In the end, Shona was made to move her entire tent to the opposite end of the encampment from Rosalea. From there, Rosalea didn’t see her much.
Afternoons that Taigan spent with her felt good, but the snow began to melt. The Uryans did not melt toward her, but there was an increase in the chatter they were clearly having with their liana about whether or not she should be allowed to continue to stay.
Rosalea did not advocate either way for herself. She trusted the liana to know what was probably best, but lately she had been seeing animals just in her periphery that didn’t belong. A goose once, that flew away as soon as she looked at it, and a squirrel, even though it was still a little too cold for them. It made her afraid that the Ieshans had come looking for her here. But, maybe Lindir’s memories made her paranoid.
The snow was nearly melted, only the areas where it had accumulated the most densely still had any ice to offer, and it was pretty dirty and worn down looking. Everything was pretty muddy, but Rosalea liked the way green shoots were appearing everywhere around them. Taigan was sitting on a chopped log he had brought over so they could sit outside while he taught her to carve with a knife, and she was showing she found it easier to just do it with her magic. “Yes, but, what if you do not have access to your magic? What if you are tired?” he asked.
“Slavers!” about thirty different voices screamed in her head; shattering the moment. Rosalea clapped her hands to her ears, though that did nothing to make mind speak any quieter.
Heartbeats later, four horsemen burst out of the trees. Rosalea was furthest from the main camp, so they were closest to her tent. She saw Taigan try to run for his father in the main clump of tents. She also saw the nearest horseman throw bolas, which caught Taigan about the legs and brought him face down in the mud.
“Boss says kill all the boys and men older than ten, and take the women case by case!”
Rosalea caught on, though she had only heard of slaving-groups from Urlic. They attacked Uryans and even Myradulian towns that were small enough, nearly wipe them out, and take the captives and sell them in Dyran, to the east. All this time, she had been paranoid about Ieshans, so it had not occurred to her that other dangers could even exist. At the same time, she felt very decisive. There are no slaves here. I will not allow it, Rosalea thought. The horses reached them, a man jumped off, and Rosalea was still, marshaling her power. Three approached her, and one drew a sword and was going for Taigan. Anyone who kills for a living and barters in lives deserves death, she thought.
For the first time since she had gotten here, she opened herself up fully to her magic and did what all the liana had been making her practice. These people might deserve death, but it wasn’t her place to give it to them. She didn’t even really like killing the animals she ate for food. Terra magic first, that sword will be made of metal, domain of the earth, she thought through it, and as soon as she focused on it and the weapon, she could see the glowing aura about it. She pointed at it, and then yelled, “DOWN!” and she made a swiping downward motion with her hand.
The man screamed as the whole sword wrenched down out of his hand and ran through the top of his boot and deep, deep into the half-frozen and muddy earth with a grating sound. He was in so much obvious pain as Taigan scrambled with his arms and elbows to get out of his reach, that he couldn’t lift the blade out. It made her stomach turn, but she was glad Taigan was getting away from him. She’d try to act with less violence on repressing the other ones.
Now for the ones approaching her. Snow is made from water, she called upon her imber magic and clenched her fists, gripping ice from a shady area. She threw it at both of them, knocking them from their horses. That will keep them busy for a moment, she thought, moving out of this spot. How many are there? She didn’t go for her bow and arrow - most of the action was now starting to happen around the camp, her magic would be more accurate with a better reach. Besides, she was in the zone of it now, all that practicing all fall and this winter so far had really made a difference.
How many horses are there? There are probably a few less men, she thought as she focused outward, getting a mental tally. Just a small band, it looked like, only twenty-five horses where Rosalea could sense them. She wondered if they knew how strong this clan was, to attack with so few.
Taigan had cut himself free, but another man was coming toward them as the four men already caught in the snow, or by their own sword, were crying out for help. “Push him down,” Rosalea yelled to Taigan, focusing again on her imber magic.
Taigan taunted the man, who rushed at him, and then he caught him by the wrist with a side step and flung him onto the ground. Rosalea made a swooshing motion with her hand and buried him in the mud, which she solidified with a fist clench. For a moment, he just stared at the ground. Then, he shook his head. “Stay here, but use your earth magic to start making walls around camp if you can!” He ran several yards to camp, and she saw more men pouring in. The Uryans, however, were armed and ready to fight back. Some of them men on horses were trying to fire a volley of flaming arrows. Caelus magic was the most wild for her to control, but she tried it here, catching arrows against a solid wall of air, and then she drove them into the muddy earth to put them out.
She was gratified as she overheard yelled curses about multiple mages somewhere.
She pulled up a wall of earth on the right, dividing a group of five men into two on one side and three on the other. She couldn’t get her magic to react fast enough to wholly stop another volley of arrows, which were also on fire and landed in the camp. Children who were old enough scurried around, putting the fires out.
Rosalea pulled a man from his horse with Caelus magic. Now the invaders were shouting something about full on witches filling the camp. There were orders to find them and kill them and other orders to run away. Rosalea had broken a sweat already, as she turned back another volley of arrows, letting it fall and smolder in the in the mud. She had never in her whole life used two magics back and forth so quickly, or worked them so hard each time. Her Caelus magic was almost spent. She raised another wall. Men were starting to turn back. Her terra magic had another wall or two in it before she ran out of it also. The only magic that seemed not particularly dwindled was all her animal Vitae magic. But the Uryans are already fighting back, and there is a lot of confusion. I think with one big thing to finish it off, these horrible men would flee.
She let both her weather magics down and reached into the plant magic. She was the least trained with this kind of magic, and she felt herself feathering it outward through the ground where evergreen trees latched onto it. Good enough, she thought as she dumped magic into them and brought them to angry, creaking life. Branches bristled and reached, claw-like, toward invaders, and the forest in general groaned all about the camp. She was gratified that her actions elicited screams of terror and confusion. Get out of here, now, she willed the slavers. But the plants were hungry for her magic, and the drain was immense on her. A few seconds of this and she found herself unable to keep on her feet as she was pulled to her knees in the mud.
She stopped as Uryan warriors surged forward and covered her ears and squinched her eyes shut as they killed the man who had his foot run through the sword - and began to chase the survivors into the trees. It made sense, they didn’t want the enemy to regroup or try a new attack, and the position of the camp had been compromised. So it was best that no enemies got away, but the carnage of it all made her still feel sick.
Rosalea just stayed where she was, feeling drained.
The Uryans gathered quickly, once the hunt was over. She did not resist as she was escorted to the camp center.
Taishan had a bloody gash on his face, but other than a few gashes and other mild injuries, no one had been hurt or killed. “If I am not mistaken, we all just witnessed you just use basically all the magic available to a human, all one after another.” He gestured around the camp to the snow walls, the loose horses, the smoldering arrows, and even the trees.
Rosalea frowned. It almost felt as if there was an accusation here. “Your liana have all basically told you what magics I have. You looked at my magic the first day we met.”
“What I am getting at is that you are no basic run away, are you, Rosalea.”
She heard the special emphasis on her name. Slowly, she understood. “I did not lie to you, and I would not be here, but your liana insisted it should be otherwise.” She did not fold her arms, but she wanted to. She drew herself up very straight. “My father was Gaiden. My mother was Lindir. I did not lie to you, I just did not tell you my title clearly because obviously I will never hold any relevant title if I have abandoned my people.”
She had that sensation again that everyone was staring at her, that there was a tenseness in the air around her. The man who had originally tied her up and then had to immediately untie her spoke, “I mean, we all thought there was a trick to it. The liana don’t call you Rosalea, they call you Nadia. But you match the description and the magic of someone dangerous to all Uryans.”
Rosalea felt a tightness in her chest. This must have been why Taigan was defensive about her belonging here, and it was also why there were rocks thrown at her earlier. The gossip and rumors were obviously hitting a boiling point. “I defended you today, and I have not harmed any of you at any time. I will never return to the Ieshans because I simply cannot and will not willingly do what they hope. If you do not want me here, then let me leave. Escort me to the far side of the mountains if you do not want me here and think I might be trying to go back to Castle Darius. Do not pretend that I am your enemy when you are the ones keeping me here.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Taishan’s face showed nothing. He was being utterly stoic, and he was clearly trying to keep and project calm to those around him. Rosalea realized that what she had done was a mistake. She had shown how dangerous she could be, and now people worried that she could and would be that dangerous to them. It made her angry; she had saved a lot of them.
“Taigan, take her back to her tent and stay there. Let’s get some order and control here,” and he turned away from her after ordering his son to watch over her.
“Yes, father.” Taigan stepped forward. He held out his hand for her, “Come along.”
Rosalea took his hand, and was so led away. People scattered. Rosalea walked slowly, feeling quite tired back to her tent. She slumped into her tent, looked around for some food as Taigan took a stand outside. He smiled gently at her, trying to reassure her.
That little smile was enough to melt a lot of the anger. That is one way Ieshans and Uryans are different. Ieshans are only this subtle when they want to gain something. I all but yelled at Taishan and he barely paid me any mind. Things in the clan were, after all, very tight-knit and people did their best to keep displays of emotion private. So, even a slight smile seemed like a good win.
She sighed. It is the fault of the mind magic that the Uryans are like this. Mind magic worked best at getting a person to do things they would normally be willing to do. Emotion gave information to the enemy, so they hid it. Rosalea understood their paranoia. The Ieshans and Myradulians attacked with regularity enough that people were responsive instantly to it.
Taishan tapped on the side of her tent, “Come in,” Rosalea said a bit more flatly at him than she meant to. Taigan looked down.
“The council has talked. We appreciate the help you’ve offered. I… want you to know something though, what it is that has everyone on edge. May I sit?”
Rosalea nodded, and he came and sat by his son, patting him on the shoulder as he did so. Taigan took a deep breath in, and then slowly let it out.
“I think, you should know, Gaiden was not really a full Uryan. His mother was a woman that came from an island off the west coast. There’s at least some possibility that you have all magics for… a prophetic reason.”
Rosalea stared at him. Taigan was suspiciously quiet. She picked her next words carefully, “I know that there is a prophecy of some sort, and people think I am involved somehow, but I do not know how or what you are talking about.
Taishan shrugged intentionally. “Honestly, it is vague. It just says that someone like you will start the unification process of a broken family within the Gods, and that will unify the broken family of vitae magics. It also speaks of purging weakness. The prophecy was given by Iesha, it is said, on her deathbed. It has been interpreted by some to mean that whichever side has the one that unifies magic on their side - that the other side will be destroyed.”
Rosalea stared at him, waiting. Does that mean you intend to try to keep me here? She was not sure how to ask it.
Taishan filled the silence and answered her unasked question. “I would ultimately rather let you loose in the world to make your own way and find the prophecy in whatever way the Gods view to be right, than keep you here or let the Ieshans try to force you to do anything.”
“I appreciate that,” Rosalea said after a pause.
Another tapping at her tent. Taishan stood and invited her to come out with him. Avli was there, a palomino horse on a lead behind her. Rosalea pursed her lips as she recognized her as the one that tended to kick and bite. She was already wearing a saddle and bridle. The saddlebags were bulging with supplies. “We want to send you with gifts to help make certain you have a good start. Have a look.” Rosalea opened to find saddlebags filled with dried foods, extra leather and skins, a small tent, as well as some full water canteens. While she was checking the saddle bag closest to the front right, the mare turned around and did indeed try to bite her.
She caught the beast with the palm of her hand on the side of her dark muzzle, “No biting me,” she thought in commanding mindspeak at it as she shoved the face away from her body. Rosalea had never had to interact with most of the horses directly, just the ones that helped her learn how to ride them - which were obviously of a lot more worth than this naggy mare she was faced with at present. Even so, the palomino was a bright gold color, with a very creamy colored gold mane and tail that definitely made her pretty compared to the chestnuts, sorrels, bays, and gray dapple ponies that comprised most of the herd. That had made it easy to see how she bullied the horses and liked to bite riders attempting to saddle her, and that she had once bucked off someone close to Rosalea’s age that was learning to break horses.
The mare’s deep brown eyes blinked in confusion as Rosalea spoke directly to her. The Neesa could hear liana, but only liana. “How else am I supposed to tell you that I don’t like you and I want to be in charge?”
Rosalea shrugged as she closed the front saddlepack. “I do not know if you know that you do not like me. You and I have never met. How do you know you do not like me?”
Maybe it was too high level of a line of questioning for a horse. Rosalea had found in practicing mindspeak on things that were not liana, she had to think of ways of talking to them that fit their view of the world. The mare stared at her and flattened her ears to her skull in a way that made Rosalea want to step back before she did something violent. But instead, the mare persisted, “I know I do not like you because you will make me do things I do not like. All the humans do.”
“Not all the humans talk to you. I talk to you. What things do you not like?”
“They pull on my mouth and nose with this thing they put on my head to make me do what they want. If I try to ignore it, they do it until it hurts by pulling harder.”
Rosalea reached out and patted the mare’s neck in a reassuring fashion. “That is fair. I can talk to you. So, if you agree to go where I tell you to, then I will take the bridle, the thing most humans use to tell you what to do, entirely off.”
The mare’s ears came up and flicked back and forth, and her tail began to swish in an animated fashion. “But what if I do not want to go the way you are going because it is rocky or steep or wet or scary?”
Rosalea kept stroking along the mare’s neck to reassure her. I guess she has gotten herself in a battle of attrition she could never have hoped to win. She does not always want to obey, when she exerts her authority, the humans get rougher on her, and so she has escalated and given herself a reputation. So the Uryans have escalated harder, and she has become more angry. She took a deep breath, “How about if we come across areas we need to go over you are concerned about, we will figure out how to work it out by talking to each other. If it is steep, and I am heavy, then I can get off and walk with you. If the rocks hurt your feet, we can go around them. And if it is scary, we can go around, or I can figure out how to chase away the scary things. What do you think about that?”
The mare huffed so hard the sound that came out of her nose was hard to define. Rosalea dubbed it a “snork.” “Take the bridle-thing off.”
Rosalea reached up behind the mare’s head and gripped the leather from behind her ears and pulled the bridle off, much to Avli’s audible surprise. “No bucking me off, no biting me, and no ignoring me. We will talk about things to work them out, and then you will never have to wear a bridle again,” Rosalea informed the horse.
Avli smirked as, after she was left holding the bridle, the horse just stood there and snorked again, flicking her tail. “I suppose she is well-suited to you since you can just talk to her. To be fair, she was selected because the herd is steadily rejecting her.”
Rosalea raised a brow, but Avli remained expressionless. You know as well as I do that it is because she is difficult to manage. Still, she patted the horse. “What is she called?”
“Annie. She was traded from a Myradulian.”
Rosalea wondered if Annie had the most bland name of any horse in the herd. The one she had learned to ride had been called Bronze Heart. I guess we can be misfits that do not really belong anywhere together, she thought as she patted the horse one more time.
Taigan came up alongside her, and she looked into his eyes. She could see he was sad by the way they were intense, almost glass, and she looked away. She took a deep breath, “I guess this is it for me. I do not know what I am supposed to do, but maybe… if I stay away from both Ieshans and Uryans, no one will get hurt, right?”
Taigan swallowed and put his hand on Annie, near her hand. “I wish you the best. I am glad you got to know us too, even if it turns out you do not have all that is needed for the prophecy.”
She wondered how soon Taigan had known what she might be. No wonder he never was quite warm to her like she felt to him. “All magic, but maybe not all blood?”
He nodded and moved away. After that, tentatively, she climbed up into the saddle, sitting roughly enough to make Annie complain because the pack on her back was so heavy, but nothing else happened. “Sorry, I will get better at it when I practice more,” she reassured the horse.
Avli held up the bridle, but Rosalea shook her head. She had been tempted to just reject the horse entirely when she saw who it was. And now? If Annie and she could not get along, then maybe the best thing to do was find someone else to give her to. Besides, she could cover a lot more ground with a horse and carry a lot more stuff with her, so it was worth giving it a try, and Annie had been clear she hated the bridle.
“May the Gods watch your journey and aid you,” Avli said and bowed.
Rosalea resisted saying what she really felt… which was no one knew the prophecy, not really, and Iesha was maybe a mad woman full of grudges deeper than Ulric’s.
She found it upsetting they were sending her way immediately after she saved them.
At the same time, the panic and sickness she felt from seeing a battle so up close was really sticking with her.
The Ieshans wouldn’t be as foolish as Myraduilian or Dyran slavers. They would be organized, and they would know exactly what they were doing.
So, Rosalea nodded acceptance, but it left an uncomfortable pit in her stomach. It was obvious the Gods had something in mind for her - they had summoned Uryans to watch over her for half a year or more and protect her from the cold. Yet, she didn’t feel like some sort of prophesied “one,” so maybe it was just like Ulric had said, and her kids were going to be someone important.
Nothing I can do about it, she told herself and clucked her tongue to signal Annie to go. The mare began to walk forward. Avli turned away from her, and only the liana told Rosalea goodbye. She guided the mare out of the trees, feeling unsettled and weird about it all, but soon enough they passed the tree line and the camp seemed to disappear.
And in this fashion, she left the Uryans behind.