The Adani Chronicles: Birthright

Finding her destination the next morning was far easier than Ryn felt it ought to have been. Lady Naleti was able to give her very succinct, descriptive directions to the massive oak near the edge of the city, tucked away behind a grove of smaller aspens and tiny shops. News that there was an heir of the Y’rai inside the city had spread quickly, and everyone had been more than happy to help her find her way. It made her jumpy and annoyed, to be so noticed. Ryn picked her way carefully through the close-grown white trunks, Kota hard on her heels; her jaw dropped when she broke through into a bright clearing.

Before her, the old oak stood proudly, its trunk twice as thick as she was tall, and covered in moss. Huge boughs started low, reaching for the sky and then arching down nearly to touch the ground, stretching out to tangle with the white aspens at the edge of the clearing. Bright green leaves covered everything so thickly Ryn could barely see the two wood pillars, close to the trunk, that framed the first of a set of stairs that appeared to circumnavigate the tree, disappearing up into the foliage. She stepped closer and couldn’t hold back an awed, ‘ohhh.’

The steps circled the trunk three times, before ending at a red door forty spans above her head. The door was set in a large tree house, built atop the trunk where it split into several large boughs that grew out and up. The house was of rough dark wood, and had several windows that Ryn could see cut into the walls. It was thatched above to keep off rain and snow, and smoke wafted gently from a small chimney at the southernmost corner of the place. The rich, heady smell of wood and greenery, ubiquitous in all of Thaliondris, seemed even stronger here. It radiated cheer, and Ryn found herself drawn up the stairs, wonder-struck. She climbed slowly, and studied the red door before she knocked. It wasn’t painted red, as she’d suspected below; rather, it was made of a very red wood, with a darker grain that was the same color as the rest of the walls. She had never seen the like. There was no handle or knob on the door, which flummoxed Ryn for a moment, but before she could knock, the door swung in, revealing a head of wild white hair and piercing amethyst eyes.

“You came!” Kenelm exclaimed, smiling widely.

Ryn swallowed. There was a pit in her stomach the size and weight of a wheatstone. What was she doing here? A complete stranger’s home in a strange city, inhabited by a crazy old man-griffin-creature who swore he could teach her magic? She must be going mad. Still, at least she had Kota and her staff, and both Evin and Brandt knew where to find her. Embarrassing this may be, but dangerous, not so much. She nodded once.

Kenelm stepped back, inviting them in, scratching Kota casually behind the ears as they passed. The lynx nipped at the old man’s fingers playfully, and he laughed. “Please,” he gestured to the main room, “be comfortable.”

The den was small, but in a cozy way. Two padded chairs faced one another beside a small fireplace, a low table between. There was a cooking area nearby, open to the main room, and a door Ryn suspected led to a bedroom on the other side. Windows let in dappled light, whose shadows played along every available surface. Ryn sat gingerly in the chair she thought was not Kenelm’s—a book rested upon the other one, titled in a language she could not read—and Kota settled beside her, sniffing at the air.

Kenelm bustled back in, bringing a kettle full of water and hanging it over the small fire. He whisked about for a few minutes, doing this and that, before finally moving his book to the short table and sitting across from Ryn. He was still wearing that overjoyed smile.

“I am admittedly surprised to see you,” he began, gaze sharpening as he looked her over. “You seemed troubled by my insight the other day.”

Ryn answered it for the question it was. “I was. I still am.” She shrugged. “But a lot of things worth knowing are troublesome.”

Kenelm chuckled at that. “You are not wrong, Y’ra.” He reached for Ryn’s staff. “May I?”

Reluctantly, Ryn turned over the weapon. The old man studied it with a critical gaze, weathered fingers running over the smooth wood and moving to the knotted head. “Hm. Yes, this’ll do.” Ryn raised her eyebrows, and he handed it back to her. “It knows you. That staff should see you through most anything.”

“It has,” she confirmed, feeling her fingers settle into the familiar grooves worn in over the past ten years. “It was a little big at first, but it’s saved my hide many a time.”

Kenelm nodded. “First things first. You need one of these.” He stood, gesturing her over to a small table under a nearby window, upon which rested an assortment of stones, ranging from the size of a large coin to Ryn’s own clenched fist. There seemed to be no order to the selection; there were plain gray rocks, smooth flat river stones, and several faceted gems. Ryn’s eyes widened at the latter, though Kenelm didn’t seem to notice. “I unpacked these in case you did decide to come to me. Stone is, of course, the best focus for your magic, by far. Some Y’rai could use wooden or glass amulets, but they were very advanced and their foci very old, and all those that I know of have been lost to the ravages of time. These,” he gestured to the motley array of rocks, “I gathered years ago when I traveled to Galaron itself. I cannot use them as you can, but I can sense their arcane abilities.”

Mute, Ryn nodded. Kenelm smiled. “Choose one, girl, and think not for the monetary value, for it is of little use to you here. Use your instincts.”

Ryn moved closer to the table, understanding now why Kenelm had asked her to bring her staff and already thinking of ways to carve the head into a shape that could accommodate one of these stones. The man meant for her to wield both a stone and a staff at once—it was a practical approach she could appreciate, for a stone held in one hand could be easily knocked aside and leave her unable to use her magic.

A stone built into her weapon, however, would be difficult to pry even from her cold, dead fingers.

She immediately dismissed both the smallest and largest stones—too small, and it could fall out; too large, and it wouldn’t fit within the knot of her staff. Acting on impulse, she picked up a few of the appropriately-sized rocks, weighing them in her hands and allowing her intuition to guide her. The pretty blue river stone she put back almost immediately; it felt slippery, but not physically. In her mind.

As if that wasn’t freakish enough, the next one she handled—a jagged gray rock, not unlike something one might kick to the side of the road—thundered through her veins, heavy and ruthless. She dropped it rather quickly, shaking out the numbness in her hand.

Ignoring Kenelm’s chuckle and Kota’s whine—he always could sense when something hurt her, and now she wondered if that was all companionable bonding like she’d thought, or if it had something to do with all this nonsense—Ryn let her fingers wander. She put back both a large sparkling ruby that screeched in her ears and made them ring, and a dull white crystal that nearly forced her to sit with dizziness.

Shaking her head and growing slightly irritated, she picked up a speckled gray one, roughly oval and completely nondescript. The rush was immediate and powerful, though not as severe as the last few had been. It made her fingers tingle and her hair stand on end, gooseflesh chasing itself up her arms and down her spine. The sound of wind in the trees flew through her mind, and she blinked hard.

“This one,” she turned to Kenelm, who looked like all his dreams had been granted at once.

“How perfect,” he murmured hoarsely, then laughed. It was not a mocking sound, but one of sheer, unadulterated joy. Ryn raised an eyebrow in question, though she couldn’t seem to make her mouth work properly. The power singing through her blood made her itch to run, for nothing but the uncomplicated joy of it.

“It is a shieldenstone,” Kenelm explained kindly. “On the outside, it appears as any other rock—bumpy and unobtrusive and most often unnoticed—but inside? Inside it is coated with crystal gems that have never yet seen the light of day.” He took the stone gently, and Ryn winced a little at the loss. “It is tricky to use properly, but my dear, this is the purest focus you could have chosen. It is well done.”

He spoke foreign words then, holding a hand over Ryn’s shieldenstone, bright white light spilling from his palm to surround the lumpy gray rock. After a few moments, the magic disappeared and he handed the stone back to her. Ryn sucked in a breath at the rush that returned to her veins with it. She turned the focus over in tingling fingers, studying it, as though it would give up new secrets having been chosen as hers. The mottled surface, however, remained stonily silent, though the power pulsing in Ryn’s chest was warm and vibrant still. “What did you do to it?” Ryn asked as Kota approached warily, perhaps knowing what Ryn was feeling, in that way he had, and sniffed the air. She lowered the stone so he could inspect it.

“I told it that it belongs to you,” Kenelm answered, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Ryn was stymied by that, but soon distracted by Kota: as soon as his wet nose touched the shieldenstone, the lynx startled, jumping back and huffing a sneeze that made her laugh aloud and turned the Skyshifter’s attention to him.

“Best leave the magic to your mistress, youngling,” he said companionably. Kota responded with another step back and a smaller sneeze, then a growl.

Ryn was still chuckling when Kenelm clapped his hands, then rubbed them together excitedly. “Now then, my young student,” he said, grinning somewhat madly. “No better time to start than today. Place your staff in the corner; we will use it after you’ve fitted the shieldenstone into the head. For now you’ll just hold the stone in your hand. ’Twill be easier to access the magic that way anyhow.” Ryn did as he bid, then returned to Kota’s side. Kenelm led them both out the door and down his stairs, out into the clearing, and sat himself cross-legged in the velvet green grass. Ryn followed suit and looked at him expectantly. Kota prowled the perimeter, keeping guard.

The old man said nothing for a long time, staring off at some fixed point beyond Ryn’s left shoulder. She looked back, wondering what he was staring at, but there were only aspen trees and blue sky. Nothing could be seen of the city through the small forest, and even the sounds of bustle and trade were muted and faraway. Ryn turned back around, uncertain. Should she be saying or doing something? Or was this a test to see if she was patient enough to study such magic?

She did not know what was expected of her, so she followed her instincts and sat quietly. Waited.

Kenelm kept her waiting a long time.

When finally he stirred, sparkling purple eyes focusing on her face again, he smiled. “I have it.”

“You have...what?”

Kenelm laughed. “I have lived many more years than you would imagine, young one. Galaron was sacked a thousand years ago, and the Y’rai have been entirely extinct for over five hundred of those years. I needed to call forth my memory of your people in order to teach you anything.”

Ryn blinked. “Oh.”

He nodded. “The first thing young Y’rai were taught was how to See. Today, that is what you will learn.”

“I...sorry, what?” Ryn was hopelessly lost. “I see already.”

Kenelm grinned. “What do you see, child?”

Ryn bit back her first, cheeky answer and considered the question truly. “I see trees, green grass, my lynx, you—” But Kenelm was shaking his head.

“You see only half of what is really there.” He gestured around them. “You see what all folk see. Light reflecting off objects, creating color, sending signals through your eyes into your brain...it is not enough!” He placed a finger at her temple, tapped it once, twice. “You must see here.”

Ryn tried not to be dismissive. He sounded crazy, but then…so did the idea of magic in her veins. She felt it still, pulsing in time with her heart, definitely real; she was well past the point of disbelief now.

“How?” Ryn asked. Kenelm pointed to the shieldenstone, still resting loosely in her palm.

“This will help you. Soon you will be able to See without it, but for now it will assist. Can you still feel the stone’s effect upon you?”

Ryn nodded, savoring the coalescence of warmth inside her breast.

“Focus on it,” Kenelm said, his voice low and soothing, a little slower than she’d heard it before. “Bring it to the fore of your mind and let it guide you. Your physical eyes can see and interpret light. Let the stone show your mental eyes how to See and Interpret life.”

Ryn closed her eyes and focused on the Warm, bringing it within arm’s reach and focusing all her attention upon it. At first nothing happened. The Warm pulsed through her veins, gathered in her chest, tingled in her extremities; but nothing happened. Ryn resisted the urge to open her eyes. After several minutes, something began to glow against the back of her eyelids. It wasn’t light, precisely; it was heavier, more solid than that. Bright and hot, it flashed into being seemingly instantly, and she sucked in a gasp against the shock of it. A blinding bright core framed by curling white tendrils, wrapping themselves in everything she Was, bleeding out from her body to touch the world around her. Ryn Saw it, there where she held the Warm, and she suddenly realized she was seeing her magic for the first time.

Surprised, Ryn opened her eyes, expecting the magic to disappear, but instead her eyes widened further. All around her, she could see it. Tendrils of magic, woven through everything in the clearing. Since it wasn’t light, it was difficult to process what she was seeing, but after a moment she could identify differences in the tendrils, differences that might have been perceived as color. The blades of grass below her feet were a richer, deeper green than her physical eyes could see, and the magic that coursed through them was short-lived and vibrant. The oak tree’s brown was a heartbreaking burnished terra-cotta, the magic old and impossibly heavy. It impressed upon her the many years it had lived, the things it had seen, and it was overwhelming. Ryn had to look away, blinking back tears.

Kenelm was smiling at her, though she could barely see his face. His aura was a swirling mass of impossible blue-purple and blinding silver. It coalesced around his chest, shining into his face with such intensity that she could not make out his physical features; but she could See his joy in the pulsing dance of his life-magic, leaking out into the grass and filling it with the same joy, though the grass hardly knew why. She turned her head a little further and felt the corners of her lips curl up in a genuine smile, seeing her own scarlet aura shift with joy at the sight of Kota, who had trotted back to her and sat within arm’s reach.

Her lynx was deep black, the black of a warm, starless night; the black of ebony, depthless and sure; the black of shadows she could hide in, comforting and protecting. Red tendrils sparked and sung throughout his aura, bespeaking curiosity and fear. Her lynx wasn’t sure what she was doing, but it felt strange to him and he was frightened. She reached out for him and gasped when she caught sight of her own arm.

She was a glowing crimson all over, except the veins of deepest black that whirled through her, moving toward her fingertips as she reached for Kota. He leaned toward her, and the scarlet tendrils in him reached too, meeting the black in her and glowing overwhelmingly bright in her mind. This magic, when she touched him, was joy and friendship and hope and love and everything they had been through together, all clamoring in her head at once, overloading her emotions’ ability to withstand the assault. Ryn retreated almost without thinking, throwing herself out of the magic with a gasp.

“Ryn? Ryn!” she heard Kenelm’s voice, concern coloring its edges, as she popped open her eyes. Thankfully, there were no tendrils or auras waiting for her. The colors seemed muted, and she blinked, surprised at the feeling of loss. Her teacher was shaking her, her lynx yowling his apprehension in her ear. She stroked his tufted ears until he sat back, satisfied that she was indeed alive and whole. Kenelm seemed to require more explanation. “Are you well, child? You seemed distressed.”

“It...I...” Ryn stammered, trying to come up with words, any words, which could possibly describe what she’d just experienced. “It...was just a...lot,” she finally managed, and Kenelm smiled kindly.

“It can be,” he agreed. “I am sorry for that. But you have done well for your first attempt. Go back to your inn and rest, I will see you tomorrow.”

Ryn nodded, mouth dry. She scratched Kota under his chin and stood slowly, muscles protesting. “How long was I out?” she asked, stretching.

“Two hours,” Kenelm answered. Ryn’s eyes widened in shock. It had felt like mere moments! Her teacher laughed. “It is to be expected, youngling. You were accessing a part of your soul you have not had any experience with before today. You could not be expected to succeed in minutes.” He waved a hand at her. “Now go get some rest.”

Exhausted, Ryn did not protest.

Brown pears, red pears, green pears; Kesi swore if she never saw another pear again, it’d be too soon. She hated these trips her parents always insisted she tag along on. Road food was bland and tasteless, road clothes ugly and dirty, road horses smelly and grouchy. She was smelly, dirty, and grouchy herself. She always was, on these trips. At least they’d reach Thaliondris soon; that place was simply beautiful; clean and elegant and magical. It was the one part of traveling Kesi actually enjoyed—the destination.

But they were still a few leagues out, and meanwhile, all she had to do was ride. Follow the horse ahead of her and just sit there, bored out of her head.

Kesi hated it.

Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by a dull thunk! from somewhere up ahead. She looked up from her horse’s coarse mane to see her father’s man, Borys, slouching in his saddle. Queer, she thought, for Borys was an excellent horseman, but everything slotted into place half a second later when someone screamed and Borys fell, a black arrow lodged between his eyes.

The man hadn’t even had a chance. The thought made Kesi irrationally angry for a split second, before all seven hells broke loose. She heard her father shout her name, but before she could find him, another of the arrows barely missed her leg, burying itself to the feathers in her horse’s flank. The animal screamed and bucked, and the next thing Kesi knew, she was sitting in the dirt looking up at a truly fearsome sight.

A man stood over her, clad entirely in black and half again as tall as she. He wore dark leather breeches and a vest under a fine jacket and short cloak. Leather riding boots covered his legs to the knee, and he wore a circlet of some dark metal she didn’t recognize. He was deathly pale, but with fine sharp features and gold-orange eyes, the color of a sunset. The wild thought crossed her mind that he was the most beautiful man she’d ever laid eyes on.

He smiled and spoke a single word. Kesi did not recognize it, but it would hardly have mattered if she did, for a moment later, her world was lit up in fire blasts of agony. She couldn’t even scream, for she had no breath. The pain went on for eternity, it felt like, until it was all she knew and all she had ever known.

“Stop!” a familiar voice reached her ringing ears, and Kesi whimpered when the pain released her. “Please, stop! I’ll do anything you ask!” It was her father, and Kesi wished fleetingly he wouldn’t promise such things to the Val’gren, of all people. Like as not, they’d ask him to do the torturing for them.

A sinister laugh came then, and she squinted up at another Val’gren, this one even taller and more beautiful than the one who had tortured her. His eyes were scarlet. He gestured widely to her, curled up on the needle-strewn forest floor, struggling to sit up. “What would you do, fruit man, to save this pathetic little waif of a girl?”

“A—anything,” her father stammered. “Anything at all. Name your price.”

“I need information,” the red-eyed man said coolly. “Will you get it for me?”

Her father must have hesitated, for Kesi choked on a scream when the younger one whipped her with the flat of his sword a moment later. The force of the blow knocked her backward and she found herself staring up at a cheery blue sky.

Odd, that.

“I will!” Father’s voice cracked, but he spoke loudly. “I will tell you anything I know!”

There was laughter from the assembled Val’gren, and Kesi turned her head to see the leader smile. She hated him for smiling.

“The Eloni in Thaliondris have something I want,” he said. “They are harboring the two remaining Princes of Laendor inside their city, likely in the Healing Wards. Find out their plans for departure and report back to me. Meanwhile, your wife and child will remain here, as my...guests.” Kesi wanted to balk at that—she didn’t at all like the way he said the word ‘guest’—but Father was agreeing, reluctantly, and Mother was giving her a look that said she was good as dead if she made a fuss, so she stayed quiet.

Stayed quiet, and prayed to the Astra for the best..