Call of Kythshire (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 1) (3 page)

“Will Luca be joining the feast?” Elliot leans forward addressing Mouli, who had slid onto the bench beside me silently during the discussion.

“No, no. He’s tending to our guest in Donal’s house. Making sure he stays asleep. I’ll take them both a plate when we’re through.”

“I didn’t know we had a guest. Are we hosting someone for the festival?” I ask, looking across the table at my Uncle. He looks away, and Brother Donal clears his throat uncomfortably. 

“He could be useful. We could ask him some questions.” Rian suggests from beside me, startling me. He’s been so unusually quiet, I had almost forgotten he was here. Uncle Gaethon throws a warning look from across the table and Rian nods and turns his attention back to his plate.

“Maybe he talks in his sleep.” Elliot offers hopefully. “I could sit in there with him...”

“Filthy whelp.” Bryse sneers. “I still say we should ransom him back to them.”

“Because
that
would be honorable,” Cort rolls his eyes.

“Don’t see,” Bryse says around a mouthful, “why he should be our problem.”

“We couldn’t leave him there to die. He’s just a boy, after all.” My father’s gaze meets mine. “I hope you understand, Azi.” It takes me a moment to realize what he means, but then the scene after the arena fight comes to mind. I remember my father and Brother Donal carrying Dacva’s lifeless form off into the shadows of the hallway, and I realize the boy who tried to kill me just hours ago is here, under our care, resting soundly in Donal’s bed.

“I can only imagine what his life has been like until now,” my mother says quietly. “Was he badly injured?” Her serene tone only serves to annoy me. Still, I try to keep my composure as I set down my fork and clench my hands in my lap.

Mum has spent many hours trying to teach me the art of meditation. As a paladin, she has perfected the skill of peace to such a degree she’s able to radiate her serenity to affect everyone around her. She’s mastered it so well she’s able to do it in the heat of battle, as she did in the arena. The power of peace, she’s told me so many times, can bring down the fiercest foe. It’s a skill not many can master, and she’s very careful to use it sparingly. People should be allowed to feel their own true emotions. Forcing calmness on anyone for too long or to further your own agenda is an abuse of power. I recognize it now, though, the gentle feeling reaching across to me, telling me to be calm. Not to let my anger take hold. Somehow that small push from her makes me even angrier.

“Broken ribs, broken nose, black eye, fractured cheek, bruised neck, punctured lung.” Brother Donal ticks down Dacva’s list of injuries casually. “I healed him up but the sleeping draught will do him good.” I look at my shaking hands and blood stained sleeve, and close my eyes to see Dacva bearing down on me. The memory of his blade as it slices my neck is like a fresh wound. Deep down, I know it’s right to show our enemies mercy and kindness. Bubbling on the surface, though, I can’t help but feel betrayed. I set my hands on the table to keep them from shaking. I can’t meet my father’s eyes as I slowly rise from my place.

“Please excuse me,” I manage around the lump in my throat.

“Azi...” My father stands as I turn away from them and walk out the door.

“Let her go, Benen.” My mother’s tone is hushed. “She’ll work it out.” I shake my head just slightly as I storm into the corridor. Behind me I can hear Bryse’s raised voice, then Mya’s calmer one, but I don’t care what they’re saying. I’ve been attacked and bloodied and threatened, and my tormentor lies comfortably sleeping, tended by people who are supposedly on my side. Family whose duty it is to look after me and keep me safe. I realize I’m not walking home, but toward Brother Donal’s, toward Dacva. My heart pounds as I push open the back door and let myself in.

I don’t know why I’m here or what I plan to do, but my feet carry me through the kitchen and up the stairs without thinking. I push open the bedroom door cautiously to find Luca dozing in a chair on one side of the room. The boy in the bed against the opposite wall is barely recognizable with his swollen eyes and lip and his face mostly black with bruises. I step closer, cautiously, my heart racing. I think of the years of torment he’s caused me and the threats his guild has made against mine and it makes me want to hurt him more, to show him I’m stronger than he is, and we’ll always win. 

“He looks a bit better now.” Luca pushes himself up with a groan and comes to stand beside me. “I thought you’d be celebrating!” He hugs me and I pat his arm halfheartedly.

“We’re done. Mouli says you should come down and eat. I’ll stay with him.” The lie formulates in my mind and escapes my lips and I’m instantly ashamed of it. Still, I want Luca gone so I can be alone with my enemy. 

“Ah, thank you, dear.” Luca pats my back. “He shouldn’t wake up. If he does, just give him another sip.” He gestures to the bottle at the bedside and I nod. I listen to his footsteps move through the house. I hear the door close.

“Shouldn’t wake up,” I murmur and step closer. “What if you didn’t?” I imagine taking the pillow and pressing it to his face. I think of what would happen after. His guild would declare war. They’d come after us, full out. It would be the perfect excuse for them to get rid of us once and for all and take what they feel is their rightful place. I lean over him so my knees rest against the edge of the mattress. He’s my age, but much bigger. Lying there in bed, he looks so different than the sneering boy who flung secret insults in the arena.

Still, I think about what it must be like to be him. It’s always been obvious swordplay doesn’t come as naturally to him. He’s had to work much harder at it than I have. For the first time, I see him not as my rival or my sworn enemy, but as a boy with an unhappy life. A bullied child who’s constantly forced to reach for something which will most likely always be out of his grasp. The whipping post for his family’s twisted frustration, a constant second place. As I begin to feel sorry for him, my mother’s words to my father ring in my ears:
She’ll work it out
. I huff and drop into the chair beside the bed. Why does she always have to be right?

“Should’ve killed me,” Dacva murmurs, and I sit up and lean toward him. His blackened eyes are open just a sliver, and he’s watching me. “Self-righteous—“ He coughs and winces as he lifts his head. “Perfect little...Fishbait.” His eyes close. “Couldn’t just let me die, could you?” He reaches up to touch his face and groans. I uncork the bottle on the table hold it out to him.

“Sip it. You’ll go to sleep,” I say, surprised by how much the bottle is shaking in my hand. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

“You’re trying to poison me.” He could be glaring, it’s hard to tell. I shrug.

“So what if I am? You want to die anyway, right?” He stares at me for a long time as though debating with himself. After a while, he grabs the bottle and tips it into his mouth, emptying it. His hand falls to the bed and his eyes close slowly. Trembling, I pick the bottle up and hold it to the light. It’s empty. I wonder if it’ll kill him to have drunk the whole thing. I’m only a little ashamed when I realize a part of me hopes it does.

I wake in the morning to a soft tapping on my bedroom wall. Slowly I open my eyes and shield them from the morning sun which filters through the cracks in the shutters at my window.  The tapping comes again and I push myself out of bed with a yawn of protest. Yesterday’s hours of standing at attention have made my muscles stiff overnight, and I groan as I stretch my arms and legs. The polished wood feels cool and welcome on my sore bare feet as I pad across my bedroom. I gaze sleepily into the small circular mirror on the wall, turning my head and pulling the yellow fabric of my nightgown from my neck. The scar from Dacva’s attack yesterday is nearly gone now, healed by my mother’s magic on the field. I rub my finger across it and I can barely feel it at all. I push my knotted hair away from my face and the tapping comes again from the other side of the mirror.

The row of houses that makes up the front side of the guild hall are directly connected by several secret little trapdoors.  Some are close to the floor and large enough to crawl through, but the one that connects my room to Mya and Elliot’s house is a tiny circular hatch disguised as a mirror. I lift the latch and pull it open and the reflection of my sleepy blue eyes is instantly replaced by a pair of hazel ones, pressed right up against the opening. I yelp and jump back.

“Rian! I wish you wouldn’t!”

“Got you,” he says, chuckling. “Really, who else were you expecting?” Admittedly, he’s right. Our morning ritual of meeting at the hatch has been going on every day since we were tall enough to reach the latch on tiptoes. He steps away from the wall and pulls on a long vest which hangs from his lanky frame, and when he turns back again I stare. Just peeking out behind the laces of his shirt, right over his heart, is a swirling black design almost like a tattoo. Mage Mark. He cinches the lacing at his collar quickly to hide it, but it’s too late.

“What did you do, Rian?” I ask in a hushed tone, stepping closer to the hatch. Mage Mark is a blemish that comes as a result of chaotic magic. I’ve been told outside of Cerion, more ruthless Mages wear the marks proudly, and some have dabbled so much into the arcane arts their entire bodies are covered with the swirling blue-black lines. Here within Cerion, though, anyone bearing the Mark is considered dangerous, unpredictable, and untrustworthy. Rian ties the sash of his blue vest and rakes a hand through his hair.

“I got a little carried away yesterday in Rumination. Viala was showing me something.” He leans against the wall and smiles sheepishly. “Master Gaethon was furious, you should have seen.”

“I can imagine.” I lean, too, so if the wall wasn’t there, we’d be shoulder to shoulder. “What did he do?”

“Well, first he tore me out.” Rian closes his eyes and presses his fingertips to his brow. I’m fairly unfamiliar with the concept, but I do know being torn out of a deep meditation can be jarring, depending on how deeply the Mage has gone in. It’s best to transition slowly, to allow your mind to acclimate. My mother has told me this. The meditations she uses for Calm are similar to a Mage’s rumination, but more pure. I don’t really understand it, or care to, but being torn out definitely hurts.

“Ow.” I wince. Rian nods.

“Then he swore me to Silence for the night.”

“That’s why you were so quiet at dinner,” I remember the previous evening, when he barely spoke a word through the heated discussion at the table.

“Mhmm,” he shrugs. “Not quiet enough. According to Master Gaethon, I’ve earned myself another day of it.” His voice changes to a deep impersonation of Uncle as he scolds me through the hatch. “To think about your indiscretions.”

“We shouldn’t be talking then,” I say, and reach to slide the mirror closed. Rian rests his hand on the sill to stop me. “Really, Rian. If he catches you, it’ll be a week before we can talk again.” He may be my uncle, but he scares me.

“I’m sure he has better things to do than spy into my bedroom and stop me from talking to you,” he scowls. “Besides, don’t you want to hear what happened after you left last night?” I pause. I know the conversation would have shifted to other topics after I left. Interesting topics. I wonder if they ever came to a decision about Dacva. Perhaps they started planning for the upcoming quest. But a sworn silence is important. Rian is too flippant about his training. Magic must be heavily disciplined. The more he rebels against his teachers, the more he risks endangering himself and those around him. I stare at the white of his shirt and imagine the tendrils of Mage Mark one day swirling and peeking up above the collar.

“No.” I say firmly, and slide the door into his fingers. He doesn’t move his hand or even flinch.

“Not even that they were talking about the King’s Quest? They think they know what it’ll be.”

“I can wait and hear it later, when it’s proclaimed.” Honestly, I’m dying to know what they think it’ll be, but I won’t risk my best friend’s conscience and training. If he wants to defy his master, he can do it without my involvement.

“Fine.” Rian concedes, but he keeps his hand in the door, blocking it. “Tell me what happened with Dacva. I won’t say a word.”

“You promise?” I drop my hand from the latch. He nods.

I know I can tell Rian anything and he’ll understand, and so I share everything that happened in Dona’s room, even the part where I contemplated using the pillow to suffocate Dacva. He reacts as I knew he would, not with judgment but with a bemused shake of his head. I recount Dacva’s accusations that our guild was too righteous to kill him, and his seeming desire to die. When I get to the part when he drank the entire draught, Rian lets out an astonished gasp and starts to speak, but I flash him a look and he closes his mouth.

“After Dacva drank the draught, Brother Donal showed up. He said Dacva would probably be violently sick, but he’d live through it. He also said they’d decided to heal him thoroughly and send him home. Then he sent me away. I thought about going back to the hall but I don’t know...” I shrug, remembering my confusion after that. Honestly, I’m still not sure how I feel about what happened. Is it wrong to hate someone even after you begin to understand the source of their pain? Mum tells me hate is a strong emotion fed by ignorance. But the more I learn about Dacva and all of Redemption, the harder I find it to sympathize with them. “I’m not angry at Mum and Da anymore, though. I understand why Da helped.”

Rian reaches through the hatch and takes my hand to squeeze it reassuringly. His hand is warm and soft in mine, and I’m suddenly aware of how much my own is sweating, and how rough the calluses from my training must feel to him. I’m also aware of his eyes on me, watching me with a mix of concern and something else, an intensity I’ve started to notice more and more from him lately. I find myself wishing the wall would disappear so we could be closer, and I look away from the hatch in the direction of my window. The feeling is new, and I’m not sure about it.

Outside in the courtyard just below my window, a ring of steel on steel announces my father has started his day at the forge. The steady clang as he hammers is calming and familiar. I think about how angry I was with him last night and I feel a little guilty. It takes a strong person to stand up to adversity and offer kindness to someone you don’t even like. Stronger than I am.

“I’d better get to breakfast,” I say after a stretch of awkward silence.

“Mm.” He agrees wordlessly, drawing his hand back through to his own side.

“I’ll see you later?” I ask. He ducks away for a moment and I hear a scratching. I peek through to find him writing something on a page. “That’s cheating!” I say, but he rolls his eyes at me, pushes the parchment through the hatch, and waves before closing up the door. I catch the sheet as it drifts to the floor. His handwriting is hard to decipher. I imagine how it must infuriate my uncle, who constantly impresses on me the importance of legible handwriting. For a moment I wonder if Rian does it just to annoy him. I wouldn’t put it past him. I chuckle to myself as I smooth the note and read what he has scrawled:

You’re too nice. I would have used the pillow. By the way, they think it’ll be Kythshire.

Kythshire. Land of Fae. I wonder why they would think that. It seems a little farfetched that the king would send his best guild off to chase after fairies when everyone knows they no longer exist. Actually, it’s a ridiculous notion. No one can even find the land let alone enter it. I wouldn’t put it past Rian to tell me such a thing just to see if I’d believe him. Then he would laugh when I bring it up to the rest of the guild.

I shake my head and toss the note onto the shelf holding my helm and boots. It’s just the kind of trick he’d try to pull, and he’s not getting me this time. I’m not saying anything to anyone until I know for sure what the quest is. The pages will deliver the declaration at sunset tonight, and then we’ll have one day to plan and ready ourselves before heading out. My pulse quickens as I imagine riding through the gates on my first true quest alongside my parents, holding the guild’s banner high as the crowds cheer farewell. It’s been my dream for so long, and finally, now that I’m a squire, it’s coming true.

I’m still smiling as I dress in trousers and a light tunic and go downstairs barefooted. In the kitchen I grab an apple and crunch into it as I step outside into the courtyard where my father is working. My mother sits under the shade of a canopy beside him, and my previously bloodied chain tunic sparkles beneath the surface of a pail of water at her feet.

“I should be doing that.” I gesture to the bucket as I lean in to kiss her cheek. “Good morning.”

“Good morning. You have more important things.” She smiles and holds Margy’s purple ring up to me, looped over one finger. “The official invitation is inside on the table.” I take the ring by the ribbon and turn it in my hand, remembering the panic I felt being dragged by horse, trapped by my own glove, and the triumph as I hooked the ring into place.

“But I have so much to do...” I tap Da on the shoulder as he hammers out a dent from the inside of Mum’s helm, most likely dealt by Dar yesterday. I fight back a scowl as Da leans his cheek down to me for a kiss.

“We’ll manage,” he says as he holds up the helm and turns it one way and another to check for imperfections. It looks perfect to me, but he sets it down again and strikes it gently with the rounded peen of the hammer. “So I’m forgiven, then?” 

“I suppose,” I say as I hop up to perch on the stone wall along the side of the forge where the coals have cooled to black. Mum bends again to scrub the red from my mail and Da works diligently at the dent I can no longer see. “I wish I could stay here, though.” I take another bite of my apple.

“Azi. You can’t ignore a royal summons. Not even from the youngest member of the family.” Da is right, I know. I finish my apple and slide from my seat to return to the kitchen where the tiny folded note rests on the table. The purple wax seal is pressed with the little princess’s crest: a tiny winged lady dancing on a daisy. It’s so pretty I hate to break it, so I peel the wax away from the paper carefully and slip the hardened disc into the pocket of my trousers. The note inside is a colorful child’s drawing of a girl with blonde hair in a blue and yellow tunic raising an enormous sword over her head. The sword has been gold leafed, and flakes of it glitter as they drift to the table like snow when I raise it to read the inscription. Written in a page’s impeccable hand, it says:

Her Royal Highness Princess Margary and Her Royal Highness Princess Sarabel request the presence of Squire Azaeli Hammerfel at court this morning. Please present this invitation to the gateman upon arrival at the palace.

I find myself walking a little taller as I pass other girls my age who are escorted by their housemaids as they rush here and there along the city streets. My new title of Squire affords me a freedom I’ve never had, and I grin and bob my head at those who greet me as I make my way to the palace. At the portcullis, I hand my invitation to the gateman and when he grants me entry a young page bows to me respectfully. I follow him deep into the palace to an area I haven’t been before, an alcove off a side hall lined with plush, comfortable chairs. I’m asked to stay here, and he rushes off to announce me.

As I wait, I’m entranced by the artistry of the tapestries on the walls which tell various stories of Cerion’s history and the Plethore family’s rise to the throne. A particularly dark tapestry catches my interest, and I find myself drawn into it. Woven masterfully into the tapestry, an ominous sky looms over a craggy black mountain, pelting the range with sharp white streaks of lightning. Glimpses of creatures lurk in the shadows at its rocky base, barely visible except for a hand here and a boot there. As I move closer, the shapes change and I can make out eyes looking at me and hands reaching toward me.

I’m so absorbed by the tiny figures I don’t realize someone has come to stand behind me until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I start to turn, but a second hand catches my waist and slides to my hip. The touch is too firm, too assuming. It sends a chill through me, and suddenly I feel vulnerable without my sword.

“The Fall of Diovicus.” The whisper is hot and breathy in my ear. The hand on my shoulder slides down my back and around to my stomach, holding me. Yet something about the voice is familiar, and my instinct tells me to be still. “The mysteries of Kythshire, so compelling, so...” He brushes my cheek with his, grazes my hair. “Forbidden.” I feel the stubble of his chin on my neck, just where Dacva’s blade had sliced me. A lump rises in my throat as my heart begins to race. Thinking back, I realize this hall, so tucked away, had no posted guards. I wonder if that was on purpose. I don’t like feeling this way, vulnerable. Powerless.