Welcome to Gaia! ::

Note to readers:

There are two rules.

A) Read Ametris first. There is no point in not reading Ametris first. It is in the Completed Works forum and is prettily organized and everything. So read it. And comment. I worked hard. This is the sequel.

B) A LOT OF s**t HAS BEEN GOING ON LATELY. DO NOT, I repeat, DO not, EXPECT ME TO REGULARLY UPDATE THIS. I HAVE FIVE STORIES GOING AT ONCE AND AM DEALING WITH ISSUES AND THOUGH THIS IS MY MAIN PRIORITY, IT DOES NOT ALWAYS GET THE ATTENTION YOU WANT IT TO.

and
C) There are no rules. The only things holding us back are the laws of physics. And they're more like guidelines anyway.

All right.

Now this story is very graphic. Lots of blood and violence and bunches of swearing. Most of the swearing is in another language, but stuff like "******** (something)" just doesn't sound right in Sirteman.



Preface

Evil never takes a breath, and yet it never truly dies.
Evil never takes a rest; as bodies sleep its mind still flies,
Imagines deeds as yet undone, brutality we’ve not yet known
Such bloody scenes it masters as we puppets follow them below.

Foolish chosen, seek it not, run away for your own sake
Evil lurks behind you always, watches as you take the bait.
So innocent and free of pain—some things are meant to stay unseen
Hide from evil, shake with fear, pray it’s only been a dream….


It was a question that everyone in Sirtema wanted to know, that everyone should have known, and that very few people knew the answer to.

How did Tyrranen become the queen of Sirtema?

The story behind that was vague and ambiguous. All firsthand witnesses were either killed or sworn to secrecy. But somehow, the truth gets out.

The truth, as it happened, was bloody and gruesome enough to satisfy the most bloodthirsty of the naturally warlike Sirtemans. But, being who they were, blood and gore and torture just weren’t enough for them. A story was not a story unless it contained romance, scandal, drama, epic battles, and then bloody massacres. And since Tyrranen was of a foreign race, the heathen religion of Ïlanarda must make an entrance as well.

With all of those little necessities, it was no wonder that the story was altered, edited, and warped beyond recognition before it had even left Variah’s walls.

According to many Sirtemans, Tyrranen was an advocate of hell; she appeared in female form at midnight outside the castle and used her dark heathen magic to slaughter the guards inside the castle—anyone that stood in her way perished, died a horrible death for their loyalty. Then she trapped the king in his bedroom and fought him; he resisted her valiantly, but then she started to sing and perform a twisting dance, and seduced him, took away his willpower, made him promise that he would share his kingdom with her. He was even forced to sign a demon contract with his own blood, and offered her his silver crown, so deluded was he from her twisted song and dance.

Once it was signed, she then dove upon him and sucked the life out of him, tearing his heart out of his chest and devouring it. Then she did the same to his family, one by one, leaving only shattered pieces of bloody corpse behind. By then, the castle guard had discovered her; they surrounded her in a room and fired round after round of arrows and spears and knives at her, determined to leave no trace of her existence.

But with a wave of her hand she stopped the missiles in midair, setting them aflame until they crumbled into dust; and when all their weapons were gone, turned to dust by her dark powers, she sang her song again and danced the wicked dance, like the dreamersϾ of old, and lured them into a trance.

She looked into their hearts and saw all the men and their thoughts; the ones with any hope and goodness and strength in them, she fell upon and stole his essence. And then the rest, the ones with hearts black enough to follow her without resistance, she forced to serve her under pain of death, and took to the throne. She owned the army, and the army was Sirtema; and thus she became their queen.

This is the story, or one of them; it is ridiculous and melodramatic, as well as biased. It is easy to see how discriminatory the Sirtemans can be of the Ïlanardans; their pride makes them vain. And all of their true Sirteman warriors, of course, would rather die a horrible death than serve an evil temptress. But the Sirtemans are judgmental; the world for them is divided into black and white, and they reject any shades of grey. They don’t realize; there are subtler ways to coerce a man to fight for an unjust cause. And there are methods of and reasons for power that they and their warlike—passionate, but misguided—hearts could never imagine.

There are facts that both support and reject this story; or rather, the story was built on, with, and often in spite of the facts. Regardless, they can’t be ignored. The flags and crests left to burn in the city square. The new insignia on a red background waving from the castle’s turrets; tattooed onto the collarbones of soldiers; welded on armor and swords and painted on windows; burned onto the shoulders of rebels and criminals and dismissed soldiers. The new laws and commands; the vicious punishments for the disobedient. The grotesque soldiers’ bodies dangling from their own spears in front of the castle gates, left there to be claimed and buried by family or to rot.

No one ever got to see the royal family’s mangled bodies. A few loyal soldiers burned them before they were caught, tortured, and burned as well—slowly, alive.

But the evidence remained. The proof was dangling in plain sight, as obvious as the corpses swaying in the wind.

The king was dead. And in his place was a monster.


Ͼ Dreamers: A Sirteman race of legend said to be, originally, elves who were possessed by restless spirits of the dead and eventually became spirits themselves; they are invisible unless they want to be seen, usually taking the form of a beautiful woman or handsome man and appearing to the opposite sex. They usually linger in lonely places, drifting and singing, and seduce lone travelers with their songs and strange dancing. They long for love, and find it in every traveler they appear to; but then they despair that they have no body, and slay their victim, hoping that perhaps they will become a Dreamer too.

I like this beginning even tho you call it a prologue i call it a beginning since its the first thing the readers shall read. I like how grotesque and depressing it is with the beginning of Tyrannen. It shows sorta that her people were misjudged and perhaps we do not know quite enough about them yet... Excellent work!! ooh and nice ideas to Sam.

Chapter one starts down there somewhere. This is a crappy beta version.


All right, guys, back to frustrating Kirby and her sucky posting. No spacing. No italics. DEAL.

Chapter One: A Start

The sun was just beginning to rise; the forest glowed with a faint aquamarine light, the sun illuminating the sky inch by inch as it lightened from black to dark, gentle blue.
Kamilé and Everan shivered in the snow frosting the grass of a huge clearing miles away from anywhere. The location had been carefully planned, hidden, and protected by as many diversions, deviations, and traps as possible…without Nara’s help it would have been almost impossible to find, let alone arrive in. The Elite obviously did not want to be found.
Helas, the undisputed leader, sat amiably on a fallen log, his sister Aridella as always by his side.
“Good morning, chosen,” he said with a polite smile.
Kamilé yawned. She wasn’t used to getting up early, and felt like beating Everan to a bloody mess for waking her up before sunrise when she told him to leave her alone. He, on the other hand, though he didn’t show it, was clearly excited; she could feel it buzzing annoyingly around in his head.
‘Morning,” she said for both of them, her voice slow and blurry. Shut up, she added grumpily to her twin.
If he had been normal in the least, he would have been jumping up and down and babbling in agitation. Aren’t you excited at all? Don’t you have any IDEA what’s going on, Kamilé?
No, she snapped. An’ I’m sick of wakin’ up an’ followin’ grownups ‘round ‘llover the place….
Kamilé, this is huge! he insisted, his fingers tensing and relaxing spasmodically, subtly revealing his nerves. There’s some kind of war going on, can’t you tell, and we’re right in the middle of it, they want us to fight, they’re going to teach us in like, five minutes! Aren’t you nervous? Doesn’t that bother you at all?
Well NOW, Kamilé moaned. How’re we gonna learn to fight? It’s too cold today…and I’m tired….
They can’t do it in one day, he said reasonably. Then he thought for a moment. Kamilé, what we learn today might affect the whole country….
Kamilé groaned inwardly; she wasn’t in the mood for profound revelations. Shut uuuuup, Everan!
He smiled, mentally, at the disgruntled look on her face. Okay, okay. But he was noticeably sobered after that; the weight of an entire country rested on his mind. Kamilé thought he was being stupid.
This entire conversation took place in a few seconds, as they waited for Helas to respond.
“I thought, today,” he said, “we’d just take it easy.”
Kamilé nodded and yawned again. Everan frowned as he looked for the catch.
Helas gestured to the clearing. “I suppose Nara has told you about this place. This is where we will be training you. It’s about as safe as a clearing can be…and you’ve got us. We’ll keep you safe, at least until you can keep yourselves safe.”
Then what? Everan wanted to know. Kamilé sighed and repeated the question. Helas smiled.
“Well, then we’ll be relying on you, won’t we?”
That didn’t appear to make Everan feel any better.
Helas continued. “I thought, maybe, that we’d just take the time to get to know each other today. How does that sound?”
Don’t tell him anything, Everan said at once.
Shut UP, Everan! Kamilé grumbled. YOU try talking to him for once….
That quieted him; he owed her for that much. They stood—as they usually did, without even trying—so close that their shoulders touched; Everan reached behind their backs and secretly touched her hand, just for her to know about. She squeezed his hand and refused to let it go.
“How would you guys like some breakfast?” Helas inquired. “What about a fire?”
“Yes, please,” Kamilé said eagerly. Perhaps he’d offer a nap next, that would be nice.
Helas smiled ruefully, as if sorry for tricking them. “Why don’t you two do it for us? We want to see how much you know.”
Kamilé scowled at his dirty trick. Helas looked concerned.
“Do you know how to?” he asked. He looked dismayed, as if they were a lot more hopeless than he had thought.
Kamilé thought about it. “Everan does.”
Helas frowned. “Well, go on then,” he said thoughtfully. “Show me.”
Kamilé was about to object—they were the grownups, why didn’t they make their own damn fire?—but Everan stopped her. Just c’mon, Kamè, he said, taking her hand and leading her into the woods. They heard Helas and Aridella arguing about something; then there was only the muffled, sleepy silence of the forest in wintertime. Their footsteps crunched in the snow, deafening to their sensitive ears. All was still and quiet around them.
That wasn’t nice, Kamilé muttered.
He’s doing the best he can, I guess. He felt bad about the other Elite making us jump through hoops….
Huh?
They’re testing us, Kamilé. That’s all.
Oh…like Marli does? Used to… she corrected herself.
Sort of. They’re trying to see how much we can do…they have to…. I guess the fire, and the food…they want us to know survival skills…deities, it’s the dead of winter too….
What do we do then? Kamilé bit her lip as she tried to think.
Don’t worry. It’s not impossible. You know I’ve done it before.
Are we gonna steal?
No need to. It won’t be tasty, but that’s not important.
Kamilé made a face but chose not to comment; such was life.
Everan told her to walk a few yards away, parallel to him, and look for dry wood. She found a few chunks of a dead log that were only a little damp; when she met up with Everan, he too had an armful of wood, though his was completely dry. He told Kamilé to carry an additional handful of dry leaves he’d found in a knothole in a tree, and set his wood in her lap while he dug in the ground with his knife. By some miracle, he found several dirty, frozen lumps, which he said were edible; then he saw fit to return to the camp.
He didn’t even look at the Elite; he knew he was being observed and judged, and worked quickly and diligently. He made sure, for reasons Kamilé didn’t understand, that she helped out too, so it appeared that both of them were sharing the work equally. In reality, Everan was the only one who had a clue as to what he was doing.
They cleared the two-foot-deep snow off a small circle of ground, dug a shallow hole, and dumped a few chunks of wood and the dead leaves into it; then Everan pulled a piece of flint from his pocket and started to strike it with his knife, creating several small flurries of sparks. Kamilé stayed very far away for this part; rocks and fire, together? No way.
The sparks caught; the leaves smoked, then burned; the wood was set aflame, and just like that, they had a small, very smoky fire.
Everan tossed one of the roots to Helas, another to Kamilé, and dumped the rest into his bag. Kamilé gnawed at the lump without enthusiasm; the outer layer tasted like dirt, and the inside layers like very crunchy dirt. Helas stared at his.
“What’s this?”
“Breakfast,” Kamilé replied, making a face.
He blinked. He didn’t seem to know what to say; nor did anyone else. “Ah,” he said politely, “did you want some hot breakfast?”
Everan sighed, took a burning stick from the fire, shoved one end through Helas’s root—Helas jumped; the stick barely missed his hand—and handed him the other end. Helas blinked again.
“Oh.”
Everan prodded the fire without a word, his apathy undisturbed. Helas made another brave effort.
“Really, you two…is this it?”
Everan nodded. Helas stared.
“Are you sure? You’re just going to eat it raw? Without even washing it?”
Everan rolled his eyes, grabbed the stick again, and shoved the root into the snow. Make up your mind, he muttered.
Kamilé succeeded in biting a piece off of the frozen lump and sucked on it. She pulled a face; Everan pulled one right back. Food is food, he told her firmly.
Food is food, Kamilé mimicked bad-temperedly, doesn’t have to be tasty as long as it keeps you alive, blah blah blah—! She spat the piece of root at him; it struck him on the shoulder. He scowled. This—isn’t—food! she said grumpily.
You’d like it if you were starving, he said calmly, brushing his shoulder off.
Helas laughed; they both turned around. He shrugged and turned his eyes to his food, prodding it, frowning, wiping a patch clean and chewing at it. He grimaced.
“It’s not very good,” he muttered.
Everan sighed. For the best warriors in the country, he commented dryly, they’re not very smart.
Do you…. Kamilé bit her lip. D’you want me to tell them that? It’s not very nice….
No, it’s fine. They probably know it anyway. They’re just annoying me.
Oh. Okay.
There was a silence. The Elite were watching Helas, waiting for him to say what they were thinking. He sighed, and did so.
“Well, Chosen…this is disappointing.”
Everan rolled his eyes. Who asked you? he said irritably. You cook.
He’s right, Kamilé vouched, sticking her tongue sadly at her “breakfast”. I miss Nara’s food….
She paused and shrank back as Everan gave her a cold look, staring down his nose. Do you remember being poor, Kamilé? he said severely. And going hungry? And shivering under a blanket in the middle of the winter, freezing and starving?
She flushed and looked down. Yeah….
Then don’t complain.
She nodded guiltily. ‘M sorry….
That’s all right, he said magnanimously, adding another branch to the fire. And anyway, they’ll probably give us—
“Are they talking?” Dæomna interrupted excitedly.
Everan closed his eyes, keeping his temper in check. Deities above, he muttered, those idiots.
“Yes,” Nara replied calmly. “Kamilé and Everan are telepathic.”
“Good gods,” Dæomna breathed. “Automatically? That’s amazing! Are they magical?”
“I don’t know,” Helas said patiently, “I’m still trying to figure that out. Chosen,” he added politely, “can you or have you ever done magic?”
“You mean the sparkly stuff?” Kamilé frowned.
“Yes, that,” Helas nodded. Aridella gave him a skeptical look.
“No,” Kamilé said firmly. “No,” she said again, her voice trembling a bit. Everan gave her a concerned look. “Do you…?” she added hesitantly, staring at her breakfast, “do you do magic?”
“We all can,” Helas informed her. “The best of us is Nara—”
“No, no,” Nara objected, “Aridella is better than I am—”
“Who’s also incredibly modest,” he completed, amused. “Just watching her daughter is enough to prove it….” He faltered as Kamilé stared in horror into space. “What’s wrong?”
“Why?” she said, in a small, choked voice. “Why…why do you do it…?”
Everan looked absolutely alarmed now; Helas blinked at her before replying.
“Chosen, have you ever seen magic before?”
Kamilé shuddered. “Y-Yeah,” she whispered, “it’s…it’s what…made us come…here….”
Helas frowned. “I see,” he said slowly. “Do you mind telling us what happened?”
She shook her head violently, at once; but Everan placed a hand on her arm to stop her. I think we should, Kamè, he told her softly. I’ll tell you what to say, okay? You don’t have to think about it if you don’t want to.
She sighed, nodding; she opened her mouth and said what Everan told her to.
“Well, it was summer…the 7th…and…and there was this festival—”
“The Ametrisan Unity Festival?” Raena interrupted gleefully. “Wow! So you really have that? What’s it like? It’s mentioned in history books, but—”
Helas turned and gave her a stern look; and though they were the same age, and he looked younger, she immediately fell silent, bowing in apology.
“It was our birthday,” Kamilé told them, and their expressions softened at once. “And…when it got dark, Everan an’ me…we were gonna trade presents, like always, but then….”
Up until then, she had tried not to rely on Everan to speak for her; but now she found herself unable to speak. Everan took pity on her and gave her the words to say.
“Tyrranen was there, just down the street. We confronted her; she had stolen the Heart of Ametris. We stole it back, but then she hit m—us,” Kamilé amended firmly, and Everan blinked, “with magic…and we were here.”
Several of the adults made a noise as if to ask questions, but Helas raised a hand, and they fell silent. “Would it be difficult for you to answer our questions?” he asked Kamilé quietly, and she immediately felt like hugging him. Yes, she wanted to answer, yes yes yes— but Everan wouldn’t let her.
If we’re going to tell them, they have to understand, he reasoned. Maybe they can help us get back….
Kamilé sighed, resigned, and shook her head. “It’s okay,” she murmured.
“Thank you,” Helas said politely. “Could you tell me, please, what color the magic was?”
She nodded. “Dark purple,” she told him; of course she remembered that, if anything at all….
Helas frowned. “I’m sorry, but…was it dark purple, or purple mixed with black?”
She thought about it. Everan answered for her. “Mixed with black,” she said, and shuddered, for a reason she couldn’t define.
At least half of the Elite made a face; Helas, however, remained composed. “Did she use any other magic?”
Kamilé nodded.
“What color was it?”
“Lots of ‘em,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “Orange…and red…and….”
“And all of it definitely had a color?” he pressed.
She nodded. Several of the adults shared dubious glances.
“I see. Can you tell us what Tyrranen looked like?”
Kamilé described her in detail, helped by Everan; the more she told them, the darker their expressions grew. Finally, she trailed off, wondering if she had said something bad without meaning to.
After a long, sickening silence, Helas spoke. “Yes,” he sighed. “That’s her. How did she introduce herself?”
“She said…she was Tyrranen from Variah, and our queen…but we told her…Ametris doesn’t have queens,” she murmured. Everan nudged her, indicating that she should be bolder; she wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Helas and Aridella shared a look. The others looked nervous. “I see,” Helas said eventually, in deep thought. “And you arrived…when? And where?”
“I dun—” Kamilé muttered, looking away, but then Raena interrupted.
“I found them on the 27th,” she informed them all. “They were a couple of leagues south of Varan, following the river north.”
“Interesting,” Helas said, almost to himself. “And how did you know to follow the river, Chosen?”
“It’s the same,” Kamilé told him. “Ametris and…and this place…they’re the same. There’s a river, and a tree, and a forest…and….”
Helas blinked. He seemed surprised, as did most of the Elite; some, however, like Aridella and Khyáro, seemed to have given up making sense out of it all; Aridella was glaring into the forest, annoyed about something, as Khyáro fiddled with something on his belt.
“I’m not familiar with Ametris,” Helas admitted to them. “I think, for now, we’ll focus on other things. For example…what can you do, Chosen?”
“Huh?” Kamilé inquired.
“Is there anything special that you can do? Maybe a physical skill…no…?” He saw that she was still confused, and rephrased. “All right, then…is there anything you’ve noticed that makes you different from other kids your age?”
Both twins scowled. Everan refused to offer anything, so Kamilé told him herself: “Yeah, lots.”
“Like what?” he said, intrigued.
“Well,” she said in a small voice, remembering all too well what trouble their differences had caused, “we don’t have parents…and Everan doesn’t talk, and I’m…I’m not smart,” she said to her boots, her cheeks and eyes burning simultaneously, “and we…we’re really….” She swallowed. “None of them liked us,” she half-whimpered, blinking hard as hot tears spilled over her cheeks. Everan bit his lip, unsure what to do; he squeezed her hand, trying to comfort her, but she still couldn’t stop.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Helas said quietly. “Not everyone; there had to have been someone—”
“Actually, it’s perfectly believable,” Raena interrupted matter-of-factly. “Chosen just have an air around them; you either respect them, or you hate them. It’s happened every time before.”
Kamilé let out a sob. Everan glared at Raena.
“Oh,” Helas said. Then he cleared his throat and turned to face Raena. “Well, since you’re the expert on chosen,” he said amiably, “can we just ask you the questions and save the chosen the distress?”
“Certainly,” Raena agreed unsmilingly.
“Good,” said Helas, “thank you. But that’s later. For now….”
Everan nudged Kamilé, concerned; with an effort, she controlled herself and stifled any further sobs. She scrubbed at her eyes and looked shyly up at Helas, to answer whatever other questions he had. He smiled at her, then addressed them both.
“All of us have decided that the most important thing that needs to be done is to be sure that you two are on the same level as us. Ametrisans and Sirtemans are raised in entirely different ways—people know more about their own county than places believed to be fictional in any case. It is essential for you to learn what we know about Sirtema, so you can better understand how to help us and how we work. That’s why we’ve enrolled you in school.
“But there are some things schools don’t teach you, like survival skills…weaponry… basic defense…magic…. A whole list of things that, being Ametrisan, you probably won’t know anything about. So you’ll learn all about geography and history and politics in school, while we fill in the gaps—we’ll teach you how to fight with a sword and a bow, we’ll teach you healing, battle tactics, defensive skills, we’ll train your bodies and your minds until you are more than capable of doing what we need you to do. And if there is anything you need, we’ll give to you, no matter what it is, as thanks.”
Everan’s attention sharpened, his eyes narrowing, as he heard this last bit. “Anything?” Kamilé said for him—for them both.
Helas nodded, a very serious look in his eyes. “Anything. You are our chosen. There are no limitations.”
Kamilé nodded; Everan ran his fingers through his hair, thinking hard. Kamilé tried to follow it and repeat it to Helas, but she couldn’t keep up; thoughts were bouncing around his head like lightning in a bottle, flickering from one corner to the next too quickly for anyone but him to comprehend. At times like these, Kamilé could readily understand how much Everan had to limit himself every day—just to talk to her, he had to slow himself to a frustrating pace; he might as well have tied boulders to his feet.
After only a handful of seconds, he had his answers. He repeated them slowly to Kamilé, several times, so she could convey them properly; as he did, she could sense his nervousness, his agitation. She thought about that herself, then came to her own conclusions.
“Can we change our minds later?” she asked Helas. “If we forgot something maybe?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. We are at your command.”
She blushed a little as she replied, “’Kay, thanks,” and then told Everan, who was surprised at her question, There, see, Everan? It’s not that big of a deal.
He frowned slightly. Tell him what we want, Kamilé, please.
Okay…. “Then, we want…protection,” she told Helas, concentrating. She noticed, blinking in confusion, that Nara was writing this down. “We want to know that we have a place to stay and people to protect us whenever we’re with you. We want to be sure that you can give us food and shelter and safety as long as we still need it. And we want to know that we can still have that if we leave and come back—and if we need to be fed or guarded or healed, you’ll take care of us.”
Helas looked over his shoulder to be sure Nara had written it all down; then, seeing that she had, he glanced at his sister, who nodded, then turned back to the twins, looked them both in the eye, and said, “Absolutely.”
“Thank you,” Kamilé said politely, but then Everan reminded her that there was more. “And, um….”
“Is there something else?” Helas inquired.
“Yes.”
“Name it, please,” he said, beckoning her to go on with his hand.
Kamilé nodded, taking a deep breath and focusing on the words Everan had placed in her head. “We also want to ask you—are we obligated to help you?”
“Absolutely not,” Helas said firmly. “It is purely from your own discretion. We simply want you to know that we will completely rely on your help if you choose to give it; we cannot win this war on our own.”
“Good, then,” Kamilé said vaguely, lost; Everan would have to explain it to her later. “But—will you only teach us these things, or give us what we want, in return for helping you?”
“We want to help you out as much as we possibly can, for nothing at all in return,” Helas assured them. “Whether you help us or not, we want you to have the skills to protect yourselves in this country—and we want you to have everything you need.”
“But you said earlier that you would give us what we want as thanks,” Kamilé said, feeling guilty for being so pushy.
“That’s true,” Helas agreed. “But not as thanks for winning us this war, or even helping at all…it’s more as thanks for being alive and well.” He smiled at them. “You have no idea how much hope you have restored to us, Chosen…just by standing in front of us.”
Kamilé flushed harder than ever. “Oh…ah…hold on.” She started a little as Everan asked her another question; then froze as she understood what it was. “If we…” she said slowly, “if we fought, but we…didn’t choose your side…then what?”
Helas raised an eyebrow. “You mean, if you decided to fight with Tyrranen, against us?”
Kamilé nodded, wondering why in the world Everan was asking such a stupid question. “Would you hurt us?” she asked softly.
Helas shook his head. “No,” he told them. “Chosen, this was what I meant by knowing what Sirtemans know…any decent Sirteman, any one of them, would give you anything you want, simply because you are present, you are alive. You are…you are the central part of our religion. We believe that you bring good luck to those who venerate you, and that you bring death to those who challenge you. All Sirtemans are raised to await the chosen’s return, and to honor them—no, worship, really; we consider you as gods. Now that I’ve met you two, I’m almost positive that you’re mortal…and I mean no disrespect, but you two certainly aren’t gods. But you’re still the chosen; and it’s my pleasure and my duty as a Sirteman to do what I can for you, and trust your judgment—if you think that Tyrranen’s side is the right one, then I’ll fight alongside you; and if you think that I’m in the wrong, then I’ll follow whatever you say to make everything right again. That’s what any decent Sirteman would do.”
“We want you to understand,” Aridella added softly, “that we can hardly expect you to join our, ah…army,” she said, making a face. “Though we desperately need fighters like the chosen in past centuries, I’ll admit. We know you’re young and you have no obligation to help this country. But Sirtema, you see, is divided…we’ll have to set aside a time in the near future to show you just how much Tyrranen has done. Our country is split in half—half are on her side, and the other half…well, they aren’t, but only a very small portion are actually willing to do something to stop her, and that’s us. We were hoping…even if you didn’t fight, if we could make it known that we had the chosen on our side…if people could see you, and know where you stand…we were hoping that you could bring Sirtema back together. Because, you see…as my brother said, any true Sirteman couldn’t righteously choose to fight against you. It’s just not what we are. We may be violent and crude and rough and bloodthirsty like people say we are, but we know who our allegiance belongs to. Just remember…please, that you don’t actually have to fight anybody…it’s your choice.”
Kamilé’s head was spinning. She passed no comment; she merely said what Everan told her to say.
“Thank you—but we’re still not sure what we want to do yet. We wanted to decide after we’ve been trained….”
“That’s perfectly fine,” Helas said calmly. “We will wait.”
“But there were some other things…” Kamilé said carefully. “That we wanted.”
“What are they?” Helas asked. “Please, tell us.”
“We…we want to learn everything we can about the chosen. In Ametris, no one knew anything…it was a forbidden subject. It’s what we are, and we know nothing about it…we want to know everything you know.”
“I can help you with that,” Raena said at once, before Helas could even open his mouth. He paused, then nodded.
“Yes, Raena does know more than anybody about that. We’ll arrange something. It’s no trouble, Chosen, we’ll teach you anything you want to know.”
“Thanks,” Kamilé said, frowning a little. “And….”
Nara arched her eyebrows, having already filled several inches of the parchment with their requests. It’s not my fault! she wanted to shout.
“Yes?” Helas said patiently.
Kamilé heard what Everan wanted…and sighed. “We want to go home,” she said simply. “We want to know how to go back….”
Helas bit his lip. He glanced at Aridella, who shook her head; then he beckoned Nara over, and they had a small, whispered conversation before she returned to her place and Helas turned back to them.
“We don’t know how to do that,” he said, with an apologetic look.
Everan tensed beside Kamilé; Is he lying? he asked at once.
No, she replied, confused. He’s tellin’ the truth.
Everan scowled at the snow. They have to know something…how did the other chosen get back?
Kamilé pondered, then repeated the question aloud. Helas’s expression darkened.
“Most of them…by dying. At least, as far as we know. Kilio and Tara died, I know…their daughter disappeared, one day she just left and no one ever heard from her again…I’m not entirely sure. Raena?”
“I’d have to look it up,” she said slowly, thinking. “But as far as I know, nearly half got back by dying…the second chance, you know. But I suppose you two wouldn’t want to try that?”
Everan shook his head, his scowl becoming more pronounced.
“Then I’ll do some research. There has to be some kind of magic….”
“Yes, that’s right,” Aridella interrupted. “Wasn’t that how you got here? Magic of some kind?”
Kamilé glanced at Everan, who gave her the same kind of look right back; how were they supposed to know. Neither of them knew what to say, so they shrugged.
“Well, it was Tyrranen that brought you here, wasn’t it?” Helas said reasonably. “So maybe, if you can help us defeat her, you can make her tell you…if it was some kind of magic, we’ll do what we can to help.”
Manipulative, Everan muttered.
Huh?
He’s trying to sell us into his army. He wants us…a lot. But he thinks it’s more than his life’s worth to try and force two chosen to do anything…wow, Kamilé, he added softly. We have a lot of power here….
She chose not to say anything; she merely informed him that she was very confused and he’d have to explain everything to her later. He promised he would.
“We’ll help you find a way,” Helas added; barely three seconds had passed. “We’ll try the best we can, so you can leave whenever you like…but I would appreciate if you understood that it won’t be easy, and our attention is divided.”
“It’s fine,” Kamilé said for Everan. “We’re just worried about our safety.”
“It doesn’t sound,” Aridella said smoothly, “like Ametris was very safe either.”
“Della…” Helas warned her in an undertone.
Everan frowned. She doesn’t seem to want to worship us very much, he noted. She’s smart, though, I’ll give her that.
Kamilé passed no comment. Instead, she said, “Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s our home.”
She wasn’t sure whose thought it was. Probably Everan’s; she had no desire to return to Kocha anytime soon.
“All of this can be decided at another time,” Helas interjected, keeping the peace. “But, for now…is there anything else you need, Chosen?”
Kamilé was sorely tempted to say, Food, and a nap, a really long nap, but Everan wouldn’t let her; instead, he shook his head.
“Thank you for letting us know,” Helas said brightly, as if he could think of nothing more pleasurable than fulfilling the ridiculous demands of two eleven-year-olds. “If there’s anything else you need, please don’t hesitate to tell us.”
“’Kay,” Kamilé murmured, fully feeling the lost hours of sleep now; all this confusion was making her tired and grumpy. What just happened? she asked Everan.
I’ll explain it all later, he promised. I’m sorry, he added unexpectedly. This isn’t really fair to you.
Oh…ah…it’s okay, she mumbled; she never knew quite what to say when he apologized.
“Chosen?” Helas asked them politely. “Can I ask you a few more questions?”
“S-Sure,” Kamilé stammered nervously.
“We wanted to know—can you survive on your own all right? I mean, do you think that if we left you alone in the woods, you could find food and shelter well enough?”
“Yep,” Kamilé yawned, feeling that it was obvious; why bother asking if they already knew?
“Really? Because that would help us a lot,” Helas told them, relieved. “But, may I ask—have you ever done it before?”
“Yeah,” Kamilé replied, bored. “For like…five years….”
Helas blinked. Even Aridella lost her apathetic, skeptical look. “Oh,” he said blankly, apparently lost for words. “Oh,” he repeated, then seemed to get a grip on himself. “Can you tell us how that happened?”
Kamilé blushed a little. Everan refused to help her, so she was forced to tell him herself. “W-Well…we just…we….” She swallowed as she found the right term, not liking it at all. “We ran away.”
She looked right at Helas, feeling that he wouldn’t be mad, and he wasn’t; she saw the look in his eyes soften into something like empathetic pity. “Why did you run away?” he asked her softly; she detected an edge somewhere, though she couldn’t understand why. “Was someone mean to you?”
She liked him; she pretended that he and Everan were the only ones there. “Not really,” she explained, “we lived in this little house with Pilori, she was real nice, she kept burning our food, and she…she was poor? Yeah, really poor…but we liked her, until she decided she wanted to get married….”
She told them the story of their runaway when they were five; Helas prodded her gently into telling them the rest. Everan looked disgruntled; he made her omit some things, when he felt she was going too far, but for the most part stayed out of her story. Kamilé got the feeling that he didn’t like to remember that, for some reason.
“…weren’t very nice, they never let us play with them, isn’t that mean? But it was okay, I guess, Everan and I always play Chosen together, it’s really fun….”
“You play what?” Helas interrupted.
“Chosen,” Kamilé repeated obliviously. “Sometimes I was bad and he was good, or we switched, but my favorite was when I was Tara and he was Kilio and we fought all these bad people….” She trailed off, frowning. “But I guess,” she said thoughtfully, “we can’t really play that anymore.”
“I guess it wouldn’t be as fun,” Helas agreed quietly, “knowing all that you do now.”
Kamilé sighed. “Not really….”
“But,” he said, a little more loudly, “I can tell, now, that you two can take care of yourselves…at least in the forest anyway. Have you ever been outside the forest?”
Kamilé shook her head.
“Oh. Well, that’s not a problem, we can teach you how to survive anywhere…. Now, you’ve already shown me that you can make a fire and find food, and it’s very impressive, but there’s a better way to do all of this…let me show you….”
And, completely disregarding the cold, he knelt in the snow beside their fire and began to show them how to reduce the cloud of smoke to almost nothing. Everan watched and made careful notes; however, his attention was divided.
Thanks for telling him all about us, Kamilé, he said, annoyed.
You’re wel—oh, she added, recognizing sarcasm. What’d I do?
I told you not to tell him anything….
But he asked! And he’s not mean or anything….
They’re trying to manipulate us into their army, and I’m not having it, the less we have to do with these people, the better—as soon as we can, we’re going straight home.
But they don’t know how, do they?
That’s what they said, but that can’t possibly be true, Kamilé, Everan said reasonably, glowering at the snow. There’s been a hundred and fifty chosen, and all of them came here, and then returned; Raena said half came back by dying, but what about the other half? Surely someone knows how they did it. And that’s not counting the people who weren’t chosen…Marli and Tyrranen….
Everan? Kamilé said in a small voice.
Mm?
I don’t understand this. I don’t like it.
Everan looked up and saw her wide, confused eyes; his eyes softened, and he took pity on her, slipping his hand into hers. I know. I swear I’ll explain it all tonight. For now…maybe you should just pretend this is Ametris, okay? It’s just a new place in the forest. It’s all just a story…nothing bad is going to happen to you. I promise.
Okay, she said quietly, scooping a lump of snow up with her gloved hands. We finally get nice clothes…and food….
I know. It’s kind of weird, isn’t it? We didn’t have to steal anything….
And everyone likes us here, she added, frowning.
Like us? They want to worship us! I never thought…well, I mean, as long as all this other impossible stuff is happening, why not all of this? But really…this is bizarre.
She wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about, but she agreed. I’m just glad that people are being nice, she said. Even if it is all confusing…kind of feels like—
“Kamilé? Kamilé!”
Someone touched her arm; she started and refocused on Helas, who was watching her with concern. She realized that she had been too absorbed in the conversation to pay attention to other things; it happened all the time, but it had never been a problem before now.
“Oh…s-sorry,” she stammered. “I…was….” She had never had to explain herself before. Mostly they were alone; and when they weren’t, people like Marli and Kayle and Pilori took it for granted and didn’t demand explanations for their odd behavior. She fell silent, blushing furiously.
“That’s okay,” Helas said amiably, obviously deciding not to comment. “I just wondered if you were hungry.”
“Oh…yeah!” she said eagerly. But then she frowned. “Do we have to make it, though?”
Helas smiled. “Only if you want to. We’ll do it. What do you like?”
Kamilé blinked, confused. “Um…strawberries?” she said hesitantly.
A shadow crossed Helas’s face for a moment—he realized that things like raw fruit and bread were all she was used to eating—but then he smiled. “Not a problem. Why don’t you sit while we make it?”
“’Kay,” said Kamilé gratefully, and pulled Everan up from the snowy ground so they could sit side-by-side on the now almost-unoccupied log; several of the Elite had risen to help with breakfast.
They do know their stuff, Everan admitted. It’ll come in handy…I’ve always wanted to be able to read the stars, haven’t you?
Kamilé looked up at the sky, now a bright, clear aquamarine—so unlike the pale, misty blue she was used to—and frowned. But I can’t read, she said, disappointed.
It’s not the same kind of reading, he assured her. It’s, well…certain stars come together to make a picture, if you can spot them…and if you can look up and see where you are in relation to the pictures, then you can know where you are…it’s called astronomy.
Asromony, Kamilé muttered, thinking. There are pictures in the sky? Like in clouds?
Yes, exactly, Everan said, pleased. Only the stars don’t move around so much, they don’t change like clouds do; you can look up every day of the year and see the same pictures. It takes years for them to move around….
Wow, Kamilé said, impressed.
I wonder what else they’ll be teaching us? Everan mused.
He didn’t have to wait long to find out; after a delicious breakfast of warm bread with butter and jam, small grilled chunks of potato with rice (which they had never had before), hot mushroom and onion soup, and fresh juice, (made from, they discovered, apples that had been magically preserved to last until next summer), the Elite got right to work.
Kamilé and Everan were first taught how to use a compass, which they had never seen before; it was an odd thing, working on magical energy, or so Dimirza informed them; it was carved out of dark wood, and it had a lot of little lines and numbers indicating directions around the edges and a tiny metal needle swaying about on the face. Dimirza told them that the end of the needle, which was a tiny sphere of what looked like pure silver, was charged with magic that would always point toward Zildja, the North Star; and if they were ever lost and couldn’t use the sun to tell direction, they could rely on this.
Then she showed them another instrument, called a telescope, which, she said, used glass to magnify objects that were far away; Kamilé looked through it and could suddenly see every detail of an icicle that had seemed ant-sized moments before. Dimirza pulled out yet another instrument; she seemed to have dozens in the little bag she was holding. This one reminded Kamilé of the little tools Everan made; it had a few bizarre attachments that she didn’t understand, one for everything, she thought; Everan told her that it could be used as a lock pick, among other things. He was fascinated with it, and was very pleased indeed when Dimirza handed him the bag and said that all of these were his. He looked everything over; there were small vials of potions and powders that he wasn’t familiar with, empty metal canisters, a small canteen, and a thin book, containing what looked like illustrations of different plants and their uses.
“I know some of this might not be useful to you now,” Dimirza told them, “but trust me, if you ever get on a boat for some reason, you’ll really appreciate the compass and telescope…and that book’s good if you’re just learning how to heal. You don’t want to get the wrong plant for that kind of thing, it’s fatal. And the rest…well, we’ll explain it all. Just don’t open any of the vials, okay? Some are poisonous.”
At these words, Everan’s expression darkened, his elation gone. Poison? he murmured to himself, frowning. Kamilé, ask what’s the poison for, please.
“What’s the poison for?” Kamilé parroted obediently, confused again. Everan was pleased with her innocent tone; one of the benefits of speaking through Kamilé was that nothing she ever repeated was in an offensive tone—she didn’t understand what she was saying half the time.
“Oh, no, I said it was poisonous,” Dimirza said quickly, giving forth an awkward little laugh. “You wouldn’t want to swallow some of that, there’s antiseptic and acid in there somewhere….”
Everan wasn’t convinced. They put poison in there, he said firmly. Great. Now they expect us to be assassins?
Wha? Kamilé inquired. Everan shook his head a little indicating that he couldn’t explain at the moment, and she had to be satisfied with that. There was a lot going on lately, she mused, that needed to be explained later….
“All right, so,” Dimirza said bracingly, unaware of the conversation occurring right before her eyes, “all of this is yours to keep, we’ll add anything else if you need it. I see you’ve already got a bag—do you need this one too? No? Good, then keep all of this in there…bring it with you to your lessons, okay? Okay. Is there anything else you think you’ll need?”
Everan handed Kamilé a folded piece of bark parchment and petitioned her to ask, “What’s this?”
“Oh, this? It’s a map of Sirtema,” she told them, taking it and unfolding it. “Haven’t you seen one yet?”
She held it up, beckoning them over, and they looked around her at the ink drawing on the parchment. There were symbols all over it, and little pictures of trees and things; Kamilé thought it was pretty, but didn’t really know what it was for, though it seemed familiar somehow.
Everan sucked in a breath. Zhieyha eäyo, he breathed.
What?
Kamilé, look…it’s just like Ametris.
Kamilé frowned at the map, studying it. Suddenly she realized why it was familiar; she’d seen it in that book Everan had been reading, the history. This one, as well, had mountains to the north, a forest to the south, a lake to the east, plains in the center, and little dashed lines indicating where each race’s territory began and ended…but Ametris’s map seemed bare and half-finished compared to this one. There were hundreds of cities, small patches of forest all over the place, and instead of one lake, there was a web of smaller ones; there were more rivers, more sections…more everything.
Everan soaked it all in, fascinated; Ask her what all of it is, Kamilé, he said.
Kamilé obediently repeated, “What is all of it?”
“All of what?”
“All…of the…everything.”
“Well, these are cities, and these lines mark where each race’s territory is, and these are mountains, those are rivers…there’s a little key at the bottom.”
“What are the cities called?”
“What, you can’t read them?”
“Nope.”
Dimirza blinked. “Why not?”
Kamilé glanced at Everan, who shrugged. I guess it’s just the language thing.
“It’s a different language….”
“Ah.” Dimirza frowned. “I see. Well…we’ll explain everything to you in time, with lots of detail; for now…this is the elfin capital, right here. If you judge from this little meter down here, see, it’s about thirty leagues from where we are, right here—”
“Why’re we so far away from Kocha?” Kamilé wanted to know.
Dimirza blinked again, bemused. “I’m sorry, from what?”
Kamilé felt suddenly frustrated; it was so weird to be in a country where no one ever knew what you were talking about. “From…from Ko-….” She couldn’t understand why she had to keep explaining things….
Raena, listening with the other Elite, came to her rescue. “Mardiyênes was called Kocha before the war. From what they’ve told us, that’s what the Ametrisan elfin capital is called.”
“Oh….” Dimirza didn’t really seem to understand, but she pretended to. “Well, um…we call it Mardiyênes…and it’s right here. And the human capital is right here—”
“What’s it called?”
“Variah. Is the name different for you?”
“Yeah, we call it Merista….”
“That’s a nice name.” She was trying to be as civil as possible; she was yet another one of the people present who didn’t really understand what was going on. Kamilé felt a rush of sympathy for her.
“And here’s the dwarfish capital, Ostorieth…and the mer-capital, Adranalï…and the dragon capital—”
“Dragons again!” Kamilé exclaimed; she didn’t know whether to be shocked at the thought of dragons, or annoyed at being confused all of the time.
“Yes, dragons. You don’t see them much anymore, they keep to themselves, but if you ever visit the mountains you’ll see them flying around…and we think that Tyrranen has some in her army, which isn’t good for us, they’re killing machines, they are. But they gather mostly around here, this is the highest mountain, their dwelling is called Eagle’s Peak—I don’t know anyone that’s ever been there, you don’t mess around with dragons.”
“Can we see a picture?” she asked eagerly, her curiosity overwhelming her surprise. Everan didn’t share her interest; he seemed wary, almost afraid of the thought of the scaled, winged giants from fireside tales.
“Oh, well…we’ll have to bring a book sometime and tell you all about the races, though they SHOULD be teaching you these things in school…we’ll see. We’ll make sure you know all about this kind of thing before you leave here. Now, let’s see…this area right here, south of the mountains, north of the plains, this is all desert and scrubland. There used to be a lot of stuff going on in that area, this is around where Haenir was born, but then it dried into desert…there are ruins everywhere. One of them was this gigantic city, it’s now just a bunch of rocks, I hear, but you’ll find demons there…best avoid it unless you have no choice….”
“Why?”
“We’ll tell you all about demons—they’re dangerous. There aren’t any good ones, they’re like animals—all they think of is prey. They gain strength by possessing people and sapping the life out of them….”
“Wooooow….” Kamilé glanced at Everan, wondering if he thought it was cool, too—but by the look on his face, he was imagining the dangers of coming close to those demon things, and planning to studiously avoid them.

Ok, for the beginning it kinda lacks something idk what but it needed more of somethin else - on the stories note I found it interesting that Sirteman's would follow whatever side the chosen chose. But hey its their decision right? well I wouldn't follow Tyrannen no matter what. Actually now that I think about it... it tends to be too conversational but this just might be my skepticism. I'd also admit its kinda hard to read after hearing Lacausta... It was very descriptive on the lighter side and really detailed the events. I was also shocked to find out you have dragons in Ilanarda. I hope to see more of that... One thing I'm beginning to like about this book is the introduction of fantasy creatures about, you even included werewolves. One thing I'd try to keep known is the fact that everan and kamile talk through their minds - you allready said it once in here but I'd prolly keep it known...All in all it was very creative to the storyline and it keeps me wanting to know what happens next. I also really liked what Raena had to say at the end. Cleverly played.

Ugh, I am now sooooooo behind. But! I shall catch up! And leave you with my notes of infinite wisdom... or lack thereof! ninja

Allllllright losers. I love you to death. So I wrote more for you. This, I might actually keep.

FIRST CHAPTER. DISREGARD ALL OTHER MATERIAL SAVE THE PROLOGUE.


Chapter One: Memories

“Professor Marli!”
Marli looked up, staring automatically—and unflinchingly—at the sun to check the time; she had been so absorbed in her reading that it took her a moment to remember where and when she was.
7071, Mardiyênes, Ares, Sirtema, her mind told her, but she shook the thought away; No! she told her mind firmly, bullying it into submission, 7074, Kocha, Sera, Ametris, you scatterbrain….
She quickly looked around for the person who had called her name and found him running toward her: a gangly teenager with red-blonde hair and a tense, drawn face.
“Hey, Vix,” she said, with extra cheer; he more than anyone could use a little extra happiness, considering current events. “What’s up?”
Vix gave her a small, stiff smile; underneath it, he seemed ready to snap with stress. “Kayle said you were out here. Good book?” he asked politely. She sensed that whatever he needed her for, he didn’t want to directly ask.
“Very good,” she replied with fervor; the book was written by her late mother, in Sirteman, Marli’s native tongue. She was very fond of it; though she knew it almost by heart, she still read it frequently—maybe for the sole reason of being sure not to forget Sirtema, or its customs and people. Or maybe because Ametrisan still gave her a headache.
“That’s great,” Vix said, with an enthusiasm that he did not really feel. “Maybe I can borrow it when you’re done?”
She laughed. “If you like.” She held the open book up to him, showing him the odd, backwards characters. “If you can read it.”
He blinked. “Whoa. What is that?”
“Sirteman. My mother wrote it before she died.”
“That’s….” Vix struggled for a minute; then he gave up. “Cool.”
“Sit,” Marli urged him, patting the root that she was seated on. It was half-buried, as tall as her waist, one of the enormous roots of the impossibly huge Great Tree looming from the light but constant Ametrisan mist.
Vix sat, looking uncomfortable. “What’s up?” Marli asked again.
He stared at his boots—tough, brown, calf-high, and roomy, the boots that nearly everyone in Ametris had in some size or form. Plain and serviceable, just like the modest clothes in muted shades of green or brown. It was typical of Ametris, Marli thought, to have such boring clothing. Even the sky here was boring, always shrouded in the silvery mist, only a small patch directly overhead ever revealing any stars or clouds or sunlight. Most nights no one ever even saw the moon.
Vix was silent for a minute; Marli gave him a little time, though she was about to prod him into speech before he finally answered. “It’s been bothering me, is all,” he explained.
Marli grinned. “Well, that’s perfectly clear,” she said teasingly. “There is no way in hell that anyone could possibly not know what you mean.”
He half-smiled in spite of himself; but then his face smoothed once more into an unhappy mask. “The whole Kamilé thing,” he eventually murmured as his explanation.
Marli understood at once. “Ah.”
“I just….” He struggled for words again. “It’s been…I wish I’d….”
Men and emotions, Marli sighed to herself. It was worse before they even became men; at least when they were adults, they’d had time to grow a brain. But that was just her usual teasing cynicism; beneath it she felt a strong wave of pity. She waited patiently, sympathetically, for him to go on.
“…I just feel like…like it’s…. Aaaaah. Professor…you…you said she was okay, right?” he completed in a rush.
Don’t hurt yourself, she muttered in her mind. Aloud she said, “Yes, I’m certain that she is. Don’t worry about it, okay? Chosen don’t die so easily.”
Vix paled, and Marli knew what he was thinking: if a flying leap from a two-hundred-foot-high cliff into rushing water couldn’t kill a small girl, then what could? “Wh-…why would they…are they…invincible?”
“No,” Marli assured him. “But they can tolerate more than the average person, even at a young age. And before they go…on their ‘chosen journey’…if they suffer through something that should kill them, they don’t die—they just automatically…start their journey. She isn’t dead; she’s just somewhere else for awhile. She’ll be back, they always come back.” In whatever condition.
Vix’s eyes were still wide. “Why?” he half-whispered. “Why would they want that?”
“They don’t,” said Marli flatly. “They don’t ask for it. No one would have a strong desire to be the chosen if they knew what it was really like. You’ve seen what can happen to them, just because of what they are.”
Vix flinched, then gaped. “But that…that was just because we thought she started the fire! Not because she was…a…I mean, we didn’t even know…. And even if we did….”
Marli nodded solemnly. “I know. No Ametrisan would voluntarily hurt a chosen—if they recognized one when they saw one. You see, thanks to a certain Elder passing a couple of laws about a decade ago, people were forbidden to speak of the chosen; and since they didn’t, and since Sera, the chosen before Kamilé and Everan, didn’t parade the fact and didn’t go out much after her journey was over, people sort of forgot how a chosen looked, and acted. So there was no way you could have known what she was; she didn’t even know herself. But it was because of who she is that all of you were so cruel to her…you just didn’t know it.”
Vix blinked, his expression as shocked as ever. “Wh-what…why would we…?”
“Be prejudiced against her?” Marli leaned back, balancing on one hand as she casually inspected the fingernails of the other. “I’m related to them, you know,” she said calmly. “Kamilé and Everan I mean. We’re cousins. Their family and my family share Haenir as an ancestor; mine branched off from his son, while the chosen line followed the daughter’s lineage. So we know a lot about chosen, because we’re half-chosen, in a way. All the knowledge was passed to me years ago.”
Vix stared at her, warily, as if unsure whether or not she was joking.
“Did you know,” she continued in a light, pleasant tone, “that chosen are neither elf, nor human—nor merperson nor dwarf nor any other race? They aren’t really anything. They’re chosen; they’re an entirely separate race that takes on the characteristics of another—for convenience, of course. It’s impossible to tell; it’s just an old secret passed down to me, with no real basis in fact. But they act differently—they have to. And they have different capabilities. They really are a distinct and separate race. And people notice that, even if they don’t realize that they do.
“All of the prejudice against Kamilé? The cruelty that seemed instinctual at first, and unexplainable now? It doesn’t make sense, does it? She was just a kid, and elves are naturally peaceable—among each other anyway. But Kamilé isn’t the first chosen to elicit unnatural responses from any sort of mortal. It’s the same as you would feel if, say, a human got too close to you. You wouldn’t be hostile, but you’d be wary. It’s instinct; most people subconsciously know that a chosen is something different, and react in one of two ways—they will either be hostile, belligerent, indifferent, or unreasonable; or they will instantly become friendly and hospitable and take an immediate liking to the chosen presented to them.
“It’s hard to be just friends with the chosen. There are some, like your sister, that find it easy, even natural; it does not make her a better or worse person than you, it just makes her different. But that’s the exception to the rule. It’s not always the indifference, or the hatred; in fact, where I was born—which, hopefully, is where Kamilé and Everan are now—the vast majority considered the chosen gods, and I’m sure will honor the twins as such. They will have their enemies, but they will have support too.
“As for what happened recently…most of the elves in Kocha ignored Kamilé and Everan for the first eleven years of their lives; it was instinct to shun them, though there was no outright hostility. I noticed that right away; it was so strange that they couldn’t get along with anybody at all, save the rare exceptions like their adoptive mother and Kayle. When the fire started, and everyone’s minds were twisted with grief, pain, and anger, all the circumstances surrounding Kamilé made the elves despise her and blame her automatically—even if she had had no hand in it, even if she had been far away, they still would have hated her. Some people, chosen or not, somehow become target practice for society when its people are under duress. Kamilé was very unlucky, and wasn’t in a state of mind lucid enough for her to explain herself. That’s why she was victimized; she was instinctively hated and in no position to defend herself.”
Vix stared at the ground, his expression brooding. “It’s not fair,” he finally said.
“What isn’t?”
“That all that happened, just because she was a chosen. She didn’t even know she was. And it wasn’t fair for everyone to gang up on her like that….”
“Like you did?” Marli asked, and he winced.
“I didn’t…I never would’ve…I….” His stammering trailed into abashed silence; he seemed like he wanted to sink into the ground and become invisible, or cry.
“I know, Vix,” Marli said gently. “It’s not your fault. It’s just the way things are. It’s been useful, really—once there was a chosen whose entire village hated him for no reason, but it came in handy, because when he went on his chosen journey at age nine, he was already tough and strong enough to handle it. He wasn’t happy, but it had made him strong.”
“He was nine?”
“Yes, not so much older than Kamilé and Everan are. The youngest chosen, I believe, went on his journey at age seven.”
“Wow.” He thought about that in silence for a little while. Marli waited. Vix frowned, then sighed.
“It’s still not fair.”
“I know. But….” Marli winked. “I get the feeling that no one will be so rude to her when she returns—when both of them return. In fact I’d be surprised if no one started begging for forgiveness on their knees.”
Vix laughed at that, a little uneasily. Then his face sank back into the frown. “Do you really think they’ll come back?”
“Of course. The chosen have to come back, otherwise their lineage would fade and die.”
“No, I mean…come here.”
It was certainly something to consider, Marli thought. Why would they? And if they did, would it be a joyful reunion—the once-scorned returning triumphant, now loved by everyone—or would it lead to a massacre? Marli had no doubts about who would win if it came to a fight; a small, defenseless chosen was one thing, but two chosen fresh from Sirtema was quite another entirely.
“Well,” she said finally, “I don’t think they’ll have much better to do. But no worries. If Kamilé wants to go around punching people in the face, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.”
It was meant as a joke, but Vix flinched and looked away, lest she see the pure fear in his eyes. She realized that he had already anticipated Kamilé’s return—a bloody one, filled with death and rage—and in what position he would be when she started the slaughter: first in line.
“I’m sorry, Vix,” she said softly. “Don’t worry. Really. Kamilé’s a sweetheart, she’s probably already forgiven you.”
He relaxed, slightly, at the thought of being forgiven, but he was still afraid. “I’m not worried about…just her,” he whispered.
Marli nodded understandingly, wincing a bit herself. Everan, she knew, would not be so lenient. If anyone was capable of cold, brutal murders—dozens at a time—it was him. She hoped dearly that he never knew…was never told about what had transpired in his absence. Not only would it trigger a murderous rage; it would also hurt him deeply, knowing what had been done here. It was too much for anyone to bear, even a chosen.
“Don’t worry about that,” Marli insisted, her voice quiet and sad. “I’ll make sure nothing happens. No vengeance on my watch.”
Vix laughed, weakly and unenthusiastically. He stopped quickly; the silence fell once again, heavy and unnatural.
“When?” he finally sighed.
“I’m not sure when they’ll be back,” she admitted. “Anywhere from a few months to several years. A while.”
He seemed to slump, collapse in on himself—though whether from relief or resignation, she could not tell.
“Well,” he said dully, “at least Kamilé won’t have to worry about Luci. She can just burn my place straight down.”
Marli frowned. “How is Luci?” she asked kindly, though fearing from his pessimism what the answer was.
He shook his head. “Not good,” he said. “Her heart’s failing. It can’t keep up for long, her blood’s so thick it won’t move…she sleeps most of the time.”
Marli sighed. “Poor Luci. She’s lasted for so long.”
“Yeah,” Vix muttered. “I’d feel happy for her…’cause she won’t be in pain so long. But she’s so…so little…and lonely…. I can’t let her go yet…Mom won’t either. She’s trying everything. Elder Sariynn said we should just let her go peacefully, while we can still talk to her and all, but Mom still thinks she’ll….”
He choked, turning his face away; Marli saw a faint glimmer of tears as his shoulders heaved in time with his sobs. She edged closer and hugged him, instinctively; he rested his head on her shoulder and cried uncontrollably for a small amount of time, no more than two or three minutes. Then he stopped, abruptly, and sat up again, refusing to look at her. After everything he’d lost in the past year, Marli thought sadly, he’d learned to control grief, like it was some rebellious creature, a human’s pet.
Vix glanced guiltily at the sky, searching desperately for words to cover the silence and push his brief lapse of control into the past. “I should get home,” he murmured, and slid slowly off of the root.
Marli leapt lightly after him, landing quietly on the soft earth. “Do you mind if I come too?” she asked. “I want to visit Luci.”
Vix nodded. “She’d like that.” He glanced warily at Marli, as if watching for any more feminine displays of affection, then turned sharply and led the way to his home.
They trekked quietly together, side by side. The forest was silent; most of the trees still showed scars from the fire, though they were healing well; there were even birds singing for once, and small creatures scurrying about.
After awhile, Vix said, “I forgot to tell you before. Elder Sariynn wanted me to invite you to the Elder’s meeting tomorrow at noon.”
“Ah. Thank you for telling me that.”
“Sounds boring.”
“Oh, definitely. But it’ll be great to have a chance to annoy Elder Carn a little more than usual.”
Vix laughed. More silence passed, not so oppressive anymore. He seemed thoughtful; Marli wondered if his mind was forming a question for her, or merely speculations that he would not share.
They were halfway to his home before he finally divulged what was on his mind.
“Professor….”
“Yes?”
“That place where…where you said Kamilé was. Where is it again?”
“It’s called Sirtema. It’s a very long way away from here….” Marli almost laughed at herself and the very inadequate explanation. “It’s where I’m from,” she added. “And where all chosen go, for awhile.”
“What’s it like?”
Marli hesitated, mused for a minute or so…then she decided to trust Vix, and told him everything, right from the beginning. The explanations of other worlds and time/space travel made his eyes bulge; then she settled into a comfortable discussion of easier things, what kind of people were there, what it was like to live there, what it looked like…how beautiful it was. Marli’s longing for Sirtema echoed in her voice as she spoke; she could see it all so clearly in her mind, every bit of it, remembering what she had seen and recalling pictures and paintings and stories of what she had not. Her homesickness pulsed through her like adrenaline, intense and unavoidable.
Vix listened with awe bordering on reverence, fascinated, asking endless questions and drinking in the answers like a man dying of thirst. Every once in a while, a question about Kamilé would come up—what she was doing, how she would get by, her chances of winning the war. And Marli knew, somehow, that he liked imagining her there; because, whatever evidence she offered on the contrary, Vix imagined the place as heaven, and he felt better, happier, if he could imagine that the cruelty he regretted so had sent Kamilé there, to the most vivid and fantastic place anyone could ever imagine.



In a small, cozy, red-painted room, part of a house on Kocha’s main thoroughfare, a frail woman just healing from appalling wounds slept fretfully, surrounded by empty beds; most of the fire’s victims were healed now, though she still wasn’t alone in the library’s medical ward. She rolled over, her cheek brushing the rough sheets, her long hair tangled and dirty as it hid her face. Then she winced and rolled back automatically, relieving the pressure from her injured stomach.
It wasn’t just her stomach that was injured. Not anymore. Grief had crippled her; she had lost her health, retrogressed from whatever progress she had made, while mourning the loss of her two adopted children. Even if she had hardly seen them over six years, even if they probably hated her for abandoning them, even if she had already had so long to get used to their absence, even if Marli, Kayle, and Elder Carn had all convinced her that they believed the twins were safe in some distant land…even so, she mourned. How could she be sure? Where were her babies—why weren’t they with her where they belonged?
How could it all have happened this way? Where had it gone wrong?
Her waking questions had still pounded through her head in sleep, twisting sinuously into dark, unhappy dreams, which had given way to dim, vague, but blissful memories playing one after the other in her head.
The first few days, she could only stare at them. Only seventeen at the time, she had already given vast amounts of consideration to the possibility of children, but though she had wanted them so badly it hurt, she had yet to find a partner to share them with. She had to be content following in her deceased mother’s footsteps, delivering babies—finding what she wanted most in her arms, and being forced to give the joy to some other woman, smiling and congratulating whoever it might be while secretly wishing she was one of them. Always envious of their ecstatic smiles, their husbands standing sentry nearby, their soft, warm little babies in their arms.
She had shared grief, as well—she had suffered, too, when a baby had died, though no one ever blamed her, and had mourned when neither mother nor child survived—what a tragic waste. But when the baby lived, though the mother hadn’t, she had always felt a faint ray of hope—only to be disappointed when the baby passed to the widower, the sister, the mother.
But when Sera had died, suddenly Pilori had gotten her wish—after three years of waiting, finally a grief-stricken father had turned to her and dumped his dead daughter’s babies into her arms.
Two of them…twins! Rare, almost unheard of in Ametris—and yet she had them. They were hers. Their grandfather had assured her that no one was going to reclaim them anytime soon. Why he didn’t want them was beyond her, but she jumped at the chance—and walked home with two babies asleep in her arms.
It took getting used to, being a mother. She supposed without the months to prepare, it was natural to be nervous, feel unreal and dreamlike. At first she could only look at them for the longest time. She perfected little things—like the tricky business of holding two babies at once, the exact way to support their little heads, the angle at which to hold their bottle. She watched them for hours, her mind quieted with wonder.
True, they had come with warnings, precautions, advice. A story, even. Odd, for two so small and young. But what had that mattered? It meant nothing to her. Destiny or no destiny, they were hers, and they would be for a long time—they wouldn’t even be able to lift a sword for years, let alone leave her to fight in some unheard-of country. She was determined that they would be normal children for a long time, so she treated them like she would normal babies.
But it soon became obvious to her that they were anything but normal. Everan amazed her most; though Kamilé slept through most of her weeks as an infant, he stayed awake, watching her with eyes too intelligent for a newborn. He glanced at Pilori in a way she couldn’t recognize on his tiny features—probably a look both wary and dismissive, knowing him—for a few days, then seemed to take no notice of her, save when she held Kamilé separately to feed or dress or bathe her. Once he even made a face that she guessed was supposed to be threatening, when she had woken Kamilé up and made her cry by accident, but it was so out of place, so bizarre on his baby features, that she couldn’t help but laugh.
It bothered him then and later, being defenseless and unthreatening. He was always so protective; Kamilé was a planet, and he was her moon, always close, always circling, wary for something to happen.
Kamilé just slept through most of it; when she was awake her main concerns were food and warmth. But sometimes Pilori was taken by surprise—she saw Kamilé awake, but quiet, her eyes wide open and staring at Everan. He stared back; they watched each other. They could do it for hours, fascinated by the other, completely absorbed. Pilori would learn later that they were talking with telepathy—getting to know each other.
As they grew, they continued to surprise her, in one way or the other. Kamilé learned to sit up first, much too early, though she hardly ever did; sleeping was her main activity in life until she learned how to crawl and walk. She was scrambling around, dragging her legs behind her, before Everan had even become strong enough to support himself. She learned to walk before he did; Pilori had watched in amazement one day, caught by surprise, to see Kamilé take a few unsteady steps, then—upon realizing that Everan was missing—toddle back and help him to his feet. He couldn’t stay up at first, but he learned fast; suddenly they were walking together.
She’d thought that Kamilé was the prodigy for the longest time; it was Kamilé that talked first, Kamilé that spoke for them, Kamilé that climbed over everything and got into things she wasn’t supposed to while Everan merely sat down, stayed behind. Not until they were two did Everan bother to rectify her mistake—one morning, annoyed by Pilori’s constant praise for the undeserving Kamilé, he announced in one perfectly articulated sentence that Kamilé wasn’t a genius, and he wasn’t retarded; he chose not to speak, instead he had taught Kamilé to, and he wouldn’t have spoken at all except to correct Pilori’s error. She had gaped, but he would say nothing more; he just carried on eating his breakfast.
And then it became clear that Everan, not Kamilé, was the brains behind it all; it was as if he had been trying to prove it to her, then it had simply become habit. She found him reading books that even she couldn’t understand half of, and had no idea about where they had come from. She found him writing on a spare scrap of parchment, trying to teach Kamilé the alphabet. He would often watch her do some menial task, like adding up her wages for the week, with Kamilé, who was always curious; then suddenly he would take her hand and pull it away, correcting her mistake himself, then withdrawing as if nothing had happened.
Kamilé, in comparison, wasn’t very bright at all; no normal child would be, though soon it was clear by the time she was five that even an average child would have outstripped her. Everan had been reading since he could lift a book, but Kamilé resisted learning; Pilori and Everan both tried to teach her simple things, but nothing stuck for longer than the space between meals. She was more interested in adventures, in exploring and seeing new places and things—and of course, in sleep and food. Her mind was simple, but it helped her enjoy little things—she was fascinated by soap bubbles, could follow a line in the grain of the table’s wood so intently with her tiny fingers that she would almost fall off, and considered even the tiniest things, like snowflakes or strawberry jam, nothing less than a miracle.
Of course, raising them wasn’t easy—not even close. She should have expected it when she adopted the twins with the family history, with the story and the destiny hovering over them; nothing with them, she should have known, would ever be easy or simple.
Elder Carn helped her for the first eighteen months, giving her food and money at regular intervals; at first he seemed grim and distant, but after a couple of months had gone by, he could look at Kamilé and see not the cause of his daughter’s death, but his little granddaughter instead. He could smile when he saw her; and soon he would visit for no other reason than to see her. He would play with her for hours if Pilori let him, making her giggle and squeal, giving her sweet things and watching her happiness with contentment and joy.
But Everan, Pilori was quick to notice, was always left out. Carn never even looked at him if he could help it. Everan was left on their blanket on the floor to watch Kamilé spin around in a stranger’s arms, wary for the tiniest trip or slip that would make her fall, tensed for disaster. Protecting her; it was all he could do. He didn’t like Carn taking Kamilé away from him; it was a pathetic thing to see him grip her hand or her clothes, trying to pull her back, but being forced to let go when Carn swept her easily out of his grasp.
When this had happened several times, Pilori had to put her foot down; it broke her heart to see Everan’s sad, lonely, and fearful expression whenever Kamilé was away from him, and when Carn ignored even Kamilé’s protests against it, she decided enough was enough. She told him, with the 18-month-old twins as her witnesses, that he would treat them both the same, or he would leave and never come back.
So he left.
Pilori could never understand it; but then, there were a lot of things she couldn’t understand. She sometimes found herself wishing she was Everan; he, at least, always seemed to know what was going on. Or Kamilé—nothing fazed her, she forgot everything the next day.
Regardless of why, Carn’s absence—and the absence of his supplies of food and money—hit them hard. After that, Pilori never could put enough money together, though she took up three different jobs and saved her profits religiously. There was always something else they needed—milk for the babies, soap for washing other people’s clothes, cloth for new outfits for the fast-growing twins, medicine and herbs for her infrequent job as a healer (whether there was another healer that everyone hired beside her, or whether most elves simply already knew how to heal, she never knew) or her more frequent job as a midwife, and food…always food. There was never enough of that to go around. And the babies were growing…soon they’d need twice as much. Somehow, something had to be done.
She realized, that year, exactly why she was so poor, and so out of touch with the social side of life. Before, she had thought that elves were not very different from the humans she had spent half her life with, that was all—they kept mostly to themselves and a few friends, and it was only her constant work that kept her from being included. But she was wrong, as she found out soon after she started taking Kamilé and Everan to work with her, having nowhere else to leave them. Elves were very social creatures, and all the women in Kocha were friends—all of them except Pilori.
As for why, that didn’t take long to figure out, either. It was nothing she had done; it was only because of the two babies she had adopted—Kamilé and Everan. The nasty looks that had once been directed at her soon switched to them; when they came with her to shop or to work, her wages were lower, the prices were higher, and the hostility was overwhelming. People knew her as their guardian, and showed their disapproval of her choice as venomously as possible; there was hardly a place in Kocha in which she could escape the glares. Sometimes, someone new would move into the city and request her services, and she would get paid properly, even extra; but sooner or later, the fair-minded customer would be enlightened by the rest of the elves in Kocha, and life would return to the way it was.
At first it was hard—well, it was always hard, but she soon got into the flow of life as a poor person. She would work hard, take whatever money that she was given, and give her babies all she could; they could no longer afford milk, they were lucky to get food at all, but the twins didn’t mind the change too much—they appreciated what they were given. She learned not to cook food; it never turned out right. Instead, she bought unleavened bread and made cold dishes, salads and spreads and porridge, along with stew—the one thing she could cook properly without ruining. When the babies needed a bath, she dumped them in with a load of laundry. She sold their cradle and let them sleep with her, in her bed. They didn’t thrive, but they were doing all right…until winter came.
It was a harsh winter, harder than any Pilori had ever known. Last winter she had had money for warm clothes and boots. But this winter she could barely even afford food. Winters were serious business for elves; they stocked up on firewood and food, prepared for weeks of imprisonment in their homes, and practically hibernated, refusing to go out into the elements save for buying preserved food from the one or two stalls left open—they charged three times as much (to Pilori anyway) as there was no other place to go—or to contact an Elder or a healer. Pilori got more work than usual; the people who lived nearby were often sick and didn’t want to travel across town for a healer that would work for a cup of tea and that week’s gossip. But it still wasn’t enough. Hardly anyone was still selling food, cloth, or dry firewood, and if they did, the goods were very much overpriced. She still couldn’t afford them—just when she needed them most.
She moved her mattress and all of their blankets and clothes in front of the fire, where she and the babies curled up every night, but they still shivered; and there was nothing and no one to keep them warm when she had to leave to work or shop. So she brought them with her, thinking that her body’s heat and a few blankets were better than just the drafty little house…but she was wrong. When they came back home the twins’ faces were pink with cold and they shivered violently; they weren’t as well-equipped for the cold as she was. She’d melt snow and feed them the hot water for lack of anything else, at least until they ran out of firewood. Then it was only her own heat all night that kept them going.
Kamilé lost her vigor, her vitality, and cried often, and Everan became dull-eyed and listless; both were soon pale and shivery and sneezed often, growing more skeletal by the day and constantly on the verge of sickness. Four weeks into winter, as was to be expected, they finally lost the fight. Kamilé caught it first; her hoarse crying awoke Pilori in the middle of the night, and when she picked her up, her skin was cold and she was shivering so hard that it felt more like a seizure. Her forehead burned, and Everan looked panicked; clearly, she was sick.
Six hours later, Everan stopped watching Kamilé anxiously over her shoulder; instead he crept away and curled up in a corner, like a cat, and fell into a fevered sleep. He had gotten it too.
Pilori had panicked; she didn’t know what to do. She knew how to lessen the severity of pneumonia, but everything she knew to do involved heat, and she couldn’t afford firewood. She stayed with them all day and night, trying to keep them warm with her heat, but they only worsened after nightfall, when the temperature dropped below freezing.
It soon became clear that she would have to leave them, which she was loath to do; but she needed firewood and food desperately, and needed more than anything—thought she hated to admit it—Elder Carn. She stayed with them for as long as possible, but when Kamilé started to cry hoarsely, her throat bone dry, she knew she couldn’t wait anymore. Once glance at Everan assured her that though he was worried, they would be relatively fine—he was awake and alert, ready to look after Kamilé in Pilori’s absence.
She layered every blanket they owned over them, then ran outside and began to panic. Her babies were dying, and there was nobody around. She knocked on doors, but no one answered; the stores were closed on either side, the curtains drawn, the doors locked. She dashed to Elder Carn’s house and pounded on his door for more than five minutes, shouting at the top of her lungs, until it became clear that he would not answer or was not there. A quick try with all the other Elders yielded the same results. Anger incensing her further, throwing her entire being into a frenzy of panicked energy, she turned and bolted for the nearest store.
It was open, but though she begged, wheedled, and screamed, the owner refused to give her anything for less than the set price. She had no money, so she had to move on to the next one. But the result was the same. Despite her halest efforts, she could get nothing out of three men in a row.
But then the deities handed her a miracle: after running halfway across the city and begging for ten minutes straight, the shopkeeper started to relent. It was clear that he, like the others, did not particularly care about her children, but he was worried that they would die, and about how the weight of two babies’ deaths on his soul would affect him. He supposed at first that he could get by with just giving her advice—stoke up the fire in her house, give the babies warm milk, ask the other store owners for credit, go see the Elders for help. When it became clear that she had tried everything and he was her last hope, he caved; he gave her a few small sticks of firewood and told her that she could have them if she never came in there again. She happily agreed, blessing his name as she ran back home.
She started a fire and melted some snow for the twins; they slurped the warm water greedily, and for a while they seemed to be better. But then their hunger kicked in, and Pilori remembered that she had nothing to give them for food.
She left again and, for the first of many times, went scavenging in the woods. All she could find were fistfuls of pine needles and a lot of snow and wood. Past caring about elfin dogma, she ripped branches off the trees and carried the wood back home. She boiled the pine needles and gave the babies the broth; they gagged at the taste, but it was better than nothing.
For the rest of the winter, Pilori alternately scavenged in the forest and worked like a madwoman to obtain food and firewood; her situation fluctuated, becoming at times so desperate that even the suds in her washtub made her stomach ache from hunger—surely they were more filling than snow and dirt. The twins’ condition varied between bad and worse; when the money ran low again, it stayed stubbornly at worse and deteriorated daily. Pilori threw herself into finding food, firewood, and money, getting little sleep and eating less than the babies, praying every night that the deities would send deliverance and save them from this disaster.
It hurt her heart, watching the babies every night as she slept with them held to her chest, or when she left them in the morning buried in a pile of blankets. Kamilé slept, and cried; she couldn’t even walk anymore, whereas Everan, if he wanted to, could always tumble in and out of bed and crawl around the house, looking for Pilori or food. Sometimes Pilori would find him shivering with a handful of snow, trying to get Kamilé to drink the water that formed in his freezing hands. He’d wrap her in the blankets like a caterpillar in a cocoon, then either sit up and watch over her or curl up beside her; Pilori found that he, though very small, was capable of doing as much for Kamilé as she was. The thought made her feel helpless; she searched more desperately for food, work, money, anything to help, but to no avail.
She reached the end of her rope one evening, when she came home with nothing and found Everan in a panic; Kamilé wouldn’t wake up. By the look of it, she had been this way for the entire day.
Pilori was up all night and stayed home the next day, and the next, but Kamilé remained unconscious, her fever raging, her mouth dry. Everan wouldn’t let go of her; he kept trying to wake her, but she wouldn’t respond. Finally, in the middle of the night, he gave Pilori a look that she understood at once, a look that said “Something needs to be done. YOU need to get help.”
She thought hard, trying to focus over the pain in her stomach, for a few long minutes; she started to cry, realizing how hopeless this all was. She had no one to go to, nothing left to do, to help her children….
She racked her brains, prodded urgently by Everan, until at last she thought of Elder Carn. She had pounded on his door every time she passed it throughout the winter, but he was avoiding her…but it was the middle of the night, she realized, and he had nowhere else to be but home in bed. He couldn’t avoid her forever. Besides, they were his grandchildren…he wouldn’t let them die. He couldn’t.
She calmed herself down, still thinking hard, then suddenly made her decision; she told Everan what she was doing as she wrapped them both in every blanket they had, covering their faces and leaving only the tiniest bit of their face, just before their nose, open to the biting cold, and took them to Elder Carn’s.
She pounded on his door for three minutes straight; then she lost patience and started shouting. She screamed that Kamilé and Everan were dying, that she couldn’t help them anymore, she couldn’t even feed them; she shouted curses and threats and shrieked his name over and over until he finally emerged.
He didn’t say anything. He merely stared at the blanket-shrouded twins, pushed a fold back until he found Kamilé’s pale, sleeping face, and stepped aside to let Pilori in. The warmth seemed to hit her in the face, gently but suddenly; it was like diving into a hot bath. She sank onto the couch and, alarmed by the suddenness of their rescue, started to sob again.
Carn didn’t say much; he asked her a few clinical questions while he filled the kettle with water and dangled it over his now-crackling fire, then took the babies from her. At first he meant to take only Kamilé, but Everan clung to her like a limpet and when Pilori saw what Carn was doing she threatened to carve his eyeballs out, julienne them, and feed them to him if he didn’t heal them both. He sighed, nodded, and picked up Everan as well, cradling them softly as he stared into Kamilé’s chalky, icy face. Then he set them together on an armchair and went to work, mixing herbs from jars into a teacup and pouring hot water over them. When the mixture was ready, he offered some to Everan, who had crawled out of the blankets and was supporting Kamilé as she slept, her breathing shallow.
He took the cup, which was bigger than his entire head, and pressed the smooth porcelain against Kamilé’s lips. The teacup’s warm side pressed against her chest, heating up the frozen blankets. Everan set the cup down, pushed the blankets aside, and once again set the cup against the shivering Kamilé’s lips. He poured a bit of the tea into her mouth. She swallowed, her tongue searching for stray droplets on her lips. Everan poured more in; Kamilé drank and drank until the cup was empty, then swallowed half a cup more. Everan drained the rest; then his eyelids drooped, and he curled up next to Kamilé, who had fallen into a peaceful, shiver-less sleep. Carn covered them with a blanket of his own, warmed by the fire.
“Tea fixes everything,” he said.
Pilori was sobbing as hard as ever; she thanked him every time she exhaled, though at that point she was hardly audible. Carn offered her some tea, which she gulped down, though it scalded her throat; then she ate every bit of the food he offered and collapsed against the arm of his sofa, exhausted by the winter’s efforts. She told Carn what had happened, and he apologized sincerely for avoiding her; he had thought that she had come only to shout, or worse.
“Stay for a while,” he offered. “Until Kamilé and Everan are well again.”
So she did. And when they left, it was with a bag full of food, another full of firewood, several blankets, and the promise that Carn would send her sixty shards a month to help her take care of his family.
And so it had been ever since. Kamilé and Everan grew to be happy toddlers, then adventurous four-year-olds, then confused five-year-olds, unable to understand why no one liked them, and why they were so strange. Kamilé’s mind grew rapidly for a few weeks, in which she learned over a hundred new words, then stopped growing altogether. Everan changed suddenly, at age four, from a quiet, shy, timid little boy to an angry and bitter and highly intelligent child that was scared of nothing, that looked down on everything, and that scared Pilori out of her mind.
The older they grew, the less they stayed in the house. Soon it became almost constant; Pilori would tell them again and again to be home for meals and bed, but many times they were late, returning dirty and exhausted. She found then that she didn’t know what the proper parenting method was for this situation; then she decided that if they couldn’t even make it home for dinner, when they were clearly starving, that they didn’t do it on purpose…which only made her more worried. She took them aside one day and told them that if they couldn’t be responsible enough to be home on time, then she would have to punish them by refusing to let them wander off. They protested in an understandably elfin way, like she was removing one of their rights as mortals—which, in retrospect, she was—and responded in a typically Kamilé-and-Everan way by, whenever she implemented their punishment, disregarding her orders and sneaking out anyway.
Eventually she had to let them go; she would pack them food in the morning and let them go for the entire day, benignly overlooking their indiscretions if they were late, filthy, injured, worn out, or a combination of all four. They, in turn, really did try their best to be on time for dinner, and told her wild and lurid stories about their adventures, both real and imaginary. And she would wait for them every day, worry constantly—just a little when the day was fine, but obsessively when it was cloudy, rainy, snowy, too cold, too hot….
In her times alone, she would work—though the ends never particularly met, not even with Elder Carn’s continued supplements—and think quite a bit. As she washed and darned other people’s clothes, delivered other people’s babies, and healed other people’s family, her mind would be focused on the task at hand, but somewhere deep in its rear the thoughts would nag, and when she stopped working they would resurface to torment her once more.
She thought that, perhaps, the twins were lonely. Maybe they craved other company beside their own. None of the little kids in town wanted to play with them, or even near them; the adults scorned them, the children mocked them. Kamilé would often run home in tears after they had been bullying her and Everan. And aside from their loneliness, she knew that she wasn’t the best parent; she couldn’t feed them well, couldn’t clothe them well, couldn’t even shelter them well—when the house needed repairing in some way, there was no one but her inexpert self to do it. And though she didn’t want to admit it, she, herself, was lonely as well…the old dream of a child of her very own, one that looked like her and carried her blood in its veins, resurfaced….
It took her a long time to make up her mind, but when she did she stood firm in her decision: she was going to find a boyfriend.
The first thing to settle was WHERE; clearly, from the hostile looks she attracted daily, no one in Kocha would do. She acquired a map and found a few villages nearby. Then she packed her best clothes and a hairbrush, told the twins to behave and left some food out for them, and was gone for the day.
Attaining a boyfriend, she decided by the end of that day, would have been a lot easier if she had been prettier. But it wasn’t particularly hard; all she really had to do was sit in a tavern and chat with strangers, flirt a little, then ask if he would like to go elsewhere for the rest of the day. More often than not she would meet promising men when the tavern was full, just before dusk, so the meeting would have to take place at a later date. She found many men; some were interested in wives, some in romance, some in sex, and some in nothing at all. Every time she thought one was perfect, she would put him through one very important test: she would bring him home and let him meet the twins, who were usually shy and reclusive when her visitors were around. At that point, no man, no matter how wonderful he had seemed, could find it in his heart to like her children; and so none of them would do for her.
It took months, but she finally found someone that seemed, to her, to be sent straight from the deities; she had only talked to him for a few minutes before deciding that she liked him very, very much. They met four times in the next week, and during that time, she and the man—Turnai, her future husband—became, to her surprise, the best of friends. He told her about his late first wife, who had been his childhood sweetheart, and their two daughters, now married and expecting their own children. She told him everything about the twins except that which she needed to keep secret from everyone.
He told her that lately, he’d been very lonely, just like her; he wasn’t looking for a passionate lover so much as a wife that he could talk to, someone who would be there for him—they could support each other. He was pleasantly surprised when she admitted to the same feelings. Pilori had found that once she became an adult, she didn’t feel the need to be subtle and dance around what was important; she stated openly, in the first five minutes, what she was looking for. And this time, it seemed as if she had finally found it.
She was reluctant to put him through her final test, because she liked him a lot and would hate it if he turned out like all the others; she made him promise, first thing, that if he ended up not liking her children—which was very common with the men before—they could still be friends. He agreed; he, too, could not understand why no one seemed to like Kamilé and Everan.
They met in Kocha one day, and Turnai finally met Kamilé and Everan. Everan was shy and kept attempting to keep Kamilé away, but Kamilé was curious; she babbled incessantly to Turnai, who, to Pilori’s surprise, became immensely fond of her. He even liked Everan, joking that after raising two daughters any kid that quiet was a blessing. Pilori also suspected that the idea of finally having a son appealed greatly to him. She decided, then and there, that Turnai was the man she was going to marry. The only question was when—and what to wear.
But for some reason, Kamilé and Everan didn’t understand this. Though she explained it a hundred times to them, even Everan, who she was sure would comprehend this, didn’t seem to see eye to eye with her. With Kamilé vocalizing for them, it was hard to discover the real truth behind the apparent confusion, but at last she understood; Everan didn’t want her to get married, and Kamilé was caught bewilderingly between Everan’s insistence that Pilori’s idea was a bad one, Pilori’s happiness and insistence of the contrary, and her own mind trying to wrap around the idea and form its own opinion.
It was Everan who was making the decision, and for a reason he would not confide to Pilori, he was firmly against her taking a husband of any sort. She had thought, until the fateful wedding night, that it was just nerves…or jealousy…she thought she could prove to him that his fears were misguided once they were married. But that was not to be.
On the night of her wedding, Pilori’s mind felt numb, unable to accept what was happening, as Kamilé repeated Everan’s angry words with the expression of a terribly confused and frightened child. When they ran away, and neither she nor Turnai could stop them, the grief took a long time to sink in. Then, one night, it hit her hard; she felt suffocated, in pain, and swore to Turnai that she couldn’t live without her babies, her children. She refused to leave the house, in case they came back, which he assured her they would; she ate little and slept at the kitchen table, stubbornly insisting on remaining on the spot until they returned. Turnai did all he could, searching hard for them and even enlisting help from the other elves, who told him plainly that they hoped the twins were never found. There was nothing else that could be done.
The twins never came back. Turnai eventually convinced Pilori to sleep in her own bed and eat; she did so reluctantly, feeling sick with guilt and grief as the days slid by. Turnai was eventually forced to make up stories, telling her that so-and-so had seen Everan by the river, or heard Kamilé’s voice in the silence of the woods. The stories, he told her later, were only lies at first; after that people started seeing Kamilé and Everan all the time, usually in the act of stealing. He didn’t tell her that; he just told her that they were alive, and happy, and safe; only a partial truth, but enough to calm her into sanity again.
When it became clear that the twins were not coming back, and that they could apparently manage on their own, Turnai managed to convince Pilori to take a small vacation from her stress—he invited her to come with him to meet his daughters and their families, plus his father, who was living in an elfin city to the northwest. She agreed with her own conditions: that they leave the doors unlocked and the pantry full of food, and that she could leave a letter on the table. Her husband resignedly agreed, knowing how helpless and anguished she felt. She left the letter in plain sight from the window; only then did she agree to leave.
She found out later that while she was gone, Everan took Kamilé back home, just for a few minutes. They didn’t go inside; they didn’t even see the letter. They only saw enough to know that she wasn’t there anymore. And then they left again…she had seen them at midsummer years later, but they wouldn’t forgive her…they never returned, they never spoke to her, they never even ventured near her home…and just when she had finally seen them, just when they had finally made amends, just when she thought she could finally have them back…they…had….


Pilori was sobbing as she wrenched herself out of the dreams, though the grief would not fade. Her breaths came in gasps; it sounded like her throat tore from her chest to her mouth with every sob she gave. She cried piteously, too drugged and weary even to move, until someone heard her at last.
“They’re safe,” Carn told her for the hundredth time since Kamilé’s death. “They’re both safe, Pilori. They’re far away, but they’re happy and they’re safe and they’ll be back someday….”
It seemed strange to her, too much of a coincidence, that she should be back in this room, the room where Sera had died. So strange…the room where she had been given her babies, and the room where she was imprisoned once she had lost them….
A mixture of water and calming medication dripped constantly into her veins; she was so agitated, all the time, that it was damaging her health. Her side felt like great beasts were clawing it open every time she began to cry.
“S-someone…t-t-told me, in a dr-…dream,” she choked, “that sh-she…that my baby g-girl…she was…she jumped…off…of a….”
“It was only a dream,” Carn insisted, though mentally berating himself for discussing such matters in the living room, within earshot of Sera’s bedroom. “Only a dream. She’s safe. She told me before she left to tell you goodbye. She says she loves you and she’s coming back soon, and bringing Everan with her….”
“I’m s-s-s-…s-sorry, Carn, I…f-failed you..an-…-nd…S-sera….”
“You didn’t fail. You did wonderfully. They’re safe,” Carn repeated. He kept saying it, soothingly, like a mantra, as her breathing eased and her head slowly stopped spinning. “They’re safe….”
She didn’t quite believe him; it still felt, to her, as if they were gone. But his voice was calm and deep and smooth, and it was pulling her into sleep. She let herself go, feeling her pulse thump heavily in her ears as the medicine and Carn’s voice lured her into unconsciousness.
Carn squeezed her hand—limp and pale, the fragile bones poking out—before tucking it beneath the blankets. He propped Pilori’s head up, checked the glass bottle of water and medicine dripping into her, and laid a hand against her forehead.
He shook his head: not good. But then, nothing was really “good” right now. And regardless of what he told Pilori every day, every time she was awake, he knew that Everan was nowhere to be found, and Kamilé’s body was lying prone and lifeless in the forest, and there were thousands dead and a murderous magi loose and an entire sky filled with deities who couldn’t care less; and quite honestly, he didn’t really think anything would be “good” ever again.


“…And we must remember that our coffers are nearly drained, so we can only buy supplies from the humans now if it is absolutely necessary, unless we have something to trade to them. With that in mind, I suggest we send—”
Marli yawned, widely and pointedly. Carn blinked and read on in a brave attempt to ignore her.
“—send parties into the woods, a dozen elves or so in each, to look for fallen trees; there is still plenty of sound wood in the fringes of the forest that was burned. The trees did not incinerate there; they merely fell, and are still very solid. I have also discovered that there are a few elves from Kocha and some nearby towns that are experienced in extracting resin from trees, which we can use as a cement for the new buildings. We should also—”
Marli yawned again, enjoying the annoyance that flashed across his face. Dry old crab, she thought to herself. In Sirtema, nothing like this would ever happen. In Sirtema the king or queen would send over a few silver shards and hundreds of strong men and women, along with a few accomplished magi, to help rebuild a city ruined by fire. The governor of the city would gather everyone together in the broken remains of the square; then he or she would, instead of all this sympathetic touchy-feely nonsense, simply tell the population to get over it, and work at building their homes again. There was plenty of help to be had; alongside generous, able-bodied builders and skilled magi who could morph a large tree into a house in less than a day, many sympathetic elves, from the ruined city or others nearby, would write letters, posted everywhere, about how normal people and inexperienced magi alike could build homes and furniture, where to find supplies in the forest or the nearby towns, who to go to for an expert in any area.
There was none of this “Elder meeting” idiocy; no one decided anything for a Sirteman. They dealt with their own problems, asking for help only when completely necessary. And it worked: if this was Sirtema, Kocha would be thriving by now.
But it wasn’t, she reminded herself. It was definitely not Sirtema. Sirtema was unreachable, a distant dream, molecules away yet dimensions apart. It was so sad, being a dimensional orphan, as lost as a bird in the sea. She thought of how Sirtema was—so bright, so vivid, so happy and sad as it reveled in victory, mourned in defeat, screamed war cries in battle and set out on wandering, rambling adventures in times of peace. She sighed, tuning out the seven Elders’ voices as the meeting droned on, unable to help herself from drifting away, dreaming absently about another world, the one she still called home.

Raena tested them in a half-dozen more ways—their speed, their reflexes, their skill—all in potentially dangerous ways; she raced them against Helas, Nara, herself, and even two different kinds of arrows; she feigned attack on them; she really attacked them, to see what they’d do. Everan didn’t like it when it was Kamilé’s turn, but absolutely relished his chance to either show off or cause pain, Kamilé couldn’t tell.
When each test was done, Nara took careful notes, and Helas vocalized how impressed he was—they always surprised him, every time. But Kamilé wasn’t as proud of herself from these as she was concerned, and scared. Were they really that much stronger than normal people—even strong, sturdy adults? Were they really faster than the swiftest of elves? It was too much to take in. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and wait for it to be over.
The physical tests took all morning; after a hearty, satisfying lunch of some kind of stew (Helas ate nearly half of the large pot with meat in it, made for the humans, drained from the various injuries they kept inflicting on him), another round of questions and testing began, but not the same as before—these were the questions Everan had been wary of from the start.
Where had they lived? What was it next to? How much had they seen? Kamilé described Kocha carefully, trying to let Everan’s loving details wash over her and from her mouth, untainted by the doubt and cold fear gnawing at her stomach. It was easier when the Elite—all gathered around them now, listening closely—wanted her to recount the surrounding areas; those were mostly pleasant memories. She mentioned their games at one point, and to Everan’s chagrin, the Elite seemed very interested in them; Raena sighed and shook her head, and Helas and Aridella shared a half-skeptical half-isn’t-that-pathetic look with each other when she told them about their Chosen game, though she couldn’t understand why.
“And you didn’t ever realize?” Dimirza asked at one point.
“Realize what?” Kamilé murmured, self-conscious.
“You played the games,” she said slowly, frowning, “you pretended to be twin chosen… but you didn’t know that you were, at the time?”
“N-no….”
Which led to more questions. When did they find out? How? Though Kamilé told them roughly half of what her grandfather had confided in her, she refused to go into detail about much else, Tyrranen especially, and Everan didn’t press her; instead he helped her by offering, at the Elite’s request, a list of the clues they could now see in retrospect. One of them was Elder Carn’s very strange behavior toward them; the Elite wanted to know about him, which led to a discussion about family.
Everan clammed up at this point, gritting his teeth against the onslaught of questions so offensive that they might as well have been disgusting swear words. What did they know of their family? How had they found it out? Did they not know that Sera was a chosen? What did they know about their father? Questions, questions, questions that hurt them both, but she had to answer or they would never leave her alone.
It was Raena that asked the one they had been dreading; Kamilé winced when it came.
“What about Everan’s parents? What do you know about them?”
Kamilé looked away, and swallowed. She couldn’t answer, and Everan wouldn’t help her; he had pulled his mind away from hers like recoiling from physical touch. She glanced sideways at him and saw that his eyes were closed, his teeth and fists clenched.
“You do know that you and Everan aren’t related,” Raena insisted, in her usual insensitive way, “right?”
“Yes,” Kamilé mouthed.
“Raena,” Helas warned, looking troubled again, but she ignored him.
“So who are Everan’s parents? Or was it yours? Do you know?”
Kamilé swallowed hard, twice, and nodded before she was able to speak. “We don’t…we don’t know who they are,” she whispered.
“Yours or his?” Raena insisted.
Kamilé had been trying to comfort Everan, but he had pushed her hand away and was resisting entrance into his mind—but at these words, she felt, very clearly, a muted spasm of his pain. He hated this, and so did she—it hurt him too much. Her temper flared.
“Neither,” she snarled, her own voice surprising her. “Sera was our mama and she loved us.”
The venom in her voice shut Raena up, though she recovered and moved on in seconds.
“So, when she died—” displaying her usual lack of sensitivity again, and making Helas frown sadly at her—“who did you stay with?”
Kamilé told them about Pilori, how she always burnt things, how she played with them and was nice, how they were poor, but pretty happy. She didn’t bring up how they had left—no one asked and she didn’t like to talk about it.
Next: How well did they get along with kids their age? Why? What about adults? Why not? Who were their closest friends? Raena jumped a little at Marli’s name, but then she smiled a little, happy at the thought of her sister alive and well. After making her explain in full about the necklace, she seemed content just to sit still and listen to their description of Marli. She grinned as Kamilé explained grumpily how annoying Marli was, how she always gave them the wrong homework and never seemed to take their side, though she was all right in the end….
Which led Nara to enquire about academics—which made Kamilé blush and Everan scoff. Again, the Elite were surprised.
To Everan: “Dear gods, you can do algebra?” (Nara, with her usual expletive.)
To Kamilé: “Zhieyha oyäe, you can’t read?!” (Raena, with hers.)
She shook her head miserably at this, her cheeks burning. The usual questions—Why not? Didn’t anyone ever teach you? Dear gods, why not?—flooded around her and hurt her ears, demanding demanding demanding, and she couldn’t ever answer.
When she was on the verge of tears, Everan decided enough was enough, and gave them all a glare that froze the words in their mouths. Struggling to regain control in the ringing silence, Nara turned to Everan—Sokína watching eagerly over her shoulder—and inquired about other things he was good at.
Math, mostly. Sciences. Literature—he’d read half the library. Kamilé answered for him, feeling, if possible, worse than ever—he was so smart, and she was just the opposite; the grownup’s reactions had proved that.
But then Everan cleared his throat and started signing, and Kamilé heard the words in his mind:
You know, Kamilé can do a lot of really cool stuff—she knows things about the chosen that we couldn’t ever have found out otherwise, because it was forbidden to know in Ametris, and she can talk to animals too….
“Really?” Dæomna said eagerly. “And do they talk back?”
Kamilé wondered if it was sarcasm for a moment, but Everan encouraged her to respond, so she replied, “No…can they?” She was curious.
She nodded and shrugged in one fluid movement. “Sure,” she said easily—truthfully. “Not a lot of people can do it though. Mostly it’s through magic…you two are telepaths?”
“Yeah,” Kamilé said cautiously.
Dæomna nodded. “Well, telepathy is a magical art—though you two, I’m sure, can just do it because you’re chosen and don’t need rules.” She frowned momentarily, as if she didn’t understand—and she wouldn’t, Everan mused, she was Ïlanardan, it might not be the same for her as for Sirtemans—then continued, “In any case, most telepaths are magi—it’s not really hard to learn. In fact, all of us are telepaths.” She shrugged, then laughed. “It was by far the easiest part of becoming an Elite. Much easier than the tattoo.”
Everyone else laughed, too—it must be true. Kamilé frowned at Everan; other people were telepathic too?
He didn’t seem very pleased at this news; he actually seemed a little pale.
Everan? she inquired, worried.
He shook his head by tiny degrees, then spat words through her mouth—“There are other telepaths?!”
“Hundreds,” Dæomna told him, looking stricken by his—her—their reaction. “Maybe more, I don’t know. It’s not particularly difficult, many magi can do it, though only a handful really use it…. Soldiers and fighters, for instance, will establish it with their family, so they can communicate over long distances. And we do it for coordination purposes…though only when we’re fighting. It’s courtesy to keep out of others’ minds until invited in, and most learn defense against telepathy before learning telepathy itself….”
Everan’s eyes kept getting wider and wider; this, more than anything, deeply shocked, even horrified him. “There’s defense against it?” he asked through Kamilé.
“Of course,” Dæomna assured them. “It’s easy. We’ll have to teach you….”
“What else can people do with their minds?” he demanded urgently. “What else?”
Dæomna hesitated. “A lot of things…most of them…aren’t very pleasant.”
“What?” he nearly shrieked through Kamilé.
The Elite exchanged glances with each other. “Calm down,” Dæomna said soothingly, “nothing bad is going to happen to you—”
“What else?”
She flinched at the strident volume over which Kamilé had no control; only protest from her would possibly make him back off, but she didn’t, because she wanted to know too, to understand. Everan was borrowing her voice, her throat as she soaked in his horror, and tried to guess as to what it meant.
“Telepathy…is the most common. With magic—a lot of magic—other parts of the mind can be unlocked…telepathy is by far the easiest. From that is derived a sort of tracking sense…I can’t do it, but I know that it works like sound waves, sort of, and our tattoos work that way as well so we can find one another.”
We can do that, said Everan numbly—it astonished him, unpleasantly so, that they were not unique…that their talents could be turned against them.
“And there are…less pleasant abilities. There’s hypnosis…with a certain technique and more than the average amount of magic, you can convince a fairly weak-minded person of anything you like. We think that Tyrranen might be using that…though most probably joined her of their own volition.” She made a face. “And there’s…there’s another one that Tyrranen definitely uses.” She swallowed; she looked faintly sick. “It’s a sort of…well, it’s torture—you can get into someone’s mind and cause them pain, as much as you want. It’s…fairly difficult, from what I’ve been told, but for her it’s no trouble—which worries us. And in theory, though it’s not been heard of before…if a person had enough magic, and knew exactly how, they could control a person’s entire mind…their entire self. But it would be very dangerous, and very painful, for the victim…even the mildest of the skills of the mind can cause pain in some, and even drive them to insanity. Torture, especially, has done that to many…thanks to Tyrranen….”
She trailed off, alarmed; both twins were deathly pale. “Chosen?” she asked fearfully.
Kamilé turned to Everan; she could feel his fear, but didn’t understand, as of yet, why. But he couldn’t answer her; he was frozen.
“There are defenses,” she assured them hurriedly. “In fact it’s the same one, just in different strengths….”
This did not comfort Everan, exactly, but it did unfreeze him; he smoothed his expression into impassiveness, though brushing Kamilé’s questions aside. Not now. Later.
Dæomna tried to comfort them further, but Everan brushed her words aside; when he insisted, they moved on with their questions.
A tricky series of questions: How well did they think they could survive on their own? Kamilé snorted at this one.
“Duh,” she told them. “We’ve lived by ourselves for how long….”
There was a silence. She looked up and saw, by the expressions on their faces, that it was not obvious to them at all. In fact, they seemed borderline stunned. She glanced warily from face to face; Helas and Nara looked particularly pained, as if the thought hurt them. Raena had a resigned look pasted on her face, as if that was only to be expected. She saw shock, mostly, and sadness. Only Aridella seemed completely unaffected, staring off into space like it didn’t concern her, and therefore was unimportant.
She got the idea that she had said something wrong just a moment too late. “What?” she asked anyway.
No one responded; they just looked at each other—and then, Kamilé noticed, most of them, including Aridella, glanced briefly at Helas, who was still staring at Kamilé as though she had stabbed him.
Great, Everan muttered. See, Kamilé? That’s why I never tell anyone…it just upsets them, and we don’t need their pity.
She flushed, wishing they would stop staring. After a few painful seconds ticked by, they all glanced at Helas again, probably reading his mind and waiting for him to speak; finally, he struggled with himself, blinked, and choked out, “You lived by yourselves?”
“Yeah,” Kamilé muttered.
“When? For how long? And WHY?”
Kamilé struggled; Everan sighed inwardly and pointed out the right place in their memories. “We…we ran away,” she said to her boots. “From Pilori’s.”
“How old were you?”
“Almost six,” she murmured. She chanced a peek at Helas’s face; it was contorted slightly, like someone had pressed a brand to his chest. Then his expression softened into morose understanding.
“Why did you run? Was she mean to you?”
Kamilé recalled vividly the night of Pilori’s wedding, and was about to answer in the affirmative; but Everan stopped her.
He doesn’t mean like that, Kamè, he said softly; something had upset him slightly. You’ll have to explain.
She sighed, but did as she was told, explaining how Pilori had betrayed them, and how they had run away.
This part, the Elite did not understand.
“But that’s perfectly normal, wanting a boyfriend, or a husband,” Nara entreated them. “Surely one of you must have realized that sooner or later….”
Kamilé sniffed. “She should’ve asked us,” she declared, giving them Everan’s reasoning; at this point, he seemed uncomfortable and withdrawn, and said nothing.
“But surely you must have realized why,” Nara insisted, her eyes wide and shining; the thought of any children abandoning their mother, even if adopted, clearly hurt her. Even Sokína seemed surprised, and a bit disgusted, at them. “And how much she loved you, and wanted you back…why didn’t you go back? You were just kids, you must have been hungry and scared….”
And it made sense to Kamilé, then, all at once—why hadn’t they gone back? Pilori had missed them, had loved them, had taken care of them…even if she had been poor, she had had the means to feed and clothe and bathe and shelter and comfort and nurture them more than Everan had ever had. And she had loved them. Why hadn’t they forgiven her?
She looked at Everan, demanding answers, but he repelled any contact, mental or physical; he seemed vaguely troubled, and didn’t appear to want to answer.
She set her jaw and left him alone; it was just one more question to demand answers to whenever they were alone tonight.
“Leave them alone, Nara,” Helas sighed. “They don’t want to talk about it.”
Nara nodded and digressed, and they moved onto the obvious set of questions.
“So how did you live by yourselves? How did you get food, where did you live?”
Kamilé shared a look with Everan; she was exasperated, but he was thoughtful. We’ve never had to explain ourselves before, he mused. I don’t like it much either, but…but it seems to be important for them to know that we can survive. It makes sense. Let’s go on and tell them, Kamè.
So she did. She explained about their home, answering all the questions they threw at her; they were impressed by the twin’s ability to build a house out of nothing, and complimented them generously, though they shared many solemn looks with each other. Then Kamilé had to tell them—shifting uncomfortably as she did—about their source of food—whatever they could find when there was anything to be found, and stolen food every few days. She told them about their bad reputation with the elves, though tried to keep it short; it brought back too many bad memories. She told them about the perpetual fears of starvation, freezing, and even the smallest of cuts and illnesses. Her audience was silent and grave; Kamilé kept her eyes on her boots, afraid to see Helas’s pained expression, Nara’s wide eyes, general shock and outrage, or Aridella’s inevitable apathy.
They moved on to the next questions without much comment. More and more and more inquiries; they seemed never-ending, but the twins nonetheless kept answering, hoping for something—even if the Elite couldn’t make sense of it all, even if the information was useless to them, at least, they could hope, it would be a good story to someone…how tragic would it be, if the story of your life came to nothing…!
The last question didn’t come until the sky directly overhead had already turned deep, midnight blue. The forest glowed with a dim, dusky light around them.
It was the question Kamilé had been dreading—though she didn’t know it until it had already been asked.
“How did you get to Sirtema?”
Everan immediately threw a sharp, covert glance at Kamilé. She flushed and buried her nose in her scarf. What in the world was she supposed to say? The truth? What was the truth?
Everan? she asked timidly. Can you tell them first?
He blinked. Kamilé, there’s no feasible way I can explain it without a voice, he reminded her. It’s complicated enough, don’t you think?
I don’t know, she snapped, nerves making her edgy. Use YOUR voice, then.
He blinked again. She was supposed to know better than that. What’s wrong? Obviously, something was.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Why couldn’t she be smart? She’d know how to explain. She’d know how to keep all this from him…from all of them.
It took a long time—Everan was somewhere between worried and alarmed, and the Elite’s collective eyebrows were raised—before she found a way around it. It was simple, really.
How’d you get here again? she asked Everan.
He arched one thin eyebrow. Maybe you should tell them how YOU got here first.
But you LEFT first, she murmured. Please?
He sighed. Kamilé knew that he knew he would regret it later, but for some reason, his noble-older-brother instincts kicked in, and he obliged.
Kamilé held his hand tightly as she reluctantly told the Elite, with his help, all about Tyrranen’s attack on them. She didn’t realize her hand was shaking until Everan squeezed it, just as she didn’t notice the expressions on the Elite’s faces until one of them swore and she looked up. Various degrees of shock, horror, and fury met her from all sides.
She didn’t wait for them to ask questions; she just talked. When she got to the part where Everan had disappeared, she tried to be subtle, but Everan’s head snapped up the moment she said it: “We.”
“We had the Heart, so she hit us,”“We were in a white place,” “We woke up and it was snowing….”
He said nothing; but he missed nothing. His eyes were too sharp on her bare skin; she looked away from all of them, wishing she could melt into the snow.
Finally, she was done talking; she fell silent warily, bracing herself for the questions.
But there weren’t any. There was just a long, echoing, unbearable silence. It pressed too hard on her ears; she was about to start screaming when Helas finally spoke.
“Thank you, Chosen,” he said quietly, no trace of stress in his voice. “That’s all for today. We’ll see you again after school tomorrow.”
Nara stood at once and took Sokína’s hand, gesturing to the twins; Kamilé stood up at once, unable to believe her luck. Everan followed right behind her as she shadowed Nara, waving once to the other Elite—Helas, really, she liked him a lot—before they left the clearing.
She felt very small and exposed as Nara took them home, back through the silent forest and through the dingy human town and up the rising platform that would take them to the elfin city in the treetops. She waited jumpily for Everan to start asking her the questions—she knew he would sometime, how could he not?—but he kept silent. Elfin Simèa came closer and closer, unfolded beneath her feet, roads that were branches and houses that were tree trunks and protective clusters of branches and open doors with magical firelight pouring out, making stripes on their path. It was very quiet; elves went to sleep at dusk.
Kamilé felt horrible. She’d lied, for one thing—lied to her twin brother, the one person, as he had said, that she could trust in the world. Even though he scared her, with his urge to learn magic…would he listen if she told him how she felt about it? Or would he assume, as always, that he was right about everything?
And the question—how did you get here? What happened?—had opened the floodgates in her mind; she had tried, but the memories still pounded against her mind’s eyes nonetheless, beating through, guilt and fear and hatred boiling together screaming, “Look at us! Relive us! We’ll never let you forget!”
It wasn’t as if she’d wanted to lie…she’d had to. Everan couldn’t know. She couldn’t tell him what had happened when he’d left her. She knew him, he’d react in all the wrong ways….
What had happened? she wondered, feeling like her world was shattered at the core. Not very long ago, she had trusted him completely, with everything…she had assumed that he would take care of her forever, he would always be around to make the right choices and know everything for her, making it okay when she knew nothing.
Maybe when he wasn’t around anymore, everything had changed…maybe she’d learned, just a little bit, not to take things for granted. Maybe she’d found over the past few weeks that nothing, no one—not even Everan—was how she’d thought they were.
She didn’t know. She didn’t even know herself anymore. It was just that she’d never given herself so much thought before….
Nara sat them on the couch and made them a quick, late dinner; but nobody seemed very hungry, just like no one seemed tired. Raena frowned into her coffee; she abandoned it within minutes for what looked like a strong drink, which she half-finished in one gulp, and then sipped at for hours. Nara sewed something to keep her hands busy, but she was distracted; she looked miserable, and kept glancing at both twins, Kamilé in particular, as if she’d like very much to give them a hug. Sokína sipped at a glass of milk, her eyes flickering to Everan every few seconds; she seemed immensely curious, but felt it best not to ask her questions right then, though she must have been bursting to.
Everan stared straight ahead, his mind miles away. He didn’t look at anyone or move much; Kamilé didn’t even see him blink. He seemed unreal, like his body was only there to hold his place until he returned. She knew he was only sitting with them for the sake of appearing normal, but that wasn’t serving its purpose very well—he was almost frightening in his abstraction.
Kamilé curled up beside him, though closer to Nara, wrapped in a blanket and terrified of the questions she felt closing in on her, waiting poised behind closed mouths. But for prudence, tact, and pity, they would have already been hurled at her like stones.
It took Nara a long time, until almost two hours after sunset, to retain her normal grip on reality. “Oh!” she said suddenly, and hastily rose to her feet. “It’s so late, and you have school tomorrow…let’s get to bed, come on.”
Everan leapt to his feet at once with surprising speed; Sokína, rising automatically, seemed to move in slow motion next to him. Kamilé was the last to scramble to her feet, besides Raena, who looked like she wasn’t moving for the rest of the night. Nara chivvied the twins into their room, and Sokína into hers.
The door clicked shut with a sort of threatening finality; Kamilé gulped. She didn’t want to be in the same room as Everan, alone and defenseless. Images of his last quest for information, the night she’d told him about his parents, kept flashing back to her—his cold, intent expression, the intense, almost violent way he questioned her and attacked her psyche with skill and guiltless ease.
But he still wouldn’t say anything. He just turned his back to her and pulled off his coat and all but the innermost layers of his clothes. Kamilé did the same, but then she was cold; she took the blanket from the floor and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Then she closed her eyes, leaned against the wall, and slid down; she felt sick, she couldn’t stand the memories in her head anymore, or the fear of them being wrested out of her. Or the guilt, or the pain, or the absolute terror of the situation they were in now: people asking questions, people that were too strong, people that knew Tyrranen and wanted them to take her down.
Kamilé? Everan asked; not alarmed, as he might have been, but questioning, probing. It was coming. Kamilé felt like she was going to cry.
Kamilé, wh—
Everan? she cut across him, knowing what he was going to ask and shivering at the idea of answering.
Yes? he said patiently. Like a snake waiting for a baby bird.
She swallowed huge mouthfuls of air, wishing none of this had ever happened, wishing they were safe at home, poor and hungry and sick, but at least not in the middle of a war. She felt hysterics coming, rising in her throat.
Everan…she whimpered. Everan, what happened to you? And…and me…? Everan stood frozen, shocked by her question. She started sobbing, closing her eyes, tears dotting the blanket. Everan, what happened to us?


bby the way, sorry about the no spacing/italics thing. I'm incredibly lazy. If someone wants to do it for me by like, quoting THEN fixing, then I'll owe you five k and superappreciation.

Chapter something or other. 67.

Where are we?
Simèa, he answered, very cautiously. For whatever reason, he didn’t seem to want to get into complex temporal and magical physics, as well as Sirteman philosophy and of course the lurking darkness of Tyrranen’s role in their situation, with his naïve and for the moment untarnished eleven-year-old sister.
But she, of course, had no idea what she was getting herself into. Which is where?
Arês Woods, he answered promptly, though his tone suggested that he knew exactly how long this game would last, and he couldn’t avoid giving her the answers forever.
Which is where? She repeated.
He sighed. The former republic of Sirtema.
She scowled. What’s Sirtema?
She’d caught him; he struggled with himself for a moment, then picked the simplest explanation and stuck with that. It’s the alternate dimension to Ametris, he said. Like its opposite.
Her scowl deepened. That doesn’t make any sense.
He blinked. …Um, was all he could say to that. Well, it…DOES…but….
But you don’t wanna tell me? she guessed.
Not really, he admitted. I don’t know how to explain it…in a way you’d understand.
Who told YOU? she demanded.
He thought about it. Raena…gave me the basics, he mused. But Sokína explained some of the specifics…and the rest, well…it just makes SENSE, Kamilé. It’s weird. Like I already knew it.
She snorted. Well, if SOKÍNA knows then it must be REALLY hard to get, she said scathingly. It was one of few times that she had employed sarcasm in recent times; she decided now that she was very fond of it.
No, no, no, Everan said at once, helplessly. It’s just that…she only told me…. He paused; he seemed to realize that he was suffering from a common affliction of his gender—knowing when a girl is mad at you, but not knowing why or how to explain yourself or even how to ask her to tell you what’s wrong—and, after a moment’s thought, asked her, A-are you…mad about…something, Kamilé?
Kamilé, herself, knew that she was, but found herself unable to explain her feelings, or even why they existed; so she responded, haughtily, in the way typical of her gender: No, she said, promptly, innocently, and falsely.
Had Everan not been extremely intelligence, things would have proceeded as they commonly do: he would have confusedly decided to believe her, and she would have been angry at him for misinterpreting her, and the issue would have stewed in bitterness as it waited for another time. But he was, so they did not.
You’re mad at…at Sokína, aren’t you? he ventured. She sniffed; she couldn’t honestly deny it. You are, he assured himself, then reassured her, Don’t be, Kamilé! Really. I’ll…I’ll explain, I promise…. Clearly he thought—not altogether incorrectly—that she was angry because Sokína understood what she did not. Kamilé thought about it, then decided it was true enough, and she would be consoled for the moment. It was worth it if she could finally understand all of this.
Okay, she said agreeably, and he, consumed by relief, immediately thought of the best way to explain it all to her.
You see, he said after a moment, Sirtema was here first, Kamè, for a really long time; its history is the same as ours, because Ametris didn’t exist then. But then the Thousand Year’s War came along….
He explained the supposed events of the war, and how Haenir had become the first chosen, and how the goddess Karayani had put everyone into a deep sleep, and when Haenir awoke he had been in Ametris, and stayed there for life. Then he outlined his take on the story.
The Sirtemans think that he knew he was in Ametris, and that he told his son Inachi and his daughter Marisol all about it, which is how Marisol and both of their descendants got to Sirtema to be proper chosen. They think that’s how we all get here—the knowledge is passed on. But I found that chosen book in Ametris, remember? And it said how the earlier chosen had managed to get there…and I don’t really think the Sirteman version is true. Because most of the time, it seemed like they got here without meaning to…they were either in some sort of accident, or they had tried to do something else, or they screwed up and died somehow….
Kamilé tried very hard not to flinch. Everan didn’t notice anything.
So I don’t think that’s true—I think that Haenir had no idea that he was in some kind of alternate universe; I really think that he thought he was still in the same place. I think he figured that everyone ELSE had lost their memories, but not him…and when he started naming places and telling everyone what had happened, he wasn’t telling the truth, exactly—he was telling what he remembered. But I don’t think the memories were real, I think Karayani implanted them in his mind for simplicity’s sake…. He paused. And I know it’s heresy and all here, and I’m sure everyone born here would be furious at that, but it feels RIGHT…don’t…don’t you think? He added carefully.
His question surprised her. She thought about it. Haenir had told everyone what had happened, just as it said in Ametrisan history…but Everan thought that the memories were false? She pondered it; then something clicked, and she nodded. It kinda makes sense….
Yeah, I thought so too, he said, eyebrows arched high—pleasantly surprised that she agreed. And I was also thinking…you know how he named everything? With the names he thought they already had? Maybe they turned out different because he was thinking in a different language—he was talking in Ametrisan the whole time—and he didn’t know it? Do you think someone would realize that they were thinking in an entirely different language?
I…I don’t know, said Kamilé, who really wasn’t quite sure what she thought. No?
No, I don’t think so either, Everan murmured, slipping into that place in his mind where only he existed, he and a lot of very fast thinking. Kamilé didn’t even try to make sense of it all; she decided to proceed as she usually did and ignore it until he wanted to speak plainly again.
Anyway, he said after a few seconds, during which she was sure he had run through Ametris’s entire history in his mind, Haenir apparently thought that everything was normal—that it was still HIS world, it had just started over—until his daughter disappeared one day and didn’t come back for years. When she did she had a lot to tell her father about what she had seen; she wrote a journal while she was in Sirtema, detailing all the information she had found. Marisol and Haenir understood it perfectly, from what I’ve gathered, even though no one outside their family could. I think maybe it’s like what our minds did; as chosen it all sort of CLICKS. We just GET it. Sokína had a really hard time explaining all of this to me, she couldn’t really do it, but it made perfect sense to me…I really, really want to read Marisol’s journal, he muttered, longing burning in his thoughts.
Can’t read, said Kamilé, apologetically.
Everan smirked. Neither can I, he half-laughed at himself. They speak a different language here, remember? I can’t read it as easily as we can speak it. He scowled. Now I know how you feel, he admitted, sounding furious at the world. And I hate it.
Kamilé imagined he would. She wanted to remind him that she didn’t particularly like reading anyway, so it wasn’t as bad for her, and she was very sorry; but she didn’t quite know how, so she didn’t.
S-so…she stammered instead. So he and…and that girl…knew that….
Everan nodded, finding his place at once. Marisol, Haenir, and Inachi thought about it for a very long time—theorized, you know—and wrote everything they had discovered down for future generations. They added to it as they found out more from Haenir’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Sokína told me that everyone lived for so long because of some “gift from the goddess,” which I THINK means that Haenir had helped out so much that as a favor to him no one in his family died and were reincarnated, like with us. I think it started happening after he died, but I’m not sure…she is so VAGUE on these things! he sighed in exasperation. Sirtemans. I’ll need to do some research.
Hmph, Kamilé said; it served him right that he had to be ignorant for once, when it was pretty much her constant state of existence. She found it rather funny and ironic that Sokína of all people couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know. What happened then?
I don’t really know, Everan said, and scowled. I suppose the natural flow of the chosen continued—when one died, another was born, and the chosen did what they do…it seems like they usually turn up right when things are looking bleak and save everyone’s hide. That book in Ametris wasn’t very useful, really; it didn’t mention Sirtema at all, just what happened before and after. But I’m sure there are plenty of books here. He got that book-hungry look on his face again; Kamilé half-expected him to lick his lips. And when Marisol’s line died out, Inachi’s produced a new chosen, and that line would take over for awhile…but that’s old news, Ametrisan history. I’m really interested in the Sirteman side of things….
Um, said Kamilé. Everan was in his special place again, and didn’t quite hear her.
Their history’s gone on in a completely different direction from ours, Kamilé! It’s fascinating. They barely even acknowledge Ametris’s existence; their time just went right along after the war, the population picked up and they recovered like it was nothing, not like in Ametris where everything was completely new. It feels like they know everything…because they remember what Ametris forgot, you see. But they don’t know very much about Ametris at all, from what Sokína told me. A lot of people don’t even think it exists. She told me that some people even think the chosen died out with Kilio and Tara, because there was a huge gap and the two chosen before us didn’t really do much. And they think we’re too late to save Sirtema from Tyrranen…which—
Waitwaitwait, Kamilé whimpered. Tyrranen. Why’s she here?
The more important question is, why was she in Ametris? Everan corrected her absently, deep in thought. And how did she get there?
She walked? I dunno, Kamilé muttered. But what’s she doing HERE?
Ruling the country, apparently, Everan sighed. And not very well. Then he paused, blinked, and gave Kamilé an odd look. Walked, Kamilé? You can’t WALK to Ametris.
Why not? she said timidly, feeling very small and out of her league with all of this.
Because…deities, he murmured. Where to begin? It’s because…well…you didn’t WALK here, did you?
She twitched a little. No, she said, and added in a deeper corner, I fell.
Exactly, said Everan, blissfully unaware of her thoughts. Do you remember that white place?
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. It had frightened her.
That was…it was the place between Sirtema and Ametris, he explained. But it doesn’t really exist. Like, you couldn’t walk there.
She blinked. Like you can’t walk to Ametris?
Exactly! He smiled, briefly. Very nice. Because that white place was in an entirely different dimension from the one Ametris is in, and the one we’re in, the Sirtema one. But it’s between the two, sort of. You see?
…Um, Kamilé murmured, which answered his question well enough.
Okay. Watch. He rummaged in their bag and pulled out a whole shard coin, gleaming copper, its pieces clicked neatly together so that it was one whole, perfect circle. Kamilé had never seen one so shiny and new before; she guessed that it was a Sirteman one, though they all looked the same to her.
All right. Now, pretend this side is Ametris, he said, tapping the coin, then flipping it over. And this side is where we are, Sirtema. It’s the same thing, right? It’s all made of copper. It’s just a different side of everything. You understand?
Uh-huh, Kamilé said, uncertainly.
So we were in Ametris, before—he tapped the coin again, on the side she was trying very hard to pretend that it was Ametris, even though it was a coin—but then we traveled THROUGH the coin, right through the middle, and ended up in Sirtema. He tapped the other side.
Through it? she repeated, with a bit of skepticism.
Yes. Because it’s generally assumed that you can’t get there by traveling around the edges, he told her. Some people agree, some don’t. But the fastest, easiest, and usually safest way—preferable to traveling hundreds of miles across the oceans—is to go directly THROUGH. But you can’t just walk into thin air and vanish. It takes a lot of power—usually magic, like what Tyrranen used—Kamilé flinched, and Everan frowned sympathetically—and you have to know what you’re doing. Once you have enough power, you have to change yourself into a bunch of tiny little specks, it’s much easier that way, and kind of…. He frowned for a moment; then his expression cleared. Flip them over. Like the coin. He demonstrated. And when all the little pieces are all flipped over, they can’t be in Ametris anymore, because they’re not on the right side, so they have to go to Sirtema. So then you’d have to push them through the coin.
So, Kamilé, about the white place…you see, Ametris and Sirtema are very, very different, like fire and ice, so they can’t exactly touch each other. There has to be something in between. So imagine that I cut the coin in half, through the thin side. He made a small slicing motion. Kamilé scowled at him for even thinking about ruining perfectly good money, which could easily be exchanged into food. And then I stuck them back together. There would still be that space in between, right? They wouldn’t just fuse together again, they’d slip around. Yes?
Okay, Kamilé said cautiously, because she knew it would get harder to understand soon.
Well, the white place we went through was the space between the coins. It’s there so people can’t just GO to Sirtema and Ametris, because only people of chosen blood are allowed to transcend dimensions like that. If people try to get through the white place, and they aren’t of chosen blood, they get stuck there. They die. Nobody really tries it anymore. You have to travel though it to get to Ametris or Sirtema, which is why we were there….
Kamilé blinked. Then she moaned and covered her head with her arms. My brain hurts! she whined. Stop talking all smart!
Everan took pity on her and endeavored to explain everything several more times. It felt like a long time, to her, before she understood, though with the speed of their telepathy only a few minutes passed. She thought about it for a minute, then decided that it wasn’t terribly complicated if she just didn’t think at all.
So, she finally asked, searching for the best way to phrase her main question, so Tyrranen…she brought us here?
Actually, Everan said, frowning, she didn’t. I did.
But…but you said you need magic…and sh-she…. It was hard enough to understand without shuddering every time she thought of that night.
Tyrranen didn’t want me in Sirtema. She wanted me in the white place…that’s why I was stuck there. It took me ages to figure out what was going on, or at least it felt like ages. And…honestly, Kamilé? If you hadn’t come I’d have never made it out.
She blinked. Huh?
I…well, when I was there, I could sort of…FEEL Ametris and Sirtema. It was like I was standing between them, on the border, only I didn’t know which was which. One felt strange, pale and muted and silent, and there was something dark there, some danger, but I couldn’t see what it was. And the other…it felt so ALIVE. The color was all wrong, it was darker than I liked, but there was so much going on…and I sensed living things, and they weren’t like the ones from the other side, that just were. They were happy, and they were sad…and quite honestly, I liked it there. But I didn’t know if it was Ametris or not; I thought it probably was.
I was wrong, though. When you came, you came from the misty place, the one where everything was…lifeless. And I knew that it was Ametris, and that something there had gone wrong…so I brought us here. It wasn’t that hard to do. There was plenty of magic in that place…and somehow, part of me knew what to do. I just KNEW. I don’t know if I could do it again, but….
You could! Kamilé cried, excited happiness bubbling up in her chest. I know you could, Everan! You know how to do everything, right?
Hey, wait a minute, he protested. I never said—
But you can do it, ‘cause you already did! she insisted. You can get us home! Right?
Everan blinked; then he bit his lip and averted his eyes, saying nothing.
R-…right? Kamilé repeated, her happiness melting away. Suddenly, she felt like she wanted to cry. Right, Everan?
Kamilé, he said softly, I don’t think I can do that again. I was surrounded with magic…it was all over the place…there isn’t that much here, I can tell. And I knew how to use it by instinct, which probably isn’t going to help us again. It felt like…well, sometimes, people find that they’re twice as strong as normal when they’re in a crisis; they’re able to lift trees off of people, or run at impossible speeds. I think it was like that. I can’t just do it again.
B-…she stammered. B-but….
And furthermore, he pressed, scowling at the floor now, you and Tyrranen got me halfway there. That sort of situation isn’t going to occur again. AND it might kill us if I get it wrong. AND I don’t even want to think about what happens if we did it right…she nearly killed me, and I don’t even know what happened to YOU—
Kamilé winced. Okay, she said in a very small voice. She wanted very much to start crying, even though it was probably a bad idea. I get it….
He nodded solemnly, his face twisted sourly at his own incompetence. I don’t even know how to do magic, he sighed. I don’t even know where to start. Why don’t you want me to learn it, Kamilé? It’s the only way we’re ever going to get home.
No it’s not, she argued weakly; she hadn’t thought about it that way. Other people…know how to….
Didn’t I already tell you? Only chosen can travel back and forth, chosen or their relatives. And Raena hates magic, and as far as she knows she’s our only living relative in Sirtema. It has to be me that does it, we can’t take anyone else with us.
Wait, Kamilé protested, Raena…she’s….
What, related to us? Yes. She’s from the Inachi family, so even though we’re very, very distantly related—our common ancestor lived centuries ago—the chosen blood is strong enough to make us as close as cousins. She’s sort of half-chosen, in that she’s stronger and faster and she can travel dimensions if she pleases…plus her family knew more about the chosen than WE do.
But…but how do YOU know…all of that?
He shrugged. Well, for one, Marli told me we were cousins when she gave me your necklace. And it’s not exactly hard to read Raena’s mind either. She was thinking about her family a lot today, especially Marli….
Marli? Kamilé frowned.
Of course. She’s Raena’s sister, remember?
Y-Yeah…. Her brain was starting to hurt again. But how did she…why was she in Ametris?
I don’t really know how she got there, Everan admitted. Raena didn’t either. Apparently she just disappeared one day; Raena thought she was dead until we brought her up. Don’t ever let her have your necklace, by the way, she really wants it from you.
Why can’t she have it?
Well, she does sort of have a point, it’s her family’s, but Marli gave it to me, she said it’s a conductor—whatever that is—and it would be very useful to us, so I’m going to keep it until I figure out what it’s for.
And she…she said…she was our family, right?
Yes.
What else did she say? The words came out in a rush. Everan arched an eyebrow; he sensed the agitation behind her words, and what thoughts had caused it.
Well, she told me that she had been watching us for awhile, but not in a creepy way…not really. She said we were, in her opinion, “great kids”, and she hoped life would get better for us soon. She said a lot would change in our lives soon, and to help us she wanted to give me something. She apologized, because it was so girly, but she knew I’d take the best care of it, and it was extremely valuable. She gave me the necklace and told me that it was worth entire houses full of silver, but I could never sell it—I had to keep it nearby, and safe. She told me it was very, very powerful and it would be useful to me later…then she told me that it was an heirloom of her family, entrusted to her, but she didn’t really have any need for it anymore. She told me, then, that she was our cousin, related to our mother—well, your mother, he added, making a bitter face in another direction for the briefest of moments, and that’s why she could trust me with it. Then she told me again to keep it safe and said to get lost and find you. And I did. It was really weird at the time, but she knew what we were…I had a lot of questions to ask her, but I didn’t feel like talking, and anyway, I found most of my answers already in her mind, so—
WAAAAAIT! Kamilé moaned. Why can you read minds and I can’t and why do you do it and why didn’t you tell me?
He frowned. I didn’t know you couldn’t do it, he explained. You just KNOW things, I thought that was the same thing, but in a different way….
But I can’t read minds, she said—this wasn’t just frustrating, it was infuriating. Was there anything ELSE that Everan could do that she couldn’t?
His head fell to one side; he made a thoughtful, slightly confused face as he thought for a moment. Then he blinked and snapped out of it. Yes, he said calmly. I can read minds. Sort of. It’s not like our telepathy, I can just tell what’s foremost in their thoughts. It’s actually really boring. Most people don’t think of anything besides what to do or what to say until they’re sitting down, or about to sleep, or not doing anything at all and have time to think about things. I saw that we were chosen in Marli’s mind; that’s when I knew for sure. I knew that Elder Carn was our grandfather since we were very young, probably eighteen months old or somewhere close, though I couldn’t really read minds then; I just remember hearing it. I knew he was trying his best to keep an eye on us, and that he’d put Marli up to it too. And I heard a lot of things this morning…a lot more than I expected.
Tell me, Kamilé commanded. Who told you? What did they say?
No one TOLD me. It felt like I was stealing the information from them, because they knew I was reading their minds…they didn’t stop me, but they could have, so I didn’t see very much. But I got something from everyone….
Tell me! she said again, more eagerly this time. It would be so interesting to know what all those grownups were thinking…maybe they knew more about what was going on.
All right…. He thought for a moment. Nara spent the day resisting the urge to hug us. She’s always wanted kids, but she can’t have any because of a magical injury she got when she was training; it was more than a decade ago. Every child she’s tried to have has miscarried. She loves Sokína more than anything, she thinks she’s perfect and wonderful…she’s a bit weird about kids, she loves every one of them. She and Sokína are also best friends; they tell each other everything, and Nara asks her advice about all kinds of things, it’s like they’re equals. I really, really don’t think that’s how it is supposed to be, he said, scowling as he, presumably, thought about his own mother.
Raena was thinking about a lot of things. She knows magic, but she doesn’t like using it because she’s seen it kill so many people; she purposely limited her skills to healing. She thought a lot about her family; they’re all dead, they were killed because they were related to the chosen and Tyrranen didn’t want them rebelling against her. She hates Tyrranen; before we told her about Marli, killing her was the only thing she lived for. She hasn’t been very happy for the past couple of years. She blamed herself for Marli’s disappearance because they fought before Marli ran off and never came back. Her father was always off fighting; her mother was sick with something, but she never acted like it if she could help them. They moved around a lot to avoid being killed by Tyrranen’s soldiers; they also had to stay in hiding, and change their names and their hair and eye color. To pass the time their mother taught Raena and Marli about the chosen. They know half a library’s worth of information about us. We need to get Raena alone for a few hours to find out what she knows….
That was very sad, Kamilé thought, and hugged her knees. But at least, they had had a mother…what was worse, she wondered—having no parents and no safety and total freedom, or having a mother and food and a home and no freedom at all?
Everan continued. Herön isn’t bothered very easily. He sympathized with everyone treating us like poor little kids; he despises it when people look for pity and complain to everyone around them, he thinks it makes life difficult for everyone involved. He also wishes we’d come to him when we were very small, three or four. His father was an Elite before him; Herön was trained from birth to be strong and tough. By his own assumptions—and I bet you anything he’s proved it—he can get stabbed in three places by burning arrows or white-hot swords and just keep walking. He’s going to teach us how to ignore pain…I don’t like the sound of that, he frowned.
Dæomna was very interesting; I really like her. Apparently Ïlanarda is a really awful place to live right now; the government hasn’t been very stable since Kilio and Tara killed this tyrant king a while ago, and there’s been a lot of fighting between humans and elves, the poor and the rich, and just…everybody. Dæomna’s family came here on a ship packed with a lot of other Ïlanardans when she was seven. Most Ïlanardans are nomads; that’s how she lived for awhile. The Elite rescued her from a destroyed village when she was fifteen and taught her everything she knows now. She’s really flexible and can put her legs behind her head.
Cool, said Kamilé.
Khyáro is extremely vicious. He likes nearly everyone he meets for the first few minutes, but at the same time he thinks, every time he walks into a room, how he can escape, who he needs to kill and how to do it, how to get what he wants without harming himself. He’s extremely manipulative when he wants to be, but he doesn’t do that very much, because he respects Helas’s authority and wholly trusts his decisions. He also loves fire, especially magical fire, because he can make it do whatever he wants. He hates Tyrranen because she killed his parents and his little sister and forced his elder brother into the army. They left him for dead, but he survived; he lived on his own until he heard about the Elite, then he hunted them down and used his persuasive skills and raw talent to get in. He likes us a lot; he thinks we have great potential.
Hmm, said Kamilé, not as thoughtful as she was fearful.
Dimirza is the youngest aside from Aridella, she’s seventeen. She joined three years ago, when the Elite were actively searching for a new member to replace a fallen one; they held a strategy contest, challenging anyone of any age to play that Warriors game they’re always talking about—the game where you fight wars with little pieces instead of people. They were worried that somehow, some old man had lived to be fifty, which is decrepit for them, and would win the contest; that or they’d get some fat, lazy person, or a Tyrranen supporter. But they thought their chances were good, because most people in Sirteman are in their teens and very fit, they have to be, and most don’t make it past their thirties. They thought they’d get a man in his twenties, but instead they got fourteen-year-old Dimirza; she didn’t win the tournament, but the Elite liked her style and propositioned her later, in secret. She accepted. This was before Helas was leader…and before Aridella was even considered a member. The last to be an Elite, I think, was Dæomna.
He fell silent; for awhile Kamilé thought he was thinking, but then she realized that he just didn’t want to say anymore. She wasn’t having that. What about Helas?
He made a small face. Yeah, I saw a lot of him. Too much, maybe….
Like what?
Everan sighed. Bad things happened to Helas, but I can’t really tell you what. It’s too horrible for you to hear, and you wouldn’t really understand anyway.
Yes I would, she said stubbornly.
No, Kamilé. Believe me, you’re better off not knowing for awhile. I’ll tell you someday. But I’d really appreciate it if you stayed away from him. He has…some creepy obsession with little girls. It’s not like he’d hurt you, but he thinks it’s his mission in life to protect everyone, especially girls your age, and younger…you remind him of his sister. He wants to be your bodyguard or something…I intend to talk him out of anything but a professional relationship with you, he said, with a murderous expression on his face.
She frowned; that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. What else?
He’s very…amiable. He believes in the best in people. He’s too trusting…too naïve. It’s going to get him in trouble, which is why I don’t want you near him, or he’ll get you in trouble too. He’s a great fighter, though, and he’s extremely smart. I trust him as a war leader, but not much for anything else. Plus he seems like the type that would defeat Tyrranen in battle, then help her to her feet or something chivalrous…and then she’d slice him apart.
And…what about…?
Aridella? Everan shook his head. She hates us. completely and utterly. To her we are nothing but disposable tools in this war, and not very useful ones at that.
Kamilé’s eyes widened; she blinked in shock. But…but WHY?
Everan turned away. Well….

“I can’t believe this!”
“Della—”
“Are. You. INSANE?”
“Aridella. Please. It’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad? Oh, sure, we take the runts in, give them food and shelter blah blah blah, yes, that’s very charitable and all, and I agreed to the training—but you never said that…that we were going to use them!”
“And why not? If they want to help us, then we could definitely use them. You saw how strong they are.”
“They could have killed you! You are so oblivious, Helas, couldn’t you see what was going on in that little boy’s mind? He liked hurting you. He had fun with it. He’s sick. He’ll probably sell us out to Tyrranen.”
“But Kamilé—”
“What, her? What’s she going to do? She’s so naïve and idiotic that she can barely walk….”
“Della, that isn’t fair. Stop acting like a child.”
“You’re the one that’s going to blindly trust a psychotic eleven-year-old and his retarded twin to…to lead our ARMY! That’s just stupid. I thought you had more sense than that.”
“It’s only if they want to. And they’ll have to be trained first.”
“I thought you just wanted to train them for basic survival, Helas! Just…just sword fighting, and archery, and tracking….”
“That’s what they want, and I see no reason why we can’t give that to them. They seem to be very quick learners to me.”
“You thought that about pretty much everyone we decided to teach. Even those little four-year-olds ten years ago. You always set yourself up for disappointment….”
“They’re chosen, Della. They’re far from disappointing.”
“Who cares if they’re chosen? They’re scrawny half-starved kids! They don’t know the first thing about fighting, and my point, Helas, is that if they’re going to lead our army, it will take years to train them—we don’t have enough time!”
“I doubt it will take years. Months, maybe. But I’ve already taken the necessary steps to be sure that we have that time.”
“They’re just…kids. You cannot possibly depend the future of Sirtema…on…kids.”
“They’re chosen. Younger chosen than them have proven themselves.”
“But older ones didn’t! Look at their mother, for the gods’ sakes! She didn’t get anything accomplished! And it seems to me like that little boy doesn’t want to help us any more than he wants to gouge out his own eyes.”
“Della, I was looking too. He just wants Kamilé to be safe, that’s all. I can understand that, it’s just a brother thing…and he hates Tyrranen. He wants to kill her. Maybe if we train them both enough, he’ll feel confident in their safety and in our protection and he’ll fight for us.”
“Or turn against us!”
“I doubt that. There are only two sides for them to pick—ours or Tyrranen’s. Between the two, their choice is obvious. Their only other option is to remain neutral, which, as Raena will soon tell them, will only keep them in Sirtema longer. They want to go home, and they want to kill Tyrranen. We can help them do both.”
“They are eleven years old. How can they possibly know what’s best for them? And why should they care about us? They don’t even live here! For all we know they’re immortal; why should they even care? Why don’t they just ascend to the stars and go back where they apparently came from?”
She fumed for a few silent seconds as she paced blindly on the dark, hard training ground. A cloud had covered the moon; Helas could barely see her outline in the blackness. He sat patiently on the fallen tree, waiting for her to calm down.
“You know what I think?” he finally said.
“What?” she snarled.
“You’re prejudiced. Because you don’t like them.”
“I hate those little bastards. Hate them. But it doesn’t mean this isn’t stupid. They’re eleven and Ametrisan and ignorant.”
“We can fix that. We can make them into deadly warriors in a matter of months. You know I can do it. Remember Dimirza? Dæomna?”
She spat a curse at him. “That boy is insane—I wouldn’t expect him to give a dying man a drop of water. He’s twisted. You’re crazy to trust him—he’ll stab you in the back the first chance he gets.”
“That’s all right. He’s a chosen. I trust his judgment.”
Her voice rose to a strident pitch, until she was actually shrieking in fury. “He’s a little kid and he’s going to kill us all and you’d let him—JUST because he’s a CHOSEN?”
“Stop screaming.”
“You’re INSANE! What is WRONG with you? What’s so great about the chosen anyway? I could walk into his room up there and stab him between the eyes and he’d die just like everyone else. And that girl hardly has any spine at all—what’s she done since she came here? Cry? Whine? I bet she couldn’t dodge a snail. Do you know how many times I could have killed either one of them today? It would have been so easy!”
“That’s blasphemy, Della,” Helas warned, his tone suddenly flinty and cold.
She sneered. “Hërdataa na di zhidaeϾ,” she spat at the inky sky. “What have they ever done for us?”
Helas sighed, watching her pace around, muttering curses and working herself into a fury.
“When did you become like this, Aridella?” he asked her quietly, after a long silence.
“Like what,” she snarled.
“You’re so…bitter. It’s not like you. You used to be so happy.”
She gave a short, harsh laugh. “What, eight years ago? A lot’s happened since then, TosaiϾ.”
“I know, NasaiϾ,” he said, with a sad smile at their old nicknames for each other. “But I meant more of your attitude eight days ago.”
“There weren’t any—” She spouted a lot of expletives. “—chosen around eight days ago, were there?”
“Why do you hate them? They didn’t do anything to you.”
“Oh yeah?” she snapped. “Like hell they did nothing. That’s all they can do, they’re useless and weak and—”
Helas rose to his feet and caught her mid-pace in a tight, comforting hug. Her rant cut off; she felt the pressures and stress of the day push down on her, and found herself doing the last thing she expected: she started to cry.
“Della,” he said quietly, “I know. It’s all right.”
“It’s all…th-their fault…” she tried to hiss, but it came out as a gasp and a sob.
“No, no,” he soothed her, gently rubbing her back and arms, the chain-links on his wrists clinking in the soft, quiet night. “It was mine. Not theirs. They’ll make it better.”
“No! They won’t,” she whispered. “They’re n-n-not gods…they’re p-powerless….”
“Don’t say that….”
“It’s true….”
“No….”
“H-h-how c-can they be, Helas?” She wrapped her arms around his waist, feeling like she was eight years old again—helpless, watching the cruelty of the world from the sidelines, shrieking as strangers tore her brother away from her and knowing that she could do nothing to stop it. “All that t-t-time…and th-they did nothing….” Helas said nothing, biting his lip, rubbing her back—unable to protest. “Wh-where were they,” Aridella sobbed, “when w-we needed them?!”

FOOTNOTES:

Ͼ Hërdataa na di zhidaeϾ: A highly offensive and explicit term meaning “******** the gods” or something to that effect. It is considered the worst of the most commonly used blasphemies in Sirtema, though others are more creative.
Ͼ Tosai: The Sirteman word for older brother—the reverse of the Ametrisan word saito. Sai means “sibling”; to or ta means “older”.
Ͼ Nasai: The Sirteman word for younger sister—the reverse of the Ametrisan word saina. No or na means “younger.”



And all this makes sense. Yes? PERFECT SENSE.