Wait For Me

For the first time since the Bright Dusk Festival, I went to the temple. Without the decorations it looked more like the holy place it was meant to be. Every so often the chime of bells sounded, but it was much less trafficked than it was months ago. A few temple keepers were sweeping the pavilion and the doors, which had been closed during the festival, were thrown open.

Inside was just one chamber with the same ornate stone pillars, but on either side were tall statues of what I assumed to be the major gods. They were expertly carved, and looked like they were a moment away from coming to life.

On the right were two statues of a man and a woman. Round faced and potbellied, he wore a simple loincloth and held a two handled jug spilling water to his feet. There was a plaque beneath it that read: HENU, GOD OF WATER. The woman next to him was large from her build to her posture to her hair. Her wide nose and freckled face reminded me of Sayla. Her arms were full of wheat and gourds lay at her feet. The plaque read: AKTEN, GODDESS OF TERRA.

On the other side was a statue of the most androgynous person I’d ever seen. Loose fitting robes obscured their body, and the playful look could have put them at any age between thirteen and thirty. They seemed to be in mid jump, their robes anchoring the statue. SHUCHAI: GODDESS OF WIND. The next one was a big man. In just pants, his muscled arms were crossed with an expression of near disdain like he was trying to reign in how much he disliked you. He looked irritated, but maybe that was just because he looked like Iljana. MONTHOR: GOD OF FIRE.

At the back of the temple where two priests were knelt in prayer, were the largest statues. These were actually painted. On the left was a tall woman without clothes. Wide hips and hefty bosoms she didn’t quite look motherly, but there was something comforting about her image. Painted in a gradient from navy blue at her head and black at her feet, she was covered in stars. I knew her. She was the goddess of life and death, Ankth.

Next to her, the man was naked as well. And while Ankth’s eyes had been closed, the man’s eyes were open, left the white marble he had been carved from. He wasn’t chiseled like Monthor, but he wasn’t quite as soft as Akten or Henu. Settled somewhere in the middle, he was painted inverse of Ankth. The affect was a little unsettling and I could almost feel the power that radiated off of the statue, almost like the god of magic Heksi was in the room with us.

No, wait. That was just the intense feeling of déjà vu that was washing over me again.

“Did you need help with anything?”

I turned to see that older priest I’d seen during the festival. His face was soft and looked like every generic grandpa I’d ever seen. “I—” I paused, looking back at the statues. “I’m not sure, honestly.” He nodded, but it didn’t feel like he was just prompting me along. I had a feeling he was just going to wait until I was ready to talk. I took a deep breath. “I’m in mourning. I didn’t know him for very long, Noram of Berra, barely a week, but I.” I turned my head, tears welling up again. “I would give anything for him to be here with us. And I’ve never been one of for faith, but he was, and I guess. I guess I wanted to see if this would help anything.”

I felt bad dumping my problems on this old man I’d never met, but I still wasn’t sleeping well, and I could see the temple when I wandered the palace at night. I talked a little to Enri about how I was feeling, but I didn’t want to go into it too much. She had more than enough to worry about.

He was unfazed, only asking, “What is your name, dear?”

“Kaiya. Just Kaiya.”

“Kaiya. I’m the head priest here, Arabri of Labi, and let me share something that I’ve learned after all my years. Just being here won’t help you. Throwing yourself at the feet of something you don’t believe is the same as trying to teach a dog to speak. It will not happen without a miracle. Noram of Berra found comfort in the faith and for that I believe he was at peace when he passed. But you are not him. You’re learning and growing and changing even as we speak. We all change when we lose someone, even if we didn’t know them very long.” He gave me a look like the ones teachers would give when we should know the answer. “You’ve changed, Kaiya. You just need to figure out what you’re going to do about it now.”

I looked out the temple, following the path with my eyes to the palace. It was past dawn, and I was supposed to be with Vanli today. Weapons training started, but I found my feet walking here instead.

I took a step back and bowed my head. “Thank you, Arabri.”

He chuckled, lifting my head. “There’s no need to bow to me. I’m only saying what I’ve learned. If you find yourself in need of more advice, or palace life gets to be too much, you are always welcome here.”

Any other time the thought of just visiting a church-like place would have put me off, but this wasn’t the same as what I was used to. This, despite my lack of faith, was comforting. “I—I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

I made my way back, trudging through the palace to the training field where I knew Vanli would be waiting to tear me a new one for being late.

I beat her to the punch as I approached her and said, “Madam Vanli. I’d like to speak with you.”

She looked at me, her disdain focusing on me instead of the other soldiers. “What do you want after being so late?”

“I wanted to tell you that I’m not going to wield a weapon.”

“What do you mean?” She had her hands behind her back but looked no less dangerous than usual. The sound of grunts, hisses, and hefty whacks sounded behind us as I tried to decide if giving her a full explanation would be warranted.

“Exactly as I said. I won’t wield a weapon.”

“You’re a mage, Kaiya. You are a weapon.”

I clenched my jaw. “I know. And that’s why I won’t take up a sword or a bow or an axe. I’m dangerous enough on my own that I don’t need to.”

“Cocky, I see.”

“No. I just know what I can do. I know that if I were to pick up a weapon I could master it, but I don’t want to be more than what I am right now. I can be a mage, or I can be a fighter. I won’t be both.” The priest was right. I had changed and this was what that change meant for me. I hadn’t been sure I was going to do it, but now I knew. After seeing Noram die in front of me, hearing his last breath, I knew I couldn’t be responsible for that. If I was going to fight, I would do it with my own power and nothing more.

She stared down at me with a sneer and said, “Then I have nothing left for you. Go.”

I bowed my head. “Thank you for teaching me, Vanli.”

From there, I left the training field. Eumen, Corek, and Clecia looked confused, but kept working on their sword form. I would have to catch up with them later to explain. I wasn’t sure if they would understand, but it was the least I could do. They were my only friends here.

Inside the palace, I followed Enri’s trail. It had been a while since I found myself staring at the magic she left behind, but it was as familiar as it had always been. The signature seemed less like a swirling mess and more like a dance step pattern of a fast-moving master.

I followed it across the palace, down halls I had yet to venture. This part of the palace was older and run down. Not yet in disrepair, but on the edge of it. I found Enri in a room where the cracks outnumbered the bricks in the walls and moss had grown.

Enri sat in the center of the floor; books spread out in front of her as she scribbled notes in a book. She came here when she wanted to be alone. The fact that I was here meant our conversation a week ago went as she thought it would.

“How did she take it?”

“Not as badly as she could have.” I dropped down next to her. “She said she had nothing left to teach me, which I think is fine.”

“Your hand to hand is still shoddy.” Enri sat up, pushing stray hairs out of her face. “We’ll have to work on that.”

“You never have anything nice to say,” I said. “And here I am, trying to be your student again so we can spend time together.”

Enri smiled, setting her pen down. “I know you’re joking, but I do enjoy spending time with you.”

“I’m one of a kind, what can I say?” I stared at the books she had laid around. Most of them were about spell work and combinations. I understood none of it. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to make sure I don’t kill you when the time for the ritual comes.” She looked back at the books, a look of slight confusion claiming her features. “There’s one component of this that I don’t quite understand. For the circle, I need to have a star in the middle, each point representing an element. But in this book, it has a five-point star, not four. I’ve been trying to figure out what the fifth point is for.”

I leaned back on my hands, tilting my head back to look at the sunlight streaming through the cracks. “Maybe it’s love.”

Silence. “What?”

“I dunno, man. In movies and books, it’s always love or something like that.” I bobbed my head up. A sunbeam was hitting her face, lighting up one of her eyes. They were just as pretty as the light itself. “I know very little of magic, so it’s just a guess. It’d be kinda funny, though.”

“Your world is interesting. I can’t imagine magic being fueled by something entirely intangible.”

“I think it’s because love is something you choose to do as much as you feel it and your actions show it. Like I can pull a flower from the moss.” I reached out my hand and a small, pink rose bloomed and stretched toward me. “And I can also give the flower to someone I care about.” I plucked it and tucked it into her shirt pocket. “Action equals affection. That’s what makes it tangible.”

“You’ve gotten very good at that,” she said, touching the flower petals. She picked up the rose, shaved off the thorns, and put it in her hair. “And I suppose you have a point, but I feel like I would have heard about something like that before. I need to go to the library.”

“I thought you would have checked out everything you could possibly need with all the books you have here.”

She stood and held out her hand. “The royal library is far larger than the handful I have here.” I grabbed her hand, and she pulled me up. “Come with me.”

“Shouldn’t I be training or something?”

“Your mind can use a bit of training.”

“Are you saying I’m stupid?”

She smirked and turned away. “I’m saying you can take a moment and do something other than tirelessly work your body. And even if you were stupid, you’re pretty, so it balances out.”

“Ha-ha,” I said.

The library was the biggest room I had seen so far. It was larger than the training field and the ceiling rose so high I could hardly see the mural on it.

I had been in the library once before when I asked Enri about the history of Yvanta. There were a few musty tomes, but I couldn’t read them at the time.

While Enri went to brush up on her magic, I sought out those books. I grabbed one titled, The History of Yvanta, a Narrative and another called, World History: Era One to Era Four.

The first one was dry, detailing the discovery of the land and how the Yvanta Clan was the first to lead the people and how they raised them up to rulership, etcetera, etcetera. It was very self-aggrandizing.

The second one was a bit more interesting. It briefly went over the first four eras. The Era of Chaos was the era where history was only a guess. The Era of Struggles was the era where humans first emerged, though only known from the small history that was written and drawn. The Era of War was the era when everyone had established their own domains and violently tried to grab more land for themselves. This era lasted a century.

The era before this current one was the Era of Peace. That period was characterized by the signing of the Treaty and everything after. Very little seemed to happen, though the kingdoms flourished. This era lasted until twenty years ago.

From there, it detailed the Treaty of Ten Domains: the nonaggression treaty the ten domains signed to put an end to the fifty-year war. The treaty was written in a way that every domain benefited from each other in the hopes of preventing another mass war.

I stayed in my spot, flipping through the pages as it detailed more about each era, though it was starting to get dry. It was history, and not much more than that. When I put it back, I saw a dim trail of Enri’s magic walking off to a deeper part of the library. It wasn’t recent. It looked like it had been a week, maybe more, since she had gone that way.

I looked around the shelf and saw that Enri had another armful of books that she plopped on the table before taking a seat and digging in. She was going to be a while.

Retracing her steps led me deeper into the library, past tall shelves packed full of texts. A lot of them were magical or religious in nature, a few were about architecture, and several were about agriculture.

Her steps led to a small room that would have been easy to miss if I wasn’t following her path. It was smushed between two couches and the door was nearly the same cut of wood as the wall.

I pushed the door open and was met with a musty smell. This room likely hadn’t seen light or a good cleaning in decades.

There weren’t many books in this room. Just one five-foot shelf on the left side of the room. It was empty otherwise.

I skimmed the titles and realized that were all history books. I sat down and picked the first one. A History of the World in Era 5 published a few years ago. As I turned the pages, I saw that large swaths of the next few pages were blacked out. Only a few words made it through, and it looked like blackout poetry. Ten pages later, it was normal again, though it no longer talked about the beginning of the era. This time it was talking about military strategy. I flipped through it some more and several more swathes were blacked out.

I picked up another history book, this one titled, The Unabridged History of the Queendom Fera. Most of it was fine, but when I reached the part about its relationship with other kingdoms, the parts where Yvanta was mentioned were heavily censored.

I grabbed more. Another book, more censoring. Another tome, more blackouts. My stomach felt like it was in my shoes as my heart raced.

I spent the next hour looking through each book, trying to parse anything from what I could see, but there was hardly anything I could get from it. There was only one thing. I grabbed the book and made my way back to Enri.

“There you are,” Enri said. She sat at the table next to a window, the sun creating a square of light around her. Her head was buried deep in one of the books while she scribbled notes. “I think I found—” She paused, finally looking at me. “What’s wrong?”

I sat in front of her, holding The Unabridged History of the Queendom Fera close to me. “Where are you from, Enri?”

She sat up a little straighter, her easy demeanor hardening. “Why are you asking?”

“I don’t know that much about you, and I was curious.” I set the book on the table. “Where are you from?”

She stared at it for a moment; her face going through a range of emotions before settling on resigned. “How did you guess?”

“A lot of this is censored. A lot. But there are a few things in here that aren’t. Like how Fera had to give a political prisoner to one of the domains in the last era and how they have the highest concentration of sorcerers known to Ornus. And that the queen had a daughter who would be around your age.” I flipped the book open to the page I had stared at for the last ten minutes. “There’s a picture of them both here. I wasn’t sure about it completely until I saw your face. I wanted to be wrong.”

She closed the books in front of her and leaned back. “I wish you were wrong,” she said. She stared out the window before standing and taking the unabridged history. “Come with me.”

We walked in silence as we made our way out of the library and back toward the main part of the palace. We went to the flight of stairs I wasn’t allowed to go up. I hesitated for a moment before following her. Up and up and up we went the spiraling staircase until we stopped at a door. Enri placed her hand on the door, and it glowed for a moment before creaking open. It was then I realized the door had no handle.

The room was large, but not as big as my bedroom. On one side was a bed and a dresser and a door I could only assume led to the bathroom. The rest of the room was taken up by tables and instruments and cabinets and bookshelves. This must have been where Enri did most of her magic.

On the far right side was a glass door with a balcony. She led me there, gripping the edge as she stared at the horizon.

“The land between here and Fera is flat. If you look from here, you can see the palace.” She pointed north and, sure enough, there was a blurry dot in the distance in the vague shape of a palace. “I like to look at it when I’m frustrated or angry. It reminds me why I’m here.”

She sat on the ground, legs crossed, looking into the distance. Her eyes hadn’t left the palace since we walked in.

“Fera is an old queendom. It was one of the first to emerge during era two and the last one of the original domains standing at the end of era three. The domains that had emerged in the interim were scared because of this, but the treaty made it so that fear was assuaged. It was peaceful.

“Twenty-five years ago, this kingdom was established. Everyone here is from the ten domains, rejected or outcast or othered. Just people who didn’t fit with their domain’s regime. He’s a good king. Good to his people. But he believes that the way he rules is right and the world would be perfect if everyone was under his rule.

“Zann was… forceful in his establishment of his kingdom. He carved out this land from the others, and Fera, to make sure he didn’t take more than what he had, gave me to him as a political prisoner fifteen years ago. It was two-fold for him: I was the princess, and my power was growing by leaps and bounds. At just ten years old, I could rival adults.”

Enri was looking away from me, one hand rubbing her face, and I grabbed the other and squeezed.

She sniffled and scooted closer, pressing her shoulder against mine. “When you asked if there had been a battle at this palace, I said it happened a long time ago. That’s only half true. In era three, this palace belonged to one of the domains that didn’t last. A lot of the palace was damaged due to that but most of it has been rebuilt since then. The damage near the entrance happened the day I arrived here. I didn’t want to be here. I still don’t, but that day I… I was so angry, and I just couldn’t hold it together. I destroyed everything in sight. Zann was less patient in those days. This tower isn’t my room because I chose it.”

We sat in silence while I soaked in her words. I hated to admit that she was right, but Zann was a good king. I had seen him in the streets alongside the priests, helping all the refugees with what he could. Saw him giving food and water and helping make shelters. He was out there now, shoring up the tents to help with the oncoming rain and working with construction crews to make better homes for everyone displaced.

I wanted to say something comforting, but there was nothing I could say that would make her feel any better. Instead, I sat with her. I wrapped my arms around her as she squeezed me too tight, her face buried in my chest as she sobbed. It was a loud, hiccupping cry that reminded me of when I was a kid, letting out everything I had when I had a moment to myself.

I wasn’t sure if she had let out anything other than anger and fear in the last decade.

The sun started to set as her tears dried, but her grip didn’t loosen. “I’m sorry I never told you about this,” she said.

I squeezed her a bit. “I’m sure you weren’t allowed to.”

“He never said I wasn’t, but it was implied.”

“I won’t tell him I know.” The clouds started blowing in and the sprinkling started. “You know what would be banger right now?”

“What?”

“A hot bath and a soft bed.”

She chuckled. “We need to eat.”

“We can get the food delivered.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“My tub is big enough for two.”

She was quiet for a moment, then sat up, rubbing her eyes. “If you’re inviting, then I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“For you? I’m always inviting.”