A Shard Of Memory (Teaser Chapter)

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“Shay. Shaellyn!”

Belatedly, I realize someone’s talking to me. I turn from the glass I'm wiping out behind the bar of the Land’s End Alehouse, the little tavern I run. The voice sounds like it’s coming from the main room, so I scan the tables. They're mismatched in style, but have all weathered down to about the same color after years of use. Only a few of them are full of people right now. There's a hint of a breeze coming in through the wide wooden shutters, rustling the colorful hangings I've tacked to the walls and bringing the smells of briny sea air and sun-baked stone with it. I hear people talking and laughing as usual, but none of them seem to be talking to me.

I look around again and spot my brother, standing in the doorway backlit by the scorching midday sun. Even with that I can see his cheeks are flushed, nearly as red as his mop of coppery hair.

I raise an eyebrow. “What, Emrys?”

He’s eighteen to my twenty, but he sometimes seems a lot younger than that.

Emrys pulls up a bar stool and grins impishly at me. “Gavin kissed me.”

I smile a little and try not to roll my eyes. Emrys and Gavin have been dancing around the idea of being a couple ever since they hit puberty, but they’ve never actually done anything about it until now. “Good for you. Why aren’t you with him?”

My little brother’s grin turns into an embarrassed grimace.

“I chickened out.” He mumbles, quiet enough that only I can hear. “Never kissed somebody that important before.”

I shake my head, utterly mystified. “I thought that was why you wanted to kiss him.”

He sighs loudly and puts one hand on his hip. Drama queen. “You just don’t understand it, do you?”

“I’m glad I don’t, seeing how it’s addled your head so much lately,” I retort. “If you want to talk to somebody who cares about romance, go gabble at one of those silly tablemaids. Better yet, do what you’re supposed to be doing and get back to working out how much the baker short-changed us last week.”

Emrys groans. “Why did I get stuck with the most practical, heartless person in Elloris for a sister?"

Since I don’t reply, he stops whining and trudges over to the account book waiting for him at a table near a sunny window. I go back to washing out the last of the glasses. Turning on our new radio, I flip through the only four stations we pick up out here, stopping when I find something I actually want to listen to. Shaking my hips and lip-syncing to the music, I finish the supplies inventory, ticking off the new bread and fancy smuggled liquors I haggled my ass off to get from the pirate captains. By then Emrys is done with the account book and has started dancing around too.

When the song ends, I switch the radio off and sigh contentedly.

Another morning’s work done, and I can rest for a bit before more customers start coming later in the day. Day drinking is plenty common around here, but there’s still jobs for most people to go to. Business tends to pick up more when they get off work and are too tired to fix their own food and drink. One good thing about the summer heat, it draws more customers because we’re one of the only places in town with an electric fan. It’s a creaky, rickety thing, hooked up by fraying wires to our enchanted suncatcher crystals on the roof, but it still keeps us and the patrons cool.

As I’m about to head outside, a familiar deep voice calls, “Hey, anybody home?”

I grin and walk to the door just in time to get swept up in a crushing hug that smells like jasmine and damp moss. When the hugger puts me down, I brush my braids out of my eyes, then look up, and up, and up to a scarred, grinning face topped by a wild halo of dark curls with bunches of colorful flowers stuck in them.

“Good to see you, Twister.” I say cheerfully.

She laughs, “You too. Where’s that scamp Emrys?”

“Right here,” he calls from the back room, coming out for a hug of his own.

Emrys and I aren’t generally the most touchy-feely people, but it’s impossible not to be affectionate when you’re around Twister. She’s just such a lively, happy presence who always seems to know exactly what you need to hear. It’s probably why she’s made more money as a wandering storyteller than I’ve made in all the years I’ve worked at the Land’s End. She’s the one who helped me and Emrys start working at the tavern after we came to the South Coast. We still chat when she comes to visit, and she's sort of adopted us as her honorary niece and nephew.

Twister plunks herself down on a bench and starts rummaging in one of her many leather bags and pouches. I grab her a glass of her favorite mead and sit down too, pushing it across the table to her. “This one’s on the house.”

She grins, “Aww. You’ve kept that good heart, haven’t you, pirrita?”

I look down and smile, embarrassed that she still uses my old pet name. It means a kind of crunchy pastry that’s usually filled with honey, spiced starfruit, and a bit of cayenne.

“It’s sweet with some bite to it, just like you,” she always says, whenever I complain about it.

I don’t complain this time, since I’m glad to see her.

“So what brings you to Raqut?” Emrys asks.

She could just be stopping through to buy supplies—especially since Raqut’s the biggest city on the South Coast of Elloris—but knowing her, she probably has a more interesting reason.

“This, for one,” Twister says, holding up a garland of colorful little blown-glass lanterns and two pulled and twisted green glass amulets. “I finally took that sea trip to Avortia, and since they’re famous for their glass, I thought I’d bring some souvenirs back.”

I grin as she hands them to me. “Thank you! These will look great hanging over the bar all lit up.”

Twister nods, “I thought you’d like them. I’ve got a more serious reason too, though.”

“What?”

She sighs and takes a swig of mead. “I wouldn’t put much truth to it, but there’ve been rumors up in the mountains that the Qaret Mysterium is heading south.”

My heart jumps in my chest and starts beating double-time. I take a deep breath, forcing myself to stay calm. “But they're just rumors, right? I thought there was nothing down here they thought was worth the trouble of conquering. We're not even a proper country.”

“That’s what I thought too, but apparently some of the bandits who’ve been raiding Northern trade roads lately say they’ve been sending scouts and surveyors to inspect Mount Idazi.”

“So . . . that means . . .” I leave the end of the sentence dangling, half hoping Twister won't finish it for me.

But she does. “That means either the bandits were drunker than usual, or the Mysterium has found out about the opal mines.”

Mount Idazi opals are some of the best in the world, and the Raqut City Council—corrupt as it is—has done well at their job protecting the exact location and workings of the mines from anyone who isn’t a South Coast native. Even they know that if our opals get too much attention, the so-called Muck Coast of Elloris will become prime bait for colonists from other places. Despite all our differences, nobody here wants to be under the thumb of some foreign tyrant, and the Qaret Mysterium makes most tyrants look like fluffy baby chicks.

The Mysterium are a group of dark mages who have been slowly taking over the world by magically memory-wiping entire countries at once after killing their heads of state. They’ll brainwash everybody else into thinking that the Mysterium were always in charge and the memory blackout was just some kind of accident. Nobody knows how they do it; it’s not something that should even be possible, but everyone knows they can’t be stopped.

I grimace, “It’s likely the bandits were just drunk, but thanks for the tip-off. I’ll get some emergency plans made. What will you do if it’s true?”

“Go somewhere else, like I always do, take as many needy souls with me as I can,” she shrugs. “Who knows, maybe I’ll finally get to see Mkolo, or Jibran.”

We chat a bit more, trying to ignore the subject of the Qaret Mysterium, which is now as uncomfortably obvious as a squawking parrot flock in the room.

After Twister leaves and there’s a lull in customers, I hang up the lanterns she brought. Or, I try to. My hands are shaking so badly I keep hammering my thumb instead of the nail. After a few minutes of watching me yell and curse, Emrys sighs, “Oh, let me do it. What’s got you so rattled, anyway?”

“You know perfectly well what,” I grumble.

Emrys snorts, hammering in the last nail, “What, you think those bandits were right? Shaellyn, they lie and cheat for a living. You’d have to be a prize fool to let their drunk babble scare you. You’re a lot of things, but you’re no fool.”

“Thanks,” I say, trying for my usual wry sarcasm.

Instead, it comes out soft and wobbly, like I’m about to cry. I never cry in front of people. Not even in front of Emrys. Hardly ever even when I’m alone.

He frowns, stepping down from the stool he’s standing on. “You really are scared, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m tired, okay? I’m just tired because I stayed up late last night.”

“Shay–”

“You know what? I’m also tired of keeping you out of trouble, tired of trying to get you to actually help out here when you don’t ever take anything seriously. All you want to do is flirt with Gavin and cause trouble while I do all the work of trying to keep us fed and alive!” I snap.

I can’t help it. I’m so overloaded with feelings I’ve been trying to shove away for the last ten years, feelings all dredged up again by Twister’s news. I hate having to hurt my brother like this, but it’s the only way I can think of to make him leave me alone. I can’t deal with this right now.

Emrys’s face turns to shock, then hurt, then hardens into anger. “Fine! You’re tired of me? Then I’m leaving. I bet you won’t even care.”

He runs up the stairs to the rooms over the tavern where we live and comes down a few minutes later carrying a full backpack with a bedroll on top.

He turns in the doorway and glares at me, “I bet you’ll forget about me, just like our parents did!”

I gasp at the low blow, then turn away and stomp back to the bar, shoving my feelings down, deep down where I won't notice them. Finally, I can manage to plaster on a smile and greet the tablemaids as they come in to start their work. By the time the first customers of the evening arrive, the smile is convincing enough that even I can half believe it’s a normal night. I refuse to check the front windows for any sign of Emrys, losing myself in my work until I’m thinking about nothing else.

By closing time, he still isn’t back. That’s when I start to worry. Emrys is sensitive and hotheaded enough that he threatens to run off every time we have a big enough fight, but he always comes back after a few hours once he’s cooled down.

What if he got a crew of pirates mad at him again and now he’s laying in the gutter somewhere with a broken leg?

What if he did something stupid and got put in the Hellhole, Raqut’s equivalent of a prison?

What if he really has run away and left me here alone?

As my customers finish their meals and start to drift out the door, those awful what-if thoughts keep scratching at my mind. Even after all the clean-up is done and I’ve sent the tablemaids and kitchen helpers home, I can’t bring myself to bolt the doors and windows and go up to bed. So I plunk myself down in a chair at one of the empty tables and sit with my head in my hands, trying not to cry. It doesn’t work. My breath hitches into hiccupy gasps as the hot tears start rolling down my cheeks. They pool in my palms, seeping out between my fingers. I wipe them on my threadbare jeans and clamp my hands over my mouth, trying not to be loud enough that the neighbors can hear me.

I’m furious at myself for yelling at Emrys like that, but more so, I’m scared.

The Qaret Mysterium took my home country, Lyronael, when I was ten years old. For some reason their memory magic didn’t work on Emrys, me, or about twenty other kids. It worked on our parents, though. I’ll never forget the confused, angry looks on their faces at finding what they thought were street children in their house. Or the way Emrys didn’t understand what had happened, and kept trying to hug them and talk to them while they were shoving him away.

Then the Mysterium tried to capture us. I still have wake-up-screaming nightmares about their soldiers, so heavily armored that they looked more like giant metal insects than people, chasing us in their tanks. I led the other kids into the woods outside town that night and we climbed into the trees, us older children keeping the younger ones quiet until the soldiers passed. It took months for us to make our way south. My parents were hunters on the side and I’d learned a bit of wildcraft from them. That along with sheer dumb luck was the only reason we survived.

Finally they stopped chasing us, and not long after that we met Twister. I remember when she strode into the little clearing where we’d made camp, me yelling for everyone to get back and threatening her with a big knife I’d stolen. I never would have thought she’d turn out to be our closest friend, the one who found us all homes and jobs here in Raqut.

And now the Mysterium is trying to take my second home too.

I’ll lose everything. The Land’s End, the bustling markets, the smell of the sea breeze on the rare mornings when the air isn’t humid and stinky. My friends, who I brought all the way here to safety and I still keep in touch with. Maybe even Twister. I might have already lost Emrys.

I’m not sure how long I sit there crying before the door creaks open. My head snaps up, and there’s my brother, setting his bag down and rushing to sit next to me.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out before he can ask what’s wrong. “I was a jerk to say those things, and they’re not true. I didn’t mean any of it.”

Emrys reaches out his hand, and I squeeze it gratefully. “I know, I’m not mad anymore. You were just freaked out.”

I nod, too tired to deal with hiding my feelings, “Still am. We could be losing everything.” I pause, unsure what else to say. “I thought I’d lost you, too.”

He squeezes my hand again. “You won’t, I promise.”

I give a shaky grin. “Yeah. No way am I letting that happen.”

Then I hiccup loudly, startling a laugh out of us both. “Okay, you should take something for those,” Emrys says, going to the cabinet under the bar and pouring me a little vial of hiccup potion.

I drink it, grimacing at the foul rotten-egg taste.

“Let’s get to bed.”

“But I need to make plans,” I protest.

Emrys crosses his arms. He’s clearly going to be stubborn about this. “It’s past midnight. Plans can wait till you’ve slept.”

“Mother hen,” I tease, already bolting the door and heading for the stairs.

“Father hen,” He corrects me.

“That’s a rooster, dummy.”

We both laugh as I wave goodnight and close my bedroom door. He’s right, I am tired. Plans can wait till morning. Maybe things will make more sense in the light of a new day.

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