Seasons, page 11
Kade’s lips curled upward, but he just lifted the guard’s thumb to get a better look.
“It’s going to burst to gangrene if we don’t take care of it,” he said, running his finger over the red skin.
Kade removed a folded leaf from a pouch on his belt that contained the paste of lavender and rosemary he had concocted on the road.
“This will soothe the pain,” he said, rubbing it in and letting his Gift carry farther. “But you’ll need more than I can do simply standing here. You should see an apothecary before it gets out of control.”
The guard flexed his thumb.
“I’ll be damned,” he said, moving it without effort.
The gate opened with a squeal.
“Just the young man,” the guard said when Nwah and Winnie stepped forward to join Kade.
“But they’re with me,” Kade replied.
“Staff’s thin enough with the festival on,” the guard said. “If you’re making the application, you’re making it alone.”
Kade looked at Nwah, then Winnie. His confusion struck Nwah deep in the bones his Gift had once knit together. He wanted to be a Healer more than he could express, yet he didn’t want to leave them behind.
“Go on,” Winnie said.
:Winnie’s right,: Nwah said. :You’re too close to stop now.:
Kade smiled, relieved.
:Come and get us when you’ve passed,: Nwah added, hoping Kade felt her confidence. Kade was a true Healer. He would pass whatever tests they could give him.
A moment later the trellis slammed shut, and after the guard retook his post, Nwah stood alone with Winnie.
The sensation was like dead air.
Sounds of footsteps and conversation seeped in from the distance, and the early fall breeze still moved, but with Kade now delivered to the Collegium, Nwah wasn’t sure what to do next.
Winnie bit her fingertip. “I hope he makes it.”
:Of course he’ll make it,: Nwah snapped, touching a ley line to enable their MindSpeak. :Why wouldn’t he make it?:
Winnie shrugged and looked up at the tightly packed buildings where nobles lived.
A child scampered across a rooftop, carting messages to the elite.
:You’re the one who drove him to come here,: Nwah said, suddenly angry. :Now you don’t believe in him?:
She glanced past the trellis gate where Kade had disappeared.
:I know,: she said. :I’m not really worried . . . it’s just that he’s so . . . different.:
Nwah gave a disgruntled chuff. It was a sound that other kyrees would have taken as something like “get away,” which wasn’t quite right, but which seemed to say what was needed. Human language was so limited.
Winnie wasn’t wrong to fear for Kade, but the problem wasn’t that he was different so much that he was too trusting.
Nwah saw something more then.
She saw it in the lines drawn on Winnie’s face.
Winnie was worried for herself as much as she was for Kade.
She clearly loved him in her way, but she had given up her place in Tau in order come with him, and now she was alone and waiting to hear the verdict on the young man she’d fallen for.
Nwah saw that.
And in one way she understood—hadn’t she, just a few moments before, worried about whether she could stay in Haven if Kade was accepted?
Still, to doubt Kade was to betray him.
If Winnie couldn’t see that, she didn’t deserve him.
:I know what his Gift is,: Nwah said. :He will be accepted.:
“Yes,” she said aloud. “But sometimes who you are is more important than what you can do.”
:That makes no sense,: Nwah said.
:I know,: Winnie replied.
A collection of three Adepts approached the gate, clearly having come from the festivals. They chattered rapid-fire as they neared, their footsteps scraping the pavement with pedestrian monotony.
Nwah and Winnie stepped aside as the guard opened the gate.
:Come on,: Winnie said, breaking their silence. :Let’s see the Fair.:
Then she briskly stepped back along the path they’d come from.
Nwah grumbled, but followed. Kade would kill her if anything bad happened in the city.
A few minutes later, they found themselves back in Nwah’s worst nightmare.
The streets were clogged with people who talked and danced and moved so fast she had to clench her muscles just to keep from jumping. Boots kicked too near her nose, and countless legs swung too close by her flanks. Skirt hems swished in blazes of color. Carts drawn by cattle pushed through the crowd, their drivers calling out warnings, their spinning wheels clattering close enough that Nwah was constantly pulling her tail tight and skittering left and right in self-defense.
Wine and ale flowed like water.
Voices called from so many directions and in so many languages that her ears couldn’t swivel fast enough, and never-ending strains of horns and lutes played in crescendos that made it impossible to tell where anything was coming from. The banging of drums pounded in her head. Odors of incense and roasting meat assaulted her nose.
There’d been a game of hurlee playing in the distant fields that brought loud cheers and seemed to incite fisticuffs and foul tempers. The game itself made no sense to Nwah, but Winnie had been so interested it caused her to be unable to walk straight.
Without warning, a clanging bell pealed nearby, and Nwah nearly jumped out of her skin.
Survival in the woods had taught her that any tiny movement or nuance of scent could be the difference between life and death, but now everything that happened was like a hammer blow to some part of her.
:I need to find a nook so I can work on my coat,: she said as Winnie led them into the morass of humanity.
Winnie ignored her, of course.
Winnie was a good woman overall, but she was young and often thoughtless. Throughout their trip, ignoring Nwah was sometimes Winnie’s strongest gift, and now that they were at the Harvest Fair, that gift was in full force.
“Ah, damn!” came the ragged voice of a man who, out of nowhere, nearly tripped over Nwah. He saved himself but sloshed hoppy ale over the lip of his tankard to spill on her back.
Nwah growled and unfurled a claw as he stumbled away.
“Calm down,” Winnie said, laughing as Nwah shook liquid from her fur.
But, as the man disappeared, Nwah felt anger build.
She took the moment to clean the claw and felt a tingle of magic flow over her shoulders. She’d wanted to strike. Wanted to feel the release that came with sinking claws and teeth into flesh.
Her heart pounded hard as she imagined the taste of blood until, with a nervous shiver, she stopped herself.
It would have been so easy, she thought.
So easy to lose control.
For a fleeting moment, she recalled an image of Maakdal, the kyree male she’d paired with prior to this trek, standing firm and bold on a barren cliff, his body musky and strong. She sensed firm forest peat under her feet then, and the feeling of the moon above, felt the sharpness of nighttime air in her chest.
“Isn’t this the most amazing nightshift?” Winnie said without notice as she flitted to an open-air tent across the way. She held a swath of golden fabric across her midriff and spoke in the breathy way she had when she wanted to attract attention.
The weaver gave Winnie a sideways glance that brought Nwah’s immediate appreciation.
Winnie left the garment and stepped to the next stall.
“Aren’t these the ripest melons you’ve ever seen?”
As if any melon could make a reasonable meal.
“Ooooh, look at those carvings!” she squealed as she held her hands to her cheeks. “It’s like they were cut by Master Mohan himself!”
Nwah quieted another instinctive growl.
She remembered Mohan’s shop from her time in Tau. He wasn’t that good.
Suddenly, the crowd parted, and a gleam of pure white drew Nwah’s attention. It’s a horse, Nwah thought, but she knew immediately it was like no horse she’d ever seen. It was tall and muscled, pure white with eyes that burned in hues of cerulean depth. Its gait came to her then, a clopping ring as clear as river water, its timing as perfect as the wingbeat of an owl in open sky. Nwah felt a bend in the magical net around her, a pull firm like the press of a sun-warmed rock against the nodes.
Atop the horse was a rider, a young woman of clear complexion and wearing a spotless white tunic embroidered with silver patterns at the collar. Her hands were long and thin, the expression on her face calm and patient as the festival crowd parted before her.
A Companion, Nwah thought, her mind stunned.
A Companion ridden by a Herald.
As they made their way, the Companion turned her crystalline blue gaze to Nwah, and it felt as though time stopped and she’d been laid bare. Her sense of magic froze in her throat, and every hair in her pelt was suddenly vibrating in an invisible way that made it seem as if nothing existed but the two of them.
The Herald patted her Companion’s shoulder, and the Companion turned away.
Slowly, as the rider headed toward the city proper, Nwah’s senses returned.
“Did you see that?” Winnie asked.
Nwah hesitated, uncertain what she was feeling.
As their reputation had grown within their Pelagirs homeland, Nwah had heard people talk about her and Kade as if they were Companion and Herald, usually with a sense of irony or caustic wit—as in, who do they think they are? But, regardless, that idea was ridiculous. A Companion’s bond to a Herald was something of legends, steadfast and pure. A Companion, she’d always heard, chose a Herald, and, if anything, it had been Kade who had chosen Nwah back when he had pulled her dying body from under the bramble briars.
:She was beautiful,: Nwah finally said.
:They both were,: Winnie replied, giggling at first but then actually noting the state Nwah was in. :Are you all right?:
:I’d heard stories of Companions,: Nwah said. :But this is the first one I’ve ever seen.:
:Ah,: Winnie said. :That makes sense then. Don’t worry. It gets easier.:
Nwah didn’t reply.
As ripples in the nearby magic lines echoed in her mind, a wave of embarrassment passed over her.
Somewhere deep inside, she’d been proud of those comparisons, because, unlike whatever Kade and Winnie had, she could always fall back on the strength of their connection, could always comfort herself with the fact that she could feel Kade’s thoughts so strongly she sometimes thought she could hear them. It was something special they had. She knew Kade in ways she knew no other person. Yet, until now she’d never really let herself see how their bond itself made her feel important.
The strength of the Companion’s presence and the gentle grace that passed between Companion and Herald had changed that.
They made her feel smaller. Weak.
That sensation of connection gave her a sense of just how limited her relationship to Kade was.
The Companion was more than beautiful, Nwah realized then. She was overwhelming and otherworldly. She was awesome in the full meaning of the word. Recalling the intensity of the Companion’s gaze brought Nwah a fresh burst of discomfort about everything from her mere existence to the state of her coat.
I could never be like that, she thought to herself. I could never be that strong.
Without realizing it, she thought about Kade then.
Tried to imagine what it would feel like to talk to him now.
How deep is deep? she thought.
How strong is strong?
She pulled on magic that lay in the nodes around her, and by reaching across the city, felt power pool in her solar plexus as she separated from her body and soared over Haven’s huts and clay buildings, over its open firepits of roasting beef and pork, and over fields of dancing people, laughing people, and drinking people holding games and rituals and all the other things that thankful people might hold.
Finally, after Nwah crossed walls and streets, and twisted through windows and around doors, she found him.
Kade stood before a board of haggard-looking regents whose faces showed they were unhappy to have received his application when they could be out celebrating Harvest Fair. Their faces were drawn and lined. Their robes and tunics of green and gold were pressed and clean despite the time of day.
She felt the tone then, too.
Disappointment.
Shame.
Loss.
They were Kade’s emotions. Kade’s reactions.
He had failed entrance. He wasn’t going to attend Healer’s college.
For a moment Nwah’s heart gave a selfish leap. We won’t need to live here, she thought, and was immediately ashamed of herself.
As she listened to the council’s edict, she saw what was really happening.
To the people at the Collegium, Kade, standing before them in rags worn from the trail and with a face still too young to take seriously, was just a straggler. A nobody of less-than-commoner birth. He had no sponsor, no one to care. The faculty saw him as nothing but a wayward urchin, dirty from the road.
Sometimes, she remembered the low timber of Winnie’s voice, who you are is more important than what you can do.
Anger boiled inside Nwah.
She smelled disgust and tasted revulsion.
It’s not fair, she thought.
Then she was back in her body, panting and shaking amid the rancid smells and fervid motions of the Harvest Fair crowd.
She was suddenly both very tired and very hungry. Her head hurt, and she was so sensitive she felt the weight of every whisker in her body. She felt horrible, sad, and incredibly angry.
Her hackles rose with involuntary rigidity.
A distance away, over the din of the festival, a drumming and a general roar of voices rose.
People turned to the ruckus.
An amplified voice rose to call a gathering.
“Come on!” Winnie said, reaching to pull Nwah along. “It’s a show!”
Nwah couldn’t shake her anger, but she followed Winnie anyway because there was nothing else to do.
They took a position at the front of a crowd that developed around two performers—a robust woman in bright greens and blues and a thinner whippet of a man who had taken a place against one of the outermost walls that encircled the city and who was dressed in tight-fitting apparel of equally gaudy red and green.
An acrobat, Nwah saw. And a barker.
The acrobat was a young man, lithe and graceful in his body suit. He raced across the grounds, then bounced, jumping and flipping several times before finishing with a flying cartwheel and a somersault from which he bounded upward to a pirouette and a bow.
The flowing routine brought great cheers from the crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen, and everything in between,” the barker called. “The Great Marten flies through the sky for you now, unaided by magic or mind spells, unprotected by either net or any sense of caution!”
Cheers rose again, and the Great Marten, flashing a toothy grin, climbed like a cat up the side of a high-walled wagon, whereupon he did a back flip to land on a bare patch of ground.
Cheers came again, this time accompanied by wild clapping and a round of raised tankards.
The barker, cheeks reddened to match the color of her curly hair, removed a hat from her head and passed it around as, this time, the acrobat ran directly toward the city wall and defied gravity by climbing up the sheer surface with a motion that was half leap and half sprint. He managed three heights of a man before he grabbed a hand rest and flipped himself the rest of the way to the top of the wall, where he teetered precariously, drawing gasps that Nwah saw were earned more through showmanship than any real danger.
Then the acrobat seemed to catch his balance and rose up.
As he stood, arms outstretched and with a flamboyant expression, the people around Nwah began to clap a steady beat.
Clap . . . clap . . . clap . . . clap . . .
“Jump!” one man yelled.
“Jump!” a young girl beside him called.
As the people clapped, Nwah’s senses settled again.
The heartbeat of the communal rhythm grew inside her, and in a flash, she finally understood how a moment like this could serve to bring people together. Their fear was shared even if some understood the game that was being played. Their enjoyment was universal, their encouragement combined. There is something here, she thought. Something she needed to understand better if she wanted to truly know Kade.
Her gaze went to the faces around her, all tilted up to the acrobat, and she thought about Kade.
She felt a niggling on the ley line then, the gentle pull on a node.
The disturbance was faint, yet there.
Coming from somewhere nearby.
From the woman, perhaps?
From the acrobat?
She didn’t understand what was happening, but she’d heard the barker’s claim that no magic was helping the acrobat. Yet her heightened senses told her that magic most definitely was here.
She focused on the sensations.
She opened her nostrils and hunched her shoulders as she touched a ley line, and magic, tasting sweet like grass, flowed to pool in her mind.
On the wall, the acrobat bent, then leaped, twisting his body as he turned in the free air.
The people gasped a collective breath.
Nwah touched the magic the barker had been casting and saw it wasn’t there to protect the acrobat from a fall, nor was it magic to make him fly true. Instead of being designed to pass fakery over the audience, the spell was there to blur the acrobat’s thoughts, there to hide the existence of something else.
As the acrobat hit his apex, Nwah peeled the spell away.
