Page 56 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 56- NEMINA

I hated to admit it to myself, but the night sky in Audra was the most wondrous thing I’d ever seen. I’d heard the skies were even more beautiful in Kalnasa. I couldn’t remember if that was true. The last time I’d been there, I was a small child.

Then again, I’d forgotten the sight of night skies altogether. I’d been in Audra’s draining centre for years, tucked far under layers of sand and stone. No sky. No stars. Nothing.

Hiding our tracks in the sand was almost impossible, so we’d levitated to a location the female Teleporter had found. Since Baz and I could not levitate, we’d been carried by the others here, by Yaseer and Ullna.

We had landed by a darkened alcove, surrounded by mountains and cliffs which jutted up at sharp, almost threatening angles. There were trees here, but they were barren, only littered slightly with few golden leaves, their branches were dark and twisted, as twisted as the paths around these peaks. Sand still dominated the landscape. A golden sea of grain.

Baz approached me. “I can’t believe you!”

I turned towards him, facing away from the sky. I had been lost in its purple and black hues for the past few minutes.

“You just let her carry me! Just like that. You ran straight over to him when we heard we’d have to be carried.” He pointed behind him to Yaseer.

There had been no way, after my injuries, that I would have let Ullna near me, or had the strength to let her touch me.

“You’re alive, aren’t you?” I asked him, exhaustedly.

“She carried me like this.” Baz tugged at the back of his shirt upwards, reaching one hand over his back. “Like I was some prey she’d picked up from the ground.”

I smirked slightly witnessing his demonstration.

“Oh, I see. You find this funny.” He placed his hands on his hips, smiling as well.

“She hates me far more than she dislikes you.”

“That’s debatable.”

I looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Alright, it’s not really debatable but still.” He pointed at me, smiling a little.

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” I said, half serious, half not.

“What do I get in return?”

“Stop being ridiculous,” I mumbled.

“Not even a kiss from my beloved?” He approached me with his arms outstretched.

I narrowed my eyes at him and lent back slightly. “Please no.”

He chuckled, giggled again, and put his arms down. He sighed. “They’ve made food. Come and have some.”

I shook my head. I had no appetite after having blades pulled from my back.

“You just purged up your stomach contents, you need to replace them,” Baz said seriously.

“I will, just not now. I’d probably just purge them again if I tried.”

Baz twisted his mouth in understanding, then nodded, and left in the direction of the food.

I sat down on the ground, pulling my knees towards myself.

Someone came up beside me.

It was the female Teleporter. She held something out to me.

“They said you won’t eat, but at least take this.” She handed me a flask of water.

The thought of liquid sloshing around my stomach made me internally retch, but I took it from her, and replied, “Thank you.”

She hovered there.

I looked up at her. “Yes?”

She was staring at me liberally, as if I were a strange exotic animal, or an unusual plant she had come across on the road.

“Do you want something?” I asked, sipping at the water. As much as drinking made me feel nauseous, dehydration would be worse. I remembered all too well what being deprived of water felt like.

The woman nodded yes slowly, then spoke, “My sister she…she’s a Vessel in Audra.”

The flask I was bringing towards my face stopped halfway.

I gave her a sidelong glance. “What are you asking?”

Although this conversation was clearly a difficult one, the woman seemed almost calm.

“I want to ask if you’d seen her or…whether you know if she’s alive.” She stopped for a moment then added, “Or dead.”

I returned the drink to my lips and took another small sip. “You’re asking the wrong person. You should ask him.” I nodded in Baz’s direction.

“I’ve already asked him.”

I exhaled deeply. “I wasn’t…with the others for a long time.”

“I know. But if there’s a chance you know, I need to ask.” Her voice remained resolute, but there was also a hint of desperation in her tone.

I didn’t reply, only rubbed my thumb along the edge of the rust-coloured flask.

“She’s younger than me, prettier. Her skin was lighter too. She had long hair and pale brown eyes.”

This could have been a number of the Vessels.

I shook my head no.

“She had a birthmark on her chin.”

Her chin.

The flask shattered between my hands.

The water soaked through the fabric of my pants.

My hands were bleeding, but I wasn’t looking at them, I was only looking forwards, at the landscape, at the ground far below this jutted out stone and the sky in front of me.

The others overheard the shattering. Baz ran over, and Yaseer stood, glancing over at us. With his senses he didn’t need to move to understand anything.

Baz ran between us. “I told you not to ask her!”

The woman tried to cut around him, but he blocked her path.

“Why did you do that? Do you know her? Do you know someone with a birthmark?” The woman sounded persistent.

Baz tried to hold her back.

“Do you know her?” she repeated, from behind him.

“Aeesha, go back, can’t you see she’s not able—"

“Yes,” I let out in one raspy breath.

Baz turned around instantly, both he and Aeesha were staring at me.

“She’s dead,” I uttered.

Amali was dead.

Aeesha’s lips quivered. “Oh,” she said quietly.

Baz looked at her pitifully. “Aeesha—"

“I know now. It’s alright. I know. I just…just… wanted to know.”

Seconds later she shouted. “She’s…oh Gods…she’s…. she’s…”

Little by little, Aeesha broke down. She began to let out choked sobs and grabbed Baz’s arms.

Ullna came over in a few quick strides. “What have you done?” she said to me “Why are you upsetting her? This noise will attract attention.”

I didn’t look at her. “Her sister is dead. She died in the same draining centres we are camping above.”

Ullna went quiet, then she placed her arms around Aeesha’s shoulders, and led her away.

Baz remained behind. “I didn’t know…you knew anyone there.”

I placed my now healing finger on the ground, stroking patterns between the small, gravelled stones. “I did, before.”

“She’s been asking everyone for years.”

I laughed bitterly. “Of course, I would be the one who knew, the one to tell her.”

“Maybe it’s… better… that she knows,” Baz said quietly.

Listening to Aeesha’s wails, it was hard to convince myself that was the case.

“She used to give me some of her rations,” I murmured. “I was thirteen then, she was the same age. They’d taken mine away because I…”

I paused as I remembered the reason. Not one I could utter aloud. Not one they could know.

Baz was silent, patiently waiting.

“Anyway. She gave me half of hers. We spoke a few times afterwards. I vowed I’d pay her back in some way. But—"

“That’s not possible anymore,” Baz finished my sentence.

“Not in life, no.”

“Not in life?” Baz sounded concerned.

“In death though, it is.”

Baz snorted, “You say the weirdest shit.”

“I mean it.” I met his eyes. “Even if it’s the only thing I do. Even if it’s the only reason I’m here, if I die, I don’t care…as long as they all do too.”

“Don’t…Don’t say things like that,” Baz sounded offended.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” I replied. “That’s what they want me for.” I nodded in Ullna, Yaseer’s, and Aeesha’s direction.

“But you don’t have to.”

“I want to,” I said, forcefully.

“Not when you first arrived there, remember? You wanted to leave. You wanted peace.”

I rubbed my forehead. “I still do, but"— I chuckled — “I want them to pay as well.”

“You can’t have both. Peace and revenge.” Baz told me.

“I can’t have the first, without the second.”

Baz sounded regretful when he replied. “You won’t find any solace in vengeance.”

“Maybe that’s true for some people, but I won’t be able to rest until they’re had their retribution.”

“This isn’t the right way, Nemina.”

I crossed my legs and spun around on my hips to face him. “Do you know which is? Do they?” I gestured behind me.

Baz didn’t say anything.

“I don’t care what you think. I don’t care if you hate me. If they all hate me. Since nobody has been able to tell us the right way, I think it’s time to stop looking. We don’t have the time to look anymore.”

Aeesha’s sobs sounded in the background, even louder.

Baz sat down in front of me, crossing his legs too. “I understand—"

“No—"

“No?” Baz sounded so furious I jumped slightly.

He spoke again. “I’ve spared you the details because who would want to hear them? Because they’d probably upset you. But…” He pulled both his sleeves up.

His arms were covered in scars.

“We can’t heal like you. Those of us who weren’t born sorcerers, we can’t. I spent my whole life hearing about how cruel sorcerers were, how evil and then…humans came to our town, it was more like a shack. They came for us because we were poor and who would notice we were dead and gone? Who would question it? They’d just say we died of hunger.”

He held his forearms up. “I had a mother you know. They took her as well. I don’t even know where she is. And they took me, and they did this. They didn’t explain why. They didn’t say anything. We all had to figure it out for ourselves. I was fifteen, Nemina.” He rubbed the tip of his nose with his thumb and let out a sad laugh. “Do you know why I didn’t tell you about this?”

I looked at him and very slightly shook my head.

“It’s because I was afraid you’d hate me.” He began tapping his fingers restlessly against his knees. “I’m not a human, but I’m not a sorcerer either. I’m just floating around somewhere between the two.” He waved his hand from left to right. “I was afraid the people here, back there, that they would despise me for that. That you would.”

He searched my face, when I didn’t speak, he continued, “You say I don’t understand, and maybe I don’t, not like you do, but” — he looked at his arms — “does it really matter? Whether I was born a sorcerer or I was made one? Does it really matter?”

His brown eyes seemed larger than normal as they found mine. “Does it? Tell me, how is it that I don’t understand?”

I maintained eye contact with him. “Who do you think did this to you?”

He frowned “What? What do you mean think ?”

“I mean. Do you think it was those humans, who took you away, who gave you those scars? Or do you think it was the sorcerers, who because of their actions in the past, gave the humans a reason to hunt us, to drain us, and that because of that hunt, the balance of the world was thrown into disarray, and people like you needed to replace those who had died? Was it the humans or the sorcerers who did this to you?”

Baz stood quickly, his sleeves falling down his arms. “That’s the problem. You think it’s all sorcerers and humans and a large line down the middle.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No!” Baz shouted. “No,” he said more quietly. “It’s about the people in the world who want to hurt others, who want to beat them into submission, who want to dominate, who want to kill.” His words were hurried and frantic.

“You mean like me?” I asked, tilting my head up.

Baz froze. The finger he had been pointing at the ground stilled in place.

“I said you didn’t understand because you don’t. It has nothing to do with the fact that you were born a human, and nothing to do with what you’ve been through. You just listed several things, that as of now, all humans are doing to all sorcerers, either born or made, and still, you act as if there is a complexity to this situation.”

“I don’t want to become like them Nemina.”

“That’s your decision.”

“You act like kindness is the weakness.” He sounded mournful. “But the real weakness is hate. That’s a cheap thing for those afraid to pay.”

“Pay?” I looked straight ahead.

“Being kind costs,” he said quietly. “Empathy too. But there's a power in that. It’s a cost only the strong can endure…I think.”

I glanced up at him, my brows creased. I didn’t know what to say. What to make of his words. Weren’t there plenty of people in this world deprived of love? Those who had to survive without it? Weren’t they strong when all they had to rely on was themselves?

But…I knew that was not what he meant.

He did not mean that receiving love was the strength.

But giving it.

I shook my head. “I’ve endured enough.”

“People always call it righteous…” he trailed off. I raised my eyes to him. He met my glance sidelong.

“Anger,” he explained. “That’s what they say, isn’t it? Righteous anger.”

“Sometimes it is,” I answered flatly.

“Most of the time it isn’t. Most of the time it’s an excuse. People like to look for someone to blame. For something to hate. It makes them feel…powerful.” He let out a mournful chuckle. “But…where’s the justice in that? How many people are angry at others, not because they deserve it…but because it’s better than the alternative. Better than accepting life is cruel to everyone.”

I scoffed. “Life is cruel because people are. And those people deserve to choke on wrath.”

“If you spend your life, making it your mission to rid this world of cruelty, you’re going to end up bitter. There’s no ridding it from the world, Nemina. It’s not your responsibility to—”

“That’s what people say to themselves so they can sleep at night, knowing those people are breathing the same air.”

“Or revenge is what people cling on to, to make it all seem sensical. There’s no sense in trying to understand bad people. Or killing them. It’s like trying to swallow the ocean. You’ll never be fast enough. It will only fill up again.”

I shook my head, scoffing. “With water. Not with filth.”

"Nemina—"

"I thought you wanted to fight?" I turned to him.

"No," he said firmly. "I wanted to help."

I was quiet. So was he. We stared at each other at an impasse.

This was pointless. Baz saw the good in people.

It was not that I did not, only that I saw it in the people with the chains around their ankles, their necks.

And I could not stand it any longer.

I had lied to myself, when I told myself I could run, that I could leave it all behind, that I wanted to.

I knew I could not rest unchained, while those chains still existed.

I turned away and asked Baz something I had been wondering about. “What did that man mean? When he said that he’d take care of the energy surge? That tracker?”

Baz seemed grateful for the change in topic. He sighed. “He works for us. With Yaseer. He helps to divert the trackers away from us when he can.”

I thought about what Baz had told me about the attacks. “Then I’m not sure I have much confidence in his promise.”

“He can’t possibly do it every time.”

“I suppose. When did—"

Aeesha ran over towards us, Ullna and Yaseer bounding behind her. I stood immediately but before I could regain my balance, a hand grabbed me, and a bright blue circle surrounded us all.

When we came through the other end of the teleport, we were falling.

We were still in Audra, that much I could tell from the sky, from the cliffs, but now we were in a completely different location, somewhere high above a large building.

“Ullna!” Yaseer shouted.

Ullna dove in my direction and grabbed onto me by the cloak I was wearing. Yaseer lunged towards Baz, doing the same.

We began to levitate, but somewhere, from the edge of our vision, a dark shadow appeared.

“Riders!” Yaseer shouted. “Riders are here!”