*****Meet Galen, father-cousin to Geir (meaning his father and Geir's father are brothers). Galen will get his own story, but it will actually be the first in my Wild Magic/ Far From Home crossover series— Strange Magics :). Please remember, each story will be a standalone, so no need to read one to understand any others... Though to get the most enjoyment with all the Easter eggs and fun appearances I throw in, it's probably a good idea ;)*****
SAGE—
When the boy's eyes widened, his fingers began to shake so hard he dropped his spoon back into his bowl, and his cheeks lost any color they had managed to procure in our small amount of time under the sun and with food in his belly, I jerked back and turned to see what had terrified him so. When I saw only the Akaran hedge witch, I frowned in confusion.
The woman stopped right in front of us, chattering to us in Akari so fast I wouldn't have been able to follow even if I had known more of the language. I helplessly raised my hands, shaking my head.
"I'm sorry. My Akari is weak; I don't understand."
The woman paused in her words before turning to the boy and waving for him to follow her. He stood but only to cower behind my back, his fingers fisting in the back of my tunic.
The woman chuckled and waved someone over. The man was young— maybe 20— with nearly six inches on my height. He was about my size, if just a bit bigger, and moved with a loping, graceful, but almost too-slow movement. His eyes were big in his round, childish face, and his dark skin shone in the sunlight with a sort of calming, gentle glow that drew me up short.
The woman said something in Akari, and the man turned to me with a smile, gentle and almost sleepy. "My name's Galen," he said in accented El'kahrian. "Son of Telkin and Lamita, father-cousin to the Warlord Geir. Al'iya says you need a translator."
"Yes, please," I answered with a nod of my head. I could feel even the boy behind me begin to calm, his fists unclenching at my back. I had never met someone who exuded so much sleepy, peaceful calm with his presence alone.
The woman began speaking in her rapid-fire, overwhelming way, but Galen simply stood before her, never flinching at the speed of her words. When she finished, he turned back to me, his eyes flickering for the first time to the boy at my back.
"The young man hiding behind you wasn't looked over last night, due to his more pressing injuries. She wishes to look him over, to ensure he gets the care he needs."
I nodded again, but the boy behind me stiffened even more than he had before. I turned to him and he shook his head as I met his eyes. He refused to let go of my tunic, so I was left to awkwardly twist to look down at him.
"What's wrong, sweetheart? She won't hurt you. She just needs to look you over, make sure there's nothing wrong, and that we care for you properly."
The boy shook his head again, but I could see the defeat in his eyes. For whatever reason, he didn't want an exam, but he knew we were right in wanting to ensure his health.
The woman led us back towards Ember's tent, and after his rage-filled outburst, it took a lot of self-control to keep from asking if we could do the exam somewhere else. When I stopped in front of the tent flap to wait outside, the boy froze at the entrance, turning back to me with wide, terrified eyes. He made a noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a whine and a gasp, and yanked on my arms to pull me forward. I looked up at the hedge witch, who eyed me for a moment before nodding.
The boy led me down into Ember's tent with a grip of steel, the woman following close behind.
"I'll stay out here, but I can hear you, so just talk loud and I'll translate," Galen said from the tent entrance. He let the flap down, shutting us into the semi-dark of the tent, before I heard shuffling that told me he was sitting just outside the entrance.
The woman said something, motioning to the boy as she set her medicine bag down near the bed furs, and Galen said, "Take off your clothes."
The boy obeyed, slowly and reluctantly, one of his hands constantly on my arm for comfort. I tried to keep my eyes away, but they managed to flicker back to his naked skin over and over despite my wanting to give the boy his privacy.
Gods, I was going to be thrown into the deepest pits of hell for my attraction to him.
Al'iya motioned for the boy to sit back on the furs, and he dragged me down with him. I knelt beside the furs, watching as the woman began rifling in her bag after setting up a handful of faer lights so she could see her work. The sun shone through the tent decently enough to see clearly, but she would need the extra light to examine the boy's wounds and the state of his body.
The woman was pretty in an off-set, non-conventional way. She was maybe Ember's age, in her mid-to-late-twenties, and had deep black hair so dark it shone blue when the sun hit it just right. It hung freely in curling, thick ringlets down her back, pooling on the ground as she knelt in front of the boy. She was light-skinned, but her slanted, almond eyes and full, honey-kissed lips were all Akaran. Her body was shaped like a perfect hourglass, with full, wide hips, a thin, trimmed waist, and breasts that threatened to rip through the buttons on her blouse.
"She's going to touch the boy, feel around for bones out of place," Galen called from outside the tent, after Al'iya had begun to speak. "Have the boy squeeze your hand or some other sign if he feels pain."
I looked to the boy to make sure he understood, and he squeezed my hand with a nod. I motioned at the woman, and she moved to begin. The boy was tense beside me, more so than I had ever felt him, and his body trembled. The woman muttered as she worked, but it must have not been important, or only speaking to herself, because Galen didn't translate until she asked the boy to lie on his back.
I shifted with him, kneeling near his head, and he looked up at me, stark terror in his eyes.
"Want that story now?" I whispered as the woman worked, and the relief and embarrassment in the boy's eyes made me want to lean down and kiss his lips, stretched thin with stress and fear.
"When time began, there was chaos and there was darkness," I whispered, brushing strands of hair from his face. "The god Leba and his wife Alma lived in peace for millennia, content in their own love and happy to spend their existence in each other's arms. But there came a time when Alma wanted a child, and so they began to try for a child. For time unnumbered, they attempted to impregnate Alma, but they were unsuccessful. In her loneliness, Alma created the heavens, and filled it with brother and sister gods and goddesses, whom she formed out of the chaos and the darkness around her. They filled her with joy, and she called them sons and daughters, but they were not a child of her own. Not one of her blood, and the blood of her husband. And this she craved.
"So she created the world, and filled it with animals, and trees, and plants, and water, and air, and she filled the skies with stars, and the seas with the monsters of the deep. And for each of these, she gave to the gods and goddesses she had created. To Daki, goddess of the deep, she gave the waters of the earth— sea and fresh, puddle and ocean.
"To Bandrin, god of the high places and the deep places, she gave the mountains and the caves beneath them.
"To Gaol, god of war, she gave the strength of battle and the violence of death.
"And so on, through each of the new creations she made to fill the ache in her heart.
"Seeing her loneliness, and hurting for it, Leba, her husband, took in her creations, borrowed a bit of each of the gods his wife had made of her own hands, mixed them all together, and out came the first man and the first woman. He gave them to his wife, and she loved them as her own and cherished their devotion to her.
"And then, just when they had almost given up on their hopes for a child of their power and their flesh combined, Alma began to grow heavy with child."
The boy made a little noise, and I couldn't tell if it was happiness at the gods' joy, or distress from the touch of the woman's hands on his body. She had begun to clean the bondage wounds on his ankles and wrists, readying to bandage them. Her movements were gentle but efficient, but I could understand how someone who had endured the torture the boy had would hate the feel of another's hands on his skin.
It made me wonder anew at the way he clung to both me and Ember so fervently. What made us different to the woman who handled him so gently?
"They rejoiced, and the world rejoiced with them," I continued, drawing the boy's eyes to mine again. "When the child was born, he was a pillar of hope and love for the gods and goddesses who would now serve him as his court, for their prince was born.
"The child was beautiful and wise and loving. He grew to be fair of face and strong of morals. He was merciful and kind and loved the humans beneath the heavens as much as his siblings, the gods who shone by his side. His mother and father named him Enlin, god of the sky, so he would rule over all."
Al'iya asked something in Akari as she finished up the boy's bandages, and Galen answered in Akari, then said in El'kahrian, "She asked what you were speaking. I told her it was the tragedy of Gaol's brother. Also," he continued as the woman said something else, "Please turn the boy onto his stomach."
The boy moved almost sluggishly, and I was glad my story seemed to be calming him somewhat. When he had settled and Al'iya was moving about again, I finished the story.
"Enlin met a young prince named Naviir one day when he was near one of his mother's temples, and immediately fell in love with him. The prince was a third son, and so would never see the throne of his father. He carried a bitterness inside of him that Enlin never sensed. The human seduced Enlin, and before long the young god had let his defenses down around the human.
"Taking advantage, and wanting glory and power, near mad with jealousy of his brothers, Naviir stabbed the gentle god with a god-killing blade and took his life from him, and from the world.
"The moment Enlin's soul vacated his body, his mother doubled over in pain, his father cried out, and the entire heavenly host fell to their knees in horror. The earth quaked, and many humans died that day for the mourning of the gods.
"The god Gaol, brother to Enlin and god of war and violence, swore vengeance and tracked down the evil Naviir. He cursed him, a curse that is called the Unnamed Curse, for none know what it did to the jealous Naviir, or what he undoubtedly still endures to this day."
I stopped and glanced back at Al'iya when I noticed the boy's heavy flinch. She had a frown of confusion on her face as she pulled the boy's ass cheeks apart, her fingers gently dabbing at his crack.
I had the sudden, near-overwhelming urge to shove the woman up and away from the boy's most sensitive places, but I held myself back. I gripped the boy's hands tighter, meeting his eyes again with a hopefully calming smile.
His eyes showed his questions about my story, and I shrugged. "That's the end, really. Alma mourns her lost son always, but every once in a while her tears leak from the heavens in the form of rain, or hail, or deeply cold snow. And Leba nearly retreated from all life, and is never seen, even in his own temples.
"The god Gaol aided the mourning parents through their grief, and is now favored among the heavens, and rules the gods and the earth in the stead of his grateful parents."
Just as I finished my story, Al'iya pulled away and gently patted the boy's arm to signal he could sit up. He pulled himself up, his hands resting over his prick to cover it, and the woman stood after gathering her supplies.
I helped the boy dress back into Ember's oversized shirt and cloak, finding a pair of Ember's leggings and helping the boy into them. I had to tie the strings of the leggings around the boy's waist three times so they wouldn't fall down and roll up them up at the ankle nearly seven times before he wasn't tripping on them, but it was better than nakedness. Then I led him out into the bright sunlight. The examination had taken half an hour, and in that time the entire camp had been thrown onto the backs of pack mules and horses. Ember's tent was the only one left standing, and as we moved away from it, a handful of men stepped behind us and began to tear it down.
Ember stood a ways off, helping the rescued children into a cart where Brin stood to lift them from his arms. As Al'iya moved to the man, he handed up the last child and turned to face us.
"The boy has been severely abused," Galen translated from her side as Al'iya spoke directly to Ember. "Severely. He has bones that barely healed before they were broken again, skin that has scars on top of scars atop scars. He's nearly 30% scar tissue."
The woman paused and glanced back at the boy before continuing, Galen always just a few words behind. Her words had me clutching the boy so tightly to me, I worried I would hurt him. But he only clung to me, his face dug into my stomach, as the hedge witch laid out his pain.
"But unlike any of the other children, this boy hasn't been sexually assaulted. Not recently, at least. And due to the lack of scar tissue around his anus, I'd say not ever."
Ember's eyebrows rose at the same time my own did, as both he and I turned to the boy.
If he was in the Monster's home since he was a child— which we knew due to the jaw bindings having embedded into his skin since he was young— how had he been left untouched by the Monster's evil lusts? And why was he tortured the way none of the other children had been? The others had been kept in relative luxury, fed to keep them fat, groomed to keep them ready for him. But this boy was found covered in filth in what amounted to a deep hole, and tortured so badly the healer's face had blanched as she had stressed the severity of the violence inflicted on his body.
So what was different about this boy?