by Tracey Tobin
Tori tried to hold on to that thought, but the clawing guilt kept ripping at her throat. She couldn’t help but think that the village would never have been put in that position if it wasn’t for her. She couldn’t help but imagine that someone would have come up with a plan to save the village even if she had died from her wounds. A little voice in the back of her head kept cruelly shouting that she’d been lucky, that the faith Jacob and the Maelekanai were putting in her was completely unjustified. She was certain to fail them all.
Her fist clenched around the empty pill bottle in her pocket.
“But I don’t want you to go,” Jiki’s voice whimpered. Tori gave her head a shake and found the little kitten she’d grown so fond of was clutching at her sister’s wrists with tears in her eyes. “Why do you have to go?”
Kaima ruffled her little sister’s ears and gave her a sweet peck on the top of the head. “It’s my duty,” she said in a proud voice, but Tori could hear the tiny waver hidden beneath the bravado. “Our family owes the princess a blood debt, you know.”
Jiki made a face at that and the elder frowned. He knew, having had this conversation already a few nights before, that Kaima felt indebted to Tori for saving her sister’s life even after Kaima had been so rude and cruel to her. He also knew that his daughter had refused to take no for an answer, even after Tori had assured her that it was unnecessary.
“You’re absolutely certain?” Kaima’s heartbroken father was asking. “Once you’ve set out, you know it will be dangerous, if not impossible, to attempt to return on your own, and you’ll have no idea how to find us.”
Tori watched close and could easily see the struggle in Kaima, but she barely hesitated before nodding to her father. “Maelekanai daughters were once loyal handmaidens who stood by the Queens of the Kynnon family and served them in any way required. It hasn’t been that way for some time, but it will become that way again, starting with me.” The Maelekanai teen held her head high, her shoulders back, and looked out across the group to the members of her village, people she’d known her entire life. “We’ll find each other again when there is no longer a reason to hide. I promise,” she added to Jiki with a smile. The little one swiped a tear away from her eye and nodded back, clearly working hard to look as strong and brave as she saw her sister to be.
Tori felt her chest tighten when the little one turned her gaze and gave her a sweet smile. “Look after Kaima, okay krishna-ka?” she called over to the humans.
Krishna-ka…
The Maelekanai word for “big sister” made Tori’s throat close up and tears spring to her eyes. Thankfully she was saved having to respond when Kaima gave her sister a playful clap on the head and growled, “Weren’t you listening? I’m supposed to be looking after her!”
A soft sea of chuckles erupted throughout the gathered Maelekanai. Jacob was shaking his head. Tori’s throat loosened a little. She forced a small smile and told her little friend, “We’ll all look after each other, okay Jiki?”
The kitten nodded and nuzzled her sister once more before scurrying up onto her father’s shoulders and nestling in to hide the sparkle in the corners of her eyes.
The elder grasped his firstborn daughter’s shoulder tight, leaned his forehead into hers, and then let her go with a resigned sigh. “Be safe, Kaimatrina,” he told her. “May your mother’s spirit protect you.”
Kaima nodded once, and kept her eyes low to the ground as she returned to her human companions, avoiding Tori’s gaze as the procession began to move through the forest once more.
“Ravenson,” the elder called out to Jacob as he walked. “Eden follows a short way behind us, doing what she can to cover our trail. She wishes to speak with you before you move on.”
Jacob bowed smartly, which seemed to amuse the Maelekanai who had known him since he was a child. “Thank you,” he told the elder. “And safe travels, everyone. Keep an eye out for Strider and Ashes and please take them with you if you happen across them.” There was a sigh of frustration in his voice. The two horses they’d originally ridden to the Maelekanai village had taken off during the battle and not been seen since. Strider, in particular, had gone with Jacob’s father’s shield still harnessed to his saddle.
A few of the villagers nodded and offered small smiles to Jacob, assuring him they would do as he asked. Tori watched the survivors of the Shadow attack walk away through the woods with a heavy heart and a head full of voices that refused to let her be.
A short ways further on, they found Eden standing with each of her arms outstretched, hands pressed to the trunks of two nearby trees. She was mumbling something to herself that sounded like a long forgotten language.
It had only been a few days since they had seen each other, but Tori still couldn’t help staring in awe at the strange being. She appeared to be a woman with blood-red lips, wearing a white cloak that covered everything except the lower half of her face and the fingers that poked out from the long sleeves. What they saw, however, was only the outer shell. It was the body of the woman who had once loved Iryen, but also loved the kingdom enough to stop him from performing a truly evil enchantment. Inside that body was an ancient creature that Tori knew very little about beyond the fact that she had powerful defensive magic and at least some precognition that had allowed her to foretell Iryen’s return. The one and only time Tori had seen Eden’s true form - during the spell that had allowed her to see glimpses of the past – she had appeared to be nothing more than a floating spark of light and warmth. Tori found herself picturing that little spark now and wondered whether the woman - the real woman - was still in that body as well, or if she’d passed on a long time ago. The thought pulled a frown onto her lips. Perhaps she would get a chance to ask someday, but it wouldn’t be today.
The three companions waited patiently while Eden completed her quiet spell and turned to greet them. Tori thought that the two trees she’d been touching seemed to have a very faint glow to them now.
“Ah, here you are,” Eden said. Her deep red lips were in that same small smile they always seemed to hold. “So it is officially time to begin your journey.”
Tori wasn’t certain exactly who she was talking to - it was maddening not being able to see the woman’s eyes - but she nodded anyway, as did Jacob.
“Well, as you seem quite prepared and determined, let me ask you a question: in which direction do you intend to head first?”
Along either side of her Tori saw Jacob and Kaima’s bodies make funny little jerking motions and their shoulders go stiff. She glanced at each of them with a frown and a furrowed brow and realized, all at once, that neither of them had the slightest idea how to answer Eden’s question.
“Hold up a minute,” she said to the others with a hand held out in front of her. “Are you telling me that you were planning for us to just walk aimlessly in a random direction?” Her gaze landed on Jacob, who looked more than a little sheepish.
“It’s just, well,” he stammered, “Everything has been happening so fast, and we haven’t really had a moment to stop and give it any thought-” His voice trailed off under Tori’s wide-eyed glare.
A soft chuckle floated out from under Eden’s hood. “You have all been very busy lately,” she offered, “and with much on your minds, I imagine.” Her head moved only incrementally, but Tori could tell that she was leveling her gaze on each of them in turn. “Not to worry; I asked that you be sent in my direction because I have a solution to offer.”
They watched as Eden produced a small leather pouch from somewhere within her robes, and began to carefully empty the contents onto a nearby rock. Almost as an aside, she waved a hand in Jacob’s direction and said, “Do build me a small fire, would you Ravenson?”
Jacob set about his task without question. Meanwhile Tori and Kaima watched with thinly-veiled interest as Eden lowered herself to the ground and began sorting out her unusual pile of items. On top of her robes she laid out several herbs and plants of various colors, two small black stones
that shimmered iridescent wherever the setting sun struck them, and a small, oblong vial of clear liquid. From the ground around her she selected a fist-sized rock that dipped a bit in the middle, as well as a smaller, more oblong stone, and used them as a mortar and pestle to grind her ingredients together. Tori was surprised to see how easily the shimmering black stones cracked and became powder.
By the time the concoction had formed a thick paste the color of bile, Jacob had his little fire burning hot. Eden pushed the larger rock close to the flame and watched it begin to bubble.
“It stinks!” Kaima exclaimed as little tendrils of smoke began to rise. She pinched her nose and slunk back a few feet to extricate herself from the offending stench. Tori thought it did smell a bit like rotten eggs mixed with body odor, but she was personally more disturbed by the fact that it looked grotesquely like an off-color bit of skin that had been torn from a body and melted.
“What does it do?” Jacob inquired, keeping his own distance.
In response, Eden gestured for Tori to come closer. She took the girl’s hand, produced a small silver pin from inside her robes, and had pricked a finger and stolen a drop of blood before Tori could even react.
“Hey, what the hell?” Tori exclaimed, pulling her hand back a second too late.
Eden simply smiled and held the pin with the drop of blood out over the bubbling brew. The scarlet drop fell, and as it approached its destination the skin-like slime seemed to stretch out and snatch it out of the air. A moment later the boiling blood blob had become a deep, blackened red, the color of congealing plasma.
“Now it is attuned to your blood, and your blood alone,” Eden explained, “and thus, also your blood’s magic.”
Tori eyed the blood-blob suspiciously. “But what does it do?” she repeated Jacob’s question.
Now Eden produced a stone disk the size and shape of a hockey puck, as well as a short-handled brush that looked to be made of horse hair. While Tori wondered where she was keeping all these items under those snowy-white robes, the woman swirled the brush around in the bloody concoction until the bristles were thoroughly soaked and began to paint one side of the disk. When she seemed satisfied with her work, she nodded, handed the disk painted-side-up to Tori, and announced, “There, the spell is complete.”
Tori examined the disk with growing annoyance. Carved into the side that Eden had painted with her disgusting ooze was what appeared to be the design of a compass, complete with needle pointing to the capital “N” at the top of the circle.
“Simply press the guiding stone to your skin, wherever you choose,” Eden told her, “and the spell will be burned onto your body.”
Tori’s eyes went wide. She held the stone - which had now begun to glow a strange pinkish color - as far away from her body as she could manage without dropping it. “What do you mean, burned?” she demanded.
If Eden sensed any of Tori’s trepidation at all, she certainly didn’t let on, because her response was matter-of-fact, with that same maddeningly calm smile as always. “The image of the compass will become one with your body,” she explained. “Think of it as a tattoo, but applied with ink created of your own blood, thus magical in nature. Blood is life and instinct, princess, and yours especially so because of the ancient magic deep within it. It can feel its own destiny and will naturally seek out that which will empower it, thanks to a little help from my spell. Burn the mark to your body, and it will guide you where you need to go in order to strengthen your blood, and thus gain the power you require to be able to face Iryen.”
Tori heard every word that Eden said, and she knew that it was important, but she had to admit that the rational part of her brain had shut off after the word “tattoo”.
It was extremely childish, given the nature of the overarching situation she found herself in, but Tori couldn’t stop the words that flew from her lips: “So what you’re saying is that I’ll have another scar. This thing will give me another permanent mark on my body that I’ll have to look at for the rest of my life.”
There was a long moment during which Eden seemed at a total loss for words. The only sound was the crackling of the little fire.
Kaima had reappeared at Tori’s side and placed a warm paw on the girl’s shoulder. “Scars of honor,” she reminded Tori with a whisper. “Remember?”
There was another long moment, and Jacob must have correctly interpreted the look on Tori’s face, because he turned to Eden and asked, “Will the mark still work if it’s on someone else’s body?”
Eden’s lips actually twitched downward into a frown as she responded, “Well, technically yes, but-”
Before she could finish her sentence Jacob had snatched the stone disk out of Tori’s hand and, despite her yelp of protest, he immediately pressed the painted side against the inside of his left forearm.
Eden managed to finish her thought half a beat later: “-being unlinked to the blood will likely cause the process to be extremely painful.”
Tori watched in horror as the look on Jacob’s face morphed from chivalrous confidence to heart-wrenching agony. The stone thumped to the ground, forgotten, as her guardian grasped his forearm and let out a horrible cry. The spot where he’d pressed the stone to his skin was steaming, as though it had been a white-hot iron he’d touched there. His cry became a twisted groan that fell from his mouth as his knees buckled and brought him to the ground.
“Oh my god!” Tori cried. She scrambled to the ground beside Jacob and reached out to his arm but felt terrified to touch it. The outline of the compass design had truly been burned into his skin and was glowing a hot, angry red, as though the lines had been carved into him with burning embers.
“Watch out!” Kaima commanded. Half a second later a skein of water had been upended over the mark. A great puff and hiss of steam blew up from Jacob’s skin, and a strange sigh escaped his lips. Tori blew and waved her hands at the white cloud. When the air had cleared there was a perfect, black-lined compass engraved into the flesh, appearing to be no more harmful than a standard ink tattoo.
Tori looked up into Jacob’s face. The pain there had abated, but he still had a fierce twitch in one eye. “Why the hell did you do that?!” she demanded in a shrill shriek. Now that she knew Jacob was okay she had a hot fury crawling up her throat.
Maybe it was simply due to the fact that his eye was twitching like a jack-rabbit’s rear paw, but it seemed to Tori that the look Jacob gave her in response was a very odd one indeed. “I’m your Royal Guardian,” he stated, quite matter of fact. “It’s my job to protect you in any and every way that I can. That includes protecting both your body and your mind.”
Tori blinked stupidly at him. A thousand different thoughts were fighting for attention in her brain and she couldn’t seem to get a firm grasp on any particular one of them.
He went through that horrible pain just so you wouldn’t have to live with another scar, whispered a voice in the back of her mind. You could at least say thank you!
But the words wouldn’t - couldn’t - find their way to her lips.
Eden stepped forward, her lips once more set into a serene smile, and cleared her throat. “Very well, Guardian Ravenson,” she said. “I suppose your actions broach little argument.” She reached past Tori and pointed a long, delicate finger at the compass needle. “You must be close to Victoria for the blood in the spell to be strong enough to do its job, but as long as long as the princess’s blood flows, the needle will guide your way.”
Jacob loosened the death grip he had on his arm. He stood and spun his body back and forth in half circles, eyes on the mark. Sure enough, the spiderweb-thin compass needle slid gracefully across his skin, no longer pointing to what would have been North, but keeping true to a specific heading regardless of the direction in which he turned.
“It seems to be pointing toward the Howling Mountains,” the Guardian muttered to himself while comparing the mark to the direction of the sunset.
“Then that is where you must go
,” Eden told them.
Tori’s gaze shot toward the ancient creature. “You’re not coming with us?” she asked. She had to admit that she was more than a little upset. Though the being made her feel a bit uncomfortable at times, she was also powerful, and would certainly be a strong ally.
“I shall move out on my own from here,” Eden explained. “Though you are the only one capable of confronting Iryen, you will need a great deal of help when the time comes. I am off to recruit that help where I can by revealing the truth of our land’s history.”
Something about the tone of her voice and the way the words had melted from her lips made a queer feeling tingle down Tori’s spine, like a jolt of electricity traveling at a snail’s pace. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Eden approached the little fire and stared into it, her lips pursed into a straight line. “For nearly two decades now the people of this land have assumed a terrible lie,” she said in a low, quiet voice. “They know nothing of Iryen, of the evil attempts of his past and the manner in which he terrorizes the present. They only know what they have seen, or believe they have seen: that their king and queen went mad the day their newborn child passed, and that the Shadows that torment the kingdom are somehow the result of that madness.”
The sun had nearly disappeared behind the trees, and the firelight was glinting off the ethereal, liquid red of Eden’s lips. “I wanted to tell them otherwise. I wanted to tell the people that their true rulers were dead and gone, and that an impostor sat upon the throne. I wanted to tell them that there was hope, because their princess had not died, and would surely return someday to reclaim the kingdom. But I couldn’t.” She turned quite suddenly to look at Tori, and for just a hint of a moment Tori could have sworn she saw the black, empty eye sockets of the human woman beneath the brilliant white hood that hung down over them. “I couldn’t tell them, because I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk Iryen finding out that you were still alive, for it would have given him time and reason to prepare. He is powerful, and he is horrible, but he has also been complacent these past two decades, knowing that there was no one who could truly oppose him. Had he known of your existence, however, he would have had those two decades to work out a strategy, to build his power further and find a way to win before you’d ever been given the chance to fight.”
