And the tree . . . I was certain it was the one outside my grandmother’s village where I’d hidden as a child, where a bee told me of the girl, the wound, and the wolf, where the queen bee had stung me.
THAT LATE OCTOBER AS THE moon waned, a badger led me to a cottage where an old woman, her irises eclipsed by milky whiteness, invited me to come inside.
“Welcome, waited one,” she said in the Guardians’ language.
Near the fire at her hearth was a shallow tub filled with steaming water. On the table, a full meal. On the bed, a clean dress and nightshirt and layers of quilts and furs.
“What you seek is near. For now, eat, drink, sleep,” she said. She put on a blue wool cape and closed the door behind her.
After I bathed and ate, I climbed into bed and slumbered as the sun warmed the heavy drapes.
I awoke with a weight at my side. My eyes flew open. The cottage was dark. I’d slept into the following night.
“Well, then,” a man’s voice said.
He was a shadow against the fire’s glow.
“What are you doing in my bed?” he asked.
I sat up in shock, a stumbling apology at my lips, my body a pyre of fear.
“Secret.” He took my hand.
My fingertips brushed the ridge of a scar under his thumb. His head was edged in gold.
“Nikolas,” I said. “Is this a dream?”
“I’ll tell you when I wake up,” he said.
In a daze, I watched him roll a blanket on the floor. I lay down again and heard a loud sigh, the tumble of a log, and the sputter of embers.
When morning came, I was alone. I leapt up and ran outside. Under a tree, only yards away, a man stood with his back to me, his hands sweeping through his wet blond hair, his shirt tight on his damp skin.
He turned when he heard the crush of fallen leaves and caught me as I coiled my arms around his neck.
“So it was no dream,” I said as he let me down.
“Not unless you’re still asleep,” Nikolas said. He scratched his beard, roughly cut. “Miss Riven, you are indisposed. Attire yourself properly while I make breakfast. The quest awaits.”
That first morning together, we packed what we had and set out on foot. The wolf padded steps ahead.
Nikolas told me that during the first week of his journey, he didn’t take Cyril’s instructions to follow squirrels. Curious to see where his father’s map led, he followed the roads from one place to the next. He realized soon enough that he was being trailed by a guard and otherwise watched.
Because the kingdoms that sent their princes to quest announced the departures, it was known far and wide Nikolas had begun his. Some of the attention he garnered didn’t surprise him. He’d been told by other princes he’d receive invitations to make all sorts of merry with games of chance, intoxications, alluring women, and feasts. He anticipated the beggars and robbers along the way, and was equally grateful he could express kindness or turn a blade with convincing threat.
Yet if danger seemed to press too closely, he noticed alert eyes on him. Several times, a man, once a woman, interrupted the exchanges. Without his request or welcome, these people distracted the others. Often, they suggested a crossroads to take, a landmark to notice, or a place to avoid.
“Did they wear a certain shade of blue?” I asked.
His face was still.
“Any article of clothing, or a collar or a cuff? Or a band on the wrist, even a prominent jewel?”
“Some of them did. One fellow pulled on the brim of his hat such that I thought he was afflicted.”
“They are the Guardians,” I said. “Like Old Woman and Old Man, but they watch the roads.”
“How do you know?”
“I read the manuscript,” I said. “Before I speak of that, tell me why you stopped following the map.”
“Because twice along the way, someone tried to sell me a dragon’s scale. I don’t know what they were, really, dark red and tough as horns, but I knew then my journey was meant for something other than a noble task. So, I sold my horse, kept an eye out for a squirrel, and escaped the guard,” he said with a bitter tone. “Well, then—what of the manuscript?”
I asked if he wanted me to tell him or if he’d prefer I translate aloud when we rested. He wished for both, so as we walked, I told him what I learned.
“What we were taught about The Mapmaker’s War is, at best, incomplete. The apprentice blamed for provoking the war—the one who was never named in our history books—was not a man, as assumed, but a woman. She wasn’t merely an apprentice but Ailliath’s mapmaker, and she wasn’t executed by sword, as we were told, but instead exiled. Her name was Aoife,” I said.
Aoife was the daughter of one of the king’s most trusted advisers. Because of the influence of her friend, Prince Wyl, and her father’s lack of objection, she trained with an adept mapmaker and learned the trade.
What we were taught in school was this: The unnamed apprentice found a hidden clan across the river that separated Ailliath from another land. The people there were considered wealthy, protective of their stores, and richly armed. When Ailliath’s advisers learned of this, they feared invasion but took no action. Several months later, the apprentice returned to the clan and warned the people of a possible attack. It was recorded that the clan took up weapons against the kingdom’s sentinels on the river border. Thus, the war began, and the apprentice was executed as a traitor.
Yet, in her manuscript, Aoife stated she was sent to map Ailliath’s river border, and she decided to see what was on the other side. When her boat approached the shore, five men in blue coats stepped out from the cover of the woods. One led her to the hidden settlement within the trees. Two crewmen followed behind her, and they, too, saw—or rather felt—what she did. A sense of peace they’d never known.
“The blue men from your dreams,” Nikolas said.
I nodded and continued.
Aoife didn’t hide the fact that she crossed the river, but she also didn’t reveal all she’d seen. Prince Raef, Wyl’s younger brother, questioned her crew in secret. The cook described the village and told of a child he met, who spoke of a dragon and its hoard, which her people protected.
When Wyl was sent on a quest to find this dragon, Aoife departed on her own to see for herself. Months later, they found each other in a faraway land. Soon after, in this distant realm, they saw a great treasure in a cave—but no dragon.
On the journey home, Aoife became pregnant. When they returned, they learned Raef had visited the clan’s settlement, saw the people’s riches, and deemed them a threat to Ailliath. Wyl revealed his scale—which Aoife knew he found on a mountaintop—and said he’d seen a hoard that included many weapons. Meetings were held to determine what the kingdom should do. Aoife’s father and her brother, Ciaran,II both in the king’s service, believed there was cause for alarm. However, the King chose not to act; that is, not to invade.
By then, Wyl had severed a betrothal to a princess, compensated her father with land, and married Aoife. Soon after, she bore twins, a girl and a boy.
Without anyone else’s knowledge, Aoife returned to the settlement out of fear that the King and his advisers would change their minds. Aoife believed the people meant no harm and posed no danger.
Soon after, the King died. Wyl took the throne. On Wyl’s orders, armed men from Ailliath crossed the river—and the war began. Aoife was imprisoned and forced to draw a map to the hoard at Raef’s demand. When she finished, she was exiled as a traitor. The two guards sent out with her were instructed to kill her, but one of the men let her go free.
“What happened to her?” Nikolas asked.
I told him she wandered for months in search of another Guardian settlement. She’d been told such places existed across the known world. The abiding peace she’d felt in the settlement she first encountered was what she sought in another. Finally, she found one, and the people accepted her although she had come from Ailliath, the kingdom that started the
war. Aoife described how kind and patient the Guardians were toward her, how they lived cooperatively and peacefully, with affection and compassion. However, she struggled with profound guilt.
Aoife blamed herself for what happened. She believed she caused the war. Had she not crossed the river, perhaps none of the events would have happened. Although the people who’d lost warriors forgave her for what responsibility she had, she couldn’t forgive herself.
Several years later, she married Leit, one of the Guardians’ greatest warriors. He had fought in the war and returned months after its end, bearing a horrible scar the length of his body. This wasn’t a battle injury but a wound he received when he witnessed a little girl’s violent death at the hands of three men. The men left Leit to die, buried alive, but his wolf companion saved him.
Leit believed a darkness, which had always been among people outside of their settlements, had become worse and would spread as the war had. No one, not even the Guardians themselves, was safe.
In time, Aoife and Leit had one daughter. They named her Wei.III She was one of the rare children the Guardians called Voices. Nearly all Voices were girls—few were boys with limited abilities—born with extraordinary gifts.
“As soon as they could talk, they could speak any language of the world,” I said.
“Secret—like your mother?” Nikolas said.
“I’m almost certain she was one of them. She had violet eyes, like all female Voices. I don’t know if she had the other abilities, being able to heal people with light and sound, or how much she knew of the past, present, and future. The Voices were blind, too, but somehow compensated beyond ordinary senses. My mother didn’t focus her eyes like everyone else. It was as if she looked past people, instead of at them. And sometimes, she was clumsy, stumbling around in unfamiliar places or if furniture was moved in the house. I wonder now.” With a clenched fist, I rubbed off a trace of unexpected wetness from my lashes. I heaved my satchel to the other shoulder. “So, about Wei . . .”
In the manuscript, Aoife described the difficulty of having a child like Wei and the training her daughter needed to use her gifts. Other Voices, including an ancient one named Sisay, served as Wei’s teachers. Then, when Wei was seven years old, she was chosen for a special role. She agreed to spend the next seven years accompanying warriors who patrolled the trade routes, watching for threats.
Wei witnessed the strife of the world when she traveled with them. Other people’s pain affected her deeply, and she wanted to give comfort. When she was an adult, Wei challenged the Guardians’ traditions and provoked much disagreement. Although no one who found a Guardian settlement and wished to stay was denied a home, the people didn’t openly welcome newcomers. Rarely did the Guardians leave to live among those outside their settlements.
Wei believed that the pain of the world would continue as long as others were not taught to live in peace within themselves, their own homes, and their villages. She believed so genuinely in their ways—to which Aoife had been drawn so strongly—that Wei suggested her people invite those from the outside to come to them or for Guardians to leave and live as examples in other places.
“What happened to Aoife?” Nikolas asked.
“That, I’ll read aloud to you later,” I said.
For a long while, we walked in silence. Each time I glanced at him, I could tell he was thinking.
“I’m Wyl’s descendant. You—are you Aoife’s? Does this mean we’re distant cousins, many generations removed?” Nikolas asked.
“You’re descended from Wyl and his second wife. Whether Aoife is my ancestor, I have only my dreams and ruptures as proof, which are all described in the manuscript. Whether we’re distant cousins, possibly. Aoife’s brother, Ciaran, raised her twins after the exile and never sired children of his own. My father has long believed he’s descended from a noble family that fell out of favor. If that family was Ciaran’s, then we are.”
By midday, we were famished. Although Nikolas wasn’t a hunter before, by necessity he’d learned to catch fish and trap small game. While he fished, I foraged for greens, nuts, and wild apples. As we ate, the wolf lay under a tree in full view.
“An intimidating escort,” Nikolas said.
“More so than a squirrel.”
“I assume she’s leading us, rather than only you, at this point.”
“Yes. But there’s a place I must go before we continue with your quest,” I said. “During The Mapmaker’s War, there was a village that revealed the location of a Guardian settlement. The Guardian warriors kept the fighting away from their own people, but it was a horrible battle. When Wei was an adult, she moved her family and several others there in an attempt to reconcile the betrayal. I believe this is the same village where my mother was born, generations later, where the blood mixed and no one remembers its source.”
THE NEXT FEW DAYS, WE walked as silence flowed into conversation and back again. Nikolas spoke of his adventures during the goodwill visits. I told him of the beautiful things I’d seen at the manor and of the interesting people I’d met, but nothing about Fewmany himself.
One evening, I told Nikolas what happened when I was eleven, when I drew the symbol, my father cut my hair to force me to tell him where I’d seen it, and Fewmany questioned me as well. Although Nikolas had known nothing about the night of the scissors and symbol, he remembered how unusually guarded I’d been at the time, aware something had upset me. He was glad to at last know why, sorry for what I’d endured, and angry on my behalf.
When we stopped to rest, I translated from the manuscript so that he could hear Aoife’s own words. We wondered what her story revealed that we’d understand in due time. We discussed our fascination with the Guardians’ culture so different from our own, from the care they gave to their children to the openness allowed for affectionate, as well as amorous, expression.
At nightfall, the wolf led us to abandoned dens and crumbling shelters. Between Nikolas and me, we had his coat, my cloak, two blankets, and the wolf providing her warmth. Neither of us was comfortable, but we were safe.
The end of that week, the wolf led us to a cottage where someone had laid out clean clothing, hot food, and thick blankets. We fell asleep on pallets next to a fire.
In the middle of the night, I awoke with a busy mind and went to sit in a clearing under the stars and moon. During the months I’d been alone, my journey had seemed almost unreal, as if at any moment, I could decide to slip away from the path of fate. Disappear. Never return to Ailliath. Do as Aoife did—begin again, elsewhere. Once Nikolas joined me, I knew matters of consequence had come down to us. I had no idea what we’d be called to do, what peril we’d face, or what would become of us in the end.
A rustle made me jump. Nikolas stood behind me wrapped in a blanket. He sat down at my side and draped it around us.
“You’re shivering,” he said.
“I’m cold,” I said, a half-truth.
“Why are you awake?” I asked.
“I never quite fell asleep. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“The scar under my thumb. I never told you how I got it. I often thought I had a vivid dream, but that wouldn’t explain the wound.21 Now, well, I suppose there’s much that can’t be explained at all,” he said.
“True,” I said.
“When you were sick with the fever, I was sick, too, but not in the same way. I had excruciating aches deep in my bones for three days. Nothing eased it. All I could do was pace my room like an animal. Finally, in the middle of the night, I lay down exhausted.
“The next thing I knew, it was dawn, but I was in the woods. I didn’t remember leaving my room. I’m not sure if it was our woods or somewhere else. I was half dressed in trousers and boots. Old Man was there. He led me to a group of boys my age sitting on the ground. Most of them looked as if they had come from other lands, based on their skin, hair, and eyes. Everyone was tense. Several older men came through the trees carry
ing drums. They wore blue tunics and had scars on their faces. One had a missing eye. The rhythm they pounded, I’d never heard anything like it or felt the way I did. So alert, aware of my heartbeat.
“A man near our age walked into the circle wearing a vest made of skins. He looked each of us in the eye as if to intimidate us. Then Old Man appeared again with a chalice. He told the young man to open his arms. Old Man put his fingers in the chalice and painted a red stripe from the man’s shoulders to his palms and smeared it across his face and throat.”
“Blood,” I said. I clenched every muscle to stop quivering, but it only made it worse.
“Old Man told us to drink. We couldn’t refuse. Some of the boys retched. I managed to keep it down. It tasted of metal and honey. The drumming became louder, more forceful. None of us could sit still anymore. Then Old Man gave the young one a hunting horn and pointed to the trees. He went off quick as a deer.”
“What did you do?” I asked. I thought of my own hunt—the knife, the doe, the blood.
“Old Man said he was our prey. We could use no weapons, only our wits and bodies. The one who brought him down would be the victor. There would be a prize. The drumming stopped when Old Man held up his hands. A moment later, three horn blasts rose up in the distance. ‘Get him,’ Old Man said.
“I was never one for a hunt, but I was that morning. I felt more alive than I ever had. I wanted to catch him more than I ever wanted anything. But I wasn’t alone. The others tripped, punched, and wrestled each other, trying to slow each other down. When I got caught, I fought back hard. I discovered a ruthlessness I didn’t know I possessed, more physical strength and agility, too. As if I didn’t know myself at all.
“I took a drink at a stream, sat still, and listened. The prey could have been anywhere. Even though I didn’t hear anything, I knew where to go.
“I found him resting on a log. He saw me and started to run. I was exhausted and sore and bleeding and filled with rage. He was so close but out of reach. I surged toward him, grabbed his vest, and held on as he dragged me until we fell.
The Plague Diaries Page 17
