Mare Ephrathah
fiction
One Last Farewell
Holding in a sneeze can cause a blood vessel in the brain to rupture. My brain had enough problems. My flickers weren’t sneezes, though they came out just the same. My fingers twitched, springing an unwanted jig at my thigh as I stared at myself in the long mahogany mirror in the corner of my room. Warm morning light reflected off the glass and onto my arms. Dust particles danced as they swirled into red tinted sun rays beaming in through the stained art over my little oval window.
First day at The VeLore as a student. I can do this, I thought.
“You are smart, you are able, you are fearless,” I squinted my brows together before laughing. I was anything but fearless. I wonder if it’s okay to break the ninth rule if you only lie to yourself.
Sparrows and wrens sang a serene welcome to the day—contrary to the storm of anxiety raging inside me. I swallowed the last bit of my now lukewarm chamomile tea as I rested against an empty chest of drawers. The extra glob of honey at the bottom of the cup wasn’t the delight I expected. I felt so sick I could cry. I ran to the window and swiveled it open, gulping at the fresh air.
One final survey of the room made me feel as hollow as it looked. My once cluttered vanity lay bare. The bed was stripped of everything but the elaborate floral carvings vining up the legs and twisting into a sun at the headboard. My clothes and books and all I held dear was haphazardly packed and ready to go, sitting in a pile out by the front door, waiting on the horse and carriage mom was acquiring.
I breathed out and reached for the only items not yet secured away in luggage. On the wall above my desk sat five birds. Merely trinkets to the untrained heart.
I clutched onto two at a time, bracing them against my chest and gently tucked them into my over-sized satchel before an unexpected flicker could cause me to chuck them across the room. They were all I had left of dad, and if they were destroyed—I would be too. The wise thing to do would have been to leave them behind, but I couldn’t, so I took the risk.
Relief fluttered its wings as I stared at the five of them safely nuzzled in with my embroidery and skirts. My finger traced the soft thread and I sighed. Embroidery didn’t come so easily to me anymore. Forget doing anything extravagant—like the floral stays I chose to wear today.
But I tried.
Simple little things.
The flickers made everything harder. And emotions, especially anxiety, made the flickers worse.
As if summoned, my arm, all on its own, made a boisterous punch to the air. I groaned and plopped to the bed with my face in my hands. Today was going to be unremitting. A new place, new people, new everything. I didn’t know of anyone else in all Elvoria with my condition, and as such, I often frightened others.
People fear what they don’t know.
I couldn’t blame them. I was scared too.
Now that I’m used to being out of control, I find myself being more afraid of people seeing the outbursts. I could’ve stayed in the comfort of Nesrin as a hermit, safe. But studying at The VeLore was my dream. What every person my age dreamed of. To be a student at The VeLore was an honor. An honor every student had to earn and I was no exception. I drove myself near mad attempting to get in. Wouldn’t dare have anyone say my mother did me a favor. Though I was certain some would suspect my last name to have won me an entry to the academy.
“Fia! Time to go!” My mother’s voice echoed from the kitchen, a yell that would threaten anyone else.
“Okay, just one more minute!” I was waiting for someone and he was late.
Just as I was about to give in and snatch up my satchel, a familiar tap sounded at the window. I dropped my bag and ran to the open glass.
“Quest! I didn’t think you’d make it. I’m leaving.” I reminded the raven—as if he had any understanding.
He stared with eyes as blue as Crystal Lake. Something silver dangled from his pale beak.
I reached out my hand for the gift. Cold metal dropped into my palm.
“Hello kitten,” he uttered in his deep raven voice.
I don’t know where on earth he picked up that phrase from, but he said it nearly every morning. As if he knew he were greeting me. I wasn’t all too sure about how I felt about the kitten bit, but it made me laugh regardless.
He imitated my chuckle.
“What poor soul did you take this from?” The key was long and brass with florets fanning in a heart around a ruby at the end. He, of course, didn’t answer. It seemed fancier than anything anyone around here would own. I slipped it into the waist bag hanging from my leather belt.
Quest bobbed his head up and down, approving of the grain I’d set out for him earlier this morning. I’d poured a dab of molasses over it. One last treat. I’d hope he’d come and visit me in Kalara, but I wasn’t sure how to make that happen.
He was a raven who traded shiny things for sweet treats, not a homing pigeon. Even if he were, I wasn’t his home. The first time he tapped on my window I’d been having a flicker fit, pulling my hair and ramming my knuckles into my forehead. The tap had startled me so substantially, it killed the flickers on the spot.
I rubbed the underside of his beak where the small white feathers met. He purred. Must’ve picked that up from the neighbor’s cat. He should call himself kitten.
He jumped up on my sill and squawked out one of his other peculiar phrases, “under no circumstances,” the likes of which never had any sort of an ending.
“Fia,” mom said at the door, stiff as a steel poker with my satchel gripped in her hands.
“Sorry, I’m coming.” I gave Quest one last scratch and whispered for him to come find me at The VeLore in Kalara. I cranked the glass shut again and a rainbow from the hanging stained art swung in my face.
I breathed in. “I’m ready.”
“Well it seems you’re the only one,” Mom’s eyes were teary, a sight I’m sure few had ever seen. She blinked it away and smoothed out the already smooth black leather only Empyreans wore. Though lowest of the Empyrean ranks, her brilliance in strategy and cartography made her a legend in the Armare, the kingdom’s military.
“I’m incredibly proud of you, I just wish-” she sucked in the air and I squeezed her hand.
“I know, me too.”
She gave a squeeze back and swiveled into the hall. “Let’s get on with it before I completely fall apart. I swear, you were three yesterday, climbing these counters and leaping to the table.”
“Hey, at least you’ll get to see me more often now.” I noted as the floorboards in the kitchen creaked with our passing. Mom practically lived in the war sector—the part of The VeLore that, other than her, I really wanted nothing to do with.
“Margot is taking her time too,” she changed the subject as we slipped out of the coziness of the kitchen and into the cool spring air.
“I’ll go get her,” I said.
Margot was my best friend. And the only person who didn’t make me feel like a freak with my outbursts. She was comfortable to be around, a balm for my soul.
I made my way over the green hill dotted in daisies, the morning dew wetting the tops of my boots with each step. Flowers of purple and pink danced at my ankles, reminding me of who I was to become in a matter of days. A first year.
A flower.
A little lamb bounded from the watering trough as I approached the burnt toast colored gate separating me from the Brotz home. I smiled and melted into a puddle of affection, reaching my hand through the boards to pet the fluff ball. Big mistake. The shrill bark of the giant white guard dog pierced through the air as he bounded my way.
I yanked my hand out from the fence and backed up a few feet while he snarled at me, saliva drooling off a front tooth like he was rabid.
“Come on, you know me.” I whispered.
The front door, decorated in red staggered painted flora, swung open. Mrs. Brotz stood there, gray strands of hair, loose from her braids, blew in the morning breeze and an unseemly scowl crinkled on her weathered face at the commotion.
“Bernie thinks I’m some terrible beast again,” I shouted over the continuous barks.
Mrs. Brotz rolled her eyes and whistled, forcing an immediate stop from Bernie. He huffed at me before circling back to his precious sheep.
Margot popped out behind her grandmother, her bright orange shawls nearly piercing in the sunlight. Her teal skirts flowed like a waterfall around her legs.
“Can you believe it?!” she squealed, tugging along what looked like five hundred pounds in what I could only guess were instruments.
“No, I really can’t.” I admitted and opened the gate for her.
I’d waited all my life for today. I almost thought it would never arrive. Yet here we were, about to be students at the elite academy reserved only for the brightest in the Five Lands. I would squeal too but I felt like throwing up.
“Here, girls. A little treasure from home.” Mrs. Brotz hung by the gate, two braided breads in her hands.
“Mrs. Brotz, you’re not coming?” I questioned.
She smiled and shook her head.
“Grandpa got called out to fell a tree threatening to squash the Finkers house.” Margot said as if that explained Mrs. Brotz’s refusal to leave home.
“Someone’s got to stay and watch the sheep,” she said when the confusion didn’t leave my face.
“Oh.” I wanted to crack a joke about Bernie but decided against it.
“Ya vitch!” I yelled out before glancing at Mrs. Brotz in horror. “Im sorry,” I whispered.
She remained unamused. At least my curse was in Lorrian and while the Brotz understood the dead language, not many others did. Which meant none of the neighboring cottages had any idea what I’d just yelled. Though Mr. Kirby stared just the same, puffing on his pipe as he did every morning. I could smell the tobacco leaves from across the creek. I resisted the urge to wave, knowing it’d only get me a grunt.
“Go on now, you’re gonna be late,” she said instead of scolding me.
Like Margot, she knew about my uncontrollable condition. But I was about to enter a place where thousands of others didn’t. And even if they did know, they likely wouldn’t understand.
“Stop looking so freaked out,” Margot said as we walked back down the hill, warm bread in hand, “This is going to be the best four years of our lives.”
“What, you mean you aren’t going to stay for seven?” I teased.
Margot shoved her shoulder into mine but her grin didn’t hide the way her eyebrows pinned together.
After four years at The VeLore, trade selection would become available. Anyone still enrolled in The VeLore after four years was either by choice or stupidity. And Margot was not one to choose to stay. She wanted to travel the Five Lands, playing her music for all of Elvoria. She might even be the first Kalarian to play for the Norkhai—but I wasn’t going to give her any ideas on trying. Not while we were at war with them.
It used to be my dream too, to travel and see the Five Lands. To uncover the mysteries of the civilizations that were lost to the vraegen. But things were…different now.
“Nice braids,” mom said to Margot.
“Oh thanks, grandma baked them this morning,” she said with a huff as she released her massive bags into the carriage, causing it to bob at the weight.
“She means your hair,” I whispered.
“Oh,” she patted her head, “Right. Carbs. You don’t eat them.”
Mom didn’t answer as she cinched down the rope over our luggage.
Margot raised her eyebrows and scratched her nose. A tell that she was uncomfortable around my mother. But I didn’t need to be an expert in kinesics to know that. Everyone was uncomfortable around my mother.
I slipped into the carriage beside Margot. Her braids were pretty today, like albino vines laced in gold that fell to the middle of her back. Her neck was clothed in orange and teal beads and large diamond shaped earrings dangled sharply by her cheeks. Margot was always extravagant and unbelievably stunning. All the guys at The VeLore would swoon over her. They always did.
I, on the other hand, preferred simplicity. A powdered blue skirt, a linen chemise that hung off my shoulders and blue floral stays—plain. While the floral pattern was extravagant by my embroidery skill level, they paled in comparison to Margot.
My pastel pink hair was short, feathering around my face like little painted petals clinging to my cheeks. I’d cut it over winter. Short hair hurts less when it’s pulled. The flickers were exhausting. It didn’t matter if I tried to fight them or not. But fighting a flicker, trying to keep it from coming, had me feeling half dead by mid-day.
“Eye matey, care for a swig?” I twisted my face and drummed my chest twice with a closed fist.
Margot chuckled, “I’m sorry to be laughing but that flicker always gets me! You have such an interesting voice with it.”
I sighed and leaned back against the rough wood siding. That was from dad, telling me stories of the coast land, Cairne. If I imagined really hard, I could taste the salty air he always told me of. And then I realized I could actually taste salt.
I quickly wiped the tear before Margot could bring it up. But the dropping of her shoulders told me she had. She graced me silence on the matter though. She probably thought it was because of the flickers. But the tear was for someone far greater. Someone who should have been here today.
Yet as I watched the rolling hills of Nesrin with her flowers, flocks, and thatched roof cottages slowly growing smaller as we neared the port, I remembered Margot knew what it was like to lose someone they loved to the war. I lost one. But she…she lost two.
Her palms were warm as I gripped them. Were her thoughts on them now? I wondered as her face twisted up in something like sorrow.
“I bet the food is to die for,” I said, jutting my eyebrows up twice.
I sucked in my lips, realizing my poor choice of words.
She smiled her lovely crooked smile. “It better be. Best chefs in all the Five Lands train at The VeLore.”
A knock echoed against the outside of the carriage where mom was with the horses. Margot’s eyes widened about as big as the moon. We made it to the local port.
Distant chatter grew louder as the carriage rolled in behind another. A familiar electric pulse hummed in the background before a thunderous surge whooshed a horse and carriage through the portal.
“You sure it’s not that bad,” She asked, biting her lip as the carriage came to a halt and our bodies rocked into each other.
“Well….”
“Oh, come on! You said ‘It’s not so bad.’” Margot mocked my light voice.
“It isn’t,” I paused. “After the first time.”
She socked me in the shoulder and I slapped her across the face.
“Margot! I’m so sorry!” I yelled instantly, trying to rub the slap away.
“It’s okay,” she said with a grimace. “You know, one of these days you’re gonna do that to the wrong person though.”
I pulled down the corners of my lips, “I know.”
A solitary life, stuffed up in piles of books, surrounded by dust was the life set before me. To be far away from hurting or offending anyone with my flickers. I could never venture to the Five Lands. My five birds would have to suffice. My mind flashed to the ruins for a split second but I stuffed it away before my heart could hurt.
“Okay girls,” mom popped around the corner, causing a start from Margot. “Drink up before we go through. It’ll make it easier.”
The last part she said for Margot’s sake. I’d been through the port hundreds of times with mom, traveling back and forth between Kalara and Nesrin. I was familiar with the drill. It had something to do with electric current and water and if you didn’t drink anything before your body was thrusted at the speed of light through the portal, you’d suffer a little more than an upset stomach. I’d heard once that a man hallucinated a week straight after going through the port while dehydrated.
Margot grabbed the water-skin and gulped down more than enough for the trip. Through the small hexagonal window behind Margot’s head, the city of Kalara shimmered like a mirage. It seemed so far away, small, unimpressive.
It was the first of the seven lands, formed from the survivors of the vraegen. Now it’s where the king lives, The VeLore stands, the warriors train, and all the best shops, eateries and artisans thrive. It was, if such a thing could be termed, the Holy City.
White stone glimmered pink against a backdrop of distant amethyst mountains. Mountains of the Norkhai. A raging waterfall split The VeLore from the king’s castle on the right and the war sector on the left.
The academy sat on its own little island, otherwise known as The Heart of Kalara, given its shape. And sitting at the precise center of all seven lands it was, essentially, the heart of all Elvoria, even if the once seven lands were now divided two against five.
“Well, no time like the present.” Margot smiled but her eyes were speaking a different language entirely.
“One Last Farewell” is Chapter One of The Secret Petal, the first book in The Secrets of Kalara fantasy trilogy.
To continue the story, you can purchase the book through Amazon, Barnes & Noble or order a signed edition here.
More about The Secret Petal:
Fia, daughter of war legends, wants nothing to do with the war.
She’s been accepted into The VeLore, a prestige academy for only the most qualified of all Elvoria, where she aims to study linguistics and dusty relics - safe from those who would taunt her for her Tourette’s.
However, when she opens up her welcome packet, she finds that her dorm room is in the war sector, where she’s been enlisted for a top-secret project that includes bonding to the very creatures that almost caused mankind’s extinction a century ago. A bond that only the disabled are able to achieve. A bond that results in a supernatural ability that might just be the key to finally ending the twenty-year war.
Except Fia prefers books to battle gear and running away is what she knows best...until her curiosity gets the best of her, because what would it be like to no longer feel helpless?
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