‘You don’t know what you’re in for, boy,’ Arak growled.
I stood my ground.
‘Eeloy will show you,’ he sneered.
His eyes grew oddly detached as he summoned the demon in his sword.
‘As much as Talon hates us, let Zei’s fire burn in this sword, Eeloy,’ the Zeika whispered.
I glanced at the ensorcelled weapon. I knew how hot the blade could be, but wouldn’t that work to my advantage? The maroon blade glowed, its bloody light nearly blinding me as veins of magic popped out along its length. The silver hilt also grew hot beneath my hands.
‘Drop it!’
Rekala screamed, sensing my pain.
‘I can’t!’
My fingers were locked around the hilt, which was glowing faintly orange with heat. I felt my hands scorching. The pain sent aching blows right up my arms.
‘Krii, make it stop!’ I gasped.
I stepped backwards, dropping the tip to the ground. The hilt dragged at my flesh. My bones might have been melting. The Zeikas looked on in amusement.
‘You’re doing it to yourself,’ Arak said.
My head swam. My eyes rolled. I staggered and fell, unable to hold my thoughts.
‘Let’s finish him off,’ one of the Zeikas joked. ‘He’s too pathetic to be what you say, Arak.’
‘Don’t be an imbecile,’ Arak retorted. ‘Bal Harar has big plans for this one.’
He approached slowly, looking down on me with mock pity, ‘Poor helpless Kriite, where is your Lightmaker now?’
My neck flopped, my breathing slowed and I licked bitten lips.
‘Rekala… Rek….’
‘Talon, I’m getting free. The other carthorses are following me. Sy-tré is with us.’
Rain burst free in the sky, causing the sword to cool and release me. Water was a known counteragent to Zeika heat magic, which was part of the reason they hated it. I heard cursing as the carts plummeted away and Rekala whipped the other carthorses into a frenzy. The Zeikas babbled something in Reltic, their voices fading as they went after the carts in the rain. Only Arak and another Zeika remained. They cursed at the sudden downpour.
Arak picked up his weapon and peered at me. My eyes were mostly closed and I kept very still. My hands were a mess of blood and blisters.
‘We shall have to wait here until the carts come back,’ Arak said angrily.
He pulled his hood further over his head and attempted to dry his face with a green bandana.
‘There will be other Anzaii we can
rade
,’ the other said. ‘Why don’t we just kill him?’
‘Nay. The Bal wants this one. He is also our key to the princess and will provide our power over her.’
In my weakened state, it registered dimly that he was referring to an actual princess. The Princess Denliyan of Telby, perhaps? And there was a word they had used, an ancient word I could barely recall the meaning of. “Rade”, to steal and violate.
After a long silence, the second Zeika tried again, more quietly. ‘Then leave him here. We have his animal-kin and it is trapped in horse form.’ His voice lowered. I strained to hear his words over the pounding rain.
‘…follow. The situ… fect… should run the animal all… to Reltland… follow the original plan.’
Arak pressed his muddy boot onto my chest and nudged one of my hands. I bit back a cry of pain, pretending to be unconscious.
The pair shielded their faces from the rain, stamping their feet in irritation. Would they leave me? They seemed indecisive.
The rain intensified. Arak shouted something obscene in Reltic. I chose that moment to swing my legs around and trip him. Using my elbows to push myself up, I tottered to my feet. My head boomed.
I gazed dizzily ahead at the wind-whipped grass, then stumbled through it like a newborn foal. Thunder pummelled the air and the rain pelted down in blinding sheets. Without turning to see how close my captors were, I ran into the forest.
I lurched to the left and right, bashing into the slick trunks of trees and tripping over bracken. Would Arak follow me into the woods? Should I double back and go in the same direction the cart had gone?
After a while, I realised I was lost. The thrashing trees made the forest look different from the way I remembered it. Exhausted and freezing, I stopped in a tangle of bushes and sank to my knees.
‘Rekala where are you?’
‘You are free?’
she exclaimed. Her breathing was laboured and her muscles ached with fatigue.
‘Get back to Tez—find help.’
She was right; there was nothing I could do to help her in this state. I squinted in the darkness, trying to recall which was the right way. I continued in the direction I had been running initially. Strangely, the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that it was right. It was like something was calling me. I staggered on. The pounding rain beat at my skull like a hammer, but I thanked Krii for it nonetheless.
Chapter Six—The Wavekeepers
I
t seemed like I watched myself from afar. Rather than having any actual sense of myself, it was more like throwing open the shutters on my mind. The dark recesses of my memories were suddenly lit, as if by fire. Shadows loomed on one side of my mind, light on the other. Something strange seemed to be awakening. It wasn’t me. It was someone else. Yet it knew me, had called me… surveyed me.
‘Is he hale? How will he react to me? Will he understand? Is he a worthy partner?
’
I woke with a start, shouting, ‘Tiaro!’
The taste of parn, a liquid drug used to reduce pain, was in my mouth. A salty smell hung in the air, confined by the walls of a small cottage. Somebody was stirring a stew nearby.
‘Good morning.’
I blinked, trying to remember what had happened. ‘Rekala….’
The woman approached and touched my forehead with her palm.
‘Shh… You’re well,’ she said, smoothing back my hair.
I remembered finding my way to the outskirts of Tez in the pouring rain. My father had a cousin here, named Annie. She and her husband, Damia, had known me since I was small. When my father had passed away Ella and I had been offered the chance to come and live with them, but we had preferred the familiarity of Jaria and the Rada-kin.
Try as I might, I could not reach my Rada-kin through the waves. What Arak had first attempted on me yesterday morning he had now done to Rekala. Zeika wards were capable of blocking the waves completely, and only an Anzaii of equal or greater power could overcome them. Despite that, I didn’t feel entirely alone. It was as if I could still sense another presence….
I looked around suspiciously. An old grey cat snoozed by the hearth. I could hear chickens clucking outside the open window. A pot boiled cheerily over the fire. Other than that, all was still and quiet, including the waves.
A tiny trinket box sat on the bed beside me and I wondered briefly what was inside. While Annie bantered about the weather, local teenagers, and the lack of a good seamstress in Tez, I nodded politely, but my eyes kept straying back to the trinket box.
Eventually, Damia came in for the morning meal. ‘It’s good to see you awake, young man. That’s quite an injury you have there.’
I sat up slowly, holding my bandaged hands out in front of me so as not to knock them. Despite the parn I had been given, I caught my breath and winced every time I moved.
‘Damia, isn’t it?’
He nodded.
‘I must leave as soon as possible. The Zeikas have my Rada-kin. Have you sent by wave-caller to inform Jaria of my plight?’
‘Nay,’ the man replied. ‘We thought it best to let you decide whom to trust with such sensitive information.’
‘You will need some time to recover, young man,’ Annie said. ‘You can’t help her like this.’
I glanced at my hands. ‘I can’t thank you enough for helping me,’ I said. ‘But I fear that you put yourselves in danger by having me here.’
Damia raised an eyebrow. ‘Well now, you are Mandus and Kerra’s son, but what can be so important about you to the Zeikas?’
‘I don’t know,’ I stammered. ‘I thought perhaps they had the wrong man, but the lower-ranked one, Arak, looked specifically at my scar. Said I was from the “ancient line” and that he had recognised my face from an image he’d been shown.’
Damia and Annie exchanged a worried glance.
‘Do you know what this means?’ I asked, desperate for help understanding what I’d heard.
‘Whatever those demon-worshippers are up to it isn’t good,’ Annie said.
‘What did they mean about an ancient line?’ I pressed. ‘Aren’t we all descended from the ancient survivors, the Anzaiia?’
Damia ran his fingers over his scalp, disturbing his neatly combed hair. ‘Yes, but only those who retained the greatest wave abilities were still considered Anzaiians hundreds of years after the Great Ash cloud had passed.’
‘Were the abilities decreasing?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Damia replied. ‘Like everything in our world since Zeidarb.’
‘Didn’t they use the Great Sapphire Trees to extend their abilities?’ I asked.
Annie sat on the end of my bed. ‘Yes they did. In fact, the people of Anzaiia had become so dependent on the augmentation the sapphire-trees provided that most lost the ability to use the waves completely when most of them were destroyed. The resulting confusion and inability to communicate sent the population into chaos, and there was much fighting and unrest. Many different groups branched off and retreated to the surrounding lands, learning to speak and make sign-language with each other, developing new spoken languages to replace the lost telepathy.
‘Over the centuries that followed, Anzaiians became rare. Many of those who retained telepathic abilities were murdered out of fear and envy. Only some sensitives managed to keep it to themselves and pass on the knowledge and ability to their descendants. This is why today’s masters of the waves are called Anzaii.’
‘So that’s what the Zeikas mean about ancient lines,’ I concluded.
Damia stood up and paced across the room a few times. ‘Yes, and they know that the minute someone embraces Zei, they may gain immortality, but all trace of the wave abilities is extinguished and replaced with Zei’s own powers.’
‘You’re talking about the seven levels, aren’t you?’ I asked. Few people in Jaria had been willing to discuss Zeika powers and beliefs with me.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Those abilities are a counterpoint to an Anzaii’s powers. Because of that Anzaii must be at least one level beyond the Zeikas they face in order to overcome certain aspects of their magic. Due to the fact that Anzaii are usually in battle at the time they discover this, it has rarely been put down in writing, but if you are Anzaii, like they say, you will soon find out for yourself what you can do.’
‘What makes you think I am?’ I asked, trying not to let my irritation show. ‘I don’t want any more abilities right now. I just want to rescue my Rada-kin from those bastards.’
‘You sure about that?’ Damia argued. ‘You might need the extra powers to get her out.’
‘You’re in no fit state to do anything just now,’ Annie reminded me. She was even more mothering than Drea.
I rested my arms on my knees. They were already aching from the pain in my hands and my head pounded. Annie was right. I couldn’t do much to help Rekala without the use of my hands.
‘We will save her, together.’
My eyes were drawn to the box. Surely it had not spoken to me?
When she saw where I was looking, Annie’s expression changed from one of concern to anticipation. Damia went to a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a tiny key.
‘You can’t open it yourself,’ he began, ‘what with your hands all wrapped up. But I suppose I can unlock it for you, ’s long as you’re the first to see inside.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘That box is from your father,’ Annie said. ‘A gift for when you first found your Rada-kin.’
‘What is it?’ I asked, waiting impatiently for Damia to turn the key.
‘We don’t know,’ he said. ‘We’ve never opened it. But we know he bought it for you in Watercrag.’
I glanced at him. Most of the world’s last sapphite smiths were in Watercrag. When I looked down at the trinket box, I noticed an embossed symbol.
‘That’s right,’ Damia said. ‘It’s a genuine Abost-Zchen artefact.’
I swallowed. ‘My father bought that for me?’
‘He loved you,’ Annie said. Damia’s expression grew troubled. ‘Even though he was… different… towards the end.’
Damia turned the key and opened the tiny lid. A whisper of wind seemed to escape the box. A word that seemed vaguely familiar floated into my mind: Tiaro. Damia held the box so I could see inside. There was an earring about the size of a gold piece. It was a thick, alvurium ring, gold in colour, decorated with a stripe of blue that seemed to have melted into a groove in the ring and recrystallised.
‘Can you take it out for me?’ I requested of Annie.
She smiled as she extracted it, turning it around for me to see. The post of the earring was thick alvurium, secured at the back by a tiny clutch. A more expensive earring my father could not have found. Compared with the simple shell and wood earring I currently wore, it was like royalty. Even among nobility, it would be one-of-a-kind.
‘Is that sapphite down the middle?’ I pondered. As I spoke, my breath flowed over the gem and it glowed in Annie’s hand.
‘Possibly. By the nine trees, would you look at that?’
Annie, Damia and I stared at the vibrant light sparkling from the strip of blue. There appeared to be veins inside it, like the veins in an ordinary leaf. I squinted at it, holding it up close to my eye. Not only were there darker blue veins inside the strip of sapphite, but they had started to pulse.
‘Indeed it is made from a Great Sapphire Tree,’
said a strange voice in my head.
‘Who’s that?’ I replied, while at the same realising it was true—I was an Anzaii.
‘You’re hearing it? It is then! You are then!’ Damia whooped. I was touched by his enthusiasm, but also elated by the magnificent gift. From my father. And the gift of a rare Kriite talent from the Lightmaker Himself. It was almost enough to lift my spirits.
‘If only you were here to share this, Rekala.’