Daughter of Lightning

by Anna Logan

  Daughter of Lightning

  ANNA KATE LOGAN

  Copyright © 2019 Anna Logan

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-7343904-0-7

  For the people who read my awful first drafts and still stuck with this story.

  Contents

  1 - Another

  2 - Dancing and Strangers

  3 - Assassins

  4 - The New King

  5 - Decision

  6 - Revealed

  7 - The Twins

  8 - Misgivings

  9 - The River

  10 - Wardens

  11 - Traveling Companions

  12 - Asyjgon Territory

  13 - Captive

  14 - Reassuring Lies

  15 - Reality and Morality

  16 - Questions

  17 - The Lead Warden

  18 - Inns and Maids

  19 - Tyrrany and Training

  20 - Broken Chairs

  21- The Eight

  1

  Another

  T alea watched the sky with her hands loose at her sides. Waiting. She had no timepiece—few of the lower class could afford them—but she could tell by the condition of the sky that eight o’clock was close. Streaks of gold marked the horizon where the sun had just disappeared. The rest of the expanse was nearly black, thick with clouds that seemed to hover just above her.

  Her best friend, Brenly, was jogging toward her.

  “It’s almost time,” Talea said as Brenly arrived, looking past her friend’s shoulder in the direction of the haliop, blocked by trees and a small hill. “They’re all inside?”

  Brenly nodded, her usually pale cheeks flushed and her reply a little breathless. “I think we’re clear.”

  A rumble of thunder put goosebumps on her arms. She checked for the third time that she was standing with no trees between her and the clouds above. What would happen if there were a tree caught between, she didn’t know, and thought it better not to find out.

  Brenly took several steps back. “Any second now…”

  A booming clap. The black clouds were split by a brilliant white light that poured down like milk from a pitcher into Talea’s hands. The second it made contact, energy flared to life in her core. Heat filled her hands, traveled down her arms, and soaked every muscle in her body, contrasting the tingling chill that covered her skin. It was power, incredible, tangible power, all under her control. It linked her to the storm above, stimulating her senses, sparking too many thoughts and emotions to grasp.

  Beneath the thrill, like a tug at the back of her mind, an instinct. She looked out, peering past the light that enveloped her, across the miles of forest around them. There was another light in the distance, another like hers. She could sense it almost as distinctly as she could see it. Astonishment distracted her from the elation of the lightning. There had never been another.

  And then it was gone. The pillar of lightning vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving them in the shadow of the storm. The energy, however, was still there—alive within her. She could feel it like adrenaline in her veins, and she could see it in the aqua glow that remained in her hands. Talea looked again to where she’d seen the other light. Nothing.

  She whirled to face Brenly. “Did you see that?”

  Brenly nodded, lips parted in amazement. “Another light, like yours.”

  Another light like hers...did that mean there was another person like her?

  The heat was already fading from her hands. The elation, however, only burned stronger. This was the seventh time. It had started on her eighth birthday, and come every year, on her birthday, at eight o’clock. But this was the first time there had been another. This was the first time she’d felt the strange connection. “Do you think it means…”

  “That there’s another?” Brenly was smiling. “I don’t know...but maybe. I think it might.”

  Excitement made her clasp her hands together and bite her lip, feeling suddenly restless. “I’m not the only one.”

  Her enthusiasm was rubbing off on Brenly, who was usually more reserved. “This is amazing. Did it feel different, or anything?”

  “Well I...I knew to look where the other pillar was. Like I knew it was there, or something.” That sounded outlandish. But of course, the whole thing was outlandish. “Otherwise...not really.” The same crazy, unbelievable phenomenon of seven years. Seven times, and it was just as exhilarating…just as terrifying.

  Brenly shook her head. Not in disbelief—in wonder. She had been there all seven times, and was long past disbelief.

  The second lightning pillar had been east of them. They stood near the top of a hill, on the opposite side of Talea’s haliop to avoid being seen by her family. By sheer luck, or by the grace of some god, no one had figured out her secret. The day after her ninth birthday, a girl in school had asked if anyone else had seen “the strange lightning.” On her thirteenth birthday, someone must have seen it, because she’d heard gossip about an unusual lightning bolt for awhile after. But no one had ever pinpointed its location or investigated. Lightning wasn’t uncommon for that time of year—even if a lightning strike that lasted an entire minute was. Only as long as no one figured out its location, or realized it happened at the same time every year, would her secret be safe.

  This side of the hill overlooked a long stretch of forest. Somewhere in that forest, miles and miles away where she’d seen the other light, was there someone looking her direction, with traces of an aqua glow in their veins like she had in hers, wondering if they weren’t alone, after all?

  “Why do you think this is the first time we’ve seen it?” Talea asked.

  “Maybe...maybe they moved closer? Unless they just now got it for the first time.”

  If it the other had moved closer, then she knew one thing about them: they weren’t a laborer, like her. Lower class people weren’t allowed to leave their villages except with permission from their lord, and that was almost unheard of.

  Her eyes shifted to the left. Though hidden from view, her haliop lay only three-quarters of a mile in that direction. Talea’s mother, Seles, would want her to come in soon, before it was completely dark out. There was little choice but to swallow her excitement and go back to the world where she was just Talea Andul, no bizarre phenomenon of being struck by lightning on her birthday. “We should go.”

  Her friend acknowledged with a knowing smile. “As always, that was really something, you know.”

  Talea grinned. “Oh, I know. If you think watching it is something, try feeling it.”

  “I’m sure.” Brenly took one of Talea’s hands, smiling at the aqua glow. “If there’s another like you, well, maybe we can figure this out someday.”

  Talea closed her eyes a moment, making it easier to notice the warmth that still tingled under her skin. Figure it out. For the first couple years, that had always been the eager hope: to one day know the whys and hows. It had been a long time since she’d been able to think that there was a why or a how, that she wasn’t just…an anomaly. Alone in the world. “I hope so. Thanks.”

  Brenly gave her a hug, murmured a farewell, and slipped away into the woods. Talea set out toward her own haliop, in the opposite direction. Fortunately, the walk was long enough that the aqua glow had disappeared, and the warmth dissipated. As inconspicuous as those signs were, she didn’t want to risk her family noticing. She wondered if, when, and why she’d tell them. Surely she couldn’t just not tell anyone for the rest of her life. At some point, something had to happen.

  Talea slipped in through the front door that always creaked. Hopefully, Brenly was right, and the appearance of the second lightning pillar meant that there might finally be some answers, soon. If nothing else, it at le
ast meant she wasn’t different from every other person—that there was someone out there who shared her ability.

  Having to go home to her family and act as if nothing had happened, as if she were just like any other girl having a normal birthday, increased the feeling. They had no idea.

  Her mother glanced up as she entered. She was sitting in the living room patching a tear. “I heard thunder. Did it rain?”

  “No.” She poured herself a glass of water. “Some lightning, though.” It was painful, in a way, keeping it secret. She’d gotten used to it, though.

  After a few minutes, she excused herself to go to bed. There wasn’t much point in staying up late, when it was dark and there weren’t any chores to be done. Better to go to bed early and wake up with the sun. Her parents and brother didn’t stay up much later than she did. Soon the haliop was completely dark, completely quiet. The most prevalent noise was her own heartbeat, as she lay on a makeshift mattress of straw, thinking.

  She woke to her brother Naylen moving about in the other half of the bedroom that they had split with a flimsy wall of two blankets strung across. Only a faint light came from the window, as if the sun were just waking, too.

  Not having a job that started at dawn like the rest of her family, Talea didn’t have to get up quite so early. School wouldn’t begin for another two hours. But the more chores she got done now, the less she had to do later. Besides, she rarely slept in, or felt the desire to. Extra time on the thin mattress didn’t do her back any favors anyway.

  She worked on the laundry while her family quickly got ready to leave. None of them spoke much—it was somehow difficult to make much noise when it was so early, even if everyone in the haliop was awake. The sun had only just risen when they left. Seles gave her hand a squeeze and murmured a goodbye, Naylen poked her, and her father Loestin simply smiled before he ducked out the door.

  With the haliop to herself, Talea hummed or talked to herself as she worked, something Naylen never ceased to tease her about. It didn’t take her long to finish the laundry, giving her half an hour before she needed to leave for school. Taking an apple as her breakfast, she left the stuffy haliop in favor of the meadow outside, where she sat in the dewy grass. After finishing the apple, she pulled her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms over her shins to keep them there. She drew in a lungful of warm, clear air, as a smile pulled at her lips. This was her favorite time of day. Especially this morning, as she wondered about the possibility of another person like her. There were no distractions from her thoughts, no one around that she had to hide her excitement from. The sun painted everything in pale, creamy gold. The meadow that held her haliop was still, motionless. Birds sang and chirped as if excited for the new day. The only discomfort was the dew dampening her skirt—the sun glistening in a thousand crystal drops on the emerald grass made up for the nuisance.

  And with no one else in sight, she could practice.

  Better to do it in the woods than out in the open, just to be safe. Leaving her books behind, Talea jogged into the trees, going just deep enough that if someone were to enter the meadow that held her haliop, they wouldn’t see her. She picked up a stick. With it in one hand, she concentrated, finding the energy that simmered in her core, and pulling it into her other hand. Letting it travel from her fingertips, she formed a beam, a couple feet long. It was something she did often, something she had seen plenty of times...still, she gazed at it in wonder. As far as she could tell, it was lightning. White, crackling light tinged with blue. It was energy. And, as she’d learned four years ago, it was dangerous.

  She’d been exploring the forest with Brenly. Admittedly, they’d gone farther from her haliop than they were supposed to. A forest cat had pounced on them from a tree. Without even thinking, Talea had swung at it with a beam not so different than the one she held now. And to her horror and relief, it had gruesomely burned the cat. They had fled immediately without taking time to study the results, but she suspected the creature had died.

  After that, she’d decided to practice. If she ever needed to use it again, she wanted to be prepared.

  Talea lifted the stick, and tossed it into the air. As it fell, she swung with the beam of energy. With a sizzle, it sliced through it. The two pieces hit the ground, blackened where she’d struck.

  Maintaining the beam in her right hand, she repeated the process, using smaller and smaller sticks and gradually tossing them farther away from her, so that she had to lunge to hit them.

  After several repetitions, she had to abandon the training. It was time to go to school. Letting the beam fizzle back into her hand, she ran back to the meadow, grabbed her books, and started the trek to the village.

  The walk to school was a little over half a mile. If she cut across the woods between her haliop and the schoolhouse, it would be shorter. Instead, she followed the gravel path. It took her away from the meadow and into the surrounding forest, where it adjoined to a larger, better kept path that served as the main road of Vissler Village. At the end of it was Lord Vissler’s mansion. Along the way, smaller, overgrown paths branched out, leading to the haliops of the other villagers. Soon, Talea wasn’t alone. Kids ranging from six to fifteen marched along with her, boots crunching on the gravel. Some walked in groups, others alone. She waved or smiled at some of the other girls her age but didn’t join them.

  The trip didn’t take long. After fifteen minutes, she passed the station, one of exactly three wooden buildings in Vissler that were larger than a shed. Laborers didn’t live in houses, but haliops, the more cheerful term for a dug-out in the side of a hill. Apparently, they were cheaper. She’d never actually seen a normal house like middle class would have, but if it was all wooden, she guessed it was the materials necessary that made the difference. Lords never paid any more for their laborers’ expenses than they had to.

  Five more minutes and she was at the schoolhouse, one of the other two wooden buildings. On Eundays, it also served as the assembly house. There were about forty children bunching outside the entrance. She waited her turn to shuffle up the porch steps and through the door. Inside, she took her usual seat about halfway up. Miss Abley was standing behind the desk at the front, sorting through a stack of papers. When everyone was seated, she silenced the low buzz of conversation with two sharp claps.

  “Alright, class, let’s get started.” Her voice, as usual, sounded tired.

  And so began the day, full of such exciting subjects as tyrannical kings who seemed to be evil just for fun, of advanced arithmetic that Talea doubted she’d be using much during her lowly laborer’s existence, and a little reading. That was interesting, but brief, apparently less of a priority than math and history.

  Perhaps school as a whole wouldn’t have been so bad, if Miss Abley put a little more effort into her job. As far as she could tell, everyone else thought she was a fine instructor, but Talea had felt almost from day one that the middle-class woman was not enthusiastic about being assigned to a laborer’s village. Miss Abley began as the instructor in Vissler when Talea was twelve, so school had been extra boring for the past three years. That didn’t stop her from being an excellent student. Boring or not, at least she was getting an education. She’d heard that in some laborer’s villages, the local lords didn’t even bother hiring an instructor, and any learning children received would be from their parents.

  Besides, she wanted to finish strong. She would turn sixteen on her next birthday, so this was going to be her last year of school before she would begin working her job division.

  Still, today, she found it hard to concentrate. Her mind continuously strayed to the possibility of another person, somewhere in the woods east of Vissler Village, that was like her. And no matter how many times she told herself that no, it was impossible to find them...she couldn’t help wondering. But there was no way for her to leave the village to go look. Even if she could leave, she couldn’t possibly pinpoint the location of the other lightning pillar.

  Pursing her lips,
Talea set aside wishful thinking to finish her arithmetic problems.

  As the sun was lowering from its highest point in the sky, Miss Abley dismissed them for the day. Talea picked up her things and slipped off the bench, but didn’t wedge into the flow of kids exiting the building. She waited until the aisle was clear, then approached Miss Abley.

  “Excuse me...I was just wondering.” She fingered the cover of one of her books as Miss Abley’s eyes drilled into hers. “Do you have any books I could borrow about lightning?”

  “Lightning? What for?”

  “I don’t know.” She feigned a sheepish smile. “I’m just curious about it, is all.”

  “Hmm. Alright. Well.” Miss Abley stood and approached her bookshelf, scrutinizing it. “I have a book about weather, it may have something about lightning. You want that?”

  Talea nodded. “Yes, please.” Miss Abley took down the book and gave it to her. “Thank you.”

  With the book added to the stack under her arm, she left the school. Almost all the other children were already gone. None of them had time to stay and chat or lounge in the schoolyard before returning home—there were chores to do. Today, Talea had to make a trip to the mercantile, to purchase the week’s food and a few other odds and ends.

  A short walk and she was there. It was the last of the three wooden buildings of Vissler—everything else was a haliop, or a tiny shed. As the door of the mercantile swung shut behind her, the chime of a bell signaled her arrival to the man behind the counter. His sharp chin jerked up. “Hello, Talea!”

  Talea smiled at him. “Hi, Mr. Skreni. A beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is, dear. Just finish with school, did you?”

  “Yes sir. And I admit that I find your mercantile far more pleasant than the schoolhouse. How on Kameon do you keep it smelling so good in here?” she cocked her head as if intensely curious.

  Mr. Skreni was grinning. “That’s my secret. Come now, what are you after today?”