Stormday, Week 75, Month Septimus, Year of God 488

  Ultimately, Eri had decided to harvest clams yesterday. She had wanted to take her mind off of things. She had only harvested a single basket, however. She had been shaking due to the horrific comment the men had made. She had told her mother, who had laughed. “The Theocracy needs us. They treat us like dung, but we make their food. They won’t kill us anytime soon, even if their god demands it.” That had done little to dissuade Eri’s sinking feeling. Her fear had subsided since then, but a faint hint of dread nonetheless permeated her emotions.

  She pulled the meat out of another clam, tossing it in the salting pot. She then put the shell in a bucket by her feet. She looked at her pile of fresh clams. She had a lot left to shell. Only a few other people were in the room with her, the rest having gone to church. Despite each of them being native Mossflower Holdians, she wasn’t familiar with any of them. Sighing, she picked up another clam and began to scrape its underside.

  “Need a hand?” a deep yet quiet voice said. Eri jolted with a start, and turned to see the haunted, bearded man from yesterday. He looked significantly cleaner than he had yesterday, and his moustache was stained with soup. He smiled, but his eyes still looked distant.

  “Y, yes,” said Eri. “I’m Eri, by the way.”

  His eyes lightened a bit. “My name’s Kane.”

  “Nice to meet you, Kane,” Eri responded. A Rain Caste name? Or a shortened version of Kanius or Kantoricos? “We have to shell all these clams before the village gets back from church.”

  Without a word, Kane took up a spot next to Eri and began to shell the clams. The hours passed and the pile dwindled. As they worked, Eri explained to Kane about Mossflower Hold. She talked about its people, history and customs. When she asked Kane to share about his backstory, he didn’t respond. Eri didn’t blame him - he looked like he had been through a lot.

  Slowly, more workers began to trickle in. Quickly, they began to pitch in with the shelling, each person taking a pile of clams and separating the meat from the shell. Half an hour later, the work was completely done. They began to disperse, going about their days.

  “Man, I’m tired,” Eri groaned to no one in particular. “Gonna go to the common room and drink some mossbeer.” Making good on that statement, she walked down the hall to the taproom.

  A few minutes later, Eri found herself perched on a stool against the wall. A mug of foamy green beer was resting in her hand. Mossbeer had a bitter taste and didn’t get one drunk quickly, but it was still a decent drink. She took a sip of her drink and reclined against the wall. Standing around wasn’t as hard as gathering clams, but relaxing helped anyway. Her hands were aching and twitching from the repetitive motion of clam shelling.

  As she sipped her drink, she saw Kane enter the room. He got a mug of beer and began to move towards Eri.

  “Hello there,” he said as he sat down next to her. He was looking at Eri with an intent gaze, almost as if he had feelings for her.

  “Let’s get one thing strait,” Eri said in a serious voice. “I’m not attracted to men. If you are attracted to me, I do not return the feelings. I view you only as a friend.”

  Kane’s facial expression didn’t change. “Good, because I’m not attracted to you. I also view you as just a friend.”

  “Good,” Eri responded. “So do you like men? Women? Both?”

  Kane’s eyes turned down. “That was a personal question.”

  Eri blushed. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not very good at conversation. Either I’m too quiet or too loud, both physically and metaphorically.”

  “It’s all right,” said Kane. “I’m not really attracted to anyone in that way.”

  Eri nodded. “So, what did you do before you came here?”

  A haunted look entered Kane’s eyes. Eri immediately realized that she had gone too far. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that,” she stuttered.

  “I don’t know…” Kane groaned. “Oh well, now that I’m thinking about it, might as well tell you.”

  “Continue,” Eri said, interest entering her voice.

  “Okay,” Kane replied. “Here goes.”

  “My full name is Kane Equus. I was the third son of the Equus family. When my older brothers died, I was set up as heir. Problem was, I can’t use Lux.”

  “Ah,” Eri said. “That’s what happened.” She glanced at his forehead and saw the circular Sun Caste brand overlaid on his Rain Caste tattoo.

  Kane continued. “Yeah. I always was different from the others, even before I found out about my Lux inability. Take this story, for example.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “When I was about twelve or so, me and some other Rain Caste kids were playing together. Our parents wanted to determine if I could be matched with one of the girls from a different house. For us nobles, we couldn’t just love and marry anyone we wanted. It had to be political, give the house some kind of gain.

  “As I was repeatedly kicking a ball at the wall, Rycc Simiam came up to me. He asked me which of the girls I found attractive. Searching myself, I found that none of them were. I said so, and he laughed at me. Then he said, ‘Kane here doesn’t have a ball!’

  “So I began to flow with rage. He just insulted me! Then, I realized that, somehow, I wasn’t angry. I responded, ‘You mean ‘balls’’.

  “Rycc looked incredulously at me for a second, then he snatched the ball I was kicking away from me. He ran away and began to repeatedly shout, ‘No-balls, no-balls, Kane is a no-balls!’

  “The rest of the kids began to chant, boys and girls alike. They threw stuff at me, and it was all I could do to block my head. Rycc even used Lux to throw something extra hard at me. That injury hurt for months.” Kane chuckled, then continued to tell his tale.

  “Eventually, some guards showed up and told the kids to calm down. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that these young adults - 12, 13, 14 years old - were behaving like sundamn babies. The childishness of the insult was only the first hurdle in the race, however.”

  By this time, Eri had drained her beer. She felt sorrow even at the mere bullying Kane had experienced. She’d been teased before, but she never had stuff thrown at her.

  “The adults didn’t really care that I was being bullied. The reason the guards showed up was that Rycc had used Lux, and everyone was collectively punished. You need a good reason to be allowed to use Lux, and insulting someone wasn’t it.

  “The adults actually continued to bully me. My mother said that it wasn’t okay I wasn’t attracted to anyone, and I needed to be attracted to girls to marry into another noble house. My father became more sullen and cruel. He would beat me for even minor infractions. I didn’t know at the time I wasn’t attracted to anyone, and this experience was horrifying to a young teenager who had merely uttered a single sentence in response to a casual question.”

  “That’s horrible,” Eri said. “I thought rich people had it good.”

  “Most of us do,” Kane replied. “But, like I said, that was barely the beginning of my suffering.” His eyes filled with fear.

  “Around a year ago, my parents decided that I could never use Lux. I just wouldn’t manifest the ability. While it’s not uncommon for 16-year-old Wind Castemen to manifest their abilities at that point, if you’ve achieved puberty as a Rain Casteman, you most likely have Lux. My parents decided to have me imprisoned. I joined the Sun Caste.” He stopped speaking at this point. Eri completely understood. She knew what Sun Castemen went through, and that they rarely survived long enough to be promoted to farmer.

  Kane sat in silence for a few minutes, his beer untouched. His head drooped, and his eyes twitched a bit. Eri sat in silence too, her half-drunken mug of beer resting immobile in her hand. As the crowd of rejoicing farmers moved around them, laughing and chatting and drinking, Eri and Kane were immoving rocks, focused only on what laid inside their minds.

  Kane began to speak. “Did you hear what those cloaked men said the other day?” he asked.

  Eri started. She knew that Kane had seen them, but him bringing the event up nonetheless startled her. “Yeah, I did.”

  Kane gulped. A nervous look entered his eyes. “I might know about that.”

  “Really?” Eri asked. Suddenly, a mixture of curiosity and terror flooded into her. She wanted to know more about the men’s conversation, but did she really want to know?

  “Yeah,” Kane answered. A faraway look entered his eyes. “So, basically, you know how they read from the holy book at church?”

  “Do clams poop in the swamps?” Eri asked sarcastically.

  “Well,” Kane continued, “they read from different sections to Highchant-speakers. They only read to commoners from the abridged version of the holy texts. To us, they tell us a lot more stuff about destiny and prophecy and whatnot.”

  He took a sip from his beer. “This drink really hits the spot. Anyway, one day when I was around 15 or so, they gave a sermon. They said that when a third son of a fourth son of a fifth son is born into the nobility, that would mean that God was willing them to move forward with something called the Holy Will. I don’t remember the whole sermon, but they said that the Will involves sacrificing people not of the Blood Caste. Since I was the thirdborn son of this generation of Equus, and my father was the fourthborn son of the previous generation, I was a bit worried. I asked my father, and he said that his father was the firstborn son of the previous generation.”

  “Interesting,” Eri said. “They always tell us that the future isn’t predestined in our sermons.”

  “That’s just the lie they use to keep you unaware of what the high-ranking priests are up to,” Kane said matter-of-factly. “To us, they espoused more prophecies than a drunken oracle. Stuff about how families would interact, marry, betray each other. Where the heathens were moving and when they’d attack. Sometimes they were wrong, but often they were right. They predicted that ‘The bird would withdraw its favors from the horse.’ Well, a few days later, House Avis rescinded its marriage proposal between my sister Sand and their scion Dean. ‘Equus means ‘horse’ in Highchant and ‘Avis’ means ‘bird’.”

  “Weird,” Eri commented. “I’ve never heard of Lux doing that.”

  “Same,” Kane commented. “I don’t think it’s Lux.”

  Eri decided that she wouldn’t keep her thoughts in any longer. “I’m worried. I’m genuinely scared that they’re going to kill us all.”

  Kane grunted. “I know what that’s like. In fact, I’ve experienced it for myself.” He turned his head downward. Eri understood that he had been through some trauma.

  “We shouldn’t worry,” Eri said. “Let’s just keep an eye out, and if things seem different from normal, then we’ll worry.”

  “Agreed,” Kane replied. He drained the last of his drink. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Same,” Eri responded. The two of them got up and went to their separate sleeping chambers.

  Eri tossed and turned that night. As her family slept beside her, she couldn’t stop worrying about the potential doom they all faced. She calmed down by telling herself that there wasn’t definitive proof of the doom, and that she should just go about her life. But her instincts told her that there was danger. And Eri wasn’t one to immediately abandon her gut.