Carmichael plucked the letter from her hand to make it disappear back within his coat while she pondered her father’s words. When his hand reappeared he kept it closed as his soft voice floated through the room.
“As we are again reunited, I thought it fitting to return this to you.” His fingers unclenched, revealing her woven ring. “This took no small bit of effort to find, but I assure you, it is no facsimile.”
Marta seized it instantly, the familiar weight revealing that her brother told the truth, this time at least. Slipping it over her finger, Marta suddenly felt whole again. For a moment her misery melted away, happier memories she thought long dead gurgling to the surface. But the memories quickly faded, replaced by ones not nearly as friendly as she found her voice.
“I met Hendrix at a gathering the first year of the war. He was an odd man, but even then I knew he was dangerous and said he should be eliminated. If Father had heeded my suggestion, then the Covenant would have won, and Oleander…”
Carmichael’s carefully crafted indifference cracked at the invocation of their sister’s name, a look Marta believed to be entirely false and something he practiced in the mirror for when he had an audience. Still, his voice was somber when he spoke again.
“The past is a mirror, to gaze at it too long simply vanity. I too wish Hendrix had been removed then, and we could have all been spared his solution to the war. But you and I are both simply marionettes in Father’s show. He’s the one who pulls our strings and makes us dance.”
His indifferent façade again in place, Carmichael tossed a large bundle of banknotes upon Marta’s bed rather than handing them to her. As always, he had refused to touch her.
“All the information you need is within, and I hope I do not need to remind you to destroy the note once you’ve committed it to memory. There’s also a ticket for the train to Miryammayn. It departs within the hour.”
At the door, he paused, looking his sister over again and finding her lacking. “News of Hendrix’s daughter’s disappearance will soon reach the Covenant Sons, and to keep up appearances, my agents in the Home Guard will be searching for her and her rescuer. I will keep their search hamstrung, but I strongly suggest you do not allow them to catch you.”
He obviously expected her to accept his mission, departing despite the fact she had refused him. His certainty again irked her as she examined the cash, more than she had earned in the two years since the Grand War, yet discarded by Carmichael as if tossing away a used match. He was now the public safety secretary and lived the life of luxury they had both been raised to expect. His influence rose with each passing day, whereas Marta’s star had waned until it flickered at the edge of oblivion. Yet as she pocketed the money, Marta could not hide her smile, the motion an unfamiliar sensation.
But grin she did until her face hurt.
Carmichael had said they were both Father’s puppets, each one controlled by one hand and playing its assigned part in the performance without having seen the script. Sometimes the puppet in the right hand would take on the role of the hero and slay the villain in the left. Other times their roles were reversed, the only constant in the equation being that they did not know the part they played until the show was over.
But this time her father intended her to be the hero, Carmichael surely unaware he was going to be the one to fall. Hidden within her codex Marta found her instructions, ones Carmichael could not hope to decipher.
Her father’s message began oddly enough: Families belong together.
Norwood Childress was not one for sentimentality, and the sudden emotion took Marta aback as she had continued reading: Take your brother’s mission, but do not kill the target. Reunited with his daughter, he will give us our victory. The East will rise again. Do this and you will be forgiven. Families belong together.
Her father had somehow found it within him to forgive Hendrix for what he had done to the East. And if Marta could find it within her to return his daughter and not kill him, she too would be forgiven. She would be allowed to return to Gatlin to again be embraced by her family.
Marta did not know if she had any forgiveness left within her, all her kindness burned away by the Grand War. Killing Hendrix would be a supremely satisfying act, possibly the last in her life if she disobeyed her father. Carmichael would surely seek revenge as well if she were to deviate from his plan, his unyielding cruelty something Marta knew firsthand.
Families belong together.
The sentence still mystified Marta as she chewed it over. The reappearance of her woven ring certainly made it appear her father’s overdue overture was legitimate, though Carmichael claimed he was the one to find it. It was possible he did this at their father’s behest, but it was equally possible this was simply another of her brother’s machinations meant to confuse her.
Unable to tear her eyes off her returned ring, Marta claimed her greatcoat. Once a deep navy blue, it too had faded over the years. All Western soldiers were issued such a coat as part of their uniforms. Marta had removed the insignia long ago and considered burning the coat then as she had the emblem of Newfield. The coat marked her as a former Western soldier, told anyone who looked at her where her loyalties resided during the Grand War. It had been a hateful thing to wear and part of Marta wanted to be done with it for good. But it was warm and there was no way to ever hide what she had been during the war, coat or no. Carmichael had seen to that.
Hefting her haversack, Marta departed into the deepening night to find the train station. She was still unsure whose mission she would complete, her brother or her father’s, but for the first time in a long time, the decision was hers alone to make.
The fate of Newfield again depended upon her.
Chapter 3
Avril 23, 554 (Thirteen Years Ago)
Marta meant to surprise her sister as she silently slid Oleander’s bedroom door open, though not out of tenderness. Part of their Cildra training focused on mastering the art of stealth, and competitions between siblings were always encouraged. Sneaking up on the other was a point, as was noticing the instigator before she succeeded. Like the games of spot-the-lie she had begrudgingly played at her brother’s behest, Marta now initiated the games of stealth with Oleander.
Too entranced by her latest attempt at Refrain, Oleander never stood a chance as Marta jammed her fingers into her sister’s sides. At Oleander’s squeal she gave up another point, Marta now ahead by sixteen. Though it might seem like quite an advantage, Oleander still held her own despite the two-year difference in their ages. Carmichael’s advantage over Marta was surely in the hundreds when he finally stopped toying with her. He had never played with Oleander though, saying she was far too young to be any competition. Not that Marta had been much herself.
But Oleander was not concerned about their ongoing contest, and although she tried to put on a pleasant face, Marta could tell she was worried. The source was obvious: Refrain was one of the most difficult Cildra lessons, Marta having only mastered it a few months ago herself.
“Try it again,” Marta said as cheerful as she could.
Reluctantly Oleander obeyed, extending her pointer finger on each hand. She began with her left, tapping a steady beat upon the table. A few measures of that tempo established, her right began tapping an entirely different one beside it.
Refrain was a requirement for being sent out on a mission for the clan. Listeners were the Cildra’s inherent enemy, even though they included many Listeners among their ranks as spies. A stray thought caught by one of these mind readers could lead to their capture and jeopardize the clan as a whole. Though anyone could intentionally hide their thoughts from a Listener when aware of his or her presence, hence the pins all Listeners were required by law to wear to allow everyone this chance, the Cildra found a way to feed an eavesdropping Listener false information. It was not an easy thing to do, partitioning off a piece of the mind with a continuing loop of a repeating thought, like a refrain of a song, while still thinking true thoughts
in another mental partition. The hardest part was learning to simultaneously think two dissimilar notions at once, something the exercise of Refrain was meant to instill.
Though she held them for several measures, soon the beats from Oleander’s hands began to converge, the left speeding up while the right slowed down, until they mirrored the other entirely in striking the same faint staccato, Oleander finally throwing her hands up.
Despite her defeat, Oleander smiled pleasantly. “How was Cyrus today?”
Marta liked Cyrus more and more each day, and today was no exception. Though his last name was Livermore, not Childress, he was still a member of the clan and therefore family. His own manor, nestled deep in the mountains of Nahuat, was called Sable Hill, Cyrus commanding all the Cildra clan residing in the state from there. Although older than her father by at least ten years, Cyrus had come without question when her father called since Norwood Childress was the head of the clan in Newfield. And just as the Cildra within the nation all bowed to her father’s decrees, her father followed the instructions that came across the Saulshish Ocean from the clan elders in the Auld Lands.
Cyrus was an accomplished Shaper, the best on the continent of Soltera to hear him tell it, and he would teach Marta all of the Cildra secrets to Shaping. Most Shapers spent years perfecting their mental plans to their Armor, but Cyrus swore she would be a master in a matter of months. If she listened to all his lessons and took them to heart, that was.
The vast majority of Shapers developed one single plan for their Armor: a suit that looked nothing like knights of old from which its name derived. Her father had hired several Shapers when he last expanded his kennels, Marta watching them easily erect the building with their abilities. Their Blessed Breath was stretched thin as a hair’s breadth as they labored, tracing the outlines of their limbs and leaving vast swaths of their body exposed. The largest collections of their Breath were around the hinges that hovered over their joints, these moving parts said to be quite difficult to construct.
When surrounded by his or her Armor, the Shaper was strong as twenty men, but by spending all their mental energies in maintaining such a large and complex set of moving parts, the Shaper was therefore slow and plodding, both things the Cildra disdained. So instead of the single complex plan for Armor, Cyrus taught Marta several simple ones: the club for either hand, gauntlets for crushing strength, the cold torch that provided light without heat, a sword she was still mastering, and legs like a rabbit’s for astounding leaps. And if she were very studious, he promised to teach her the empty palm, a maneuver capable of springing locks without a pick. Her crowning achievement would be the phantom blade though, a weapon capable of killing a man without severing a single thread on his clothing.
It was not what Cyrus taught her that made Marta like him, but instead the how of it. Her first lessons were easy enough, Marta able to exude her Breath whenever she wished without effort. Mastering the club took only a matter of hours, but Marta hit her first impediment when she attempted to hone her club into a blade. Though she followed Cyrus’ instructions perfectly, after four days it still refused to obey her. Cyrus scarcely paid her any mind as Marta wrestled with the infuriating puzzle, instead availing himself to her father’s library. After the first day he did not even bother to look up from his book as he simply told her “again” after each failure.
It was midway through the fourth day when Marta could not take his inattention anymore, her frustration boiling over until it turned to rage. So she gave her rage voice, screaming at her instructor until her lungs hurt. It was that moment Cyrus threw the book at her, the tome sailing through the air like a missile. Unable to take her rage out upon her tutor due to the edict against harming members of the clan, Marta instead took it out on the book by bringing her club to bear and cleaving it clean through.
Cyrus’ chuckle infuriated her all the more, and it took Marta a moment to realize her club now sported a sheer edge. Examining it intently, Marta did not notice Cyrus until he was beside her, his hand resting upon her shoulder.
“There’s more ways than one to top the mountain.”
Cyrus’ words became Marta’s mantra, deviating from Cyrus’ prescribed methods whenever she was stymied. It was this act alone, more than his instructions in her Blessed nature, which made her love him. Whereas her father always insisted on tamping down her anger, the genial Cyrus allowed Marta to harness her emotions and let them design her Breath’s shape.
And Cyrus loved her in turn, dubbing Marta his youngest daughter and assuring her she could come and visit him and her distant cousins in Sable Hill. Marta suspected her father would not object since traveling to other places and learning from as many cultures as possible was the Cildra way. The Cildra were born spies after all: thieves and collectors of information they continually funneled to the clan elders before receiving new orders in return. Learning in any form was encouraged, the most important lesson being that of obedience to the elders, something Carmichael would soon study firsthand in the Auld Lands. Marta could not wait for her own journey across the Saulshish Ocean, and could already speak three of the Auld Lands languages in preparation for her opportunity.
Marta wanted nothing more than to share all this with Oleander, but she held her tongue. Though Oleander’s smile never faltered, Marta knew she did not want to hear about her older sister’s special Blessed training. So Marta extended her own index fingers.
“Let’s try it again.”
“It’s too hard.”
“Maybe for a runt,” Marta challenged. Never one to back down to a dare, Oleander’s hands remained balled into fists. “If you give it another shot, I won’t count that point for sneak-and-see.”
Reluctantly Oleander extended her fingers. Marta began the beat with her left hand, Oleander soon matching it with her own. Then Marta started her second rhythm, Oleander’s right hand thumping along. As she did, Oleander’s brow furrowed, the concentration of keeping the two beats, even with her grinning sister’s assistance, taxing her abilities.
“I don’t think you’ll be a Whisperer or Listener like Mother or Father,” Marta said. The wrinkle in Oleander’s forehead deepened as her sister continued. “I was Blessed in the Body, so it stands to reason you’ll be something new too. I think your fourth Breath is in your Soul. You will be a Weaver. Just imagine how wonderful it will be to conjure a manifestation to obey you.”
Oleander’s furrow evolved into an outright scowl, her words terse. “I’m not going to be a Weaver, or a Render. Or anything else. I’m not Blessed, Marta. I’m a fruitless branch on the Cildra tree.”
“Cildra tree?”
“The map Father has in his study. It resembles a tree.”
Marta had been summoned to their father’s study more times than Oleander and Carmichael combined, probably twice over, but she had never seen the map her sister referred to. Her father’s door remained locked whenever he was not home, and Marta never dared to venture into the lion’s den, even after she had learned to use her lock picks.
“You sprung the lock into his study?”
A proud smile curled upon the corners of Oleander’s mouth only to quickly disappear as she struggled to mirror Marta’s beats. “And I found his family tree for the clan. He has everyone marked, just like he does with his dogs in the kennels. I don’t know what all the marks mean, but he had Anice’s marriage listed months before they made the announcement. He picks everyone’s mates, Marta. That’s why we have so many Blessed in the clan. Father breeds us like his dogs.”
Marta almost lost track of her own beats as her mind puzzled over Oleander’s implications. The Cildra of the Auld Lands and their descendants in Newfield prized their pale complexions, avoiding the sun and the tans it brought as a sign of prestige. They looked down upon the duskier tones of the Solterian natives, the Ingios and Mynians. Marta’s own skin was ruddier than her cousins’ though, as were both her siblings.
She had heard that it was quite the scandal when Father had
chosen their mother to be his bride, a woman of Mynian descent and of little standing in her home state of Lacus. The Childress family was of old stock, one of the first to cross the ocean and stake a claim on the land that would one day be called the state of Mimas. Her father always told his children it was because once he saw their mother’s dark-skinned beauty, he was instantly smitten, but perhaps it was because she was already a well-known and powerful Whisperer. Or perhaps it was not his choice at all, but insisted on by the elders of the clan. Marta shivered as she realized perhaps it was not love that had produced her and her siblings.
“At least as a fruitless branch I’ll be able to choose my own husband,” Oleander snorted. “If he doesn’t sell me to a Wandering Dobra tribe first.”
“Father can still use you,” Marta countered. “Many of the best in the clan weren’t Blessed either.”
“Name one.”
“Floyd Seelmire.”
Oleander had to nod her agreement at that. Seelmire had singlehandedly been responsible for the invasion of Bance upon Acweald, this act of war having divided the Acwealt forces after Newfield declared its independence from the empire. It was this division of forces that allowed the Newfield rebellion to succeed and establish their nation. Though he was barely mentioned in the history books, Seelmire was a hero to the Cildra in Newfield, a man who had fulfilled his mission, even though he never agreed with it.
“Plus Theo Fitch. And Theresa Mallory,” Marta continued.
“And the only reason we remember their names is because of what they weren’t!” Oleander worked herself into a lather, tears threatening. “If another Blessed had done those deeds, no one would have even noticed. And they were at least sent out on missions, something I’ll never be allowed.”
“Unless you master Refrain.”
“Exactly!”
Marta held her hands up in defeat and Oleander allowed herself a sad smile of triumph. It only lasted a moment before she then realized she was now tapping along alone. Oleander’s eyes went wide as her two different beats continued, neither changing in tempo. They both beat on the table as ceaseless as the tides until Marta finally encircled her sister in a tight hug.
The Woven Ring (Sol's Harvest Book 1) Page 4
