Eyes of the Forgotten, page 23
He still had to follow through, however.
Adrian arrived early the next day, waiting anxiously for Tryst to come sauntering in.
And that is what she did an hour later. So gracefully, she appeared through the doors and found him immediately. She joined him on the wooden benches and gave his forearm a tantalizing squeeze.
Adrian slyly hid his poetry beneath his other scrolls. He had been inspired that morning, and it was only Tryst’s entrance that awoke him from his trance.
She did not stay by his side for long. Tryst headed toward the back area of the library to fetch what she needed.
When Tryst came back, a thick layer of papyrus rested safely between her hands. Her face showed no excitement though. Adrian decided just to smile and leave her to her work.
Tryst kept mostly quiet. Adrian never minded it or suspected anything. Her gentle presence was enough for him; he didn’t feel the need to fill the empty space. Though when they did converse, her answers felt rushed, frantic almost, like she had other things on her mind. Of course, she does, he thought to himself. She is a…a princess.
Every once in a while, when he came to an end of a section or just needed to rest his brain, he saw her, never wavering, with a creased brow and blue eyes too focused to reveal their normal enchanting gloss. She’s stressed. A feeling he had not been foreign to, but one that he never thought he would see on this one. She was usually so comfortable in her own skin, but now he felt like he looked at a different person.
An urge within him needed to help her. How could he watch her come to any discomfort? He could not feel it for her or understand, but in some cosmic way her displeasure pained him.
“What is giving you trouble?” he asked meekly, careful not to disturb her studious trance or to alert the keeper who had disappeared into the far room.
A quiet sigh, then she said, “In a few months, I lead a build for a new storage cabin.” Her eyes darted to him and back down to the papyrus. He kept silent, allowing her to keep going rather than interrupt her with questions. She inferred his questions anyway. “Soon, the solstice will come, and we need to stockpile our food.” Adrian nodded. “This year, the earth has been fruitful enough that our elders, myself, and my family estimate that we will need another house for the excess.”
Silent again. Creases of discomfort returned to her face. He couldn’t bear it. He had to relieve her. “Why have you been chosen for this responsibility? What must you do?”
“I wasn’t chosen. I volunteered. Ever since we started raiding again, some of our best builders are gone or have died, and I felt that I could help in some way. And I want to show them I can do this.” She pushed her hair back and pressed her lips firmly together. He noticed her hands were shaking. “But I might have bitten off more than I can chew. I have to study these records of past projects and make it seem like I’m actually competent at leading this. It doesn’t help that the elders keep changing their requirements for this storage house. Winter is getting closer and we have too many to feed, and each time the elders make an adjustment, it pushes back the project.”
“I want to help you.”
“No, you have to do your work from Vionna. I don’t want to distract you.”
“I can read well enough now. I want to help you. And if it doesn’t work, then we can say we tried.”
A subdued but gracious smile came, and Adrian felt relief.
Adrian surprised himself. He organized her materials as best he could, following her instructions, handed her relevant scrolls when she asked, and held her hand every once in a while, when she appeared stressed, all without more than a few slip-ups because he had not learned some of these engineering words yet. The rest he figured out on his own.
Her diligence was so impressive to him. She would speak to herself, noting important structural distinctions, correcting herself, and make the connections out loud. In such a graceful way, she performed her work as if she had done this before a thousand times.
Along his quest to give support, he did find some interest within the copied censuses and food archives from the last several decades. Adrian was no mathematician, but he could make sense one number to the next, and he found these records quite peculiar.
“Tryst, are these accountings accurate here?” She raised an eyebrow proximal to annoyance, but his interest dictated his awareness. “These are saying the Craicean population has nearly tripled over the last hundred years!” He looked back and forth from the one scroll to the other, incredulous. “How can this be?”
She shrugged her shoulders and dismissed the thought. She told him that these scrolls were merely for reference, but Adrian could not shake such advancement.
Adrian had now found the corresponding economic records from those allotted time frames. He confirmed the same phenomenon. He then looked closer. The numbers of animal pelts had increased drastically compared to the agricultural incline. Naturally, with more people they would farm and hunt more… But is it the other way around?
Eventually there did come a point when Tryst sat back, took a deep breath, looked at him, and said, “I think that’s enough for today… but—”
“—Yes. That should be enough,” he said, still somewhat puzzled.
She gave a thin exhale. Adrian realigned. It amazed him how such a talented, intelligent person could hold so much anxiety, especially when she had worked so seamlessly. Adrian always had an inkling, noticing how she carried herself and how busy she kept herself, that there was so much more behind her perfect appearance, and he had now just witnessed what made her truly special.
He had to coax her one more time, fighting off whatever second thoughts she had, then they finally packed their things, returned the scrolls she had borrowed, and left the library.
They parted from each other, promising to meet later in the week. Tryst gave him a parting kiss and a tired smile and went off.
As Adrian walked back to the cabin. His heart and mind were at odds. The beating in his chest rumbled, wishing for more time with Tryst, wishing that more would come, and feeling that more would. However, he could not shake the lessons he learned from the annals he searched with her. Not quite so relevant to her own task, but more than suspicious for him.
Adrian had never been nor claimed to be an economist, but he could not believe the drastic change from one decade to the next. It was enough to obsess over. And then he thought of the time.
“Nearly a hundred-year difference,” he thought aloud.
He opened the door to the cabin and saw Alevor cooking what looked like spitted rabbit over the fireplace.
The thought of Vionna’s words, of her indication and her presence here, and then, with an outward gasp, and a noticing glance from Alevor, the answer became clear.
EIGHTEEN
Adrian rubbed his arms in the chill of the next morning. He clenched his teeth in pain, impatient to see the two of them, but also from lingering visions from the night. His dream of the water, the blood, and the consuming stone infiltrated his sleep once more. It was more vivid this time. He could remember the feeling of the red stones beneath his toes at this very moment.
Adrian quietly seethed at the magi’s tardiness, allowing him to dwell upon his nightmares.
Finally, Alevor’s white staff broke the tree line, and they together entered the glade, the very same Vionna had summoned Adrian to weeks ago.
“Have you discovered it yet?” Alevor shouted across the field.
Adrian scrunched his face in confusion. He expected to be on the offensive this day and found himself again on the opposite side. “Found what?”
“Don’t mock him—”
“Have you found your houla yet? Or is being a grand pain in my backside a separate talent of yours?” Alevor shouted to Adrian with his deep voice, tinged with a foreign accent.
Adrian chose to ignore this and wait until they both had had a seat before he addressed them any further.
“Have I not done enough for you already?” Alevor asked. “You could have spoken with me this morning before disappearing for this charade.”
“It’s not a charade.”
“What is it then?” Vionna asked with genuine interest.
Adrian tried to remember what he had rehearsed the night before and briefly this morning, but again the visions of the blood and stone cluttered his mind. He finally mustered the simple ask: “What have you done to these people?”
Alevor and Vionna exchanged looks. Adrian then pointed a straining finger at the older magus, the one who shared his blood.
“I did as you asked of me. I went looking. Without any specific guidance, from either of you, I found that you are setting these people to burst, Vionna.” Visions kept flooding him. He pushed on, “One hundred years ago?” he asked with squinting eyes, fighting back the pain. “Is that when you came upon these people? Is that when you made their hunts abundant? When you aided their medicine? Made them fertile beyond their bounds? Now these Craiceans number many more than what they have had before. Did you, Alevor, also teach them the secrets of the mountains? To summon hotter flames to forge harder metals?”
Alevor crossed his arms, his eyes alight with intrigue.
Vionna kept her expression still as stone.
“You magi are breeding an army. Are you not?”
Their faces reeked of guilt. Adrian knew it. He figured it out.
“I told you he was not so dim,” Alevor leaned over to the much shorter Vionna. “You impress me, but you have overstepped yourself, Adrian.” The dark magus reclined on to his white staff, weighing it into the earth. “If you think these people were not militant to begin with, you are mistaken. A great investigation on your part, I must admit. You give us too much credit though. These iron tools are of an ancient tradition of their own. Their medicine is less rudimentary than you think. But most of all, I think you have forgotten the words behind your own prophecy.”
Adrian ignored him and found Vionna’s green eyes. “Is it true? Have you been tampering with the natural way of things here? Have you allowed their population to flourish beyond their own means, forcing them now to raid and patrol beyond these lands?”
Three birds atop her staff’s nest flew away frantically before she spoke. “I have allowed this yes…but I am not regretful of it.”
Again, his dreams swirled his head. His temples felt to bursting. He wanted to press the issue, but the pain—he couldn’t.
Adrian grabbed at his head.
A temperate respite penetrated soon after. It felt like a warm compress. Soothing it was, but not curing. It staved off most but not all of his torment.
Adrian raised his head and found purple eyes and dark skin staring back at him. Alevor’s hand pressed lightly against Adrian’s temple.
“We both shall be honest with you when you are with us.” He removed his hand, but the warmth lingered. “What troubles you in the night? I’ve seen you convulse. I’ve noticed you stay awake at night to avoid it all. We must know. This is not a game. This is destiny.”
Adrian dropped his shoulders. Stupid. He thought to himself, and he knew it. It was stupid of him to keep this secret, but he was again afraid of what it might mean. These dreams; how torturous they had become. But worst of all, and he did not need a magus to tell him this, this would mean he had to leave this place. He was not ready. Not nearly. His reading and writing had come along, yes, but he still could not find his houla. How could he be the Delivered One if he had not found that yet?
“Alevor,” he said meekly, “I’ve forgotten the words. I’ve forgotten them since you first read them to me.” He needed answers. He needed a clue, some way around this fate that his dreams preemptively dragged him to.
The dark man crossed his arms over his white beard that draped to his waist. He stood, and in a frightening flash, green fire erupted at his feet and rose to his hands. Such power knocked Adrian into the dirt, and he braced against the heat, raising his hand to block the onslaught. When he felt the waves die back, he lowered his shield and Alevor stood stern-faced with that small clay tablet in his hands. The letters glowed just as they did before.
Irreverently, he tossed the ancient relic into Adrian’s lap. “You can read now.”
Shimmering cuneiform glimmered. The few sentences wedged into the dry clay, and the radiance was akin to staring intently into the sun at the break of day. The writing on the slab was a language he could not read with symbols totally foreign to him. Blinking, he looked again to find that the glowing glyphs morphed and danced to their appropriate positions to create the familiar Valtosian script he had been learning. Breaking his focus, he saw both his magi teachers awaiting his verse. Downcast, reminded of the gravity, he read it aloud:
The foreseer harbors the eyes of the forgotten, passing through fire to destiny, and gaining godly power. When the West rises in the East in a new land, a second age will come. The Delivered One will have the strength to conquer tyranny and right the chaos of the world. A southern flame will guide the way.
This I have written for its recipients to keep secret until they have found the One. And one day, the many magi of Myrios will blossom again.
Just like the first time he heard it, he did not feel any better after reading. He repeated it again in his head. Nothing. No word in it gave him hope of avoiding his fate. The same words haunted him: godly power, Delivered One, foreseer. Such lofty titles, and yet he felt as small as an ant lost in the rain, drowning while looking for safety and comfort.
“You skipped a line.” Vionna chimed with a raspy voice. Adrian looked up confused, then saw Alevor motion for him to turn the tablet over. He read the words first in his mind, most seeming ancillary to it all until he came across the last few words.
“Read it,” she said.
“Though through our ruin, I see in my visions of flame, retribution.” The word stuck on his tongue like a sour fruit. It wreaked and numbed his mouth with queasy guilt.
“As much as this prophecy is about you, it is also about the future of Myrios. Of the Pesh people,” Vionna stood. “When the nations of the world fell upon us, we were not equipped to fight back. But these Craiceans, who I found deep in these mountains, had the tools and the weaponry, but not the numbers. And now they do.”
The tablet vanished with a burst of green fire. Adrian sat in the grass, contemplating what this could all mean. Such words indicated he should exact revenge.
A part of him wanted to. To bring justice to those nations in the east and upon the Valtosians for enslaving them. But then he thought of Dustun, of Shie and Torrance, of Grandmother Thena, and even of Gwendolyn Bertilak. He looked to his now faded white scar on his forearm and grappled with what was the right path for the Delivered One. Were all those who subdued his people guilty? Do they all deserve harsh justice?
“These old words are just the beginning.” Alevor’s voice broke the silence. “You must tell us your dreams. Even now, they torture you.”
“Denying your visions will only make this path the harder.”
He finally told them. Both magi looked at him with disappointment at learning of the gravity and torture displayed across his nightmare, as well as him withholding it for weeks well after these visions’ first appearance.
Alevor’s fingers steamed, and Adrian witnessed his eyes turn to flames.
“This didn’t feel like the other one. It wasn’t as detailed, and it…it frightens me more than before. I’ve never felt such pain in my dreams, ever.”
“Adrian, you know what you are—what your eyes see that others cannot. You must tell us.” Vionna brought her hand to her head in frustration. “I would think,” she added in that brief silence, “that a foreseer would mention such a dreadful dream immediately. No?” Adrian knew the reason he kept this concealed, but he did not answer. She rushed him. “This isn’t a game, boy!” The word stung. “You don’t know your potential. You are the key to everything. These visions are not just about you. They are about everything now.”
Adrian had nothing to say.
“Is it so hard to understand that your actions will determine the fate of civilization as we know it?” Alevor asked as his fingers steamed again. Adrian felt a pity for him. Alevor is the southern flame, the guide. As little information as Adrian could syphon from the prophecy, even less was offered to Alevor. He had been waiting so long for him, and what came was a run-off slave too dumb to accept responsibility and far removed from any mystical power.
Mountain birds chirped in the surrounding distance. Alevor slumped back again on his log, shaking his head, while Vionna just stared at Adrian with a blank, contemplative face. Adrian dropped his head in the cradle of his hands and fought back the humiliation that provoked his tear ducts.
What could he do? Neither of his teachers seemed to know, so he did the only natural thing to him now. He reminisced. He had to. The dream felt like a jutting rock that the winds ushered him to eventually crash into, so he thought of that tangle that kept him grounded here, the tangle that he dreamed to never let him go, that smelled of vanilla, that wrapped around him and laid him in a bed of contentment.
In his mind’s eye, he thought of those newly made memories with her.
“ADRIAN!” Mossy eyes viciously replaced the most beautiful ones. His memories collapsed on themselves, interrupted by a magus. “Listen.” His head wrung with a familiar wooden crack against it. “Say again where the sun was.”
He rolled his eyes. “Where the sun was?”
“Where was the sun in your nightmare? Where were you according to the sea?” She glared with keen interest. Her face contorted with an uncomfortable focus.
Then suddenly her question began to make sense. The sun was not rising correctly. Land lay behind him in his dream, and the great light birthed out of the sea. It had never done so in the Storm Sea. That could only mean… “The sun rose east. East out of the water. I was facing the Golden Sea, and it set behind me.”
Alevor nodded silently; Vionna snapped her fingers, pointing the way his dream bid him. “Your path is that way.”
