Wintermore (Aeon of Light Book 1) (6 page)

A cool draft hits Preta’s wet body and goose pimples form. She shivers, to cold to worry about the mark, she turns away from the mirror, wipes the water off with her hands, and finishes drying with a cloth. Preta slips on her tan sweater and charcoal baggy wool trousers. “Get up earlier, he says.
Humph
.” She dumps the milky bucket remnants into the trench and wraps the cloth around her long hair. Preta blows out the candle, kicks open the door, and tosses the buckets toward the well.

At the cottage, Deet packs his backpack as he sits next to the fireplace. “Hurry up, Preta, we need to get to town, we’re already late.”

Nala shoves a bowl of porridge into Preta’s hand. “Move faster, young lady.”

“All right, all right, all right.” In the bedroom, Preta dumps a spoonful of porridge into her mouth and places the bowl on a nightstand. She opens her pack and tosses in items:
ruler, charcoals, scraps of parchment, cloak,
and then she jams everything into a wadded ball and cinches the top.

“Come on, let’s go!” Nala says, smacking her palm on the doorframe.

Preta scurries through the cottage with backpack dangling from the crook of her arm.

Nala steps in front of Preta and hands her a wrapping of bread and an apple. “They’re already in the cart loaded up and waiting for you.”

“See yah.” Preta waves goodbye and opens the front door with a bump from her butt.

Yaz and Grandpa sit in the cart, waving their arms in heated argument.

“Let’s go,” Deet says to Preta from the other side of the yard.

“Coming!” Preta says. She plops her butt onto the wooden bench behind Yaz. “Sorry, I’m here.”

Grandpa flicks his head toward the gate marking the Penter property. “Getter movin’, Dee.”

Yaz, animated and excited, talks with his hands. “Anyway, so Dix, Chilt, and I decided to join the Iinian Guard next spring. It’s official.”

In deep thought, Deet puckers his lips. “Maybe it’ll be good for you.”

Grandpa pounds his fist on the wooden cart seat. “Pawns of liars-n-thieves, the lot of them—and givers of death, limps, and scars to boot.”

“Whatever,” Yaz says, “I gotta get out of this place. I’m no builder like the two of you. And the smell of this town makes me ill, saltwater and fish?
Please
—”

“
Ha
, get ready to be ill,
boyo
,” Grandpa says. “This work and smell is like sweet-smellin’ roses compared to what you’re lookin’ to get with the old Iinian.”

Deet cracks the reins. “Yaz, you’re only sixteen, you have time to learn the trade if you just apply yourself. And you know they’re building the rail to Waighton, it might be a good opportunity for you. If it doesn’t work out, the Iinian Guard will always be there for you.”

“Blades, arrows, and fighting are my skills, Brother, not hammers, measuring, and fish. Besides, the one day a month of conscriptive reserve isn’t enough to hone my brilliant skills with these pathetic amateurs.”

Grandpa snorts. “You’ll get honed all right, just like my bad hip, and the pain in my knee, and my locked wrist, and my crooked fingers. If honin’s what you want, honin’s what you’ll get.”

The sky brightens, and Preta counts the trees as they pass by. Birds sing, and Preta hums with the bouncing cart. The road widens as they pass through Nocklin Creek’s stone archway, and Preta blows a kiss at the boy cherub. On the bridge, she watches the rushing water flow over the large boulders below. Preta squints and leans over the cart as something out of place catches her eye. Snagged on a crooked branch, a red sash flutters in the creek’s currents.

“Preta, how are your studies coming?” Deet says.

“Oh, doing good, I guess.” Preta sits up and leans forward toward Deet.

“I can’t believe you’re thirteen and this is your last year—are you excited?”

“Not really, I kind of wish I wasn’t graduating so soon. School is okay, I guess, at least most of the time. But I don’t know what I’ll do next year yet, since I have to wait another two years before I can start at university.” She rocks her head side to side. “That is if I get excepted.”

Yaz slaps Deet on his shoulder. “Did you see the pictures she drew? Impressive.”

Preta smiles. “My teacher says I can study at the Art and Science Academy in Ardinia.”

“And how in the blazin’ bat brains are you gonna do that?” Grandpa says. “Whose gonna pay for it? And where will you live?”

“
Er
—
umm
—I don’t know. But Ms. Fallow said each township can put in for a special dispensation of admission for one student every year.”

Yaz reaches back and squeezes Preta’s knee. “Don’t worry, you can come with me to Ardinia, we’ll go together.”

“Shut up, fool,” Grandpa says. “You gonna take your sister to a barracks camp? Are you out of your mumpin’ mind? Might as well just hand her over to a pack of wolves.”

Deet tilts his head toward Preta. “Maybe, you never know, maybe you can even be our representative someday, but there’s also the Higher School in Bielston, maybe you can apply there.”

Grandpa waves his hand in disgust. “Dee, come on now, not you too, for cryin’ out loud, don’t fill her up with hope and dreams. Look, Preta my girl, you can try of course, and we’ll support you 100 percent, but those things just don’t go to the likes of us.”

Preta, defensive, talks with her hands. “I mean, I was just saying… Ms. Fallow said I have talent and I could go if I apply for the dispensation.”

Grandpa sighs. “Of course you have talent, you’re a Penter. But you’re also from a modest family on the farthest island in the Republic. You have a life here, a future, and you’re a pretty girl, maybe you can teach, or open a shop, or become a builder like your grandpa and brother.”

Preta’s shoulders slump. “Yeah, I guess so, I know, Gramps.”

Yaz swats the air. “Preta can still come with me if she wants to—bugger this fish-ridden place. A bore to death if you ask me.”

“Stubborn fool, nobody asked you,” Grandpa says.

Preta leans out the side of the cart to get a better view of Waighton approaching.

The road widens and transitions to fitted square stones as they enter the main Waighton thoroughfare.

Brightly colored pastel A-frame cottages and shops of all sizes line the streets. The black slate roofing tiles accentuate the motif. Multicolored flower gardens separate the black brick sidewalks and roads. White-and-black smoke billows out of the chimneys in linear columns. Flowers, fresh baking bread, the sea, and the soot, linger in the air. The streets are awake with men and women moving with purpose in all different directions. Storefront venders point and holler as horse-drawn carts cross men on bicycles dodging the pedestrians.

A burly, portly woman with a hairy mole above her upper lip pushes a worn grey wooden cart overflowing with coal. “Get your coal here, get your coal, get it before the freeze, supplies-a-short, prices only going up. Get your coal here, get your coal, running out fast.”

Deet raises his finger high above his head to catch the vender’s attention. “Coal, coal.”

The woman stops next to their cart. “Two coppers and a half a bucket.”

Deet’s eyes widen in shock. “Two and a half a bucket? You’ve got to be joking—since when? Last time it was only one copper a bucket.”

“Since supplies-a-short and winter is coming. What do you expect with all the steam and mechanical contraptions their building? You’re lucky I don’t charge four coppers, or even a silver nib.”

“Really?” Deet says.

“
Really
,” the woman says, not flinching. “Now do you want the coal or not? I’ve got good paying customers waiting.”

Deet snorts. “Fine, give me three.” He plops seven coppers and a half into the woman’s calloused, black hand.

The coal peddler smirks with a gleam in her eye. “Three it is.” The woman scoops the coal with a giant wooden scooper and dumps it into a large metal pail. “Where you want it?”

Deet frowns and flicks his head toward the back of the cart. “In the far left corner.” He leans over to Grandpa and whispers in his ear. “Damned two and a half coppers a bucket,
unbelievable
.”

Grandpa nods. “Like I been saying, times-a-changing.”

The woman dumps the last bucket into the back and slaps the cart twice with her palm. “You’re set—nice day to you.”

Deet ignores the woman and cracks the reins. “A silver nib—freakin’ unbelievable.”

The cart stops next to a gaggle of kids huddled outside a cobblestone building with an engraving of an inkwell above the door.

Preta hops off with her backpack in hand.

Deet leans over the rails. “Preta, meet us at the Meezer’s after your studies.”

“I will, no problem, see yah later.” She slithers past the gaggle with her head held low and enters a large classroom, black scuff marks streak the worn varnished wood.

The tall room, twenty-feet high knotty pine walls, brightens as a slender woman with mouse-like features, long glossy brown hair, thin spectacles, and wearing a light grey sweater and loose brown wool trousers, opens wood shutters letting in the light.

A large fire blazes in a six-foot-long fireplace at the back of the schoolhouse, and children of all ages carry wood in through the back door and stack it in a neat pile in the corner.

Preta sits at a small desk in front of a blackboard on rollers.

The children take their seats, and the teacher strolls by Preta.

“Good morning, Preta,” the teacher says in a friendly tone.

“Good morning,
Lur—uh
, Ms. Fallow.”

Ms. Fallow smiles, and her kind eyes beam. “I’m sorry you missed class yesterday and were sick. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, much better, thanks.”

Ms. Fallow gracefully glides to the front of the classroom. “Class, take your seats, and settle down.”

Preta taps a black-haired girl sitting next to her. “Hey, Kilsa.”

Kilsa tilts her head toward Preta. “Hey you, I heard someone tried to kill you in the Nocklin and a boy died.”

“
What
? Who told you?”

“The Detler boy first, and, well, everyone knows.”

Preta’s eyes bulge with anger, and she grabs Kilsa’s wrist. “How does everyone know?”

Ms. Fallow waves at Preta and Kilsa. “Girls, if you please, attention up front.”

They both snap up straight and look forward.

Ms. Fallow points at a chalkboard with lessons written on it. “Now, class, after the general lesson and practicals in specialties, thirteen-year-olds will pair up with eight-year-olds and study basic ciphering; twelve-year-olds will pair up with nine-year-olds and study arithmetic; and ten-and-eleven-year-olds self-study and complete the problems on the two blackboards. As for our general lesson today—any guesses? Anyone?” Ms. Fallow grins and raises her arms wide above her head. “Government!”

“
Uh
—” moans the class.

“Now, now, class.”

“
Uh
—” moans the class again.

“Now, nine-year-olds, who can tell me the forms of government represented throughout Vetlinue?”

Preta scans the room, and silence fills the void.

Ms. Fallow gives up and opens her arms. “All right, anyone in the class?”

“Of course, Clist,” Preta mutters out the corner of her mouth.

A medium-sized boy with a reddish pig nose and short, coarse, stringy auburn hair raises his hand. He sways his milky-skinned puffy arm in a circle, trying to get the teacher’s attention.

Ms. Fallow ignores him and gently taps her foot as if counting in her head.

The class is silent and no other student raises their hand.

Ms. Fallow glances from student to student. Her gaze searches for wandering eyes to connect with hers. The students stare in every direction but hers, trying to avoid the teacher’s trap.

Preta peers into the fire as she counts in her head, buying time before someone is caught.

A creak in the floorboards triggers Preta’s brain to peek at the noise.

Ms. Fallow stands with hands on hips right in front of Preta.

Preta panics.
She has me, shoot
.

“Preta,” Ms. Fallow says, “good. Now, what are the forms of government you know of in Vetlinue, and why is ours different?”

Preta sucks in a vocalized inhale. “Brenton is an island territory within the Republic of Iinia. Iinia is composed of representative elected officials from all the realms within the Republic.”

Ms. Fallow eagerly nods. “Yes,
and
?”

“The kingdom of Erden which is north of Iinia, has a constitutional king with a parliament and a system of lords. And the far northern kingdom of Lasteane is a phylarchy made up of three ancient families holding 25 percent of power each, and the elected army commander holds the other 25 percent.”

“Good
,
anymore?” the teacher says.

“There’s the western kingdom of Bastin across the Estrone Strait and Matar Mountains, which is sort of a republic made up of a patchwork of territorial states, but they still hold onto the lord system. And last there’s Asparsa, lying on the West Sea and west of the Creth Desert, but I don’t know much about them.”

Ms. Fallow nods excessively. “Correct, Preta, very good.” She opens her arms toward the class. “Would anyone else care to add anything more? No one? All right, class, as Preta explained—”

Preta’s eyes drift away from the blackboard and they lock onto the fire. Her mind wanders far from Ms. Fallow and government and back to the other night in the forest. She wonders where the boy and the woman came from.
From Iinia? Maybe Erden?
Her mind transitions back to Yaz’s offer to bring her to Ardinia with him. Excitement grows and her insides tickle at the thought of leaving Brenton with her brother and going to university to sculpt or write or act or paint.

Ms. Fallow taps the chalkboard with a long stick, snapping Preta from her dream. “Class, any questions? No? All right, start your individual practicals and in an hour get with your partners or continue your studies.”

The time passes in a blur, and Preta finishes her writing practical and then tutors ciphering and arithmetic to an eight-year-old. Class ends at midday, and Preta heads outside to meet up with Deet and the others for lunch.