Eyes in the Water

  EYES IN THE WATER

  THE PARTING BREATH SERIES

  BOOK 2

  MONICA LEE KENNEDY

  Copyright © 2016 Monica Lee Kennedy

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed by Smashwords

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  Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  For Mama, my kind and constant encourager.

  And a special thanks to my husband, Katy, Marianne, Dani, my editor Bridget, and my generous, thoughtful beta readers.

  To view a map of the world, please visit www.monicaleekennedy.com

  Table of Contents

  Glossary

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  Glossary

  Alatrice - Brenol and Darse’s home world

  benere - goodwill, goodness, seeking betterment for self and others

  cartess - fate of a person

  cartontz - protector of nurest

  digit - unit of measurement equivalent to the width of a finger

  drale - currency in Alatrice

  frawnish - winged people living in Granoile

  freg - unit of currency

  Genesifin - book of fate

  gortei - oath of protection given to Massada that makes the person taking it a guardian

  greno - unit of currency

  hete - first summer

  hitze - second summer

  juile - race typically found in Selet where they are fully visible

  lunitata - race of people who emanate light

  lugazzi - neutral land between terrisdans and surrounding Lake Ziel

  malitas - evil spirit attacking Massada

  maralane - lake-people who live in Lake Ziel

  matrole - unit measuring distance

  nurest - person with special connection to a particular terrisdan

  orbit - unit of time (equivalent to a year)

  pedasse - juile footprints

  polina - law enforcement

  raptili - reptiles in Alatrice

  scrutar - tax collector in Alatrice

  sealtor - mail deliverer

  sealtoz - post office

  septspan - seven days

  soumme - spouse

  spherisol - ball used for heating and light by the Tindel

  Stronta, Veri - the two moons of Massada

  tenralily - flower with fabled pods of healing

  terrisdan - tract of land in Massada, thirteen total

  The Three - Abriged (Eye), Tofinaol (Hand), Ceriton (Voice)

  umburquin - race typically found in Selenia

  visnati - race typically found in Garnoble

  CHAPTER 1

  Fear shall squeeze them all. Not one shall be spared its grip.

  -Genesifin

  Arista dove down, driving her body with speed and force, as though her arms could push through the approaching earth as easily as cloud, but in the last second she righted her stance and lit upon the soil with a padded shoe. Her obsidian wings hastily closed around her, and her tiny frame shivered in the darkness.

  Veri was out, and its soft light landed upon the icy crust, giving it a kinder appearance than it deserved.

  Bountyless freeze, Arista thought as she surveyed the land. Her eyes watered in the chill, and she was forced to squint—even with her sharp avian vision—to catch what little there was to be seen.

  A matrole or less ahead, as the land rounded and met a forest, she discerned a small flicker of light. Dying embers? Her heart pounded.

  She dared not lift in flight, and not simply because the air was sucking her body of all warmth, so she darted swiftly down the slight hill.

  No cover. I feel like a worm in a crow’s nest.

  Arista arrived at the campsite, where the smells of smoke and ash barely lingered. She stood silently and looked around. Her labored breath frosted the air and all was motionless, but her neck prickled uncomfortably, as though eyes sought her from behind the trees’ cover. She turned her attention to the ground.

  A soft curse fell from her lips.

  Too late.

  She crept forward on the balls of her feet toward a clump of bracken, rent within at the sight before her. She knelt beside the lifeless body, heedless of the damp snow that seeped through her clothing.

  “Oh, Ferita.”

  She lifted the limp arm and drew it to her chest but then nearly dropped the limb in surprise. It was hot, like the temperature of Caladia rains before the icing. With furrowed brow, Arista drew the fingers up to her cheek and let them rest upon her face for a brief moment. The hand was now so dark that she almost imagined the fingertips leaving streaks like coal pencils across her brown features.

  As she sat beside the blackened corpse, the wind returned with renewed force, and Arista became all too aware of the sodden garments on her already frozen frame. She stood and shook her legs to life, cursing again.

  It was then that her breath caught sharply in her throat.

  Dangling from the frazik trees, not forty steps into the forest, hung an array of bodies, swaying gently as the wind issued through, like clothing on a line. There were at least ten, no, twelve of them. They were suspended about a man’s height from the earth, but the cords binding them extended up into the highest boughs, as high as eighty gartere.

  Cold forgotten, she toed timidly closer and nearly screamed.

  They were children.

  Her chest tightened in horror.

  Suddenly, a familiar sound drew her attention, and a frawnite with mahogany hair and bronze-brown skin lit upon the earth, curling his golden wings behind him. His chest heaved, and he met Arista’s glance with a steely resolve, rubbing his arms with his thick hands. She exhaled in momentary relief; perhaps Hetia would know what to do.

  The male frawnite had barely surveyed the scene before he drew his blade from its hidden sheath on his left leg. The knife was about half a hand span long and curved like a hook, and it glinted cruelly in Veri’s light. He made as if to step forward toward the first body, hesitated, then re-sheathed the sharp steel. “No,” he muttered to himself, his voice stern and unfeeling. “Even the rope must be destroyed.”

  Arista felt a new chill run through her. She stared wide-eyed at her companion, mouth agape.

  “Do not stand idly, Arista. Use your blade. We have work ahead.” At this, Hetia backed from the thick, ran, and thrust himself into the air. His wings gave the familiar thwomp thwomp as he labored his body to the skies. After achieving a decent height, he arched his sunflower-yellow spread back toward the forest and circled before lighting down upon one of the fraziks. He fought his way through the dense branches and lowered his frame to a rope-girded limb.

  “Are you really planning to stand there?” Hetia yelled down. “Think, Arista.”

  Arista saw the flash of metal as Hetia again unsheathed his curved blade. It sliced cleanly through the rope—the frawnite’s weapon was lethally sharp—and the child tumbled to the earth with a soft thud.

  Arista observed numbly. The boy could not have known more than eight orb
its. His head was matted with what had once been luxurious oaken curls, some of which now stuck to his blanched face. His eyes, a heathery blue, stared at her under half-drawn lids. A sturdy rope left deep furrows in the little neck, visible even in the dim light.

  Bodies then fell like rain.

  Arista watched Hetia spring from tree to tree. Like a squirrel, she thought absently, keeping her eyes glued to him until he completed the last cut.

  All around her, a morgue of children—yes, twelve—lay in awkward heaps, some staring, some face-down. The oldest was likely no more than eleven orbits. A low moan filled the glade. It was an eerie and terrifying sound, and it took her several moments to realize that it issued from her own lips.

  Hetia returned to the ground. “Come, come.”

  He settled Arista upon a fallen log after brushing away the three digits of snow blanketing it. The frawnite then stepped out of the woods and began to furrow out a deep, massive pit using sticks and stones and even his own thick hands. Eventually, he lined the base with what dry lumber he could scavenge and unpocketed a small tinder box. It was a grueling task with his numb and aching fingers, but eventually the sparks lit and the little flame grew. As he added more fuel, choking gray smoke billowed up. Arista stared dumbly at the enterprise.

  The flames rose steadily until a tremendous blaze licked the sky. Only then did Hetia begin to haul the limp bodies to the fire. Little hands and feet splayed out amidst the mountain of flesh, and their clothing made a patchwork of color against their blanched skin until it curled and caught. As the meat seared and began to roast, a rich aroma filled the glade. Hetia did not pause as he added Ferita to the pile. Her feathers sparked quickly and shriveled in the heat like tissue paper.

  Arista hardly noticed when she vomited.

  Hetia eventually returned to her side. He rubbed her thin limbs with his now warm hands and coaxed her closer to the fire. She allowed him, although the mound of hot flesh only further glazed her eyes.

  It was just before dawn, as light pinked the sky but the sun hung back, when Arista finally found herself shaking, weeping.

  “How could you?”

  Her mind still reeled from seeing the tiny scorched bodies over which he had flung the rich forest soil. The charred scent clung to her nostrils and refused to leave. She knew it never would.

  Hetia drew his strong arm back and brought it down with a stinging slap. Arista recoiled, her cheek smarting and her eyes bulging with shock.

  “Are you a fool?” Hetia rumbled. His voice was powerful but controlled. “Can you not see what is before you? Open your eyes, Arista. It was not a human that strung up those children.”

  He looked around, pensive. “Something is going on here that I don’t understand.” He met her glance, his expression firm. “But I see what can happen. And I don’t want a war. Don’t you realize how this could end us all?”

  Arista inhaled slowly. She purposefully peered about as though she had just entered the glade. Her heart still thundered from the blow, and she cradled her cheek in her palm, but the pain was better than the cloudy stupor that had previously wrapped her. She forced herself to close her eyes and sort through her memories of the night’s events, however terrible.

  The frawnite had been black, seared by the gruesome death of the black fever. And the little children… They had swayed gently like ornaments on strings.

  I don’t see it.

  Well look again, Arista, she told herself. Or you’re going to get another smack.

  She glanced around the forest yet again.

  Oh.

  Arista turned to Hetia. “You can’t really think that Ferita did this? She was clearly sick with the fever…” Her voice trailed off in question.

  Hetia bore his eyes into hers. “She was the only winged person for matroles. And certainly the only frawnite missing from Caladia.”

  Again, Arista scraped her vision across the limbs where the bodies had hung. They towered above the ground. The boughs would have been nearly impossible for a creature of the land to reach. Arista shuddered as she finally drew the conclusion Hetia had within moments.

  “But she would never,” Arista said in horror.

  Hetia shrugged. “I didn’t say I understood. I just know how men would see it.”

  “But now what?” Arista asked. She felt more a fledgling than a grown frawnite.

  “We all but cut off our tongues.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Hetia interrupted, thrusting a finger toward her face. “No. There is enough misunderstanding between our peoples. Your wagging tongue need not be the start of a conflict or—bounty forgotten—a war. No. You will clamp your mouth tight or I will clamp it for you.”

  “But their families…” Arista’s eyes slid to the meticulously concealed grave. The hushed creak, creak of the burdened ropes still resounded in her ears.

  “Not a word.” His face softened for a moment. “At least do it for Ferita. I know she was almost a sister to you. The shame that this would bring to Relakita… Would you do that to her?”

  Hot tears pooled in Arista’s eyes.

  Hetia’s voice hardened again. “And don’t for a moment think of telling that juile of yours. Do not let your little wings flick a feather toward that invisible fool, or I will give you more than just a slap.” His face flushed in determination and anger. “Not a word.”

  Arista’s shoulders sank forward, and she wept.

  CHAPTER 2

  To be as one with the world, one must first be as one within.

  This is the first mastery, and the last.

  -Genesifin

  The pool was now a paltry, unlit spit of water, but it remained Brenol’s only link to Massada and all he loved. It haunted his dreams and accosted him with desire. Though he waited for the concealing hand of darkness, Brenol had crept to Darse’s abandoned home and the subterranean pool every single night since he had returned to Alatrice.

  Tonight was no different. The young man hauled the cellar door open with large hands and breathed in the sugary cool. Even after the passage of four orbits, the place still poured over him with a reassuring calm, easing away the trials of the days and septspan and moons. He paused and drank it in before descending into the dark chill.

  Brenol lowered the door behind him with both the strength of his age and the agility of a long-practiced motion and stepped down to the water’s edge. The canal remained, so he knew the portal was open, but it was not the same tunnel he had first seen. The lights had dimmed and eventually extinguished, and the magic of the place seemed hazy, like smoke billowing from the wick of a recently extinguished candle. Yet still he came. Nothing could deter him from returning to the cellar to breathe and seek solace.

  His face had matured and lengthened over the orbits, and muscular arms and legs had replaced the lean limbs of adolescence. The coppery crop was now maintained in a straight slice just past his shoulders, mimicking the style of the Veronians. He wore it secured with a small band tied at the nape of the neck, though wisps escaped as they met the humidity of the pool. The dark jade eyes still sparked with interest, although now they seemed to house more mystery—and perhaps pain—than those of the other young men of Alatrice.

  Brenol tapped his fingers lightly against his thigh, coding out his thoughts. He had ceased to reach for Arman’s beaded string long ago, after meeting so many raised eyebrows, yet loath to allow any piece of Massada to slip away from him, he had instead simply carried the pursuit on in silence.

  Steeling himself, he unshod his feet and waded out into the frigid water until his chest was wet and dark. He quivered in the cool yet lowered his head under the screen. Just dipping his toes into the pool was never enough.

  Brenol inhaled sharply as he surfaced, his lips already purpled. The water had chilled with each passing orbit, though he could not discern why. Long ago, Isvelle’s servant Gerard had called Lake Ziel the heart of Massada. It pumped life and warmth amidst the world of ice that surrounded the terrisdan
s. But if the heart was growing cold—what then?

  He shivered despite himself, thinking of Colette. The aurenal worked, although Colette was forced to trek to the Pearia every time she wished to use it. It meant every message was a gem. The first few moons after his return, communication was frequent. Colette, taking her pony, journeyed the space to the river regularly and would often spend several days waterside, speaking easily about her life and Veronia. But within the season, the young woman grew quiet, and messages now arrived only every three or four septspan. She refused to breathe a word about the happenings in Massada, even when pressed. If he persisted with questions, the aurenal would be silent for a time, and when her voice returned, it was only to share pleasantries.

  How he had thrown himself into his labors after such encounters! He had no control, and he felt it down to the tips of his toes. Work had become a consolation. There, he could drive his body to the point of exhaustion, even if he could never forget his discouragement.

  Brenol wondered what could be stealing her speech. He feared for her and yearned to know what troubled her, and not simply because of his own spurned heart. He loved her and longed to make her world right. At the same time, the enigma of his gortei, his oath of protection, was an ever-present reality. It loomed upon his future, hovering like a vulture patiently biding its time, observing its approaching feast. He felt the burden of the gortei with each breath taken. His life was not his own.

  Brenol rose quivering from the pool, yet lingered up to his shins in the icy water. He unpocketed the aurenal and with adept hands flipped the clasp and cupped the silver instrument to his ear. He inhaled in anticipation. It was never a surety that a message would be waiting.

  A soft voice escaped the piece. “Bren…it’s time. Come. Please.” She paused and then continued with uncharacteristic distress, “I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s only getting worse. Please come back.” The message concluded as simply as it had begun, but her strained tone tarried in the passage for the space of a breath.

  What could be wrong? She’s refused to answer my questions for orbits. He felt bitterness wash over him. Even now she speaks in riddles.