Brotherhood Saga 03: Death

by Kody Boye

  “I don’t think so,” Nova said, turning his attention to his wife. “Honey?”

  “I’m not sure,” Katarina sighed, only turning her head up when the conversation ground to a halt and waited for her to continue. “I was sleeping the last time it happened.”

  “Surely you would have felt the bed vibrate,” Ketrak said, “especially if his convulsions were as severe as they were this time.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know, father.”

  “I’m not exactly sure what is going on then,” the man said, reaching up to brush his hands along his clean-shaven head.

  “What am I supposed to do then?” Nova frowned. “Nothing?”

  “If it was a seizure, sir—which is highly unlikely, considering that you do have, as you said, the Sight—then the best thing for you right now is a good night’s rest and cool compresses to the head. If you’re worried about it… and if you’re willing… I could treat you here, if you like, but that would require you staying in the infirmary overnight.”

  “That’s fine,” Nova said, standing, then pushing his palm out to shake the man’s hand. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Nova,” Katarina sighed.

  “Not now, honey.”

  “But—“

  Before his wife could finish, he turned and began to lead them out of the infirmary.

  His family had no choice but to follow.

  “What did you see in your vision?” Ketrak asked, passing one of the cool compresses to Katarina and nodding as she placed it over his brow.

  “Not now, father,” Katarina said, stroking Nova’s temple as if he were no more than a small bird with broken wings. “He needs to rest.”

  “I’m not dying for God’s sake,” Nova sighed, reaching up to adjust the compress across his head.

  “Nova—“

  “I dreamed Odin and another man were running away from someone—or, at the least, something.”

  “Running?” Ketrak frowned.

  “Odin had a book in his hand.”

  “A book?” Katarina asked.

  “I’m not sure what exactly it was, but before I had the vision, I was having dreams about the man he was with, Odin’s father’s sword and that very same book he was carrying. It felt like…”

  Should I tell them? he thought. Do I really want to worry them more than I already am?

  “It felt like… what?” Katarina asked, waving her hand before his eyes to draw his attention. “Tell us, Nova.”

  “It felt evil.”

  “Evil?”

  “Like the bad energy was just pooling off of its surface.”

  “Do you think Odin might be up to something?” Ketrak asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Nova sighed, stretching his torso out along the bed and pressing his feet against the footrest. “Even if he is, that’s his business and not mine.”

  “You’re his friend, you know?”

  Yeah, but if he’s doing something illegal and I’m not involved with it, that’s his problem, not mine.

  If what he believed was happening were true—if, for some reason, Odin and the man he was with were being pursued by Elves looking for the thing Odin held—then Odin might have stolen something from the fair creatures; something dark, powerful and, of the utmost intent, evil. One did not see a book in a dream and the energy flowing from it unless it was one of two things: good or evil. He could rule out the positive notion if only because of the color of the energy. Evil, though—that itself was hard to wrap his mind around, let alone grasp with any sort of integrity.

  “Whatever Odin’s doing,” Katarina said, pulling the sheet up Nova’s waist and stroking his dampening hair away from his eyes, “that’s his business and not ours. We should say nothing at all to him upon his arrival.”

  “Why?” Ketrak asked. “We’re his friends.”

  “But what Nova saw was meant only to be shared between Odin and the man he’s with. Besides—we don’t even know if what Nova seen is actually going to happen.”

  “I think it is,” Nova said.

  “Your visions haven’t been wrong… have they, Nova?”

  “From the few I’ve had, no, they’ve not.”

  “Then this must mean Odin is hiding something from us,” Ketrak said.

  “You can’t blame him, father. He’s just lost his father.”

  “Just because someone loses a family member doesn’t mean they have to upturn their entire sense of morals, dear.”

  “He’s lost his mind and run away from home. Who are we to judge him for whatever it is he’s doing?”

  “None of us should even know what’s going on or about to happen,” Nova said, shrugging the compress off his head and throwing his legs over the mattress.

  “Nova!”

  “I’m fine, dear. Don’t worry. I don’t need a damp cloth on my head to know that.”

  “What we’re getting at here is that we shouldn’t say anything to anyone,” Katarina said, careful to stress each word as though they were a knife cutting into a tender piece of meat. “Including you, father. I know you care about Odin, but now’s not the time to be judging him, especially so soon after his loss.”

  “Has anyone even contacted his father?” Ketrak frowned. “I mean, his adoptive one?”

  “Not that I know of,” Nova sighed.

  “Maybe we should do it,” Katarina said. “Explain to him what’s going on.”

  “I’ll do it in the morning,” Nova sighed. “Just… not now. There’s too much going on to even consider writing a letter.”

  “In the morning, yes. That will be better. Then we’ll all be rested and of a better mindset.” She seemed to concentrate the last of these words at her father, who simply shook his head, turned, then made his way back to his bed. Katarina turned her attention back on Nova when he started to settle back down. “Put the compress back on your head, honey.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Just do what I say, please.”

  Nova pressed his head back against the pillow and sighed.

  Though he did as his wife asked, he couldn’t help but feel as though tomorrow would only bring torment, if only in the form of quill to parchment and the admission of death, defeat and abandonment.

  Dear Ectris Karussa, Nova began, careful to still his trembling hand to write each and every letter as carefully as he could. I am writing to tell you that something terrible has happened.

  To think that one would start a letter like that was simply outrageous, though as much for pleasantries as he usually was, Nova felt not the inclination or the desire to short the man who’d raised Odin the truth of the situation. With that in mind, Nova dipped the quill back into well of ink, pressed the weights at the four corners of the parchment into place, then bowed his head to continue writing the letter that would deliver to Ectris the fate of Odin’s true father and his adoptive son’s disappearance.

  It was, without any doubt, that he bore no shortage in telling Ectris about the events that had taken place within the last five weeks—how, after Miko’s tragic death at the Battle and Reclamation of Dwaydor, Odin had succumbed to massive depression and fled the city in the days thereafter to a place he considered his ‘ancestral homeland’ to ‘reclaim what little was left of his life.’ He then added, with little coercion or thought, that upon his deathbed, Miko had revealed that on one long, rainy night, he had left a freshly-born child with a man whom he considered respectful, honest and bearing enough integrity to ensure the infant would grow to be a healthy young child and then a courageous man.

  He finished by proclaiming that Odin had not specifically stated when he would return and that, until the young man showed up either at the Ornalan castle or at Ectris’ home, that it was better they all wait before coming to rash decisions about what Odin planned on doing.

  Sincerely, Nova wrote, Your Friend, Novalos Eternity.

  From the corner of the room, watching him with eyes sad and unsure, Katarina rose and began to cross the distance between them.
In her gait, as troubled as it was, he sensed a magnitude of emotion that seemed to flow from her like the energy from the book had in his vision. Dark, chaotic, frantic and frightened, it struck him head-on and threatened to knock him off his feet.

  “Did you finish?” Katarina asked.

  With a short nod, Nova freed the paperweights from the parchment, then passed it over for Katarina’s approval.

  It took but a few moments for her to read the entirety of the letter. “It’s good,” she said, returning it to Nova to allow the ink to dry. “A lot better than I could have done, if you ask me.”

  “I tried my best,” Nova sighed, tempted to blow on the ink, but not willing to risk smudging it. “I guess as soon as this dries, I’ll track down a guard and see if he can send it out with a messenger in the next caravan to Felnon.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take to get there?”

  “A week, maybe two. I don’t know. It’s better it goes now then later. Honestly, though, it should’ve gone out a lot sooner than this. I’m surprised we didn’t get something sooner.”

  “Maybe he sent something to Odin and it was left in his and the king’s room,” Katarina offered.

  “Maybe, but there’s not a whole lot we can do about it if that’s the case.”

  With a brief nod, Katarina leaned forward, wrapped her arms around Nova’s shoulders, then bowed her head into his neck, the rasp of her breath fading in and out enough to stir the faint hairs on his collarbone. Had it been a different moment, the gesture would have been welcome, even comforting, but at the most, it felt like he were being dealt a blow that he could not recover from.

  “Katarina,” Nova said.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry I left you alone for all these years.”

  “Why are you bringing this up?”

  “Because it’s hard for me to believe that it’s taken me this long to realize just how good of a person you are,” he said, reaching up to set his hand over hers. “You could have left me while I was gone all those years across the country, overseas, in the mountains… you could have found another man who would have given you everything you could’ve ever asked for and more.”

  “No I couldn’t.”

  “You could’ve. I know it.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because everything I could ever want is right here,” she said, pressing both hands against his chest. “I’ve only ever wanted to be with you, Nova. Ever since we met… as embarrassing as that first time was… you’ve always treated me like I was one of the most important people in the world.”

  “You are.”

  “You say that, but… well…”

  “Well… what?” he frowned. “Are you not telling me something?”

  “I sometimes feel like I’m less of a person than I should be,” she shrugged. “Maybe it’s because I got married so young—which, I should say, I don’t regret in the least—or maybe it’s because I don’t know the world as well as I should. Sometimes, I feel like I’m stuck in a box because the people who run the world have put me there. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah,” Nova said. “I feel the same way sometimes.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. Everybody assumes I’m stupid just because I’m from Bohren and worked most of my life in the fields, but… well… I may not be the smartest guy around, but I’m not the stupidest either, and I know for a fact that I’m good at a few things.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A good friend, a good husband… at least, I’d like to think so… hopefully even a good father.”

  “You’ll be a great father, Nova. Don’t worry about that.”

  “I’m trying not to, Katarina, but when I think about the situation we’re in and just what is going on, I start to wonder whether or not I’ll follow in my father’s footsteps and leave you and my son behind.”

  “Son?” Katarina frowned. “Did you—“

  “I saw it,” Nova said, turning his head up to look at his face. “In a vision.”

  “We’re having a baby boy?”

  “Hope I didn’t ruin the surprise.”

  Katarina threw herself across the room and squealed in joy.

  Nova smiled.

  Seeing his wife happy, as simple and plain as that happened to be, was enough to warm his heart so much that he felt, for just one brief moment, an insight into the world and just how it operated.

  Happiness was, as many would have said, a pleasure, one that did not have to be worked toward in order to be experienced.

  While he knew nothing of his future or what was to come past the winter, he knew that, regardless of whatever was about to happen, things would work out for the better.

  He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and took one long, deep breath.

  Everything would work out, in time.

  He knew it would.

  It rose just as the snow began to fall fresh from the sky and created a sense of justice that Nova almost found impossible. Standing before it in his winter wear, his arm around his pregnant wife and a hand dangling at his side, he looked upon the place that he and his family would now call home as though it were suggesting a life or death sentence were he not to take its offer. Grand, it seemed, in its two stories, and careful, it was, built from the strongest of plans. He imagined between the walls there was mud or clay insulation, selected carefully to protect those within from winter, and though it was likely to not have any furniture until a shipment was ordered from one of the bordering towns, that did not matter, for they finally had a place to call home.

  “It took us a while,” Carmen said, peeking her head out from the open threshold to look at them, “but we finally got it finished.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Katarina said. Tears in her eyes, she stepped forward, descended to her knees, then opened her arms as the Dwarf ran into her embrace. “Thank you, Carmen.”

  “There’s no need to thank me, beautiful. Just doing my job, and right now, that’s to keep you and your family safe, especially this little ‘un here.” She patted Katarina’s stomach as if to emphasize her point.

  With a laugh and a smile on her face, Katarina rose, turned to face Nova, then threw herself into his arms in one mighty leap.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, bowing her face into Nova’s chest. “Isn’t it, honey?”

  “More than beautiful,” Nova said, looking over his wife’s shoulder and down at the Dwarf before them. “It’s amazing.”

  Carmen offered a single wink, one which Nova returned immediately.

  “What’re we going to do about supplies?” Ketrak asked, stepping forward to press a hand against the outside of the house. “Are the other towns bringing them in, or will we have to rely on the castle?”

  “So far as I know, the castle will be handing out provisions to the people who will start taking shelter in these homes,” Carmen said, turning to face the gargantuan home before her. “I imagine the king will ask the other towns to bring in support as well, though I’m not necessarily sure when exactly that will happen.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Nova said, setting his arm across his wife’s shoulders as she turned to look at the inside of the house. “Besides—I’m sure Ournul won’t mind if we take some of the blankets and pillows to make ourselves comfortable.”

  “Here’s to hoping some supplies arrive soon,” Carmen said, raising her hand to clap first Ketrak’s hand, then Nova’s and Katarina’s. “Well, guys, I hate to leave you, but I should probably get back to work. We need to put up the rest of these houses before the snow gets any worse.”

  “What’ll you do if it does?” Katarina frowned.

  “Move the snow and keep working. Not much more we can do, is there?”

  With a slight shrug, Katarina offered Carmen a slight goodbye before stepping toward the house. She stood there for what seemed like an eternity, looking inside the open doorway, before she turned to l
ook at Nova and her father.

  While Katarina seemed everything but sad, Nova couldn’t help but wonder what lay below the surface, placating her conscience and shrouding her outlook on life.

  It’s all right, he thought, offering a slight nod, then a smile when her eyes fell to the slight covering of snow at their feet. Everything’s going to be just fine, honey. Don’t you worry.

  “Shall we go in?” Katarina asked.

  They need not reply.

  Nova and Ketrak stepped through the front door.

  For all intents, purposes, needs and distractions, things should have been fine—perfect, even, in light of their situation and the fact that they no longer seemed constricted to the ties in which they’d been bound. However, as much of the case as that seemed and as little doubt that could have been in any of their minds, Nova found himself feeling less than stellar at the fact that here, in the now—within the confines of their new home, flames burning and quilts bearing upon his shoulders—it seemed he lived without punishment, persisted without need and continued in life with little consequence.

  No more than four weeks ago, a friend had died. In nearly that same time, another had fled to a place he could never even dream of being.

  Come on, he thought, bowing his head. Don’t let this get to you—not now, not when you should be happy.

  It would have been clearly apparent if his happiness had transcended his mind and allowed his body to reciprocate—so clear, in fact, that he would have been bursting with joy: a feeling that, while not particularly noticeable at times, could be seen in plain details. The smile, the laugh, the look in one’s eyes, the tremble in their body—these things, and more, could be described in detail without having to resort to means literary or poetic. A man’s smile could rule the world, his laugh the kingdom, his eyes the shepherd, and his beautiful yet somber tremble could have delivered into the masses a sense of peace and justice about situations so harsh and severe that they need not worry about locking their doors at night or leaving their windows open, for it was this king, his laugh, his smile and his eyes that would protect them from all evil, all harm, and all consequence that could have ruled the world in that very moment when they closed their eyes at night and pretended to go to sleep.