Birthrights_Revisions to the Truth

by J. Kyle McNeal

  She crossed her arms and glared at her father. So much like her mother sometimes. Stubborn as a mule. “I’m not going to ask you again. Which of the smiths made this for you?”

  When his daughter was unswayed by the threat, Seph broke the end off a branch of the leaning juniper and stripped it to make a switch. Lily bit her lip and looked away.

  “That’s it.” He grabbed her thin arm and yanked her next to him as he seated himself on the bench. Stubborn to the end, she kept her body taut, making him force her over his knee. Snap! The switch popped against the exposed skin on the back of her legs, between her knee and the hem of her dress.

  “Aaaaggghh!” Her body squirmed against his firm grip.

  He held her, tight, and raised his arm. “Another?”

  “No! Papa, no!”

  He let her sit up to face him. “Then tell me who made it for you.”

  Tears welled in her eyes, but only a single drop escaped to run down her cheek. It didn’t fall, but hugged the curve of her jaw. She slipped her reply between a refrain of sniffles. “No one.”

  Seph’s face darkened. “It’s better to say nothing than lie.” He pushed his daughter back down over his knee. She stopped fighting and grew quiet. As he raised his arm, the switch snapped in two.

  He inspected quizzically the broken switch, then tossed it to the ground. She craned her head so he could see her face. “I’m. Not. Lying.” She stressed each word.

  Like all children, Lily had gone through a phase where she tested the bounds of honesty. But even during that phase, she’d never perpetuated a lie beyond one strike. If she’s not lying, then what? She stole it! “I’ll not tolerate a thief in this house.” He stood and dragged her with him to get another switch.

  “I made it! I made it, okay?” She tried to wrench away as he reached for the branch. The claim stopped him. He dropped her arm.

  That’s not possible. He walked back to the bench and picked up the small sword. It was light, just the right size for an eight-turn girl with stick-thin arms—a size he’d never seen made before. He inspected it carefully. The craftsmanship was flawless—better than any of his smiths could accomplish. “You made this?”

  She nodded, still holding back tears.

  “In the workshop?” Seph asked. She crossed her arms again and looked away. “Lily, so help me—” He ripped off the end of another branch, stripping it in one angry stroke.

  “I made it in my room.” She broke down into sobs following the admission.

  “You’ve made a big mistake carrying the lie this far, young lady. How could you make it in your room?” He tested her, curious what story she’d concoct. Who is she protecting?

  “Same way you do. I learned from watching you.” She glared at him with righteous anger, her lips quivering as she fought back more tears.

  Seph regarded the defiance in the green eyes that stared back at him. Could she have seen me using magic—the work I do after the hired smiths leave? The thought unnerved him. But that couldn’t explain the sword. She hasn’t bonded.

  “Lily.” His voice was slow, calm. “Have you been sneaking into my workshop?”

  “No…I mean…not me…not really.” The pitch of her voice rose at the end like a question.

  “Then how could you have seen how I make swords?”

  Lily looked around as if she were hoping someone would appear to rescue her. When no one came, she stared at the ground and mumbled, “The mice watch for me.”

  He was speechless. It must have been Tedel. He put stories into her head—stories about the magic of the Faerie, about seeing through the eyes of animals. But stories alone can’t account for the sword. Then he thought more—the sword, the switch breaking, flowers blooming in the wrong seasons. Lily having magic could explain those mysteries and more. But how?

  He recalled what his mother had told him before his second bonding. “This isn’t for you, but me. I must know I’ve done something, even such a small step toward freeing our people.” At the time, he’d thought she was referring to the rules that bound children to their father’s family and surname. He’d not revisited those words in many turns, well before he’d met Raven.

  Could she have meant freeing the Faerie from the Unum—freeing them to have the magic of their birthright and from the rule of the two leading families? He remembered how, even though she was of Amondon blood, his mother had always identified more closely with her friends who lacked access to Amon’s power.

  The prospect was both thrilling and terrifying. It was thrilling to have figured out the secret he’d borne most of his life. It was thrilling to discover his daughter possessed magic. But if the Unum wasn’t needed to convey the power of Amon, the two ruling families—his families—wouldn’t be able to dominate the other Faerie. It was terrifying to consider the lengths to which those families had and would go to protect their influence. They punished double-bonding with death. He knew they would target Lily if they learned of her.

  For so many turns he’d worked to prepare for the Faerie return, pining for the day their army would cross the Blight. But a single truth changed everything. When they came—if they came—they would also come for his daughter.

  “Lily.” He lifted her into his arms and hugged her against his thick chest. “No one else can know of this. You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

  “Only Mama,” she said softly, “and Tedel.”

  Tedel! The Faerie who’d crossed the Blight to find a way to return magic to his family! The Faerie to whom I practically admitted to being double-bonded! Seph thought back to some of the discussions he’d had with Tedel—discussions he’d thought strange at the time. He knew about Lily. He was fishing for information, and I gave it to him! He set her down, the fear in his eyes infecting hers.

  North of the Mysts, Chapter 52

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  Look not too much to the future, lest the present elude you. When the present is past, it is gone, but the future remains.

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  —Samir Fen

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  North of the Mysts

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  “Why would the Council go to such lengths to set a trap in Endeling?” Tedel kept returning to the same question. “There had to be easier ways to get rid of you.”

  At Whym’s insistence, Stern had begrudgingly allowed the Faerie to accompany them. “If I knew, I’d tell you,” the seeker grumbled.

  “I doubt it,” Tedel replied, then shuffled off to get firewood, the task Whym had delegated to him in order to allow for private discussion with the others each day.

  Though the Faerie appeared in the Truth, Stern had remained steadfast in his disbelief in their existence, which meant there was no chance he would trust Tedel. “Metaphors and symbolism—” the seeker had seethed at the mere mention of magic—“the book is full of them. No magic. No Faerie.”

  Whym had wanted to throw Stern’s superstitions in his face, but the dynamic of the group was already awkward. Moreover, Whym’s attention was distracted by the voice in his mind that had named him Ender of Ages and Servant of Death, two titles he’d prefer to renounce.

  When Tedel was out of sight, Kutan started in where they’d left off the day before. “You’re claiming the First Lord’s not the one pulling the strings? That he’s as much puppet as puppeteer? And you believe this because a teller told you?” He’d made clear his certainty that the tellers were frauds on several occasions.

  “A former teller,” the seeker corrected. “One who ran afoul of the Voice and now works with the Shades.” Once safely across the river and out of the Mysts, Stern had revealed he’d traveled to Bothera after leaving them. Some of the key leaders of the resistance hid in the great walled city, and he’d needed to pass information to them in
case he didn’t return. But he’d been waylaid there, though he refused to provide details about what had caused the delay.

  “And this prophet, fortune teller—whatever you choose to call him—he was once a fraud, but after leaving the Order, should now be trusted?” Kutan’s experience with Teller Zenai in Fetor had only reinforced his position on the Oracle. He was adamant all prophecy was a sham.

  Whym joined the discussion. “After Fetor and the Mysts, you know there are things we can’t explain.” For instance, how this voice got into my head or what happened in the fog. One moment I was fighting off what I thought were snakes, the next I was back by the packs with a sore neck and a headache.

  Kutan looked at him, surprised by Whym’s first words of the day. “Can’t explain, or won’t?” Whym had spoken sparingly in the several days since they’d crossed back over the river and turned toward Endeling. His sudden and unexplained shift in behavior was a source of friction between the two friends.

  Ender of Ages. Servant of Death. The words haunted Whym. They think I’m hiding something. Well, I am. I’m going crazy. If I told them about the voice, they’d think so, too! He looked away. “Why can’t you admit prophecy might be more than you believe?”

  “My father dealt with that den of snakes in Bothera,” Kutan continued his diatribe against prophecy and the Oracle. “The future they see depends on the size of the offering.”

  “If the Order’s corrupt, that doesn’t prove all prophecy’s bogus,” Whym argued. “Take the Council. How different is it today than when it was founded?” He was unsure whether he believed in prophecy but felt compelled to argue the point because of Kutan’s pig-headed refusal to admit he didn’t know everything.

  “Bah!” Kutan dismissed the argument with a wave of his arm. “They speak in riddles. No matter what happens, they claim they prophesied truth.”

  “There are those who see,” Stern argued.

  Kutan hadn’t been shy about expressing to his master his disappointment in learning much of what Stern had done—choosing Whym as an apprentice, for example—had been motivated by revelations from this former teller. He resented Stern making him complicit in what he believed to be fraudulent. “You’re no different from others who visit such places. You hear what you want to hear, believe what you want to believe. The future’s not decided. We’re not puppets acting out a story.”

  Stern shrugged. “We each believe what we must.”

  “Got the firewood.” Tedel returned with an armful of sticks he dropped beside them. “Have you finished with your gossip and secrets, or should I get another load?”

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  Nearly a moon had passed since leaving the Mysts by the time the four travelers summited the least of the three mountains overlooking Endeling. The village was nestled into a lush green valley with a steep, rocky mountain at its back and two smaller peaks on either side. They’d chosen to make camp down the mountain where the dense tree cover would hide them from sight. The best view of the village, however, was from an overhang that jutted out from the steep mountain at the end of the valley. They’d awakened at first light to climb there and observe the village below.

  “No sentries.” Stern shook his head, his lips pressed tight and angled to the side.

  His misgivings puzzled Whym. Shouldn’t no sentries be welcome news?

  “Where are the villagers?” Kutan sounded worried as well. “I saw one woman, but the rest are soldiers. I’m sure of it. Farmers in an isolated village don’t carry swords. And where are the children?”

  “My gut tells me something awful happened here.” Stern kept his eyes trained on the village. “What’s your count?”

  Kutan had the ability to catalog people by the slightest of differences, then remember them all. “Twenty-three men. But there could be others inside.”

  “That’s more than five for each of us!” Tedel gasped. “Why not just pick them off from the trees?”

  Stern was using a stone to scratch a dried hide he’d brought with him to create a map of the town. “As soon as the first man falls, we’ve lost the element of surprise. Right now, that’s the only advantage we have.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Tedel argued. “Why not keep Endeling as the last option? At least ask people in the nearest town first.”

  “Asking questions will get us noticed.” Stern kept marking the map. “And I’ve answered that before. If you insist on talking, at least don’t repeat yourself.”

  “I’m going back to camp,” Whym announced abruptly. “I’m not feeling well.” Since his first glimpse of Endeling, the voice tormenting him hadn’t stopped the cryptic repetition. Ender of Ages. Servant of Death.

  “Take a good rest,” Stern encouraged, his attention alternating between the village and map. They were by now all used to Whym’s withdrawal and his frequent periods of gloom.

  Whym trudged to the nearest tree cover. “I don’t want to sit alone in camp,” he said to himself, speaking aloud as he had during those lonely periods in the Wildes. Hearing his own voice helped to suppress the voices in his mind. “I’ll wander a bit and still beat the others back.” He traipsed toward the back side of the mountain, staring at his feet and paying little attention to where he headed. When he looked up, he realized he’d gone much farther than intended.

  The descent on the back side was even steeper than what they’d climbed that morning. He peered down the mountain then glanced up at the purple-gray bruise spreading across the sky. He knew he should head back, but his feet kept carrying him forward. By the time the first thunderclap boomed in the distance, it was too late to turn around. Turning back would leave him exposed on the rocky face during the storm. He headed toward a grouping of large boulders instead, planning to use them as shelter to wait out the storm.

  As he reached the first boulder, the sizzle of lightning spun him around. A nearby tree shattered and exploded into flames. The deafening bang that followed shook his insides. With the hair on his arm still standing, he scanned the horizon. A gray veil of rain approached.

  “Storm’s coming.” A voice startled Whym. A man stepped out from behind a boulder to his left. “We have been expecting you.”

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  They scouted Endeling from the outcrop for the better part of the afternoon. The only happening of note had been the arrival of a supply cart. On the way back to camp, Stern lagged behind Kutan and Tedel, pondering the quandary posed by the soldiers in Endeling. He ran through different scenarios in his mind, even reconsidering Tedel’s proposal to pick off some of the soldiers from the relative safety of the tree cover.

  They’d agreed to use the next few days to continue scouting. With no sentries, he hoped to get close enough to get a better picture of what was going on in the town. Based on what he’d seen, though, Stern was reconsidering whether Endeling was worth the risk. The augur in Bothera told me we must go to Endeling, not free it. There has to be a safer way to find the Steward. He’d not believed in the existence of such a creature when he’d received the post from Fink, but the visions the teller had shared had convinced him otherwise.

  He was still mulling over his options when he reached camp. Kutan greeted him with troubling news. “Whym’s not here. There’s no sign he’s been back at all.”

  The first drops of rain had already begun to fall. Lightning flashed in the distance. Stern looked up at the darkening sky. A bad storm’s coming, he thought, the same words the teller had used to describe the future of the Lost Land.

  Near Endeling, Chapter 53

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  After many turns of inconclusive skirmishes between the troops of the Allyrian Western Command and the Zvine, a heretical tribe worshipping Zvi (also called the Mirrored God), the Allyrian Western and Central Command massed along the Ippur River. With the full force of two armies, they marc
hed into the Endless Sand, toward the Zvine capital Scor Zhed. The Allyrians lost nearly a third of their force during the battle and the grueling travel into and out of the desert, but the two armies succeeded in crushing the Zvine and demolishing the walled capital.

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  Although the fabled Altar of Zvi was never recovered, two amulets believed to be infused with magic were taken from the dead. Under questioning, the Zvine captives revealed these amulets would enable the wearer to control the voices and memories of the dead (whom they called the Before). These items were taken to Bothera and are stored in the Hall of Riches.

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  —Excerpt from The Allyrian Conquests—

  A Record of False Gods Defeated

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  Near Endeling

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  “Who are you?” Whym’s reflex took his hand to the hilt of his sword. Thunder banged.

  “We need to get inside.” The man’s filthy, matted hair hung to his shoulders in clumps. A scruffy beard covered his face. His only clothing was an animal skin loincloth wrapped around his emaciated body and a pouch that hung from his neck. His skin clung so tight to his bones, Whym could count each individual rib.

  Lightning lit the purple-gray sky. Whym’s desire to be under cover trumped his distrust. “Fine.”

  The barefoot man led the way along the path, oblivious to the sharp stones digging into the soles of his feet. He turned as he passed the edge of a nearby boulder, and headed toward a crevice in the mountain not visible from above. The rain had just caught up to them as they entered the darkness.

  Although the entrance was unremarkable, the cave was vast, penetrating into the mountain farther than the light could follow. The wall to his left, the only spot illuminated by the muted light that seeped through the crevice, drew his attention. It was covered with colorful paintings and intricate carvings.