by Brandon Barr
Winter looked up from the new bracelet she was making for him out of laussifer roots. She had their father’s crooked nose, and their mother’s soft mouth and delicate chin. Her eyes were brown with unusual flecks of orange in them.
“I don’t like seeing you worry.” she sighed. “It doesn’t help, and it only makes you sad.”
“How can I not worry?” Aven asked.
“You could try trusting the Makers.”
“You know how I feel about them.”
“Yes. You’ve told me. Many times. If you can’t trust them, I wish you would at least trust me.”
“Tell me more about this latest vision. Are you sure you couldn’t tell who the bodies were?”
“No, I couldn’t. The smoke was too thick.”
“And you’re sure they were dead?”
“I’m sure of it. I could feel it.”
“Why won’t you let me tell Father and Mother about your visions?”
“If you tell them,” said Winter, “their reaction might cause the vision to come true. We’ve discussed this already. Unless we have a sign otherwise, all we can do is trust the Makers. If there is something we need to do, they will tell us.”
Aven scowled. “I wish I believed that, but it’s hard. You’ve never had these kinds of visions before. Not this dark.”
“Remember that the visions are only possibilities,” said Winter. “They’re not definite. Our freedom to choose—that’s what’s real. Our choices bring them about or keep them from happening. You remember the spider and the grasshopper, don’t you?”
Yes, he did. A year ago, he and Winter had been in the fields harvesting sape when she had had a vision of a grasshopper resting on the stump that marked their home. Near the grasshopper was a web where a white and blue spider waited. She saw the grasshopper jump onto the web, where it fell prey to the spider. Later, Aven saw the spider and the grasshopper when he went home, just as she’d said. On impulse, he reached for the grasshopper, thinking to shoo it away from the spiderweb. But when he did, the grasshopper jumped into the web, and the spider devoured it.
“This isn’t the same,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not. You’re the one who’s sure.”
He searched for the words to try and convince her. Their parents would not hop into the Baron’s web like mindless insects. They would use the information to take more precautions. Maybe they’d even decide to delay their attempted escape. He knew that Winter didn’t want anyone else to know about her gift, but he didn’t see why she couldn’t at least let him tell their parents.
Aven watched his sister’s fingers work gracefully at twisting and weaving the root. “Why do you have this gift?” he asked. “If it’s truly from a Maker, then what’s the point if we can’t use it?”
“Please don’t call it my gift,” said Winter. Her eyes lifted from her work to probe his face. “I want it to be our gift. We’re twins, made in the same womb, the same sacred space. You have to help me make the decision. And we decided, together, not to tell anyone.”
Aven slumped against the earthen wall. “I wish you didn’t have these visions,” he whispered. “I didn’t mind the other ones, but these dark ones are frightening. I wish you’d never had that…whatever it was that happened.”
A smile lit Winter's face at the mention of the most pivotal event of her life: the encounter with the Maker that had changed her forever. “If you knew, if I could share with you what I felt, you wouldn’t say that. I wish so much I could share it with you. Then you’d see why I feel the way I do, why I trust the Makers. That’s what this is about, really. Trust. We don’t know whether our actions will stop what I saw or cause it to happen. For all we know, what I saw will happen far away from here. We don’t know. All we can do is have faith.” She sighed. “I know the Makers gave us the gift for a reason. We just have to wait and see what it is.”
She stopped to read his face. Was she hoping to have eased his mind somehow?
Aven shook his head. “If you’re not going to let me do anything, next time don’t tell me. Keep it to yourself. I can’t stand around and do nothing when people I care about might be in danger, not if I have the power to stop it from happening.”
He left her in her room, took his cloak, and climbed the ladder. He swung open the hatch to a sea of stars and the silhouettes of sag trees and oaks.
Winter’s voice called to him from below. “You understand, don’t you?” Her tone was pleading. “I need to tell someone about them, especially the dark ones. Who else do I have? No one else has our bond. No one else can understand me.”
Aven poked his head down to look at her. Of the few people he was close with, Winter was the only one who held his soul. She knew him like no other, just as he knew her. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s hard, is all. I’m worried.”
“It will be okay,” said Winter. A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “Tonight is First Kiss. You should focus on enjoying that. Just have fun. Everything will be okay.”
“I wish I could be as confident as you are.”
“You will be. In time. I’m sure of it.”
Chapter Three
AVEN
Everything will be okay.
Aven thought about his sister’s words as he walked the path to Harvest’s hovel. He wished he could believe that. The moon dodged in and out of the trees. A racket of chirps sounded from every bush and rock where crickets sang their songs.
He wished Winter would let him talk to their parents about her visions. They had only an inkling of Winter’s gift. When she first began talking openly of the things she saw, they treated it as nothing more than the wild imaginings of a nine-year-old. It didn’t take long before Winter quit telling them about the visions and asked Aven not to tell them, either.
Their parents were just farmers. They kept things simple. They preferred tradition over novelty. Aven was much like them. He was wary of Winter’s gift and the Makers who had supposedly given it to her. All he wanted was a farm of his own to work. A family. Harvest as his wife. He envisioned the love he and Harvest shared to be much like his parents’ love. A soft, ever-present respect between them, playful and sensual. It filled him with pride every time he detected the hidden passion that entwined his parents. It was another layer of love that tightly bound their family together.
Like the love that burned in his heart when he and Harvest kissed in the wooded darkness above her home.
It had happened last night, a day earlier than it was supposed to. The night was magical. They’d talked until the moon had passed through the Star Sage’s constellation, their sharing deeper than it had been in the past few weeks of their formal courtship. Discovering who the other was. What made them laugh. What caused them pain. What their dreams for life were.
At some point the words ended, and it was like an uncontrollable pull gently drawing them toward each other. The kiss was a first for them both. Aven felt terribly awkward and clumsy but Harvest never laughed. In that one kiss he could feel the serious passion she would bring into every part of their marriage. In weeks past, they’d expressed their feelings with their words, each conversation revealing more about who they were to each other. Now their mouths expressed a new thing, a soulful thing. Harvest’s tongue spoke a new language, one he could feel and taste with his own tongue. The warmth of her body so close, the brush of her nose against his face, the hush of the forest surrounding them.
It had been a glimpse of the hidden fires that held his own family together. It promised the simple, beautiful life that awaited. The uncomplicated life of a farmer and the joy of family.
Work hard, earn food for the stomach, love your mate, your family, make friends of your neighbors. That was the life Aven’s parents had forged. It seemed a warm and satisfying life, and it was all that he wanted.
It was what Harvest wanted, too, but there was something else consuming her these days, something brought to the fore by their loom
ing escape.
She wanted her brother, Pike, back.
Aven glanced worriedly into the trees at the thought of Pike, hoping he really was staying the night at the Baron’s fortress as he was supposed to be. Pike was Harvest’s brother. He was also an informant for the Baron, which made him a traitor in the eyes of the other farmers, a man who had turned on his own family.
But there was more to the story, a truth no one outside Harvest’s family knew.
Pike was the Baron’s son. Harvest’s mother had been raped by the Baron many years ago.
A couple of months ago, after the execution of the family, the Baron had taken Pike aside and told him the truth about his lineage. Afterwards, for reasons Aven couldn’t understand, Pike turned on Gar, Harvest’s father—the man who had loved him as his true son his entire life—and embraced the Baron. He did this even knowing what the Baron had done to his mother.
What did the Baron offer Pike that was worth spitting on the face of his family? How could he turn on those who had raised him and loved him? These were questions Aven couldn’t answer, didn’t think he’d ever be able to. To him, loyalty was a lifelong commitment, not a garment to be taken off on a whim.
Despite what he’d done, Harvest and her parents still held out hope for Pike. On the night of their escape, Gar planned to bind Pike as he slept. He would be told what they planned and given a last chance to make his decision: stay with his family or continue eating from the Baron’s table, while the farmers ate scraps. Pike had changed in the past couple of months, a cruelty Aven had never seen before surfacing in him. From what Aven had seen, he didn’t think there was much chance that Pike would make the right decision.
Aven came around a bend in the road and saw the small acreage Harvest and her family farmed on the eastern border of Plot Eight. Rows of sape vines hung from trellises. The vineyards, once believed to be a pathway to independence for the farmers tending Rhaudius’s land, were now only a symbol of the Baron’s wealth. The sun-beaten wire trellis on which the sape berries hung was a more fitting symbol for the farmers.
Harvest’s hovel was at the base of a bulge oak stump, like his own, only somewhat larger. Light leaked out around the edges of the hatch. Aven knelt and knocked on it. A moment later, Gar eased the door open. It was a vulnerable position, standing on a ladder, looking up through the wooden hatch into the unknown darkness.
“It’s Aven. I’ve come for Harvest.”
Gar’s voice was rough as dirt, but there was a smile on his bearded face. “You’ve come to kiss my daughter?”
Aven swallowed. “Uh…yes?” He’d grown acquainted to Gar’s bluntness working with him in the vineyards, especially once the courtship began. But still, it caught him off-guard sometimes.
Gar laughed, enjoying his discomfiture. He was the kind of man who laughed a lot. A man who took joy in his work, who seemed to come alive when the sweat ran down his face. His was an attitude that had touched Aven profoundly.
“Then I won’t keep you waiting,” Gar said, backing down the ladder, still chuckling.
Then she was there, climbing the ladder, swift and graceful, the red flower Aven had given her the night before tucked into her curly hair. At the top of the ladder, she looked up at him and smiled.
Aven’s heart suddenly felt too big for his chest.
Aven took her hand to help her out. Before he could speak, she was pulling him off through the rows of trellises. In the middle of the vineyard, Harvest stopped and turned to him.
“I have so much to tell you,” she said. “But first, how are you?”
“I’m well. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you since breakfast.” Aven grimaced at how formal his words sounded. More than a month, now, since their parents had arranged the marriage, and he still couldn’t seem to get past the first few moments of talking to her without being awkward.
Harvest squeezed his hand. “Since breakfast? Is that all? I dreamt about us all night. We were in the forest with the Erdu, and we were free, and we had our own tent, and I kept wishing you would smile, but you wouldn’t. You would only fly around the tent.”
Aven frowned. “Fly?”
“Yes. I forgot to mention you were a bird. Your plumage was so handsome, and I was madly in love with you, even if you were feathered. But your beak was the problem. I kept wanting to kiss you. I wanted your beak to turn back into your lips. But they didn’t. You couldn’t even smile.”
Aven laughed. A genuine laugh. The awkwardness vanished with it.
“I was so angry when I woke up, until I realized it was a dream.” She squeezed his hand. “And then I remembered that tonight I’d get to kiss you for real.”
Just like that, Aven felt awkward and nervous again. He’d been looking forward to this and fearing it at the same time.
Harvest’s eyes seemed very large as she gazed at him. There was a hint of amusement on her face, the same hint of amusement Aven saw often in her father’s expression.
“So?” she said, her voice filled with suppressed emotion.
Aven dipped his head, moving in close. He could feel the warmth of her breath. Its sweet scent filled his nose. Lightly, his lips brushed against hers.
Slowly, softly. Exploring. Lingering.
It was as if last night had never happened. Tonight, he felt none of the clumsiness. She moved closer to him, her hands against his back, gently pressing the form of her body into his.
The stars traced their way across the sky while the crickets’ song droned on in melodic waves. After a time, Harvest pulled away and rest her head on Aven’s shoulder. He held her, his mouth tingling with the ghost of her lips still fresh upon his own. Harvest’s breathing in his ear were a calming, primal rhythm. He took in the close scent of her hair. Sweet. Rich. Like the smell of fresh rain and loam.
“I can’t imagine this ever growing old,” said Aven.
“Kissing me? Promise me it never will,” she said, gently running her fingertip under his chin.
“I promise,” said Aven. “I’ve seen mates amongst the farmers with passions like stone. They might as well have wedded a rock. I don’t want to be like that.”
“We don’t have to be. We can keep this, what we have right now. My mother said to remember these first moments. To delight in them and when we’ve been mated ten, thirty, fifty years, to make fresh, new moments. To be passionate like a storm, unpredictable as lightning.”
She pulled back, so that she could look into his eyes.
Aven had no words. He simply met her eyes and ran his fingers softly against the side of her face.
After a time of quiet, Harvest’s eyes saddened.
“What is it?” asked Aven.
“It’s nothing.”
“I want to hear.”
“It’s about my brother. But it can wait. I don’t want to spoil the moment.”
Aven put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re worried about him.”
Harvest placed her head on his shoulder again. “I’m angry at him. And scared for him at the same time. I hope he’ll choose to come with us, but I feel in my heart that he won’t. I’m afraid we’ve lost him forever, and I don’t understand why.”
Aven ran his fingers gently through her hair. “The Baron has infected him. He’s not the same anymore. We used to get along well enough, but now it’s like he hates me.”
“He hates many people these days. I think he only dislikes you because of our betrothal and how close you and Father have become. I think he thinks you are stealing his place in our family.”
“Why would he care? He seems to only care about the Baron these days.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I think he still cares about us.” Harvest looked up. The moonlight glowed brightly on her face. “If we can get him to leave with us, I think things will go back to the way they were before.”
There was in her eyes, pain Aven wished he could shield her from.
“Once we escape,” said Aven, “we’ll leave the past behind. Ever
ything will be brand new. Us. Our future. The Baron won’t control any of us again.”
A sudden crash sounded nearby, and they both froze.
“What was that?” whispered Harvest.
Aven took his arms from around her. “It sounded like one of the trellises fell over.”
He took a step toward it, but Harvest grabbed his arm. He saw the concern in her eyes, silently pleading with him to stay with her. He took her fingers, gently squeezed, and pulled them free.
He moved in the direction of the sound, trying not to make any noise. He pushed between two large trellises roped with sape vines and stopped to listen. The night was quiet, the crickets temporarily startled into silence. Moonlight shone softly on the vines. On the ground he could see the fallen trellis. There was no sign of movement.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he stepped back and turned toward Harvest. “It’s nothing. I think one of the trellises just—”
His words were cut off as a dark shape leaped out from between two nearby trellises. A hand grabbed his shirt, and he was yanked forward, off-balance.
A cold blade pressed against the side of his neck, and a man said, “What have we here?”
Aven’s heart went cold. He knew the voice. It was Rozmin, the captain of the Baron’s Watch.
Chapter Four
AVEN
Aven sagged in the man’s grip, his heart hammering. How much did he know? What had he heard?
“Why, it’s Aven, son of Lynx,” Rozmin said. “What a nice surprise finding you out tonight. Such passionate kisses. Secret lovers, are you?”
“Tonight’s First Kiss,” said Aven quietly, conscious of the knife at his throat. “We’re to be joined as mates in twelve days.”
“You’re not joined in anything else, are you? Maybe a plot to leave the valley?”
With those words, Aven’s worst fears were realized. Rozmin had overheard them.
