Leodos finally spoke again as they got further into the garden. “Your suitors are not coming until late in the afternoon tomorrow. What do you say we sneak out into the forest where I used to take you before you married Rivannus?”
“I’d like that.”
“I’ll sneak you out after breakfast.”
Soryn didn’t know where they were going, she just knew that she would have to follow them in the morning and see if she could get to Esylle when she was away from Leodos. She flew away and knew she would have to find a place to sleep by the palace that no one could find her. She would sneak back in the morning.
Esylle
Esylle sat up in bed and stretched. She was not looking forward to this afternoon at all. She didn’t want to have to pick a husband. When she married the first time, she didn’t have to choose out of three men. She really loved him and talked her father into allowing the marriage. She had been sure when Rivannus had left eighteen years ago to search for Lisana, that he would not be gone long and would return with her. He was such a good hunter and tracker.
She had met him on a day like today, when Leodos snuck her out of the castle to the forest outside. Leodos always brought his bow and sword to protect her. He had left her by the pond she loved to sit by to hunt something for lunch, when she heard noises from the brush. She saw a wolf appear and charge towards her, but her back was to the pond and she had nowhere to go. Before she could even panic or become fully frightened with the situation she was in, an arrow flew through the air and the wolf fell over dead. Thinking Leodos had saved her and was in the brush, she rushed in and ran straight into Rivannus.
She didn’t know him and was afraid of him at first. She ran away calling for Leodos, but he only walked out of the brush slowly with his hands up telling her not to be scared. She looked at him and he was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. His blonde hair was tied back with a leather strip and he had heavily lidded green eyes. For a minute, she just stopped to look at him. He apologized for scaring her and told her he didn’t know she was out there when he was tracking the wolf. She invited him to sit at the pond with her and they talked until Leodos returned. Leodos was, at first, suspicious of him and told him to leave her alone and go away.
She liked what she had learned about him in the time they had chatted while Leodos was away. She managed to convince him that Rivannus had saved her life and meant her no harm. She wanted him to stay. Leodos gave in and allowed him to eat with them, as he usually did when Esylle begged him for something. Rivannus had a rabbit on his belt and offered that for their lunch in addition to what Leodos had found. Leodos slowly relaxed and stopped giving him suspicious looks as lunch cooked over the fire and he saw the way Rivannus made the princess laugh.
Leodos only objected when she invited Rivannus back to the castle. He tried to remind her when Rivannus was out of earshot that nothing could become of this, as Rivannus was a simple hunter and not a Lord. Esylle didn’t want to hear it and invited him to the castle nearly every day. She was falling in love with him despite Leodos’ warnings. When she reached her seventeenth name day and her father brought up marrying and suggested she meet with several Lords, she and Rivannus had already talked about marrying. She begged her father. She even went to Leodos and asked him to talk to her father. After relentless begging, her father finally agreed. The Lords and humans were not pleased with this arrangement, but she was marrying a human per the decree, and the decree did not state she had to marry a Lord, it had just been standard for so many years.
A few months after the marriage, she became pregnant with the Princess Lisana. Her tutor, Belisarus, who had taught her since she was able to learn on how to hide her gifts, came back to help with the princess. But one night, when Lisana was three months old, Esylle put her to bed. They didn’t use nannies because no human could be around them when they were young. A crying fit as an infant could set things on fire. Lisana rarely cried or had fits. They darkened her hair with herbs as soon as they cleaned her off after she was born. Esylle rocked her to sleep and put her in the crib that was only a few feet away from the bed in her bedroom and went to sleep herself.
She woke up intending to feed the baby, a little surprised Lisana had not woken her up that she was hungry. She was groggier than usual as she walked to the crib to check on her and to move her over to the chair to feed her, but when she pulled the blanket back, she was no longer in the crib. Rivannus was still asleep and she woke him up screaming. Neither of them had heard anyone come into the bedroom and she would have thought with all of the senses Rivannus had when he was outdoors, he would have sensed something.
Their bedroom door was still locked from the inside and it didn’t look like anyone had forced their way in. The windows in the room were bolted shut because it was storming. They immediately notified the guards, who searched the entire castle. No one could figure out how she was taken from a locked room, nor was there any sign of her in the castle. Rivannus left in the middle of the night to track outside the castle. He could not find any clues, nor any tracks.
When Leodos saw how upset she was, he said he would question people using the methods his family used to use when they were studying the tribes. He had turned his back of that because he didn’t have the stomach for torture and he thought the tribes should live in peace and be who they are. He also thought that there was no way for humans to gain the tribe’s abilities, no matter how much study was done. Esylle knew what he was offering when he told her that he would do it, and as much as she wanted Lisana back, she asked him if he was really sure about doing this.
She didn’t comment when people started disappearing from the castle or she saw tribe members being brought in in chains. She didn’t say anything about the dark circles that appeared under Leodos’ eyes or that they were now constantly red. She never said anything about the haunted look that was always on his face now or that his broad shoulders were now always hunched in. She knew the sacrifice he was making for her.
After a year of questioning, no one seemed to know anything. Rivannus thought they should search other areas besides the villages around the kingdom and left to search for her. He promised to return to her with their daughter. She received ravens from him for a year with every village he had searched and that he hadn’t found her yet. Then the ravens stopped after a year and she heard nothing else from him. The princess had been missing nineteen years and there were no new clues now as there had been no clues when she was taken.
Esylle knew she was out there somewhere. Surely, she would have felt it if something had happened to both Rivannus and Lisana. As much as she didn’t want to remarry, she knew she would be forced to and that she would have to pick someone this afternoon. She knew Leodos was not trying to be unkind yesterday when he told her she must do this and stop holding on to the past. He had done everything he could think of to try cheering her up over the last nineteen years and he even did things he swore he would never do to bring her back.
After breakfast, she met Leodos by the back of the castle, where they could sneak out into the forest. They would do what they always did when they snuck out. He would take her to the pond where she first met Rivannus and they would talk, then he would leave to hunt lunch. The pond really was one of her favorite spots. In addition to the memories she had there, it was quite beautiful. A spring fed into it and there was a small waterfall. Water lilies bloomed on the surface. She was at peace when she sat out there.
When they finally got to the pond, there was a swan there. A big, beautiful white swan with large black eyes. There had never been one before in the twenty-five years he had been taking her out there. She didn’t want to scare it, so she didn’t sit as close while Leodos went hunting lunch. The swan appeared to be watching her. She had never seen something so graceful before and didn’t want it to leave. She was a little shocked when the swan started swimming towards the bank. She thought for a moment it might be a Farkhi, but they were all functional birds. What purpose would
they have to choose for one to turn into a swan?
When the swan reached the bank and she saw the air around it vibrate, she began to panic. It was a Farkhi. What could they want with her? Was this an assassination attempt? She was even more shocked when the air stopped moving and standing in front of her was not a dark-skinned Farkhi, but a small, pale-skinned girl. She had long, dark hair and big blue eyes. She was the same height as Esylle and looking at her was like looking in a mirror. The Farkhi all had ebony skin and dark eyes. They wore the tribal robes, but they were yellow. The girl standing in front of her had on a robe like the tribes, but it was white, which was a color none of the tribes wore.
“What are you?” she whispered in fear.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” the girl said. “I have a message for you from Belisarus. I don’t know why, but he says before I give it to you, I have to touch you. I won’t hurt you.”
Esylle relaxed a little hearing the name Belisarus. Had he found some new species? What message could he have for her? Had he found Lisana after all this time? She stood there stiffly as the girl approached her and placed her hands on her shoulders. Esylle was even more shocked when she felt the girl call to the fire in her blood. Her hands were getting warm on her shoulders and she looked into her eyes and saw them change to violet as she concentrated. She fought her blood calling back to this girl. She had to know. Only a blood relative could call to her blood.
“Lisana?” she asked with tears springing to her eyes. “Did he find you and send you to me?”
“I’m not your daughter,” she said, calling to her blood harder. She fought her blood calling back. If she wasn’t Lisana, who was she? She was about to ask when she heard Leodos yelling from behind her.
“Step away from the princess and get your hands off of her!” he yelled, notching his bow.
The girl let go of her and ran. She watched in even more confusion as the girl flung her arms behind her and turned into a hawk to fly away. How could she turn into two birds? How was she also Tempris? How were they related? She looked back and saw that Leodos was about to let an arrow fly at her.
“Don’t hurt her!” she yelled, hoping it was not too late as she watched the arrow sail. She watched the arrow pierce the hawk. “I said don’t hurt her,” she screamed as she watched the hawk spiral to the ground. She rushed over and just as the hawk hit the ground, she saw the air vibrate and the hawk changed back into the girl. She rolled her over and could see the arrow piercing her arm and the girl was passed out.
Leodos was by her side looking down at the girl, confused. “Who is this? Why doesn’t she look like the Farkhi? What did she say to you?”
“She called to my blood. She could be Lisana! She said Belisarus sent her with a message for me, but she couldn’t give it to me until she touched me. Then she called to my blood. I fought it and didn’t let her feel it. She said she wasn’t Lisana, but what if she just doesn’t know who she is? What if he found her and sent her to me?”
“She’s different and dangerous. She shouldn’t be able to do what she can do. You know she’s not Lisana because she just turned into a hawk.”
“What if Rivannus was such a good tracker because he was hiding something from us?”
“You’re reaching at nothing. This girl is dangerous and I don’t want her anywhere near you.”
“She’s something to me. Just look at her. She wouldn’t have been able to call my blood if she wasn’t. I watched her eyes turn violet. I want to sneak her back into the castle. Can you find out what she knows, but don’t hurt her? I want to find out what she knows and I want to know what message she has for me, but I don’t want her hurt.”
“How do you know she’s not here to hurt you? Do you know how dangerous it is to bring her into the castle? She’s dangerous. We should just kill her right now while she can’t harm us.”
“No! She’s not dangerous. She could have hurt me. She chose to appear to me initially as a swan. When she revealed herself to me, she told me she wasn’t going to hurt me. Belisarus sent her. How would she even know him? I asked her if she was Lisana when she was calling me and she said no, but what if she just doesn’t know who she is?”
“She can’t be Lisana. I don’t know what she is other than dangerous. What do you think the humans and the tribes are going to do when they find out we’ve snuck a girl into the castle who manages to be both Farkhi and Tempris at the same time and is not locked in by one form? How did she even come by Farkhi abilities? She looks nothing like them. This has to be some sort of dark magic.”
“She spoke to me. She doesn’t sound like she’s from here. She has the accent of an Idric Islander. You know there’s no magic there.”
“That makes me even more suspicious of her.”
“Can you please just do this for me? Find out who she is and what Belisarus wants from me. Find out why she is the way she is. But do it in a way that doesn’t hurt her. I don’t want her hurt.”
“You know I can’t tell you no. This is against my better judgment and this will end badly. If she really does have a message from Belisarus, I’m getting from her and sending her back to Idric Island where she can’t hurt anyone,” he said, scooping up the passed-out girl and carrying her through the forest.
Leodos
Leodos carried the girl through the tunnels underneath the castle with a bad feeling in his stomach. He didn’t know who or what she was other than dangerous. He didn’t know what kind of dark magic allowed her to call to Esylle’s blood, but there was no way she was a blood relative. He wondered if this girl knew exactly what kind of false hope she was giving Esylle doing that. He carried her through a door to an area he hoped never to go back to.
He had no idea what these dungeons below the castle were used for before the humans arrived, but after the wars, one of his ancestors suggested that maybe there was a way for the humans to acquire some of the tribe’s abilities. He had been forced growing up to read all of the journals that were kept since this study began. It started, at first, with torture, then study. His ancestors would cut them up and study their insides to see what made them different. So many decades had passed and none of his ancestors were able to discover how they came to their abilities. During torture, they kept saying they were gifted them by their gods. The humans didn’t know or accept that god.
When he reached his eighteenth name day and set to start his own experiments, he refused, stating they had learned all they were going to learn from the tribes and killing them was pointless. His father was furious and threatened to disown him. His father tried to keep it a secret while trying to talk sense into his son. Leodos finally left home and refused to discuss it anymore. When the humans found out, they shunned him.
He fully expected to live the rest of his life as an outcast when King Joron called him into the throne room. He was surprised to be appointed the king’s advisor. He knew the Lords were against it, but Joron ignored them. He stayed close to the king until Queen Sorette became pregnant with Esylle. He could see Joron studying him like there was something he wanted to tell him, but he never brought it up. After Queen Sorette died during childbirth, Joron called for him. When Leodos entered the bedroom, Joron showed him the newborn and told him their secret. Joron asked him to help protect Esylle. He agreed and had tried to protect her since the day she was born. He was often present during her lessons with Belisarus.
He had tried so hard to protect her for her entire life, but he could not protect her the night Lisana went missing. He could never tell her no and he knew he was potentially putting her in danger as he set the girl down on a stone table. He had no idea if there was truth to this rumor, but the journals he had been given stated the tribes were unable to transform without their robes. This girl was foreign territory and he had no idea what she could and couldn’t do. He removed her robes all the same. He didn’t know where she got her robes and why they were white, rather than the color of any one of the tribes. Could it be that the tribes did not know about her?
He pumped water from the spout on the other side of the room. He got the tinctures he needed to rinse what she had used to darken her hair out. He thought he would do that first. He needed to see exactly what she was. He was shocked even more when he removed the arrow from her arm, which had not pierced that deeply, to see the wound heal before him as he was wiping the blood off. Whatever she was, it was some sort of wicked magic that should not exist.
She finally stirred after he had moved her by the sink and was attempting to rinse the herbs out of her hair. Her blue eyes, which he knew were a lie, met his.
“What are you doing? Where are my clothes?”
“We want to know exactly what you are. I’m rinsing the herbs out of your hair so I can see you as you are.”
“I don’t use any herbs in my hair.”
“Lying is going to get you nowhere. I’ve been instructed not to hurt you, but I don’t have to make you comfortable. Did you know what you were going to do to Esylle and what she was going to think when you used your dark magic to call her blood like that? Why would you do that to her?”
The girl didn’t comment. He was growing more frustrated as he continued to pour tinctures into her hair and it stayed black. The herbs weren’t washing out like they should. He was starting to get angry.
“What do you use to darken your hair? It’s not the same thing we use here or it would have come out by now.”
“I don’t use anything to darken my hair.”
“Don’t lie to me. The princess felt you call her blood and she saw your eyes change. We know you are also Tempris. I don’t know how you managed to call her, other than someone has given you wicked magic that should not exist.”
The Spirus Page 2
