It felt strange to laugh. She was glad to have her friends on either side of her, her father perching on the arm of the sofa, but eventually she had to face the other two in the room. She took a deep breath and turned towards her mother.
“Are you okay?” she asked awkwardly.
“I’m here,” said Rea. “That’s enough.”
She spoke as if just finding words was painful, and her brow creased with effort. Eliza wondered if she should hug her but it felt too strange.
As if she knew what Eliza was thinking, Rea said, “You’re my daughter, but we can’t remember each other. We’re like strangers.” She took in a deep, shuddering breath, as if rallying her strength. “We’ll just have to start over.”
“Okay,” said Eliza.
To think of what her mother had endured for ten years made her heart buckle with sorrow and pity. She wanted to go to her, embrace her, but Rea was right: They were strangers, really, and they would have to build towards being a family again, if they ever could be.
“I want to take you to the Sorma,” said Rom, kneeling next to her chair and taking Rea’s hand gently. “They have methods of healing that are far beyond the abilities of ordinary doctors. And Eliza can finally meet all the relatives she’s never known.”
Rea nodded, and a ghost of a smile crossed her lips.
“The cave!” said Eliza suddenly. “In Tian Xia...it saved Nell when she was sick, aye, and it healed my arm! We can take her there!”
Kyreth spoke for the first time, his voice too large and resonant for the small house.
“She does not suffer from a sickness or an injury, but from a lack. She has lost much that cannot be replaced. This cave would be no use to her.” To Rea he said, “You have a home with the Mancers, always. We can make you comfortable, ease the pain.”
Rea shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m used to...pain. Pain is all I remember. I want to find my strength. I want to live...” She gasped for breath and looked at Rom. He stroked her cheek. “I’ll stay with you,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said, and looked hopefully at Kyreth. “The Sorma might be able to help her in some way. It’s what she wants, and it will give the three of us some time together.”
“You cannay go away again, Eliza!” cried Nell, who had barely been able to hold her tongue until now. “You just got back! School is starting next month, aye!”
Kyreth said, “Rea may do as she wishes, but Eliza must return with us. She will be the one to guard the Crossing one day. She has much to learn, and she is still in need of our protection.”
Eliza thought of what Nia had said about freedom and about what she had to learn. She said resolutely, “I’m going with my parents to the Sorma, aye. That’s half of who I am and I need to know about it. I know I’m the Shang Sorceress and I will come back to the Citadel, I promise. But first I need time with my family. I have a lot of things I need to learn, not just the things that you can teach me.”
Rom looked at his daughter with pride. Kyreth’s eyes blazed hotter and hotter as she spoke, until the others in the room could not look at him.
“You are a child, and you do not understand the forces at play, the dangers,” he began.
Eliza forced her gaze up to the blinding light of his eyes and said, “I am a child, aye, and I dinnay understand everything, but if you think I dinnay know how dangerous my life is now...lah, you cannay protect me from her. You cannay. And you cannay keep me against my will either. I got away from you the last time, aye, and I got away from the Triumvira, and I got away from the Sorceress, so dinnay fool yourselves. I’ve a dragon claw that will tear through any barrier now. If you really want to help me, and I hope you do, you’re going to have to let me come to you, aye. First I’m going to meet the Sorma with my parents and then I’ll come back. And I want Foss to teach me.”
Kyreth was stunned into a brief silence. Then he said simply, “Foss is a traitor.”
“He believed in me!” Eliza blazed. “I want him to be my teacher, nobody else! That’s the condition.”
“How dare you think that you can give us conditions!” roared Kyreth. The force of his anger blasted through her but she had felt worse, much worse. “For thousands of years the Shang Sorceress has been the ward of the Mancers! This is not a choice, child, this is your destiny, and we do not bend to the stubbornness of ignorant children!”
“I am giving you conditions,” said Eliza, unfaltering. “If you accept them I’ll work hard and follow your rules. But if you try to force me, I swear to you I’ll spend all of my time and energy trying to escape. I’ll be your student or I’ll be your prisoner but lah, I won’t be both.” She was breathless with anger now, but when she looked into Kyreth’s face she saw he had no choice.
“You will come to see this obstinacy for the foolishness it is,” he said in a threatening rumble. “We will await you at the Citadel. Do not tarry long, for the worlds are full of danger and there is much for you to learn.” From a fold in his robe he produced a white shard of crystal. “Use this to call on us when you are ready,” he said. “May it be soon.”
Eliza took the crystal and put it in her pocket. “Thank you,” she said sincerely.
To Charlie, Kyreth said, “You saved her life, and the Mancers are grateful for that. Though you were a spy in our midst, we pardon you, for you have been a friend to the Shang Sorceress. Do not cross us again.”
“No such plans,” Charlie agreed readily.
Kyreth bent and, to Eliza’s surprise, kissed the top of Rea’s head tenderly. Rea frowned and touched his cheek, and the Supreme Mancer strode out of the house.
~
Rom cooked a hearty shepherd’s pie for supper. Though Rea managed to eat only a few bites, Nell and Charlie and Eliza were ravenous and ate until they thought they would burst. After supper they sat and talked as the light died about everything that had happened. Nell wanted to hear about Tian Xia over and over again. Rea listened to them talk, her face tight and pale, her eyes shining with pain and hope. Eliza knew what she was thinking about, and how it felt to remember it.
Nell suggested that they go down to the beach to look at the stars. She and Charlie helped Eliza hobble along on her bandaged feet and Rom pushed Rea in the wheelchair along the path. When they reached the sand he carried her to the edge of the water. Eliza staggered to a log and sat down. It was a windless night, and the sea was still as glass. Nell and Charlie wandered along the waterline looking for pebbles to skip. They were all here, and safe – it was more than Eliza could have hoped for and she was suffused with gratitude. After a while Charlie came towards her up the dark beach and sat down next to her while Nell rolled up her jeans and went wading knee-deep in the water.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Aye, more or less,” she replied.
“Good.” He nodded and smiled. “Lah, I think I’d better be going, then.”
“Where?” asked Eliza, and he shrugged.
“You could stay,” she suggested.
“No,” he said. “But I’ll visit, aye. Wherever you are.”
“Are you in danger, d’you think? Will she want revenge on you?”
Charlie shrugged again. “I dinnay think I’m her top priority. Even if she bothers to send something after me, I can deal with it. I’ll just become something bigger and badder than whatever it is.”
Eliza laughed. “Lah, just be careful.”
“I will. And I’m sorry, Eliza, I really am.”
“For what?”
“You know. For lying and tricking you in the beginning.”
“Charlie!” cried Eliza. “I wouldnay have survived any of this without you! Bringing me back from the Arctic is just the most recent time you’ve saved my life! I’ll nary forget what you’ve done for me and for Nell and for my family. You’re a true friend, aye.”
He looked down at his feet. “I’ve been called a lot of things, aye,” he commented. “But nary that.”
“Lah, you are. I me
an it.”
“Thanks.” He got up and stretched, and Eliza laughed again.
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe you’re not just a regular boy,” she said.
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe you’re not just a regular girl,” he replied, smiling back at her. “I should say goodbye to Nell too. I’ll see you soon, Eliza.”
“Promise?” she asked, suddenly feeling a bit tearful.
“I promise, aye.”
Eliza’s vision blurred with tears as she watched him wade into the sea. Nell threw her arms around him and they hugged. They spoke briefly and then with a great leap he was a dolphin plunging into the sea and vanishing. Nell watched the water a little longer, then came running up the beach to sit with Eliza.
“You’re nay leaving soon, are you? You’ll be around for a few days at least?”
“I think so, aye,” said Eliza.
“I wish I could go see the Sorma with you. And learn Magic and things. You’re so lucky, Eliza. Your life is going to be so prize!”
With her best friend beside her, looking at her parents sitting in the sand and talking softly, their heads close together, in the only place she’d ever known that felt like home, Eliza did feel lucky, although not for any of the reasons Nell envied her.
“Watch this,” she said. She picked up a twig and laid it on her lap. The memory of those little prying hands inside her made her feel slightly sick but they had showed her the secret locked within her and torn away the spells wrapped around it. It was not in a physical place exactly but at the core of who she was. She felt it like a seedling or a bud closed tight. Now, taking a deep breath for courage, she opened it wide. Instantly she felt the change as it coursed through her, cell by cell, blood and nerves and tissue coming alive in a new way. She felt the pull of the tide, the pull of the earth, the spreading roots of the trees diving deep, the dying and birth and the slow turning over and the forces that kept the stars and the planets on course. I’m Eliza, she thought happily, no more and no less, and all this is a part of what I am too.
The little twig floated off her lap and hung there in the air between them. Nell poked it and breathed, “Prize!”
Eliza laughed. The Sorceress was right; it was silly and useless. But she could do it, and a thousand other things she didn’t know about yet, and all at once she was not just afraid but excited too, to discover what she could do, who she was, and what it meant.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to those who read and critiqued drafts-on-their-way-to-becoming-an-actual-novel: my editor, Laura Peetoom; three generations of Egans – my parents, Kieran and Susanna, Michael, David, Janice, Joshua and Jordan; and my beloved stalwarts, Mick Hunter, Gillian Bright and Jonathan Service (Tian Xia’s own cartographer).
My love and gratitude also to the willing victims of my earliest attempts at world-building: David Egan, Nicole Bergstrome, Alison Yule, Christopher and Philip Sokolov. Fairies, witches, pirates, arduous journeys to the North Pole and beyond – none of it would have been much fun without you. Smooch.
About the Author
Catherine Egan is a debut fantasy novelist with Shade and Sorceress, the beginning of The Last Days of Tian Di trilogy.
Her short fiction has been published in Canadian and US journals. Catherine is a world traveller who has lived in Canada, the UK, Japan and China. She currently resides with her family in New England. You can find more information including Catherine’s twitterstories – tales told in three tweets a day – by visiting her website catherineegan.com.
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