“He is a good king, Captain.” Jerick said softly.
“Jerick? Why do you always say things I have no desire to hear?” Kjell asked, though his voice lacked its customary venom.
“Because I am the only one who dares,” Jerick replied. “It’s good for you, Captain.”
“Yes. I am always healed by your presence and your words, Lieutenant,” Kjell countered dryly.
Jerick snorted. “King Aren reminds me a little of you.”
“Cease speaking, Lieutenant,” Kjell sighed, knowing Jerick would never, ever cease speaking.
“It is something in his eyes,” Jerick mused. “Though his are a brighter blue. And much warmer. Wiser. Maybe it is his mouth. Of course he smiles more.” Jerick’s grin was wicked as Kjell sought to sweep his feet out from under him. The lieutenant countered and danced away. Kjell let him scamper, crouching over the deer once more, too subdued to make chase, though he appreciated Jerick’s company more than he would admit.
“She’s a beauty. First one I’ve seen. The animals are coming back. The forest is coming alive. It’s . . . comforting,” Jerick mused, listening to the chirping of the birds and the chattering of the squirrels above them.
Kjell nodded, though he knew little comfort and even less peace. He considered again that Ariel of Firi had died in the depths of the sea. Or maybe she’d never left the Corvar Mountains or the Bay of Brisson at all. She was controlling him—his emotions, his time, his energy—with no effort at all.
“Don’t drain the doe here. Yetta will want the blood. She will put it in her soup, and it will taste like the nectar of the gods.” Jerick indicated the deer Kjell had just begun to skin.
“Then help me carry it back,” Kjell said. They hoisted it upon their shoulders, walking in comfortable silence, the weight and warmth of the animal shared evenly between them.
“Captain, if Lady Firi followed you from the plains of Janda all the way to the mountains in Corvyn, she followed you here,” Jerick offered as they neared the west castle gate. The newly-trained watchman saw their approach and called out a welcome and a query, just as he’d been taught.
“Are you sure you aren’t Gifted, Lieutenant?” Kjell murmured, waiting for the gate to rise. “You have an uncanny way of reading my mind.”
“No Captain. I am not Gifted,” Jerick retorted. “I am just your friend.”
***
Kjell was summoned to the castle by the King’s Council and asked to report on the “progress of the army and the readiness of the guard.” The king’s advisors were much like Tiras’s council in Jeru—self-important, inquisitive, and full of suggestions that made them all feel productive but accomplished very little.
Still, they revered Kjell—everyone but the king, who treated him with respect but no awe—and that much was a new experience. He answered their questions, made a few requests for the building up of the castle’s defense, and escaped as quickly as he could. He strode down the long corridor hung with the portraits of the Caarn royalty, refusing to cast his gaze at the woman named Koorah or the glowing picture of the young queen. He was down the stairs and through the expansive foyer when he heard her voice, echoing through the slightly-opened door of the Great Room just to the left of the entrance.
He paused and moved toward the sound, entranced, letting it flow over and through him like a caress. She was telling stories again, and he suddenly realized she was talking about him.
“The captain thrust his lance upward into the belly of Architeuthis,” she said, injecting drama into every word.
“The giant squid!” a child interrupted.
“Yes, the giant squid. Mortally wounded, the squid retreated, swimming back into the darkest parts of the sea, for that is where Architeuthis lives.”
“Why is he so big?” a little voice inquired.
“Because he is lonely,” Sasha replied, inexplicably.
“The captain is lonely?” the child asked.
“No.” Sasha’s voice hitched but she recovered quickly. “Architeuthis is lonely. He grows big to keep himself company. His tentacles are like friends. But sometimes he is so lonely, he tries to take the ships deep into the sea. But ships don’t belong on the sea floor, and neither do men. So Architeuthis is destined to be alone.”
“But why is the Healer so big?” the same child insisted, thoroughly confused.
“Because he is a warrior,” Sasha was quick to answer.
“Not a Healer?” someone asked.
“I suppose he is both,” Sasha said softly.
“Is he lonely too? My father says he isn’t friendly,” another child chimed in.
Kjell winced.
“Is that a true story about the giant squid?” a child pondered doubtfully. “How do you know he just doesn’t want to gobble ships and eat people?”
Sasha quieted the children and before long only the soft sounds of independent study filtered through the window. Kjell turned away, the spell broken, his hands still in need of washing.
“You have found our school,” Padrig said, startling him. “We’re holding classes in the Great Hall until more permanent arrangements can be made.”
“Is there no one else to teach them?” Kjell asked. Jerick said Sasha was tireless, but she could not do everything.
“There are a few others. But Queen Saoirse assists for a little while every day. She is the most educated among us.”
“A slave from Quondoon,” Kjell whispered.
“Yes,” Padrig said, a pained expression crossing his face. “The children have struggled most in the transition. They have aged, just as they would have done had they been children instead of trees. They went to sleep one way and woke another. Bedwin was four when he began hiding. He is eight now. And he doesn’t know how to read. Moira was eleven, still a child. Suddenly she is fifteen, with a woman’s body and emotions, and she doesn’t know how to act. She is too old for the school room yet too immature to be anywhere else. There are many like Bedwin and Moira. All their lives were interrupted, and they are all a little lost.”
They weren’t the only ones.
“We are looking for a permanent headmaster,” Padrig continued. “The old head schoolmaster was one who did not come back.”
“One of the trees?
“Yes.” Padrig nodded.
“I remember. His heartbeat was faint.” Kjell had felt no tossing or turbulence beneath the bark, and he’d almost moved on, believing the tree was simply that, a tree. It was the schoolmaster’s wife who made him listen harder, insisting the elm was her husband who’d gone into hiding beside her. But the man could not be saved . . . or healed.
“The schoolmaster will become like Grandfather Tree.”
“What does that mean, Spinner?” Kjell asked.
“He will die. But just like the stars in the sky, he will live on as long as his tree lives on. He has spun away and will never spin back.”
“My brother Gideon, the king’s father, died in his sleep. He did not know he was going to die. He did not take his place next to his father—Grandfather Tree—in the grove. Aren’s mother, Briona, is there. But not Gideon. It is something that grieves the king terribly.
“When I die, I will not become a tree of Caarn either. I will simply become dust again.” Padrig shrugged sadly. “But perhaps the Creator, in his mercy, will make me stardust.”
The children suddenly burst out the doors as if being chased by Architeuthis himself, and Padrig threw up his hands, pretending he was being tossed about by a great wind.
“Slow down, children! You are in the palace!”
“Good day, Master Padrigus,” they chorused, bobbing and bowing as they tumbled by him toward the castle kitchen. Three small boys of varying widths and heights came to a stumbling halt in front of Kjell and pulled at their forelocks dutifully.