Welcome to Gaia! ::

Nara bustled in with her pant legs rolled up and at once checked her back, front, arms, and legs for any sign of scars—then, pleased with what she’d seen, she pushed Kamilé’s head underwater, tolerating no struggling or whining, and began to scrub her hair with the cream-colored soap. Kamilé kept up a steady stream of complaints, knowing how injured her dignity would be if she admitted that it felt rather nice. Nara expressed her disapproval in the form of curses (which Kamilé stored in her mind for later) and quite a lot of scolding.
“…Absolutely filthy, look, your skin is even stained brown! And there’s twigs and leaves and gods know what else in your hair and—AUGH!”
“Huh?”
“There’s bugs, there’s a bug in your hair!”
“So?”
“Doesn’t that bother you, just a little?”
“Nah, they’re not hurtin’ no one. What should I name them?”
“N-…name them?”
“Gotta have a name. How many are there?”
“At least a dozen…zhieyha oyäe….”
“That’s a good one.”
“Good what?”
“Bad word.”
“Don’t you dare repeat that, saya!”
“But—”
Raena burst in at this point, looking rather alarmed. “What’d you scream for, Nara?”
“There are bugs! In her hair!”
“Duh, where else would they be?” Kamilé muttered. Nara turned pleading eyes to Raena, gesturing helplessly with soapy hands.
“She wants to name them.”
Kamilé nodded, and Raena laughed as she knelt beside Nara.
“You can name them all you want, sweetie, but they’re going down the drain in a minute.”
“Can they swim?”
“I’m sure they can. What kind of bugs are they…oh, wow. All sorts of them. What’s your favorite kind of bug, Kamilé?”
“I like the shiny ones…the beetles….”
“They obviously like you too. Good gods,” she murmured to Nara. “Lice and ants and who knows what else….”
Nara nearly fainted, hyperventilating in some sort of spasmodic hypochondriac seizure.
“I don’t like ants. They’re mean, mean, mean, they eat everything…what’re lice?”
“They’re not fun either, honey, they itch.”
“Oh, okay. But I like beetles….”
“Here.” Raena picked up a squirming beetle by the leg and handed it to her; Kamilé cupped it in her hands and watched it hop from one finger to the other. Raena picked out the other bugs one by one as Kamilé played with her beetle, whom Raena suggested she name Dæn after the insect god, then said goodbye to it and watched it fly off. When she glanced at Nara again, she thought she seemed a little pale.
“What’s wrong?” she said innocently. Nara closed her eyes and breathed hard through her nose for a minute before replying.
“What’s wrong is that you are unnaturally dirty, Kamilé. How did you get so filthy? What did you do?”
“Just played around, and stuff.”
“When’s the last time you had a bath?”
Kamilé squirmed uncomfortably, but couldn’t squirm much with Raena pulling at her hair. “Umm…dunno…spring?”
Nara nearly choked with shock. “Spring! But it’s winter! That was nearly a year ago!”
“Nuh-uh, was summer in Ametris—”
“Good point,” Raena cut in, busily scrubbing at Kamilé’s scalp.
“So you only take baths twice a year, is that it?”
“Um, sorta….”
“What do you mean, sorta?”
“Well during the winter Everan always feels so dirty but it’s cold so we have to wait until spring to take a bath and then we’re okay….”
“You only take one a year!”
“But we swim lots….”
“That doesn’t matter! What’s the matter with your parents, letting you run ar—”
“Nara,” Raena hissed, shaking her head. Kamilé let her wet hair cover her face.
“Don’t got no parents.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Raena said gently, reminding her very much of Marli as she gently scrubbed her back. “Your mother was Sera, wasn’t she?”
Kamilé nodded, surprised. “How’d you know that?”
“Did I tell you, honey? I’m your cousin. My family’s related directly to the chosen. We’re taught everything about them, all there is to know…Marli and I both have the family tree memorized.” She shuddered under the weight of a heavy thought, then exploded, “Do you know Marli? Is she okay? Your brother never said—”
“Doncha know? ‘Cause you’re her sister….”
“No, sweetheart, we haven’t seen each other for years…is she all right?”
Kamilé thought about being separated from Everan for years, and shivered. A month was enough to nearly kill her; she couldn’t live through years. “She’s okay,” she assured Raena. “She’s real nice.”
That was an understatement, and Kamilé felt guilty, counting it as a lie.
“She really can be,” Raena sighed, giggling happily. “I’m so glad she’s okay, I thought she was dead.”
Kamilé could relate. Raena enjoyed the thought for a moment, then continued, “Anyway, your mother. She came here too, the chosen journey you know—”
“How’d you know that?!” Kamilé yelped, tearing out of her grasp and backing far away. “How’d you know, who told you—?”
“Easy, sweetheart,” Nara soothed. “It’s a little obvious.”
“How?” Kamilé squeaked, covering her mouth with fear. How did they know?!
“The mark, the eyes and hair…. We only see it every time a chosen comes.”
Kamilé shook her head frantically, her heart pounding. “Don’t tell Everan! You can’t tell Everan!”
“Honey, I’m sure he already knows. If not, I’m sure he’s figured it out….”
“You told him! I know you did!” Kamilé screamed. “You told him anyway, you couldn’t but you did I told you not to tell him!”
“Calm down, sweetie, it’s okay—”
“Told you not to tell him!” she repeated furiously—how could they?
“We didn’t know, honey, and anyway, he didn’t seem very surprised—”
“He never looks that way but he is, he is, you weren’t apposed to tell him!”
“Kamilé, I’m absolutely sure that he already knew, calm down.”
“He knew?” She fell weakly back into the dirty water, letting them pull her back into their traitorous arms. “He knew already?”
“I’m fairly sure he did, sweetheart…come here, let me get your back, I didn’t finish….”
Kamilé sat still and let them do as they pleased, stunned. Everan knew? And he never told her? Why would he do that? He knew everything…why didn’t he tell her?
All this time he knew about who they were…and their family…and he never told….
She was only vaguely aware of the two women tugging at her and scrubbing with increasing force, frustrated; she heard Nara hiss as she attacked her arm, “It won’t come off!” and Raena reply, “You know, I’m beginning to think it’s natural…like the Ïlanardans….” She heard snatches of conversation, felt water that was too hot or too cold and pain when they were too rough, but she said nothing.
After all she’d been through, all the time to herself, this was the first occasion where she had her mind to herself, with it in a close-to-lucid state; it was the first chance she had to really think about all that had happened, soak it in—if it hadn’t been a dream, which it couldn’t have been—and try to sort it all out…. She skimmed over the parts that hurt, searching for something complicated, but not as painful…. The death of her parents and the thought that Everan wasn’t her brother certainly were painful, but not in comparison with the rest of that horrible month alone.
Her mother was famous here…did they know her father too? Probably not….
Who were Everan’s parents?
Why did they leave him like that?
How was she supposed to tell him?
She couldn’t, but he’d never leave it alone until she told him everything….
She felt like crying, and did, but quietly; the tears were lost in the tepid bathwater, and no one noticed.
The two women kept finding it necessary to drain the bathtub completely, then fill it again, as it was apparently so dirty that they were just making it worse; after the third time this happened, Kamilé had calmed down slightly and was no longer crying, and was thinking hard; and when Nara went away to get more soap or something of the sort, she plucked up the courage to ask, “Hey….”
“What?”
“What’s…what’s love?”
Raena paused. “I’m sorry?”
“That’s okay.”
“No, I…what do you mean?”
“Love. What is it?” Why should she hate the word so much? What did it do to her? She didn’t even know what it really was.
“Don’t you know, sweetie?” Raena asked softly. Kamilé shook her head. Raena took a moment to think, softly combing out the tangles in Kamilé’s hair as she did so. Finally, she answered, “It’s a little complicated, sweetie, but I’ll do my best…. There’s two different kinds of love. Well, three, really.”
“Why?”
“Because the feeling was different, but it felt so similar that they wanted to give it the same name.”
“What’s it feel like?”
Raena thought again, weighing each word before she released it into the steaming air. “With the first-ever family on Sirtema, there were first two people, a man and a woman. The love they had for each other was…powerful. Stronger than anything they’d ever felt before. Better than happiness, more passionate than anger, more filling than food and drink. When you get older, sweetie, you’ll look at a boy and you’ll think that he’s very handsome, or very sweet…and you’ll talk to him, maybe, and get to know him…and pretty soon you’ll want to kiss him, and eventually you’ll want to get married and—”
“Oh, like me and Everan!” Kamilé felt relieved; at least she’d gotten part of it right.
“You and…your brother?”
She shied away from the word. “’Cause see I kiss him alla time but he doesn’t like it, still, it counts, and he said we’d get married when we’re all grown up.”
Raena stifled what sounded like a laugh, which she managed to turn into a small cough. “Well, does it give you a funny feeling in your stomach when you sit by him?”
“No…but when I don’t sit by him everything feels funny.” To say the least.
“Sweetie, I don’t know if that’s the same kind of thing. Just wait a few years and you’ll see, okay?”
“Okay….”
“Because you see, after you get married if you really love each other, you’ll have a baby.”
“How?”
“Never mind how. You just do. And then that’s another kind of love, the way parents and children love each other.”
Kamilé’s stomach turned over. She nodded, pretending to listen.
“When someone has a baby, they’d do absolutely anything to protect it. They want to hold it and kiss it and take care of it, and watch it grow. When their baby hurts, they hurt. It’s a different kind of love than with the other parent—you don’t feel so funny—but it’s just as strong.
“And then there’s best friend love—brothers-and-sisters love.” She smiled wryly. “You hate their guts sometimes and you fight and you get on each others nerves, but in the end you’d do anything for them. You look up to them, or you try to be better so they can look up to you; you share secrets; you go on adventures together; you talk about things that you don’t think your parents would understand. Marli and I…. And Nara and I are like that too, even though we aren’t related, ‘cause we’ve known each other for so long and we understand each other so well. Your best friend becomes like a brother or sister if you just give it enough time.”
Kamilé thought hard about this. Did she and Everan have that? Or was it something else? They were going to get married…and she’d do anything to protect him…and they did everything together….
But she did love him. And she thought he loved her back.
She decided to put the word away for awhile and think about it later, when it could make sense. She’d decide…after she told Everan.
What if he hated her? What if he didn’t want her anymore? What would she do? She didn’t even know where she was….
Her skin was wrinkled and she felt like she had swallowed an entire pond, but nonetheless she told Raena that she wanted to play in the water for awhile, by herself, and busied herself running a neck-high bath of sort-of-hot water—Everan didn’t like it too hot. Then she swam around for a bit, amazed at how big the bathtub was, until she felt his presence and heard him slide into the water.
Hot, he muttered, and sat up straight so he would not drown. Kamilé popped up and looked at him for a moment; just looked at him, wondering why all these bad things had to happen to them. Why couldn’t they have run wild and free in the forest forever and ever? Why, why, why?
Hi, Kamilé, Everan said, unaware of her thoughts as he began to meticulously scrub his hair.
She was silent for awhile, blowing pensive bubbles in the steaming water. Hey, Everan?
Mm? He dipped briefly below the water, rubbing the soap out of his hair, and then started to wash the rest of his body.
Why didn’t you tell me?
He stopped, staring levelly at her as if sizing her up. Tell you what?
You knew, didn’t you? She placed a finger to the mark on her forehead. You knew. About us being…being chosen.
He did not deny it, nor did he offer any excuse; he held her gaze for a moment, then replied, Yeah, I knew.
Why didn’t you tell me? she demanded, her fists waving angrily in the water and making it sway.
Because I wasn’t sure if you’d want to know, he said simply. I wanted to wait until you were ready…it was a lot to take in at once. I knew chosen had to do dangerous things, and I didn’t want you to feel like…like the whole world depended on you. He shrugged. I did at first, and it was really hard….
When’d you know?
I guessed, when we were…five…-ish. Maybe four. I don’t know. I just thought once, wouldn’t it be weird, and then I realized that it was true…but I really wasn’t sure myself until you stole that book for me…I just wanted to make sure you COULD know, Kamilé, he explained very calmly. That you would have wanted to know all that—
How can you think that I didn’t want to know! she nearly shrieked at him. I kept asking you for ages about our parents and why we were so weird and you never—
Parents? He frowned. What do you know about them? And who told YOU all of this?
I…he did, she muttered, turning away. My…our…grandfather…thing.
We have a grandfather? He blinked, amazed.
Yeah…you know…the Elder one?
Not Roden! Everan exclaimed, then corrected himself. No, he’s got family… Carn?
She nodded miserably. Everan gaped at her.
That’s weird…but I should’ve seen it, everyone knew that he was related to the chosen….
I didn’t! she said hotly, still furious at being left in the dark. How could you know all about them and never tell me—
Who?
Our parents! she screamed.
He stared at her for one long, silent second.
I don’t know anything about our parents, he said slowly.
You had to! You knew she was a chosen—
Am I lying, Kamilé? he cut in, just as slowly.
No….
I don’t know anything about our parents, he repeated flatly.
You have to know! You knew, you knew about her—
Too swiftly to dodge, Everan grabbed her wrists and pulled her close. There was a strange, hungry look in his eyes that she’d never seen before. YOU know, he realized. You know about them. He told you.
Let go—
Which one was the chosen, Kamilé? he said over her. Our mom or our dad?
You did know! she shouted, almost ready to cry now. You knew about Mama and you didn’t—
Mama? Everan frowned. Who was she, Kamilé? What was she like? He told you, he had to have told you everything! What was her name?
S-…Sera, Kamilé murmured, pulling away.
Sera? After the forest?
‘S luck, said Kamilé, sensing the intention behind the name.
And our dad?
Ryistin, she whispered.
What about him, was he the chosen?
N-…no….
So it was our mom!
You already knew that!
I knew one of them had to be…. He paused again and stared at her for another long minute. So she’s dead?
Why didn’t you tell me all of this?! Kamilé yelled, starting to cry.
Chosen are reincarnated, it said in the book. That means her soul had to go into us. So she IS dead, he sighed, uncharacteristically ignoring her tears. But what about our dad? Where’s he? Is he dead too? Did he WANT to leave us, or could he help it, or—
Leave me alone! Kamilé screamed. I don’t know! I don’t know….
Everan fixed that flat, hungry stare on her for a long time, then turned away and resumed washing himself. I just knew that we were chosen, Kamilé, he told her. I was hoping you’d see it too eventually. And I knew all the stuff that happens when you are a chosen….
Like what? she murmured.
Like coming here. This is the chosen journey, I know it is.
Where is here?
I told you I’d explain before bed.
Why not now?
I’ll read you my book, okay? That explains everything.
I want you to tell me! Why do you have to know everything, why don’t you ever tell me—
I didn’t even know we had parents, he interrupted, his voice bitter and sharp. Who’s keeping secrets now?
I just woke up this morning! She felt the tears fall harder, thicker.
And you’ve been sick for days, a week even…why?
I dunno, she cowered, curling into a ball far away.
Yes you do. C’mon, Kamilé. What’s the last thing you remember?
She wanted to tell him—she wanted to tell him all about her dream, the fire and the flooding and the fear, and how he rescued her…but she knew she couldn’t.
I dunno! she repeated with a wrenching sob. I dunno, I dunno—
Just tell me what you remember last.
So she grasped in her memories, rewinding to a part that didn’t hurt, and picked that last lucid moment. You were gone, she cried. You went away, she took you away….
Everan sighed wearily, looking away. I’m sorry, Kamilé, he whispered.
She saw how much it hurt him, and wished she’d said something else. How could she keep from causing him pain now? He wanted to know everything…she couldn’t hide it for long….
They were silent for a long time. Kamilé was thinking about love again, wondering if he was angry at her; Everan’s expression was as cold and inscrutable as always. Finally, he finished and got out, and she followed his lead and wrapped herself in a towel, rubbing at her dripping hair as he reached outside for a pile of fresh clothes.
Nara wanted to burn those other clothes, he told her. And she washed the sheets with magic. She must think you were contagious or something.
Kamilé made no comment. She slid into the pants, socks, and long white shirt she was offered, which had a sort of dressing gown to go over it. Everan had some new black pants with pockets and buttons and everything, and a dark green turtleneck sweater.
Nara must have made these just for us, he noted. We should thank her, even though it can’t be that hard, with magic.
Kamilé nodded. Everan looked at himself all over, then raised a hand to his face. I scrubbed so hard, he told her, but it wouldn’t come off. I think it must be our skin, Kamilé. Did you know that we had dark skin?
She shook her head. ‘S that bad? she murmured.
No, not really…just unusual. I wonder if…no, I’m sure they all had dark skin too.
She didn’t bother asking him what he meant. He cleaned everything up, then took her hand—more gently than she had expected—and led her back into their bedroom. He lit the lamp and sat on the freshly made bed with his book and bag, patting the place beside him for her to sit. Still cautious around him, she settled at his side and rested her head on his shoulder, watching the characters dance in the firelight.
Okay…. my JOURNAL, first entry…. “I don’t know what the date is, but in Ametris the year was 7074, and when I left it was our eleventh birthday, the 7th of summer. A lot has been happening lately….”
Kamilé listened to his soft voice, trying not to remember what it had sounded like aloud; she felt sure that Everan was making the story simpler for her but was not offended in the least, enraptured by the story he spun like a fireside tale and the mind-pictures he conjured, moving around in her own head as she listened.
“A lot has been happening lately, so I thought it would make more sense if I wrote it down; plus if something happens to us (which it probably might, knowing our luck—” Everan nudged Kamilé, who giggled at the joke—“we’ll have something to work with.”
We’re twins—I’m Everan, and my sister’s Kamilé. We’re here together, and she’s sleeping now; Nara gave me this book, so I thought that now’s as good as ever to catch up, before Kamilé wakes up and starts bouncing around.” Kamilé poked her tongue at him, and he smiled. “I’ll start at the beginning.
“Normally being born is someone’s beginning, but I can’t remember it (and that really can be annoying) so I guess the beginning is when Kamilé and I met. We liked each other right away.” Kamilé grinned at him and hugged him. “And then…all this stuff happened….” Her grin faded; he was leaving something out. Curse her illiteracy! “…and the next thing we knew we were with Pilori—I still have no idea how that happened.”
But I do, Kamilé thought, and immediately repressed it.
Their telepathy was a delicate art; they knew that there were many layers to the mind, and communication between them only opened a very small part, the topmost layer of the consciousness. Through this, Everan could feel Kamilé’s foremost thoughts, emotions, and any severe pain (which was often very useful); however, Everan had honed the art until all Kamilé felt from him was any words directed at her, which meant that although he couldn’t lie, he could bend the truth and omit information however he wished. Kamilé, too, could think things only to herself, and the words would seem like a distant, incoherent mumble to Everan, who usually thought nothing of it.
Thus, each twin could guard their own secrets as jealously as they would forevermore. They had discovered, of course, that if one wished to delve deeper, one could, at the cost of the pain, insanity, and eventual death of the other; so naturally they were careful to let secrets lie. At least, Kamilé was; Everan had his own ways of bribing, persuading, and coercing.
Everan went on without sensing her discomfort. “’Course, Pilori didn’t know anything about kids, ‘specially kids like us, but we taught her fast. She was always burning things and she wasn’t that smart, but at least she was nice—she read to us and let us run around all day and did her best, I suppose.”
And then he went on to paint a vivid picture of their early childhood, all the adventures and tales of epic heroics that Kamilé had almost forgotten; she listened, entranced, and tried not to notice any portion that mentioned parents or lack thereof, the other children’s discrimination against the funny-looking orphans, or Everan’s obvious innocence to the fact that he was not her brother anymore. She noticed as he went on that these stories were directed at her, and were very clearly simplified for her sake, but she took no offense; she appreciated the gesture more than anything, because the adventures had been some of the best days in her life, and it made her happy to relive them again.
What did annoy her, however, was that it was clear that Everan left some parts out. He would stop in the middle of a page, turn, read one line from the next, turn again, and then go on as if nothing had happened—as if she was too stupid to know what he was doing. She pinched him hard whenever this happened, but he ignored her and kept doing it until she was ready to beat him senseless for it.
And then the story took a turn that she remembered well: “But then Pilori decided to get married, and we weren’t having that. We needed her around and she wasn’t, and I was only five, I couldn’t take care of Kamilé COMPLETELY by myself. I think I did better than her though; at least I didn’t leave all the time.” Kamilé could not deny the truth in this; Everan had often acted as a surrogate parent, a combination of mother and older brother, and he had done a damn good job with it, too. He treated her as an equal and took her with him wherever he went, at least. “Kamilé didn’t understand why we couldn’t go with her, and I was ticked that she hadn’t asked US if she could get a stupid boyfriend; so when she finally got married we decided that we’d had enough and left.
“We had fun by ourselves. We built a house and put all this stuff in it—and we didn’t even steal all of it—and it was pretty cool. It got cold, sure, but we stole clothes and stuff and then we were okay. We HAD to steal to eat, especially in winter and spring, but we only stole from rich people, like stall owners—they didn’t need ALL of that, or they wouldn’t be selling it. And besides, money is useless to an elf. You can’t eat it, can you?”
Kamilé shook her head, enthralled by this point, seeing the logic clearly as he argued their case. Everan saw this, smirked, and moved on.
“We did all right for a really long time. I think we were better off like that. When we were eight, we heard about this great new teacher and went to school after that—it was too easy, everyone there was such an idiot, ‘cept Kamilé.” He nudged her, and she grinned.
He went on to tell more stories of forgotten adventures, of all their old inside jokes and secret codes and storylines continued from day to day; Kamilé remembered all of it well, and seeing it from the mental pictures he sent her almost made her cry, half because some of the stories really were sad, and half because she and Everan had been twin chosen, heroes, wild and free—and above all, twin brother and sister—and she knew deep in her heart that things would never be like that again.
Everan described the life of an orphan perfectly; the harsh winters, the dread of getting sick, the absolute care in which they played, knowing that even a cut could lead to their deaths without medicine to treat it. He painted a vivid picture in which every day was an adventure—there was freedom, but there was also fear, and to the explorers of Serra woods, death lay in every sharp object, every treacherous turn, every twenty-foot drop. He made it sound so fey and wild that it seemed like a fireside tale now more than ever; the story of the hapless, reckless chosen, fighting invisible enemies and saving the forest from hypothetical peril. Strange to think that now all of it was true; it destroyed the magic and brought cold fear into her heart at the thought that their adventures, and all the dangers with it, had come to life. Everan mentioned this sort of apprehensive nostalgia once as he concluded a tale, but he did not seem scared; he didn’t know what she knew. He didn’t know what had happened to their mother.
And then Everan got to the pivotal day: their eleventh birthday.
“…We were really excited because this year it was on the same day as the Festival—some stupid Ametrisan peace-and-love crap. We had lots of fun on our birthdays; every day we did whatever we felt like, really, but birthdays were special. We’d go to the river at dawn, change blood, then mess around all day, and at sunset we’d give each other presents. This year was different, though—we were swimming around when this huge anchor fell by us and all these humans and merpeople arrived—late, too—for the Festival. But the merchief liked us—‘cause he knew we were chosen, I bet—so he let us lead them to Kocha….”
He described their day in detail, and now it was apparent that he saw everything through a new light, enlightened as he was by the book Kamilé had stolen for him—he was a chosen, and he was sure of it, and now it made even less sense that everyone should treat them this way. He made connections that she hadn’t seen as well: Italis had befriended them because he had recognized their marks, and had given them useful gifts to help them; the other children’s taunting had no effect on him now, as he knew they’d be bowing to them if they weren’t such idiots; the Elders had passed by, and Everan had suddenly remembered a law passed just after their birth, a law that stated that no one should speak of the chosen so as to protect his or her identity. Everything made sense now. How could she have been so blind?
“…And just when we were about to give each other our presents—” Kamilé sucked in a breath; this was it, what she had been dying to know—where had he been?
But Everan heard her, and pondered her thoughtfully for a moment before closing the book and setting it aside.
Everan! Kamilé snapped, sharp and edgy in her panic. Keep reading, come on—
But I never gave you your birthday present, he reminded her, smiling slightly; he was proud of himself.
He was right, he hadn’t—and she was curious. But she also felt guilty, and she realized why at once: her present to him was gone. She had no idea what had happened to it.
Everan…she murmured, turning her eyes away.
He understood. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her tightly for a brief moment. I saw it, Kamilé, he told her gently. I know it’s cheating…. He sighed. It got burned up in the fire. But I really liked it…it was perfect.
She hugged him back, hard, feeling tears in her eyes; she didn’t know what to say. She barely even remembered what it had been, and here he was, telling her it was perfect…and he couldn’t have it anymore, and he’d gotten her something wonderful, no doubt….
He reached into his bag and brought out a little green pouch, which he cupped into his palm and offered to her. She took it with a squeal of delight, determined to give him the adoration he fully deserved, no matter how strange or boring his gift was.
Oh wow oh wow Everan that’s so cool look at it—
He laughed, knowing perfectly well what she was doing. You have to open it, Kamilé. The gift’s inside.
Oh. She flushed. I knew that. She struggled with the neck of the pouch for a moment, then when the knot was untied and the pouch pulled open, she upturned it onto her waiting hand.
Oh deities, she breathed, along with several awed swear words.
D’you like it? Everan beamed.
She was speechless, unable to reply.
Because the most beautiful thing she had ever seen under the sun now lay in her palm, shining like a fallen star in the pale lantern light and illuminating the shadows of the room in glittering silver radiance.
It looked like the Heart of Ametris, only it was tiny, the size of a shard coin, or the little circle made when she pinched the tips of her thumb and forefinger together. And yet it was the Heart of Ametris; it emitted the same aura of holiness and peace, and had the same design etched onto it. The metal that comprised it was strange, like nothing she had never seen before; it did not feel like metal at all, especially when she ran her fingers along the white and black parts and realized that the material was the same. It was mounted on silver, and a silver loop on the top held a chain in place, a magnificent chain made of silver and a black metal, just as malleable, that she had never seen before.
She stared and stared at it, feasting on it with her eyes, unable to look away.
Everan took it gently from her and lifted it clear of her trembling hands. Marli gave it to me before our birthday, he explained. She said it was really powerful, worth a lot too; she thought it would be useful to us. It’s a conductor, whatever that is. He rolled his eyes. But isn’t it…. He was loath to say the word “beautiful,” though it was certainly apt at this point. Isn’t it nice? he finally managed.
Kamilé was perfectly aware that he was giving it to her because it was too girly for him, but then she remembered that day, watching him at the window as he received this magnificent gift, and knew, somehow, that the moment he saw it he had thought, Kamilé would love this, I think I’ll give it to her. She felt tears well up in her eyes again and could not restrain them; she laughed deliriously as she sobbed into her sleeves, dizzy with happiness.
Kamilé…? Everan blinked in confusion, unable to understand why his gift had affected her so much. She fell on him and hugged him with all her strength, thanking him over and over before he managed to console her and finally push her off; she hiccupped, It’s so pretty, staring again at the necklace as it caught the light.
Everan held it up and decided that it was too long—as it was now, the medallion would be dangling past her navel. He threaded the lustrous chain back through the hole atop the medallion and halved its size, then fastened the delicate clasp—highly complex to deter thieves and keep it from falling off—and slipped it around Kamilé’s neck. The medallion sat neatly in the hollow of her throat; she felt its coolness, surprisingly light for all its wealth, and felt like crying again.
It’s so, so pretty, she sniffled again. Thanks, Everan….
It’s not anything, Everan muttered, embarrassed. I mean, it’s no big deal or anything…just got it from Marli….
Her lip trembled; she felt suddenly very guilty that she didn’t have anything for him. She thought hard, running through not objects that he would like, but objects that she had, desperate to prove how much she had missed him, and how much she—was love the word? She didn’t know yet—how much she cared about him.
On a sudden thought—he would love that, wasn’t he always going on about parents?—she bounced off of the bed, looking frantically around. Everan! she cried, panicked, where’s the stuff from my pockets, it was IN THERE, I know it was—
Oh, I put it in the drawer, see, in the bedside table. He seemed curious and a little worried, unaware of her intentions. She swore—so he’d already seen them—and tore the drawer open, snatching the two little bracelets from the bottom.
Did you see it already? she asked him breathlessly, holding them behind her back.
He was more confused and flustered than ever. I…I wasn’t really paying attention when I put all of that in there…all I saw were little cloth things and medicine….
So he didn’t know! She giggled, grinning, and grabbed his hand to slip the bracelets inside, just as her grandfather had done to her, though she didn’t remember. See! she crowed. I DID get you a present, got you two ‘cause I can, see, see? D’you like them?
He stared disbelievingly at the bracelets, turning them over and fingering the woven strands. Our baby bracelets, he whispered. Kamilé, where did you get these?
Our…grandfather, she explained, making a face. But you see, Everan? Feeling quite overwhelmed, she grabbed his hands and looked right at him, determined to make him understand. Her hands shook with the force of her intensity. You see? We’re twins, you’re my brother and I’m your sister and nobody nobody nobody’s gonna ever take you away from me ever again and no matter what they say you’ve gotta keep these ‘cause you see, Everan? They’re wrong, all of them….
She trailed off, panting slightly, unaware of what she had just said but knowing from Everan’s expression that it had not been the right thing to say at all. First he merely seemed confused, but then his eyebrows met, and he wrapped his thin fingers swiftly around her wrists, binding her there as he stared at her with that same flat, hungry look in his eyes.
You’re hiding something, he said. It was not a question. You are.
Kamilé immediately realized her mistake and tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. No I’m not, she said quickly. I’m not, I’m not, I’m—
You ARE. He held tighter, seeming desperate now, and slightly angry. Tell me, Kamilé. He told you all about our family, didn’t he? He must’ve had pictures, or…or something…he knew, and you know. Tell me, he demanded again, his eyes shining with hunger, a lust for the mysteries he had been deprived of his whole life.
I…I dunno, she murmured, and with a rapid twist of her hands she freed herself and backed away. But Everan was faster than her, and immediately leapt off the bed, landing neatly on the floor, and pursued; in her panic, she backed into the wall and was immediately cornered. Everan grabbed the tops of her arms and held her there; she searched frantically for an escape but found none.
Tell me, Kamilé, he repeated.
She tried to resist for as long as she could, but Everan, as she knew, had ways of making her talk; he preyed off her dependence on him, her inability to lie, her easily influenced emotions, and her lack of trickery and intelligence, until she found herself telling her the whole story, everything Carn had told her. But she was still fighting, and didn’t say anything about where he had come from, or why.
When she was trying her best to edit the story of their birth while telling it, Everan stopped her.
Where was our dad?
I…he wasn’t there, she murmured.
Where did he go?
H-he…whatsisname—meaning her grandfather—said that he…he left.
Left? Everan frowned.
Yeah…two months, or something…before that.
He left her? Disappointment was evident in his tone and his expression. He just left? And she was the chosen…that….
And he proceeded to mutter a stream of abuse concerning Kamilé’s father; she felt a flare of anger and frustration that probably had more to do with her helpless captivity against the wall than the insults.
Don’t talk about my daddy that way! she snapped, recalling the picture of the copper-haired man beside her smiling mother.
Our father, Everan corrected automatically, and then froze as he saw the look on Kamilé’s face. Our father, he repeated, frowning. Right?
She couldn’t agree; she couldn’t lie.
You’re still hiding something! He seemed angry, let down, but she couldn’t find the words to tell him that he didn’t want to know, he really didn’t, so just leave it alone and let’s go back to the way things were. C’mon, Kamilé, he told her sternly, letting her know just how disappointed he was in her. That’s lying, you know better than that.
It was a dirty trick, and he had a million more; he kept at it until she started to cry, and even then he persisted, pushing, prodding, and bullying her until she had no choice; she grew desperate and cried out for Nara and Raena to make him leave her alone—she was scared, and though she knew he would never touch her, she still felt hurt and tortured by his constant mental attacks. But Everan clapped a hand over her mouth, and with his hated poison-coated silver tongue convinced her that they didn’t need to be here, really, she was all right, all he wanted to know was what she was talking about, what really happened….
And no matter how much she kicked, screamed, cried, pleaded, and fought, once again he forced her to tell him everything. She turned her eyes away as she repeated the tale to him: how Pilori had been the midwife, how the bird had escaped, how Carn had found Everan lying in the street, how he had picked Everan up and carried him home…how Sera had welcomed him, named him, and then, died.
Long after she finished, Everan’s hands were still frozen on her arms, trembling just a little and clenching so hard that his fingers were dirty-white; he was hurting her, but he didn’t seem to realize. Then she swallowed and gathered the courage to look up, at his face, and saw that he was staring at the wall above her head, mouth open, eyes wide, shock and disbelief transforming his features.
He…h-he found me…in the middle…of the street? He finally choked. And during…a storm…no, a hurricane…that was a hurricane, it says so in the history books…a hurricane….
Everan, Kamilé whimpered, struggling to pry his fingers loose. Everan, let go, please let g—
But suddenly he snapped, possessed by a violent rage; her entire body grew cold with fear as his grip on her renewed and he shook her hard—something he had never done before. Her head swayed back and forth with her body until all she could see were his eyes, his furious eyes, lit with an insane light that her mother’s, so like his, had never had.
That’s not right, Kamilé! he screamed at her. I told you to tell me, now TELL ME, dammit, stop lying to me or I’ll never speak to you again, do you understand me? DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, KAMILÉ!
She started to sob, pulling feebly at him, her voice screaming too for him to stop, but he never heard. He kept shaking her, shouting so fiercely that it echoed in her head.
You, your damn grandfather, it’s all his fault, why the hell did he have to move me, why couldn’t he just leave me there, she was coming back, she would have come back! D’you hear me, Kamilé, she was coming back to get me, but your damn grandfather…he ruined everything….
She heard his voice’s betrayal—it sounded as if he was about to cry. But Everan never cried.
Everan, let go, she wailed, biting and scratching pitifully at his arms. Let me go…it’s not my fault…’s MY mama that took you in….
It was the wrong thing to say. Everan had been standing there, on the verge of either a breakdown or acceptance, but at these words—or perhaps the one word, “mama,”—he exploded. He grabbed her and thrust her violently away from him; she felt her head smack into the bedside table, and immediately saw bright lights pop and sparkle before her eyes. She found herself on the floor, her limbs heavy and immobile, and saw Everan standing above her, still shouting, though she could barely hear him—his voice was distant, and breathing had suddenly become deafening. His arm thrust out at her, and the two baby bracelets bounced off her face and shoulder and lay crumpled on the floor before her eyes.
I’M NOT YOUR BROTHER! he yelled at her, the blazing fury in his eyes making her flinch as if his gaze could actually burn her. I’m not, I don’t want anything to do with you and your damn family, it’s because of you and them, all of them, that I’m in this stupid rotten hellhole of a place instead of…instead of being…. He stopped, overwhelmed, and a vision of a home, a real home, with Everan and two shadowy parents in it, flashed before Kamilé’s failing eyes. He stared down at her, saw her in pain and crumpled on the floor, and did not care at all about her—not anymore. I hate you! he screamed at her. I hate all of you, why couldn’t you just’ve left me alone!
And then he turned and ran, and Kamilé was powerless to stop him; she screamed after him, her tears splashing onto the floor, but there was nothing she could do. In a moment, he was gone; he had left, left her all alone to pass out on the freezing floor.
And that was exactly what she did.

Guess what? There's an actual psychological disorder for Everan! It's called elective mutism.

So I'm a bad person, and didn't post this when I finished like, two weeks ago. Oops. But now it's edited and such. 3nodding Here ya go.

Note: there will be no spacing or italics. Ever. Well, not for Ametris anyway. *shrug*

Chapter Twenty-Six: Wishful Thinking

The minute she was lucid enough to do so, Kamilé kicked the covers away, tumbled to the floor, and snatched up the two bracelets lying there before slithering into the nearest darkness she could find.
She curled up under the bed, in the very back corner, where it was dark and secluded and just the right size. The floor was icy, and the cold seeped through her clothes as she shivered with her knees pressed against her chest. She could have crawled out, grabbed a blanket, and returned; she could have crawled out and never submerged again, pretending like it never happened. But Kamilé hated, and would always hate, lying, and she knew pretending that Everan hadn’t hurt her, hadn’t torn her heart in two with his one infuriated strike and the hatred in his face, would be the biggest lie she would ever tell.
So she stayed there, and slept alone that night. It was a patchy, nightmare-filled sleep; she awoke at times to hear feet walking about, but they were never his feet; they were of no significance to her. Once she found a semi-familiar face, bathed in pale lantern light, gazing at her, but she ignored its kind voice, imagining the words as bitter mocking—he’s gone, he’s gone, come out and face it, pathetic worthless little urchin—in a voice that did not belong to the face, but to a suppressed memory of evil, red eyes, a cruel, seductive smile. When something touched her, she screamed, and nothing troubled her again. A blanket and pillow blocked the lantern’s glow, pushed into the gap, but she only acknowledged the lack of light before disappearing once more into the darkness.
Various voices and bodies, detached from one another, seemed concerned for her—or as she saw it, seemed to be waiting for her to break down like a brace of carrion crows. She said nothing and sobbed alone, praying that she would die here and never have to face this pain for another moment…just one more and she’d be free…just one more…one…more….
It hurt so much worse this time than before. Everan had left her only once, and then, he had had no choice. She had had the small comfort that given the choice, he would have stayed, or brought her along. And if he had just brought her along, she realized, everything would be okay…all of this would be one big adventure, like the games they used to play, and they could explore this new place together. But that’s all that would ever be, a fantasy, a “what if.” Because this time, he had left on his own. This time, he had thrown her away, shouted at her, hated her…and gone…and she knew that he wasn’t coming back. Everan never forgave her; he just put it from his mind, maybe. But this time there would be no mercy for her.
All she’d done was try to protect him….
She took off the necklace and clutched it so hard in her palms, pressed it so firmly against her heart that before long circular welts cut painfully into her hands. The fact that it was powerful, worth more than all the silver Sirtema and Ametris put together had ever had, that it was a powerful conductor, that any number of people would kill and die over it, and had before, many times; all these things were irrelevant to her. As it sat innocently in her hands, soaking up her warmth, she thought of it only as a sign that Everan cared about her—had cared about her, once. It felt like a lie, purest blasphemy, to hold this now and believe in that, but she did anyway, struggling to piece together her fragile little heart. As it nestled in the dark of her hands, she imagined that the necklace must feel the same way—small, unwanted, a living lie—and hugged it to her, protecting it from her tears with her frozen fingers.
She couldn’t go up there—back to the world of people who did not hurt like this, who breathed and lived and laughed with ease. She couldn’t pretend anything, nor could she open her eyes and see a pile of much-read books, a stack of new boy’s clothing, a bed that had not been slept in. It was too much, too cruel, too great to ask of her, so she remained in the dark, where she could be miserable—in such a weak, understating word—in relative peace.
Everan had read her books where people “ran out of tears,” but she never did, she just ran out of energy. When the tears stopped falling, she fell back onto the floor, gasping for breath through her raw, sore throat, and slipped into a half-faint, half-deep sleep. Nightmares filled her unconscious moments—Everan flitted in and out, and she only knew how whole and pure he made her feel when he glared at her, turned his back, spat the world-breaking words—“I hate you”—and walked away, shattering her once again.
Kindly wraiths slipped in and out, bringing her food, drink, blankets. She ignored them; ignored their too-heavy footsteps, their offerings to her little mourning shrine, their low voices speaking in tongues above her.
“…found him yet?”
“Nara, he’s gone…no one’s seen him….”
“Gods, I hope he’s all right….”
Indignantly: “Why would he just walk out like that, without any food or tools or anything…? Little idiot….”
“And why leave Kamilé?” Softly, gently, but coldly; sad and angry all at once. “If he left her behind he’s bound to be back, isn’t he?”
“I really can’t say, Nara,” said the other voice quietly. “We don’t know what’s going on between them…this is a lot to soak in for them, there’s bound to be tension, but something like this…. I don’t know….”
Kamilé drifted off again, crying too hard to hear. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe it was better that she never even acknowledged the sounds as Nara and Raena spoke of her Everan, her would-be brother, freezing or starving to death, how cold and lost he must be, how lonely, how afraid, how heartbroken. But of course, the latter three would never be mentioned by the two; they were only mortal, after all. And to the common mortal, Everan—exactly as he had always intended—seemed to have no feelings at all.

Nara and Raena were at a loss.
They had returned and found Kamilé gone, and after several minutes of frantic searching had discovered her hiding place. But there was no getting her out of there; neither of them could fit more than an arm into the space, and when Raena finally succeeded in grabbing Kamilé’s leg the little child screamed and struggled so much that she hurt herself more than them. After that they decided to leave her alone, and offered her food and blankets at regular intervals, but she did nothing with them.
Nara was struck with grief at Kamilé’s condition, and spent a long time just sitting on the floor and staring at the small gap between bed and floor. It was the perfect place for Kamilé to hide; Sirtemans liked to be low to the ground in preparation for anything, but they could not sleep on the floor when it was cold, so to compensate they left under a foot of space beneath, just the right size for a small child to fit in.
Raena found her there after a while, bearing watery soup for Kamilé. She at once slid the bowl under the bed and went away, only to return with two more. They sat together; Nara took a sip and made a face at her friend’s cooking, but made no comment.
“Cheer up, Nara,” Raena said quietly to her. Nara said nothing.
Underneath the bed, Kamilé stirred, disturbed by the noise, and began to sob. Beneath the sobs, they heard her cry, quite clearly, “Everan…Everan! Everan….”
“It’s just so sad,” Nara whispered.
“I dunno,” Raena murmured back. “Cats do that, don’t they?”
“No, not…she’s so sad,” she clarified.
Raena could not disagree; and yet she also could not summon the kind of empathy that would bring her best friend so close to tears. After all, they were barely four years apart. Perhaps it was because Nara had a daughter as well.
“Nara….” But she couldn’t phrase the question, so she let it die.
“Maybe,” Nara said, her eyes shining with unshed tears, “maybe…Kína will be back soon….”
Raena nodded, though unwilling to hope for so much. Nara, however, was perfectly willing, and completed the statement to bolster her hopes further.
“Maybe Kína can help her…she just seems so lonely….”
“She wouldn’t be so lonely if her brother was around once in a while,” Raena muttered, then regretted it; she was not sure if that was even relevant. Nara nodded her agreement.
“I wonder where he went?” she asked of the world.

Had Everan been asked this question directly, he would have replied, The middle of freaking nowhere, and I could care less, and then added a few swear words in for good measure. Not that he was furious any longer. The belligerence was just a formality, a reflection of his past anger, now frozen by the bitter cold.
He was such an idiot.
He’d only thought of running away, running as fast as he could in no particular direction, dodging whatever wouldn’t move out of the way and screaming as loudly as he could in his mind. All he wanted was to get out, leave this behind, shed this skin and this heavy weight of loneliness, of being unwanted, unloved, and fly away….
So he had run for hours, faster and faster until his legs threatened to collapse. Finally, he had been forced to stop somewhere miles away, just a snowdrift in between tangles of identical pines. He wanted to curl up in the soft snow and never see the light of day again, but he wasn’t that stupid; he knew it would be damn cold and take forever to die that inevitable death—of frostbite, cold, hunger, whatever. But he decided that maybe he didn’t care after all…maybe he did want to die, then he wouldn’t have to think anymore and he’d be free, and he’d done it before, what was the big deal?
His chest started to throb. He winced and curled up on a patch of frozen ground, pressing his forehead against the cold earth and waiting for the twisting pressure threatening to choke him to turn into tears and sobs.
But it never did. Eventually he found himself laying on the ground, shivering, the snow and dim sunlight black in his eyes.
I SHOULD have died, he told himself numbly. She wanted me to die, didn’t she…? It’s why…she left me there….
Had Everan known only what Kamilé had told him, he’d be slightly pissed off, but nothing more; he might even have engaged in childish dreams, convincing himself that something had happened and his mother really hadn’t meant to leave him there at all. Like he had told Kamilé—shouted at her, really—his mother might have come back. But Everan knew it wasn’t true, because sometime during Kamilé’s telling of the hated story a memory had come back to him, the earliest he could find, one that had only until that moment made any sense.
Lightning cracked the dome of the sky in two; thunder rumbled deafeningly overhead. Rain washed over him in frigid waves, and Everan shivered as he cried out, as loudly and shrilly as he could, frightened and cold and hurt and wishing with all his tiny heart that someone would save him.
The world had turned black for a minute as his head began to hurt, so badly that he felt he couldn’t breathe; the sound of rain filled his ears, and he sank into half an inch of water—a daunting height for such a tiny baby.
A hand waved up and down in front of him, trailing the ends of a ragged grey blanket; he had been too young to know that it was his own. In comparison to the present, Everan had felt weak and small and helpless, confused, lost…he had not yet gained the knowledge that he was so accustomed to, and did not know where he was, who he was, or why. He felt overall an overwhelming desire to sink back into a warm, wet darkness that he’d left only hours before…there he had been safe and comfortable, there he had felt loved as he had slept and listened to the soft voices around him from a safe distance. He had cried and cried for that safety, that warmth; for his mother.
Movement alerted him nearby, and he heard a familiar voice tremor, but he did not recognize the sounds as words…he heard heavy, unfamiliar poundings—footsteps—and they came closer, then went away…he was still screaming, but he couldn’t even hear himself now over the wind and rain.
Eventually crying started to hurt, so he stopped, coughing over droplets of water that had fallen into his mouth. The drops scared him when they obstructed his airway, and for a moment he was afraid again, scared that he was going to die…why wouldn’t this stop? Why couldn’t he be safe and warm again?
More staccato poundings on the ground, and a shadow fell across him, shielding him from the water; trembling hands picked him up, and once more, he was enveloped into that familiar, warm darkness.
Now, eleven years later, he could put this memory into perspective: his mother—for he knew it had been she—had thrown him to the ground in the middle of a storm, ignored his crying, and walked away, leaving him to die. It was just her bad luck that Kamilé’s grandfather had come by and saved him, wasn’t it? She had wanted him dead, away from her, so badly that she’d nearly killed him by tossing him aside like garbage; or she hadn’t wanted him at all.
Everan could think of no logical explanation for her behavior. What kind of cruel, heartless witch would just sit there and let him suffer like that? What had he ever done to her? What could possibly be wrong with him?
His stomach sank heavily as he thought about it: he had been small, hadn’t he, and he looked just like Kamilé…like someone else’s baby…maybe she had gotten scared…maybe she hadn’t known he was a chosen, or hadn’t wanted a chosen….
But that was no excuse! That weed! If she hadn’t wanted a baby then she should have thought about that a year before, shouldn’t she?
He could think of nothing to alleviate the pain of rejection save this impassioned state of fury and heartbreak that even in someone less stubborn and bitter would have been dangerous. He had never had his heart broken before—that frail little thing, encased in stone that was riddled with holes and weak spots, but stone nonetheless—and he didn’t know quite what to do about it, so he let his emotions run unchecked until they blended into a mix of hatred, fury, and pain. He could hardly see from burning anger combined with endless sorrow; thoughts chased each other around his head with lightning speed, incoherent, unformed, restless and ready to overflow.
He shivered with the force of this, unlike anything he had ever felt before. Always, for years and years, he had repressed any need or longing for parents—or indeed, anyone to offer him selfless love and affection—but with a lack of foresight that was completely unlike him, he had never noticed what suppressing those emotions, along with others like them, had done to him. All he knew was a resentment toward those more fortunate than him, sharp fury at any mention of their parents, and a general dislike of people. He felt bad for snapping at Kamilé sometimes but dismissed the rest as part of his character, not something that he could have avoided. But now, very clearly, he saw what he’d become—and why no one, not even his own mother, had ever liked him.
He didn’t speak because he didn’t want other people to notice him; he didn’t want them to notice him because he didn’t want them to feel sorry for him, or think they were better than him, or expect anything from him. He didn’t want to deal with it if they didn’t like what they saw. He looked down on them so they wouldn’t look down on him; he held himself in an authoritative light, manipulated people like he had done to Nara and Raena and Kamilé, glaring at them when they said things he didn’t want them to, so they would not underestimate him…. But in trying to look strong, he had made himself weak. People feared him, hated him, didn’t consider him a mortal being. He’d done it to himself; now he had no one left.
Maybe she was right to leave me.
He’d never felt so lonely.
The passionate anger melted away, and only the heartache remained.
But why had she done it? What had he done to her? He didn’t understand….
His thoughts swirled endlessly about, filled partly with pain and partly with disbelief. I can’t believe…how could she…how could ANYONE do that to their…to their baby…. Just threw me in the street…it was raining, I could have drowned, I could have died, but she didn’t even care…why? Did she think…I couldn’t have looked like her…and…I know I was small…but why would that matter to her…? Why wouldn’t…why would she…?
He lay there for hours, shivering from the bitter cold, unaware when day turned into night, which eventually turned back into day. In that time, he had not slept or even moved, lost in endless spider webs of circling thoughts. Round and round they flew, reaching no conclusion, having no beginning or end; he replayed the memory over and over again in his mind, trying to make sense of it all, but could think of nothing.
Finally, as the sun began to brighten on its trip across the sky, he made a decision that he knew was psychologically unhealthy, but was at the time all he could do. He created a fitting scenario, embellishing until he could believe it, then sat up and looked around, despising everything around him.
His mother had been some whore, he decided. Probably a teenager, over fourteen, otherwise she would not have been allowed to stay in Kocha. Old enough to marry, but deciding to go for the carnal pleasure route instead; no, she probably was married anyway, but liked the sinful prostitution lifestyle anyway. But she’d slipped up and gotten pregnant, with him, and unsure about which man the baby had come from, had decided to keep it, praying it looked like her to avoid suspicion from her husband. She’d pretended to be visiting a friend when she had him, and lo and behold! He looked nothing like her, or anyone she knew, really. He had looked foreign, with dark hair and olive skin; definitely suspicious. Not knowing which way to turn, who to give the forbidden baby to, she had thrown him away. No one had heard him over the rain; no one had seen him in the shadows. Her secret had been kept, and her plan had only gone awry in one aspect: he had lived.
What a damn shame for her, Everan muttered to himself, wishing he knew just a little less about mortal affairs and psychology and could therefore kid himself that she had really been a good mother, and missed him dearly, and it really had been a loss for both of them.
He still did not know how to deal with pain, so he let cold, bitter hatred take its place, tossing his mother into the same category as Tyrranen, Elder Carn, and the Creator herself—the As soon as I see them I’m going to strangle them category. It was a very dangerous place to be in, as Everan did not make idle threats….
But it was cold, too cold, and he couldn’t kill all of those lying, traitorous, idiotic weeds if he died from cold.
He stretched out his numbed limbs, wincing as blood flowed through them again. As he waited for mobility, he glared at the snow and the surrounding forest. He didn’t want to be here, but he didn’t really know where else would be better. At that moment the world—both worlds—seemed a cold, cruel place to him.
He remembered for the first time that day that he knew he was a chosen, reading the stolen book and piecing together the signs. It did not change much; it just meant that people should have treated him better, but hadn’t. And it meant he was supposed to save the world…this world….
No, screw that. The world could save its damn self. He didn’t care about anybody else but himself and Kamilé, he never had….
Eäyo, he muttered to himself. Kamilé.
She probably hated him now, too. He’d hurt her and yelled at her and blamed her for everything, why shouldn’t she hate him? She didn’t understand that it had just been bad luck; if anybody else had been in the room, anybody at all, they would have gotten the brunt of his fury and probably been a lot worse off than she had been. There really was no way she could understand. At least one of her parents had loved her; as far as he knew, according to his own retelling of the tale, his father hadn’t even known about him. Sure, Kamilé’s had, and had left, but better to be given the choice….
Fathers really didn’t even seem that important anyway, to him. Mothers were the ones that really took care of you. As far as he knew, fathers were just there for the mothers’ sakes. It was a mother he and Kamilé had needed for so long, someone to kiss them goodnight and take care of them when they were sick and tell them not to jump off miniature bluffs or climb branchless pine trees or swim five yards from the edge of the waterfall. Men didn’t believe in speaking their feelings or restricting their kids like that…no, a mother was infinitely more important, to them at least. Lucky Kamilé, having one that had really loved her….
And me too, said the back of his mind, but he ignored it. Why should Sera have loved him? What was in it for her?
He thought guiltily of Kamilé again; he didn’t know how she was doing, or feeling, or what kind of reception he would receive. But he had to go back, and see…and if she wanted him gone, then he would take his things and leave.
He pulled himself to his feet, swayed a little, then started to walk. It was a lot harder than he expected, and for a moment he was afraid that he wasn’t going to make it back at all; then he stopped caring. Who would notice?
As he walked, he tried to keep his thoughts from family or anything like it, but the frosty resentment that encased his heart could not be ignored. He cast his thoughts from one subject to the next, complicated things that would have normally taken hours for him to figure out—like the space/time continuum, metaphysics, and algebra—but nothing really stuck. He thought of Nara’s house, wondering at the differences from Pilori’s, and eventually he recalled the little statue above her door, the one of Karayani.
Instantly cold, hard hatred coursed through his veins; he had never been particularly fond of the deities, or the gods, or whatever, dismissing them as a weak mortal institution, but now that he knew that Karayani was a figure in history—if Haenir hadn’t just made it up—and was as close to real as a distant god could ever be, he hated her, and all like her—she had the power to change everything, did she not? She could have helped them! She could have made them twins after all…or kept Kamilé’s mother alive, or made Everan’s mother keep him, or something…now that he thought about it, she could have helped Kamilé sooner when she was sick, she could have kept her safe when he was gone, she could have changed everything!
So she was the one who had originally appointed the chosen? Well, then, she could save the world by herself. What could they, two tiny eleven-year-olds, do that a goddess could not? What need did she have of them?
He muttered swear words in his head in the sky’s direction, hoping dearly that the stupid immortal weed had heard. It served her right; he hoped she got some kind of sick pleasure out of ruining small children’s lives, because he certainly didn’t.
After he had been walking for a few minutes, he realized something very important: he had absolutely no idea where he was. He tried to recall the direction he had come from, but could not; the snowstorm had erased his footprints, and with the sky the dirty gray of trodden snow, cloudy and sullen, he had no way of knowing which direction to travel. It was like their first day here all over again.
Eäyo, he muttered, but then shrugged, picked a direction, and trudged onward; did it really matter? He had plenty of time. No one missed him.

For hours he kept on in the same direction, consoled by the fact that if this was, indeed, a copy of Ametris, or whatever, then it was an island; and on an island there were only so many places one could go. But he was also aware that this was unfamiliar territory; and in this particular unfamiliar territory, things lurked that he was unaware of. The earth was sleeping, but some things still stirred; there were patches of forest that none had ever returned from, and places where the ground swallowed people whole, and places where the queen’s army lay in wait of the chosen, relishing the chance to redeem themselves by capturing a child with black hair, silver eyes, dark skin, and a mark, torture it for information, then kill it and bring its disembodied head back to the capital.
Luckily for all present, Everan never passed by. Lucky for Everan because he was spared a painful death; lucky for the soldiers because that was not really what the queen wanted with a chosen, and if she found out that they had killed such a rare kind of creature, she would have made their lives hell. But the small mercy of letting the chosen live would have been very, very unlucky for Kamilé and Everan indeed, had she found them; for they were still ignorant of who the queen of Sirtema was, and what particular interest she had in them.

But the part of the forest in which Everan drifted was perfectly safe; it was elfin territory after all, and elves were naturally peaceable with anything that meant them no harm. There were some that would have sold Everan to the queen for enough silver coins to own a small island, but it was winter and these sort of people, along with every other sort, were huddled around their fires, lamenting the lack of sun and living creatures. Besides, a circle of land—everywhere up to ten leagues from Varan—was protected by Nara’s authority and protective spells. Everan was perfectly safe.
He had fallen upon a hidden source of luck and discovered the river. He quickly did some math and decided that he could be anywhere between two and eight leagues away from Varan, to either the north or south; which direction to take, though, was dependent on his judgment alone. He thought about it, and then decided eventually to go downstream; if he was wrong, he could always double back later.
Again, he had luck on his side, for though it took hours, and he was cold, stiff, and exhausted, he had kept one eye open for the little path leading to Varan, and had finally found it. It was so well hidden that he was unsure, but after following it for half a mile or so it widened, and though he recognized nothing under its new blanket of snow, he knew he was going the right way.
He had expected it, though was not entirely certain that in this weather the duty applied, nor to small children; so when the guard bearing bow and arrow jumped down from the tree, yelling, “Hey! What business do you have here?” Everan just walked on. The man brandished his weapon, even making so bold as to step in front of him and point it in his face; but Everan merely glanced at him, turned away, and stepped to one side. The man faltered then; he obviously thought Everan was just an innocent little kid, although he had undoubtedly been warned that the enemy, whoever that was, might force cute children or young mothers to work as spies. He decided to let Everan pass, calling to his retreating back, “Make sure to get inside quick, okay, kid?”
Everan could tell that he was sorry; it reminded him of someone who was definitely not. He wondered as he drifted through the invisible town, thinking of his mother and the sobering idea that she had probably lived in Kocha, and still might be; she might have been any of the women he watched every day, shopping, sewing on their front steps, drawing water with their friends, watching their children play. And it occurred to him that even if she had felt the tiniest twinge of regret, even if she had wanted to find her son again, she would have looked at the children playing in the square and saw nothing. Because her son did not look anything like her, he looked like someone else’s child, and he was never alone…and she would be as certain as any mother could that she had never had twins.
He found Nara’s house and, unsure how to work the door, knocked lightly on the smoothest part he could find. The collision hurt his cold, aching knuckles so badly that he had to stop almost at once; but to his surprise, the door opened in seconds, and by the look on Raena’s face, he was exactly the person she had been waiting for.
“Everan Haenir!” she hissed at him, looking shiftily around to see if anyone was watching, “do you have any idea how long you’ve been gone?”
He ignored his “cousin”—Kamilé’s cousin, really—and stepped inside, her protests no more than a faint buzzing in his ears. Everan Haenir…no, that was definitely not his name. But what was?
Raena grabbed his arm and turned him so she could yell at him; his anger flared, and he felt his fist rise of its own accord and slam into the hard muscles of her stomach. She let go of him, swearing and gasping for breath, and he tore away and ran downstairs. Something, a flash of color on the wall, caught his eye on the way down, but he did not stop; Raena was chasing him. He flew across the atrium downstairs and slid behind a twisted root, hugging his knees and trying to blend with the shadows.
Raena stumbled down the last few steps, still breathless, and looked around; she checked the bathroom, the twins’ room, and finding nothing, ran into Nara’s. He heard her whispering frantically, then Nara’s sleepy mumbling, then they were talking in alert, worried tones; and then they came out, racing each other upstairs, and Everan heard Nara say, “I told you never to leave that door unlocked! What if—”
Then the door shut and locked, and he heard their low voices floating down to him.
“…least he’s back now, no one captured him….”
“Little idiot, I told him not to leave! Where is he?”
“He ran downstairs—”
“But he’s definitely here?”
“Yes…unless he ran up when I….”
“Why would he do that? He just got here!”
“I dunno…ow,” Raena muttered as an afterthought.
“What happened?”
“He punched me…that little….”
“This is ridiculous…what is wrong with him?”
“I dunno, but we’d better find him…c’mon…there’s not too many places he could be….”
They came back downstairs and split up; Nara went into the twins’ room while Raena searched the bathroom again. When he was sure they weren’t looking, Everan slipped back out, taking the steps slowly, one at a time, until he found the picture. He sat down in front of it, staring at it, filled with pain beneath the hatred and questions that no one could answer.
The picture was beautifully realistic and highly detailed; he could see every individual drop of blood, every fiber of hair, every scale of the merpeople’s tails. It showed a smoke-shrouded city in ruins by the shore of a great lake; the sands were blackened, and dead merpeople had floated ashore, caught in the reeds or stranded on the sand. One mermaid lay across the lap of the young man kneeling to the left of the painting, the water swirling blackly over his legs. Everan knew instantly that this was Haenir, the first chosen; not from the scene, which had been described in detail to him, but from just looking at him; Haenir and he had the same hair, his too falling gracefully into his eyes; the same features; and the same desperate sorrow in his eyes. The man in the painting was sixteen, lithe yet muscular, but seemed older; his clothes were tattered and dirty, and he was tensed with fear and desperation, yet his hands on the mermaid’s corpse were gentle. Everan liked him right away, which had only ever happened with two people: Kamilé, and her mother.
Haenir’s eyes glowed silver, reflecting—and Everan appreciated the detail of this, realizing that nothing short of a very thin paintbrush and a magnifying glass could have done this—a miniature of the only other living figure in the painting. She hovered two feet above the water’s surface, her brilliance illuminating the murky water. Her features were clouded out of respect—Everan had read once that to paint them clearly would be insulting the beauty and majesty of any deity or god, as they could never be captured properly by mortal devices—but she was still beautiful; her delicate, long-fingered hands, reaching out to the despairing Haenir, her slender body shrouded in a white dress that left her shoulders bare, her graceful feet, her pale skin and long, flowing black hair. She was, irrefutably, Karayani.
For some reason, she looked like Kamilé. Their hair—though Karayani’s was longer, and cleaner—was the same; Karayani’s fell in thick, glossy waves and curled into intertwining ringlets at the bottom, just as Kamilé’s did. But Haenir’s hair was more of a raven color, with a bluish sheen, and perfectly straight; and his skin was sort of tan, but not the olive shade Everan’s was. His mark was also on his forehead: a seven-pointed star that glowed as brightly as his eyes. He had been transformed by the goddess, against his will….
Everan suddenly realized, quite clearly, that Haenir had not wanted to be a chosen. He had just wanted peace, so he could go back home and live his life. Maybe he had had a sister too. Maybe all he had desired, instead of power, responsibility, and another world, he had just wanted to take his sister somewhere where they would have food, water, and shelter, somewhere they would be left alone….
I know how you feel, Everan whispered to his long-dead ancestor. I didn’t want this, either.
He stared at Haenir for what felt like a long time, but really wasn’t at all; then he heard Nara and Raena talking about coming upstairs, and realized he’d be trapped if he didn’t move now. He came downstairs and found himself looking right at them, but like before he ignored them and stepped around them on his path to his room.
He came in but found no one; Kamilé’s absence surprised him. Where was she? Surely she hadn’t run away too?
Nara interrupted his thoughts with an indignant voice. “Everan! Do you have any idea at all how worried we were about you?”
He ignored her, looking around. Their things were still here; nothing had been moved. His journal was right where he’d left it, on the bed. All the clothes were still there, piled neatly onto the desk. If Kamilé had run away, she hadn’t brought anything with her, not even warm clothes.
Nara did not like being ignored. “Everan! Where the hell have you been, Kamilé’s been sick for the past two days and then you run off and where did you even go? Huh? We thought you were getting medicine or something, what the hell were you….”
He turned and glared at her with all his strength, hating everything about her—damn her and her concern and her daughter and her perfect life, what did she know?
She faltered for a moment, but then continued on, too angry to hold back. “I hope you’re happy, Everan, all you’ve done is put yourself in danger and made your sister cry and—and just look at you! You’re frozen, what the hell did that stupid move accomplish? I can’t believe—OYÄE!”
One can suppose that anyone would scream curses if they found a glass figurine flying toward their head. Everan couldn’t stand listening to her anymore and had hurled the first thing he could find at her, which had happened to be a little model of a fox. Nara, to her credit, ducked it, and it shattered harmlessly against the wall, but she only found another aimed at her chest and a pair of burning silver eyes.
Everan did not have to tell her to back the hell off; she did it on her own. She retreated to the wall, knelt down, and repaired the little fox with magic, but then left it there and, never keeping her eyes off of Everan, said, “Fine, if that’s what you want,” and left.
Everan set the figurine down and stood there, shocked at his loss of temper. He’d never done anything like that before….
…Kamilé was sick? Crying? What was wrong?
He heard Nara and Raena conversing outside.
“What are you doing, Nara? You can’t just leave him in there!”
“He’s frozen, he needs to rest anyway.”
“But Kamilé’s in there, get him out, if he starts beating her up too he could kill her—”
“I don’t think he will.”
“He looks pissed off enough.”
“No, Rae…he’s just….”
A pause.
“Just what?”
Nara sighed. “Raena, that is the saddest child I have ever seen.”
Everan was frozen to the spot with shock. He was?
“C’mon, Raena. I think it’s worth the risk if he can get Kamilé out of there…poor little thing.” That seemed to be everyone’s chorus as far as Kamilé was concerned, lately. The two women walked away, Raena muttering to herself, Nara pensively silent.
Everan felt suddenly very tired, and he was still shivering, so he sat himself at the edge of the bed, resting his head in his hands. He opened his mind; sure enough, Kamilé was in here, hiding under the bed. He could feel her shaking, but did not know if it was from anger, cold, or fear.
I know you’re there, Kamilé, he said in a hollow whisper.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Royal Concerns

Kamilé and Everan were fighting each other on the carpet, with Kamilé, as usual, winning every time, as they waited for Sokína to come home.
Raena and Nara had been a bit worried when Kamilé had first dived on Everan just for fun and started struggling to pin him down, but after awhile they let up, deciding that it was good for them to test each other’s strength. They watched with interest as Raena concluded her letter and Nara cooked a medley of roasted vegetables with rice , a sort of noodle dish with rich yellow sauce, and spice cake. As she cooked, she dictated.
“And tell Her Majesty that…no,” she muttered. “I dunno. Should I?”
“You probably should.” Raena checked the contents of the messenger’s pack again, making sure she had everything. “And you’re sure this guy’s honest?”
“Oh, yes. He’s the one that harvests our grain, him and his family. Honest, hardworking people, all of them. You can trust him to deliver your letter unopened, and return Irinari’s the same way.”
“Good.”
“But, Raena…they can’t just come here on a whim, they’re all so busy, and what if…?”
“Nara, they’d want to know this.”
“But our plan was to deliver the chosen to Irinari’s for training with her best swordself and archer and magi, and then induct them into our army…they’ll be angry at me, won’t they?”
“Nara, honey. Twin chosen. This is big, they’ll want to train them themselves. We can’t get a better swordsman than Helas—”
“Yes, that’s true…but I don’t know. Just leave that part blank for now.”
“Nara! This needs to be finished, preferably now….”
“I’ll ask Kína.”
“You rely on her opinion too much. She’s just a kid….”
“She’s my daughter, and she’s a lot cleverer than I am.”
Raena said nothing, merely murmured in a disgruntled tone as she shoved the letter away. Kamilé and Everan, too busy trying to pound each other’s heads into the floor, paid no attention to the other two.
A while later, when dinner was served, Nara was becoming increasingly agitated. She ordered Kamilé and Everan to set the table—which she would have never done in normal circumstances, as no one in their right might should have expected Kamilé not to drop anything—and drifted distractedly around, giving Everan milk and Kamilé juice and generally screwing things up.
“What’s th’matter?” Kamilé inquired as she gathered cutlery. She and Everan had made a deal; he’d get the heavy, breakable stuff, and she’d get the rest as long as she didn’t poke herself too much.
“It’s just…Oh—” Nara muttered, cursing as she spilled wine on the counter. “Kína’s late. She promised me she’d be back by today at the latest and I always tell her to be home for dinner but is she? No, something might have happened too, I knew I shouldn’t send her out alone….”
Kamilé did not really understand what the problem was—whatsername would come when she came, wouldn’t she?—but wanted to sound sympathetic, so she simply said, “Well—” followed by a selection of newly acquired swear words.
Nara froze. “What did you say?”
Kamilé, oblivious to the danger, repeated herself with a shrug. Nara’s eyes narrowed.
“Apologize right now, Kamilé,” she snapped. “That was very rude.”
Kamilé blinked. What had she done now? Nothing, nothing at all, she was just trying to be nice…unused to the adult world of authority and etiquette, she felt cheated somehow, and said defiantly, “No!”
The world lost focus in an instant; a loud slapping noise preceded a sharp burst of pain in her cheek. Her hand pressed against the sore spot as she stared uncomprehendingly at Nara—she’d just slapped her! Slapped her, slapped her…no one had done that since—
The memory of Dirstei, vengeful children, mass cruelty, splashed before her eyes, overwhelming her, and she started to cry. What had she ever done to them? Why were they being so mean to her?
Everan, who hadn’t been watching until then, appeared out of nowhere in front of her. She saw fury in his blurry expression as he glared up at Nara and, reaching up as high as he would go, slapped her too. To Kamilé, it sounded like he’d hit her much harder than necessary.
The room went deathly silent. Nara’s hand touched her cheek in disbelief, and for a moment she looked as if she was about to cry too. Everan glared at her, fists clenched, his thoughts boiling madly behind his flaming eyes.
Don’t you DARE touch her, stupid weed, who do you think you are? I don’t care how you’ve treated us, you have no right to touch her, she’s a chosen and what the hell are you, just some elf, don’t you EVER act like you’re better than her again or we’re leaving, do you understand me?
Kamilé did not need to speak for him; his glare said it all. Nara took a deep breath, recovered slightly, then, to Kamilé’s surprise, bowed. “I apologize, Chosen,” she murmured, then turned back to her spice cake, half-smeared with buttery frosting. Everan turned on his heel and stormed off, pulling Kamilé with him to the bathroom to wash.
Hmph, he muttered. Set your own damn dishes, filthy hypocrite.
What’s that mean? Kamilé asked him softly, her mind filled with the look on Nara’s face as they went away; not anger, nor the chastened look of naughty children, but fear.
It means, Everan fumed, running his thumb over her hand to dislodge any dirt for her, that she can’t go around swearing her tongue away then yell at you for it, and she will never again take her feelings out on you. He spat several insults into the air, still furious.
Kamilé was surprised at him; normally he would just lead her away with a death glare at the guilty adult, but never would he have done anything like this. She was scared of you, she murmured. She couldn’t find the courage to say, So am I.
She better be, he growled, dampening a washcloth and wiping sticky tearstains from her face. She winced, expecting him to be rough with anger and stress, but he was surprisingly gentle. I’m a chosen, doesn’t matter if she’s bigger because pretty soon I’ll be saving her and every other idiot in this country. Left a mark, he added in a venomous mutter. I’ll kill her if she touches you again.
Kamilé stayed very quiet, trying not to anger him; he misunderstood it as a repressed urge to cry a little more, and to cheer her up showed her how to blow bubbles with just soap, water, and her cupped hands. She shrieked with delight when she mastered it, giggling so much that she could hardly blow properly, and both of them managed to be very clean indeed by the time Raena stuck her head in and told them that dinner was ready.
“And Everan,” she added, “well, both of you, that was entirely uncalled for. I think you should apologize to Nara, it really hurt her feelings.”
Her feelings can— Everan said rebelliously, and Kamilé gasped and giggled at the audacious and colorful phrase that followed.
“It’s not funny,” Raena said severely. “Now are you going to apologize or not?”
Everan smirked and tapped his throat. Oh no, I suddenly can’t speak, he added dramatically for Kamilé’s benefit. She was in fits of giggles by this time.
Raena rolled her eyes. “She’s done a lot for you, you know. That’s terrible to treat her like that just because you don’t like her rules.”
“But we’re even now though,” Kamilé objected. “Aren’t we?”
Raena sighed exasperatedly; it didn’t make any kind of sense to her. “No. She apologized, and you didn’t.”
“But I didn’t do anything.”
“You still should.”
“No,” Kamilé said stubbornly; if Everan wasn’t apologizing than neither was she. Raena sighed again and shook her head, but said no more until they were all seated at the dinner table, with a forlornly empty bowl and cushion lying in the place beside Kamilé.
“Everan,” Raena said smugly, “wanted to apologize to you, Nara.” Everyone glanced at Everan, who didn’t even bother to look up. “Only he can’t speak, so he wanted me to do it for him.”
“Well, isn’t that nice.” Nara smiled knowingly. “Thank you very much, and you’re forgiven.”
Everan shrugged in a passable imitation of acceptance. Whatever makes them happy, he said to Kamilé, as one by one her carrots showered into his food. Drink your milk, Kamé.
She didn’t ask him why he was being so nice to her today, going through extra lengths to make her happy and healthy and clean; but had she thought of it, he wouldn’t have answered truthfully anyway. There were never in his vocabulary words to explain to her how much he wanted to be kind to her today, in return for her spectacular performance when he had been sick. Whatever he might have felt yesterday or the day before, today he really did want to be her brother, or even just her half-brother, because, he had realized, he already was in every aspect, subject, and place except in his own mind.
But of course, he was a boy, and he was Everan; so he would never say that. Emotions were for girls, and quite frankly, he’d had enough of being called a girl.

Sokína arrived in a blaze of glory about an hour after dinner.
Nara, who was pacing about, in deep and agitated discussion with Raena about politics and such, had been listening for the knock on the door, and before the special rhythm—tap ta-tap ta-ta-tap tap—had finished sounding she had wrenched the door open and snatched a very small, pale thing inside. They spun around, Nara laughing delightedly, but all the twins could catch of the girl was a flash of white; and then her mother set her down, and they caught a glimpse of her as she smoothed down her hair.
She was the extreme opposite of all their expectations; she was small, yes, but barely more so than they were, though she had to be just eight or nine years old—and she looked absolutely nothing like Nara. They noticed first the pale hair, very pale indeed, a sort of white-blonde; and though all Sirtemans they had seen had pale skin, especially compared to theirs, hers was particularly so. Her face was rounder than Nara’s, her nose thinner, her lips wider in proportion. She looked delicate and frail, but beneath her waxy skin were lean muscles, and she carried herself with just a little more confidence than the average child her age. The twins twitched their noses at her smell, clean and strong and overpowering, and their eyes immediately went to her ears, which were, strangely, rounded.
She’s human! Everan exclaimed, blinking in surprise.
How’s that work, then? Kamilé murmured, glancing from Sokína to Nara. Everan shrugged, as baffled as her.
She’s albino too, he added, blinking again.
What’s that?
It means you don’t have the pigment in you that makes your hair or skin or eyes colored. You’re all white, with red eyes.
Oh. Cool. Kamilé watched her with wary interest, as if expecting next for the girl to spontaneously combust.
An equally surprising twist awaited them, for though the girl was smiling and clearly giggling, no sound came from her mouth, and when she finally turned to speak to her mother, her hands moved instead of her lips. Her fingers seemed to fly from her wrists; she used every muscle of her arms to make the complicated gestures and symbols, growing impassioned and using the rest of her body too—it looked as natural as breathing to her. Everan studied her closely and declared that she was, indeed, speaking a legitimate language.
Must be sign language, he informed Kamilé, awed. Some stupid grown-up tried doing that stuff to me once, when they figured out I couldn’t talk. Remember? I guess they have it here too. Too bad I never learned it…Ah, well, it wouldn’t be the same anyway.
Kamilé nodded, intrigued. Sokína and Nara held an entire conversation together, though Nara did not use her hands but spoke aloud; still, the use and understanding of the sign language fascinated her. It was not just some random hand movements, nor some kind of ritual; it was really a language.
Everan, she nudged him, Everan, you could learn that…you could talk then, too, couldn’t you?
He half-smiled, chuckling darkly in their minds. Kamilé, if I wanted to talk, I wouldn’t need that, would I?
Oh. She remembered now. Sometimes he was so credible to the rest of the world that she believed him herself.
Can’t believe this, Everan muttered. She’s mute, albino…and human. Worst luck ever.
Kamilé nodded, feeling a small amount of pity; it was hard to really feel sorry, as the girl seemed so happy.
Finally, Nara said, “Kína, look what I found.” Grinning slyly, she gestured to the twins.
For the first time Sokína met their eyes, and both felt a certain power in her gaze, as tranquil and potent as the waves of the ocean. It took their breath away, and they stood, frozen, as awed by her as she was of them.
She lifted her hands numbly and formed a word that both of them clearly understood: Chosen.
They nodded. Maybe it’s like Sirteman, Everan suggested vaguely. You’ve got to listen to it awhile to understand.
Kamilé nodded again, briefly distracted; he seemed very taken by this girl. Sokína beamed at them, showing tiny, even teeth, then swiveled around and started chattering silently with her mother—or whatever.
“I know,” Nara replied with a smile. “I was surprised too. Aren’t we lucky, Kína?”
Sokína nodded, then turned back to Kamilé and Everan. She started signing furiously, and yet somehow, they were able to understand the basic gist. Welcome to Sirtema, Chosen, she said with a broad, friendly smile. You are much needed.
“Thanks,” Kamilé said shyly, flushing a little. Everan frowned at the latter part, pondering their newfound responsibility.
“Oh, you can understand her? Good,” Nara beamed. “Strange, but most people can, even though very, very few known sign language.” She shrugged. “Is that even Sirteman sign language, Kína?” she added to her.
Sokína shrugged slightly, signed something like Whatever’s clearest is what I use, Mom. The term surprised the twins.
Kamilé, always the more tactless of the two, stammered, “But…but she’s, and you’re….” She gestured helplessly from one to the other. Sokína performed her silent giggle again, then looked up at her mother as if amused by the thought of her expected answer. Nara laughed as well.
“Kína’s not really my daughter,” she explained, which made a lot more sense. “I adopted her.” Sokína nodded, then glanced curiously at Everan with her head cocked to one side; Kamilé looked at him too, as he was giving Sokína a very odd stare.
There’s a scar across her throat, Everan told her numbly. She’s not like me. She really is mute.
Duh, Kamilé said, but quietly. Sokína seemed alarmed, and approached him cautiously, as one would a startled deer. Everan tried to back away from her, but didn’t get very far; she cupped his chin in one hand and stared intently into his eyes. Everan blinked at her, too surprised to do anything more than stare back. Sokína seemed puzzled by what she saw, and turned his head slightly this way and that, then upward, as if checking for a scar of his own. Finding nothing, she arched her pale eyebrows and released him, then grinned and hugged him harder than Kamilé had ever done. Giggling silently, she turned away, leaving Everan riveted to the spot, paralyzed with shock.
Kamilé broke into a fit of giggles at the sight of him, but stopped when Sokína turned on her next. She held very still as the younger girl approached, standing toe to toe with her, the disconcerting eyes just level with Kamilé’s mouth. What very strange eyes they were…deep purple, if that was even a real eye color, with blue and red specks, like a sky at sunset….
Sokína did not touch her face, but rather took her hand, spread the fingers, and touched her own to it. Against Kamilé’s olive skin Sokína seemed ghostly pale. The younger girl stared into her eyes as if seeing beyond them into the workings of Kamilé’s mind, and Kamilé felt something very unfamiliar, cool and light, seeping through her brain.
The contact lasted seconds; Kamilé felt strangely intruded upon, but also strangely more familiar with this strange girl. Sokína smiled at her in a knowing, best-friends sort of way—which therefore made it entirely unfamiliar to Kamilé—and hugged her, too. Kamilé hugged her back, because she liked hugs, but was just as confused as Everan.
Sokína turned back to him and signed something, Kamilé didn’t see what. Everan nodded slowly, flushing just a little. Sokína signed something else, and Everan nodded again, then abruptly took Kamilé and sat her on the sofa beside him, pulling open a book and hiding behind it.
What’d she say? Kamilé demanded.
She said…deities, Kamilé, Everan muttered, clearly shaken. It was like she could see right into my head. She said just what I wanted to ask—she told me that that really wasn’t her natural eye color, they were really red but she tried to dye them blue with magic and they turned out like that. And then she said I was really interesting and she’d tell me all I wanted to know after she’d rested and stuff. It was weird….
SHE’S weird, Kamilé murmured, more confused than hostile. Everan nodded.
Nara said something in an undertone to Sokína—it sounded like “Honey, try not to scare them, okay?”—which Sokína accepted with a smile. Then Nara asked, “So where have you been, sweetie? You were late, what for? The blizzard?”
Sokína nodded, then added with her hands, But don’t worry, Mom, I stayed out of it mostly. Is there food?
Nara laughed and promptly hurried off to make Sokína a bowl of vegetables and rice, noodles, and a small piece of cake. Then she sat down beside her, telling her of all that had happened while she was away and prodding Sokína to eat up—by what Kamilé saw she assumed that the younger girl naturally had a small appetite but was being fattened up by her surrogate mother. This reminded her to ask Everan, What’s adopted mean?
Everan was instantly cautious. It means you get new parents, he explained. Like Pilori.
She knew why he had bristled at the subject and decided wisely to let it lay at that.
When Nara had finished speaking, she asked Sokína, “So where did you go this time, Kína?”
Sokína held up a finger, skipped over to her pack, withdrew a folded piece of parchment, and spread it out on the table as she resumed eating. She drew a line with her finger on the parchment, which was covered in what looked like thin black spider webs from where Kamilé sat….
Everan slowly rose and stepped over to the table. He watched with wide eyes as Sokína continued to trace—Kamilé hastily stumbled over and realized that it was a map. A familiar map. And she was tracing her route on it.
Everan sank down across the table from her and slowly, gingerly, placed two fingers on the corner of the map and began to pull it away. Sokína paused and blinked, confused, but then let go of it as Everan carefully turned it and stared at it.
Zhieyha eäyo, he whispered, sliding a hand into his bag and extracting a book—the history of Ametris. He opened it to the very, very first page. Kamilé, look….
She did, and saw, amazingly, that the two maps, the one on the table and the one in the book, were identical. Cool, she replied, not really understanding what he meant.
They’re just the same, he said numbly. Just the damn same…look at that, Kamilé…I guess they were right, it’s the same world…just different…like a leaf….
It seemed that it had only now just soaked in for him; he stared in absolute shock at the two maps, trembling slightly.
What the hell have we got ourselves into, Kamilé? he demanded. We can’t do this. We’re eleven, just eleven, we don’t know anything about anything, all of that was just a game to us…we can’t save anybody….
He sounded like he wanted to cry, or run off again; Kamilé hugged him loosely, so as not to embarrass him much, and said, It’s okay, Everan, it’ll be okay….
I want to go BACK, he declared, closing his eyes and breathing hard. I don’t want to be here. I want to get away from people like that sorceress, people like all of them, we can’t FIGHT them, we’ll die here…I want to go back to Ametris, it was safe there….
Kamilé swallowed a contradiction to this and tried to push away the memories of Ametris not being safe, as she still hadn’t told him, and was going to keep it that way. She just hugged him tighter, trying to comfort him without words.
The book slid minutely out of his grasp, and two slim white fingers tapped it hesitantly; they looked up to find Sokína’s eager eyes fixed on them. She tapped the open book again, then gently pulled it out of his grasp. Everan frowned at her.
“She’s not trying to be rude,” Nara cut in, sensing that explanation was necessary. “That’s just how she asks permission.”
Everan nodded and pushed the book toward her, and she studied the map avidly upside down. Kamilé hated to be the one to tell her that, but as she was the only one that noticed and could talk, she felt it was necessary. “Um,” she said shyly. “It’s the wrong way up….”
Sokína blinked at her as if she’d just said that the sun was green. Kamilé did not see what was so hard to understand about it, she’d done it all the time.
“The book,” she reiterated. “It’s upside-down.”
Now the grown-ups were staring at her too. “No it isn’t,” Nara said.
“Yes it is!” Everan nodded to back her up.
“Amazing,” Raena breathed, grinning broadly. “They read backwards!”
“No we don‘t”
“But you do,” she crowed. “From left to right? Zhieyha oyäe, Ametrisans are weird.”
“You’re the weird ones!”
Raena laughed and shook her head as she gazed at the map over Sokína’s shoulder. “Fascinating, isn’t it, Kína?” Raena asked her; they seemed very familiar with each other. “Look at that. Is this a recent map?”
Everan nodded, prodding Kamilé to answer, “It’s from 7000 A.T., they make a new one every century.” She was proud to sound so smart.
Raena nodded. “We do that. Only we’ve had a new one last year, because the queen said so,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Look at that. Even the coastline is the same. Amazing….”
Sokína set the book aside and started twisting her hands about again, smiling as she told them, Well of course it would be. After all, each tiny particle has an antithesis in Ametris, so in theory they really would be the same country, the only differences the ones the people made. They’re bound together by the most complete bonds anything can ever be.
Kamilé glanced sideways at Everan and thought, from his expression, that he had fallen in love. She waved a hand in front of his eyes, and he turned and wrinkled his nose at her.
Raena nodded and smiled. “Kína, did you hear about the Isaki theorem? It’s absolutely fascinating….”
Sokína nodded, and they fell into avid discussion about the theorem, which included thoughts about the bond between white and black magic and why it was the closest of magical bonds, which were closer than any physical bonds. According to Sokína, the creator of the theorem related it directly to Ametris and Sirtema, though people didn’t like his use of Sirtema as the dark side of matter. According to Raena, it had so much to do with something called grey matter, which the dictator (Everan supposed that was the “queen”) was so interested in that she took the only written copy from the author, although word had gotten around.
Everan took careful mental notes, of course, clearly enthralled with the subject matter. Kamilé knew he would be plaguing Sokína for information later, once he had figured out how to speak to her.
Kamilé also noticed that Sokína referred to Raena as an “aunt.” She asked Everan what it meant, but it didn’t make a lot of sense; he said that an aunt was a parent’s sister, and refused to tell her more. But it was clear to her that she and Everan were the most closely related in this room, and they weren’t even from the same family.
The entire concept of family, she decided, was completely subjective. And then she felt lonely, just a little, because Sokína had a mother and an aunt, subjectively, and all she had was Everan…and then she felt a little bad for the rest of them, because they’d never had an Everan before. It was kind of like those particle things they were talking about, she thought; she and Everan were from different places, very, very different in every way, but they were two parts of one thing; they were twins.
Now that she mentioned it to herself, they really were different. She liked sweets but he didn’t, he was quiet and she wasn’t, he was brilliant and she was stupid, she liked summer, he liked winter…the only thing they had in common was their appearance.
“Hey, Everan,” she said, wondering aloud. “D’you think we’re like those particley things? Can I be the white one?”
Everan turned and stared at her, just stared, as if he’d never heard her say anything like that; which she never had, really. Then he frowned slightly, and nodded. Sokína stared at her too, but Nara looked confused, and Raena was grinning.
“Very astute of you, Kamilé,” she said. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
It does make a lot of sense, Kamilé, Everan added. Good job…I think you’re right.
It was the first time that she’d ever felt so clever. She beamed and blushed simultaneously, hiding a little behind Everan as Raena continued without a pause; Everan’s words had taken barely a second to register in her mind.
“That’s actually a theory Tara came up with. Grey magic is an old, old study, and naturally it is in essence black and white magic mixed together, which is impossible on many levels. They repel and destroy each other, and everything around it. Yet Tara’s theory was that black magic and white magic could be coaxed to coexist, and she mentioned both Sirtema and Ametris, and herself and Kilio. She pointed out dozens of opposites between them and said that they had very, very few similarities, namely the fact that they were of the same race, the same matter. She concluded with saying that twin chosen, the two worlds, were two and yet one; just like the two magics. And moreover, that they not only could coexist—they actually wanted to. Her logic was very sound, and she had a lot to back it up with, but the document was confiscated, as all pertaining to magic and chosen were. The queen has at least one copy of every theory known to Sirtema.” Raena sighed. “Such a loss. Just for her own selfish needs….”
Everan was thinking hard about this, as was Kamilé; but eventually she had to stop, as thinking so much made her head feel soggy.
Maybe twin chosen were made for the same reason Ametris was made, Everan finally said, long after the subject of conversation had changed. To balance the other out.
Kamilé nodded, still trying to sound smart. Maybe, she agreed mysteriously.

PRESENT?!?!?! I LIKE PRESENTS! surprised

Thanks for giving me something to pass the time, by the way.

And because Reesey chan has been such a devoted fan, she gets three chapters for Christmas. The whole book, however, is collectively everyone's, but mostly mine.

Anyway, Chapter 28!

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Siméa

The next afternoon they set out, the two adults and Sokína bearing full packs on their shoulders and all the children dressed in hats, scarves, mittens, and socks—which were entirely strange and alien to Kamilé. They had offered politely to carry something, but Nara insisted that they did not need to bring anything but “their own adorable selves,” which made Everan scowl.
Sokína had not really needed a pack of her own—Nara had brought enough food and clothes for all of them—but she had insisted that they probably weren’t coming back for awhile and if Varan got raided they weren’t having her books. She selected seven or eight and set them neatly at the bottom, surrounded by a nest of clothes, with her diary and a quill and some extra ink wrapped up tight on top. She filled the rest of the space with things she knew her mother couldn’t live without but hadn’t brought; a ring in a little satin-lined box, a few scrolls, and a few jars of her favorite spices. Nara had been pleased instead of angry at her, especially when she considered that (as Sokína had already informed Everan) the scrolls contained important information about Sirtema, the Elite, and the armies, including detailed descriptions of the queen’s every move for the last decade; it would be fatal if those documents fell into the wrong hands.
Sokína had also explained to Everan the significance of the ring. Her mother was married, as she had already informed them, but as a rule she couldn’t wear the ring in public. Her husband was part of Tyrranen’s army and wasn’t wearing a ring either, because if either one was tortured for that information both would be killed and the Elite and rebel army destroyed.
Nara didn’t tell them much about the rebel army. She just said that it was just as it seemed, an army of those who still honored Sirtema, the powers that protected it, and the gods, and weren’t afraid of Tyrranen. Sadly, it was very small as of yet; but they were working on it. Progress should be much faster now that they had twin chosen on their side.
And so they set out, locking the door firmly behind them as they marched out beneath the winter sky—which immediately struck both of them as very strange indeed, and nearly sent Kamilé into fits when she realized.
“What’s wrong with it!” she screamed. “Change it back it doesn’t go like that!”
“What’s wrong, honey?” Raena immediately threw her arms protectively around her.
“The sky, the sky,” Kamilé sobbed. “Look at it!”
And they did. It had grown warmer, and the sky had turned from sullen grey to pale blue. The sun shone brightly to the west, illuminating the cloudless expanse.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Raena said cautiously, sensing that wasn’t the problem at all.
Everan was staring open-mouthed at the sky too, lost for words. Kamilé started to cry.
“The mist! It’s gone! No, no, no, I didn’t mean to I didn’t do it I swear—”
“Honey, there was never any mist,” Raena soothed her, but she was too worked up, almost hysterical, and wouldn’t listen.
“They were right they were right but I didn’t mean to I really didn’t mean to!”
“I know you didn’t.” Raena hugged her, extremely confused, trying to comfort her as best as she could. “It’s all right.”
“No, no….”
Kamilé was crying too hard to make any sense. No one knew what to do until Everan elbowed Raena out of the way and hugged her himself. She immediately felt his calming presence seep into her blood, soothing her racing heart.
I know, it’s scary, isn’t it? he said as he let go, grasping her shoulders tightly. The sky’s so big without it…but look, Kamilé, it’s really pretty….
He must have been trying hard, because he knew perfectly well that boys never used the word “pretty.” Normally she would have made fun of him, but she was too scared.
I didn’t mean to, Everan, she pleaded. I really didn’t….
You didn’t make it go away, Everan insisted. You couldn’t have. Don’t worry. Only the deities could do that.
R-really? She stared hopefully at him, brushing away her tears. B-but Everan… we’re chosen….
Right now we’re pretty much normal kids, he told her, in a tone almost like a confession of some sort. We can’t do anything more than we could before we knew. No one could have done anything like that, Kamilé. Trust me.
And she did. She did not tell him anything about how she had broken the mist, but as she looked up she realized he was right, she couldn’t have, because she was going to protect everybody now…and the sky really was beautiful without it.
The forest seemed strange, illuminated as it was by pure light. Kamilé skipped about tirelessly in the snow, careful not to get wet but determined to have as much fun as possible all the same. The nice thing about winter was that it provided endless white fluffy stuff to play with, and numerous opportunities when it came to their ongoing adventures and games. They could make forts, castles, snowballs, shelters, ballistae…they were only limited by their creativity.
The minute Kamilé found a suitable tree, she at once scampered into it, calling to Everan, C’mon! Up here!
Come down, Kamilé, he told her calmly. We’re gonna leave you behind.
Nuh-uh! She clung to the branch she was on and pushed herself off into space, grabbing another just below it on another tree and swinging back and forth. See?
I can’t do that.
Sure you can.
No, Kamé. Come down, all right? You might slip, you’re wearing mittens, remember?
Oh yeah. She glared at the little black things on her hands, treacherously soft and smooth with absolutely no traction whatsoever. Grumbling, she slid down from the tree, deigning to walk with the others.
But that didn’t stop her for long. Only minutes later she ran ahead, about a half-mile, built a swift fort and some snowballs, and lay in wait. It took her a moment to realize she was alone, Everan had stayed behind…that wasn’t like him. She’d have to hit him a lot harder.
When the others made their steady way along the path, Kamilé made to open fire on them, but something stopped her. Everan hadn’t followed her after all…he was walking behind, talking with Sokína. Kamilé felt her eyes burn—he’d rather talk to her than play with his sister like he always did?
Hurt and jealous, she hit him with the first snowball, Sokína immediately with the second. Then she exhausted her supply in seconds, raining them on the two adults as well, but mostly on the traitor and the charmer. To her disappointment, her attack had little effect; Nara and Raena stopped her snowballs with a wave of their hands, though it was a little harder for Raena to conjure the magical shield; Sokína did this as well, but covered not only herself, but Everan too.
Kamilé was furious. She fumed as they passed her, glaring at all of them. “C’mon, Kamilé,” Nara said calmly; she must have been used to this sort of thing, by now. She trailed behind them, kicking everything she could that wouldn’t break her toes; Everan was talking avidly to Sokína with sign language as if nothing had happened, and she was left alone.
She couldn’t stand it, and her heart was bursting with jealousy; she ran up to him and punched him hard on the back of his shoulder.
Ow! He cursed, gripping his shoulder tightly as he turned to scowl at her. What was that for?
She punched him again, and again, snapping, What’s wrong with you, Everan, you ALWAYS play with me, what if you left me like that and it was REAL, I’d be all alone and then I’d die and then you’d be s—
But she stopped as pain flared in her breast—though not as strongly as the pain in Everan’s. He paled immediately after a wayward blow to the place over his heart, clutching at it and staggering slightly, his face contorted with pain.
Both girls immediately cried out and held him up, Sokína unable to sign, Kamilé crying, Oh no Everan I’m sorry I’m sorry don’t die please don’t die—
Nara turned on her heel and took Everan from them at once, setting him gently down on the road. He sat there, doubled over in pain, unaware of what they were doing around him.
“Everan,” Nara said firmly, holding his chin so he would look straight into her eyes. “Can you hear me?”
He nodded slightly, teeth gritted in pain.
“Drink this.” Nara fished a vial of potion out of her bag and held it to his lips. He took it and did his best to drink, but only managed a few sips before nausea rose in him and he had to stop. Kamilé felt everything clearly, sinking to the ground herself and clutching her necklace to her heart.
I’m sorry, she whispered to him, but he wasn’t listening.
Nara laid her hand against his face, at once feeling for a fever and using her skyia method to search for the problem. When that was done, she conjured a bit of colorless magic, like a heat haze around her fingertips, and pressed it slowly into his chest. He let her, looking sick and pale and faint. Kamilé longed to hug him, but she couldn’t move; she couldn’t breathe.
Nara helped Everan to his feet, asking him if he could walk; he nodded and they began again, leaving Kamilé behind.
Don’t die, Everan, she thought, and burst into tears.

They stopped as soon as dusk arrived; immediately Nara gave Everan the rest of the potion, and he curled up beneath a blanket, pulled into unconsciousness by the concoction within minutes. Kamilé couldn’t eat, couldn’t concentrate on anything else but his still little form against the snow—dying, she thought, all because of her.
When everyone was asleep, she got up and sat behind him. She laid her hands on him, wanting to know if he was breathing or not, if he was still warm and alive… Then she shook him, softly at first, but then harder and harder, and still he did not respond as she cried, Everan! EVERAN! Wake up, wake up, don’t die, please don’t die, don’t leave me again….
Someone’s soft hand touched her shoulder, pale and small. She ignored it, her eyes too wet and blurred to see the hands flashing before her in their little dance, delivering some message; Sokína hugged her, but she shrugged her off, hugging Everan tightly to her as she cried and cried, until she was too tired to cry anymore, and slipped into darkness with Everan.
In the morning he was awake before her; he shook her until her eyes opened, then turned away. She hugged him and almost started crying again, telling him over and over again how sorry she was, but he winced in pain and she had to let go.
Nara came over to him with breakfast, making him eat as much as he could (which wasn’t much at all, to Kamilé’s alarm) and then ordering him to unbutton his shirt. He shook his head, but Nara insisted; Kamilé covered her eyes and turned her face away so he would, and she supposed he did; she felt him shivering beside her as he removed his scarf and unfastened the top of the dull green shirt Nara had made for him. Nara did something involving magic—the hairs on the back of Kamilé’s neck stood up—and then made him lay down again; when she sat up and looked, his clothes were fastened and layered on properly, and he was wrapping himself in a blanket and laying down again.
Nara wouldn’t let Kamilé near him, which she considered undeniable cruelty. For the two hours they let Everan rest, she sat as close to him as Nara allowed, gaining an inch or two whenever no one was looking, staring at him and longing for him to hug her and tell her he was all right. She ate nothing, said nothing, even though she knew Everan could hear her; she merely sat, and thought with dread and fear and horror that if Everan died, it would be her fault. The pain made her cry at times, but no one noticed until she started to sob, overwhelmed; then Sokína came carefully over and hugged her, signing something that Kamilé didn’t care to translate. She was ignored for the most part, but she stayed anyway, gently trying to comfort Kamilé however she could.
When they finally broke camp, hiding the remains of the magical fire and packing their belongings again, Nara shook Everan awake, asked him a few questions, then helped him up and allowed him to walk with them. He did not walk with the others, instead staying slightly behind; Kamilé and Sokína stayed with him, each doing their best to help him. To Kamilé’s delight, he ignored Sokína entirely, never once answering her silent questions, and the younger girl was too shy to take his hand like Kamilé had; but to Kamilé’s dismay, he didn’t pay much attention to her, either. He seemed better, and the color was back in his cheeks, but was tired and had devoted all of his energy to keeping pace.
Eventually he slowed, and they stopped for a brief rest. Everan spent the time sitting on a fallen tree, wrapped in a blanket and staring sleepily at the ground. Kamilé sat beside him and rested her head on his shoulder, trying to persuade him to respond; Sokína, again shying away from physical contact, hovered nearby, unsure what to do. When Kamilé glared at her, she decided that she wasn’t welcome and, sniffling a little, ran off to help her mother.
In this fashion, with rests every few hours, they covered several leagues; Nara informed them that they would reach Siméa the next afternoon. Then she bullied Everan, and on an afterthought, Kamilé, into eating—neither twin even knew what it was—and made him go to bed. He did as she said, but lay awake for hours; the pain was receding, but Kamilé could still feel it sharply in her own chest, and it was so much stronger with him. She curled up beside his back, trying to talk to him and distract him for awhile, but he wasn’t paying much attention.
Finally they both fell asleep, sharing the same dreams, where fear clouded over them—fear of fighting, of red eyes, of the other dying—and the war around them shook the ground beneath their feet, with pain flashing across the darkness and no sign of a horizon.
In the morning there was a palpable change; Everan was better. Not back to normal, still tired; but the pain was, as far as Kamilé knew, for the most part gone. The minute he shook her awake she hugged his arm and told him again and again that she was sorry, but at this he blinked and said, For what? I don’t really remember.
She could not tell if he was lying or not, but she hugged him all the same. He vaguely patted her back in return, a sort of stiffness in him; she looked up in alarm and saw instantly that beneath his indifferent expression he was murderously furious.
Everan? She cowered, frightened by his blazing eyes.
I’ll kill her, he hissed, teeth gritted and bared. I’ll kill that witch if it’s the last thing I do, I hate her, I hate her, I hate her—
But Everan, Kamilé whimpered. She’s scary…she hurt us….
So we won’t let her! So we’ll get really strong, stronger than she’ll ever be, and we’ll beat her! We can do it, Kamilé. She’s just a person, not a chosen. We OWN her. He smirked with blazing fury as he, apparently, imagined what he would do to her. You’ll help me, won’t you?
There it was, a choice: stay by Everan or stay alive, and away from those awful eyes. She didn’t know what to do…but then it hadn’t really been a question. So she gave her expected answer: Let’s kill that hërdãa, she growled with a fierce grin.
Good. Everan rose to his feet, still a bit frail and unsteady, and took her hand and led her over to Nara.
“Hello, Everan,” she said kindly. “Feeling better?”
He nodded shortly, then prodded Kamilé to talk for him, which she did without hesitation.
“We wanna kill Tyrranen,” she said fiercely. The tone was unlike her; combined with the words, she really threw Nara off.
“I’m sorry?”
“We wanna kill Tyrranen,” she repeated, and Everan nodded grimly. “And…and rip her up…and burn the pieces!” This was her own embellishment, really, but it got the point across; and now, she realized, she really did want to make that stupid sorceress pay for what she’d done, and destroy her memory so she could never do it again. She didn’t realize that this was Everan’s influence; all she knew was that the same hatred and righteous fury burned inside of them, uniting them as one determined fighter. Kamilé’s strength and warlike mindset, Everan’s belligerent, rebellious, adamantly independent nature, blended into one—a dangerous combination of power and the urge to wield it.
Nara seemed to sense this, somehow. She frowned and stared at them like she’d never seen them before.
“If you’ve seen Tyrranen before,” she finally said, very flatly and bluntly, “and you lived, you either had luck on your side or she was just toying with you.”
“We know,” said Kamilé for them; Everan had seen that Tyrranen was playing with them like a cat with a mouse as they had fought. “She was testing us, ‘cause she knew who we were; but there’s two of us and one of her, and she’s just a person. We’re chosen.”
Nara nodded, surprise and awe mingling in her hard gaze. “She’s the strongest magi in the country,” she informed them, as if testing their willpower. “She’s of the sorcerers, an ancient race in Sirtema that devoted themselves to revealing the secrets of magic; she’s the last one, and one of the strongest. And they say she’s possessed by demons, and experiments with magic that makes herself and her armies almost unstoppable. She’s powerful; all the Elite together couldn’t kill her. Only the gods in heaven could stop her.”
“Or a chosen,” Kamilé insisted. “Or two.”
“Or two,” Nara agreed. “You realize that it won’t be easy. It could take years of discipline and training before the two of you would even stand a chance against her.”
“We’ve got time.”
“Not really.” Nara’s mouth twitched. “But all the same…are you really sure you want to take on the most powerful tyrant in three thousand years? Are you sure you’re ready?”
They took their time thinking of a good answer, one that would really convince her that they meant it. “If she’s in Ametris too,” Kamilé said finally, “with all the innocent people that can’t fight her, and she’s here with all the people that can, we’re going to fight her here. We’ll get everyone in Sirtema to work with us to destroy her if we have to. She’s killed people…she killed us, we think. And she’s done too many un…unforgivable things. We might be the only ones who can stop her, or we might not, but we will, and we’ll fight as long and hard as we have to.”
Nara smiled at them; Raena whooped joyfully and jumped up to hug them. “Knew you’d see it our way,” she crowed, dancing about and laughing hysterically. “Look out, Tyrranen!” she shouted to the sky. “The twin chosen are after your head! Hah! Hahahahaha—”
“We aren’t going to make you do anything you don’t want to,” Nara added. “We’re here to guide you, train you, help you. But the entire country—no, the world—depends on the decisions you make—and you’re sure this is the right one?”
“Hell yes,” Kamilé grinned. Sokína punched the air and twirled around, then Raena caught her and they started dancing about with strange, rhythmic motions that the twins supposed were common in Sirtema.
“Good,” Nara said fervently. “We’ll reach Siméa this afternoon. We’re enrolling you in school, and in the afternoons you’ll train with the Elite. All right?”
“Cool!” Kamilé and Everan shared a grin, exhilarated by the power they had found. “Can we go now?”
“Let’s,” Nara agreed, and they did.

Siméa was a village larger than Varan, but much smaller than Kocha. It was a river town, splayed across both banks (the river, they found out, shared the same name as the Iiyana in Ametris) and conjoined by a huge bridge of stone and living trees, obviously of combined elfin and human make. A space in the center of the bridge thirty yards across could, using magic, be pulled back into the eastern side, making way for any ships or rafts that floated downriver. On both sides, parts of the bridge spanned out and encompassed a little reservoir, which was kept warm in the winter to free it of ice. The people used this as their well when the river water could not suffice.
The little they had seen of Varan differed greatly from Siméa. In Varan, trees had been coaxed to grow a certain way by a combination of elfin arts and magic—Kamilé and Everan had yet to find out that every house in the place had been built with Nara’s magic as a hiding place for the sad remnants of a battle against Tyrranen. This provided camouflage and safety, but limited space.
In Siméa, no one was hiding anything. The trees here were as ancient and huge as the ones in Varan, and in their shadow lay a mêlée of inhabitation. The gigantic branches that fell or were trimmed away were used to make many ramshackle human houses, along with walls made from stones and dried river mud and clay tiles and thatch on the roofs. For the humans, it was a poor town. Their houses were small, and they had to use the river water to wash their clothes and dishes, bathe, and drink. Clothing hung to dry on hundreds of crisscrossing wires stretched around the trees; beneath them beggars sat with hands outstretched, merchants showed wares on blankets and chairs, the very wealthy on tables, and people tread the paths with hopeless familiarity, knowing that they had done this every day for years and would continue to do it unless luck or misfortune struck them. It was a sad, impoverished town, squalid and sad.
But the elves were different altogether, white to the human’s black. Their dwellings rose high above the humans, branches of the great trees persuaded to crisscross, flatten themselves, combine, and arch this way and that to form walkways, pillars, porticos, and peculiar outdoor rooms that looked like the tangled spheres of sharp weeds that poor Kochan children had used for balls. These rooms were formed by endless tendrils twisted together, giving it a solid, closed-in appearance while simultaneously allowing air to flow in from every direction, and one was attached to almost every house. The houses themselves were carved intricately out of the trees—or rather, the trees simply grew that way—and the elves were only limited by imagination and their neighbors. The largest of elf families had enormous domains several levels high, one room on each level, some even reaching all the way to the ground. Compared to Varan and even Kocha, it was a luxurious place to live, high and safe.
It was clear to the twins as Nara explained the history of the town that the opposite effects of the place were purely the results of different mindsets; in other words, the humans had been stupid and lazy, and that’s why they lived in poverty. Nara told them that once this had been an elfin town, rather small but friendly and cheerful, until the remnants of a town of humans had sought shelter there. The elves had agreed to let the humans live beneath them, and they would work together to protect the town; but the humans were proud and chose to make their own dwellings instead of unite with the elves—and the elves had wanted help with their own dwellings too, but the humans would not lend their skills. So the two races had diverged, and this was the result; the only unification between the two was the little militia, the trading business that the humans kept alive, and the school.
The school was their destination as they crossed the bridge and entered the town. Kamilé and Everan were awed, and let their eyes wander, trying to see everything at once; but at first, aside from the bridge, there was nothing to see. The humans glared at the strange newcomers and were not helpful when Nara asked for directions; they just pointed to the sky, over which dozens of elfin roadways crisscrossed and floated in the air. Some of the people were so sad and hopeless that Kamilé wanted to hug them, but Everan warned her that they’d slip a knife into her ribs as soon as look at her, even the beggars; and besides, it was their fault anyway. She asked him how, frowning; why would anyone do this to themselves?
It has to do with money, Everan explained. It’s all about money, really. Humans love it. They think it’s justice, giving everything a general worth and making it a trade. Things for things, favors for things; that’s how everything started out for all the races. But then money came about; it had a set worth too, and everything could be traded for that. Of course the more money you had, the more power you had; you could buy anything in the world. So it got out of hand. The people had to pay to live on their land, had to pay to own a shop that they built with their own hands, had to pay for everything. And the poor people are made even poorer; they can’t pay all of that AND try to make a living, so they starve.
These people didn’t have to be poor. They could do what the elves did, and help each other; but they were greedy, and selfish, and proud. And now they live in squalor. And don’t feel sorry for them, either—they’re still alive because they work hard, and that’s how it’s supposed to be; they’re not happy because they chose not to be. And don’t feel sorry for the beggars either; if they were really that poor, they’d be dead. They’re just trying to get more off of people who have none to spare, or they wasted all their money and think they deserve a second chance.
What people don’t realize, Kamilé, is that it’s possible to live like we used to. Especially if you’re human, it’s even easier. You don’t have to wait for certain plants to grow; you can hunt and eat whatever you can catch. You’re only limited by your will and your strength, really. And it’s easy to build a house, and it’s easy to learn magic. But these people think it’s hard, impossible, so it is for them.
Don’t tell them any of this, by the way, he added to her. They’ll probably kill you; they’re desperate. They won’t understand.
Ah. Okay. Kamilé stepped cautiously around three beggars, a mother and two children younger than them, and wondered if they really wanted to live this way, soiled and cold and hungry.
I know, Everan replied to her curious gaze. But just think, Kamilé—if they really needed a place to go, if they were really that desperate, there’s a whole village of elves above them just begging for company and a chance to share their food. These people did it to themselves, don’t ever doubt it.
Kamilé nodded, trying to understand; but from then on she averted her eyes from the humans and their ramshackle shelters, refusing to look any human in the eye.
The town was rank with the overwhelming scent of human, especially too many humans in one place, especially especially poor, dirty humans. Kamilé began to see what Everan meant; the river was right there! How hard was it to wash the dirt off? Or sweep out their little huts with a tree branch? Or hunt for food instead of beg? Kamilé didn’t know what exactly they would hunt for, but Everan assured her that even in the winter there was “game” to be found.
All of them, even Sokína, a fellow human, were glad to find a sort of platform, which one human had said would lead them to the elfin part of the town. It was made of delicately carved wood, wide enough for a score of people; but at the time only five or so elves were sitting in a circle on it, laughing and sharing a basket full of brown bread, cheese, wine, and fruit salad. The sight was so drastically different that Kamilé felt she’d stepped into a completely different place; the elves were tanned, hard, and had clearly not bathed in a while, but were not dirty; they wore bright clothes, worn and patched but clean, clothes that belied the elements and followed the Sirteman dress code—the men wore no shirts unless they wanted to, the women wore very little there as well, and both sexes bore pants of varying length and colors. They laughed and smiled as they ate, chatted, and joked, the epitome of healthiness and happiness.
Nara stopped them and placed herself in front, waiting patiently until they noticed her. All of them jumped up at once; they were teenagers, fourteen and fifteen, yet carried themselves like adults, people in authority; three men and two women, and, they saw, a baby, swathed in blankets and seated happily by the cheese with chubby fingers in his mouth. His mother picked him up and set him on her hip, a ring sparkling on her right hand; she was only four years older than Kamilé, Marli’s age, but already had a family. Another woman wore a ring, and kept close to her husband as they viewed the newcomers politely.
“May your star bring you peace, sayama,” said one of the unmarried men politely. “How may we serve you?”
Courtesy seemed as simple as breathing to them; all of them bowed to the two adults, even the woman with the baby. Kamilé hid herself from them as she watched them shyly; she had covered her mark with a hat and had been told to stay inconspicuous, whatever that meant, but she felt that these strange people could see right through her with their sharp elfin eyes.
“May yours as well. We’re looking for a way into the elfin part of Siméa,” Nara replied with a bow in return. “Will this lead us there?”
“Essayama,” the man replied. “Please, allow us to take you there.”
“I would be honored,” Nara said, and lead the little party carefully onto the platform. She sat, and so did the rest of them; they were offered food by the two women while the two unmarried men rose and began securing ropes to the platform. Kamilé, Sokína, and Raena accepted gratefully; Everan and Nara declined. The bread was rough, but the cheese was soft and good, and she ate with relish, having completely forgotten her lunch two hours earlier. The woman with the baby even let them have a little wine; she seemed to be immensely fond of Kamilé especially, and Kamilé didn’t mind making herself a pet yet again.
The men settled themselves on opposite corners of the platform and tied off the last ropes, then grabbed the only two remaining and pulled. Immediately the platform rose, with every pull gaining several feet. All three children were amazed.
“Wow!” Kamilé exclaimed. “How d’you do that?”
“Physics, honey,” said the man seated by his wife. Kamilé didn’t really know what physics were, so she ignored this.
“Must be heavy,” she commented, trying again to sound smart.
“Not at all. Even you could do it. It uses pulleys and things to make it easier to lift; we just use two people so the platform doesn’t tip.
The platform felt perfectly safe to Kamilé—it even had a three-foot-high railing around it. But as she peered over this at the rapidly disappearing ground, she became grateful for the safety; they really were high up.
When she had bounced back over to her place, Everan grabbed her wrist and made her sit. Don’t move around so much, he pleaded, his eyes tightly closed. He seemed pale; was he sick again? But no; when she asked, he merely said, I don’t like being this high up. I’m not a bird; I should be on the ground.
But Everan, I LOVE stuff like this, she objected, and she really did have an unhealthy love of high places, unless of course she wasn’t in control; then it got scary. But things like this were wonderful to her.
Well, I don’t, Everan replied. And you’re making me nervous. Just sit down and eat.
It was a long way up, and the platform seemed like hard work to lift, but the men assured her that they didn’t mind at all, it was a chance to stretch their muscles. They joked breathlessly with the other man and listened avidly as Raena reported news to them, which Everan found interesting but Kamilé didn’t. She and Sokína played with the baby and ate, chatting with the mother as they slowly approached the elfin city about her child, the wonders of the town, and the parts that were not so wonderful. She agreed with Everan, saying that they had offered help to the humans many times and were refused; they were on their own, she supposed. Presently she thought that they were so cute that she offered them candied nuts, which they devoured greedily; even the woman ate some, leading Kamilé to believe that Sirtemans were infinitely cooler than Ametrisans, as far as elves went.
Finally they reached the topmost of several levels, all buzzing with activity; they stopped on one that was quieter, filled with shafts of green sunlight and patches of inky shade. Several more levels lay above, but these too were quiet and still.
“Here we are, sayamai,” said one of the men. “This is our stop.”
“Where are we?” Nara asked as they stepped through the opening in the railing and onto the sturdy branch. It was cool and light and deserted up here; Kamilé found it eerie, but Everan reveled in the silence.
“Apologies, sayama,” said the man with a bow. “The platform stops here because this is the fourth level of Siméa, about in the middle. It’s the fairest place to stop; easier to get up from here, though most people go down, but either way it’s easier to go down than up.”
“That makes sense,” said Nara. “Can you tell me where I can find the school?”
“Which one? There’s the main one, and one that this lady teaches, a music school—”
“The main one, please.”
The man complied, giving her easy, detailed directions leading some three levels down and far ahead; Nara nodded at intervals and paid avid attention, and thanked him when he was done.
“Here,” she told him, and handed him some sweet bread wrapped in a wide leaf. “Thank you very much.”
“Oh, sayama, there’s no need—”
“No, I insist, you’ve been very helpful.”
“Thank you, sayama, thanks very much—”
“No, thank you. Have a nice day.”
“You too, sayama.”
Kamilé waved to them as they walked away; the men climbed up onto a pulley-like device on top of the platform and meddled with something, then climbed back onto the platform and let it freefall swiftly down.
“I like them,” she said.
“Very polite for kids,” Nara agreed.
“But they weren’t kids, they were grown-ups! Weren’t they?”
“Honey, to you they’re grown up. But to me they’re still just kids. There’s about five years after they grow up that they’re still childish, every one of them.”
“That was nice, what you did.”
“No, that was courtesy, honey. It’s called a tip. Whether you paid them or not, if they did a good job, you should reward them. With humans they’d want money, but with elves anything short of a curse is welcome.”
“Oh.”
“Come on, sweetie, we’ve got a ways to go yet.”
Kamilé skipped up to Everan, who was trembling as he kept his eyes glued to the branch below his feet. It was a good seven feet across, and he walked in the very center, but he was not taking any chances.
You okay? she asked him.
No. Do you realize we’re over nine hundred feet above the ground? He shivered and swallowed, carefully keeping one foot in front of the other as they walked on.
Ooooooh. I wanna see! Kamilé made to scramble over to the edge, but Everan moaned and grabbed the back of her shirt.
No.
But—
No.
She shrugged. ‘Kay. But the minute he turned his eyes back to the ground, she fell back out of his reach and scampered to the edge. He cried out and yelled at her, but she paid no attention, for the view was so amazing that it pushed all other distractions away as her eyes feasted on the sight.

 Essayama: Sirteman for “Yes, sayama.”
 Sayamai: plural of “sayama”.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Mythology

The first six days they spent in Siméa were a happy blur for Kamilé.
Every morning Everan would wake her up when he got bored, and they’d pile on the new clothes Nara had bought them—still modest and warm, but they were the proper style; Kamilé’s shirt was bright red and had very large buttons, and Everan’s was deep blue and humble—and add a coat, a scarf, and sometimes a hat if Nara bullied them into it. Then they’d find Nara, who was usually nearby writing or reading something boring, who would either give them breakfast or give them money to buy some. Everan stored this carefully away in his bag, for they didn’t really need money to eat; before three days were over with, Kamilé had made friends with every friendly shop owner and regular customer in the place. All she had to do was flash a charming smile and help a restaurant worker with some drinks, or tell the girl working in the candy store that her eyes were absolutely beautiful, and they were set for the morning.
Then Kamilé would drag Everan off to explore. Before long they had been everywhere that they could be, but she still wasn’t satisfied; climbing up and down the roadways wasn’t fun, it was what grown-ups did, so they had to climb even higher. Everan stubbornly stayed on the paths for this, still unaccustomed to their dizzying height above ground, but nothing could keep Kamilé away. Her favorite thing to do was explore the upper levels, which were either abandoned or residential; she loved to go to the topmost layer, climb even higher in the tree (at that height about as thick around as an old pine) and let the sun warm her body in thick, iridescent streaks.
They soon found out that each level of Siméa had a purpose: the bottom level was reserved for community use, containing the school, restaurants, centers for trading and commerce, and a sort of shrine that Kamilé spent all day in when she discovered it. Then there came the second level, and the third and fourth, all containing shops and stalls, but these became increasingly smaller or quainter, more for local use. The fifth level was neutral; it was very small, and contained only a very few houses, usually the homes of store owners connected to their workplace. Above that, the levels of houses began; the more social stayed below, within easier access of each other, and the more reserved elves—including but not limited to spiritual leaders and hermits—dwelled on the tiny topmost level, where it was colder but sun-kissed and beautiful. Some houses, usually those containing extended families with many members, stretched over every level of the city, the business below, the homes above.
Kamilé also liked to make faces at the children in school when the teacher wasn’t looking, which earned her many jealous glances and faces in return; she and Everan carefully watched the teacher as she presented lectures, diagrams, and various interactive activities; they were glad to see that she was not as chipper early in the morning. She was all business in the classroom as well; she took no sass or disrespect for herself or anyone else. She regularly scolded a group of several older, ragged boys and girls seated in the back, humans; the twins decided to be wary of them.
A boy and a girl from this group, Kamilé noticed, bore rings made out of cheap wire. Everan scowled at this and told her that they probably weren’t married, they were just pretending to be for convenience, either for the families where social disputes were concerned or they did it just so they could have an excuse for— He cut himself off at this point and changed his mind; kissing, he completed. Kamilé didn’t understand, but she marveled again at how young many of the married couples were around here. Almost every single man she saw bore a ring made delicately from various metals, mostly silver alloys according to Everan, and Kamilé was hard put to find a man over age fifteen that didn’t have one. There were, she also noticed, much fewer men than women.
Everan explained that this was because the men were probably fighting. Women fought too, he guaranteed her, but not as many; men were usually stronger and therefore more valuable in a fight, and someone had to take care of the family while they were away. He also explained to her that elves and most humans came of age at fourteen, and could then marry, own property, and participate in politics; Ametrisans tended to wait for awhile, but here, he supposed, they were in the middle of a war, in a hurry to declare their love before they died. Also, not even Ametrisans lived that long, and he bet that Sirtemans had even shorter lives; why waste it?
But it isn’t very practical, he completed, and then the topic was over.
After school Kamilé might play with the kids, usually the boys, and sometimes Everan and the boys could be bullied to play together, but Everan often chose to sit and read; it earned him even more ridicule, but Kamilé was not aware of it. If they chose not to play, they explored the city further.
The people of Sirtema—or at least the people of Siméa—constantly surprised her. They were kind, they listened to her extravagant tales, they doted upon her, and they were so interesting. They, too, had many things to tell her about; as she found out that day in the shrine.
It was a beautiful place, filled with soft lanterns, colorful paintings, arrays of dangling glass. The floor was covered in soft carpet, and in dozens of little niches in the wall lay statues of Sirtema’s many gods. A kindly priestess—or they supposed she was—bearing many bangles and several earrings on each ear showed them helpfully around. It was not a place of quiet meditation; it was a place of robust pride and sharp realization of the spiritual side of life. Kamilé told her to start from the beginning, so she did.
She showed them a large statue of Karayani, standing and facing them with her hand resting on the Great Tree. Her features, and the features of any gods in the room, were unclouded and clear. “Karayani,” the priestess told them, “created the other three of the four elemental gods: Aidli, Aikos, and Aiden.” She pointed to each of them in turn. Aidli was a water goddess with long, soft white hair and water swirling about her like the ends of a scarf in the wind. Aikos was a fire god with short, spiky hair the color of firegold, chest muscular and bare, flames rising from him like wings. Aiden was an earth god, with square, impassive features and bare chest and feet, an orb of rock hovering above his palm.
“These three eventually requested partners for themselves—for Aidli, the sea god Sidän; for Aikos, the air goddess Niéla; and for Aiden, the wood nymph Tali.” She pointed again; the intricate god and goddesses possessed a wild beauty and a graceful power unlike anything the twins had ever seen. “In Zildja, the home of the gods and resting place of the souls of mortals, the three pairs bore many children; water- and sea-naiads, earth dryads, wind sprites, and many powerful gods and goddesses.”
She explained to them in detail, pointing to the statues, about each of the gods’ children, what they controlled and did. There were over a hundred of them, all with names, stories, usually partners and yet more children.
“Karayani,” the priestess informed them, “created many wood nymphs and spirits of the rich earth, but had only two children of her own—children of the gods being a god created from the conjoined powers of two more powerful gods. She took the powers of Aikos and Aidli and made Helas and Aridella, the sun and the moon; to Aiden she gave her first nymph-daughter, and all were blessed.
“But eventually the gods grew dissatisfied, fearing to stray into the darkness beyond Zildja. So they begged Karayani for a world of their own, and she granted it. The four elemental gods joined together and gave the Chaos meaning, knowledge, the power to live. Even the Chaos was alive then, and from it, the gods formed Sirtema.”
Everan told Kamilé that he was pretty sure Sirtema meant the world, not the country. Although if the Sirtemans were telling it, the country was probably created first as well.
“Aiden condensed the power of the Chaos into rich earth, giving it gravity and physics and the power to support life. Aidli created the great fresh waters, Lake Astriem and the rivers, and all the water that gives life to the thirsty ground. Aikos created the great fires at the center of the earth, giving the world the warmth and shifting and liveliness that makes it inhabitable. Karayani then added the Great Root, from which sprang the green things of the earth, the forest, the grass, the plants. They alone had the power to grow and multiply, a power that the rocks and streams never had.
“And slowly, each god or goddess added something to the earth, and the nymphs each created their own tree to dwell in, and lifeless animals were laid upon the earth, for the gods did not know how to make life. And Karayani stepped down from Zildja and one by one breathed life into the animals and gave spirit and awareness to the world. And the gods were content.
“But Karayani was not content, for she had not created anything special of her own; she had only helped others with their dreams of intelligent creatures that felt as the gods felt. So she took Aiden’s earth, Aikos’s fire, and Aidli’s water, and created the first mortal. It had flesh of earth, its veins ran with water, and it lived with the brevity and passion of fire. Karayani gave it intelligence and awareness, and one thing that the other creatures did not have. Though they all had souls, and would all live after their bodies decayed, none of them had magic.
“Karayani gave the first mortal another, and the two were overjoyed as they saw one another. They embraced, and the goddess saw the kindness in them, and the balance of emotions and intelligence, and was pleased. She spoke to them, teaching them the language of the gods, and gave them seven edicts to remember. Over time, more were added, but the original seven hang over there.”
The priestess pointed to a scroll of thick parchment hanging on the wall. Kamilé and Everan peered at it, and Everan read the intricate calligraphy to her:

The Seven Edicts
1: You will remember your Maker. You will pay tribute to the Gods with Feasting and Prayer.
2: This World is new. You will care for it. It is your Responsibility now and forevermore.
3: You will honor the Animals and the Trees and the World and each Other as you honor yourself. You are neither inferior nor superior to any.
4: You were gifted with Intelligence and Feeling; you will use it to care for your Selves and the World.
5: You will mark this place as Holy. Wherever you Wander, you will return here, to me.
6: You have Magic. You must Use it, and Respect it, or it will fade and you will become like the Beasts of the Earth.
7: You will not die for many Years. But when you do, you shall be blessed with Eternal Life with the gods.

Ooh, said Kamilé. What happens if you don’t do that?
Hell? Everan guessed. I dunno. She’ll probably tell you eventually.
“In the first generation of mortals,” said the priestess grandly, with awe in her voice, “there was no sin or evil. The first Two had no inclination to disobey her. She left them alone, and they worked together for a hundred years, naked but feeling neither cold nor shame. They spent many hours in meditation and discovered the use of magic, which they used to help the animals and the living things of the earth. The gods often came down and spoke with the mortals, departing wisdom and knowledge to the Two.
“The Goddess was pleased with them, and returned to grant them another blessing. She taught them the secret of bearing children, and they were thankful and had many children of their own, naming them after the gods. Their family expanded as their children grew like the trees of the forest and had children of their own.
“But then tragedy struck the world. The first man fell from the high mountains far below, and his body was destroyed. His soul flew to heaven, where Karayani comforted him and granted him her promise of eternal life. But both the first man and the first woman despaired without the other, for they were deeply in love; so the woman, in her grief, went to her eldest son, who was practical and shrewd, and begged him to destroy her body as well. But the son loved his mother, and refused. The woman then went to her next child, a daughter who was full of love and passion and sympathy, and begged the same of her; and though the daughter loved her mother as well, she could not refuse her wishes. So the daughter destroyed her mother with the fires of the earth, and the woman’s soul flew to heaven to be with her beloved.
“But Karayani was dismayed by the tragedy and made more Edicts and laws so it would not happen again. She gave the people pain, and they were more careful. She gave them anger, so they would know right from wrong. She gave them sadness, so they could understand why.
“As soon as the brother and sister knew how, they hated each other with a passion, for how could the brother refuse their mother her heart’s desire? And how could the sister kill the beloved woman? And from then on there was a division between them, and they did not live together or speak.
“The first race of mortals has no name, for they felt no need to name themselves. This race is long dead, but its children remain. The brother took an earth daughter, a dryad, for his wife, and together they bore the first of the earth-children, the humans, who were pragmatic and clever. The sister took a wood nymph for her husband, and they bore the first of the forest-children, the elves, who were passionate and loving. And thus these races came into existence.
“Karayani added more Edicts as time went on: ignorance, so people would seek knowledge; fear, so they would avoid things that hurt them; she gave them skepticism so they would know truth from lies; she gave them lies to protect things that must never be said; she gave them shame so they would be humble; she gave them tears so they could see grief; she gave them shorter lives so they could do less harm. And the mortals evolved, each in their own fashion.”
And then she told them fascinating stories about each of the races—and there were many—and how they came to be.

The merpeople were the children of an elf and a child of Aidli and Sidän. The sea-daughter, who could live in both the oceans and the fresh waters of the land, fell deeply in love with an elf, who could not see her because he did not look for her in the water. She ignored the males of her race, which was covered in smooth greenish-blue skin and breathed the water, and watched him obsessively as he searched for a mate among the elves; she despaired, but he found none that he loved. And then one day he walked along the edge of the sea and spoke beautiful words in the air, and she could not contain herself; she rose from the water and sang to him, though she could hardly breathe. And he fell at once in love with her.
But then the sea-daughter collapsed from lack of breathe, and washed up on the shore; the elf took care of her until she awoke, then professed his love for her. But since he could not breathe water, and she could not breathe air, they could not truly be together; they lingered at the shore for years, never once leaving each other. But then they came to realize that both were suffering from lack of food in the barren land and cravings of other company, so the elf made a decision to seek out Karayani in the Holy Land and beg her for the gift of water-breathing. She saw his love and granted it to him; and he leapt into the sea and swam to his love, and they were bound to each other and had twelve sons and daughters, four of which were half-elf, half-water creature.
The sisters and brothers intermarried with the naiads and combined into many different combinations of elf and naiad until they became the merpeople of the present.
But the elf could not survive long in the water, separated from his beloved forest, and he wasted away and died; and the sea-daughter, in her grief, stained the water with salty tears. Her father, Sidän, multiplied her tears and spread them across all the waters in memory of her loved one, whose name was Sareki, from which the word for ocean comes.

The dwarves were born of the dryads, when a dryad male felt passion for a beautiful human girl. The human was afraid of his forcefulness and his blunt, direct manner, and she refused him; but he followed her wherever she went, protecting her and guiding her when she was lost, though she tried her best to push him away. He had honor, though, and he did all of what she said except leave her; and he never touched her, though he longed to feel the warmth of her skin, having no flesh of his own.
Finally his devotion won her over, and she started to speak to him, finding that he was much gentler and compassionate than she had assumed; and they became friends, and lovers, and she lay by him at night and let him feel her warmth, and bore him the first children of the dwarven race.
The dwarves are not people of detail, and only they know the true story; there is much more history of their race, but they guard it jealously.

The dragons were created in the time when gods still walked the earth. The god of scaled animals, Diänt, created snakes and lizards and other creatures of cold blood and smooth sinew, but there was one creature that he kept in Zildja for millennia, feeling that it was incomplete. He added the four legs of mammals, the wings of birds, endless powers, trying to create the perfect creature, but nothing seemed right. Finally he realized that it was missing the human’s intelligence, and he attempted to grant it thus; but all he could manage was the mind of a very clever animal, full of emotions but no true intelligence, blessed with the power of language. But it could learn, and Diänt felt that it was ready for the world; so he created another and placed them on the highest mountains where they would not be seen, for he feared that this imitation of all animals would be offensive to the gods. The dragons bred and multiplied, though slowly, and never left their mountain home.

The centaurs came to be as a result of a violent dispute between elves and humans. The humans of the sixth millennia tormented and persecuted elves, but their only given reason was that the elves charmed and bewitched animals in unnatural fashions. So in retaliation to the attacks, an elfin magi took himself and five others and joined them mentally with the humans’ horses, abused and mistreated creatures that they were. The horses were eager to fight, and the enchanted five led the rest in a stampede of a human village, which ended the threat of the human fighters for that particular dispute.
But the elves were too enthralled in the life of horses, feeling through the animals the need to run wild and free under the sun. They refused to return to their city, instead remaining with the horses. Sometimes they ran alongside the wild herd, but never for long, for they were only elves and could not run as fast or far; and the elves felt the horses’ slower pace and laborious movements whenever they rode upon their backs. So, desperate to continue leading their carefree life, the elves asked permission to combine themselves in body as well with the creatures. The horses agreed, but only if they could possess mortal intelligence and reasoning; the pact was made, and the magi blended each elf and its horse friend into a being that was half-elf, half-horse. The race of centaurs forever holds a pact with the elves for the creation of their five tribes.

The fairies originated in the heart of the forest, close to the southwestern shores, where the trees had become so tangled and gnarled that evolution granted them tiny bodies, foot-high at the most. They also needed wings to escape predators, so wings were granted, filmy translucent wings like those of a dragonfly. No one could ever be sure of their history; the race lived in secret, fearful of extinction. A fairy found by an elf in the 5400’s revealed that fairies had been there since the pre-War eras, but had almost been wiped out by birds of prey, forest creatures, and the civilization of the forest, which constantly forced them to group closer and closer together.
The fairy legend of their creation tells of a proud mountain hawk who, while hunting, stole the fish-prince from the sea. The fish-prince had been assigned to guard the treasure of the fish people in his belly, a treasure of shining precious stones, strands of jewel-like scales from heroic fish long ago, and a single egg, the fish-prince’s baby sister, who would one day rule all the fish in the sea, destined for greatness. The hawk split open the fish prince and stole the ancient treasures, all but the egg; when he saw this, his heart was filled with sorrow, and with haste he flew to the pond of the dragonflies and offered them the egg.
The dragonflies accepted this gift and took careful care of the egg, hoping that the greatness of the sea-fish would fall upon them. But when the princess finally emerged from the egg, she was not a fish, but a tiny thing with a human-like shape and shiny green skin. Confused, the dragonflies raised her nonetheless, feeding her dewdrops, honey, and nectar, and she grew to be proud and fierce and strong, as clever and intelligent as any of the great mortals. The dragonfly-prince adored her and made her his bride, and their descendents were the fairies.

The werewolves were created in the sixth century of the fifth millennia. War had orphaned an elf child in a deserted town. When a pack of wolves came to devour the victims of the flames and swords, they discovered the child; but since he was an elf, they dared not eat him. Instead, they brought him before their pack leader, who observed the child and found him strong, quiet, and fierce. The leader took favor to the child, victim of the cruel plots of mortals, and told the pack to adopt him as one of their own.
The elf grew up as a wolf, but with the body and mind of a mortal; though he could not speak mortal language, he could reason and solve problems that defeated the common wolves. They were impressed by him and let him guide them alongside the pack leader. The elf was not only strong, but wise, and he spent many hours meditating, clearing his mind so he could be ready for anything. In this fashion, he discovered magic and learned to use it.
When the elf was grown, his pack was challenged by another, much larger pack. Two of his brothers had been killed and devoured by three of these new wolves, and the elf’s pack feared for their lives, for the new pack vowed to destroy them all. The elf would not let his family die, however, so he summoned all his magic and gave the wolves the cunning and wisdom and reason that he himself possessed. The new pack had none of this, and fought brutally, but recklessly; the intelligent wolves defeated them with skill and cleverness, and slaughtered them all, only losing three more of their own. The wolves thanked the elf and honored him, and he lived with them until he died.
Presently the intelligent wolves bred and multiplied until they made up the majority of the wolves. Then, in the age when humans started to inhabit the forest, they were hunted as food for them and massacred until only those with the intelligence to stay away remained. The wolves decided to wage war against the humans, but failed horribly, doomed to be wiped out, until a wise wolf leader came to power and offered peace to the humans in exchange for land. The humans agreed, and the wolves have lived in peace ever since.

The chimaeras, beings that are half-human, elf, or dwarf and half-animal, were the results of a harsh, cruel experiment involving combining the IGs of mortals with those of animals. The experiments were nothing new, as magi had been giving themselves chosen animal traits since the beginning of time, but such thorough combining of the IGs often paralyzed, killed, or utterly deformed the subjects. Finally the laboratory was destroyed and the subjects freed; finding no place for them in the world, the more intelligent of the chimaeras led the rest to the seclusion of the abandoned mines in the forest, where they could live free of further pain and ridicule. There are over two dozen different kinds of chimaera, each with a different animal gene, some with two or three; but the exact number or calculation of the percentage of animal IG is unknown, as no one can go near the chimaera mine.

“And finally, there are the demons,” the priestess concluded solemnly to the enraptured two as they sat on the floor with bread, honey, and milky tea. “No one knows what they are, exactly, or why they came to Sirtema; after the War, they just appeared. Some believe that they are the souls of murdered war victims; others believe that those with hatred still in their hearts conjured demons and cursed us with them. All we have learned from them—or at least without perishing after—is that they follow the orders of a white demon, named Azækahni; apparently it means something sinister in the demon tongue. But this demon is not their leader; he follows the orders of some other being, one which none can name. They are a dangerous race; they can only be killed by magic, and strong white magic at that; black magic strengthens them. Some magi even believe that they are made from black magic.” The priestess shrugged. “I am not a magi, however, and I cannot say.
“Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves, dear children,” she added kindly to them with a smile. Everan nodded brusquely, rolling his eyes at the “dear”; Kamilé bounced up and down as she nodded energetically.
“That’s so cool!” she offered, beaming. “Wow. I didn’t know there were that many!”
Everan threw her a sidelong glance. No more sugar for you, he told her firmly. She stopped to give him a wide-eyed, lip-trembling look, which he ignored.
“And there is so much more to tell,” the priestess told them, just as enthusiastically. “But…I am afraid it’s getting late, children. The sky grows dark outside.”
She was right; they could feel the coolness seeping through the tree. Though they were loath to leave this enchanted place, they knew that their inn closed at dusk, and they needed to start heading back.
“Thank you very very much!” Kamilé told the priestess as the twins put on their coats, scarves, mittens, and boots.
“You’re quite welcome.” She smiled. “It was my pleasure. Be sure to come back again, all right? There are seven millennia of tales to tell.”
“We will!” Kamilé vowed, still chewing a last piece of bread as she waved and closed the door. And they did; Kamilé waited a few days for everything to soak in, but once they started school, the two of them came back every other day, or every three days at the least. That tiny shrine became almost home to them, where they were always welcome, and their friend the priestess was always waiting with tea, some milk, and a plate of sweet pastries or soft bread, with Kamilé, the lover of fireside tales, listening in fascination as Everan sat quietly and took detailed notes. It was in that way, along with many others, that he reminded them both that they needed information, and not just for pleasure; they were on a mission, and they needed all the help they could get.

 Sareki: The word in Sirteman for oceans is “saeki.” The words salt (“særa”) and tears (“eki”) also come from this; so the literal translating of Sareki is “salt tears.”
 IG: Stands for Identity Genes, the Sirteman term for DNA.

*is enormously fond of this chapter*

Okay...

28: Loved it.

29: I know you like this one, but it seemed a little... tedious, like a history book. All the race explanations. I dunno... maybe insert Kamile and Everan's thoughts? That might throw off the flow though... I don't know. (I swear, the rhyming is unintentional. xd )



This makes it sound like a longer time period than just six days...

30:

Maybe "...wouldn't look at her again..." would sound better? It doesn't make a difference, really.