Daughter of Lightning

by Anna Logan

  “But…” Naylen’s brow furrowed. “Why do you care what I do, and not them?”

  Before Yhkon could reply with something snarky, Grrake put a hand on Naylen’s shoulder. “There are factors at play that you don’t know about. Someday you will. For now, please take our advice.”

  Yhkon gave a dry laugh as he pointed Naylen in the direction of the Anduls’ haliop. “He’s more polite than me. It’s not advice. Go.”

  A few seconds of hesitation, and Naylen was jogging away. He was still visibly stiff from the flogging two weeks ago, but mobile enough.

  With Naylen gone, Grrake lowered his hood so that Yhkon could actually see his worried expression. “Why are you being so…”

  He started for the forest where they left their celiths. “You and your bloody sympathy, Grrake. Let’s go. He’ll go to Talea, she’ll admit to him about her ability, and they’ll leave the village. I’d say things are working out nicely.”

  ~♦~

  “Leave?” Brenly stepped closer, lowering her voice. As if they weren’t out in the woods by themselves, at midnight. “Leave?”

  “Well...yeah.”

  “It’s illegal. Where would we go?”

  Talea shrugged pathetically. “To find the other.”

  “How? Wylan may have a vague estimate of where the lightning pillar is, but beyond that? We don’t have money. We’re lower class—if anyone saw and reported us...that’s it. And that’s assuming Vissler’s men don’t catch us in the first place. They’d probably kill us, Talea.”

  “I know.” She meandered her way to a stick, picked it up, and fiddled with it. “Wylan says...we should escape the assassins, and if we found the other, maybe we could...defeat them or something.”

  Brenly let out a long exhale and spoke quietly. “We barely know Wylan.”

  “If we’re choosing between him or assassins, though, I choose him.”

  “We’re not just choosing between them. We’re deciding whether we should risk our lives to follow a stranger to a likely death or stay home with two guys who a stranger told you were assassins? Didn’t you say you think they want you alive? Didn’t you say they’ve already stopped you from doing dangerous stuff? Then illegally leaving the village might not be necessary.”

  Talea scribbled in the dirt with the stick. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

  Someone cleared their throat nearby, startling both of them. “Sorry.” Wylan appeared. “Just me.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “How long have you been spying on us?”

  He advanced close enough to converse comfortably and no closer. “I went to your haliop, to see if you’d decided. When you weren’t there, I looked around. No spying.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t like coming out in the middle of the night like this, but it had been the only way to have a private discussion with Brenly. And she’d wanted to talk to her after Wylan had suggested leaving the night before. “Wylan, this is Brenly. Brenly, Wylan.” After the obligatory shaking of hands, the three of them all stood awkwardly, none sure what to say.

  “Talea!” the call came from the direction of their haliop. And it wasn’t Seles’ voice.

  She and Brenly exchanged looks. “Isn’t that Naylen?”

  Wylan had tensed a little. “Either he broke himself out, or someone broke him out. Either way things will be messy. You better go.” A pause, then he looked at Talea. “I could stay nearby. If you decide to tell him, I can help explain.”

  Telling Naylen any of this was the last thing she wanted to do. But Wylan was right—whatever had happened, it probably would complicate matters further...and if they were going to even consider leaving, she needed to tell her brother and mother. “Yeah, go ahead and hang around. We’ll—”

  Naylen called for her again.

  “Alright, let’s go.” She and Brenly ran back the way they’d come, at a cautious speed to avoid tripping in the underbrush. In the meadow that held their haliop, Naylen was just starting for the woods, probably to look for them, while Seles was standing beside the haliop.

  He saw them and jogged the rest of the way to meet them. “Where were you? Why are you out—”

  “Why are you here?” she caught his arm and hesitated on whether or not to hug him. No matter what it meant, she was glad he was back. She hugged him for just a second before all three of them started back to the haliop and Seles. “How did you…?”

  “Two men broke all of us out.” He was tense. Not scared, but ready. She could sense it in his posture and his taut muscles. “I don’t know who they were...they wouldn’t say, or why they did it. But they took those Kaydorians out like it was nothing.”

  Brenly’s face was quizzical. “Who would…?”

  Talea watched the haliop growing closer, the grass swishing around their feet, Seles waiting for them...Everything was so dark. What if it was them? What if they were watching? “What did they look like? Did they wear hoods and masks?” A twig snapped under someone’s foot and she jumped. “Minimal armor, not like the soldiers? Just on their arms and chests and—”

  Naylen stopped walking, though they were almost to the haliop anyway. “How do you know all that?” Seles came to them, but Naylen ignored her question as he drilled Talea with his stare. “How did you know, Tal?”

  “What’s going on?” Seles grabbed her arm. They were all staring at her, now. “Why were you girls out in the woods? It’s midnight! Naylen...who broke you out? This is all...” she let go, putting her hand to her mouth, voice quivering. “They’ll come back for you. The Kaydorians. And then…”

  “Not if...” Naylen relented his scrutiny of her, at least for now. “The men that broke us out...they told me to leave. Mom, I know it’s crazy…” He had to speak over her as she started to object, “It is crazy. I’d rather be drafted than put all of us in danger like that, but…” his gaze shifted to Talea again. “I don’t know who they were, but they seemed to know who I was. They talked to me but not the other men.”

  Her heart was racing. This was it, then. It was them. They had freed her brother...why? A warning to her? Were they trying to show how much power they had over her family? That it didn’t matter where they went, these two men could find them and overpower whoever was in charge? If that was true, even if they did stay at home, they wouldn’t be safe anywhere.

  Naylen stepped closer to her. “What do you know?”

  She had to swallow and clear her throat to loosen her tongue. “They...they’re assassins, or something similar...and they’re here for me. Me and...and this other guy, Wylan, he’s…” Brenly was biting her lip and making a thorough evaluation of the ground they stood on. Seles and Naylen were staring at her like she was crazy. You have to tell them. Her entire body was trembling, no matter how she told herself to relax. “There’s something I haven’t told you. About me. I have...an ability.”

  Seles’ brow creased with bafflement. “What?”

  Their eyes were confused. She blinked and looked away, but she could still feel them.

  Brenly took her hand. “Show them.”

  “Show us what?”

  “This.” She lifted her other hand. For one long, long second...she didn’t do anything. Maybe she could explain this away. Tell them it was a joke, a misunderstanding, they should all just go to bed, tomorrow would be fine… No. The energy was there, simmering in her core, ready. A simple thought and it was traveling through her veins, down her arm, into her hand...all in that second...and then it was glowing under her skin. Sparks fizzled in contact with the cool air. Another second. Do it. She withdrew the energy, into a sphere of blue light that crackled above her palm. It was lightning, as far as she could tell. But it also wasn’t. Lightning came with storms, striking in a flash of mystery. This, whatever it was, dwelt inside of her. And it could come out, in whatever form she told it.

  Seles had backed away, until she ran into the haliop, and leaned against it. Naylen didn’t move. His eyes reflected the light as he stared. Tentativel
y, he reached out his hand as if to touch it. She withdrew the sphere into her palm. “Don’t, it’ll…shock you, I guess. Like when you brush hands with someone sometimes and there’s that tingle? It’s like lightning.”

  “Lightning? You have…lightning in your hand? You…” he stumbled a step away from her, hand covering his mouth. Only to abruptly step closer. “Do it again.”

  Her hand trembled as she raised it again. This time, she made an arc of energy that only lasted a few seconds.

  He shook his head slowly. “Is it…” a pause. She could hear the word he didn’t say: witchcraft. “What is it? What is this, Tal?”

  Seles was completely silent.

  “I don’t...I don’t know!” she clasped her hands together tightly, as if she could wring out the power that should not be there. “It started when I was eight. A…a pillar of lightning, every year on my birthday. Brenly saw it, my eighth birthday when it first came. That’s how she knew. Since then, I can…make it. Control it. But I don’t know what it is.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?!”

  “It was…I was scared!” She wished Seles would say something.

  Brenly spoke up quietly. “I know this is all confusing…but there’s a reason we’re telling you now. The assassins. It’s related.”

  Finally, Seles said something, in a whisper. “They want to kill you because of your ability?”

  “Then why did they free me from the Kaydorians?”

  Talea tried not to flinch under Naylen’s hot gaze and tone. “They’re not trying to kill me. At first we thought they were...now we think they want to capture me, and the other with the ability, Wylan. Maybe...maybe they freed you as a warning to me. That they can get to you.”

  By his curled lip, he didn’t agree with the theory. He didn’t argue it, though. “What about...how did you find this Wylan? He must not live here.”

  “No, um…” would it help to involve Wylan in the conversation? Well, at this point, it probably couldn’t hurt. “He’s nearby, though. Should I…?” The news didn’t appear to please her brother. He almost looked like he was about to call Wylan himself, probably not in a polite manner. Instead, he glanced at Seles and made a vague gesture for Talea to do it. She sprinted for the woods, halfway to where she and Brenly had spoken to him. It was oddly relieving to get away, some of hdf tension easing. “Wylan?”

  He appeared shortly. His head was tilted slightly as he reached her. “I stayed out of earshot. You alright?”

  The question caught her off guard. If she wasn’t mistaken, aloof Sir Secrecy had just shown some concern for the possibility that the discussion with her family might upset her. She blinked away her surprise and decided she might have to give him a little more credit in the future. “Yeah...it could be worse. My brother wants to know about you, though, so…”

  A nod, Wylan’s preferred method of communication.

  Naylen was already glowering as the two of them walked up. Wylan didn’t look intimidated by it, simply putting his hands in his pockets as he usually did and nodding to him and then Seles.

  “You have this ability too?”

  Wylan demonstrated with a sphere, similar to hers.

  Seles finally surrendered her withdrawn position by the haliop, coming closer. There was a tremble in her voice. “Please tell us everything. I don’t...I don’t understand this. How do you have this, this…”

  “Yeah,” Naylen crossed his arms, “and how did you find each other?”

  Seeing as Wylan was no orator, most of the explanation was probably her responsibility. She couldn’t get rid of the shaky feeling in her limbs. Just get it together. Talk. “We both have the same birthday. It started when we turned eight, then every year after...a sort of pillar of lightning comes from the sky into our hands. Wylan saw mine from a distance and came to find it. He recognized me because, well,” she awkwardly extended her hand to him. He lightly grabbed it, enough for the sparks to dance over their softly glowing skin.

  “And...these assassins?” Seles looked to Wylan for this, as if hoping he would offer something comforting.

  He didn’t, though he spoke mildly. “They’ve been following me for several years. Having seen them kill my family, I assumed they wanted to kill me too. But it seems that they actually want both of us alive. I think they’re part of a rebellion against Kaydor and want us to help fight.”

  Seles’ eyes were sympathetic, as well as scared. Despite how calmly he’d stated it, the murder of his family effectively made the point. Naylen, however, didn’t take long to move past it. “You can fight with it?” His animosity was giving way to interest. That didn’t surprise her—as soon as words like “fight” and “rebellion” were brought to the table, he would perk up.

  “Yes. That’s how I’ve kept away from them all for four years.”

  He looked to Talea. “And you can too?”

  “Well…” she scuffed the toe of her boot in the grass. “I’ve never actually done it, but...I could. I was going to, the day of the draft. One of those men stopped me, though.”

  Naylen thought for a couple seconds, then gestured as he spoke. “Okay. If they’re in rebellion against Kaydor, who seems to be a tyrant, why are they bad?”

  Wylan’s tone remained even, but there was a bit of heat in his dark eyes. “What part of ‘they killed my family’ did you miss?”

  “Well—”

  “My parents, my older siblings, and my eight-year-old sister. You think they can still be good?”

  Naylen grit his teeth.

  Seles put her hands on either side of her head, inhaling shakily. “What...what do we do? They’re here? Somewhere around the village?”

  “I think we should leave.” Talea winced as soon as Wylan said it. “There’s another lightning pillar. We could go find them and stay away from Yhkon and Grrake.” Grrake’s name she remembered—Yhkon must have been the other one, that had talked to her outside the schoolhouse and stopped her the day of the draft. At the stares his declaration was met with, Wylan added, “What you do is your choice, of course. But I can’t stay anyway. The Eradication is coming back.”

  Before Talea could ask him what he meant, Seles gasped and turned away. What? “Mom?”

  Wylan noticed the reaction, too. “Are you San Quawr too?”

  Talea wrinkled her nose. “No. You are? We—”

  “Yes we are.” Seles was beginning to cry. “Talea, Naylen...we never told you because it was safer...but we are all San Quawr. And if Kaydor is bringing the Eradication back…”

  “What?” she looked to Naylen. He was confused, too. “What...Eradication? What is that?”

  Wylan waited a moment to see if Seles would respond. When she didn’t, he explained: “They want to eradicate our race. It’s the killing or enslaving of all San Quawr.”

  Seles, still crying, spoke before Talea could even decipher his meaning. “You’re right. We have to leave. We have to escape it while we can. And if there are no soldiers here…then we should leave tomorrow night.”

  7

  The Twins

  T he sun had not yet risen, casting everything in dimness, with the sky gradually paling at the horizon. It wasn’t so dark as to significantly limit visibility, however. Talea glanced over her shoulder at the haliop. The windows were dark, not even a candle lit within. Inside, all the furniture remained. Any preservable food had been taken, any perishable food was thrown out, and anything else was left. Eventually the empty haliop would be sold to whoever could afford it, and it would belong to them.

  Because it no longer belonged to the Anduls, as if it ever had.

  She faced forward again lest she run into a tree. Part of her was nostalgic and wistful, leaving behind the only home she’d ever known. The other part was undeniably excited to be free. No lord ruling over them. No working for twelve hours a day in order to put food on the table. No arranged marriages. No restrictions.

  Excitement probably wasn’t so wise. Seles was walking behind her with shoulders hunc
hed and head down, eyes still red from crying. And their departure was still risky. By killing the Kaydorian soldiers and at least most of Lord Vissler’s men, Yhkon and Grrake had—if nothing else—given them an opening to escape the village. They had told Naylen more soldiers would come in a few days. That was less than two days ago, but still.

  Rose huffed, as if about to howl, the way she did when other yuleys were around. Naylen clamped a hand over her muzzle. Wylan jerked his hand the way they were traveling, indicating they should quicken their pace. The sooner they were away from the village, the better. Some of the soldiers or Lord Vissler’s men could have survived. If, somehow, her family’s absence was noticed too soon…Talea preferred not to consider what would happen then. Would they fight? She and Wylan probably could, but…she also preferred not to consider the notion of getting into a conflict.

  She glanced again at Seles, walking at the rear of the group, head down and jaw firm with a frown. Talea had the urge to apologize to her again. It wasn’t much use, though. She’d already apologized for not telling them about the lightning, or the assassins, or any of it. Her mother still seemed to be in shock. All the rest of that long night, most of which they’d all spent explaining and planning, throughout the following day, and into these early morning hours as they crept away…she had hardly spoken.

  Well, who could blame her for being upset? Talea let her gaze fall to her hands, allowing the faintest glow of blue into her veins. Could this situation have been avoided if she’d told her family about the ability years ago? She wrestled with the thought, but eventually sighed, resigned to the fact that it probably wouldn’t have made a difference either way. But while it probably wouldn’t have helped their current situation, it definitely would have saved her mother another shock. She had enough worries as it was without piling on so many more. The fact that they had to flee the village to escape this Eradication was bad enough, without adding on assassins and insane abilities.