by K M McGuire
“Jali’tez!” she finally called out, her attention now focused on the elder Tastin. Her bubble vanished and materialized in front of him. She bore her eyes into the older man, as the white turned back to their piercing green orientation. “You expect me to believe these are the sad ‘champions’ I am to council with?” She leaned provocatively against the bubble, pressing it close to Jali’tez, who kept his head low, quivering not to look. She rubbed up against it. “You wouldn’t try to fool me again, would you?” she said almost sweetly, but her eyes screamed her anger, her acidic eyes melting his composure.
“N…no my queen!” he said hurriedly. “I am nearly sure this time! He bares an artifact that is created far beyond anything I have ever seen!” He thrust his accusations towards Andar. Voden watched the blood drain quickly from his skin. Blossum scanned Andar for the first time, shaking her head.
Her orb fizzled out of existence and again splintered back in front of Andar, her brows burrowing into his eyes with disbelief. “You look like Nosh,” she whispered, her eyes flustered with a memory misting across her pupils.
“But I am Andar,” he responded firmly, straightening the best he could. He held his chest as he tried to hold her gaze, breathing heavily, fighting the urge to fall prey to her beauty. She stretched out her hand, seeming to lose her composure for a moment, touching dreamily the inside of her prison, as if to rub Andar’s face.
“You are, aren’t you?” she whispered, nearly returning to her seductive demeanor. She giggled and pressed her finger against the globe at his nose. “You have the heart of a lion,” she determined, smiling manically at him. She laughed curtly, sliding herself down the bell of the sphere, stretching herself in front of Andar. “And your friend? Who is he?” she asked playfully, fiddling with a wisp of hair that drifted in front of her face. She chose not to look at Voden, though she did listlessly wave her hand in his direction.
“Voden,” Andar said then added awkwardly, “Your Highness.”
She nearly choked on her own laugh. “Your Highness…” She spun herself up, hands stretched above her head, as the orb faded, leaving her laugh to echo around their heads. The curled wave of yellow tore through the air again, centering Blossum among the party. “Perhaps it is more flattering in my latter years, even after all the pleasures that come with it are taken.” She stared at the boys, flicking the globe with her finger, resounding a resolute note.
“You are who we’ve been searching for then?” Andar said, cutting the note short. She put her hand against the orb, stopping the ring abruptly, now the world becoming increasingly cold and quiet. “Y-you are Blossum, right?”
“Yes,” she said, rather roughly, her eyes paling.
She waved her hand, and instantly, massive splinters of roots burst through the stone, lashing like thirsty tongues towards the sky. The Tastin warriors scrambled and scattered as the white tubes snatched Andar and Voden, coiling like ravenous pythons around them. She clenched her fist slightly, and the radicles pulsed tightly around their bodies. Andar squirmed, grinding his teeth in pain. They hung in the air, while Blossum hovered between them. Tiny flagella-like roots tickled against Voden’s chin, his breath coming hard, a mixture of the binding roots compressing his chest, and the earthen smell burned in his nose. Blossum’s eyes were lost to a shroud of white orbs unmoving in her head. Her prison glowed gently against their skin. Andar still struggled. His shirt was now soaked with red, as if his wounds had torn open again. She seemed to not pay much attention to it. “What would be a good reason to keep you alive?”
“Please,” Voden wheezed, gritting his teeth. “We only came for an elixir. We were told you could help us!”
She held her eyes on Voden, her gaze feeling permanent. He felt the root pulse again. It slackened, only a little. She rested against the orb and snapped her fingers. “Yes,” she whispered dryly, and a sharp blue light flowered above her hand. It unfurled and flashed white, as a cerulean vial spun above her hand, lighting her face with its mystical essence.
Voden felt his heart hold for several beats, awestruck by the corked salvation just beyond his reach.
“But,” she said, swiping her hand. The vial was whisked away into particles, fading into Voden’s memory, “I think you are at my whim, aren’t you?” She laughed and faded from in front of them, a cloud of swirling air danced in its place.
Suddenly, the roots pulled them back down to the earth, releasing them to rub their aching sores. Andar nearly collapsed, holding his chest.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked fiercely.
“His chest was cut open by wolves,” Voden said, about to check his friend, but Blossum held her hand up, and directed Ralus over instead. He pulled the cloak off Andar and lifted his shirt. Some of the stitches had pulled apart, and a glob of blood tried to congeal, only to rip as the Tastin pulled the shirt to examine it.
“You didn’t find a Healer?” She seethed, driving her boiling eyes against Jali’tez.
“W-we did what we could with what we had!” he stammered.
She looked over Andar with a thoughtful grimace. “Will you be fine?” she asked Andar. He nodded and brushed Ralus off him, pulling the cloak back over his arm. A flash of silver and blue caught Voden’s eye. “You are not cowards like the last boy searching for the Elixir,” she muttered, looking eagerly at Andar’s arm.
“What boy?” Voden asked.
She stared at him, almost confused at the question and abated it with a wave of her hand. “He was of no consequence. Now, show me your arm.”
Andar gave her a rather cross look, pulling up his sleeve, revealing the gauntlet hissing with motion. It seemed irritated at the presence of Blossum as she approached. Her eyes grew wide at the coils of polygons, inching her globe against Andar. His eyes wandered across her, and for a moment Voden was unsure what had crossed through Andar’s mind, as though he felt sorry for her.
Voden couldn’t explain it and struggled more to understand it, when she asked, “What is this?” Her voice seeped with excitement, watching the blue light stream across her face, her eyes glittering with the shapes.
“It’s the Keeper’s Bane,” Andar responded, pressing his hand against his chest. Blossum stepped back in her bubble, consternation now blooming on her face, her hand laying on her chest.
“I’ve searched for this blade,” she whispered. Her face becoming suddenly void of emotions. “This is the key.” She moved above the ground, in a trance of thought. “Fine,” she finally said, turning to the boys, “I will give you the elixir.” Elation flushed across Voden’s face, causing him to laugh. “But you must agree to my conditions.”
“Only if you heal his wounds!” Voden responded.
Blossum tapped the globe, and it rang like a bell again. “If only I could. Healing requires touch. I cannot do that.” She smiled, the bubble fading again and appearing behind Andar. She lay on the bottom, legs crossed in the air, staring at the back of his head, thoughtfully. “If you free me, I will heal you.”
“And what if we can’t?” Andar asked, turning towards her. His eyes grew wide as he stared into her face, and she returned his gaze, sweetly staring into him.
“If you cannot free me, then you will help me kill the Zemilia.”
Voden tried to swallow the nausea that crept up his throat. He couldn’t imagine having to go to war to save Adetia. What options did he have? Would killing hundreds save thousands? He turned to Andar for comfort, but he only grimaced, hand now brown with drying blood.
“I don’t think war is a good option,” Andar finally said. His voice faltered a little, his face screwing up a bit from the pain. “How are we to free you?”
Blossum mindlessly fiddled with her hair, staring musingly at Andar. She smiled and began to sing:
“By what was forged in sphere Beyond,
Embrace the knight the heavens lost.
Eternal sword splits curse in twain,
The pure of heart will cause torment to wane.”
Her voice swirled the snow at their feet, wrapping the lacy strings of glitter around Andar in a provocative manner, his eyes closing a moment, breathing in the air.
“What does it mean?” Andar asked quietly. His eyes shimmered with concern, and all that Blossum could give in response was a mirthless smile.
“You are to break the curse.”
Andar looked at Voden, his consternation came out in an exasperated laugh. “What makes you think I’m to do it and not my friend?”
The globe vanished in a plume of snow that had rested on top of it. It sparkled down to the ground as if it were the dust of fairies from the tales Voden remembered as a child.
“That sword upon your arm,” echoed Blossum’s voice through the woods, caressing them with a strange sweetness, “is the key to everything. Did Eigan not tell you?” She fazed back in front of Andar, rubbing against the bubble, her back facing him, looking over her shoulder. “Have you heard of the Keepers?” she asked, turning towards them. Voden and Andar both shook their heads. She nodded. “When I was a young girl—to think on how long ago that was—we were told they were dark beings bound to the earth. They were corruptions that blighted it and needed purging, slowly draining the life from creation. Even then, we thought them legends, but legends didn’t keep us from war. It was why we fought against the Tastins.”
“The war you ended?” Andar asked, remembering the stories Razar had told him.
“Yes,” she said, smiling proudly. “‘The Great Merge’ they called it.” She scoffed at the thought. “We were all lied to. Mostly because we found little result from the bloodshed: families torn apart over something we could never prove…beings no one believed even existed.” She shook her head again, rubbing her finger against the edge of the orb thoughtfully. “Regardless, I should not have been cursed with this eternity. The Zemilia struck me with suffering that has made me wonder if the proof was always right there.”
“I don’t know if I follow,” Voden muttered. She stared at him with violently white eyes. He gulped, trying to pry away from her gaze.
“I’m rambling,” she said finally. “Spouting off thoughts. Angst builds towers of insanity, and I have nearly two thousand years of it.” She curled her hand into a tight fist, as vehement pillars of ice burst from the lake behind her. Voden hid his face from the splash of water that spattered his cloak, turning slowly to slush. “Perhaps if you see,” she said, eyes now flaring bright, and soon it began to wash away her face, “you will understand.” She lifted her arms, pointing her finger at Voden and Andar’s head. “Let me show you the curse that binds me, and why I wish to burn the Zemilia at its roots.”
A white fog seeped from her eyes, filling the space inside the sphere. The light grew vibrant; the only thing that was able to leak out of the orb, and yet her eyes were still outlined amid the glow. Voden felt her stare draw him in, gazing at a memory, and as he stared at the speck, it drew him further in. As he gave his subconscious to the light, he saw a frail teardrop-shaped gleam flash one last time before the fog tore his mind away from him.
∞ ∞ ∞
There was something transcendent about watching the grain and chaff cast into the air. It was almost like a dance of freedom, releasing itself from the first bond of life it had, shedding its physical cloak, caught by the mystical, whisking away the outline that covered the final form, like an artist brushing their carving clean. Something had always made her wonder after the husks that drifted off on the back of the wind, fluttering without resistance, knowing its place as it returned to dust. The essence of its purpose, like the chest to the heart was now fulfilled and taken by the caravan of eastern zephyr, no longer the shelter and mold to the grain. Perhaps the greatest of secrets were trapped in metaphors waiting for the chaff to be broken from itself.
Blossum wiped the sweat off her brow, flicking the basket again. The grain flipped through the air like a tide smashing against a rocky shore, and the reaping wind snatched the chaff. The first of the harvest was the Beyond’s. It was nearing summer’s end, where the oxen pulled thick wagons through the fields, marching across the horizon through the shadowy yellow haze of crop, as if admiring the sun as it voyaged across the sky. Satisfied with her threshing for the day, she filled her final bag with the grain she was separating and rode her mule back to her parents’ quaint little home.
Her mother greeted her warmly with a smile, yelling for Blossum’s younger siblings to come in for dinner, “We have a visitor!” her mother said excitedly, her eyes twinkling as if she were presenting a gift.
“Who is it, mother?” Blossum asked, hoping it was not one of the Alfin boys. They desperately sought after Blossum, arguing which one of them would take her hand, but the thought of being with either of them turned her stomach. She hadn’t understood why her mother cared so much about them. It didn’t matter who’s blood they had, it never paid towards a person’s own character. Great Beyond save her if they offered her father land again, he could not refuse the Oathwarden’s sons any longer.
“Lass, you sound so bitter to see me!” came a cheerful, matronly voice from inside the house. The voice was war-battered, rugged and stout, just like the little woman Blossum had missed so dearly.
“Estra!” Blossum squealed, her cheeks becoming nearly raw from the smile that came with the revelation. She hugged the little pear-shaped woman—her aunt—who was back from her campaign.
“Ho, ho, lass! My bones aren’t young enough for such embraces! Not even from a proper man!” She kissed Blossum on the brow, her cheeks rosy from mead if the smell of her breath bore any truth.
“The war has you drinking again?” Blossum asked sternly, burning her sharp blue eyes into her aunt’s abundantly watery gaze.
“Well, in part,” Estra said, giving Blossum’s mother a queer look. Blossum took the exchange as a reason to pry no more.
“Father back yet?” Blossum asked, turning to her mother.
“Soon,” she said, still trying to compose herself. “Wash up for dinner. We can ask all the questions we need to when we have a meal in our stomachs.”
“Don’t tease me, Rhosyn! I’ll eat now before your husband returns! The shit they give you in the camps…hah! Your mules eat finer than even the Oathwardens!”
“Estra! Don’t be crude!” Rhosyn snapped. “And put your axe outside, too, please!”
“Fine, I meant no offense.” She winked at Blossum, hefting the double-headed weapon on her shoulder. It was nearly as big as her. The head of it was almost as round as her torso.
Blossum returned a smile and gathered her brothers and sisters to the table, and soon her father came in as dinner was served to each of them. Estra began inhaling the stew, moaning each time her spoon hit her lips as if in a deep meditative state. “Great Beyond, Rhosyn! I had not forgotten this!”
“Thank you, Estra,” Rhosyn muttered humbly. The conversation was light around the table. The children talked about the frogs they had been trying to catch by the stream, while the adults and Blossum discussed the harvest well under way, all the while, Blossum’s mother stayed relatively quiet, as Estra began to tell tales of the battles she’d survived.
“It’s not going well,” she said somberly, accepting the jug of mead Blossum’s father passed to her. Rhosyn shot him a weary glance but said nothing. “Those nomads and their cursed magic! I have no idea how we will win. Great Beyond, take my blood if we don’t slay that Keeper of theirs! That’s the source of their magic! If we could make some headway, we could find the abomination!” she blurted, her eyes turning beady.
“You can’t still believe in them?” said Blossum’s father, shaking his head sadly.
“Of course, I do!” She retorted, mead spitting from her mouth across the table. “Have you ever been to the ruins of Nul’Sceza? All broken pieces of land! It’s a salt marsh now. The stories of Eurruk line up, you know. And there are spirits there…many spirits. You may not believe because you haven’t seen, but I can attest to the ghouls that still wander th
rough there. No wonder the Scez abandoned their home! There is still something left there; you can feel the shiver in your spine. Whatever Eurruk did to drown that city, the Great Beyond had a true victory. Not like now. Not like this faithless war we fight against the Tastins.”
“He’s been dead hundreds of years!” he huffed. “And you can’t tell me all of this war is worth a fading nightmare of a priest!”
“He was a prophet!” Estra seethed. “And quite a difference there is! Great Beyond should smite us all for blasphemous mouths like that!”
“I was talking about our current priest,” he said ruefully. “I just can’t understand how this is what the Great Beyond wants us to do. Slaughtering thousands…for what? You said it was a giant tree?”
“If that is the will of the Beyond,” Estra said, pressing her lips coldly together. “I won’t ask you to understand. It’s a lack of faith like yours that those of us fighting can’t bring ourselves to do more.” She shook her head. “Great Beyond, save us! There will be an end to this war, but I fear it will push north and wipe us all out.”
Blossum felt her brow tilt with concentration. She looked around the table at her little brother, slyly adding some of his stew to his younger sister’s bowl every time she looked away. It made her smile, but now, thinking of the Tastin coming north, even these memories would mean nothing.
“If the Tastins break the tree line and cross the Embosso,” Estra said, she scoffed at the thought, “we’re all fucked.”
The table grew quiet. Blossum’s parents shared a fallen expression, unable to bring their eyes towards their children, and how well they knew that truth prevented them from even chastising Estra for her foul language.
“I want to fight,” Blossum said suddenly, looking firmly at her family. Estra shook her head.
“No, lass, you are too pretty for that.”
“I’d rather defend my family then have them slaughtered and raped!” she said heatedly, grimacing at the thought.
