by J. J. Faulks
Piprin limped towards the tree stump and slumped down onto it. He leant forward, holding his ankle, his soft features twisting into a sharpened mask of pain. Beighlen perched next to him. He peeled his arm away from the blood-soaked shirt and rested it in his lap.
“Hold still,” he said to Piprin and dipped two fingers into the deep crimson blood pooling from his lacerated arm. “We need to cover the scent of mortal blood.”
He dragged his fingers over Piprin’s skin, painting his face, arms and legs with streaks of red. Piprin whitened but did not flinch.
“Look,” Orleigh said and pointed into the darkness that enclosed their pocket of sunlight. “The animals have stopped.”
The creatures ran right up to the edge of the circle but halted there, whining and pawing the ground on the outside. Not so much as a single claw strayed inside the bounds of the twelve trees.
“Why are they only interested in me?” Piprin asked. He looked up at Orleigh. “You had nothing protecting you and they ran straight past you.”
Her gaze flickered to Beighlen. “Beighlen thinks that I have immortal blood.” She shook her head, eyes turning to the floor. “But I can’t. Teymos can’t be my father.”
Piprin paused and then asked, “Why not? You said that your mother was trying to escape her fate, that’s why she ran away. What if that fate had something to do with you?”
An emptiness opened inside her. It was like biting into an apple and finding that someone had hollowed out the core.
“Remember when that thorn scratched me,” Beighlen said. “You took my hand and the pain went away. What if you can heal people?”
“I can’t heal people!” She snorted. “I’m not a demigod.”
“Then prove it!” Beighlen said. “Show me that you can’t heal me.”
“How am I meant to prove something that I can’t do?”
“Here.” He stood up from the tree stump and grabbed hold of her hand, his grip tightening as she resisted and tried to pull away. He held her hand against the torn flesh of his arm, his fingers wrapping over hers.
Warm blood seeped up through the gaps between her fingers, her palm slick against the wound. Saliva pooled in her mouth. She clenched her teeth and swallowed, her stomach turning.
“See, nothing’s happening,” she said.
“Yes it is,” he said. “Just watch.”
“Beighlen—” Piprin said, one hand gripping the edge of the tree stump as he began to push himself to his feet.
“Wait!” Beighlen barked, and Piprin sank back down. “Look.”
The skin either side of the wound started to knit itself back together, forming a seam of deep purple. Orleigh gasped and Beighlen finally loosened his grip on her hand. The seam grew lighter and lighter until only a faint line remained.
“But how?” she whispered, staring at the skin where the slash used to be.
“You’re a demigod,” Beighlen said with a broad smile.
Hands trembling, she knelt in front of Piprin and touched his ankle. A trail of blood weeped down from each of the puncture wounds. At first nothing happened, but she waited, just as she had done with Beighlen.
“It’s tingling,” Piprin said, his ability to sense her doubt as keen as those cursed creatures’ nose for mortal blood.
She nodded and held still, her lips drawn into a tight line. The holes spiralled shut, forming whorls of pink that faded into pinpricks of white. With a sharp exhalation, she let go of Piprin’s ankle and sat back on the mossy ground, hugging her knees to her chest. A wave of tiredness washed over her and she stared out into the distance.
“Why didn’t Teymos tell me?” she murmured.
“He didn’t know,” Beighlen said. “Only Alea could have known.”
“Then why did she hide it? Why keep me a secret?”
“Only she knows that,” Beighlen said.
“But I can’t ask her, can I?” Orleigh snapped. She shook her head, holding her tongue between her teeth. “What am I meant to do now?”
“You can do whatever you want—you’re a demigod!” Beighlen said and he laughed. He held his arms out, as if embracing the world around them. “Everything that you’ve read about in books, all the places you’ve imagined visiting—you can see them all for yourself!”
“That’s not what I meant,” Orleigh said, her flat voice casting shade on the rosy vision that Beighlen conjured. She sighed. “What am I meant to do about the village? What am I meant to do about Teymos?”
Beighlen’s smile faded away, a hard frown falling on Orleigh. “You’re a demigod. You belong here, in the Land of Gods.”
“But the Land of Mortals is my home.” She looked to Piprin, but he was staring at the ground, eyes distant and moist. “Piprin?”
Piprin blinked and glanced up, his eyelashes spiked with tears. “We need to get out of the forest.” He stood up, turning to Beighlen. “How do we get out of here?”
Beighlen shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know where we are.”
The three of them peered around, as if expecting to find a sign, but there was only the circle of trees forming a barrier to the gloom, the animals lurking in the spaces between, and the lone tree stump at the centre.
Orleigh leant forward, crawling closer to the tree stump. She ran her hand over the space where Piprin had been sitting. “What’s this?”
A trail of words shadowed the cut rings of the tree.
“It looks like some kind of inscription,” she said.
“All of the trees have them,” Piprin said. “They’re the histories of the spirits.”
“But this isn’t a history,” she said. She traced her finger over the words. “I can run, fall and roar. Through the clouds, I can soar. I am blue, sometimes green. When I’m still, you are seen. What am I?”
Beighlen took a step closer, hovering over her so that he could take a look for himself. “It’s a poem,” he said.
“No, it’s a riddle,” Piprin corrected him. He knelt down next to Orleigh. “The boy in the borderland said the same thing. He said something about solving it if he wanted to leave.”
“Well, what’s the answer?” Beighlen asked.
Piprin’s face darkened beneath the ridge of his brow, an echo of the same look he had worn as a child. It was as though he had taken a step back from the world, withdrawing into his thoughts. He muttered the words under his breath, repeating them over and over. Like the sun breaking through an overcast sky, his face brightened.
“Water,” he announced. “The answer is water.”
“How does that help?” Beighlen asked. “There’s no water here.”
“There’s water everywhere,” Piprin said with a puzzled frown that suggested Beighlen couldn’t be further from the truth. He rose to his feet. “There’s water in the trees.”
“Piprin?” Orleigh prompted, but Piprin had walked away, wandering towards the trees that formed the edge of the circle.
He walked around the perimeter, pausing at each of the twelve trees, running his hands over the inscriptions etched into their bark. The animals sniffed the air as he approached, as if grasping for a memory veiled by time, but the glint in their eyes had gone. He returned to the centre of the circle, climbing up onto the tree stump.
He pointed in front of him, his arm as straight as a needle. “The inscriptions on those three trees tell the histories of fire spirits.” He pointed to his right. “Those three tell of earth spirits.” He turned and pointed behind him. “Those three, water spirits.” He pointed to the left. “And those three, air spirits.”
“Like a compass?” Orleigh said.
“Like a compass.” Piprin nodded. “I think we need to follow the trees with inscriptions about water spirits and that will lead us out of the forest.”
“Are you sure?” Beighlen asked.
“As sure as I can b
e,” Piprin said. “We can’t stay here forever.” He turned towards the trees that bore the water inscriptions and stepped down from the tree stump.
“Wait,” Orleigh said and she caught hold of Piprin’s arm before he could stride off into the forest. She turned to Beighlen. “Could you weave a vision? Something that makes the animals think that we haven’t left the clearing?”
Beighlen paused and then nodded. He settled down on the tree stump and spread his fingers into two broad webs. The air in-between his hands grew hazy, the cloud-like wisps twisting and condensing into threads that tumbled over one another. One by one, he caught the threads with his fingers and began to weave them together.
When he had finished, an orb the size of an apple, bright green and laced with gold, floated in his palm. He cast it into the air. It caught the sunlight, threads glimmering as they unwound and swept through the clearing. The threads wove themselves into a ribbon that stretched all the way round the circle of trees, a vision of the three of them stood around the tree stump masking them as they slipped into the forest, Piprin taking the lead.
Piprin moved from tree to tree, finding those with references to water. “This way,” he called, directing them through the forest. Their progress was slow, but the animals no longer dogged them.
After a while had passed, Beighlen said, “I know where we are.” He stepped into the lead, and Piprin fell back. “Teymos’s estate is this way.” He beckoned to Orleigh and Piprin to follow.
When the gate appeared in the distance, Orleigh grabbed hold of Piprin’s hand and squeezed it tight. Relief unfurled in her chest like a rose surging from bud to bloom.
“We made it,” she said and smiled. Whispering again to herself, “We made it.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Smokey wisps of immortal blood clouded the waters of the fountain. With his eyes fixed on the depths, the Seer stared past, like looking through veils of red gauze billowing in the breeze.
Orleigh had returned, but she was different to the girl who had sat beside the fountain before. The threads of Alea’s deceit were unwinding and were weaving themselves anew, this time making Orleigh their home.
The victory should have been sweet—it had been maturing for over seventeen years—but there was no time to savour it, for a change was coming, and he had to be prepared.
*
Beighlen’s blood tainted the water of the fountain as Piprin leant over the edge of the stone and scrubbed his arms clean. He plunged his face into the water and then drew back sharply. He gasped, his eyes wide, face ashen.
“What is it?” Orleigh asked and laid one hand on Piprin’s arm.
Piprin frowned, his voice shaking. “I thought I saw something…someone. Someone watching us.” He shook his head and pressed his finger and thumb to his closed eyes. “It was nothing. I’m probably just on edge after the forest.”
“Perhaps it was your reflection,” Beighlen said. He hovered outside the maze of dark roses, scuffing his feet through the gravel.
“Perhaps,” Piprin murmured.
“Orleigh.” Beighlen raised his eyebrows and jerked his head away from the fountain.
Orleigh hesitated, glancing to Piprin who had yet to regain his colour.
“I’m fine,” Piprin said, his pale blue eyes meeting hers. His lips tugged into a half-smile and he motioned for her to join Beighlen.
“There’s an orchard behind the house,” she said, pointing to the tract of grass that disappeared round the right hand side of the building. “Help yourself to the fruit, and I’ll come find you in a minute.”
Before Piprin even reached the path, Beighlen hissed, “He can’t stay here. He needs to go back to the Land of Mortals.”
“Right now?” Orleigh said. “We’ve only just escaped the forest and you want us to dive straight back in?” She shook her head in disbelief. “And don’t think that I’ve forgotten what happened in there. You owe me an apology.”
Beighlen frowned, his brow forming a hard line over his eyes, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “What for?”
“For lying to me!” She mirrored his stance.
“But I was the one that discovered the truth!” He threw his arms into the air.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you lied.”
“But I lied in order to protect you.” His face softened and he tried to take hold of her upper arms, like a parent explaining some complexity to a child.
She shrugged him off and took a step back, unfolding her arms and batting his hands away. “You lied because it suited you.”
“What does that mean?” He scowled.
“You value your friendship with Teymos and your status amongst the other gods. That’s what you were protecting.”
Beighlen’s cheeks pinkened, the light blush reaching all the way up to the tips of his ears, and his lips pursed. The lack of a denial said more than any words could say.
“You’re right: Piprin can’t stay here,” she said. “Once Teymos gets back, I’m going to ask him to take Piprin home, and I’m going to go with them.”
“You can’t,” he protested. “You’re a demigod, you belong here.”
“You said it yourself.” She gave a small shrug. “I can do anything that I like.”
A solemn look spread across his face. “You’re making a mistake.”
“No, I’m making a choice,” she said. “The fact that you don’t agree with it doesn’t make it a mistake.” With that she turned away and trudged across the gravel, heading for the path that Piprin had taken to the orchard. She didn’t look back at Beighlen, and he didn’t call after her.
The goats milled around between the trees of the orchard. A few of them had gathered by the cherry trees, trampling on the thick carpet of fallen blossom. As she walked towards them, Piprin came into sight, sitting cross-legged beneath a pink canopy. Distracted as he petted the animals, he only he looked up when she was stood directly in front of him.
Craning his neck, he offered her a wavering smile. “Everything all right?”
She nodded and sat down on the grass beside him, leaning back against her hands.
The fallen cherry blossom swirled around in the breeze, tumbling over and over as if it were dancing. The petals reminded Orleigh of the way that the reddened leaves used to drift down from the old oak tree each autumn as all the children huddled together to listen to Meila’s stories. The red leaves turned to flames.
“Teymos told me that the village had been destroyed in a fire, that everyone had died except for me,” she said. “He said that’s why he brought me here.”
“There was a fire,” Piprin said. “But it was only small, and no one died. Scorlan set it in order to create a distraction so that he could take you and sacrifice you to Teymos.”
“Because of the curse?”
Piprin nodded. “He said that the only way to save the village and free us from the curse was to sacrifice you. My father and some of the other men went after you, but they were too late—you had already been taken to the Land of Gods. Everyone thought that Scorlan had gone through with the sacrifice. It was only when I overheard him talking in a tavern that I realised you might still be alive.”
“But how did you find me?”
“I spoke to the Seer and he guided me to the Land of Gods,” he said. His fingers brushed over the silver vial that hung from his neck. “I wanted to rescue you, but clearly you don’t need rescuing.”
She shrugged. “I thought I did.” That was when she was just a mortal. “But maybe I was meant to be here all along.”
Piprin opened his mouth, his tongue poised, but then his lips clamped shut and he swallowed down whatever words had been itching for their release. He uncrossed his legs, capturing them in the tight circle of his arms, and opened his mouth again.
“I’m sure that Beighlen’s already tried to convince y
ou to stay,” he said. “And that’s fine. I don’t mind if you stay here—” he shook his head “—well I do mind, but what I mean is that I want you to do whatever will make you happy. You can’t change what has happened and you can’t change who you are, but you do get to decide what you do next.”
A quiet came over them, interrupted only by the quivering bleats of the goats and the rustle of the breeze through the trees. Orleigh let the silence breathe. How could such absolute freedom feel like a closed room, no windows, no doors, only walls inching closer and closer around her?
She buried her palm beneath the bed of pink petals and then lifted it up, letting the blossom trickle through her fingers and drizzle back to the floor.
“I always dreamed about running away and going on adventures,” she said. “Being a demigod, I can go wherever I want. But I don’t care about being a demigod, I just want to go home.”
“And the village is home?” Piprin’s eyes widened, the fragile light of hope shining through a veil of fear.
She nodded. “The village, Meila, you. The Land of Gods can wait. I can go on adventures and create new myths another day.”
“It already feels as though we’re living in one of the myths that my mother used to tell,” Piprin said and he chuckled, his shoulders softening and his arms relaxing as their tension escaped through that gentle sound.
Orleigh smiled, and then she laughed too. For so long she had yearned for her life to be infused with just a little of the drama of the myths. Perhaps she should have heeded Meila’s message when she told the children to be careful what they wished for.
“I’d like to hear a myth.” she said “Any of them will do.”
Piprin drifted into silence and his eyes took on a likeness to unpolished glass as he gazed out across the orchard. It was a look that he had inherited from Meila, who had lapsed into a silent concentration each time that she sought out a story from the library of her mind.
