Sigquaya, Page 9

“But, it feels fuddy.”

  “Yes, you said that. Now hold still, please?”

  He sighed and warily leaned back in.

  “Thank you,” she said. She dabbed at his nose and felt the warmth and tingling return. This time Marcus held his tongue and let her work.

  Already she could see the cut healing over, and the redness was starting to fade.

  “I don’t think it’s as bad as I first thought,” she said, taking the cloth away and secretly proud of her newfound ability. “Mother may not even notice by the time we get home.”

  “She notices everything.” He was even beginning to sound better.

  Arteura nodded at that but added, “You’ll be fine.”

  “If she does, what should we tell her?”

  “How about that you got into a spat on the training grounds?”

  “Okay.” He grinned. “Did I win?”

  She laughed. “Always.”

  “How many of them were there?”

  “How many of them do you want there to be?”

  “Three.”

  “Three?!”

  “Yes, three.”

  “I doubt I could take on three and escape with only a broken nose.”

  “Yes you could, and probably end with less.”

  “Well, thank you, but I doubt that.”

  She gave him a few final cleansing pats on his chin. The cloth was almost completely dry now, and Marcus’s nose had a thin pink line where the cut had been and no bump at all.

  “There,” she said. “All better. Like it never happened.”

  He felt it gingerly. “It still hurts a little.”

  “Hmm, it may for a bit,” she said.

  She looked around the edges of the pool. Noticing a stand of clove trees, Arteura went to pick some of the fuzzy, red flowers and a few ripe berries. Then she bent and retrieved a small scoop of water with her other hand, feeling the now-familiar tingle. She added a few drops to the petals and, using her thumb as a pestle, crushed the flowers and berries into a rough paste before dividing the whole mess into two parts and rolling them with both hands. After a moment she opened her smeared palms and presented Marcus with two bead-sized balls of crushed, tightly packed clove flowers.

  “Put these up your nose,” she said.

  He looked at her aghast. “What?! Why?”

  “Just do it,” she insisted. “It will stem any more bleeding, plus it will ease the pain. Besides, they smell good.” She held them out just below his nose.

  He sniffed. Even with his still-healing nasal passage, they did indeed smell good. Like tea. Still, he was reluctant to stuff anything willingly up his nose, tender as it was. But he also knew when it came to medicinal plants and herbs, Arteura would likely know what she was doing. Everything she knew she’d learned from their mother, who was the best.

  Gingerly, he picked one up and stuffed it in, wincing at the discomfort but easing it up as far as it would go. Then he did the same with the other in the other nostril.

  “Id’z warm,” Marcus said, his words once again stunted by his stuffed nasal cavity.

  Arteura nodded. “Yes, it’s supposed to be. That means it’s working. Shortly it should ease what’s left of the pain. For now, let’s get back home.” She looked up at the sky through the thick canopy of the forest, noting the creeping shades. “School is probably getting out soon, and we have afternoon chores.”

  “Sabe tibe toborrow?” he asked.

  “I thought you said you didn’t want to fight me anymore.”

  “Nah.” Marcus smiled. “I wand rebenge.”

  Arteura smiled as well.

  “All right,” she said. “You shall have it.”

  “Tanks,” he said. “Add your forgibben.”

  “Thank you,” she answered, and a mental weight slid from her shoulders, one that she didn’t even know she’d been carrying.

  They quick-stepped their way back through the forest and along the river, joining just in time with the flow of the other kids from school, as if they’d been there the whole day. No one along the way paid any mind to the slight damage to Marcus’s nose. He was a Denaeus, after all. He’d probably been in another fight with someone. Maybe more than one. It might have even been three.

  ≈≈≈≈≈≈

  Despite the thick cover of cypress, the forest did indeed have eyes.

  The Denaeus children were coming to this spot more and more over the last few months. And Rhiana had begun to follow.

  She’d discovered their truancy by accident, returning early from the fields one morning to see them secreting around the entrance gate and along the city walls, following the Sadrean River back toward Dunwielm. She’d slipped unnoticed behind them, trailing them all the way to the Mihtcarr and then on to this spot. With few exceptions, she had been following them ever since.

  Up to now, Rhiana felt powerless. Powerless empathy. She could heal the wounds inflicted at school or the academy training grounds, but after a while, even that wasn’t enough.

  “I’m not saying there’s not a time to defend yourself,” she recalled saying at one time. “Or to defend others. Or to stand strong. But if you wish to change your circumstances, to change the world, it is done by the way of Sigquaya, the way of water. To fill with life. To nurture and heal. Not through fists or swords. Not through Tamatulc, the way of fire.”

  After five years of persecution and harassment, did she still feel that way? In a way, yes. Otherwise she wouldn’t bother with the worms ravaging the fields. But even then, after watching what her family had gone through, what her children continued to go through, she would have to amend it: There are times when you’ll need to get their attention first.

  She was impressed with how detailed the arena was. She could see how the training had helped Marcus excel at the Þrymm guard’s academy, and how it had helped both her children cope with the taunting, the bullying, and the unfounded hatred of an Empire.

  She was proud of Marcus, yes. He could have a future with the Þrymm guard, and Rhiana would give her grudging approval.

  But Arteura . . .

  The girl was truly a marvel. Deadly with her weapons. Both strong and patient with her brother. It had taken all of Rhiana’s motherly instincts not to run to them today when Arteura bloodied Marcus’s nose. Oh, but what followed . . .

  Sigquaya.

  Her daughter was a warrior. A teacher. And now, a healer.

  Arteura had discovered her gift. Her true calling. Rhiana watched with wonder as the girl first repelled then embraced the sensations of magic—toying with the water of the Mihtcarr, sinking her hands in, letting the water run through her fingers. She knew the look on her daughter’s face, even from a distance. It was the same feeling Rhiana recalled when she’d discovered the gift for herself.

  Then, to see Arteura using Sigquaya to heal her brother. And even more, to combine the water’s life with some of the surrounding herbs as a balm, all by instinct. Arteura was proving herself much more advanced in the arts than Rhiana was at that age, maybe even rivaling her own knowledge today.

  There came a twinge of fear along with the exhilaration. Skills like Arteura possessed would not stay hidden for long. Above all, Rhiana was certain the Council and Rectors would be terrified if they knew all that Arteura was learning and discovering. Rhiana wasn’t entirely sure of the magnitude of it all herself. All she knew was that she couldn’t hide it, or smother it, even if she wanted to. Not now.

  If it could be encouraged, in the right way, over time, Arteura could truly be . . .

  Rhiana paused.

  What? What could she truly be?

  A savior? An answer? A heretic? An enemy?

  What would, and could, her daughter—a mage, a woman and, worse, a Denaeus—truly become?

  Or, more accurately, what would she be allowed to become?

  If they knew, really knew, all that she was already capable of . . .

  She would be labelled Ma’wan, that was all Rhiana knew for sure.

>   And if the Temple found out, would they even allow her to live?

  Her secret could not get out. Rhiana’s mother had helped her discover her gift, then was there to help nurture and safeguard her daughter as she grew in knowledge and power. By all accounts, Arteura may well be more powerful than Rhiana, even now. Rhiana would have to talk to her, sooner rather than later, about everything she knew—and everything the Empire could never know.

  She knew that this day would come. She hoped it would be a joyous occasion. Now, she just hoped she could spare her daughter’s life.

  She waited until her children were well out of sight then walked to the Mihtcarr. Despite the fear she felt, she couldn’t help smiling in admiration at what she’d just seen there. Maybe there was room for a little joy. She knelt and idly dipped her hand in the water.

  Her eyes flew wide and she pulled it out as if she’d been shocked.

  In a way, she had.

  What in the . . .

  Slowly she lowered her hand back down. Long before she reached the surface, she could feel the pulse of the water. And yet nothing had ever felt this powerful. It was a strength like she had never felt from water before. Any water.

  She screwed up her courage and sunk her hand below the surface. Her heart raced and her breath caught. Like Arteura, she could sense the aura of death surrounding her here, and yet the water was so alive, as if it were fighting back against death’s grasp.No wonder Arteura shrunk back at first. Rhiana would have as well.

  Rhiana closed her fist and raised her hand from the water. Again, her eyes flew wide. The water came with her, a small column, rising from the pond, connected to her closed hand as if not wanting to let her go. Pleading to take it with her. She opened her hand, and the water spread from her wrist to her fingertips, looking like a clear version of the sticky bread dough she would knead and pull by candlelight. She was both frightened and intrigued. What did this mean? What could it mean? The essence of life pulsed through her hand and connected itself with the pool of the Mihtcarr like she’d never felt.

  There was no death here. There is life. So much life.

  She shook her hand, and the water splashed back into the pool. Rhiana laughed despite how odd it all seemed. She couldn’t help herself.

  She dipped a finger into the pool, then pulled. Water, like taffy, stretched out before her. She laughed again, moving her finger in a circle as she watched the water spiral down to the surface below. She swore if water could be playful, could show joy, the Mihtcarr was doing so now. It was as if the water was telling her not to fear for her daughter, that death does not have to have the final word. That life lives, even here.

  She flicked her finger, and once again the water splashed back into the pool.

  She stood.

  “Thank you,” she said aloud, almost feeling obligated to. “I will return.”

  Again, so many questions.

  The worry that she’d felt for Arteura had been replaced by the wonder of what she was feeling now—strength, confidence, resolve.

  So many questions, yes. But, so many possibilities.

  10

  Over the Edge

  Sixteen-year-old Caden, the boy once known as Tristan, stood in the clearing a short distance from his adopted brother, Rahn, at the base of a sheer rock cliff not far from the gardens of Cierra. They faced each other, both holding woven vines strung from the cliff’s edge above them, the frustration of the past few years burning with fiery intensity in their eyes.

  “You think today?” Caden taunted through gritted teeth.

  Rahn merely tightened his grip on the vines and turned toward the rock as an answer.

  “Okay.” Caden shrugged and nodded to Marshaan.

  Marshaan just shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  “Ready?” he said to the both of them.

  No one had yet beaten Caden at climbing the 100-foot face of this cliff, though many had tried. For Rahn, this would be his third attempt. Their battle was good-nature yet typical sibling rivalry.

  Both boys were the same age. Caden was taller and more muscular, with dark brown hair that flashed auburn in the sun. He had a square jaw, high cheekbones, and what seemed a permanent, cocky half-grin on his face. Rahn was more lean, with the build of a runner. Like Daina, the woman who aided in pulling both boys from the Waters, raising them now as her own, his hair was the color of autumn wheat, his features finer, and his overall demeanor more introspective than either Daina or Caden. He was studious and always scheming, plus he had a wicked sense of humor.

  Rahn looked briefly at Marshaan, then down at his feet. He cuffed Caden on the arm. “Oh, damn,” he said. “I forgot my—”

  “GO!” Marshaan bellowed, and Rahn turned and shot up the vine.

  “Wait! What?” Caden looked bewildered. “Hey!” He looked up and saw Rahn was already ten feet up the wall. “What??!!”

  He looked to Marshaan, who was doubled over in laughter, then back to Rahn, now almost twenty feet up.

  “Oh! You son of a Hæðn!” And he took off in pursuit.

  This was supposed to be a race using the vines to “walk” up the cliff face. But Caden was always better at free climbing, using the strength of his forearms and legs, finding handholds and footholds where none seemed to exist, so he threw the vines aside and scrambled up. Well above him, Rhan laughed and doubled his effort.

  At about the three-quarter mark, Caden had caught up. His brother—winded by now and struggling—could only watch as Caden climbed the rest of the way with ease, inching over into Rahn’s path overhead just to add insult to injury. He reached the top, spun at the ledge, and sat, peering down at his brother between his dangling feet, whistling merrily and shaking his head.

  Rahn looked up, breathing heavy. “What?”

  “You cheated.”

  “I did n—”

  “I still won. But you cheated.”

  “I did no such thing,” Rahn said. After a few more seconds, he made it level to Caden’s feet and reached up. “Here, help me up.”

  Caden grasped his forearm and pulled, easing Rahn the rest of the way to sit beside him.

  “But, you did.”

  “No,” Rahn insisted, “I was just paying attention. You cheated.”

  “What? How do you figure?”

  Rahn grasped the vine dangling between them. “You were supposed to use one of these,” he said, shaking the vine. “You didn’t. I did. Therefore, I win.” And with that, he plastered a wide, stupid grin on his face.

  Caden just shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, you didn’t.”

  Rahn looked down the cliff face to Marshaan, standing with his brother Telluras and the rest of the group of Watcher recruits.

  “Marshaan?” he yelled.

  “What?”

  “Who won?”

  “You did.”

  “What??!” Caden protested.

  “Rules, boy!” Marshaan answered.

  Caden looked at Rahn. “You two, I swear. So, that’s what you think it takes for you to beat me, eh? A conspiracy?”

  Rahn shrugged, the stupid grin still firmly in place.

  “So, where to?” Caden asked.

  Rahn looked back to Marshaan and the group, then up the cliff face above them. “Shall we go on?” he asked.

  Caden smiled, shrugged, and grabbed a vine. “But, you didn’t beat me.”

  Rahn grabbed the other. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  Below them, Marshaan, looking irritated, yelled, “Hey, you two, get dow—oh, I don’t know why I even bother.” He turned his reddening face to the group. “Okay, next!”

  The last he saw, the two were disappearing over the cliff’s edge. And still arguing.

  ≈≈≈≈≈≈

  Somewhere along the way, as Daina won my trust—which took most of the first year of our living together—I went from being Tristan to being Caden.

  I think what took the longest was that I was still set on being home, on being who I was, not who I could
be or where I was now.

  “Tristan Denaeus is dead, my love,” she’d said to me one particularly wistful day. Then she added, “But here, in Cierra? We’ve all come through the Waters, we’ve all been reborn, so to speak. Dead to Brynslæd, alive to Cierra.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “No one has ever gone back?”

  “No, my son,” she answered. “But let me assure you, we have all felt as you do now, as you will continue to feel for a while. We wonder. We question. We doubt. But . . . we know. We know we cannot go back.”

  “Why?”

  It was amazing how patient she always was with my questions. “There is no one quite so powerful as the one who is convinced of their own truth,” she answered patiently. “With this truth, with this conviction, a person, and even more so a community, is capable of anything—even death, as you well know. This truth is both an armor and a weapon to these people. And you, my love, would not change their perception of any of it, even if you returned, raised from the dead. They would search, and they would find, any calamity or misfortune that they could pin on you. And then,” she fixed me with a piercingly serious look, “they would be just as apt to see you dead once again. I could not let that happen. I love you too much. As do we all.”

  “But why did my parents let it happen? Didn’t they love me?”

  “They loved you very much—I’m sure, yes,” she answered. “But, they loved their truth, their convictions, even more.”

  She saw that this made no sense to me. Still, she breathed deeply, pursed her lips, and continued. “What I mean is, for whatever their reasoning, whether they believed themselves or were pressured to believe, they could not bend their beliefs, what they understood as their truth, or break them, not even for you. You were an ‘honored sacrifice,’ were you not?”

  “Y-yes,” I mumbled.

  “I know.” She nodded. “So was I, and Rahn, and Marshaan. So were we all. The Hæðn had convinced even us of that. But here in Cierra, it is different. We are different. We have come to hold different truths. With me, with all of us in Cierra, you are much more honored for your life. What you do for Ahredai—or for any gods, for that matter—you do among the living, as the living. I truly believe that. We all do. We love you and honor you for your life, not for your death.”