The Wise Man's Fear

directly with my mind.

The sleeping mind, some piece of me realized faintly. No longer sleeping, I thought and smiled.

I looked at Felurian, and in that moment I understood her down to the bottoms of her feet. She was of the Fae. She did not worry over right or wrong. She was a creature of pure desire, much like a child. A child does not concern itself with consequence, neither does a sudden storm. Felurian resembled both, and neither. She was ancient and innocent and powerful and proud.

Was this the way Elodin saw the world? Was this the magic he spoke of? Not secrets or tricks, but Taborlin the Great magic. Always there, but beyond my seeing until now?

It was beautiful.

I met Felurian’s eyes and the world grew slow and sluggish. I felt as if I had been thrust underwater, as if my breath had been pressed from my body. For that tiny moment I was stunned and numb as if I had been struck by lightning.

The moment passed and things began to move again. But now, looking into Felurian’s twilight eyes, I understood her far beyond the bottoms of her feet. Now I knew her to the marrow of her bones. Her eyes were like four lines of music, clearly penned. My mind was filled with the sudden song of her. I drew a breath and sang it out in four hard notes.

Felurian sat upright. She passed her hand before her eyes and spoke a word as sharp as shattered glass. There was a pain like thunder in my head. Darkness flickered at the edges of my sight. I tasted blood and bitter rue.

The world snapped back into focus, and I caught myself before I fell.

Felurian frowned. Straightened. Stood. Her face intent, she took a step.

Standing, she was not tall or terrible. Her head was barely level with my chin. Her dark hair hung, a sheaf of shadow, straight as a knife until it brushed against her curving hip. She was slight, and pale, and perfect. Never have I seen a face so sweet, a mouth so made for kissing. She was no longer frowning. Not smiling either. Her lips were soft and slightly parted.

She took another step. The simple motion of her moving leg was like a dance, the unexaggerated shifting of her hip entrancing as a fire. The arch of her bare foot said more of sex than anything I’d seen in my young life.

Another step. Her smile was fierce and full. She was as lovely as the moon. Her power hung about her like a mantle. It shook the air. It spread behind her like a pair of vast and unseen wings.

Close enough to touch, I felt her power thrumming in the air. Desire rose around me like the sea in storm. She raised her hand. She touched my chest. I shook.

She met my eyes, and in the twilight written there I saw again the four clear lines of song.

I sang them out. They burst from me like birds into the open air.

Suddenly my mind was clear again. I drew a breath and held her eyes in mine. I sang again, and this time I was full of rage. I shouted out the four hard notes of song. I sang them tight and white and hard as iron. And at the sound of them, I felt her power shake then shatter, leaving nothing in the empty air but ache and anger.

Felurian gave a startled cry and sat so suddenly that it was almost like a fall. She curled her knees toward herself and huddled, watching me with wide and frightened eyes.

Looking around, I saw the wind. Not the way you might see smoke or fog, I saw the ever-changing wind itself. It was familiar as the face of a forgotten friend. I laughed and spread my arms, marveling at its shifting shape.

I cupped my hands and breathed a sigh into the hollow space within. I spoke a name. I moved my hands and wove my breath gossamer-thin. It billowed out, engulfing her, then burst into a silver flame that trapped her tight inside its changing name.

I held her there above the ground. She watched me with an air of fear and disbelief, her dark hair dancing like a second flame inside the first.

I knew then that I could kill her. It would be as simple as throwing a sheet of paper to the wind. But the thought sickened me, and I was reminded of ripping the wings from a butterfly. Killing her would be destroying something strange and wonderful. A world without Felurian was a poorer world. A world I would like a little less. It would be like breaking Illien’s lute. It would be like burning down a library in addition to ending a life.

On the other hand, my safety and sanity were at stake. I believed the world was more interesting with Kvothe in it as well.

But I couldn’t kill her. Not like this. Not wielding my newfound magic like a dissecting knife.

I spoke again, and the wind brought her down among the pillows. I made a tearing motion and the silver flame that once had been my breath became three notes of broken song and went to play among the trees.

I sat. She reclined. We looked each other over for several long minutes. Her eyes flashed from fear to caution to curiosity. I saw myself reflected in her eyes, naked among the cushions. My power rode like a white star on my brow.

Then I began to feel a fading. A forgetting. I realized the name of the wind no longer filled my mouth, and when I looked around I saw nothing but empty air. I tried to remain outwardly calm, but as these things left me I felt like a lute whose strings were being cut. My heart clenched with a loss I hadn’t felt since my parents died.

I could see a slight shimmer in the air around Felurian, some shred of her power returning. I ignored it as I struggled frantically to keep some part of what I had learned. But it was like trying to hold a handful of sand. If you have ever dreamed of flying, then come awake, dismayed to realize you had lost the trick of it, you have some inkling how I felt.

Piece by piece it faded until there was nothing left. I felt hollow inside and ached as badly as if I’d discovered my family never loved me. I swallowed against the lump in my throat.

Felurian looked at me curiously. I could still see myself reflected in her eyes, the star on my forehead no more than a pinprick of light. Then even the perfect vision of my sleeping mind began to fade. I looked desperately at the world around me. I tried to memorize the sight of it, unblinking.

Then it was gone. I bowed my head, half in grief and half to hide the tears.

CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT The Lay of Felurian

A long moment passed before I regained enough of my composure to look up. There was a hesitancy in the air, as if we were young lovers who didn’t know what was expected of us next, who didn’t know what parts we were supposed to play.

I picked up my lute and brought it close to my chest. The motion was instinctive, like clutching a wounded hand. I struck a chord out of habit, then made it minor so the lute seemed to be saying sad.

Without thinking or looking up I began to play one of the songs I had written in the months after my parents died. It was called Sitting by the Water Remembering. My fingers strummed sorrow into the evening air. It was several minutes before I realized what I was doing, and several more before I stopped. I wasn’t done with the song. I don’t know if it really has an ending.

I felt better, not good by any means, but better. Less empty. My music always helped. As long as I had my music, no burden was ever too heavy to bear.

I looked up and saw tears on Felurian’s face. It made me less ashamed of my own.

I also felt myself wanting her. The emotion was damped by the ache in my chest, but that touch of desire focused my attention on my most immediate concern. Survival. Escape.

Felurian seemed to reach a decision and started through the cushions toward me. Moving in a cautious crawl, she stopped several feet away and looked at me.

“does my tender poet have a name?” Her voice was so gentle it startled me.

I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped. I thought of the moon, caught by her own name, and a thousand faerie stories I had heard as a child. If you believed Elodin, names were the bones of the world. I hesitated for about half a second before I decided I had given Felurian a damn sight more than my name already.