Eyes in the Water
Authors: Monica Lee Kennedy
Tags: #coming of age, #christian fantasy, #fatherhood, #sword adventure, #sword fantasy, #lands whisper, #parting breath
THE PARTING BREATH SERIES
BOOK 2
MONICA LEE KENNEDY
Copyright © 2016 Monica Lee Kennedy
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For Mama, my kind and constant encourager.
And a special thanks to my husband, Katy, Marianne,
Dani, my editor Bridget, and my generous, thoughtful beta
readers.
To view a map of the world, please visit
www.monicaleekennedy.com
Table of Contents
Alatrice - Brenol and Darse’s home world
benere - goodwill, goodness, seeking betterment for
self and others
cartess - fate of a person
cartontz - protector of nurest
digit - unit of measurement equivalent to the width
of a finger
drale - currency in Alatrice
frawnish - winged people living in Granoile
freg - unit of currency
Genesifin - book of fate
gortei - oath of protection given to Massada that
makes the person taking it a guardian
greno - unit of currency
hete - first summer
hitze - second summer
juile - race typically found in Selet where they are
fully visible
lunitata - race of people who emanate light
lugazzi - neutral land between terrisdans and
surrounding Lake Ziel
malitas - evil spirit attacking Massada
maralane - lake-people who live in Lake Ziel
matrole - unit measuring distance
nurest - person with special connection to a
particular terrisdan
orbit - unit of time (equivalent to a year)
pedasse - juile footprints
polina - law enforcement
raptili - reptiles in Alatrice
scrutar - tax collector in Alatrice
sealtor - mail deliverer
sealtoz - post office
septspan - seven days
soumme - spouse
spherisol - ball used for heating and light by the
Tindel
Stronta, Veri - the two moons of Massada
tenralily - flower with fabled pods of healing
terrisdan - tract of land in Massada, thirteen
total
The Three - Abriged (Eye), Tofinaol (Hand), Ceriton
(Voice)
umburquin - race typically found in Selenia
visnati - race typically found in Garnoble
Fear shall squeeze them all. Not one shall be spared
its grip.
-Genesifin
Arista dove down, driving her body with speed and
force, as though her arms could push through the approaching earth
as easily as cloud, but in the last second she righted her stance
and lit upon the soil with a padded shoe. Her obsidian wings
hastily closed around her, and her tiny frame shivered in the
darkness.
Veri was out, and its soft light landed upon
the icy crust, giving it a kinder appearance than it deserved.
Bountyless freeze,
Arista thought as
she surveyed the land. Her eyes watered in the chill, and she was
forced to squint—even with her sharp avian vision—to catch what
little there was to be seen.
A matrole or less ahead, as the land rounded
and met a forest, she discerned a small flicker of light.
Dying
embers?
Her heart pounded.
She dared not lift in flight, and not simply
because the air was sucking her body of all warmth, so she darted
swiftly down the slight hill.
No cover. I feel like a worm in a crow’s
nest.
Arista arrived at the campsite, where the
smells of smoke and ash barely lingered. She stood silently and
looked around. Her labored breath frosted the air and all was
motionless, but her neck prickled uncomfortably, as though eyes
sought her from behind the trees’ cover. She turned her attention
to the ground.
A soft curse fell from her lips.
Too late.
She crept forward on the balls of her feet
toward a clump of bracken, rent within at the sight before her. She
knelt beside the lifeless body, heedless of the damp snow that
seeped through her clothing.
“Oh, Ferita.”
She lifted the limp arm and drew it to her
chest but then nearly dropped the limb in surprise. It was hot,
like the temperature of Caladia rains before the icing. With
furrowed brow, Arista drew the fingers up to her cheek and let them
rest upon her face for a brief moment. The hand was now so dark
that she almost imagined the fingertips leaving streaks like coal
pencils across her brown features.
As she sat beside the blackened corpse, the
wind returned with renewed force, and Arista became all too aware
of the sodden garments on her already frozen frame. She stood and
shook her legs to life, cursing again.
It was then that her breath caught sharply in
her throat.
Dangling from the
frazik
trees, not
forty steps into the forest, hung an array of bodies, swaying
gently as the wind issued through, like clothing on a line. There
were at least ten, no, twelve of them. They were suspended about a
man’s height from the earth, but the cords binding them extended up
into the highest boughs, as high as eighty gartere.
Cold forgotten, she toed timidly closer and
nearly screamed.
They were
children.
Her chest tightened in horror.
Suddenly, a familiar sound drew her
attention, and a frawnite with mahogany hair and bronze-brown skin
lit upon the earth, curling his golden wings behind him. His chest
heaved, and he met Arista’s glance with a steely resolve, rubbing
his arms with his thick hands. She exhaled in momentary relief;
perhaps Hetia would know what to do.
The male frawnite had barely surveyed the
scene before he drew his blade from its hidden sheath on his left
leg. The knife was about half a hand span long and curved like a
hook, and it glinted cruelly in Veri’s light. He made as if to step
forward toward the first body, hesitated, then re-sheathed the
sharp steel. “No,” he muttered to himself, his voice stern and
unfeeling. “Even the rope must be destroyed.”
Arista felt a new chill run through her. She
stared wide-eyed at her companion, mouth agape.
“Do not stand idly, Arista. Use your blade.
We have work ahead.” At this, Hetia backed from the thick, ran, and
thrust himself into the air. His wings gave the familiar
thwomp
thwomp
as he labored his body to the skies.
After achieving a decent height, he arched his sunflower-yellow
spread back toward the forest and circled before lighting down upon
one of the fraziks. He fought his way through the dense branches
and lowered his frame to a rope-girded limb.
“Are you really planning to stand there?”
Hetia yelled down. “Think, Arista.”
Arista saw the flash of metal as Hetia again
unsheathed his curved blade. It sliced cleanly through the rope—the
frawnite’s weapon was lethally sharp—and the child tumbled to the
earth with a soft thud.
Arista observed numbly. The boy could not
have known more than eight orbits. His head was matted with what
had once been luxurious oaken curls, some of which now stuck to his
blanched face. His eyes, a heathery blue, stared at her under
half-drawn lids. A sturdy rope left deep furrows in the little
neck, visible even in the dim light.
Bodies then fell like rain.
Arista watched Hetia spring from tree to
tree.
Like a squirrel,
she thought absently, keeping her
eyes glued to him until he completed the last cut.
All around her, a morgue of children—yes,
twelve—lay in awkward heaps, some staring, some face-down. The
oldest was likely no more than eleven orbits. A low moan filled the
glade. It was an eerie and terrifying sound, and it took her
several moments to realize that it issued from her own lips.
Hetia returned to the ground. “Come,
come.”
He settled Arista upon a fallen log after
brushing away the three digits of snow blanketing it. The frawnite
then stepped out of the woods and began to furrow out a deep,
massive pit using sticks and stones and even his own thick hands.
Eventually, he lined the base with what dry lumber he could
scavenge and unpocketed a small tinder box. It was a grueling task
with his numb and aching fingers, but eventually the sparks lit and
the little flame grew. As he added more fuel, choking gray smoke
billowed up. Arista stared dumbly at the enterprise.
The flames rose steadily until a tremendous
blaze licked the sky. Only then did Hetia begin to haul the limp
bodies to the fire. Little hands and feet splayed out amidst the
mountain of flesh, and their clothing made a patchwork of color
against their blanched skin until it curled and caught. As the meat
seared and began to roast, a rich aroma filled the glade. Hetia did
not pause as he added Ferita to the pile. Her feathers sparked
quickly and shriveled in the heat like tissue paper.
Arista hardly noticed when she vomited.
Hetia eventually returned to her side. He
rubbed her thin limbs with his now warm hands and coaxed her closer
to the fire. She allowed him, although the mound of hot flesh only
further glazed her eyes.
It was just before dawn, as light pinked the
sky but the sun hung back, when Arista finally found herself
shaking, weeping.
“How could you?”
Her mind still reeled from seeing the tiny
scorched bodies over which he had flung the rich forest soil. The
charred scent clung to her nostrils and refused to leave. She knew
it never would.
Hetia drew his strong arm back and brought it
down with a stinging slap. Arista recoiled, her cheek smarting and
her eyes bulging with shock.
“Are you a fool?” Hetia rumbled. His voice
was powerful but controlled. “Can you not see what is before you?
Open your eyes, Arista. It was not a human that strung up those
children.”
He looked around, pensive. “Something is
going on here that I don’t understand.” He met her glance, his
expression firm. “But I see what
can
happen. And I don’t
want a war. Don’t you realize how this could end us all?”
Arista inhaled slowly. She purposefully
peered about as though she had just entered the glade. Her heart
still thundered from the blow, and she cradled her cheek in her
palm, but the pain was better than the cloudy stupor that had
previously wrapped her. She forced herself to close her eyes and
sort through her memories of the night’s events, however
terrible.
The frawnite had been black, seared by the
gruesome death of the black fever. And the little children… They
had swayed gently like ornaments on strings.
I don’t see it.
Well look again, Arista,
she told
herself.
Or you’re going to get another smack.
She glanced around the forest yet again.
Oh.
Arista turned to Hetia. “You can’t really
think that Ferita did this? She was clearly sick with the fever…”
Her voice trailed off in question.
Hetia bore his eyes into hers. “She was the
only winged person for matroles. And certainly the only frawnite
missing from Caladia.”
Again, Arista scraped her vision across the
limbs where the bodies had hung. They towered above the ground. The
boughs would have been nearly impossible for a creature of the land
to reach. Arista shuddered as she finally drew the conclusion Hetia
had within moments.
“But she would never,” Arista said in
horror.
Hetia shrugged. “I didn’t say I understood. I
just know how men would see it.”
“But now what?” Arista asked. She felt more a
fledgling than a grown frawnite.
“We all but cut off our tongues.”
“But—”
“No,” Hetia interrupted, thrusting a finger
toward her face. “No. There is enough misunderstanding between our
peoples. Your wagging tongue need not be the start of a conflict
or—bounty forgotten—a war. No. You will clamp your mouth tight or I
will clamp it for you.”