by Jen Valena
Then he said, “I cannot.” He rolled over onto his back, brought his hands to his forehead and gazed at the ceiling.
Ithia exhaled again, lightheaded from holding her breath so long. “I wasn’t going to go much further than that for now.”
Her luminous skin tempted him, but he resisted the urge to continue his explorations of her uncharted hills and valleys. “Why do you feel that way?”
“This is not something I want to take lightly—especially with you. You said we came here to think. We haven’t done any thinking yet.” She skimmed her finger along the soft whiskers on his chin. “I fear you are getting caught up with the excitement that I am alive, which puts a lot of pressure on me and our relationship since you would be throwing away your beliefs for me. And I need to consider if I should take up a Magian way of life. So this isn’t something we should do casually.”
“This is not casual for me.” A note of irritation permeated his voice.
“Me neither. You said we should meditate on us—everything. Unless you count this as an active meditation, this defeats the purpose for getting away. Just hold me. No good comes of dwelling on what-ifs tonight.”
He held her closer than he had done before. She had released him to do what he needed, and that made him want her more.
✹ ✹ ✹
The next few days, they readied the cabin for a longer stay. Tyrsten was content with playing house and meditating. Ithia practiced channeling energy into protective bubbles.
Affections were now tainted with the memory of their first night. Both stopped themselves quickly in an embrace to prevent a moment of passion. Days passed, wedging themselves between Ithia and Tyrsten. Instead of growing closer, they barely spoke.
Tyrsten often sat near the creek to soothe his mind.
The babbling creek didn’t relax Ithia. Instead, it reminded her of the river that had separated them.
Occasionally, his mind grumbled so loudly she heard his thoughts reverberating in his skull. He was torn between the monastic traditions he had embraced since childhood and a marital life with Ithia.
✹ ✹ ✹
Tyrsten listened pensively to Ithia’s mumbles in her sleep at night. Some phrases worried him, such as: “I don’t want to be here—I have to go back.” He was afraid to ask about what she was dreaming, in case his fears were true, that the source of her distress was him.
✹ ✹ ✹
A constant drizzle of rain fell for days. It made everything damp and heavy. With each passing day, Ithia’s spirit weighed down more. The mist lay thick—suffocating—claustrophobic.
She wondered if the weather played games with her as it seemed to mimic her mood. Would the winds shift if she confessed her secret? Did the skies become more cloudy when she was sad? She dismissed the notion that the weather was her psychological barometer. Nonetheless, she took to a game with the clouds. She picked one floating by and made it pause while its neighbors zipped on. Her mind released it, and it carried on. Next, she tried cloud-busting. She picked one to dissolve, and it evaporated into nothing.
But if the misty weather was an indicator of her internal stress, it pointed to her fear that Tyrsten might judge her for the truth. She wasn’t ready. Yet something had to change.
Ithia had had enough of the silence deadening her senses. Whether or not she would tell her secret, Tyrsten was stuck on a vicious groove of circular reasoning and needed a nudge off his tracks. She discovered him meditating near a tree by the house—a location she suspected he had chosen in order to avoid her again. “What are we doing here?”
As her voice crashed into the ocean of quiet, Tyrsten was a bit startled. “I—what?”
“What are we doing here?” she snapped. “You hardly talk to me. You haven’t taught me any new Magian stuff. I might as well not be here at all. You said you wanted to be with me, but I feel you are regretting that decision.”
“Oh.” He stared blankly at her.
“See? Monosyllabic responses are not quite what I had in mind. Tell me what is going on in that brain of yours. Or should I try mind-reading?” Ithia demonstrated her challenge with fists on her hips.
“You want to know what I am thinking?”
“You catch on quick.”
“I have to figure out what I am to do.”
“Any progress?”
“I—” He faltered, “No.”
“Since I’ve been back, you are just not the same—”
“This is not easy,” he interrupted.
“Yeah, but come on! We’ve been wasting away for weeks. What’s the point?”
“The point?” he echoed, tears twinkled in his eyes and not stars.
“You’ve given up! Is there no faith left in you?”
“There is not,” he muttered.
“Why? And please don’t say because of me.” Her heart hurt.
Tyrsten mustered a coherent response. “I pushed all this responsibility on you—to what end? I almost got you killed. I could have gotten my brother killed. My life is irrevocably changed by choices I have made already. And now you keep a secret from me. It worries me—you are hiding something important. Yet, that is not why I am scared. I fear that by giving up our Magian calling, we lose ourselves. We might never feel fulfilled. And if we choose our calling, I fear that path will deliver you to Garrick, to death.”
“The future is uncertain, but we have a hand in creating our reality. Tyrsten, stop letting your emotions control you. You act like a victim of your own choices. It doesn’t need to be this way.”
She walked up beside him where he sat against the tree. She dangled her hand down to stroke his hair, to reassure him. He pressed his head against her hip.
“Tyrsten, make a decision. Either we take a tiny step to move forward with us, or we stop this—whatever this is. But I hope whatever we choose in life, we do together.”
He didn’t look up at her. He didn’t answer.
She rested her hand against his cheek. “The question about us moving forward—about, uh, consummating our relationship—that would be just a physical manifestation of how we feel. That never needs to happen as far as I’m concerned. Our moving forward isn’t something to go charging into, but I also can’t sit around waiting for some magic answer. We have to live by choosing. One step at a time. But we need to take one soon, in some direction.”
He didn’t respond.
“I’m sorry I’m the source of your dilemma,” she said, sincerely.
Without his participation, she gave up talking at him.
Long into the night, Tyrsten sat against the tree. Ithia tried her best to sleep in the bed alone, but a chill that ran through her that wasn’t from the cold weather.
She wasn’t encouraged by his reaction. She feared he wouldn’t be able to make a choice. She would have to make the decision for both of them soon. She would make up her mind in the morning. If Tyrsten couldn’t decide what was best, she would.
The next day, with not a word to her, Tyrsten left to gather food. As he disappeared into the forest, the shadow crept over her again and tugged at her spirit.
14 ✹ Beginning’s End
The casualties lay their ghosts at my door,
wounded—cracked golden eggs.
Through the space between curtains and window frames,
stardust spills answers on the floor.
— Ithia Sydran
Tyrsten had been sleep walking, that, he was sure of. He asked himself why he behaved this way. His answer: all his Vihar teachings hadn’t prepared him for her. A Sauvant couldn’t teach him how to have a meltdown, but he calculated he was doing a damn fine job of it.
He returned empty-handed from his search for food. He knew why. He wasn’t present. For a long while now, he hadn’t been present—in the moment—as he had been taught to be since he was a child.
As Tyrsten approached the cabin, he sensed something was amiss. He couldn’t feel Ithia in the surrounding area.
Bursting through the front d
oor, Tyrsten noted her pack and possessions were gone. He scanned for signs of a struggle, but found none. He deduced his inability to make a decision had pushed her to make one for herself. If he had responded, even in some way, when she had told him he was free to make a decision, he could have salvaged their relationship.
He hastily gathered up his things, saddled both horses and set out to find her.
Tyrsten was considered a skilled tracker, but he saw no signs of her path. The women had apparently taught Ithia how to mask a trail. He recalled how she had located him through a silver cord connecting them. He envisioned their link. When he followed the thin silver line, he found it severed.
He feared he had run the length of her affections.
The world slowly spun until he was upside down, and life spilled out of his pockets.
✹ ✹ ✹
As though taken over by someone else, she craved to stride out of the house—into the unknown. Something was waiting out there for her.
Faint, peach-colored sunlight filtered through the gray clouds. Her soul heard the shadow call her from deep within the forest. She answered by leaving. She was anxious about finding who was on the other end of that line.
Ithia had been tested. She believed she was ready for whatever Chaos had in mind. She threw her cloak over her shoulders. She tossed some food and her things into her leather pack. Determined, she marched out of the cabin. Commonsense asked her to bring her horse, but that would make it easier for Tyrsten to track her, which she didn’t want.
She walked as if out of body, her spirit following. Tethered, hovering above herself, suspended in a timeless moment, she was now free of urgency. She surrendered her link to Tyrsten.
Ithia smiled. She didn’t know why. Love was falling away, becoming a speck in her mental rearview mirror.
She released the idea of having a mother, a father, a best friend, a lover—things she must not be destined to experience. And it was okay since it felt as if she was being led by some invisible force. She must have a purpose. Time to discover what that was.
Perhaps, Ithia now frolicked in the company of imminent peril. Nonetheless, the bliss of being unencumbered radiated from her. Doom may rest on the horizon, or around the next tree, but it wasn’t in this moment.
No need to keep the secrets. She was alone to deal with the shadow.
In her mind, she flipped through possible destinations. She skimmed over her map, but eventually she entrusted her feet be her guide.
I will see if Charism exists to steer me.
✹ ✹ ✹
A stark, winter sun blasted Ithia with white light, confounding her. The entire time at the cabin with Tyrsten, there had been only gray skies. Now the sun had come out. She couldn’t take it as coincidence.
With every step she was more certain that she was being followed. It wasn’t the shadow. It wasn’t Tyrsten. It was, however, somehow familiar.
As the evening sky gleamed purple, Ithia stopped dead in her tracks.
Her stalker halted too.
She closed her eyes and drew upon her Vision to see her pursuer. “What do you want?”
A crunch of dried leaves gave away his position, and he emerged from the trees behind her. Ithia didn’t turn to see him. Her attention focused on his identity. “I asked, what do you want, Nolan?”
“I—nothing,” he stuttered.
“You’ve been following me for hours now, here in the middle of nowhere, far from where I last saw you, and your answer is nothing?”
“You knew it was me?”
Ithia turned to see Nolan’s tall figure dressed in the gray and black uniform of Garrick’s soldiers. “I’m afraid that you wear that uniform like you mean it.”
His fierce, green eyes challenged. “With your powers, you should have the answer.”
“Why are you here?”
“I have come for you.”
“For Garrick’s benefit?”
“That depends on you.” He stepped closer. “I have tracked you for some time.”
“Since Kladmunt.” She saw the images flicker in his mind. “You anticipated Tyrsten would go there.”
“My instincts proved correct, even if it took him a moon-cycle longer than I expected. I was surprised when he arrived without you.”
“I am full of surprises.”
Nolan nodded. “We will find out. You are coming with me. It will be more difficult for you if you resist.” He flashed his sword to show her he meant what he said.
“Since you put it so nicely.” Her eyes narrowed.
Nolan tied her arms together behind her back.
They hiked through rough terrain for two hours in silence before they came upon Nolan’s camp. His supplies and horse were waiting for him in a naturally sheltered, dry basin.
Nolan hitched Ithia to a narrow birch tree.
She tested the binds, but it was no use. “Have you been deceiving Tyrsten this whole time?”
“He suspected me of spying for a while now, but he was too cowardly to accuse me.” Nolan snickered. “I have to say, I was taken aback that you left him in this manner—although I do not blame you, given his behavior. I knew you would eventually see he was impotent… in achieving your life path.”
“Have a good show?”
“I did not watch the whole time. You might have caught on to my presence. But I was sickened to see him so pathetic. He does not deserve you.”
“You know nothing about us!”
“He acts like a wounded puppy. What kind of man cowers at life? A Sidari, at that? And the self-pity he wallowed in when he believed you had died. I overheard it all when Huldo told the inn keeper. If he is linked to you as he thinks he is, then why did he question your survival? I knew you were alive.”
“Some say love blinds us.”
“If what he feels for you is love.” Nolan shook his head and sighed. “I did not want to take you by force. I am pleased you did not fight me. I think you understand you were meant to join with me. I will win your favor.”
Unexpectedly, Ithia felt she hadn’t lost complete control of the situation. She judged now that Nolan genuinely wanted to help her, in his own twisted way. “I understand much more than you might think.”
“Do you?” He swiftly circled the fire. “Then you sense I can be your support. See into my heart, with those eyes. They are the first Magian eyes that I have trusted. Tyrsten is weakened by you, but I am strengthened by you. I have gained direction, and he is lost.”
“You said my outcome would depend on what I decide. What did you mean?”
“You are the one who will change the world. You have already changed me. Let me be your partner in this quest.”
Ithia saw his thoughts. Nolan intended to deliver her to Garrick. It was her decision as to how she was to enter the Palace—either in shackles or with his strength on her side. She made a neutral statement. “I will not resist my destiny any longer. However, what you are doing to me is not the way to go about it.”
He scrutinized her words for signs of deceit. “My destiny is to aid you.”
“What did the Magians say your calling was?”
“It does not matter.”
“I still don’t grasp much about the Magians, their teachings—their possible failings.”
Nolan hunched his posture as if to protect himself. “I was told to hone my skills as a warrior, to teach others, balancing my desire for—” He pursed his lips in concealment.
“Isn’t a warrior a noble calling?”
“Yes, but—my calling is bigger than what they said.” Nolan smiled for the first time that she had seen. “My heart rejoices that you agree to work with me. However, I cannot release you just yet. You tend to wander off.”
✹ ✹ ✹
The night swept in with a cold gale. When it was time to sleep, the wind accosted them, blowing debris and slicing at their faces. Nolan attempted to protect Ithia from the onslaught by pulling her close to his body and wrapping his arms around her waist.
/>
Ithia gritted her teeth.
When morning came, the trees were bare. Naked. The skies were void of all clouds. The stripped branches did little to shield them from the wide open skies. Exposed. With Nolan.
The winds of change had blown.
✹ ✹ ✹
When it became clear that Tyrsten could not track down Ithia, he made his way to Kladmunt, thinking about how he had abandoned his brother and his friend. He had also emotionally abandoned Ithia.
Tyrsten arrived at the R&R Inn and stepped backwards at what he saw. Feron and Huldo were leisurely ensconced around the hearth, telling Rhema and Iris stories about their adventures.
“What is going on here?” Tyrsten asked indignantly. He wasn’t sure why, but he was angry. They enjoyed a tranquil, little scene when his heart was mangled.
Huldo and Feron offered him a dispassionate hello in return.
“Hello?” Contempt bubbled within him.
Huldo glared back. “Yes. A word often used as a greeting.”
“Huldo!” His insides shook.
“What?” Huldo gripped the arms of his chair and leapt up. He was at his limit of how many of Tyrsten’s pitfalls he was expected to endure.
Confronting his sibling nose to nose, Tyrsten half-wanted Huldo to knock some sense into him—to be punished. Tyrsten turned away when he recognized this in himself and flopped down in a chair. “I am sorry—sorry for all of it! What is wrong with me lately?”
“You cracked.” Huldo stood stone-faced.
“I have broken everything.”
It dawned on Huldo something was missing—Ithia. “What have you done?”
Tyrsten whispered, hoping it wouldn’t sound as bad, “Gone.”
“Of all the stars!” Feron lurched forward in his seat, poised to charge off into action. “Where?”
