She’s going to force me into a confrontation. I can see it in her eyes, the calculation for how best to display her hard-earned skill against her adversarial teacher.
“You claimed only moments ago that you were not strong enough,” I say.
“You can judge for yourself how strong I am.” She raises her hands.
“Aitana,” Etricos calls from the hilltop, worry in his voice. He starts towards us, but he is too late.
If she could truly use the seventh intermediate, I might be in trouble. The magic that gathers within her falls within the fourth, however, similar to the attack I used against the demon army when I first arrived, but with less power behind it.
And, unfortunately for her, I’m in no mood to allow it to erupt my direction.
The first superlative of magic is that it governs all energy. Twist it upon itself, but beware the stronger will.
She doesn’t even know I can control her spark. She unleashes the attack, but it reflects back upon her in a clap of light and flame. The force ejects her from her practiced stance. Her body slams into the earth, and she tumbles across the slope of the hill to lie facedown in the grass.
“Aitana!” Etricos dashes for her prone form. Ria and Ineri gape from below, frozen in place.
She’s not dead. She’s only had the wind knocked out of her. I remain rigid as she pushes up to her elbows and gasps for air. Etricos is on his knees beside her, speaking to her, offering her assistance, coddling her in what he perceives as her accident rather than my attack.
Because that’s what it looks like, that she attempted a feat of magic and failed. I didn’t do anything more than clench my fist.
“You didn’t kill her,” says Demetrios at my side, his attention upon Etricos and Aitana. “Perhaps your control is better than you believe.”
I adopt my most carefully bewildered look. “What has my control to do with anything?”
“I have seen Aitana practice. This has never happened before, even in her early attempts. You interfered.”
No hint of rebuke colors his words. He merely states a logical conclusion.
And I state my own. “You goaded her into attacking me.”
He glances sidelong at me, amusement tugging at his mouth. “I encouraged her to spar with you, if you were willing.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because it’s good for people to know their limits.”
I’m starting to question whether the legends from this time appeared out of thin air. Demetrios exhibits no signs of affection whatsoever for his supposed paramour. His actions speak more towards animosity.
Aitana, meanwhile, sobs her woes into Etricos’s chest. One arm around her shoulders, he helps her stand. It makes for a poignant scene.
“What will Tora think of that?” I ask.
A muscle moves along Demetrios’s jawline. He leaves my side, striding across the distance to take his brother’s place. Aitana transfers from one set of arms to the other, sniffling the whole time as Demetrios leads her up the hill. She clings to him like an injured child, though I’m sure the initial shock has worn off by now.
Etricos watches them until they disappear over the hilltop, at which point he stalks toward me, fury upon his face. “Why did you not stop her? She might have killed herself!”
Sometimes, the best way to infuriate someone is to remain unmoved. “She’s not strong enough to kill herself,” I say. “At worst she might singe her eyebrows, but they’ll grow back.”
“Goddess!”
“I told her she was not ready, Etricos. I told her repeatedly. Poor choices have consequences.”
He vents his anger in a snort, raking one hand through his hair as he glances up the hill. “She only wants to protect the Helenai. She loves our people. She feels the burden of her gift and wishes to turn it to good use.”
“She wants attention,” I say. “Were she only concerned with the Helenai, she would obey her teacher.” I let him stew over that as I call to my two remaining students farther downhill. “Ineri, Ria, it’s time to return. If you wish to practice more tonight, focus only on the principles you have learned completely.”
They each nod, still wide-eyed over the spectacle they have witnessed. Some good may have come of Aitana’s rashness after all.
“Anjeni,” says Etricos in a low voice, pulling my attention back to him, “the Helenai need you, but we need Aitana as well. Please do not allow her to injure herself like this again.”
I’m in no mood for him to lecture me. My annoyance, built up over the course of the day, spills over into sarcasm now. “Perhaps you should encourage your brother to coax her back into submission instead of me.”
Surprise flashes across his face. On impulse, I shield Demetrios from blame for divulging this plot.
“I know things that no mortal can know, Etricos,” I remind him. “You would do better to focus your schemes elsewhere.”
Chapter Sixteen
Aitana’s injuries amount to nothing more severe than a burn on one forearm and a severely wounded sense of pride. Resentment simmers within her from that day forward, and I develop a sudden, acute empathy for the Dean of Magic and all of my former instructors. My empathy for her is non-existent, though. It’s not like someone is forcing her to study magic with no results to show for her efforts. She continues to improve daily.
And I take a more active role in training her and the younger spark-bearers both. I can’t trust her anymore with sole responsibility for their education. Granted, I probably shouldn’t have foisted it onto her shoulders as much as I had, but I still maintain that it was good for her, and for them all.
My passive observation gave me opportunity to experiment with my magic. Active instruction helps me hone it, to exercise better control over that raging beast within.
The number of refugees in our settlement has leveled to roughly a thousand people. There are forty spark-bearers now. We divide into groups of ten, with Ria, Ineri, and Aitana each assisting me.
As the days pass, Etricos sends scouts onto the plains and into the forest beyond the river. The Bulokai have isolated us within a five-mile radius. Their demon patrols will not come closer, and they cut off any asylum-seeking outsiders from reaching the safety of this place. The warriors among the Helenai and its allied tribes train daily. Soon they will ride out against those patrols, to pick them off one by one.
These people, poorly equipped as they are, have found their anchor in this land and will root it firmly in the ground. They till the earth in preparation for the coming rains, and they continue to lay the groundwork of their city-fortress.
Among the many buildings under construction, Etricos has ordered a pavilion. At present it is nothing more than a canopy upon Monument Hill, above the Eternity Gate. He plans a stone floor with a permanent structure above it, but it’s still too dangerous to quarry granite from the cliffs further up the coast.
I refrain from telling him that he’s building on the site of what will become the presidential residence. There’s no telling what extravagances he might work into the design if he knew he would one day occupy its vicinity. There’s no pavilion in my native time, so I see no reason to aggrandize a structure that will not last.
The canopy at the top of the hill provides me and my students with shade from the sun during our long days of training. My skin has become a lovely, glowing brown from daily exposure, but I value the canopy’s shade more as the humidity increases. The heat of each afternoon turns sticky and sweltering, a portent of the approaching rainy season.
I wish it would come, anything to break the suffocating summer.
“Goddess, you have visitors,” says Demetrios from his sentry point beyond the pavilion.
I stand from among the cluster of students I am teaching and peer toward the settlement. “Who is it?” From my position, I cannot glimpse anything.
He beckons me to his side. “See for yourself.”
Aitana watches from among her assigned class, a sulk on her f
ace. I ignore her. Ordinarily I would ignore Demetrios as well, but he doesn’t usually alert me when people from the settlement approach. This atypical behavior prompts me to join him.
Below, a group of seven people journeys up to us. At their head, Etricos walks alongside Moru of the Terasanai. A deep scowl cuts into Moru’s weathered face, his hands tucked into his sleeves as he mounts the hill. Etricos, in contrast, looks relaxed, even triumphant.
“What’s he done now?” I ask.
Demetrios slides a glance in my direction. “You think the worst of Cosi without knowing their cause for coming?”
“He’s always scheming something.”
He suppresses a laugh. It manifests only in a slight curve of his mouth that he quickly schools away. “You said he must become a leader to this people. He takes your instruction to heart.”
I sigh and return to my class to give them practice time and send them further downhill. The other three groups can stay beneath the canopy, but there’s no point in my students remaining idle without an instructor.
I join Demetrios again as Moru pauses to touch reverent fingers to the Eternity Gate. Etricos continues past him. Three of the followers, one young woman and two old, pause to pay the same respects. The other two, a woman and a man, pass the monument without more than a glance. I recognize the man as one of the warriors of the Helenai.
“Goddess Anjeni,” Etricos says, dipping into a theatrical bow as he stops in front of me.
Moru bends with more control. “Goddess, we desire an audience with you.”
I cannot keep the suspicion from my face. “The audience is granted. What brings you to me, Moru of the Terasanai?”
“Not I, Goddess.” He bows and moves aside. Etricos does the same. The warrior behind him joins hands with the young woman and together they step into the newly created gap. He bows and she curtsies.
“We wish your blessing to marry, Goddess Anjeni,” says the warrior.
My suspicions redouble. The girl—large eyes, softly curling hair, feminine in every aspect—looks no older than sixteen. I might withhold consent on that count alone except that her lover doesn’t look much older, roughly my age. She smiles shyly, her gaze downcast as she sneaks a glance at him. He squeezes her hand and waits upon my word.
Within this fledgling community where monsters lurk along the borders, waiting to marry seems like a fool’s decision. The objection to this union can have nothing to do with their ages. It lies in other quarters.
“You are of the Helenai?” I say to the boy.
“Yes.”
“And you are of the Terasanai?”
The girl nods, a blush climbing her neck.
I turn my attention upon Moru, who still scowls. “Do you object to the match?”
“How can I?” he asks, bitterness in his voice. Behind him, the two older women—the bride-to-be’s mother and an aunt, I would guess—exchange a sorrowful glance.
“Why come to me, then? Should not the consent of the tribal leaders suffice?”
“I believe so,” Etricos pipes up from beside his warrior. The woman behind them—the warrior’s sister, I can only surmise—maintains a neutral expression. Whether she is for or against the match I cannot discern.
I favor Etricos with a less-than-enthused examination. Anyone can see that he’s over the moon about this proposed union. He likely orchestrated it. There have been other marriages within the settlement, and none of them requested my blessing. The very fact that Moru brought this situation to me—and I have no doubt he required it rather than Etricos—tells me he wishes for divine intervention.
As if that’s in my power to give.
“Moru, walk with me, please.”
Momentary relief flashes across the tribal leader’s face. He spares a glance over his shoulder to the pair of older women. The bride-to-be looks crestfallen, her hand still firmly clasped in her lover’s grip. Etricos’s triumph of a moment ago has tempered into something more guarded, though he does not appear upset at my request.
I lead Moru away from the group, much as I did the first time we met. “Tell me the truth,” I say when we are beyond earshot. “What are your objections to this marriage?”
“She is my granddaughter.”
And there goes any chance of this attachment having been spontaneous. Etricos probably ordered his underling to make love to this specific girl.
Moru continues. “Goddess, women outnumber men in this settlement three to one. Among the Terasanai, that disparity is even higher. We have not the luxury to decline a marriage, but she is my only surviving granddaughter.”
“Do you suspect her lover’s sincerity?”
Frustration dances across his face. “I don’t know.”
“Do you wish me to forbid the marriage?”
He does not immediately answer, but casts his gaze back toward the group. His granddaughter and her would-be groom clasp both hands together as though standing at their marriage altar already, their hopeful eyes upon us. If Etricos did put his warrior up to this, he chose a magnificent actor.
“I worry that we will lose our culture and traditions if we intermarry with the other tribes,” says Moru.
“And if you do not intermarry, you risk extinction,” I reply. The men among the Terasanai are few enough to make this a viable threat. “Do you value your culture and traditions more than you value the continued existence of your people?”
My question troubles him. “My people and my culture are one and the same.”
“They’re not,” I say. I crouch low to pluck at the dry grass around me as I speak, choosing my words carefully. “A people can outlive a culture, but not the other way around. Right now your culture is changing rapidly, and it will continue to change in the coming years.”
I look up at him, a seasoned tribal elder who has come to an eighteen-year-old girl for help. In my own time, no one would consider me a reasonable source of advice and support. I have no business telling others how to live their lives or what decisions they should make. They worship me here—falsely—because of my magic, because I appeared through their God’s Arch by no efforts of my own, because I offer them the promise of deliverance from a foe they cannot defeat by their own power.
But because I come from another time, I interpret their world through different eyes.
“Shall I tell you the truth?”
My question jars him. He peers down at me, suspicion and reluctance upon his face. I straighten, twirling a stalk of grass between my fingers, my posture firm and formal as I meet his gaze.
“What truth?” Moru asks, his voice guarded.
I’m torn. I have studied history and legends alike. How much to disclose of either one presents me with a dilemma, but my heart whispers that Moru has a right to know a piece of the future that lies before him.
I break the news gently.
“The Helenai will absorb the Terasanai and all other tribes who seek safety within this settlement. Centuries from now, the nation of Helenia will hardly recall that any other tribes existed.”
I watch him closely, gauging his reaction. Despair and disbelief both seep through the cracks of his schooled façade.
Should I have kept my big mouth shut? “I do not tell you this to force you into subjection, Moru. Change is inevitable. Centuries from now, the Helenai in their present form will no longer exist, and few will believe that I ever existed at all. I will be nothing more than a story told to children.”
I can’t help the wistful smile that curves along my mouth. How I once despised those scholars and intellectuals who declared that the goddess Anjeni was only a romantic fabrication. Will I correct them if I ever make it back to my own time?
I wouldn’t know where to begin. After playing deity to a thousand people here, the mere thought of taking my stories to millions of modern faces nauseates me. If I ever do get home, I might hole up in my bedroom and never come out again. Regardless of what I do, in the modern world, people will think I’m crazy.
&
nbsp; “Why do you tell me this, Goddess?” he asks.
“Because you must decide which is more important: the legacy of your past, which will disappear, or the prosperity of your people going forward.” On impulse I ask, “Would the marriage be more to your liking if it were someone else’s granddaughter?”
He grunts. “I would be less suspicious.”
I concede that point and make my own. “The woman brings as much tradition to the union as the man, Moru. She will teach her children the ways of your people. A blended culture will emerge—neither Terasanai nor Helenai, but something in between.”
“If her husband allows it.”
“He cannot suppress the innate influence of a mother.” My mother’s influence on Tana and me comes to mind. Not every woman will be as assertive, but especially in a warrior culture, Moru’s granddaughter will hold more sway with her children because she will assume primary care of them. It’s “women’s work” among these people.
Moru still nurses his doubts. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, his hands folded in his sleeves as he considers the awful truth before him.
“What would you have me do?” I ask. “Forbidding their love will likely strengthen it. Requiring them to wait could have the same effect.”
“They have known each other only three weeks,” he says.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I mutter under my breath. I don’t know exactly how the cultures here treat courtship, but if I tried to convince my dad to let me marry someone I’d only known for three weeks, he would have the boy arrested.
But, again, time is a luxury that belongs to a nation at peace.
“I would prefer to arrange a marriage for her,” says Moru.
I blink, hard-pressed not to clench my jaw at the massive displeasure that sweeps through me. I forcefully remind myself that this is not my culture; it does not follow my beliefs and traditions.
That being said, I’d sooner die than agree to an arranged marriage for any woman. “In an arranged marriage, she will not have known her groom for any time at all—unless you have a suitable candidate among the Terasanai already.”
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