Drusk
Imove like a puppet held up with strings, going through the motions. I call guards and send them out, because it’s protocol. Then I wait. For endless seconds, minutes, or hours, I wait. Then I listen to them, nod, and return to my base.
I teach the folk at the edge of the marshes. I chose the spot knowing I’d stay out of the way—nothing flourishes so close to the damp swamps, except for kappas and redcaps. It’s far enough away from the halls to avoid accidents when our lessons don’t go according to plan. That is, every other day. Accidental fires and explosions are part of our routine.
One day, months into our confinement, a building popped up overnight. I still don’t know who is responsible for building it. My students, any of the lords, the high queen herself. I never bothered to ask. It’s a simple one-story structure with a few studies, a library, and a large training area—useful for our purposes.
One day, a general walked in and asked me which of my students could be sent out of Whitecroft. We’d survived a few years rationing the extensive Whitecroft pantry, thanks to the way of the folk with nature. Give us one dying apple tree, and by the end of a song, it’ll bear a hundred ripe fruits, sweet to the tongue and ready for picking. For all that, we needed seeds, for hay and wheat. We needed pigs and horses. Our healers needed some herbs, too. The task had been taken on by knights at first, but some never returned, and those left weren’t enough to provide for everyone in our fortress. Our city.
I selected my best students and accompanied them. Daunting as the first excursion may have been, we all returned, with as much as we could carry, riding stolen horses. It wasn’t hard to whisper in their ears and convince them to leave their mortal owners behind. Humans have never quite understood the way of beasts.
Now, Whitecroft is independent. My rangers are efficient at what they do, and we no longer need to leave for food or cattle.
We leave for hope. We retrieve spells, enchanted stones, crystals, that the high lords study in search of a way to save us.
It all feels so useless to me, but every time the rangers leave the barrier of Whitecroft, the folk sing and pray for us. We give them something to hold on to. Even I know that’s important.
When I reach our base, Iola is beaming with pride at having completed her first assignment successfully. She holds a grimoire in her hands, almost reverently.
Part of me wants to tell her it won’t do any good. That nothing in these moldy pages will save us. That nothing can. I feel like lashing out, hitting something, spewing venom.
I feel likeme. Who, and what I used to be. Rystan Drusk. Not his shadow.
And I know why.
“Is everything all right, boss?” Erdun seems unsure how to approach me, sensing a difference in me, no doubt.
I didn’t know him before Whitecroft. As a rakshasa, I think he was half-wild—living on a diet of sprites stupid enough to wander into his territory, more often than not. Now, he stands awkwardly, upright on his four limbs, his pale gray skin covered in soft fur. His mouth is filled with sharp fangs, his amber eyes circled with black shadows, and his flat pink nose gives him a feline air.
I suspect he favored the shape of a tiger in the past.
Most of us aren’t what we used to be.
I nod curtly, and see him hesitate, as though he’d like to press on. He daren’t.
“Report,” I tell Iola, though I don’t need it. I was right alongside her for most of our mission to the Court of Mist.
Vlari’s home. Where she grew up. For years, it had held untold mysteries. I’d have given everything I owned for the pleasure of a visit. I listened to every rumor, read every line I could find about the northernmost unseelie kingdom to the west.
I snuck inside her manor without so much as thinking of her today. Without seeking her rooms, or recalling the one time I crossed the threshold, so long ago, introducing myself to her parents before escorting her to a ball.
A lifetime ago.
This early afternoon, I was still dead. Still unfeeling. Still unbreakable.
Now, I question everything.
I’ve always needed answers; the reason I hadn’t sought them until now was because I suspected they wouldn’t be ones I want to hear.
The semblance of a decision starts to form at the edge of my mind, but I allow myself a few moments to ignore it. After pretending to listen to Iola, I serve myself a bowl of stew, and push the broth around my bowl until there’s no delaying the inevitable.
I stand, bid my companions a good night, and mechanically walk to the one place I’ve avoided for ten years. The one place that’s been drawing me in.
I stop in front of gates manned by a mammoth of a moss-green-skinned troll and a stockier, shorter boggart with pointed teeth smeared with blood. Neither of them could have posed much of a threat to me, but they’re certainly suitable guards. I suspect one would think twice before approaching them with ill intent.
There are thousands of folk in Whitecroft. I suspect I’ve encountered them both once or twice around bonfires, but we haven’t been introduced. If they know who I am, they also know I don’t have any reason to be here, at the gates of my old school that now serves as the high queen’s keep. I’ll have to identify myself and state my purpose here.
My name opens many doors; since the lords of the realm have started coming to me with assignments, the folk see me as someone of import, someone worth befriending. That said, I don’t think either of these guards will be much impressed by me. And what is my purpose, exactly? Demanding answers of the high queen? Asking her how her comatose daughter could have possibly come to a sprite’s aid? Shouting, stomping my foot, threatening until I am heard?
