Chapter Seventeen Caspia
Seventeen
Caspia
A woman with brown curls holds a broadsword at a man’s throat. Her nostrils flare as she stares down the blade. It is too heavy for her to wield. The strength in her arms wanes, her hands beginning to tremble.
But she holds strong a moment longer, enduring his test as she glares at his hazel eyes.
He bats the sword from her grip, sending it into the air, flipping it end over end. He catches it and turns it on her in a blink. He lifts her chin with the pointed tip of his blade.
His eyes flash emerald green.
She backs away from the sword, walks away from the warrior.
With her back turned, she does not see the color shift in his eyes. Gone is the green.
And all that remains is silver.
…
My eyes popped open as the vision jolted me from sleep.
It was the first time I’d had a vision of the silver-eyed warrior besides the one of Emery’s death. Who was the brown-haired woman? Would she lead me to him?
“I told you that book was dull,” Andreas said from his seat at the table. The gentle scrape of charcoal on paper filled the room from his sketching.
“And you were right.” I was resting in Andreas’s chair in the cabin.
When our eyes met, the corner of his mouth turned up before he returned to his sketch.
The book I’d been reading when I drifted off was splayed on my lap. Well, the book I’d been trying to read.
After suns of fumbling through language lessons with Andreas, I’d wanted to try reading, hoping that written words would help bridge the three-part gap between Nelfinex, the Beesan dialect—what Andreas called the old language—and Calandran.
As much as I wanted to learn about Calandra’s different sports, even with the challenge of translation, this book was drab enough to bore anyone to sleep.
My eyes had started to cross when I reached the second chapter that listed rules of a popular game where a ball was kicked into various sizes of hoops.
This book would be markedly better if the author had included illustrations.
“Sorry I don’t have anything else to read,” he said.
“That’s okay.” I stood and stretched my arms over my head, wincing slightly at the tenderness in my shoulders.
When Andreas went outside last evening to chop firewood, I’d decided to help.
Too many suns without training had gone by, and my muscles ached from the exertion.
The soreness was a reminder that it was time to stop lazing around in this cabin.
It was time to do what I’d come to this continent to do.
The sun I awoke in Andreas’s bed, dressed in his clothes, I’d insisted on leaving.
So he’d escorted me outside and waved goodbye.
I’d set off into the forest, limping on my sore ankle, following the narrow road that wound away from the cabin.
I’d barely made it an hour before my legs grew weak and my head started to throb. My ankle had given out again, and I’d stopped to catch my breath. The next thing I knew, I was waking in Andreas’s bed again, this time dressed in my own clothes.
He’d found me unconscious on the road and carried me back.
The next time I told him I was leaving, two suns later, he’d blocked the door with his towering frame and ordered me to rest.
So I’d rested.
As the strength slowly returned to my body, as the sickness passed, Andreas and I had spent most of our time stumbling through languages and stories, trying to understand each other.
He’d found me washed up along the Coraness River, and after rescuing me from the riverbank, he’d brought me here, to his hunting cabin, to rest.
I’d spent five suns with a fever, delirious and on the brink of death.
He’d forced me to drink broth and water.
He’d tended to the scrapes and cuts I’d gotten in the forest and river.
When he confessed to changing me out of my waterlogged clothes and into something dry, his cheeks had turned a handsome shade of pink.
Without question, Andreas had saved my life. Not just after the river, but by keeping me here so I could recover. And by teaching me about his continent and the language of his land.
I’d learned we were in Genesis, one of five kingdoms in Calandra. The Coraness River where I’d been found was named for the capital city on the other half of this kingdom.
That city seemed as good a place as any to begin my search for the silver-eyed warrior.
I walked to the table, taking the chair opposite his.
He eased his sketchbook away, tilting it up so I couldn’t see the page.
“What are you drawing?”
“Nothing.” The corner of his mouth turned up as he kept sketching.
I couldn’t help but stare. His hair was pushed away from his forehead. His jaw was dusted in stubble. I’d spent hours studying the perfect symmetry of his face. Vexx. He was perfect.
My aunt had always said that the Starling were cursed with easy infatuation.
She’d blamed that curse for Emery leaving with Max. Oleana had always refused a consort or lover, not wanting anyone to distract her from ruling Nelfinex. But to me, it didn’t seem like such a horrible thing to open your heart, even for a queen.
I liked to believe that as Starling, we simply recognized a good person when we found one.
And Andreas was a good man.
An easy infatuation with a kind, generous, and handsome man didn’t seem like a curse.
In another life, I’d stop letting him sleep in that chair and invite him to share the bed with me instead.
Divine, I wished I could draw. When I left this cabin, I wanted something to remember him by.
Maybe a sketch of him in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up his honed forearms as he kneaded dough for bread.
Or maybe a drawing of him chopping wood, his muscles straining against the fabric of his shirt as he swung the ax.
Mostly, I wanted something to help me remember his tawny eyes. Andreas looked at me and the rest of the world would fade to gray.
It didn’t seem fair that our time was coming to an end.
As quickly as I could move, I reached for the sketchbook.
Except I wasn’t fast enough. Andreas snapped it closed, though not before I caught a glimpse of my face. He’d drawn me in his chair.
His grin made my stomach flip, and his laugh filled the tiny room.
It was as enchanting as the man himself. And another reason that it was time for me to move on. If I didn’t go soon, I might never leave this cabin.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, setting the sketchbook aside to rake a hand through his sandy hair.
“Yes.” Hungry to touch his hair. To thread it through my fingers. To press my lips to his and find out if they were as soft as they appeared.
I would give almost anything to feel the strength of his arms wrapped around my body. I wanted to kiss the hollow below his throat and taste his skin.
When I met his gaze, it was hungry. His tongue darted out to lick his lower lip.
My mouth parted, and my breath hitched.
He cleared his throat, eyes dropping to the table.
As much as I wanted to give in to this attraction, to let the tension between us snap, if I surrendered now, there was no way I’d leave.
So I spoke the words I’d been dreading for suns. “I have to leave, Andreas.”
The room went silent save for my pounding heart.
The desire from a moment ago vanished from his gaze. With one fluid motion, he stood, the backs of his knees sending his chair scraping across the floor. “Nelvi’o.”
No.
He spoke it in the old language so there would be no doubt of what he was saying.
It was exactly what I wanted to hear. And the opposite of what I needed to do.
“I must find my cousin.”
Andreas paced the width of the room, running a hand over his face as he shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been.” Strong enough to leave.
Something had changed within my body since I arrived at the cabin.
My vision was crisper, so clear I could make out veins on a leaf from ten paces away.
Whenever Andreas left the cabin, I could hear his footsteps on the road well after he’d disappeared from sight.
And there was a strength in my hands and arms and legs that had not been there before.
In Showe, I would have struggled lifting Andreas’s ax and swinging it over my head. It was a heavy and cumbersome tool, made for someone his size, not mine.
“You’re stronger because you’ve healed,” he said. “You’ve rested. But you’re no match for a monster.”
Monster.
We didn’t have that word in Nelfinex.
Nor did we have a word for the black beast that Xandra had become.
After I’d described them to Andreas, he’d told me they were called bariwolves.
Xandra had said she wanted to shift into an animal with more bite than a swift. Well, she’d chosen wisely. Bariwolves were feared all across Calandra.
“I will be cautious,” I told him. “But it is time for me to leave.”
“No, not yet. There is still so much we can learn from each other. I want to know more about Nelfinex.”
Andreas had never heard of my continent or any other before, and he’d been shocked to learn just how far across the Marixmore I’d traveled. To his credit, it hadn’t taken him long to accept that the world was bigger than he’d once perceived.
Part of what made him so undeniably attractive was his acceptance. He’d believed everything I’d told him.
I’d told him of the continent Kenn and the country Nelfinex. I’d told him that his old language was similar to a dialect from Beesa, another country in Kenn. I’d told him I’d made this journey with my cousin and that we’d been separated because of bariwolves.
In our short time together, I’d shared with him enough to satisfy his curiosity about my homeland while gleaning everything possible about his world.
And while he was beautiful and kind and compassionate and charming, Andreas and I were closer to strangers than friends. So I’d kept much of my life a secret. If there were shapeshifters in Calandra, I hadn’t asked. Maybe, if we’d had more time together, I’d have told him everything.
Instead, I’d say goodbye.
“Andreas.” I crossed the room, standing in his path as he paced. When he stopped in front of me, eyebrows knitted in concern, I forced myself to stay on my heels, not to rise up toward his mouth. “I cannot stay.”
“You will not stay. There’s a difference.”
I gave him a sad smile. “I will not stay.”
He let out a frustrated growl, jaw clenched as he glared at the wall. Then he closed his eyes and sighed, his frame deflating as he took my face in his hands. “Caspia.”
I loved hearing him say my name. Almost enough to stay. Almost.
His eyes searched mine before they dropped to my mouth.
Kiss me. Please. I wanted just one kiss before I left.
A first kiss. And our last.
He shook his head, his teeth grinding as he let out another of those frustrated growls and dropped his forehead to mine. Then he let go of my face and hauled me into his arms. A first and last hug, too. “Can I change your mind?”
“Nelvi’o.” I turned my nose into his chest, breathing in the crisp scents of wood, his botanical soap, and his own masculine spice.
Andreas smelled like the best parts of Showe and Calandra combined. Like two worlds colliding in a dream.
I breathed him in, soaking in the warmth and strength of his arms. Then I let him go and walked to the kitchen, picking up the drawing from the counter that he’d made me while explaining the five kingdoms.
A map.
“When will you leave?” he asked.
“Tomorrow.” Before I lost my courage to walk away.
“And where will you go?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll search for Xandra until I find her. And while I’m here, I’ll explore your continent. Maybe I’ll go all the way to Turah.”
“Why Turah?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It’s the farthest kingdom from here, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then by the time I travel all the way there, I’ll have crossed most of Calandra. And if I still haven’t found her, then I’ll turn around and come back.”
It was a half-truth. A veiled lie.
Andreas didn’t know of my visions, either.
He’d presumed that my cousin and I had come here by mistake while sailing, and I hadn’t corrected his assumption.
He didn’t know that I’d seen Emery’s death or that the ritus had called us here.
Just like the truth of the Starling, I was afraid that if I told him about the visions and he didn’t believe me, well…
I’d had enough heartbreak since leaving Nelfinex.
When I left here, Andreas would be a flawless memory. Untarnished and infallible for the rest of my life. If I failed at everything else, if I didn’t find Xandra or avenge Emery or return to Nelfinex, then at least I’d have the memory of this perfect man to cherish.
I was going to Turah because he’d told me many of their people were lumbermen. In my vision of Emery’s death, she’d been in a fortress with towering walls made of thick, fallen trees. It seemed as good of a place as any to search for the silver-eyed warrior.
“In my family, the women have a tradition. We have a rite. We leave home and travel into the unknown to find the person we were meant to become.”
“And this is your rite?”
“Yes.” Even if I never shifted, I knew in my heart this journey would change me forever.
Lifting the map he’d drawn me, I plotted my course.
“Tell me again about the starbursts. What are the colors?”
“Amber for Quentis. Green for Turah. Magenta in Laine. Blue in Ozarth. And here in Genesis, it’s persimmon.” The color of the fruit that grew on a tree outside the cabin.
“But no silver.”
“No.”
“And everyone in Calandra has starbursts?”
He nodded. “Everyone. I’ve never seen a person without them until you.”
Maybe the silver-eyed warrior was from a different continent, too. If his eyes were truly unique, then it should make finding him easier. People would talk.
Now that Andreas had taught me how to speak Calandran, I could begin asking questions and understanding their answers.
“Thank you. I vow to repay your kindness.”
“Stay alive,” he said. “That’s payment enough.”
“Maybe I’ll come back here. I’ll bring you a more interesting book and a fresh sketchbook.”
He gave me a sad smile. “Then you’d better make your way to Quentis.”
“Why Quentis?”
“Because when you leave here, I’ll return home.”
Then I guess we’d both be saying goodbye to this tiny cabin.
“Quentis.” I touched the center of my forehead with two fingers. “I vow it.”
“I’ll pray to Ama and Oda to guide your path. And to the Six to watch over your journey.”
I shook my head. “Nothing good comes from the number six. Pray to the Divine.”
“I don’t know your god.”
“Then I’ll have to find you in Quentis and teach you about the Divine’s grace.”
His eyes crinkled at the sides. “I hope our paths cross again, Caspia.”
“So do I, Andreas.”
He lifted a hand, like he was about to reach for me. But before his fingertips could brush against mine, he backed away.
And when he walked outside, when the door closed behind him, I knew we’d just had our goodbye.