Maelys

Maelys was bleeding.

She knew this because she could feel it, trickling down her face.

Around her, the insects continued to feast. The hood slowed them down a bit, so several had worked their way lower, down her stomach, seeking easier access to the untouched flesh there. Maelys barely felt it. Her face—or what was left of it—was a constant, throbbing, prickling agony.

At least they left the eyes, Maelys thought. She’d been blinking non-stop, trying to keep them from chewing through her eyelids to reach the soft substance underneath. She didn’t care if they took the rest of her...she just wanted her eyes. Even if she was just a skull with two bulging white eyes staring out at the world from ivory sockets, please, gods, just let her keep her eyes.

Realizing the ridiculousness of her thoughts, Maelys started to laugh again. Each chuckle left her with wracking pain in her ribs, tormenting her, yet Maelys didn’t stop. Couldn’t. They just kept coming, bubbling up from her crushed chest and through her bloody lips. They alternated between chuckles and heavy-full-throated laughter that ate up her air, but she couldn’t stop.

Maelys?

Trembling, Maelys went silent. She wasn’t sure if the voice had been inside her mind or inside her prison.

“Maelys?”

A thud beside her. Something touched her side.

“Oh gods. You’re bleeding.”

You can see that through the cloth? Maelys thought, absurdly. Wow, they must’ve done a number on me. Hungry little buggers. She felt the laughter bubbling up again, at the edge of her conscious.

She felt big hands unwrapping her, rolling her. She cried out as her ribs tore at her innards. Cold air suddenly swept around her, bringing goosebumps to her already damp flesh.

Then Maelys felt fingers at her throat, tugging at the knot on the hood. She tried to raise her hands to help, but couldn’t.

Like in a dream, the hood jerked free of her face and she saw Aneirin above her. The aghast, pitying look on his face was all she needed to know. Ivory. Plenty of ivory, Maelys thought. Guess I’ll never go poor again. She started to laugh.

Aneirin undid her gag and lifted her into his arms, and somehow, her laughter changed. She began to cry.

Maelys opened her eyes to a throbbing heat in her face. She sat up instantly and touched her hand to her cheek. The skin was rough, having a textured, yet smooth feel. She glanced down at the pillow. A shaft of sunlight pierced the room where her head had been, responsible for the burning sensation.

Slowly, she climbed out of bed, surprised she could.

She tiptoed to the door and opened it, looking outside.

The silence of the hall resounded around her, but it was the unbroken stone architecture that made her breath catch. Everywhere she looked, the halls and doorways were constructed of a single, seamless mass of stone.

I remember this, she thought. She had passed through these halls before, ushered inside with her flesh cold and prickling under Rees’s woolen cloak.

“Morning.”

The word made Maelys jump, startled. Rees was sitting in a chair in the corner of her room, watching her. She swallowed, hard. Neither he nor the chair had been there a moment before.

“Shut the door.”

Maelys obeyed.

“Aneirin’s preparing for his ranking,” Rees said. “Otherwise he would be here.” The old Auld leaned forward in his chair. “Girl, tell me—”

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“Maelys,” she whispered. Her eyes had caught on the mirror across the room and she had forgotten to breathe.

He gave her a moment to study her new visage. “Maelys. Who did that to you?”

“Bugs.” A bitter little laugh strangled her. “Lots of bugs.”

“Was it Laelia?”

Maelys tore her eyes away from the scarred image in the mirror and glanced at him. “No.” Immediately, Rees looked disappointed. “But she came to laugh at me once.”

Rees’s face hardened. “Ah.”

Maelys swallowed and glanced back at the mirror. “She’s going to kill me, isn’t she?”

“No,” Rees said. “No, child. You’re in Ganlin Hall. Vethyles aren’t allowed within a mile of its weigh-line. Hell, the last Vethyle who set foot on these slopes was run out by the Auldheim herself.”

Somehow, Maelys didn’t feel better. “Can I talk to Aneirin?”

Rees peered at her. “Nirin’s about to get ranked. He’s in his room, meditating. He’s not supposed to have visitors.”

“Please?” she whispered.

“I can’t stop you, obviously,” Rees said, pointing at the stone walls and floors around them. “But he’s not supposed to have visitors.” Then he leaned back, arms crossed upon his chest in a position that said, But then, you don’t care about our customs. You never did.

Looking at the stone, Maelys felt sick to her stomach. “Never mind. Sorry. I’ll wait.”

Rees appeared a little stunned. He stared at her for several moments, as if he truly didn’t believe her words, then got up. “I have my own errands to attend to in preparation for the ranking. I’ll see you again after it’s over.” He moved toward the door, then stopped and glanced back at her. “I’ll be seeing Nirin within the hour if you need me to give him a message.”

Maelys swallowed. “He was the one who found me?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Rees’s face darkened. “He won’t tell us. Perhaps you could shed light on the subject, considering the blankets you were wrapped in were drenched in fog, making it impossible to scrye for you.”

Maelys shook her head.

“Find out,” Rees said, his face holding an odd sharpness to it. “There’s something he’s not telling us, and it bothers me.”

“Now?” Maelys asked.

Rees snorted. “No. I want you to stay in this room until it’s time to rank him. You can watch the actual ranking if you want, but I don’t want you getting close to him beforehand and I don’t want you within twenty feet of the stage when it’s happening. There’s something about you that seems to draw...trouble.” His face softened a bit. “No offense to you, child, but I think Nirin was better off without you.”

Maelys glanced back at the mirror.

Rees saw the gesture. “And I’d say you were better off without him, too.” He nodded at the sunlight streaming through the window. “I’ll help you search for your people tomorrow.” Then he walked through the door and pulled it shut behind him.

Maelys slumped down onto her bed and stared at her mauled face.

And I thought I was gonna be pretty, she thought, the laughter bubbling back. Her shoulders began to shake, but she wasn’t sure what caused it.

She stood up and went to the window in order to turn her back on the mirror. Outside, she saw strange mountainsides covered with orange and red fall foliage. The highest peaks had streaks of yellow, the dead leaves of some mountain wildflower she couldn’t remember the name of, right along with the names of her mother and father.

Closer to her window, a lush forest sprang from seemingly barren mountain slopes, drenched with steam rising from its bubbling hot springs. Children with black hair and green eyes played in the scattered pools below, and from her vantage point Maelys could see a line of freckled divers leaping from a twenty-foot cliff into a pristine pool of hot azure water.

They’re all Ganlins, she thought. She’d never guessed there were so many of them.

Back at the Spyre, though they had been powerful, they had been few. The Vethyles and Norfelds, in comparison, had been everywhere.

But here, gathering in preparation for Aneirin’s ranking, were more Ganlins in one spot than Maelys had seen in months. It was a little frightening to think of the power congregated here, on these cold mountain slopes, and it made her feel a little better about what Rees had said. The Vethyles wouldn’t try to reach her here. Not with so many Ganlins in the way.

The more Maelys surveyed the Ganlin lands, the more she realized that she needed to find her home. Seeing the children at play tickled something in her mind, something important that she just couldn’t grasp. She recognized it, in a way. She also feared it immensely.

I have to get home, she thought.

Before she could allow her conscience to stop her, she crawled out of her window and scaled down the smooth surface of the outside wall, using just enough communication with the rock to give herself handholds, and nothing more. As she climbed down, she saw several Ganlin children look up and point. Gritting her teeth, Maelys hurried. She wanted to be gone before word got back to Rees.

She didn’t think he would come after her, but she also didn’t want to take the chance.

Reaching the rocky slope below the cliff-like structure of Ganlin Hall, she began to scale the crumbling mountainside, away from the hot springs below. She heard someone shout to her, but ignored it and kept going.

In half an hour, she was standing on a breezy point above Ganlin Hall and its hot springs. From the position, she could see the vast, rugged arrays of mountains all around her, their reds and oranges contrasting against the fresh snow on the uppermost peaks.

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Maelys shivered. Like the others who had been stranded here, Maelys knew she would only find her death on the windswept rocks.

Still, something was pulling her onward, nagging at her consciousness with every beat of her heart. Somewhere out there, her people were waiting for her. She had to find them.