Girl of Myth and Legend (19 page)

And I smile.

When I wake I’m not disappointed it was just a dream—it encourages me. Orin Woodville showed his daughter a vision of the Imperium’s downfall, and that means there’s a chance I can be free, that even if I’m soul-bound to the girl, there is still a chance for liberation.

These thoughts immerse me as a Magen escorts me inside the temple. When I was placed in the arena, all I wanted was to go back to Aris. However, there is something more now: a rebellion, a cause for kytaen I thought could never exist. I don’t know if the vision will be a result of a kytaen rebellion or some civil war, or even an uncanny natural event, but any disaster will benefit my kind, give us the opportunity to strike when the Imperium is at its weakest.

I find my keeper-to-be in the Ceremony Room having breakfast. She’s dressed in a woolly white jumper that makes her appear more rounded, like a child. Her copper hair is tied up. I prefer it free, wiping around like a flame. She glances at me and smiles. I return her a glare, and she glares back. I’m thankful for it. It makes me uncomfortable when she says ‘good morning’. It makes me uncomfortable when she notices me.

Later, O’Sah takes her to the Temple of Thaula for her next meditation session. She’s quicker to connect herself to the stream of magic—if quicker is two hours instead of four. When a Chosen mediates, their aura comes to life around them, and as with the last time, the aura surrounding her grows in darkness the longer she meditates. My curiosity is stirred: what occurred in her past to cause her aura to reflect such pain? After she finishes, she declares she wants nothing more to do with meditation, but O’Sah reasons that she’ll have to contend with all her thoughts, good and bad, in order to find her inner peace. Without finding it, he says, she will never be able to use her magic accordingly. ‘Spiritual balance is imperative.’ She scowls at him.

I watch her as the day passes, wondering how I can free myself from her.
If all else fails, there’s the vision of the Imperium in flames,
I remind myself. Surely I can hope for such a future. If I stay here, if I remain with the girl, I know it will mean immense frustration, but if I can bear it for a little longer, then maybe that longed-for future will occur. Seers are sometimes wrong, that’s been proven hundreds of times. There is always a catalyst, though, an event that will occur and span several paths. At the end of one of them is the Imperium’s downfall—if only I could
find
it—and maybe I’m closer to it than I thought. The girl
is
the one who will stand before the burning spires, and so I will probably be there, too. Whatever occurs to make the Imperium fall, the girl has something to do with it.

Something. I just don’t know what yet.

LEONIE

OUR FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW

‘Urgh! I’m
bored
!’ I throw my PS Vita on the floor. ‘What should I do, huh, boy?’

Pegasus, who is sitting ‘
unallowedly’
on my bed, looks at me with mild interest.

‘Think we should be daring and pay a visit to our dear friend Korren?’ I ask. ‘I don’t think he’d appreciate it. I get the feeling he doesn’t like us, Peg, with the whole I-hate-you-and-myself-and-this-life-and-everything-in-it thing he has going on.

‘I’m trying to be nice, really I am… OK, sometimes I’m deliberately insulting and rude and malicious, and it gives me a little bit of pleasure to see him gritting his teeth. Just a little, though, I swear. But he’s just so… so frustrating! I mean, d’you see the way he looks at me? Sometimes I feel like his eyes are going to burn me alive. I guess, to him, being Chosen makes me his involuntary Enemy Number One.’ I shuffle. ‘But he also has this way of making me feel like I’m just a kid, y’know? To him, I’m just a kid. I’m
not
a kid.’

Pegasus barks.

‘OK, so I
am
a kid, but I wouldn’t be one if I didn’t say I wasn’t.’ I sigh. ‘Just think about it: he’s seen so many things. So many that you and me, Peg, you and me couldn’t even imagine.’ I lean towards the bed. ‘Y’know, yesterday, when he looked at me as if he knew how I was feeling, like he knew the same pain, I
saw
him, Peg; I saw Korren for the first time. I saw all that hurt and pain he carries with him, and I didn’t feel like I was staring at a mindless thing; I felt like I was staring at someone in
torment
. And somehow, Peg, that made me feel like I wanted to get to know him.’ I sit straighter. ‘Yeah, I want to know him better. He’d give old misery-guts Scrooge a run for his money, but, still, I want to know Korren, just a little.’

Pegasus begins to lick his butt.

‘Oh thanks, yeah. Know I can always count on you for words of inspiration.’

Though I’m in my pyjamas again, I decide what the heck? I’m going to visit my broody non-friend kytaen and ruin his night. Not ruin intentionally, of course, but he’ll certainly see it that way.

I grab my duffle coat and take a peek through my open door. There’s no one there, but I know for sure there are Thrones down the hallway. Good thing I’ve sneaked out before without them noticing, so I easily get by them and outside. I feel worried that they didn’t even hear Pegasus scampering after me in pursuit. What kind of security is this? Maybe they know what I’m doing and are just acting as if they don’t so I think I have some freedom. Though if that’s true, I can’t think why they would play a weird game like that.

It’s not as cold tonight, the moons brightening the landscape in silver and white. I hurry to the shed anyway, telling Pegasus to shut up when he begins barking. To be polite, I knock on the shed before opening the door.

Korren is lying on the bench with his eyes closed tightly, lips pursed. Hell, this guy even frowns in his
sleep
. I observe him for a moment, taking in his perfection. The perfect nose. The perfect lips. The perfect face. I can’t help but be struck by his otherworldly beauty. I
am
a somewhat reluctant girl, and being so close to someone like him is a bit overwhelming. He looks like a sleeping angel, and that pisses me off. I find myself determined to find some flaw on his stupid face, but that would require staring at him for a while, and staring at him for a while would certainly be classed as weird and stalkerish, which I’m pretty sure I’m not. Anyway, the more I gaze at him, the more I want to punch his stupid, infuriating, impeccable face in retribution for us long-suffering plain-faced ones.

The respectable thing would be to leave Korren to his slumber. Yes, that would be the kindest thing to do. So I scoop up some snow from outside and throw it at him. He jumps up into a fighting stance, and I grin at him when he realises it’s only me. He doesn’t grace me with a glare, but rather a face of indifference.

‘What do you want?’ he says.

‘An adventure!’ I reply.

‘I’m going back to sleep.’

‘Aw, but it’ll be fun.’

‘No.’

‘Don’t make me assert my keeper authority now.’

‘You’re not my keeper.’

‘Yet.’

‘Get out.’

‘I’m a stubborn person, y’know. I recommend you just come out with me and get it over with, or else spend hours with me annoying you.’

He gets up.

‘Wow, that didn’t take long,’ I say.

‘I can already appreciate your capacity to annoy.’

‘How can you appreciate that in only, what, two days? I can’t be
that
annoying.’

‘You underestimate yourself.’

‘Look at that, you do have a sense of humour,’ I mutter.

I turn my back on him and walk away from the shed. I don’t expect him to follow. When I turn around he’s behind me, though, ignoring Pegasus who is vying for his attention.

‘D’you like the sea, Korren?’ I ask as we walk through the open field.

‘No.’

‘So you’re a land lover?’

‘No.’

‘Perky thing, aren’t you?’ I look to the moons that hang above us. ‘Dad told me there’s an old legend here. Every night, a land-walker would sit on the shores not far from here and sing, and every night the sea would calm itself and listen to him, and as time passed fell in love with him. Yeah, it went something like that. They were always parted, though, because the tide had to return to the ocean. When the land-walker grew old, he went to the sea, singing of his love for it, and the sea breathed in and took him away. Not exactly the greatest happily ever after, but it’s a start, I guess.’

‘Reckless,’ I hear him say.

‘What?’

‘That emotion.’

‘Um… love?’

‘Yes. Reckless.’

‘Elaborate.’

‘Isn’t it illogical to stand by a love that you’re forever being parted? Isn’t that a form of insanity?’ OK. Note to self:
Korren is not a romantic.
‘To be parted relentlessly for all time; who would want that?’ I can tell that this is a rhetorical question.

I answer it anyway. ‘Abnormal, reckless people—that’s who. Abnormal, reckless and brave.’

‘Brave?’

‘Yeah, brave.’

‘You think it’s
brave
?’

‘I think it’s wonderfully brave,’ I confirm. ‘That’s my logic.’

‘If that’s logic, thank the stargods that we kytaen can’t feel such troublesome emotions.’

‘I consider your lack of emotions to be a kytaen’s impair-ment.’

‘I consider it to be a kytaen’s salvation.’

OK, here we go; time for an inspiring comeback. ‘Feh.’
You own, Leonie.

‘Where are you taking me?’ he asks.

‘I’m not taking you anywhere,’ I say. ‘You decided to follow me, like some puppy tailing its master.’

‘You just threatened me to come with you!’

‘What, annoying you constitutes as a threat? That makes things easier for me. Anyway, I did give you a choice—’

‘I’m forced to follow you.’

‘As you pointed out, I’m not your keeper yet, and therefore you’re not forced to follow me anywhere.’ I look back at him. ‘Or are you that desperate to be my kytaen?’

He narrows his eyes.

We continue walking, up and down the rolling hills.

‘Should you be going out this far?’ says Korren.

‘We’re still in the temple’s vicinity,’ I say.

‘That’s not what I meant. The Thrones wouldn’t—’

‘Concerned about my safety, are we?’ I tease.

‘I just don’t want to be killed by the Imperium for any
accidents
you may have.’

Pegasus runs over to a rock conveniently placed in the middle of the field, gnawing at it like an idiot.

‘No, Pegasus, rocks aren’t for eating,’ I tell him.

He rubs himself against it.

‘Or for molesting!’ I sigh. ‘Rabbit! Look, Peg,
rabbit
!’ At that word, his eyes focus and he looks around intently.

As we walk, I tilt my head back, staring at the vast starlit sky. Tonight the clouds have dispersed, leaving a whole galaxy to ponder.

‘There must be so many worlds out there,’ I say. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by the constellations, and their stories of other worlds and’—I laugh—‘dimensions. I mean, look. That star you see right there, it’s probably destroyed now. It probably doesn’t exist, but to us it does. To us its light is still bright enough to reach us.’ I shake my head. ‘It’s a
wonder
. Think about it: revolving around that sun could’ve been millions of people, and even though they’re gone, even though they don’t exist anymore, to us they’re still there, still living, still laughing and crying and just
existing
.’

I look to Korren to see if he’s listening. He is.

‘When I heard about Duwyn I was happy, y’know? It made me think, wow, there is something else out there, and there must be so much more, too.’ I watch the sky, eyes full of longing. ‘I wish I could see it all. Everything.’

‘You…’ he begins.

‘Hmm, yes?’

‘…Nothing.’

‘Oh, come on. Now I’m interested. What were you going to say?’

‘It was just that… someone once said something very similar to me.’

‘Really? Who were they?’

‘Just a girl.’

‘Was she your keeper?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Were you close?’

He says nothing, but has a ponderous look on his face as he stares at me. I blink, confused as to why he’s looking at me like that, almost with a gentle gaze.

We reach a stream that trickles beside us, widening as we go along, and step over logs and clamber over rocks. I pick up a twig and throw it, saying to Korren, ‘Go fetch, boy.’ He grits his teeth.

We walk through a snow-blanketed forest, trees bare and their branches white, their tops indiscernible.
Crunch. Crunch
—that enjoyable sound of the snow under our feet. Each breath spirals out from me, every intake of the air causing my lungs to chill as if I’m breathing in winter. Snow flurries into the air as birds perching on the trees spring into flight, the flutter of their wing beats echoing as other birds follow suit. The moons’ light dabbles through the branches, and ahead of us, the moonlight auras around a towering hill that climbs towards the sky.

‘Wow! It’s beautiful,’ I say.

‘I suppose so,’ replies Korren. He doesn’t look unimpressed, at least.

‘This reminds me of a place near where I used to live. We found it on one of our wanders. Best view I’d seen around there. You should’ve seen it in the day.’