“What do you know of my people?”
“The satyr?” She thought through the old texts Cosain had allowed her to read. Few of them mentioned the satyr. Or the centaur individually, for that matter. They talked of the hippocamps and their hordes and the horror of their crimes but little else.
“Nearly nothing,” she finally replied.
The satyr nodded. “That is not so strange. Much of what we are told about the elves is untrue. Or it lacks in detail. We know the shape of the thing, but not what makes it up. That allows the war to carry on.”
He took the remaining meat and stored it. The bread, he handed to Óraithe. She began to eat it without a second thought.
“Elves know of the old magicks, do they not?”
“The Gifts?”
“I have heard that word. Tell me what you know of your… Gifts.”
She hesitated, taking another bite of bread to buy time before she would have to respond. It was clear that whatever she knew was likely wrong.
“It is explained to us that the Sisters, er… four powerful goddesses who were born into our realm, they left behind the Gifts after they ascended from our world.”
The satyr laughed. “It would likely kill you elves to think you didn’t gift everything to the world, I suspect. The old magicks are a part of this world.”
“But I thought the horsefolk could only move the plants and the earth.”
He frowned and looked up at the sky. “It is true. The other magicks are lost to us. It was not always this way. But still,” he looked to Óraithe, “a limitation is something that forces you to test the bounds. You elves and the centaur, you treat the magicks as something to be shoved into place. It is a child’s way.”
“I do not understand.”
A sharp spike of earth, thin and needle fine, rushed up under her chin. Óraithe forced her head back against the wall and moved to the side. The spike shifted and re-formed itself in front her. It fell away and she opened her mouth to speak. Bars shot up from the ground in front of her and above from the wall. They slammed together around her and fell away as quickly as the spike had.
She looked at the satyr, he had not moved a muscle that she could see. To move the earth was an act of brute strength, she knew that much. Or thought she knew. It was how the Gift was taught. It was a novice element.
“How?”
The earth underneath her began to shift and roll and it carried her around in front of the satyr who looked thoughtfully up at the sky. She waited a time but there was no reply forthcoming as the ground settled below her. She looked past him to the walls of the building.
“Why not escape if you are able to shift the stone so easily?”
“There is no reason for me to be any place other than this. There was once, but that time has passed and that home has gone.”
Óraithe was a bit disappointed at that. He may have been a means to escape, but clearly the old man had no will for it. It may have been dangerous even if he had helped. Would they travel together? The thought of it made her uneasy. The satyr may have been kept in check by the walls around him but who could say if they left. And certainly she was not near strong enough to manage the trip alone. An idea struck her.
“If the Gifts exist in all things… might I learn to use them?”
He looked down at her and considered her for a moment. “Any creature with a mind is capable of using the magicks if they have the will for it.” He paused there a moment, staring at her. “You are a strange elf. You would learn from a satyr?”
“There is no value in the source of a river. Only in whether the water is pure.”
The satyr laughed, warm but sharp, as so much about him was. “You are young to speak such wise words. Who taught you them?”
“My father,” she said plainly.
“You are fortunate. Few fathers are both wise and good enough to raise a girl to understand the value of knowledge over their own word.”
“You will teach me?”
The satyr looked back to the sky and thought a moment. “The night is too dangerous for a beginner. I will teach you when there is light. You should sleep until then. Let the night’s food become meat on your bones.”
She nodded and went to her bedding. It was clear to her as she pulled the blankets over that she would not be able to sleep even if she had wanted to. No child of the Low District who stayed in Fásachbaile had ever learned to control the Gifts. The books on them were policed and outsiders had never been willing to teach, at least none that Óraithe had heard of. She shut her eyes tight trying to force the hours to pass. The satyr may not have had a will to escape, but she very much did. She spent the night pondering how much she ought to learn and how much time she should spend waiting after she knew enough to leave.
The night moved by above her and the morning drew her out from the blankets and into the brisk air. The chill against her skin went by hardly noticed, swiftly pushed down under a wave of nervous excitement. The satyr looked over to her.
“You ought to have slept.”
“I slept enough in the cells.”
He huffed at her response and stood. “Then we will begin.”
The inhabitants of the yard were beginning
