It hurts.
“It does?” His breath tickled my face. I couldn’t sit back any farther in my chair, and he was everywhere. In my head and in my space, hovering over me like an avenging angel. I fought the panic that rose like a wave.
I pressed my hands to my chest. It suddenly hurt so much I could barely breathe. My heart was pounding, and my breaths felt like shards of glass.
“Tell me,” he commanded.
I shook my head. No. No. No. I couldn’t explain how it felt to converse with another human being. To actually converse. I had been reduced to sharing nothing of my innermost thoughts for most of my life. Reduced to throwing things when I was angry. Reduced to tears when I was sad. Reduced to the simplicity of nods and bows, of having people look away from me or become frustrated when they didn’t know what I was trying to communicate.
I had been alone for so long with thousands of words I couldn’t express. Now this man, this infuriating, beautiful, man—son of a murderous king—could suddenly hear me as if I spoke. A woman instead of a caged bird. A human being instead of a silent presence in the shadows.
And I didn’t know how I felt about it.
Go, Tiras. Please go.
I didn’t open my eyes, and I kept my mind muddled so no more words would escape. I felt him straighten, and the heat of his presence waned. Then his footsteps sounded, retreating. The door opened and closed again, and I heard his key scraping in the lock.
From the balcony of my new room I could see the king’s guard, practicing their maneuvers and sparring in the jousting yard. Sometimes Tiras was with them—Kjell was there more often than not—and they seemed to take inordinate pleasure from knocking each other down and bloodying each other up.
But the king’s duties extended beyond fighting and practicing with his men. Once a week the people made a long line around the castle, coming to the king with their problems, with their complaints, with their accusations. Greta explained that from dawn until dusk, one after another, the people were given a hearing. I wished I could watch and listen, but I could only observe the long lines of waiting citizens from my balcony and speculate about what they would say to the king. It would be exhausting to make one decision after another, to have people looking to you to be just and judicious.
The balcony also gave me a view of a well in the city square, where people gathered to visit and fill their buckets. Oddly, most people didn’t fill pails with water. Instead, they leaned over the edge, one at a time, and seemed to peer down into the depths, almost like they were calling to someone or something below. It was strange. People lined up for their turn to look down in the well, and the line was almost as long as the one for the king on hearing day.
Public punishments were also carried out in the city square, following King Tiras’s rulings. I saw a man dragged behind a horse, a woman put in the stocks, another lose her hand, another lose his tongue. I didn’t know their crimes, but I could guess. Was it a Teller who lost his tongue? Was it a Spinner whose hand was hacked off? After I realized what was occurring, I huddled in my room and closed the balcony doors so I wouldn’t hear the crowds and the horrific public displays.
I wondered about the punishment for starting a fire within the castle walls, the penalty for putting words in the king’s head, for speaking without a voice, for moving things with one’s mind, and I no longer felt certain of my innocence. I realized the harm I could do, and I was afraid. But my fear didn’t stop the words from forming, the letters from assembling, my mind from spelling, and my thoughts from spinning.
New clothes were hung in the enormous wardrobe, clothes fit for a princess and rather ill-suited for a prisoner who never left her room. The king’s servants washed the walls and replaced the heavy drapes over the balcony door in my old chamber. The pictures and words on my walls were gone, wiped away and painted over. But under the scent of paint and soap, I could still smell the smoke, a reminder of what I could do with a careless word. The books were gone too, and I wondered if Tiras would replace those or if I had become frightening to him, the way I frightened myself.
The fear didn’t stop me from experimenting when I was alone. I tried commanding my voice to work, but it stayed frozen in my throat, unaffected by my demand. My words were not effective when I applied them to myself. I couldn’t fly, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t suddenly paint or sew or dance beyond my natural abilities. In fact I couldn’t change myself at all, but beyond that, I discovered that when I spelled out a command, seeing the words in my mind before releasing them, they were highly effective. I was only limited by my ignorance, by my fear, and by my own sense of right and wrong.
I made my dresses dance around my chamber like headless ghosts at a royal ball. I made the furniture rise and reassemble on the ceiling. I commanded the lock to release on my door and stood in the hallway beyond my room, unsure of what to do or where to go now that I could easily escape.
I was free. I was powerful. I was terrified.
I returned to my room, re-engaged the lock with a simple spell, and huddled in my wardrobe in the dark. I felt no joy at my emerging power. I felt only dismay and disgust. And doubt. What was my purpose? What would be the price of this newfound power?
Tiras didn’t leave me alone for long. A week after the fire, he was back, escorting me through the hallways and out into the sunshine, past the sentries and the servants, and into the busy town square, as if he was just one of the townspeople. I was a little surprised by his freedom of movement and his lack of concern, but when I looked closer, I noticed flashes of green and archers on the ramparts as well as guards trailing a ways behind us and a guard in every other alcove. The people bowed and bobbed, but most just went about their duties with a quick nod, obviously used to seeing him out and about.
We walked in silence, our postures identical, hands clasped behind our backs looking at the path in front of us. I kept my thoughts loose and formless, not allowing myself to create words that he might hear. As we neared the well I’d seen from my balcony, I stopped, one hand on the king’s sleeve, one pointing toward the long line of those waiting to look down into the depths.
I didn’t want to form the words, but he seemed to understand my question anyway.
“It’s the Well of Words. Or some believe it is. Where the children of the God of Words climbed up from the lesser world. People stand around the well all day and take turns shouting into it. Their wishes, their desires. Wealth, health, love, eternal life.”
I cocked my head and listened, trying to hear the things people were asking for.
“No one really knows if or when the wish will be granted. But sometimes they are. So people keep coming back.”
I wanted to look down into the dark and write one of my words in the condensation on the wall. I would ask the well for my voice. But the line was long and I wouldn’t know how to tell Tiras what I wanted without feeling incredibly foolish. He took my arm, and we turned back toward the castle, walking without conversation once more. Once inside the walls, we meandered through the courtyard and into a little garden off the great hall where Tiras heard the complaints of his citizenry. If I looked up I could see the balcony of my room.
“I only hear the words you give me, you know. It is your power. Not mine,” Tiras offered suddenly, his voice mild, his eyes trained on the trees. I thought about that for a few minutes then took a tentative step, asking him a vain question that I could easily spell.
What does my voice sound like in your mind?