Even though he couldn’t tell exactly what had scared him, Snow sat up with a startle. Urgently looking around, he hastily stumbled out of bed and almost fell down. There were no chains! There were no chains!, he repeated to himself, looking at his naked wrists, quickly stepping away from the bed. With a deep sigh he finally managed to calm down.
He was in a small house, he realized, looking around. It was dark outside and the only source of light came from a thin candle that was presently creating a white pool of wax over the table.
There was no one else there, he easily concluded, and the sound of voices led him towards the small window.
Peering outside, he saw two men carrying bright torches pass by in a hurry. Even though the sky was now dark, there were people everywhere, rushing back and forth, carrying bundles of clothes, even large pieces of furniture. The air smelled heavily of burning smoke, and the moment he stepped outside he immediately saw the huge pyre that had been lit just outside the village gates, the tall bright red flames rising towards the night sky. The smell coming from it was enough to make him queasy, and so he decided to get as far away from that place as possible.
Two men ran past him, carrying more things, probably to go and burn them in the fire. To his left a young couple was crying, hugging a small child between them. Snow couldn’t tell if they were crying for the ones they’d lost, or for having been some of the few lucky ones who had survived. The village still smelled of death, but the scent was lighter now, as if a fresh blast of wind had rushed through the streets carrying the most of it away. Except there, he concluded, looking at the wide extension of darkened fields in front of him.
Recalling the way the little golden-hair girl had danced and played at the white Temple of Weiin1Literally wei (crystal / precious stone) + suffix in (center), meaning the center of the Province of Wei, in other words, Wei’s Capital. All Capitals of all Provinces are named as such., ripples of golden light spreading over the stone floors every time her bare feet touch the ground, Snow took a step forward and allowed a new melody to take over his mind.
It was no use creating an array to wipe the entire area like the ones he’d used before. Instead of wider he had to go deeper, he knew the instant he stepped forth, permeating the land beneath his feet with his melody, sending it as deep as possible, like a rock of light thrown into a dark pond.
Muttering the song in his head, he took one step after the other, slowly but rhythmically crossing the dark extension, leaving small pools of golden light on his trail. He only turned back to see if it had worked at all when he reached the other side of the field. And a wide smile stretched his lips at sight of the corridor of fresh, healthy plants he’d managed to open amongst all that deadly darkness.
Happy with the prospect that he’d be able to restore those fields back to normal, he took a deep breath and started his way back, creating another corridor of life.
Raising an array would have been much faster, he thought after completing the fourth corridor. But, in his mind, arrays had a fast but superficial result on a given area, while using his daitai2Literally dai (light) + tai (mark), or holy Markings, considered Heavenly Blessings. They’re the source of power. on a smaller, specific area had a deeper effect. He didn’t know if that was a general rule, but if he’d learned something about daitai was that their effects depended a lot of one’s way of seeing things, of one’s ability to envision and even imagine how the world around them would be affected by their power. Doing things like this would probably take him a long time, he considered, focusing and stepping forward again. But it was certainly worth it.
“You really don’t know when to stop!”
Snow jumped, turning around with a startle. The blue eyes glaring at him made him take a step back, his gaze turning to the partially restored field and back to him again.
Was he still angry because of what he’d done before? Because he had disobeyed him? Or was he angry because he’d left the house without telling anyone? He hoped he wasn’t thinking that he was trying to run away. After all he’d threatened to break his legs more than once, if he so much thought about it. But he hadn’t run away! He truly hadn’t! And he wondered if the restored fields would be proof enough of his innocence.
“What are you doing out here?”
Snow’s expression brightened up at the chance of explaining himself.
“The fields ... the land isn’t good anymore …” he whispered, hoping this was enough to convince him, but ZaiWin3Literally zai (blade) + win (chaos). frowned with an annoyed expression.
“Of course it isn’t. The feimao4Literally fei (raging / furious) + mao (beast / monster). Raving beasts that appear in unbalanced, ungoverned lands. They possess destructive markings that in turn corrupt the land even further. Hard to explain in just 2 lines -_-; Anyway. Bad, vicious things that need to be killed. walked over it. Whatever they touch will rot away and die.”
“But the people … they need the fields …”
“They can just abandon them and open another patch of land, and start everything all over again!”
Snow lowered his gaze and peered at the fresh leaves paving the ground he’d just walked over.
“But I can make it better …”
“Do you want to faint again? Because that’s what will happen if you keep doing this! Using ones markings has a price! The same way you have to pay for the food you order at a tavern! You have to make sure you have enough coin to pay for it. What you did before, raising those three arrays at the same time, for someone as inexperienced as you, can be very dangerous, even deadly! What would you have done if you couldn’t pay the price? That was your limit, do you understand? And now you’re here, doing it again!”
“I didn’t know … that that could happen,” he admitted in a small voice. “But now I know. I could feel it, my limit, how suddenly I was … empty. But this is different …” he declared looking at the fields. “This is one step at a time …” He couldn’t find the words to explain it any better. “I’m controlling it, just like you taught me,” he added, looking up at him, but the frown on ZaiWin’s forehead only deepened.
“Why?”
Snow blinked, unable to understand his question.
“The people need the fields …” he replied, uncertain about that being the right answer, since he’d already said so before.
ZaiWin crossed his arms, looking away.
“Whatever! Do as you please!”
He looked angry again, Snow thought, watching his brooding face. Why he was angry, however, he couldn’t exactly tell. On the other hand, he had told him to do as he pleased, he considered, looking at the fields. No matter how angry he might be, he’d given him the freedom to choose. And so he chose to do what he knew was right.
Taking a deep breath, searching for the song in his head, he stepped into the field again.
Nox5Literally nox (night). Where Nox is the name of the Clan, also the name of a Province. ZaiWin just stood there, watching him go, a trace of golden light following his slow steps, the dead plants miraculously coming back to life, growing so tall that it didn’t take long until he could hardly see him. Reaching the end of the field, Snow turned around and made his way back, as if he were carefully plowing the land with his feet.
Even though he knew that it was far from being rational, it still irked him that the damn brat would openly challenge him like that. It wasn’t as if the entire world acted according to his wishes, far from it. Even his own men frequently disobeyed him. But when the brat blatantly opposed him, ZaiWin couldn’t help feeling as if he was somehow loosing control; as if the freaking brat were slipping through his fingers; as if he couldn’t hold him back and keep him where he could easily reach him. It was that damned link!, he knew in his head. And so he always tried his best to act according to what he knew, and not to what he felt. But it still irked him, nevertheless!
However, after watching him walk back and forth a few times, ZaiWin’s anger started to finally dissipate, replaced by that feeling of awe that didn’t annoy him any less.
Even though he had always despised Celestials and their righteous bullshit, he suddenly wished he could grab the brat and simply take him with him back to Nox. If anyone needed and deserved that golden ray of hope were his people, he sighed, wishing all of Nox could have plentiful fields like the one slowly being restored right in front of his eyes. For the first time in his life he actually felt that a Celestial could truly be a blessing, and he could easily foresee how happy the many people he’d met on his travels across Nox would be, if they could lay their eyes on that skinny brat. He was sure none of them would care if he was a boy or a golden-haired girl. Only those who had never felt or even seen what true hunger looks like could ever care about such idiotic, senseless things.
Returning from another trip, Snow sat down on a large, dirt mound and took a deep breath.
“Finished?”
Snow looked up at him and back at the fields. He’d only restored one-quarter of it, if so.
“No. Just resting a bit.”
To his surprise, ZaiWin sat down beside him, his legs too long to allow him to comfortably sit on such a low mound.
“You still have tomorrow, you know? We won’t be leaving here until BigMountain arrives, anyway.”
“But once he arrives we’ll have to leave, right? I want to make sure I’m done by then.”
Even though he kept that stupid whispering, his words were clear and objective.
ZaiWin had noticed it before. The fact that he refused to talk like other people, when he talked at all, added to the fact that he lacked experience and knowledge in a lot of everyday subjects, led others to think that he was a shy, childish teenage boy, uncertain about the world around him and his place in it. But the truth was quite different. That damn brat actually had a mind of his own, and he could be extremely stubborn and persistent once he’d put an idea in his head. The only real leverage ZaiWin had over him was the fact that he clearly feared him, which wasn’t surprising at all, taking into account what ZaiWin had looked like in his eyes, since the moment they’d met.
Taking a deep breath, ZaiWin raised his head to look up at the sky. A heavy, gray cloud floated over the entire village, from the smoke of the pyre that would burn through the entire night and following day. The whole village was tinged in shades of orange and red.
“Once we leave here we’ll be traveling to Woodbridge. In order to solve this mess I need to know where you came from. But you don’t have to come, if you don’t want to.”
Snow’s eyes widened in disbelief as he turned to stare at him. Was he giving him a choice again?
ZaiWin didn’t move, his head tilted back, his long, black ponytail pooling on the ground behind his back. His usually pale face was now a warmer shade, reflecting the light of the flames, and Snow couldn’t help thinking that he was actually very handsome. It could even be said that he had a pleasant face, if not for the fact that he was constantly staring murderously or angrily at him. It was almost a shame, that someone so beautiful would hate him so much …
“Zen thinks that you may not want to revisit the places you lived in, when you were a child. If that’s so, I will not force you to accompany us.”
The places he had lived in when he was a child …
Snow lowered his head.
There was only one, really. A small, crooked shed made of whatever they were able to find, build beneath a wooden bridge on the bank of a narrow but furious river. In his memories, it was so small that Sand would have to lie curled over herself to be able to sleep. A shard of a mirror, a couple of cracked bowls, a rusty pan over a fire, a pile of wet, moldy straw and a torn blanket. And, of course, Sand’s warm smile, Sand’s gentle hands, Sand’s caring arms tightly wrapped around him. That was the place he’d lived in as a child.
“I want to go,” he easily decided. He had simply been taken away. He hadn’t been granted the time to say his farewells, and somehow he couldn’t help feeling he’d somehow left something very important behind. “I want to see it too. To know where I came from. To understand how I got to where I am.”
ZaiWin peered at him and did his best to contain his smile.
Stubborn and strong willed indeed. But he didn’t hate that about him. Better strong willed than a useless doll like the rest of them.
“If you’re still intending to wear out your soles walking back and forth before sunrise, you better get going!” he reminded him with a critic tone, and the brat immediately jumped to his feet as if he’d completely forgotten about it.
“That’s right! I want to restore at least half of it before morning comes,” he whispered more to himself than as an answer and, taking a deep breath to relax and center his mind, Snow stepped into the fields again.
The sky was already brightening when VinWei6Literally vin (hard) + wei (crystal) found ZaiWin. She had initially been rushing to reach him, probably wanting to tell him something important, but then she slowed down, her steps becoming more careful and quiet.
ZaiWin was sitting on a mound of dirt, probably formed when the farmers had first plowed the land, and Snow, seating next to him, had fallen asleep, his head leaning against his arm.
“You’ve been out here the entire night?” she whispered so she wouldn't disturb the boy, and ZaiWin took a deep breath.
“What do you think?” he retorted, signaling the fields in front of him with his head, and VinWei turned to look at them, noticing the healthy, green crops for the first time.
“He did this?”
“He spent the entire night walking back and forth. He fell asleep not long ago,” ZaiWin replied in a critic tone, even though he couldn’t hide his small smile. The freaking brat had made it. Half the fields before sunrise. “He’ll probably be back to it the moment he wakes up.”
“Not before I get some food in his stomach!” VinWei countered and ZaiWin’s smile widened.
“Good luck arguing about that with him.”
She watched him for a moment and ended up smiling as well.
“You look like you’re having fun.”
“He’s an interesting brat,” he admitted and she crossed her arms raising an eyebrow.
“So having a Tien’Elhar7Literally tien (Heaven) + el (supreme) + har (girl child). The Heavenly Beings also known as Celestials in the common language. hanging around isn’t so bad anymore.”
“Wrong. I couldn’t care less about the Tien’Elhar. If you ask me, I still think we should put the whole lot of them to death. They are deceiving, manipulative, cynic creatures,” he openly declared, his voice hard and cold. But then he peered at the boy leaning against his arm and that small smile returned to his lips. “Having this brat around isn’t so bad,” he corrected but his expression turned immediately cold again. “A shame I’ll probably have to kill him.”
“ZaiWin!”
He raised his gaze to look up at her and she simply sighed at the unwavering decision mirrored in those cold eyes.
“I will find a way! I will make sure you don’t have to do such a horrible thing! For his sake! And for your sake as well!”
ZaiWin looked at the green fields in front of him and took a deep breath.
“I honestly hope you can.”
VinWei sighed and placed the small bundle she’d been carrying beside him.
“I brought you some food. There’s some cheese and bread in there. No meat so he’ll be able to eat it too. Make sure he does eat before he goes back to purifying the land.”
“How are things in the village?”
“They’ve already burned all their dead and personal objects that might have been contaminated. We’re now helping them clean their houses. I’ve used almost all of my cleansing crystals. Thankfully Snow’s arrays did most of the work. And with their fields restored to how they used to be, at least they won’t go hungry. I’ll make sure to request some financial aid when you send your official report, so that they can replace all the furniture and utensils they had to burn, as well as they dead livestock.”
ZaiWin nodded. It was good that things were slowly but surly going back to normal. He’d seen more than enough permanently ruined villages for his taste. That Last Tree was quickly recovering from the calamity that it had suffered was truly a good thing.
