Eyes of the Forgotten, page 21
“Can you pour me one?” she asked. Her face was angelic. She had a thin nose with lightly spotted freckles around it, accenting her fair skin. Her tone was cavalier, but her eyes held an interest.
“Of course,” he said smiling. Adrian was nervous and his heart stalled again. When she handed him her empty cup, he realized that she was about his age and the same height as him, maybe an inch taller. Her frame was thin, graceful, and womanly. She had a boldness to her, the way she spoke and the way she looked at him.
“You’re handsome. What’s your name?”
“I’m Adrian. What’s your name?” He wished he could speak more, but he couldn’t find the words yet. The compliments flew right past his head.
“My name is Tryst,” she said and smiled at him with shining white teeth. “I can’t believe he wanted you dead. My father is a real brute.” She leaned on the cask. “I saw that you carry small scrolls. What’s in them?”
“Oh, I’ve been learning to read and to write, so I keep my exercises in here.” He was so excited she asked about this. “I have even started writing a bit of poetry on the back sides, but it’s not very good I think.”
“That’s interesting. I like that you are learning and like reading,” she said. Adrian noticed that her eyes appeared a bit glassy. “We have a library here. I frequent it.”
“You have a library? Here?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t we?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, I—I just didn’t see it on my—my walk here.”
She smiled again. “I forgot you just arrived and were quite literally a prisoner until recently.”
Adrian forgot about Alevor’s beer. He forgot about his beer and Tryst’s beer, as well. She enchanted him. They talked for a bit longer, though Adrian couldn’t quite remember what about. But they talked, and talked much of the same, until the music began to play.
“Come dance with me.” Her voice commanding and mellifluous, it wasn’t a question. She pulled his arms, leaving the cask and cups behind. Her hands were cold. Everyone in the hall danced to drums and horns and the foreign melodies Adrian had never heard before.
Bodies moved and swayed with drunken delight, and all the while, they danced together, and he kept staring into those eyes. And those eyes kept staring back at his. His senses creeped back in him—the playing must have sobered them back to life. His vision cleared, and she was even more beautiful than before somehow. She wore all black, like he did.
“Kiss me.”
“What?” he pretended not to hear, pointing at the music and his ears. He was afraid.
She leaned in closer. “Kiss me.” This was not a question.
His lips touched hers quickly and parted, but then they kissed again, longer this time. Time froze and his heart stopped beating.
SIXTEEN
Adrian woke that morning after the feast with a splintering headache and a sour taste in his mouth. He turned over to see Alevor sprawled out on his mat with a half-finished bottle of that clear liquid locked in his hand. His beard all in tangles, Adrian wondered how he could still breath through it.
The flap of wings brought his eyes slowly to the window. A little robin landed on the sill with a tiny rolled scroll wrapped around its orange belly carefully tied with twine.
Adrian thought of the fox, deducing this could only have come from one person.
He unraveled the scroll and made out each word slowly, noting her refined handwriting. But to his surprise, he only read one name on it: his own.
Vionna had summoned him, and only him.
Adrian rubbed his face, dreading the constant movement. Hiking for what seemed like an age, then to become captured, to uncaptured, then to the feast—all Adrian wanted that morning was to sleep.
And now that it occurred to him, he had not dreamt of anything that night. Not even of the black rock.
Not even of the golden threads. He missed their familiar sweet smell.
He played with the small scroll between his fingers and thought how the night had ended. How he did not remember much else after he met Tryst. And danced with her. And kissed her. In all of the nights of his life, no number of them could match the utter elation he had to meet with this yellow-haired princess. Yes, a princess, he thought. What else would she be?
Adrian was tempted to wake his Djowanese magus but decided against it. He could not imagine the fury Alevor would release on him if even Adrian, himself, felt so laggard and disoriented.
Adrian felt a chill rush through the window and grabbed a bundle of furs to warm his arms, only to realize that these furs were gifted pelts: clothing courtesy of the Craiceans. It was kind, but he still harbored deep resentment that his knife was unjustly confiscated.
He labored to Vionna’s tent, which was not far from the guest cabin Chief Temor granted Adrian and Alevor to stay, but it was up a steep hill.
The flap of her tent whipped open, “You’re late. Come.”
Her strides were wide and strong for an old woman. Adrian thought of Alevor’s misleading appearance and his wide gait when they had begun their trek here.
Vionna marched and marched, and Adrian’s senses started to clear as he adjusted to the sunlight and the smell of pine and oak. The cold air came and went as well, making him clench his teeth and flex his fists.
She slowed her pace and finally stopped within a brief glade, very similar to those he had grown up around, except the trees were taller and the land was harder.
She motioned Adrian over to sit on nearby rocks that jutted out from the grass. She patted the one across from her and slung her satchel over and began to rummage through it.
“What do you remember from last night, Adrian?” she asked.
He couldn’t help but grin. “Pleasant,” he said as his smiled beamed at her. “It’s hard to recall after having drank all that beer, but I certainly remember the first portion of the feast and—”
“No, no,” she waved her hand at him. “Your dreams, Adrian. What do you remember of them?”
“My dreams,” he said aloud.
“Yes. They are rarely pleasant. Now tell me.”
“I didn’t dream of anything last night.”
“Hmm,” she scratched her pointed chin. “Any before coming here to this realm?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Please, Adrian,” she looked at him sincerely, with Pesh green eyes of her own. They were faded and dim, like a candle flame breathing its final breaths.
“I dreamt of golden hair. They wrapped me and…I’m not sure what next, but this part of the dream was pleasant.”
Vionna sat back and crossed her arms, somewhat unsatisfied. Adrian still hid more.
The black rock that appeared before he would wake. Silent. Staring. Without feeling or fear, it only hummed with temptation. Then, he thought of the flash of light and the prophecy, and somehow, they felt tied together. And this petrified Adrian.
Vionna broke the silence. “I know you don’t fully understand what your role will be in the fate of the world—the fate of our race. But you will. And we still have time. You still have time.” She choked on her next words. “I summoned you here, Adrian, and just you, because I cannot bear to inform my old friend. Not just yet. But I can tell you, because you are the Delivered One and you must know.”
Adrian’s ears buzzed anxiously.
“I’m dying.”
“Wh—”
“I’ve seen it. In my own dreams that have now ceased, I saw my passing, and it was not here with the Craiceans. It was with you in a place I do not know. I saw this the once, and since, my dreams have gone.” She paused to collect herself. “You will be a magus one day. And as the only Pesh magus that will see the prophecy through, you must know what it was like in order to restore our people.”
“Myrios?”
“Yes,” she smiled solemnly. “There were so many of us. Those that looked like you and me, gifted with talent both ordinary and extraordinary. Myrios grew rapidly in trade, industry, and in the Magora, the place where magi and those who sought to be one came and learned. It was a place of knowledge and camaraderie. And the whole of it was conducted through peace…until it was all destroyed.
“In this, I ask you: Restore the Magora along with our people. The world is lost now, too far dipped in riches and government. It blinds the whole of the human race. Restore the Magora once again not only for our people, but for many others of all races and shades so they can seek truth and potential.”
The flamed words of the prophecy swirled in his head once more. Godly power. Chaos of the world. But how could he do all this and restore the epicenter of Pesh prowess without any hint of what his gift, his houla, could be?
His shoulders sunk, “Vionna, I cannot manage this. How can I? How can I be the Delivered One? I don’t know what that could mean. I don’t know what my houla could be? It must be of this world, that’s what Alevor said, but I have no talent that I know of other than my progress learning to read and write. But this is not godly power.” His voice faltered, shaking.
“No. In the many scribes I have known, none of them could hold the power that is foretold.”
He needed something. Anything. “How did you come by your own houla?”
Vionna strode over to the rock where he was perched and sat right next to him. She smelled of pine sap and a bit of dog. “When I was little—”
“How long ago was that?”
“Don’t interrupt,” she said as she knocked on his head with her staff. He was fishing twigs out of his hair when she continued. “Father had a pig farm, a large pig farm, and when I became old enough to help him, I noticed the pigs listened better to me than father. Already, I had a feeling that there was more there. One day, a coyote stole into the pen. Father tried to chase him off, but the coyote was too quick and kept chasing after the piglets. As the little concerned tyke I was, I hopped into the pen with my father and the coyote. My father yelled at me, calling me horrible things, anything to scare me out of the pen. A single coyote to a man grown is a rotten pest, but to a child…” A cardinal whispered something in her ear. Vionna nodded then shooed it away. “So, for brevity’s sake, I told the bugger to leave our piggies alone, and he did exactly that and more. My poor father had to watch his little girl conversing with a hungry coyote. He hadn’t eaten in days, he told me. I begged my father to do him no harm. Just to keep him still while I fetched some food for him. A bit of dried meat did the trick, and he went on his way.”
“And then you found a magus after to teach you?”
She smacked him on the head again. This time hurt more than the first. “Years went by. Father eventually died, and I kept the pig pens going. And on and on. Before I knew it, my childhood home morphed into a zoo of sorts, and whispers grew in the nearby town of a demon lady who possessed animals, who only ate the fruits of the earth. They were right, of course. So, I released my children, and I left for the Magora. A dream led me to that fate.”
“Is that when you met Alevor?”
“That story is for another time, lad,” she said nicely, but she could never know the guilty sting of that word and the shame that followed.
He thanked her for the stories, albeit they did not fulfill his curiosity, nor did they answer the ultimate question for him. He finally asked, “What am I to do next?”
“Continue learning. Go to their library. The Magora was a place of knowledge.” She gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. “These pale Craiceans are essential for our people’s destiny.”
Then, noticing something must be missing from her satchel, Vionna pointed to a flowered bush about thirty yards away and urged Adrian toward it. Adrian jogged to the chaparral and plucked a bulb. It was a tulip, the same color as a ripe lemon.
When he returned and gifted her the flower, she took it in her hand and then held his in her own wrinkled ones and she said, “Observe their land. Use its resources. Learn about them. Build trust in them.” Her eyes darted from his own to the tulip and back. She gave him a wink then tucked the flower into her satchel.
She dismissed him with that last message and urged him to tell Alevor to convene with her if he was in the right sorts.
Adrian returned to their shared cabin and decided to go the library another day. Vionna’s request weighed too heavy for him to suddenly act on it. He wouldn’t know where to start once he got there or if he would even have the ability to read whatever scrolls or tablets he might find. The safety and seclusion of his and Alevor’s cabin would provide him comfort for now.
When he entered the small home, Adrian was surprised to find his magus missing, leaving an empty sleeping mat and a crumpled quilt. The half-empty bottle had been completely drained and stood singularly by the fireplace.
For the rest of the day, Adrian dove into his Valtosian lessons.
Papyrus scrolls piled next to him. Evening light receded through the stone windows and his mind’s focus dwindled, too. He had exercised his reading lessons since midday, with only one break to eat whatever was in that stew that Alevor eventually returned with. Alevor quickly resumed his snoring slumber from before after giving Adrian the stew and the stale bread along with it. His meal suffered from too much broth and fat film that floated to the top, but it served. Craicean food was prepared plain yet still better than a slave’s portions. Adrian did miss the spices and the sweet citrus, however.
It came to be too dark to read, and he rubbed his eyes. Exhausted he felt, for the day was long.
Adrian allowed his mind’s eye to wander in the unoccupied silence at the dawn.
He thought of Vionna’s mission for him after all would come to pass. Then, he thought of the prophecy that must arrive before. The southern flame will guide the way, he dwelled on the reading.
Adrian then realized he had not heard his magus mention the prophecy at all since they departed the Swamp. He had trouble remembering it fully, but a few words stuck in his memory.
He wagered if he were to read that clay tablet today, with its glowing script, he would remember the whole thing. When he first heard it, he could not read or write his own name, and he found that through his studies he could remember lessons much better if perceived through his improving abilities. The vague tune of his fate rang in his ears.
Adrian ran a hand through his hair, thinking, thinking, thinking. About his fate, his training, his frustrations, the troubles behind him, the struggle soon to come, the cold, Tryst. He thought about her in between all of it. The sun’s descent turned to violet, then he suddenly remembered—Tryst! He nearly forgot. They had agreed to meet at last light.
Through his drunken haze at the feast, he had made an arrangement to meet her this very evening. And somehow, he had forgotten.
It was late in the night…he justified.
Nevertheless, he scrambled to find the furs Chief Temor had gifted him.
A time like this Adrian wished he still had his dagger. He would have been faster and clearer of mind.
But he made do. He found the black furs, streaked with hairs of burnt brown here and there, threw them on, and raced towards Tryst’s family home. Though sprinting as fast as he could with the mountain wind blowing in his hair, he still felt sluggish without his prize. It belongs to me.
As he raced, he worried of the stinging possibility that he would be late and upset her.
A buzz of fear rattled between his ears and down into his chest. Those eyes, as beautiful as they were, angelic and dazzling—he hated the thought of those same enchanting opals glowering at him, or even worse, filling with tears. This obligation he felt to her was unmatched. So much seemed to weigh on his shoulders: his dreams; the unknown that would sprout from them; his magic, which, according to Alevor, could come upon him at any moment; and of course, the fate of the world, the prophecy that he—an escaped, orphaned slave, living beneath a rock his whole life, who struggled to read anything more than the most rudimentary Valtosian—must redeem all of civilization. And yet in that moment, the most important thing to him was arriving at Tryst’s doorstep before the sun completely fell beneath the earth.
Luckily for him, the crest of the hill quickly came into view, only a short hike away. He had been sprinting the whole way there and it felt like acid rushed through his upper legs, throbbing with discomfort. All worth it.
At the foot of her father’s steps, Adrian felt afraid and nervous and excited. Before he could knock on their carved door, it creaked open unassumingly. Tryst closed it behind her and floated down the steps. She never walked—she glided, as if she was too light for the earth to pull her down. A pair of rabbit pelts lined her shoulders and mink or fox, he could not tell, covered her top and down to her mid-thigh; all of it snow white. Flush filled his cheeks when he noticed that she left her midsection bare, enough to see her navel. Beautiful, was all he could muster in his head. The struggling poet in him was filled with more feelings than words.
She greeted him sweetly. “Are you ready?”
He nodded and smiled, goofy and wide. “Lead the way.”
“Wait,” she said. “You need to meet someone first.” She danced back into her house, leaving Adrian worried she meant to bring out her father or mother. He had met them both, little as it was, but in this context, he hoped that would not be the case. His reservations quelled away when she emerged again, levitating down the few stone steps alone.
Leaving the door slightly ajar, with smoke and firelight poking through, she presented cupped hands to him. In her hands, the size of a seashell, a furry little mouse sniffed at her palms. “This is Pansy!” she said effusively.
A mouse?
“Isn’t she gorgeous,” she said and motioned her cupped hands toward Adrian. “Hold her.”
Hesitant, he accepted. At first, he did not understand why he needed to see this pet, but after a few nibbles at his palms and even a few squeaks, he began to see her charm. “Why did you name her Pansy?”
“Why not Pansy? It’s an adorable name for a cute, adorable creature,” she said almost defensively. The mouse squeaked again. “She’s very talkative.” She beamed. “She just woke up and is upset with me. I’ll take her back in.” She took Pansy and vaulted up the steps into her home. She returned shortly after. “Now I am ready.”
