The Exiles

8. Lost and Found

That day Papa couldn't sleep. Not because he wasn't tired—he was, terribly—nor because the sun was bright, or the house teeming with his children chattering away, or his mother and wife whispering, throwing loaded glances his way. No, Papa couldn't sleep all day because he had a promise to fulfill. His word to keep. A Chymer never backed away from his or her word, that much was true and he wasn't about to be the first to bring shame to his family, no matter how he intended to keep them safe from the world that exiled them.

"Return home, oh King Ovek, the peaceful, and we will dole punishment fit for your son's crime. Death. Swift and final."

Those words had poured ice into his heart the moment they were said all those years ago, and even now, as he remembered them, he feared for Amer's life. Amer who created a demon in place of Maan the great. Maan the saviour. A monster who devoured children without care.

So that whole day Ovek Silvertongue, once a king, now just a father, watched over his family as they fretted about the cottage or tended to their small vegetable patch or fixed small leaks on their thatched roof. He watched as his mother made soup, as his wife taught the children a thing or two. He watched as Amer arrived home, tired and trodden, and slunk silently to bed. He watched as Vanylla and Mawsie fought over trivial things as children often do—my rag doll is better than yours. Na-uh. Mine is betterer!

Ovek watched as Ursa returned with a basketful of fresh bread for a job well done that afternoon. Mrs Pattermore, the wiry wife of the one baker in the village, had given birth to a boy and Ursa had helped more than they knew, for she was the one Silvertongue with the power to weave mortals out of pain.

Papa even watched Nessa nurse a nasty cough, smiling at him through her pain, and as he did, Mama's words rang in his mind, again and again: Help her. Take us home.

But the one person he couldn't watch, and perhaps the one person he should have watched, slipped out of the cottage after Ursa's return, mumbling something about a job that needed tending. He did not return all day.

Attin Silvertongue. The boy who thought he could—save his sister's life, that is. All he had to do was try, at least.

And so, Attin Silvertongue, the boy who thought he could, wadded into the misty trees, lost in his thoughts. Without knowing it, he drifted further away from home than he had before.

Maan. I must call on Maan ... I must. But how ... thoughts that churned as long as it needed for him to lose his way in the forest. Unaware he was lost or so far from home until the light faded, and shadows lengthen across the uneven, sodden ground. His fingers twirled, and his lips moved silently all the while, busy weaving words, tweaking them till they felt right on his tongue, and a spark of the golden fire burst forth like the world's tiniest fireworks before he even noticed, or walked straight into a sturdy tree that refused to make way.

Nose stinging, butt throbbing against the hard pokey ground, Attin finally noticed how terribly lost he was, and how alone in the near dark.

"Mama?" he called out nervously, knowing very well she was home. "Papa?" He eyed the dark canopy overhead. His heart skittered like a child's. He looked from trunk to dark trunk. Where am I?

But little did he know, he was no longer on the earthly plane. The woods about him were not trees per se, but Elks, deep in their slumber. The low grumble that filled the air was nothing but their light snores, echoing. Even the mist that hung about them was not fog settling on the moist, snow-sodden soil, but the vapour from their breaths.

Attin walked a few steps this way and that, trying to recognise a tree or a branch, something to guide him home. He peered up at the canopy again, dark against a silver night sky, yet he could see no star, at least none he recognised.