Crow and Pike wished them well—a kind gesture that Eira hadn’t been expecting. It wasn’t over the top. But their well-wishes betrayed more fondness than she’d thought had been fostered with the pirates.
The eight of them—her, Cullen, Olivin, Yonlin, Noelle, Alyss, Lavette, and Varren—made their way up the columns like giant stairs. When a height difference was too steep, Alyss lent a hand with her power, giving them actual stairs to get up. At the very top, they were met by idyllic, gently sloping plains. Tall grasses wafted in the breezes, dotted with wildflowers and buzzing with brightly colored pollinators that flitted on the breezes like confetti.
Eira was the first to speak after they took in the scenery. “I’m not going to lie, I expected something a bit more…bloody, after all the talk about the ruthlessness of Carsovia.”
“It looks like the East,” Cullen whispered. His brow had relaxed, eyes distant. The East, where he’d grown up. Eira wondered if he saw the distant lands of his forefathers. Or if he saw a memory of the pain he’d caused. One he’d rather forget.
“We should keep moving.” Varren led the pack. “We’ll look suspicious all out like this.”
“No one’s around.” Noelle motioned to the general lack of anything. “Not that we can see, for now. But there are often patrols, and I don’t
know what the color is right now.” “The color?” Alyss asked.
“In Carsovia, there are colors to define your status. Depending on where you live, the family you’re born into, what you do…it all defines your color,” Lavette explained. “There’s a hierarchy among them. Red is usually at the top.”
“Red, like blood, got it.” Noelle rolled her eyes.
“You learn quickly,” Varren appraised dryly. “But, yes, the other colors shift depending on who is in power based on the current moods of the emperor or empress. I tried to pick us clothes from the pile that were as neutral as possible—grays, black, white, cotton, tan—color voids that aren’t in the hierarchy.”
“The region with the mines should be orange, right?” Lavette asked. Varren nodded. Lavette reached into her pocket, pulling out three strips of burnt-orange fabric. “I grabbed these, just in case.”
“I didn’t see anything orange in the supplies the pirates offered us.” Varren took them.
“They were mine,” Noelle said. “Thank Eira for thinking to grab some of our clothes before we left Warich.”
“Let’s just hope we don’t actually need them.” Varren frowned and led the group.
They crossed through the empty field and down to a distant wood. It reminded Eira more of the tall pine forests at the foot of the Solaris Mountains, rather than the dense jungles of the island they’d been on the day prior. To think the terrain could change so much… Perhaps a sorcerer really did once cultivate the land by hand.
The trees were spaced out far enough that beams of light could strike through to the forest floor. It was shaded enough here that the grasses thinned, growing smaller. But there wasn’t much in the way of underbrush, which made traveling fairly easy.
At least until noon.
A distant horn had Varren dropping to the ground. The rest of them followed. The man trembled like a leaf, but he kept his head up, looking around with wide eyes.
“That’s the sound of imperial knights,” he whispered. The rest of them were looking around as well, but it was impossible to see anything among the grasses and tree trunks.
“We haven’t even seen a road,” Cullen whispered.
“Alyss, Ducot, can you sense anything that might give us a direction?” Eira asked.
“Already working on it.” Magic pulsed more rigorously from Ducot, filling the air. Alyss followed suit.
Eira waited.
“I think I have something,” Alyss murmured. “It’s faint, though.”
Narrowing her focus on Alyss, Eira pushed away her senses of all others’ magics. Where Adela’s power was like a deep, underwater chasm, boundless and ominous, Alyss’s was the valley between two mountains. Strong peaks. Impressive depth. And Eira would be the earthquake. She would rattle the foundations, creating new chasms that would allow untapped power to seep through. She would free Alyss’s bound potential.
Alyss let out a soft gasp. Her eyes opened and swung to Eira. “Are you…”
Eira nodded with a slight smile. “Now, where are they?”
With a confident grin, Alyss closed her eyes once more. The tiny pebbles in the dirt around her rattled as her power swept outward with palpable force. Alyss’s magic sank into the earth, running underneath root and plain until it was beyond the realm of Eira’s sensing. But she continued to wear a look of intense focus on her face.
“That way.” Alyss pointed to the west, southwest. “There’s a small town there. I can feel the foundations of the homes. There are riders approaching it, coming from the north. It was hard to tell how many.”
“At least six. Imperial knights never travel in fewer numbers than that,” Varren said.
“I think we should go to the town,” Eira decided.
“Why do you want to go into the town?” Varren balked. “Did you not hear me? There are imperial knights.”
“I heard you. And agree that we need to be careful—not all of us should go in. But we don’t have a lot of supplies.” They were intentionally traveling light.
“I can go a night or two where hunger is my dinner,” he said dryly. “And,” Eira continued, stressing that she hadn’t finished in tone alone,
“we should also ensure that this man is actually at the mines and not traveling elsewhere for some kind of business.” She took Varren’s pause to mean that it was possible for him not to be there.
“We can also make sure we’re headed in the right direction,” Noelle reasoned.
“I think we should scope it out,” Cullen agreed. “If we can do so safely.”
“I can always go in,” Ducot offered. “No one will suspect a mole.” The air rippled around him and the man vanished, contorting and folding in on himself in a blink until a mole was in his place.
“Just when I think you couldn’t get any cuter, you remind me you can do this.” Noelle scratched his tiny head with the tip of her finger. Ducot squeaked. “Don’t fight with me, you are adorable.”
Varren sighed. “I suppose the town is in the direction of the mines, more or less. As long as we swing wide…maybe we’ll be all right.” Another sigh, even heavier than the last. “This way.”
They all stood but didn’t get more than three steps before squeaking alerted them they were leaving behind a member of their party. Noelle paused, looking back at Ducot incredulously.
“You can’t seriously expect me—” More squeaking.
“Mother above.” Noelle sighed dramatically. Ducot darted over and circled around her feet.
“All right, fine.” Noelle picked Ducot up and put him on her shoulder. “I swear you are so lazy.”
“Can you really understand what he’s saying?” Alyss asked with wonder.
“Not at all. He’s just that easy to read.” Noelle shrugged and they all carried on in the direction of town.
 |
It was dusk by the time they arrived. Fortunately the town was nestled in what Eira suspected was a man-made clearing in the woods, given that the houses were made of the same timber as the pines. They were simple, log constructions. Wattle and daub, or clay, packed between to keep out the chill. Rather than having shingles or thatching, the roofs were covered in sod, the same grasses as the land around them.
They looked similar to Ofok, and yet had unique differences—like the stilts they sat atop, or how some of their second stories extended over their first. It reminded her of a child’s drawing of a home, slightly askew. Out of perspective. But it clearly worked since they weren’t toppling over.
“There, that’s the main hall.” Varren pointed at an oblong building at the center of town. “That’s where all commerce will happen…and where the knights should be.”
“So you should stay away from there,” Noelle whispered to Ducot, still on her shoulder.
“He is right in that no one here would expect shift magic,” Varren begrudgingly admitted. “He should be safe in that form.”
“Ducot, go in and see if—” Eira didn’t get a chance to finish. A commotion rose up from the heart of the town.
Two knights dressed in chain mail and leathers stained a deep crimson dragged out a man by the hair. Varren let out a cross between a whimper and a worried noise. He sank back slightly, flattening himself more into the grasses along the tree line they hid within.
Of course, the knights didn’t see them. They weren’t looking, either.
They were focused on the man they had in their grip. “What are they going to do to him?” Alyss whispered. Varren didn’t answer her. The knights did.
They took the man to the main gate of town, threw him to the ground, and while one began to kick and beat him, the other walked away. Eira felt every strike as if it were on her own skin. The hands of the Pillars were still upon her. Brutalizing her. She could feel blow after blow.
When the man was barely recognizable, the other knight returned with a length of rope. He threw the loops over the top of the main entrance of the town—two posts that were connected at their tops, stretching over the road. The first knight tied the rope to the man’s ankles and then helped his comrade pull.
The man was hoisted into the air, barely moving. One of the knights pulled a long rod of metal and held onto the wooden part. With nothing more than a shift of his thumb, and the flash of runes, the man was blown away. A bloody hollow where a chest once was oozed onto the ground.
Noelle flinched at the sudden burst of noise, a whimper escaping her lips. Alyss looked on with a hardened stare. She had a stomach of iron from working with the clerics in Solarin.
Eira had seen cruelty in the hands of the Pillars. She’d seen what blind loyalty could drive men and women to do. The danger that came of one individual—a very mortal and flawed individual—defining what morality was for the group.
“What was that weapon?” Yonlin had a hard stare. “It was like a small hand cannon.”
“I saw one on the island, though not in use. I think it’s called a flashfire,” Eira said. “But I know nothing else about it.”
“Carsovia was always clever with their weapons of war,” Yonlin said grimly.
“Flashfires arm Commons with the power of sorcerers,” Lavette said in a slightly detached, matter-of-fact tone. “They’re loaded with small flash beads and can be triggered even by someone who has no inherent magic due to a rune-infused ring, usually worn on the thumb. A small hand cannon is an apt name for it.”
“More importantly, what did that man do?” Cullen whispered, horror deepening his words. “What crime did he commit to warrant such a punishment?”
“It’s hard to say.” Varren wasn’t even looking down at the town anymore. He lay on his back, staring up at the sky. “Perhaps the man spoke out against the empress…or they just perceived he did. Perhaps he sold them a bad fruit.”
“A bad fruit?” Cullen echoed.
“And they claimed he was trying to poison the knights of the empress for it.”
“No…surely it was more. Surely…” Cullen trailed off. Eira looked over her shoulder to see his eyes were locked with Varren’s haunted stare.
“No. It was nothing more. It never was. And it never will be.”
|
They didn’t end up going into town after all. They pressed on, through the woods, continuing until well after the sun set. One place was as good to sleep as any other, so they just picked a point where exhaustion had settled on enough of their shoulders that it warranted trying to sleep.
At Varren’s suggestion, they all took watches. There were enough of them that no one had to be up too long at any point in the night. The timing was roughly estimated by moonlight, as none of them had a timepiece.
Eira was woken third of the group, taking over from Noelle. “Hey, your turn,” Noelle said softly as she shook Eira awake.
Eira roused quickly. It was hard to get that deep of a sleep in their current circumstances. “Any problems?”
Noelle shook her head. “All quiet. I think I saw a fox in the distance.” “Then let’s hope Varren is right and there aren’t morphi in the employ
of this empress.” Eira sat and stretched. Sleeping on the ground, especially after the comfort of a hammock on a gently rocking ship for weeks on end, was rough.
“Let’s hope.” Noelle stared off into the darkness that surrounded them. She had a haunted look on her face, the circles under her eyes made darker in the moonlight.
“What is it?” Eira rested her hand on her friend’s forearm. “I keep thinking about him.”
“Who?”
“The man from earlier… Should we have done something? Should I have stepped in?”
Eira’s fingers closed gently but firmly around Noelle’s wrist as she tried to reassure her. “There was nothing we could do for him.”
“That’s not true, and you know it. We could’ve stopped them.” “And risked everything.”
“What good is what we’re doing?” Noelle turned back to her, fire in her eyes. “What good are we if we stand by and watch as innocent men are slaughtered?”
“This is a land we don’t know, that we don’t have a place in, or control over,” Eira said slowly, emphasizing each word. “Varren knows this land and he says this is how it’s always done.”
“We could change it.”
“Noelle, we are nothing more than a small group of strangers. We don’t know how best to help or if these people even want our help.”
“Of course they do.” Noelle covered Eira’s hand with her other one, leaning in. “You saw what they are forced to endure. How could they not?”
“We are not their saviors. We cannot be,” Eira said softly. With her free hand she tucked a strand of Noelle’s hair behind her ear. She’d never had a
sister, and Noelle was the same age as her, but something about that moment made Noelle feel like a younger sibling. Someone to look after, take care of, and protect. Perhaps it was that unbridled idealism that Noelle pursued with unyielding passion. “You can’t change something from the outside; the people have to want it enough to change it from within.”
“You’re trying to change Meru from the outside by killing Ulvarth,” she countered. “Why couldn’t we do that here?”
There were a number of ways Eira could’ve replied. She could’ve been defensive and pointed out how Ulvarth was a tumor feeding on Meru—that he wasn’t the core of what Meru was. But he had gained traction. Followers. Momentum.
“Maybe Ulvarth represents the future of Meru,” Eira admitted with the taste of bile in the back of her throat. “But I’m not killing him to change Meru. I’m killing him because it’s personal. Because I must put a stop to this game of his that I’m snared in or I will never know peace.” She leveled her eyes with Noelle. “If Meru changes after him, or not…is up to them. It’s not my place. I hope they reject his ways, when all is done. I hope they chart a course far from what the Pillars have wrought. But it’s not up to me. It’s their land…and if they want to place another like him on their throne, that is their decision. Once Ulvarth is dead, I don’t know if I’ll ever go back.”
“Of course you’ll go back,” Noelle said softly. There was a time that Eira might have readily agreed.
Eira took it as a victory that she wasn’t focused on the man in the village anymore. “We’ll see. But, for now, you should go to sleep.”
Noelle nodded. “I’ll try.”
Perhaps it was how her shoulders curved in on themselves. Perhaps it was the dimming of her eyes. But something prompted Eira to reach out and grab her upper arm. To try to offer something that could be even mildly reassuring.
“We will help them, you know. Killing this man in the mines will certainly be of help. Think of how many might be able to escape in the chaos. How many we’ll be able to free in the process. Moreover, we’ll stop the Pillars from getting access to flash beads, which will help Meru, too.”
Noelle nodded again with a slight smile. “You’re right.” She reached up to squeeze Eira’s fingers. “Thanks.”
“Of course. Now, sleep well.”
Noelle tucked herself against Ducot. The man mumbled in his sleep, an arm slinging over her without him even waking. “You too,” she murmured, eyes closing.
The words replayed in Eira’s mind as she stared out into the empty forest. What good could they do? Was it even their place? There might have been a time where she would’ve been as idealistic. But now? All Eira wanted was to make it out alive.
