Song of the Sea Spirit: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles) (6 page)

“Do you hear me, son? No matter what the other warriors say, no matter what your commander says. Do not eat the godfruit.”

Boden was unsure he could disobey a commander who ordered him to eat it. “Why? What does it do?”

Gunnar pulled back and held him at arm’s length, both hands gripping Boden’s upper arms. The two men locked gazes. “It will infect your soul with a foul sickness. Rely on your training, not some magical fruit. You’ve worked hard, trained hard. You’re ready. I haven’t been the father you wanted, and I—I regret that, but I’ve been the drill master you needed. Trust me. Trust yourself.”

He cares.
Boden felt like a boy again, the one who’d wished every night for his papa to return safely from war. His eyes watered and threatened to spill over, but then Gunnar let him go and turned away. Boden breathed in deeply, tamped down the boy he used to be, tamped down the years of disappointment and hurt Gunnar had saddled him with, and became another version of his father.

He hugged Jora again, tempted to confess that the flute was indeed a promissory, but he didn’t. In all likelihood, she would marry before he returned, and his admission would only serve to create an awkward distance between them.

“If you have a message for your wife or parents,” she told him, “write it in your new journal at sunset every Suns Day. I’ll look over your shoulder in the Mindstream and pass along your words.”

He cocked his head and regarded her quizzically. If she could look into his past through the Mindstream whenever she wanted, what difference would it make when he wrote the message?

As if reading his mind, she said, “I don’t want to invade your privacy by reading everything you write, only what you write at sunset on Suns Day. That’s how I’ll know I should read it.”

He smiled, nodding. “I understand now.” She wouldn’t be able to communicate anything back to him, such as how his wife fared or whether his first child was a boy or girl, but if he heard that enemy forces had gotten past the Serocian fleet and were sailing north from the Strait of Lost Souls, he could at least warn the people of Kaild.

“Don’t forget me,” she said with a shy smile.

Boden smiled back. Never. He could never forget her.

He hugged his three step-mothers and kissed their cheeks, and he hugged each of his siblings and half-siblings, telling them to behave themselves. He embraced the tearful Anika, assured her he would be particularly vigilant and careful, and then his wife of one day, Micah. He’d thought that parting ways with Jora would be hardest, but he found leaving Micah more heartwrenching. Her belly would swell, her screams would carry from one end of Kaild to the other and silence the most raucous of children, and a new infant would take his first breath all while Boden was gone. A child, a son, who wouldn’t meet his father for nine years to come. He kissed her lips, her cheek, her neck, and breathed in her scent one last time, whispering into her ear a promise that he would return alive.

He felt heavy and slow as he climbed into the saddle. Worry glistened in the eyes of his people, and pride too, as he heeled his new mount and, with one last wave, started off to begin his new life as a warrior of Serocia.

Chapter 4

Jora sat with Briana and Tearna for the midday meal. Though her two friends chattered on about a dream Briana had and what it meant, Jora’s thoughts bounced between Boden and his journey and the dolphin she’d met the day before. She hadn’t been to the sea with her flute since then, but if she managed to get caught up on her work by the end of the day, she planned to return that evening. The next morning at the latest.

Briana nudged her with an elbow, and when Jora looked up, Danner was looking down at her, concern wrinkling his brow. He was about Gunnar’s age, maybe a little older, one of the men fortunate enough to have returned from war, though the left side of his head was disfigured from a terrible burn, the ear on that side all but gone. As one of the returned soldiers, he served as a guard, watching for approaching enemy fighters, though he wasn’t currently wearing armor or weapons. If she recalled correctly, Danner usually manned a post at night and slept during the day.

“I hate to disturb you, but would you mind checking on my son?” he asked. “I had a disturbing dream about him, and I need to know if he’s all right.” He turned his head to hear her better from his right ear.

“I don’t mind at all,” she responded with a forced smile, though his request reminded her of the hurtful words she’d overheard Oram say in the days leading up to his own Antenuptial. It wasn’t Danner’s fault; he was simply a loving father. Of course he would want to know how his son fared. He’d openly cried the day his boy had left the village to report to his new commander six months earlier. Danner had never been unkind to her. Any peace of mind she could give him was worth a little inconvenience.

Jora closed her eyes, shut out the laughter and hum of conversation around her, and opened the Mindstream, the space between worlds. Though she could Mindstream with her eyes open, the overlapping images were sometimes difficult to separate. Shadows and whispers converged on her, terrifying shapes of impossible beings and foreign words whose menacing sounds had followed her out of the Mindstream and into her nightmares in her childhood. Yet, in all these years, not once had they ever harmed her. Eventually, she’d learned to ignore them and focus on the hundreds of threads as thin and delicate as the silk of a spider’s web that stretched from the center of her torso to that of nearly every other person in Kaild—everyone with whom she’d spoken or shared a glance or a smile. Every interaction with every person was part of a huge mystical tapestry that told the story of human experience. The touch of her intent like a gentle finger strumming a lullaby on a pipa was all she needed to find the one that led to Oram.

She found him sitting among dozens of other men, listening to a lecture. “He’s sitting in a building, listening to someone pacing and talking. A commander, I’m guessing.”

“Has he been injured?” Danner asked.

He wore no bandages, and he had no visible bruises or tears in his uniform. “He looks fine.” She looked around at the soldiers who sat quietly, listening to the commander’s lecture about duty and honor, about inevitable loss and hardship, all for the good of Serocia. Two figures in green, floor-length, hooded robes stood behind the commander with hands clasped before them, bald heads bowed. The commander droned on about the war and their enemies’ lack of virtue, their lack of humanity, insisting that a good Serocian soldier would kill an enemy on sight without sympathy.

Then, one of the robed figures, a man, lifted his head and looked directly at her.

Jora yanked herself back, so shocked was she by the scrutiny.
How can he see me? I’m not there.

And yet, he stared directly at her as if he was aware of her presence as a Mindstreamer. She watched in a mixture of horror and disbelief as the robed man tapped the sleeve of his companion, a woman, and motioned with his eyes toward Jora’s mind vision. Now both of the robed figures were looking right at her.

“No,” she whispered.

“What’s wrong?” Tearna asked.

“They see me. That’s not possible.”

“Who sees you?”

She wasn’t quite sure. Some kind of wizards.

The robed male moved toward the commander, who paused mid-sentence to watch, a perplexed look on his face.
Which one of you is acquainted with someone with the Talent for Witnessing?
he asked the soldiers as he scanned their faces.

Were these Truth Sayers?
Jora’s heart hammered in her chest. Oram had no allegiance to her. In fact, it was clear she made him more than a little uncomfortable.

He glanced around furtively and licked his lips, but he said nothing.

Thank you,
she thought. She wasn’t sure what would happen if the Sayers found out about her, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, either.

A man in the previous row tentatively raised his hand.
I am, sir.

Where does this person reside?
the robed man asked.

He’s serving his duty to Serocia, sir. Gilon, my cousin. He’s a good man.

Jora looked on in horror and fascination. They could see that she was watching, but they couldn’t tell who she was or that she was a woman.

“Jora, what do you see?” Tearna asked.

“Lie her down,” Briana said. “She’s trembling.”

“No,” Jora said, feeling hands grab her upper arms. “Wait. Something’s happening.”

“Is it my son?” Danner asked.

“No,” Jora whispered.

The female Sayer whispered to the commander that they would need to locate Gilon immediately. The commander told the gathered soldiers to wait, and he followed the two Truth Sayers out of the room.

Jora opened her eyes, closing the Mindstream, and a shudder rippled through her.

“What’s happening to Oram?” Danner asked.

“What’s wrong?” Briana asked.

“Nothing,” Jora said, rubbing her eyes. “He’s fine. They’re in a city. Renn, I think. For the moment, he’s out of danger.”

Danner exhaled loudly. “You’ve given me a moment’s hearts-ease. Thank you,” he said, bowing. “I’ll let you get back to your meal.”

He saw me.
Jora shuddered, alarmed and disturbed by what had just happened. No one had ever noticed her Mindstreaming before. What did they want with the supposed Mindstreamer?

Tearna and Briana watched her with wide eyes.

“What?” she asked them.

“You should tell them no,” Briana said.

Tearna slapped Briana’s shoulder. “Thank you. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her. Come on. You can say it. No.” She pronounced the word slowly as if teaching a baby. “Nooo. No. You should try it sometime.”

Jora laughed. “I could say it if I wanted to.” She didn’t want to. Mindstreaming didn’t hurt her, aside from reaffirming the fact that she was a freak who made people uncomfortable, and it allowed her to ease the worried minds of parents like Anika or wives or young children who hoped to someday meet their fathers.

Tearna snorted. “Sure you could.”

“Don’t you want to know how your husbands fare? To reassure your children that their father is well?”

Briana pressed her lips into a dim smile. “Of course I do, but you get pestered all the time. I don’t want to add to your burden.”

“Besides,” Tearna said, “Adham will come home one way or another. Knowing he’s alive today doesn’t mean I won’t receive his shrouded body next week or next month. It’s not like you can keep him safe by checking on him all the time.”

Jora chewed the side of her cheek. “Bri, you’ve been to Halder before. Have you ever noticed shaven-headed people wearing long, green robes?”

“Those are Truth Sayers. Adepts, I believe.”

Jora nodded, glad to have her suspicions confirmed. As a child, she’d been taught about the Serocian Justice Bureau and how it operated, but living in Kaild, a seaside town that even the countries at war with Serocia didn’t bother with, she never expected to encounter a real Truth Sayer. And one of them had seen her. She shuddered, unsure what it meant but worried that it meant something.

“They shave their heads as a symbol of their inability to hide from the truth,” Briana said.

Jora remembered that from her years in school.

“What were they doing in Oram’s lecture?” Tearna asked.

“Listening, I guess,” Jora said. Then another explanation occurred to her. “Do our armies travel with Sayers? To interrogate captured enemy soldiers?” In all the years she had been observing the soldiers from Kaild for the families they’d left behind, she had never noticed Truth Sayers present. Nor had she been noticed while Mindstreaming.

“Possibly,” Tearna said. “Ask Gunnar. He would know.”

Perhaps she would. It would give her a reason to talk to him again beyond simply inquiring about his health or his family.

He saw me.
She couldn’t get it out of her mind. Again she wondered what the Sayers wanted with the Mindstreamer, Gilon? She felt some guilt and compassion for the man who was about to receive what was Jora’s due. She just hoped he wouldn’t be slain.

Chapter 5