Sember (Forestfolk, Book 2)

Chapter 17

As it turned out, I couldn’t hike yet. So no cave expedition. I had been stubborn, of course, insisting that I could hobble along with a cane. But it didn’t take much to convince me that it was a pretty stupid idea.

“We could be facing diseased monsters or something,” Goben had said. “You don’t want to be tripping around, do you?”

I agreed to wait a few days.

Goben seemed all too relieved for the delay and eagerly dragged me out to explore Odavik. Whereas I tended to avoid people, for obvious reasons, Goben was the opposite. He chatted people up and made friends wherever he went because people just liked him right away. I envied that about him, but I would never say so. My pride could only take so much battering.

Jastin’s house faced out toward the plain like a sentry. The rest of the houses faced each other in neat rows along the valley. Jastin introduced us to people, and everyone greeted us with genuine smiles. I had expected wary—maybe even paranoid—villagers, but none of them were like that. These were definitely not Plainsmen. It took me a while to get used to seeing so many people who looked like Siena with their blond hair and blue eyes. Up until this village, I’d only met two Icelings. Now, I was surrounded by them.

When he introduced us to the butcher, the large man appraised me up and down, as if evaluating an opponent. Or a side of beef. “So you’re the Gifted who took down a buck without a weapon,” he said.

“Um, yes,” I replied, unsure if the man was going to continue talking or throw a cleaver at me.

He nodded with approval and stroked his beard. “It is an honor to meet you. A small tip, though: the more an animal is burned, the less usable its hide is.”

“Thank you,” I said, surprised at his positive response. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He did have a point. Fireballs were messy. They exploded and inflicted collateral damage. I started thinking about possibly concentrating my fire into a smaller size, like a marble. I could flick a pellet instead of hurling it with my entire arm. It would be faster, and stealthier. I would work on it during my next practice.

Then we met their Gifted herbalist, Vina. She was about Goben’s age, and kept her hair in a sensible braid like me. Her eyes were bright and alert as we spoke, seeming to record everything we said. She was not very talkative, but when she spoke, it was with insight and intelligence.

We explained our mission and our suspicions about the cave, then she suggested something we had not thought of. Since there was a chance that our mission could fail—the cave could be a dead end, or worse, we could meet our own end in it—one of us should stay behind to learn about the remedies she had. If we couldn’t find a cure for the plague, we could at least buy a little time by bringing this information back to Foresthome.

It was a wise suggestion, but it meant Goben and I would need to split up. One of us would go in the cave, and the other would stay here to learn where the herbs grew and how to combine them. I already knew what I wanted to do.

“You should stay,” I said to Goben. I instantly regretted it, because the look on his face told me I’d insulted his masculinity. In public.

“We’ll discuss it later,” he said tightly, and wandered away.

I wanted to go after him, but if he was anything like me, he’d want to be left alone for a while. So I started limping back toward Jastin’s house. Jastin chose to follow me instead of Goben.

“Sometimes I’m an awful sister to him,” I said, more to myself than to Jastin.

“If he was your younger brother, it would be easier for him. Big brothers are supposed to take care of their little sisters, but you’ve been taking care of him these past weeks. It wounds his pride. Believe me, I know the feeling.”

I looked over at him. “How old was your sister?”

“She was younger by only three years, but I still couldn’t protect her.”

I kicked a pebble as we walked. “I can’t imagine what that must feel like.”

“Helpless.”

I knew something about helplessness. I’d felt it every day since the plague showed its ugly face. I didn’t reply, though. I wasn’t sure what to say. I couldn’t exactly compare my worry-filled experiences with his tragic ones. Foresthome had a healer. He didn’t. My family was alive. His . . . wasn’t.

We walked in silence for a bit. Well, he walked. I hobbled along, trying to keep weight off my foot so it could heal. I wished Siena was here. She would have loved seeing so many Icelings, and learning about the people of her ancestry. She could also heal my stupid foot, and I could resume the mission sooner. Each day I wasted was another day closer to death for so many people.

I thought about Jastin. He didn’t seem sick at all, and his house contained none of the herbal concoctions that Vina had showed us. He had to be Gifted. Why didn’t he talk about it?

“Has Goben told you about his gift?” I asked, as a way to start the conversation.

“No.”

“Oh.” Well, that was a surprisingly short conversation. I found it odd. Goben kept blabbering about my gift, why didn’t he talk about his own? Sometimes boys mystified me. Proud and bragging one moment, quiet and sullen the next. It was annoying. I decided the direct approach would frustrate me the least.

“Jastin, are you Gifted?”

He smiled, but something in his eyes gave it a sad or lonely quality. “Yes.”

I waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “Why don’t you want to talk about it? You know everything about me, but I know nothing about you.”

He stopped walking and regarded me for a moment, then he cupped his hands together for several seconds. When he removed one hand, something round and white sat on his palm. He took my hand and placed the white ball in it. It was cold. A snowball.

“You make snow?” I asked, examining the snowball, which had already started melting in my warm hand.

“Ice,” he corrected.

“That’s not a bad thing. Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

“Look around you,” he said, staring up at the snow-covered rooftops. “Being able to make ice here isn’t exactly useful.”

“I’d switch with you any day,” I replied.

“Your gift saved your brother’s life,” he said, his voice tinged with admiration. “Being able to keep people warm in these conditions is priceless.”

I snorted. “His would be the first life I’ve ever saved. Believe me, keeping warm where I come from isn’t a problem. My gift is more of a liability. People fear for their lives around me.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You haven’t seen me lose my temper.” With a wave of heat, I instantly melted the snowball, shook the water off my hand, and resumed walking.

No wonder his hands were always cold. It also explained why he had no fire lit in his house during a blizzard.

I gave him a sidelong glance. “So you never get cold.” It was more of a comment than a question.

“No.”

“Well, that’s something.”

A corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile. “Neither do you.”

“Not usually, no,” I replied. “My arrival here was the first time I’ve ever felt cold. Can’t say I cared for it.”

“Most people don’t,” he said ruefully.

The loneliness in his voice spoke to me. Then I remembered his family. Well, of course he was lonely. He just lost everyone he loved.

We arrived at his house, and I decided to go practice. The reality was I couldn’t trade gifts with anyone. I was stuck with this one, so I’d best continue mastering it.

Jastin offered to escort me, but I waved him off. I didn’t like practicing something new in front of people, in case it blew up in my face, or worse, their faces. I doddered toward the thicket until I found a large outcrop of boulders. This would do nicely.

I sat down some distance away from the boulders. My butt sank into soggy snow, but it didn’t bother me. I just needed to get off my feet. I closed my hand into a loose fist and formed a fireball. Opening my hand, I examined the swirling ball of flame. It was the size of my fist, too big. I squeezed down on it, attempting to make it smaller, but it only shrank a little bit. I clamped down on it with both hands. That didn’t seem to compact it much, either. I threw it at the boulder in frustration, and it dissipated upon fiery impact, leaving a large scorch mark.

I flung myself backward into the snow and stared up at the sky. Fluffy clouds floated by, and I remembered something Siena had taught me when I was little. I had been having trouble controlling my energy flow, and she had told me to pretend that my core was a beehive. The bees buzzing around it was my energy. She told me to imagine “fetching” a number of bees from the hive whenever I wanted to conjure fire. The more bees I summoned, the stronger the fire. The analogy was the breakthrough I had needed to understand my gift. After that, I had gained the ability to harness it.

I smiled as I remembered those early days of joy. Finally being able to control my gift—instead of the other way around—altered my life. Of course, life was much simpler when I was six.

I thought about the “bees” buzzing inside me. Maybe they could help me again.

I sat up and formed another loose fist. This time I closed my eyes and imagined my bees flying into it, one by one, forming a single, compact ball. In my mind, they swarmed in my hand as they normally did, then they fused into one another, concentrating their power. One big bee.

When I opened my eyes and my hand, I smiled. I held a perfect flaming marble, and I could feel that it had the same energy mass as the first fireball. Siena would be so proud!

I missed her suddenly. Missed those days when she would watch me practice, like it was the most normal thing in the world. On those days, she made me feel like my gift was something to be proud of.

I rolled the fiery marble to my thumb and attempted to flick it forward with my fingers. It flew off weakly in a random direction, fizzling as it sank into the snow. I tried again, and this one, too, fizzled a short distance away.

I kept at it. I may have been impatient with people, but I was patience personified when it came to honing my gift. Anything less than perfect control meant unintended destruction—or even injuries—so my morning practice sessions could stretch on into the afternoon.

I kept at it until the sun began to set. By the time I stood up and shook out my soaked pants, I could smash powerful pellets into the boulder with a single flick of my fingers. The blast radius was minimal, concentrated to a small circle. When I inspected the boulder, I found little pockmarks in the rock from where each pellet had impacted. This was very different from the wide scorch mark of the first fireball, which had created no dents in the rock.

I was so pleased, I nearly skipped back to the house. Of course, this proved to be difficult with a cane and lame foot. So I settled for some fairly jaunty limping.

When I reached the house, Goben was sitting on the wooden floor of the front porch, tracing imaginary patterns with a stick. It reminded me of our days as kids, when I would often find him on the ground by the house, thinking or sulking, drawing in the dirt. He never strayed far from home, yet here we were, farther than either of us had ever been.

He watched as I limped toward him and slid down next to him.

“It’s so strange to see you slowed down for a change,” he said. 

“Believe me, it’s even stranger for me.” I glanced at him. “You must be loving it, though.”

His face pinched with mild offense. “Why? I feel terrible about it! You’re the one who’s gotten us this far. You got us out of that Aberration-burning mess. You got us through the blizzard. You did everything. All I did was get in your way. Because of me, you lost your shoes. Because of me, you lost your energy.” 

“I got it back—” 

He stopped me with a raised hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so useless in my life, Sember. Now you want to go into that cave without me, and the sad thing is, I know I’d just get in your way there too. Why did you want me to come along on this trip, anyway? You’d have been better off without me.”

I sat for several stunned heartbeats. I had suspected male pride was involved, but it seemed to run much deeper than that. “Goben, you have no idea how . . . ” I struggled to put my formless feelings into words. “Growing up, would you say I was unstable?” 

He shrugged. “Unstable seems a little harsh.” 

“Point one, you always believed in me. Our parents always doubted me. I always doubted me. You didn’t. Point two,”—I held up two fingers—“I was unstable. You have no idea how much of a battle it was inside anytime something didn’t go my way. You always found a way to calm me down, with your jokes and your hugs and your brotherly words of wisdom—”

A small grin brightened his melancholy face. “I said wise things?”

“To me they were. You stabilized me, Goben.” 

“Siena did that.”

“She coached me. Showed me how to control my gift. But you . . . ” It was strange that I was realizing this as I said it. “You were always there for me, with confidence I didn’t have. You gave me strength when I felt like I was lost. Goben, you’re the best big brother a girl could ask for. That’s the real reason I wanted you with me.”

Goben sat, silent, and I stole another sideways glance at him. He was blinking rapidly, so I gave him time to collect himself and process what I said, biding my time by lighting a flame over one finger. I heard him sniff once, so I lit another finger. I wiggled the two fingers around, then lit all five.

“That actually is pretty neat,” he said at last, eyes fixed on the small flames. 

“You didn’t think so the first time,” I said, glad he was talking again.

“I was teasing.” He paused a moment, placed an arm around my shoulders, and quietly added, “I love you, Squirrel.”

I smiled and leaned into him, snuffing the flames from my fingers. “I love you too, big brother. No hard feelings?”

“You still want to go into that cave without me?” He resumed drawing patterns with the stick again.

“I don’t want to, but I think it’s the right thing to do.” 

“It doesn’t feel right, though.” His stick stopped moving. “I should be the one to go.”

“And I should stay to learn about herbal remedies?” I made a scoffing noise. “Goben, plants bore me.”

“They do? But you and Siena—”

“I know. She often tried to teach me how to identify them when I followed her on gathering trips. But I couldn’t stop yawning. Unless it involves burning or eating plants, I don’t think herbology is for me.”

His stick resumed drawing invisible circles on the porch. “It still doesn’t feel right.”

I squeezed his arm, stilling it. “You’ll always be my big brother, and I’ll always need you. But right now, Foresthome needs you more.”

A slow sigh escaped his throat and he nodded, turning to me. “Just do me one favor.”

“What’s that?” 

“Come back alive.” 

I leveled my gaze onto his green eyes, so much like my own. “Bet on it.”