Chapter 42: Choir Practice

Chapter 42: Choir Practice

You have to wash, the woman in charge of the choir robes told Kalen while he stood still and let her drag yet another one over his head.New novel chapters are published on

I wash.

Regularly. In the sea. When he meditated. Though it was getting too cold for that even by his standards.

Not just your face and hands. A full bath on the solstice. If you come in dirty youll be sent straight off no matter how many practices youve attended.

I know what a bath is.

She stepped back and narrowed her brown eyes to examine him. The morning light streaming in through the tall window behind her was so bright it made the pile of white robes on the table seem like they were glowing.

To his exasperation, Kalen had been deemed sufficiently short and cute to stand on the front row of the choir with the much younger children. He was a full head taller than the next tallest, but not tall enough, or unseemly enough, for the second row. As a consequence, he got to borrow one of the newer, cleaner white silk robes on the special day. They had wide gold bands of embroidery around the sleeves and bottom hem.

This one was the right length, so when he took it off, the robe lady folded it neatly and set it aside. Now, when youre wearing it, you mustnt pick at the stray threads on the hems. You little ones are always so fidgety.

I am nearly twelve, he seethed. I know not to unravel the embroidery.

Aunt Jayne would have murdered him and his cousins if theyd dared.

She clucked her tongue and sent him to practice while one of his fellow front-row members stepped up for her own fitting.

Despite feeling that he was being treated like too much of a baby, Kalen actually enjoyed his morning choir practices. A married couplethe parents of the girl soloistwere in charge of teaching everyone the songs and how to behave themselves. The children stood on the stairs at the front of the chapel, sang a few songs, had warmed rolls with butter to eat and cups of hot water to drink, and then sang a few more.

There were around sixty choir members. Kalen had never before been around so many other children at once. He wondered if this was what school was like, but the school hed seen in Baitown had less than twenty students in it.

The other children had all formed groups of friends, based on age and social class. Nerth from Tiriswaith didnt fit in well. He talked strange. According to one little girl, he used too many big words and he did it in a funny way. Nobody knew his parents. His clothes were too nice for some and too shabby for others.

But despite all of that, nobody seemed to dislike him. They were all willing to talk with him whenever he was in the mood.

Except for the boy soloist. The ten-year-old seemed to have realized that all the grown-ups preferred Kalens voice to his, and he sat around red-faced and glaring whenever Kalen went up for his own solo practice as the designated alternate.

It was all so easy. The whole job was just memorizing and standing straight and resisting the urge to tease an envious younger boy. They fed you for free. It was over by noon each day. And on every third, Kalen collected his payment for attending.

If practice would just last a few weeks longer, he thought he could have justified buying another book ahead of schedule.

As it was, he left every day with a spring in his step and went off to study magic. Usually in the graveyard.

Two weeks after hed joined the choir, Yarda headed back to the Acress Enclave to meet with Sorcerer Nigel. Shed be staying for at least three days, since he was actually going to do something for her this time instead of letting the more junior healers help her with the peripheral symptoms of her malady.

I hope it works. I hope hes as good as Yarda thinks he is, Kalen fretted as he wove between the tombs to one of his favorite practice locations.

He hated that he had no way of helping. Or even knowing.

If I were a decade older as a practitionerif I just understood more things

But he didnt. The best he could do was promise himself that he would learn.

The cold wind ruffled his hair, and Kalen held out a hand to feel it better. It was becoming a habit, though there wasnt much point to it yet.

It was just that he felt sure a wind practitioner should be able to glean something from the wind itself. Hed felt that first spark of some kind of understanding before. When hed blown up the forest. And, strangely, when hed thrust his hands in the current finders barrel.

There was some secret. Or mystery. Or underlying truth to be had.

Or he wanted that to be the case, at least.

He let the air flow through his fingers.

It can never stop moving, he murmured. Because if it does, its not the wind anymore.

That was how hed explained it to Fanna.

What did his little sister look like now? It had only been a few months, but a few months was a lot for a baby.

Did she remember Kalens voice? Did she remember how much hed held her before he left home? Was he stupid for even hoping that she might?

Hed tried not to put her down for a whole day once. Like he could imprint himself on her.

I cant go home. I cant ever go back home until Im sure its safe for them all.

Kalen tried not to dwell on it because it made him feel trapped. He didnt understand how having the entire rest of the world to live in, apart from one single island, could make you feel trapped, but it did.

As usual, the reminder that he was away from his family for a purpose made him want to rush. Toward Arlade, toward the Archipelago, toward being a practitioner powerful enough to protect himself and the people he loved.

So he rushed in the only way he could, by sitting down in the dead and dying grass and flipping to the hardest spell in the book.

Hed read the instructions for it so many times that hed nearly memorized it, but the spell pattern was too difficult. It involved eight different pathways, and it had forty points of intersection. By the time Kalen got halfway through building it within himself hed always accidentally dropped bits or dragged in too many pieces and made a mess. It happened even if he worked along the edges of his mana structure, where hed trained himself to create internal spell patterns for years, instead of near the wind nucleus where hed been trying to practice his pattern formation lately.

Casting Pearls.

The spell made balls of silent, invisible, compressed wind. About the size of large sweet grapes. They scattered along the ground in the area you targeted, and they would knock things over.

At first, Kalen had liked the idea of it just because it created eight little wind balls, which he thought would make him feel like he was casting eight small spells at once. Now that hed realized how close to impossible the spell was for him, he only attacked it when he was in this sort of mood.

If he could beat Casting Pearls, then he could beat every spell in this book. It would be proof that he was moving forward quickly enough, even without help.

He spent the whole afternoon toiling away at it without much progress, and he didnt return to the inn until dark. The room felt lonely without his cousin that night. And for the next two.

Granslip Ports harbormaster did make one of his rare appearances that evening to check in on Kalen, as Captain Kolto had apparently asked him to do before the Ester Ivory had left port. He was a gruff old man, but as always, he sounded sincere when he said Kalen should come and find him if he ever needed anything.

Finally, Yarda returned on the fourth morning after shed left. Kalen didnt realize she was back until he stepped out of the inn at dawn and saw her leaning against the porch rail, eyeing the single step up with an uncharacteristically grim look.

Yarda! he cried, unable to hide his alarm.

She looked frail. And pale. And not like herself at all.

Kalen dropped the letters hed been planning to carry to the Office of the Post on his way to choir practice and raced toward her. Oh Im fine, Im fine, she said, waving him away with a pained smile. Dont you worry about me. The sorcerer did his healing magic on me for most of a day. He said I should feel more like myself comecome next week. I just need rest.

She pulled herself up the single step onto the porch. Kalen helped her inside as best he could and into a chair.

I asked them what they would do, if they found the people they were looking for. She spoke slowly. And they said obviously they would protect the one that the prophecy was about.

They will?

So they say. Because of course it is not a childs fault that they are born to a bad family.

Kalen didnt know what to say to that.

And I said, wellwhat do you do if you find one of the others? Because there were many children in that family of wizarns. Andmayhapif those stories are true, there are more besides. And they dont all have prophecies about them, do they?

No. That prophecy woman they all like so much around here only makes one prophecy every time she wakes up, Kalen answered. Then he added, The gods told her to stop doing that.

Yarda didnt smile.

Normally, Kalen thought, she would have.

Those healers who have helped me so much said of course they would take care of those normal Orellen children, too.

Kalen didnt flinch at the name. He was getting better at not doing it.

But she said a couple of them.well, mayhap it is best not to speak such ugly words. I will just say I believe there is something wrong with their thinking in this place. I think there is something very wrong with it indeed.

What did they say? Kalen said quietly.

She reached over and placed a hand on his knee. Nothing that bears repeating. Now, have you had a letter from your friend or your Sorcerer Arlade?

That was a quick change of subject.

I havent been to the Office of the Post in a couple of days. I was going this morning, but

Mayhap if we dont hear back from them by the day of your choir performance, we will leave this country after all. And we will make our way back home. I think that would be the best thing for us to do.

Oh, thought Kalen. Oh.

Youre not well to travel, he said in a thin voice.

The sorcerer said I would be better soon.

Yarda, its winter. Itit would take a miracle to find a ship heading all the way to Hemarland this late in the year.

She knew that.

If we have to stay through the whole winter, she said slowly, then you should spend more time at that church of yours. And we will go home with the first ship out come spring.

Yarda

And if, she said, looking at him with eyes so creased by laugh lines that it was a shock to see them serious, I do not get well, and your new Master doesnt come here for you, I want you to promise me you will get on a ship and go home yourself. Just as soon as you can find one.

Yarda, no.

She caught his hand and squeezed it in her larger one. This is not a good place for you to be, Kalen.

Her voice was very quiet.

He stared down at their clasped hands. The white Clywing bracelet was visible below the cuff of his sleeve. Yardado you know?

She didnt answer for a long time.

The people at the Enclave are very interested in children of a certain age, she said finally. A child of a certain age who was very interested in the Enclave is suddenly not. I have lived with him for a while now. I think I know him well enough to recognize when he is behaving unlike himself.

What did they say? Kalen asked in a whisper. What did they say that was so horrible?

Hurtful, wrong words dont need to be shared.

Kalen had spent weeks now, listening in on conversations through Ears of the East. Most people obviously did not feel the same way as Yarda Strongback.

Did they say I was a monster?

Her hand tightened on his.

Did they say I was a dirty thing made with blood magic?

Shhh, she said.

His voice was very small. Did they say I was stolen from death, so it wouldnt even be a sin to give me back to it?

She pulled him toward her with surprising strength, considering how weak she looked, and he ended up half-sprawled across her on the bed while she clutched him to her. You listen to me now, little cousin, she murmured in his ear.

He was shaking. He couldnt stop. I didnt want you to find out, he choked. I didnt want anyone else from home to ever think of me that way.

Telling Lander had been horrible enough. And hed done that in a panic.

What the sea gives a man is his to keep, Yarda said softly. What a man gives his wife is hers to keep. That is how we do things on our island. You know that, dont you?

Kalen was crying. He barely managed a nod.

Then who could you ever be but Kalen, Jorns boy? What could you be but Kalen, Shelbas son?

I kn-know, Kalen sobbed, face pressed to her shoulder. I do know. Thats why I wont go back.

Yarda held an arm around him until hed cried himself out. He was too relieved that she would hold him, even now that she knew, to feel embarrassed about it.

Ill get stronger, Kalen whispered. Ill get strong enough to keep myself safe. And Ill keep them safe, too.

That sounds like rough seas, she said eventually. And no shore in sight for a long time.

I can do it.

All right then. Thats what well do.