“Your Grace, I...”
“Unless your next words are an apology, I suggest you keep your mouth shut! Now, Torsten, dear, come and help me tie my dress.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Torsten backed away slowly from Mulliner’s blade until he was behind Oleander, then tied the back of her dress as he’d seen Tessa and her other unfortunate handmaidens do so many times before. Hers was an uneven history filled with sorrow and actions Iam would never approve of, but Torsten had never been more grateful for her hard hand and the fear she instilled in men.
Mulliner drew a deep breath. “Come, men, there’s nothing here for us.”
“But—” one of them began before being cut off.
“I said let’s move. You, silence the bells.” He turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway and glanced back at Torsten. All his resentment dripped away and gave way to sadness. “You killed my friend, and I can’t ever forgive that.”
“You don’t have to,” Torsten said.
“But any man who’d be willing to do that to his sister doesn’t deserve the King’s ear. I hope I’m wrong about you. Otherwise, I’ll see you in Elsewhere.”
“You’re a good knight,” Torsten said. “You all are. Uriah Davies made sure of that. I never deserved to wear the White, but now I go to make sure that Sir Nikserof can do so with honor. He’s worthier than I ever was.”
At that, Mulliner left Torsten and the Queen behind, standing before the bed on which she’d once tried to seduce him. He’d been nervous then, but not anymore.
“My Queen, where is your brother?” Torsten asked.
“I thought you’d never be rid of them.” She straightened her dress and strode away from him. “He’s already on his way to the summit with my son for the Dawning, along with that useless ingrate Wren who now has decided he’d rather hold hands with Redstar. Said he planned to show him the true reason why the sun goes out today.”
“More tricks, Your Grace.”
“It doesn’t matter. When I see Redstar again, I’m going to kill him as my husband should have decades ago.”
“No.” Torsten took her hand, turning her toward him, and stared into her fierce, blue eyes. “No more blood on your hands. As the light of Iam fades upon the Dawning, Redstar’s games end with it. By my sword.”
XXVII
THE MYSTIC
Despite her best efforts, Sora let Kai down.
Hours passed as she looked within, searching her mind for the answer to healing him, but all she found was fire. She forced herself to remain calm for his sake. After those hours, after he'd finally fallen asleep, Sora collapsed to the stone floor.
Not being able to summon fire was frustrating, but watching the blood trickling off the table, beginning to pool next to her on the floor made her feel like more of a failure than ever before.
Early on, she’d torn a piece of her kimono and laid it over the wound so she could keep pressure on it. Her hands were covered in blood now and shaking. She whispered, conversing with herself in search of solutions. A few times she looked too far inward and wound up encircled by her fears, thanks again to the bar guai. Kai’s face became Whitney’s, begging her to help him, asking why she didn’t care enough about him.
“Sora,” someone said. “Sora.”
“I’ve always cared!” she screamed. Her head shot up. She glanced side to side in a daze, not even realizing that at some point, she’d fallen asleep with her head against the leg of the table. Madam Jaya now stood beside her. Sora sprang to her feet.
“I see you haven’t found your answer,” Madam Jaya said.
“Please, you have to help him,” Sora pled. She turned and went to grab Madam Jaya’s arm, but her hands slipped through. Her knees hit the ground again. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“What a disappointment,” another, deeper voice spoke. Aihara Na strode into the room, arms folded behind her back. “I thought you’d find the bar guai simple to master.”
Madam Jaya bowed to her. “She is a quick study, Ancient One, but she has not had much time.”
“Time enough for one so gifted as she.”
“I’ll work harder, Ancient One. I promise,” Sora said, still on her knees. Her legs felt like sand. She’d been standing a long time, and even with her short break, it hadn’t done much to return the feeling to her lower extremities. “Just please, heal him.”
“It is not for lack of trying that you fail,” Aihara Na said. “It is a lack of focus. You wanted to be here with us, but you are not here with us, not really. You are distracted. Your thoughts are... elsewhere.”
The way she said the word made Sora wonder if she knew the deeper desires of her heart. That she wasn’t just here to find a place she belonged and an answer to her powers but to free Whitney. To do the one thing their Order forbade.
“Please, just help him, then deal with me,” Sora said.
“Ancient One, she found the word of fire in mere minutes after I explained how the bar guai works,” Madam Jaya said, stepping between them. “If she is distracted, it is because I revealed too much, filled her mind with thoughts she didn’t need.”
“We will discuss your tactics later,” Aihara Na said.
“It has been so many long years since I had a pupil and I… my mind has not been the same since… this.” She motioned to her incorporeal body.
Aihara Na stopped and placed her hand upon Jaya’s cheek. Her hand didn’t pass through. “You have forgotten more than most will ever know. I do not blame you for this.”
“You are too forgiving, Master.” Madam Jaya backed away, bowing low. Aihara Na stepped forward. Sora had never realized how tall she was.
“Tell me, Sora of Troborough,” Aihara Na said. “In all your years practicing blood magic, have you ever managed to heal yourself of even the slightest injury?”
“Never,” Sora said, her voice shaky. “Wetzel told me never to try, that it was too dangerous.”
“It is indeed. It is the key to possession for a blood mage. To draw on the power of Elsewhere to use it on oneself. It is an ability few but the most powerful can accomplish without drawing too deeply and leaving themselves vulnerable to Elsewhere’s darker side.”
“Then I won’t ever try! Just help him.” Sora lifted her head, her eyes bleary from lack of sleep and budding tears. She saw Kai’s hand hanging from the table, slack.
“With the bar guai, self-healing is difficult, but not impossible. The power and focus required will drain the makros faster than any other spell. To do so as a mystic, without sacrificing too much of oneself, is an ability few have accomplished, a power few have been found able to wield. It is that singular focus on oneself, in applied power and mind, that overwhelms even masters of channeling. Back when I was more than a shade in this world, even I could mend little more than a scratch on my own being.”
“Why are you telling me this.?”
“Because if you are as gifted as the Well of Wisdom promises you are, then healing should be your greatest strength. Training a mystic apprentice to gain a full understanding of their abilities is a slow, tedious process. Each of our connections to Elsewhere is unique. We are all born with natural affinities for different spells and elements. It can take years to uncover.” Aihara Na grabbed Sora by the arm, now physical, and hauled her to her feet. “But sometimes, the best means of instruction is a push.”
Sora’s eyes darted nervously between Madams Aihara and Jaya. Upon those words, even Jaya’s features darkened with fear.
“Ancient One, she is not re—”
Aihara Na took Sora’s arm. Then, from the folds of her robes, Aihara Na produced Sora’s own knife and slashed her wrist vertically. Sora had cut herself countless times, but never so deep, and never upward. That was one of Wetzel’s first warnings.
Blood drooled onto the stone floor in puddles and Sora fell to all fours. She was too shocked to feel pain, but it had been mere seconds, and she’d never seen so much of her own blood. She could hear Elsewhere begging her t
o its waiting bosom; for her to give in, let the power overtake her.
It came in the form of Nesilia whispering her name now. But with the bar guai buried in her chest, she found she couldn’t access the power through her blood as she once had. Every time her mind surrendered to Elsewhere, her chest stung and threw her back into focus.
“Fight the urge, Sora,” Aihara Na said. “Don’t allow your baser instincts to grab hold. Do not call upon your sacrifice, use the bar guai. Call upon the gods who built this world. Who built you. Call upon the mystics of old who sacrificed themselves so you may rise.”
“I… I can’t…” Sora whimpered.
“Yes, you can,” Madam Jaya said. “It is your destiny.”
“I can’t!” Sora was on the ground now, eyes clenched shut. The shock waned, and the pain began to take hold. Her arm felt like burning flames. “I can’t!”
“Do not be weak,” Aihara Na said. “Do not be fractured. Focus on who you are. Too much longer and you will die. Unlike the servant, your wound is fatal.”
Sora could feel her heart beating faster, and as it pumped, more blood gushed from the wound. She drew a few long, steady breaths and remembered how she’d learned to use fire.
Calm, she told herself. You must stay calm. Calm for Whitney.
She ignored the urging of Elsewhere that was so present yet impossible to access. The wound burned. She thought she felt bubbles roiling around it. Whether it was blistering skin or her blood boiling from Elsewhere’s fires, she didn’t know, but she kept digging.
The inferno in her mind dwindled, and through it, water began to cascade, gurgling as it gushed over rocks and around bends. She saw the small homes of Troborough—the Julset twins, the Whelforks, Wetzel’s shack. And she realized she stood in the narrow river running behind it. Her old caretaker was in the river with her, washing her messy hair. Only, she couldn’t have been more than three or four.
She remembered that day, so long ago, like a memory grasping at the threads of her mind. Her refugee caravan had finally let her off into the arms of an old man. She was so grimy from the long trip, Wetzel dragged her right out to the river, and as he scrubbed her, a young boy strolled by, tossing a rock into the air again and again. He stopped when he saw her.
“What’s wrong with your ears?” he’d asked, gawking. Then Wetzel shooed him, both hands flailing in the air like the town kook he was.
“Shellnak,” Sora said the name of Troborough’s puny river. She felt a rush of power again, starting in her chest. Her eyes opened, and another of the runes in the bar guai started to glow. “Aquira-Shellnak.” She chanted again, the rune of fire illuminating as well.
The whole of her body tingled then grew numb as she focused on the wound. The pain became unbearable, causing her to scream. It radiated to her chest, then pulsed, and as she fought to stay conscious, she felt the blood rushing to her gashed limb.
She squinted at it through the sweat coating her brow. Her arm and hand trembled, but the deep gash began to close. It went from a blanket of blood to sinew, to her skin threading back together as if made from strands of yarn on a loom. She embraced the pain until the flesh sealed, then released a mouthful of air. All that remained on her arm was quickly drying blood.
“I did it?” she whispered. A laugh snuck through her lips without her intending to do so. “I did it.”
“Well done, Sora,” Madam Jaya said, smiling.
“As I said, sometimes all it takes is a push,” Aihara Na said. She extended a hand to help Sora to her feet, but Sora didn’t take it.
Unlike summoning fire through the bar guai, healing herself left her so weak she felt like she’d just run from Troborough to Yarrington and back again. But she didn’t care. She scrambled to her feet, ran through Madam Aihara, and to Kai’s side.
She placed her hands over his wound and began incanting, focusing her mind on that key memory of water, on the feeling it brought her. Kai’s injury started sealing just as hers had. It was nearly halfway closed when her legs wobbled, and she grasped the table to stay upright. The pain in her own chest grew so intense she stopped trying to breathe. Only after Kai’s wound closed did she stagger back, dizzy.
She tried to say something to her masters, but her words came out in a garbled mess of languages. She caught the table for balance, then her hand slipped, slick with hers and Kai’s blood. Kai sprung awake and tried to catch her, but was too late. She hit the ground hard, skull slamming against the floor.
XXVIII
THE THIEF
After Kazimir revealed to Whitney why he was really sticking around, Whitney returned to the Fierstown farm as promised. Never in his life had he thought mundane work would be exactly what he needed to keep him from doing something stupid. But focusing on the bugs biting him, or the sweat, or how tedious it was, it helped him ignore the misery of his situation. Helped the days go by while he waited for night to come so he could seek a way through his personal Elsewhere’s barrier without prying eyes.
The spring harvest came and went, but there was never downtime as a farmhand. Pigs and cows needed constant attention, and the moment he finished fixing the roof of his childhood home, something else broke that required the hands of someone who could stand since Rocco couldn’t.
Days turned to weeks. Whitney tried his best to keep quiet and disturb nothing. All he had to do was bite his lip around his father to avoid his basic instinct to battle with him. Perhaps it was his injuries, but the man was far more docile then Whitney remembered.
Weeks turned to months. Lauryn kept Whitney well-fed. Rocco ensured that payment was timely, and they even gave Whitney a raise when the fall harvest hit. Even though he couldn’t leave Troborough, the people there still took autlas. The cost of a drink at the Twilight Manor was torturous—a week’s pay alone, far more than in real Troborough—but it helped remind Whitney this wasn't the real Troborough.
In his off-hours, Whitney and Rocco constructed a wheeling chair to keep Rocco from complaining so much. Occasionally, Whitney would roll him down, and Rocco’s condition earned a few free rounds, which made hearing his stories about what Troborough was like a decade ago tolerable.
Whitney even heard a few he’d never had before or had never paid attention to, like when conscript officers for the Panping War passed through. Rocco wanted to go off on an adventure like never before and serve his kingdom, but Whitney was born only days before, so Rocco stayed for him.
Whitney couldn’t imagine his unworldly father ever wanting to set foot in a place that wasn’t Troborough, but this version of him seemed to long for adventure. It was like losing his legs showed him everything he’d missed out on.
Sometimes Kazimir was around, quietly watching from the corner. He’d taken up residence in an apartment above the Twilight Manor. Mostly, Kazimir kept to himself, locked in his room, doing gods know what. From time to time the upyr helped on the farm, and since he had less need for autlas, because he didn’t eat or drink, Whitney got the bonus. Maybe he hadn't needed food to survive, but Whitney had found eating to be a tough addiction to break and a soothing one. Though he did discover that he couldn’t get drunk, not even a smidge.
Winter came and went.
It was a brutal one, and it battered the farm, which meant more repairs. The cold was worse than any Whitney had known before, and Rocco couldn’t handle it. He passed away from his injuries around the time when the Dawning should have occurred but didn’t, and they buried him in the cemetery behind the broken-down church.
Whitney couldn’t say how he felt about watching Fake Torsten lay his father down, but even stranger was the fact that Whitney attended. He’d known this shattered version of his father for a few months, even shared a few laughs, and it seemed right considering he was part of the reason his back wound up broken. Lauryn wept, holding Young Whitney in her arms as he did the same. Although his father’s condition and subsequent death was Young Whitney’s fault, Lauryn’s buried resentment toward the boy waned now that he'd beca
me the only family she had.
Whitney was sure as shog his real mother never would have done that. In real life, a burned down barn made her regard him like a monster. Here, she hugged Young Whitney every time he came home, whispered to him that it wasn’t his fault every time Rocco was brought up. She even allowed Sora over for supper almost nightly, treating her like a daughter.
Whitney took his useless food to the barn those nights. He knew being around Sora wouldn’t be wise. It was easiest that way. Every time this Troborough got too strange for him, he just held his tongue and went to sleep. Sometimes Kazimir was there, and even if they didn’t talk, it was comforting having someone around who knew he didn’t belong. It helped him remember what he was waiting for.
Months turned to years, and Whitney never stopped hoping for Sora to find a way to reverse what had happened. He’d learned more about farming than he ever wanted to, and construction too. Things grew too somber around the Fierstown home with Rocco gone, having to hear his mother cry from time to time. Young Whitney stopped sticking around to help around the house during the day, barely showed up for dinner, and when he did, it sounded like Sora had forced him. When he misbehaved, Lauryn forced herself not to be mad, Big Whitney could see it in her eyes. And he got into trouble often, more so than even Whitney could remember doing as a child. Everyone else had, but Whitney’s doppelgänger didn’t seem to change in the slightest. Even Big Whitney now boasted a pathetic, patchy beard so nobody would notice how alike he and Lauryn's son were. Not that anybody in Elsewhere seemed to notice that sort of thing.
And it was one unspectacular night after Young Whitney promised to have supper with his mom and failed to show up, sending her to tears, that Whitney found himself at the Twilight Manor. He offered to stick around for supper, but she’d asked to be left alone.
“What’s the difference between a Westvale whore and a dwarf?” Whitney asked, clothes still stained from a day's work at the Fierstown farm. “One’s short, fat, and has a beard. The other lives in the tunnels of the Dragon’s Tail.”
The Redstar Rising Trilogy: (Buried Goddess Saga Box Set 1: Books 1-3) Page 105
