Kjell was summoned to the castle by the King’s Council and asked to report on the “progress of the army and the readiness of the guard.” The king’s advisors were much like Tiras’s council in Jeru—self-important, inquisitive, and full of suggestions that made them all feel productive but accomplished very little.
Still, they revered Kjell—everyone but the king, who treated him with respect but no awe—and that much was a new experience. He answered their questions, made a few requests for the building up of the castle’s defense, and escaped as quickly as he could. He strode down the long corridor hung with the portraits of the Caarn royalty, refusing to cast his gaze at the woman named Koorah or the glowing picture of the young queen. He was down the stairs and through the expansive foyer when he heard her voice, echoing through the slightly-opened door of the Great Room just to the left of the entrance.
He paused and moved toward the sound, entranced, letting it flow over and through him like a caress. She was telling stories again, and he suddenly realized she was talking about him.
“The captain thrust his lance upward into the belly of Architeuthis,” she said, injecting drama into every word.
“The giant squid!” a child interrupted.
“Yes, the giant squid. Mortally wounded, the squid retreated, swimming back into the darkest parts of the sea, for that is where Architeuthis lives.”
“Why is he so big?” a little voice inquired.
“Because he is lonely,” Sasha replied, inexplicably.
“The captain is lonely?” the child asked.
“No.” Sasha’s voice hitched but she recovered quickly. “Architeuthis is lonely. He grows big to keep himself company. His tentacles are like friends. But sometimes he is so lonely, he tries to take the ships deep into the sea. But ships don’t belong on the sea floor, and neither do men. So Architeuthis is destined to be alone.”
“But why is the Healer so big?” the same child insisted, thoroughly confused.
“Because he is a warrior,” Sasha was quick to answer.
“Not a Healer?” someone asked.
“I suppose he is both,” Sasha said softly.
“Is he lonely too? My father says he isn’t friendly,” another child chimed in.
Kjell winced.
“Is that a true story about the giant squid?” a child pondered doubtfully. “How do you know he just doesn’t want to gobble ships and eat people?”
Sasha quieted the children and before long only the soft sounds of independent study filtered through the window. Kjell turned away, the spell broken, his hands still in need of washing.
“You have found our school,” Padrig said, startling him. “We’re holding classes in the Great Hall until more permanent arrangements can be made.”
“Is there no one else to teach them?” Kjell asked. Jerick said Sasha was tireless, but she could not do everything.
“There are a few others. But Queen Saoirse assists for a little while every day. She is the most educated among us.”
“A slave from Quondoon,” Kjell whispered.
“Yes,” Padrig said, a pained expression crossing his face. “The children have struggled most in the transition. They have aged, just as they would have done had they been children instead of trees. They went to sleep one way and woke another. Bedwin was four when he began hiding. He is eight now. And he doesn’t know how to read. Moira was eleven, still a child. Suddenly she is fifteen, with a woman’s body and emotions, and she doesn’t know how to act. She is too old for the school room yet too immature to be anywhere else. There are many like Bedwin and Moira. All their lives were interrupted, and they are all a little lost.”
They weren’t the only ones.
“We are looking for a permanent headmaster,” Padrig continued. “The old head schoolmaster was one who did not come back.”
“One of the trees?
“Yes.” Padrig nodded.
“I remember. His heartbeat was faint.” Kjell had felt no tossing or turbulence beneath the bark, and he’d almost moved on, believing the tree was simply that, a tree. It was the schoolmaster’s wife who made him listen harder, insisting the elm was her husband who’d gone into hiding beside her. But the man could not be saved . . . or healed.
“The schoolmaster will become like Grandfather Tree.”
“What does that mean, Spinner?” Kjell asked.
“He will die. But just like the stars in the sky, he will live on as long as his tree lives on. He has spun away and will never spin back.”
“My brother Gideon, the king’s father, died in his sleep. He did not know he was going to die. He did not take his place next to his father—Grandfather Tree—in the grove. Aren’s mother, Briona, is there. But not Gideon. It is something that grieves the king terribly.
“When I die, I will not become a tree of Caarn either. I will simply become dust again.” Padrig shrugged sadly. “But perhaps the Creator, in his mercy, will make me stardust.”
The children suddenly burst out the doors as if being chased by Architeuthis himself, and Padrig threw up his hands, pretending he was being tossed about by a great wind.
“Slow down, children! You are in the palace!”
“Good day, Master Padrigus,” they chorused, bobbing and bowing as they tumbled by him toward the castle kitchen. Three small boys of varying widths and heights came to a stumbling halt in front of Kjell and pulled at their forelocks dutifully.
“Good day, Healer,” one stammered. Another didn’t speak at all, but stared, wide-eyed. The third boy reminded him of Jerick, and the moment he opened his mouth, the resemblance was even more marked.
“Are you a Healer and a warrior like Queen Saoirse says? And are you terribly lonely like Architeuthis? I don’t think he’s lonely. He’s mean. He’s mean and nasty, and he likes to break bones and ships with his tentacles.”
Kjell stared at the small boy, unsure of which question to answer first, if he should answer him at all. He had to agree that Architeuthis was not nearly as sympathetic a creature as Sasha had made it out to be.
“Run along, boys. We will have the captain come to our lessons one day. He can tell us about one of his adventures then,” Sasha called from the door of the Great Hall. Kjell tried not to raise his eyes, knowing seeing her would hurt, but it was like holding his breath, futile and unavoidable. He filled his lungs as he met her gaze. Her cheekbones were flushed with two deep splotches of color, and Padrig sighed, bowing deeply as he excused himself.
“Where is your guard?” Kjell asked the queen softly.
“I am here, Captain,” Isak spoke from behind her. The queen stepped aside and let him exit the Great Hall.
“Two men are outside the front entrance, two at every other entrance. One there,” he pointed to the end of the long hall that extended from the foyer, “and one there.” A guard named Chet moved from beneath the broad staircase and bowed his head, greeting the captain. Kjell hadn’t even known he was present.
Kjell grunted in satisfaction. “Will the children return?” He asked Sasha.
“Not today. They were promised a sweet in the kitchens, but their studies are complete for the day.”
“Much has been accomplished in a month,” he said.
“Yes. And there is still much to do,” she replied.
Their eyes locked, drinking each other in, their words falling off as their hungry observations interrupted their stilted exchange.
“There is white in your hair, Captain. At your temples,” she breathed, and a radiant smile split her face. She reached a hand toward him before snapping it back, like she’d forgotten she wasn’t supposed to touch him.
Kjell tugged at his hair the way the young boys had pulled at their own, minutes before.
“That makes you smile?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, and he heard emotion in her throat.
“Why?” he questioned, incredulous.
“I have not seen you this way,” she replied.
She had not seen him this way. The memory of her fear in the alley in Brisson, of her dread that he would die in Dendar with a head of dark hair rose to his mind.
“I was not as pleased as you to note the change,” he confessed.
“Vanity is for the weak,” she teased, but her throat convulsed as if she swallowed back grateful tears, and he looked away, unable to abide her smile or her sweet relief without breaking his promises.
He turned to leave, but she stopped him.
“There is something you should see, Captain. Isak could . . . follow.” Her sentence rose on the end like a question. Kjell nodded, making sure Isak heard the request.
“At your service, Majesty,” Kjell said, inclining his head. Without further ado, she headed in the direction the children had gone, but instead of going to the kitchen she turned down the corridor that led beyond the huge galley. At the end of the wide hallway, she opened a door to a flight of stairs that disappeared into darkness after the first few steps.
“Isak? Light?” Kjell asked, pulling a torch from the sconce in the corridor. Isak obeyed and the sconce whooshed to life in Kjell’s hand. Sasha immediately began to descend, her hand against the rock wall. Kjell stopped her, grabbing her arm, not liking the darkness or the unknown destination, and instructed Isak to move past them, leading the way with glowing hands and curious feet.
Once Kjell touched her, he couldn’t let her go, and they stood for a heartbeat, his breath stirring her hair on the step above her before they began to descend behind Isak.
“There are twenty-eight steps to the bottom,” Sasha said softly. “I discovered this place when I was just a girl and thought it a den of witches. I had forgotten about it. But King Aren reminded me yesterday that this was . . . Princess Koorah’s . . . special chamber.” She said Koorah’s name carefully, as though she didn’t want to explain her significance to Isak.
Kjell stiffened and knew Sasha felt his response.
“There are oil lamps on every surface, Isak,” Sasha instructed as they neared the bottom. Isaac lit the lamps, one by one, and as the wicks caught, the cavernous room brightened until the shadows danced. Bottles and vials lined the shelves, and a dried out inkwell and two leather-bound books, complete with drawings and detailed descriptions, were open on a sturdy table as if someone had been perusing them recently.
“Koorah was a Healer, but she wanted to be a physician too. There are notes on everything—the tonics and ointments she created from the herbs of Caarn—and there are journals there,” Sasha pointed at the far wall, “filled with accounts of healings and sickness. Aren said that she believed the ability to heal shouldn’t be limited to the Gifted. She wanted to share her gift.”
Kjell touched the bottles, noting the careful labeling—tonic for fever, for snakebites, for coughing, for stomach ailments.
“These cures have to be older than I am,” he whispered, and immediately regretted his choice of phrasing. “They are liable to poison anyone who partakes.”
“But they could be replicated,” Sasha urged.
“Sasha,” he sighed. Then he flinched. He had promised himself he would not say her name, that he would remain removed and politely appropriate. “Majesty, I am a warrior who has been given the gift to heal. I am not a scholar or an alchemist. I can barely read and would go mad in this room if left here more than an hour. Surely, you know this.” He cursed himself again. He did not need to remind her of their familiarity.
She smiled at him, her lips curving in a way that was both tender and tortured.
“Yes. I know this. I am going to seek out the gifts of my people. If we do not know what we are capable of, what we each have to offer, then we waste time and talent. We are not all Tree Spinners. We are not all Growers. It is time we discover what hidden abilities exist among us. These are Koorah’s books. I only wanted your permission and your approval if we find someone who could continue her work. Perhaps . . . you would like to take them to your chamber, to look through them first, before you allow someone else to study them?”
Kjell looked at Isak, who hung back, his expression carefully bland, his eyes neutral. Kjell was not fooled. He had little doubt his men had all heard the name Koorah by now, and that they had all discussed Kjell’s possible link to the princess of Caarn in great detail. It was his own fault, he supposed. He had argued heatedly with the queen in the corridor where her picture was hung. Even so, his men were like gossiping hags, the whole lot of them. They all spent too much time together, cared too deeply about one another, and were endlessly curious about him. It had always been that way. The more he kept hidden, the harder they looked.
“Where would I begin?” he murmured, touching the page of the book that lay open on the table before him.
Sasha moved to the shelf that held the volumes. She pulled the first one down, ran her hand across it, wiping at more than three decades of dust.
“The best thing about books is that you can start wherever you like. The pages are in order, but no one will know if you read the last one first.”
He took the heavy volume from her, enjoying the weight and the shape of it, the permanence and the possibility. If it had belonged to his mother, he would like to read it. Alone. With care.
His eyes skipped back to Isak and away again.
“I would like to begin immediately,” Kjell said abruptly.
Sasha smiled, nodding, and he realized she misunderstood. He shook his head, correcting her assumption.
“The vials and potions can wait. The books as well. I want to know which gifts exist in Caarn.”
He needed to find another Healer.
They began their query in the Great Hall, but quickly discovered the foolishness of the idea and retired to a clearing at the wood’s edge. The Gifted were destructive. The edict had gone out—passing from mouth to mouth and ear to ear—that King Aren and Queen Saoirse were in search of rare gifts, and for an entire day the clearing was filled with both the curious and the brave. People were slow to come forward, afraid of laughter or scorn, but with a little reassurance from the king and kind pleading from the queen, the Gifted began to show themselves.
Kjell stood to the side, his hand on his sword, his eyes on the gathering, letting the king and queen conduct the quest. He kept close enough to observe and far enough away not to obstruct. The king was fascinated by the demonstrations and displays, laughing and clapping his hands in appreciation of every effort, big or small.
And some were very small.
A woman who had come to Caarn from another village in Dendar could make herself the size of a caterpillar. Her husband raised her proudly in the palm of his hand for them all to see before setting her back down so she could resume her size.
One of the young maids who had come from Jeru, a woman they called Tess, had a hidden gift as well. Sasha questioned her in surprise, asking her why she had not shared her ability sooner. Tess shrugged and worried her hands.
“It’s a silly gift, Majesty,” she said. She chewed her nail, caught herself, and shoved her hands into the deep pockets of her long apron.
“All gifts are welcome,” Sasha urged.
“I can call water,” she admitted.
“From the skies?” the king asked, surprised. Such a gift would be powerful indeed.
“Perhaps. I haven’t tried very hard. There was never a need before. It is easier to call the water beneath my feet.”
“Can you show us?” the king pressed.
Tess stepped out of her shoes and woolen socks and lifted her skirts to her knees. The assembly watched as the dirt around her bare toes became increasingly damp, growing in an ever-widening pool.
“My mother would slap me when I was small. She thought I . . . she thought I was wetting myself,” she said in a rush. “I would think of water, and it would just . . . rise. I’ve gotten better at controlling it.” The little maid turned red. “I know where to dig the wells, where the water is fresh, and where it will quickly run dry,” she added. “Maybe that could be of use?”
“Such a gift would have been greatly appreciated in a place I once lived,” Sasha said quietly. Her eyes found Kjell’s before shifting away.
A man named Gaspar, who had come from outside of Caarn and sought work in the castle guard, stepped forward next. He was quiet and competent, always willing to do whatever was asked of him.
“I cannot change . . . but my eyes can,” he said simply. With no further explanation, his eyes became elongated, the irises yellow, and the pupils tall and oddly-shaped, like those of a feline. “I can see in the dark. It makes me a good hunter, a good watchman.” He looked expectantly at Kjell as he spoke, clearly eager to share his skill where it would be most appreciated.
“Tell Lieutenant Jerick. You will take the darkest shift,” Kjell called out. The man nodded, pleased, and the demonstrations continued.
Emboldened by the cat-eyed watchman, a few others came forward, shyly displaying talons, tails, spikes, and gills. The changes exhibited were small, partial, and specific, and none of the people who stepped forward could change entirely. The queen nodded encouragingly.
“There were Changers like that in Quondoon. Surely there is a use for your gifts here in Caarn.”
“I can change,” a man spoke from the crowd. “But not on land.”
“Completely?” the king pressed.
“Yes, Majesty. When I am in the water I can become any sea creature I wish.”
“How much water do you need?” Kjell said, raising his voice above the murmuring of the excited spectators.
The man shrugged. “It depends on the size of the creature I become.”
Kjell looked to Tess. “Can you make a pool for the Sea Changer?”
Tess stepped forward eagerly, hiking her skirts once more, and the water grew around her, a muddy patch that quickly became a large puddle.
The man asked the ladies to avert their eyes. None of them did. He shrugged, indifferent, and began to remove his clothes. The crowd gasped. Very few of them knew what Changing entailed.
“Have you ever seen a fish wearing a tunic?” the man asked with a smirk. “When I shift, my clothes fall off, and I’d rather not get them wet.” A few of the gathered villagers turned their heads, mortified, but most watched as, with an audible plop, the man became a small orange fish, not much bigger than the palm of Kjell’s hand. He swam in circles in the murky water before flopping on the ground beside the puddle and morphing back into a man. He calmly clothed his nakedness, a bit of mud smeared across his cheek.
A child of twelve or thirteen, a boy named Dev with green eyes and hair almost as red as Sasha’s, made the wind gust around them, whipping at the queen’s hair and parting the king’s beard.
“That’s a gift, isn’t it Highness?” his mother asked, unsure. “He’s a Tree Spinner too, but he spins like a storm. When he spins into a tree, he knocks the leaves off all the branches around him.”
“It is indeed a gift,” the king reassured as the boy sent a happy breeze through the uppermost boughs of the nearby trees.
A woman introduced her husband, Boom, claiming he was a special kind of Teller.
“I speak for him because his voice is so loud, it’ll make your ears bleed,” the woman explained. “That’s why we call him Boom. Even when he whispers it’s too much. He talks with his hands or writes on a slate to communicate most of the time.”
The man had a chest cavity like a lion and ears like a mole, as though the sound of his voice made his own head ache. Boom walked into the trees, putting a hundred feet between the gathering and himself. When he opened his mouth and said “good day,” the sound reverberated like a gong, and everyone assembled clapped their hands over their ears in pain.
The king asked Boom to walk to the borders of Caarn and try once more. He did so, his voice cutting across the distance clear and bold and decidedly less painful to endure. The king declared him the castle crier, charged with relaying royal messages throughout the valley, and the man found himself suddenly employed.
The gifts were odd and assorted, and more plentiful than Kjell had hoped. But as the day unfolded, no Healers revealed themselves. The gift of the Healer is the easiest to deny. He needed Gwyn of Jeru, the old Seer who could sense abilities in others, but he feared discovering a good diviner might be even harder than uncovering another Healer.
As the sun began to sink behind the trees of Caarn, the crowd thinned and the sharing of talents ebbed. The night watch began their rounds, the king and queen returned to the castle, and the gates to the keep were lowered. Kjell retired to his small quarters in the garrison and opened the book that belonged to another Healer of Caarn, a woman he’d never known. Painstakingly, he began to read, to peruse the pages, hoping to find answers to questions he’d never asked before.
Who were you?
Who am I?
How did you find the strength to leave?