Wyrd: Book One of the Witch War Trilogy - WATTYS 2018 WINNER!

Chapter 8: In Which Olleander's Story Continues

There was a tense silence that took over the breakfast nook after Olleander had expressed his personal loss. His grandchildren stood on either side of him, hands rubbing his back, dismayed by the tale.

"Grandpa, that's... I'm so sorry," Will said.

              Laina was quiet, tears sliding down her face as she sat on the arm of his chair and hugged him. Sky was solemn, thoughtful.

"It was a long time ago." There was a wistful smile on Ollie's crinkly old face. 

He remembered his mother well, her long delicate fingers that would run through her bouncy red curls when she was thinking, her gentle demeanor and her majestic singing voice trilling a sweet lullaby before tucking him in. He remembered his father, too, with his easy smile and his strong arms as good for hugging as they were for cutting wood or lifting little boys. The sting of fresh grief had gone and left in its place an ache around which he'd structured a full and loving life in their wake and their memory. But some days, his sorrow over missing them was as acute and painful, as fresh as the newly discovered realization that a memory was fading, becoming lost. Or that there was some advice he wanted, some meaningful moment he wished he could share with them.

"How did you get out? What happened to get you here?" Will asked.

Ollie let out a sigh. "Quite a bit between here and there, I'd say. We still have some ground to cover. Perhaps we can move inside to the living room? These chairs are hurting my stiff old back."

He got up and everyone followed, making themselves comfortable on the beige couch and the black leather lounge chairs. Laina sat beside her grandfather, her slippers kicked off and her legs folded up underneath her. Will sat across from him, but instead of splaying back like usual, he sat forward eagerly, elbows on knees. Sky sat back in her armchair, wings hoisted over the back. When they all seemed comfortable, Olleander continued, his animated narrator voice whisking them away to the two brothers in the cell.

***

              We were picked up by horse and buggie and moved from the cell in the village to –

"Horse and buggie?" Laina and Will asked simultaneously.

"Right, yes. Horse and buggie. Htrae is old school. That's what you kids call it, right? Old school? There's no fancy technology over there.  Everything runs on rune enchantments. They haven't needed electricity or computers. It's all simple mechanics that seem to work as if by magic." He giggled at his on joke. "But where was I? Ahhh, yes..."

              We were moved from the cell in the village to a military school in the South. It was a strict boarding school owned by the Empire for training magically Talented children who needed discipline. We were watched, but there was no point in escaping yet. We had no where, no one, to go home to anymore. And we had a new mission: revenge.

From what we had gleaned after running away, our parents had been Empire resisters. We waited, we learned and trained so we could successfully follow in their footsteps. The propaganda and politics we heard from teachers, students, and guards was blatantly obvious to us. We had been brought up with different values and beliefs. The Empire preached hatred of those without magic, said that magic was seeping out of the world and that being Tainted was a contagious condition like a disease. Our parents had taught equality of all people – magical or not. They had said that there were many theories around why magic was leaving the world and that some were simply born without those abilities or some lost their magical abilities, but that didn't make those without special magics any less valuable to society.