by Jen Valena
“What is so amusing?”
“You.”
Exasperated, he asked over his shoulder, “What did I do now?”
“Giving me my privacy.”
“And that is amusing why, exactly?”
“Just—you tried to read my mind without permission.”
“You are never letting that go, are you?”
“Then there is the fact that you have already taken a peek at me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“At Samara’s, you were in the hut while I was unconscious and practically naked.”
“Oh, that.” He sighed and then realized how that had come out. “I mean… I was not looking… I did not know if you were all right, I… uh, I did not know you then.”
“So it is better that you didn’t know me when I was naked? Please explain.”
“That is not what I meant.” He huffed. “I was keeping an eye on you.”
“And you darn well got an eyeful.” She enjoyed watching him squirm on this point. “Maybe you should take something off too, to make things even between us.”
“Ithia!” he grunted, agitated.
“Tyrsten!” She echoed back and laughed.
✹ ✹ ✹
Ithia floated up into the sky until she was so high in the stratosphere that there was no oxygen. She concluded her claustrophobia was actually the fear of being unable to breathe. The vacuum of space ruptured her lungs. Her lifeless form suspended in the harrowing nothingness.
Ithia gasped. She lunged forward and woke herself.
She glanced at the starry sky and then at Tyrsten at her side.
He stirred, but did not open his eyes. His hand reached out for hers.
Ithia took his hand and curled beside him. She stared up at the night, curious as to which form her death would take.
✹ ✹ ✹
On their sixth day traveling, Huldo and Feron rode away on their horses to gather food around their campsite. Ithia and Tyrsten heard the roar of white water. It wasn’t far. They collected their canteens and a pot for the evening’s cooking and started toward the river.
Haunted by the idea that she wasn’t going to live long, her mind oscillated from her impending death to the meditations that suggested some part of her spirit would go on. “Do you believe we will meet again in another lifetime?”
“Why do you ask?”
“The odds are stacked against me having a long, happy life.”
“You underestimate yourself.”
“I’m a realist. We’re flying by the seat of our pants.” Ithia gritted her teeth. “I should have studied more while at the Vihar.”
“We had limited time there. It takes many solar-turns to master basic Magian skills. You are a natural. Rely on your instincts.”
“I might not have much longer.”
“Do not give in to the nightmares, they are a manifestation of your fears.”
She was quiet for the rest of the walk until they reached the river’s edge. If Jaguar was correct, they were premonitions, not nightmares.
“Does this happen a lot? Us.” Ithia mumbled, somewhat embarrassed to voice it, “Knowing each other, as we did, in so many other lives?”
Her knees were weak from bringing up the subject, unsure how he would react. She dropped the canteens and found support against a tree.
Tyrsten followed her to the tree and stood close with a smile wrapped in discontent. He had hoped to avoid this conversation. He put his hands lightly on her waist and peered directly into her eyes. “What we have is a significant bond. Huldo recognized our connection before I wanted to acknowledge it. Soul connections happen for others. Huldo and Anise have their own Khata of life histories.” The corner of his lips curled downward. “However, our bond now is a different kind of partnership—tied to each other in ways, but not in that way, not this lifetime.”
She rested her arms on top of his arms, creating a bridge of their bodies and allowing the heat of his skin to seep into her, just as the closeness shared in their past lives seeped into this one.
Tyrsten then cradled her face in his palms with the melodic vibration of a musician’s hands. His energy hummed over the ridges of his fingertips. A song that engendered the missing elements of her life—a warrior’s protection, a friend’s empathy, a lover’s passion—swirled in the warmth of his caress.
Their mirroring eyes met. They gravitated toward each other.
She leaned into him, and he was drawn to her. As their lips almost met, he turned away and dropped his head.
Frustrated, she asked, “Why do we stop?”
“Every time I look at your Magian eyes, I see my own. I am reminded of what I am.”
Ithia closed her eyes. “Does life only have to be a certain way? Can’t we go against rules and destiny?”
“We should not change it even if we wanted to.” He withdrew his hands. “We must remember the bigger picture—our life as it is now.” Tyrsten brushed her long bangs from her face and tucked them behind her ear as she liked to do.
She smiled that he had noticed that detail.
Tyrsten sighed. “This draw is from our lives past, our familiar souls. We cannot fool ourselves into making it something more.”
Ithia choked on her words. “So I’m a fool to care for you?”
“Caring is not the problem.”
“Even if I were to die today, you wouldn’t consider—”
He snapped at her fatalistic talk. “You are not going to die today.”
“I only wanted to feel what it might have been like, before it’s too late. I understand that what we mostly feel is probably residual emotions, and you don’t want to be with me. But I don’t want anything more than one kiss with someone I actually care deeply for in this life.”
She pulled at his willpower, but he balked at the temptation. She asked the one thing he had promised himself not to do. It jeopardized all he had worked for. He had already tested his limits by holding her every night. The pout of her lip made him want to give in.
Tyrsten lowered his eyes, but he didn’t step away. “You seek to ruin me? Our friendship?” Tyrsten took a deep breath to regain his better judgment. “We are not an option. If I gave you the impression otherwise, it was not my intention.”
Her knees trembled under the pressure of her falling heart.
The trees urgently rustled, but neither Ithia nor Tyrsten noticed.
“I just never felt this… intensely before.”
Once again, Tyrsten cradled her face in his hands. He brushed away her tears with his thumbs. Then glancing over her shoulder, he caught an unwelcome sight.
Ithia was instantly alerted that they were no longer alone.
Four men were encircling them.
Tyrsten cursed himself for becoming so engrossed in his feelings that he had neglected to pay attention to his surroundings.
Although she had her back to them, Ithia sensed the men’s positions.
Over twenty feet away and closing in, two men pointed arrows at Tyrsten. The other two had swords.
Tyrsten grabbed her arm and whispered a warning in her ear, “Do not let them see your eyes. They may not realize who or what you are.”
Ithia surveyed the waterway, forty feet wide, thundering, smashing against massive boulders. There was no way to escape to the other side.
Just a few yards to her left, she noticed a large frog on the muddy bank. With sentience, it regarded her intently. A strange bond to this creature beckoned her to join as it dove into the white rapids.
As if something possessed her, she broke free from Tyrsten’s grasp and followed after the amphibian, running full speed into the raging river. The water was freezing. She stifled a scream of shock.
Under her boots, the rocks were slippery with algae. With each step, her feet slid and locked into place between the stones.
A quarter of the way across the river, the water’s force pushed against her calves, at her skirt, making her lean into the current. Anothe
r step, she plummeted down to her thighs. She yelped. The white water grabbed at her, pulling her toward a liquid death.
Tyrsten made to go after her, but stopped with a sword pressed against his chest and the creak of an archer pulling back on his bowstring.
One of the swordsmen went in after Ithia. The man had no luck navigating the river and only ventured a few feet.
The water now splashed over her waist. She could barely stay upright. The river roared at her resistance.
Tyrsten was dumbfounded by Ithia’s actions, and his confusion allowed two men to tackle him with little effort.
Behind her, Ithia heard them wrestling Tyrsten to the ground. She fought the urge to turn back.
A tug on her left shoulder yanked Ithia into the water.
The impact into the icy cold stunned her. She was dragged deep under the surface. The water was alive and took her to the river’s depth.
In the voice of Jaguar, Ithia heard the words ‘surrender to death when the current of darkness finds you’. She let her body go limp. She was a lost leaf bending and flowing in the turbulence.
Tyrsten watched helplessly as the archer shot Ithia.
Her body jerked, hit by the arrow. She collapsed into the water.
Struggling against the men’s clutches, he anticipated her appearance downstream—hoped, prayed for it. But she did not resurface.
Her fears were real, and he had dismissed them. She was gone. Her life—his life—destroyed by his carelessness.
His soul screamed so loudly that it woke every cell in his body. It echoed off of the trees, the land, even the sky. His cry punctured the water.
It was the last sound Ithia heard.
✹ ✹ ✹
Huldo’s keen ears perceived the tormented cry of his brother in the distance. The intensity and force behind it moved like a wave, and he recognized its origin. “Something is terribly wrong.”
Huldo and Feron launched in the direction of Tyrsten’s cry.
✹ ✹ ✹
“A Magian! I thought we had gotten rid of all of you by now.”
“We should kill him,” one of the archers suggested.
The hilt of a sword delivered a blow to the back of Tyrsten’s head, knocking him unconscious.
“He will fetch a better price alive. Tie him up. We should get out of here, if there are others around they are sure to have heard him.”
✹ ✹ ✹
Minutes later, Feron studied the marks of the scene. He deciphered, “Ithia ran into the water, and a man went after her. See here, Tyrsten appears to have been in a scuffle with two men. He was knocked out, dragged over, here, to a horse. Ithia’s pursuer came out of the water. It is possible he carried Ithia, although, his impression does not appear to be any deeper. But I do not see her prints again, even on the other bank, and they would not have let her go.”
“If they had any say in the matter.”
“Their horses took them this way.”
“Get our supplies,” Huldo said. “Let us hope Fate is on our side.”
10 ✹ Ithia’s Circles
In the void, I swim. The lamps of souls light my way.
Resting on a comet, a nebula passes overhead, and all desire has left me.
— Ithia Sydran
Huldo and Feron made quick progress in retrieving their supplies and horses, but the men who took Tyrsten had covered much ground.
Feron studied the tracks and referred to his pocket watch compass. “They head south-east, toward Garrick’s garrison town of Rougelle, taking the route through the valley.”
“Can we overtake them?”
“If we do reach them before the outpost, we must overcome four armed men.” Feron sighed. “We might be able to ambush them by cutting through the Narrows.”
Huldo and Feron rode hard to intercept. Unfortunately, the mercenaries circumvented Feron’s plan by riding faster, avoiding them altogether.
Feron recognized the men’s tracks as they approached the main road to the garrison. “They move swiftly.”
“Probably nervous having a Magian in their presence.” Huldo charged onward.
As the outpost came into view, they saw Tyrsten taken within the fort’s outer walls.
Feron and Huldo stopped out of sight of the compound’s watchman. Feron turned to Huldo. “Did you see Ithia?”
“No.” Huldo was deflated. “But I caught a glimpse of two men with Tyrsten.”
“If Ithia is not with the other two that rode in first, Tyrsten may be the only one who can find her.” Feron indicated to his soldier’s regalia. “We have uniforms. We must infiltrate the complex and rescue him. Let us hide the other horses and go inside. We will have to improvise the rest.”
“Suggestions for when we get in?”
Feron’s demeanor shifted into the confidence of a trained soldier. “Act like you belong.”
✹ ✹ ✹
Tyrsten’s arms and legs were tied. The guards threw him violently into a cell. He fell onto the mud-caked stone floor and rolled. His head slammed against the wall, knocking him unconscious.
Observing Tyrsten’s limp body, the captain shouted at the guards. “Imbeciles! Now, we have to wait to interrogate. Keep an eye on him. He will be dangerous when he wakes up.”
✹ ✹ ✹
Tyrsten felt Ithia’s presence behind him in the room. He didn’t understand how she had ended up in the cell with him. She must have been captured after all. He sensed her body pressing against his back. He had lost her, but no, she was here—with him. He wanted her to hold him forever.
He turned to see how she fared after her ride in the raging river. “Ithia? Are you—”
Tyrsten stopped. His stomach turned from shock. “No!” he yelled.
Instead of Ithia’s face, a corpse lay staring back at him, mirrors in the eye sockets.
The guard called for the captain. When he arrived, the guard informed him, “He is still not awake, but he said Ithia.”
“Interesting.” The captain climbed the stairs back up to the main chamber of the prison. “Fetch the men that brought in the Magian,” he ordered, “I expect there is more they did not tell us.”
Huldo and Feron rode to the garrison’s main gate.
Two guards stood armed with swords at their sides and grasped the hilts as the unfamiliar men approached. “Who are you?”
“We are Garrick’s trackers,” Feron said. “He sent us to locate the Magian. Mercenaries stumbled upon him just before we did. We followed them here. We must speak to the Captain.”
Satisfied with his reply, the men stepped aside. “Captain Carnell is in the main building, straight ahead.”
The large, round stone building reminded Huldo what this war was about. Once a Temple, now mutilated—deformed as with surgery gone wrong, gutted and stripped of its inherent beauty—into a military headquarters for the region. Barracks to the left once housed willing students of the mysteries of life. Now they held willing soldiers of death.
Huldo and Feron stopped in the main hall’s vestibule. The mercenaries had been called in front of Carnell. They hovered back to hear what the men had to say.
“The Magian was alone?” The Captain asked with a tone indicating he knew otherwise.
“Yes, sir.”
“Unescorted, wandering about in the wilderness?”
“Uh.” The lead swordsman was afraid to answer.
“We have been searching for a Magian that fits his description for some time.”
“I did not hear that.”
“Allegedly, he traveled with a young woman.”
The swordsman adjusted his thumbs nervously over his belt. “We have been in the wilderness for months. We only knew about the rewards for Magians in general. We, uh—”
“Did you see anyone else?”
Feron nodded at Huldo with assurance, then stepped into the room with Captain Carnell and the mercenaries. “Sir, I apologize for the intrusion. However, we have information that may clarify this situation.”
Carnell scrutinized Feron. “Well, go on, soldier.”
“We were out on patrol when we spotted these men from a distance. I have keen eyesight and saw most of what happened. However, we were not close enough to do anything about it.”
“About what?”
“A woman went into the river.”
The Captain stopped Feron with a hand gesture and stared down the head mercenary. “Explain.”
“We did not know she was of any consequence!” The mercenary shook his head. “She was dumb enough to jump into that rough water.”
Captain Carnell rolled his eyes. “Which one of you would like to tell me what happened to her?”
The lead mercenary pointed to one of his archers. “He shot her with an arrow.”
“Did you kill her?” Carnell tightened his jaw.
The archer’s face drained of blood. “It was not a fatal shot.”
“Where is she now?”
Feron, taking in what he had learned, spoke up, “I do not see how she survived. She was hit hard with the arrow and fell into the river. No one could endure that wound and the white waters. We tried to find her, but her body did not wash up within a half-league. We gave up our search to inform you what these men had done.”
The Captain stood up. “Take these mercenaries to a cell. They will pay for their stupidity.”
A guard informed the Captain that Tyrsten was regaining consciousness.
Captain Carnell pointed to Huldo and Feron. “Join me.”
Huldo gave Feron a quick glance of alarm as they followed the Captain downstairs to Tyrsten’s cell. Huldo whispered to Feron, “I pray that what you said about Ithia is untrue.”
