Chapter 6

Here but in a Hundred Pieces

Days pass by after the Dust Devil fought against the Guard and won in such definitive fashion.

Guard and Soldiers still patrol the Sea, crawling around in groups like skulking creatures, eyeing everything with a squinted gaze that reminds me far too much of the faux trial that took Astra from Freedom and Jabez at the orders of the Judge and Justice from the accusation lodged by the King that they were somehow abusing her.

Seneca and Icarus stay with us. They offer commentary and observations, bits of information about their timeline of Ragdon and the King on the Carnelian Throne.

Katelin returns to her job as secretary to the King of Ragdon on the Amethyst Throne each day for the better part of the day. Every time, Camden and the rest of us watch her go.

“She’ll be fine,” Camden tells himself. “Lucius doesn’t want her yet, and the King has no reason to hurt her. He doesn’t know that she doesn’t like him.”

“We’ll see her again,” I say, hoping that it’s true.

“The King didn’t kill Jabez,” Astra says, “so I don’t think he’ll do the same to Katelin. We’ll see her again.”

Astra nods with certainty.

Jabez blinks, raising his eyebrows. I take a step back, working over her logic and confused.

“Thank you, Astra,” is all Camden says in reply.

“Even if he did know,” Seneca says, part her own words and part a translation of a string of Icarus’s chirps, “he seems like the type of guy to get a little too much enjoyment out of watching others squirm. Would he keep someone around because he knows they don’t want to be there? He could hold something over her head.”

Camden chews on his lip. His eyes fall to the ground as he shrugs in a noncommittal kind of way, worry flaring in his gaze. “Yeah, could be.”

Icarus chitters, fluffing out his feathers and shaking so they sit right.

“Icarus wants to know what you were getting up to this morning.”

I turn my attention to Camden, as does the golden eagle, whose eyes shine bright enough in the sun that they seem to glow from within. His feathery winged pendant hangs heavy around his neck from the thick black cord.

“I had to help out a family on the other side of the Sea over by the Barracks. Some Guard and Soldiers were harassing them. Weren’t leavin’ ‘em alone or anything. I caught a few snakes and let them loose in the Barracks and made sure they were in their particular beds. The family oughta be fine. Told ‘em to find me if the Guard and Soldiers messed with ‘em again. Fuckin’ power play.”

Seneca and Icarus share a deer they’d caught earlier, roasting it over a fire usually kept burning by the Erebus Tree. Jabez picks at a rabbit, cheek on his foreleg as he chews on a bite.

I’m chewing on a mouthful of grass when the wind shifts direction, bringing with it a new barrage of scents, including one that gets my attention. I jerk my head up, moving to stand in front of Astra, and prick my ears, swallowing the bite I took before I’ve finished chewing it.

I watch as a large creature stumbles through the Sea, crashing into some of the last remaining tents that still stand without needing repairs. I hear them fall, then get to their feet again with great effort.

Astra presses up against a hind leg as Jabez pushes himself to his paws with a groan he muffles with gritted teeth. Icarus allows Seneca to climb up onto his shoulders, and together, they watch, scanning the Sea for anything else.

“What the fuck?” Camden all but shrieks, fingers curling into fists so tight his knuckles pale. “I just checked that tent; it was one of the few that was actually mostly fine!”

I frown and swivel my ears, scenting the air. I can’t quite place the smell, but I know it from long, long ago. It’s familiar, the type of smell that’s impossible to forget. It’s the type of smell that’s ingrained so deep in brain tissue that it can never be dug out.

I scent the air again, then frown.

There’s no way.

That scent has been dead for decades. That scent was killed by Arcane. Arcane killed her; he took her life. She died and met Lucius.

But when I catch a glimpse of a grey trunk and a rainbow wing rising over the top of a tent, I know I must investigate closer.

Is that really Freedom? How? Is this an illusion? Am I dreaming? Is this a trick by the King to make us see something we want so badly?

“Watch Astra, ok?” I ask Camden. “I need to see who that is in the Sea, but Astra cannot be there.”

I need to do this. If Freedom is here, how? And if that’s not her…

I don’t want to think that, not when the ache in my heart at her loss has returned, rearing its head just as strongly as it did the first time. The thought of seeing her again, even if that doesn’t make sense, presses too deep into my being for me to want to think anything else, however irrational the logical part of my brain tells me the thought of Freedom living again is.

“I’ll keep Astra entertained, Brook. Go.” Camden nods, strands of dark hair falling into his face as he gives me a determined look.

xxxx

I race off into the Sea, hooves pounding against the ground beneath me as I track down the being in the Sea. My tail waves behind me as I run.

It doesn’t take long to reach the place where the tent had collapsed. I don’t see the creature, but I see paw prints that don’t quite line up. Something itches in my memory when I see massive circular impressions in the ground along with clawed, four-toed imprints as well.

It can’t be, but I’ve never seen paw prints like that anywhere else.

I trot forward and follow the paw prints. They continue in a haphazard pattern, staggering and uneven. Every so often, one drags and leaves scuff marks in the soil. A few deep gouges dig trenches in the ground.

But as the scent becomes stronger, I walk faster, and soon I reach her.

I’m greeted with a sight I haven’t seen in almost a century.

A grey trunk curls around one of two massive tusks, pulling on burlap that’s wrapped around the tusk. Black eyes narrow in frustration as she trumpets, flaring rainbow wings and lashing a tail that ends in what I know is a long, pink tuft of fur but looks grey to me. Green claws on her hind legs dig into the soil for purchase as she leans back, pushing off with her elephant’s forelegs.

“Freedom,” I breathe.

And then I notice it— the rotting flesh, the bones, the muscles and ligaments hanging limp and disconnected from anything. One of her wings snaps open and shut a few times, and her head ticks to the side, driving one of her tusks into a wooden support.

“What’s going on?” I ask, rushing to her side.

The look Freedom gives me breaks my heart, but looks so similar to the looks I’ve seen Jabez trying to hide.

“Freedom was dead,” my best friend tells me. “Lucius had me, and then they gave me back. I was in the ground. I don’t understand.”

“I… what can I do?”

Freedom steps forward, pressing her forehead to the support for the tent. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I really don’t. I don’t understand anything myself. I don’t know what I need.”

“You’re back though?” I ask, trying to make any sort of sense of seeing Freedom again, nearly a century after I last saw her and sixty years after Arcane killed her in the tragic accident on Ragdon Volcano.

Freedom twists her head but keeps her forehead against the log. The mane on her head rasps against the debarked trunk, hairs tangling against each other. She gazes at me through black eyes.

“I’m here,” she says, “but my body is in a hundred pieces. I have my magic; I can manipulate others’ emotions. I can move, but I cannot control myself fully.” Freedom sighs, but there’s no anger, only a bone-deep tiredness and a helplessness that I wish I could take away. “Am I back? I don’t know. But I’m here, Brook. I’m here.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Would you like to see Astra?”

I keep my voice neutral as I ask the question, but I hope with everything within me that Freedom will say yes, because I don’t know how I will tell Astra that her biological mother did not wish to see her. I would find a way to tell her, but I don’t want to. I’ll respect Freedom’s wishes, but I want her to get to see her daughter. I want them to meet and to have a relationship that’s not only me telling stories. I want Astra to know who her mother is through her own experiences.

“Does she want to see me?” Freedom asks.

I nod. “I think she would be very happy to see you.”

Freedom huffs a small, short laugh. “She’s still cheerful?”

I incline my head. “Yes, Astra’s very, very cheerful and happy. I kept my promise, Freedom. I kept Astra safe. I will continue to do so.”

“I should see her,” Freedom muses, “but what if she’s angry? I left her. I told you to take her away. I couldn’t keep her safe from the King. I wanted to, but… I’m strong, but the King was —and still is— stronger. Will she be upset, Brook? I don’t want her to be angry. If she’d be happier not seeing me…”

Freedom trails off, and I step in.

“I’m not Astra, but I’ve known her for the last ninety years. I believe that she will be happy to see you. I think she would love to meet her mother.”

Freedom laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I… you’re her mother, Brook.”

“I’m her stepmother. You are her mother. You never lost the title. You are and will always be her mother. You love her, Freedom. You love Astra just as a mother should.”

Freedom backs up a step, standing up a little straighter. She watches me for a moment, but then I see something shift. Her black eyes which had been looking at me suddenly look through me, gazing into space, gazing at nothing, everything, something. A hind leg buckles and gives out, crumpling beneath her weight as a wing snaps out, vibrating. Freedom’s head ticks to the side, an ear pinning back as her trunk contracts and curls.

I hear her draw in a choked breath, ragged breathing coming in tiny gasps.

Her forelegs lock, toes pressed into the dirt. The loose flap of skin on her side that’s draped over her ribcage sways as she trembles and shakes.

For long enough that I begin to consider calling for help, Freedom looks at me without any recognition in her eyes. She says nothing and hardly moves, finally looking at me, but with a stare that’s just as blank as when she was shaking.

But then Freedom blinks and she takes a breath and there’s recognition.

“Brook,” she says, voice a bit hoarse.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m sorry you… you had to, uh. Sorry you had to see-see that.”

“No, no,” I hurry to say. “Are you alright?”

Freedom nods, eyelids heavy. A fly buzzes around an open wound on her jaw.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

“Nothing to apologize for.”

“That happens sometimes. We should go meet Astra.”

xxxx

Astra, true to my belief, is thrilled to meet Freedom.

Freedom and I walk back side by side, and it’s like we’ve gone back in time a hundred years, all the way back to before the King made the claims of abuse of Astra against Freedom and Jabez and the Judge and Justice gave custody of infant Astra to me and Freedom and Jabez told me to take Astra somewhere the King could never reach her.

Freedom doesn’t talk much, but the brief conversations we do have fall into familiar, comforting patterns that I know from a century ago that I didn’t know if I’d ever get to have again.

I’d take Astra to the Field again in a heartbeat, craft that portal once more to bring her away from the King again, even knowing that we’d never return to Ragdon again and would never see another being again apart from songbirds and mice and voles. I’d do it all again, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t miss talking to others. I love Astra more than anything and I’d happily spend the rest of my life with only her, but a part of me always longed to know what was happening outside of the Sea, a part of me always wondered.

We reach the group —Camden sitting beside Astra and repairing a hole in the stuffed mouse he made, Jabez still picking at the rabbit, Seneca leaning against Icarus and dozing with an arm slung over her eyes, Katelin still presumably at the King’s castle— and Freedom hesitates behind me, but there’s nowhere to go and when Astra hears my return, she perks up and bounds over.

She looks past me, sees Freedom, stops, and gasps.

“Whoahhh.” Astra’s blue eyes grow wide, and she leans back to stare up at Freedom. “Are you a zombie? Brook told me all about those and how they’re dead but alive and that they—.”

Jabez coughs unsubtly behind Astra, stopping her from rambling. She looks over her shoulder, then back at Freedom, then at me, then frowns. Realization crosses over her face after she’s had a few moments to think things over.

“Oh, I’m sorry. That wasn’t very nice of me. I’m gonna start over. Hi! I’m Astra! What’s your name?”

When Freedom doesn’t respond, I turn my neck around.

Tears drip down Freedom’s cheeks. I see her ribs flare and shake with uneven breaths. Her tail twitches, brushing against her lightly scaled hind legs.

“Why are you crying? Are you sad? Are you having a bad day? Brook says that everyone gets those and that it’s ok and that sometimes you need to cry and that if you need to cry that you should do that. So if you need to cry you should do that. It’s ok to cry. You can cry.”

Astra walks up to Freedom, parroting what I’d told her many times.

“Brook said that you need to feel emotions and process them but I don’t like to do that.”

Seneca chokes on a laugh and Jabez smiles. Icarus chitters.

“Oh, hush, Icarus. You’re not any better.”

His eyes haven’t left Freedom since he first saw her, but he hasn’t approached. Freedom hasn’t looked away from Astra, and I think Jabez is giving her space to reunite with their daughter. I can see the disbelief, the pain, the hope, the grief, the awe, the thousand emotions mashed into a churning sea that leaves him shaking, eyes wide and tears dripping down his cheeks to form icicles on his jaw. But still, he waits.

“Brook is like that, isn’t she?” Freedom laughs, but it’s thick with emotion and nerves.

“Brook’s smart.”

“That she is. Brook’s among the smartest I know.”

Astra stands up straighter with a gasp. “You know Brook?”

Freedom nods. “I do. I knew her a hundred years ago. I haven’t seen her in a very long time.”

“That’s so cool! Who are you?”

Freedom cannot hide her flinch. She winces. “I… I’m… I’m Freedom.”

Astra twists her lips, face scrunching up in deep thought. I wait, allowing Astra to think. I can see the exact moment she puts the pieces together; Astra looks back at Jabez, then back toward Freedom, then at me. She approaches Freedom, taking a few steps closer to her mother.

“You’re…” Astra tilts her head to the side. “You’re my mom.”

A shudder passes through Freedom, and I don’t know if it’s involuntary or not. Freedom draws her ears back. She reaches out with her trunk, then pulls it back like she’s been burned.

“I am.”

“I thought you were dead,” Astra states, voice flat.

Freedom nods again. “I… I was.”

Astra hums. “Oh.” She squints. “So you’re-. You’re, like, a zombie?”

Freedom laughs. “Kind of, I suppose.”

“That’s so cool.”

Jabez approaches. His steps are stiff, and he stumbles more than once but he makes it. I stay back, and so do Camden, Seneca, and Icarus, giving the family space to reunite after decades apart. Nearly a century for Astra with a mother she does not remember, and sixty years for Jabez with a lover he grew apart from after the loss of their child. He told me that he had not seen Freedom since long before since Arcane accidentally killed her; asking me to take Astra away from Ragdon into the Field, while necessary, was too much for them each to bear.

Freedom freezes when she sees Jabez.

I watch as Jabez gives a cautious smile, body tense and guarded.

“Hello,” he says softly.

“Jabez.”

“That’s my dad,” Astra says, wings rising from her sides.

“Yes, he is.”

“You’re my mom,” Astra tells Freedom, “and Jabez is my dad and Brook is my stepmom, so I have two moms and a dad.”

xxxx

Astra chatters Freedom’s ear off as we make our way to find somewhere quieter, more private.

Freedom listens diligently, but she says little. Jabez doesn’t speak much, either. It’s almost as if they’re both… waiting. Like they don’t know how to fill the silence after decades apart.

Both have died, and both live again.

I want to talk with Freedom. We used to speak for ages, all morning, all afternoon after I left the King. Jabez would join in sometimes, and the three of us would spend all day together. I watched them fall for each other.

But now, Jabez is someone different after ninety years stuck with only the King as someone he knew, despite knowing what the King had done but the King was the only one he still knew, as he told me. Freedom is someone different after sixty years dead. I’m someone different after ninety years in the Field.

What is there to say?

How do we fill the silence?

Camden, Seneca, and Icarus give us space, though I hear Icarus chirping to Seneca a few paces behind me. They talk softly.

What could I even say? Where do I even begin? I cannot pick up my friendship with Freedom right where it left off.

The last time I saw her was the worst day of my life. She all but thrust Astra into me after the quickest goodbye, yet what I’m sure she thought at the time was the most permanent goodbye.

Take her. You have to take her.

She and Jabez had told me to take Astra, that I had to take her somewhere the King could never reach. After the faux trial where the Judge and Justice had ruled in the King’s favor after only a few pieces of shabby evidence, they felt hopeless, that there was no way they could keep Astra safe themselves. They had told me to

Was that the right choice? Should I have waited until they were in a more level headspace? Was waiting worth the risk?

If I had waited, the King would have checked in at some point. He would have put tabs on me and made sure he’d known where I was, just like he did when I was a nameless draft horse in his army.

But if I had waited, I may have known if taking Astra was truly what Jabez and Freedom had really wanted.

I open my mouth. I want to say something to Freedom. I just got her back. She’s here. She’s right here, right in front of me. I could reach out and touch her with my nose. I could lean into her like I used to so often.

Her skin hangs loose over her frame, chunks are missing, I can see wasted muscle and bone, but it’s her. It’s Freedom.

But what can I say?

“I wasn’t supposed to come back,” Freedom says, interrupting Astra’s latest ramble.

“Why?” Astra gasps, a hint of betrayal weaving itself through her words that I hope Freedom doesn’t catch onto.

“Arcane made a deal with Lucius. They would bring me back. Arcane’s life for mine.”

“He fixed things?” Astra asks.

“That depends on your definition of fixing things.”

“I guess.”

xxxx

The following day, Camden leaves to show Seneca and Icarus around the Sea in what he called his unofficially official tour, an unsubtle way of distracting himself from when Katelin left again early in the morning to return to the King’s castle. They leave shortly after eating, each selecting something from the buffet near the Erebus Tree.

Freedom wraps her trunk around Jabez’s tail, and he turns back, pricking his ears as he waits for her to speak. She takes several moments to find the words, a foreleg spasming rhythmically as her head ticks in time. Her tail snaps to the side, and the spikes on either side arc through the air, getting stuck in the ground for a moment before she jerks them back out.

“What happened when I was gone?” Freedom asks.

Jabez’s eyes scan the Sea, and I can see the fear within the pale blue depths. His short fur rises on his back, and his ears pull back. He shakes his head, gaze rising to meet Freedom’s black eyes.

“Not here.”

Freedom nods. “Very well.”

When they leave, Astra tries to follow, but I stop her.

“Let’s let Freedom and Jabez talk,” I tell Astra. “They want to catch up. There are things they need to talk about, ok?”

“Grown-up things?” Astra asks.

I nod. “I think so, yes.”

“I don’t understand,” Astra says, bottom lip wobbling.