CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
C HAPTER S EVENTEEN
“Come with me,” Yennes said again, awaiting a familiar response.
Baltisse only shook her head. The mage stood at the basin before one of the wide windows, her gaze on the ocean.
Those windows still made Yennes uncomfortable, despite the lack of any other being in the bay. She could not rid herself of the sense of vulnerability. The cabins in Terrsaw were not built the same.
She stood with feet planted in the doorframe, though apprehension clawed at her throat. “I’ll go without you.”
“Then do so,” Baltisse said. “I’m sure you’ll find your way.”
That was just it. Yennes had no idea where to go, or indeed, where she was going. She just knew she could not remain in the bay forever, never seeing another scrap of Terrsaw. Baltisse had shown her maps. It was an unfathomable mass of land, stretching many sides. She didn’t need to remain here, so close to the Chasm, where the voices still found her in the night. Sometimes she was unable to discern if they were real, or the simple torture of memory.
It would aide her to leave this bay. Find another speck on the map, where she did not have to watch the waves roll and think about the way it felt to be drowned by them.
But more than that, she sought help. Favours. Favours that Baltisse would not grant her.
The mage still would not teach her to fold.
Despite knowing that she could not stay, turning away from the bay and outward made her falter. She knew nothing of this land. Knew nothing of its people. She erred on the stoop. Equally determined and frightened.
Baltisse sighed dramatically and leant her weight on the countertop. “Very well,” she relented. “I will accompany you. But when we go out there and find nothing worth finding, I’ll expect you to heed my advice in future.”
Yennes grinned, but said nothing to provoke the mage as she readied herself to journey.
“I hope you neglected to eat breakfast,” Baltisse said, gathering a small hand-woven swag.
Yennes frowned. “Why?” She had not turned down a single piece of food since arriving a little over a month ago.
“I know how you hate to waste a meal.”
Moments later, Yennes’ hands were splayed against new territory and her stomach turned up every morsel it held. Her limbs, newly decompressed, popped at the joints. “Fuck,” she gasped, overcome by another wave of nausea. “You didn’t think to mention how very unpleasant that would be?” She closed her eyes as they swam.
“If I had, you wouldn’t have done it, would you?”
Yennes groaned. “I’ve changed my mind. I do not wish to learn how to fold.”
“That’s a relief,” Baltisse muttered. “Perhaps you’ll cease pestering me. Though if you wish to see that bay again, you will need to find a way across the river, and you swim like a helpless infant.”
“I’ve no desire to return to that bay,” Yennes said, more firmly than was her habit of recent days.
Baltisse did not refute it. Instead, she pressed her lips into a thin line, and averted her eyes. “We shall see.”
Once Yennes had reclaimed enough composure, Baltisse guided her wordlessly through woodland. They walked a weaving, trailless path for a time, and the mage did not bother to check if Yennes followed. Though the sound of her mind was likely telling enough.
The land overwhelmed her. Its ground dipped and rose with the interweaving of tree roots, thickening into trunks with bent backs and hollow stomachs. Trees that leaned over one another, their foliage draping over her as she walked beneath. And the colour… the colour was everywhere. Newly formed buds sprouted all around, some opening as Baltisse passed by, drinking whatever energy she passed to them through the proximity of her fingertips. The mage hummed as she walked and the forest hummed back – a quiet symphony Yennes could only gawk at. Despite the questions that brewed, Yennes could not bring herself to break the spell.
Eventually, the forest parted to reveal a well-worn path. The dirt compacted here, strange trails marring the dust.
“What travels here?” Yennes asked. The marks were unbroken, thin, accompanied by round, almost fully circular tracks. They did not resemble an animal or person she recognised.
“Wagons, mostly,” Baltisse answered. “Horse-drawn.”
“Oh,” Yennes answered. She did not bother to tell Baltisse that she could not picture a horse, though she’d heard it mentioned before.
The mage sighed. “There is much you will not recognise.” The words were somehow foreboding.
When the sun had reached the middle of the sky and Yennes’ borrowed chemise and cotton blouse were moist with sweat, she began to wish for rest.
“We’ve almost arrived,” Baltisse answered, reading the direction of her thoughts. “No point in stopping now.”
“I had not realised there was a destination in mind.” Yennes frowned. Mother above, it was hot. She had not known the sun could grow quite so biting.
“The temperature will peak in several weeks,” Baltisse answered. “The season has only just turned. You will be glad for the proximity of the ocean then.”
“I don’t plan to see any ocean again in my lifetime,” Yennes quipped, but she did not continue to badger the mage with questions of their travel. The forest had begun to thin, heating the air she breathed. The wagon path widened. Soon, Yennes could see an end to the trees’ border. Beyond it, wide open fields awaited. They stepped to the forest’s edge and looked out, catching their breath.
It was an ocean of long, golden grass stalk, bending to the will of the breeze. Rolling hills of it, stretching in every direction.
“Wheat,” Baltisse answered before she could ask.
Yennes could only stare. How could such an impossibly vast place exist? And yet no one guarded it. No one kept watch.
“It belongs to the Queen,” Baltisse answered, starting forward again. “And no one would dare take it from her, lest they wish to go without their share… or their hands.”
Yennes followed Baltisse out into the wheat fields. “This Queen,” she began, pressing stalks to the side with hesitant movements. “Have you ever met her?”
Baltisse chuckled darkly. “Those like me know better than to find ourselves before a royal.”
Yennes pressed her lips together. Baltisse had told her as much before. “You said the Queen was intolerant of your kind?”
“Of our kind,” Baltisse answered. “Magic courses through your veins as it does mine.”
“But I am human,” Yennes argued. “The magic I have was taken from the Glacian’s pool. I was not born with it.”
“And yet, you can wield it. The Queen will not care how it was gained, only that you carry it. You’re a threat to her, whether you acknowledge it or not.”
“I am from the Ledge,” Yennes pressed. “Will the Queen not be gratified by the return of one of her people?”
Silence follows, and then, “I have told you this part already. The Queen sacrificed your people to that Ledge… to the Glacians. She will not be pleased to see you back.” Baltisse turned and looked at her, halting their progress. “I bid you not to go looking for her, Yennes. Do not put yourself in her path. Explore Terrsaw if you must. Settle wherever you might settle and pay that fucking castle no mind.”
Yennes tempered the response that rose to her lips. It did not seem to matter much to Baltisse that there were people on the Ledge who still lived, trapped like animals. She did not seem to care for the gruelling conditions of their survival, the harshness of the frost, the proximity of the Chasm. She did not know the feel of talons through skin, biting into the tissue and sinew that held one’s shoulders together. None of it seemed a compelling argument to someone like Baltisse, living safely in her glass-window cabin in her quiet bay.
Nothing can save them, she had told Yennes over and over. Best you find a way to reconcile with it.
But if the Queen knew what it was to live on the Ledge, if the people of Terrsaw knew the truth – perhaps they’d feel compelled, as she did, to aide them. To bring them home.
Many years had passed since this Queen of Terrsaw had made her deal, and time, Yennes knew, brought regret.
“Dangerous thoughts,” Baltisse called from ahead, “find dangerous ends.”
Yennes bit her tongue.