by Taki Drake
A roar of noise that made no sense was overwhelming the young girl, but she managed to gasp out, “I understand you leaving. Be safe and happy.”
The pain in Corda’s chest became overwhelming, and the illumination in the room swirled and shattered into small pieces, scattering points of light in the darkness, as Corda dropped into a pain-filled abyss.
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Corda didn’t want to wake up again. She felt herself floating toward light and awareness but resisted as much as she could. Vaguely, she knew that to emerge in the light was going to hurt, and like a wounded animal, all she wanted to do was hide.
Warm hands and a gentle but supportive voice pulled her until she realized that all resistance was futile, and it was time. Time to open her eyes to the light again. Time to accept whatever combination of pain and pleasure the universe held for her.
Sound was the first sense that immersed her in the here and now.
“I do not fear you. Power is simply power, it doesn’t change the underlying person. Yes, unchecked power can corrupt, but that still is a veneer on top of the real person.”
Feeling was the second sense that tugged her another step closer to consciousness.
Large warm hand cradling hers, and the feeling of soft but bristly skin. Gerald’s hands were around hers, and his face rested on her palm. The vibration as he spoke, traveled up her arm, and warmed her core.
For a while, Corda wrapped herself in the texture of his voice, the truth of his words, and the warm connection of his touch.
“Please, understand that I am not frightened of you. I trust you with my life. You, at least, will have the ability to contribute great things to the universe during your life. I wish I were that powerful. I keep thinking it would be nice to be important, wanted and respected for what I do and who I am. However, I know that if I were stronger and had more skills, my father and brothers would see that as a problem.”
The feather touch of his lips on her hand echoed throughout Corda’s body. Confused and unsure, the young girl found herself reaching for the light of consciousness. Pushing hard, the young girl opened her eyes as a chorus of alarms went off on her bedside monitoring devices.
Looking in the direction of Gerald’s voice, Corda offered him a trembling, fragile smile, saying, “Thank you. I don’t know how I would survive if you thought I was a monster too.”
Exhaustion hit, and Corda slipped under the black ice of unconsciousness. Carried in the cold current of forgetfulness, she floated, satisfied with the affection in her life and the stability of willing connections.
Chapter 44 – Awakening
One afternoon Corda simply woke up. There was no gradual transition from unconsciousness to awake. Instead, her awareness snapped immediately into full gear, her sensory input providing her with the immediacy of knowledge of her surroundings that was normal for her.
A murmur of voices from the side of her bed caused Corda to slowly turn and look to the left, where she saw her Nona with an arm around Bertor. The large man had his head bowed down, resting his face so stupid or maybe I just on his hands as his grandmother tried to comfort him.
“I can’t believe I was so stupid. Or maybe I just didn’t want to see. My head got so twisted around that I thought his behavior was normal.”
“Bertor, he has fooled older and more experienced people than you. He’s your father, the parent that raised you and help build your expectations. It is tough to get away from the basic foundation that your childhood determines.”
“But Nona, I knew he was cruel to Corda, and I never put it together. He always had some explanation for me, like she had done something wrong, or it was important for her to learn a lesson. But the truth is that I didn’t want to stand up to him. I’m afraid of my own father.” The self-loathing and pain in the Master Healer’s voice stabbed Corda in the chest like a blow.
The young girl could not stand to hear the sorrow in her brother’s voice. “All it would have done is given him another target. It would not have changed his behavior, but at least you were freer than the rest of us and comforted me when you could.”
The man looked up with joy in his face, springing to his feet and bending over his sister. “Corda, little one. Are you finally awake and back with us?”
Her voice was a little bit scratchy, but Corda felt remarkably well. She smiled at her loved ones and saw both her brother and grandmother relax. “Nothing hurts, and all of my bits and pieces seem to be working right now.”
Her grandmother moved to the side of the bed next to Bertor and patted the top of Corda’s leg, a shaky smile on her face. Brushing moisture from her eyes, the Seer assumed a stern pose and said, “Do not scare us like that again. I don’t need to be frightened out of any more years of my life by you getting so hurt.”
“I will try, Nona, but I’m afraid that I can’t make a promise like that. Sometimes things just happen, and I’m doing the best I can.”
“I know, sweetheart. Just try, please.”
The door swung open, and Master Healer Jerroy walked in, accompanied by Mind Healer Gasby. Jerroy broke into a broad smile, saying, “I thought I heard a little bird chirping. It must mean that this will be a great day.”
The brother and grandmother moved away from Corda’s bed so that the two Healers in charge of her case could satisfy themselves that Corda was, in fact, doing quite well. They busied themselves in checking her mood, awareness, and physical symptoms. Corda could see both of them relaxing as no specific problem arose.
Finally the two Healers were done and stepped back, grinning in satisfaction. Jerroy was the first one to comment, saying, “Congratulations! For the umpteenth time, you have barely managed to avoid killing yourself! However, Bethon and I would appreciate it if you could avoid such record-setting damages in the future.”
Corda just looked confused, switching her gaze from one Healer to the other. Both of them held serious faces for an instant, but finally, her look of incomprehension broke their façade. Jerroy and Bethon dissolved in relief and uproarious mirth.
When they had calmed down, Corda asked them what they meant. Looking a bit more serious, Jerroy answered, saying, “You officially had the worst case of Magical Backlash that the Academy here has ever seen.”
Bethon added, “More specifically, the worst case that anyone survived.”
Corda shrank down a little bit in the bed, saying miserably, “I didn’t mean to.”
Jerroy gave another shout of laughter, barely managing to choke out, “We are not complaining about your survival, just your recklessness when it comes to your life.”
Corda smiled, but as she looked from her grandmother and brother and back to the two Healers, the young girl got a sense that something else was coming. When they looked at her consideringly, a sinking sensation hit her, and she asked, “What are you not telling me? Did I get thrown out of the Academy?”
“Of course, not!” answered the Seer.
Jerroy said, the four of us wanted to talk to you about something, and decided that all of us should be present when you hear about it.”
The dread that Corda felt intensified, becoming bolder coming down the slope at her, caring more hurt. Frightened, the young girl began to weep, “What could be so bad that you look like when I hear it I’m going to die? Did somebody die? Is it Gerald? Where’s Bonpa?” Corda’s voice was rising higher, and she had begun to panic.
“Crap! Just tell her already, dammit! She doesn’t need any more stress.”
Taking a deep breath, the Seer explained, “You have been mostly unconscious for the last two weeks. A few days ago, the Academy carried out the decreed punishment on Pharyl. Your father had two new Advocates who attempted to get the decision overthrown based on your lack of character and the fact that no one in the household would speak for you.”
Tears running down her face, Corda stared numbly at her grandmother and asked brokenly, “No one? Not even Nanny?”
Bertor said urgently, “It is not what yo
u think. Apparently, after the Academy Tribunal, Father went back to the house and fired everybody that he suspected of having any sort of sympathy for you. Then he replaced each position with someone that had to sign an agreement to support him in any legal action.”
Misha held her granddaughter's cold hands in her own warm grip, saying, “Ealtert also called Bertor to demand that he sign an affidavit attesting to your poor character. Your brother refused, and your father tried to bully him.”
Corda gasped, “Bertor, you can’t set yourself up in opposition to him. He’s Healer Secondus. It will make it impossible for you to pursue any position of responsibility in the Healer political scene.”
Bertor laughed, a sharp unamused sound that grated on Corda’s ears. “You are my little sister, in my heart and yours. I will forever, and I do mean forever, bear the guilt for not being stronger and more honorable. I let you live in an abusive situation and did nothing substantial to change that.”
When Corda would have interrupted him, he put a hand up to silence her, and continued, “I found my place to take a stand. Regrets of a child, of an adolescent, are one thing. I refuse to have regrets going forward about a lack of action when it comes to my principles. How can I be true to my Healers’ Oath if I do harm to the innocent?”
The young girl closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, appearing to become a when she reopened them. Staring down at her clasped hands, she asked quietly, “What did he do?”
Misha told her granddaughter, “Ealtert had decided to confront your brother at a public location. He threatened Bertor with some really horrendous things and then told him he was not allowed to be at the appeal hearing. I think he didn’t want Bertor available to be called as your character witness.
“Luckily, Epheth had talked to Bertor ahead of time, and they made arrangements to minimize the damage. There was a Peacekeeper Inspector who witnessed the interchange. That officer delivered a sworn affidavit to the Healer Primus two days before the hearing.”
Corda looked up quickly, and exclaimed, “Oh, Bonpa is so smart! I bet that messed Father’s plans up! But how did Bonpa know that there would be a problem?”
Both the Seer and Bertor started to laugh. Corda’s brother said, “That is where Father shot himself in the foot. When he fired everybody with no references, Cook and the Armsmaster got hold of me and explained what happened. Cook knew right away that Father was up to something. Nona, Bonpa, and I came up with a plan to protect both of us.”
Suddenly serious, Misha said, “It was a nasty hearing and your father was irate. Nothing he did worked, and the sentence was carried out on Pharyl. His Healer channels have been burned out, and he will never be allowed in any of the Imperial Mage Academies.”
Pain in his eyes, Bertor added, “Father was prepared for that option. As soon as the appeal was denied, he left the Academy and filed a notice of Pharyl’s disownment. There was no one there with our brother when the Mage Judgment was carried out.”
“I would’ve gone, even after all the pain he caused me,” stopped Corda.
Bertor’s voice was low and sad when he said, “I would have gone also, but father blocked me from being able to do so. Pharyl was alone in the pain of losing his Magic and the destruction of what he thought was going to be his career. There wasn’t even anyone to drive him away from the Academy.”
The tiny young woman held her arms out, and her big strong brother put his head down on her shoulder and cried. Her tears joined his as they mourned the loss of a brother and acknowledged the destruction of an illusion.
Chapter 45 – Secrets Exposed
The atmosphere in the room changed when the elderly Advocate General walked in accompanied by the older military man that had attended her hearing. Corda blinked in surprise, wondering what the person in charge of the military investigation would want with her. A startled gasped from her Nona drew her attention, and she saw that her grandmother’s face had gone pale.
There was a movement of air, and the young girl realized that both the Triage and the Mind Healer had left without a farewell. Confused by their very atypical behavior, Corda looked from her grandmother to the military man in thought for a second before turning to her grandfather and asking, “Bonpa, what is going on?”
Epheth turned to the stranger and said, sounding to Corda’s ears like he was bragging, “See! I told you how fast she was on the uptake.”
The unknown man was staring at Corda’s face. The young girl could not determine what his expression meant because she did not know how to interpret the intense mixture of hope and disbelief. She looked at him, noticing that he definitely carried himself like a military man with an upright posture and ease of movement that she recognized from the Peacemakers and the Emperor’s Own forces.
The man maintained his silence, and Corda searched his face, looking at each of his features with an uneasy sense of familiarity. There was a point when Corda’s eyes met the man’s storm-cloud-gray gaze that the young girl felt a shock of recognition. I do not know him, but I feel like I do. Who is he?
For an endless moment, old eyes of stormy gray met younger ones of gray flecked with gold and held. Everyone was silent, waiting as the two opposites inspected each other. Old to young, military to civilian, male to female. Opposite in many ways, but there was a sense of connection that neither one of them was prepared to deny.
Breaking free, the older man spun and took a step toward where the Seer and Bertor sat. His voice full of pain, the man demanded, “Misha, how could you not tell me? Why did you not tell me?” His voice broke in betrayal and pain, and the man stumbled, clutching wildly at the bottom rail of Corda’s bed.
The young girl was frozen, the man’s voice striking a chord in her, an explosion of confusion erupting inside her head like a flock of startled birds. The noise of her whirling thoughts failed to cover up her Nona’s tortured answer, “At first I did not know. After I came back and found that Aret was married, there was nothing I could do. I suspected, but Ealtert and Aret said nothing. My daughter was lost to me, and it was years before I saw her again for any length of time.”
The strange man’s voice was less anguished but rang with the power of command, when he demanded, “When did you know?”
Leaning against her grandson’s shoulder as he held her supportively, the Seer answered with tears in her voice, “I got to see Corda again just before she was ten. I read the cards for her and suspected then but had no proof.”
Standing rigidly at the end of Corda’s bed, the man flinched as if he had received a massive body blow. The young girl’s mind skittered around her skull, trying to connect all the pieces, put together all of the clues that were being laid out in front of her. Lacking enough context, the young girl could not come up with an answer. Helplessly, she continued to observe, carefully noting the facts of interest.
“Almost four years. You have suspected for four years and not told me!”
Tears pouring down her face, Misha said brokenly, “Yes, but admitting what I suspected would have done no good. I could not prove it even though my heart screamed out to do something.” Sobbing openly now, the Seer admitted, “how could I believe this of my daughter? She has always been tenderhearted, unable, or unwilling to argue.”
Everyone in the room knew that the conversation was between Misha and this other man. Even Corda’s Bonpa had stepped back, letting the two of them deal with the complicated and emotional messaging that was flying back and forth between them, carried on the wings of shared history.
“Misha, how could you not know?”
Protective of his grandmother, Bertor jumped in, saying hotly, “Father forbid Nona from entering the house for many years, and Mother is totally under his thumb. I very seldom got to talk to my grandmother, and it never occurred to me to tell her that when Father and Aret got married, I sensed the two sparks of life within her.”
Misha gasped, and Corda felt like she had dropped twenty feet. Instantaneously, the stormy gray eyes of
the still-unnamed man transformed into thunder-cloud dark. Dangerously, he asked, “Two? What do you mean two?”
Blind to Advocate Amity’s frantic gestures, Bertor responded openly, “When I hugged Aret after she married my father, I did not realize that I was a Healer. However, my sensing ability was precocious, and I knew that she had two other heartbeats in her belly. I could feel them when I hugged her, and I remember being happy that I would have a new brother and sister.”
Feeling the force of the older man’s regard, Bertor stammered as he said, “Nona had no way of knowing any of that. Father made sure that we only saw her for short periods and in public places. She was an oddity but was someone I could relate to. I looked forward to seeing her…”
Bertor’s explanation was truncated as the older man turned to the Seer and asked with dread in his voice, “The boy?”
“I was told that there was only one child and that she was born early. Corda arrived seven and a half months after Ealtert and Aret were married.”
The military man’s breath sounded like a cry of deep-seated pain, and Corda’s heart went out to him. She sat up in her bed quickly and said, “Please, sit down on my bed. I do not understand half of what you are talking about, but I know you are hurt. They have very good Healers here, and I know that they will come to help you. They helped me, even when I did pretty stupid things.”
The older man fumbled until he was sitting on the edge of Corda’s bed, his hand clenched on her lower leg. Corda usually hated when people grabbed her, but for some reason, this man’s grip did not upset her. Telegraphed through his touch, she knew that he was in that same cloud of disorientation and confusion that she found herself more frequently than she liked. The young girl could empathize with the feelings that people had when their whole world was yanked into a different shape.
To relieve some of the fog of sorrow mixed with anger that she felt in the room, Corda attempted to lighten the atmosphere by saying, “Forgive me for asking, but we have not been introduced. I am Bertor’s sister, Corda. You obviously know my Bonpa and my Nona. Could you please tell me who you are?”
