Chapter 6
A Life’s Worth of Learning in a Few Hours
The determination Iris had felt was pushed aside by the seasickness she felt within an hour of leaving the dock. Occasionally, a member of the crew would stop and check on her, but they were busy enough that they were mostly just trying to be courteous. Iris was pretty certain that she had thrown up everything Callie had given her, although she wasn’t entirely sure how long ago that had been.
“Two weeks,” she muttered at the ocean. “Two weeks.”
“What about two weeks, madam?” The captain came up beside her.
“Oh, just, my father left two weeks ago, and he promised to come back safely.”
The captain looked out over the water, “So this is personal, then.”
Iris stood up, hoping that there were no remaining signs of her seasickness on her face. “It is personal and business. There was something he needed to do when he got back, and it is not something I can do in his stead. Without his presence, we are at a standstill, Captain—” She turned and looked at him, “I’m sorry, I did not ask your name while threatening to fire you.”
He gave her a quick smile before turning his attention back to the water. His white hair blew in the wind, and Iris got the impression that he had followed her orders more because he pitied her than because of her threat. She felt a twinge of anger at the realization, but she knew she had to focus on the task at hand. Finally, he said, “Casper.”
“Captain Casper. It’s a nice name for a captain, almost like your parents planned for it.”
“They did, madam. My family may be Solonian, but our roots are in the ocean.”
“Then you either have very deep roots or no roots.”
He laughed, “Indeed. I don’t think that my ancestors really thought it through, but most people don’t notice.”
Iris smiled and leaned over the rail, “So what can you tell me about what happened?”
“I take it that you acted based on limited information.”
“I acted based on about a two-minute conversation between people who decided to make my home their base for discussion while I was ill.”
“Ah, that would explain the pallor, then.”
“Uh?” Iris looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“You look very pale, almost ashen, although I imagine the blood loss is a contributing factor. And you have clearly run through a sewer to reach us. I don’t know what you are running from, but it is obvious that you are more worried about inaction than whatever you will face if you go forward.”
“I am running from a life of privilege and ignorance that I can no longer face. If the only way to find out about my father by staying in Solona is through snatches of conversation out the window, then I will simply not stay in Solona and get the answers I need.”
“Ah yes, the coveted life of privilege. I have heard it isn’t all it is cracked up to be, but I still wish that I could give it to my daughters.”
“And if I live to have children, I would want to give them choice and knowledge so that they would not have to stumble through life trying to find their way as if through a spider’s web.”
“Life is little more than a spider’s web. It is just a matter of not being a bug, madam.”
Iris laughed again, “To be the frog who eats the spiders and the bugs. Not exactly a diet I envy.”
He smiled, “Indeed.” Captain Casper motioned toward the deck, “If you would like, there is a cabin for you downstairs. I have had warm water drawn. You can clean up and change, although I fear we only have men’s clothing. The instructions did not tell me to expect a lady. Of course, there are bandages too.”
“I am no lady, my dear captain.” She flashed him a smile. “Once I get my father, you can ask him yourself. Men’s clothing will be fine, and a place to wash up sounds amazing.”
The captain turned and led her down the stairs. Opening a door to a small cabin, he motioned for her to enter. Iris thanked him and entered the room.
“If you don’t mind me suggesting it, I think you might be a bit better off heading to bed once you finish. I will tell you what I know on the morrow. And I will tell you everything I know.”
As soon as he spoke, the ship lurched, and a flash of red moved before her eyes. Iris froze as the room started to shimmer. She could feel the anger surfacing at someone else trying to postpone telling her what she felt she needed to know. Forcing a smile on her face, Iris turned to look at the captain. Giving him a slight bow, she said, “I am not certain how well I will sleep, but if you need some time to determine what you do and don’t know, I will not force you to speak tonight.” Her stomach lurched, and her hand went to her mouth. Iris could feel her temperature rising, and the room shimmered again. “Have a good night, Captain.”
He looked at her with concern, but decided against saying anything. “Have a pleasant night. I hope that you feel better in the morning.”
As soon as the door was shut, Iris crouched on the floor, her arms over her head. “No, no, no.” She began to rock. “I have to save my father. I have to save him. They failed my mother. I won’t give them the chance to fail my father.”
She heard a voice in her head, “Water.” Iris looked around, trying to see if anyone had entered the room.
“Water.” The voice was faint, but it wasn’t like the other voices that were muttering around her.
Iris pulled off her clothing and lowered herself into the bath.
“Stay awake, but relax.”
Iris blinked. She moved her nose a little bit, then pinched it. When she pulled her hand away, there was a little blood on her fingers.
“It’s okay. You are cooling down. Just soak for now, and stay awake.”
“What are you?” Iris spoke to the room.
“Helping you.”
Iris looked around, “I didn’t ask what you are doing. I asked what you are.”
There was no response.
Slightly annoyed, Iris wiped her nose a little more. It had stopped bleeding within a couple of seconds. Taking a deep breath, she slid under the water and came up feeling much better. “Well, alright, I will give you that one, this is helping. But I can tell my temperature isn’t going down.”
“For now, it is important to keep it from going up anymore. If you can relax, you will stabilize.”
“Stabilize? What do you mean?”
There was a pause, and she half expected the voice to remain silent. “What do you know about your abilities?”
Iris rolled her eyes, “Oh good, even the voices in my head won’t answer my questions.”
“No, you cannot think like that. I cannot answer your question until I know what you know. The explanation of stabilization is complicated, and I may be starting from the beginning.”
“Fantastic, the voices in my head think I’m an idiot.”
“Not an idiot. You have been over-protected because no one knew how much to tell you, so they told you nothing. Caden wanted to tell you, but your father made him promise.”
“My father didn’t want…” Iris thought about it. “Well, okay, Caden did want to tell me, and I was a bit of a jerk to him.”
“Believe me, he understands. Your mother wasn’t in nearly as bad a shape as you, and she had accidentally killed her brother.”
“She what?” Iris sat up, her eyes wide with the horror of the idea of her mother killing anyone.
“You knew your uncle, but that was because of her ability. Your ability. No one knew that she was a mystic, so she travelled the world with her family. But she wasn’t their child. She was adopted. Found when she was little, crying on the doorstep of a temple. No one knew what her roots were, but it is suspected that her mother had been in hiding because the gift is considered a curse. Her mother likely succumbed to the pressures of her abilities, knew that she was losing, and she left her daughter in a place where she thought she might be able to escape the same fate.”
Iris sat in the tub, her mind cataloging each fact as the voice told her the story of her mother.
“One day when she was ten years old, she got sick of her baby brother crying, and she froze the water to shut him up. She had learned that she could do some magic, but she didn’t understand it and kept it secret. Her mother walked in and began screaming, and it was only then that Mia understood what she had done, her parents wailing and crying. Caden was there within a day and a half of being called, but he expected to take her back to Solona without her parents. He certainly did not expect them to want to keep an adopted child who killed their baby. Then your mother did something that should have been impossible—she brought him back. Her parents thought it was a miracle, but Caden knew what it meant. There hadn’t been anyone with that ability in over 150 years in Solona, not known anyway. There were no experts. Caden was completely on his own for how to deal with this. Of course, he studied your mother’s abilities and learned a lot—pretty much everything we know about it today. Since she had been practicing on her own, your mother didn’t have magic pent up until after she killed her brother. Caden could feel that she had been bottling it up afterward, and her parents had noticed that her appearance had changed. She was ashen and seemed to be getting weaker. They thought it was guilt. Caden recognized it for what it was, so he gently coaxed her to practice a little bit in front of him. Of course she did, you’ve seen how kind he can be, and he is really good with children. It was why he was selected.”
The voice paused for a moment. “Do you have any questions so far.”
Iris shook her head.
“Are you shaking your head or nodding? I’m assuming you are probably shaking your head, but—”
“Correct, I have no questions. Please proceed.” It was only after she finished asking him to continue when an obvious question popped into her head, Can you not see me? Something about that made her relax more.
The voice paused for a moment, “No, I cannot see you. Nor can I do anything to you, so if that helps you relax, then by all means, keep it up.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I can hear your thoughts. You didn’t think no. It was just a jumble of thoughts as you shook your head.”
“That’s a little creepy.”
“It’s magic.”
Iris giggled a little, “Fair enough. I will relax, and you can keep explaining my mother’s history to me. Please.”
“If it isn’t too hard for you to hear, I will continue.”
“I’m not really hearing it, and it is difficult, but it is necessary.”
“Yes, you are right, but you aren’t thinking the thoughts either. Saying—you know what, never mind, that is a topic for another time. Where was I? Right, Caden coaxed your mother into doing magic, and she did far more than he expected from her. She brought the baby to him, alive and moving.”
“I remember my uncle a little. He wasn’t like the other adults.”
“He was mostly human, and he was about your age when he died. I don’t know that anyone would call you normal, even if you weren’t a mystic. But, he was basically undead, so his body didn’t quite work like a normal person’s does. When your mother died, it killed him because she was the anchor for him. She helped his body to grow instead of decomposing. He was alive, well, alivish, because he pulled from her life’s essence. Even if she had not been killed, she would not have lived to be 80 years old. At most, she would have only lived to be in her 40s. Every life that she brought back took from her own. And your mother was not good at telling a grieving family no. There were at least six other people walking around because of her. It was only your father who convinced her to stop reducing her life.”
“Wait, may I ask a question?”
“Other than that one, sure.”
“Smart ass,” she muttered with a smile. “If every life she saved halved hers, she shouldn’t have lived long enough to have me.”
“Not every life. She could give people a sliver of her own life to keep them going. She just didn’t know how it worked when she was young, so she gave as much as she could to bring her brother back. She was never quite that generous again, not even for the king.”
“The king?” Iris sat up in the tub. “What do you mean the king?”
“He used your mother on two occasions to negotiate with other kingdoms for favorable deals. Your father didn’t realize it until she was killed. He thought she was just negotiating, but the king selected her because of her unique abilities. Unfortunately, when she used her powers to save the second one, the ruler had her killed because he didn’t understand that his life was tied to hers. Of course, he died as soon as she did. And when she died, she created a small negative magic space that killed everyone in the palace and more than half of the city. The druids ended up going in to clean up the negative magic using who-knows-what-kind of magic, and that was when the proxy battles started. They were angry that the Solona king would use that kind of power to get what he wanted, but they were not powerful enough to take him on directly.”
“Oh my gods.” Iris sunk down in the bath a little bit.
“When he was dying five years ago, he tried to bring you in, but the Order could not reach Caden. Well, he refused to answer them. Not that they tried very hard. They wouldn’t supply anyone for the king to find out because none of them were willing to let a child give half of her life to the king.”
“Does the queen hold that against them? Against me, that I didn’t save her father?”
“No. She did not have a great relationship with her father. In case you hadn’t noticed, she has been quietly undoing much of what he did.”
“What was the problem between her and her father?”
“I couldn’t really say. She is more of a pacifist, but I really don’t know much more than that. You could ask Caden, although I doubt he will tell you much. If anything.” The last part was almost mumbled into her mind, more like a private thought than part of the explanation.
“You make it sound like you know Caden.”
There was a silence before the voice finally said, “Ha ha. Very funny.”
“You keep talking about him, which just seems strange. Hold on a minute—” Iris finally started to process what it was her mother could do. “So the ability that my mother had, that I have, is that we can share our lives with someone who died. I don’t understand what that has to do with that wasteland.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. “Gods, I was really hoping you wouldn’t ask about that place because… your ability isn’t to share your lives. Your ability is to walk the border between life and death. What you see is the world of the dead.”
“Like an underworld or something?”
“No, that’s supposed to be where your essence goes after death. The place that you see is only seen by those with your ability and the guardians or assassins who work with them. Druids and assassins use that to create this strange sort of balance. No one outside of their small circle can really explain it, which is probably why we have such a hard time balancing mystics who also are half there and half here.”
“That doesn’t help me. I can’t understand what that place is.”
“I’m trying, believe me. And that is my point, we don’t really understand it. Even Caden has limited knowledge of it.” There was a pause. “Here. This is how it was explained to me, and I admit it isn’t perfect, but it is as close to making sense of it as possible. You are alive and you live in this world. There is a part of you that also lives in the realm of death, physical death. It is a wasteland because nothing grows or changes, it is just decay and death.”
“Okay, that’s really creepy, but I think I kind of understand it.”
“Good, maybe you can explain it to me one day, then. Anyway, the reason why you have to be so careful is because negative emotions draw you to that place, to that world. If you don’t have pent-up magic and negative emotions, it isn’t a problem. But you, you are teetering on the brink. That is not an exaggeration. I know that you are fighting the overlap, but you cannot fight it.”
“Then what can I do?”
“There are only two ways to alleviate the amount of buildup you have. The first is to kill people, and I do not see you going around killing the crew.” There was a pause before the voice hesitantly said, “I don’t want you to ever have to kill anyone. Even when it is necessary, it is its own burden.”
“Clearly, I’m not going to run around killing the crew, but when we get where we are going and I am facing the Unwashed—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. You are too close. I don’t know how you know that it is the Unwashed because I know that no one told you, but even they are people. You can ask Callie. Taking any life is hard to bear.”
“She killed someone?” Iris felt a chill and knew it wasn’t just from the cold water.
“That is why she does not want to talk about her experiences. Yes, she killed one of the Unwashed before he could kill Caden. Caden wanted to take the memory from her, but she won’t allow him to. As painful as it is for her—and as someone who grew up healing people, it is a huge burden on her conscience—she says she needs the reminder to do better. To keep people from getting to the point where they are that horrible. Her words, not mine.”
“So, what is the second way?” Iris was going to have to think about that second point, but she wanted to stay focused. If she was putting the crew at risk of death, she wanted to find a way to minimize the risk.
“Your guardian draws the negative emotion from you and carries it until it dissipates.”
“Who helps the guardian?”
“No one. No one helps the guardian. It is part of his responsibilities to his mystic. Guardians are usually better equipped to deal with negative emotions, though, because we are taught to channel our emotions. You’ve seen Caden and the way he controls his emotions. That’s over 100 years of mastering his emotions. He would have been the best option for you, but he is already bonded. And…” the voice trailed off as if figuring out how to continue.
“What does that mean? What does it mean for a guardian to be bonded?”
The voice was silent for far longer than she had expected. When it spoke, it seemed confused. “I don’t understand what you are asking. Guardians bond to their mystics. They have a connection that links them. Do you—were you really not taught about the relationship between a guardian and mystic?”
“What is there to teach? A guardian serves a mystic, but he gets a say in who he will serve.”
“That is not how it works at all.”
“It’s not like I know. I was never going to leave Solona because my father never wanted me to.”
“Oh ye gods, you should have been assigned a guardian a long time ago because of your skill. My father monitored you until he died. I figured you didn’t have the ability since no one was assigned to you.”
“Wait, wait, what do you mean your father monitored me? How can a voice have a father, let alone monitor someone?”
The voice was silent for far too long. Iris looked around the room. “Hello? Did something happen?”
“Are you kidding me?” The voice was almost shouting when it finally reached her mind, and Iris covered her ears. “I am so sorry, Iris. I am so sorry. For everything.”
“What are you talking about? Why do you sound angry?”
“I can fully understand Caden’s reaction now. I can believe that no one told you that mystics should always wear gloves until they are paired with a guardian.”
“What? Why?”
“Because a guardian and mystic can begin bonding by having skin to skin contact. It doesn’t always happen, but it is best to protect against it because you don’t want to be bonded to someone who isn’t compatible with your personality.”
“What is bonding?”
“Oh my gods, I am going to… Iris, bonding creates a link, a thread that forms between a mystic and her guardian. It is a physical connection that ties them together. When your guardian is hurt, it will hurt you. If your guardian dies, then the mystic will feel an intense pain. It is why mystics tend to be more cautious about putting their guardians in danger, but it is the guardian’s duty to keep the mystic alive. It is why our lifespans are so much shorter than the average shifter lifespan.”
“How long do shifters usually live?”
“It depends on the shift, but guardians usually live for around 400 years.”
“That’s a long lifespan. So how long do guardians usually live?”
“Caden is one of the oldest at 125. My father was slightly older; he was 135 when he died. That was one reason he was assigned to your mother.”
“That is a much shorter lifespan.”
“Yes, and there are plenty of shifters who are against it these days, but those of us who serve do so willingly.”
“So about bonding…”
“Yes?” The voice sounded like it was waiting for her to ask a particular question but was letting her get around to it in her own time.
“You said it is a physical connection. When the guardian dies far too young for his species, she feels it?”
“Yes, she does.”
“And she feels his other pain, too?”
“The closer she is to him when it happens, the more pain she feels.”
“So if I were to, say, kick my guardian in the face, I would feel that pain?”
“Yes… you would feel that pain.”
“Um, and if he were to, say, fall off a ladder and hit the ground, I would be affected by that, too?”
“Yes, it would definitely make it harder for you to run. And when you get shot by an arrow, or when you feel seasick, he feels it, although not quite so bad from this distance.”
Iris sat in the water, moving her knees and looking at the light marks from when she had fallen on them more than two weeks ago.
“Iris, are you okay?”
“I guess I am nearly done with my questioning. That is a lot to take in.”
“I know. That is definitely a lot more than you should be trying to manage on your own right now. Especially after what you have already been through over the last couple of weeks.”
“Okay, um, I have two more questions then.” She let out a shaky breath, “I am trying to focus on myself now, and it looks like there is a thread stretching away from me. It looks reddish. Is that my link to the other side, or is that something else?”
“That is a link to me.”
“Because you are my guardian?”
There was a pause before the voice said, “Yes. And I am sorry that it is reddish, that is also a very bad sign.”
“Why?”
“That… I am sorry to say it, but I am not able to talk about that yet.”
“Because Caden doesn’t want you to tell me?”
“Because I am not ready to face that. He is already really angry at me because of that. Among other things.”
“The thread or the color?”
There was a slight cough, which confused her. Iris asked, “Did you just think about coughing?”
“Yes, I did, because it was either cough or say yes.”
“The question was, is he mad about the color of the—oh, he’s mad about both.”
“Very, very much so.”
“I’m sorry, that was more than two questions.”
“It’s okay. I will answer almost any questions you have because I did not make an agreement with your father and I don’t have to live up to Caden’s promise to him. Keeping you in the dark for another two weeks clearly was a terrible idea, but even Caden makes mistakes.”
“I don’t think he did. I was mostly passed out.”
“That’s true, but right now I am just angry at a lot of people for this whole predicament.”
“Um, sorry, but are you mad at me, too?”
“No!” The voice was more animated than she had heard it so far. “I am not mad at you at all. None of this is your fault, and I do not blame you for anything that you have done since waking up. Knowing what I know now anyway, there is no way I could be upset with you.”
“Just one more question, then.”
“Ask as many as you need.”
“I'm scared, Ian. How long until you can get to me?”
The voice almost sounded like it was smiling. “It will be okay. It will be four hours if I stay on the boat. I can make it to you in an hour and a half if I swim.”
“Cats hate the water, though.”
“Not all of us.”
“Then…” Iris rubbed her legs with her hands as she fought making the request. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it. “Could you please swim here?”
“If you promise me that you will try to relax until then. As soon as I get there, I will help you.”
“I promise.”
“Alright, I will see you soon.”
Iris felt the voice leave her head, and the longest hour of her life began as her head fell silent.