Chapter 14 #2
Ian smiled at Meena’s enthusiasm, but he turned back to Sol with a more serious expression. “I will not break your trust.” While Ian trusted his own family, Sol was still a member of that family. Ian was honored that Sol had so readily shared such a big secret with him.
He looked back at the village below them, taking in the normalcy of it all. “Does Robin know that you are sharing this with me?” Ian asked.
Sol shrugged. “I did not ask for her permission. This may be her land, but these are my people.”
“This is why Robin invited Sol to Lockwood,” Meena said. “She does not want to be made a leader to a people who are not her own but might feel indebted to her. She asked Sol, as a Majis who has found his own space in Iseldis, to be a bridge between them.”
Meena started to move down the hill, and Sol and Ian followed her.
“There are some of the Majis who have asked to work directly with Robin in River’s Talon, like Rigelt, whom you have met,” Sol said. “But Robin aims to provide safety with as much freedom as she is able.”
As they entered the village, two of the children—a boy and a girl—ran to Meena.
“Come and play with us, Meena!” the little girl said, grabbing Meena’s hand.
“We built a fort in the trees, but no grown folk are allowed!” the boy said, grabbing Meena’s other hand and tugging her toward him.
“But I am a grown folk,” Meena said, trying very mildly to resist their pull.
“No you are not,” the girl said. “You are too pretty.”
Meena laughed and, with an apologetic shrug over her shoulder, she ran after her admirers.
The next person to approach them was an older woman with streaks of gray in her light-brown hair. “My boy,” she said, holding out both hands to Sol.
“Aunt Lyra,” Sol said, clasping her hands in return. “I have brought you more muscle for the build.”
“We will take all the help we can get,” the woman said, graciously accepting. She led them through the small village to a small clearing that held the empty wooden frame on which to build the log cottage. The timber frame of the small structure was held in place by piles of stone and mud.
Several of the Majis were engaged in various activities around the frame, shaping logs into the proper fitting, stirring buckets of mud, and hammering heavy beams into place.
Following Sol’s lead, Ian lost himself in the work, bracing logs in place while the bark was stripped from them with a large steel blade.
Around him, the small community moved through their daily life.
Outside the nearest cottage, an older man was teaching—or at least attempting to teach—a group of small children to sing a verse.
The children chanted his words back at him in unison, providing a cheerful backdrop to the rhythmic sounds of the saws and hammers.
Ian listened to the verses with fascination.
The tune felt familiar, though he was certain he had not heard it before.
Even the words were familiar, though he only recognized about half of them.
He understood that he was listening to a language unique to the Majis, but that it was only nominally unique.
He was able to follow along with the story—something about a man fighting a sea beast—with relative ease.
The ease of this confused him.
In his understanding of the Majis, an understanding he reminded himself was limited and could not be fully trusted, he had assumed that everything about the Majis would be different.
He had always imagined them as tall, mysterious, and violent.
In his nightmares as a child, they spoke in a dark language that rumbled from their mouths like thunder.
Bringing himself back to the present, Ian focused on not losing his grip on the heavy log he and Sol were carrying.
“Sol,” Ian said as the two of them walked further away from the rest of the group to pick up another rough-hewn log. “Before the exile, did the Majis and quotidian live side by side?”
“I do not know,” Sol said. “Much of our history has been lost, even to us. Some of the older women might know, like Lyra. We were forbidden from writing or speaking of certain things, so those before us wove our story into songs.”
As the sun began to set, Lyra called for everyone to finish their tasks and end work for the day.
Ian helped guide the last log into place. The four walls of the small building were now just taller than his head, with a doorway in one wall and a window in another.
“It still needs a roof,” Lyra said, stepping up beside Ian to admire their work. “But the bulk of the work that we needed more hands for is done.” She turned to Ian with a smile. “You were a better help than I expected a prince to be.”
Ian quickly looked over at the older woman. He had not expected them to know who he was. Although, if he had stopped to think about it, surely everyone knew who Sol and Meena were and could have easily connected him by association.
“Word travels fast in our little community,” Lyra said in response to his surprise. “Many of us were at the manor when you arrived yesterday. Nele sent us to safety before you rounded the house. We are not the two separate communities that we appear to be.”
“Thank you for letting me share in your work,” Ian said. “I have much yet to learn, but it was good work.”
“Supper is served,” Lyra said, turning to the wider group around him. “Will you join us, Your Highness?”
“Please, call me Ian,” he said, uncomfortable with his title in such a setting. “And I would be honored.”
Sitting around the fire, Ian let himself relax after the physically demanding work of the day.
Across the fire, Meena was dramatically entertaining the children with stories he recognized from his childhood.
Beside him, Sol quietly discussed the next steps for building the cottage roof.
Content to sit in silence, Ian enjoyed the hot stew that had been served to him, feeling more calm than he had in recent memory.
As the sun set around them, the glass pieces that Ian had noticed reflecting the sun earlier began to glow with a soft, low light, illuminating the small village nestled under the forest canopy.
It reminded him of the smuggler’s cave, as it was clearly the same magic.
If they could simply reveal the beauty of these glowing shards of glass, surely they could convince the people of Iseldis not to fear the Majis.
“We should go,” Sol said, a while after darkness had fallen.
Ian stood as well, his muscles starting to feel the strain of the day’s work now that he had been sitting still for some time.
Across the fire, Meena started to hug the children goodbye. Some of them appeared to get several hugs.
Lyra stepped forward with a glass lantern—only, it was not lit with a flame from within.
Rather, the whole lantern was a single piece of the magical glowing glass.
Because of the way it cast a low light, Ian assumed it would be more effective on a dark trail than a regular flame lantern.
This one would be less likely to blind his eyes to the darkness.
Lyra handed the lantern to Sol, then held out a large cloak. “Here, take this,” she said.
Ian waved away the offered gift. “There is no need.” He was already wearing a thick woolen cloak.
“This one is spelled to repel water.” Lyra pushed the cloak toward him. “It will stay dry no matter the weather.”
“Thank you,” Ian replied, trying to sound as humbled as he felt by the proffered gift.
“But surely someone here needs it more than I do. My own cloak was made by the best seamstress in the city, and her fabric has never failed me. In fact, it has also stayed consistently dry . . .” Ian realized what he was saying and looked over at Meena.
“Oh!” she said, her face round with surprise. “Oh! Mistress Cedrice has been spelling our cloaks this whole time!”
“She always said it was due to the superior weave of the wool,” Ian said.
Ever since Ashlin had moved in with the older woman and apprenticed under her three seasons ago, they had known that Mistress Cedrice was a descendant of the Majis.
She had been the one to teach the royal family everything she had learned about her people from her own mother and grandmother.
“And she always charged so much extra for the finer wool,” Meena said. “A price we gladly paid for the warmth and dryness.”
“Where do you think she was getting those cloaks?” Lyra asked, her eyes sparkling in the firelight.
“It was incredibly dangerous of her to sell a spelled item, but we never suspected anything was amiss.” Ian shook his head. “Clever woman.”