by Liam Reese
“Don’t let him rattle you,” Saed said, smiling softly. “I don’t know why, but I believe you.” He sat, staring into Croenin’s eyes once more. “Don’t make me regret that.”
“I won’t,” Croenin whispered, feeling guilty as soon as the words left his mouth.
“Good. Get up. Since you’re just about healed, we’ve got some work to do.”
The burly man stood, grabbing some clothes off a chair near the fire and tossed them at the young man. He then turned his back, and Croenin took this as his cue to dress himself. He hurriedly pulled on the rough burlap pants and white shirt, almost tripping over himself. He was eager to finally be free of the bed and the small, dim room, and he was also curious to see where he’d been kept for the past few weeks. Once done, he tapped Saed on the shoulder, and the large man escorted him out of the room.
They stepped into a long, dark hallway with multiple doors on each side. Croenin guessed that behind the doors lay rooms similar to his, but he did not have much time to dwell on this as Saed walked briskly along the corridor. Croenin followed as quickly as he could, trying to keep up with him. Croenin almost ran into him as he stopped abruptly, swinging open a large oak door at the end of the hallway.
“He’s alive!” Saed bellowed, “Our new recruit has made a miraculous recovery!”
The room erupted in cheers and applause, and Croenin paled as Saed’s words registered in his head. New recruit? His thoughts began to race. I never agreed to join the Faero Ursi. Why would they even want me? I couldn’t even defend myself out on the road. How could I possibly save other people if I couldn’t save myself? He stood, motionless, staring wide-eyed at the room of men before him. Most were of a similar build to Saed, large, hulking men, gathered around the wooden tables of the dining hall. The low ceiling made them seem even bigger to Croenin as he scanned the room, nervously watching the few huddled near the back, leaning against the stone walls. These men seemed to be sizing him up rather than cheering for his recovery like the others. One with hair past his shoulders and a bushy black beard smirked and winked at him. Croenin swallowed thickly and took a step forward. Now or never, he thought, clearing his throat.
“Excuse me, sirs,” he started, feeling his face flush as the room burst into laughter.
“There’s no ‘sirs’ here, lad!” A voice from the back yelled, and the laughter grew stronger.
Croenin took a deep breath and began again.
“There’s been a mistake!” He yelled over the din, “I never agreed to be one of you!”
At that the laughter died down, and Croenin saw looks of pity among the severe faces of the men before him. Before he could ask what was happening, Saed laid a large hand on his shoulder, turning him so that they were face to face. Or rather face to chest, as Croenin was a good deal shorter than the massive man. Saed leaned down so that his face was level with Croenin’s.
“You’ll learn soon, lad, that nothing ‘round here comes free. We took you in when you were good as dead, spent food, bandaging, and precious herbs and tinctures keeping you alive. Whether we healed you in the end,” he paused and vaguely gestured to Croenin’s abdomen. “Neither I nor Captio believe this was done by one of us, but by Oryn we kept you alive!”
“Yes, and I’m incredibly grateful, believe me,” Croenin began, but Saed cut him off.
“There’s no getting out of it. You’ll take on the cloth of the Faero Ursi and repay your debt. You owe us your life, lad.” He patted Croenin on the shoulder and led him through the dining hall, but as they reached the back, the large man with auburn hair stopped them, nodding at Croenin.
“Not this one, Clythair,” Saed said firmly, pushing past him. “He’s Captio’s.”
“What did he want?” Croenin whispered when they were out of earshot.
“To be the one to train you,” Saed answered, gravely. “He’s a brute, that one. Few of his lads survive their training. That gang you see around him were all trained by him. Thugs, every last one of ‘em. Shouldn’t be allowed in the brotherhood, but it’s not up to me.”
They entered another hallway, this one a series of stone arches lined with torches. Their footsteps echoed on the marble floor tiles, and Croenin began to worry even more. He was finally well, but now he would have to figure out how to escape this place and find Ayne. He couldn’t stay here much longer, especially without knowing where exactly she might be. On the other hand, he wondered if this might be a blessing in disguise. I’m not really prepared to fight my sister, he thought. I’ve never even been in a fistfight. Yet, a small part of him felt that this was an excuse to avoid his destiny. How hard could it be to fight a girl, he wondered. I don’t even have to fight her. I just have to get close enough to stab her with the—oh no. The dagger. It had been on his person when he was stabbed. He had tucked it into his tightly-laced boots, which thankfully the highwaymen hadn’t stolen. Had the Faero Ursi confiscated it? They must have found it soon after he arrived, as the boots he was wearing now weren’t his. He had to find his old clothes.
Croenin was so lost in thought that he slammed into Saed, who had stopped in front of a tall, thin door with a fox motif carved into its dark wood. Saed turned and gave him a look, and Croenin mumbled an apology. The large man turned back toward the door and knocked sharply three times, pausing when there was no response and knocking once more.
“Come in!” A muffled voice called from the other side.
Saed entered before him, and Croenin gaped as he stepped over the threshold and into the large circular room with a domed ceiling. The room itself was littered with old, rusted swords and helmets, with a few books scattered on small, round tables and chairs. A small fireplace burned to the right of the door, its fire burning low due to neglect. At the center sat a sturdy, clawfoot, mahogany desk piled with sheets of parchment and writing utensils. These, Croenin did not recognize, few in the realm knowing how to read and even less having the materials to write with. He approached the desk slowly, eyes drawn to the parchments with the strange etchings on top that reminded him of the etchings in the pouch he had given his Grandmother Haega before her untimely death. He reached out a hand, running his finger along the lines of some of the symbols.
“Please, do not touch.”
Croenin jumped as Captio’s voice came from the far end of the room. The thin man walked toward the fire, stoking it to bring it back to life, and moved to sit behind the desk.
“Have you seen anything like this before, Croenin?” He asked, and Croenin looked to Saed, who remained silent, before shaking his head no. He was not keen on sharing his life story with these men, especially as it involved the very beings their brotherhood had banded together to fight.
“Would you like to know what this is?” Captio asked, staring at Croenin intently. Croenin nodded sullenly in response, and Captio smirked. “I’m not sure you do. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you should be trained by one of the others instead, Clythar maybe.”
“No,” Croenin hissed. “I want to know.”
“Hm,” Captio mused. “It seems I did make the right choice. Not many here are interested in letters, or even in knowledge itself. The Aes Sidhe made us fearful of anything new, anything outside our little communities. War made us even more concerned with survival than anything else. Yet, now that the Aes Sidhe are gone and that the human race has a chance to truly thrive, we’ve grown complacent in our little villages and settlements, most of us continuing to turn our back against the outside world unless it means trading supplies or foodstuffs. We have no desire to travel to other regions or even other villages. Many young ones don’t even know other regions exist.” His gaze grew more penetrating. “You aren’t the first I’ve called into this office or the first to see the parchments on my desk. Yet, you are the first to show any interest in them or in what they might contain. Saed, leave us.”
He nodded at the large man still standing a few feet behind Croenin. Saed nodded sharply and turned, closing the door quietly behind him. Alone with Capt
io, Croenin suddenly felt self-conscious. He was overly aware of his ignorance of the world outside his village. He thought back to the first day he left, villagers glad to see him go. He had brought trouble to his village, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since before the Age of Oryn and the banishment of the Sidhe into the Unknown. While sad to leave and afraid of what his reception might be should he return, Croenin knew now that he was woefully unprepared for the dangers he would face outside of his village. He hadn’t even considered anyone might try to rob him, let alone stab him for what little provisions he had. Humans were often separated by large distances, but there had been some semblance of solidarity among them due to the shared experience of being terrorized by malevolent magic beings. Now, it seems, some were taking advantage of that communal sentiment. It was no wonder the Faero Ursi had turned from battling Sidhe to battling other humans.
Part of Croenin was also worried about the secret he held. Captio had suspected magic being involved in his miraculous healing, and, while Croenin couldn’t deny that magic could be the only explanation, he knew he couldn’t have healed himself. You don’t know that, the voice at the back of his head told him. You’ve always been oddly strong for your size. That might count as a power. Besides, you’re supposed to be some sort of savior, it makes sense you’d have the power to keep yourself alive to complete your mission. He briefly wondered if he might hold abilities that he didn’t know about. After all, Old Haega could see things happening from far distances and even caused his parents to forget about his sister Ayne and their terrible destinies. Croenin shook his head, bringing himself back into the moment.
“Are you alright?” Captio asked, standing and walking toward the young man.
“Fine,” Croenin answered. “It’s all just a lot to deal with.”
“You have something else bothering you. I’ve seen it since you first woke up.” He put his hands on Croenin’s shoulders and steered him toward the fire. Captio removed a stack of parchment from a chair and pulled it closer to the flames. “Sit. What you tell me won’t leave this room. We all have burdens to bear, Croenin. It is better that you let a brother help you carry it.”
Croenin stared at Captio, who stood over him, large green eyes seemed to peer into his very mind. He would have to tell the medic something, something that seemed a heavy burden on his mind. He swallowed thickly, glancing away and back into those intimidating eyes. Suddenly, an idea came to mind. I may have figured out a way out of here, he thought to himself.
“Faero Ursi protect those who need protecting, right?” Croenin asked, meeting Captio’s gaze steadily.
“Save those you can, kill those you must.” Captio responded, quoting the motto of the Faero Ursi.
“What about those who aren’t travelers, but those who were forced to travel?”
“What do you mean?” Captio narrowed his eyes.
“My sister was taken from my village, stolen because of her silver hair,” Croenin lied. “I was on the road to get her back. Silver hair is rare, even rarer than my own golden hair. Everyone who sees her remembers her. I heard she had been taken to a castle, collected by one of the men who took over one of the old Sidhe strongholds.”
“And you want our help in returning her to your village.” Captio finished. He held up his hand as Croenin opened his mouth to speak, silencing him. “Do you know what it means to join the Faero Ursi?” He paused, and Croenin shook his head. “It means that you become part of a brotherhood. You no longer have a family outside of your brothers. Your dear sister, I of course feel terrible that you lost her, but she is your sister no longer. Not once you join us.”
“And because you say I have, I’m officially one of you?” Croenin growled.
“Once we’ve taken you out on the road, and you save or kill for the first time, you become one of us, but—”
“Then let this be my first save. After, I’ll leave my family for good, and I’ll become a brother of the Faero Ursi. You have my word.”
Captio chuckled.
“I knew you were clever. I could see it in your face. Fine, let this be both your initiation and the beginning of your training. Just know that you will be forced to keep your word. No one reneges on a life debt to the Faero Ursi. Those who have tried have been hunted down like animals.”
Croenin gulped. “I understand. I owe you even more than I already did.”
“You already owe us your life. You can’t give more than that.”
2
Croenin, now officially under Captio’s training, felt trapped. The Faero Ursi were using all their resources to try to track down Ayne, and he was not allowed to leave their headquarters. Instead, he was forced to wait for answers. As a distraction, he threw himself into his lessons, learning decryti, the writing system used by the brotherhood in all their written correspondence. Much to Captio’s glee, he excelled at this and felt as if his mind was made for such learning. He quickly memorized all characters of the decryti alphabet, moving on to reading old correspondences given to him by his teacher. As he read, his world grew. He had known about the large settlement of Conclatum, its stone buildings left over from when the Sidhe ruled the realm. However, the more he read, the more he learned of other, similar settlements and that his own small village and the headquarters he currently sat in were part of a major region known as Toque Staetym.
To the north and south of Toque Staetym were the regions of Uqolelle and Rassement, respectively. Croenin poured over the few reports of Faero Ursi who travelled to these regions, amazed that there could be so much that he did not know of the world. He marveled at the reports of frozen fields and snow from brothers that travelled to Uqolelle and writings of sand and unknown fruits that came from Rassement. Curiously, it seemed that neither of these regions had progressed as Toque Staetym had, but Croenin soon learned that the Aes Sidhe were driven out of his own region decades before the other two regions were freed of their oppressive presence.
The humans in his region quickly took over Aes Sidhe villages and settlements, having previously been forced to remain nomadic or live in flimsy settlements due to the deadly tricks of those powerful beings, building walls around them infused with oryn to keep out those who had lived there before them. In Rassement, the last region to be free of the Aes Sidhe, humans only moved into the ramshackle settlements that were emptied near the end of the war only decades ago. The people there were only just beginning to cultivate their own crops, having lived off the wild fruits and vegetables and leftover crops grown by the Aes Sidhe. In the north, in the region of Uqolelle, the people were still nomadic, and the brother that traveled there wrote that as far as he could tell, there were far fewer humans that had survived the war than in Toque Staetym. Their existence was a bleak one, living off fish caught off the coast and little else. Croenin marveled at the resilience of humans.
This is not to say that he forgot about his sister or what he was destined to do. His looming death was constantly at the back of his mind, keeping him from entirely enjoying all that he learned and often from sleeping at night. As he returned to his little room every evening, the same room in which he had spent weeks recovering, he stared into the fire, hoping that the next day would bring some news of his sister’s whereabouts. He spent much of his time not eating, but learning or, hanging in doorways, eavesdropping on what some of the more seasoned brothers were saying. While occasionally he would hear snatches of conversation about a silver-haired girl, he heard nothing he didn’t already know. What use is all this knowledge if I can’t learn what I truly need to know, he thought to himself often. He was beginning to lose hope of leaving, wondering if Captio perhaps tricked him by saying he would help him find Ayne, until Saed approached him in the dining hall.
“Captio told me to give you this. He says to come to his office once you’ve read it,” the burly man whispered, handing Croenin a small slip of parchment.
Croenin took it, waiting until Saed walked away to read what it said. He stared at the words written, rea
ding them once, twice, three times, before standing quickly and rushing to Captio’s office. He knocked on the door in the pattern Captio taught him, three knocks, a pause, then one more, before he entered breathlessly.
“You found her,” he gasped as he walked toward Captio, who was seated behind the large desk.
“We think we did,” Captio responded quietly.
“The note says that the brother who entered the castle saw a girl with silver hair walking with a girl of the same age with brown, curling hair. That’s her! The girl with silver hair is my sister!”
“We can’t know for certain.”
“How many girls with silver hair do you know?”
“None,” Captio smirked, “but who is to say there is not another out there?”
Croenin stared at him, speechless for a moment, before yelling. “So, are you just going to do nothing?”
Captio stared at him, grim-faced. “Of course we won’t do nothing. You must be patient. Do you believe we would storm a castle based only on a bit of information?” He produced a larger sheet of parchment whose top third was missing. “Take this. Read, and then let me know what you think.”
Croenin read, eyes widening.
“I have stolen the clothing of a guard and infiltrated the castle here, near the small village of Rusem. What lay inside is like nothing I have ever seen. The man ruling here, Gallys, has modeled himself off an A.S. noble. He holds court like a ruler, the people playing instruments leftover from before the A. of O. and reciting our history. They do not seem to be doing it of their own will. They seem afraid. The guards also seem to have lost their will, but not from fear. All look past me, as if they do not know I am not one of them. They look past everyone, only called to action by Gallys’ words. Surely they would recognize I am not their brother? The only one besides Gallys who does not seem to be fearful is his daughter, Vybia. It is she with whom I first saw the silver-haired girl.
