The Pirate, part two
Could Maya be the one to kill the king?
The Great Fire is designed to be read in any order but you can catch up on the previous stories here:
Make sure you don’t miss anything and subscribe to verse. Fiction is sent out every Thursday.
The Pirate
Part Two
My name is Aisha, I was the Beldam to Dryte Yūgen of Arundel and the Broken Islands. Like my mother before me and her mother before that, it was my duty to protect the Yūgen family and their Kingdom. We came from Neighrey and crossed the Great Ocean to Arundel, which had never been done before by any of our kind.
Water always fights against us.
It's something in the blood of Neerah that makes the ocean try and defend itself, as if we’re diseased. It tries to drown us. Even now when I travel across to the main land I must sacrifice part of myself like my ancestors before me to show that I mean no harm. Back then, however, we made the journey to Arundel with the idea that that’s where we would stay.
Until my King was invited to your door.
I wasn’t the one to read the letter but I was the one to advise against it. It seemed that Favian had written the note himself but I could smell the stench of dying flesh, the same smell that leaks from the ground at Lirahndür because of their cursed magic. I warned my King against going but he wouldn’t listen to me, the prospect of a union between our kingdoms was too enticing. The only option for me was to accept that.
Then I discovered he had decided to send his daughter, Shai, in his place.
Shai and I had grown up together and my hands grew hot at the thought of her going to Teron becuase I thought that if she left Arundel, she’d never come home.
I tried to convince her not to go or to take me with her when she went but she refused both. We didn’t know then about the Neeran prisoners that were in your keep or your allegiances with Lirahndür. She thought that if Favian saw me he would be scared because of the Neeran capabilities. She thought that because I could kill a man with a thought, he might see me as a threat.
But I couldn’t get rid of that stench from the letter that no one else seemed to notice. So even though I vowed that I wouldn’t hurt anyone on the main land without her consent, she refused.
With little time to stop her from going I, regrettably, acted rashly.
I poisoned her.
I only wanted her to be sick enough to be unable to go to Teron but it somehow spread throughout the keep and her father, my King, died. My oath forced me to confess what I had done and I was rightly banished from the Kingdom.
I’ve never been home since.
If anything I am thankful that his death meant that they stayed away from Teron that day but I mourn the loss of Dryte every moment. So whether you were aware or not, now you know the reason why no consort from Arundel was present at Favian’s ambush.
But I was there.
I masked myself as a slave in your keep and stood by the wall with the others who waited to be summoned. I saw the girl who had my eyes and watched as she spoke Favian’s fate. Soon after she had announced his fate, allegiances were called and those who refused died until only Lirahndür was left standing.
I wasn’t horrified at the massacre, I was expecting it. It all seemed very natural for Favian, he didn’t even look away while the killing occured. Besides, in that moment, all my attention was focused on Favian’s fate, or more specifically, the name of his attacker.
The girl hadn’t spoken one.
Whether because she didn’t know how to procure a name or because she refused to seal it, I’m not sure. She was young after all and terrified. But there was no name spoken, which meant there was time to change his fate.
I could change his fate.
I could twist it to suit whatever purpose I wished, without a name the prophecy was almost useless. He only had to die in the way that the girl had spoken: by a sword. And as I'm sure you know, anyone can pick up a sword - all I had to do was name one.
I went to the outskirts of the city at night and travelled across to Spektor Forest just to the West of the wall. I needed to keep some part of Teron in sight, to stay connected to it somehow.
I hid in the dark of the trees, making a small wisp of light so that I could read what needed to be done. The place I had found gave me enough space to alter the curse but I was worried that there wouldn’t be enough time. Favian could realise his mistake and force the child to name the attacker, though I suspect he thinks he's done enough.
It’s quite simple to reveal someone’s fate because you’re merely showing the world what the universe has already planned. It’s the truth of what is. You only have to be able to speak Neerah and then you can split the strands of what is happening now and what will happen in the future.
Changing someone’s fate is more difficult. You need to make the person believe that the fate they've heard isn't true, that they could die at any moment, which can be difficult for some but I had done it before and I could do it again.
Despite the distance between us, I connected with Favian. I could tell that he was inside his chambers and that he wasn't alone. I could feel the warmth of the fire in the corner and that he looked at his companion with disdain.
I couldn’t kill him but I felt his presence and squeezed his heart so that he would think it was going to stop. With the doubt set in his mind, I opened my eyes to confirm the next stage but the book was gone.
My ties to Favian snapped and I was wrenched back to my surrounds.
I heard someone behind me and turned, I managed to see that it was a woman who held my book. Her scarf was a deep red like blood, which she had pulled up to cover most of her face.
That's all I had a chance to notice before she struck me across the side of my head and I passed out.
Then, for a while, there was nothing.
I tried for months to trace the whereabouts of the book and the woman who stole it but there was none. Then a friend told me he had seen the book in Molinos. I asked him who held it and he said one of the women vying for the throne.
I had enough hope to venture out to those wastes and meet with her. I didn't recognise her but she knew me. I pleaded with her to return my book to me. I explained to her what Favian was and how his fate was yet to be sealed.
I thought that she would have understood or at least shown me some pity for me but she said that she liked this new world and if I wanted to get the book back that I’d have to take it from her. She then showed me the two Katar daggers she had at her waist and all my hopes slipped away.
I couldn’t take it with force because my vow to my Queen still remains. She laughed at my impotence and even let me walk away through the crowds that had formed who screamed at my cowardice. I wandered back through the wastes to my home that didn’t exist.
I then took refuge on the ocean in a ship that I stole during the mayhem of the fire. I became a captain of a small crew and we smuggled goods between the main land and Arundel. I would glimpse my old home from the ship as my crew made the delivery.
I’m sure it was just my imagination but I always thought I could smell the Wisteria that grew in the royal gardens. The flowers that Shai liked to plait into her hair. The same ones that you had asked for after you saw her all those years ago.
But I know that I was anchored too far away for any of that to be true.
Many times I made port near Molinos where I heard rumours of the Theif’s rule and I wondered if she had made sense of the book she stole. And if she had, I wondered whether she knew the consequences of using it.
Thirty-two years I spent roaming the seas before I heard anything about you. We rescued a woman from the coast of Thorne and at night she sang a song over and over again. I asked her what it was about and she said she sang of a young princess who married a stranger who became a King. That it was a warning about trust and when I asked her where she sang of, she said Teron.
The song was about you.
Suddenly I remembered you and I began searching for information about what had happened to you, and after a year I discovered that you had gone missing at the fire. No one ever said that you had died, only that you were missing.
Now I’ve found you, but beware: if I could find you, so could they.
Mayanthrel, I don’t know what happened to you over the years or how any of this came to be but I know that you wouldn’t want your Kingdom to be this way. I don’t blame you for what happened; sometimes you need fire.
I am only offering my help. If you can get the book, I can change his fate.
It’s not safe for either of us for me to reveal myself to you yet but get the book and I will find a way. You have given me hope, and I have faith that I have given the same to you.
By the stars I wish you luck and good fortune,
Aisha
‘Einar, do you know what this means?’ said Maya,
‘It could not be me after all, someone else could kill the King,’ said Einar. She knew that it was too soon to say the words aloud but still they began to take form at the back of her mind as she realised the truth: it could be someone else, it could be her.
Deep down in her heart where she kept her most precious memories and where she had once felt love, a small flame of hope began to spark.
The Great Fire is released each week via the verse fiction newsletter. Get it straight to your inbox so you don’t miss a sentence.