Chapter 35 | Trick

Aire managed not to cause trouble for some time. She was allowed to return to her given room in the Wielders' house, with the bed that cocooned her in warmth. Days passed through Valherin's great eye, grey clouds passing over the sky, the sun weak against the harsh mountain. Each morning, Aire carefully knotted her hair into her shawl and bound it tight, pasting whatever mud or grime she could to the front few strands. Just in case.

Breakfast was taken together, sitting cross-legged in front of the long tables. After breakfast, it was time to train with Fiachra. Aire could barely replicate her earlier actions. Soil remained untouched, her magic dormant unless a particularly errant bolt of frustration made it move.

Dejected by her failure, they would have a mid-day break before heading to train with the Aether. At least here, she could prove something. It had been many years since she had trained with the Aether and though she was rusty, her work in the gang in Irial had given her some opportunity to whet those skills. Often, she was set against Nyeth, who was a formidable foe now that she had a chance to rest after her ordeal. She moved swiftly, each decision, each strike made with certainty. Each rap against Aire's arm was met with just steel-eyed concentration, enough so that Aire melted into a similar pose.

After every session, Nyeth's seriousness would break, and she would clap Aire on the arm. "Well done, friend."

Other days, she was set against the Aether. Mostly Wynn, who thankfully, did not try to break her shoulder again. He had become a nice distraction for her, a warm sort of humour and a gentle flirt who didn't leer nor sneer at her.

During dinner, she sat with the Wielders. It was one of her favourite times of day and at the same time, her least favourite. The longer she spent with them, the more they seemed to worm their way in. They had already embedded themselves in there and Aire knew, since the time she had stepped forward to defend Siseal and his broken ankle, that she would always feel responsible for them.

"What was life growing up in Sibran, Brice?" Nyeth held thick strands of red hair in her hands, combing through the thick hair. Brice knelt in front of her, a cup of luke-warm tea between her hands. Out of the five of them, she was the one who had melded into life in Valherin. A burn here. A broken bone there. Aire couldn't believe Valherin had lasted as long as it did with all the injuries.

"Was it always so cold?" Aire asked, nibbling on some honeyed cheese. Her stomach was sore, stuffed with food but there was so much to try that she could hardly help herself. It was easier then, to slip some food into some cloth.

"Not as brutal as it is here, but Sibran holds the cold longer than any other country on the continent. Our springs melt into summer, into autumn in the blink of an eye. More months of the year were beholden to the bitter cold than not."

"Then your people are tough," Nyeth mused, "To survive such a life?"

"I never knew anything different." Brice shrugged a shoulder. "It was just the way it was."

"Mama said that Cearna was always in a mood." Siseal glanced at Aire for clarification.

Aire hummed, nibbling on the edge of a strange, dark fruit. It was sweet, so she swallowed it down and reached for another. "Each passing of the thirteen moons throughout the year marked rain. We even had names for the types of rain that fell. We cursed the wet ground, hoping for snow in the winter because it was such fun for us."

"I can't imagine snow being a novelty in a country ill-equipped to handle it. Unless you had the luxury of being able to warm yourself, feed yourself and endure the days off work because of it." Brice eyed Aire, whose lips were stained with honey. Jam streaked a cheek.

Aire did not pause, did not allow herself to panic. "I was a mindless child. I never paid any heed to the struggles of my parents."

Anluan's head titled, his gaze a little too open. She willed him silently to look away and after a moment, he did. It was then that Aire noted her growing problem. A certain Aether soldier who had taken to following Aire as if she were her shadow. Sloane.

In the days following her release, Sloane had made it her duty to follow Aire. She didn't even try to hide it and ignored any attempt of Aire to apologise for nearly rotting her legs off. Not that Aire expected her to forgive her – Aire certainly wouldn't.

Nyeth sighed as she set down Brice's curtain of hair. "It never snows in Knechru. I saw it in books and couldn't believe such a thing happened, but now I see it. I feel it in my fingers which stiffen each night as the world grows colder still."

"We're coming to the coldest point of winter." Aire glanced across the great square, past the people sitting and laughing as they ate their dinner. She couldn't quite see the great eye of Valherin yet. "Yule is still at it's height and the Winter Equinox is yet to pass."

"A Cearnain ideal."

"It is the darkest point in our year. The cold and the death of life in the land," Aire glanced down at the food, at her hands. The scar across her palm. "But as the equinox passes, it marks the beginning of spring too. It is good and bad."

"Ahh," Brice's eyes lightened. "Fiachra said that the full moon coming would be particularly strong."

"Enough to give you the kick you need?" Nyeth suggested, nudging Aire.

Though there was nothing but hope and encouragement in that statement, it dried the food in Aire's mouth to dust. It could be and yet, would it be another chance to fail? She had stood under a full moon once before, begging for a Wield and remained ignored while her brothers and sisters were revitalised by the moon's full-bellied glow. Her mother had only steered her inside and encouraged her to head to bed early that night.

"The moon is crimson. No good can come of that." Siseal said gravely.

"I should head to bed." Aire collected her things, making sure to slip whatever food she had gathered away into the pocket of her cóta.

Sloane rose as Aire rose.

"You are good to accompany me back to my room," Aire said, saccharine sweet as she cleared the tables and was far from prying ears.

"I am here to make sure you do not get into any more trouble."

"A feat that I am sure will give you recognition and admiration amongst the Aether." Aire said flippantly over her shoulder.

"You aren't half as clever as you think you are, Aire."

"It is still twice as clever as you."

Sloane snorted. "Are we young children, arguing over the same toy?"

"You are the one who continues to act like a child."

"There is something sinister about you, Aire. Tell me, what is this?" Sloane called, her tone dark.

Aire turned, glancing down to Sloane's hand. To the flower whose petals had been crushed by a tight grip. A carnation. Heat bloomed inside her chest, her mind flickering to that same flower held in the Bloodbound's hand. The curl of his mouth as he looked at it.

She blinked, willing the memory to vanish into some dark place. "A flower?"

Sloane pulled it back, crushing the petals between her fingers. "I found this in my Queen's bedroom."

Aire pursed her lips, looking Sloane up and down in a way she knew would rattle her. "I do not think I need to know what you and Queen Ríona do in private."

Sloane's face reddened, her yowl of protest coming out strangled.

"Or..." Aire couldn't resist pushing further. "Were you snooping on your Queen? Why not ask her what type of flowers they are?"

"Do not..."

Aire turned away, her tone dismissive. "You do not need to explain yourself to me, Sloane. We all have our vices in the bedroom."

She knew she had pushed too far. Even as Sloane hissed out something behind her, Aire regretted pushing her so far. Sloane didn't seem the type to avoid her because she disliked her. Sloane seemed the type to grow obsessed. To mull. To connect things. She hadn't even realised she had left flowers in the Pretender's bedroom. Sloppy. So damn sloppy.

Grow.

Nothing.

Aire closed her hand, drawing it back. Frustration burned inside her throat, so close that she took a second to speak. "I cannot do it."

"You can do it, Aire. You have done it." Fiachra was patient with her, his aura calm as hers grew more volatile. The others had not left the breakfast table yet, but Aire had snuck away early. Desperate to practice. Too ashamed to face another day where she could not master her own Wield while the others just grew stronger and stronger. Sometimes there was a flicker of a Wield, but it didn't come whenever she requested it.

"I can't understand why it is so difficult for me!" Aire sighed, a hand fluttering to the shawl on her head. "Why others could Wield since they were children, and I am a grown woman unable to master a basic!"

Fiachra eyed the pot of dark soil. The old scholar was silent for a long moment, the look of contemplation on his face heavy. "I have heard of ... stories of such things."

"Of people learning a Wield later in life?"

He shook his head, gauging her expression. "No. Of children who block their Wield after they experience something terrible. Usually because of a volatile Wield."

Aire shook her head delicately, a hand rising to her shawl. Ferdia watched the action. "My childhood was happy. The only pain I suffered before the Crimsons invaded my home, was the fact that I did not have a Wield."

"You could have forgotten it."

Her mouth set into a thin line. "If I had a Wield, my parents would have given everything to make sure I could control it. If I had forgotten it, they would have reminded me."

"I do like to believe in exceptions, Aire." Ferdia said soothingly, "But often than not, people are not exceptions to the rule. A Wield is born with a baby and presents as the child does. The stronger the Wield, the earlier it emerges. The strongest Wielders, in the highest echelons of Cearnain society especially, frequently boasted of their children no older than five presenting with Wields. The youngest of the High-King's children, born just before the Samhain festival, showed signs of a Wield by the time he reached his third festival."

"So, what are you saying?" Her fingers tightened on her lap. "That everyone in my life forgot that I had a Wield? That I was just..." Her jaw tightened, though her chest tightened further and further. It had been so long ago that her memories were hazy, but there had never been a reason for suspicion. Never a reason to suspect anything other than her own failure. Her tutors droning on about serenity, about the need to be regal and composed while her brothers and sisters' laughter drifted on the wind blown in from the training yard. She had been well-behaved in the court, polite as well as she could to visitors, but her tutors had always made her feel like she lesser than her siblings. That the twins could dump frogspawn in a visitor's soup and yet Éalaire had to be watched.

She faced Ferdia. "My parents wanted better for me. If I had a Wield, they would have been overjoyed."

"Memories are fickle, funny things." Ferdia told her gently. He shifted, tension tightening his mouth. "But even mentioning it, which clearly hurts you to this day, is enough to spike your Wield."

He raised his wrists. Thick thorny briars were wrapped tight around his wrists. Enough that they had shredded through his sleeves and cut into his freckled , tattooed arms.

"Ferdia," Aire reached for him, ashamed. "Oh, I didn't mean..."

"Do not be alarmed," Ferdia pulled at them, and they seemed to slacken as Aire's shame grew. "There could be something blocked in your mind and memories. If you wish, I could look for it."

"No," Aire shook her head.

Ferdia gave no reaction to her denial and just continued. "Your Wield protects you when you are afraid, or you are angry. It should not be so, Aire. It should be as natural as breathing.

"I have heard that before," Aire tugged at the briars holding Ferdia. They eased away under her touch, seeming to twist before to twine around her wrist themselves. They did not cut her.

"If they come when you are angry, what comes when you are happy." He mused, rising from the ground. Aire just watched as Ferdia dabbed at his arms gently, seemingly unbothered by how she had shredded his skin. She was bothered. Unnerved that she could be exposed so easily.

"Before the others come, we are going to try something. I want you to think about something happy. Something that brings you joy whenever you think about it."

"It would be easier to think about what makes me fearful." Aire told him frankly. "Most of my happiest memories are ruined because the people in them are dead."

"Pick something small." Ferdia knelt before her again. "Happiness is not found in great stretches of time. It is not something we see from the moment we open our eyes until we close them again, stretching over weeks and months. I am safe here in Valherin and I have the man I love, but I still consider the time before the fall of Cearna to be one of the happiest times of my life. That doesn't mean I don't find it here. When my husband and I sit and eat breakfast together in our home. When one of our friends does something silly. When we dance and sing into the late hours of the morning."

Oh.

"I will try." She tried to remember the last time she laughed freely. She couldn't think of Aevran, though she had always reason to laugh with him. She scanned the room, trying to jog her memory. The food here made her happy, but it wasn't enough. Valherin certainly wasn't going to do it; not with the Pretender out for her throat and Sloane watching her every move. But she was grateful for the protection it afforded the other Wielders.

A memory sparked; of the five of them on the ice as they made their way up the mountain path. The boys' honest, raw laughter as Nyeth and Aire fell again and again on the ice. Their cheeks red, their smiles wide. Brice hiding her laughter, her face turned to the skies as she breathed in slowly. As if taking in every bit of her home country when she could.

She thought of that, of how she had laughed even when she fell again. Because Nyeth, elegant and poised Nyeth, had fallen too. That the boys were watching expectantly, ready to shriek with glee as the two of them fell again. Aire and Nyeth had nursed aching hips and blooming bruises that evening, shaking away Brice's offer to heal them before they grew too big. The happiness had been so short-lived, so gentle in its arrival, that thinking of it now made Aire's eyes water.

She stopped herself.

"Aire." Ferdia was smiling.

In the pot that sat between them, frothy white flowers had bloomed. They clustered together, bright, and beautiful. Alive. Aire could feel it – the tenuous connection of her Wield humming. She grinned widely, reaching to touch the soft petals.

"You found a happy memory," Ferdia commented.

"It isn't a big one but it's a moment," Aire leaned closer, relief lightening her shoulders. The sight of the flowers was enough to spur her on and she held a hand above the next empty pot of soil. As her fingers outstretched, wild-flowers grew un-naturally fast - a bloom of reds, yellows, and blues. "But it was with the other Wielders. We were just being foolish on the ice."

"There aren't many opportunities to just be free and happy like that now."

"No," She smiled at the flowers. "No, you're right. Though I suppose that it true for anyone who reaches adulthood and feels the burden of responsibility. "

"You had a happy childhood, I gather? I did too. I had an abundance of brothers and sisters that I used to spend summer evenings toiling in the mud and racing each other down to the river to skip stones." Ferdia sighed. "I have not seen them in many years, but I remember how bright the summer sun used to seem, or how warm the spring wind used to feel. At my age now, it doesn't seem as beautiful as I remember." 

Aire could understand that. Immersed in her bloom of flowers and how they seemed tethered inside of her, a warmth of life that made her mind heady, she responded vaguely, "I used to spend long afternoons in the summer with my brothers and sisters just being fools. We would take the horses out and have picnics in the meadow, rolling down the long hills as we raced and pulling wildflowers as we went. We'd jump in the lake when the weather was particularly hot and then have to trudge back home, covered in filth and mud."

If she thought hard about it, she could almost smell the heady scent of the meadows they explored. Great rolling grass, alight with flowers. Spring bees buzzing, or in the summer, the way the lake beckoned them with glittering water. The lake was always checked for kelpies who would only love to snap down on the royal children. Aire had always been the best swimmer and she had never told the others that the Sirens out in the sea had given her lessons.

The memory seemed so clear, so vivid that she could feel it around her.

Laughter pierced the air, tinny as if it echoed through a hallway.

Aire looked away from her freshly grown wildflowers, to Ferdia. His hands were balled on his legs, his face stricken as he looked over her shoulder. His exposed arms, muddied with blood, could not hide the ink flowing from his skin into the air.

Following his line of sight, she saw them. Like a mirage, colours mixing until they formed sharp clarity. A great meadow of wildflowers and rolling hills. Horses tethered in a copse of apple-trees. The memory repeated in a tight loop. Six children sprawled across a picnic table, all with hair of silver moonlight. So obvious, as it gleamed in the summer sun. Laughter. Ríona, the eldest and the tallest at the time, rising to hoist Croía onto her hip. The twins, both identical in humour, wit and looks, already racing to the top of the nearest hill.

Aire could not look away. Tears wet her cheeks, but they were so real. So real. Éibhear and Éalaire sitting on the picnic blanket, laughing as warm wind stirred his curly, bright hair. It kissed against her cheeks. She remembered that. He was so tiny at that age, but when he couldn't reach her with his hands, wind would warm her cheeks and ruffle her hair. It had always made him giggle. The twins rolling like barrels down the hill. The maid groaning as they stood, mud streaked across their back and legs.

The image shifted. Bodies diving into the cold water. Éibhear had sat at the edge sulking with Croía, watched over by Ríona. She had raced the twins, slicing through the water that was calmer than the sea. Cairbre racing after her to pat her sopping head, while his twin Murchadh pretended to pout.

Aire didn't realise that she had twisted, reaching out to the image until her fingers brushed over the twins' laughing faces. Into nothingness.

The air still smelled of summer, of a meadow abound with flowers. The dark room she trained in was warm with a summer's wind, bustling around her. Like a kiss. The memory looped. Éibhear laughing with round, red cheeks.

"Children with hair like moonlight." Ferdia breathed.

Aire couldn't look away from the memory. The painting had done them no justice. By the gods, she had forgotten how the twins mirrored each other so completely. The curly mop of Éibhear's hair or the knot between Croía's brow as she tried to solve a problem. Then Ríona, as always, looking over them.

The memory faded into nothing, leaving the room darker than before. With it, a deep and uncomfortable silence. Only then, did it sink in. What Ferdia had seen. What he now knew.

| Welcome back to Aire's world ! 

Tell me your thoughts, theories and conspiracies. 

How long do you think Aire can stay out of trouble? How do you think Aire should deal with either Sloane or Ferdia? 

Until next time, Saoimarie. |