by Jen Valena
Clacking horse hooves pulled carts across their cobbled stone path as Ithia and her companions proceeded to where two main arteries of traffic intersected at the town center. The crowds swallowed them. Ithia kept her lowered eyes on Tyrsten.
Ithia felt a greater state of anxiety from the surrounding people than she had experienced in Charlan. People’s auras were constrained against their bodies and appeared hazy. Conversations were curt. They sensed the building peril.
Ithia’s muscles tightened with tension. And then she spotted soldiers. Two of them.
A booming voice yelled out, “Magian! MAGIAN!”
Ithia’s blood drained from her face into her pounding heart. Her limbs iced over.
Tyrsten braced her. His hand clamped tight on her upper arm.
“I see you!” a man taunted.
Tyrsten pulled her close.
“Oops! Where did you go?” The man laughed wildly. “Hide and I will seek you!”
“Relax,” Tyrsten whispered in her ear.
“Relax?” Ithia hissed back. She then caught sight of the howler.
The man hopped around and searched the crowd. He was not wearing soldier’s garb. He was dressed in disarray. A floppy hat barely clung to the mess of his hair. He skipped around. He pretended to search under a woman’s skirt. “Nope. Not under there!”
Ithia exhaled, realizing she hadn’t taken a breath since the man had begun yelling.
“He is a Balatri. Like a jester.”
“What is he doing?”
“Protest.” Tyrsten dropped his head in frustration as the soldiers converged on the Balatri. “This is truly a fool’s move right now.”
The Balatri grabbed the arm of a soldier. “Not under there either!”
The soldier punched the Balatri in the stomach. The crowd stopped their bartering and directed their attention to the assault.
“It is bad form to abuse a Balatri,” Huldo yelled, despite himself.
People in the crowd booed the soldier. The other soldier searched the crowd for the culprits. It was no use, they all took part.
The soldier backed away from the Balatri. “Any more talk of Magians, and we throw you in jail.”
“Punish the air that is blown through the horn!”
The soldier eyed the crowd. “We will shut this village down altogether!”
The Balatri mockingly whimpered, “Long live Garrick, the Righteous Magian.”
One of the soldiers turned to attack the Balatri, but the other one stopped him. “It only feeds his fire.”
The crowd turned back to their business though they were less inclined to look each other in the eye now. Ithia was thankful for this. It made her hiding that much easier.
With the resurgence of activity, Ithia was swept up in the traffic flow. Tyrsten trailed behind.
Her awareness of her surroundings sharpened. She felt the breeze drawing loose strands of her hair across her face, and the weave of the fabric against her body. She sensed every person near her, their emotions, their energy. Her subconscious was alerting her to pay attention. Something important was near.
Her ring vibrated.
Ithia scoured the crowd frantically. She searched for a visual clue to identify the mystery person who held her ring’s twin.
The vibration became more intense.
The sea of bobbing heads revealed no sign, and just as suddenly as it began, the sensation subsided.
Fearing that she had missed her opportunity, Ithia prayed for guidance. Her hand rose of its own volition, guiding her to her left.
She heeded the call of her ring. She dodged and weaved through the crowds.
The distance between Ithia and her companions grew.
Tyrsten did his best to pursue Ithia, but soon lost sight of the back of her cloak. He turned back to see Feron and Huldo also worried.
The crowd in front of Ithia thinned. A cloaked figure, a few paces ahead of her, came into her view. The ring pulled her closer toward him.
The figure turned down an alleyway.
She pursued, darting around the corner.
The man turned to face her.
Now, they stood mere inches apart. The air between them felt heavy.
He grabbed her raised right wrist. In her periphery, his silver ring containing an identical green stone sparkled. A surge of knowing rushed her senses.
His eyes were filled with stars.
The man towed her through a doorway.
Once inside, the man pulled his cloak hood down and tossed his pack onto the floor, all the while holding her arm tight. He was a young man, no older than herself.
“What do you think you are doing?” he hissed.
“Who are you?” Ithia didn’t break eye contact, not even to blink. Her connection to him was deeper than the ring—as if she had a memory of him deep in her subconscious—a lodestone of the blood in her veins. She shook her arm to indicate that he still hadn’t let go. “Do you mind?”
“I do.” He loosened his grip, but didn’t release her. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“I—”
“Ithia.” The way he said her name wasn’t a question of her identity but of her intentions.
She refused to respond. Instead, she studied him, now seeing past his eyes. Something was familiar about his face, about his energy. “I was just… guided to follow you.”
The young man released Ithia. His energy encircled her as if it were a net. He shook his head in awe. “I should have foreseen you would find me.”
She backed away several feet. “How do you know me?”
His gaze darted to the door. “Your friends are coming.”
She didn’t take her eyes off of him.
“Odd, we ended up with the rings. Or rather, not odd at all.”
The door burst open. Tyrsten swooped in. Feron and Huldo filed in after him. The man didn’t flinch, but kept his focus on Ithia. “Because you are my sister.”
“I don’t have—”
“Not knowing does not make my existence cease to be.”
Tyrsten took a step toward him. “Who are you?”
“I am Rainor, Garrick’s Sidari.”
Feron and Huldo grabbed their weapons and readied for attack.
“Wait!” Rainor lifted his palm out at them. “I do not want an altercation. I hoped to find Ithia and help.”
“Help her or Garrick?” Tyrsten sneered.
Ithia and the others studied Rainor’s face. He resembled Ithia with his similar brown hair and facial structure. One might guess their genes swam in the same pool.
Huldo growled. “This man must be out of his mind. Ithia—he cannot be—” His eyes darted back and forth between the alleged siblings. There were too many similarities to be dismissed.
“Maybe. I don’t know anything about my past.” Ithia glared at Rainor, trying to understand what all this meant.
“Why have you come here now?” Tyrsten asked.
“Ithia.” Rainor kept his gaze on her. “I have searched for you since your arrival on Ma’thea. It has been a challenge to locate you.”
“What do you really want with me?”
“To insure you are not harmed further. I was ordered to drain you psychically to make it easier to persuade you to join Garrick. But I left the Palace in rebellion against these barbaric tactics.”
“You were the one who attacked me?”
“Yes. For that, I am sorry.” As Rainor took a step closer to her, all three men did the same to intervene. He stopped his approach. “Please understand—I wanted to see for myself who you really are.”
“You are Garrick’s henchman.” Tyrsten stepped closer.
“No longer. I am an outcast.”
“And your plan now?” Tyrsten asked.
Rainor opened his arms. “I wish to join you. Assist.”
Tyrsten eyed him with contempt. “We do not accept your offer.”
“I expected that response.”
Tyrsten and Rainor sized each other u
p. Rainor did his best to appear benign. Tyrsten did a good job appearing aggressive.
Ithia considered them both. Rainor might have planted the seed in her mind to come to Leelan. She bit her lip. “How did you know I would be here?”
“I was as surprised as you were. My ring tingled. I knew its mate was close, but I did not know you were its owner.”
“When I arrived in this world—you were able to attack me psychically—and now you claim you can’t sense me?”
“I assumed you had learned to block me.” Rainor’s voice became soft. “I never wanted to hurt you. By leaving the Palace, I prevented my abilities from being wielded against you. I want to protect you.”
Huldo shook his head. “Why, of all the stars, should we let you join us?”
“You have no reason to trust me. Although, I must warn you, we should leave immediately. I am pursued by trackers.”
Feron exchanged an informed glance with Tyrsten. “I saw the soldiers he speaks of.”
“Huldo, Feron, take Rainor to the rendezvous point. We will catch up with you when I feel it is safe.” Tyrsten glared at Rainor. “If this is a trick, you will regret it.”
He agreed, “I am sure that I would.”
Feron and Huldo stepped cautiously into the alley. No soldiers—yet. Feron had his sword in hand, ready to take action against either soldiers or Rainor, whichever ended up being their truer threat. Tyrsten and Ithia hurried off in the opposite direction.
“Why are you bringing him along?” Ithia tried to keep pace with Tyrsten’s long, angry stride.
“Having him with us may make us safer,” Tyrsten said. “If he goes free, he might report our location to the soldiers. And if he is truthful, then—well, we will see.”
“What do your instincts say?”
“I do not trust him or know if he is really your brother. However, my prejudice may blind me to the answer. I believe his true agenda is yet to be revealed. Even if we attempted to read his mind, it would not work. I already sense he masks his thoughts. He is a proficient Magian, possibly as gifted as you, but trained and practiced. And I cannot forget he has already harmed you.”
“He suggested he wanted to help me.” She paused wondering what life would have been like growing up with a sibling. “Of course, he could intend to help me fall into Garrick’s clutches.”
Tyrsten nodded. “He is careful with the words he chooses.”
“Everyone has motives. We’ll have to see what his are.”
✹ ✹ ✹
Hours later, Tyrsten and Ithia checked the perimeter psychically, then caught up with Rainor under Huldo and Feron’s guard.
Feron pulled Tyrsten aside. “This is unwise.”
“Agreed,” Tyrsten whispered, “but we must pursue this.”
Rainor sat with his hands tied. He raised his eyebrows, glancing back and forth as he observed Ithia and Tyrsten. It was obvious he sensed their exceptional bond.
Rainor offered a wide grin to Ithia. “Made your decision?”
“Can’t you read my mind? After all, you were in it before.”
“Ah, still deliberating. I agree with caution as a rule.”
“Why should I allow you near me after all you have done?”
“I did not agree with much of Garrick’s decisions. Especially, when it came to you.”
“What are his plans for me?”
“Garrick intended to control you the moment you arrived on Ma’thea. His intentions may have changed—now. Garrick does not apprise anyone of his overall goals.” Rainor’s voice was distraught. “We should work together to stop him.”
“And you think we can stop him together?” Ithia asked with disbelief. “Make him change his mind?”
“Anything is possible.” Rainor shrugged. “You are proof of that.”
Ithia opened her senses to read him, but he was impenetrable—walled up completely. “What is it you don’t want me to know?”
“You cannot read me. I deeply regret that. I am permanently guarded. After so many solar-turns under Garrick’s watchful eye, one learns to protect oneself. I wish you could see inside my heart.”
“No. You just don’t want me to see what you have planned.”
“I plan to aid you in the recovery of our people.”
✹ ✹ ✹
That night, Ithia proposed to keep the first psychic watch, trading shifts with Tyrsten, while Huldo and Feron retrieved Rainor’s horse inside the city walls.
Rainor overheard the group talking. “I volunteer to watch as well!”
Huldo impressed Rainor with his sarcastic grin and said, “For some strange reason I would not sleep well expecting my throat slit before dawn. But thank you ever so much for the generous offer.”
As the party drifted into a restless sleep, Ithia’s mind wandered over to her professed brother. Growing up, many times she had felt that she was missing a sibling—a phantom in her mind chasing after her. She had often turned to see if someone followed her around, like little brothers often do. Here, he was grown up, and now he was following her—but it wasn’t so he could play with her. Or perhaps, it was.
Ithia tiptoed across camp to where he slept, tied up, several feet away from the others. His body aura glowed dimmer than she had ever seen, such little light shone through for a Sidari. Something was wrong with him.
His eyes were still closed when he asked, “Should you not be watching for others sneaking up on us?” A smirk filled his face.
Ithia flushed. “Why is your aura so faint?”
Rainor opened his eyes. Ithia was so bright he found it difficult to look at her directly. “Not everyone is as blessed as you.”
“But I barely see yours.”
“You have seen Tyrsten dimmed as well.”
“Yes.” Ithia paused, unsure how Rainor would know this. “But his was never as yours.”
“The cause is a lifetime of brainwashing, torture and submission to another’s power, to survive. The psychic attacks I was ordered to perform on you have not helped either.” Rainor contemplated Ithia with both envy and sorrow. “I wish I had been able to escape to another world.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“That very well may be, but my past is what it is.”
In the quiet of the moment, Ithia recognized his voice. Very well may be, echoed in her mind. She had heard that phrase before, and instantly she leapt to a conclusion. “You found me on Earth and brought me through the crack.” Her thoughts raced again as more revealed itself. “You kidnapped me. You are the cloaked soldier that escaped when Tyrsten found me at the caves. But it doesn’t stop there. You are the cloaked figure that took me back to Earth and told me to stay there.”
“How do the insights come to you? In visual flashes or just knowings?”
She ignored his questions. “It’s true?”
“Sad to say—yes.”
“You allowed that man to take me into the cave alone. You knew what he planned to do to me. Why didn’t you stop him?”
“Things were out of control. When I took you, I was drastically weakened by slipping through the worlds, twice within moments. You know the tremendous effect of that journey. I could not challenge that monster. And I had no true authority with those men. They despised me even more than other Magians since they believed I betrayed my own kind.”
“You could have done something.”
“I gave you the knife. And I let Tyrsten overtake us. I allowed Tyrsten to rescue you to keep you safe from the Captain and from Garrick.” He frowned. “Although, I was not expecting Tyrsten to perform an Actuation.” Rainor paused and stared at her intently. “My lack of preventing the rescue, led to being punished.”
“There would be no need for Tyrsten to help me if you hadn’t abducted me in the first place.”
Rainor tightened his lips but didn’t respond.
“When you took me back to Earth, were you trying to save me or get rid of me?”
“A little of both, perhaps.” He averted
his eyes.
“At least you seem honest about that.”
“From the beginning, I regretted confessing to Garrick that I had located you on Earth. I regretted then having to capture you. I planned to steal you away myself before we reached Garrick. My plan was thwarted by the Captain’s lechery and Tyrsten’s pursuit.” Rainor shook his head. “And now I fear for you even more. After Garrick learns Tyrsten performed an Actuation on you—you will be, in his mind, contaminated.”
“You didn’t tell Garrick?”
“No. Once I realized you had changed, and as soon as I could manage to track you down physically, I offered you a way out by taking you to Earth. And in doing so, I was also testing your character. I had to know if you were the challenger we all need. You must be completely committed to your path if we are to reshape this world.” Rainor shifted his weight and fidgeted against his restraints. “I was wrong to think you might take the easy path by staying there. You are just as stubborn as I am.”
“One of my many gifts.”
Her heart wrenched. Ithia wanted to believe Rainor was her little brother.
19 ✹ Moon Shadows
Winter’s Night—
Even the stars whisper behind my back.
I howl at the moon—my shining sister.
— Ithia Sydran
“I do not trust him,” Huldo whispered to Tyrsten.
“Nor do I. We must heed Ithia’s instincts—for now. Whether I like Fate’s reasoning or not, sometimes we are meant to follow apparently irrational paths.”
“I hate when you start talking Fate.” Huldo patted Tyrsten on the shoulder.
“Only when it does not suit your good sense or purpose.” Tyrsten smiled. “We will keep a close eye on Rainor. Between the four of us, we can manage him. He is skilled, but appears weakened.”
“Things are not always how they appear,” Huldo said. “Where do we go from here? We cannot risk exposing any of our safe houses to him.”
“We have no real choice at the moment but to keep moving our camp within the wilderness.” Tyrsten shrugged as he watched Ithia pack her belongings haphazardly. She was distracted by Rainor’s presence, anyone could see.
