Winged (Aetharian Narratives) (18 page)

“Why me?”

I finished the last of my tea and piled the cup onto my plate.

Oak smiled and took them from me. “Because of who you are. You are all that matters right now.”

“Miss Larnex,” a voice behind me said. “We have been looking for you.”

I turned my head to see a soldier walking up to the stand. I had to grab onto the platform in front of me to keep from falling out of my chair. I thought that Viper was the best-looking guy I’d ever see; I now realized I was very mistaken. I wasn’t sure if he surpassed Viper in the looks department, but he certainly put up a good fight. Eyes of a velvety royal blue locked onto me with a stare beneath neatly trimmed, dark blond hair.

“I’m sorry,” I said, getting off my stool with as much grace as possible. “I was just having breakfast.”

“I see that,” he said, looking at the stand. “For future reference you are to have breakfast in the main tent further into the center of the site.”

“Oh,” I said, looking back at Oak.

He quickly busied himself with things on the other side of the stand.

“Sorry, I didn’t know—”

“Now you do,” he said. “Please come with me.”

As polite as his request sounded he didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and started walking back in the direction he’d come.

“Oh, okay,” I said.

Apparently the request was really a demand. I looked at Oak again.

“And thank
you
for the breakfast I wasn’t supposed to have.”

He smiled and tipped his spatula from his brow. “Anytime, Emma.”

I couldn’t help but smile back. Shaking my head I turned and followed after the soldier. He was about a foot taller than me and took such long strides that I had to work to keep up with him.

“In the future,” he said when I had caught up to him, “please refrain from bothering the workers. We like to give them minimal distractions.”

“Sorry,” I said to the back of his head. “He didn’t seem bothered by me.”

We approached a large tent.

“He wouldn’t say that he was, would he?” he said, shooting me a look from the corner of his eye. “That would be quite rude, now wouldn’t it?”

“Like you’re a proper judge of that,” I said under my breath.

He stood to the side so I could enter the tent first.

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing at all,” I said before entering.

“Emma.” Mom’s voice carried across the large tent. “Over here.” It was full of people eating at long tables. I walked over and sat in a chair next to her.

“Would you like some breakfast?” she said, putting a plate in front of me.

“No, I’m okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Good morning, Emma,” said Father from across the table. “I hope you slept well.”

“I did, thank you.”

“Good. We want you refreshed for the start of your training today.”

I nodded. “I am.”

“Excellent.”

The soldier that came to find me walked up to the table and cleared his throat.

“In case you two haven’t been formally introduced,” Father said, indicating him, “Emma, this is Dresden Stone. He is the commanding officer of our troops. He will be conducting your training.”

“Great,” I said. It was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes and sighing.

“Are you ready, Miss Larnex?” Dresden said.

“Sure,” I said, ungluing myself from the chair.

“Then shall we get started?”

He gave the table a slight bow and turned to leave.

“I don’t think he ever learned the art of suggestion,” I said, hugging Mom. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay, honey,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “Take care.”

I gave my father a wave and followed after Dresden again.

* * *

“Okay,” I said, trying to break the silence that loomed over us while we walked. “So what exactly am I going to be learning? How to save people from a burning building? Maybe how to negotiate with terrorists? Oh, or how to take a bullet for the king?”

“Look,” Dresden said, whipping around to face me.

I had to throw myself back a bit to keep from colliding with him.

“This is no time to be joking,” he said. “There are lives on the line at this very moment and if you don’t get your act together those lives will be lost.”

“Hey,” I said, refusing to take any more crap from him. “Joking is what I do to keep from stressing out. Do you want me to collapse into dry heaves and fall apart at your feet? Because that is exactly what I will do if I don’t try to keep myself calm.”

He looked surprised by my reply.

“I’m sorry if you’re not used to the person I am,” I said. “But I don’t like being kept in the dark. I’m trying to figure out what the hell you people are expecting from me, while also trying not to have a nervous breakdown. I don’t have any skills or training or experience in this stuff whatsoever so I’m a bit edgy right now. My bad.”

He stared at me for a second longer. “Well, if you could show a little restraint and patience you will find out in due time.”

He turned back around and started walking again.

I followed after him, having to jog a little to keep up. I tried to be as cooperative as I could. I figured the best way was to keep quiet and try not to annoy him. The thing was I couldn’t be quiet if my life depended on it.

“Do you not like me or something?” I said after about three minutes of biting my tongue. I could see his shoulders tense at the sound of my voice. But I really didn’t care. “I mean, you can tell me if you don’t,” I said. “Even though I think I’m pretty easy to get along with I am used to people not liking me.”

“Can you not be quiet at all?” Dresden said, surely dreading the answer.

“No,” I said. “I’m sure I don’t talk in my sleep or anything, but when I’m awake being quiet is pretty much not an option for me.”

“I suggest you learn to make it an option very quickly.”

“I’ll try to do that,” I said, waving to Oak when we passed by his stand.

He waved his spatula and smiled his big grin. A man sitting at his stand looked at us as we passed. I let a couple more minutes trickle by in silence.

“It’s my hair isn’t it?” I said, not able to let the quiet last any longer.

“What?” he said, looking at me very obviously confused.

“My hair,” I said again as if the repetition clarified everything. “It creeps you out, doesn’t it?”

He glanced at my head. “It’s strange. But I’d imagine it’s something that will become less so over time.”

“It totally will, I swear,” I said, trying to keep the friendliness going.

“Emma,” someone called.

I looked around while we passed through the cul-de-sac of tents toward the back wall.

“Viper,” I said, not able to keep the smile off my face.

He walked toward us. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You, too,” I said. “When did you get here?”

“Earlier this morning,” he said. “I’m glad everything worked out for you guys getting here. Although I hear it wasn’t without incident.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” I said, remembering the soldier’s knife arm. I put my hand to my neck.

Dresden cleared his throat from where he waited a few feet away.

“He likes to do that,” I said to Viper.

“Yes, I know,” Viper said. “Hey, Dresden. It’s been a while.”

“Amest,” he said with a nod. “Sorry to break up the reunion, but this really isn’t the best time to catch up with each other.”

I frowned. He didn’t look sorry at all.

“Right, well, I’ll see you later,” Viper said, looking back at me. “Good luck with your first day of training.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll see you later?”

“Of course,” he touched my arm.

I could feel my cheeks prickle so I turned and walked toward Dresden. He walked toward the back gate.

I saw a small doorway in the gate as we came closer to it. Dresden put his hand on it and pushed it open. He held it open for me to pass through. I did, then stopped and looked around. Other than the guard stationed to the side of the door, all I could see was dense forest and some sort of stone structure rising above the trees in the distance. Dresden closed the door to the gate and walked forward into the forest.

There wasn’t as much snow on the ground as there was near the lake. The trees still had all of their leaves so I figured they were blocking a good amount of it. I watched the branches sway as a gust of wind blew through the tree tops. It tickled my face.

“It…” I said with hesitation. I wasn’t sure if what I wanted to say was going to sound strange. “It smells really good here.”

“Hmm,” Dresden nodded. “It’s the trees.”

After a few seconds he looked at me. “What do they smell like to you?”

The question was so strange, but for some reason it also felt like a very personal question. I could feel my cheeks turn a little pink.

“I’m sorry,” he said, whipping his head forward. “It’s not my place to ask.”

“No,” I said when his pace started to quicken. I grabbed his arm involuntarily.

He looked at my hand in surprise. I let go of it so fast you would have thought he had turned to fire.

“Sorry,” I said. “I—I didn’t mean to do that.”

His pace slowed down again.

“It’s okay,” he said in a much nicer voice than I thought he was capable of.

“I wanted to tell you that I didn’t mind the question. It smells…”

Another gust of wind blew through and I breathed in the scent more deeply this time. I smiled as a few snowflakes landed on my cheek.

“It smells like comfort.”

He gave me a sideways look. “Comfort has a smell?”

“As of now, yes, I believe it does,” I said, looking him straight in the eye.

“Hmm,” he said, walking on.

I hesitated for a moment but figured he’d probably be okay with the question. “What does it smell like to you?”

He frowned. “I don’t remember.”

“Pinpointing the smell is difficult before you lose it,” I said with a nod. “It’s like trying to remember a dream—”

“That’s not exactly it,” he said. “I haven’t been able to smell the trees in a very long time.”

I didn’t quite understand what he was saying.

“Can you not smell things?”

He rolled his eyes and rapped the top of my head lightly with his knuckle. I was thrown for a loop at how familiar the action was but couldn’t help but smile at it.

“My sense of smell is in perfect working order,” he said, not able to hold back the grin on his face. “It’s the trees in particular that I can’t smell anymore. If you smell something for too long you become accustomed to it and can no longer differentiate it from other smells.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling a bit dumb but more saddened for his loss of the fragrance. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll be able to smell them again one day.”

He looked around at the trees. I could tell that it was something he dearly missed.

“I’ll tell you what they smell like to me at that time.”

I couldn’t recall a bigger smile than the one that spread across my face at those words.

“Deal,” I said.

He cleared his throat and directed his attention forward again. In no time at all we reached the stone structure I had seen earlier over the top of the trees. It turned out to be a wall.

“This is the outer wall of Castle Larnex,” Dresden said, jumping on the change of subject. We edged along the side of it. “It encloses the main castle as well as the market place. The gates are open from sun up to sun down to anyone who has business to attend to in the market or the castle. It has to be specially requested for the gates to be opened at any other time and will only be granted for good reason.”

We approached the front entrance where various people were walking in and out of the gates on a dirt road.

“Please wrap this around your hair and head,” he said, pulling a black scarf out of his jacket pocket.

I took it from him.

“We do not need to draw too much attention to you at this point.”

“Right,” I said, tugging at a strand of hair that had fallen over my shoulder. I wrapped the scarf over my head, around my hair, and tucked it into my jacket so it wouldn’t fall off. I pushed in the loose strands around my face.

“Good,” he said. He walked toward the gates.

The closest thing I could compare the market to back home was a fair. Everything from blankets to vegetables was being sold. The unusual thing was that a lot of the time instead of selling something tangible that one simply walked away with, quite often people were selling their talents instead—not for the buyer to take, but for the seller to make an appointment to come to the buyer.

One man was selling his ability to communicate with animals. A woman was making an appointment for him to come to her house and to get rid of the mice that kept eating her grain. A lady was selling her talent to grow plants quicker and bigger than usual. She was also selling oversized vegetables, fruits, and flowers.

There were people using their strength to lift things others couldn’t. There were various food stands, metal works, and glass shops. People sold their ability to teleport objects. A lady used her telekinesis to form a one-person band. I swore I saw a man selling his ability to sprout extra limbs, although I wasn’t quite sure what this particular ability could be used for. I was so distracted by the sight of him growing two more arms out of his ribcage that I ran into a girl setting up a tent.

“Ow,” I said, falling to the floor. The girl spun around at the surprise of having someone bounce off of her.

“I am so sorry,” she said, reaching out to help me up.

“It’s okay,” I said, taking her hand. “It was my fault. I’m the one that’s sorry.”

“Please try not to be a nuisance to everyone around you,” said Dresden.

“I’ll try,” I said, doing my best not to stick my tongue out at him.

The girl was staring at my left hand as she held it.

“Um, thank you,” I said to her.

“You’re welcome,” she said, shaking her head and letting go of my hand.

She discreetly looked at Dresden’s left hand as it perched on his hip while waiting. She chuckled and looked at me again.

“At least it’s not a nuisance you are to him,” she whispered with a wink.