Call of Kythshire (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 1) (5 page)

“Just think about it, okay?” he says. “They ought to know.” He slides the door open and we step through, and I press my knuckles to my lips to keep from laughing at the scene that greets us.

Cort stands in the center of the ring, his deep brown skin already shining with sweat. He has attached Bryse’s massive shield to one arm, and it’s so huge he has to rest the edge of it on the dirt floor to keep it upright. In his other hand, he wields Bryse’s enormous sword, which is comically larger than the graceful dual blades he normally favors. He whips his long braids over his shoulder and braces himself behind the shield unsteadily. The tip of the heavy sword lowers ever so slightly as he stands at the ready. Opposite, Bryse charges him. Clenched in Bryse’s giant fists, Cort’s delicate swords could be toothpicks.

The much larger man’s thick biceps ripple beneath his stony gray skin, and he snarls and brandishes the small weapons in a poor attempt at Cort’s swashbuckling style. They clatter fervently against the shield behind which Cort barely has to duck to stay protected. Occasionally Cort peeks to gauge the attack while Bryse moves slowly around him, slashing. Then, catching an opening, the smaller man reaches around the shield with the great sword and taps Bryse on the knee. “Touch!” He cries and pops up, letting the shield fall forward. He shakes out his arm, loosening it up.

“Bah!” Bryse catches the shield before it crashes to the dusty floor. “You got lucky,” he says. Rian and I clap. Cort offers a bow with a flourish, and Bryse taps him on the top of the head with the flat of his fist. “Showoff.” Rian approaches them and checks to be sure they have both seen the note, and then he heads off to find Brother Donal and Gaethon to collect their signatures on his way to the Academy. I cross the room to the weapon stand, pick up a random sword and a whetstone, and sit at the bench.

“You going to sharpen that one again?” Bryse causes a tremor which rattles my teeth as he drops down onto the bench beside me. “S’been sharpened by you three times this week. You could probably split the last hair on Donal’s head with that one, you could. Keep sharpening it and there’ll be nothing left.” He chuckles. I look down at the pristine blade in my lap. He’s right. I’ve sharpened every sword, axe, and dagger in the hall in the past week, more than once. I’m meant to be shadowing my knight, but she isn’t here, and I can’t be with her. Instead, I’ve polished armor and groomed horses and oiled tack and scrubbed floors and organized maps and split wood. It’s hard work, but at least I don’t have to spend any more days at the arms guild with Ragnor. Bryse pats my shoulder with his enormous hand and when I look up at him, his smile is kind and understanding.

“Go get your chain,” he says as he takes the sword and stone from my hands. “The two of us are bored out of our skulls. We could use some fresh meat to practice with.”

We spar together through the morning hours. I hold my own fairly well; it’s refreshing to have partners who are so skilled but don’t want to murder me. They certainly don’t go easy, though. It isn’t the first time we’ve had bouts together, but after a couple of hours it’s obvious to me they were being cautious in the past, when I was just a child with a sword. Today, they’re far more relentless. Cort uses all of the tricks I know against me, and then dozens of new ones I’ve never seen him perform before. Bryse doesn’t let up after a few good hits, but instead tenaciously forces me to keep up my guard as we circle the training square, swords clashing. I hold my own, and we are all grinning and laughing as they face me two against one. By the time Mouli comes to scold me for missing lunch, I’m soaking with sweat and every muscle in my body aches, but my heart is swelled up and I’m grinning like a fool.

“Y’know Az,” Bryse says around a mouthful of cold roast as he sits beside me, “there’s nothing that says you have to wait around for Lis. A squire’s a squire. A knight’s a knight.” I take an enormous bite of leftover turkey sandwiched inside a sliced breakfast roll and look up at him as I chew. Bryse would be a terrifying-looking man to a stranger, but his heavily scarred face and strong brow are so familiar to me that I have never been afraid of him.

“Aha, and here it comes.” Cort chuckles on the other side of me and takes a bite of cheese. At my questioning look, he winks. “He’s trying to steal you away from your lady knight.” The mention of my mother casts a shadow on my mood, and I take a long time to swallow. Bryse is also a knight, and he’s right. As a squire I’m not tied to any single knight.

“Why not? Just until she returns, of course.” I agree. I catch the two exchanging a glance, but they quickly look away from each other.

“Here, I’ll show you a trick with the shield.” Bryse brushes crumbs from his lap and strides to the center of the ring. I set down my roll and reach for my sword, and as my hand closes around the hilt, a sharp pain jolts through it and up my arm. Specks of darkness form at the edge of my vision. The room starts to spin, and my ears are flooded with blood-curdling screams. I throw the sword down in pain and it all goes away. Cort leans to pick it up for me and offers it hilt-first. He looks concerned. He says something and claps me on the back, but my ears are still ringing from the screams and I can’t hear what he’s saying. I grasp the hilt and the pain comes again, up my arm, into my neck, jolting my body. I keep my grip and the room starts spinning, spinning. The darkness closes in on me. The screaming thunders into my skull. I loosen my grip and my sword slips away and all of it stops abruptly. I drop to my knees. My stomach churns, and my lunch revisits me, and then everything goes black.

A cool breeze, rich with the scent of ripening wheat, washes over me as I’m cradled on a soft bed of grass. Above me golden fronds wave gently, brushing at the perfect blue sky. The breeze sends flakes of gold leaf glittering across the blue, wafting and dancing and dazzling my eyes. I am washed over with serenity as I watch the way the light plays blue, gold, and white. The colors bring me comfort, and I lie in silence among the grass and the wind. I watch the flecks move and swirl and imagine being carried off with them, way up into the deep blue sky. This place is my peace, it is all that matters to me. Time stretches slowly as the warm sun passes across the sky. I listen to the soft rustling of wheat mixed with the distant song of birds, the tapping of a woodpecker, the hum of a cricket playing like a symphony. Slowly, sky blue transitions to pink and orange and lavender.

The light wanes and the stars arrive one by one, winking onto the black night sky in a spray of sparkling diamonds. A smiling sliver of the moon shines down over me, washing everything in blue and white and gray. All around me, the golden fronds sparkle with dew. I feel the cool drops kissing my hair and my face and my arms and legs. The moon is high, and the crickets’ song blended with the peeping frogs stills to an eerie quiet. A soft rustling tells me someone approaches, but I’m not afraid. The wheat and the dew, the breeze and the moon will protect me. Rian’s smile eclipses the moon, and he comes closer and closer and presses his lips to mine. I close my eyes, and when I open them again it isn’t Rian, but Prince Eron. I try to move, but my body doesn’t respond. I feel the roots of myself dug deep into the earth. I have lain here for so long that I am one with the wheat and the grass and the soil. The Prince hovers over me and my eyes drift to his bare chest, where blue-black lines swirl and undulate and grow. They crawl up to his neck and across his arms. His hands graze my shoulders and the Mage Mark blackens his fingers and twists them into roots which wind and grow and twine around me. It doesn’t occur to me to fight it. I am safe, just an observer as the prince’s blackened body is swallowed up by the coiling form of a tree trunk, and the roots encase me and burst upwards, stretching knobby fingers, reaching wiry branches to touch the diamonds in the sky.

My roots are strong and calm, my branches sway among the stars. The sun rises and sets and rises again so many times I lose track of the days and the nights. The crickets’ song comforts me; the woodpecker taps a soft rhythm. In the quiet of a cool autumn night, I’m visited by a tiny creature dressed in white gossamer and down. Her rainbow wings cast prisms of light over the bark of my tree and I am reminded of the dancing flecks of gold leaf and the wafting fronds of wheat against a crisp blue sky. She resembles my mother with her delicate nose, the soft curve of her cheek, and the constant kind glint of a smile in her blue eyes. Her blond hair shimmers as her wings carry her up to look into my face. She rests a miniature hand on the bridge of my nose and peers deep into my eyes, tilting her head this way and that as if looking for something hidden deep within me. We smile at each other and then she gestures to a bright star which streaks overhead, twinkling with thousands of colors. I reach out a hand to catch it and it settles gently in my palm. It is a diamond, beautiful and pure, a match to all of the thousands I have watched twinkling above me for so many nights. The fairy flutters down and closes my fingers around the sparkling gem. Then she opens her mouth to speak.

“Azaeli Hammerfel, enough of this! You wake up right now!” Mouli’s voice startles me. I’m shaken by the shoulder and torn away from my tree and my wheat and my stars. Suddenly I’m painfully aware of the deep hollow feeling in my stomach. My head is pounding. My arms and legs are heavy. My mouth feels as if it’s full of sand. I try to push my eyes open but my lids only barely flutter in response. “Oh!” Mouli’s voice pounds in my ears, driving daggers through my aching head. “Oh! She’s up!” She fusses at my blankets and pats my face with a damp cloth.

“Luca!” She calls and my ears ring with each syllable. I hear her rush from the room and I let my eyes shut again. I try to conjure the beautiful place again, but it’s too distant now, an ancient memory.

“Ow,” I whisper as I squint at the blur that is Mouli. Any more noise like that and I swear my head will split wide open. She drops a bundle on the chair beside my bed and comes to my side again.

“Let’s sit you up slowly, dear, and get you changed. You’re soaking wet from fever.” She unties the laces of my nightgown and falls back with a cry, her hands clapped over her mouth. “Azi! Explain this!” My thoughts are jumbled, torn between two places. Dazed, I follow her scandalized glare to the bare skin over my heart, where a very small blue-black tendril swirls and twines in contrast against my pale white skin.

“I don’t...” my mouth is too dry, my voice too hoarse. My bedroom is too enclosed, too crowded even with just the two of us in it. I close my eyes. I think of the tree. I wriggle my toes, imagining the roots which felt so real, so strong and protective. Beneath the blankets, I clench my fists and feel something hard and unyielding press into my palm. I roll it between my fingers, trying to figure out what it is. It is smooth and cool, and when I focus on it, I’m reminded of the stars against the midnight blue sky. The fairy. The shooting star. The diamond.

“Luca! Send for Gaethon!” Mouli shouts, and I groan again as she rushes back downstairs. When I’m sure she’s a safe distance away, I pull my hand free of the blanket with great effort, feeling as if I haven’t moved in a week. The jewel is the size of my thumb, and when I hold it to the beam of sunlight that streams across my bed from the open window, it catches the light in colorful prisms that remind me of the fairy’s wings in my dream. I watch it dance and gleam for a long time, thinking about what it could have meant. I’ve never had a dream so real before, never longed to go back to it as much as I long to now. It was so beautiful.

Mouli returns and helps me change out of my damp nightgown and into a dry shift. I clench my hand around the diamond, careful not to drop it or to let her see it. Something in my heart tells me it’s meant to be a secret. She helps me to my bedside chair and presses a cup of water to my lips, which I take and drink gratefully. I close my eyes again while she changes the bedclothes. I’m shaking and weak, which seems strange. “Mouli?” I ask. “How long was I asleep?”

“Six days, poor dear.” She slides into the small space between me and the foot of my bed to tuck the ends in.

“Six days?” I groan. With any luck, my parents will have finished their quest and be home soon. I glance at the hatch to Rian’s room. “What word have they sent? Are they coming home?” Mouli pauses in her work and I open my eyes and watch her.

“Never you mind about that,” she says. “You need your strength back. I’ll fetch you something to nibble on while you wait for your uncle.” She finishes the bed and bustles out of the room again. I rest my head back against the chair. It’s no use trying to get anything out of Mouli. I’ve had too much experience with that in the past. She tells me what she thinks it’s good for me to know, and not much more, no matter how hard I try to get it out of her. She takes her duties seriously, and those duties sometimes involve keeping a tight lip.

My heart is racing, thumping against my chest as I sit slumped in my chair. She sent for Uncle. He’s coming here. He’ll see the Mark over my heart and what will he think? That I’ve been dabbling in forbidden magic? My stomach flips and I tuck the diamond under the covers of Margy’s fairy bed before Mouli returns with a tray and silently helps me back to bed. She watches to make sure I take a bite, and then pats me kindly on the shoulder. With a quick concerned glance at the Mark on my chest, she rushes out again, leaving me to wait alone in fear of my uncle’s wrath.

Once, when I was only seven years old and Rian was seven and a half, we were studying alone together in the guild hall. I set aside my dull writing to watch him as he practiced a simple movement spell. He would wave his hand and wiggle his fingers in an intricate pattern and speak strange words, and the button on the table would slide this way and that. It was fascinating to watch, and he taught me the incantation in secret whispers. He held my hands in his and showed me how to move them to perform the spell. The feel of the magic flowing through me as I made the button move was thrilling, and made me feel wonderfully lightheaded. It wasn’t long before we were nearly collapsed in a fit of giggles together as the button zoomed back and forth between us.

It was then Uncle Gaethon discovered us, casting and laughing as the button skidded across the table and struck the far wall. His fury was like none I had ever seen. His blue eyes seemed to glow with a white heat as he raged at us. Rian was at the time a Mage of First Circle. The spell he was practicing had been Third Circle. Uncle raged that no spell is harmless. It was too powerful for Rian. It could upset Cerion’s delicate balance. On top of that, it is strictly prohibited for an apprentice to teach anyone magic without the express permission of the Headmaster. He told us we were careless, and threatened to cease Rian’s training then and there. Rian swore he’d never share magic with me again, and we were both forced to Silence for a week.

I did get a bit of the Mark then, but it faded quickly. Uncle’s fury left me terrified and confused, and with a healthy respect for the strict rules that govern magic. I understand now it requires a certain balance, which can be upset by even the smallest indiscretion. The childish fear is fresh in my memory as his footsteps sound softly on the stairs outside of my room.

“Come in,” I say before he reaches the door. As Uncle enters, his eyes flash with a hint of the same furious white heat they showed all of those years ago. When he looms over me at the bedside, his nostrils are flared and his lips pressed tightly together, framed by the high collar of his deep blue robes.

“Show me,” he commands in a terrifyingly steady voice, and I pull the neckline of my gown down to show him the Mark at my chest. It’s rather small, about the size of a hen’s egg, with a beautiful curling pattern of tendrils. They remind me so much of the roots of my tree that tears prick my eyes. Or perhaps it’s the fear of his fury that causes it. I shrink away from him as he inspects the lines.

He turns abruptly and paces the floor and I fight the strong urge to defend myself. I know enough not to say a word until I’m spoken to, with him. When he turns to face me again I’m puzzled by his softening expression at first, but then I realize it’s because I’m crying. I brush the tears away, embarrassed, as he takes a seat in the chair by the window.

“You collapsed in the training square. Mouli suspects from overwork and heat. Yet you slept for several days, which is not in keeping with heat exhaustion.” His eyes flick over Margy’s pitcher and back to me again. “According to her, you did not have the Mark when you were put to bed. Interesting.” He reaches over and turns the pitcher to peek inside of it. I force my breathing to slow, and pray he doesn’t see the secret I’ve hidden inside. “Where did you get this?” he asks, momentarily distracted from his train of thought.

“The Princess.” My response comes as a whisper, and I swallow the lump in my throat.

“Explain to me what happened in the training square,” he says. To my relief he turns away from the pitcher and folds his hands in his lap.

“I’m not sure,” I say. I force myself back through the dream to focus again on the moments before. “We had just had lunch, and Bryse wanted to show me something with his shield. I went to pick up my sword and everything started spinning. I heard screaming and I felt like the ground beneath me was slipping away. Everything went black, and when I woke up, I was here in bed.” Uncle taps his lips thoughtfully with a slender fingertip.

“Which sword was it?” he asks. “I will have it inspected.”

“My own. The long sword. My name is etched on the hand guard.” He nods and stands, but then pauses as his eyes rest on the hatch.

“Have you and Rian been experimenting again?”

“No! I swear it, Uncle. Rian has kept his promise.”

“Then how do you explain the Mark, Azi?” He spins, and his eyes bore into mine as if he can see every thread of thought in my mind. I think of the dream I had and how wonderful it was and how real. I glance at the little fairy bed hiding the diamond which was once a star in my sky. I wonder if anyone has gotten marked simply by dreaming, but the question catches in my throat. I shouldn’t tell anyone about it, not even Uncle, who is trying to help me. I shake my head.

“I can’t.” I say, looking down at my lap. I snap a cracker and scoop up a bit of soft cheese with it, grateful to have something to do with my hands to hide their shaking. Uncle pauses at the door. In the distance, I can hear trumpets sounding and people shouting.

“Is there anything else...” His voice trails off as the shouting grows closer, mixed with the quick beat of horses’ hooves. He goes to my window and looks out. “Get dressed,” he throws over his shoulder as he rushes out of my room and down the stairs.

I’m still a little shaky as I push the tray from my lap and cross to look out the window, jarred by Uncle’s sudden departure. A single rider approaches our front door and Uncle meets him in the street. They talk too quietly for me to hear, and then the rider goes off again toward the center of the city. I hear the thundering gallop of several horses a distance away and I know it can only mean one thing. They’re home, and early. I rush to the dressing room and pull out a long, easy blue dress which I slip on hastily. I still feel weak, and I have to stop and rest against the wall a few times as I make my way downstairs. The horses are closer now and their quick pace makes me nervous, as does the general quiet in the streets. The sounding of horns generally draws a crowd. I lean heavily in the front door frame, tired from my short trek down the stairs. My eyes fix on the street corner where I know they’ll emerge, and I reach up and smooth my sticky hair back from my face. I wish I’d had more notice, to make myself more presentable for my parents’ arrival.