"Chaos Lost- Chapter One" by Johanna Holmlund

Kymara shook off the wispy remnants of her dream and stumbled into wakefulness. A half remembered tune drifted slowly from her thoughts, leaving nothing behind but the familiar feeling of longing. Slowly she sat up, taking a deep sigh of the crisp pre-dawn air. A promise of rain and a memory of stars filled her nose as she opened her eyes to the deep blueness of almost sunrise.

She watched patiently as the horizon bleached to a soft white, soon joined by the palest of yellows, the only hint of warmth in the early stillness. It wasn’t long before the stretching fingers of the sun had chased away all but the most stubborn of indigos on the far horizon, and finally the brilliant orb crept over the hilltops. Dawn.

With another sigh, this one of defeat, Ky clumsily climbed down the ladder at the edge of the loft. Cursing at her bad leg, she made her way to the dirt floor below, biting back a screech as she fell the last few feet when her foot tangled in the rungs. Quickly, she grabbed her crutch and made her way to the house.

It was cool outside, but dew glistened on the grass, and the sun waited patiently for the world to acknowledge its presence. The chickens were already stirring, but the coop was hidden in the shadow of the barn, and the sun had yet to touch it. The birds were chirping merrily in the trees, and Ky took a moment to revel in their song before entering the house.

Ky hurriedly changed from her nightshift to the cheap, tattered dress Shainsa kept for her in the kitchen closet, then began to work. Light the fire, set the table, stir the porridge, sweep the floor. Just like every morning. No color, no change.

Except for this morning.

Ky knew from the moment she stepped into the house that something was different. Not vastly changed, but something underneath, something that her father and Shainsa wouldn’t see and wouldn’t notice.

Kris was waiting for her. Ky knew he had been forbidden to speak to her, as had anyone but Shainsa and her father, but Kris tried to talk to her every chance he got. He was, after all, her twin brother. He didn’t care that the gods had marked her as an evil soul, marking the twising of her mind by twisting her body. Because of this warning, Ky was kept from people, never being given the chance to do harm to another.

At first, not a word was spoken. Ky quickly did her work while Kris swept the floor. They couldn’t risk a sound, but Ky basked in her brother’s company. It was easier to remember that she wasn’t alone when Kris was there.

When the floor was swept and the porridge bubbling, Kris nodded his head toward the door. Ky’s stomach twisted as she saw the worry and fear Kris was trying to keep from his expression, the same worry and fear she’d been trying to ignore all morning. Silently they went outside.

“Ky I need you to promise me something.” Kris spoke softly so as not to wake the household.

“What am I promising?” Fear coiled in Ky’s gut. There would be no laughing this morning.

“If you ever get the chance, you will leave, and you will go to Dreyden.”

“You’ve asked me to promise before, Kris, and my answer’s the same. Besides, you haven’t even told me where- or what- Dreyden is.”

“It’s a city. Dammit, Ky, just promise. You’ll find a way. Find a town, ask for directions. There’s bound to be someone who can point you in the right direction. Ky, you have to do this.” Ky shuddered. Something was really wrong.

“A city? You want to send me to a city? There are people there! What if I hurt them?”

“Shut up! You’re not evil. Promise me.”

“Kris, I can’t. You’ve tried this before. I can’t leave. I’m a cripple, I can’t ride a horse, and I’ve no reason to go. When will you learn that you are all I have?”

“I don’t care, Ky. Just promise. If you get the chance, you will go. Please. I need you to do this.” Ky looked up, startled. She’d never heard anyone talk like he was now. She’d never heard anyone sound so desperate and lost. After a long moment, she nodded.

“I promise.” Silence. Then, to Ky’s surprise, Kris- rather awkwardly- hugged her. Kris wasn’t the sentimental type of guy. Ky couldn’t remember him hugging anyone, except perhaps their mother.

“Kris, what else?” Ky was surprised to hear the same note of desperation in her own voice she’d heard in his. He shook his head.

“Tonight. Behind the barn.” Ky watched as he turned and left, then finally turned to go her own way.

“Thieving bitch! Sheki! How dare you!” Ky winced as the lash crossed her back once again, always following the same path. Five, six. Shainsa kept yelling, kept lashing. It would never stop, it never did. Every beating was forever, until it was over. Ky didn’t even try to hold back the tears. It just made Shainsa angrier.

“You are lucky the gods saw fit to even let you be born!” What she didn’t say was how angry she was that Ky had been placed in her care, by the hands of the gods. It would always be the responsibility of Ky’s father and Shainsa to keep Ky’s evil from the world.

This time it was ring, a valuable one.  Always it was something different, but every week Shainsa found something missing. Something she was sure Ky had stolen. Every week it was something different, usually food, but there was rarely a week when Ky didn’t find herself on the receiving end of a lash.

It was different this week, though. It had never been something so expensive that Shainsa had lost. This ring had been her mother’s, and it was set with rubies, real ones.

So this time Ky got not five lashes, but twenty. By fifteen she was ready to pass out, but the lashes kept coming.

Ky prayed that this time she would die.

“Ky, you there?” Kris snuck around the corner of the barn, dressed in his nightclothes. Ky stood with her shoulder against the barn, wincing every time the breeze brushed her back. She nodded.

“Ky, there’s…” He stopped, and Ky waited as he sorted words in his mind, trying to figure out how to say whatever was on his mind. She almost didn’t care what it could be. Her back was on fire, and her entire body was weak and feverish. She’d be fine in a few days, she knew, but now the pain was all there was.

“Kris, out with it. I don’t know if I even care anymore.” He looked up at her, as if seeing her face for the first time.

“Ky, what the hell happened to you?” Ky shook her head, but he persisted.

“Kris, it’s nothing. Just Shainsa. I’ll be fine in a few days, it’s nothing.”

“She beat you.”

“She always beats me.” Ky was shocked to see how pale her brother’s face went at that statement. “I thought you knew,” she whispered. He shook his head.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… but that’s not… it’s not what this is about.” He took a deep breath. “Ky, I… do you remember mom?” His question threw Ky off balance.

“What? Why her?” Ky couldn’t keep the anger from her voice. Tears burned at the back of her eyes as she thought of the woman cursed by the gods to bring her into this world. Being marked as Ky’s watcher was such a sentence that it killed her.

“I wish you would stop listening to Shainsa and Father, Ky. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They carry old prejudices.” Kris’s voice carried as much scorn as Ky’s did anger. “If the rest of the village knew about you, they would be furious!”

“You always try so hard to make me believe I’m not evil, but you don’t even know! I’ve never had the chance to hurt someone.” Ky didn’t even have to work at holding back the tears anymore. They never even tried to force their way out anymore, not unless Ky was being beaten.

“What about Shainsa? What about Father? You’ve never hurt them!” Kris would have been yelling, if not for the need for secrecy.

“I can’t! The gods named them my watchers. The gods would keep me from harming them. You know that.”

“I know they tell you that. But that isn’t the point. Do you remember mom?”

Ky thought back to her childhood. She remembered a strong woman, with hair like old autumn leaves. A woman who never beat her, but at the same time never showed her the love she showed to Kris. Ky nodded.

“What do you remember about her death?” Again, Kris’s question threw Ky off balance. What was Kris trying to say?

“I remember she died of an illness, brought on by the gods because she did not watch me close enough. The cow’s baby was stillborn because I had touched the mother, and the gods took Mother and named Shainsa Father’s second wife and my watcher.”

“Something along those lines, but that wasn’t the reason for mother’s illness. She died of the same thing that killed her mother, and her grandfather, and anyone so far back as anyone can remember. Somewhere, generations ago, someone put a curse on our family.” Kris stopped, unsure of how to continue.

“So you’re saying we will die.” Ky’s voice was flat, almost uncaring. After all, hadn’t she wished for death only hours before?

Kris could only nod, tears glazing his dark eyes.

They sat in silence as Ky contemplated her emotions, unsure of how she felt about this. Finally, it was her who broke the stillness.

“I should be glad. At least, that I’m dying. I don’t want you to die, ever, but…” Ky faded into silence.

“What if you’re not evil? If you die, you’ll never know.” Ky nodded, not wanting to agree with Kris, but unable to lie to him.

Kris took a deep breath .

“That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. At least, not directly.” Kris paused, gathering her thoughts. “Mom talked to me a lot before she died. I was only six, but it was important, and I remembered.

“We don’t both have to die, Ky. Curses… I don’t know. It’s because we’re twins, I know, but the specifics… I was only six. She tried to explain it so I could understand, and I do, but I’ve lost the words that she used.” Kris took another deep breath, but his pause was shorter this time. “I think it had to split between us. No one in her family had ever had more than one child, because they died before they had the chance. That’s the way the curse worked, so that it could keep full strength through the generations. This is the first time that it isn’t whole.

“Mom spoke to a witch soon after we were born. The witch told her that because we are twins, there is a way for one of us to survive the curse. She gave mom a spell to give to us.” Kris pulled something from his belt and unfolded it for Ky to see.

Ky looked at the old piece of parchment, obviously folded and refolded along the same lines for years. There were markings on it, but Ky could only shake her head.

“I know you can’t read, but I can, and that’s enough,” Kris reassured her, but she only shook her head again.

“It’s you that will live, right?” Ky’s voice wavered, the irrational, perhaps evil part of her almost hoping he would shake his head, while the rest of her fervently disagreed. Kris only shrugged.

“There’s no way to know. I’m the oldest, if by only a few moments, so chances are in my favor, but… I don’t care, Ky. One of us has to live. It doesn’t matter if it’s you or me- sometimes I hope it’s you, if only to give you a chance to really live.”

Ky answered in a whisper. “And the rest of the time?” Kris looked into her eyes, showing her his fear for the first time.

“I don’t want to die, Ky.” He cut short the silence that tried to follow the statement, breaking the intensity of the moment. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve known about this since I was six- I always knew that I might not live through this. I decided years ago that one of us surviving was better than neither.”

Ky looked again at the paper, still unsure what it symbolized. That paper could mean freedom from this life and her evil, forever- or it could mean life without the one thing that mattered. Again, she shook her head.

“I won’t go on living without you, Kris. If you die, I won’t be long after. You must know that.” Now it was Kris’s turn to shake his head.

“That’s not how this works. This spell… it will… sheki. I don’t even know how to say it. I guess it will combine us, then pull us back apart. The full curse will only go with half of that whole. That half will die, and the other will live, completely free of the curse.”

“I’ll still be living without you! You don’t-“

“You made a promise, Ky. This morning.”

“And I told you- I’m a cripple. I could never make it to a city.”

“That’s just it- you wouldn’t be a cripple. At least, you might not. There’s no way to tell how we will split after we’ve been a whole. Your leg is a weakness, and likely to go the same direction as the curse. The strongest of the whole will survive, and the weakest will die.” Kris nearly forgot himself, raising his voice nearly high enough to be heard at the house.

“Then I have nothing to worry about. I am not by any means the strongest of the two of us.” Ky half smiled at the thought, even as her heart sank as her chance at a real life slipped away.

Kris could think of nothing to say to that.