by B. T. Narro
“How are you here?” Basen whispered.
“I’ll answer in a moment. First tell me what you know about Effie and my son.”
The memory blurred as Desil’s heart melted. He almost let himself escape the memory so he could rush into his father’s quarters in hopes of finding him still there.
“They are well,” Basen replied. “Desil helped me deliver a message to my daughter, in fact. He’s a talented mage who I wish I’d had more time to interview. Do you remember when I spoke to you about the Wind Knights?”
“Of course. And do you remember what I told you?”
Their familiarity with each other surprised Desil because he thought they’d been estranged years ago. They must’ve met in secret since Desil’s parents left the Academy.
“You told me Desil would feel as if he was wasting his life if he didn’t do something more than help his mother in her tavern,” Basen said. “But Effie didn’t want it any other way.”
“I’m certain she still doesn’t. So he’s still there with her?”
“As far as I know. I should’ve been a better friend to her after your…mistake. What the bastial hell happened? I saw you buried.”
Desil had as well. Many people had come to his father’s memorial, most of them friends. Only a few relatives and associates of his father’s victims came to ensure he was dead. After scaring them off with vicious looks, Desil had crouched over the open casket and told his father how much he would miss him.
“The king’s chemist gave me a potion that just about killed me by slowing my breathing to nearly nothing for a short time.” His father rubbed his neck. “I think it did some damage to my memory, but that’s better than death.”
“Are you saying it was Fernan’s decision to send you here rather than execute you?” Basen clearly had trouble believing it.
“It was. He plans to use me when war begins.”
“Now that makes sense.” Basen was shaking his head. “It will soon.”
“So you weren’t lying about the explosions?”
“No.”
“Neither was I about getting yourself killed. Basen, it’s impossible. The Marros are smart and dangerous. They will spot you before you’re close enough to see anything.” Desil’s father put up his hand. “Wait a moment. Did the king send you here?”
“No, and I know what you’re implying. He’s not trying to get me killed, at least not by sending me here. It was my choice to come. Someone needs to do something to stop the war or thousands will die. He tried to stop me from coming, and he will try to capture me when I return.”
“Basen, this is—”
“Treason. The word’s meaningless to me now. How will he bring you back to Kyrro for the war?”
“He said only that he would send someone for me eventually. I’ll fight Tenred’s whole army if it means I can see my family again.”
“He promised you can?”
Desil’s father nodded. There was a long pause.
“I have to ask,” Basen said. “Why did you do it?”
Wade sighed. “I’ve spent the last year wondering that. I couldn’t remember the night after, and I certainly can’t remember anything now after taking the near-death potion. All I know is the alcohol changed me. I could feel it doing so for years, but I’d always been able to fight it. I don’t know when I started losing control. I can’t remember.” He looked at his feet. “I’m ashamed. I pity the families of those I took from this world.”
“At least you seem like your old self now.”
“There’s no drink here. But I promised myself that if the king stays true to his word, and he does let me come back, I won’t have another sip for the rest of my life.”
“The Kanoans must’ve tried to get on the ship that brought you here.”
Wade’s expression showed pain. “They had me jump from a distance out. Some of the Kanoans tried to swim after the boat, but it was too far for them. One drowned.”
“Oh.”
“There have been many more deaths in the year I’ve been here. I’ve seen the Marros come nearly every week. We try to fight them, and we’ve managed to kill more of them than they have of us, yet they still come back.” He looked over Basen’s shoulder, his eyes distant. “They took a small girl just last month. Everything changed after that. Everyone’s ready to fight even harder now, not just me. It was then that they put me in charge because I had the idea to gather bastial steel and start forging blades.”
“Bastial steel?”
“Oh that’s right—you wouldn’t know. The Marros’ explosions create bastial steel. We believe it’s the whole purpose behind them. We’ve seen the bright chunks of steel raining down miles out from the center. The Marros will fight over the larger pieces. Whichever bird wins will spend the day with its piece of bastial steel, feeding on it until it’s all gone unless they take it elsewhere, probably for more feeding. Don’t ask me how they eat steel. We’ve never been close enough to see.”
Desil could feel excitement bubbling up in Basen’s chest. “Do you know anything about how to make the explosions?”
“No. But whatever the Marros do, it must be easier with a human’s help. They always take one of us a day before the explosion. If you try to go there, you’ll be taken. Or your wife. You should make a portal out of here as soon as you can.” Desil’s father looked down at Basen’s wrists. “How long will those akorell stones take to charge?”
“I’m not ready to give up yet. You don’t know the trouble it took to get here.”
“I know what trouble will come to you if you stay. These people will kill you if you don’t help them. Yet the Marros could be worse.”
“Help us get out of this village and let me worry about the Marros. If we find out it’s impossible, we’ll hide until I can create a portal. We will be safe, Wade.”
Desil’s father thought for a while. “I don’t have as much power over these people as you might think. I’ve been going out with teams to scavenge the pieces of bastial steel that the Marros overlooked, but we’ve been attacked several times. I’ve always come back, while some members of the team haven’t. People aren’t happy about that. Even though they know what I can do to fight, they need someone to blame for losing their friends or family. I can feel a revolt coming if we don’t get enough steel for at least one blade soon. The weapon will go to me once it’s done, as I’ve had luck against the birds, but I suspect some people will want it to protect themselves. My point is I can’t convince them to let you walk out of here. They’re too desperate to leave, and they have almost nothing left to lose.”
“What about a trade?” Basen proposed.
Wade lifted his eyebrows. “What?”
“I will bring back horses and cows. I saw none in this village. Your people will benefit greatly from both, improving life here.”
“Are you going to do that through a portal?”
“Yes, but they don’t have to know about who I am or my ability.” The headmaster held up his wrists. “They think these are ugly Elvish bracelets, so that’s what we’ll tell them if asked. In exchange for letting us leave, I will tell them where the ship is to meet us in Kanoan. I will promise that ten of them can come with us. In a month, I will return with horses and cows and take another ten.”
“When really you will teleport out of here, taking no one. And you will send only the horses and cows through a portal at a later point.”
“Exactly.”
“They’re going to want you to take them to the spot the ship will meet you.”
“Then I will take them there. We’ll tell them it’s north, past the forest where they found us. I need to go in that direction anyway, and I doubt many of them will want to risk coming out of fear of the Marros. For those brave enough to follow, it will be easy to separate from them once we’re out there.”
“You shouldn’t go through that forest if you’re intent on going to the center. There’s no cover for you once you leave the trees behind. A better route is
if you go west from the settlement instead of north. You can follow the Dead River until you see a forest on the northern side. Once you cross through that, you will only be ten or twenty miles from the center. There are mountains you can use as cover.”
“Can you draw me a map?”
Desil’s father hesitated. “I could, but it will feel like I’m writing your will.”
“It’s going to happen whether you give me a map or not,” Basen insisted. “But your help will make it safer.”
Wade went to his desk and prepared some ink. “In that case, we’ll tell them the ship is to meet you on the western side of the island. You’ll have plenty of time to figure out a way to separate before you cross the river.”
“Come with us.”
Desil’s father stared at the blank parchment. His gaze drifted down to his lap. After a long while, he slowly turned to meet Basen’s gaze.
“All right.”
The memory came to an end. Desil fell back into reality disoriented, everything dark. He felt someone holding his head against something hard. Adriya? He resisted the urge to struggle and tried slowly lifting his head instead. She shifted her grip to his shoulders as he pulled his head away from her arm.
“Don’t fall,” she whispered. “You’re still on the steps.”
He remembered where he was but not standing up. He might’ve toppled over during the memory if it wasn’t for Adriya.
“What did you see?” she asked.
“Basen and my father.” Desil moved around her to get to the top of the steps. He knocked softly on the door. No one answered, so he opened it. Adriya came behind him as he entered the empty room. She shut the door after them.
“Did you say your father?” She sounded worried he might be going insane.
“Yes.”
“How is that possible?”
“Give me a moment to think.” Desil’s mind raced as he looked out the windows to the east. The empty settlement extended into the darkness. How much light had he noticed through Basen’s eyes? It didn’t seem like the conversation in the memory had taken place during the morning but sometime after.
If no one’s here in the settlement, they must be somewhere listening to my father’s announcement about Basen. That meant the memory must’ve been recent, certainly today. The Kanoans who captured the headmaster must’ve taken a while to bring him to my father. Perhaps they took their time because they don’t trust Father, and he doesn’t know how unlikely they are to listen to him. This could be dangerous for both him and Basen’s party.
“Desil, what is it?” Adriya asked.
He didn’t have time to explain everything just yet. The announcement could’ve already happened. They had to find out where as soon as possible.
“Come on,” he told her as he left his father’s quarters without caution. “We’re racing against time even more than before.”
Adriya tried to ask Desil once more what was going on, but he was too busy trying to figure out what to do. Even worse was the distraction of his father. He was alive! Basen clearly hadn’t known, but did Desil’s mother?
Beatrix—her secret. This had to be what she was hiding. Part of her reason for coming here must be to bring back Desil’s father if possible. Why hasn’t she told me?
Suddenly, it all became clear. In case she can’t take him back to Kyrro. She might be worried I’ll demand we risk everything for him.
I certainly would, Desil realized.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Desil took Adriya back into the surrounding trees as they made their way east. He started to explain what he’d seen, but before he could finish, Adriya pulled him to a stop.
“What about the others in our group?” she asked. “How do you plan to locate them if we’re not going to be at the northern edge of the forest like we told them?”
Desil couldn’t worry about them now. “I don’t know,” he admitted. He hurried east again.
Adriya ran after him. “They could be there waiting for us already if they were fast.”
“There’s no time to check.”
“How do you expect just the two of us to be useful?”
“I have no idea what to expect. We’ll see what’s happened and then make a plan.”
“And if we’re spotted by the Kanoans?”
“I don’t know, Adriya. Wait.” Desil stopped and focused on sounds of a ruckus nearby. “Do you hear that?”
“Yes.”
Shouts came from ahead. Desil veered closer to the last row of trees for a glimpse back into the settlement. He felt a memory ahead of him as he saw Kanoans running while yelling with aggression.
Desil rushed out after the last of them had left.
“What are you doing!” Adriya hissed.
“There’s a memory.” Desil led her into an empty cabin. “I can watch it from here. Keep us hidden.”
There was no transition into the memory. Basen had his hand on Alabell’s back. With the Elf on his other side, they faced a crowd of hundreds as butterflies flitted around in Basen’s stomach.
Someone put a hand on Basen’s shoulder and walked around him. When Desil saw his father again, he no longer felt like he was experiencing the scene through Basen. Rather, Desil was consumed by his own thoughts and excitement. This was a memory but also a clue. He was close to catching up to his father and Leida’s family. Desil just needed to figure out what he and Adriya were running into.
“This man, this woman, and this Elf came here to find out more about the explosions,” his father announced to the silent onlookers. “They had no intention of finding people or bringing any of us back, but now that they’ve come here, they realize there is no way for them to complete their original task. A boat will come for them in a week. It does not have room for all of us, only ten. They have agreed to take that many of us with them so long as we cooperate. I plan to walk with the selected group to ensure everything is done peacefully, although I will not be leaving myself.”
A few shouted complaints that ten was too few. “The ship has to be bigger than that,” they insisted.
“The ship is owned and controlled by Elves,” Basen retorted. The crowd quieted as he gestured at the Elf. “Rhy can’t force them to do something they wouldn’t want to do themselves. Ten is as many people as they can accommodate, and even then it will take some convincing.”
“If more of us try to leave,” Wade added, “they will turn the ship around instead of docking.”
“Then we hide,” someone called out. “All of us. We take the ship from them after it’s—”
“I’ve thought of that,” Desil’s father interrupted. “It won’t work. The Elves are expecting this group of three to swim out to meet the ship in deeper water. They will not risk coming close to any of the beaches.”
“Then we keep them here,” said the same man. Basen had located him in the audience by then, his face taken over by a long beard of gray. “The Elves will come for their own eventually. They don’t abandon their kin like humans do.”
Thankfully, not many in the crowd agreed with his plan. Wade continued, ignoring the bearded man.
“We will provide the rest of the details once the group is selected. All of you have been here longer than I have. I wasn’t elected by you to choose who gets to leave but to lead us in the fight against the Marros, which I will continue to do. The rest of you should decide who should go when it’s time.”
“You’re lying!” shouted a boy in his early teens. His accusation sent a collective murmur through the crowd.
Wade and Basen shared a look of pretend confusion. Basen spoke up first.
“About what?” he asked the boy.
“Most of it.”
The crowd waited, but the boy didn’t seem to have anything else to say. As the onlookers turned their attention back to Wade on the small hill ahead of them, a woman old enough to be the boy’s mother put one hand on his shoulder and lifted her other arm.
“Wait! If he says Wade is lying, then i
t’s true.”
Some of the younger members of the crowd made tight little smiles as if amused, while most others seemed bothered, some even rolling their eyes. One man made a jest.
“Does your son think he’s a psychic now?”
“He is a psychic!” The mother walked out from the crowd to put herself in front of everyone. “He can tell the difference between a truth and a lie. We’ve been keeping his ability hidden for months.”
There was some laughter.
Wade walked toward the woman. “Go back with the others so we can finish.”
She swatted her hand at him. “It’s true, and we can prove it.”
Desil could hear Basen swallow air. He leaned toward his wife and whispered, “Is your leg fully healed?”
She gave a quick nod, her nervous eyes never leaving the manic woman just in front of her.
“He’s quite good at it, you’ll see!”
“I am,” the boy echoed.
“Just think of a number,” the mother announced. “Raise your hand when you have one.”
The first man to raise his hand was the one who’d been in charge of Basen’s capture. As others saw him, they turned and fell silent. The mother pointed.
“Tell us either the number you were thinking of or a lie.”
“Two,” the older man intoned.
“It’s a lie,” said the boy.
“One,” the older man said with a grin.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“It’s true,” the man announced.
They gasped.
Wade put up his palms. “Van has wanted this position from me since I started a few months ago.”
“We will ask someone else!” yelled the mother.
Basen stepped up to whisper in Wade’s ear. “You can’t delay the inevitable. Where are our weapons stashed?”
“If you run,” Wade whispered back, “they’ll kill two of you if that’s what it takes to stop at least one.”
“And if we stay until they find out we’re lying?”
They paused to watch the crowd as the boy guessed correctly when the next person had announced the chosen number. Desil could see the crowd was turning, glaring at Wade in anger. Basen feared for his wife, but Desil’s panic of losing his father again nearly pulled him out of the memory.
