“
Frey.” A husky voice woke
me. It must have been early dawn. The faint light revealed worry on
Chevelle’s face as he stood over me.
A look
of fear and sympathy
. The memory smashed
into my chest like a thousand-pound ram, stealing my
breath.
“
You,” I hissed. He backed
away as I sat up and glared at him with fire in my eyes. “You. You…
held me back… as my mother died… you held me and made me watch
her
die
.” I could
almost taste the acid in my voice. He was still backing away,
holding his hands in front of him palms out. A wordless hiss
escaped my throat as I felt the fire coursing through me and light
in my hands. He would burn for this.
Burn
. I was standing now, walking step
for step toward him as he backed away. He said nothing, his face
was calm as the fire flared and I raised my hands to
strike.
And then everything went black.
I heard the chanting now. My
ears had been roaring with anger but all that was left was quiet
and a soft recitation, “Gian Zet Foria. Gian Zet Foria. Gian Zet
Foria.”
Junnie
.
Junnie was chanting something. I was engulfed with an empty,
lethargic feeling. My eyes batted open and I was lying on the
ground, looking up at Junnie and Chevelle. Junnie’s words ran
together as Chevelle mumbled incoherently. “Gian Zet Foria Gian Zet
Foria Gian Zet Foria.” It seemed so familiar.
Yes, Georgiana Suzetta Glaforia
. They
stopped simultaneously.
“
Frey.” Junnie was talking
slowly and over-enunciating. “Stay calm and lie still.” I tried to
look incredulous as I lay there unable to move. “Explain to me what
happened.”
All the anger and excitement
was gone and what came out sounded bored, just a statement of fact.
“Chevelle held me back and made me watch my mother die.” She didn’t
have the outraged look I expected. I sifted through the
dream,
no, the memory
, searching for a way to explain so she would be stunned and
infuriated. They both stared at me, waiting. Calm.
It struck me that I was
lying on the ground, incapacitated, and I was
sure
they had complete control over
me.
What had happened?
I thought through it again, going backwards from where I was.
Their faces, the chanting from behind me, Chevelle backing away
from me, the dream.
The water.
I remembered being trapped under water just before
waking, but I wasn’t drowning. It
wasn’t
a dream.
I was horrified as more of
the memory returned. The cloaks that had surrounded my
mother,
killed her
,
were circling me. I knew they intended to destroy me, too, though I
couldn’t see why. Chevelle had held me, pulled me into the water.
He had tried to keep them from seeing me as they attacked, tried to
keep me from calling out to her. The look of fear, the look of
sympathy.
He held me back to
save
me
. I felt tears streaming down my face and my limbs started to
release from the dead weight. Chevelle had saved me from my
mother’s fate. He had tried to keep me from seeing, tried to cover
my eyes. I remembered the water, remembered fleeing.
No, being dragged away as he
fled
. I shook with sobs as a pair of arms
wrapped around me, supporting me when I sunk exhausted into a deep
sleep.
Chevelle was still holding me when I woke in
the late morning and I wondered if he’d slept at all. I was cradled
in his arms as if a small child. I reached a hand up to rub my
bleary eyes and as I glanced up at him, it struck me how close we
were. My hand dropped from my face and fell lazily against his
chest. That didn’t help. Heat rose in my neck when I felt the
muscle beneath his shirt. I looked away but he must have thought I
was searching for Junnie.
“
She left just after dawn,
when she knew you were… safe.”
“
Oh
,” I gushed.
Great, we are alone in
the middle of nowhere and I’m sitting in his lap
. I flushed at the thought and hastily stood and straightened
out my clothes. He sat and watched me as I fidgeted. “Um, so I
guess we should get going?” I stammered.
“
No.”
My breath caught and I
forced myself to look at him, still uncomfortable from the
closeness that had perverted my thoughts.
He has no idea what you’re thinking. It’s the farthest thing
from his mind
. I must have been imagining
the way he was studying me as he sat, casually leaning against the
downed tree. “No?” My voice was shaking slightly.
“
Magic first.”
That wasn’t exactly a relief. He saw my
anxiety and I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t enjoying it. He just
remained sitting there. “What should I do?”
A sly grin crossed his face and he rolled his
hand out in front of him. “You are only limited by your
imagination, Freya.”
Oh great, so if I screw it
up it’s just a problem with my mind.
I
thought about what Steed had said, feeling it, thinking about what
you wanted to happen.
What
did
I want to
happen?
I caught myself as my thoughts
spiraled out of control and concentrated on finding something
small. A tiny pebble lay on the ground at my feet. I focused on it
hard, willing it to rise off the ground. Nothing happened and I
looked at Chevelle, mostly to see his reaction. He sat watching me,
his serene mask back in place. “Do you need motivation?”
I was afraid of the kind of motivation he’d
provide, remembering the fireballs flying at me in the meadow.
“No,” I answered too quickly, and he laughed. I squatted to get
closer to the gray rock. I thought I saw it move a little, as if
trembling in fright, and the notion made me laugh.
Chevelle stood. “You’re trying too hard,
Freya. Let us play a game.” He held out his hand and a stone flew
up from the ground and landed in the center of his open palm. He
closed his hand around it and when he opened it a moment later, the
stone was floating a half inch above his palm, slick black and
shaped to form a tiny hawk sculpture.
“
It’s beautiful,” I said as
I reached out to touch it, taking a step forward.
He held up his other hand up to stop me.
“Take it.”
I wanted to hold the trinket; I reached my
hand forward and concentrated on moving it from his palm to mine.
It floated shakily across the space between us and landed in my
hand, which seemed so odd at first I thought Chevelle must have
moved it. I squeezed it as if to verify that it were real and then
opened my hand up to examine it closer, only to find it was the
dull gray rock again. Disappointment filled my face as I looked
back at him. He tilted his head toward my hand and I understood; I
would have to make the sculpture myself. I closed my hand around
the stone, mostly because I had seen him do the same, and instantly
I knew what I wanted to see. I opened my palm up, grinning
triumphantly, and exposed my creation for Chevelle to see.
Balancing on my palm was a slightly misshapen but undeniable
sculpture of a small black horse. Chevelle rolled his eyes.
Still smiling, I looked back to the stone but
it had returned to its boring round shape. Chevelle answered my
unspoken question. “Yes, it’s… tricky.” He smiled a little at using
Steed’s word. “You can’t change something’s makeup but you can
change the way it appears. You can move it. You can stop someone’s
heart but you can’t make them feel happy about it.”
He hesitated after that last part,
contemplating, and then continued, “You can manipulate the
elements, move water, draw it from the ground but you cannot easily
make it appear from nothing… though you can usually collect enough
moisture from the air.”
He was almost thinking out loud now. “Fire is
easier. It spreads so fast, burning. You can pull a small spark
from anywhere and create a large, forceful flame, fueled by the air
and…” He trailed off as I leaned closer to him, listening intently.
He was looking into my eyes.
He blinked and shook his head. “Let’s keep
working.”
He stepped a few paces away as he spoke.
“You’ll need to think clearly and stay calm. The best fighters are
the best thinkers.”
“
Fighters
?” I asked, confused.
He shook his head again, as if clearing it.
There was a long pause as I waited for his answer. “I’d like you to
practice… just for protection.”
“
I have fire.”
He was picking up a large stick as he spoke.
“Yes, but you should learn to think more openly, it is an important
resource and should be familiar to you. You should have years of
experience by now.”
“
Why don’t I?” He stopped. I
could tell by his expression he hadn’t meant to say so. I didn’t
know if he would answer. “Why can’t I use magic?” I clarified.
“Why
couldn’t
I use
it before?”
Another long pause. And then he spoke
carefully. “You were bound.”
Bound?
I was speechless as I thought of the young children playing in
the village, binding themselves to play the games of fairy
children, unmagical until coming of age. I recalled seeing it in
the documents in the briar patch, Francine Glaforia, bound against
using all but practical magic.
They must
have known not to trust me. They must have known
. My knees gave out and I crumpled to the ground. How many
times could the earth pulled from beneath my feet? Chevelle took a
step toward me and I held up a hand to stop him.
Bound against using magic. Assigned a
watcher
. My anger toward him returned. A
volunteer
watcher
.
“Let’s just go,” I said coldly, looking up the mountain as I stood
and walked to my horse.
We rode wordlessly up the
mountain as I considered all I had learned. He was my watcher, he
would have been involved in the binding.
Yes, maybe Fannie should have been punished for whatever she
had done, but why assume I would follow? So I killed a bird, stole
a few papers from the council library
. My
arguments were thin so I went back to anger.
How could he lie to me?
The entire
village must have known I was bound, known I couldn’t perform
magic, just as they sat and watched me try. Sending me to Junnie
for lessons. Evelyn’s sour melodic voice rang in my ears.
Poor Frey
.
The horses were stopping and I was irritated
I hadn’t learned to lead them yet. Chevelle stepped down and
started a fire. He walked away and I thought of what he had said
earlier in the day, that you could stop someone’s heart. I wondered
if that was how he killed his prey. He was already making his way
back, carrying two small rabbits and a branch covered in some sort
of blood-red berries. I sulked over to the fire and plopped down on
a small rock. I watched him prepare the meal without speaking but I
couldn’t tell if he was sorry and intended to give me my space or
just indifferent. I silently wished Steed was here to build me a
shelter so I could lock myself away until tomorrow. I wasn’t about
to try to build one on my own and risk embarrassing myself in front
of Chevelle.
I glanced from him to the cooking meat, and
then the flames licking up from below. They writhed and jumped,
forming shapes that pulled at my thoughts. I tried to think but I
couldn’t seem get my thoughts to work right. I could remember my
dreams. I could remember the wind and fire in my dreams,
surrounding my mother. But the memories that came back when I woke
from the vivid dreams were dull and so hard to grasp. Each time I
tried to clear them they drew back from me. They were fuzzy and
refused to cooperate.
As recognition dawned on me
I jumped from the rock and cursed Chevelle. He turned to me with
his standard composed expression. “Give it back!” I yelled. He was
baffled but I was so angry I was having trouble forming the demand.
“Give my memories, my
mind
back!” The confusion cleared, but he didn’t offer
a response. I could feel the fire itching to burn him. I seethed.
“Unbind my thoughts.”
“
Freya.” His voice was calm
and smooth. “You don’t understand.”
I fumed, “Well, I’m sure
that has
nothing
to
do with you rummaging around in there.”
He calmly shook his head and I realized it
was possible he couldn’t free my thoughts. Surely, the council had
bound me, likely all of them would need to reverse it. I couldn’t
ask, I was too furious to pursue a conversation with any kind of
composure. I let out a guttural growl and clenched my jaw shut.
I considered running back to the village. But
how could I get council to release me?
And then I looked down the
mountain. I didn’t even know
how
to get back to the village.
Damn it, damn it, damn it
. I stared at
my palms, I didn’t know where I was going either.
Low on options, I forced myself to allow the
anger to settle a few notches. Maybe I would be able to remember
more with the dreams, with the mountains, with wherever my family’s
map was taking me. I could see no other way but the course we were
on.