by Rosie Scott
“Then...” he trailed off, noting my fading hostility with relief. “What do you want?”
I stared off into the forest. I didn't even know this criminal's name, but my chest felt congested with an attachment to him I couldn't explain. He was the first person I'd come across in so long who didn't want to kill me, and what little I knew of him were things we had in common. The void in my gut caused by loneliness pleaded with me to fill it with this sudden stroke of luck.
“You are hungry and alone,” I stated. “Have you no skill to feed yourself?”
“I'm not much of a hunter.”
“I'm a fisher.”
“You're more than that.” He stared wearily at my scythe.
“That's none of your concern.”
“No,” he agreed quickly, eager to stay on my good side. “It's not.”
“I will feed you,” I offered.
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because you're hungry.”
“That's none of your concern,” he said, repeating my own words back to me.
“Don't decide that for me.” I spun to walk back into the cabin.
“Okay,” he agreed eagerly behind me. “What are you doing?”
I didn't reply, but when I re-emerged with a fishing rod, he relaxed. He looked absolutely ridiculous still lying on the ground from where he'd fallen earlier in defense, but I said nothing of it and only stopped nearby to hold out a hand to him. He took it while noting the many rings on my fingers, all of which I'd looted from my hunters.
“Are you a mage?” he asked, grunting as he stood with my help.
I started off toward the nearest stream, listening to him grab his knapsack off the forest floor and hurry to join me. “Perhaps.”
“You must be unlicensed,” he surmised.
I glanced over with a neutral expression, though it concerned me that he'd so easily figured that out. “Why would you conclude that?”
“Because mages make good money,” he said. “If you were licensed, you'd be working somewhere. But here you are, alone in the forest, avoiding civilization and dare I say discovery.”
“You say all this like you have me figured out, but I never said I was a mage.”
“Do you have to?” He motioned toward my hands. “The rings are a dead giveaway.”
“I love jewelry.”
He laughed at my dry tone. “Yes,” he said with an edge of sarcasm, “you certainly seem the type.”
I said nothing, but a smirk lit up the side of my face opposite the stranger. We walked for some minutes in silence before he spoke again.
“Why do mages wear jewelry, anyway?”
“They believe it increases the accuracy and potency of spells,” I replied. “Mages harness energy out of the environment. Metal is extremely conductive.”
“Have you noticed a difference?” he asked. “Between casting spells with jewelry and without it?”
I judged the question to be one of curiosity rather than prodding, so I decided to answer it. “Not a difference in casting, but harnessing. Collecting energy for spells seems to be quicker.”
“How do you know? You can't see energy.”
“No,” I agreed. “I can feel it.”
“Like...tangibly?”
It surprised me he was well-educated enough to know that word. “I don't reach out and touch energy. It's something I feel regardless of whether I look for it or not.”
“I don't understand.”
I stopped, pine needles skipping outward from the abrupt kick of my boots. The stranger stiffened like he thought I'd suddenly changed my mind about fighting him, but I made no hostile move. I peered around at the surrounding trees. A cool Red Moon breeze whistled through the branches, creating a song of rustling and creaking.
“Do you feel the breeze?” I asked.
He frowned. “Yes, of course.”
“That is energy. You aren't reaching out and touching the breeze, but you feel it all the same.” I started walking again, and he fell in by my side.
“There isn't always a breeze,” he pointed out.
“You exude body heat,” I said. “That is energy. The animals of the forest do the same. The residual energies that exist after conflict or intense emotion last far longer than people would believe. There are many sources of energy.”
“But mages can't harvest energy from people. Only necromancers can.”
“Necromancers are mages,” I corrected him, though I clarified, “but no, mages can't take energy from the living. The living give it freely through their own anatomical processes. Body heat exudes naturally. It is not taken.”
“This is all very complicated.”
“It's actually not hard to learn at all,” I argued lightly.
“It takes some mages a decade or more to graduate from the Seran University,” he pointed out as an argument.
“How could you know that?”
“I was born in Sera. Lived in the lowest district, but I knew enough.” He noted my confusion and explained, “I'm on my way back to Sera from Celendar. Barely got halfway through that elven forest before a Celdic hunting party spotted me and forced me back out since I'm human. Thought Celendar might be a reprieve from Sera's bullshit, but no, they got problems like everyone else.”
The more we talked, the more I found I had in common with this man. I felt a strange comfort take root in my chest, and I clung to it.
“The problem is Chairel,” I mused. “It has always been domineering, and that mentality trickles down from the queen to her regents. Magic is fairly easy to learn, but as you said, it takes some mages a good portion of their lives to learn it in Sera, and it puts thousands into debt. Put two and two together, and one begins to realize that the discrepancy isn't due to simple mistake.”
The stranger smirked, though his gaze softened with a bit of sympathy. “You talk like you know all about Sera's nonsense, but you don't speak like a guy from the lower districts and you're not rich.”
“I'm not originally from Sera,” I said, coming to a stop at the stream that was my destination. The fish were plentiful this morning, fighting the current in tiny schools. The chill of the early hour invigorated them. As I prepared my fishing rod, I told my companion, “I do know all about its nonsense.”
Nineteen
Under a cascade of late morning sunlight that danced through the canopies, my new companion and I worked in silence. He built a small cooking campfire in the clearing between the cabin and its protective barrier of snapping twigs. He unknowingly used many of them to build the fire since they were dried out and nearby, but I didn't complain. I could replace them easily. As I descaled and gutted my recent catches for our meal together, I watched the other man situate two large rocks on either side of the fire. His method intrigued me; I'd never seen such a way to prepare a cooking fire, so I noted it for later use.
“What is your name?” I asked. He glanced up at the broken silence, and his eyes caught on the fish entrails I threw off to the side like they were an inconvenience.
“John,” he said. I could tell it was a lie. John was a simple human name, perhaps belonging to his father or some other man he'd been close to in the past. But it was not his name. Somehow, the lie didn't matter to me. While we were cordial to each other thus far, we'd held back certain details and admissions during our conversations. We both had things to hide, but that seemed like a relief rather than a concern since it was something we shared. I likely had a worse track record than he did.
“What's yours?” John asked when I didn't call him out for his lie.
“Give me one.”
“Give you a name?”
“Yes. Make one up. You are good at it.”
John wasn't perturbed that I called him out. “Bob,” he finally decided.
I huffed with amusement as I scooped out more organs and threw them to the side. “That's a name for an old farmer.”
“Yes,” John agreed. “It makes no sense for you. That's why I chose it.”
“We both know that hasn't always been your garden.”
John's perception impressed me. I said nothing.
“What are your crimes?” John asked.
I chuckled low and shook my head. “If I won't tell you my name, what makes you think I'd tell you that?”
“You could tell me because without a name, I'd have no way to connect your crimes to it,” he reasoned.
I gave him nothing but silence.
“Okay,” John breathed at the edge of a sigh. “Can I at least know if your crimes are a danger to me?”
“They aren't.”
John nodded with relief.
“I am not a danger to you,” I continued, “but it's only fair to warn you that I have many enemies. If mercenaries approach us, it's best for you to run.”
I felt John's eyes on me even though I still worked on preparing the fish. “Mercenaries? What are you, a murderer?”
I didn't deny it.
“So you really would have killed me earlier,” John went on, taking my silence as an answer. “And here I thought after all this time talking to you that you must've been bluffing.” Another hesitation. “Why didn't you just kill me, then?”
“Because you didn't deserve it,” I replied. “You've done nothing to me. If you wronged me, I wouldn't hesitate.”
“I get the feeling there are quite a few people out there who've wronged you.”
I instantly thought of Kenady. “Yes.”
“And you would kill them?” John snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”
“In a heartbeat, and I might even enjoy it.” I tried to get the fantasy of killing Kenady out of my head since it was unlikely to happen. “You seem surprised by this.”
“I am,” John admitted. “You speak as if death doesn't faze you.”
“It doesn't anymore. When something is a common occurrence in your life, is it possible for it to faze you?”
It was John's turn to be silent. He watched as I deboned the fish and threw the tiny bones into a small container. I normally took them back to the stream so other fish could pick them over; the last thing I wanted was to keep them at the cabin and waste energy raising useless fish corpses when the next inevitable attack came.
“Do you mind if I use some of your water for tea?” John pointed toward the buckets of water I kept next to the exterior cabin wall, where I collected rainwater for reserves.
Excitement laced my voice as I blurted, “You have tea?”
An exceedingly amused smile broke out on John's face. He looked over my expression like it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen and said, “Yes. Hell, you'd think you were a kid who was just promised sweets.”
“What kind of tea do you have?”
“Gods, I don't know. I'm not a tea connoisseur. Just got it off some Celd on my way here.” John dragged his knapsack over and dug through it. He took out an enclosed packet and threw it over to me.
I wiped off my bloody hands with a small towel and opened the packet. I took a quick whiff of its scent, sighed heavily with contentment, and then stared at the dried leaves, noting their shape. “Black tea,” I murmured. “I figured it would be fruity since you said you got it from a Celd.”
John shrugged with indifference. “I don't know. Like I said, I'm not a tea connoisseur. Apparently, you are.”
I huffed but shook my head. “It's easy to tell it's black tea. Black tea is only one type out of several. Depending on how or where it's grown, tea develops completely different tastes. They make most teas—white, green, black—from the same plant. The oxidation of the leaves after harvesting turns them this dark color. That's how I know it's black tea. But as for what it tastes like, I'll have no idea until I try it.”
John blinked at me a moment. “First of all, I have no idea why anyone would need to know that much about tea. Second of all, that was the most you've spoken at once since I got here, and the subject was, again, tea. Third of all, I'm pretty sure you just invited yourself to take some of my tea.”
“I'll trade you for it,” I offered.
“No—that's not my issue,” John protested, though he laughed like he thought this was all ridiculous. “I mean, look at you. All undone over some fucking tea.”
“I love tea.”
He snorted another laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you do.” He stood up and swiped at the front and back of his legs to rid himself of debris. “Don't worry, Bob. I'll make enough tea for both of us.”
The sun crept past the center of the sky by the time we sat across from each other at the campfire. John set a thin, flat rock over the two he propped up over the fire. On one side, the fish sizzled in its natural oils on the bare rock. On the other side, water boiled in a pot for our tea. John and I spoke no words for now, but just having him there felt like a relief. Sometimes respectable silence with someone is a comfort all on its own.
The forest looked beautiful. It was a sunny but cloudy Red Moon day, so a bright yellow glow spilled over the edges of cotton in the sky, creating a pattern of light and shadows throughout the wood that brought it to life with shades of color. The chill in the air invigorated the wildlife; animals sang, scurried, and foraged for food and warm homes to nestle in.
John seemed to feel as peaceful as I did. I couldn't know if he was running from something or not, but his willingness to so readily agree to share a meal with me indicated he was also lonely. Otherwise, he could have asked to trade for food rather than stay for it, and he wouldn't be so curious about me.
John prepared the tea using my ceramic mug and a cup seemingly made of tin that he pulled out of his knapsack. After I turned the fish over to cook the other side, he handed my mug over to me and watched as I took a sip.
The robust, slightly roasted caramel flavor of a high-quality tea settled on my tongue. I closed my eyes, holding it there as I ducked my head forward to reminisce. Memories of my father surprising me with a box of variety high-quality teas flooded through my mind. He'd been so excited that day; such quality tea was expensive and rare, but he'd claimed to have gotten a good deal on it. My father's simple-mindedness had been just another reason to love him. Once I told him I had a fondness for tea, he'd never forgotten it to the point of becoming obsessive. He had been so insistent on searching for good deals on teas from neighbors and traders at the docks that others teased him for it; traders from other towns started bringing larger shipments under the belief that Thornwell had a high demand for tea.
And it did. But only because of one boy's love for it and the desperation of a father to keep his son happy.
I swallowed hard, and the tea slipped down my throat, massaging the esophagus with warmth on the way down. My eyes burned with emotion I held back by necessity.
John cleared his throat across the fire, but I didn't meet his eyes. The packet of remaining tea leaves landed by my side a moment later after he tossed it.
“You steeped it well,” I told him, my voice slightly hoarser than normal as I tossed the packet back. “I need no more leaves.”
“I know,” John conceded, throwing it back. “I'm letting you have it. Tea means nothing to me.”
I rolled my neck to remove a crick, disturbed that he sensed my emotion. But I took the packet of tea and put it safely in a pocket. “Thank you.”
John nodded politely and watched the smoke escape the underside of the cooking fish. “You have lots of regrets,” he stated.
“No,” I argued, poking at the fish with a stick. “I have lots of memories. Only one regret.”
“What is it?”
“That I didn't appreciate what I had until it was gone,” I replied, staring into the fire and thinking of my parents. “And I wasn't fully honest with the people who would've understood the most.” I thought of Kai.
“Why weren't you honest?”
“Because I couldn't be,” I replied. “Being honest could've gotten
me killed.”
“Then you shouldn't regret it.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Yeah, but isn't it always that way with regrets?” John pondered aloud. “They don't make sense half the damn time. I regret a lot of things even though they were necessary. Couldn't have done things any other way, but here I sit wishing I had.”
His words mirrored the way I felt about how I'd gotten into this whole mess to begin with. As much as I'd accepted living life as a criminal, I would've never chosen it. It was simply the only option left. I would've killed to go back to learning how to make a decent living at the university and cherishing what I'd had with Kai. Times were so innocent then. Back before I knew how to rip a man apart and do it well. Before I knew the stench of stomach bile by heart and how a person's voice changes when they face the reality of a brutal death.
I served the fish on two plates, and John took his happily. We ate in silence for a few minutes, though John was halfway through his second fish before I'd had time to finish my first.
“This is delicious,” he complimented, glancing up with gratitude. “It's fresh. Cooked well. Good herbs.” He smiled while chewing his next bite and nodded toward the garden. “That is your garden.”
“I know just enough about herbs to get by,” I replied. “But you were right earlier. That wasn't always my garden.”
“Did you kill the guy who lived here?” John asked this like it wouldn't surprise or bother him if I had.
“No. He died naturally. I came across the place and it looked abandoned, so I removed his body and took it for myself.”
“Lucky,” John commented. “I'd have done the same thing.”
“I thought you were on your way to Sera.”
“I am,” he replied quickly. “But my life doesn't depend on it. I make shit up as I go along. See what opportunities arise. I have no love for Sera. I'll steal from the rich when I go back, but I'm not gonna skip on the way in.”
I opened my mouth but quickly closed it. I frowned with distaste at the thoughts running through my head; I'd nearly asked John if he wanted to stay here with me since his plans weren't certain. What the hell was wrong with me? I barely knew this man. I likely couldn't trust him. Was I so desperate for companionship that I'd lost my mind?
