Method Six

Book Three: Scion

By Jessica Jay

Chapter Eighty-Nine: Palani's Resolve

I’d be happy if you could understand what life is, even if only a little. The words were his own. His own writing, the brushstrokes and paper of his own making, it hung framed by wood and even protected behind glass in the center of the one flat wall of their home. The wall that faced North and blocked the coldest winds.

That was the first thing to greet his tired eyes, rousing and thinking himself too warm under his blankets.

Blankets?

Ariel awakened further, his eyes drawn away from something he spit out in the days he aspired to be a poet and storyteller and put instead to the thick woollen blanket tucked firmly around him in his chair. Going back to Julia had been one thing, coming inside the house that had once been his home and lingering near the door for the longest time, they had skirted around things for so long it seemed little use to try and take things back to the way they had been.

Or how well had they really been?

From shamefully pregnant before being married, their hasty vows, then Isaac’s birth and everything that followed… who would want things to return to the way they were?

So she had gone to her room, shuffling her feet, shy, a tumultuous silence that he wasn’t prepared to face. And he had sat in a chair, staring at the North wall through the dark and contemplating just what he should have done. Maybe brought her a present? He had been head behind and tail turned round backwards, too out of sorts to much remember where the house was but for his body’s memory of the route, to think of gifts. Words failed as well, because it had been so long since he had spoken anything truthfully, and knew in his heart that he would not treat her with that sort of ambiguous behaviour.

At the moment he could think of nothing he could give that wouldn’t be eclipsed by the looming shadow of what he had done. The disgust was still there, self-loathing, a terrible roiling in his stomach and chest that flared up again whenever his thoughts drifted near it like dust in an old room as someone walks inside.

Remembering the blankets instead, as his angst ridden guts gave rise to a sweltering wave of discomfort, he kicked out of them. Knowing Julia had brought them, knowing she had come out and it was her hand that tucked the corners around his feet and shoulders, he bit on his own tongue. A man now, but not much different from then. And then he thought of Cece, where and how she might have slept knowing that a strange man was inside the house. And what would her six-year-old mind make of that man being her father?

Hand dropping down, free and sweaty with sleep, he leapt and yelped when that hand fell on Julia’s head. Dozing by his side, she had been hidden by the weight of the blankets and his own turmoil of thoughts. Crouched on the floor, her head resting lightly against his side, she opened her eyes then too.

"Oh Julia." He breathed, slipping from the chair and forgetting all the aches he would have felt sleeping like that all night. At least she had a blanket draped over her shoulders as well, or he would have struggled not to scold her as he had when she didn’t eat for pining over Isaac.

"Noble." She started, eyes wide, the pretty curve of her lips turned round until she remembered herself. "No, it’s Ariel now isn’t it?" He winced, looking down at his lap as he sat on his legs. False names in her voice made the entire idea of changing his identity feel wretched.

"Noble." He shook his head, suddenly unable to voice how direly he needed her to use his real name, but she seemed to understand, repeating it quietly to herself. They felt more like awkward old friends than estranged husband and wife, and that was the wedge that kept him distanced. Watching the way she wet her lips and moved to speak a dozen times before actually making a sound, he clucked his tongue and started himself.

"The crack above the hearth is still there." Observing dumbly, in much the same line of thought that had rifted them apart the night before, he felt stupid and childish. Here was Julia, accepting him back without fight or argument, willing to the core of her being to be his again… and here was he, stumbling over his words and averting her eyes like a nervous boy.

"Paris came to fill it twice. Once with Miles’ help, and it held better that time. But every spring the ground shifts and the crack reappears." She sighed all-too-dejectedly. Giving in to the fact that he would skirt the things that burned them both, she turned her attention to other things she might tell him about the house. "Greer sent men two years ago to re-thatch the roof. And once more a few months ago when the electricity started sparking in the lights." And then she laughed, as if it were something funny. "I paid more than I care to admit replacing exploding bulbs. Paris swore the house had gained a demon."

"A demon." He laughed as well, shaking his head at how given his people were to superstition. For a moment he was distracted, thoughts gone awry from his dilemma, and found himself staring at her. Smiling, pleasant, she returned his watched eyes as a slow silence worked over them and his smile gradually faded.

"The nomad…" she started, taking a sharp breath as if the words had betrayed her.

"Palani?"

"Yes. Palani. She is a very good little girl."

"A little girl hardly. She’s sixteen." He knew those words the wrong ones immediately, and yet could not take them back inside his mouth.

"A woman then." She withdrew and he saw that in avoiding the things that would burn he had managed only to scald her. "She talked about you as if… but I suppose I should have expected as much. Six years, and you only a man. I’m sorry."

Suddenly wrought with a different sort of self-disgust that swiftly leapt to indignation, he blurted. "Julia, I swear, I have been faithful to you."

"Traps teeth, you have!" She flushed, seeming shocked that he would dare speak such mistruths.

"Traps teeth, I have!" He spoke with just as much vehemence. In this he would not be misunderstood, nor give her any reason not to believe what he said. "I have never lied to you Julia. Not onc-" but his words were smothered just as suddenly by her lips. She had shot forward, catching the hand he held before his chin and turning it aside with hers.

Never lied to you… and that was truth. In all the tangled things woven in and around him, in the web of personalities and alias he had strung over the world map, Julia was one who had never become tangled in it. She was free of his deceptions, knew him plainly, knew him from the time he was an awkward boy tugging on her hair for only a moment of her attention.

Kissing her back with a fierceness garnered over years of seclusion, everything was suddenly Julia. The wholeness they had once discovered and lost seemed just in his reach, the barest brush of his fingertips away, and he reached after it fervidly. He had no thoughts towards worthiness or his right to touch one he had wounded so deeply. Ariel only knew the unspoken plea of the one who called him ‘Noble’.

-x-x-

Palani strode about the empty yard with a hand smashed firmly against her forehead. A pounding headache she had woken to, one that refused to heed her instructions to leave and only gained power inside with Livi’s monstrosity of a family. No one in Devonmire keeps a family so large! She thought sourly, blaming them for the throbbing behind her eyes and wholly ignoring the real source.

Though ignoring it only made her want to think harder. Ariel married? Ariel with a child? A little girl and before her a son he had lost. A son whose bones he had borne to Myst and buried somewhere in the scruffy land outside a fisherman’s hut. Oh Ariel. Or was it Noble now? Noble Kelly, that was his name, and she knew as well that he was Livi’s half-brother.

Yet another half-sibling to that girl’s outrageous list. In a covetous flash she wondered how Livi would like it if she suddenly found herself without a scrap of family to turn to, if her mother and father, brothers and sisters were taken from her by a hand she could not see nor retaliate upon. Then she bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood and flung those thoughts as far away as she could. I should just tell her, realizing then, in a moment of selfishness, that she had been keeping the revelation from Livi truly because she wanted to keep Ariel closer to herself. By giving him to her as a brother, she would lose part of him as a friend. Him who was back in his house with his wife and daughter. So now she would tell Livi and take back a part from his wife. Livi could convince him to come back, if not for Palani then for the fact that he was her brother. And brothers were to do those sorts of things for sisters. Or so she assumed. Envy welled up in her stomach, wanting for something that didn’t quite have words.

And it will be easy telling, she resolved at a flicker of reluctance. She would scarcely notice another sibling added to the list.

Instead of confidence she only found a measure of disgust in herself. Was that all she could do? Cling helplessly to the life of someone else, horde relationships and pine over those that slipped from her grasp? Everybody wants friends, part of her reasoned, a warm safe part of her mind smiled at her pityingly. They all have friends and family, and you deserve those same things.

"So I do." The decision was at once firm and repulsive. How could she want to take Ariel from his wife again? How could I possibly? The headache grew fierce, and she cradled her forehead in both hands as she continued to pace. Wandering back the way she had come, both in mind and in her steps, the thought of letting go loomed over her like a predator in wait. She knew it was coming, she knew it was the truth, but a streak of sheer stubbornness she had gleaned from her sister helped her stand her ground.

And then Sawn was there.

"Palani!" Her voice rose, probably the fourth time she had called the girl’s name since coming outside. The tone of it grated at her raw temper.

"What?" She snapped churlishly, rounding on the priestess and somehow finding more howling temper at the sight of Salus on her arm. Sawn and Ince were cousins, Sawn and Livi good friends, and smart. Sawn and Salus were together, and Salus and Ince were best friends. Ince was in love with Livi, and Salus protected her fiercely because of that.

Where did that leave an orphaned nomad? Tagging along behind and minding their things? Watching camp while they went into the city and spoke with the Doka? It had been her wish to follow them but now it seemed a deeply stupid one. Suddenly overwhelmed with a hopelessness for everything, she dropped her tense shoulders and the hands from her forehead. All prospects were bleak. Best she returned to a caravan as soon as possible, and it didn’t matter which one.

"I said Ince made you something to drink. He said it would help the headache, are you coming inside?" The dark haired priestess repeated herself, an air of annoyance about her, but the nomad could care less. Didn’t they see she had lost everything again? She was tired of it, of losing, of a constant string of desertions. So much that even knowing Ince cared enough to try and help didn’t break through her misery.

A year ago she would have cried and sobbed until Tadita came and made all the bad things leave her alone. And then it was Ariel, the blonde who made her a fine necklace for her Lura and appealed the others to leave her be when she felt upset. Ariel married. Ariel with a daughter. How could her fancies of him turn into such a sharp sword?

"Stop frowning. It will only make it hurt worse." Salus admonished, following behind as she marched back inside.

Be quiet! She wanted to shout at him, but knew at least with him the effort would be wasted. She might even make a memory, as the dark haired northern man seemed slow to forgive. It was on that thought, reminding herself not to create grievances with him, that she stepped inside and nearly into Ariel Noble Pace.

"Palani!" He greeted joyously, more like himself than she could remember since they crossed from Myst. His eyes near sparkled, and he caught her by one shoulder. Firmly, but amicably, he propelled her inside the house. Her heart leapt up, jumping in her chest and she had to think to catch a breath.

Then she saw the reason why.

"Hello Palani."

Julia, a woman the same age as Ariel with softly curving cheeks and hips, with bright red hair that matched her own and deep brown eyes, stood politely in the kitchen. What small crowd had gathered to gawk at all the ado was being shoved out the door by Livi and her mother. The nomad couldn’t speak, her throat cinched around the words and she could only stare.

"She wanted to come and see you." Ariel explained softly, after a time of everyone staring strangely at everyone else. His voice had changed, and it hurt her to hear him speaking with that healed tone. Had he so easily broken free of that tormented past just when she had discovered it? They could have shared it, she had thought. Who could she possibly go to, to gain the same peace he now radiated?

"The gods work strangely." Julia almost laughed, taking the seat Ince had pulled out and offered her. He was silent but polite, ever looking after the niceties that others overlooked. Julia composed herself after a time, not by clinging to her found husband, but by a quiet introspective they could watch in her eyes. Palani was at once resentful.

"My family isn’t from Odessa originally. We come from Aislin, two weeks travel from here. My mother told me many stories from that village, I could recite them all by heart, and Cece too, I would put her to sleep with those stories."

"Aislin…" Livi murmured after her, one of the ways she went about committing things to memory.

"There’s a story all mothers tell their children in Tsugeoka. A story of the demon wolves that come in the night and gobble up little boys and girls who don’t listen to their mommies." She laughed. Palani didn’t see anything funny, and pressed her lips into a tight line. "I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for something Ariel told me, about the demon you all fought when you crossed the river.

"A man with glowing red eyes and skin that sucks life, in the story he ravaged the village before it had been given a name and ruled over the world with his demon wolves. Until the day a man came from the north and set them free. His name was Aislin, and he was the sort of hero who would sacrifice himself for others. So in the end he gave his life to kill the demon wolves and vanquish the demon king."

"Or so the stories say," Palani scoffed, muttering it under her breath and ignoring the sharp glances it earned her. They were all well aware of her sullen mood and didn’t need reminding. She knew all about tales and how they went, someone would have to work for years to cut away the flowery words and exaggerations before they found a scrap of truth. Nomads, expert storytellers, would be careful to leave clues in their stories that lead subtly to the truth… but she couldn’t be sure as much for the bedtime tales that Tsugeokan women told.

Truthfully it had sounded like something she had heard a few times before in her life with the caravan, but for the last part.

"A great block of stone was hauled into the village square, cut from the sea cliffs themselves, and Aislin’s name carved into it forever over the name of the demon king. Jela."

"We think it’s the same person. You said yourself that he was very old, didn’t you Palani?" Ariel cut into the story, growing excited at this bit of information he could provide their company.

She went mute, only able to nod.

"That means it was all true? Demon wolves and the like?" Livi burst into new life, Ince beside her silent but almost as animated.

"How much of it is truth you’ll probably never know. Least to say, the part about the hero defeating him was wrong. Jela is alive if not well." Palani cut her off then, determined to maintain her resentful mood. "Nothing that was true that many years ago is so now. A true tale is one only told once."

"At least it’s something to go on." Sawn retorted, rebuking the nomad’s recent temper with one look from her steely grey eyes.

"If we didn’t need to hurry to Noellia, I would have liked to see this stone for myself." Ince nodded into his hand, brow creased in thought as he turned his head this way and that. When Sawn spoke next, he bit his tongue, and Palani knew a measure of anger she didn’t think existed.

"We should go see. Maybe we’ll gain an important clue on how to kill him."

"Kill, kill, kill, is that all you can think on? My sister loved him, and she died for him!" The words came out, loud and ignorant, just the feelings that had been tormenting her for months. "Jela saved me. In Krimeon, where humans would have put us to death, a ‘demon’ took us out of the prison. When the guards caught me, he came back and rescued me. He never let Tadita out of his sight, and she loved him." Knowing it for so long was different from saying so out loud. She suddenly found herself defending the demon she had despised for taking her sister. Maybe it was because she knew how alone he felt.

"He’s not a demon. Those people in Krimeon who locked Ince in a box and stripped the flesh from him are demons."

"Did you forget Jela tried to kill Ince as well?!" Sawn shouted back. Suddenly they were nose to nose, her passionate eyes turned silver. The priestess was accustomed to being obeyed, not questioned. Palani’s headache came pounding back to life. She was in no mood to retreat and behave, No, her fists tightened. I’m tired of ‘behaving’.

"I didn’t forget. But I know he blames Ince for the way he is. Tadita told me as much." She took a sharp breath, at once aware that the room had gone completely still and everyone stared at them. Feeling a sudden need to sever all relationships she had, she dove into her tirade with reckless abandon. "Have you ever watched him when he has a shaking fit? All blood and screaming and a horrible twitching that jerks his arms and legs out of joint. The smell of it is terrible, and his screams would break even your stone heart." She spat the words out, regarding Julia briefly instead of the seething priestess and turning her back to them all. "From your nursery rhymes, I think it was really Aislin who did that to Jela… not Ince."

"Ince wouldn’t do that to anyone." Livi affirmed.

"It doesn’t really matter, anyway. If Jela thinks Ince is responsible." Sawn shook her head, and Palani could tell she obviously didn’t understand what she was talking about. Neither of them could, Salus or the priestess, they weren’t there to see it. That only made her more irritated, that she would keep talking as if she knew everything that was going on. Julia, Sawn and Livi quickly became acquainted and started exchanging ideas and theories on what the old tale might mean to them. The nomad simply rolled her eyes and removed herself before she said anything more.

If I can’t cry, and I can’t yell, then what should I do? She sliced through the sitting room, charging a path to the stairs when Livi’s brother Colm caught her arm in one large hand. His wide green eyes flashed, something he wanted to say faded behind a concerned look.

"Is something the matter?"

She stopped, startled for an instant. Then she noticed the way he and Livi's same way of pursing his lips when he wanted to say something more.

"Well, that is certainly a stupid question." Hotly trying to turn him away, he let her go without much resistance. Glancing about the room, the mismatched carpeting and chairs, wooden toys and pieces scattered about, he didn’t even try to cover his affront.

"I wanted to ask you to keep Livi safe."

Keep Livi safe, she gave a shiver, tears burning in the corners of her eyes. "Of course. Gods know she needs more people watching over her." And with that she ran, not wanting another person to see her cry. Her eyes were drowning, the tears had soaked into part of who she was. I will always cry. Cry and cry like a helpless infant. I need to change! I need to change! I need to CHANGE!

-x-x-

Hours later they waved goodbye to Ariel one last time. There would be no more serendipitously coming across him; he would be at home cultivating the family life he had been eight years denied. Livi smiled for him, even with the small tugging in her chest. Missing him before he was even out of their sight, she wrapped her fingers tighter around Ince’s. "A proper goodbye." She sniffed.

"Except Palani." He murmured, glancing about as if she would by chance appear at the sound of her name. She wondered if she would be satisfied with the sullen goodbye Ariel had wrung from her. A dull bit of worry crept around her heart, wondering at the girl’s strange mood. Palani was easy to shed tears, and usually saw things in a darker more morose way than the rest, but she wasn’t habitually the one to take the place of opposition.

"That would be Salus." Ince laughed when she voiced her thoughts. They were wandering back towards the horse and cart. Everything was packed, and Ariel had even delivered several new shirts and pants into their hands, dresses for the girls and different things they could trade on the road for money or food. She felt more prepared than they had ever been to set out on the road, and she dared to hope that this journey would be a bit smoother than the last three.

"We’re getting to be our own group of nomads." Ince joked, catching wind of her thoughts so accurately it made her jump.

"Palani could be our Koni." Salus joined with a laugh of his own, she was brought to her previous thoughts.

"I suppose I should go fetch her."

"Out in the yard, I suspect." Ince offered as she was already rounding the house, his expression as absently lost in his own thoughts as she was. The sun was past its midpoint, and the shadows were beginning to stretch long over the ground. She trampled down errant grasses that grew up the west side of the house beside the fence and swiped the back of her hand over her brow. The summer was ending, that was certain, but it still hadn’t taken the pulsing heat from the air.

That made more than one year since Krimeon had loosed its soldiers on the rest of Devonmire, and she tried not to conjure up memories of the burnt out towns they left in their wake. Many died this time, and not just skirmishes with Noellia, but people all through Myst and now Tsugeoka as well. She couldn’t see how Jela posed any larger a threat than all that, and hoped firmly that the end of all Major Lamb had told her had the defeat of Krimeon.

"Palani." She spoke, rousing herself and the girl caught in her backyard. She gasped, jumping and spinning, the wild look in her eyes betraying how alone she thought she had been. One hand clasped a rusted pair of shears and the other…

"Your hair." She spoke dumbly, not able to move, just staring. The nomad lifted her other hand, curiously studying the chunk of bright red hair clutched there. She blinked a few times, then yelped as if startled and dashed the thing to the ground. The shears went with it, and she sprang away as if it would attack. The rest of her hair stood slightly out from her head, in strange tuffs as it was no longer held down by the weight of the rest.

"I – I wanted to change." She near whispered, not sounding convinced herself.

"So you… oh Palani." Livi crossed the yard, stopping short of her friend when she took another step back.

"I’m tired of crying! I don’t want to be the little girl anymore!" It was almost a demand, as if Livi had the power to make it so. She couldn’t, of course, and only stood ashamed that she had not noticed how deeply troubled the girl had been. Her thoughts had been eaten up with worrying over Major Lamb and everything his tidings implicated…

"I’m sorry." She ventured, coming closer as Palani dropped to retrieve the hair she’d thrown. It was strewn about the grass then, strands of red running over green like a festive creation. She soon gave it up, slashing fingers through it instead and making it a hopeless mess. Some strands were picked up by the late summer wind, brought to dance a measure away before settling back down again.

Palani breathed in, and.

"He’s your brother."

"Who?" Her heart skipped a beat, but the nomad didn’t look up.

"Ariel. He’s your brother too."

"He is?" She asked dumbly, not sure if she had heard the girl wrong or not. She only nodded, occupying her hands with tugging on her short hair. It seemed to want to curl up around her face, large bouncy curls that could spring free without the weight.

"He told me his father’s name was Eli Kelly. That’s the same as yours, though I don’t think either of you have shared that. His real name is ‘Noble Kelly’, you know."

"It is." She spoke it not as a question, but too dubiously for it to be a statement. Palani’s nodding grew fiercer, filling the silence with the sound of her shaky breaths. There seemed a time as her mind and insides aligned themselves again, though she couldn’t remember them jumping away. The nomad stood, abruptly, and started to leave.

"H-how?" She couldn’t find the will to question it, Palani’s voice had been firm, grave, there was mistake in her claim. Sunlight glinted off her hair when she stopped, they stood separate and staring at one another for a long time.

"That’s what I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. Ariel told me that his father left their family for Myst, came home with another woman, and his name was Eli Kelly. That’s your father’s name too isn’t it? I’m sure you told me that in Noellia." Speaking defensively, as if the shock on Livi’s face was to convey the measure of her doubt, she crossed her arms over her chest.

The slight Tsugeokan could hardly recognize her friend in her new skin. She was hard, unyielding, the tears that normally would have coursed down her cheeks were absent and in their place was a jutting lower jaw. Her face was hard, angry, and… hurt.

"Palani…" She started, closing the distance between them in a few long steps. She tried to pull away, but Livi was more insistent. "Thank you." There was another moment when she thought the nomad would try to pull away, a brief tug of tension between them, but then her arms swung around her back in a fierceness she recognized. Holding her resolve to keep from crying in a way that made Livi very proud, she returned the embrace and spoke between shaky breaths.

"I don’t want him to stay. I don’t want to be alone and I only told you that because I wanted you to make him come because he’s your brother. I don’t want to feel like this anymore, but then I’ll have to be alone!"

Livi had taken to stroking the back of her head, smiling at nothing in particular.

"Silly girl," she shook her head. "You’re not."