Lucien

by James Moloney

  He meant us, of course: Lucien, Ryall, me and Tamlyn, wherever he was. We had become ‘these people’, unworthy of names and lumped together as a threat they were eager to be rid of.

  After a desperate glance towards me that showed how sorry she was it had worked out this way, Geran obeyed her father, leaving me to speak for Lucien. Only then did it occur to me that I was holding him in my arms still, just as Tamlyn had warned me not to do. What kind of protector for Lucien was I when I made such catastrophic mistakes?

  With as little fuss as possible I passed Lucien back to Ryall, who struggled to hold him at first because his left arm once again ended in a stump just below the elbow. The ruined mechanical arm lay on the white stones behind us and this was not the time for him to retrieve it.

  Without Lucien in my arms and Tamlyn carried off to where I might never see him again, I was alone in a way I had never felt before. Perhaps it was an effect of the Felan’s magic, but their anger seemed to reach towards me with vine-like tentacles. I couldn’t see them but I felt them, and they could snap me into pieces if they chose. Who was to say they wouldn’t do it right now? Still, I had to convince Birchon, Delgar and the rest to spare my little Smiler’s life.

  ‘The boy must die, today, before he turns his powers on us all,’ Delgar said.

  ‘No,’ I cried. ‘You speak like he’s a grown man. Look at him. He has no idea of what he might become. He’s a little child. How can you talk of killing him?’

  Delgar ignored me so completely I might not have spoken at all. None of the others turned a face towards me, either.

  Birchon wasn’t fury-driven like Delgar, yet his response proved no less threatening. ‘Killing a Wyrdborn is no simple matter,’ he reminded his companions. ‘Only something belonging to the boy can snuff out his life. He has no weapon with him.’

  A voice called from among the Elders, a woman. I was shocked at the cruelty of her suggestion. ‘Tear his clothing into rags and twine them into a cord. We’ll strangle him.’

  ‘It won’t work,’ I told them, and this time they heard me out. ‘The clothes do not belong to him. He’s been growing so quickly, I had to borrow a shirt and pants from the shepherd who helped us escape from Athlane.’

  They searched every freckle of my face for the hint of a lie, but I didn’t flinch because it was true. The shirt had been too big for Lucien when I’d first buttoned it around him only the day before we sailed, but already his tummy was pressing at the seams.

  The Elders turned away from me, their minds delving for another plan. It seemed to dawn on them, at last, that they were discussing ways to end a person’s life while he was there to hear, and his loved ones, too.

  ‘Take them out,’ ordered Birchon.

  Moments later, I was in the dazzling sunlight of the square once more, with Ryall behind me and Lucien on his hip, secured by his one good arm. We’d marched only twenty paces along one of the wide streets leading out of the square when the leader of our guards opened a door to his right and escorted us into a room I recognised all too well, even though I’d never been there before. We were prisoners again.

  ‘There are bars on the window, as you can see,’ said the guard. ‘The door will be bolted behind me and the walls are reinforced with enchantments.’

  We had barely settled ourselves onto the straw scattered ankle deep across the floor when the bolts were hauled back and the door opened to reveal a man’s back. Slowly he shuffled towards us until I saw he was carrying one end of a stretcher. Moments later, there was Tamlyn’s face, eyes closed still, but his skin tinged with enough pink to show he was alive. The men placed the stretcher carefully in the centre of the room and departed, leaving me to kneel at Tamlyn’s side. How I needed him. He was alive, but didn’t respond even when I shook his shoulder.

  With Lucien content to play games in the straw, Ryall joined me.

  ‘Do you remember Ledaris, Silvermay? Theron locked us in a room like this one.’

  I knew what he was getting at. Escape had seemed impossible on that occasion, too, and yet we had managed to break free.

  I shook my head. ‘It’s different this time.’

  ‘Is it? They’re going to kill us, just like Theron was going to.’

  ‘Theron was a cold-hearted Wyrdborn. The Felan have warmer blood in their veins. If we’re caught trying to escape, we will lose our claim to innocence. And how would we get off Erebis Felan, anyway? Our ship will be gone from the harbour by now.’

  ‘Don’t expect mercy from the Felan,’ he replied. ‘Lucien would already be dead if they had a way to do it. How long before they —’

  He said no more because I’d placed my hand over his lips. ‘They might be listening,’ I warned.

  I didn’t need Ryall to remind me there was a way for the Elders to kill Lucien. Geran had come up with the idea back in Vonne. If they made Lucien angry enough, they could turn his own magic against him. As Geran had done back then, they needed only to threaten me in front of Lucien and his love would spur him to lash out in deadly revenge. How odd it was to think of a Wyrdborn’s vengeance existing in the same moment as love.

  Ryall took my hand away from his lips. ‘We’re in Geran’s hands all over again, then,’ he whispered.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s in disgrace. Her own father has disowned her. She’s been faithful to us so far, but she’ll want to put things right with him. What if he insists she tells him all she knows?’

  I wanted to argue with him, to defend Geran whom I still trusted. Or was I being a fool?

  ‘We were so close!’ I lamented. ‘I’d hoped one last journey would set us free. It should have ended in that circle of white stones.’

  Ryall shrugged. ‘My mechanical arm is still there, unless they’ve thrown it away. Didn’t work anyway, I suppose.’

  ‘Mr Stenglass will make you another one once we’re home again in Haywode.’

  It was my way of saying there was still hope, that we would get ourselves out of this predicament somehow.

  ‘Haywode is your home, not mine, Silvermay. I don’t care about a home so much. What I’d like is two good arms again.’

  He raised his left arm to remind me of what he’d lost already. Tomorrow, I thought, he might lose his life.

  Lucien broke up our sullen conversation by tugging at Ryall’s trousers. ‘Show me,’ he said.

  ‘It’s gone,’ said Ryall, exposing his shortened arm.

  Lucien surprised us both by reaching up to touch the stump with the pads of his fingers. ‘My arm is longer than yours,’ he said, in an echo of the game he and I played with our hands.

  For the time being, Lucien seemed content to pester Ryall and once again I was grateful for the break. Outside, the light was fading. The same men who had escorted us here from the Great Hall brought us a meal. Afterwards, despite my anxieties about the day to follow, I felt sleep eager to claim me. I gathered straw to make a nest for Lucien when he was ready to join me then lay down near Tamlyn. The sight of Lucien and Ryall together in the far corner of our prison was the last thing I remember of that night.

  It’s a strange truth about weariness and sleep, that the longer you sleep, the shorter the time seems once your eyes open to the morning. It certainly seemed to me that only moments had passed when a cry from Ryall jolted me from slumber.

  I sat up instantly and, despite the distress I’d heard in Ryall’s call, my first thought was to look for Lucien. He wasn’t beside me and the straw I’d plumped up for him was undisturbed. He wasn’t far away, though, fast asleep next to Ryall.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ I asked.

  ‘My arm!’ said Ryall, his voice more confused now than fearful. ‘Look at this.’

  He was tugging at his sleeve, but even when the cloth was up past his elbow, I couldn’t see what had upset him.

  I shook the straw from my hair and went closer.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, straightening suddenly. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Overnight, hi
s stump had grown three bubbles of flesh. In the centre, the bone seemed to strain against the skin, turning it an angry red.

  ‘Is it sore?’ I asked, unsure whether I should touch the tender spot.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Did you bump it against something? Or cut the skin? Things go red when there’s dirt in a wound.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘nothing like that. It just happened while I was asleep.’

  There was no simple explanation, which made us both uneasy. And Lucien still hadn’t woken up, even though Ryall and I had been talking almost in his ear.

  ‘Wake up, sleepyhead,’ I said, rocking his shoulder gently.

  After a moment or two, he opened his eyes and offered me a weak smile. Usually he would leap to his feet to start the day’s games, but instead he let his eyelids droop. Since I could see he was alive and well, I left him alone to sleep a while longer.

  Lucky thing, I thought. There was nothing for Ryall and me to do but wait and worry.

  An hour later, the door opened and sullen guards brought in our breakfast. They weren’t going to starve us to death, at least.

  ‘What will they do to us?’ I asked the Felan. ‘Have the Elders said anything?’

  ‘They are still deciding your fate,’ came the cold reply from the woman in charge. We seemed to inspire both fear and suspicion in our gaolers, who couldn’t wait to bolt the door behind them.

  The smell of food finally persuaded Lucien to begin his day, although he had little of his usual energy. In such a confined space, and with no toys or anything to conjure into a game, I was grateful for that. While I sat beside Tamlyn, hoping he would wake as well, Lucien climbed onto my lap and seemed content to rest his head against my chest. It was a warm and loving gesture and I wished the Elders were there to see it. How could they kill him when there was such feeling in his Wyrdborn soul?

  The same gaolers returned with our midday meal.

  ‘What’s happened to Geran?’ I asked them. ‘She shouldn’t be punished for helping us.’

  ‘That’s a matter for the Circle,’ said the woman. She was some years older than me, but not so old she could have been my mother.

  Later that afternoon, something happened to gladden my heart at last. Tamlyn murmured in his sleep, and when I hurried to his side he opened his eyes for the first time.

  ‘Silvermay! What happened?’ he asked weakly.

  Before I could answer, he turned his head to either side and saw that we were imprisoned. ‘Where are we?’

  He tried to sit up, but the effort was too much for him. ‘Can’t seem to move …’ He rolled his right arm half a turn, but didn’t try to lift it.

  I’d saved some of our lunch for him — a bowl of broth. It had gone cold but he didn’t care. With Ryall holding his head and shoulders up enough to drink and me holding the bowl, he managed three or four sips, then whispered, ‘Thank you,’ and drifted back into sleep.

  The light slowly died once more through the barred window above our heads and, with nothing much to do, Ryall and I settled among the straw, resigned to sleep. I made Lucien lie down beside me this time, in case he really was sickening for something. He was determined to be the little devil, though, I discovered, because during the night he rolled away from me again.

  ‘Silvermay, look at this,’ called Ryall the next morning, before I was properly awake.

  I was worried something more had happened to his arm, but he meant the way Lucien was fast asleep with his head on Ryall’s shoulder and his left hand resting on his elbow.

  ‘He’s given up on you, Silvermay,’ Ryall teased. ‘He prefers me now.’

  As gently as he could, Ryall edged his shoulder from beneath Lucien until the little head nestled in the straw. I watched, marvelling at how this gruff young man who’d lived the lonely life of a trapper in the mountains since he was fourteen could dote on a boy who wasn’t his brother, wasn’t anything to him at all. Then I saw the sudden change in his face. One moment, his features were soft with love and care; the next, he was frightened.

  ‘Silvermay!’ he cried and began to snatch at his sleeve.

  I struggled to my feet, already infected by his fear, and pushed his fumbling fingers aside to roll up his sleeve. It was no easy task when he was so distraught. Our gasps burst free at the same moment. His forearm was longer by many inches, and where yesterday there had been three pebbles of skin protruding from the stump, now there were five, and the first three had grown bigger.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Ryall cried. ‘What foul magic have they cast over me?’

  He meant the Felan, of course. Was this the punishment they had decided upon? I shuddered to think what deformities they might have in mind for me.

  Ryall slumped to the straw where Lucien still lay asleep and began to weep.

  When our unfriendly attendants returned I was ready with some hostility of my own. ‘Look at Ryall’s arm,’ I demanded of the woman who entered ahead of her companion.

  She ignored me until the plates and bowls were placed on the table in the corner, the only furniture in the room other than Tamlyn’s stretcher. When she’d finished, she turned her eyes towards me. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your wizards are working some kind of magic on me, that’s what we’re talking about,’ said Ryall.

  The woman’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘Look at this,’ cried Ryall, who had been patiently working the sleeve upwards towards his elbow. ‘My stump has grown these horrible little stubs, and look here, the bone under the skin is spreading into some kind of knob. What are you doing to me?’

  The woman was clearly repulsed by what she saw. ‘It’s not a magic I recognise. The Felan don’t interfere with a person’s body.’

  Except to take the life from it, I wanted to add, but I stayed silent while the guards left the room.

  Tamlyn had awoken at the disturbance. ‘Do I smell something to eat, Silvermay?’ he called in a voice noticeably stronger than yesterday.

  I took him a bowl of broth and this time he downed the lot. ‘Is there bread? I’m starving.’

  I’d never heard more welcome words.

  Despite his fears about his arm, Ryall was quickly at work on his own breakfast. In contrast, Lucien hadn’t stirred.

  ‘Come on, little man,’ I cooed, leaning over him.

  His eyelids rose slowly and his face brightened at the sight of the bread roll I was holding under his nose. The roll disappeared quickly and he devoured two more with the same gusto, then retired to a corner and sat propped against the wall, his eyes locked onto Ryall. It struck me, then, he was no bigger than he had been yesterday or the day before. That might sound like a foolish thing to say when human beings grow so slowly, yet Lucien was not like other human beings and no one knew better than I how much he bent the laws of nature. Something had changed.

  After eating, Ryall roamed the room restlessly under Lucien’s devoted gaze. Had my little Smiler really switched his allegiance?

  I put the idea out of my head while I tended to Tamlyn, who continued to drift in and out of sleep.

  ‘I remember nothing from the first moment the magic took hold of me,’ he explained when he managed to stay awake for ten minutes.

  ‘What about dreams?’ I asked.

  Dreams had a special meaning for Tamlyn and me. The Wyrdborn did not dream as the commonfolk did, and when Tamlyn had first described to me the strange scenes that came to him in his sleep, he had been shocked to discover that’s all they were. To me, the dreams were a sign that he was different from other Wyrdborn, that there was a corner of his heart that could be prised open to admit the light of love. Most exciting of all, he had dreamed of me.

  ‘Yes, Silvermay, I dreamed,’ he said now.

  I couldn’t ask so blatantly whether I’d been in his dreams this time, and he knew it. He teased me by saying nothing, and when the impatience showed on my face, his broke into a smile.

&nb
sp; ‘I dreamed of things I want, although sometimes they seemed out of reach.’

  ‘You will dream every night from now on,’ I told him. ‘You are one of the commonfolk.’

  ‘If the magic has worked,’ he said quickly, and added in a more serious tone, ‘How will we know if it has?’

  ‘The first kiss will tell us,’ I said boldly.

  He stared up at me, still so drained of energy he could barely move. ‘Then I must get up off this straw so that we can test your theory.’

  I felt my cheeks flush. ‘Or I could simply bend a little lower.’

  His eyes dared me to do it.

  I looked around to be sure Ryall and Lucien weren’t watching. We were in luck. Ryall was plaiting straw — a way of keeping the fingers of his good hand nimble — and Lucien continued to stare at Ryall as though he was the only person in the world.

  I turned back to Tamlyn and saw the expectation on his face, a cousin to the same thrill that skittered through my entire body. Then, just as I began to lower my head towards his, the woman guard returned.

  ‘Ahoy, in there,’ she called from outside the door, her face pressed against the bars. ‘You need to get ready for some important visitors.’

  I went to the door. ‘Who’s coming?’

  She seemed reluctant to answer, then relented. ‘Some of the Elders.’

  The tone of her voice worried me, as did the way she was looking at Lucien. I didn’t know what else to ask her and used my eyes instead, appealing to the compassion I thought I’d glimpsed in her face.

  Again she hesitated, until finally she whispered, ‘They’ve decided. The boy is to die.’

  ‘No,’ I gasped, but the woman turned away, refusing to face me.

  8

  A Magic Born of Love

  Every sound outside the door sent my heart into the pit of my stomach. Even my brave confidence in Geran vanished.

  ‘What if she’s told them how to hurt him? It’s not right to use his love for me against him like that,’ I complained to Tamlyn.