Progeny (The Children of the White Lions) (53 page)

Kenders had done whatever she could to occupy Helene’s mind with anything other than the day’s events. She learned that the girl’s favorite flower was something called a ‘purple dancer’ and her favorite song was
Happy Times at the Fair.
Kenders had asked Helene to teach it to her and was just getting the melody when Nikalys rounded the house’s corner and waved her over. She stood and looked toward Helene with a questioning expression. Nikalys nodded and waved again.

She carried Helene to the field where she found a sweaty, stoic Sabine standing next to a hole and mound of fresh earth. Their father was inside, arms folded over his chest. Sabine took Helene from Kenders with a quiet word of thanks and moved to stand next to the grave.

Nikalys and Kenders left the sisters alone and returned to where Jak slept. Broedi finished burying the bandits and came to sit with them. No one spoke a word.

After a time, Sabine and Helene exited the field and moved to the house. Helene sat on the pile of sand while Sabine began to gather things from their home, seemingly intent on leaving with her sister at once. Broedi insisted the pair stay, pointing out there might be more bandits in the region. She agreed to stay the night—reluctantly—and then surprised them all by offering to make soup.

Kenders sighed and turned her attention to Broedi. The hillman was sitting a half-dozen paces from the fire, smoking his pipe and staring into the fire. Occasionally, he would look up and either glance at Sabine or stare over his shoulder, up the hill, and to the north.

Done eating and having no one with who to talk, Kenders was alone with her thoughts. She shifted her gaze to the ruined farmhouse and frowned, trying to make sense of what she had done earlier with the Strands.

The Weave of Air had been intentional, although the strength of it was not. The second Weave had been a complete accident. She remembered staring at the wall, wishing it were gone so they could see the bandits inside. Suddenly, a fully complete Weave of brown Strands popped into existence and settled around the wall. A wave of exhaustion washed over her, almost knocking her from Smoke’s saddle.

It bothered her that she had reached for the Strands without a moment’s hesitation. While it seemed natural at the time, her open embrace of magic made her uncomfortable in retrospect. With each day that passed, fate seemed to be nudging her further along a path that she was not sure she wanted to tread.

She sighed and reached up to run her fingers through her hair. Life had been simpler before she knew she could touch the Strands.

“Did you know I like sweetberries?”

Startled from her reverie, Kenders turned to look at Helene. The little girl was staring up at Nikalys from his lap.

Nikalys glanced down, his eyes remaining unfocused for a moment before locking on to Helene’s face. It seemed as if he had been elsewhere, too.

“Pardon?”

“I like sweetberries,” said Helene. “Do you?”

A small, amused grin spread over Nikalys’ face.

“You know, Helene, I’ve never had any. Are they good?”

Helene nodded her head vigorously.

“Of course. They
are
called
sweet
berries.”

Kenders could not help but grin. She noticed Nikalys’ smile grew, too. Glancing over at Sabine, she caught the slightest upward curl of lips. Broedi showed no reaction. However, he did give another quick glance north. As he turned back around, Kenders caught his eye and asked a question she had been wanting to for a while now.

“Do you think our friends are far behind?”

Broedi held her gaze for a moment before glancing at Sabine. The young woman sat, legs crossed, staring at the darkening eastern horizon. Looking back to Kenders, Broedi rumbled, “There is a good chance they might have seen the…signal from earlier.” He paused. “It would have been quite bright.”

Kenders frowned. She had guessed that was the case.

Without ever taking her eyes from the east, Sabine said, “If you are afraid of Constables, the nearest office is over a week’s journey west. Or Fernsford in the east, which might be a day or so farther. Can they track magic that far?”

Broedi, Nikalys, and Kenders all stared at Sabine in perfect, complete silence.

The hillman recovered first, saying, “Magic?”

Sabine turned to look at Broedi, her eyes overflowing with incredulity, “A roof flies into the air, walls crumble to dust, and a giant man turns into a giant lynx?” She shook her head and huffed, “No, that’s not magic. Not magic at all.”

“Most fear magic in the duchies,” rumbled Broedi. “Yet you do not. Why?”

Sabine held Broedi’s inquisitive stare for a moment, frowned, and shifted her gaze to the fire. A moment later, Kenders felt a faint, orange crackling. The campfire flared, climbing a foot higher to envelop the cookpot, and then quickly returned to normal.

Kenders shot a look at Broedi, thinking he had been the source of the magic and wondering what had been the purpose of the display. The hillman, however, was staring at Sabine, his eyes wide and alert. Realizing what had happened, Kenders turned her gaze to Sabine and gawked.

Sabine was a mage.

The revelation stunned Kenders. Yet it was nothing compared to the shock experienced a moment later when Helene sat tall in Nikalys’ lap and clapped her hands together excitedly.

“Again, Sabine! Do it again!”

Broedi’s intense gaze shifted to Helene. Kenders stared at the little girl, too. Nikalys however, kept his eyes on Sabine.

“Hold a moment…you’re a mage?”

Shaking her head, Sabine said, “Not much of one. I can do that little trick with the fire and I can make a bucket of water cold. That’s all. Nothing like you three did earlier.”

Helene squirmed around in Nikalys’ lap to peer over at her big sister.

“Make the blue ribbons, Sabine! They’re prettier than the orange ones.”

Kenders stared at the little girl, unsure if she should be confused or surprised.

During her lessons with Broedi, she had learned that it was unusual for anyone to be able to see the Strands vividly unless they were extremely attuned to that particular type. Many mages—most according to Broedi—who could touch a certain type of Strand might only catch a small glimpse of color. They wove the magical strings on feel alone. This was why most mages required years of study to before they could be effective.

Yet, here was a four-year-old girl who could see both the flickering oranges of Fire and the rippling blues of Water.

Everyone was silent, except Helene who repeatedly asked for the ‘pretty blue ribbons.’ Her pleas became more and more insistent until Sabine snapped, “Not now, Helene! Hush!”

The little girl shut her mouth and, with a hurt, pouting look, turned to hug Nikalys tight. Instant regret filled Sabine’s face.

“I’m sorry, Helene.”

Her little sister did not turn around.

“Helene?”

Broedi abruptly asked, “Can you see the Strands when you weave?”

“What?” asked Sabine, shooting the hillman and annoyed look. “Weave? Weave what?” She turned back to peer at Helene, a frown of regret on her face.

Trying a different approach, Broedi asked, “When you do magic, how do you do it?”

Sabine shrugged.

“Mother tried to teach me, when Father was not around. She showed me the two little tricks with the fire and the water. She stopped, though. Said I did not have the talent to do more.”

Nikalys asked, “And where is your mother?” His gaze danced about the dusk-dusted grasslands.

“Passed,” replied Sabine. “She’s buried a few feet next to where I just—” She stopped, shooting a quick glance Helene. “She’s with our father.”

Inclining his head, Broedi rumbled, “I am sorry for you loss, uora
.
”

While Sabine’s brow wrinkled at the hillman’s strange word, she nodded nonetheless, saying, “Thank you.” She stared at her sister’s back. “She passed on the day Helene was born.”

A moment of quiet passed, after which Broedi, Nikalys, and Kenders all murmured belated condolences. Sabine nodded throughout the nice words. For just a moment, she looked soft and vulnerable—and very pretty with all of her hard edges softened.

Once the kind words fell away, a silence filled the camp. A silence eventually broken by Broedi.

“How long have you lived here?”

“My entire life,” replied Sabine, a melancholy smile on her lips. “When I was little, Mother and Father would talk about when they lived near the city.” Her eyes lit up. “Bless the gods, it sounded wondrous! So many people in one place! So much going on!”

She sighed, gave a short shake of her head, and motioned to the landscape.

“Out here it was us, the river, the crops, and the grass. So much blasted grass. I wanted to go see the city, but my parents said it was safer here. It wasn’t until I was ten years old that I finally understood what they meant by that…”

Sabine paused and looked back toward her house. Kenders had noticed that when Sabine sat down earlier this evening, the farm girl had made sure that her back was toward the stone cottage.

After a long moment, she turned back to face them and, with a strange expression on her face, asked, “If you grew up never having seen a horse, what would you say the first time you saw one?”

The question struck Kenders silent. She did not understanding its point.

“No matter,” muttered Sabine, waving her hand. “When you see something new for the very first time, you are surprised, yes? Shocked? Scared, perhaps?” Her eyebrows drew together. “Now, imagine the opposite. Pretend you have lived your whole life with something that seems entirely normal to you, but one day, you discover it is not only unnatural, but against the law.” Her tone was decidedly bitter. “In fact, it’s the entire reason your family has to live in the middle of nowhere!”

Helene lifted her head from Nikalys’ shoulder and peeked over at her sister.

“Sabine?”

The elder sister took a deep breath and exhaled.

“Close your eyes, dear.”

Helene laid her head back down as Nikalys patted her back.

Sabine waited a moment before continuing, her tone noticeably more restrained.

“When I was girl, if there was a bad dry spell, Mother would make water from the river run uphill to the fields. On hot days, we’d always have cool, clear water to drink even though the river is most definitely not clear. It was all as natural to me as the wind blowing across the plains.”

She paused, her eyes going unfocused.

“It was spring, I had just turned ten, and Mother started a fire in the hearth like she always did and I…felt it…a sort of soft buzzing in my head…”

Kenders understood what she meant. Although for Kenders, there was nothing soft about it.

“I said something to Mother about it,” said Sabine. “She…ah…well, she got upset. She insisted I never speak of it to anyone, ever—even Father. I did not understand, but she was so insistent that I agreed. Unfortunately, Father still found out.” She sighed and shook her head. “Gods, did he ever blame Mother something fierce. When he calmed down—eventually—he said we’d make do. After all—” she waved to the grasslands “—out here, no one would ever know what I was. Father got past his anger at my meager ‘talent’ and we continued to live as we always had.”

“A few years later, Mother said she was pregnant.” A sad smile touched her lips. “We were all so happy. Especially me. I was finally going to have someone to talk to besides Mother or Father. Granted, my brother or sister would be years younger than me, but I was excited nonetheless. Seven turns later, Helene was born. Mother did not—” Her voice caught. Lifting a hand to wipe a lone tear that had snuck down her cheek, she continued, “Mother did not survive the birth.”

Kenders looked over at Helene. The little girl had never known her mother and had watched bandits murder her father. Greya, the goddess of Fate, had been cruel to the girl.

After a few moments of heavy quiet, Sabine resumed speaking, her voice steady once again.

“It was hard on Father.
Very
hard. He was alone now, had a farm to run, and two daughters to rear. I did what I could, effectively taking my mother’s role, and raised Helene as if she was my daughter rather than my sister. We managed, I suppose. Father did his best.”

She took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Last summer, when I did one of my two ‘tricks’—cooling water—Helene starts clapping, laughing, and calling out for the ‘pretty blue ribbons.’ Father was outside in the fields, so he had no idea what was going on. Curious, I made the fire in the hearth flare and, again, Helene started to clap, demanding more of the orange ribbons.”

“I’m sorry,” muttered Nikalys. “Ribbons?”

Sabine glanced at him and smiled slightly.

“Father would go to Stooert—” she waved a hand in a general northwest direction “—for flour and supplies. Things we could not make ourselves. Every time—
every
time—he would come back with a small gift for each of us. That spring when he returned, he brought Helene and me silk ribbons for our hair. Helene says the magic looks like shiny ribbons.”

Broedi rumbled, “As apt of a description as any.”

Kenders agreed. The Strands did look a bit like ribbons. Some types more than others, but it was still a good way to think of them.

Sabine let out a quiet sigh, her gaze on Helene. “I didn’t want Father to be angry about Helene and magic the way he had been about me, so…we kept it a secret. Somehow.” She stared in the direction of her father’s grave amongst the longpeppers. “He never did learn the truth.”

After a few moments of quiet, she turned back to the fire. “A few turns ago, a dozen men came by the farm. They demanded a ‘shield tax’ from Father, saying they were keeping the region free of troublemakers and deserved to be compensated for it.” The disgust in her voice was unmistakable.

“Father paid them what little coin we had and they went away. Last turn, ten of them came back asking for more. We did not have it, but father promised he could pay after selling our crop during Rintira’s festival in Fernsford. They left, but seven came back today and demanded early payment. We did not have it, so they…” She hesitated, wrapped her arms around herself, and said haltingly, “They…they said that I could pay them instead. Father struck the man who said that, and…”