The next morning, after Candor woke both her companions, Thorn led the three through the Aiadar. Candor’s muscles were tighter than they’d ever been, and she elected to practice a second round as Thorn and Letti ate breakfast. Candor had not dreamed, and for that she was grateful. Finally, as Candor felt her muscles releasing from the agony of the last few days, she folded into a seated position to Letti’s right. Letti handed her some seeds and a few pieces of fruit from the ghosteaters, and Candor took a long drink from her skin. She almost felt normal again, or at least ready to ride. They were so close, so close to the destination for which they had begun their journey. Candor was almost worried it would not offer the answers she so ardently desired. She put this from her mind.
“How far to the Departure?” She asked.
“Not far.” Thorn snatched a map that had been tucked under the flap of his pack, as if he had just been consulting it. “We’re about here.” Thorn pointed to a spot on the map with no landmark. “This is where we need to go.” He pointed to a small mark that looked like a depiction of three rocks stacked on each other. “We’ll ride south shortly, but I would have us move inward, onto harder ground for the horses.”
Candor shrugged. She loathed to leave the sea, but she recognized what the hard riding had done to their steeds. She was surprised they had lasted as long and as well as they had.
“We have about five to six days left.” Thorn said as he folded the map and replaced it in his pack. Candor winced, knowing her map was just as folded, and probably looking just as worse for the wear.
“Can you majik the map into better shape?” Letti asked, eyeing the same tears as Candor.
“That’s not a verb.” Thorn grunted but nodded.
“Show me.” Candor said flatly.
Thorn raised his eyebrows at her tone but grudgingly retracted the map. He guided her hand over the blooming hole where the folds all came together.
“You must focus on what you want the map to do. Use this to guide the material into its shape, to repair it—”
“I remember.” Candor said quietly. “I’ve guided skin and sinew; I would imagine paper is easier.”
Thorn, face impassive, offered Candor the words to say. She repeated them in her mind before focusing on the map. She touched its center, where the humans had sliced a long canal through the land and closed her eyes. Repeating the words to herself, Candor believed the paper back into shape, calling the ink to recreate what it had once depicted. She remembered the tears around the edges of the map and ran her hand to find them. Feeling their raw edges, Candor stitched their material back together. Finally, as she could find nothing more to fix, she opened her eyes, feeling her mind fatigue as she released the focus.
Thorn, face closed to her, took the map back, and folded it as it had been, taking no care to be gentle. He almost seemed frightened.
Letti smiled at Candor, almost wistfully. “I wish I could do that.”
Candor did not answer. She seemed to have awakened something in herself that would not rest; she ached for the feel of majik thorugh her veins, through her consciousness. The more majik she did, the more restive she felt. It was not comfortable, like a craving, a need for water when there was none. Candor swallowed.
“We should move.” Thorn grunted, eyes still on Candor.
The girls stood and made their way to their horses. Candor stroked the neck of hers and met its eye. It seemed wise, tired of course, but as if it knew what they were chasing. Candor wished she could ask him.
The trio mounted and began to ride inland, keeping a slow pace. As the motion rocked her, Candor allowed her gaze to rise to the horizon. Since they had left the Kotemor, the land they trod had remained flat. To the east of the ghosteaters, hills rolled, obscuring any distant view. The sea plains had stretched, offering a long view across Icaria, but it wasn’t until now that Candor had the wherewithal to look towards the east as a direction worth travelling. As the ground hardened, Candor could see sparse groves of trees in the distance, neighbored by large rock formations. The ground seemed to shiver slightly, as if it bore a great coat of fur. Beige grasses swayed in the sea breeze as Thorn led the three into their midst. Reaching about halfway up the horses’ legs, the sward reminded Candor of the ocean behind her, and she smiled. She felt herself relax slightly, as if she hadn’t really believed until that moment they were out of trouble. She looked over at Letti, who too was contemplating the horizon. Her eyes looked older, Candor realized, and much sadder. She wondered how her own violet eyes looked these days and flashed to the moment in the hill house when she had stood over her basin. Candor ground her teeth together and willed away the closing pain in her throat. She had cried enough for a lifetime.
“Hey.” Candor reached out to touch Letti’s arm softly. “Thank you. For holding me.” She smiled and hoped it reached her eyes.
Letti’s eyes widened in surprise. “Of course, Candor.” She fidgeted with her reins for a moment, before looking back up to say something, but Candor had returned her gaze to the east. Letti shook her head slightly, irritated with herself.
As the day progressed, Candor and Letti talked quietly about what they had endured so far. They did not find the emotional space to speak yet about the village, but they tried to joke and remember the small moments in the Kotemor. To Candor, it felt like a release, an exercise in acceptance. To Letti, it rang of a dirge, a final farewell.
“Oh.” Candor pulled her horse to a stop, startling Letti from her musings. “Oh.” She breathed again; if Letti weren’t looking directly at her, she would not have seen Candor’s mouth moving. Candor seemed to understand something.
“That’s why he wanted my blood.” Candor’s gaze glanced off Letti before landing on Thorn, unfocused.
“Thorn,” Letti called, voice low.
The man stopped and turned, catching sight of the girls a few lengths back. Candor’s stare solidified, boring into him. Thorn trotted back to his companions.
“That’s why you wanted my blood.” Candor said calmly. She looked Thorn in the eye. “You knew I had Fae blood, and you used it during the death days.”
Thorn, Letti noticed for once, looked extremely uncomfortable. His lips parted to bare teeth clenched in a grimace.
“You thought I’d not find out.” Candor said softly. “You thought you could just drink my blood and not tell me who I was and survive and survive and survive.”
Thorn’s hand inched towards his sword.
“Don’t bother.” Candor’s voice dripped with disdain. “I am not going to strike you. What good would it do? You might not be evil, but you stand for nothing but yourself.” Candor’s face grew cold. “I just want you to admit it. You kept my identity to yourself so you could use me and feel less guilty.”
“Candor—” Letti, who had forgotten this had happened until this moment, worried about her friend’s control.
“I know you felt guilty for taking my blood, for betraying my trust.” Candor continued, mechanical. “And I thought that was enough to forgive you. But now I know what kind of man you are.” True enough, Letti observed, Candor did not grow angry, her usually firey temperament cooled. Letti, and Thorn she could see, found it discomfitting.
“Candor—” Letti tried again.
“He knew.” Candor turned to her friend. “He knew and he abused.”
Apparently with nothing more to say, Candor urged her horse forward, passing through both Letti and Thorn. They exchanged a glance, Letti’s accusatory but relenting, Thorn’s resignation, and guilt.
Letti shuffled her horse to follow Candor’s, the day quiet as not a one offered another word. The night was just as silent. With a round of the Aiadar but no sparring, they sulked. Letti was just as happy for the continued staying of their blades; she worried Candor’s composure would crack at any moment.
Candor, for her part, felt little to nothing towards Thorn. She knew Letti worried after her temper, but there was nothing there. Thorn simply acted in a way Candor was coming to expect others to behave. People made choices for themselves. Candor could not remain angry at a permeating truth, nor a symptom of it. She simply had no energy to engage with either companion.
That night, as Candor sat in the grey hours of the morning, face alit slightly by the embers of the fire, a flicker in the darkness caught her eye. Slowly, Candor lifted her gaze and found the indent in the night. The wraith hovered in the east, its form visible for its darkness, the stars lighting the waving grasses of the plains. Candor watched them appear, one by one, out of the deep blue of the air. They did not come any closer. Candor almost felt as though they were watching her. She wondered if it were the distance, but she could not feel any malice irradiating from them as she expected. For hours, they remained locked in a distant embrace, neither willing to break their vigil. Finally, when the sun began to rise in the south, the wraiths winked out of existence once more.
Candor rolled her blankets, tucking them into her pack. She did not care to tell either Letti or Thorn of her engagement. It felt private, and she did not wish for her experience to be sullied by Thorn’s inevitable warnings.
After the Aiadar, Candor, Letti, and Thorn began their walk south, speaking only to ask for the occasional break. The sun bore down upon them, the grass waved, and the trio swayed as if to an invisible song. Letti took to humming to herself, a sad song of a love long lost, and thought of her conversation with Candor before they left. She found these small, in between moments the hardest. They let her remember. Despite the fear, Letti thought she rather preferred the escape, the running, or at least the talking. She needed to learn more, and she was not discovering anything winding between the grass and the sea.
As they stopped in a small copse of trees that night, Candor surprised the group by asking to spar.
“I need to fight.” She announced simply. Letti, though somewhat dreading how her arms would hurt the next day, agreed that exercise would benefit them all.
Candor took up a stance facing Thorn. In her right hand, she held her indigo sword, in her left, her iron sword from Hroth. It was not a bearing she had taken before, preferring to fight with one sword. Letti wondered why she had changed.
Thorn began, stepping forward with a feint. Candor sidestepped, not bothering to parry. He tried again, and again; Candor danced out of his way. As they fought on, Letti noticed Thorn fatigue more quickly. Finally, they clashed blades, Candor using her iron sword as a shield and her indigo sword as an instrument of maneuver, finding Thorn’s ribs, thighs, and neck over and over.
“Enough.” Thorn called after a particularly brutal bruise to his upper arm.
Wordlessly, Candor handed her sword to Letti, whose mouth hung open slightly. There existed in Candor a new ferocity, born in the sorrow of growing up, and forged in the paring down of those who could teach her how to be herself. Letti worried for her friend.
Thorn came at Letti hard, fighting as he would with Candor. Letti took two strikes, before falling to her knees. She watched in horror as she raised her sword, knowing she would not be able to reach to block in time. Thorn likewise seemed to realize his momentum was carrying him too quickly to stop. Time seemed to slow, and for a moment, Letti saw her immanent departure from Candor crystal clear, a sheath of glass with too many cracks, waiting for a break of inertia.
Letti heard the clang before she saw the indigo sword above her. How did she move so fast? Letti, dumbstruck, saw Thorn’s blade stayed by Candor’s hand above her. Candor stepped in front of Letti protectively, forcing Thorn to take a step back. He looked horrified. In two days, Letti had seen Thorn offer as much emotion as the entire journey combined.
“We’re done for the night.” Candor announced, glaring at Thorn. At least she’s breaking back into emotion too, thought Letti, still dazed.
“Letti, you can’t allow your feet to come so close together. That is how you were unbalanced at his last strike, and how you ended up on the ground.” Candor hauled her friend to her feet.
“You’re right Thorn.” She finally addressed the large man, though dispassionately. “I needed to simply escape my head to fight. Thank you for your instruction.” And with that, Candor began winding her body through the Aiadar again. Letti wondered at Candor’s grace and strength. It was almost as if she needed the physical movement to flee her own mind.
Letti returned Candor’s sword to its sheath and flopped down on her pack. She was sore and humiliated. Thorn joined her, and though they did not make a fire, he sat next to her as if around a flame.
“You will learn.” He said quietly.
“We are all breaking.” Letti replied, just as softly. “You are someone I don’t know. Candor is becoming the same. I don’t know my path anymore, nor its end.”
“Mm.” Thorn hummed softly. “I would invite you with me when you cannot cross the sea.” He whispered. “Do not speak. Candor’s hearing is better than any human’s. Think closely on your decision. She will go, she has to go. You cannot.” Thorn’s voice grew bitter at the end. “I know the pain of not being able to follow one’s family. I would not have you be alone when you part.”
Letti stared straight ahead, her heart a tangle. She desperately did not want to leave Candor, but she knew that day was coming. No more could Letti follow her than could Candor abandon the Citadel. There were simply ways in the world, tracks, currents of long forgotten memories that guided Icaria’s inhabitants. Letti did not possess the power to change this. She sighed. Thorn stood quietly, taking his pack a few lengths away to change and settle for sleep. Candor would take the first watch tonight.
Letti waited until her friend was done with the Aiadar and had eaten before speaking.
“Do you not wish to find your mothers?” Letti asked softly.
“Yes.” Candor stuck a piece of grass in her mouth and chewed it. “That’s why we’re going to the Citadel.” Candor frowned. It was unlike Letti to return to unnecessary pain.
“What if there’s nothing on that island?” Letti asked desperately. “What if it’s a trap?”
“Then it’s a trap.” Candor replied flatly. “And I either fight and live or fight and die. Not much more to life, I don’t think.”
“There is.” Letti muttered. “I hate that you are so bleak now.”
“Well.” Candor struggled for a moment, not wishing to snap at her friend. Finally, she turned to look at Letti. “I am searching for hope, now, Lettishae. There is a gaping hole in me where that hope once lay, and I must find some reason for optimism again.”
Candor sunk into silence. She replayed Thorn’s whispered conversation in her mind. She wondered why Thorn thought Letti could not come to the Citadel as well. This worried her; despite his betrayals and machinations, Thorn had been right about most workings in Icaria.
“I know what Thorn has offered you.” Candor felt her heart heat with anger, but she tried to stifle it, remain emotionless. It did not work, and her throat tightened. Once more she fought with herself before speaking. “I do not think he is a bad man.”
Candor could hear Letti shift slightly.
“I know. I dislike him, I loathe him for what he has done, but I think he is simply a man. I think he is flawed and petty and self-serving, but I think his heart, or what is left of it, harbors great pain and he cannot help being what he is.” Candor spoke slowly. “This does not spare him vengeance or judgment, but it explains my forgiveness.” Candor took a breath. “That being said. I don’t wish to lose you. I would have you come with me to the Citadel, as we intended starting this journey.”
Letti remained silent.
“Unless you don’t believe I heard Lola.” Candor finally voiced thought that had troubled her since they had left the village.
“Of course, I believe you, Candor.” Letti’s voice did not shake. She fell silent.
“Thank you.” Candor sounded relieved, and Letti winced. She could not follow Candor. But she still could not say it. “I will try to return to the land of the living.” Candor shook herself, as if throwing off a chill. “It is so much easier though, staying within myself.”
Letti crawled over to Candor, and curled up around her, resting her curls on Candor’s shoulder. Candor radiated heat, nearly as warm as their driftwood fires had been. It was a comforting warmth, like a hearth. Candor rested her head on Letti’s. “My stars are still there.” She whispered. “They’re drawing me south, I think.”
Letti did not want to talk about stars, or fate, or the Citadel. All she wanted to do was sit next to Candor and think of nothing but her skin and the way things might have been.
Finally, as Letti nodded off, Candor placed her friend under her blankets, wrapping herself in her own, and taking the first watch. She felt the creeping tingle of life drawing back into her soul; it hurt, like too much heat on cold fingers. Candor thought of her path, the choices she had made, the choices she’d had stripped from her. She thought of Thorn’s mouth on her wrist and shuttered. She thought of his expression as he returned to himself, horrified at the possibility of what he might have done. She thought of the warmth Zorca had shown her, and the scorn he threw her when he discovered who she was. She thought of Miquen, dead now, and of her oath to Cairlaen. She thought of Haela and the loss of her religion. She thought of Riven and the pixies in the teeth. There but for the Twins go I, Candor thought to herself. How do I escape this, how do I save this land from itself?
Candor ran a hand through her shaggy, white hair, and on impulse, began to braid it. Two stubby braids finished behind each ear, and Candor tied them with a piece of leather that had been loosening from her pack. She smiled, the feeling odd upon her face after days without its use. She still felt the raw edges where her heart ripped in two, but the last two days had cauterized it. She was no longer hemoraging hope. She was simply without.
The next few days felt warmer, though the temperature did not change. While Candor did not engage with Thorn, she also did not spurn him, and he, in turn, made no attempt at inviting her to conversation. Letti spent time talking with Candor and asking Thorn the occasional question. Letti worried that, though he did not show it, Thorn had become accustomed to their company and this rift bothered him more than he would like to admit. Letti did not voice this to Candor, though she was sure Candor would agree.
After a few nights of sparring, Candor was feeling more like herself, the woodenness receding from her fingertips one by one. She stretched on her horse, watching the dark purple horizon of the south creep ever so slowly north. Above the trio, the sky softened to pink, and in the north, a lazy yellow still painted the skyline. It was an easy time of day. Everyone, including the horses, were tired and it was almost time to break for the night and spar.
“We will turn in here now.” Thorn spoke from the front of the line. That afternoon, instead of riding in a loose triangle as they had been, they returned to a file, navigating a small wadi hidden below the grass. It was the first such they had met with, and Candor did not find the hidden trench an enjoyable addition to the otherwise serene landscape.
Thorn angled his horse toward the west and picked thorugh the grasses. Candor and Letti followed. Candor wondered at the change in earth as they marched further south. The land outside Ome Chaer had been flat, without worry of ditch or dune. Here, it seemed as if something had riven the land in places, like so many enourmous claws digging into the ground. Candor thought about asking Thorn but thought better of it. She was not so healed as that.
Carefully, the trio gradually returned to the loose dirt, then the sand of the neighboring beach. The sea came into view all at once; Candor wondered how they had not been able to see it on the plains. They were not so far from it as she had thought. Dotting the coastline, Candor could see makeshift shelters, akin to those that had littered the perimeter of Ome Chaer.
“Are those plague houses?” Letti asked quietly. Some of the structures grew out of rock formations, some plaintif arches tilted gently in the wind, skeletons of long forgotten homes.
“No.” Thorn made his way to the nearest rock-bound structure, drawing his sword and ducking inside quickly. A few old pieces of torn blanket flapped morosely on the sticks, now dug deep into the sand.
The girls waited anxiously Candor snapping looks over her shoulder every few seconds. Something did not feel right. Thorn ducked back out and motioned for the girls to join him.
“We’ll stay here for the night.” Thorn began unbuckling his pack from his saddle.
The girls exchanged a glance but did not argue.
“So… what are these?” Candor asked.
Thorn did not turn. “They are the last homes of many who tried for the Citadel.”
Letti’s heart dropped. “What do you mean?”
“To enter into training in the Citadel, one must endure trials.” Thorn explained. He set his pack on the ground and began to tie the horse to a small picket. “This is where those who tried would wait, trying to figure out how to get to the island.”
Candor turned to look at the desolate landscape with new eyes; each of these huts were inhabited once by those like her. Those seeking, well, something. It frightened her even as it exhilarated her.
“We are not far now.” Thorn murmured. “Tomorrow, we will reach the departure.”
I will need to build a boat. Candor thought to herself, contemplating the horizon. As she watched, clouds gathered, as quick as she had ever seen a storm brew. “Twins…” Candor breathed.
“I would get inside if I were you.” Thorn began untying Letti’s saddle. “It will break upon us soon.”
“It just formed.” Candor argued, “How could it be here so quickly?”
Thorn did not bother to answer, rather dragging packs into the small cave like structure. Candor unbuckled her saddle as well, placing her possessions next to Thorn’s and Letti’s in the cave.
“Marda.” Thorn swore. He raised his hand to observe the storm. “It will be bad. We need the horses under cover as well.”
“They should fit in with us.” Candor eyed the small space. “Barely.”
“They will have to.” Thorn untied the stake he had just hitched. “Put them against the back wall. Candor, help me with this skin.”
Letti led the horses as far into the space as she could, while Thorn extracted the large tarp they had used so often in the mountains. Candor took one side, looking desperately for crevices on which to tie it off.
Wind began to whoosh against the skin, bringing with it a terrible smell. It did not smell of dead things, nor rot, but rather certainty. It smelled of power and pride and things that should not have been communicated within wind. Every hair on Candor’s body stood on end; this was an old wind, a made wind. This was a wind designed. Candor marvelled for a moment at that power.
“Letti,” Thorn called. “Take this edge and tuck it there.” He pointed to a rock large enough to pin the material down.
Candor, having secured her side, knelt slowly, before placing her face in the small space under the tarp. Between the earth and the skin, she saw a sky darker than any she had seen before; no storm in the north blew in so opaque. The clouds almost seemed to be running; if Candor squinted, she thought she could see horse hooves pelting across the sky. She shivered, delighting in the absoluteness of the storm. The world grew dark, as if sunset had arrived early, and the wind died completely, leaving the large tarp to sag slightly, and the three travelers to back slowly from it.
The cave grew too dark to see easily, and Candor heard the horses nicker fearfully. She retreated to the rear of the structure and stroked the nose of her steed. She murmured to it, hoping to calm it even as she strove to maintain her own composure.
“Cutting it a bit close there.” Candor observed, though she hushed her tones. “If you knew that was coming.”
“It is not always the same time.” Thorn shook his head. “But it can sense when there are travellers, seekers near. That is why we needed to turn in exactly when we did.”
All three jumped as the tarp expanded with a gust of wind. Without warning, wind howled around the stones, ferociously beating around them.
“Won’t the sea swallow us?” Letti asked. She had seen her fair share of storms as well.
“Not if we are sheltered.” Thorn answered grimly. “The water will flow over us, around us, but we are safe.”
“That is why there are so many shelters here.” Candor surmised. “No one was willing to stand upon the beach.”
“No point.” Thorn growled. “You’d drown.”
Candor heard the waves crash outside their cave. The horses whinnied as lightning flashed, lighting the cave through the tarp. Candor watched with quiet horror as the tarp bulged inward. Water did not pool around the edges however, and as Candor crept forward, she could see the sea held at bay behind the tarp by some invisible force.
“How is this possible?” Candor breathed, forgetting, for a brief moment, all she had learned since she’d left her village.
“It’s majik.” Thorn shrugged.
Candor could feel Letti’s heat behind her as her friend peered around her hair to see out the side of the tarp. Like a pane of glass, water swayed an handswidth from the girls’ faces. Were there enough light, it would have cast shadows, the kinds of which were only visible on seabeds.
“How do we know we won’t drown?” Letti asked.
“It is a test of faith.” Thorn replied. He had sat on his pack, keeping an eye on the horses lest they spooked. “If you want to study majik, you must believe it can do that which you do not understand with your human mind. It is not enough to know it exists. You must believe it turns to your will.”
“And you prove this by remaining underwater.” Candor ripped her eyes away from the spectacle and focused on Thorn. “Because if you try to escape and swim, you’ll die.”
“Yes.” Thorn whittled at something. Candor frowned. Where had he picked that up?
Candor rather enjoyed the darkness. She imagined the sea pressing down on them, crushing their tiny domicile, whisking her away to the horizon where nothing and no one was visible but the stars. Candor sighed and flopped down next to Thorn. There was no space for anything but closeness. Letti remained by the tarp, watching what sliver of the wall of water she could. Thorn eyed her warily.
“How long does it last?” Candor asked.
“When the thunder wanes, you know there’s not much left.” Thorn replied. Little curls of wood falling to the sandy floor.
“What thunder?” Candor asked.
“That.” Thorn held up his hand as a dull crash echoed somewhere above them.
“I thought those were waves.” Candor said softly.
“I suppose they could be.” Thorn shrugged. “I’ve never been up top when one of these rolls in. One of the last things I’ve not seen in Icaria.” Thorn’s voice held a bitter edge Candor had not heard before. She knew he was resigned, apathetic, and exhausted. But that bitterness was not a tenor she had heard from him before. It made her feel sorry for him, which angered her.
Candor scowled and turned away.
“Tomorrow you sail for the Citadel.” Thorn’s small earrings glittered in what small light lingered in the cave.
“Yes.” Candor said softly. After so long on the road, it felt right to return to the sea. Despite the trials that awaited her, Candor felt settled for the first moment in a long while. She knew this departure was her next, right step.
Letti, frozen by the vertical sea, looked into its depths out of her own misery. She too knew her path tomorrow, and though right, she knew it would tear into her in a way she did not wish to repeat. Leaving the tarp, Letti turned and padded across the dry sand to sit next to Candor. She leaned into her, feeling that nearly abrasive warmth, and tried desperately to think of anything but the receding tide and the immanent departure.
~.~
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