4th Year of Lord Tante's rule
Aernir city centre
Central Tower
12th day hour
The day of Will's Test came too soon. The weeks between my birthday and his were spent as normal, but an air of sadness drifted over every encounter we had with each other. Will was my brother in everything but blood, and I loved him as such. He was family. His family was mine. And we were all about to lose this Will forever. If he came back from the Test, he would be irreversibly changed in a way we could never hope to fix; and if he didn't come back from the Test, well...
Twister had said his goodbyes this morning, unable to go through with seeing Will off to his Test. We walked alone in silence on our way to the Central Tower through the streets of the Aernir city centre. At this time of day, Merasans buzzed around like gnats, many having a break for lunch during the hottest part of the day. Aernir brought together all the stalls from across the city, so one could eat anything from Tanah veggie burgers to Air smoked salmon to Udarah fried egg fritters to Api roasted beef, all sold within meters of each other from stalls decorated with brilliantly coloured flags that helped sell their wares, creating a mix of smells that made would normally make my mouth water.
Not today however. Today, the smells made my mouth taste like ash, the sounds blurred together into a screaming mass of wrongness, and the sights were a chaotic scramble of colour. The sombre air around Will and I made haggling saleswomen back off without a word, and we proceeded to the centre of the city in continued silence. I'm not sure if the experience was the same for Will, as he was probably dealing with his own issues internally. Or, knowing Will, he was simply walking without a thought, having accepted his fate.
Time passed by like a slippery fish between our fingers, and in no time at all, we were at the Central Tower. The impressive building, the largest of the five in the square that marked the very centre of our city, loomed above everything else. The Towers had been built many, many years ago, before any recording about the city occurred. Some people think that the Towers may outdate the city itself, and that our early ancestors chose the site for our city because of them. As far as anyone knows, it's just speculation, but nevertheless, the Towers each represent a clan of the city, in the cardinal directions which our mountains face.
The Central Tower, therefore, represents the centre city of Aernir. Tante took it over as his centre of operations when he came to the city, and renovated the lower levels to be the barracks in which the Fellan and Scoria live. He lives in the upper levels, according to rumours, and only those who have a Test have seen the inside of the building in the last four years.
It was outside the Central Tower that we waited for Will to be called in for his Test. Stone benches had been erected there for the purpose of waiting, and we joined three other people waiting to take their Test. Those also waited included a nervous boy who, judging by his tattoos, was from Udarah, and was accompanied by a stern faced Air woman (identifiable by her clan mark on the back of her hand) who could have either been his mother or his teacher. The third person was a lonely figure seated as far away from the rest of us as possible; they were covered by a long black cloak, and I could tell nothing else about them.
No-one was speaking. We had nothing to say. The only thing we could offer was the comfort of knowing that no-one was truly alone at this time.
The peace that existed in the few moments of silence outside the Tower was broken by the sudden opening of a door that was so seamlessly melded to the wall of the Central Tower that I had not noticed it. From within, a Fellan emerged, and came to stand before us all, careful to avoid the sunlight that could not create a shadow at this point in the middle of the day. In a raspy voice, the Fellan spoke. "Lord Tante will see Perci Dann now." The Udarah boy exchanged nervous glances with his Air companion and stood, moving with fluid grace to stand in front of the Fellan.
With a nod to the rest of us, the Fellan led Perci inside the Tower, making sure to close the door firmly behind them. In moments, the door had melded back into the wall, and you would have never known it was there if you hadn't seen it open. Movement to my right drew my eyes, and I turned to see the Air woman standing with her clan marked hand raised over her left eye. The Air clan mark depicted an eye, elaborately decorated with scales, and this gesture made the woman appear to be looking out through the eye on her hand. The gesture obviously meant something to the woman, and possibly to the boy who had just entered, but it meant nothing to me.
After a tense minute in which the stranger in the cloak, Will, and I all watched the woman, she lowered her hand, nodded once towards us, and left. After exchanging glances of bewilderment with Will, I began tracing the wall with my eyes, trying to find where the door was; even though I knew where it was, I still could not find any trace of it on the wall.
Time passed slowly, and the sun crept across the sky in its never ending arch, creating shadows that grew as each minute passed. I felt the heat of the day begin to make my eyes weary and had to force myself to stay away. As a result, I missed the arrival of the Fellan again, and was shaken out of my shallow slumber by the same raspy voice stating, "Lord Tante will see Tanya Kelly now." As I blinked my eyes open, I saw the cloaked figure stand and follow the Fellan into the Tower without a word.
Silence echoed in the aftermath of the door closing again. Will took my hand in his, and squeezed it tight. It was only then that I noticed that he was trembling, his hand was cold with sweat, and his bottom lip had been chewed to bits by his teeth. I hadn't even noticed, but in the time between when we arrived and now, he had lost control of his usual cool and calm self and was quietly freaking out.
It was my turn to be the brave and grown-up one now. I squeezed Will's hand back, and turned to face him. We were both seated on one of the cold stone benches outside the Tower, so turning to face each other meant that our knees ended up pressing together quite uncomfortably, but in this moment, that wasn't a problem. "I know you're scared Will. You have every right to be. But you have to get through this. You have to be strong, just for a little bit longer."
A chilling wind sprung up at that moment, causing Will and I to pull our coats around our shoulders with a shudder. As the wind died, leaving stray leaves to flutter over the ground in its aftermath, Will met my eyes and smiled sadly. "It'll be alright, Vivien. I'll come out." It was clearly a lie. He didn't believe that he would make it out. But I pressed on, unwilling to admit that I knew he was lying.
"I know you will. It doesn't stop me from worrying though. No-one knows that goes on in there, and I don't want you to die. You're my family Will. And my best friend. You have to make it back." He clasped my hands in his, the rough callouses on his fingertips brushing lightly over the backs of my hands in a smooth circular motion.
Looking deep into my eyes, so that I felt like he was looking into my soul, Will stated firmly, "I promise, no matter what happens, I will see you again. I will tell you what happens in there. I swear I will, I swear on my mother's grave I will." Unable to say anything, I flung my arms around him and hugged him as tightly as I could. He returned the hug, just as hard, and we remained like that, arms gradually loosening as the minutes passed.
"But you have to promise me something too Vivien." Will mumbled into my shoulder as we embraced. I pulled back slightly and gave him a questioning look, all the while ignoring the tears that were smeared onto my cheeks. "You have to promise that no matter what happens, you won't go messing with stuff you don't understand. That includes trying to raise me from the dead, if worst comes to worst. Promise me, Vivien."
"I promise." I choked out, before wiping my cheeks. Behind Will, I could see the door to the Tower opening and the Fellan stepping outside. Something must have alerted Will to the Fellan's presence because he stood up slowly, arms still loosely around my waist.
"Lord Tante will see Will Hyden now." The same words, this time with Will's name, came from the mouth of the Fellan, and the reality of the situation suddenly seemed too much. Noticing how I was on the verge of breaking down completely, Will squeezed me into one last hug and pressed a cold metal object into my left hand, and a folded piece of paper into my right. I ran a hand through his dark hair and kissed him on the cheek, pocketing the objects discretely in the process.
Then he was gone from my arms, walking towards the Tower that would most likely be his doom. As he entered the Tower, he looked back one last time and smiled at me. I fought back my tears to smile back at him and wave, but the door closed behind him before I could raise my hand. At that, I collapsed onto the stone bench behind me, not caring how my bottom smarted from the cold hardness.
I couldn't bear to stay and see if he came out. There was a chance, even if he did come back, that it would take a day for the Test to finish and so he would not emerge until tomorrow. But deep down, I knew. He wasn't coming back. My brother, my best friend, was gone forever.
I walked back through Aernir alone, ignoring everything that was going on around me. The afternoon rush was just about to begin, and I was forced to take several back streets in order to get to the path up Mount Api without running into too many people. As I walked slowly up Mount Api, life continued on around me, blissfully unaware of my loss. In a way, I was glad. No-one should have to go through this. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, except Lord Tante.
I reached the house Will and I shared near the peak of Mount Api as the last rays of sun left the summit and plunged the city into darkness lit only by the lamps that appeared intermittently along the side of the pathway. Upon unlocking the door, I was hit with a wave of smell that was distinctively Will, and tears once more welled up in my eyes as I stumbled inside. Without bothering to remove my tunic and breeches or even flick my mud ridden boots off by the door, I flopped down on my bed under the window to the right of the door.
I lay there, unmoving, for hours as the moon slid over the sky as the sun had done hours before. The finality of the silence in the house was daunting. I had spent nights here on my own before, when Will had slept over at Annabelle's before she died, but that silence had always been filled with the knowledge that Will would return in the morning. This time, he wouldn't be back, and the house was all mine, forever. He would never fall asleep by the fireplace after a day in the workshops; he would never wake me up by pouring freezing water over my head; he would never fail at cooking breakfast in an attempt to be gentlemanly. Never again.
The early light of dawn broke the day, and I lay in exactly the same position as I had the night before. I had not moved, not once. My mind couldn't stop whirling with thoughts, and at the same time was too silent with nothingness.
I was alone. Painfully, silently, alone.
>K