by JMD Reid
“I don’t need to be a solarmancer or a Stormwitch to know. There haven’t been any rumors of losses. The recruits will just be replacing those mustering out.”
“But . . .” Chaylene choked, eels squirming in her stomach.
“You worry too much, Lena,” Vel laughed. “They only recruit the big and dumb, so me and you are safe. But don’t worry, Ary, I’ll watch over her while you’re gone. See her taken care of.”
“Ostrich-brained sow,” Ary grunted at Vel, a friendly smile on his lips. “It’s a lottery. Besides, none of us are going to get chosen.”
“Nothing will happen,” Chaylene said, her voice tight. She wanted to scream out, “Besides, I’m marrying Ary no matter what. I’ll be leaving Isfe behind.”
A question struck her. How will Vel react if Ary and I leave?
She’d never given a thought to their friend. In some ways, Vel’s life intertwined with theirs, playing with them across grass-covered hills, dashing through barley fields, or racing beneath the cool shadows of the Snakewood. And yet . . . He stood apart. Alone, always joking, mocking.
Is he bitter? Pity surged in her heart. “Thank you, Vel, for the offer. You’re a good friend.”
He gave her a mocking bow. “I am ever at your service.”
“I think a servant would be a relief at our house,” Ary said. “My thanks for the offer.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Vel said, his words spilling out quickly. “I’m not going to wipe up the mud you track in your house or darn your socks.”
Chaylene giggled. “And you can scale the fish and gut them.”
A sickly jaundice blotched Vel’s brown features.
Ary laughed louder.
Vel scowled and shook his head, saying, “You really would. Just work me to the bone. Like my ma doesn’t try to do that.”
“Oh, Vel, sweeping your house isn’t being worked to the bone,” she sighed. Ary did work. So did she. Vel had sisters to whom he shirked his chores off.
“Point,” Vel conceded, a smile growing on his lips. “But there are other forms of work to enjoy.”
Chaylene fixed a tight gaze on Vel to head off another salacious tale of his. She hated hearing about his conquests, even though she took a perverse delight in knowing that many of the girls who called her hussy acted like one.
Two hours later, dappled light painted across the bald head of Chaylene’s ostrich. The day’s heat lessened in the Snakewood, the thick canopy rustling above. She gripped her reins tight, her ebony knuckles paling. Not that she feared falling off any longer. She gripped hard against the growing ache in her thighs and her buttocks.
Ary had neglected to mention the ache and soreness caused by riding. Chaylene felt the ostrich rolling beneath her with its jerky gait. She winced with each step, her brow tight, glad Ary’s presence gave her some distraction from dwelling on the growing throb in the center of her right buttock. She rode beside him, chatting about nothing. Vel had vanished, long since distracted by a pretty face fluttering eyes at him.
An explosion of shouts ahead drew her attention away from the soreness of the saddle. Gretla’s arms pinwheeled, striking Jhevon riding beside her. Ary grunted, giving Chaylene a look. She nodded, forcing a smile, understanding.
“Don’t kill him in the middle of the group,” he called, heeling his ostrich down the path to deal with his unruly siblings.
Chaylene’s smile faded, the soreness rising again. She squirmed, struggling to find comfort on her saddle.
“So Ary’s abandoned you.”
Vel’s voice brought a true smile to her lips. Her handsome friend slowed his ostrich to match hers pace. He rolled in the saddle like he belonged, a knight out of the stories of the Vesche-Arxo Succession Wars, wearing the livery of House Jhayne, a favor from his lady love flapping at the end of his lance.
“I could say the same about you,” Chaylene said, an amused tone to her voice. “Riding with all those clucking chicks chirping for your attention. Did you forget about me so fast?”
“Well, I have to spread my attention around.” His flashed a bold grin. “So I’m here to give you a little.”
“My thanks,” she said, her back straightening, gracing him a slight nod. “Ary had to deal with his siblings. At least his reasons were not as shallow as yours.”
Vel’s eyes flicked to where Ary rode between his siblings, his shoulders tense, the pair shouting past him at each other. “I think he wants to throttle them.”
“Not Gretla.” Chaylene shook her head. “He dotes on her.” Ary, dandling a dark-skinned girl on his knee, flashed through her mind. “He’ll make a good father.”
Vel’s cheek twitched. “Really? With his temper?”
“He only punches boys who deserve it.” She didn’t hide her delight in that.
“So, you’re going to marry him?”
A slick writhe twisted her guts. “If he asks.”
“That doesn’t sound enthusiastic.”
Her hands clenched the reins, sweat soaking the leather. “I am. I want to marry him. But . . .”
“But the draft?”
Vel’s words startled her. “Is it that obvious?”
“To me. But I’m not a minnow lost in the hay loft.”
Chaylene huffed, “Ary’s not an idiot.”
“No, but he can be blind.”
“What does that mean?” She gave her friend a probing look.
“That he doesn’t see how he’s making you feel.” His face’s soft charm faded into stoniness. “He has to know enlisting will only hurt you.”
Sharp inhalation. “Did he say he’s enlisting?”
“Well, no,” Vel admitted. “But . . . You know it’s his dream. How many times did he make us play Pirates and Marines as kids?”
Her eyes found Ary, forehead furrowing. She pictured him wearing the red coat of a marine, standing tall, a thunderbuss over his shoulder as he served for the glory of the Autonomy. Hairs prickled across her arms. Her breath quickened.
He would go far away. She could go with him, escape, but . . .
“That’s what I mean,” Vel said. “He can’t enlist and then ask you to marry. Can’t he see how that makes you feel?”
Frost gripped her guts. “There are no wars right now.”
“But there are rumors. The Empire always wants to put us beneath their flag again. And the marines at the Watch are clucking about a new pirate band, the Bluefin Raiders.” He gave her a direct look. “You don’t want to be a widow at seventeen.”
“Shaylen,” her dead mother whispered through thoughts, alcohol blunting words, “be a good girl un’ run down the market. S’all out of wine.”
“No,” she answered. “He won’t join. He doesn’t want to do that any longer. The Cyclone . . .”
“And when he’s there, standing before the draft, he’s not going to think about all that glory? He’ll just assume that you’ll go following him around the skies.” Vel’s voice growled. “Like he always dragged us about Isfe to play whatever Storm-tossed games he wanted.”
Ary would make a handsome marine, his broad body making him imposing. He’d march with pride and sail to his death. A whisper escaped her mouth: “He won’t enlist.”
“We’ll see.”
Chapter Four
The day broiled as Ary had feared, and the excitement of traveling to Ahly had vanished in the dust kicked up by those riding ahead. Chaylene rode at his side, Vel on her other side. He made jests and flirted with the girls who kept riding their ostriches by his. Ary’s siblings scampered up and down the column, playing with the other children and youths.
But they didn’t pummel each other. He’d straightened that out of them.
The white cedars, oaks, and chestnut trees of the Snakewood gave way to the shadeless, cultivated plains of Central Vesche. Ary missed the cool woods and the beautiful music of the red thrushes, goldentail swallows, and gray jays singing in the boughs while bark trout flitted between the tree trunks.
“You
okay?” he asked Chaylene as the sun reached its zenith.
“I’m fine.” She drooped like a wilting daisy, her dark, sweat-damp face framed by a faded-yellow bonnet. She winced with her ostrich’s gait. Chaylene had little experience dealing with the chafing and sore muscles from a day spent in the saddle.
He handed over a waterskin to her. She gave him a shy smile and guzzled cool water, her gray eyes coming alive. He took it back, their fingers lingering against each other for a moment.
“You look like an ostrich kicked all the sense out of your head, Ary,” Vel laughed.
Ary scowled at Vel. “You should be used to seeing that.”
“Oh, why?”
“Don’t you see that same expression every time you look in a pool of water?”
Vel shrugged. “At least it’s a handsome, if stupid, expression.”
“Very handsome,” Chaylene nodded. Vel swelled, puffing out his chest. “For an eel,” she added.
He deflated. “I’m an eel now?”
“I can see it. So skinny,” Ary laughed, glad Chaylene had soared out of her cloudy mood.
“Great,” Vel muttered.
“I could have said slimy,” she added.
“Yeah, you could have.” He brightened. “Well, if I’m an eel, then I can wiggle into tight places and get what I want.”
“And what’s that?” Ary asked.
“Oh, uh, nothing. I was just saying . . .” Vel looked at Chaylene then heeled his ostrich to a trot and rode ahead.
“What was that about?” Ary frowned to Chaylene.
She rolled her eyes. “The clucking hens await.”
“What girl isn’t clucking after him?” Ary muttered, giving Chaylene a glance, wondering how she’d answer. He knew his friend would never try to net Chaylene, and knew she wouldn’t let herself be netted.
Chaylene gave him a smile. “You’re handsome enough for me. And Vel doesn’t have your . . . um . . . strength.”
Ary grinned, straightening in his saddle.
As the day wore on, other parties joined the group from Isfe. Impromptu reunions broke out across the road between friends and families from neighboring villages. The farther west they traveled, the more cultivated the plain became. The occasional village interspersed the fields of barley, orchards of lemon and oranges trees, pastures of ostriches, and pens of hogs. Overhead, flocks of ospreys hunted for verminous fish, screeching as they dived to scare away a school from the fields. As the sun set, marking the end of the thirty-first day of Hruvvoa and the birth of the thirty-second, they reached the town of Xofe, easily three times the size of Isfe. Huge warehouses lay on the outskirts, collecting the goods and produce of Eastern Vesche before they teamsters freighted them to Ahly’s docks.
The group broke apart as everyone sought distant relatives and old friends in Xofe with whom to stay the night. Ary, his siblings, and Chaylene, who had no family in Xofe, rode to the far side of the town and the farmstead of a distant cousin of Ary. He was also named Briaris, a common name among his family, passed down from when his ancestors ruled Vesche. Half the people Ary knew claimed descent from the dukes and kings of Vesche. But ducal and royal blood mattered little when the collapse came. Even old King Brias had turned to farming to survive.
At least, that’s what Ary remembered from his schooling and his pa’s stories.
“Where’s Chaylene?” Ary asked after a fine supper of barley stew and fried minnow at his cousin’s table.
“Isn’t she in the kitchen?” frowned goodwife Sriana, his cousin’s wife, a severe-faced woman with her blonde hair in a bun tighter than even Ary’s ma wore. “Thought she was washing some dishes.”
She wasn’t.
Chaylene had slipped out of the farmhouse with no one noticing. With a mix of curiosity and concern, Ary went to search for her while Sriana gave him a suspicious look.
“You bring her right back when you find her,” she admonished.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Right back, you hear?”
“Leave off, Sriana,” her husband said, pulling her down to the seat beside him.
“That girl’s half-Vaarckthian. Her blood is far too hot for her to be out unsupervised.”
Ary scowled at his cousin’s wife and walked out the door. All her life, the village goodwives badgered Chaylene about her Vaarckthian blood. The gossiping hens called her a “hussy” behind her back, or even to her face. Ary would bloody the nose of any boy or man who said it, but you didn’t turn fists on women.
Though night had fallen, it wasn’t too dark in the farmyard. The twin moons rose, both almost full. Only on the eve of the Summer Solstice, tomorrow evening, would both brothers shine full at the same time, the only time Riasruo shared her affections equally between her two lovers. Blue Twiuasra climbed faster, followed by his slower brother, the red moon Jwiaswo. Together, they bathed the barley fields with a purplish light.
Ary surveyed the farm and spotted a grassy hill.
He found Chaylene lying on her back upon the far slope, eyes fixed on the starry sky. He paused to study her. Purple lit the left side of her ebony face while streaks of violet painted her loose, blonde hair unfurled across the grass like a cloak. The light and dark shadows falling on her emphasized the fullness of her body’s curves. Ary’s breath caught, seeing her as a moon-nymph come to life, descended to the skyland upon feathery moonlight.
If she’s a moon-nymph, that would make me Bronith, Ary thought, his heart beating faster.
The tale of Bronith and Eyia was Chaylene’s favorite. Bronith, while hunting, had spied the moon-nymph Eyia dancing in the violet light on the eve of the Summer Solstice. His heart was forever lost to her mysterious beauty. She led him on a chase through the woods, promising the hunter her love if only he could catch her. But the moons set, and he stood heartbroken as she danced up their feathery light back to her home.
“I am sorry, my love,” she called. “In a thousand years, when I dance again upon the forest glade, maybe you shall catch me.”
Bronith’s love was too strong, so he dared what no other mortal had. He jumped upon the moonlight, chasing Eyia into the sky. Ary glanced at the western sky and found the constellation of the moon-nymph chased forever by Bronith across the starry heaven. Only a fingerswidth separated the lovers in the black sky.
Chaylene turned her head, her eyes finding his. She smiled shyly, her lips delicate, nose dainty. Her left hand reached and beckoned. Ary drifted to her and, unlike Bronith, caught his moon-nymph. Her fingers, warm and soft, set fire through his veins as they caressed his hand. He stared into her eyes, normally gray, but tonight a bright violet. But a tightness wreathed her eyes and strained her forehead, hand trembling in his.
He kissed her fingers then asked, “What’s wrong, Lena?”
“Just thinking about . . .” She trailed off into a sigh, gazing at the sky.
“The Blessing?”
Chaylene opened her mouth then closed it with a frown. Her tension bled into Ary through her delicate fingers squeezing harder. He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand and smiled. He wanted to brighten her mood. His heart pained to see her so morose.
He asked, “What Blessing would you like to get?”
“Wind, I guess. Yeah, Wind.”
“Why Wind? I never thought you had much interest in sailing or fishing.”
“No, not for sailing.” She hesitated. “It’s just . . . when it’s windy, my hair gets blown in my face. And if I had the Blessing of Wind, well . . .”
Ary grinned. Someone who possessed a Moderate or Major Blessing of Wind could see the currents of air and affect them, stopping the wind from touching their bodies. With a Major Blessing, they possessed far more control and reach, summoning great winds to propel a ship across the skies.
“The great Goddess Riasruo is going to gift you with a Blessing, and all you want is to keep your hair from getting mused?”
“Your hair is short, Briaris,” Chaylene answered with an indignant t
one. “You don’t know how annoying it is to have your hair blown back into your face, into your mouth, and ruin your careful work.”
“Sorry,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “But, even windblown, your hair is still perfect.”
“Liar.” A smile played on her lips.
“So, is that really all you want out of your Blessing? The ability to look pretty even in the fiercest of gales?”
“No, not really. It is a little frivolous, I suppose.”
“Just a little.”
She looked up at the sky and stretched out her right arm, fingers trying to pluck a star. “I want to fly. With a Major Blessing of Wind, I could soar through the sky like a bird. Like a Luastria.”
“To dance across the sky, like Eyia upon the feathered light of Twiuasra and Jwiaswo?”
Her smile grew. The tension relaxed from her fingers. He peered up at the night sky, picturing Chaylene dancing like a moon-nymph, graceful and radiant, bathed in violet, dancing for her Bronith. Dancing for me.
Ary squeezed her hand.
She faced him, eyes moving. The tension returned. She swallowed and asked, “What Blessing . . . would you like, Ary?”
Lightning.
Ary had dreamed about having it as a child. Only those who possessed a Moderate or Major Blessing of Lightning could become a marine. He beat down that dream. It held only pain. His pa had died because of it. He would be a farmer, like his pa, and marry Chaylene. Then they’d have their own brood of children. More heat burned inside him as he admired the profile of her face outline in purple.
“Mist,” Ary answered.
“Not Lightning?” Chaylene asked, her voice tight, choked.
“Mist is the most useful Blessing for a farmer.” With a Moderate or Greater Blessing of Mist, water could be precipitated out of the air.
Chaylene sighed. “I . . . I was . . .” Tears formed in her eyes. “You always wanted to be a . . .” Emotion spilled out of her, gentle rain from a dark cloud.
Ary wrapped his arms around her light body and pulled her close, her softness pressed against him. He didn’t know what was wrong with her, so he made a soothing sound.
