Thorn paced, waiting. Though he had been travelling with companions for a while now, new routines could not mask the old habits, ingrained from decades of travelling alone. He did not enjoy worrying after someone else’s wellbeing.
“It makes you human again, Woden Thorn.” Garthien spoke from a rocking chair near the large open window.
Of average height, with greying hair and laugh lines, Garthien’s demeanor could not have been more different from Thorn’s. Always accepting, Thorn thought irritably. This was exactly why Thorn rarely visited; he could stand the cool stoicism of his friend for little before he cartwheeled back into his own chaotic wanderings.
“It’s bad for you, remaining incessantly lost.” Garthien puffed a long- ridiculously long, Thorn thought- pipe.
“Stop that.” Thorn growled.
“Stop what?” Garthien finally turned his head, ever so slightly, to observe Thorn. “I’ve given up majik. You know that.”
“Seems foolish still.” Thorn groused, before throwing himself onto the floor, back against the curved wall. “She’s not yet woken.”
“She’s endured serious trauma, and she lost a lot of blood.” Garthien returned to gazing out the window. “It is no small wonder.”
“She lost a hand.” Thorn brushed off Letti’s injury. “And I applied a tincture.”
“And what,” Garthien finally allowed his whole body to face Thorn, leaning forward in his rocker, “will she make of that?”
Thorn merely scowled. Garthien had always acted as a conscience, both a feat and an irritation in equal measure.
“She’s survived worse.”
“She had a Fae partner.” Garthien’s voice grew short, “and that was a bold gamble on your part. You had not assessed her abilities, and yet you used her to heal this one.”
Thorn’s scowl deepened. He had informed Garthien of the happenings of their journey, half in exchange for information, half because he needed Garthien’s council.
“They shouldn’t exist.” Thorn let the growl drop from his voice. “There’s no one left in the Kotemor, let alone north of the Teeth.” Thorn fingered an earring.
Garthien puffed his pipe, blowing a pink ring out of the window before answering. “It sounds to me,” he said slowly, “as though you might go to the east. Once you’re done with this quest to Durevin, of course.”
“You think Durevin is a futile start.” Thorn sat up, surprised. “There is nothing more that connects these events. Something is stirring in Durevin, something new.”
“Or something old.” Garthien eyed Thorn. “You place too much emphasis on the movements of men.” He shook his head. “While men are involved, this is not simply about errant nobles.”
“I think it was him.” Thorn said softly. “I think he was the one who destroyed the village. I think he’s chasing Candor.”
Garthien did not speak. He nodded slowly. “I reached the same conclusion.” He finally said simply. “I do not know what that means.”
“Nor I.” Thorn muttered darkly.
Both friends lapsed into silence, staring out the window, over the balcony into the cool evening air, waiting.
~.~
Letti woke quickly, violently, before holding still, eyes still closed. Before moving, she tried to sense her surroundings. Hearing nothing, opened her eyes slightly, and seeing no one, she made to pull back her covers.
She gasped; only her left hand responded. With a whimper, Letti’s memories flowed through her, leaving her breathless. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she inspected her stump, now bound with a clean, white cloth. Letti swung her legs over the bed, hoping her feet on the ground would stall the spinning in her head. After a few long breaths, she looked up. Her room was small and circular. It bore no corners. Letti was immediately reminded of the ghosteater’s tree house and shivered. The white brick stacked neatly around itself, creasing into two open windows opposite each other. A cool breeze fluttered light curtains that seemed to offer more aesthetic appeal than any real effort at blocking the elements. Letti stood and walked to one of the windows. A small desk sat curved against the far side of her room, and upon further inspection, Letti noticed that the headboard was also curved to fit the wall.
At the window, Letti peered out, unconsciously holding her right wrist with her left hand. She felt loose, as if the world weren’t quite in step with her anymore. She tried to flex her right hand, only to yelp with pain as the tendons that had once bound her fingers felt their severed ends. Tears began again, though Letti tried to shutter them.
The window split, which Letti had not seen from her vantage inside the room. The little square to the outside world was actually two parallel cutouts in the side of the wall. Between them, a small staircase curled around the interior of the tower. Outside the window, Letti saw a deep red swatch cut into the horizon. It looked almost like a river, but it was too wide. Sillhouetted against it, a little village sat on its banks, small houses and flat buildings lining probable streets. Letti stuck her head out even further, trying to observe her own building. It was a tower; Letti could see straight to the ground, and, when she craned her neck around, could see a little balcony poking out from the side of the large structure. Letti was surprised to find herself so far off the ground in a man-made structure, but then, she reasoned, she shouldn’t really be surprised by anything anymore.
Retracting her head, Letti shuffled around the room, looking for her pack. Locating it on the far side of the bed, Letti fought to untie the top, unbuckle the flap, and extract her clothes. After a few moments of attempting to use what she had quickly discovered to be a useless appendage, Letti grew frustrated and upended her entire pack onto her bed, spilling months worth of dirt and debris along with it. So incensed was she at her clumsiness, Letti did not care. She yanked her nightgown off, stepping into her trousers and yanking them up with one hand. With her right forearm, Letti braced the strings of her pants, tying them in a single knot with her left. Carefully, she slipped on her tunic, not bothering with her chest wraps. That was hard enough with two hands.
Bootless, Letti yanked the door open, discovering the staircase that wound around the outside of her room. Letti stepped out and began to climb. She had a feeling that Thorn would be as high as he could be in this infernal building, and it was Thorn she intended to see.
Though Letti was generally dispossessed of any good-will at the moment, she allowed herself a moment of awe at the architecture of her current abode. The staircase seemed to climb around rooms in the building, narrowing as it escalated. Instead of the house splaying out on the ground, it rose into the sky, stacked like so many blocks in a children’s game. The windows looked out over the neighboring terrain. Letti caught glimpses of the little red sea on one side and rolling hills on the other. The air was cool, and it would have been a lovely night for exploring, if Letti weren’t thoroughly upset at her state. Somehow, though she and Candor had joked about perishing in the mountains or in the city, Letti had never actually expected to get hurt. There was some unwritten rule, as this was only marginally her quest, that the world would spare her pain.
I should have known better the moment Candor and Thorn had to return all my blood to my body, Letti thought snappishly. Remembering waking up in the Kotemor to Candor and the horrible sensation that her skin was melting over itself, Letti grew even more baleful. First you take my family, then Candor, now my hand, Letti thought loudly at the world, what next?
A few words broke through Letti’s dark musings. She stopped, her feet cold on the bare stone.
“They shouldn’t exist.” Letti heard Thorn say. “There’s no one left in the Kotemor, let alone north of the teeth.” Letti could picture Thorn fingering his beard or an earring as he said that. He was thinking.
Letti edged towards the door from which the voices emanated. Another man’s voice answered Thorn. “It sounds to me,” he said slowly, “as though you might go to the east. Once you’re done with this quest to Durevin, of course.”
Letti’s breath caught. This man knows where we’re going. She felt white hot anger run through her belly; Thorn had informed this man of her story, without her permission.
Letti listened on, determined to gather more reasons to be angry. Her wrist throbbed. Finally, as the pair lapsed into silence, Letti pushed open the door.
She had intended to throw the door open with a bang, dramatically enter, and berate Thorn for trusting yet another human, but the door was too heavy, and Letti’s left arm uncoordinated. She growled.
“Letti!” Lightning fast, Thorn was across the room, hand on Letti’s elbow, guiding her gently to another chair. Garthien stood perfectly still, grey eyes watching Letti’s entrance. He was little out of the ordinary. He had dark, greying hair, fine eyes, and the beginnings of age around his face. He was possessed of, Letti noticed before he even spoke, an odd resignation, as if he had seen everything in the world, and nothing, not even a handless girl who should not exist, could surprise him anymore. Letti related to that exhaustion, and her anger abetted, for the moment.
“Thank you.” She muttered, sinking into the chair. “Who are you?” Letti had lost her desire for appearances. She no longer had use for them.
“I am Garthien.” Garthien replied, his voice even, accentless.
“Letti.” Letti did not bother raising her right stump to offer a greeting.
“Well met, Letti.” Garthien sank gracefully back into his chair, turning it to face his guest. Thorn returned to pacing.
“How did we get here?” Letti asked. She remembered little save a great worm and Thorn’s immanent danger. As her memories returned, Letti gasped at their sharpness. Her arm twinged, and she could feel the warmth of the worm under her legs.
Then it was gone.
“I rode us here.” Thorn explained. “I wrapped your arm, and we left the battlefield. I found the horses, strapped you to me, and we rode hard.”
“Oh.” Letti considered. “How far are we from the sands?”
Thorn glanced at Garthien, who did not glance back. “Nearly a week.”
“A week?” Letti asked, thunderstruck. “How am I alive?”
This time, Thorn really did look uncomfortable. “I used a salve on your wound.”
“A salve?” Letti repeated dumbly, trying to consider how she had missed a week of life, a week of memories. She tried to think of any dreams she might have had, any sounds she might have heard. Nothing; it was as if she had dropped into blackness, dropped out of time.
“Aye.” Thorn did not elaborate. “It kept you from bleeding, and we rode as fast as we could. As it is, the horses will need a bit to recover. I did not unsaddle them.”
“For a week?” Letti, still dazed, felt guilty at the status of her steed.
“They will recover.” Thorn assured Letti.
“Why are we here?” Letti’s gaze flicked between the two men, both of whose faces drew blank.
“I trust Garthien.” Thorn answered first.
“And it is always a pleasure to host Thorn.” Garthien finished smoothly.
Immediately alerted to some deeper history, Letti held her tongue. She had watched Thorn avoid enough questions with Candor to know she was going to have to find her own answers.
After an awkward pause, Thorn asked, “How’s your arm?”
“Gone.” Letti replied shortly.
“We’ll have to begin training you on your left hand.” Thorn said.
Letti grimaced. “Is that all you ever think about?”
“Moving your limbs will help you overcome the loss.” Thorn tried again.
“Like you would know.” Letti snapped. “Your hand would grow back if cut off.”
Garthien’s head whipped around. “You said you hadn’t told her.”
“Told me what?” Letti was immediately curious.
Thorn’s face grew dark. “She knows I cannot die.”
“That’s all?” For the first time since Letti had arrived in the circular drawing room, Garthien seemed floored. “And she didn’t ask why?”
“She didn’t know what questions to ask.” Thorn’s mouth barely moved, as if he were trying to keep Letti from hearing.
“You bastard.” Garthien whispered. “Tell her the truth.”
Letti’s stump tingled, and the base of her neck seemed to tighten. Finally, she was on the brink of some answers, she could feel it.
“Letti, I will offer you the briefest of explanations as to what Garthien is referring. I implore you not to inquire any further. Mine is not a story worth retelling, nor a story worth hearing.”
Letti held her breath.
“When I was first born, I lived in the Kotemor. My family were farmers; we lived on wide terraces cut into the mountains. I was the youngest of seven, and I was not needed. My parents thought to use me differently, so they sent me south with a crop of youth who were trying to enter the Citadel.
“I survived the trials and became a witch. I was partnered with a nun, a strong man. His name was Anchera.” Thorn spoke without inflection, as though he were reciting a poem from memory.
“At the Citadel, I made two very good friends. Garthien and Emarza. We were allowed to leave at the same time, and we ventured into the world, nuns at our hips, ready to make the world better, more just.
“We grew a settlement on the plains, off the tip of the Kotemor. Travellers from Durevin and Ome Chaer made their way through us for many seasons. Fae too, we traded with them. I learned many secrets of the Fae. I learned of their majik, just how powerful they are. I learned their customs, their habits, their beliefs, or lack thereof. I watched as ordinary humans had no power to answer them, should they want something desperately. I learned that majik means power, whether witch or Fae, and no ordinary human had any say over it.”
Thorn shook his head. Letti glanced at Garthien, whose face was set as if made of ice.
“I did not wish for the power of the world to be held in the hands of majikians. I wanted to ensure those without access to majik had power over their lives.
“So, I spoke with the Fae. I asked for their bodies after death. I experimented, and I sold my experiments. I and Garthien and Emarza developed salves, tinctures, potions. Anything you could want. We grew rich, and we grew complacent.” Thorn’s face darkened. “We could not create to satisfy the demand. Once people learned they could have the same power as the Fae, even a semblance of that power, there would be no end to their desire. And so, there wasn’t; even as we grew short on supplies, people would bring us bodies, body parts of the Fae and ask us to work our new magic.”
“And we never said no.” Garthien’s voice was cold, and he turned back to the open balcony. “We did not say no until it was too late.”
“And when we said no, Emarza took the new magic and sold the recipes, the method, to anyone who could afford it. He followed a path we could not and remade himself into something vile, an evil thing.”
Letti coughed as her body reminded her to breathe. She could not move for the horror in her belly. It was Thorn.
“Finally.” Thorn continued mercilessly, “with the mad king’s bloodletting in Icaria, the doom of the Fae for his cruelty, we were found, and we were cursed.” Thorn’s lips were pale. “Garthien and I were cursed to roam this land forever. He in a cage and I free.”
“You are not telling her everything.” Garthien’s eyes bore into Thorn’s face.
Thorn shook his head, unable to continue. A pang of sympathy caught Letti by surprise, deep down, under the layers of grief and revulsion.
“Then I will explain it.” Garthien turned to Letti, and she noted his grace; it resembled both Thorn’s and Candor’s.
“The Fae only caught up to Thorn and me because we sought them out. When some witches were roving around Icaria on the mad king’s orders, we were waging our own battle with Emarza. Finally, he disappeared one day, and we strove to follow him. He could not offer this new majik to the mad king. Until then, the mad king had not himself employed new magic, preferring to bastardize proper majik. Perhaps he felt it more worthy of a noble. But were Emarza to sell him on it, the world would no longer exist. Of that I am certain.” Garthien said grimly.
“So, we gave chase. We found him. I’ll spare you the details but to tell you that my nun, Xone, was killed. We struck great wounds upon Emarza, tore him limb from limb, and buried the limbs apart from each other.”
“We should have burned him.” Thorn growled.
Garthien winced. “It is against the Citadel’s custom to cremate the body of a witch.”
“Why?” Letti asked, momentarily distracted.
“A question with a long answer, for another time.” Garthien shook his head. “When we returned to the village, we found it sacked, burned to the ground, with all its inhabitants.”
“Including your nun?” Letti turned to Thorn. “Why wasn’t he with you?”
“Anchera had stayed behind to protect Thorn’s wife and unborn child.” Garthien said softly. “He had taken her and several other members of the village to the point of the Kotemor, where he had tried to hide them.”
“What happened to them?” Letti asked, feeling nauseous.
“Two witches caught up with them. Witches from the mad king, searching for Thorn and myself.” Garthien explained. “Thorn had basically carried me back; I was in no shape to function after I lost Xone.”
“When we got found them,” Thorn broke in, and Garthien fell silent, “Anchera was holding my wife in his arms. Both were bleeding out. The witches were keeping them alive until we returned, though we did not know that.”
Letti sensed that Thorn was coming to the piece he had not wanted to relive. His eyes glistened slightly as his voice tightened.
“Her wounds… Were beyond my ability to heal.”
“How?” Letti asked. Her voice was not cold, but she was curious; Thorn had grown nearly all-powerful in her mind. She wanted to know how the task that had bested him.
“Her wounds were magical in nature.” Garthien spoke again, and Letti turned to face him. “While her external wounds were evident, Thorn could not revive her. I was, I regret to say, nearly mad at this point.”
“We couldn’t revive her, though she was still living.” Thorn’s voice was hoarse, but a new determination gripped him. “So, I turned to my only option left. The Fae.”
Letti waited; she could feel that there was a reckoning coming, but despite knowing the outcome, she did not think this was what Thorn had been hiding.
“I knew of a small community living deep within the Kotemor. I dragged them all as far as I could. My wife, Anchera, Garthien. They found us on the side of a hill in the pouring rain. They took us back to their homes, and I begged. I promised anything and everything I could.”
Thorn shook his head. “They promised punishment for our role in new magic. I took it at the time, willingly. Perhaps I too, was half mad.”
Garthien’s face finally fell into lines of pity. He spoke again. “What Thorn did not know, was that the witches who had beset the town had followed us to the Fae. They fell upon us all, and though we vanquished them, we had left Anchera and Thorn’s wife alone too long. The witches, no longer needing them alive, let them die, and there was no one there to save them.”
Thorn shook his head, stopped, then shook it again, as if trying to rid himself of some terrible touch.
“They had almost refused to treat her. But they had agreed. After everything, the Fae were merciful. And once more, the humans destroyed them.”
“The witches killed all the Fae?” Letti gasped.
“Not all.” Thorn answered grimly. “But they decimated a fair few in an already small coven.”
A look of deep regret passed over Garthien’s face. “They cursed us. We became the Mayebalmok. They kept me, they poured into me a will to live. Eventually, they made me this cage to keep me, my source of existence bound to the land in this exact place. They allowed me to choose, and I chose here.”
Letti desperately wanted to ask why, but she refrained.
“When I recounted the events that had led to our arrival, the Fae were horrified. They warned me to burn the remains of Emarza. They also warned me it was probably too late.”
Garthien made a noise in the back of his throat.
“I left, determined to fix my mistake, before throwing myself to death. I did not believe in the utter power of the Fae curse.” Thorn continued. “True enough, he was gone. His limbs somehow dug himself out.”
Letti shivered.
“In that moment, I tried to end my life.” Thorn’s tone grew monotone, as if he were once more reciting a recipe. “It did not work. I spilled nearly all my blood on those plains, but I somehow always had more blood to give.” Thorn fingered his wrists absentmindedly. “I have garnered many scars, but most I have erased. These I kept, as a reminder.”
Letti wondered morbidly how many different ways Thorn had tried to kill himself. She declined to ask.
“So, I have spent my years since then hunting a monster I created.” Thorn concluded.
Something niggled at the back of Letti’s mind. “This is why you were in the teeth.” She said slowly. “The monster you were looking for, it’s him.”
Thorn nodded, then spoke as if he couldn’t stop himself. “I thought it might be a trap. A false trail. Perhaps a final showdown, as I thought there was nothing left in the teeth, let alone north of the Kotemor.”
Letti watched the full picture finally crystalize. “That is why you stayed with us.” Letti felt her stomach turned and wondered in a different, calmer part of her mind, if she were going to throw up on the floor of Garthien’s perfect tower. “You stayed with us because we were bait. We had the answers to why he was there. He killed our families, and you failed to stop him.” Letti heard her own voice from far away; it sounded tinny, as though she were speaking metal words. She wished she could hurt Thorn in some way, that her accusations would turn into daggers midair and skewer him to the wall. She thought of her mother, her father, their broken forms that she’d abandoned. She thought of Hroth and the sons and daughters of her village. She thought of Candor and her distrust of Thorn when he’d taken her blood and felt that betrayal seep through her. Letti retched. Thorn’s face had crumpled, and Letti hated the part of her heart that sought to comfort him. Imagined memories of Thorn’s dead wife flew through her mind, parallel to the ghosts of her own trauma. Her heart felt as though it were about to burst. And under all the pain, a sinuous, smoky voice whispered in the gaps, I will take herrrr.
The light from the window suddenly became too bright, and Letti turned, stumbling slightly as her absent limb accosted her balance. Recovering herself, she sprinted down the staircase, hearing a few steps and the soft admonishment from Garthien, “let her go.” Letti twisted down the stairs, half uncaring if she fell to her death. She had been used, her loss had been abused, and she had abandoned the only person in the world who still loved her. Candor’s face flashed through Letti’s vision, and she felt fat tears stream down her face. As her feet hit flat ground, Letti found light through a doorway and ran towards it. Half feral, she felt her heart trying to pump blood to her right hand and delighted in the pain of its nonexistence. The fire of it forced her mind from its vortex, and Letti appreciated the distraction. Focusing on the agony in her body, her legs, her chest, her hand, Letti ran as hard as she could into the unbearable peace of the gardens, leaving the tower and its inhabitants behind her.
Garthien waited for Thorn to unfold himself from the ground. Rarely had Garthien ever physically accosted his friend; in the centuries they had spent in existential agony, Garthien could count on one hand the times he had placed a hand on Thorn’s massive frame. But when the large man had made to run after Letti, Garthien had caught him across the stomach and held him.
Garthien flexed his hand, feeling the tremors in Thorn’s belly as he had started to cry. Thorn stirred, lifting his head from his knees.
“Why did you do that?” His voice hoarse, his tone had at least returned to its stone-control that Garthien had come to associate with the last few centuries.
“You could not continue with this girl without the truth.” Garthien felt no remorse. “Imagine if she had discovered the reason for your trip during an engagement with Emarza. Imagine if you find the Fae’s mothers, and they tell her. It was far past time for you to inform her of your past and your actions.” Garthien raised an eyebrow and took a few steps closer to Thorn.
“She will never trust me again.” Thorn couldn’t understand why his heart felt raw, as if someone had taken the rough side of a hammer and dragged it along his organ. He had not felt this way in many ages; Thorn had grown practiced at crushing his emotions.
“She might not.” Garthien nodded. “But you owed her this.”
Thorn did not respond. His head lolled back on his shoulders to gaze upwards; all he saw was the top of the tower, beautiful murals no match for the sky he searched for.
“I hate your cage.” Thorn finally said. “At least my cage has a wider circumference.”
“My cage has control.” Garthien shrugged, satisfied that Thorn would move shortly. “When are you going to tell her about Candor’s ‘moms’?” Garthien asked.
Thorn groaned. “You don’t think she’s been through enough?”
“She must suspect.” Garthien replied shortly. “You’ve told them enough about the Citadel, about the Order. They never aged. She is Fae-born.”
“I will not break this to her. This is not my story, and I do not know why they were there.” Thorn said shortly.
Garthien shook his head. “This is the same mistake you have just made.” He said flatly. “If you are to regain this girl, you must demonstrate you trust her.”
“I do—”
“No. You trust yourself to protect her. This is not the same thing.” Garthien sunk back into his chair, exhausted from the activity. Though he knew he could not die, Garthien felt the pull of death every day. He resented Thorn, Garthien realized, for his freedom. He knew the reason for his particular curse, but as much as he could influence his small sphere, he longed for the open air, the ocean, the mountains. Garthien’s lips thinned, and he turned back to Thorn.
“The land is evolving. There is some power afoot that you have missed, something stirring in Durevin. And if Emarza knew to look in this secret village, he must be close to the turnings in the north. You yourself don’t think these women are dead, which means they are needed. By whom and for what, you must discover.”
“Thank you, Garthien.” Thorn managed the energy to roll his eyes. “Well summed.”
“I reiterate this,” Garthien snapped, “so you might have a way to tell Letti that which she does not yet know. If she is to go with you, and she cannot stay here, she must know your purpose.”
Thorn growled but did not respond.
“Go.” Garthien turned back towards the open window and the sunlight. “Come back to me when you have a plan.”
~.~
Letti felt the ache in her lungs as a constant reminder of the burn to which she had just subjected them. She had run to the far reaches of the garden, her feet bruised and cut. She had followed the curved wall that ended the gardens, and as her body betrayed her, she had slowed, wandering between the manicured trees, the bushes and the various flowers and vegetables. As she moved through the gardens, Letti had found small scenes, dioramas of what she had come to understand as the outside world. Tiny human figures froze in midmotion, climbing trees, fastening tack on horses. Letti had stood for at least an hour marvelling over a recreation of the ghosteaters before remembering the terror there. Her mind felt sluggish.
Finally, Letti had stumbled upon a small pond, nearly entirely enclosed with tall, feathery trees. A bench swing stood at the side of the water, and Letti, whose feet felt as though rocks had slipped between each bone, saw an opportunity to rest.
She sat, and she swayed, and she watched the surface of the water. Though the trees were clearly designed to block wind ripples on the water, they did not always succeed, and small breaths tickled the surface every so often. Letti found the imperfection reassuring, and slowly, she calmed.
This was where Thorn found her, head bowed slightly, eyes as glassy as the water. He moved silently through the trees, stepping into her view only a few lengths away.
Letti looked up slowly, as if resigned to his presence. She did not move on the swing. Thorn had not expected her to.
“I’m sorry.” Thorn said, the words burning his throat. It was not as if he felt he should not apologize; the pain from the words echoed through the ages, as the last time he had apologized with such fervor had been to his wife as she lay dead with their child inside her.
“I know.” Letti shivered, her body feeling the ricochets of shock it had survived a week ago. “You have forgotten how to be human.”
“I am no longer human.” Thorn sank into a squat where he was, as if this made him less threatening.
“Don’t do that.” Letti snapped. “Don’t play the martyr. You have occupied that position for far too long.”
Thorn blanched but did not reply.
“It does not absolve you of your choices.”
They lapsed into a cold silence.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Letti whispered, finally looking at the large man. She found him particularly small, sitting on the ground.
“I was worried about many things,” Thorn began slowly, “Not least of which that you might think me a threat.”
“And you did not want to lose us because we are the key to finding your heinous creation. Your friend.” Letti’s twisted emphasis recalled all of Thorn’s non-friends.
“He is not my friend.”
“He is your enemy. That does not mean he is not your friend.” Letti shrugged as if irritated. “It is irrelevant. You still failed to tell us you knew what happened to our village.”
“I did not know.”
“You suspected.” Letti nearly jumped to her feet, but she remembered with a quick twitch of her toes how far she had run without boots on. “You suspected, and you did nothing to alert us to the fact that something evil was after something in our village.”
“Probably after Candor.” Thorn supplied.
“Or her mothers.” Letti crossed her arms and sat back. She was running out of ways to show Thorn she was angry at him. “They were not in the bodies.”
“Or her mothers.” Thorn nodded. “Do you know why?”
“Lola is a witch.” Letti met Thorn’s eyes. “And Mo is a nun.”
“Yes.” Thorn nodded. “I think he took them.”
“And that is how he discovered Candor’s existence?”
“I don’t know.” Thorn spread his hands helplessly. “You now know as much as I do.”
“I will never know as much as you do, Thorn, by virtue of having lived a fraction of the years you have.” Letti snapped. “Why would he want those two?”
“I promise, I do not know.”
“How did you learn Emarza was in the north?” Letti asked.
“I had tracked him from a lead in a violet village that had seen a spate of specific killings. From there, I had pitched off into the plains. I came upon a couple of the wandering tribes, who told me a demon had fled to the north. I suppose they had tried to exorcise him.” Thorn laughed bitterly. “I found it odd that this was so clear. I usually spend time tracking down very incoherent, vague, conspiratorial clues that might lead to him. That’s why I thought it might be a trap.”
“It might still be.” Letti, momentarily diverted from her various sufferings, considered thoughtfully. “If he knows you’re tracking him, I wonder if he left such a trail for you to find him for some greater purpose. Perhaps the village wasn’t the final destination.”
Thorn felt the air whoosh out of him.
“The village was a first engagement.” He breathed.
“The real question,” Letti continued eagerly, “is if he knew that Candor existed before he took her moms, or if he found that out later, while he was waiting for you to find them.”
Thorn had paled. “There’s no reason he should have known Candor existed, or he would have waited for her at the village and taken her too.” Thorn shook his head. “This is about her moms.”
Letti nodded. “That’s what I think too. Unless they lied to him, and he took them regardless. He wants her now, though.” Letti felt a wave of dread crash over her. “And she’s not with us.”
“She’s in the safest place she could be. Assuming she made it.” Thorn reassured Letti, his mind racing. “That means though, that at least a while ago, her moms were still alive. And I doubt he would kill them now that there is a greater puzzle afoot.”
Letti felt both elated and utterly crushed. Finally, she said “I miss Candor.” Her voice broke at the end.
Thorn stood slowly, and, foot by foot, made his way to Letti as if he were approaching a wild animal. After a long moment, she slid ever so slightly along the swing to make room for the large man. He sank down beside her.
“You love her, don’t you?” Thorn asked softly.
“Of course.” A little shiver ran down Letti’s spine. “You’ve asked me this already.”
Thorn looked away.
“And you stopped in the same place because it reminds you of your wife.” Letti surmised, surprised at herself. She was not usually so bold. Perhaps she had little left to lose.
Thorn grunted.
“Candor has always been special.” Letti’s voice softened, and she allowed memories of their childhood to flood her vision. From the moment they had parted, she had endeavored to keep Candor as far from her mind as possible, finding the nearness of her memory too painful to bear.
“She’s always been a little bit faster, a little stronger, a little brighter.” Letti felt her eyes burn and strove to keep what remaining tears she had inside of her. “Now I know that she’s Fae, it makes more sense.”
“Half-Fae.” Thorn murmered.
“But she was always so different from everyone in the village. Everyone in the village, even if they had lived there for their whole lives, seemed to be running from something. We’d not had new blood for a generation, but perhaps it lived on in an inherited memory. Candor, from the moment she could walk, wanted to explore. She wanted to leave. She wanted to run towards something, rather than away from it.” Letti smiled a watery grin. “And she often took me with her.”
“She’s not gone, Letti.” Thorn said gently.
“She’s as good as.” Letti cleared her throat. “She is already changed, Thorn. She will not come back from that island the same as she was before, and her destiny is not tied with mine.”
“You don’t know that.” Thorn was unsure how to reassure the girl.
“I do.” Letti’s voice grew stronger. “She is Fae. She will live forever, and I will die.”
Thorn hesitated, “She has a challenging path ahead of her. It is my guess that she will stop ageing soon, if she has not done so already. But that does not mean—”
“Let’s not do this.” Letti cut in. “I do not want to speak of this anymore.”
Thorn nodded, and the two lapsed into silence. Thorn inspected Letti’s stump, which she held in her lap, and her feet, which looked worse than Candor’s had the night they’d met.
Before he could offer any healing, Letti spoke.
“Tell me about old majik.” She looked at him. Letti had not yet forgiven him, nor did she trust him, but she realized he was her only source of companionship in this world, and, despite his choices, he meant her no harm. Whether his negligence was worth forgiving, she was not yet sure, but she wanted to widen her aperture. “And don’t tell me I am not ready for it. I do not have any patience left for you and your riddles. If you think your silence protects me, you are wrong.”
Thorn nodded. He fingered his earrings. “I will tell you what I know majik to be, and this is what I was taught. There is nothing to say that this is the truth or that it is any truer than another description of it.”
“That is not helpful.”
“The truth rarely is.” Thorn adjusted himself on the swing so he could face Letti. “Humans were never meant to use majik; we cannot understand it in the deep ways that the Fae can. It is a simple fact of our different beings. I have a better idea of it because I too, must live forever. It is in the very idea of existence that majik lies.”
Letti strove not to interrupt.
“Power, all power, comes from the inevitable extinction of some things. Majik is the original language of all things. The leaves and the fish and the sky and that which is between all of it. Now you must understand, this language had, or has rather, an understanding of itself. It is not alive, not in the way you or I live, but it exists, and in its existence, it recognizes itself.”
Thorn waited for Letti to ask a question. When she did not, he continued. “Majik recognized that it could grow extinct, it could end, as could all things. In its possibility of extinction, it became powerful, moldable, maneuverable. Though it was the first naming of all things, it began to compete with new names for things. It—and it is imperative you grasp this—is in both its firstness and its death that it takes its power. Without both its identity as origin and realizing its inevitable demise, it could not be the binding of the world. Do you understand?”
Thorn paused, and Letti took a moment to gather her thoughts.
“Majik is both a self-aware non-living energy that is everything in the world, and it is a dead language that offers exceptional power because in the face of this death, it is still ‘alive.’”
“Not bad.” Thorn nodded. “When you ‘do majik’ you are basically altering time. Everything exists as a line, but when you alter something, you are essentially pulling matter out of its natural timeline, manipulating it, and sticking it back into its timeline. That is why there are some things that do not ever work. You cannot bring anyone back from the dead—”
“What about Emarza?” Letti finally interrupted.
“He bound himself to life.” Thorn tried to explain. A part of himself tugged against such transparency. “When we thought we had destroyed him, we had not done it utterly. This is why you are not allowed to burn the body of a witch. You destroy them utterly. You release the majik that tethers their being to perpetual life. Not even the potential of their being exists anymore. Emarza, however, had bound himself, his name, if you will, his essence, to this world in a dark manner. He has distorted majik in an evil way.”
“Is it possible,” Letti asked slowly, “that witches have simply failed to explore bringing someone back from the dead?”
“We cannot bring your family back, Letti.” Thorn spoke as kindly as he could, while still being firm.
“I know this.” Letti’s shoulders tightened. “But I worry that Emarza might be experimenting with this.”
“As far as I know, there is no way for anyone, even the Fae, to bring back a soul from the dead.”
“This is why you think the ghosteaters don’t actually harbor their dead.” Letti understood.
Thorn breathed out heavily. “I don’t know. There’s a difference between bringing someone back to life in their own body, how they were, and channeling from the void. I don’t know what happens to us when we die.” Thorn shrugged. “Perhaps the ghosteaters have tapped into something ancient, something that lifts a veil between us and our dead. I doubt it. I think it is a combination of wishes and specific smoke.”
Letti nodded. “And what of spirits? Or wraiths?”
Thorn huffed. “Spirits are, as far as I can tell, an embodiment of majik.” Thorn shrugged. “They are old, too old to contemplate, and I do not have the answer for them. I do not even think the Fae understand what they are.” He paused, “Wraiths are majik bound yet to this world in a way that moves out of time. But it is a dark distortion of existence, of what a witch once was and the position they once occupied in full life. There is little we know about them either.”
Letti nodded. She couldn’t have all the answers.
“Our energy, our life, our existence within time and matter is what allows us to be able to practice majik.” Thorn continued his explanation. He wanted to treat Letti and return her to sleep; he could tell she was fading.
“This is why everyone can do majik if they work hard enough at it. Most people do not have the discipline. The only beings with a natural aptitude for it and understanding of it are the Fae. This is why they have been ground to literal dust for so long. Majik flows through them differently; they are conduits. Their beings hold this majik differently than humans do. Taking their flesh, their bones, their blood into ours, offers us new powers. That is new magic.” Thorn concluded, disgusted. “But it comes at a cost.
“We’ve caused so much harm. The hatch, the genocides, the wars. If we hadn’t started exporting what we did for cheap power—” Thorn choked.
“Someone else would have done it instead.” Letti felt the raw heat of her anger begin to ebb in her chest. “Someone always wants more. You did what you did to offer power to humans who had none. You were trying to do right by those without voices, without a way to fight back against those more powerful than they. You were trying to help. You failed in many ways, but you offered some a way forward.” Letti hesitated, then placed her left hand on Thorn’s shoulder. “You have much to atone for. But you wish to do so.” She shook her head. “Few would feel such a remorse.”
“I have little left to offer the world but revenge.” Thorn thought of his wife, his child, Anchera, Garthien, and Emarza. He thought of Candor, of the mad king, of the Fae, and finally of Letti. He looked so miserable that Letti, without thinking, leaned forward and put her head on his shoulder.
“Then we will take revenge.” Letti said softly. “We will take our revenge.”
~.~
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