It was Joss. “Bran’s wife Mara will have food ready for us as soon as you’re settled in.”
I looked at the bed longingly and then back to Joss. My sigh of remorse was interrupted by my growling stomach. “Okay, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. They don’t serve horse here, do they?” I joked. Joss grinned out of the side of his mouth, his dimple showing.
We went downstairs to a simple spread of more bread, this time homemade with honey drizzled on top, beef stew with vegetables and shepherd’s pie. I dove into the pie with a vengeance, eating, I believe, what attained to be about as much as a horse.
Darren kept giving me worried glances, but I ignored them and reached for more food. I ate a full loaf of the honey bread and finished with a pint of spiced cider, before Darren’s jovial mood turned somber.
“Thalia, I’ve been meaning to ask you. How did you escape?”
Before I could answer Darren, a loud crash erupted from the kitchen, followed by a squeal of delight.
“JOSS! JOSS is here? Why didn’t someone tell me sooner?” Out ran a very beautiful girl with a sea of golden blonde tresses. She ran right to Joss and almost knocked him over out of his chair with her exuberant hug. Her green-gold eyes sparkled with happiness and she had the comeliest spattering of freckles across her nose. She was curvy in all of the places I wasn’t, and it made me all the more aware of my thin, half-starved state.
“I didn’t know you were coming this way. I would have been here earlier, diligently awaiting your arrival. Why didn’t you tell me?” she pouted. “I wouldn’t have been out running errands for Mama.”
“Hush, Vienna,” Bran berated his daughter. “Don’t bother them while they’re eating. Let them finish. In fact,” he glared at her, “go get them more spiced cider.”
She flew from her chair in excitement and returned shortly with more cider. She fluttered around Joss like a bee searching for nectar. I couldn’t blame her, from what I’ve been told, most humans react this way around the Denai. They are subconsciously drawn to the beautiful race and tended to fawn over them.
“The Dancing Swine has a fantastic singer performing tonight. I hear that one song will bring you to tears with joy. Will you escort me? Father won’t let me go hear him unless someone comes with me. And he trusts you.” She looked at him with such a pleading, angelic face that it actually made my stomach drop with displeasure; no one could resist someone so beautiful.
Was I jealous? I wasn’t sure because just then I realized my stomach wasn’t reacting to the jealousy but to the loads of meat and food I just ate. I glanced at Joss and paled, threw my hand up to my mouth and dashed for the door.
I barely made it to the side of the inn before losing all of my dinner. Tears slid down my face in embarrassment. I started to hiccup and cry at the same time so I pressed my forehead against the cool wood of the inn. I didn’t want to go back inside. I didn’t want Joss to see me like this or the beautiful Vienna. They would pity me, I knew it.
Darren came out to get me a few minutes later. He handed me a tankard filled with liquid. I sniffed at it warily not wanting to have any more spiced cider.
“It’s just water,” he reassured me.
I rinsed out my mouth and spat while Darren disappeared around the side of the inn. He came back shortly with a bag of wood chips. He spread it over my embarrassing display of overeating and then returned the sack.
“Come on. Let’s go in.”
“I don’t want to.” I sounded childish even to my own ears.
“Don’t worry, they’re gone.”
Not really sure if he was referring to Joss and Vienna, or Bran and his wife, either way I didn’t want to face anyone. I scurried in and raced up the stairs to my room at the end of the hall. I looked at the clean bed in despair, not wanting to crawl into it wearing my dirty clothes, but I was too embarrassed to ask for a tub or borrow clothes from Joss.
I was debating what to wash first with my small bowl of water when a knock came at my door. I opened it to see a small boy about ten or twelve who resembled Bran, rolling a small wooden tub into my room. He left only to return a few minutes later with buckets of water from the well. Bran’s wife Mara, a plump blonde woman with a kind smile, followed with kettles of hot water to add to the cold water to make it warm. She seemed quiet and reserved, not outgoing at all like her daughter. She brought with her a clean pair of slightly worn boys brown pants, socks, black boots and a white top. They must have belonged to the boy who brought the tub.
“Darren said not to give you skirts because you had more riding to do.” Mara spoke before handing me a folded handkerchief. I unwrapped the handkerchief to find a wood comb, a simple blue ribbon and a bar of sweet smelling soap.
I started to cry at the simple gesture and I grabbed Mara in a desperate hug and released all of the hurt and anguish that I held deep inside. Her yellow shift turned a deeper amber color as my tears soaked her shoulder. She gave me a strong, reassuring hug that only a mother knows how to give.
“There, there, dearie,” she rubbed my back. “Having to travel with men all of the time must be hard. Now, I know that Joss and Darren are good wholesome people, but if they mistreat you or hurt your feelings you come and get Mara now, you hear? I’ll knock some sense into them.” She looked at me with a determined gaze and I saw some of the spitfire she had from her youth flow into her face. She was definitely Vienna’s mother.
I wouldn’t consider my time floating in a river unconscious to count toward a real bath because I was still filthy. Mara stayed and waged a personal war against the layers of dirt caked on me. She scrubbed me raw and every red spot that I saw on my skin was a reminder that I would soon be clean from the taint of the prison.
She left and came back shortly with a jar of foul smelling liquid. Working it through my hair, Mara casually commented that it would kill any bugs living in it. Lice! I had lice! The itchiness that plagued us in the cells became nothing more than a slight annoyance compared to the beatings and torture we received regularly.
The burning sensation on my scalp gave me relief that there was no way anything could still be alive. My nose and eyes started to burn and I began to question Mara’s sanity of using it on a person’s body and I told her so. After calling her son, Danny, they carted water up and started the bath process all over again. But this time she let me soak the soreness out of my muscles.
Mara hummed while she lathered my hair up with the sweet smelling soap and I almost fell asleep while she massaged my scalp. Soon I was clean again, wearing a patched up oversized work shirt that Mara said belong to her husband. The top reached comfortably past my knees and would serve as a night shirt. Mara didn’t stop there; she brushed my black hair until it shone in the firelight and then braided it in a single plait down my back. Danny knocked again a few minutes later and came to remove the tub. Mara excused herself as well and left me alone in the room.
I hadn’t been alone in I don’t know how long. I listened to the crackling of the fire and the darkness of the room seemed to suffocate me. Jumping up, I ran to the shutters and threw them open to let the fresh air pour in. Breathing in the night air calmed the panic that almost assailed me from being shut in. Turning back to the room, I crawled into a bed that felt too soft. Rolling over, I closed my eyes and soon fell into a fitful sleep.
~~~
“Hook her up!” a voice snarled. Struggling against the cold hands that gripped me I arched my body in defiance. The freezing points of metal stabbed me in the spine and I tried one last kick of freedom before I was bound in the machine. The deadly looking bands were locked into place around my body. Waves of hooded red robes floated around me.
“She hasn’t shown any signs yet. Give her another injection.”
I heard chanting as the Septori in red robes gathered around the machine, preparing to send an electric current into large bands that stabbed me and looked like eerie wings. Pain would follow and course through my body. I looked at the Septori and all I saw from
the darkness of their hoods was evil, yellow eyes that glowed. Sharp, pointy, metal teeth glinted menacingly in the candlelight. They lunged toward my body as I heard ominous laughter egging them on. They flowed toward me as ghostly phantasms and then through me. Gasping I felt myself begin to fall, the earth opened up and a gaping hole in the ground formed around my bare feet. I felt a pounding at my head and then I was falling, falling and then pain.
“Ouch! Blistering son of a scorpion!” I cussed. I was lying in a tangle of blanket on the hard wooden floor of the Inn. I had fallen off of the bed.
“A dream!” I breathed in relief. “Oh, thank the heavens” Grabbing the pillow from the bed, I curled up on the familiar hard surface of the floor and tried to fall back asleep. The pounding headache of my dream persisted, and my heart raced at what I secretly feared the headaches might mean. I was normal, I desperately told myself, I was still human. Closing my eyes, I missed the shadow outside of my window move away.
~~~
The pounding in my head continued through most of the night followed by stomach cramps before fading away near dawn. The pounding started again at first light getting louder and louder.
“OH, STOP!” I said, grabbing my head, before I realized the pounding was coming from the door.
“Thalia? Are you all right? Answer me! Thalia!” The voice began to get frantic.
“I’M COMING!” I yelled as I wrapped the quilt around my body before limping toward the door. My muscles screamed in protest at the use. It had been moons since I’d ridden a horse. I took a second to steady myself before unlocking it and opening the door to a worried Joss.
“Oh, it’s you!” I stated grumpily. After last night I was in no mood to talk.
“What...what happened to you?” He began to step into the room but I pushed the door back into him.
“I was sleeping.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been knocking for at least five minutes? I was about to break down the door.”
“Uh, I was asleep!” I replied sarcastically. “I guess I’m a sound sleeper.” I was not about to tell him about my nightmares. He peered over my shoulder and glanced at the pillow on the floor and the extra blanket. He looked back at me, the tension leaving his perfect brows to be replaced by a slight worried look.
I stuck my chin up at him in defiance, and I tried to move and cover the view of my room. In the process I stumbled on the edge of the blanket and bashed my forehead into the doorframe with a thud. Joss grabbed my arm to steady me, and then he looked at me a little closer before releasing me.
“So there is a girl underneath all of that dirt,” Joss spoke with a twinkle in his eye.
My eyes went big at the comment and I tried to step on his foot in revenge. But Joss dodged it merrily.
“We are having breakfast in a quarter hour and then we shall reach Haven by late this afternoon. Can you be ready?” He grinned at me, one corner of his mouth going up in a laughing manner.
I ran my hand through my sleep-muffled hair and felt in horror that my beautiful braid that Mara had done had come undone. It must have happened because of my tossing and turning.
“Yes!” I squeaked, realizing the state of disarray I appeared in. I pushed the door frantically against him and he stepped back into the hall laughing.
Turning back toward the room to change, I felt my legs turn to pudding as I stumbled toward the bed. It seemed that no matter what, I didn’t have a graceful bone in my body.
I was ready in ten minutes and took the stairs slowly, dreading the thought of getting back on a horse. Mara took one look at my unsteady stance and went into the kitchen and came back out with a salve.
“Here Thalia, it’s my mother’s own special recipe, it’s for your muscles.” I opened the container and got a faint peppermint smell. Going back up to my room I applied it to my aching legs and felt immediate relief. Before I could hand it back to Mara, she clasped her hands around mine and told me to keep it.
Breakfast would have been perfect except for the fact that Vienna served it. The way she fussed over Joss made me feel sick to my stomach. I shouldn’t be feeling these pangs of jealousy over Joss. He wasn’t mine by any means, and I had just met him. It was the fact that he paid equal attention back that hurt. I was still underweight and pale looking, but at least I was clean. I felt that the bath had made me a new person and the comment about how I was a girl still hurt. I wanted to be considered a woman, not necessarily by Joss but recognized by anyone. What I went through at the prison made me feel old in comparison to my years and I just wanted someone to look at me the way Vienna was looking at Joss.
When we saddled the horses to leave, Joss offered for me to ride double with him. His earlier comment still rankled so I ignored Joss and walked over to Darren’s mount. Grabbing the reins, I tried to swing myself onto Gypsy and immediately slid back down, not having the muscle strength it took to lift my own body weight. Ashamed and red faced, I kept my face to the horse. Joss looked a little hurt, but then assisted me onto Gypsy and saddled Anthem without giving me another look. Darren missed the whole exchange since he was attending to the stable boy with the silver piece.
I didn’t know why I was acting this way. I kept imagining him and Vienna holding hands and laughing at the Singing Swine or Happy Hippo Pub, or whatever it was called that they probably went to last night. I definitely didn’t want to be leaning against his solid back while picturing it. I wanted to be a strong independent woman. Not a sick child that need saving from her shadow.
Chapter 4
My first distant view of the city of Haven took my breath away. The Ginger Dragon was on the outskirts of the province, and the scenery slowly changed from forests to rolling hills the farther in we traveled. In the distance, what I took for clouds turned into large, snowcapped mountains. The closer we came to Calandry the more travelers and merchants we met, each giving us a friendly wave as we passed.
Cresting the last hill laid open the valley below us to a view as far as the eye could see of the city of Haven. It was blindingly beautiful. The city was a mass of shops and tall towers with brilliantly decorated flags. Even from a distance you could see the Queen’s Castle set apart from the city, high on a hill looking untouchable and alone. To the right in a valley sat the Citadel. I had to squint as the glint of blue reflecting from the training arena’s glass-dome ceiling stabbed my eyes. Off in the distance at the bottom of the mountains looked to be ruins set apart and alone from the rest of the thriving community.
The city itself looked like a rainbow had come to rest upon it, for each building was painted in a vibrant color. I asked Darren and he said that the city was split into color districts; something that began with one thrifty merchant many years ago.
It began when a young hopeful merchant moved to Calandry in hopes of making his fortune. But since he was new and didn’t have a clientele base built up, he soon struggled to make ends meet like everyone else. So he did something to make his small business stand out from the rest. He painted his shop a very bright green. It was the best bit of advertising he could do, because people came from far and wide to see his bright green shop. It began a trend and soon others started to paint their shops brilliant colors to compete. Soon it became hard to navigate the city of Calandry.
The Merchant Guild finally got together and formed the color districts. They assigned colors to each vendor based on goods they sold and you were allowed to paint your store any shade of that particular color. If you needed exotic fabrics, you went to the yellow district; if you needed jewelry and accessories, you went to the red; if you were looking for bakers, look no further than any orange stall. And so Calandry was nicknamed the city of light.
“Who was the merchant that started it all?” I asked, intrigued by the story.
“No one really knows because if you ask any one person they will swear on their mother’s grave, and boastfully tell you it was their own great-great-grandfather,” Darren said.
I laughed. I enjoyed the trip through
the bustling city of Haven, smelling the fresh baked goods, the sounds of children playing and vendors hawking their wares. There was a general happy and content feeling in the air, free from fear and oppression.
I was left speechless once I saw the Citadel up close. Nothing Darren described prepared me for the intricate beauty hidden within every structure. The architectural design in the columns, archways and stonework could have only been made by those with the gifts of the Denai. Human hands did not construct the Citadel or arena, even the roads were extravagant. The streets turned from simple, cobbled brick into a mosaic of colored stones which changed in tone as the horses’ hooves walked over them. These singing tiles led up to white, stone guard towers on either side of Citadel’s gleaming silver gate. Today, the gate was open, and was manned by four guards with swords and crossbows.
After Darren stated our business, they gave directions for us to take our horses to the stable.
Darren glanced around the Citadel’s grounds. “Ah, good. It looks like Adept Lorna Windmere is in.”
I looked around the almost empty courtyard and asked Darren how he knew. Darren pointed out the large white towers surrounding the grounds and how three were flying colorful banners. He went on to explain that if the Adept was in residence, their flag was flown to signify to the townspeople that they were in. Often times one or more was on errands for the Queen.
He pointed to a white banner with a falling star as Adept Lorna Windmere’s. “It gives the students an added sense of security to see that there is always an Adept in residence, in case of an emergency.” He also pointed to a blue banner with a gold helios flower as Adept Breah Avenlea’s and the black banner with three silver slashes as Pax Baton’s. The empty towers would normally fly a green banner with three gold circles intricately looped as Cirrus Thornwood’s, and a red banner with a sun and moon for Kambel Silverbane.