Author's Preface
Merkra: You ever think about what it’d feel like if I forgot everything we’d been through?
Solana: Not before we started this. Now, to be frank, it terrifies me.
Merkra: Worse than rimeclaws?
Solana: It is not a joke, Merk. This is heartbreaking and truly unlocked a fear that I had never considered.
Merkra: Rimeclaws aren’t a joke, but I get it. I’m sorry.
Solana: It is alright. The question is valid, though. Perhaps he isn’t being, as you so elegantly mused, barbequed alive, but there is a deep wound being struck there, as adulterous as it may be.
Merkra: Of course, and I don’t want to make light of that. Obviously, there was a lasting connection. Do you think Fletcher did the right thing?
Solana: sighs after a long pause I do not think I am equipped to answer that question.
Merkra: First impression, no judgement.
Solana: Yes, I do.
Fletcher left Kelenek before the sun vanished behind the mountains. Reggius got what he’d wanted. He forgot. Old Fletch would be remembering for them both now. Not just the child, or the death of her mother. But every moment he and Reggius had ever shared together.
He stayed long enough to make sure Reggius knew the basics of who he was. Name. Occupation. He remembered his wife had died, his children: Lafir, Danatras, and Galdir.
Galdir. Gods. That’s where he knew the name from.
Rekindling a relationship from a lifetime ago was not his top priority on this trip. He’d definitely considered it, but really, Fletcher was just looking for a friend. Someone he could reminisce with. Someone that felt like home. The only person he’d ever felt that with now couldn’t distinguish his face from the next Halfing.
Fletcher camped on the road that night. Sleep didn’t come, but the fire and his old lute calmed his mind. His fingers plucked halfhearted tunes, the familiar ember flicked loose from the strings. It danced along his fingertips and then circled his head, displacing the air around his hair and dropping itself on the tip of his nose. Like it was trying to cheer him up, and when it didn’t work, its own light faded just a bit.
He wanted to be sad. He wanted to wallow in it. Every time the ache started, he remembered the relief in Reggius’ eyes when he came to. His former lover had gone from tortured to bliss in a few minutes’ time. Logically, he could see that helping Regg was a good thing. It didn’t fill the emptiness that sat heavy within him, though.
Fletch leaned back against the log, tracks of tears falling from the corners of his eyes. If he closed them, he could almost feel Reggius behind him, arms wrapped around his waist, humming off-key to his ballads. He remembered teasing him, only for him to laugh and say, “You have a voice beautiful enough for the both of us.” The knife in his chest twisted at the thought. The best times of his life may as well have never happened. He was the only one who would ever remember.
His ember danced along the road in a lazy arc, glowing against the dark stretch of trees not far off. Then he heard voices. Three silhouettes in the moonlight. Walking. Traveling at night wasn’t so strange, but on foot this far from town? Their voices hushed when they caught sight of his fire, but they didn’t stop.
Fletcher kept strumming, watching. His ember circled the tallest of the men, who came to a halt. The tall man with a shaved head and patchy red beard lifted his gaze and, for a moment, Fletcher thought he was regarding him. As he went to raise his hand in greeting, the man’s head bowed…and his ember made a similar mirror gesture. As much as a ball of light could bow.
The ember hovered around the man’s head, its glow steady and warm, as if pleased at the recognition. Fletcher’s strumming faultered. No one had ever seen it before.
The stranger’s lips moved with silent words, a whisper Fletcher couldn’t catch from this distance. When the ember settled on his shoulder, the man didn’t flinch. Instead, he smiled wide, eyes gleaming gold reflecting the ember’s light.
Two of the three men walked right by him, raising a hand in greeting, but nothing more. The third, with his musical sprite now perched on his shoulder like a watchful bird, strolled up to his fire.
“Fletcher Lightfoot?”
Fletcher blinked at the question, thrown off for a moment. Etosian accents had been relatively bland thus far. Then he realized that wasn’t an Etosian accent. He’d heard it before. The Forest Walkers in the Mistwood.
“I am.” Fletcher’s eyes flicked between the man and what he’d long considered the personification of his music, now questioning one of the fundamental understandings he’d had.
The man nodded and glanced to his shoulder at the ember before looking back. “Bold of you, puttin’ the fire that close to the road. Should push it back a bit.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it was safer than putting it close to the trees.” Fletcher set his lute aside and scrambled to his feet.
“Aye, for the forest. Not so much for yourself.” The stranger pulled a large slab of porous rock off his back and laid in on the ground. “We’ll help ya move it.”
Fletcher’s eyes widened as the man slid the slab to the edge of his stone circle, tilted it enough that its edge dug into the ground, then gently pushed. He couldn’t say if it was a natural ability of this stone to glide through earth as if it were nothing, or it was an artifact, but, either way, in moments his fire lifted off the ground. Fletcher helped him carry the slab another ten feet from the road, and the stranger slipped the fire off the slab just as easily as he’d picked it up.
“I didn’t get your name, friend.” Fletcher extended his hand to him. “You’ve got an Ashorian accent.”
“Aye, came from Ashoria, me parents did.” The young man with yellow eyes nodded to the other end of the slab, and Fletcher helped him lift it. It was a strange material. Obviously rock, but unusually light with thick holes flowing through it. “I’m called Madra.” They sat the stone down about ten feet from the road’s edge.
“They come from the Mistwood?” Fletcher asked, looking over at the other two people waiting down the road for Madra.
“Aye, she was afraid you’d forgotten the Wood.” Madra said, smiling at him, then at the sprite on his shoulder.
“You can see it.” Fletcher gestured to Madra’s shoulder. “No one’s ever been able to see it before.”
“Oooof. Easy Mr. Lightfoot. She’s a her, not an it.” Madra grimaced as though he’d eaten something sour.
“Her? What do you mean, her?” Fletcher’s eyes found their way to his lute again. If the sprite was a being, maybe it wasn’t just a byproduct of his music. His head spun as the implications raced.
“Ya got a lot to learn, Mr. Lightfoot.” Madra slapped his shoulder, and the Sprite hopped off his shoulder, landing gently in his palm. It…She, he guessed, suddenly felt so much heavier. “Road’s dangerous at night. Keep an eye out.” Madra bowed to him, fist to gut.
“Yeah…thanks for the warning.” Fletcher bowed back, though his eyes remained locked on the sprite now in his palm. It—no—she was shrinking and dimming by the second, like she always did after he stopped playing.
What was she?
What did this mean for his music?
His abilities?
Was anything he did really his, or was it just her working through him?
After she vanished, it took him a moment to realize the only person that even had a chance to have the answer to those questions was now striding away.
“Hey! Wait! I have questions!” Fletcher started after them.
“You’ll have yer answers, Mr. Lightfoot. Soon as yer ready to hear em.” Madra called over his shoulder, then the three figures broke off the road and vanished into the woods to the north.
As soon as he was ready? What the hell did that mean? At this point in his life, what could he not be ready for?
Fletch plopped into the dirt, crossed his legs, and laid his lute across his thighs. The gift from his mother before her death had been a constant companion. Its finish had long worn away, leaving the maple satin-smooth with bits of it dark with the oils of his hands. Had it all been a lie?
He plucked a single note. It hung in the air, mingling with his question.
He plucked another, softer. Still nothing.
Pulling the instrument in close, his fingers tumbled into an old melody. The boyhood song had always coaxed the sprite back. She should have been there, dancing along the strings, teasing his fingertips. She didn’t emerge.
“Come on.” Fletcher grumbled. “Don’t ignore me now.”
He played harder. Faster. Sang. Everything he could think of to call on the ember. No light. No warmth. Just notes stripped down like a voice calling into a cave and getting no echo in response.
Twang!
A string snapped beneath his fingers, drawing a curse as the coiled metal struck his cheek. A line of blood trickled down his cheek, and his hand stilled. Fletcher stared at the lute as if it were a stranger. Was it ever him at all? Or had it always been her?
The crackling fire at his feet gave no solace to the oppressive silence. For the first time in decades, Fletcher Sterling Lightfoot felt lost and alone.
The night passed long and cold. Each time his eyes closed and threatened sleep, flashes of blood, or calm understanding violet eyes, or a sadistic grin wrapped in orange curls assaulted his senses. Reggius’ experiences would join the others with time. Compartmentalization was a powerful magic he could always rely on.
There are fights that are worth losing, Fletcher…and there are fights that aren’t.
Reggius’ tired voice echoed in his mind. If children getting kidnapped wasn’t a fight worth losing, what was? Sure, the gifted population was a fraction of normal folk, but one was too many, wasn’t it? Fletcher grimaced and then jumped suddenly when his horse gave a disgruntled neigh.
“Sorry, didn’t know you could read minds.” Fletcher stroked its head, then followed its turned head to the north. Not a mind reader then. Passed the open field, another horse lurched out of the brush between a cluster of trees, its back either horribly disfigured, or its rider was not well off.
“Just get back to Raven’s Crest, Fletcher. Spend a few days with Leonie, maybe invite them back to Ashoria with you. Turn the boat trip into a pleasure cruise.” His hope of convincing himself not to stick his nose into whatever was happening with the horse was not working. Fletcher’s eyes remained locked onto the horse until it was close enough for him to make out the blanket-wrapped lump hanging off the reins.
“Are you alright?” Fletcher called out, guiding his horse off the road to intercept the rider. There was no response, though the other mount did turn toward him. As the horse got closer, so did the smell. It was almost like a roast at first, but one that had gone far too long. Then came the burnt hair and leather. Fletcher gagged, stomach turning, as the smell of rot followed soon thereafter.
“H-Hello?” Fletcher blinked back tears as the scent burnt through his nose. “Are you alright?” He didn’t expect a response. Whoever was under that blanket was likely long dead.
The rider’s horse, now close enough to nuzzle his, whinnied and ducked its head. A poof of curly black hair shot out of the top of the bundle of blanket, singed in places, and burnt to the bubbled oozing scalp in others.
“Gods above..” Fletcher murmured and reached a hand out to move the blanket, hoping to get a better look at the damage.
A gnarled hand, burnt to the bone from the second knuckle of each finger to the tip, shot out and snatched his wrist. Fletcher shrieked, a high-pitched, actively pissing his pants shriek, and tumbled off the back of the horse.