Spoiler
Natura has arrived in the Grand Icarthian City with Haro and Christiana to buy some things for Haro's shop. They are staying at a rather rundown inn where they have met the owner, Renald, his son, Erik, and his nephew, Rigel. Christiana, always the adventure seeker, made Natura come along with her to a big festival being held in honor of the Ascensian Academy Trials where Natura dances with both Erik and Rigel in traditional Icarthian fashion. Natura has promised Erik that she will teach him some of the old Icarthian magic to help him in the Trials the next day.
Read it here: Eventide (3.1)
Read it here: Eventide (3.1)
The backstreets of the city were dark and quiet as Natura walked them, heading toward the West Gate. Music and conversation rumbled in the distance; the celebration still went on in the city green.
Natura came around the corner by the gate to find Erik already waiting there, a small lantern in his hand casting an orange glow around him. The guards had gone from the gate to the small guardhouse, but the tall wooden doors still stood open.
“Thank you for coming, Miss,” Erik said. He grasped Natura’s hand and stared into her eyes. “You don’t know what this means for me.”
He took her hand under his arm and led her through the gate.
They went in silence, Erik pulling Natura along in a near run through the cottage-lined roads outside the city. Just past the last cottage road, Erik turned into a small footpath leading into the forest.
The trees glowed with the ethereal light of the tiny forest fairies fitting from leaf to leaf in the night. They were odd little insect-like creatures, only coming out at night to feed on tree bark and twigs.
“Just up this hill,” Erik said after they had walked for a long time. He pulled her along faster, running up the hill. Natura’s feet slid as the hard dirt from the forest floor changed to dewy grass.
Erik stopped at the top of the hill, letting Natura slide into him. He clutched her in his arms, his eyes focused down the hill where they had just come.
“Someone’s out there,” he whispered; his breath was hot against Natura’s ear.
“No one is there,” Natura said. She slid her shoes off and planted her bare feet in the ground. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply to center herself. She focused, pushing the power in her over the earth. The forest was empty, but for the light weight of small animals skittering over the forest floor. “There’s no one,” she said again.
“No,” he insisted. “Someone is there.”
“Erik I can’t feel anything heavy enough to be human,” she said.
He sighed, his breath rushing over Natura’s face. “My life depends on this,” he said. “I need to know we won’t be found out.”
“No one knows we’re here,” she said.
Erik let go of Natura and set the lantern in the thick grass. It cast an orange circle of light over the hilltop, illuminating only part of Natura and Erik’s bodies.
“Shall we?” he asked.
“What do you know of the old magic?” she asked. “Show me what you can do?”
He searched around the hilltop, not straying far from the light of the lantern, and kicked scattered rocks together with the toe of his boot. He held one hand out in front of him, the other stuffed into his pants pocket. He flicked his fingers upward, sending a few of the rocks as high as his knee into the air.
“That’s about it,” he said. “And, well, I can feel you standing there.”
Natura frowned. If she took but two steps she could reach out and touch him. “A good place to start, I suppose,” she said. “Can you lift anything heavier than stones?”
“Haven’t tried,” he said. “Can’t be too difficult though, right?”
She held back her incredulity. “Yes, it can,” she said. “We’ll have to start with form, take off those boots.”
He shot her a look like she had just done him some terrible wrong and yanked the boots from his feet. He tossed them across the hilltop.
Natura took a tentative step toward him and reached for his arm. He allowed her to take his hands and place them, palms down, at either side of his waist. “Stand so your feet are firm on the earth,” she instructed. He followed.
She stepped back from him and copied the stance. “You must be centered,” she said. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting the air rush between her slightly parted lips. “You will be granted control only once you have surrendered yourself to the power of the earth.” She breathed in once more; air rushed between her lips.
She snapped her eyes open and thrust her hands above her head, turning her palms to the night sky.
A column of earth as big as he shop up from the hilltop. Natura slowly brought her hands down, turning one palm over to face the ground. The column inched back into the ground. She held her hands in front of her, the column holding steady as high as her waist. She took another breath. She spun to the side, thrusting her hands to her right, and closing her flattened hands into fists.
The column broke into a hundred fragments, flying to the right with Natura’s motion. She held her hands in the air, and the fragments floated above the hilltop. She moved her hands in at her hips, bringing the fragments around her.
She breathed out a long breath and dropped her hands. The fragments of earth fell to the ground around her, no longer under her influence.
She bent over, holding her knees. “Your turn,” she said, breathless.
The night passed slowly as Erik attempted Natura’s motions over and over again. No matter what Natura showed him, what she instructed him to do, he faltered. He barely had a grasp on the most basic skills.
“I can’t do this!” he shouted after a particularly pathetic attempt at lifting a rock the size of his head. He picked up a rock and chucked it over the hilltop, screaming in frustration.
Natura watched it fly toward the city, but landing only on the other side of the hilltop. The city in the distance was dark, only the street lanterns glowed dimly under the starlight. She turned back to Erik as he sent another rock flying just over her head. “You’re not centered,” she told him. “You have no hope to master anything if you’re not—”
“I’m plenty centered!” he screamed. “It’s-It’s you. You aren’t teaching me right.” He stalked off across the hilltop.
Natura pressed a hand to her temple, took a deep breath, and followed him. “Erik, please,” she said. “You can’t do any of this if you aren’t centered, and you can’t center yourself if you don’t stay calm.
He spun to face her. “I am calm,” he growled. “You’re the one who isn’t calm. You’re the one who can’t teach me.”
“Let’s try once more?” she suggested. “You’ll get it this time.”
“Try once more? Oh, I’ll try once more.” He took a step back and sent a rock flying at Natura.
She moved away, but not quickly enough. The rock collided with the side of her head, knocking her over. She held her head in her hands, biting her lip.
“Miss,” he said. He knelt beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I didn’t mean… Forgive me.”
Natura shrugged out from his hold and stood. She picked up her shoes and took the lantern from where it sat in the grass.
“Where are you going?” Erik asked.
“I’m going to the inn,” she said. “Best of luck in the Trials.”
“No.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “You gave me your word.”
“I can’t teach you like this,” she said. “Please let me go.”
He tightened his grip around her wrist. “You gave me your word.”
“Erik, please.” She gritted her teeth as his fingernails dug into her skin.
“You gave me your word.” He yanked her toward him and held his other hand at the nape of her neck.
Natura let her shoes and the lantern fall to the ground; she pushed against his chest with her free hand.
“You gave me your word,” he said again. “You were going to teach me, I was going to pass the trials. But now? Now what, Miss? What will become of me without the Academy?” His hand inched along the nape of her neck.
“Erik, calm down,” Natura begged. “Please, just calm down.” She pushed harder against his chest, but it only caused him to wrap his hand tighter around her wrist and pull her closer to him.
“It’s your fault that I won’t be able to compete against everyone else,” he said. “You planned it that way all along, didn’t you?”
“Erik—”
“You planned it,” he insisted. “You want me to fail; all along you were planning to make me fail.”
“No, I—”
His fingers curled around the back of her neck, his thumb caressed the slight indent at her throat. “It’s all your fault,” he said. “All your fault.” He stared at her for a moment, his eyes locked on hers, but as if he were far away. “My father is a cut throat,” he said after a long silence. “He destroyed people to keep our inn. He destroyed them for the good of his future. You, Miss, are trying to destroy my future.”
“Erik, no,” Natura insisted. “I tried to help you, remember?”
“You gave me your word, and you failed,” he said. “And now it’s your fault I’m going to be stuck in that godforsaken inn for the rest of my life!” His fingers tightened around her throat and he pushed her to the ground.
She gasped for air and tried to push him from her, but he was stronger. Her vision blurred and a cloud pushed at her mind. Her gaze drifted to the sky. The two moons blurred into twelve. They were so near each other, autumn was only days away. The Festival of the Blue Moon, the one night the moons covered each other perfectly casting a blue light over Icarthia, would bring the hunters home to Icarthia.
Natura couldn’t imagine she would never see Nolen, or her mother and father again. Would Christiana and Haro discover her, or would Erik dispose of her body that night?
Her thoughts flowed together, her arms and legs were numb. Above her, Erik’s figure dissolved into the starry night sky. Instead of falling into total darkness, though, light seeped into the edges of Natura’s sight. Her vision opened again.
She lay in a meadow of tall grass at the edge of the forest. Her fingers grasped the dry, yellowing grass and her body burned like she had been set on fire. She tried to scream, but her voice was gone.
She craned her neck, searching for Erik. If he saw her, saw the pain, he may come to his senses and help her. He was gone from her sight, though. She couldn’t force her body from the ground, and everywhere she looked was only dull blue sky and tall yellow grass.
The shadowy silhouette of a man appeared above her, staring down at her. Dark grey mist seemed to cling to him, it swirled around his feet in small eddys. A sword hung from his side, out of the mist. The blade was uncovered and shone in bright sunlight that seemed to concentrate itself only on the blade.
“H-Help,” Natura managed to choke out.
The man stooped down to one knee. He touched a hand to her face; his touch was cold, like ice on her burning skin.
“H-Help me,” she pleaded. She reached through the mist for his shadowed boot, her fingers grasped the smooth leather.
The man pulled an oblong glowing object from somewhere out of Natura’s sight. He held it lightly in his hand over her body. “You must decide,” he said. His voice was average, like any other Natura had heard, but a foreign accent clung to his words. “Two options; one will spare you.”
“H-Help,” she whispered. The burning was consuming her; she couldn’t concentrate, she couldn’t think.
The man tapped the glowing object on her shoulder. Pain shot across her body, centralizing in her shoulder. She couldn’t hold back the shriek of pain that rose in her throat.
“Decide,” the man said.
Natura’s whole body convulsed as he tapped the object to her chest. The light of the clearing disappeared in an instant as if the sun had been extinguished. The pain slowly receded from her shaking body.
“Hold still,” a man’s voice instructed. Something pushed Natura’s shoulders back, holding her to the wet grass.
She gasped for air and forced her eyes open. The starry night sky slowly came back into focus above her. She twisted her head sideways; a crumpled figure was silhouetted by the dim light of the fallen lantern.
“He has quite the temper,” the voice said. Natura couldn’t recall if it was familiar or not. “He can’t control it, it’s not his fault.”
Something cool covered Natura’s face as the last of the burning faded. She tried to move her head up, to see the person kneeling beside her, but she couldn’t. Her whole body was beginning to ache.
“You will be sore in the morning, but you shouldn’t be in pain,” the voice explained. “You won’t remember much from tonight once the medicine takes effect.”
“Thank you,” Natura murmured. Her voice was rough in her throat.
“Shh.” Someone lifted her from the ground. “You’ll be asleep soon. Everything will be better in the morning.”
Natura let her head rest against the person’s shoulder, her face buried in the soft cotton of their shirt. Consciousness slipped away around her, and she welcomed it.
