The Land's Whisper (52 page)

She stared at him blankly.

Deniel’s face softened and he reached over
and scooped her hand into his. “I’ll help. Here.”

Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming sensation
of peace, issuing mysteriously from Deniel, and flooding through
her, first from her palm cupped in his, but then sweetly into every
corner of her being. There was no drive or ability to fight it, for
it was like sinking into a lake without limbs. It was
delicious.

“
Open your eyes,” Deniel’s voice
whispered in her mind.

She opened them and found herself beneath a
tree. It was soaringly tall, its trunk the girth of a slender man,
and spread with variously shaped leaves rustling in a beautiful
movement. At first glance, the leaves appeared pure gold, but as
light reflected from them in their dance, Colette inhaled in
surprise: they were all the colors of the rainbow. The wind
stirred, and the shimmer of color was so gorgeous that it nearly
drew tears to her eyes.

“
Your tree is much more captivating than
mine,” his voice said softly, awed.

“
My tree?” She found she did not speak as
much as let her thoughts float out of her mind. It was a foreign
sensation but not alarming.

“
Your tree. It is you—your mind, your
heart.”

Colette sighed in the wonder of it; this
tree was perfect.

“
Let me show you.”

At first she felt reluctance to leave this
moment of paradise, but the peace again issued into her, and she
collapsed before the flood of it. Her mind was then directed to the
leaves themselves.

“
Look.”

A maple-like golden leaf dangled before her.
It was motionless, but she could see it glinted red in the light. A
scent rose like mist, and she inhaled the perfumes of green grass
and daffodils. As her eyes focused upon it, it became less a leaf
and more a series of pictures. She gasped in delight.

“
A memory!”

Deniel laughed. “Yes, but more. It is a
piece of you. A part of what makes this tree lovely. It is only a
small piece, but when you step back and look at it in its entirety?
It’s something big, something grand.”

She reached her small, childish fingers up
and caressed the leaf. The memory of that summer day ran through
her veins and sent shivers of ecstasy down her spine. She smiled.
Beneath the tree, everything was right. A soft sigh passed her
lips.

Colette did not want to ask but found
herself incapable of holding it in. “But what about the thing I
can’t figure out yet?”

Deniel’s voice was close to a whisper. “Let
the breeze show you.”

Colette waited, happy to have more time to
gaze up at the brilliant rainbow. After a few moments, a light wind
swept through the tree and gently rattled everything to life. She
began to feel a twinge of anxiety yet was soon awash with the peace
that Deniel poured into her.

The wind again brushed up and through the
boughs in a gentle breath. She felt her lips curl into a contented
smile while she watched a feather float down to the moss-clothed
ground. She bent and picked it up, smelling the rich loam that
nestled under the vibrant green.

The feather was a solid black, down to the
calamus, and darker than a juile’s eyes. It was about the size of
her father’s palm and shaped like a pelican’s primary. She allowed
her fingers to sweep across the smooth vanes with closed eyes. It
thrilled her in a different way; she found her mind opening up and
awakening.

Deniel was silent, allowing her to see
without pressure. She opened her eyes and gazed down at the plume.
The truth of it settled into her with a surprising clarity. She
lifted and examined every velvety angle, but the knowledge
continued to resound in her like a gong.

The feather and tree became blurry, and the
world around her smeared until reality settled back into focus. She
blinked in the harshness of the midday light.

“
What did you realize?” he asked her
gently. Deniel’s gaze was curious; he really did not know what she
had seen.

Colette narrowed her eyes, almost afraid to
believe the impossible.

“
What did you see?” he nudged
again.

“
I am to be Queen of the whole
world.”

She flushed in embarrassment and looked
down. Surely, this was a silly dream. She had never even seen this
tree before. Unease crept into her bones like a winter chill.

“
Your cartess,” he whispered to himself.
His eyes glinted with a fierce determination she had never before
witnessed.

“
What does it mean?” she finally asked.
She felt every bit the child.

He smiled broadly. “That’s the fun part. We
wait and see.”

Colette sighed. It was a nightmare that she
had never escaped, and now her mistakes had caused Deniel’s death.
He had saved her for a false promise.

Brenol waited patiently, wondering what
washed through her clearly occupied mind.

Her voice quivered weakly. “But I have no
such purpose. I am without cartess. No creature could be more
cartess-less.” She crept up into her bed and curled her knees to
her chest.

“How do you know that, Colette?”

She rolled over to face him while she spoke.
Her face was haunted, and a brittleness lined every feature. She
whispered in a hollow voice, “Do you know any more than that, Bren?
Was there something he wasn’t saying?”

Hope rested in her eyes. All Brenol had to
do was lie to keep it there, but he knew he could not. He loved her
too much to betray her with falsehood. “No. Nothing.”

She did not erupt as Brenol expected.
Instead, she sighed, and her breath escaped in a tiny whimper.

I killed him. Why’d he believe me? Why’d he
think he needed to save me? Me, Queen? There has never been a queen
over all. Never. I was a foolish child…

She pushed her thin legs off the bed and
stood. “Yes, I know.”

I know what I’ve done,
she thought,
loneliness racking her guilt-ridden soul. She reached over and
clutched Brenol’s hand with her own.

Brenol’s heart lurched slightly. Her hand
was cool to the touch.

She did not speak any more that day.

~

Isvelle’s seal arrived as twilight began to
creep across the land. The sun had tucked her fiery face behind the
horizon, and shadows lengthened while the sky held onto the last
light. Darse had been worrying over the queen’s delay, for her
absence had an abnormal flavor to it.
Why would she not
hasten?
He had held his tongue but still could not help
wondering. The space between the two—mother and daughter—grew
deeper with each passing day, at least in his imaginings.

Isvelle’s truancy was clarified by the thin
envelope laid in his palm. He paid the sealtor with an absent clink
of coins and broke past seal hurriedly.

“Oh,” he said softly.

He raised his gaze to allow the information
to sink in and started in surprise. Colette herself stood at the
side of the empty hall, watching him silently. She did not flinch
at being discovered but remained where she was, following him with
her sharp green eyes.

“Colette?”

She stalked forward slowly. Her motions had
grown more fluid, and her conditioning was clearly working.
“Something is wrong,” she said.

Seeing her hollow expression, Darse quickly
waved his hand in negation. “She’s fine. She’s alive. Your mother
was simply injured in travel. Several broken ribs before even
reaching Garnoble. She was forced to return to Sleockna.”

“Oh.” Color began to return to her cheeks,
but her features remained crestfallen.

“Are you all right?” Darse asked gently.

She nodded tersely and lifted a finger.
Darse followed its direction to the waiting sealtor. “Do you have
reply?”

“Oh.” He fumbled his fingers across his
pockets in search of paper, but finding none, simply fished out his
small wooden pencil and wrote in the space below Isvelle’s brief
words.

I will bring her. I’ll send seal once we can go.
-Darse

He folded the smooth sheet back along its
original creases and extended it out to the sealtor. The man viewed
him skeptically, making no move to take the note. “It is not a seal
until stamped.”

“Is it necessary?”

The sealtor’s face contorted in exasperation
until Colette interrupted with a burst of motion. She plucked up
the note and approached the man. “You have spares, yes?”

He straightened in an air of
professionalism. “Yes. Of course.”

“May I select?”

He swept a swift hand into his satchel and
drew out a rectangular wooden box. It was about the span of a hand
and at least three digits thick. She sat down to peruse the pieces,
and Darse leaned forward in interest. Within lay at least fifty
shiny seal markers, each about the size of a silver half-freg, with
a tiny fingerboard upon the back with which to grasp. They clicked
softly as metal kissed metal under her roving fingers.

“Here,” Colette said. She nearly touched the
piece with her nose as she lowered her head in examination. She
glanced up to the sealtor.

“I only have gray wax,” he said
apologetically.

She nodded. He plucked out a thin cylinder
the hue of smoke and slid it easily into a thimble with a slender,
flat handle. The sealtor held the instrument over the flame of the
candle he had procured during her selection and proceeded to melt
the wax. Once it shone in its familiar gleam, he dribbled it deftly
upon the letter flaps, and waited for Colette to press her choice
into the cooling liquid. She pulled the piece up, revealing a
delicate image of a rose, and gently returned it to its wooden
home.

Darse handed further currency to the man and
watched him collect his items and steal a last glance at the
dark-haired beauty before striding purposefully from the hall.

“I’m going to take you back to Veronia,
Colette. Once the healers say you are well enough. If you are okay
with that,” Darse said as he turned back to the young woman.

The lunitata dipped her head in
acknowledgement, her countenance somber. “The umbus want another
septspan or two of strengthening.”

Darse nodded. “I want to wait for Ordah,
too. I need to send Bren back through the portal, at least for a
time.”

Colette did not offer a reply, other than a
morose glance, and padded away in the silence of her thoughts.

It is difficult to perceive danger amidst the
wreckage of evil.

Yet to miss it would be absolutely fatal.

-Genesifin

Brenol smiled joyfully at the sight of
Colette. He had not seen her much for several days. Though he had
wondered about her reaction to the tidings of Isvelle, he had been
unwilling to pry. Colette had so little to herself; he could wait
until she was ready.

“Walk. Let’s walk,” Colette said.

He pulled back the tapestry and glanced out
the small window. The mist had passed over that morning, and
afternoon light spread out upon the courtyard like a welcoming
blanket. The ground would be smooth and the breeze gentle. He
nodded and trailed her through the cool, clean corridors to the
gardens.

Outside, she did not utter a word. He felt
all the loneliness from the last few days melting away by simply
sharing in her presence. He glanced over to her and saw strain in
her thin cheeks. He checked his pace to even with hers, and a
simple realization came to him: he was beginning to understand and
read this young woman, and with every piece gained, he longed for
still more. Try as he might, he could not deny the depth of his
feelings for Colette.

“You can ask,” he said gently.

Colette gave no indication of surprise. She
turned her head and dropped his hand. Her face creased in concern.
“Do you mind when I ask you about Deniel? I-I…”

Brenol thought briefly. Had the two been in
love, Brenol might have felt differently, but as their bond was
more like siblings, he relished being near Colette when she probed
his mind and memories. He shook his head and replied honestly. “No.
Not at all.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Really,” he said. “It doesn’t bother
me.”

His face must have convinced her of the
truth, for she exhaled in relief. “Ok. Thanks. Because Bren? I have
something I can’t move out of my head. I-I just feel like I need to
see something. Something important.” Colette’s nose scrunched up
and her eyes became thin slits.

“What is it?” he asked with a smile. “I
think we can figure it out.”

“Mmm.” Colette looked down, staring at the
warm, turfed ground as she perused her memory. “You remember how
you told me about Deniel’s memory of the house? Of the crates? And
of him holding me and feeding me? Well, I have pieces of the other
side of those memories—my own—but they are pretty muddled…

“I have this picture that I can’t seem to
forget. It’s the inside of a box… I’m in it. And I wait for ages
and ages, aching, so sleepy, but unable to move or speak. So
sleepy. I’m alone and it’s hazy, like time is standing still but
going on forever…” She looked up to Brenol briefly. “I keep
thinking this cannot be a real memory. It must have been the drugs,
but I cannot wipe those pictures in my mind. That
box
.” She
shuddered, and the word echoed with the hatred of her
confinement—real or imagined. “The box. But then Deniel came. He
took me out. And he carried me—my legs were worthless. And he fed
me…”

Colette’s eyes showed relief at being able
to share her burden, but she longed to know she was no lunatic.

“The box,” Brenol mumbled, scanning through
the memory of the strange house. Suddenly, Brenol’s insides
lurched. His voice sharpened into a near-bark. “What did it look
like?”

Her eyes flashed defensively.