaken officers. No fear on his face. Only a moment of surprise. The tavern was full of the most fearsome of men, tasked to pursue and collect vidaya. M—my enemies. Oath and blood, they hated me. And everything and everyone I have ever known.

  How is he here, in the middle of the Dogs?

  Bertha was speaking. Her mouth was moving, at least.

  Mathilde didn’t know what she said.

  It took everything she had to keep her face calm. Her whole body shook with fear. With surprise. With the tiniest, miniscule dash of a flame called hope. The only monster still held close to humanity. The only monster still imprisoned by the human heart.

  Whatever Bertha had to say, Mathilde could only nod her head. When a towel was put in her hand, she got down on her knees and cleaned up the ruined mug. Sweeping. Dishes: chores she could handle.

  Bertha spoke near her, talking to the cook. “Just keep her back here. She’s overwhelmed. I’ll do the rest.” and the woman plowed through the service door and back out into the tavern, collecting her custom.

  Doing both their jobs.