Brenol nodded.
“Why do you think the king would offer a boon so great?”
Brenol hesitated, as if about to speak, but then shrugged.
“Kings—and really most people—don’t give out gifts without some motivator.”
Brenol considered briefly. “The taxes later are greater than the boon.”
Darse nodded in agreement. “Yes. The boon is only the carrot to keep the horse plodding. It is dangled before every starving farmer so that each person is tracked and tallied for taxes and service.” He inhaled deeply. “Have you ever known anyone who tried to skip the boon?”
“I don’t think so.” Brenol’s face clouded in confusion. “Why would you? It is so much.”
“To not live under the hammer of the king, Bren. You know how much it costs to buy a conscription pass every orbit. It is nearly impossible to eat and save as much. Families know that they’ll be sending their children off to the royal guard as soon as they are ten if they don’t hide them. And the scrutarni are everywhere. They don’t just collect taxes and distribute boons, they pay off snitches. A snitch can earn the same three hundred if he catches an untallied child. The kings have made even our neighbors greedy enough to send us to hang.”
Brenol gnawed on his lip in thought.
Darse’s face grew especially sober. “And hang they will. When your mother is found to have a missing child, an inquiry will come. And she will likely meet unpleasant things.”
Brenol balked. “I knew she could get in trouble if I disappeared. Every kid knows that. But hang?”
Darse nodded. “She’s responsible for you after accepting boon and stipend. It is the oath taken.”
“What about you? You never got the boon if you were born here in Massada.”
“Exactly. And it is just one more way da looked suspicious. Originally, before Massada, da used to attend court in Karano, with King Siles. From his journals, he loved the game, the politics, the intrigue. But when a portal pulled him away, all of Karano believed he had been part of an assassination attempt on the king.”
“Really?” Brenol’s eyes were wide, seeing Darse in an entirely new light.
“Yes. But when da returned to Alatrice, the portal plopped him back in another kingdom entirely. Our Paraff. With a portal to guard, and a baby boy at that. He was forced to stay and register us—for who can evade the eyes and notice of every neighbor in the hills?—and all assumed the rumors were right: he was a traitor. Even if da hadn’t tried to murder the king of Karano, he’d deserted to a new ruler.” Darse shook his head in memory. “I spent more time as a kid trying to clean our door after being lettered than I did eating.”
“But aside from all the dumb farmers,” Brenol began slowly, “why is it so bad? Kings collect taxes. Kings take armies. Isn’t that the way?”
Darse puckered his lips sternly. “Do you feel free? Are you able to live without fear? Do you starve half of your days?” He shook his head. “I know it’s the way things’ve always been, but as to if it’s right? No, I can’t see that this tyranny and the jealousy and tug between kings and the kingdoms is good. One just forgets to ask if the order of life is really right or wrong sometimes.”
“Why?”
Darse looked down the river. “Because what if it cannot be changed?”
Brenol swallowed. “I knew it wasn’t good, but it really is bad, isn’t it?”
Darse nodded. “Yes. But as most things, it isn’t entirely broken either. I just don’t know what the answer is. I know it isn’t the ‘highest honor of conscription’ though.”
“If I go back to Alatrice,” Brenol asked carefully, “Ma won’t get into trouble once I am sixteen if I leave, will she?”
Darse considered. “They usually heckle the family a bit, but no, even the scrutarni don’t go so far as to hang families for adult deserters.”
Brenol turned his gaze to the waterway and allowed himself to sit with his thoughts. After a few minutes, he spoke. “Darse?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to go back, but I will… Thanks for helping me. Thanks for always helping me.”
Darse smiled in answer.
Brenol grinned too and felt his chest swell with warmth. There were no words to pair with the bursting gratitude, with the love, he carried for his friend. Darse had saved him from so much.
“We will figure it out. We will,” Darse said.
The two camped under the stars that evening with a crackling fire and warm visnati blankets. Brenol soaked in the pleasure of it all and gazed up with dumbfounded awe at the dual moons. There was no need to speak, for all was well, and the two curled silently before the popping flames and sank into the world of dreams.
~
Its pleasure mounted as the spirit dipped the small body through the clouds.
Perhaps the physical does have its advantages, the spirit thought.
It unfurled the smoky wings and dove unflinchingly through the dark. The sky opened up before it as it emerged from the cumulous brume, and the stars shimmered as diamonds under light.
It was exhilarating. It hoped that it was not growing dependent upon the physical but shrugged the fear away; it owned this world. It had essentially taken it orbits and orbits ago, and while there were times of fleshly tedium, the rush of power still drugged it in a bizarre ecstasy.
I cannot return home, but nothing can stop me. I am greater than any of these gnats could imagine.
After a few more twists and dives, it lit down beside a glassy pool under the lantern of Stronta. Its reflection was clear enough: silver hair, thin, wiry figure of youth, small, heart-shaped face. And of course there were its wings. It stretched out its coverts to examine the wings lazily with its chocolate child-eyes. They were powerful, mottled in gray and white, and the span of five strides easily.
This is a new feat. I imagine I might be able to trap anyone in this form.
This world will know war. It will.
An evil smile spread foully upon the boy’s features, and its eyes, already streaked in black, glittered in diversion.
This shall amuse me for a time at least.
CHAPTER 7
Success cannot be measured in the moment.
-Genesifin
On the second day, Brenol and Darse traced their progress on the crude lines of Colvin’s map as they continued down Pearia. The river carried them lazily downstream, and soon they entered into the territory of Veronia.
That was when it happened.
Brenol felt an immediate change crash over him like a rogue wave. A rush of knowledge assailed him in mid-thought, mid-breath, mid-swallow. Suddenly, he knew things that he should not have, nor could have, any way of knowing. Pictures raced by like scenery—grasslands swaying in the breeze, violet peaks kissed by the afternoon sun, children scurrying through a meadow waist-high with crimson wildflowers—and snippets of information—the speed of their raft, the names of trees at waterside, fish darting beneath him and their schooling pattern—rushed upon him. He blinked as his mind sought to absorb it all.
His nostrils quivered like a horse meeting danger, and his heart thrummed with adrenaline; the collision was not solely information. Waves of emotion flowed in with the bombarding current. They were distinctly not his own, but as they charged through, he felt powerless to repel them. They simply swept up to become his own. Rage, joy, sorrow, jealousy, amusement, terror, agony, happiness. He nearly screamed and tore at his skin under the maddening explosion of sensation but found he was nearly paralyzed. He was at its mercy—whatever it was—entirely.
Brenol choked and stared around in shock. Darse leaned back on the raft’s base, angling for a more comfortable position. The man gazed forward down Pearia, dipping his fingers gently in the coursing water, humming an old tune from Alatrice.
This was clearly no shared experience.
Images continued to barrel through his mind—a stag leaping through a wood, a girl’s emerald eyes sparkling in delight, a face whispering
in the darkness—but suddenly the initial experience of helplessness washed away, and he found he could breathe again. He sucked up the air before him like a man bursting out from a time too long under water. The sensation of enslaved constraint was but a memory, and in its place was something incredible: he surged with a sense of unparalleled power.
Brenol had never been more riveted. It was as if he had been given access to another’s brain, able to peruse and discover at his leisure. He advanced into different spaces in his mind, examining the new world. Places, creatures, skills. He searched through it all as easily as a child pages through a picture book, stopping to peer upon what he fancies in the moment. There was nothing terrifying about the experience. It gave him only joy. The intensity of the high was unparalleled; he felt as though he had never lived until this moment. And it had all come quicker than a spark shooting from a flint stone.
His soul swelled with confidence. He felt strong, capable, knowledgeable, experienced. Not a doubt tickled his mind. He soared with an unwavering assurance that he was good and anything he set out to do would succeed.
I know everything, he thought.
A voice, the voice from the cave, sprang upon him. It did not resound in his ears as before, but it was also not the wisp of sound he had heard in Garnoble. It was simply within his mind, clearly and naturally. “You came,” it said.
A current of relief swept into Brenol with the voice, as if the voice were the very source of the emotion.
Came? Who are you? What is going on? Brenol asked in his mind.
“You came. I am Veronia.” Again, relief was braided in with the words.
Brenol peered across at Darse to assess his reaction. The boy was accustomed to his dealings with the land being hidden, but the magnitude and presence of this encounter seemed blaring. Still, the man remained ignorant, gazing off in his own thoughts.
Why can I hear and feel you? Darse can’t.
“He is not my Keeper.”
Keeper?
“He is not my nurest.”
Nurest? I don’t know what…I think you have me confused with someone else.
“I do not.” The voice was firm. A trickle of irritation swept out from Veronia and swam into Brenol.
The boy puzzled over the masses of new information and experiences, finally returning to the core idea: Could it be? Is this the nuresti connection?
He had wondered but a moment before the answer was upon him: Yes.
It fit with an unbreakable certitude, flowing through him and crushing every misgiving. The boldness of his understanding was foreign and new, and it only amplified the sensation of power that coursed through veins and marrow.
Yet how can this be? Colvin said nuresti connections went from birth to death.
He flipped the concept over and over, trying to uncover its depths. In his search, a string of faces suddenly flowed before his mind’s eye. There were many, so many. They were the family line of Veronian nuresti. They had known the power, walked with the terrisdan, lived in this heightened state of perception, ballooned in the confidence of its assurance. Yet the pictures failed to answer his numerous questions, and he pushed at the shadows in his mind, waiting for them to give. Nothing. He could only flip through and scan their blank physiognomy.
What does this mean? Veronia?
There was no reply.
Why am I a nurest suddenly?
Nothing.
How?
Brenol sought answers yet met darkness in his mind—pockets of unknowns. He realized that even as a nurest, there were to be limits and walls. His knowledge could never be absolute. His jaw jutted back and he immediately cowered away from these silent and empty places; it reminded him all too much of his usual human weakness, and to go back to what he had known and how he had lived previously was unthinkable.
He could not, he would not.
Brenol wet his lips and tried anew. He tentatively leaned into his mind to probe what lay available to him—anything at all. The connection and power pulsed as if in answer, and he leapt forward with a reckless abandon.
This is my new life. This.
He spent hours delving into the knowledge open to his grasp, fascinated. He did not mind the sharp twists of emotion that swelled with Veronia’s connection and eventually found he did not even desire to resist them. Whether he chose to recognize it or not, the lust for power had already thrust itself deeply into his heart like a fixed and unyielding taproot.
~
The afternoon sun bore down and scored through Darse’s musings. The man gently scooped a handful of water from the raft’s side to splash his face and another to drench his hair. Dripping, he glanced over to Brenol. The boy looked strange—his face a mask of unusual expressions: eyes bulged out in a vacant stare, lips spread open as if about to speak, and neck arched forward in a tight curl. Even the youth’s skin was blotched pink as though under immense strain.
“Bren. You all right?”
Brenol’s fists clenched whitely around his oar, but he gave no indication he intended to row. Several moments elapsed before he perceived Darse’s voice. He blinked as if awakening and glanced down at the gripped handle.
“Bren?”
“Oh. Yeah, fine.” The words slipped from Brenol’s tongue with a startling independence; he had not intended to say them.
I should tell him. I should tell him. This is so strange…and he’s my best friend. Despite these thoughts, Brenol experienced a distinct pull from Veronia, as though it craved his secrecy.
He began to resist, until a new thought occurred to him: What if the connection goes away? What if Veronia takes it away if I say something?
Hastily, he clamped his lips shut and thrust his hands forward into a rough sweep with his oar. He felt willing to do almost anything to keep the connection, and with it the power. He tried to rationalize, but his mind jittered in his desperation.
I don’t want to scare Darse. I will wait. I’ll understand more later…yes, later…
Mechanically, he swung his oar around and pushed water behind him. He mysteriously knew that he had brushed the fin of a cartaff fish, although he had felt nothing. In his mind he watched the scales shine as the fish darted off unscathed into the depths to join its school.
Yesterday, he had not known that cartaff even existed.
“Fine, Darsey. Just thinking.”
A rumble of approval rolled through him from Veronia, filling his whole person with assurance. His soul sang in exhilaration, and the sweeping confidence he felt was incredible. Never had he felt so capable, so good. He exhaled in satisfaction and returned to probing his power.
Later, as they made camp, Brenol busied himself silently. He curled up in a feint of sleep at the first sign of darkness but lay awake through most of the night, exploring.
Darse wondered at the boy but shrugged the odd behavior off as a result of their departure from the visnati. He brooded upon what awaited them in Veronia and with Ordah before finally surrendering and sighing into sleep.
~
Their travels continued, and Brenol remained silent and withdrawn.
Eventually, a large castle appeared in the western landscape—a blur from afar slowly growing into a looming mass of stone. It was unlike anything Brenol had ever seen on Alatrice. His home, as far as he had witnessed, consisted of fields and crops, cabins and homesteads, but here before him, a powerful fortress of gleaming rock thrust up from the soil like a mountain. Its immensity alone was cause for awe; it was easily the area of a hundred houses, with both fields and gardens surrounding it in an open embrace.
The gray stone that comprised the structure was also unlike anything on Alatrice. It was somehow soft, not cold or foreboding. The castle glittered in the afternoon sun as if it were clothed in mosaic tesserae. Gray one minute, rainbow the following.
“Sleockna Castle. We’re still matroles off, I think,” Darse marveled.
“Yeah. It is big.” Brenol stared, seeing more than the distant vision—long h
allways, marble columns, tapestries of gold, servants in tan tunics. Brenol perused the connection, learning much about the people and their histories as well as the land’s layout and form. He also realized Darse was correct; they were at least several hours of walking away.
“I wonder what kind of material that is. Some strange Massadan rock,” Darse said to himself. Their little boat felt so paltry before the enormity that loomed in the horizon. Doubt tickled his gut and he thought, What are we doing here?
Brenol responded without thinking. “Queltzar.” Once the word had passed his lips, he wished it back. Queltzar, he fumed. How am I going to explain that?
Darse’s head dropped slightly in amazement. He peered quizzically at him. “What was that, Bren?”
“Just talking to myself… Sleockna is huge.” He turned his back to Darse in contrived nonchalance.
Darse raised his eyebrows. “That it is.”
Brenol cringed. While he could not see Darse’s expression, the man’s tone was plain. Brenol would not be able to hide his secret for long.
“Is there anything you want to talk about Bren?” Darse probed gently.
“No.” Brenol answered abruptly, but as he swept around to face the man, he saw the pained glance. “Not yet, at least.” He held up a conciliatory palm. “I will though. I-I will. I swear.” Brenol felt disapproval well up from Veronia. It sent his insides spinning, and he panted for air as the emotion flowed through.
“Bren?” Darse asked. His hands swiftly moved to support the boy lest he topple. “What happened?”
The boy blinked in recovery, shaking his head. He straightened, and Darse’s hands fell away. “I…Hey, shouldn’t we bring her ashore?”
Darse’s next words did not pass his lips, for he saw Brenol was indeed correct; a beach where they could land their vessel was nearly upon them. The two rapidly maneuvered the raft from the current, hopped off, and dragged her until she grounded. With clinging attire and dripping limbs, they hauled the craft up on the bank and lugged her past the sandy bar, finally resting her where she was safe, should the waters rise. Brenol found the task effortless—the connection with Veronia flashed knowledge and images to him, allowing his unseasoned hands to perform unfamiliar motions with ease.
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