Page 41 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

brITT

Early the next morning, flies swarmed the outside of an arbor stretched across a rounded door frame. The pack of insects, so thick they droned, repulsed most people away from the nondescript arch.

Britt wrinkled her nose.

This is where the famed Teller lived?

The Teller that, per Pedr’s cryptic note, would have answers for you.

She glanced at the paper again, but it still said only, Go to the Teller.

He will have answers for you. Below that, equally vague instructions led her to this general area on the mainland.

She found the arbor with a lot of flies and smells like piss by wandering.

Presumably, Pedr had visited the Teller once long, long ago. Before he refused to step foot off his ship—or was that a curse, too?

Before her parents died.

Before, before.

Doubts arose. The Teller supposedly knew things others didn’t. He memorized the stories of old and told them to the next generation. She’d heard of him, but never met him. General Helsing sniffed when younger Britt asked to hear one of his tales.

“Frivolous and lazy,” she said once. “Never.”

The refusal and condemnation only stoked her curiosity, but Britt hadn’t mentioned him again. She knew better than that.

After a father with a gaggle of children around his knees passed by her, there was no other sound except the flies. They buzzed around two metallic bowls on either side of the trellis. The faintest hint of vinegar drifted in the air.

Sprawling to the left and right of the arbor was a stone fence, hidden by ivy, and noticeable only if she looked hard. The scraggly, black rocks were the same that littered the ocean, as if someone had daily dragged sea stones from the beach and stacked them into a warning fence.

She really should heed more warnings.

The outer edges of Klipporno didn’t offer much by way of traffic. Along these craggy shores, there wasn’t room for roads or houses. The sandy shore amounted to smelly rocks and mud, which most avoided. Safely docking a boat here was impossible with the boulders jutting from the waves.

Rallying her courage, she slipped a shawl off of her neck and wrapped it around her nose and mouth. Aiming toward the interior of the trellis, which dripped with lovely emerald rope vines and far fewer flies, she held her breath and plunged inside.

Bugs buzzed into the fabric, escorting her through the arbor and into lush foliage.

She closed her eyes, plunged blindly through the insects, and lifted a hand to anticipate obstacles.

Greater racket awaited—how could there be more flies?

—before the rustling ivy gave way to open space.

Through the slit of her shawl, a burst of sunshine warmed her skin.

Ten seconds of stumbling later, she tentatively opened her eyes. The flies dropped away with each step. She peeled the shawl off her face.

A smooth stone trail meandered, flat and easy, through a winding lawn that led up to a stone house, not unlike the wall.

Behind her, flowers bloomed along this side of the wall.

Moss dropped from ledges in charming displays, cut into repetitive designs.

The repulsive vinegar dissipated into a delicious, light fragrance.

“Lovely.”

“Only,” croaked an aged voice, “to those willing enough to chance it.”

She whipped around to find an old man who definitely hadn’t been there before. White hair, downy as northern snow, lay like wings on his shoulders. Time and arthritis distorted his hands, leaving a gentle tremble as he peered at her with eyes like a summer sky.

She gathered her frantic heart back together.

“Ta.”

He lifted a finger to his forehead: the Klippornian equivalent.

“My name is Britt. Forgive me for trespassing. I heard . . . I heard that the Teller lived here, but I didn’t know . . .”

She trailed away, lost in her own explanation. Studiously, he kept his gaze on her before he inclined his head. “You are welcome, Britt. It’s been a while since I’ve had a visitor.”

You should try something besides flies and vinegar to inspire people, she thought.

The Teller turned, smiling as if he heard the thought. Impossible, even for a man reputed for his great stories.

She hoped.

Wet clay coated his pants, his shirt, his hands. She’d interrupted him in the middle of something.

“You may talk with me out here, Britt.”

He beckoned her to follow.

He led her to a portico, attached to the humble cottage, which must have been four times bigger than the simple home.

Around the portico, seven sections of different walls formed a heptagon filled with shelves.

Breaks between each wall, as wide as two people standing apart, allowed her to see within. Sculptures packed each shelf.

The Teller advanced between two walls and into the middle of the structure, where a pile of wet clay lay under a soaked, white cloth.

Buckets of water ringed it, some empty, others sloshing full.

Drying stones indicated that he kept the clay wet by dumping water on it, which might explain his tattered and saturated pants.

He settled on a rickety, backless chair at a spinning table, as if she hadn’t come at all. The clay splattering his hands, wrists, and clothes made sense as he began to pump his leg, making the table whirl. A lopsided lump of clay toppled, prey to the twirling power. A quiet hush of sound followed.

“May I look at your sculptures?” she asked.

He grabbed the clay lump with his hands and closed his eyes.

“You may wander.”

Britt meandered to the right, near the closest wall.

The sculptures in this section resembled panoramas.

Thick blocks of clay, worn perfectly smooth.

While wet, he had carved a vista into the setting.

Klipporno, as seen from the sea. The exquisite lines and details drew her fingertips.

She touched the small caves, the crackles in the stone, the rushing sea top.

“Beautiful,” she whispered.

Sliding to the left, she perused a collection of busts. People with their eyes closed, expression serene. The wrinkles around their eyes, the detail of lashes. She held her breath, expecting them to awake. Others were more grotesque, screaming as if actively torched.

“You are very talented,” she said quietly.

“I am a sculptor.”

“Pedr called you the Teller.”

He paused, fumbling. Then said, “Sculptures tell stories.”

When she glanced back, he remained unchanged, eyes closed, hands on the clay.

Perhaps she’d imagined his stumble. Her attention skipped around the heptagon.

Every furtive check confirmed that he kept his eyes closed.

His hands moved deftly, quickly. Something began to form under his studious work, but she couldn’t decipher it yet.

“Your works are based on real life, it seems.”

“Like most stories.”

“Do you sculpt everyday?”

Her question went unanswered. “You came for a story.”

“Yes, and I have a question. Pedr sent me,” she added, watching him more closely this time. His nose twitched. “He seems to think you can answer my question with a story.”

“What is your question?”

“It’s about Wyvern Kings. And . . . and maybe something else that I don’t know.”

Another twitch. “I offer a story. I am the Teller.”

“I will gratefully take whatever you offer.”

She lowered into a chair. It had been such a journey to get here that she didn’t want to waste it on a random story, but she wouldn’t insult him with demands, either.

“I will not,” the Teller stated.

“I’m sorry? You will not what?”

“Answer your question.”

“Oh.”

“But I will tell you a story. You desire the story of the old ones, do you not?”

“Are Wyvern Kings the old ones?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes. Thank you.”

“I am a sculptor. My hands live in the clay, the earth. The ground. All that is in the land is in me, and I celebrate it. Daily, I breathe in the earth. All is one here, Britt of The Isles, sister to the Arcanist Pedr. All is together, and I am part of it, and it is part of me, and the dust speaks and breathes. I hear the stories. Even the stories of old. But an exchange is required for you to hear the stories of old.”

Tentatively, she asked, “What do you require to tell me the stories of Wyvern Kings?”

“A secret.”

She echoed his request with surprise. He hummed, the tips of his fingers forming the bottom edge of a still-unrecognizable clay mass. He dunked his hands into a water bucket and brought it to the clay, wetting it. The top glistened.

Mesmerized by the skill of his motions, she asked, “What kind of secret?”

“Your deepest secret.”

Frowning, she said, “ I don’t even know my deepest secret.”

He laughed, a sound like rustling bird wings. “Ah, Britt of The Isles, you are true and good, as the dust says. Still, you must give. For I am the Teller, and there is no story worth telling like the hidden ones no one wants to reveal.”

She eyed the surroundings, and wondered if there wasn’t symbology in all that he said.

The idea of telling him her darkest secret was laughably simple.

How would he know if she was being honest?

Through the same sense of whatever drove him to deeper understanding, probably.

The arcane? He was an old man, an artist. He lived alone, in the outskirts of the mainland, near the haunting sound of the sea.

Henrik might say the exchange wasn’t worth it. For those with a life on the sea, secrets were power. By giving away a secret, he might believe she gave away a key to power over her, later to be used, manipulated. Did she believe this old man was capable?

Did it matter?

She had to know.

“I agree,” she finally said. “I’ll tell you what I think is my deepest secret.”

“Then let me tell you about the Queens and the Kings.”

“There is much arcane power in our world. Much arcane. It stretches through the earth, winds into the sea, fills the sky, stoppers souls. At first, only privileged holders harnessed and wielded these many powers. These holders were known as the Siren Queens.”