River Heart

Chapter Fourteen - Water

Lyris climbed down from the wagon and returned to Kelanin, trying to make herself useful.

‘Can you chop an onion?’ The caravan’s queen cast a suspicious glance over the young woman’s hands; sceptical that she’d ever attempted to cook her own meals.

‘Yes Madam,’ Lyris grinned, her Father had been famous for his onion seed bread and Lyris had become a specific expert in slicing onions during the few visits she had managed to make. Given a sharp knife, a wooden board and three onions, she could almost imagine she was back in the bakery. When she made quick work of peeling and chopping, Kelanin studied her again, scraping the root into the enormous dinner pot.

‘Here then, parsley and some carrot,’ Kelanin pulled the ingredients from a willow-basket and Lyris carried on her work, not realising that Arn had approached.

‘Can I help?’

‘It won’t take two moments,’ Lyris looked up at him with a smile, pushing the hair back from her face. She couldn’t help but study him, the way Kelanin had studied her and wonder if he’d ever chopped an onion. Did Princes do that? Probably not.

Arn shrugged and perched on the nearest wagon steps. Having answered her own questions, Lyris finished the work and handed everything back to Kelanin.

‘You can help again tomorrow,’ Kelanin grinned at her, ‘let no good deed every go unrewarded.’

‘Or followed with more work,’ Lyris rolled her eyes. Her hands were coated in onion juice and she realised too late that she’d wiped the juice along her forehead with the back of her hand.

‘Are you going to wash up?’ She looked across at Arn, ‘your hands must be dirty from dragging that tree back.’

‘Impressive, wasn’t it?’ He stood with an easy smile and gestured towards the stream, ‘lead on fair maiden of onions.’

‘Fair maiden of…’ Lyris muttered to herself as Kelanin waved them away. ‘What does that make you?’ She retorted, ‘Sir Stick-man?’

‘Lord Fallen Tree.’ He corrected.

The water was cool to the touch, bubbling with life and raw energy as it ran down through the mountains and between the rolling hills. A she sank her fingers into the depths, she could feel it’s song, light and bright with excitement. It knew that something vast lay ahead and she smiled to herself.

‘What are you doing?’ Arn had pulled his shirt off again and bent over the running water, using it to clean off the day’s sweat. He too had managed to remove any lingering traces of their time in the cave and if anything, his hair looked paler for it. The colour of waving corn.

‘What do you mean?’ Heat rose in her cheeks and along the back of her neck. Eyes up, she told herself sternly, eyes up. Under no circumstances would it be appropriate to drop her gaze to the curve of his neck and the growing stubble spreading along his jaw. Nor to the dip in his broad shoulders at the collar bone. Her mouth felt dry, and her fingers tingled. Too late, she realised that she’d held her hands in the water too long and offered a silent apology. Without thinking she absorbed some of the energy, it was something Morgalin encouraged but Lyris never felt truly comfortable doing. What if this energy was needed later in the water course? She would rather rest natural then a***e her power when it wasn’t needed. Distracted by Arn, she knew that she had pulled some of the magic from the stream. She felt eager, keen and rested. A terrible idea so close to the slow wind-down of the evening. The energy would keep her awake for hours, like a strong pot of coffee.

‘It was like you were talking to the water?’ Arn lent forward, his bare arm brushing her shoulder as he peered down at the water at the speckled rocks that shone in the last light of the day.

‘Oh,’ Lyris wondered how often she made motions, or formed the words on her tongue as she worked, even if she didn’t say them out loud. The heat spread across her cheeks turning them pink.

‘Were you?’ He looked up at her and his breath moved across her cheek.

She forgot what he was asking and blinked at him, his blue eyes were bright against a pink and gold sunset. The warm light picking out strands of orange and red in his beard and around his temples.

‘Pardon?’ Had he asked her something?

‘Were you talking to the water?’ He held her gaze, lips parting a moment before he turned and reached for her hand, still beneath the surface, ‘you must be frozen,’ he touched the back of her fingers. The spark seemed to leap from her hand to her heart and she flinched.

‘Oh! Oh the water!’ Lyris drew her hands back. They felt chilled through to the bone and she held them against her chest. The water was quick to soak into her shirt and through the skin and the young woman cursed her own thoughtlessness. Flushed she nodded, ‘yes, I suppose I was it’s so excited to get down the hill and find what’s at the bottom,’ she blamed the energy absorbed from the stream for the tumble of words from her lips.

‘You really were talking to it?’ He stared at her, amazed.

‘Uh…yes,’ she grinned and rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them, ‘it has an essence really, a life of its own. It’s all different, once you pull it from the stream or trap it in a well, it becomes something else…’

‘You communicate with all of it?’

There was a call for dinner and Lyris sprang to her feet, ‘Mmmhmm,’ she smiled at him before turning and running back towards the caravan. Sprinting out of reach before he could ask any more questions.

Dinner was much like the first had been, a stew of the rabbit that Brun, Hustom and little Barney had caught during the days’ travel. Mixed in the hot pot was a spice that Lyris didn’t recognise, that sat on the back of her tongue and burnt until Arn offered her a small swig of milk. Mixed with the meat was pearl barley, wild garlic and broad spinach leaves pulled from the roadside and gathered in the evening. Everyone had their place, while water was fetched, carried and heated, the firewood was replenished, and the children gathered what they could from the undergrowth and wild meadow. Berries were dried ready to use on days that yielded less.

That night, Kit joined the musicians and added his voice to the instruments. Lyris, more comfortable than she had been the night before, wrapped herself in a blanket and set her back to the wheel of the wagon. Overhead clouds scurried and gathered in a rising wind. There would be rain the next day. She could taste it in the air and see it in the belly of the clouds, faint at night, just a pale blue sliver in the corner of her eye if she happened to glance at the sky. Arn had been stacking wooden blocks with Daisy’s youngest child, Joshua and the child had taken delight in knocking them over again. Laughing so hard that he fell backwards, into Isabelle’s grasp. The young woman found herself watching the Prince once more. He also seemed comfortable amongst the travelling family. How did this behaviour contrast to his usual royal duties? Had he ever spent time among children before? Arn caught her gaze more than once, and his direct return of her interest made her cheeks burn in the dim light.

With Joshua collected by his Mother, the Prince approached with the long swinging strides she now recognised. He dropped down with a whoomph to the soft earth beside her, stretched out his long legs and lent back on his arms. Eventually he stole a glance in her direction. Lyris stared harder at Kit instead, determined not to look around, listening to the soft rise of the young man’s voice over the thudding of her own racing heart.

‘How did you know you were a water witch?’ Arn persisted when she didn’t turn to look.

The sudden question surprised her and she looked around. Arn had lain down, arms folded beneath his head as his bright gaze fixed on the stars. Was there a little magic in the corner of his eyes? The occasional flash of blue that she caught in the firelight?

‘I didn’t know,’ Lyris admitted. Sometimes she’d lied about her calling and been bold. Brazenly explaining that she’d always known, that deep down that the salt of the sea, the call of the river and smell rain was in her soul. But she found herself reluctant to lie to Arn, or even exaggerate the truth. Was it because he was a Prince? Or was it because she didn’t believe that he’d told any false hoods to her? She touched her tongue to her healing lip. He’d hidden the whole truth…but no outright lies.

‘There was an incident when I was little, so I was sent to the Myst to learn.’

‘That’s how most children are sent to the island isn’t it?’ He peered at her, ‘some kind of magical phenomenon. How did you know it was water?’

‘Morgalin chose me. She’s an enchantress of water.’

‘An enchantress?’

She could sense him scowling and smiled, ‘they’re more powerful than an average witch and they can use magic in more ways then most of us can.’

‘Like what?’

Lyris wondered if there would ever be an end to his curiosity but realised it was unlikely. ‘I uh…well I can track people through water if I know them.’ She explained, searching for the easiest example to use, ‘Morgalin could make a potion and well…it would let anyone track a person through water.’

‘As though they were a Myst too?’ He sat up, eager.

‘Not quite – it would have to be made with a specific person in mind and it would have limitations.’

‘Hang on, hang on – lets go back to you tracking people. It sounds amazing.’

Lyris laughed again, ‘I can’t talk you through all of the workings of magic tonight. Just remember that an enchanter or enchantress can manipulate magic in more ways than an ordinary Myst.’

‘It sounds terrifying,’ he teased but he was still smiling.

‘She is,’ she couldn’t help but agree, ‘but you’d understand if you ever meet her,’ the young woman smiled. ‘Her power lies in water, from the source to the sea.’ Lyris stretched out one of her legs, looping an arm around the second. The fire crackled. Most of the travelling family were moving away to their wagons for the night. A lonely owl hooted in the distance.

‘At first I didn’t know why she chose me and I was mainly scared. When you go to the Island you’re just a potential trainee. They teach you letters and numbers and geography, then finally the basis of magic after a few years.’

‘How old were you, when you went?’

She could hear his sudden frown in the dark, but her smile remained as she watched a bat circling out from the tree and over the fire pit. ‘Seven,’ young, but not the youngest child there.

Arn sucked in air then stretched, uneasy, ‘that is – your parents…?’

‘They were proud that I had been chosen, and found. Even if I never become a Myst I’ve had more schooling then I’d get back in Issen. I’ll have better options then I would at home.’

‘You must have missed them.’

Lyris nodded. Arn lived in the city with his Father in a Palace. What about his Mother? She remembered a little of Ipito lore and yet…the details on the Queen we hazy in her mind. Had he ever been so far from home for so long? Had she? Home was the Island, it had stopped being the bakery in Issen years before.

‘My mother passed when I was fourteen. I used to come back and visit them both,’ Lyris folded her arms across her knee, ‘when she died it was harder to come back. My Father...’ he hadn’t been the same. Usually the she’d returned to the bakery for a moon cycle three or four times a year. The Island was not a prison, nor was it a monastery. But after her Mother had passed into the ashes, those visits had sharply declined and become less frequent. For two turns of the sun, she’d marked a decline in her Father’s weight, the greying of his dark hair. ‘He passed a few seasons later.’

There was only silence as Arn reached out and laid a warm hand on her arm. Lyris glance at him, offering a quiet smile. It hurt. She’d loved her parents, but grief didn’t rule her days. They’d been so proud of the path she’d been able to follow and she was determined to honour their memory.

‘I interrupted,’ Arn spoke after a pause and shuffled closer. Her voice had dropped till it was low and husky in the night. The stars seemed to speak behind the gathering rain clouds. ‘You were telling me how you knew it was water.’

‘I was sat in this enormous chair, after Morgalin chose me,’ the memory was as clear as the night before them. ‘She’d been busy in her suite and left me in her workshop. There were dusty books on every shelf, wobbling as though they were going to fall off. I got bored,’ she smirked at the memory, ‘and there was a pool in the centre of the room – which isn’t as strange as it sounds. Her home is built back into a cave. I was lying on my stomach, with my chin in my hands because the water was moving. It had lights inside,’ her voice had dropped further but with excitement rather than sadness.

‘I could see them moving, making words and pictures, the colours changing and then,’ she grinned, ‘Morgalin returned and dropped a stack of books beside me. I jumped up so fast that I fell in the pool and she had to fish me out,’ she could hear Arn laughing.

‘Water witch, she told me and it was like everything fell into place.’ It had been a rare moment when the words and their dripping silver liquid had converged with the sense of peace in her heart. A moment she would always remember. ‘Then she told me I had to read that whole pile of books before the end of the moon cycle, or she’d throw me back in and hold me under.’

His smile had died and he stared, aghast. ‘What did you do?’

‘I did my homework,’ Lyris grinned, ‘she’d never hurt me. Not like that,’ the young woman shook her head. Morgalin had a mean streak and a short temper, but she wasn’t cruel or despotic. She was the ocean, changeable and dangerous if you failed to pay her the respect that she deserved.