Sparks (20 page)

“Here, you haven’t eaten.” She walked to Jasper and pulled a small bit of bread and cheese wrapped in a piece of fabric from one of her saddle bags. I suddenly remembered it was the first time I hadn’t eaten breakfast in a long while, and I hadn’t even noticed.

“How long do you have?” I asked her once I had eaten several bites of food.

“Not long. An hour or two. Mathias is meeting with Lheda, and usually they don’t last very long.”

“Avis said you had to work to earn his trust.” I said, suddenly reminded of my worst fear and hoping she would put it to rest.

“Yeah, he trusts me some now. Enough to let me go on a morning ride into the city when he’s away. But if he ever found out about you–”

“I know.”

“Avis didn’t tell you, did he?” she asked nervously.

“He told me about the Affinity.”

“No, not that. He didn’t tell you about my Spark.”

“Uh, no. I mean, I know you’re a Puffer.” I realized then that she had been wearing red coverings, the color for Strikers.

She nodded, confirming my suspicion.

“Puffer and a Striker?” I wasn’t all that surprised. After all, I had two aspects to my own Spark.

She held out her hand a produced a three-inch flame for a moment before letting the breeze take it away. Without so much as a change in expression from her, the water of the river suddenly stopped flowing, just stuck in place as if it had frozen instantly. I looked over at the sudden, eerie quiet after listening to its rushing noise. A moment later, it continued running past as if nothing had happened.

“And a Drifter?”

The soil beneath me began to give way, and my whole body began to sink until I was sitting in a hole a few inches deep. “And a Shaker?” It couldn’t be possible. No one had that many abilities from their Spark.

“Anything else I should know about?” I teased her.

She looked into her hands in her lap and swallowed roughly. I couldn’t imagine why she should be so shy, but there wasn’t anything she could say that would change anything. I put my hand over both of hers hoping to steady her a bit.

“It’s alright. Tell me.”

Instead of saying anything, she climbed into my lap and wrapped her legs around me, squeezing me tightly. She was shaking, despite her light jacket, so I wrapped my arms around her and tried to keep her warm against my chest.

“Hey, don’t worry, Ladybird. You can tell me,” I whispered. It was a name my father reserved for my mother on special occasions. It was one of the most comforting things anyone had ever said, and I hoped it had the same effect for her.

She never did actually tell me, though she never really had to. My thoughts filled with an image from the Moonwater, though not the one I had seen for the last few years. Instead, I saw myself, as someone else would see me, standing across the room and wearing a green, silk shirt, holding the hand of a dark-haired girl. In an instant, I realized it was how she experienced that same moment that had occupied my thoughts for so long.

In an instant, the image switched to one of a dirty, skinny boy with dark hair and torn clothes walking towards her in the back of a cart and thinking how much he wanted to protect her. Of course it had been me, immediately determined to keep her safe.

Next was a boy who wanted to throw her naked in the snow before I managed to permanently damage his face, nearly killing him.

She had heard our thoughts.
You’re a Reader.

I instantly froze as I considered what it meant. She could hear my thoughts, hear every ounce of desire I felt for her at that moment, sense how much I wanted to keep her safe. She knew how often I had thought about her in the Oakwick and the Andover. She had witnessed my every frustration, experienced every moment of shame.

My thoughts spiraled until I realized she could hear them now as well and was probably terrified of my response. I was definitely shocked–and less than pleased to have my weakest moments exposed to the person I cared about most.

Other than that, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Either way, she deserved my support, just as Micha had supported me when he found out.
There are worse things.

She picked up her head off my shoulder and leaned in to kiss me again, placing both hands against my cheeks and pulling me up towards her. After a moment, she whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said with a smile as I kissed her back. Her mouth fell to kiss and suck lightly along my neck, but I had to push her back a bit before I got ahead of myself. She was running out of time. I couldn’t let her ruin things with Mathias and risk never seeing her again.

“There’s enough time.” She smiled mischievously as she stood and pulled me towards a small grove of trees near the end of River Street. The movement of her hips in those brown pants all but hypnotized me as we entered the bit of woods, and she shook them just to tease me. Maybe Avis had been right about the Affinity. There was no way there was any man happier than I was at that moment.

~~~~~~~~~~

Walking Obsidian lazily back to the school grounds, I was aware of a permanent wide grin on my face but did little to try to hide it. My morning with Khea left no doubt about our future and reignited my decision to have her with me for the rest of our lives. Once I felt confident in that aspect, I decided it was time to finish Round Nine and make sure I was ready for what lay ahead in Nakbe.

It was earlier than I would have thought when I flopped lazily into bed and searched out Micha, quickly finding him but still unable to fully connect the thread. I wondered what he was thinking, but I already knew his feelings towards Iseut left little room for anything else. I imagined he thought about her dark hair and deep brown eyes, her long legs and gifted abilities as a Tracker. A picture of her crouched and looking at a torn branch from a small bush came to mind, how she concentrated on the trail and could sense what animal had passed there.

I suddenly realized that I had no memory of such an event; it must have come from Micha. When I checked the thread, it was connected, though very weak within the space of the charm. I couldn’t get the clear thoughts and emotions I was used to, but it was there.

I ran towards Latinia’s Library and found Micha flipping through several books with little interest.

“Hey, Lark.”

“It’s Iseut, crouching by a hawthorne bush. That’s your memory of her.”

Micha smiled and, even in the dimness of the library, his cheeks colored a little. Without another word, he handed me the copper bracelet and opened up the memory to me fully.

“I guess I won’t be needing this anymore,” he said with a smile. Once I had the mental faculties to concentrate, it hadn’t really been all that difficult.
Why didn’t I do this years ago?

“Thanks Micha. I couldn’t have done it without you.” I clapped him on the shoulder and ran back to my room. There was one more person I wanted to take a crack at.

Breakthrough

Lying in bed, I searched the grounds for one of the few people I couldn’t read. It took only a moment to find Avis reading in the gardens, encircled by a large protective bubble. I had been right to think that Micha had been too easy; Avis’s bracelet was much stronger and gave him a larger area that pushed me away.

But I had done it with Micha, and I would do it with Avis, too. He had read my thoughts for years and it was finally time to even the odds.

Over and over again, I sent my thread out to him, testing all sides of the impenetrable space and meeting resistance at every step. After a while, I could sense he was amused at my attempts; he could sense my effort and relished that I was finally making progress.

I realized if I could sense him sensing me, then I was getting somewhere. I continued to prod and push until he was outright laughing, and the wall slowly began to wear away. I was doing it, though I wasn’t entirely sure how; his thoughts were becoming exposed.

Even with the small glimpse I could get, Avis’s memories and thoughts flooded down the thread like a tsunami wave, slamming into me with enough force that I shot up out of bed. He had several lifetimes worth, from his own years and those of the people he’d read. I could start to visualize where he grew up, his experiences at school, why he hated Lheda, and why he had been so cryptic during our years together. As the wall of the charm was slowly worn away, Avis began to make a lot more sense.

He had been plucked from a small village in Hurgada, hungry and desperate–as most Hurgadans were back then. He was raised in a house that was remarkably even more tattered than my own; it was a marvel they had been able to live there at all. His mother and younger sister survived only because he was picked up by a Tracer to attend school, though his time there was difficult. He was the first Reader at Myxini, and without a mentor to guide him, he spent a decade teaching himself to effectively read the thoughts of others.

Lheda had been at school with him, a pretty blonde with skills with time. She had been the first Turner and had struggled to teach herself to use her Spark as well. It had been the common bond that brought them together.

The moment that changed things for Avis was the Moonwater Festival during his fifteenth summer. It was a small event back then, but the moon still held that magic. Lheda wore a charming, yellow dress that matched her blonde curls, and she made a man of him. I remembered he had told me a little about the Moonwater before, but I hadn’t made the connection that it had been Lheda who went with him. He fell in love with her that night, and his Spark sensed that she felt the same for him.

By the time they were ready to demonstrate their skills, Lheda and Avis had come up with a plan to feed Hurgada and make Madurai a wealthy nation. There would be a trade, iron from Hurgada for food from Madurai. Avis was excited about the trade, eager to help families that starved as his had. His family was lucky to receive coin in exchange for his enrollment, but many others weren’t so fortunate.

He arranged a meeting with King Kumo of Hurgada, a large man with a slim figure and sparse grey hairs on his chin. Avis was in a unique position to determine his particular motivations, and eventually convinced him to ask for the deal. Kumo had been reluctant, too proud and too stubborn, but ultimately, he conceded to the hunger of his people. The memory was fused with admiration for the man, a king who suffered as his people did and took the proper action to take care of them.

But that was decades ago.
Without an answer, Avis’s memories continued to race along the thread, getting faster and stronger.

Avis traveled back to Hubli in just under a month, excited to see Lheda and see their plan achieved. But before he met with Argon, Lheda had changed her mind. By then, she had acquired a charmed copper bracelet, and he wondered what had changed. She told him she suspected the Hurgadans would attack Madurai once they were satisfied, eager for more food and healthy enough to take it.

When Kumo requested a deal with Madurai, Avis was there to encourage Argon to turn it down. He hadn’t really believed in the alteration to the plan, but he loved Lheda and he trusted her. She hadn’t listened when he warned her Hurgada would still count on the food, and would become aggressive if the deal fell through. When Argon turned it down, Kumo led a naval attack, desperate to fulfill his promise to his people. Unfortunately, they were too weak from starvation to stand a chance, many of them being killed, including Avis’s mother. After Hurgada had been left without its feeble manpower, Argon seized his opportunity and took Hurgada with serious casualties, mostly on the Hurgadan side. When the Madurian army attacked, Avis’s sister was killed as well.

Avis spent a few months in Hurgada to bury his sister and mourn the loss of her and his mother, whose body he never found. On return to Hubli and excited to see Lheda, he learned she had met someone else. A new Turner was working his way through the program, and she had been helping him learn to use his Spark. Aside from his ability with time, Mathias was raised in the king’s court and the heir to a wealthy family in Takla Maya. The Affinity bonded him to Lheda, and her to him, but the bracelet blocked Avis from sensing it. She had loved Avis for a time, but the Affinity won over, and he became just a pawn to get Mathias into power. When Takla Maya attacked and killed Argon, there was no one better suited to leave in charge than the gifted young man who was trusted by the Mayan king.

For his part in Hurgada, Avis earned his black pendant for Readers, and he chose to have a white horse inlayed in pearl–though he hated what he had done for it.
At least now I know why you never wear it.
Avis never told Lheda how much he despised her for her part in destroying Hurgada and his family, or how devastated he felt for going along with her. Instead, he secretly vowed to keep her from her goals, no matter how long it took.

Why stay?
I wondered.
Why would you stay here with Lheda all this time when you hate her so much?

Avis read my thoughts and brought up his own memory of Lheda with a yellow pendant. She had mastered the art of time, and held herself as a constant while others moved along around her. She would not age, nor change, nor sicken with years or die as long as she plucked at her own string of time. She found Mathias’s string shortly after and pulled him along with her, so they could have generations of life together and more than enough time to earn truly great power. And because Avis’s Spark was so unique and valuable to her, Lheda pulled him along as well. He was trapped in a body that was no longer who he was, and he would live forever with the guilt of his actions. Until Lheda released him, he would have thousands of years to mourn his family.

By the time I arrived at Myxini, Avis had more than seventy five summers, though he didn’t look older than twenty or so. I hadn’t thought about it, but he didn’t look any older compared to the day I met him in the common room.

In the years since he became a mentor, Lheda hoped Avis would be able to train another Reader to use as she used him–but he wouldn’t allow it. She had no idea that, with so many years to practice his skills, he had learned to read through the charmed bracelets she and Mathias wore; she didn’t know he could see her plans for me on the Nakbe Islands.