Chapter 4 Evera
EVERA
The girl’s chest rose and fell rapidly. My eyes held hers, drawn into the emotions that drove her.
Exhaling a steadying breath, I fought to calm the racing of my own heart, to resist falling victim to panic.
I searched my mind for any useful knowledge that could assist me in my current situation.
The extent of what I knew of the Alidian came from legends, stories, and Leighis’s teachings.
Yet even my mentor spoke little of them.
There was a hush to the word. When it was spoken, people averted their eyes, mumbled the word witch, for that title was easier to stomach.
Alidians were human by birth. They came into the world like everyone else.
Until the age of five or so, there was nothing notably unique about them.
Then their magic began to show. The black of their eyes was the tell of a soul consumed by dark magic, the energy in the air the forewarning of unmatchable power.
An Alidian’s magic was deadly, unbiased, and unhinged. Cilician law was finite when it came to the killing of innocents. A death for a death. It was why such children rarely made it past the age of six. Unable to control their outbursts, they were executed for their crimes.
Sucking in my bottom lip, I studied the girl’s charcoal eyes. Within the darkness, I detected a base drive for survival. Like an animal backed into a corner, bristling, hiding its fear behind pointed teeth and snarls of warning.
The charge in the air intensified, and through the rush of blood in my ears, I found an unexpected calm.
An acceptance, a calculated cool detachment.
Thoughts of Mother came to me, of her warmth, her love for the short time she was in our lives.
Her lullaby hummed through me until the tune rose faintly from my throat, sweet and slow, as I closed my eyes.
Time was elusive. I couldn’t say how long I carried the tune, but the charge in the air began to dissipate.
Opening my eyes, I found the girl still looking back at me, her dark irises faded, returned to a cornflower blue.
As the ringing in my ears subsided, she relaxed her grip on her knees and color returned to her white knuckles.
I exhaled another steadying breath, grateful my first instinct to calm the girl had been successful.
Grateful Mother’s song had settled her, as it had so many times for me before.
“I used to live in the streets too,” I said hesitantly, voice low.
The girl fidgeted, then faintly she mimicked a few notes of the lullaby. The sound from her throat was rough, as if her voice were underused.
“It was my mother’s song,” I offered. “It’s always brought me comfort.”
The child averted her eyes. What had happened to her mother? My heart wrenched.
“What’s your name?” I asked, unsure if she would respond.
Tucking tawny hair, tangled and unkempt, behind an ear, the girl rocked side to side. “Kalae.”
My heart leapt. “That’s a pretty name,” I encouraged. “I’m Evera. How old are you, Kalae?”
The girl scrunched her nose and shook her head once, frustration drawing her brows together.
“I don’t know my age either. But when our mentor took my brother and I in, he gave us an age.”
Her arms and legs were thin, her cheeks sunken. Malnutrition made it difficult to determine her age.
“Have you bled?” I asked.
She hesitated, then nodded. “Only once,” she said, voice meek.
The loneliness of her statement harrowed me. At least when my first bleed had come, I’d been able to rely on Leighis, who’d calmly explained things and given me what I needed. To go through that alone, unknowing …
“I’m going to guess you’re around five and ten,” I offered, concealing the weight of my sadness for the girl. Old enough for her first bleed, but certainly she couldn’t be any older than that. Not with her slight frame.
Consideration laced her expression. “How old do you believe you are?”
I smiled. “About one and twenty.”
A clatter came from the street, followed by the raised voices of men arguing. One slurred his speech, the other—a merchant I suspected—riddled off a series of insults and complaints over his broken goods.
I drew a breath, but before I could comfort the girl, she was retreating down the alley, the bare soles of her feet flashing. They were raw, scratched, and agitated. Detecting such things was second nature, a part of who I was, as natural a reaction as a voyager charting the stars.
Unable to do anything more, I raised a hand to my heart and prayed to the sun goddess, Ora, that she might look after her child.
With a slow trudge, mind heavier than when I left, I made my way back to our stall. I carried four apples purchased with my last ferre from an orchardist’s stand near the edge of the outer grounds.
“Are you enjoying the festival?” Aureus asked as I drew near. He’d finished assembling the tables and arranging them with our wares. Healing tinctures, salves, dried herbs, and containers of tea leaves were displayed. . Three unopened jars of deer tallow caught my attention.
My brother ran a hand across the back of his neck. At least he wore the wraps.
I tossed him an apple, which he caught with his other hand. “Apples?”
I hummed, not wanting to discuss the encounter with the baker’s boy, and offered one of the remaining three apples to our mare.
Sorrel flicked her tail and took it eagerly from my flattened palm.
She bit it in half, and the other portion fell to the ground.
Dipping her head, she snorted at the dust and wrapped her tongue around the remains of the fruit.
Aureus gaped his lips as if he were about to say more, but abandoned the conversation when a couple approached the stall. As he spoke with them, I selected an apple for myself and leaned against one of the tent’s support beams.
The man, perhaps in his forties, was rambling on about his wife’s frequent complaining about a rash.
Both wore earth-toned clothing, simple but clean.
Middle class. Perhaps shop owners from another town.
Of course, if they were upper class, they wouldn’t be in the outer grounds of the city anyway. I took a bite of my apple and listened.
The woman tried to explain, her voice barely more than a whisper, but her husband spoke over her. “Ever since the thing showed up,” he said with an exasperated breath, “she’s been whining. Constantly. It’s getting in the way of her duties, and it’s unsightly.”
The exchange went back and forth several times.
My brother attempted to gain information on the woman’s ailment, but each time the man would only shake his head, interjecting with groaning complaints.
All the while, the woman shrank more into herself.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, my brother’s lecture already playing in my mind.
Heaving a breath, I pushed off the beam, set my half-eaten apple down, and went to my brother’s side. He shot me a pointed look, but Aureus was soft-spoken, and this was going nowhere.
“Let me see your rash.” I addressed the woman directly, speaking over her husband. The man visibly tensed and directed a disapproving scowl at my brother. I ignored both men.
The woman hesitated, then pulled back a sleeve, revealing patches of irritated skin. The rash was an angry, red, flaking, and localized area. Apprehension settled over me as it did Aureus, and I took a slight step back. “Have you had any muscle weakness?”
“No,” the woman replied, voice low. Her husband swallowed.
“Numbness? Lesions anywhere on your body?”
She shook her head, and I sighed, relieved. Aureus, too, relaxed his posture.
“No one else has caught it,” the man intercepted. “It’s just a rash.”
“Prickling rash,” Aureus said flatly, speaking aloud the diagnosis I’d come to as well.
The rash shared many characteristics of Scale, so much so that it wasn’t uncommon for someone to be misdiagnosed.
To be labeled with Scale was a death sentence.
There was no cure, and not even the wealthy could avoid the laws in place to keep such plagues at bay.
The treatment was aconitum poisoning, which brought about a quick and humane death.
Then the body would be burned. Prickling rash, however, was treatable and non-contagious.
I selected a salve made of oats and a rare oil imported from the western lands, across the Beridian Sea.
The lotion would cost the man, but his wife needed it.
With another thought, I grabbed a sack of mineral salts.
They would ease her itching if she dissolved them in a warm bath and soaked the agitated areas.
“The salve you apply directly to the rash—”
“What is this?” the man spoke up, voice hardened, now past his initial reservations.
“It’s a salve,” I reiterated with pointed irritation. Then I realized he was addressing my brother and no longer speaking of treatments. His tone was one I’d heard before. Accusatory.
Aureus, voice level, attempted to placate the situation, explaining the uses of the items I’d selected, but the man no longer seemed interested in his wife’s ailment.
“You let your wife meddle with such things?” the man questioned with distaste.
“Sister,” I corrected. The conversation was about me, but they’d left me out of it.
Aureus rubbed his index and pointer finger between his straight brows and shook his head.
“Sister?” The man’s voice lowered. With a narrowing of his eyes, he leaned across the table. “We will not be buying anything from you, witch.”
Right. Because I was unmarried, that made me detached. Uncaring. Everything people believed the stereotypical Alidian to be. Throw in potion making, and suddenly I was a witch. Indisputable logic. I huffed, and the man sneered his repulsion, breath reeking of onions and beef.