Dark Spirits

by R. J. Price

  “What did you ask them, specifically?” Ervam asked, sounding strangled suddenly.

  “I would ask where my sister was,” Anue said. Her eyes narrowed as she considered Ervam. The young queen was very aware that she was causing fear, might even have been able to guess why the trainer was afraid. “The servants would say that she's gone to be with the spirits. I asked Aren about it last year.”

  ‘Gone to be with the spirits’ was a term that sounded familiar to Av. It made him think of his mother, which he knew meant his father would have an answer for him, should Av have the courage to ask.

  “What did she say last year?” Av asked.

  “Last year, this was right before they decided to send her so she thought she'd be there, but last year Aren said that this year I could go with her,” Anue said, turning her attention back to Ervam. “I'm guessing that you aren't going to allow me to go be with the spirits.”

  “Not a spirits damned hope,” Ervam said.

  “Is it a bad thing?” Anue asked.

  “It's something I'll explain to you when you're older,” Ervam said.

  “Is it a sex thing?” Anue asked.

  Av growled through gritted teeth, making the young queen, as bold as she had become, pale and shift away from him. Aren had told him that she was a virgin when he had her. He was the only one to ever be like that with her.

  “No, it's not a sex thing,” Ervam muttered with all the annoyance of a man who had raised many children. “Go wash, the both of you. Our feast is humble this year, but still should be seen as a feast. Go on, go wash. Right now.”

  Anue made a face but marched off. Mie waited behind just a moment, eyes flickering between each of them.

  Ervam sighed. “You ate it, didn't you?”

  Mie's mouth opened and the berry popped out, bouncing and then rolling across the floor. The young warrior smacked his lips together before he walked off, following Anue to the bathing room.

  Av waited for the door to the room to close, very aware of the fact that Mie closed the door so that the adults might feel like they had privacy. He bared his teeth at the trainer, snarling just slightly.

  “Gone to be with the spirits is a queen thing, boy,” Ervam said steadily. “Aren shouldn't know about it. She's wild. Queens, they have that same tradition, only for them. Word is, a queen will go to the spirits when there's no man available, and she'll even take others out to teach them how to go to the spirits, sacrificing her year to help another.”

  “Mother did that,” Av snarled.

  “Yes,” his father snarled back, advancing on Av, challenging the younger, larger man. The trainer should have been afraid of Av's anger, not fuelled by it. “Yes, your mother went with the spirits and she came back to me pregnant. I killed the son of a bitch who did it for rape, because that's what it was. A queen gets like that, she can still say no, still has the right to, damn it. It should have been me out there. Me. Damn it!”

  “Calm down.” Jer stepped between them, tears in his eyes. “Father. Please, there are children in the house and Av doesn't know what he's saying. Neither do you. Please. Father?”

  Ervam was ready to strike Av. He was ready for it, ready to accept the strike and take up the challenge.

  “Av,” Jer said, pleading with him.

  Av swore and stepped back, ceding ground to his father. The words only then dawned on him. What his father had said, what Jer had said earlier. What ‘going to the spirits’ seemed to imply.

  “Aren will do that?” Av squeaked out, because suddenly that was all he could focus on. Aren outside in winter, bare before the spirits, ready to breed?

  And Jer, his precious brother, was an example of what a bad union during that time could do?

  “Did, uh, did you ever go to the spirits with her?” Av asked.

  “Once, before she knew how to properly,” Ervam said.

  Av pointed to himself. His father gave the barest nod. The world did a funny sort of tilt.

  “I…” Av gulped in a breath of air. “Need to find some mud.”

  “Mud?” Ervam asked.

  “He's going to eat it,” Av said, motioning to Jer as he made his way for the door. He had to get outside, had to get a lungful of clean air, free of the pine and the light scent of holly. “Even if I have to sit on his chest to do it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Aren shuddered at the burning sensation, at the way her stomach wanted to heave up what little was in it. The drink tasted horrible, but it was the only thing she could think of.

  Ever since moving to the vineyard, she had gone walking after her parents passed out or went to bed. Wandered the vineyard singing nonsense to herself. Being able to wander, being able to go wherever she felt. She almost felt free those times.

  Now she was locked underground, maybe to never see the sky again. That morning she had felt the pressure begin to build, the need to get out of the chamber where she had been kept for months.

  Danya had come down with a light, with a bit of pine, and a bottle of drink. The healer sat and watched Aren make a face at the first sip. A frown creased her brow when Aren immediately picked up the bottle and gulped as much as she could before the burn turned into too much of a sensation to handle.

  “Do you want to talk about winter solstice at your home?” Danya asked.

  Aren wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Her stomach turned, but the warmth was already spreading. Or was that the warmth that always seemed to appear as she watched her parents stumble off, drunk? The same warmth that kept her from needing a cloak when she walked the vineyard in the darkness?

  “I just have this tradition,” Aren said.

  She wanted to cry suddenly, so she picked up the bottle and swallowed again. Coughing at how the burn seemed to get worse, Aren handed Danya the bottle.

  “It's not socially acceptable to drink alone,” Aren managed between coughs.

  Danya grudgingly took a sip from the bottle. “I'm not going to try to drink as much as you.”

  “Just drink some,” Aren said with a shake of her head. “That is awful stuff. I’ve had sips of wine before. Not that I'd get drunk on wine.”

  “And why are you trying to get drunk, Aren?”

  “I've been running since I was eleven,” Aren said to Danya.

  The healer sucked a breath in through her teeth and handed Aren the bottle. “Queens tend not to show their rank until they become women. I mean, there are signs, and the magic is there, but to others? Or the more complicated processes? Not until they're women. And when I say women, I don't mean they start their womanly motions once a month, I mean when they're grown and are ready to take a man to their bed.”

  “They knew Em was a queen when she was like twelve,” Aren said. “Em knew Mar, her daughter, was a queen the moment Mar stirred in her belly. Telm knew her daughter was a queen, both times, before the children were born.”

  “Queens sometimes know about their children,” Danya said.

  “How did I know that?” Aren asked the bottle. Not Danya, but the bottle.

  “Know what?” Danya asked Aren, pulling the bottle from her grasp carefully.

  “Telm doesn't have children,” Aren said. “What am I saying? Of course she has children. She has two beautiful, powerful daughters.”

  “Are you arguing with yourself?” Danya asked.

  “Alcohol.” Aren snatched the bottle from Danya and downed as much as she could before she started coughing again. “It's the alcohol. Throne.”

  “Throne? The throne is speaking through you—of course, you're linked to it.” Danya clapped her hands once. “Fabulous. Maybe it can help.”

  “I just wanted to be drunk so I wouldn't tear Rewel's throat out with my teeth for locking me in this dungeon without even a window to see the sun by,” Aren snarled at Danya.

  The healer offered up a branch of pine, which Aren snatched from her and cradled to herself.

  “Was there anything you ever wanted to ask the throne?” Danya asked.
“Because I'm thinking now's the time. Might be a pleasant distraction from everything else.”

  “I miss the moon the most,” Aren said with a sniffle. “You know they say a queen is good for the land, but me? I walked that vineyard every day. Worked its fields and still the wine turned sour. What use am I?”

  “Why did the wine turn sour, Aren?” Danya asked.

  “Because they deserve to die slowly,” Aren hissed out. Her tone surprised even her. Aren lifted the bottle, looked at it, then wavered and looked at Danya past the bottle. “At least that's what I think.”

  “Tell me how you really feel about your parents?” Danya asked.

  “I decided to go to the palace when my father walked into my room without knocking, when he knew I was changing,” Aren said to Danya. “I took a strip off him like a proper queen should and he thought I was just being bold. Comes to my court with his tail between his legs, afraid to piss least I tell Av what he's done.”

  “He walked in on you, Aren, you dealt with it. Why would Av kill him when punishment was already doled out?”

  Aren swore at Danya. The healer stared back at her, then sighed.

  “That's a very good reason for your father to fear Av. Good that he's on his best behaviour, because if you recall that while sober? Aren, if he's done that to you, what's he done to your sister?”

  “Nothing!” Aren shouted at Danya. “He never touched her, I made certain of that, I kept him from doing anything to her. Anue is protected.”

  “By what? You can barely make a flash of light, let alone write a long-term spell or use your magic for anything besides momentary effects.”

  “If he touched her, I'll boil him in his damned skin,” Aren said with a growl.

  The healer was quiet for a moment, then she asked, “Do you remember this when sober?”

  “What? No, of course not. I don't think about it,” Aren said.

  “How large are the gaps in your memories?” Danya asked. “Tell me about a birthing day. All families celebrate that, right?”

  Aren frowned, unable to recall such a celebration but aware it had happened. “I don't remember.”

  “How about harvest dinner?” Danya asked.

  “I don't remember.”

  “Visitors?” Danya asked.

  “I know the baron of the south visited, but he said as much to me when he came to court and I recognized him, but I don't remember his visit,” Aren grumbled.

  “You have large black spaces in your memories, Aren. That's not a good thing. As mortal beings, we block out what we can't handle. The idea is to black out that period of our lives until we're capable of dealing with it, but few are ever able to handle what they locked away.”

  “How do you know that?” Aren asked.

  “Because I have the same problem, but I also have a great deal of time by myself. I've been able to recover some things. It's something that I believe is very difficult to do until you're aware there are gaps in your memories.”

  “Which is why the throne sent me here?” Aren asked with a small laugh.

  Danya took the bottle from Aren and a swig from the bottle. “I'm guessing that's one of the reasons. The throne doesn't appear to be a thing that does anything for only one reason.”

  “So what if there were more reasons?” Aren asked, pulling the bottle gently away from Danya to take another drink. The world was all fuzzy and delightful.

  “Why not share those reasons?” Danya asked.

  “While it is the belief of the males serving the throne that everyone should know everything, us women know that sometimes things work in mysterious ways,” Aren said. “Because if we knew exactly what was going on, we might do something stupid like kill someone before someone else arrives to do the killing, which would result in everyone dying a terrible and horrible death, including me, but not including the someone who arrived to kill the first someone.”

  “Rewel is going to die,” Danya said quietly.

  “Him, or everyone,” Aren said. “That's not going to free me, though, because this is a magic far beyond him. What's locking the body here is not linked to anyone. It's an inversion of the self-image created by the wearer by the one who locks the manacle.”

  “Wait. Self-image is how we view ourselves. Inversion is a turning in. Meaning you're stuck here because of your own fears.”

  Aren laughed. “When you put it that way, I sound so pathetic.”

  “Which means that killing Rewel won't free you,” Danya said pointedly.

  “Which means the throne linked me here knowing I couldn't leave while I still had self-doubt,” Aren snarled. “What a selfish...”

  Danya stared as Aren launched into a tirade of every curse word she could think of.

  “If I ever want to see the moon again, I need to come up with at least one reason why I love myself,” Aren snapped finally, directing her irritation towards Danya, then the bottle still clutched in her hand.

  The bottle was cold to the touch, colder than the air. Ice crept up the glass base, towards Aren's hand. She breathed out slowly, watching the creep of frost slow, but not reverse. She took a swig from the bottle. The alcohol was chilled, thicker somehow and almost delightful as it slid down her throat.

  “Then we have a great deal of work ahead of us,” Danya said, reaching out to take the bottle from Aren. “Peace, darling. If you believe that you will be free when Av comes, why ever would there be a reason that you wouldn't be free?”

  “Because the throne won't let me leave when I'm on the verge of breaking. If I leave here before I finish, I'll go mad. The land will be dragged into darkness because my magic reaches far and wide. I can't let that happen, Danya.”

  “Then how do we stop it?” Danya asked. “I'm not asking Aren—I know she doesn't know how to help herself in this matter—I'm asking the throne. How do we stop her from going mad?”

  “By reminding her that in every other aspect of her life, Aren is perfectly capable of protecting herself and anyone who needs her help.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “Faster,” Av called out, watching the children go through the motions.

  They were tired, he was irritated.

  “Faster,” he snapped. “That means go faster.”

  Mie's stick slipped, catching Anue on the arm. The boy didn't know the strength needed to take on another rank, let alone another warrior. He was strong, too, building skills and preparing his body for the changes that would take place as he became a man.

  The girl cried out, the warrior spun on Av, meaning to attack the bigger form because a sister was in pain. Mie's instincts were waking already, something their father said might happen, with training around a queen.

  The reason ranks didn't seem to be ranks until they were almost adults was because they didn't run into those emotions until that time. Not around commoners, anyhow. Mie was training with a queen who he had claimed as a sister, and that meant that any time the boy smacked the girl, Av had to tussle with Mie.

  Not because Mie blamed him for Anue's pain, but because Av was larger, and might hurt Anue more.

  Anue keened from the ground, holding her arm. Mie dropped his stick, going deathly pale. Av swore, calling out for his father as he moved towards his little brother.

  Suddenly all tooth and fingernail, Mie lashed out at Av, trying to destroy a threat. The boy bit into Av's shoulder, making him shout, causing red to colour his vision. Av had training to fight those urges, but he still pried Mie off and threw the boy across the yard, bellowing his anger and his pain.

  Only to be hit by a wall of magic a moment later.

  Anue was on the ground, still clutching herself but focused on Mie's limp form. All emotion had drained from the girl. Those large eyes turned ever so slowly to Av and he knew he was in for the fight of his life when they locked on him. The queen should have been down from the pain, obviously her arm was damaged—possibly fractured given the sounds she had been making moments before—but that didn't matter as she stood. Her goo
d hand picked up the stick.

  Av swore again.

  His father blew past him, catching the girl across the face with the back of his hand.

  “What are you doing?” Av shouted.

  The trainer shifted towards Av, daring him to challenge him. Av backed away, because he wasn't entirely certain what a trainer could actually do to a warrior. All he knew was that history taught that warriors feared and revered trainers.

  Mie groaned from across the yard, sitting up slowly.

  “You'll be fine,” Ervam said to his younger son. “Av's the one that tossed you, you'll be fine.”

  “What happened?” Mie groaned, standing with difficulty.

  “You clipped Anue. Jer's on his way to get the healer. Anue, on your feet.”

  The girl stood but was in tears. Mie approached the trainer, wary. Even the young boy knew that this was a time to fear his father.

  “What's going on?” Mie asked.

  “You clipped Anue,” Ervam said. “Made her feel pain, damaged her.”

  “I'm sorry, Anue!” Mie said, rushing towards the queen to latch on to her.

  “Mie,” Ervam growled. The trainer waited for the two to separate. “You hurt her. When she was in pain, she made a sound that made you react. Av knew something was going on, but not what, so he stepped forward to engage you. If he hadn't engaged you, Mie, you might be damaged in a different way.”

  “Av threw Mie,” Anue said to Ervam.

  “He did, which is the best thing to do with a young warrior. Two warriors, when they get that sort of riled, can't really hurt one another. Jer and Av used to put each other through my woodpile, barely a scratch on them, and they were none-too-gentle about it.

  “You, little queen, reacted to someone you've claimed being tossed, and you were about to rage. So what did I do?”

  “You hit me!” Anue shouted.

  “I did. Do you know why?” Ervam demanded.

  Anue faltered, knowing that this was one of those lessons, but not understanding it. From her view, adults should never hit children.

  “No,” Anue said finally.