Mwyr - Chapter Fourteen

[lady_mab]

To be honest, Taen felt a bit guilty that he couldn’t help with anything. He could only climb on and off his horse on his own after years of practice and an obscene amount of stubbornness. He couldn’t remove the tack and saddle, though. 

It fell to his traveling companion to set up everything when they made camp. The warm glow that he had learned to associate with Sera worked without complaint -- by and large without saying anything at all. Only cursory questions or if he was comfortable. 

Taen could accept people ignoring him or brushing him off while in Hullenscir. But he had no idea how to break the silence that remained between him and the young lordling. He might have been the prince of a fallen country, but he was just another refugee. There were plenty of them clogging the streets of the church. On the road, however, the words weren’t coming because he was once again seen as someone of authority. 

Sera called him my lord or prince, and Taen never corrected him. 

Perhaps he liked being regarded with something other than pity for once. His kingdom was nothing more than ruins, and his family buried by impartial hands because he couldn’t see he couldn’t get out of bed he couldn’t even believe what happened. 

Six days on the road was apparently his limit of this behavior. 

“You haven’t asked.” He sat still and focused on the sound of activity and the light that pulsed from one side to the other. It marked the edges of their little camp in his mind.

“Asked what?” Sera tromped to the midway point, and Taen listened to him strike flint stones onto kindling. “I have a lot of questions.” His voice rose over the dry crackle of the fire. “About you and Arika, of course. Some that I know you wouldn’t have answers to. I don’t know where to start.” 

“Would you like me to start?” 

Sera didn’t respond immediately, and even the previous bustle remained dormant as he waited. “What could you have to ask of me, my Lord?” 

This time, Taen shook his head at the title. “It has been years since I have been prince of anything. My kingdom is no more, despite my belated efforts.” He listened to the approaching footsteps. 

A moment passed before Sera dropped down next to him with a soft grunt. “You mean how you asked Arika to restore your throne?” 

Hearing the words thrown back into his lap caused him to shift uncomfortably. There was no sarcasm in the tone, but it didn’t mean that it didn’t embarrass him. “She told you?” 

“Well, yes.” He made it sound like it was obvious. “She’s not familiar with Mwyr’s history. She didn’t know.” 

“How... could she not be familiar? It’s her planet. So long as there is a sun in the sky, we know that she is watching over us.” Perhaps it was a tad ironic to say at night. He tilted his head back, bandaged face angled toward the night sky. The part of him that remembered what it looked like wondered how many of the moons were visible. If the ring around the plant shined just as bright as it did in his memories. The swathes of blue and purple that the three moons danced around stretched the entire length of the sky. The swirls of stars used to track routes and seasons colored the empty space where there had been nothing. 

The lordling ignored the question in favor of his own. “How did you find me? Or Arika. Or even make it to Wellfox. It’s a long journey, and you’re, well...” He trailed off, and Taen could imagine that he was gesturing at his face. 

“Blind is the word you are looking for.” 

“Then how?” 

Taen didn’t want to answer. Now that the questions were being asked, he realized how far from prepared he was. He reached for his saddle bags, which Sera had dropped down on his right when he first started to set up for camp. His fingers brushed leather, and he pulled them closer for a distraction. 

He gathered his thoughts for the appropriate words. “It has been five years since the attack on my home and the loss of my sight. I’m sure you know.” 

“I remember,” Sera muttered. “We’re the southernmost village of Erimed, and share a border with Raeq. My father received a rider with a letter declaring Raeq had fallen to Gi’Han, and to ask us to aid any refugees.” 

A soft smile tugged at Taen’s lips. “The crown, for what it is worth, thanks you for your country’s help.” 

The glow on his left flickered warmly, and he could hear the returning smile. “The son of the mayor of the town of Wellfox, for what it is worth, accepts said thanks.” 

Taen fiddled with the twine on a wrapped package of rations without untying it. “As for how I could locate you and the Goddess, and even how I arrived here... I have what my maid has called ‘the ability to see truths’.” 

“What, like you can tell when someone is lying?” 

“Sort of. I am better at hearing now than I ever was, and I can pick up on the vocal inflections. But in this case, it is more like I can see the true nature of things.” 

“That doesn’t explain how you were able to pick me out of a crowd.” 

Taen took a deep breath before forcing himself to speak. “For five years, all I saw was... Black. Absolutely nothing beyond what I could hear or touch, and my ears and fingers became my eyes.” His fingers smoothed over the parcel in his lap. A rough canvas protected it from the wear of the road, with a fibrous twine to secure it. Rustic, by Raeq and Hullenscir’s standards. 

“The day I learned that the Goddess walked on Mwyr, I tried to convince Deacon Paol to let me join the envoy. I needed her to understand that my request was not like the others who will be fawning over her. It went beyond a selfish desire. I want my kingdom restored for my people, and for the memory of my family.” 

Sera remained silent and still. His question had been the catalyst, and now Taen found himself unable to stop explaining. 

“I was denied, of course.” He lifted his hands and allowed an ounce of humor to color his words. “But as I left, I was confronted by a light.” 

“What kind of light?” 

He turned his head to consider the warm glow that represented the human at his side. It was the size of a small ball, like one he would play with as a child. “Small, hardly more than a candle flicker. Cold, and ancient. Nothing like yours.” 

“Mine?” Sera flickered, dimming in confusion.

Taen waved a hand to dismiss the question and turned his attention to the twine around the parcel. “He took me to Wellfox, but disappeared whenever we entered a town or passed other travelers. At first, I questioned him about it. Why his glow would vanish and leave me to answer questions. What is a blind man like yerself traveling this far north fer on yer own.” He attempted to mimic Sera’s northern plains accent, with the soft vowels and rolling consonants, and earned a snort of amusement. “He told me he wasn’t comfortable around people.” 

“What was his name?” 

He rolled the word around on his tongue. He had not spoken it since their initial meeting, as the dull glow had informed him that he wasn’t fond of hearing it. “Ignus.” It tumbled out of his mouth tasting of magic and power. 

The glow at his side flared brighter, but Sera’s voice remained steady. He wondered if the lordling was even aware of the reaction to the name. “As in one of the six original followers of the Goddess?” 

“Ah, so you are aware.” 

“Of course,” he snapped, offended. “Adil, Kier, Sol, Caelie, Belal, and Ignus. The six who were the closest to the Goddess when she first walked on Mwyr. Legends say that she cursed them after they betrayed her. They--” His voice cut off mid-word, and Sera choked on the rest of his sentence. 

Taen leaned forward, eager. “What? What is it about his name that has worked you up?” 

“Nothing,” Sera replied, but Taen knew he lied. “So this little candle flame led you to Wellfox. It doesn’t explain how you could find me.”

Annoyed that the topic had been cast aside, he settled back and let his fingers return to the twine. “Before I found you, I found the Goddess. Where Ignus had been a dying star, she... She is as brilliant as the sun.” 

Sera’s glow pulsed and brightened, warming with the mention of the Goddess. 

“That made me think... If this Ignus was somehow the spirit of the original and came to Mwyr to help me reach the Goddess… And the Lady herself is the divine made flesh, then I can see them as they truly are. A star, and the sun.” 

The air left Sera’s lungs in an audible rush. “Then what does that make me?” 

Taen considered his answer, watching the glow at his side flicker in time with the sound of the fire. His hand strayed to the bandage across his eyes. “If I had to guess, you are a new star for the new Goddess. The man you spoke to at the farm as well. You are both connected to the Lady and will find your way back to her.” 

He heard a flurry of motion, and Sera stomped away. “So you somehow could sense my... ah, aura? Through thousands of people to find me? And you tell me I’m a star?” 

“In so many words, yes. I figured if the Goddess had been in Wellfox, then one who would take the place of an old star would be there as well.” 

“That sounds insane. But after everything else with the Goddess, I suppose I can’t completely write it off.” Sera laughed, more to himself than in any real sense of humor. “And? How do you fit in?” 

A dry thud preceded a flare of warmth, rushing over him from the fire. 

He bit the inside of his cheek, worrying at the soft flesh in thought. “Me? I don’t quite know. There must be a reason that I can see these things. I can only imagine that losing my sight was a cruel joke to set me in motion. It would be harder to see the true nature of things when surrounded by so many people and colors and movements.” 

“Life,” Sera said from across the fire. “That is the word you are looking for.” 

Taen shrugged and yanked open the parcel in his lap. “Life. Lies. Whatever it is, I cannot see it now.” 

#

Fabric swirled around her in a sea of colors and patterns. Arika took an unsteady step, buffeted from either side by a petticoat. She struggled to remember what had been happening before she ended up there. 

“Lady?” 

When she turned to look, an elbow jostled her from behind and she fell out of sync with her body. Instead, she watched a young woman who looked eerily familiar paint on a practiced smile. “Yes?” 

“The Deacon would like for you to take a break.” He ducked into a bow and caught onto the young woman’s elbow. A rescue before a white-haired man with desperate eyes could corner her for the fourth time. Arika recognized the insignia of the Goddess embroidered in gold on the man’s dark blue tabard. It was the same one on the stone coin she carried out of the dream. 

Closer inspection revealed several others wearing the same tabard scattered about the bustling space. Banners hung from poles, the gold and blue eye of the Goddess bearing down on her. 

The young woman’s hair, twisted in curls the same shade as Arika’s, shimmered in the candlelight. Her dress pooled in stiff layers around her legs. Arika could feel the rustling of the fabric as she walked half a step behind. Up they went to a marble dais, and she perched on the edge of an uncomfortable chair designed for her. 

For the Goddess. 

Arika stood behind the chair, but when she looked down, the perspective felt as though she sat in the chair herself. And while a part of her wondered who this woman was, she knew without a doubt that she was the appointed avatar. She knew what was expected of her, and the lives of the girls that came before her. 

She hated it. 

“Would you like any refreshments, Goddess? The Deacon is worried that you’ve hardly eaten at all this evening.” 

Arika’s attention focused on the man she had been watching all evening. He hugged the walls, fidgeting with his brown cloak. The cheap fabric needed constant adjusting every time he moved. It was painfully obvious that he didn’t fit in. 

He was also the only person in the entire room, save the servants, who had not come up to her asking for a blessing. 

She liked him immediately. 

“I am fine,” she said, or at least, the other version of her said. “Thank you.” 

The page retreated, and Arika closed her eyes for a brief moment of respite. Exhaustion grabbed every nerve in her body, but she knew better than to voice it. 

Her duty as the Goddess came first. Her duty to the people gathered to see her was more important than her own health. She didn’t need the Deacon reminding her of that. 

As it stood, she was finally allowed to be on her own after greeting everyone in the hall. The Deacon moved her from one ‘distinguished guest’ to another, doling out her blessings when she was too slow to answer. He grabbed her wrist on several occasions to lay her hand upon the brow of some nobles and spoke the words in her stead. 

Even as the Goddess, she felt her compassion might be in short supply if people kept asking for things that she did not have the energy to give. 

The strange young man finally moved away from the wall and, keeping his head ducked to avoid her curious stare, made his way toward her. 

Arika remained reclined in the chair while the young woman leaned forward to watch his progress. 

“My Lady, Mother,” he said, once he reached the bottom step. He bowed, deep and humble, only to wince as his cloak slipped from his shoulder. “I wish to ask for your favor.” 

“Come closer, please. I can hardly hear you above all this chatter.” She held out her hand as an invitation if he was willing to take it. 

He hesitated, and when he looked up at her in surprise, she got her first glimpse of his bright green eyes. 

Arika shivered, stuck in the memory of the dream of the graveyard. Of the man who called her sister. This pair of eyes were far kinder, but the green too similar for comfort. “If it pleases you, My Lady.” 

“It does.” 

He ascended the small flight of stairs, grasping her extended hand in his own. His grip was a bit too rough, calluses brushing her skin. Far different from the rest of the gloved hands that reached for hers all evening. He touched her knuckles to his forehead and dropped his gaze to the floor once again. 

“What is your name?” 

“Vida, My Lady.” 

“I wish for you to call me Selphie.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Arika knew who she was. The incarnation of the Goddess who came before her. A pious girl from southeastern Raeq near the coast. That had been her name before she had died, and it would be her name when she appeared in the history books. 

Vida’s eyebrows shot up, and every muscle across his shoulders and neck strain as he tried not to look at her. “I would not dare to address the Goddess by such a personal title.” 

“But if I am the one who asks that of you, would you deny my request?” 

Inch by inch, he lifted his gaze to hers. He was no older than her, but lines of turmoil and malnourishment etched over the contours of his face. Crows feet sprouted from the corners of his eyes, and she wanted to see the way they wrinkled when he smiled. “I would not, My Lady. Er, that is to say, Selphie.” 

She smiled at her victory. “Now then, Vida. What favor would you ask of me?” 

He opened his mouth, still hesitating. “A moment of your time?” 

Arika arched an eyebrow and made a show of glancing around the dais. “Is this not enough for you?” 

“No,” he said before flinching. “No, it is, My Lady, but this is not what I meant. Selphie. I, er. At a future date. Sometime when you are not so guarded by the nobles of this fine city.” 

She at least managed to hold back the smirk. “Ah, so you are not one of them. I wonder, then, how you got in.” 

Panic flitted across Vida’s face and he started to retreat back down the steps. “I apologize, Goddess, if my presence offended you--” 

Laughter spilled from Selphie’s mouth. Arika watched as she rose from her seat to follow after him. “I appreciate the break in the monotony.” A second passed before she realized silence descended amongst the nobles closest to her. 

For a brief instant, the hint of a smile graced the corners of his eyes. “I am honored to be of service to you, My Lady.” 

“Please, tell me why you’ve come. Surely not just to ask for a meeting with me.” 

“I am one of the lucky few... underprivileged that the Church allows to see the Goddess during her stay here on Mwyr. I don’t have any money to donate to their cause in spreading your word, I am afraid, but my faith is strong.” 

She waved a hand to dismiss his words. “I do not care for donations to the Church on my behalf. I care only to help those who wish to ask it of me.” 

“Then, tomorrow--?” 

Another laugh bubbled in her chest, warming her cheeks in the process. “Tomorrow after the midday prayer. I have some time on my own before I am expected back for more blessings. The rose garden is nice that time of day, and I have had little time to visit it.” Feeling more than a little brazen, Arika and Selphie leaned forward together and reached out to touch the tips of their fingers to his cheek. “Would you care to meet me there so that I might give you a moment of my time?” 

Vida held her gaze steady for the first time since he approached her. For a moment, Arika thought that he could see her behind Selphie’s eyes. Two separate people, instead of just echoes of the past. “It would be my pleasure, Selphie.” 

“Good. And please, don’t wear anything that makes you uncomfortable. I’m sorry, but you look like you’re about to strangle yourself with that cloak.” She slid from her seat, and knelt before him, intent on helping with the excess of heavy fabric. 

The voice that greeted her ears did not belong in the past. “What are you doing, Lady?” 

Arika opened her eyes, only to find herself kneeling in the middle of her sleeping gear. Her fingers strayed to her cheeks, only to smear the traces of tears that still clung to her skin. “I’m sorry, did I disturb you?” 

Cairo crouched beside her, studying her face before handing over a kerchief. “You suddenly sat up and then just... knelt there. Is everything alright?” 

She wanted to tell him that no, it’s not, but she didn’t know how to put it into words. “Strange dreams, is all. I’ll be fine in a moment.” 

He moved away without another word. She dropped into a sitting position with her legs crossed before her. Her fingers worried the edges of the kerchief, but she didn’t dab at her eyes with it. 

The dream still clung to her, and the tears weren’t her own. They belonged to a memory deep in a heart that used to belong to someone else. 

Do you know what happened the last time the Goddess visited Mwyr? 

She fell in love. She died. 

At the time, the statue had not answered her question if the two were connected. But now Arika knew that they were, and the part of her that had been Selphie still mourned for Vida.