Page 30 of Light Locked
Looking beyond the valley, out into the woods, she wondered what the difference was, if the result was all the same.
Chapter 10
Legend in a Whisper
INSIDE THE TENT, an old woman sat at a collapsible desk. Her face was long, the candlelight highlighting the depth of the lines that age had drawn into her skin. Her black hair, streaked with gray, sat in a loose bun on her head, falling off to the side as Clea’s entrance urged her to her feet. Her fingers adjusted the broken spectacles that sat across her crooked nose, eyes lighting up with a childlike joy as she bustled over.
“Oh my.” She cupped Clea’s hands and shook them with such vigor that the hair fell loose from her bun. “What a pleasant surprise, a young Veilin woman! It’s so nice to meet you. My name is Althala, Althala Batrice.” The name struck Clea as familiar, though she didn’t understand why.
“My name is Clea. It is nice to meet you,” she replied, and not a second later, she was ushered farther into the large tent and down onto a cot.
“A beautiful Lodain name! Here, here, sit!” Althala said. “Oh dear, you must be exhausted.”
Althala gestured to a pot at the opposite side of the tent before rushing to fix her a bowl of stew. The simple act of service flooded Clea with some strange sense of relief. She was in the presence of another human being that also spoke her language, and at last it felt like she could relax. It also helped that thiswoman seemed to be offering her kindness for reasons other than Ryson’s standard cold obligation.
“It seems you’ve had Veilin visitors before.” Clea yawned, rubbing her bloodied hands on a piece of damp cloth one of the Kalex had given her.
Althala nodded as she spooned stew into a wooden bowl. “They recognize the glow of your skin like they recognize the sunrise. I’m sure you’ve healed about thirty people today.”
“More like fifty.” Clea chuckled, and Althala turned from the pot.
“I’m sorry, dear. I’ve told them about a hundred times!” She thrust the bowl and spoon into Clea’s hands. “You Veilin need your ansra to defend yourselves in these forests. No use spending too much on us when you could be out fighting evil!” She laughed and wrestled her seat next to her desk before she sat down. “Kaletik mutations usually protect camps like these from being recognized as a source of prey. Beasts don’t like the taste of Kalex. To them, it’s like eating part of the forest. Sometimes Veilin come in for a brief moment of shelter, but are always surrounded by requests for healing which can be a hefty price to pay for a night of safety.”
Clea smiled as she inhaled the aroma of the stew. Warm stew couldn’t have tasted better. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when I came here. I was happy that they accepted me so quickly.”
“It’s not always the case, but this group is more generous than most. When I left Loda to study with them, they took me in as one of their own.”She grinned, flashing two rows of yellowed teeth. One on the side of her mouth was gray, aligning with a scar on her lips that seemed to suggest some kind of old injury.
“You’re from Loda?”
She showed Clea the faded tattoo on her wrist. It was the Lodain crest of the swan and lion, but without the royal crown. “I left nearly seven years ago to finish a book on Kalex and The Decline.”
Both of those topics were unpopular in Loda. Now Clea remembered why she recognized Althala’s name.
“You were excommunicated because of that book,” Clea said, paying closer attention to the books and papers lying in open trunks around the tent. Maps and trinkets hung on the tent walls. She recognized the unique, angular stitches of a Lodain quilt folded in the corner.
“Yes, though I’m sure they’d have me back now,” Althala said, reaching for a mug of tea that sat steaming across a pile of books on her desk. She was jittery in all her actions, seemingly just as excited to speak to Clea as Clea was excited to speak to her. She had the faintest accent as if she’d only spoken Kaletik for the last several years.
“From what I understand,” Althala chattered on, “Loda has now come around to the reality of The Decline. At the time, even my pursuit of legends was seen as rather controversial, as they contested Loda’s current understanding of the histories. Not to mention, I challenged a lot of their unfounded superstitions around bloodlines.” Superstitions around the power of blood and bloodlines were another contested topic. Inaddition to Kalex and The Decline, it seemed Althala had been intent to challenge everything Lodain authorities didn’t want to discuss.
Loda had at last publicly acknowledged the reality of The Decline six years ago. Clea had been at her father’s side when he made the public announcement to the Veilin still going through the training academies.
“You were pursuing legends too?” Clea asked, this note piquing her interest. Clea currently had a legend hanging around her neck, and if what she’d initially been taught about The Decline and Kalex had been wrong, she wondered if Althala had any secrets about legends that Loda had been wrong about too.
“Ah yes, legends.” Althala slurped at her tea before cradling the steaming mug in her lap. She wore layers of clothes like blankets, hiding the thinness that her fragile wrists exposed. “There are so many blank spaces in the pages of history due to the chaotic nature of the great war between the Veilin and Warlord.”
Clea was relieved to be able to eat as Althala talked, enjoying the woman’s willingness to fill the silence on her own. Clea so dearly missed the sound and experience of conversation.
“All that fills those spaces are legends. I thought maybe if I explored those legends, I could reveal a truer face of history. The only way to investigate them is to trace them to their origins, and most originated from these Kalex groups in the forest. They’re exiles, just like me, but many of their ancestors witnessed much of history without as many reasons to tell the tales in the Veilin’s favor.”
Althala’s blunt retelling of her efforts masked a long series of trials and tribulations. Clea knew that being exiled from Loda could be a public and humiliating process. She only vaguely remembered Althala’s exile by the controversy it had stirred. In Loda, exiling a human being who showed no sign of being a Kalex was rare. For Kalex, exile was seen as putting them in their rightful place, but for a human it was a death sentence. Unlike Virday, Loda rarely exiled humans. It had the resources to host legitimate trials and maintain prisons or programs for rehabilitation. Her city wasn’t known for its mercies, but it still had them.
“I see,” Clea said, distracted by her own thoughts of Althala’s suffering, and feeling pangs of guilt for the practices of her family’s city. On her next breath, she hoped for some redemption. “Would you tell me what you found?”
“What?” Althala asked, as if she’d never considered anyone might prompt her to share. Her body was still at last, eyes blinking curiously behind her glasses.
“Your discoveries. I would love to hear about them. Loda was too rigid then, but maybe there’s a chance now they could listen,” Clea explained, feeling some responsibility to bring more than just the medallion to Loda. She wanted to bring her learnings from the world as well. She didn’t know if it was possible, not having even considered life after making it back home. It had seemed like such a distant dream that discussing it with any permanence filled her with a hope she ached for.
“Oh, you couldn’t have made a more exciting proposal!” Althala exclaimed. “I will gladly tell you what I know!” Laughing, she added, “You were in Virday too long, weren’t you, good girl?”
