We started walking back toward the town square the way we’d come. We ended up tightly squeezing through other shoppers who were out and about now, women of all ages and a few men here and there with baskets or burlap sacks slung over their arms or backs. The city folks’ faces seemed worn with the dust of the mine. I would hate to live down here.
As soon as we reached the edge of the people, Rachel started to chitter-chatter again about her job working in the castle as Queen Gloria’s maid. Most of what I knew about the Royals came from her, I’d never really seen them face to face. The queen seemed to be a happy woman while her husband locked himself away in his study for most hours of the day. Prince Frederick wasn’t around often either while Princesses Mira and Cornflower were almost always out and about the castle doing one thing or another. Rachel expressed her happiness that she wasn’t little Cornflower’s maid, having to pick up after her all day long, which made me laugh.
As we turned the corner, I ended up crashing into someone on accident and fell to the ground, my satchel full of groceries spilling onto the road, mostly the potatoes and apples. Rachel immediately went after my rolling produce, and after I rubbed my head for a few seconds, I looked over to see Sam, my neighbor.
He hadn’t fallen though he seemed just as bewildered as I did. “Oh, Lina, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going!”
I smiled at the tall man, his suntanned face genuinely afraid that he’d hurt me. “Oh, it’s fine, Sam. I should’ve been looking too.”
One lanky arm reached down and pulled me to my feet while the other absentmindedly went up to straighten the blue and purple starred bandana tied around his head, the one he’d worn even as a young boy when he’d found me in the forest. His mouth stretched into that lopsided grin I knew so well. “Never can stop running into you, can I?”
I laughed, because it was really kind of a joke now. For a few years after he’d found me passed out in the middle of nowhere, he’d always made fun of me for it. Like how on Nerahdis could someone just wind up asleep in the forest with no memory of how they got there? I had no clue. When I was little, it really sort of bothered me, but now I just played right back. He’d become pretty much my best friend out of the entire thing. “Yeah, guess not! Nice to have something I can depend on.”
Sam just shook his auburn head, grinning as he picked up his own empty sack off the cobblestone road and began to walk toward the marketplace. “See ya later, Lina.”
“Until next time, Mr. Greene!” I said just to spite him. He absolutely abhorred it when I used that name. It made him feel old. So, I took every chance I could to mess with him.
“Of course, Miss Harvey!” He threw over his back, knowing that it bothered me just as much as he disappeared around the corner. It made me feel like an old spinster.
Rachel began to laugh hysterically, my satchel still in her hands, “Sheesh, you two never quit, do you?”
I smiled, thinking wistfully. “Oh, some things never change, Rachel. I can’t believe it’s already been ten years.”
“Ten years since what?”
“Since he found me in the forest all alone. I don’t remember what on Nerahdis I was doing there, but he found me and took me home. Been friends ever since.” I took my satchel back from her and looked to see if I had any casualties.
“Aww.” Rachel giggled.
“Oh shush!”
She only laughed even harder and began to walk back down to the southern end of Soläna where the peasants lived. “I’ll see you later, Lina!”
“Say hi to Luke and James for me!” I threw a wave in her direction as I turned back toward the pathway leading up to the plains. Even though I was a rebel on the way down, I usually tried to be a respectable citizen on the way back up.
A bird tweeted in my ear and two little feet alighted on my shoulder. I looked to see a little red-headed black bird with yellow tipped wings sitting there, and I immediately recognized it as the one that lived in the tree next to my house. It was a curious little bird, always following me around, and it kind of reminded me a lot of myself. I was probably too curious for my own good, and I had always been small for my age. Even though I’d be twenty in only two more seasons, I still looked like I was thirteen or so. The little bird and I were the same in a sense.
“Hi, Birdie. What’cha up to?”
Chapter Two
A week later, the road was a little fuller than normal on the way to pick up my young cousin, Keera, in Stellan, the town maybe twenty miles east of Soläna. All roads leading to the capital were rather well traveled, but this was hectic festival traffic. Horses and wagons and carts were all headed in the opposite direction to the canyon for a festival still a few weeks away.
It was heavy traffic indeed, but I liked looking at the people. Even though it was all the same kingdom, Lunakans tended to look pretty different depending on which region they came from.
Soläna mainly housed miners and farmers, so there were a lot of rough people there looking well worn by the elements. On this road, I began to recognize people from Stellan. They were farmers as well, but they seemed different from Soläna farmers. Their faces were skinnier, men and women alike, and the children ran around in threadbare clothing that seemed to have been hand-me-downs for generations.
I never really thought of myself as well off, definitely not even close, but I guess it helped to have a large city nearby for resources. As far as what I could remember from the one time I’d been to Stellan, their town consisted of one road. The town was above ground, too, so it got hit pretty hard every year by storms. Even then, Stellan people didn’t have a lot of options for food or other commodities. I hoped they would have a better harvest this year.
The people from Canis were even more different. Canis was on the very southeastern point of Lunaka, butting up against the ocean and the Auklian border. I’d never been there before, though the rumors said that it sat at the bottom of a cliff with huge docks that rivaled even Auklia’s. The people from Canis were long and sinewy, their clothing more a blue shade and well kept.
I kept glancing at different hands as I rode past them on my horse. The men had several horizontal slashes across their palms, and I wondered if it was from their fishing nets, casting them out and reeling them back in and casting and reeling over and over. I imagined that must get very boring.
The women of Canis looked healthier, compared to the bonier ones from Stellan and even Soläna. There was never a shortage of food in Canis, you could go fish whenever and wherever you wanted. It wasn’t like we farmers could walk out to our fields and pick a bunch of corn in Middle Winter, or even while it was growing for that matter. We had to wait for harvest time, and anything could go wrong as the crops grew.
It must be nice to have such a reassurance and never have to go hungry. I hated looking at my sister and knowing that during the hard months there was probably more than one night that she went to bed hungry.
The only other official city in Lunaka was Lun, but it was in the opposite direction to the west. All the people there were extremely well off merchants and such; you could tell just by the way they clothed themselves. It was as if every occasion was suit and tie only. I didn’t think any of them had ever glanced at a pair of work gloves in their lives.
I was sure there were other unnamed settlements here and there across Lunaka’s plains, maybe where small groups of squatters had gotten tired of so many people crowded into the cities, but those squatters were ignored by the king.
I looked up at the gray sky, and began hoping that it wouldn’t rain. If the soil was too soggy by the time Keera and I got back to the farm, planting seeds wouldn’t go well even though Sam had kindly agreed to help me.
The prairie grass on either side of the road rolled in the wind for miles, like our own green ocean here in the middle of a landmass. I’d never seen the ocean, but I assumed this was roughly similar other than the whole water thing. The fresh smell of rain was on the horizon as I spurred the muscular b
lack horse beneath me a little faster.
Luckily for me, the stage coach stop was on the western side of town, and it soon appeared over the next grassy hill. I passed a few more people from Stellan, dodging a little boy running after a puppy, but I stopped on the hill before getting closer to the stop.
A little girl was standing on the platform, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. She was dressed in bright Auklian colors, which my father had taught me were blues, greens, and purples for girls, and reds, oranges, and yellows for boys.
A short man was standing with her; otherwise, the platform was completely devoid of people. He dropped to his knees and wrapped a Lunakan brown cloak around the girl’s purple shoulders and pulled the hood over her midnight black head. He, too, was covered in one of these cloaks, so I couldn’t see his face, but before he walked away from Keera, she pulled him down into a hug.
He didn’t stay long and soon swung himself high onto a waiting brown horse and took off back south where I knew Auklia waited. A violin case was strapped to his back, so I assumed he was a roaming bard who was unlucky enough to be about the same height as I was. I swallowed that bite of fear that arose every time I was going to meet a new person, and pushed my horse back into motion toward the lonely little girl.
When my boot sounded against the creaky platform, Keera looked up at me, her eyes blue and melancholy. Her voice was tiny with the hint of a shiver as she said, “You’re Lina. Aren’t you?”
I nodded as I took in the child who really wasn’t much shorter than me. “Yeah, I am.”
She looked sad, her freckled cheeks full. Her little hands tugged on the dark braid that nearly reached to her waist.
I honestly didn’t know what else to say and probably stared at her for a good five minutes with my fingers scratching the back of my neck awkwardly. I simply had no idea if I was even supposed to say anything else.
When she shivered again, I noticed her hair was wet. Her bangs were grouped in wet black spikes that dripped down her forehead, and maternal instinct instantly took over. I pulled the child closer to me, my hands rubbing her arms to try and warm her cool skin, and walked her over to where my horse, Shadow, waited.
I boosted her up onto his broad, slightly bony back and got on behind her. Keera clung to Shadow’s warm hide and only leaned up against my body as much as she had to. I pulled my own hood over my head and eyed the churning, dark gray clouds above us, threatening to let loose while we were on the road.
I looked down at the girl’s unsure face. Her eyes were carefully measuring me. It suddenly occurred to me that she was judging me, sizing me up. She was trying to see what kind of person I was, a total stranger that was now pretty much her mother. Smart kid.
Tugging Shadow’s reins and pointing his nose toward home, I told Keera with what was hopefully a hint of a smile in my voice, “We’re going to try and beat the rain, okay? So hold on.”
I kicked Shadow into a gallop onto the now vacant dirt road, although it wouldn’t remain dirt much longer. I was used to the bouncing of Shadow’s gait, but Keera was obviously not because of how she clung to the saddle horn and slid backward into me. I found it funny, which was probably bad, but I couldn’t help but laugh inwardly at the girl who seemed so melancholy and yet judgmental at the same time.
The rain began only a few minutes later, the drops of water flinging into my face and weighing down the hood on my head. The horizon turned into a haze, other than the occasional lantern that I could see just off the road where travelers had stopped with their wagons to avoid getting stuck in the mud.
About five miles from the capital, the downpour began to thin out. I slowed Shadow to a much-needed walk, and the horse huffed and puffed in exhaustion, clip clopping forward on nothing more than sheer will. Keera said nothing but resituated herself and pulled the heavy brown cloak off into her lap to wring it out like a washcloth.
Her Auklian clothing truly fascinated me. The Lunakan clothing I saw routinely was made of cotton or leather while hers almost seemed to be silk, or a kind of finely woven reed, likely from the marshlands I knew Auklia had. She remained sitting close to me, so her sleeve brushed against my bare arm, the delicate softness of it totally foreign to my hardened, tanned skin that mostly wore leather. It almost felt like smooth water.
The colors, too, played with my mind’s eye. Lunaka mostly wore brown, with maybe some black and gold mixed in there, but Keera’s tunic was made of vibrant lavender with long flowing blue sleeves. Her skirt was made up of a light green, with a rainbow of beads dangling from her sapphire sash. It was a little hard to believe that this girl was my cousin.
“So where are you from, Keera?” I asked curiously.
“Rondeau, Auklia.” She answered simply, her gaze solid on the approaching house in front of us. “Straight south of Canis, over your mountains.”
I nodded in thought. It was always fascinating to hear about the other countries, simply because I didn’t know much about them. What I knew of them came from what I saw in the marketplace and what little news of politics that happened to reach my ears. Auklia only had one ruler, Queen Maria, after King Walter died. That, to me, was a huge testament that women could be taken seriously in a role of power. She even did a good job, imagine that? I wished King Adam would notice.
On the other hand, Mineraltir was a lot more complicated. All I knew was that the king’s name was Morris, and Queen Jasmine was actually his second wife. I didn’t know what happened to the first one.
There was also a little island off the coast of Auklia and Lunaka by the name of Caark that had recently been discovered a few decades ago, but it was a republic with no Royals or magic to speak of. Its people probably never feared magic nor feared being labeled a Rounan like everyone on Nerahdis did.
The use of magic was how the Royals kept the people out of rebellion, because everyone believed that they could be stricken dead anywhere anytime from magic they didn’t understand. To make life worse among the gossips, if you were labeled as a Rounan, the rumor became reality, whether it was true or not.
I dismounted Shadow and helped Keera down. She took it willingly, which made me hope that I had passed whatever test she had begun.
The earth under my feet was damp, but not muddy like the road to Stellan had been, making me hope that Sam’s and my planting would indeed happen today. The sky was blue above, so the rain had probably skirted just east of Soläna, I felt confident. I put Shadow back in his stall before taking Keera’s hand gently to lead her to the house.
It was a Saturday, so Rosetta was inside sitting at the wobbly table reading one of her hundreds of books. A young man named Mikael sat across from her, who had already graduated from school while Rosetta had one more year. If someone didn’t know any better, they would probably think he lived here too he was around so often. He and Rosetta had been friends ever since he came back with Sam.
Sam’s entire family moved to Stellan a season or two before the Epidemic. I had missed him terribly. He ended up moving back shortly afterward, his mother having died from the disease and his father already gone years before, so I guessed he just liked living in Soläna better. But when Sam moved back from Stellan, I didn’t know why but he already had Mikael with him. I never asked, but simply assumed Mikael was an orphan.
Rosetta looked up from her page, her dark blonde hair stuck up on one side where she’d propped her head with her hand. Her face was much more angular than mine, with freckles, but you could still tell we were related. She smiled, her dimples showing. “Hi, Keera!”
Keera almost looked bashful in that moment. “H-Hi.”
I looked down at the scared twelve-year-old. “Keera, this is my sister, Rosetta. And this is her friend, Mikael. He comes around a lot.”
The dark-haired girl nodded, and when she looked at Mikael, he smiled. He’d undergone another growth spurt since the last time I’d seen him, I noted. Not only was he a few inches taller, but his face was beginning to change. It was no longer rounded like a
boy’s, but lengthening slightly into a more defined shape. Of course, I’d only known Mikael for the last couple years, but still, it was weird to me to see all the changes.
“Alright. I’ve got work to do,” I said, as I grabbed my staff from its usual spot and braided my still wet hair back out of my way. I touched Keera’s shoulder. “Just come find me out in the field if you need anything, okay? We’ll go to town later so you can see Grandma.”
Keera’s little lips turned into a tiny smile, the first one I’d seen out of her. “I remember Grandma.”
Her smile was contagious. “Great. I’ll see you all later!”
I walked outside to see Sam waiting for me, a huge bag of seed strapped to his back, a pole in his hand and an old leather hat on his bandana-ed head. He was already getting a tan line from that hat, a slight change in shade across his cheekbones that made him look a bit like a bandit. I laughed at him and caught up my own bag of seed. “C’mon, bandana boy, this field isn’t going to plant itself!”
“Tell me about it.” He laughed right back as we walked out to my southern field.
The hours limped by. Now that the storm had passed, the never-ending wind ripped at everything it could grasp as it flew across the prairie. I gave up on my hood within a few minutes, and even then, it was if the very fingers of the wind were trying to pull my hair out of its braid. Sam gave up on his hat too, and weighted it to the ground with a big rock we’d turned up while putting down seed into the dark earth.
The powerful gusts always made me stop and watch the sky, scanning for fingers of dust that may have reached the ground. The twisters always came during Middle Spring time but none were in sight. On the next gale, I nearly fell over, ducking toward it so much that I was pretty much horizontal.
“Gotta love Lunaka!” I heard my helper joke over the wind as he grabbed the bandana on his red-brown head to keep it from flying away. With all the dust and dirt being kicked up in the air, I could barely see him. Just swirls of brown and red.
The Allyen (The Story of the First Archimage Book 1) Page 3
