The candles have begun burn low before, eventually, starting to flicker and go out, one by one. The scent of smoke replaces one of molten wax and stale sweat as one dying light at a time the darkness begins to engulf us. But we, the four of us, stay, none of us bothered. We are its children after all. At least Enya and I. Tomorrow, Aary and Kara will follow. Or die. They aren’t ready, but it doesn’t matter. It’s too late for those concerns now, their fate is set in stone. The only thing we can do is watch it play out in front of us. And so we stay, in the training hall, in the silence, because Kara and Aary won’t be able to sleep anyways, because they don’t want the morning to come. The boys eyes are engulfed in memories. His lips open, begin to form into words the feeling of the past: “Winter in the mountains was hard, yet it was so beautiful that I couldn’t help but love it. The way the snow falls, first tenderly and then ever more and faster until the whole world became enveloped in a white, sparkling blanket. The world would always be so quiet then. Weeks could go by where the only sign of other life would be the occasional traces in the snow.” “What is snow?”, Aary asks, hesitantly, as if she doesn’t want to disturb the landscape Kara has begun painting. “It’s like a powder, a clean white cold powder that falls form the sky when it’s really cold. Like rain. And when you take it into your hands it becomes water. And in the spring the whole snow that covers everything begins to meld and then rushes down into the greenland so that the rivers almost overflow” “What’s a river?”, Aary askes again. And Kara explains. He tells them about rivers and lakes, about waterfalls and rainbows, he describes the mountains and forests, transforms into deer with their giant antlers, into foxes and bears until Aarys and Enyas eyes begin to shine and even I can picture scenes I thought I had forgotten long ago. When the boy has finished the girl picks up from where he left off. She mentions the small room where she and the others had been kept. But she does not mention what she must have experienced in that room, what gave her the eyes of the dead. Instead, she describes the small little window thru which she had been able to see the stars. She describes those stars in such detail and with such intensity that cold stone celling above us seems like the night sky itself. We can see the little stars and the big ones, the patterns they form and the way they moved in the sky. And she recounts, how every night new stars would appear in the frame of that little window whilst others disappeared, and about how, after a year, the same stars as before where once again visible in that frame. And so they reminisce about the past, about everything that is beautiful and nothing that is painful. Because this is the last night they’re children. This night, they want the world to be beautiful.
It takes long for fatigue to win and the children to slip into unconsciousness. We carry them back to the sacks of straw and scraps of fabric, to where gentle breathing and the sound of occasional tossing and turning are the only thing filling the emptiness of the stuffy chambre. I lay Kara down, a slender frame with fragile limbs amongst strong broad shoulders. When the sun rises and the others awake, the children stay asleep. Their fight will be in the afternoon.
The hot summer air presses down on all onlookers, stagnant and dry, making even the masters in the shaded box seats sweat. Beneath us, the sand of the arenas seems to almost flicker. The boy is down there, across him a woman, olive skinned with dark curly hair, no older than twenty-four herself but seeming so grown in comparison. Karas eyes dart around. It looks like he’s panting even without any strain on his body. His eyes, desperately trying to focus on his opponent, can’t help but dart up to the masses, to their chanting and cheering. Next to me, Nilan is fixated on that newly bought possession of his, the boy that he places all his future hopes and ambitions on. Kara takes a step back; the crowd begins to protest. The sound is almost deafening to him. He takes a couple more steps back, staring at the woman then the crowd again, his gaze filled with terror and rage. Like a cornered animal. As soon as their eyes meet, the woman shifts her weight to her back foot and goes into a defensive stance. It’s a small change, but it’s enough. Karas eyes snap back to her, narrow, his muscles tense. He’s not a fighter, not yet. But he can kill. He’s killed before. The boy’s outside again, on one of those mountain fields, facing an opponent that just made herself pray. Let’s hope instincts will suffice. She charges. In an instance Kara’s gone. Muttering echoes thru the rank of the onlookers. The woman looks around in a panic, trying to catch a glimpse of where he might be. Behind her, what had been a small fly morphs into a slender mountain lion, fangs glazing in the sun for but a second before they are buried in her skull. The woman goes limp. Dead. Kara lands. There are bits of blood, skin and brain matter smeared on his now human face and teeth as he breaks down on the sand next to the stiff corps. The entire fight has lasted less than a minute. The crowd begins to boo. People standing up, yelling, demanding for their money back. Kara begins to gag and throw up. Around us, the other masters are chuckling, miserably failing to hide the glee in their eyes.
One man turns: “Was that your new prodigy? What a ...surprising... boy.”
Niilan turns around with forced smile: “You know how wildlings are. They just have their beginning quirks”
Behind us others begin to whisper, loud enough for it to be on purpose: “See I told the old geezer just got lucky once or twice”
“It certainly wasn’t talent. I always knew.”
Niilan’s fists clench up: “I must apologize for leaving already, but I’m afraid I have some important business to take care of.”
“Yes you do.” Someone giggles.
He gives a few halfhearted handshakes before hurrying out. Behind us the murmuring continues: “He just doesn’t have the flair for the sport. It’s art after all”
“I’m telling you he only got such good arrangements because of his mines”
“Aren’t those drying up anyways?”
As I hurry after Niilan, my enhanced ears can barely make out the speaker announcing Aary. He storms out of the arena and slams the carriage door shut.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“I’m going to kill that wildling.”
It’s a statement, not a threat, I can see it in his eyes.
“I’m going to do what I should’ve done the moment that wild beast attacked my guards!”
I CAN SURVIVE THIS. KARA WON’T.
“Forgive me master”
“What?”, Nilan’s rage can be felt thru every barely controlled syllable he presses out. It makes my body freeze up.
“I didn’t think he would do it… like this…”, I studder.
He grabs my face, almost smashing it into the carriage door: “What?!”
My body begins to tremble. Good. “It was his first battle. I just... he is still so new. I was worried he will lose. It was such an important fight for you…”
My voice is muffled thru his hand. He lets go: “Stop rambling and tell me what you did!”
“I told him to hunt and not fight, not worry about the time”
The back of a hand smashes into my face before his finger clutch around my throat. I know better than to defend myself.
“Don’t! Breath!”
The entire carriage is engulfed in a bright red light. In an instance my body freezes, my lungs refusing to bring in the air I command them to. Niilan opens his hand and I fall to the floor of the carriage, clutching my chest. No sound escapes my agape mouth. My vision begins to narrow. Black dots appear in my vision, growing bigger with each passing second. My mind has become foggy.
Niilan gazes down, cold ember eyes that have haunt my every move.
Then the spasms begin, my body gasping for the air I can’t breathe in. I can feel a hand on my cheek, brushing away the stands of hair that have fallen into my face. I clutch it, press it against me as the world begins to spin. Suddenly, the carriage is filled with light and I can breathe. Air rushes into my desperate lungs. The spasms stop and I begin coughing. On my back the mark has begun to bleed.
“Stupid girl”
I don’t reply.
“You know I have to punish you for this.” The hot anger in Niilans eyes has subsided.
“Of course.” My voice is no more than a whisper.
“Flogging. 15 Blows. Tell the red head once we get back.”
I close my eyes. The carriage is shaking back and forth in a tranquil motion. Faint chatter from a market slip thru form outside. If the people heard what just happened, they do not care.
“I think the wildling can still be useful”, I say. Niilan glances over: “Fine”.
I stagger down the stairs, the pain morphing the world around me into a blurred haze of shapes and washed-out colors. One step at a time, more my brain cannot comprehend. My back is covered in blood and bits of flesh, soon my shirt will be drenched as well. It will leave stains that linger even after washing them countless times. I reach the door, the hallways. Soon I will be able to fall into that small niche of mine, next to all the others, let the haze consume me and take me to places I have no will left to fight against going. I bump into something, someone, Kara. He’s talking, lips moving, hands gesturing with obvious panic, yet he must repeat himself four times until the words sicker thru to me: “You gotta come. It’s Aary. Please!”
The little side chamber is filled with blood. On the floor, on the sheets, on the girl laying between them. In an instant the adrenalin pushes away the haze. I can see her clear now, pale from the loss of blood, chest rising and falling only with great effort. Half of her face is disfigured, one eye nothing but a blood-filled crevasse. Her left arm ends in a stump. But what strikes me the most is her golden hair. It lays strewn around the girl’s head, tangled and drenched, framing her face like a halo. I sit down. Enya searches my gaze, hesitant. I nod. He closes his eye and looks down.
Both are clutching the girl’s hand. Her knuckles are white as she her grip tightens.
“I won”, she whispers. Then again, louder this time: “I won”.
Kara holds her hand even tighter: “I know”. Their eyes are locked. “It will be okay. You won”
“I won.”
Both of their voices are shaking. Underneath the girl the blood seeping thru the bandages is pooling.
It takes a while until anyone dares to move, as if the sheer act of it would speed up precious time. Enya is the first to break free. He gets up. I shake my head: “I’ll go. You stay”.
When I get back no one has moved. The water is cold. A bit of it swaps over the rim as I place bowl and cloth down. It splatters on the ground, leaving behind dark stains. Gently Enya picks up the cloth and begins to wash away the blood. Her hand, her torso, her shoulders her neck, pinkish water running down her body in trails, searching paths, splitting and merging. By the time Enya’s finished, the girls’ sharp painful gasps have changed into something more akin to breathing.
“Try to rest now. It’s okay”, Enya sais.
Her eyes wander over to Kara.
He says: “We can talk about the fight in the morning. I bet it was cool.”
“Tomorrow”, she whispers, “I want you to tell me about autumn.”
“We can do that too. I’ll tell you about anything you want. I promise.”
Her hand is pressed against Kara’s face as she closes her eyes. When I notice the melody, I cannot tell how long it had been there. It’s a tender tune that fills the room and trickles into all off our subconscious. It’s the first time I’ve heard Enya sing. It’s an old nursery song, words haunted by the forsaken dreams of a hundred generations before us. It tells of a world long gone and one yet to come. A promise that when the water will flow up not down and the sky will burn form west to east, freedom would be ours again. The girl has fallen asleep long before Enya lets the last verse fade out into silence. Gently he brushes away the few strands of blood covered hair still stuck to her face before taking her head in his hands. Then he snaps Aary’s neck. Kara screams.