24 of Voidor
Year of 1273 of the Sixteenth Cycle
Near a small stream of water.
Yet another stop. The horses need more food, which we don’t have, so we are forced to stop at every patch of decent grass. The girl has woken up, but she doesn’t speak. She still clutches the instrument ever tighter, and spends most of her time either crying or staring at it blankly. If the clipped wings didn’t make it obvious enough; the burnt scar on her arm denotes her past as a slave. The last few days have been tiring, and now it is all I can do to stay awake. We have to keep moving, pushing the horses longer and longer; for we do not know where the enemy is or how far they will follow. Sleep is short of supply.
“I think, when we saved the girl, they saw you enough to know who you were. The cloak covers your gambeson — but not the mark on your face. From now on, I’d put dirt over it. It’s an obvious identifier.”
I nod, though the thought of hiding the mark of House Daai makes me feel sick rise in my throat. As Father had always said, however; pride will lead to failure. I dip down, getting some of the mud from the tiny stream, and put it over my face, covering it — and obscuring the mark. “I’m going to cut my hair, too.” I say, Conjuring two blades with a handle to manipulate them, and bending down so the hair doesn’t fall into gambeson and cause me to itch. The girl walks over and touches my hair, twirling it in her thumbs. “Don’t. It’s nice hair.”
I start cutting, snipping through the black tendrils that I had been growing for years. “No!” she says, pulling on my arm. “Don’t!” I ignore her.
She sighs in frustration and then shouts, loudly, the sound hitting me like a hammer. I freeze, my want to cut my hair completely eradicated, like it never existed. I stand up, looking at the locks of hair, but the feeling goes away. She looks at me, standing over her, and begins to cry. I hadn’t even realised I was angry, but I shout at her. “Fuck off.” I say, She takes a few steps back, holding the instrument like a shield. Kairos walks over and puts a hand on her, then looks at me. “Spellsong. A rather crude form of it; channelled through a shout rather than a song or instrument.”
I turn to him, as angry as I’ve ever been, and he raises his hand to try to calm me. “I’m feeling the anger too, it’s hers; she’s given it through the shout. It will pass, just wait.”
What does he know? I stare at her and snarl. “Don’t fucking do that.” I shout, and she looks at the ground. Then the feeling passes; and I don’t even know what I was angry about. I look at my hand. So strange. Kairos nods. “It’s passed.” He says, then crouches down at her. “You need to be careful, girl. You can influence us with our Magic. If you do that, we might hurt you. We don’t want to hurt you.”
I shrug, as though I could shrug off this feeling of shame and humiliation altogether. The girl must be at least two years younger than me. I don’t like that she can do that; not to me. Not to the Arbiter. I continue to put my hair inbetween the blades, and she starts to cry. I stop. I turn back to her. “Why?” I ask, and she seems to look at me. “Why does it matter so much to you?”
She fingers the strings on the instrument. “You have the same hair as her. As my mother.”
I let the scissors dissipate, then stare at the water. “Did… did you lose her? Is she gone?”
She doesn’t respond. That’s more than enough, but she comes to stand besides me. “She helped me escape, and I miss her.” She says, through sniffles. “Thank you for helping me. I wasn’t sure if you would.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t care about saving you. They would probably have found me in the shelter. You would have told them.”
She’s silent for a second, then its her turn to shake her head. “No. I saw you; you were scared. You were running, just like me. You saved me, and then you’ve fed me, and given me water.”
It wasn’t fear she saw when we saw each other’s eyes through the cracks. It wasn’t. Was it?
She crouches, tucking her legs under her, and puts her only left hand into the water. It trails between her nearly skeletal fingers. “Who owned you?” I ask, and she freezes. “House Daraas, right?”
She nods, a slow nod. “But now I am free. Because of Mother, and because of Lumine.” She says, looking back at me. My brow creases. “I don’t know what we can offer you. What I can. I’m heading north; to the Koltor lands. If you want to go south, to the rest of the Motari — I can’t help you.”
She shakes her head. “If I stay, I return to them. I know what they’d do to me. I’m not that naive.”
Kairos chimes in. “I’ll take you south. You could go home.”
“No.” She says. Kairos scratches his head, and I speak once more. “You’ve been here your whole life?”
She nods. “Yes. Mother had me here, seventeen years ago. They told me I was beautiful; so they did not let me learn to play. To sing. They did not even allow Mother to give me a name.”
“You have no name?” I ask, and she looks up. “Mother used to call me flower. The men used to call me moth. Or bug. Or wasp, but then they’d hit me.”
Kairos shakes his head. “Well, you’re free now. What do you want us to call you?”
She looks at me. “I want Lumine to name me. I don’t know any names.” She says, her large red eyes pleading as she stares up at me. “Lumine?” I ask. “You keep saying this, but I don’t know what it means.”
Kairos answers, to my surprise. “It means… thank you and also ’one to be thank you to’, depending on the context. It can also be a moniker, for someone you are… bound to, as though fate had pulled you together. You saved her life, after all.”
“You aren’t bound to me.” I say, and she shakes her head and says no more. Kairos throws his hand up. “Well, if she wants you to name her, Daai, then name her. Try not to burn her after.”
He sulks off, righting the saddle on his horse. I look at her. Burn her… he says. Fine then. “What about… Pyra? It means fire in an older language.”
“Pyra…” she says, rolling it on her tongue. “I like the sound. Pyra. Lumine.”
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I walk over, pulling the reigns of the horse and stepping up. She looks between Kairos and me before walking over to me. I stop her. “Go with Kairos.” I say. Her face turns downwards, but she follows the order. She’s fresh to riding; and I wouldn’t wish this saddleless horse on anyone. If only we could have taken one.
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27 of Voidor
Year of 1273 of the Sixteenth Cycle
Outside of Ironfound
The advantage I have is that my assailants believe me heading east; to Ravenwatch. With enough time, they won’t catch up.
“There will be a village ahead; it’s a logging camp that grew when they found iron in the hill nearby. I’ll head in, alone,” he says, throwing a glance my way. “They’ll have heard the news about Tannsen — and your saddleless horse would attract attention.” He then Conjures a blade, and begins to make small marks across his own saddle. “There’s another stables here. Daraas do truly love their horses. They’ll have a saddle. Stablemaster will think he’s getting a steal from me.”
“How long is the road to Bouldeng? How much further would we have to travel?” I ask, and he gives me a quick look, the distrust in his eyes evident. “Probably another week or so at this pace. The Watchful Gate is about,” he says, shaking his hand to show he’s giving an estimate. “200 miles. You’re lucky you got a palfrey or it’d be double that time. We’ll have to stop off in one of the towns outside the gate to the great Valley, for probably a day or so; let the horses rest.”
Kairos says a word to Pyra, who dismounts, nodding. She couldn’t go; if word had spread about me it might have spread about her. As Kairos trots off, I offer my hand to Pyra, and she flinches away for a second before she stops herself and accepts. I pull her up onto the horse, Conjuring a pad and tying it to the reigns so that she won’t chafe as hard as I am, and we continue on past the town. She touches the pad multiple times. “Hardlight.” She mutters, then shivers.
“Are you cold?” I ask.
“I just don’t like it.” She says, and despite her words, she shivers. I look up at the sky. The sun is going down; and autumn is turning into winter. Voidor is the third month of autumn, and there’s only three days left until it’s Somataius. I put my hand on the cloak, which has remained strangely dormant in the recent days. Or I’ve stopped noticing when it moves. I undo the clasp and put it over her. It ties itself for her, and seems to grow thicker.
She puts a finger on it. “Lumine. What is this? It is strange.”
“A cloak. My cloth keeps me warm enough — and you must be getting cold.”
She smiles, only visible to me from the corners of her lips as she looks forward. “It smells.” She says.
“Hmm.”
The horse continues to trot, and eventually I reach the point where it would make the most sense to continue together, so I stop and get of the horse, only a minute or so walk from the main gate, but out of sight. Pyra strokes its mane and then dismounts too, and I lead it a little ways into the forest. We’ll make camp just outside of society. It’ll stop any wolves or bears from being too interested in the horses. In the last three days we’ve pushed them hard.
“Does he have a name?” she asks, knocking me from my thoughts. I crouch down and start looking for dry twigs — starter for a fire. “No.”
I pick up a few, sticking them into a small linen pouch. I make sure not to take any that are even slightly wet. I hate when the fire needs to cook off water before it gets going; that time waiting for it to become hot. “Well, it survived fire… and it’s strong. What about spark?”
“I doubt the horse cares; but if it did I imagine it would not appreciate being named after how it nearly died.”
She taps both her right hands on her stomach. “Hmm. Well we’ve been following rivers, right? What about that? What about river?”
“I do not care. It is a horse, not a pet.” I say, then pick up a nice wad of connected sticks. It is strange that it has not rained recently despite the season. “Okay then, River it is!” she says, stroking its neck. It breathes heavy breaths. It’s definitely in need of rest.
“Keep an eye on the road; we don’t know how long Kairos will take.” I say, then switch to picking up larger sticks, ripping the bark from the wet sticks to expose the nearly dry wood underneath. She grips onto a tree and swings about it, looking at the road ever so often. I hear her move and move, and then she stops.
“Kyallan?” she asks, her voice wavy. I stand up, looking over at her. Why does she sound afraid? I follow her gaze; a cart has pulled up to the entrance of the village. Out steps a fat man, who walks around and taps the back, giving a greasy smile through the bars. It’s full of slaves. One Hrakka, a Motari and three tall purple creatures. “Mother used to tell me about them. The purple ones, I mean. Duskora.”
I stand next to her. “For the mines.” I say. She shakes her head. “I don’t understand why. Why must they enslave?”
“It is only natural. All races use slaves — the labour is cheap, which means more resources are kept for us.”
I look at her. She stares at me with a horrified expression. “Only natural?” she says, then looks at her hands, where iron bands had chafed against her wrists — and have only just started to heal. “What is natural about forcing someone to do your bidding.”
I stare at her as her face turns from happy to sad, then she starts to walk towards the slaver. I rip forward and grab her hand, stopping her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to help them.” She says. I simply hold her hand; the sheer stupidity of that statement rippling through me. “No, you are not.”
Her face turns to anger, and she shouts. I feel the wave hit me, and I release my hand. This magic again. I snap out of it, reaching to grab her once more and catching her again. “Let go of me!” she shouts again, but this time the magic has even less effect.
“You cannot help them. Regardless of what you believe; they are lawfully someone elses’ property.” I say, then point to the cart. “They are armed guards — it just doesn’t look like it because they aren’t maintaining any Conjurations. They will cut a Motari girl like you up before you even open your mouth. Or put you back into chains.”
She slumps, and I release her, looking towards the slaver as she sulks towards the horse. “You could save them. You saved me. But you don’t want to.” She says, rubbing its mane.
“I’m not some saviour, not some revolutionary. You save them; the village starves because it doesn’t produce enough iron. They wouldn’t even get far — you only escaped because you found some people on horseback. They would get caught by the same people that were chasing you — Hinterlanders. You would achieve nothing and mark us on the map. I can’t let you do that.”
“I don’t care.” She says, and I hear the horse whinny. I look back; she’s mounted it and turned it around. “Stop me now.”
“Pyra!” I shout, but she’s already driven it forward. A second later, she’s back on the path and pushing the beast towards the cart.