“First the colors, then the humans, that’s how I see things, or at least how I try.
Here’s a small fact: You are going to die.”
-The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Author’s Note: This story is written in first person. It is not my typical means of storytelling and most or all of the rest of this collection will be written in third. However I had a particular reason for writing this piece in first. The protagonist of this story is non-binary trans. When they are older they will think of themself with they/them pronouns but this story takes place in their early childhood when they are too young, especially at the beginning, to have realized that the name and pronouns they were given do not fit them, or if they do realize, then too young to have replaced them with others more fitting. While some of the other characters use gendered language to refer to the protagonist, I did not want to misgender them in my narration, and so first person where “I” “me” and “my” remain happily genderless.
Additional Note: If you would prefer to read this story in ebook form you can do so here:
“Long ago, so long ago that this world still had a hundred names and no name at all, there lived a person known as ‘the wanderer.’ They had a real name, a name that was theirs and theirs alone but they told it to only a few for it was the name they called themself in the silence of their mind, the name that reminded them of who they truly were, and there were few who truly knew the wanderer. They had no family and few friends for they never stayed in one place long enough to have such things. In every city, and town, and land they came to they took a new name to become what that place needed them to become. They were like the world, having a hundred names and no name at all, for when they were spoken of in the songs of the see and the tales of the hearth, they were simply called ‘the wanderer’.”
-The Wanderer of Hanareyon: A Collection, Compiled by Yenara Kalarzkie
My earliest memories are of the prick of the needle as it slid into my arm, and the smell of the sterilizer they used in the infirmary, and the matron talking with one of the nurses. I don't remember exactly how the conversation started because I was distracted by the leather straps around my chest and legs, and around my wrist and elbow holding my arm out to the side. I think most children would have struggled at that age but I only remember testing the straps a little before giving up and listening. I guess by that time I had already gotten used to them.
“…glad you're more sensible than the last girl. She called it a tragedy.” That was the matron. Her voice always seemed too big for her, rich, and full, and commanding, not the sort of voice you'd expect from a woman who looked like she'd been modeled after a stick figure.
The nurse tutted in agreement. “Some of these young nurses have their heads so far in the clouds. Who do they think has the money to pay for all this?” She waved one hand through the air, taking in the glass capsule filled with inky black liquid, the fine tubing connecting it to the needle, the bed with its configuration of straps, and me. “The government, that's who.”
Matron nodded along in approval. “The government and no one else. Smartest thing the parents ever did, abandoning the child.”
My eyes drifted away from them, up to the infirmary ceiling, taking in the closely fitted boards and grain of the wood. Me, I could tell they were talking about me. Abandoned. It was a big word, three whole syllables. I wasn't sure exactly what it meant but Matron seemed to like it. That meant that it was probably something practical, Matron always loved being practical. I remember shaping the sounds of it silently on my lips: a-ban-doned, a-ban-doned. I was ‘ab-an-doned.’ Looking back I guess it's strange that I remember so many little details but even at that age-- I'm not really sure what age it was, two or three maybe? --I'd already learned the value of being still and quiet, the value of listening. Ironically that lesson was my greatest undoing, and the second biggest factor in shaping my life, after the magic.
“ ‘Do not go that way’ said the villagers. ‘Do not go into the mountains for there is some evil there and none who go that way ever return.’ Then the wanderer knew what had drawn them to the village and, taking leave of the villagers, they went up into the mountains and they followed path beside the river until they came to a cave. There was a light shining from that cave, blue and silver and beckoning. The wanderer knew they had found at last what they sought. In the time that wanderer lived there was no council to control the gates or to keep the balance of the worlds. It was possible to summon the gates as we do now, but without anyone one to watch for them, sometimes gates would simply grow, taking root and flowering in their own time, like a tree grown from some windblown seed. And so the wanderer passed into the cave and through the gate and into another world.”
-The Wanderer of Hanareyon: A Collection, Compiled by Yenara Kalarzkie
I was six when I finally found out what ‘abandoned’ meant. Usually one of the lower members of the house staff took me to my treatments but that day again something had come up and the job fell to Matron. She took me by the hand and led me toward the infirmary at a clip, and I had to hurry to keep up with her. The first part of the walk was silent. It was a gray rainy winter day and dark enough inside that Matron summoned her little yellow glow lights to circle around us, lighting the way as we passed through unused hallways. Even though I'd seen them plenty of times before I'd rarely been up close to them and I was too busy admiring how pretty they looked darting and weaving around Matron’s head to even consider talking. Then we passed by the front doors and I saw Jema and a woman in a pretty dress and a black haired man in a long coat, all standing by the door. I waved to Jema but my eyes were on the adults,. I didn't recognize either of them and that made me wary.
Jema waved back at me and the woman put her arm around her and pulled her away. The man tipped his tall hat to Matron before pulling the door open for all three of them. Jema hesitated for a moment, but the woman pulled at her again and Jema let herself be pulled out into the snow. I watched them go and the door shut behind them until I felt an impatient tug on my hand and realized that I’d stopped walking.
“Come.” Matron pulled at me again, and, much like Jema stepping into the snow, I too offered no resistance. Resistance means drawing attention to yourself and attention means trouble. Young as I was I’d already learned that lesson well.
Still, as I followed Matron down the hall to the infirmary I couldn’t help asking, “Who were those people with Jema?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Lisor, respectable people.” Matron answered without ever slowing or looking down at me.
Respectable, like abandoned it was a big word, but it was one I knew well. Matron used it on the inspectors who came from the government to assess the older children few months and on the governor when he paid his yearly visit and on the “investors” he always brought with him. They were all “respectable people.” Respectable people meant baths and brushed hair, hours of washing all the linens, remaking the beds, and cleaning anything that could be cleaned. Yet nothing like that had happened that day and that confused me.
“Is Jema going an asses… assess..?” My tongue stumbled over the word ‘assessment,’ catching on the unfamiliar gap left by the baby tooth that had come out in a particularly hard chunk of bread just the day before. Still, Matron seemed to know what I meant and didn’t wait for me to manage the word before correcting me.
“Jema’s going.”
I looked up, stretching my neck to get a better look at her expression in the glow lights still flitting around Matron.
“Going where?”
“Going. The Lisor’s adopted her. ”
Adopted. I knew the word but wasn’t a real word. It was an imaginary idea, one the eight and nine year-olds whispered about at night when the lights were out and the Minders were far away. It was a wish for them, a what if, like a thing out of a story, not a real thing that really happened to people.
But it had happened.
Jema…
Worry clouded my face. “When will I see Jema again?”
At last Matron looked down at me, her lips pressed into the thin line that seemed to me to be the only shape they knew. “You won’t. She’s respectable now. Respectable children don’t come here.”
I think my lip must have begun to tremble then because Matron pulled at my arm again to hurry me along.
“None of that now. Tears won’t bring her back so there’s no point wasting them.”
I nodded automatically because it was something I’d heard from Matron many times before. Don’t waste your tears on bruises or arguments or broken things because tears won’t fix them anyway. Back then I always wondered what made tears so valuable that they shouldn’t be ‘wasted.’
All through my treatment that day my mind wandered back to Jema and her new ‘respectable’ life. Once the drip bag of black liquid was empty, and the burning feeling in my vanes had dulled, and the leather straps were removed, I sat up and asked Matron the first question that came to me:
“Will I be adopted some day?”
The nurse, who was still clearing away the vials of my treatment, started then busied herself with the bottles again in a way that somehow felt more pointed than before. Matron didn’t shy away from me or from the question. Her lips thinned a little more than usual but that was her only visible reaction.
“No. You won’t.”
The answer didn’t truly surprise me. Until a two hours before adoption had been an imagination word, not a real thing that really happened, so hearing that it wouldn’t happen to me didn’t hurt. I was curious though. I couldn’t help it. All through my treatment I’d been thinking of nothing but Jema. If it was possible for her but not me then what made us so different? We weren’t exactly the same age but close, about a year apart. Her hair was light brown and long and wavy on the rare days it wasn’t in braids. Mine was straight and black and cut unevenly to the tops of my shoulders. Jema’s handwriting was neater than mine and she was better at cooking and sums. I was a faster reader and better at memorizing our history and geography lessons. Other than that I couldn’t think of any real difference between us.
“Why not?” I slid off of the table and stood. The infirmary wasn’t as cold as the rest of the orphanage because it had its own water barrel, steam rising hot from the spark stone within it, but I was still quick to put my felted jacket back on, since I knew I’d need it as soon as we were out in the hall. The jacket must once have been so dark red it was almost black, but it had been worn by so many other children before me that it had mostly faded to a red gray color. Jema’s jacket had looked much like mine but she hadn’t been wearing it when she stepped out into the snow. She’d been wearing a coat made from pale felted wool that looked like no other child had even torn the hem or worn out the elbows. Was that what it meant to be respectable?
“No family would ever want to adopt a child with the cursed gift.”
I heard those words before, the cursed gift, when Matron or the other Minders talked with the nurse during my treatment. It always seemed to bother them somehow. They’d shift and look away when they spoke of it, like it really was some sort of curse from a book with a witch in it.
“Am I really cursed?” If adoption could be real then why not witches?
“No.” Matron shook her head. “Curses aren’t practiced here. That’s just what gifts like yours get called that because of how many people who have them die from them.”
My eyes went wide at that. “Am I going to die from it?”
“Not if you’re good, now come along.” Matron gestured impatiently toward the door and I quickly finished doing up the buttons on my coat then moved toward it. She took my arm as always but it was more to make sure I kept up with her pace then to keep me from running off. After all, she was already taking me back to the study hall with the others. Where else would I go?
I knew the conversation was supposed to be over and I usually preferred to hold my tongue and listen when I wanted answers, but chances to ask Matron questions were rare and my head was still buzzing with so many that as we walked, I couldn’t help asking just one more.
“Why not adopt someone with the cursed gift?”
Matron looked down at me, eyes narrowing, and for a moment I thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then she sniffed and said, “It costs too much to keep you.”
It costs too much… The words lingered in my ears, stirring something in me, an old memory, the straps and the table and nurse asking ‘Who do they think has the money to pay for all this?’ and Matron saying ‘Smartest thing the parents ever did, abandoning the child.’
Abandoned…Something practical…Costs too much to keep… No family would ever want…
No family would ever want me because I cost too much to keep, not just respectable adopting families like the one that had taken Jema but all families, even the one I’d come from. I had been too expensive, not practical, so I had been abandoned.
I didn’t ask anything else after that, just wordlessly let myself be led back to the study room where my hand moved automatically through the day’s hand writing exercises. Later, once we’d been dismissed to wander as we would until dinner, I slipped into a dark hidden place made by the gap between two shelves in the back of the book room, sank down against the wall, and wasted some of my precious tears.
“The wanderer stayed in the land of their mother’s kin for three more seasons, walking its fields and woods, learning its people and its magic, but at last they felt the call of their own woods and streams, their own mountains and villages. At last they used the knowledge they had learned and they called the gate and the warmth of world answered them and it came. Then they said farewell to that land, and promising in their heart to return one day, they stepped through the gate and back into the world we think of as our own.”
-The Wanderer of Hanareyon: A Collection, Compiled by Yenara Kalarzkie
It was another four years until I cried again. I sat curled in on myself by the window of an out building, thin black veins running down my forearms and dizzy pressure building in my head. I no longer cared about what Matron thought of me or the preciousness of my tears, because I knew my life was over.
Age ten is assessment year. I’ve never known my exact birthday but one of the minders told me when I was three that she could get within about two weeks of it and that it must either be the tail end of summer or the first breaths of autumn. I thought back then that it would be good to be born on an important day like a day of changing, so I decided to claim the first of autumn’s ninety days as my own. Whether I was right or not about the exact day though, it was close enough that when the assessors came half way through the season, I was counted as being ten and sent to join the others who were to be assessed.
I remember some of the other children being nervous but I wasn’t. There wasn’t much to fear when I already knew what was coming , or so at least I thought. Even at six I’d known that my conversation with Matron was a one-time thing. If I wanted more answers I’d need to find them for myself. I’d already been good at listening, even when I was very young, so I put my efforts into the skill and into the others that went with it, hiding and fading into the background and pretending to be busy with other things. Learning the details of the assessments hadn’t been hard for me.
The most important part of the assessment was the exam, that much everyone knew. Math, history, geography, vocabulary, translation, and handwriting. We all spent weeks preparing for it, giving up our sleep, and our free time, and anything else we could in order to study. Everyone knew that those who couldn’t prove the value of their minds would be set to pay their debt with the value of their bodies, either in the army or by mending roads or fishing in the far northern ice. My listening had given me more than that fear though, it gave me hope. The assessors arrived the week before the exam and spent the time in between observing us at our lessons. Their first day at the orphanage I arranged to be the one to serve their dinner. As I was slowly clearing their plates away I heard a person with short dark hair and a scared cheek mention that they needed to keep an eye out for likely translators for the archives.
The archives.
I’d read about them and about the endless vaults beneath the capital. Back then I’d never seen a proper library, never seen any collection of books larger than the one in the orphanage’s small book room. The idea of a place where the books were counted, not by tens and twenties, but by hundreds and thousands, seemed to me like most magical story anyone could dream. That there could be other dreams, like freedom and family, was something I didn’t admit to myself, I couldn’t, not when everyone knew those things were forbidden. It was safer to dream about books. And I did, for a little while.
Back then it all seemed so simple. All I had to do was prove my skills with translation, and history, and vocabulary on the exam and I would be sent to the archives. The idea of leaving my few friends formed a knot in my chest, but every time I felt it tighten I thought of Jema walking away into the snow and promised myself that if, at seven, she hadn’t looked back, then I, at ten, wouldn’t either. Once I got to the archives I’d have to spend the next several years working off my debt to the orphanage and the government for raising me, but I’d be doing it surrounded by all those books. Surely I’d be allowed to read them. Surely, in a place as magical as the archive, I’d never run out of books again. Surely…
I had no idea what was coming, not until two days after the exam. That day we’d all been sent to meet one by one with the assessors. The questions were a sort of oral exam, testing us on the same subjects as the written exam by making us point to random cities on a blank map or seeing if we could speak the dead languages as well as we read them. I asked Lilly and Elvar, and they both seemed to have gotten similar questions to mine though Loris’s questions had more to do with the maths then any of ours. Maybe that was what made me curious, or maybe I was just too impatient to hear that I would be going to the archives. But I think, looking back, that those things were just excuses for something more simple. I’d gotten a taste for knowing things, for understanding what was happening, for listening, and so I listened.
That night, as the others whispered to each other in the dark, I slipped out of bed and made for the washroom. No one questioned me, and I knew that if I took too long and if the wash room was empty, no one would question that either. I often snuck down to the bookroom at night and every time I did I wished for a gift like Matron’s. If I could make lights dance for me I could just sneak away a few books and read them beneath the coverlet. But I only had my own cursed, bound, gift, and so when I wanted to read at night I had to risk Matron’s fury and the betraying brightness of a lamp in the bookroom. Yet even knowing the risks, I always went.
That night though I didn’t go toward my precious books. Instead I went in the opposite direction, down a floor and into the nicer wing of the orphanage, where Matron and the Minders lived and where the guest quarters were. Most of the children rarely went there but the infirmary also stood in that wing and so I’d entered it three times a season for my whole life. When I was eight I was deemed old enough and well behaved enough that no one needed to take me too and from the infirmary and so I was allowed to go on my own. I always went because I knew I had to go. If I didn’t go myself I would be taken, it was just that simple. But often I took little detours, exploring the forbidden wing of the orphanage a little bit at a time so that my lateness never became enough to be remarked on.
Thanks to those small covert expeditions, I knew the place well. It was easy for me to find my way to the rooms where the assessors were staying without ever entering the hallway where the Minders lived. As I neared the door of their room I heard voices speaking. They were not whispering or even talking low. They had no reason to try for silence and so they did not. When I seated myself beside the door with my back to the wall, I could hear them clearly.
At first they talked about the assessment in general terms, comparing our scores to the scores of the of the past year. Then they moved on to discuss the assessments they’d given the remaining eleven and twelve year-olds. Some children left the orphanage after their ten year-old assessment while others stayed to help with the farming and continue their studies. No one stays after thirteen though. Even if they were allowed, they wouldn’t because that’s just too many years of extra dept to pay off.
They’d only given the eleven and twelve year-olds their written assessments so far, and the thirteen year-olds hadn’t been examined at all yet so they speculated a little about children they remembered from previous years. I was interested in what they said about Morelda who had always been kind to me and in what they said about Birel who had not, but as time passed my eyes began to flutter and my head began to nod. I was just thinking that I needed to sneak back to my bed before I was to tired to move quietly when one of them asked,
“Well, Doran, you’ve been awfully quiet tonight, have you found anyone promising?”
“A few. There are four with the right skill sets. I will have to check their medical records to make sure they can keep up but otherwise they should all suffice.”
I roused slightly at that, both in curiosity and in recognition. The speaker, Doran, was the scarred man who’d mentioned the archives when I’d I was clearing his dinner. Was that what he was talking about again? Was I one of the ones ‘with the right skill set’? I barely had time to entertain the thought when the first speaker, a higher voiced person whose name and gender I did not know, spoke again.
“What about your pet prospect? The one the Matron told you about?”
“High marks in languages, vocabulary, and history. Lower marks in mathematics.” This time when he spoke I could hear pleasure in Doran’s voice. “I showed the assessment to the maths teacher and she confirmed that it’s unusually low for the girl. She’s not the best math student here by any stretch but the maths teacher still believes the girl deliberately bungled the section.”
“….to keep herself from being attractive to the survey corps or the inventor’s workshops.” A third voice chimed in. This voice belonged to a woman I’d heard the others’ call Listra. Her words brought me fully awake as though one of the older children had shoved me into icy pound ‘by accident’ like Birel had when I was seven and he was nine. I knew now that they were talking about me and that they knew what I had done. Would they tell Matron that I had deliberately failed at portions of the assessment? Would I be punished? Would they make me sit it again? Would they decide I didn’t deserve the archives?
A forth voice laughed. “Clever brat. So she really was listening I dinner.”
“I didn’t even notice her listening.” That was the first speaker again and she sounded a little impressed. Perhaps it would be alright then? Somehow I couldn’t make myself believe it. At ten I already knew far too much of how the world worked to believe in such things. If you were caught breaking a rule there was always a punishment. That’s why the first rule of the orphanage was ‘don’t get caught.’
“The Matron was right that dangling the archive post would make the girl show her hand.”
I remember how my heart caught at those words, how the tips of my fingers turn to ice, how every part of me sang with sudden tension, sudden dread. I didn’t even have time to register the full pain of losing my dream of the archives. I was too busy feeling the spider’s silk tighten around me, the web that I had somehow been caught in.
“She was probably also right about the girl not being our server by chance.” That was Doren’s voice again and I listen to his words with all I had, trying to understand, to make sense of what these people wanted, what they stood to gain from trapping me. “She wanted information and figured out how to get it. She wanted a certain outcome and so she arranged it.”
“Is she too much of a natural do you think? Likely to be turned?”
“No.” Doran sounded confident in a way I instinctively distrusted. “I read her file. We have the ideal leash for her. The Talon will be pleased.”
Suddenly there was no more air left in the world, no warmth, no anything except the name. Talon. The Talon. I knew that name from my history and politics lessons. The shadow hand. The five claws. The network of spies the High Governor used to keep control of Delmy, who did his dirty work within the country and without.
That was what they wanted me for.
Not the archives, not quiet and paper and a lifetime’s worth of words.
Not a secretary’s post or a drafter’s, or an errand-runner or a translator.
They wanted me for blood and shadows and the hunting of anyone they chose.
They didn’t want me to improve lives. They wanted me to destroy them.
To this day I still don’t remember when the topic turned away from me or what or who they talked about next or when I got up or how I managed to make it back to my bed unseen. All I remember is the numbness in my fingers as I pulled up the coverlet and the way I ignored Lilly when she tried to whisper to me through the dark. All I remember going through my head were the stories of the Talon I’d heard, the facts we’d been told in our classes, the rumors that had come even to the orphanage, the knowledge that every ordinary person in Delmy shared: that the Talon were the enemy.
I was to be the enemy.
“The men stepped back in fear. Some of them cried for water and women came with buckets, but the wanderer stepped between them and the child and held up a hand to stop them. ‘Let me pass’ cried the girl’s aunt. ‘If I do not put it out soon the child will burn!’ But the wanderer shook their head. ‘She will not burn.’ And the wanderer was right, for they knew the secrets of magic. They approached the sobbing child and placed a hand on her shoulder and the villagers all gasped for their hand did not burn either. ‘Call back the light,’ the wanderer told her. ‘It is yours now so you must control it.’ The child was so startled by the touch and the words that she stopped crying and looked up at the wanderer. ‘But I do not have magic.’ The wanderer shook their head. ‘You did not have magic but your mother did, did she not?’ The girl nodded, sniffling. The wanderer smiled gently at the child. ‘Then take comfort in knowing that her last thoughts were of her love for you.’ The child’s eyes widened. ‘How can you know that?’ ‘Because that is how all the magic of this world passes. No one is born with their gifts. But when one who has the gift dies, if as they die they think of someone and wish their gifts to pass then the one they thought of inherits that power.”
-The Wanderer of Hanareyon: A Collection, Compiled by Yenara Kalarzkie
The next morning I stopped taking my medicine. For as long as I could remember I had drunk my morning draft. It was blue gray in color and every morning after I sat down at the long tables with my bowl of porridge one of the minders would come and place a small glass of it beside my plate. I’d always known that I would be in horrible trouble if I did not drink it but until that morning I’d never even considered doing so because it tastes sweet and warm, and far better than the plan porridge which was the only thing we ever had for breakfast. My friends were jealous they didn’t get a similar treat and ever few weeks Elvar asked me if he could have a taste, but I always told him no, partly because I knew I’d be in trouble for it and partly because I wanted to keep it to myself.
That morning though, as soon as the minder’s backs were turned I nudged the little glass over to him. He looked up at me in surprise.
“What?”
“You wanted some right?”
“Well yeah, but I didn’t think…”
His voice trailed away as I leaned in close to him. He automatically leaned in as well, instinctively turning slightly so he could scan the room for nearby minders. From across the table Lilly and Lortis leaned forward as well, not wanting to be left out of a secret.
“I’m done taking it.” I told them.
Loris gasped, eyes going wide, Lilly frowned, and Elvar blinked at me in shock.
“What why?”
Before I could come up with a good answer Lilly put up a hand to stop me and asked, “You’ll tell us what this is about later?”
I nodded but I was lying. My three friends were the only people I really loved or trusted back then, but I knew I could not risk telling even them. It wasn’t that I thought they would betray me intentionally, it’s simply that what no one else knew, no one else could give away. I only had one chance. I couldn’t take the risk.
My nod seemed to be good enough for Lilly because she nodded back then reached across the table to snatch the glass out from under Elvar’s nose and downed it in one gulp.
“Hey!”
Elvar exclamation was loud enough that few heads turned toward us and Lilly quickly pushed the glass back across to me and I felt Lortis’s leg brush by me as he kicked Elvar under the table. Elvar’s eyes widened and he ducked his head.
“Sorry.”
“You can have my glass tomorrow.” I told him.
“Do I get it the day after?” Lortis asked.
I nodded but I already knew there would be no day after. Tomorrow would be the last day. My heart felt like it was being squeezed tight at the thought and I suddenly wanted to cry, but I thought of Jema and swallowed back the tears. We had been friends but she hadn’t looked back, and neither would I.
“ ‘Finally.’ The lord looked down at the wanderer from his throne of oak and amber. ‘I’m told you gave your name as ‘Coral’ when you entered my city but I’ve had my men searching for you for a long time and I know who you really are. You are the wanderer.’ The wanderer nodded but made no other reply. The lord smiled then, well pleased that he had at last found the one he sought. ‘You do not need to fear. I will not ask you for the secret of the gates. I only seek your help in a personal matter, for all agree that you are a master of the laws of magic. Then the wanderer raised their head and asked, ‘What is it you want of me?’ ‘Only this’ the lord replied. ‘My son has inherited a gift he cannot control and it endangers him and all who surround him. I want you to take it from him.’ The wanderer expression softened then but they shook their head. ‘You refuse?’ the lord asked, and there was danger in his voice. ‘It is not that I refuse. It is only that it cannot be done. The only thing that can separate a person from their gift is death.’
-The Wanderer of Hanareyon: A Collection, Compiled by Yenara Kalarzkie
The only other time in my life that I didn’t take my medicine I was eight and a stomach illness was sweeping through the orphanage. The few other times that I had food poisoning and or came down with something that made me too nauseous to drink it the nurse would come and inject me with another form of the same medicine. That time though so many of us had been sick, and some of the minders too. Even matron was unwell and the nurse was too busy to remember about me. I hadn’t said anything because I’d felt too unwell to focus on it but that evening, when my stomach calmed a little, I’d started to notice a new warmth in my palms and a light tingling in the tips of my fingers. They weren’t unpleasant feelings. In fact they felt nice and so I focused on them. I held my left hand up in front of me and as I concentrated on it the tingling and the warmth grew and there in my palm something started to form. A dark orb. It looked almost translucent yet no light seemed to pass through it.
I stared at it wonder, my heart beginning to race, my stomach temporarily forgotten. Slowly I flexed the fingers of my hand and the darkness spread with the motion, flowing outward until it looked less like an orb and more like a glove covering only the front of my hand. Curious and excited, I tentatively touched the tips of the fingers of my right hand to the palm of my left. The darkness felt like nothing. If I hadn’t been staring at it I would never have known I wasn’t just touching my hand. The skin felt a little warmer than normal but that was it. Still curious I reached out with my left hand and ran the night-coated fingers down the wooden bedpost beside my headboard. I felt the heat and the tingling grow in my finger tips and then I shrieked. On the bedpost, where I’d run my fingertips over it, were five new grooves, running downward in the exact path my fingers had traveled. They were smooth as though they’d always been there. But they hadn’t been. They shouldn’t have been. They… In my fright I grabbed the bed post instinctively and this time I felt it, I felt the wood give way beneath my fingers, soft and yielding, and nothing like what wood should feel like. Quickly I yanked my hand away just as one of the minders reached me. She had been at the far end of the room seeing to someone over there, but my shriek brought her running.
“What is-“ Her words broke off abruptly at the sight of the darkness coating my hand, the handprint clearly etched in my headboard.
“Don’t touch anything” was all she said before rushing from the room. A few minutes later she returned with Nurse right behind her. Nurse bent over me holding a syringe, and I looked up at her, eyes wide and round.
“Is this my magic?”
“It is but it’s not a safe gift for children, that’s why you must take your medication every day no matter what. Do you understand.”
I nodded wordlessly as she pressed the syringe into my arm. I watched as the night faded from my hand, shadow sinking back into my skin as though it had never been there at all.
But it was there.
The marks in my bedpost were proof.
It was there.
After that I faithfully took my medicine, but I never forgot.
“The wanderer made to turn away but Lizara put her hand on their shoulder and she spoke softly. ‘You do not need to hide from me’ she said, ‘you do not need to pretend to be other than you are. I have seen the mask you wear before this city and before our lady, but I do not need the mask. We have traveled far together and we fought and bled together. It is not the mask I care for. It is the person beneath it. ‘I do not know what you mean’ the wanderer said but there was no conviction in their voice. ‘You are the wanderer who the hearth tales speak of. You do not need to deny it. I will not give away your secret and I will ask for none of the secrets of your wandering. I will not even ask you to stay with me for I will not bind you to live in a way you do not chose, I only ask that you do not hid yourself from me.’ Then slowly the wanderer turned to face her and they put their arms around her and pulled her to them and they held each other close. The wanderer thought of all the names and all masks they wore in all the cities and all the towns and all the lands. Then they thought of that other name, the name that lived in the silence of their mind. At last they spoke, not because that had to but only because they wished to. ‘I will stay with you for as long as I can and I will come back when I can but do not call me wanderer or any of the other names you know for me. From now on, know me as Kien.”
-The Wanderer of Hanareyon: A Collection, Compiled by Yenara Kalarzkie
The next day, after I gave my medication to Elvar and after lunch I told my friends that I would see them when my treatment was done. I wanted to hug them but I didn’t dare because it would give too much away. Again I wanted to cry but again I swallowed back the feeling. Tears were precious after all and if I let some slip from me now, they would want to know why. I watched them walk away from me without a backward glance and I reminded myself again that it was I who was walking away, I who could not afford to look back.
I had not been lying about this being a treatment day. I was supposed to be in the infirmary soon. That was what made this my chance. I went back to the room I slept in first. I’d hidden a small pack in the drawer under my bed. It was one of the bags we used for carrying apples when we were sent to the grove to collect them. I’d stolen one from the supply closet the previous night along with a water bottle, a spark stone, a paring knife, a bit of bread, hard cheese, and a few apples from the kitchen and a map from the geography classroom. I’d also snuck down my usual route to the bookroom and chosen just three books. I knew they were heavy and took up space. and I couldn’t afford to bring many, but I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving without any. Picking between them all had been difficult but in the end I’d chosen a book about a treasure hunter, a collection of folk tales from other worlds, and my favorite book of all, a collection intitled The Wanderer of Hanareyon.
I packed them all into the pack along with a change of socks and underwear. I’d wanted to pack a change of clothes as well but with the books and food already in the bag I had barely enough room to stuff in a blanket. I couldn’t take the blanket from my bed since if anyone entered the room they’d notice it’s absence and it might lead them to realize what I’d done sooner than they otherwise would. Instead I pulled my winter cloak from the back of my drawer and packed it. Winters in Dalmy are harsh and long, so while the rest of our clothes might be plain and cheaply made, matron saw to it that every child at the orphanage had a well-made winter coat or cloak. They were all second- or third-hand and there was no uniformity among them. My cloak had probably been blue once but the dye had faded so much that now it looked gray. The inside was lined with bear hide, the coarse dark brown fur worn to softness by years of use. It would do as a bedroll. I also owned an autumn jacket, faded brown felt and mended at the bottom with my clumsy stitches. I pulled it on and buttoned it close around me, then slipped the pack onto my back and headed for the door. I kept my pace normal and made sure not to flinch or hunch my shoulders when I passed people in the hall. To anyone else I’d look like I’d was on my way to help with the apple harvest. There’d been frost the night before and most of the children were in the apple grove since the minders were in a hurry to get the rest of the fruit in.
I was supposed to be in Nurses’s infirmary, strapped to a table, letting the stinging liquid run into my arm, but only my friends, Nurse, and Matron knew that. I had never run from my treatments--there had never seemed anything to be gained by it--so if I was late now Nurse would assume that Matron or one of the minders had kept me busy with another task. It should take her an hour, maybe longer, to realize something was strange and raise the alarm. It would take them even longer to determine that I was nowhere in the house, and after that they would still need to realize I’d found a way through the fence.
The fence. Most children didn’t bother trying to run because they have nowhere to go. Those who did they only ever made it as far as the impenetrable fence. Matron said it was there to protect us, but to me it had always felt more like the wall around a prison yard, keeping us from the world so that my only path out of the orphanage to the freedom beyond had always been through the pages of books. The fence ringed our entire world, tall iron rods topped by spikes sharp enough to impale an unwary thief. It had happened once when I was about five and again when I was nine. Some of the children had found his body in the morning and shouted till the rest of us came running. The sight of him, wax skinned and wiled eyes, with the frost bite on his lips and the red black stain splashed all around him is something I will never forgot. The spike had pierced through his side and he’d sliced his hands to the bone trying to get himself free. At the time I’d felt the acid burn of bile in my throat and I’d wished I’d never seen him because he haunted my nightmares for weeks afterward. Now, though, I was glad to have seen because he was a warning. I would not end up like him. I would not make the same mistake.
The fence ringed everything: the house, the apple grove, the oat field we worked in spring, the fish pound Birel had pushed me into, and a small patch of wild land where we played and searched for mushrooms. A stream ran through it down to the pond, and that was what I made for. Laying sleepless in my bed the night before I’d considered my route carefully. The stream would be cold this time of year but not yet icy, and we all rubbed our boots with wax to keep the worst of the damp out. It would not be comfortable but the chance of frost bite was low and it was the safest way to go. I sill hissed with the cold as I stepped into the stream. The water was at its lowest ebb of the year and my boots were tall but it still rose nearly to the top of them. I’d need to be careful to stay by the edge to keep from hitting any of the deep spots I knew lurked closer to the center. The stream was on the far side of the house from the apple grove but I still had to resist the urge to look over my shoulder and check that no one was watching me from a window. I reminded myself firmly that, if I was spotted in passing, looking guilty would be the best way to make someone look twice at me.
When I reached the cover of the trees I relaxed a bit, quickening my pace slightly, resisting the urge to move even faster in case I slipped on the uneven footing of the steam bed. My toes were starting to feel numb and I wished desperately to climb out of the stream but this way there was no chance of leaving a betraying footprint. At last the fence rose above me, all weathered-dark iron and dagger points which must have been treated or enchanted somehow to keep them from going dull no matter how long they stood in rain and snow. I took a long slow breath to calm my racing heart, raised my hands, and concentrated.
Ever since the evening before I’d felt that strange warmth return to my palms and the tingling in the tips of my fingers, but I’d pushed the thought of it away, concentrating on my escape. Now though, I focused like I had that day in bed, willing that blackness, that power, to responded.
It came.
Blackness pooled across my palms, spread over the tips of my fingers, and ran up the back of my hands until it looked like my hands were gloved in midnight, the sort of midnight that holds no moon or stares, only the never ending void. Carefully, I wrapped my hands around a bar of the fence. My heart thrilled even as my fingers sank though it as though it was mud or porridge, or the molted iron of which these prison bars were forged. When the first one was gone I gripped another then another until I’d created a hole large enough for me to crawl through. Even with the trees obscuring this part of the fence I didn’t dare make it bigger and risk some large wild animal climbing through and alerting the minders that there was a hole in their wall.
Now came the difficult part, the thing I’d never done before. I looked down at my hands and took a long slow breath. In The Wanderer of Hanareyon Kein, the wanderer, helps a child new to her gift learn how to control it. In the story they talk her through how to use her breath, her focus, and her will to release the magic. It was all I had to go on, so I breathed and I focused and I willed the darkness to dispel or slide back into my skin or go wherever it went when I wasn’t calling on it. After a moment, it went. Like dark water it ran back up the back of my hands, and over my fingers, and onto my palms before slowly melting back into my skin. I let out a shaky breath, staring at my hands for a moment, then I shook my head to clear it. I’d have time to think about my power later. For now, I had to go.
The stream ran right through the bars of the fence, so after I climbed through the hole I’d made I reluctantly stepped back into it, using it as the best path through the unfamiliar forest beyond. After I’d walked for little while the trees began to thin and soon I was beyond them looking at the rolling slopes of an abandoned farm. That was when it really hit me. I was outside the fence. For the first time I could remember, I was outside the fence.
For a moment I wanted to laugh and run and jump, I’d done it, I’d really done it. Then reality sank back in, the reality of my aching legs, and frozen feet, and chattering teeth. When I was younger some of the older children had gone out sometimes to work this farm, too, as part of paying off their debt but that had stopped a few years ago when old farmer died, his children moved away, and no one had come to take their place. I had bet that there would be abandoned out buildings for me to take shelter in, and I was right. I found a shed with two large windows and doors which sealed against the weather that must have been for seedling plants before it was safe to move them outside. There was even a barrel filled with stagnant water. Shivering, I stripped off my drenched boots and the socks beneath, soaked despite the wax on my boots. I also pulled off my coat which was wet from my splashing steps and from the couple of times I’d stumbled on rocks on the streambed. I twisted the spark stone in its metal holder to wake it and tossed it into the barrel. It was not a big enough stone to make the room hot but the warm steam from the barrel kept the worst of the chill away. I changed into a dry pair of socks, rolled myself in my cloak, folded my coat with the dry part on top to use as a pillow, and promptly fell asleep. I didn’t even eat first. The desperate mix of fear and determination that had driven me all day fell away and my lack of sleep and the long walk through the woods hit me all at once as soon as I felt safe. And I did feel safe. I thought I’d done it. I thought I had escaped. I thought I was free.
I was a fool.
I woke the next morning with dawn light creeping in through the window and hunger gnawing at my stomach. It took me a moment to remember where I was but once I did I laughed and reached for my pack and my breakfast. That was when I saw them.
Veins dark as ink, dark as shadow, dark as a moonless night. They ran up my arms, curving like thread-thin vines from just above my wrists to vanish under the long sleeves of my dress. My first thought was that I’d imagined them. I blinked and rubbed the sleep from eyes and looked again. There they were, dim with the dawn light, but still there, still real, climbing my skin like the roots of some nightmare plant. Quickly I rolled up my sleeves and quiet gasp escaping my lips as I saw they ran half way up my forearms.
What was happening to me?
My next thought was of my magic. It must have gotten loose in the night. It must be that I didn’t know how to control it yet. It must… Frantically I tried to call it back like I had the day before but nothing happened. I tried and tried till my breath was ragged and there were tears in my eyes but nothing changed. My shoulders began to shake. I put my head down on my knees and wrapped my arms around them and just stayed like that for a while, not crying, just trembling silently until my breathing began to calm and I remembered my aching stomach and I could think again.
I ate an apple and some of the bread and cheese for breakfast, then went outside to relieve myself, wrinkling my nose at the discomfort of doing it in the woods. I washed my hands in the stream and returned to my little sanctuary. When I was calm enough to see them the facts were simple. I’d never seen anything like the blackness climbing my arms before. I’d also never skipped a treatment before or used my magic for more than a moment. This had to be the result of one if not both of those things, but whatever it was, it didn’t itch, it didn’t hurt, it didn’t feel any different than how my arms had felt the day before. If the result was only these lines on my skin then I could learn to live with them. I’d have to because there weren’t any other options open to me.
I didn’t know how long it would take matron to realize I was truly gone, but the abandoned farmland around me lacked cover for miles. Risky as it was to stay where I was I thought the risk of trying to leave while the sun was up would be much greater. They wouldn’t find me here unless they searched every building but if they looked out over the farmlands they’d be able to see me walking through them. I’d stay here today, enjoying the relative comfort of my sanctuary, and move on at sunset. The idea of walking through strange fields and woods at night scared me a little but I told myself firmly that it was the best way.
I spent the morning sitting by the window studying the map I’d stolen, trying to plot the best route to the capital. I thought that if I could only get there I could present myself to the archives. The whole talk of their need for assistance was, I was fairly sure, nothing more than a trap meant to test me, but they might still need an assistant, a translator, or something. If not, I was sure there had to be plenty of places in the capital where someone with my skills could find work. I would find a job and work until I’d saved enough to move on, and then, just like Kien, I would become a wanderer.
Once I’d finished studying the map I put it aside and was in the process of reaching for my books, planning to read for a while, when I glanced down at my arms and froze. The black vanes had spread. I blinked a couple times, trying to be sure, but no, I was right. The curving roots running over my arms were thicker, darker, their tendrils spreading farther up toward my elbows.
What was happening to me?
Panic rose in me again but I tried to force it back. I couldn’t afford to panic. I needed to think rationally. I needed to figure this out. I brought my knees up and folded my arms in my lap, trying to think, trying to understand, trying to come up with a plan.
I was still sitting like that when the door slammed open.
I jumped, spinning toward the door even as I franticly reached for the small paring knife, the only weapon I had. My fingers froze before they could brush the handle, the whole rest of my body following suit as I stared up into Matron’s hard gray eyes.
“There you are, you foolish child!”
She glared down at me, hands on her hips, displeasure in every line of her face. I could only stare back at her, my own eyes wide, the words caught in my suddenly dry throat.
How? How had she found me? How could she be here? How? I’d been so careful. I’d planned everything so well. I…
“Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
I tried to speak but the words still wouldn’t come. I swallowed and tried again.
“H-how?”
Matron sniffed, a small derisive huff of breath.
“When you didn’t reappear by dinner time I had the minders search the fence for holes.”
My eyes flicked traitorously toward my hands.
“Y-Your knew?”
“That you stopped taking your medicine? No, but as soon as I realized you were gone I knew you must have. You’d figured out what you could do. Of course you’d use it.”
That was the one thing I’d been counting on, that they wouldn’t realize I had stopped taking it, that they wouldn’t think of my power, that it would take them a while to find the whole in the fence, because once they did it wouldn’t be hard to figure out which way I’d gone or where I might take shelter.
….But Matron was always more aware of me than I knew. I should have realized that when I overheard the assessors talking about what she’d told them about me. I should have planned accordingly. I should have…
Matron reached down and grabbed one of my arms by the wrist. I started and made to rise but she wasn’t pulling me to my feet. She was holding the arm up for inspection. She peered intently at the dark vanes climbing my skin then sniffed again and let it fall.
“You’re lucky. I don’t think you’ve done any real damage. A few more days and you would have started to lose feeling in the arms.”
A soft cry left my lips.
“What? why?”
She ignored the question, gesturing around me to my few stolen possessions.
“Come on child, pack your things. We need to get back.”
“But I can’t go back!” The words left my lips in a strangled cry. “They’re going to make me join the Talon.”
Matron nodded. “Yes, and good thing too.”
“Good thing? It’s the Talon. It’s… They’re…” I shook my head, wrapping my arms tight around me as shudders ran through my body. “No. I can’t. I won’t!”
Matron put her hands back on her hips and loomed over me, lips thin, eyes severe.
“Now you listen to me Annolya. You need this. The other children might have options, but it has to be government work for you.”
Her words shook lose an old memory, the shape of the ceiling boards in the infirmary, the feel of the leather straps, and Matron’s voice in conversation with nurse.
“Who do they think has the money to pay for all this?”
“The government and no one else. Smartest thing the parents ever did, abandoning the child.”
“Why?” The words left my mouth as barely a whisper. My throat felt too dry, my tongue too big for my mouth, too big for the question, but I had to know. I needed to know. “Matron please, what’s wrong with me?”
She blew out a soft huff of breath and, to my surprise, her expression softened a little.
“I don’t know who last had your gift or why in the trickster’s name why they didn’t just let it die with them, but whoever it was I’ll bet the gift is what killed them. Maybe they didn’t mean to pass it to you, there’s no way to know now, but you must have been only a few days old. Whoever your parents were, they couldn’t handle it. I don’t know if they were rich and didn’t want to pay for treatment or if they were poor and couldn’t afford it and knew giving you to the government to raise was the best hope you had of staying alive. Whoever they were they left you by the gate house with a note about your gift.”
I stared at her. My gift… My gift had really killed someone? Killed the last person who had it? The person who’d left it to me? Why? Why had they left it to me? Had they meant to do it? Or was it like Matron suggested? Just an accident? A stray thought as they died? And my parents? Had they not wanted to be bothered paying to treat me or had they given me up to save me? No, I couldn’t think about that now. I had to stay focused on what Matron was telling me, on my gift, my power, my curse.
“If using my gift could kill me without treatment then I’ll just never use it again.” That was easy. I’d gone ten whole years without it. I could keep going, keep taking my medicine, keep it suppressed.
Matron shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter if you use it. Using it without the treatment makes it happen a bit faster but it would kill you no matter what.”
Before I could fully wrap my head around those words Matron kept going.
“Where does our magic come from?”
It was the most basic of questions. Every small child knew the answer. I replied automatically.
“Energy of the cosmos.”
Matron nodded.
“Whatever form it comes to us in, most people channel it indirectly, light, heat, movement of atoms, whatever gift they have. The cursed gift is different. You are a direct conduit for cosmic energy, void, un-matter, black hole … whatever you want to call it.”
My own thought from earlier echoed in my head, a night with no moon, no stars.
“No human body is designed for that kind of power. Without the treatment we’ve been giving you to create an artificial barrier between your power and your cells, it will eat into your nerves until it kills you.”
“But my medicine, the suppressant…”
“Was for the safety of the minders and the other children. It’s too dangerous a power for a child. Suppressant stops you from accessing your magic. It does not stop the cosmic energy from building up inside you or from eating its way into your nerves. Only regular treatment can do that.”
When she spoke again, Matron’s voice was more gentle than I’d ever heard it.
“Treatment is expensive and hard to come by. Only the government and the very wealthy can provide it reliably. You are going to have to work for them, not just to pay off your raising debt, but for as long as you want to live.”
I stared at her for a long, long time as her words slowly sunk in, past the shock, past the numbness, past all my dreams and hopes and wishes. I could never leave, not even after I paid off my raising debt. Never. I needed treatment.
‘We have the ideal leash for her.’
Now I understood what the man, Doran, had meant.
A leash. A chain. A collar to choak all dreams of wandering from me.
My life was over.
Either I died now or I survived and served, and never got to live at all.
I felt the tears rise in my throat and not even Matron’s presence was enough to make me choak them back.
I didn’t care about what she thought about me anymore.
I didn’t care about anything.
It was over.
All over.
Every choice. Every chance. My foolish attempt to run. All over.
I sobbed and sobbed until I had no tears left in me, and for once Matron didn’t scold me. She even patted me once, awkwardly, on the shoulder.
“It’s not that bad. It could be a good life.”
I nodded slightly but I knew she was wrong. How could it be a good life when I was trapped and cadged forever?
When my tears finally stopped I just sat for a while, numb to the world. Then, slowly, I got to my feet and packed my things. Matron took my hand and we walked back to the orphanage gates together. She brought me to the assessors sitting room and there Doran sat, as though waiting for us. He looked me up and down when we entered.
“So you discovered our ruse?”
I nodded and he smiled slightly in what looked like approval.
“Clever. Yes, you will go far among us.”
He paused for a moment, but when I made no response he asked the question.
“So, do you except our offer? Will you join the Talon?”
I took a long breath and then, slowly, I nodded.
“Yes, I will.”
I had no choice.
I knew the Talon would force me to do horrible things.
I knew that I would have no way out.
I knew that I would never truly live.
But I didn’t want to die.
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