Saebrya

Saebrya was standing against the Auld’s hut when the window above her began to gush near-black silver liquid like water from a busted dam. One moment, there wasn’t even a dribble. The next, it hit her in a flood and swept her across the yard—only moments before an arrow slammed through the place where Saebrya had been standing.

Saebrya was just finding her feet again against the current when the flow increased tenfold, hitting her full in the chest with a pressure that knocked her backwards again, rolling her across the rocks and weeds until the trunk of an aspen tree painfully brought her up short. From this distance, she saw the Auld standing at the side of the hut, bow in hand, frowning at her.

It was the veoh, though, that terrified her. The wall of silver ether surging from the hut hadn’t slowed, leaving her choking, gasping, drowning as it continued to inundate her, pushing, seeking, like a living thing trying to shove its way inside…

As Saebrya struggled to fight the flow surging towards her, Ryan walked around the edge of the hut, sloshing through the liquid there. Upon seeing her friend, Saebrya froze.

He was made of silver.

Like he was part of the fluid flooding the land, trying to force its way into her chest, Ryan’s whole body, top to bottom, showed no sign of color, no hair nor zit nor fiber that wasn’t gleaming, searing silver.

As soon as their eyes met, a smile came upon Ryan’s face and he started towards her. As Saebrya shivered and fought the flood that pounded at her from all sides, her friend walked up and squatted beside her, then held out his hand.

Together again, blood of my veoh? he asked, with an amused quirk to his expressive lips. He gestured with his chin over his shoulder. Let’s show the old goat what we’re made of, eh?

Saebrya glanced at the Auld, who was backing away from them in white-faced horror. On some deep inner level, she understood what was happening, and it terrified her. Like it had happened before, and it had brought with it great horrors…

Yet something about Ryan’s presence calmed her, easing her fears even amidst the chaos of the frothing silver ocean that was slamming into her chest, trying to tear through her. She gingerly reached out and took his hand in return.

In that same moment, the rushing column of silver found some chink in her armor and slammed through her body and into the world beyond, hitting her with the force of an ocean boring through the eye of a needle. She felt it burning a channel through her chest, searing her like molten metal. She felt part of her begin to crack, her sense of self slipping away with the rush of veoh…

Easy, Ryan whispered, tightening his hand on hers. You’ve done this before. The first time is always hardest, and I always make it up to you later. Let it carve a path and it will be done.

Heedless, Saebrya fought the storm around her, twisting into a fetal position, gasping at the intense heat in her chest. It’s taking me, she thought in panic. It’s burning me away…

It can’t burn you away, silly, Ryan said. That’s like saying a fever can cut off your hand. Calm down and let it forge the channel. Or do you want the Auld to shoot you? He raised a silver brow playfully.

She definitely did not want the Auld to shoot her, but it was Ryan’s grin that made her relent.

Because she trusted him when she trusted no one else in the world, Saebrya surrendered to the storm.

Instantly, Saebrya found herself becoming the epicenter of an ethereal flood, silver veoh pushing through her and out into the forest with a force that made her hand tighten on Ryan’s in terror. He squeezed back, and touched her shoulder gently. As if she were the drain at the bottom of an ocean, silver ether began blasting out of her in all directions with such force it was drowning the very land, saturating it like someone had upended the ocean through her, connecting her to whatever was inside the hut by a massive column of rushing silver that she couldn’t have cut if she had had a thousand years. Worse, the trees seemed to be reaching for the flood, drinking it, absorbing it until they were pillars of eye-searing light surrounding them in all directions.

The column itself became so bright with the sheer concentration of veoh it was sending through her that it lit up the side of the hut to a painful white, when it should have been darkened by the noon shadow. The Auld standing beside the building threw up his arm as if even he could see the brightness radiating from the cord.

But Ryan, still crouched over her, didn’t seem to notice the light. Instead, still holding Saebrya’s hand in one palm, he looked out at the forest around them with a focused purpose, raised his other hand, and squeezed his fingers into a fist. Saebrya gasped as she felt something pull through her, like a massive rope going taut, then felt a rush of ether from the opposite direction, hitting her hard enough to make her dizzy, spilling around her in a violent storm that seemed to break into total calm on her body itself, stopping short of their joined hands, keeping the violence from breaking apart the form of the man crouching beside her.

Ryan continued to hold her, huddling behind her like a shield. His eyes were closed, his fist still clenched. Then, with a suddenness that startled her, he threw his palm open.

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As one, the countless aspen trees around them sucked in the last of the ocean of veoh until they, too, glowed with the same searing light Ryan carried, setting the whole world ablaze while at the same time stilling the storm around them to sudden, total serenity. Within the unnatural calm, Saebrya felt the grove shift, like a thousand soldiers marching to the same tune.

The Auld must have seen it, too, because he lowered his bow again and took a wary step away from the forest, back towards his hut.

Then silver-Ryan released her hand and grinned down at her. The war is coming. Different players this time, but the fight is always the same. Hang in there. We will both remember soon. Taking her fingers in his, he brought them to his lips, giving her the odd sensation of tingling lips of veoh touching the back of her hand as his eyes met hers with promise. After a moment of holding her there, his silvery features started to smooth, becoming less defined until he collapsed in a liquid rush that fed into the very ground itself, which now glowed the same eye-searing silver as the trees, as far as the eye could see. With his collapse, the massive column of silver connecting her to the hut fell away, leaving her feeling hollow in the void it left behind.

Panting, Saebrya sat against the tree for several moments in shock, trying to make sense of what she had just seen. Her chest still felt raw where the veoh had burned through, every part of her body tingling and achy like she had the flu. She looked down at herself and her breath caught when she saw the fist-sized hole seared into her shirt, the edges still afire with silver veoh. When she pulled her tunic out and looked down, the skin between her breasts was welted in an angry red rash. Gingerly, she touched it, and felt a weird sensation of a tunnel through her before she hastily removed her hand. Dropping her tunic, she looked up, heart pounding.

All around her, the forest was changed. It wasn’t like the horse tack that she had seen the Vethyles using, which was wrapped or woven in golden ether. This was different. This was like the ether had become the objects it had soaked, like it now carried the same inner fire as Ryan’s body, reminding her of sippers. Her spine started to prickle at that thought, and she scooted away from the aspen tree that had arrested her tumble across the yard.

“Girl,” the Auld said, still staring up at the trees with a pale face, “what did you just do?”

Which made her think he hadn’t seen Ryan, after all.

Saebrya quickly covered the hole in her shirt with a hand. “Nothing,” she whispered. She began moving gingerly towards the place where Ryan’s liquid body had joined the ground. When she found nothing out of the ordinary there, she edged closer to the hut and chanced a glance through the window.

Ryan was slumped against a support post, eyes closed, cheek pushed back by the wooden pole, drooling. Someone had tied his wrists in place. The entire inside of the hut was soaked in glowing silver.

“Don’t lie to me,” the Auld snapped. “The trees are afire with veoh. The last time I felt Form and Function altered like this, I was walking the halls of Ariod. What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Saebrya insisted.

He narrowed his eyes and took aim at her with another arrow.

Impossibly fast, a tree grew in front of him, its spreading branches knocking him backwards. When the Auld narrowed his eyes and tried to step around the obstruction, another grew beside it.

Seeing that, watching the branches grow like a wall to block him, the old man stopped trying to shoot at her. He stepped back, the bow falling to his side, staring up at the trees in something akin to awe.

Saebrya used the Auld’s distraction to climb inside the window and squat beside Ryan. The ropes binding him to the post were woven with strands of bright silver veoh, which were easy for her to rip aside. Untying Ryan was simple, but carrying him was impossible.

“Ryan,” she whispered. She grabbed his shoulder and shook it. “Ryan!”

“Huh?” her friend murmured, opening one eye to look at her.

“We need to get out of here,” she whispered. “I think you did something…” She swallowed, realizing she couldn’t explain to him what she had seen without alerting him to the fact he was an auldling and perhaps losing him forever. She glanced out the window at the trees that were even then shifting around them—not with the wind, but of their own accord—then back at Ryan. A large part of her wanted to tell him anyway, because what had happened was something she had never seen before. “We really need to go.”

“Saeby?” Ryan said, squinting up at her. “Did you bring some fish?”

“What?” Saebrya asked. “Fish?”

“Mom wanted some fish,” he slurred. “She’s making chowder and she ran out.” He leaned his head back against the pole like he was going to go back to sleep.

“Ryan,” Saebrya hissed. “Come on! The Auld’s out there.”

“That’s not good,” Ryan mumbled. “Aulds don’t eat fish.”

“Ryan!” She grabbed him under the arms and heaved him away from the support. “Ryan!”

Ryan slumped backwards, his face slackened in sleep. “Gotta get a pig,” he mumbled, almost incoherent. “Mom’s gonna want a pig.”

After over a decade of surviving in the wilderness on her own, Saebrya was strong for a girl, but Ryan was big for a boy. She glanced at the other kid the Auld had kidnapped, biting her lip, wondering if she should chance asking for help.

“Girl!” the old man shouted from outside. “Come out here and talk!”

Saebrya hastily knelt at the other boy’s side, grabbed his blanketed shoulder, and shook him. “Hey!” she whispered. “We’re getting out of here!”

She saw the kid’s eyes flutter, but, like Ryan, he remained unconscious.

“Lice crust your bed, girl!” the old man snarled, followed by a long string of invectives aimed at something else.

Trying not to panic, Saebrya glanced out the window.

The Auld was carefully walking towards the hut, but the forest—even the ground itself—was shifting around him, keeping it perpetually out of reach.

Seeing the aspens’ unnatural rearrangement, Saebrya’s heart started to pound. She dropped into a squat and grabbed Ryan by the wrists and started dragging him from the hut, desperate to get away from whatever his veoh had created.

“Girl!” the Auld called to her, as she dragged Ryan through the front door. He had circled around the hut, but the moving trees had kept him at a distance. “I’m sorry,” the Auld apologized. “I didn’t realize anyone survived the wars.” He seemed…contrite.

Saebrya located the Auld’s horse, which was placidly watching the trees move like serpents around them. Leaving Ryan lying in the doorway, she headed towards the animal, praying it didn’t respond with terror like all the others. She was stunned that it didn’t even twitch when she reached for its reins, then noticed the weave of silver ether woven into its ear.

“Please!” the Auld cried. “If I’d known who you were, I wouldn’t have tried to do you harm…”

Pulling the horse back towards Ryan, Saebrya paused and frowned at the Auld. “I told you. It wasn’t me.”

The Auld frowned as if he thought she were lying, but only for a moment. Then his face went slack and he glanced at Ryan. “Him?”