worried about him. His brother just died, and Keither had killed for the first time as well, but there was no emotion in his eyes. Shouldn’t he be wailing or something? She would have been if it were her brother. Or was he in shock? That was more likely. She was having a hard time looking at him the way she did before. He was always a harmless boy, but now he wasn’t. He was like his brother in some ways, especially in the way that enabled him to go out of his mind with rage and kill. That trait was one that she didn’t like. Or did he kill indiscriminately? He didn’t hurt them when they had pulled him back to leave. Phantom snorted off to her right and she chanced a glance at the Everser Vald. As she looked, she felt warmth bloom in her chest.
Sasha looked intently at her friend. She was staring at Legon in an odd sort of way. Not in a bad way, but almost lovingly.
“Sara,” she said.
Sara looked at her and she saw longing in her vibrant green eyes. “We should get Legon down and clean him up, and look for injuries,” Sara said in a timid voice.
That timidity was odd for her. Sasha studied Sara carefully, looking at her in the ways of the Jezeer, trying to place her sudden change.
“I suppose so, but I don’t think that he is hurt,” Arkin said.
How would he know? Legon and the Iumenta had moved so fast that they wouldn’t have noticed him getting cut or something. Yes, Sara was right. She started toward Legon. When Keither passed her walking to Phantom, the horse shied away from him. The constant mental contact affected the horses, and she wouldn’t say that they were smarter but they knew a thing or two about their riders. This was made apparent in towns and co-ops. Their horses responded to people as their riders generally felt, even if they didn’t show it. Ghost, for example, had no reason to fear men; she never acted oddly around them until they started networking their minds. Arkin told them that making a connection with your horse was a good thing to do so that they would understand each other better. It wasn’t possible for them to communicate the way people did to each other or even the way they did to one another, but emotions could cross the rift. Arkin facilitated most of the links so that the horses could come to know their riders. After about of month of this, Ghost had become increasingly apprehensive of large men. Not necessarily fat ones but ones with big muscles. Sasha hadn’t figured out why until she felt Sara’s emotions one day in a town. It wasn’t that Ghost was frightened of the men, but rather that Sara was, and Ghost picked up on it.
Now Phantom was shying away from Keither because Legon thought of the boy as clumsy. Sasha tended to agree, but this wasn’t the time to ostracize him. She sent calming thoughts to Phantom, who stopped moving. Keither came up to his side and patted him lightly.
“It’s ok, Phantom. I wouldn’t drop him. Remember, there is muscle under this fat. How do you think I walk around?”
He worked himself under Legon and began to hoist. Sasha looked at Arkin, who should have at least offered to help. What was wrong with him?
“So, you need help?” she asked, now giving Arkin a stern look. Keither answered with surprise.
“No, I don’t. He can’t weigh more than either of you,” he said, and then corrected, “Not that you’re heavy. You’re not at all. Legon should be close to two hundred pounds but he can’t weigh more than one ten. Arkin, are you doing anything to me?”
“No, I’m not. He is an Elf now, and they are made of different stuff than the rest of us.” He paused but forestalled questions. “We will wait until he is awake before I explain. Forgive me, but I don’t want to repeat myself.”
Keither had Legon off the horse and was carrying him over his shoulder to the center of camp. He placed him down on the ground. He still resembled his old self but was clearly different. Even with his eyes closed, Sasha could see that they were larger and almond shaped. His face looked more slanted with higher cheek bones. It almost resembled a sculpture, as if someone had taken a masterpiece and then superimposed Legon’s characteristics on it. The result was wondrous. He still had the same short brown hair but now his ears tapered at the top. His skin seamed to almost glow, but she knew it wasn’t; it was just healthy and without blemish, like a baby’s. His figure was the exact same as it was before. He was still large with plenty of muscle, far more than the Iumenta had. She wondered if he would thin out over time. Overall, she had to admit she had never seen anything so…beautiful in her life. Though she would be sure to tell Legon that he was handsome and leave out the beautiful part.
She knelt down and inspected his body for injury. There was none. She knew he had been hurt before he had changed, but the injuries were gone now. All that was left was dirt and blood from the battle. His clothes were torn in a few spots. If she hadn’t been able to see his chest move she would have thought he wasn’t breathing.
“Arkin, is it common for Elves to have low breathing like this?”
“Yes, very. They are much quieter than we are.”
“Why is that?” Keither asked. Sasha was happy to see him getting his mind off the day and back to thinking.
“They can hear your heartbeat across a room. Now, that being said, loud sounds don’t hurt them as much as they do for us. But when you can hear a pin drop you tend to notice just how noisy we all are and walk a little softer.”
It made sense to her, so she didn’t worry about the breathing. In fact he probably wouldn’t snore anymore. That would have been nice when they were sharing a tent. She pushed this trivial thought from her mind to focus on her unconscious brother. Sara had knelt down on the other side of him. She brought a rag to her mouth, wetting it and beginning to wipe the dirt off his perfect face.
Sasha watched. Never had she seen Sara clean someone with such care and love. She would occasionally wet the rag and keep going, like a mother would a child or a sick loved one.
“Sara?” she said.
Sara looked up at her. “We can’t have him all dirty now can we?”
Sara went back to her cleaning and tears began rolling down her cheeks. They fell off her chin onto Legon. Sara noticed this and it seemed to make them come faster, but she didn’t look sad. She was starting to hum gently, a tune Sasha had never heard. Arkin was standing over them now. She heard him pick up the tune and saw tears in his eyes as well, once again not tears of sorrow but of happiness. Sasha looked at Keither, who looked just as confused as she was. She scratched the back of her head to get rid of an itch.
Sara was smiling warmly at Legon and started to talk below her breath. “My whole life around you and I didn’t know. I am so ungrateful. This whole time I have been upset with my lot and yet, here I was the first.”
“You were the first what?” Sasha was concerned.
“You will find out, Sasha, when he wakes. Won’t they, Arkin?” She looked up at him and he nodded without question.
The buzzing in Sasha’s head was driving her nuts. Her breath caught and she excused herself. Walking away from the group still intently looking at Legon, she walked out of their clearing and past the trees that blocked them from view. She stood alone looking at the blank hilly landscape. Trembling, with her head still buzzing, she held her hand out, palm up. She looked at it, never having done this before, not wanting to do it, but she had to…
“Flamma.”
As she spoke a plume of ruby flame blossomed in her hand. She closed it, stopping the flame in an instant. She looked out at the field not truly seeing it, shaking and covered in a cold sweat.
Chapter Seventeen
“A fulfilled fate is a great and terrible thing. Great in that the thing we hoped for has come to pass and all of the things that come with it, but terrible in that the thing we hoped for has come to pass and we must see our own faults because of it.”
