EverDare

by Brindi Quinn

  In the next hall there is no one. The enchanted fabric cutouts twitch on the floor, dying at our feet. Then again, they never truly held real life at all.

  It is not until we reach the entrance gallery that we are welcomed by the living. A few foolish guards, fool-hearted enough to obey the king and face the powerful sphinx sorcerer, form a line before the door, barring his path and wielding whatever objects they have managed to acquire from the king’s store. Dull spear alongside dull sword, for the first time in nearly a thousand years, weapons hold some sort of importance to the magick-minded people.

  “Tell them aside,” I say.

  “Aside.”

  They do not budge, for which they are gaunt-faced.

  “Raise your hand,” I instruct of my fief.

  He does nothing of the sort. He fears what will happen if he forces the guards away. Would they go crashing through the walls with the twist of his hand? Would their spines be torn from their bodies by the twitch of his fingers? “Simply raise it as a warning. There is not need for you to follow through,” I tell him.

  Awyer takes a step. The guards, trembling at the knees, refuse to budge. Sighing, Awyer resorts to lifting a hand. The guards clear away as if on cue. My ward shows a look of displeasure – directed at me – before moving through the newly cleared space and exiting Terrlgard Castle once and for all.

  Outside, the courtyard’s blocked hedges have already reverted to messy blobs of green. Stored enchants exhausted, they return to the form rightfully theirs.

  “Look straight ahead, Awyer. The king and his council will be watching from the highest towers. They wish to know what you will do.” This is what we have prepared for. May his built reputation keep them away. “Hold your resolve,” I say.

  The idea of resolve is silly on Awyer; though however silly it may be, the thought of removing the Amethyst from his veins is enough to make the boy submit to my order. He walks with firm shoulders and a steady bearing, away from Terrlgard Castle and to the unassuming storehouse that will shelter him from the results of his actions.

  There we will remain until the morn.

  Throughout the night, the city outside is alive with shouts and clashes. Enchanted things are beginning to fall, as anything built with magicks will eventually fall. The Eldradeans will be forced to rebuild their city from the ground up. An ill fate for a people who have been spoiled for centuries by daughter Amethyst. At least they are alive. Their fate would not be so if not for Awyer.

  My ward pretends to sleep against the soft pile of grain. I, too, lean into it, but it does not react to my nonexistent body this time. Awyer was right. I am worn. A great deal of enchants were cast by me today, and my strength is waning. I cannot spare magicks on enchanting the pile to receive me as it did this morning.

  It is fine. There is another thing I can lean against even without enchant.

  I settle next to Awyer and listen to him breathe until it changes from rushed and awake to slow and deep. With me by his side, my fief falls into slumber. He is the last sphinx of a diluted line, the last of his relations to hold the golden blessing. I was with his mother’s father and his great-greats. I have been with them since their arrival into Eldrade so many years ago. With fortune, I have observed the craft of his ancestors. With fortune, I may feed him the wile he was born without. Centuries run long. We are nearing the end of our time.

  “Sleep while you can, my sphinx.”

  Beneath his flesh, stolen color thrashes. He winces in his sleep. It brings me no joy. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep, too.

  In the midnight hours, my hair darkens to deepest onyx – though there is no one to see it. Even when it reverts to palest white, signaling the arrival of morn, Awyer continues to breathe heavily.

  I remain with eyes closed and listen. Outside, it is eerily quiet. I do not need to exit to know that desertion has overswept this place. In fear of Awyer, the Eldradeans have fled.

  It is the unwise response of an unwise people. The things they need to fear are out there, in the wilds where Awyer and I have yet to traverse.

  “Time to rise,” I whisper into my ward’s ear. “Our journey begins.”

  Chapter III: Fiend

  “You are giddy,” Awyer observes. “Stern Grim has gone.”

  Truth. I have turned giddy. With an invisible giggle, I circle him, skimming the ground with my toes as I go.

  Fallen Eldrade lies behind us; an expanse of mountainous highlands rolls before. Coated in green, the mountains rise sharply, fall just as suddenly, and dot the land without remorse. The trek is work for Awyer. I, in contrast, glide with effortlessness.

  “You know, Awyer, you too could float. Enchant the wind to carry you.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Then enchant a bush to crawl the ground for you. Sit upon it lazily. Play king.”

  He frowns and draws attention to the sky. “The color is wrong,” he says.

  “The sky is naturally blue. It is meant to be that way.”

  “The taste differs.”

  “Free from the false enchants of Eldrade,” I say.

  “Hm.” Feeling no loyalty for his country, Awyer takes no offense.

  “Do you pledge fealty to any?” I ask of him. “King or god or land?” A stupid question, one to which I already know the answer, I ask solely so that he might reflect on his own faithlessness.

  Alas, Awyer does not humor me, simply remains silent and continues to trek.

  We move on through ragged brushland peppered with squat trees. Twisting, the gnarled branches not so pleasantly bring to mind the knobbed fingers of a crone I once knew. Even the dark, rippled bark is true to her skin. I would remember the touch of it anywhere.

  But that tale I shall save for another time. Awyer does not seem particularly interested in hearing from me now anyway. He moves through the brush without conviction or interest. All I can do is lead him, and I do, between and around the hills coating the landscape. Shorter ones we climb. Taller ones we bypass. Awyer follows faithfully, never realizing I do not truly know the way. For now, I wish only to get far from Eldrade, my prison of nearly a thousand years.

  At midday, we stop for respite. Awyer removes a loaf from his satchel.

  “I am surprised it has not turned to mush,” I say. “The baker responsible more than likely used enchants in its creation.”

  “The baker did not.”

  Ah, so the baker was Awyer himself.

  “You will have to use enchants sooner or later, Awyer, if you ever wish to reach the Golden Lands.”

  “How long?” he says offhandedly.

  Dread. I knew it would come up eventually.

  I play dense. “How long?” I repeat.

  Because he knows that I am wholly aware of what he means, Awyer gives me an unfavorable expression. “Until we arrive.”

  I say naught.

  My sphinx’s dislike of speaking cannot restrain his curiosity on this important matter. Perhaps the boy has never wanted anything more than he wants to be rid of Amethyst, the stolen color he did not ask to steal. He presses, “Weeks? Months?”

  Even so, I still return with nothing.

  Awyer bites into the loaf and stares pensively into my face. He will not let it go. This time, silence is not enough to appease him.

  “The Golden Lands cannot be found by any but the sphinxes,” I say, conceding. “Neither man nor faerie nor rock imp.”

  “You have been there,” he wrongly assumes.

  “When I joined with your ancestor, he and his kin were already on their way to Eldrade,” I say.

  My ward grows impatient. “Then, he told you of its location,” he says, perturbed.

  “The way cannot be uttered.”

  “Grim?”

  By this time, he has guessed the truth – that I have not an inkling as to where the Golden Lands are. I have not a clue how to reach our goal. Though I know without a doubt that we will get there eventually, he and I are wandering blindly.

  Awye
r’s future has always had an uncanny way of revealing itself at pivotal moments in my ward’s life, offering enlightened fragments that make clear the path to take. Being the good warden that I am, I have used these fragments of forememory on many an occasion to guide my fief past hurdles in the way of his destiny. At present, something is amiss. Although I have repeatedly made our hands to touch since leaving the fallen city, nothing new has been shown to me. The path remains hidden.

  Awyer bites into the loaf again, this time as if with retaliation. He says nothing. And he still says nothing even after we end our respite. Nor does he speak a word when we stop in the night for camp.

  A second day passes before he speaks again.

  “What is your plan?” he grumbles as we reach the apex of an unimpressive mount.

  At last.

  I have been waiting for his words, even though I know my answer will set him into another cold spell. For this reason, I let them ring in my ears an indulgent amount of time. I overlook the vastness of mountland before us. In the distance to the east, against the rising sun, sits the largest peak of all: Ensecré.

  “Grim.” My name is said sternly.

  I have no choice but to yield. “Seventeen’s emergence of power,” I tell him, preparing for frost. “It will come soon, and when it does, I believe that the way will be shown to you. Until then, I seek only to move away from Eldrade.”

  Awyer, reminded of the fate to befall him, looks to his arms. “It runs hot.”

  I nod. “I know. And your birthday is–”

  “The day after next.”

  I nod again.

  This time when we descend, Awyer takes the lead. Now that he understands that we have no current destination, he chooses not to let deceitful me be his guide. I do not blame him.

  In the evening, it begins to rain. A hot rain but cool compared to Awyer’s twisting veins, I am sure. All water, rain or fount, has its own magickal properties. The tears of the sky. The purest substance of all. Even I am wetted by its influence. I use an Amethyst enchant to will it away from us. The droplets veer from our bodies, instead making contact with the ground to either side of where we walk. In this way, we travel protected for a time, beneath an umbrella-like barrier, until Awyer insists we stop.

  “You will tire too quickly if you keep that up all night,” he says.

  And so we retire earlier than we would, sheltering ourselves in a drippy mountainside cavern – a cavern which, we find out quickly, is already occupied. A community of fidgety slaywings has claimed the space as theirs.

  Small flying creatures with dark bodies and glittering white eyes, slaywings are untroublesome . . . for the most part. The miniature beasts have wingspans the length of human ulnas, which when closed behind their backs appear to be nothing more than long, sharp tails. In dampness, they cannot fly. If they cannot fly, they must crawl. It is in that closed position that the slaywings use their four insectile legs to scuttle about the floor.

  The scuttling is what makes them less than pleasant housemates.

  They creep the floor, white eyes glowing, in a specific pattern, inching toward us but retreating into the darkness before we can clearly see them. Ever, they remain just out of focus – a phenomenon most unsettling for Awyer, who is not accustomed to the creatures’ territorial behavior.

  “They will not bother you,” I assure, noticing his stiffness. “They are night hunters. Were it not raining, they would take flight. Because they cannot, they merely convey that this cave is their temporary home.”

  Awyer nods to show he has heard. Hair matted to his neck, the damp boy has taken to leaning against the wall and gazing at the rain. He does not appear to want to discuss the slaywings at all.

  “It is strange, however,” I continue, paying his reluctance no mind. “They are usually drawn to death plots. Potter’s fields. Tombs. They enjoy the vibration emitted from deceased things. Bones, for instance, give out a low hum inaudible to you or me, but one that they would find drawing.”

  There is not wood within our shelter; otherwise I would will it to spark into fire. It is a shame. Soon the dark indigo of the sky through the rain will transform to inky blackness, and then the scuttling will become even more unsettling. Fire would be a comfort.

  “If you do not like it, you could enchant them away from us,” I suggest of my ward.

  Awyer, still gazing, shakes his head.

  “Then I shall–”

  “Leave them be, Grim. It is their home.”

  “Very well.”

  Silence settles, broken only by scuttling and delicate rainfall. Moments elapse before, without breaking his stare from the rain, Awyer speaks:

  “We should stay here until emergence happens. The Lands might be on the other side of Eldrade. Venturing further is pointless.”

  He has sense. Truthfully, there was not need for us to come this far. I was driven by a selfish wish to flee. That same wish also drove my deceit that has laid a damper on our rapport.

  “Very well,” I say again, seeking to repair what I have undone.

  Awyer rests his forehead against his hand. Few worded he may be, there are many thoughts streaming through his mind.

  “If you are wondering what the emergence will entail–”

  He shakes his head. “I have seen it happen to many. The skin of my arms will darken to full Amethyst. The burning will cease.” He stops, but there is more he wishes to say.

  “Go on,” I coax.

  “It is . . .” He finally flickers his stare from the rain. “Will it change?”

  A scary thought, to be sure. Now that he holds all of Eldrade’s Amethyst, his already massive power will increase tenfold upon emergence. It will be even harder to control.

  “You will soon see,” I say.

  Displeased with the answer, Awyer’s brow flattens. “Has it not already emerged? I cast enchants at Terrlgard.”

  Yes, but that was nothing compared to what will be. Not that I can tell him something like that. It will only serve to burden him more. But I fear he already knows that. His gaze reverts to the rain.

  I float to where he slouches. He is too near the edge of the cavern. The ground around him is wetted. “Do not let it worry you, my fief. The day after tomorrow will tell.”

  Awyer sighs. His eyes are dim, his posture defeated. I block him from the cavern’s mouth by hopping in front of the where he stares, so that his attention is forced on me.

  “Try not to dwell on it,” I tell him. “Think of other things.”

  Slowly, he slides down the wall, to the ground. His stare scans mine. He says nothing. I say nothing. The slaywings scuttle.

  Then, there in the damp cave with an audience of scuttlers, Awyer’s eyes, ancient and golden, narrow and he asks a question he has never before asked.

  “How old are you, Grim?”

  The fact that he suddenly takes interest in such catches me off guard.

  “I have seen thousands of years,” I say. “W-why do you ask?”

  “You never age.”

  “I am made to match my ward. I have seen thousands of years but am reborn each time I form a new pact. Were I pacted to an old man, I, too, would be old.”

  Awyer continues to scan my face. “When we made pact, I was a child. You were not. You have not changed.”

  “That is because . . .” But I cannot tell him the truth because the truth would reveal too much. A sacred truth. A hidden truth. One that makes me conflict.

  A naefaerie is reborn at the very age their ward will die.

  A closing in my throat reminds me of things too compromising to state aloud. “How old do I look?” I ask him, voice weak.

  He takes no thought in answering. “You look to be my equal.”

  A fear I have had awhile.

  That apparent, I turn my cheek to him. “Go to sleep, Awyer.”

  Alas, he continues to gaze, no longer at the rain. “You are fair, Grim,” he says softly. “It is a shame others cannot see you.”

  Be
cause he has never said a thing like that to me before, the comment makes the hair of my arms stand upright, though I cannot bring myself to admit that it is from some variety of selfish, twisted delight.

  To the people of Eldrade, naefaeries are alike consciences. Eldrade-born naefaeries share a common loyalty to their people. Eldrade-born naefaeries are young. None remember the color wars. None remember Bloőd or Azure. I, however, am a naefaerie of uncommon descent. I was born beyond the walls of Eldrade. I remember, and so I never was Awyer’s conscience. Nor can I say if I have ever really been his friend. A companion, yes; and in his younger years, we diverted often, but Awyer would never consider me ‘fair’. Why should he be thinking that way now?

  Nay, why would any pactor think of their warden that way? It is unheard of.

  When I gain the courage to meet Awyer’s eyes again, they are closed. My ward has obeyed my order. I have obeyed nothing. The compromising thoughts I have had for my sphinx continue to grow.

  And in the middle of the night, I am punished for it.

  While Awyer sleeps, breathing in rain-moist breaths, I watch him without fail, deep in thought – so deep that I do not realize a disturbance in the rain.

  It is in rain’s nature is to fall downward. Rightly, rain ought to hit the ground and soak into the earth and quench the land. Because I am enthralled with Awyer’s sleeping state, I do not notice a very crucial incongruity: The rain has begun to reverse.

  Due to my fixation, I have unknowingly compromised our safety.

  I notice that something is off only after the slaywings break their pattern. The absence of scuttling alerts me to a coming power – a power made fully apparent the moment the whole of the cavern becomes lit with red smoke, revealing the truth of our shelter.

  Bones are embedded in the ceiling and walls, previously hidden, spelled to avert those of foreign power, shown only in the presence of red smoke – the same smoke that was not too long ago invading Awyer’s city. Again Bloőd’s power surrounds us.