Candor awoke to a bright stream of sunlight staining the floor of the hall a bright yellow. Rolling over, Candor gasped in pain, her shoulder feeling as though it had been ripped entirely off then resewn to her body, which, Candor thought darkly, is not far off.
As gently as she could manage, Candor stood, shaking sand off her damp clothes and drank deeply again. Her lips cracked, and Candor licked them. With her good arm, she rummaged around in her pack, extracting the last of her dried fruits and grains. Many of the grains had grown soggy when Candor had unceremoniously tossed her belongings out of their waterproof sack. Much of the fruit was still edible, and Candor ate half of it, ravenous. With the sun and a full belly, Candor grew irritated at herself for so carelessly abandoning her things the night before. Carefully, she unpacked her sack, laying out her items on the white stone floor. Leaving them to dry for a moment, Candor stripped off her boots and socks, setting them in the sun. She padded around the hall, marveling at its craftsmanship in the daylight. On each wall, murals stretched from floor to ceiling. Once bright images, they now told the story of abandonment as much as their depictions told the story of their artists. Candor marveled at their realism; the pictures flowed seamlessly into each other, each witch, for that, Candor recognized, was what the murals were showing, engaged in some act of majik.
Men and women called lightning and raised water, sent storms, and grew crops. All the images depicted acts in which the witches were engaged in some social positive, some great easing of natural life. Pieces of the walls had cracked and fallen into the center of the room, only to be drowned in sand. The entire hall offered a heavy nostalgia, an invitation to a collective memory of a great thing now bruised and dried by time.
Candor did not enjoy feeling these reverberations, so she grabbed the less-damp clothes from her pack and walked out of the hall, leaving her ruminations behind, if only for a moment.
In the warm morning light, the dead trees did not seem so menacing. Instead, they too seemed sad; melancholia pervaded the island, as if it had grown resigned to its existence away from Icaria. Gently, Candor unwrapped her sling and undressed, hanging her wet clothes on an errant branch. She waded into the ocean, feeling the warm sand beneath her feet. Once more the sea felt inviting, though Candor was still raw from their last encounter. She allowed herself to float, feeling the tension leave her shoulder. As much as she could, Candor tried to work some mobility back into it: she would need it, no doubt, in the coming days. Candor felt vulnerable without full use of her limbs.
Candor untied her braids and rinsed her hair. Satisfied that all the sand had left her body, Candor traipsed back to shore and retrieved her dry tunic and trousers. These were the set that Zorca had gifted her, and she felt guilty for wearing them. The thicker knees and elbows reassured her, though, and Candor tried very hard not to think of the Fae or her oath. Careful of her shoulder, Candor wound her way through the beached forest to return to her pack. As she wandered up the beach, she noticed the woods started a few lengths back from the columned hall. Running the length of the beach, the tall trees and loose vines reminded Candor of the flora on the cliffs near the village. The air felt warm, sultry even, inviting Candor to sleep. She frowned. The only thing that did not speak of paradise was the strange, white hall in which Candor had found shelter. It spoke of grandeur, discipline, and the ending of things. Its white stone shone in the sun, and Candor ducked back inside it, eager to be on her way.
As she began to repack her belongings, Candor’s neck prickled, and she whipped around, heart pounding, her shoulder screaming. There was nothing on the beach. Candor would have bet her right hand that someone had been just about to enter the hall.
A soft breeze sent a few grains of sand tumbling across the doorway, but the island itself remained empty, silent. Candor’s pulse retreated slightly, and she returned to her pack. She had resolved to explore as far inland as the island would allow her to go today, which would require her boots. Candor groaned to herself as she slipped her wet boots back over her feet. At least she had a pair of dry socks. They would not stay dry for long.
Candor placed her two water skins on top of her tarped package, careful not to spill any. She did not sling her shoulder again; she needed her hands free. Gingerly, Candor sat against her pack, pulling the straps over her shoulders. Once tight, she squatted, then stood, ignoring the pressure on her shoulder, and departed the ruins. Searching for any sort of path, Candor found none and sighed. Of course, that would have been too easy, she thought. Candor entered the wood, pleased that the undergrowth was minimal. If only the Kotemor had been so easy, Candor thought, remembering the first climb into the northern mountains.
The air between the trees was clear, the sand covered in small grasses. As Candor continued, she felt her calves begin to burn slightly, as the land inclined almost imperceptibly. Candor pulled out her compass, only to discover the arrow spinning. Candor swore, saddened. Perhaps it was water damage. Or perhaps it did not work in this place. Neither would have surprised Candor. Candor also began to notice, as she traversed further into the jungle, that the shadows began to shift. It almost seemed as if there were two sources of light. Candor craned her neck to look at the sky but was rewarded with a vision of leaves and branches. I need some open air. Candor stopped, looking to see if the trees thinned out anywhere. It seemed like they did a bit further to her right, so Candor changed directions, keeping track of her pace count. She knew how easy it was to lose oneself without the sun.
Candor shivered; the presence that had caused her to startle this morning had not entirely dissipated, and Candor felt as though eyes were on her with every step she took. It was an unpleasant, creeping feeling, a slippery, unsafe sensation, especially when one seemed to be alone. Candor let her left-hand rest gently on the hilt of her iron sword, her indigo blade resting between her shoulder blades. Candor’s shoulder ached, and she resolved to keep a look out for virosa, a small leafy plant Mo used to use as a salve for bruises.
As the shadows began to grow smaller and the trees fewer, Candor stepped out onto an open field. The ocean roared below. Candor grinned. She thought she had been moving towards a cliff, though it had been hard to distinguish the sounds of the sea from the sighs of the forest.
Candor walked towards the edge of the cliffs, enjoying the height and the view of the ocean. As her shoulder protested, Candor dropped to her haunches, setting the pack down for a moment. Careful not to get too close to the edge, Candor turned back towards the forest, confused at how high the cliff was. She did not feel as though she had climbed such an incline. To what she thought was the north, Candor saw the peak of the island rise, and behind it, a moon hung low in the bright sky. Candor frowned, scanning the horizon. Squinting, her eyes chanced upon the sun, and as Candor looked away, her eyes found… a second sun? Candor blinked several times before looking back and forth between the three celestial bodies. How can this be? Of the many things Candor had come across, she had never expected to see two suns. This unwrote all she had learned about the natural world. So does majik, Letti’s voice whispered in Candor’s mind. Candor shivered. Returning her attention to the island mountain, Candor estimated how long it would take to make it to its base. With a sigh, Candor turned to face the sea once more, stepping a few more paces out to the cliff. She inhaled deeply, feeling a sea breeze twirl around her face.
Without warning, Candor felt the breeze become a push, as if two hands had shoved her in her lower back, and she stumbled forward, slipping off the side of the cliff. She caught herself in a dead hang against the rock, her shoulder screaming. The sense of being watch increased, and Candor yelled.
“Show yourself!”
But even as Candor tried to climb her way back to the top of the cliff, the wind plucked her fingers from the edge of the island, and Candor fell into the sea.
Candor sliced into the water with both feet together, as she had been taught so many years ago. Still, her breath rushed out of her, and her lungs filled with needles as she clawed her way to the surface. Keeping her left arm pressed firmly against her body, Candor resurfaced and screamed in frustration. Kicking and stroking with her right arm, Candor swam parallel to the island, trying to keep the cliff in her view. At the first sight of beach, Candor swam in and shook herself. Running as fast as she dared, Candor ducked and hopped through the edge of the forest, this time feeling the incline of the cliff. As she reached the outcropping, Candor stopped and felt to her knees. Her pack and her indigo sword had disappeared. Everything she owned had vanished in a moment of pure foolishness, and Candor screamed once more. She unsheathed her iron sword and swung it in a circle, desperately trying to regain control of her anger. Step by step, Candor forced herself into the first few poses of the Aiadar. Step by step, Candor replaced her anger under the fabric of her rational mind. Step by step, Candor brought the faces of all whom she loved to her vision and shamed herself for this behavior. Finally, out of breath, Candor sheathed her sword and massaged her left shoulder. It burned and ached from the fall and the swimming, but it also fueled her. Candor held that pain in the center of her mind as she took off running through the forest, no longer burdened by the pack. She had no choice now: she had to find the Citadel, or she would die of thirst and hunger.
As she ran, Candor scanned the ground, looking for any flora she recognized, anything she could eat, any plants she could use for remedies. She found none. She found many plants that might have been cousins to those for which she searched, but she was not yet desperate enough to ingest any. Consuming the wrong plants could be disastrous, Candor well knew.
Ahead of her, a small incline rose into an unnaturally flat piece of terrain, and Candor stopped. She had found a path. Paths meant people. Had she still been possessed of her pack, Candor would have stayed a few lengths off of the trail and followed it up the mountain. As it was, she could not afford to lose time, and so she began to run along it, increasing her speed as she did so. Pausing only to switch her sword from her hip to her back, Candor’s mouth grew dry, and her sides soaked with sweat, but she felt herself moving steadily up the peak. Even as she ran, Candor could not escape the pressing feeling of being watched. She also noted that in the spans she had covered, she had not seen an animal, not even a bird. It troubled her.
Pausing for a moment to catch her breath, Candor remembered how Thorn harvested water from the trees in the teeth. He had never shared with her the words for it, but Candor wondered…
Stepping off the path, Candor found a smaller tree with branches that she could reach. Gently, she tugged at the end of a branch, until a leaf impeded her view. Focusing entirely on the leaf, Candor willed water to run from the ground through its roots, up its trunk, through its branches, and outside of the form the leaf held. Feeling a tugging at her consciousness, Candor allowed her mind to open, taking in the entirety of the tree and the process she envisioned. She willed the words to come to her, to name the water and the tree, the bark and the space allowed for its hydration. She willed her blood to sing, not with the identity she had inhabited for seventeen years, but for the heritage she had just discovered. She willed her Fae blood to invite the water to her, to be one with the way of things, to offer her sanctuary from the water in the air.
Water splashed from the tip of the leaf, settling onto Candor’s tongue, as if that were the thing it were made to do. Candor found the focus easy once it had begun. The words came to her, sprinting into her mind and settling there, like crabs curling up in the sand. When she was sated, Candor released the tree and thanked it and the water, for providing her life. She smiled, feeling the boundaries of her mind snap closed again, but not as closed as they had once been. Curious, Candor tugged within herself, wondering how easy it would be to reopen that channel. It opened without much focus at all, and the world looked different, the colors stronger, the names of things at the edge of her vision, on the tip of her tongue. Candor laughed out loud, delighted.
A heavy breaking of branches snapped Candor snapped closed once more, and she drew her sword, her back against the tree that had just watered her.
In the shadows on the far side of the path, where the foliage had grown thicker, Candor saw the forest tremble. Deciding not to wait for whatever was shaking the shrubbery such to find her, Candor took off up the path, ignoring her shoulder and the burning ache in her legs. She did not sheath her sword, but rather ran with the blade parallel to her forearm; Candor knew better than to think she could outrun a trial.
A hideous clicking clacked behind Candor, and she glanced over her shoulder. The creature that pursued her raced on multiple legs like a spider, its body forming in the center of the limbs, growing tall and muscular and hairy. Where its head should have been, the flesh formed into a small nub with many eyes and a set of pincers. It had, of course, thought Candor as she fled, two arms, each holding a scythe.
Finally, as the path grew too steep to run, Candor turned, deperate to find some way to ues her highground to her advantage. Discovering none, Candor side stepped a scythe as it came down, and sliced at one of the legs. The creature backpedalled with a speed and poise Candor was quick to notice. She grimaced and tried again. She might not be a runner, but she was utterly aware of her body, lithe and graceful when she fought.
Candor tried to focus on her sword, letting her mind stretch the way it had before, but she only succeeded in pushing her concentration a bit further than she usually could. Refocusing on her body, Candor jumped and slashed, feinted and and struck, earning herself a few slices to the creature’s torso, and a few bruises from rolling when she got too close.
This is madness, Candor thought desperately. Not even the wolf-men had put up such a fight. Finally, as her strength waned, Candor began to think critically. The eyes, Candor chastised herself, I can hide if it can’t see me. A small piece of her mind insisted she just cut the head off so it wouldn’t be able to hear or smell her either, but Candor desisted.
Backing herself up the steep incline of the path, Candor looked around for something she could use as a distraction. The backs of her legs burned. Sand, Candor thought stupidly. The path was packed, but it was fine dirt, mixed heavily with sand.
With trepidation, Candor blocked another strike from a scythe and tried to focus, pushing out the limits of her mind once more. Even as she focused on the creature in front of her, Candor asked to know the name of the path, the sand, the dirt upon which she stepped. She felt it open to her, willing to move in a way that it would not have if she had not called it out of its place.
Teeth gritted, Candor whispered the words that grew in her mind and reached behind her as she fell, grabbing a handful of the path, now loosened into grains for her. With a yell as both scythes swiped for her neck, Candor threw the earth at the creature’s eyes, before diving off the path, tucking her shoulder as she tumbled. The far side of the path was steeper than Candor had expected, and she fell further than she though she would. When she finally rolled to a stop, twigs in her hair, scraped from head to toe, Candor did not move. Above her, she heard the horrible clicks and hisses of the creature as it strove to rid itself of its new blindness.
Don’t come this way, Candor begged desperately. She hoped that the steepness of the slope would encourage the creature to disperse along the other side of the path, but she was unsure. Finally, the clicks grew fainter, and Candor felt comfortable raising her head and peering up at the trail. As gently as she could, nerves still tingling from the attack, Candor rolled over, biting her lip at the pain in her shoulder. When the creature attacked, adrenaline had roared thorugh her body stealing her ache and replacing it with strength. As it ebbed from her, the pain returned, a red-hot throb of torn muscle. Crouching, Candor looked around for her sword, which she had dropped as she’d fallen. Finding it under a few shaggy bushes, Candor sheathed it, noting its scars. She missed her indigo sword; not only did it remain flawless in battle, but Candor also enjoyed its lightness. Her arms were tired from the short fight, and Candor hoped she would have time to rest before she was attacked again. Because, she thought grimly, I will be.
As quietly as she could, Candor picked her way up the slope that bordered the path. When the packed dirt came into view, Candor followed it as best she could on the incline, using rocks and trees as anchors until she felt comfortable returning to its lane.
Too close to the battle to comfortably harvest water, Candor broke into a trot then slowly jogged faster as she fled the scene of the fight. As Candor covered span after span, she began to understand that she was going nowhere. The island was not moving her up the mountain nor forward. It was waiting, even as she was.
Finally, Candor stopped. The suns seemed to be setting, though each seemed to find a different horizon.
I need to sleep, Candor thought haphazardly. Her body was exhausted, absent adrenaline and too much running leaving it a husk. Her stomach growled. Not yet, she chastised it.
As the moon’s light became the only illumination, Candor stopped at a large rock formation and crawled onto a ledge above the trail. There, she rolled over, back to the stone, and let her mind fall into the relief of sleep.
The two suns woke her hours later, though the night did not seem long. Candor startled awake, hand on her sword, growling in pain. She couldn’t remember what it felt like for her body not to hurt. Mouth dry, she harvested water, allowing her mind to connect with a new tree. The sense of being watched had disappeared, and Candor wondered at this new lightness. It troubled her too. Why am I alone?
Candor began to walk along the path, before stopping and falling into the Aiadar. Her muscles ached; she could not run again the way she had the day before without a deep stretch. Candor let the pain from her shoulder wind through her body, hoping some of it would evaporate through her joints. As Candor drew around to balance on her right leg, a terrible discomfort, as though a thousand needle pricks touched her skin knocked her off balance. Never before had Candor lost her balance in the Aiadar; this was one natural grace she boasted over Mo. Stumbling to her knees, Candor scratched at her skin, as all the hair on her body stood on end. She was no longer being watched, but neither did she feel safe. Candor stood, hand on her sword, gazing around wildly for the threat. Instead, where once were the rocks were that she had slept on, a terrace lay, carved into the hill. Bewildered, Candor glanced behind her before refocusing on the new terrain. Candor was amazed: across the new space lay a pond, around it the ruins of columns, pillars of a long-forgotten time.
Candor felt a terrible longing come over her. Tears began to run down her cheeks for some sorrow she had not the capacity to feel. She gasped. A heavy craving began to grow in her belly, and Candor took an involuntary step forward. The sounds of the jungle, the hushed roar of the sea had fallen away, leaving an eerie silence. No wind rustled through the leaves, no sigh of the small wakes of time.
The world was utterly still. Candor took another step. The pool pulled at her: a necessary engagement. Candor did not bother trying to resist; she knew her strength was outmatched. Whatever this will, it was eons older, and a thousandfold stronger. Candor stepped forward, and the air changed. The rest of the world melted away; a forest older than the island grew up around the little terrace. The pool of water that filled the space between the columns lay glassy, flat, a perfect reflection of a sunset. The light had dimmed around the small pond as Candor walked forward, a far cry from the morning warmth she had left behind.
Candor felt as if she were losing control of her senses. There was something here that wanted her to see something, be something, and she struggled to maintain herself. As Candor wound her way around the pillars, she saw a small dais sitting at the far end of the pond. As had the feelings and sights of the bats and the shark crossed her vision, so too did a knowledge that she must look into its depths.
By some deep gut instinct, as deep as the need to peer into the dais, Candor knew she should not touch the water, nor walk under the columns. Carefully, Candor continued to work her way around the pond, stopping a few steps from the small structure. A lullabye played through her mind, and Candor was unsure if she could hear the song, or it was being placed within her from something without. It was haunting, a melahcoly quieting of a lost soul.
Candor closed the last length between herself and the dais and placed both hands on either side of the small basin. The water inside reflected the same sunset that the pond had, but as Candor bent over it, it began to swirl. A collection of stars on a dark sky showed themselves, stars Candor did not recognize. A deep knowledge passed through her, that if she leaned forward, touched the water, she would fall through the dais into the space between the lights and never stop falling. She leaned back, wary.
The stars shifted, growing into white sails billowing over a white ship. They fluttered in an invisible wind, and Candor gasped as a tearing sadness swept through her. A lone figure stepped out on the bow, searching for something unseen. As Candor tried to see the person’s face, the surface fluttered once more, swirling into the deepest black she had ever beheld, blacker than the wraiths. Candor could not move for the absence of light tugged her closer. Two eyes appeared, red save for their pupils, mad and chaotic. They looked through Candor, as if she were invisible, searching for something beyond her. While perhaps evil, Candor thought these eyes too, looked sorrowful. In a flash, they focused on Candor and narrowed, grief vanished, pure madness. The sound of a small drop echoed, and the water from the dais drained, swirling down into the little structure, trickling out into the pond. It made no ripples, as if it were returning to something that was not entirely liquid.
Utterly spent, Candor stepped quietly back around the white, stone columns, all sense of craving gone. She knew it was time to leave. The path appeared before her as she passed the last pillar, and as she stepped onto it, a long breeze swept over her, full of lavender and something unrecognizable.
When Candor turned to look at the terrace, it was gone.
The jungle sang its sweet music again, the sea whispered in the distance, and Candor fell to her knees, overcome with the power that had just released her. Struggling to breathe, Candor began to sob uncontrollably, bewildering herself. Staggering to her feet, Candor struggled to control her breathing. She wondered, in a small part of her brain that was not engaged in this catharsis, if she were going into shock.
Candor took a step forward, and then another, finally breaking into a run. She did not know how long she ran, only that she ran to escape memory, both her own and those she with which had been burdened.
Without warning, Candor burst out onto the top of the mountain. Skidding to a stop on a floor of the same white rock that the structure and the pillars had been made of. Candor looked around wildly. She had not been near the top of the mountain, she was certain. She had been on a side at best.
Yet here she was. Wind whipped her braids as she walked over to the edge of the peak. Columns topped with plinths, just like those around the pond, dotted the perimeter of the floor, with clear breaks in the circumference. Once more, Candor was forcibly reminded of a dead civilization.
“Welcome.” A voice spoke behind Candor, and with a wild hope, she turned, thinking it was Lola. It sounded identitcal to the voice that haunted Candor’s nightmares. “You’ve done well.”
The woman, while not Lola to Candor’s crushing disappointment, seemed similarly ageless. Her face was unlined, though her eyes were older than her body allowed. The way she leaned on her staff also bespoke a profound fatigue. Behind her, upwards of twenty young men and women fanned out around the stone floor.
“One last trial.” The woman intoned, and Candor got the feeling this was part of a ritual. “We need a volunteer.”
A heartbeat, then, “I volunteer.” A smooth voice echoed across the space, and a young man stepped forward. His sword already drawn, his face impassive, only his eyes betrayed any emotion. Candor could tell he was smiling. She was unsure what to make of him but watched his gait. He sauntered across the battlespace, for that was what Candor now recognized it was, his feet light, his body lithe. His sandy brown hair curled over the top of his head; the sides of his skull shaved clean. His skin was smooth, showing thick chords of muscles underneath.
Candor sighed internally. She was exhausted, utterly spent, empty of all desire. She sunk into herself, drawing on all of Mo and Thorn’s lessons. This is my last trial, Candor thought. I win, or I die. Reassured by the thought of rest, one way or the other, Candor stalked forward, leaving her sword on her back. She wanted to see how the man would engage before she offered him her own hand. As she approached, the man sliced, and Candor ducked, dancing behind him. He turned. He’s quick, Candor observed.
He poked and feinted, and still Candor ducked and dodged, until the smile disappeared from his eyes, and a slight crease formed between his brows.
Good, Candor thought with calculating satisfaction. He’s angry.
Candor could tell quickly that the man had the upper hand in brute strength; her shoulder could not sustain a heavy fight and her body ached from days of running and swimming. It’s time to end this. Candor sashayed back and drew her sword. Stalking forward once more, she engaged the young man. He was outmatched from the first swing, and he knew it. He bared his teeth, blocking and parrying as fast as he could. Just as Candor began to wonder if she was supposed to kill him, she felt energy begin to ebb from her body. Her arm slowed in midair, and she felt the red-hot slice of a blade on her underarm. Candor stumbled back, shaking her head slowly, trying to regain control of her limbs. A few murmurs from the onlookers reached Candor, but she did not have the wherewithal to address what they meant. She felt her limbs go heavy, numb, and she looked up, astonished. The young man’s face was contorted, no longer the passive mask it had been at the outset. It betrayed his intentions. He was using majik.
Candor grew angry, angrier than she had ever been. In the few moments that the young man took to walk across the floor, Candor allowed her mind to open the way she had when she’d asked for water or sand, pushing the boundaries and understanding the movement of the air, the positions of both suns. She looked up and smiled, learning the names of the fighting floor, the echo of fights long past. She stood up slowly, mind freed from the irritating fog. Candor stepped back, pretending she still labored under the debilitating majik, near to the edge. While her mind lay free for a moment, Candor could still feel the man’s mind pressing incessantly at its edges.
Spent, Candor allowed the man to draw closer. Certain she could not hold both her mind open and her sword high, she waited until the man was swinging before she withdrew her mind, raising her own sword. His sword caught on a nick in her blade, bending it with the force of his strike. Stunned at this development, Candor’s mind raced. He shouldn’t be this strong, Candor thought numbly. As he raised his arm to strike again, Candor acted on instinct alone. She had backed up to a gap between the broken columns, and in one swift movement, Candor tossed her sword over the edge of the cliff. For the briefest of moments, the man watched her weapon disappear in disbelief. With the last of her strength, Candor reached up and grasped the edge of the man’s sword, feeling the slice of his blade on the inside of her fingers. With her left hand, Candor grabbed the man around the neck and launched them both off the mountaintop into blackness.
~.~
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