Eyes in the Water (2 page)

“But their families…” Arista’s eyes slid to
the meticulously concealed grave. The hushed
creak, creak
of
the burdened ropes still resounded in her ears.

“Not a word.” His face softened for a moment.
“At least do it for Ferita. I know she was almost a sister to you.
The shame that this would bring to Relakita… Would you do that to
her?”

Hot tears pooled in Arista’s eyes.

Hetia’s voice hardened again. “And don’t for
a moment think of telling that juile of yours. Do not let your
little wings flick a feather toward that invisible fool, or I will
give you more than just a slap.” His face flushed in determination
and anger. “Not a word.”

Arista’s shoulders sank forward, and she
wept.

To be as one with the world, one must first be as
one within.

This is the first mastery, and the last.

-Genesifin

The pool was now a paltry, unlit spit of water, but
it remained Brenol’s only link to Massada and all he loved. It
haunted his dreams and accosted him with desire. Though he waited
for the concealing hand of darkness, Brenol had crept to Darse’s
abandoned home and the subterranean pool every single night since
he had returned to Alatrice.

Tonight was no different. The young man
hauled the cellar door open with large hands and breathed in the
sugary cool. Even after the passage of four orbits, the place still
poured over him with a reassuring calm, easing away the trials of
the days and septspan and moons. He paused and drank it in before
descending into the dark chill.

Brenol lowered the door behind him with both
the strength of his age and the agility of a long-practiced motion
and stepped down to the water’s edge. The canal remained, so he
knew the portal was open, but it was not the same tunnel he had
first seen. The lights had dimmed and eventually extinguished, and
the magic of the place seemed hazy, like smoke billowing from the
wick of a recently extinguished candle. Yet still he came. Nothing
could deter him from returning to the cellar to breathe and seek
solace.

His face had matured and lengthened over the
orbits, and muscular arms and legs had replaced the lean limbs of
adolescence. The coppery crop was now maintained in a straight
slice just past his shoulders, mimicking the style of the
Veronians. He wore it secured with a small band tied at the nape of
the neck, though wisps escaped as they met the humidity of the
pool. The dark jade eyes still sparked with interest, although now
they seemed to house more mystery—and perhaps pain—than those of
the other young men of Alatrice.

Brenol tapped his fingers lightly against his
thigh, coding out his thoughts. He had ceased to reach for Arman’s
beaded string long ago, after meeting so many raised eyebrows, yet
loath to allow any piece of Massada to slip away from him, he had
instead simply carried the pursuit on in silence.

Steeling himself, he unshod his feet and
waded out into the frigid water until his chest was wet and dark.
He quivered in the cool yet lowered his head under the screen. Just
dipping his toes into the pool was never enough.

Brenol inhaled sharply as he surfaced, his
lips already purpled. The water had chilled with each passing
orbit, though he could not discern why. Long ago, Isvelle’s servant
Gerard had called Lake Ziel the heart of Massada. It pumped life
and warmth amidst the world of ice that surrounded the terrisdans.
But if the heart was growing cold—what then?

He shivered despite himself, thinking of
Colette. The aurenal worked, although Colette was forced to trek to
the Pearia every time she wished to use it. It meant every message
was a gem. The first few moons after his return, communication was
frequent. Colette, taking her pony, journeyed the space to the
river regularly and would often spend several days waterside,
speaking easily about her life and Veronia. But within the season,
the young woman grew quiet, and messages now arrived only every
three or four septspan. She refused to breathe a word about the
happenings in Massada, even when pressed. If he persisted with
questions, the aurenal would be silent for a time, and when her
voice returned, it was only to share pleasantries.

How he had thrown himself into his labors
after such encounters! He had no control, and he felt it down to
the tips of his toes. Work had become a consolation. There, he
could drive his body to the point of exhaustion, even if he could
never forget his discouragement.

Brenol wondered what could be stealing her
speech. He feared for her and yearned to know what troubled her,
and not simply because of his own spurned heart. He loved her and
longed to make her world right. At the same time, the enigma of his
gortei, his oath of protection, was an ever-present reality. It
loomed upon his future, hovering like a vulture patiently biding
its time, observing its approaching feast. He felt the burden of
the gortei with each breath taken. His life was not his own.

Brenol rose quivering from the pool, yet
lingered up to his shins in the icy water. He unpocketed the
aurenal and with adept hands flipped the clasp and cupped the
silver instrument to his ear. He inhaled in anticipation. It was
never a surety that a message would be waiting.

A soft voice escaped the piece. “Bren…it’s
time. Come. Please.” She paused and then continued with
uncharacteristic distress, “I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s
only getting worse. Please come back.” The message concluded as
simply as it had begun, but her strained tone tarried in the
passage for the space of a breath.

What could be wrong? She’s refused to
answer my questions for orbits.
He felt bitterness wash over
him.
Even now she speaks in riddles.

But another voice whispered to him in the
lowest depths of his soul, reminding him that it was not Colette
that consumed him with anger.

Failure. You are a failure,
it
said.

The serpentine voice echoed in him as though
he were but an empty vessel. His hands dropped, dripping, and his
body slumped.

What can I ever do to help
? he thought
in despair.
How can I return now? I don’t understand the
Genesifin. Orbits…and still I sit on that book like an
uncomprehending fool.

How often had he stared at the Genesifin? How
many verses had he memorized in secrecy and solitude?

Suddenly, another worry slapped him:
I
don’t know how to tell my mother.

Without thought, he replied back with hollow
voice, “What do I say to my mother?”

As soon as the words were spoken, his face
flushed with regret. He could not retract anything spoken into the
piece, and now his childish fears were plain. He snapped the
aurenal shut.

Have you not grown at all these last four
orbits? Are you not a man now?

He peered down at his hands as if their size
might convince him. The demanding life of homesteading showed. The
long handling of tools and livestock marked the palms, knuckles,
and finger pads with hard calluses.

Suddenly he chuckled. “Four orbits and I
still can’t get it right,” he muttered softly. “Darsey was right.
It isn’t about me.”

He considered the situation anew, and his gut
wrenched with the sudden realization of the precariousness Colette
must be facing. She had never once requested his return. Not once.
She had barely spoken for orbits, and now her pleading voice was
small and weak. She needed him.

“My cartess,” he found himself
whispering.

Of course I’ll go. I’ll fly.

But he made no move to depart. Instead, he
stared out into the canal as his mind grappled with time, emotion,
place; jumping worlds and lives was not a simple action.

Four and a half orbits. The days had eked by
with the dull monotony of a clock ticking. He had come back from
Massada a different person: more man than boy, pensive and silent,
restless with love, and so out of place he felt he wore someone
else’s boots. His mother had never spoken about the change—or his
absence—but she assessed him with a bizarre, shrewd detachment, her
eyes constantly hovering over him. He had counted the days, hours,
and minutes, fondling the cinereous stone he had scooped up from
the shores of Ziel. Every corner and crevice had been worn smooth
between his fingers, imbued with his musings. Four and a half
orbits.

And still, the Genesifin remained a
mystery.

He had nearly committed the book to memory.
He sometimes felt like a cow with its cud—chewing, chewing,
chewing—wondering if he would ever swallow the knowledge and
comprehend it. Insight was there somewhere, for it
had
to
be, yet the mystery remained obscure. He saw nothing more than page
after page of proverbs and lessons. Nothing about fate or the
workings of the worlds to be discovered in its lines, no magic.
Only allusions and clichés. He was weary of this cud. He ached for
his friends—Arman, Colette, Darse. He ached to belong. He ached to
be part of an adventure again. He ached for his home.

Then why do I wait? Why drip here in the
dark?

He knew the reason, though. He could still
feel the maralane’s reptili eyes hot upon him, and he feared
returning cloaked in the shame of his failure to decipher the book
of fate.

Deniel would’ve known… Wouldn’t he?

He turned the thought over in his mind but in
truth did not know. He no longer held Deniel up on a pedestal. No,
as the orbits had passed, the mysterious man had sunk into Brenol
until the youth knew there could never be a possibility of
separation again. Deniel’s memories felt more like his own than
another’s, and in a way, Deniel
was
him. Brenol was who he
was because of Deniel. It never caused him angst, for Brenol
cherished the man’s memories. They offered him a tie to Colette
that he could never have had otherwise. With them, he could look at
the princess and see her as a whole—both the innocent girl and the
woman she had become following her nightmarish captivity.

Her tree…

Brenol played the memory over again, its
corners as smooth from wear as his pocketed stone. He had pondered
and treasured the scene for orbits. It had come in a flash several
moons after his return to Alatrice. He could not see how, but
Deniel had been in her consciousness, and the power flowing from
the man was astonishing. He had been able to maneuver his mind as
simply as if he were flicking his little finger.

“
My tree?” she asked.

Deniel whispered into her mind, opening her
intuit as gently as the sun unfurls a blossom. She smiled. Her eyes
danced in wonderment.

She stood under her tree and waited. He
waited too. Her tree was lovely: the leaves, the colors, the
scents. It was a symphony of beauty. It blazed his heart up with an
even greater drive to keep her safe.

I will protect her
, he vowed.
My
sister.

A feather, dark as obsidian, floated down,
and Colette lifted it curiously, full of innocence. He watched her
face until he realized intuit had been attained and then withdrew
from her mind.

He waited. It seemed an eternity.

“
What did you see?” he finally asked.
Anticipation danced through him.

She opened her eyes, blinking in the light.
“I am to be Queen of the whole world.”

It hit him with the force of an arrow
bursting through a bull’s-eye.

And yet, it was like he had always
known.

Yes, it is truth.
Everything in his nurest
and prescient senses affirmed it.

He took a breath, allowing all the pieces to
align. His fingers flicked around his own tree and carefully tapped
out the lines and connections and pointed to the symmetry. It all
made so much sense now. All his intuit, his determination, Colette.
The drive to leave his own terrisdan for another. Everything.

I will protect her
,
he reaffirmed
silently.

Brenol had awoken on the floor with his head
throbbing and nausea gripping his ribs—an occasional consequence of
the memory transference—but he had not cared. No, he wept only at
the pain of departing from the memory’s beautiful folds. It had
been so vivid, so perfect.

Deniel’s affection for Colette had always
been fraternal. He was older and had grown up with her. There had
never been a question of romance, but the cartontz impulse to guard
the girl had flowed in every vein and directed every breath. Brenol
had acquired this latter drive along with Deniel’s memories, but he
had always blazed with more. The tree lingered in Brenol’s thoughts
and dreams and stoked his already present love for Colette into a
tremendous fire. He had tried to love the Genesifin, but in the
end, his love was really only for Colette.

All was Colette.

Absentmindedly, Brenol pulled out the small
white manuscript he had forgotten to leave hidden at home. Though
dripping wet, its pages showed no signs of damage. In the dark, it
radiated light, casting beams across the surface of the black
waters and cavern walls.

Strange. I’ve never actually brought this
down here with me…

He rotated the book in his hands, childishly
amused as he manipulated the lights, but when he nonchalantly
opened it, all innocent musings ceased. His breath caught in his
throat with a croak.

There, amidst the mysterious verbiage, upon
the pages that he both treasured and loathed, lay the code he knew
dearly. The code of the juile, as brightly aglow as the
constellations followed by hope-filled sailors, was stamped across
the very text. Sense had been hiding not behind but upon the words
and sentences he had grappled with daily. Pages and pages of coded
light. Pages and pages. Only to be seen here, in the waters. It was
simple—so, so simple.