Chapter Two

Drowned Dreams and Broken Relics

It was almost nightfall when my journey back up the vertigo came to an end. Now I found myself faced with the sweeping winds and fields of along the path towards Delta. I found no comfort, rage nor even sadness at the sight neither of those fields nor in the city mapped out before me across a distant watery landscape. Familiarity was a lost cause to me now as Delta now was a place with no name, no shred of emotion. Now I felt…nothing. I could not belong and wouldn’t belong there anymore even if I had wanted to. All of my forgiveness could not make them accept me if not for their own guilt. The thought occurred to me even as I shook a shower of white rose petals from my ebony hair. I had thought, as I climbed, through jagged rock that tore and bruised my skin, that I hadn’t tears enough for what they had done to me, as the rain beat down upon my face, blinding me, almost as sightless as the fear that shrouded me. I swore and damned them all to hell a million times before I could take that back. The thing about such a climb though, is that it gives you time to cool off, time to reflect I suppose. It also made me wonder too about what it was that saved me.

Had it been my own witchcraft, the devil in me that saved me? Was it unwilling to let me be with my god? The devil that I knew wasn’t there, the spirit inside turned evil by all their comments and sneering jibes. Or could it have been the Trinity, the sword that swayed by my side even now, and the hand of Alexander. But who was I to suggest the lord would care so much as to save a convicted demon? Would it be ignorance to think such a thing? I did not know if this was my punishment for being different, maybe my salvation came through the belief of the many jurors who committed a white rose to my innocent ‘death’. All of the luck on this earth could never have saved me. Could it? I closed my eyes to block out the noise of my thoughts. I was numb and my heart felt cold at it’s core, frozen out of feeling anything but fatigue and the delayed pain of grazed knees and bleeding fingertips. I could believe nothing but how tired I was and I still felt unsure if I was even here, if I was stood here at all looking at Delta from the outside. I couldn’t see tomorrow or tonight happening at all or even the moment the Trinity slipped from my hand for the second time, a constant with me now and later on for the rest of my journey, as cold as it had been this morning only a little lighter. I had barely noticed it’s presence even as I used it to climb back up and it became like a fifth limb to me so when it slipped from my hand, I fell onto my knees beside it and lay, face down in the grass. I was bathed in conflicting sunlight and impending moonlight and I turned to watch the darkness fall. It was strange to lie looking upwards instead of down into the ocean at night. For each little star that appeared, out of the corner of my eye, four of five of the city lights flared up in unison. I could hear the lapping tides sweeping in and around Delta now, submerging it and my memories, beneath a crystal blue ocean. As I watched, I saw the glass towers of the holy church and twisting houses merge and become one with the water, it flooding in the a tundra to be forever, and eternally linked until daylight broke: A cycle of the elements. At last the water would eventually creep back into the distance along with night’s shadows, a metamorphosis more natural than birth of life itself, as it was with each of the four elemental cities: Ellenor of the Air, Rico of the Earth, Islia of Fire and Delta of Water. More natural than anything that lingered on it that place. The elements could not be stopped from existing, or murdered or teased into feeling bad. They would never stop as life would and they could never be tamed. They would never fade out along with the rest of the world and were my only constants now. I was to later find friendship in each of the elements and although I didn’t realise it then, I swore my life to them, played with them and laughed, cried and got angry along with them. I heard their every whisper as clear as day and cried for them. Cried for me. They could be manipulated, just as I was, and made into something they weren’t, but they could never be broken, moulded or damaged beyond repair. There were so many dyes to be cast, so many combinations both bad and good that allowed me to see just how artificial holy justice had become, dead to tradition. I would not mourn tradition, even Alexander, my ‘false god’ whom even now I found myself praying to in the back of my mind, but most of all I would not mourn the Princess of Delta: the girl who struggled to fit in, told what to do, how to behave all of her life, based on those traditions. She who could not step foot outside of the Palace without an escort, although she often did, and would certainly never have been allowed here, outside of the city gates, if not for being Princess, simply for being Deltain. I would not miss being that spoilt groomed little girl, who hid behind Daddy all of her life, nor the etiquette lessons, the constant pandering and nagging of her courtiers. There was always a right and wrong way to stand, a certain way to speak and then there was my father…I loved him so much. But I hated the aristocracy that made him so uptight and disapproving of my friends Kari, Adam and Elijah for not being like us. I could never make him see that there wasn’t an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ but now I gained a little understanding of him after ‘they’ were against ‘us’ (me and my friends) at the trial.  I was wrong to judge them but at the time my blood still boiled at the thought. I would never miss such a thing that was never there, only the man who allowed me all of my faults even when he disapproved, above all else, where other people couldn’t or wouldn’t. Although, in truth, we shared more quarrels than hugs, our love could never have been stronger in the rare moments of understanding we found in each other’s company. He was my father above all else in those few moments: He was not the King of Delta and I was not his Princess.

I drew my knees up to my chin now, as I thought of him, began interrogating myself over again, about how I could have saved him from the plague. If I possessed such witchcraft, if the thing in me was good then could I not have helped him? Oh, I could have sat there forever, curled up like that, driving myself mad with a thousand questions: a million answers or possibilities for each. However, despite everything, there was a part of me that was inconceivably happy to be free. Whatever had happened, or why, all of my choices were my own, my life was my own. All I saw before me was ocean, oceans and oceans of vast life. Life I wanted more than anything, so badly that I tossed my faith aside there and then just for that life. All Alexander had brought me was pain, even if he had saved me, I wouldn’t follow him or anyone else anymore. I was dead and it hit me with a rush of swift but brief adrenalin. I would fit in now, no more being on the outside as everybody here was on the outside of the reclusive city I once called ‘home’. Nobody knew about the spirit, nobody knew about the Princess of Delta; a princess never destined to be queen, just like her grandmother.

You see, I was truly my father’s daughter, although I had inherited my Ellenaic mother’s dark hair and eyes. You must understand above all things, that I was never given or taken by the spirit, the one who shared my soul, just as it had my grandmother’s and every woman before her in my father’s family. I was born a ‘Weirdy’. A Weirdy was one possessed, or joined such as me, one with unusual powers. There was one in each generation of my father’s family and they were all women. Once one Weirdy died, the next born would inherit the same spirit. There was only ever one spirit and one Weirdy at a time, a very powerful combination that is said to have drove many a woman mad through one way or another. It was neither good nor bad, I remember my father telling me once. It was simply affected by the ‘weight’ on a person’s heart. Even if a person was not bad, their emotion could still turn the spirit. I was to remember that always.

Unfortunately, I was born one week exactly before my cousin, Lette and inherited the damned thing before she could. It took a lot not to hate her, I can tell you, just for that, as a child. However, Lette was a spoilt brat with the motto ‘ anything you can do I can do better’ and insisted on poking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted and of course, bullying those not of ‘noble blood’, and it was thanks to her I met Elijah, who of course tried to pick a fight with her before I intervened…and merited a misplaced punch in the nose for my troubles. He held my head back whilst Lette stuffed tissue up my bloody nose. I convinced myself that Lette was a blessing in disguise after that, although Elijah and myself still continued our daily moaning sessions each time she tripped one of us or pulled our chair out from under us each time he came to visit.

Lette was not even the half of my troubles after I learned of my heritage that spanned back from my birth and everybody knew. Everybody knew I was the black sheep. Usually a Weirdy never made it beyond her eighteenth or nineteenth and in those days, it was common practice for a girl to be married off at sixteen and have her first child at eighteen. It was like for my teen grandmother after she gave birth to my father. Instead, she refused her suitor and had a scandalous affair with my great grandfather’s foot masseuse, or so the story goes (as Elijah once joked even royals can play at being trailer trash, whilst looking suspiciously at me. We both found it shamefully hilarious, although had it been anyone else, they would not have left with all of their teeth.) . As revenge, her parents supposedly placed her on trial two days after the baby’s birth. I don’t think I would have taken much of a liking to my great grandparents somehow…

She was convicted and died on the same moor I was supposed to. My father had protected me thus far. For all of his pompous tradition, my father did not believe in sacrificing me in cold blood and arranged my suitor out of love for me when he found that the plague was with him. He knew that when he was gone I would be tried and he wanted to marry me to the protection of a new King before then. He told me as much the day before he died. I hated him so much then, thought him insensitive and now I would do anything to hear him scold me again. I learnt of his death the next morning upon waking, and overhearing the idle chatter of the maid and the cook in the hall outside my room. It was the month after my sixteenth birthday. I was given a week or so to mourn him, and then I was ordered to trial. It had been my uncle, not me, who took the crown. He had not been at the trial and given my uncle’s condition, I am sure the church had no qualms about requesting my execution on behalf of the newly appointed Mute King. If I were dead, then the cycle would be ended, my father’s bloodline would be ‘purified’ and the church would take control of Delta after my Uncle Imre’s eventual death.

Unless they decide to try him too, I thought bitterly.

That is unless my uncle had an heir. However, I had my doubts about uncle ever marrying and the eventual irony curled my lips into a bitter smile, despite my heartache. Fortunately for them, Uncle Imre was a raging homosexual.

I don’t recall thinking much about Imre after that, of my father, too tired for words, too alert to sleep. I tried as I had before to find comfort in the sky as it turned from a deep autumn sunset to take on a passive blue hue, I hoped in vain would stay forever, but which would disappear at dawn. My interest in the mortal world dwindled as the songs of birds faded out and I listened instead to the whispers of the Immortals and the playful chattering of Wisps and Fairies as the danced beneath the moonlight, hanging in the air around me like apparitions, little more than fireflies to the untrained eye. As an elemental myself, I had been blessed with a kind of ‘second sight’, that allowed me to see in between the planes, which always seemed to double over each other in sequence, like clear sheets of plastic placed over each other onto the same backdrop so that both saw the same but were of different worlds. It was like this for the Fay and us. The difference between what they saw and what my kind allowed themselves to see was that they could see Felidae and not mirage. A great many Felidae knew of Fairies, Wisps and Immortals but refused to believe in them: a distinct difference between knowing they exist and simply being told that they exist. In their ignorance, Felidae would walk straight past them, dismissing them as either dream or batting at them like insects. Even when they were convinced they existed, they no more looked for or saw them, than a parishioner would search for an all-powerful man named ‘God’, and when they did, they often looked in the wrong places or convinced themselves, without any proof, that the Fay were elsewhere: So-called ‘Fairy Glades’ were becoming a popular attraction in Rico Village (or so Elijah told me). Even those who did find them were branded insane and sometimes the followers of Alexander, ‘for their own good’, locked up, the most competent scientists. However of those who had seen the Fay, none could hear them. I was certain of this because people still heard the running of water, rather than the songs of the elemental Wisps, heard the whistling wind rather than the cries of the Immortals, like I did. I suppose I was able to access the other planes because a part of me did not belong to this one. The thing inside me was either spirit or demon, but either way it definitely should not have been here, which ironically enough, I suppose lead to the belief that I should not be here. The truth was that together, the pair of us inside the one body could belong to neither, as sombre a truth as that sounds. I saw it as a gift, and was often grateful to listen to the Fay, especially in times like these when I was alone. The Immortals however were a different story, and I hoped many a time that they would leave my alone.

The Immortals were also demons, not unlike my own in a sense but different. They were lost soul that lingered on decades after life had passed them by. They were like the next evolution of the ghost, those who did not cross over and stayed to complete whatever unfinished business they had. Only now they had forgotten that too and would constantly screech into the night searching in between the planes for something they could never find. I believe they were searching for memories. Often they had came to me before, whilst a slept, whispering things in my ear, giving me their pain in the form of nightmares. If ever you had been visited by an Immortal, it would leave you cold till the dawn arose. In other words, if you could see your own breath in mid-summer, then there was an Immortal about.

However, I could no more understand them than I could understand the Fay language and when they spoke to me it sounded almost like murder, a death over and over again, a scream that echoed into my ears that no one else could hear, in stark contrast the gentle gurgling of Wisps. Wisps were little more than elemental discharge come to life. These would one day become fairies, but often a dark shadow was cast over them as they had started disappearing. The few times the Fay had spoken directly to me, I had learned all that I know now of the Immortals. Only they told me that the Immortals had learned ‘the true art of survival’ which meant ensuring that they were around for all time, no matter the cost, to eventually retain their lost memory. The Fay people had assured me that they had become nothing but pure unbridled prime evil and suspected them of devouring Wisps to retain their long lives before like all ghosts, crossing over naturally, regardless of unfinished business. Therefore they had warned me strongly against them and put a great many charms on me over the years, which prevented possession. I doubted that was possible though as I did not think my ‘companion’ would welcome further intrusion with open arms, although I do sometimes wonder whether or not it was the Fay’s spells which kept the majority of me, me, rather than demon. In any case I was grateful to them, not only for the charms but for honouring a request of mine, to watch over my little friend, Kari, whom I felt out of herself, Adam and Elijah, was missing their mother the most.

Kari was always surrounded by Fay after that, and I get the feeling that they loved being around her almost as much as I did. She often played with them, holding out an open hand whilst they flitted merrily across her palm. Out of all of my friends, Kari, a child of six years old, still believed in and saw the same fairies that I did and could get away with it for maybe another year or two as childish fantasies go, according to the Elders. The eyes of children are often wide open rather than blinking through the veil of scepticism and unsurprisingly, Kari was the only one who believed me when I said I could see and hear them. Her brothers, whilst loyal, where stubborn and mocked the very idea of fairies as childish ‘girly’ fantasies, although they too looked uncertain sometimes whether or not this was true as Kari and myself used to sit upon the terrace balcony of the Palace guestrooms and go ‘fairy spotting’ and I must admit to patronising her sometimes before I was sure she could actually see them.

Sighing deeply I wished Kari could have been with me that night, to see them glow against the night’s sky rather then being far more feint when we used to watch them at sunset before the tide came in and submerged the city the night. As I lay there now, I had never seen so many Fairies in all of my life! They were gathered like silver and gold clouds of mist, gentle relief from the endless sky above which seemed more than a little daunting to a water-dwelling elemental like myself. It was a welcome change to the clear night’s sky as they seemed to swim past the moon and emitted a gentle humming sound, a song as sweet as honey and as delicate as the soft clatter of wind chimes in a light breeze: A lullaby that I had never heard before, a sound that made my spirit soar and my eyes heavy with a beauty that silenced my chaotic mind and helped to heal part of my broken heart. For the first time since my father died, peace found me and I slumbered, in safety no longer bound by stonewalls.

I turned on my side and beheld the man with my own eye: A tall Felidae, with the ears of a canine and pure white hair that fell in pieces down his back. He was draped in a long black cloak and I could see from the flesh on his hands, which hung by his side, that he also had almost porcelain skin. With his back to me, he looked like a knight of some sort, but it was too dark to tell and he was too near to the cliff edge for me to see. I knew this man, this knave, this enigma, and felt no fear as I addressed him with a familiarity in my voice that came uneasily to me.

“ Where are we going?” I asked, sleepily; content to lie there whilst this stranger stood brandishing the Trinity just meters away.

A moment of confused silence passed between us, yet I was no more aware of it than I could tell that I simply did not know this man’s name.

“Sweet Princess,” He said in an empty kind of voice that seemed to linger in the air all around me, “ Surely you have not already forgotten?”

There was a kind of expectancy in his voice, an almost despairing groan as though he had told me once and I had forgotten countless times. I rested once more in the grass, struggled to remember and felt an odd twinge of guilt when I found that I couldn’t.  I saw him shake his head slightly so that his hair dragged along his back then hung wistfully in one direction as the wind teased it. My very image of him was…escaping me now and he seemed to grow very far from me.

“ You must go to Islia, Kiah,” He said, serenely, without moving. “ To tell the King.”

Again my mind struggled to place meaning to his words.

“Why?” I asked, though not really caring, keeping my eyes fixed to the bubbling clouds above, that seemed to melt and twist above me as though they were being boiled and pulled apart. They seemed to getting bigger too, as they descended, in waxy drips around us. Still I could not find it in myself to panic as I know I should have done. I felt…I just couldn’t care less even as all this was happening and the fact that I knew I should have cared but didn’t, couldn’t, sent my heart racing and I looked over at the cloaked figure, who too was now blurry and melting, but for the sword he held which kept it’s shape steadily.

“ Because,” He said suddenly, darkly, raising the Trinity slightly and made as though to strike, “ The Sky is falling…and when it does…”

I screamed. He whirled around suddenly, cloak circling him. I glimpsed back nothingness in his empty eyes. I became aware all too quickly that he was advancing on me, only I couldn’t see, blinded by the liquid world around me. I was drowning...gasped for air…couldn’t reach! I cried out but was sunk by tides of dark, stifled…chest was tight…couldn’t reach…and then…!

I screamed. Sat bolt upright, my chest heaving and my pulse ready to burst out of my veins. I gasped for air, and clawed at my throat for an instant thinking that I was still there, in that my darkest of dreams, which now seemed more vivid than my strongest memories. I remembered every thought, every feeling, and every sight of everything I had seen and done. I could smell pale death in the air; new, fresh, bloodlust wavered inside at its scent. I knew it wasn’t me in there, it couldn’t be, but I felt the strong incentive to seek out whatever it was and devour whatever was left of it’s being. I wanted its soul-

“ No!”

I snapped myself out of my daze and pondered upon what it was I was feeling. There had to be only one answer and I knew it was laughing inside at me, at its own little attempts to make me squirm. It had given me that dream I knew it, lest the Immortals had been at play in my head, whilst I slept. Either way, I convinced myself that it did not bear thinking about. It was after all only a dream. I decide to head to the nearest town, wherever that was, although as the man in my dream suggested, Islia did seem like my safest option as even though I was outside of Delta, I would have to cross the border to escape it, which I knew from looking at my father’s maps was miles from here. I would have to pass through at least three neutrals: towns not of one element. ‘Normal’ Felidae really that could not see Fay. I could not afford to avoid them. I was too hungry and I supposed I would have no qualms about selling the platinum pendant I wore for a few things to help me cross the border. The pendant bore the crest of Alexander and any good church would pay handsomely for it, I was sure. So it was decided. I would go to Islia, then on to Ellenor, I suppose. It would never do to have me stay in the Capital of Fire, so I suppose my airy cousins would be the safest option. Besides which, Lette lived in Islia and I doubt she would keep quiet about my still being alive.

So, with very little to pack besides myself and the Trinity, I yawned and stretched, before taking one last look at Delta, which was now fully above sea level. I chuckled to myself as I thought of them all, down there, struggling to cope with the heat as the morning sun burst through the spiralling roofs of their glass houses, in fact the only way their houses were shielded at all was from the jets of water each had spilling down the roof. It both shielded outsiders from looking in, but also kept the houses cool. Too much heat could kill a water elemental, you know, you would do well to remember that. However, as I was half Ellenaic, I seemed to handle the heat a lot better than most (although I did feel a little guilty sometimes, after I used to rub it in Elijah’s face, asking him every few seconds “Hot enough for ya?”). I sighed as I glimpsed the Ivory towers of the Palace, my former home. I knew it would be last time I ever saw them for a while, and I would be lying if I told you that I did not think I would miss them. I would miss everything so, so much. I would miss my friends, my city, my home, my pets…everything. It had been my whole world for sixteen years and I had not regretted a single one, bar the last, as especially my friends, despite everything, had made every one of those years so happy. My heart both rose and sank as I thought of them and I wished now more than ever that I could be with them, always. Would they know how much they meant to me, if I went now? I could always go back, just for a moment, steal into the city and say one last goodbye-

What was I thinking? I could never go back. Ever. It was time to go.

I reached for the Trinity, which I had left beside me as I slept the night before, but my hand grasped at thin air, as I searched without taking my eyes of Delta. I surveyed the ground beside me. My heart jumped. It was gone. Quickly, I searched my other side, wondering where it had got to, when something silvery-gold glinted out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see what it was. My mouth agape, I sprang to my feet, my pulse racing again. My head pounded. I wanted to look away, but my eyes would not as shock enveloped me and I stood rooted to the spot. I suddenly felt cold again, despite the raging sun and my hands shook in clenched fists as I stepped forward, uneasily to take a closer look. What I saw that day was not beast or demon waiting for me on the moors, but my own saviour, the Trinity, stood bolt upright, imbedded in about six inches of solid rock, where the moor and the cliff edge met. I looked at the ground beneath it to see it split open slightly from the point where somebody had thrust the blade, but it looked neither heavenly nor miraculous as, to my horror, a slim slither of blood trickled down the sword’s end fresh and from an open wound. Suddenly my hands did not seem so eager to take the sword anymore, as I stood trembling in the blazing heat, wondering what in the name of Alexander, this all meant…