Mindless

Chapter 18 Sihya

She doesn't go as far as she's supposed to. How could she, when those who saved her still faced the fire?

The clearing is trampled by their camp. The grass is flattened, branches are broken, and there are rings of stone and ash where they found warmth. Sihya isn't fool enough to hide in the open—she nestles in a tree a meter outside the clearing, an overgrown nest among the branches. As such, she would be able to see anyone who came looking for her while remaining safe from view. It's a reflex only—for the inhabitants of their kingdom, their forest border acts as an impregnable wall. Most lived and died without ever stepping foot beyond the trees.

And why should they? The arrival of the immigrés a score of years earlier is the only change of populace even the oldest villagers could remember. None else come, none leave. They do not trade or travel. They don't even know the name of the lands that surround them. When the immigrés came, they brought news of a world frightening and cruel, and the kingdom settled in its own safe borders.

Sihya climbs until the branches bend and sway beneath her. It's symbolic only: she can't see the village even from the highest branches, and simply seeing the village wouldn't tell her much. That which she wants to know hides behind the walls of the castle.

She's cold and hungry, having brought no supplies, and she debates the options before her. The queen would have her flee to the cabin. Jonah would have her go.

The twins had found the cabin when they were still orphans. Born to the shepherds of the East—or left there, at least—they had been turned out to the streets the moment they could find their own food. Who their parents were, how old they are, why they had been left behind—itches under the skin. For the first few years of their orphanage, the villagers fostered them with food, clothes, a place to sleep.

Born as one, raised as one, they found their way as one and began to fill their collective needs as their own strengths allowed. The villagers were more generous to Sihya's supplications, and so Jonah became a solemn child by his sister's side. Growing, Sihya begged their way into grace and Jonah preformed small works which kept them for a meal.

But the goodwill faded when they grew tall and gangly, when Sihya began to form and Jonah's voice cracked. Suddenly they were expected to find craftmasters—an opportunity they would have readily accepted had any craftmasters been willing to accept an apprentice with no history of dependability. No family friendships or favors to draw on. Nothing to inherit. Not even pity helped them.

They tried for months to find a master. They lived in an abandoned house for a while, under the tolerance of the villagers, eating from the forest and making their own clothes as they tried to find a living. Then the house had sold to a young couple willing to work on it, and the twins were pushed beyond the borders. They'd built a temporary shelter amongst the trees and faced the expected losses in the diminishment of their home. Then, one day, Jonah had found the cabin.

It was like a gift from the skies and trees together. Taking it as a hunting cabin long forgotten, they had claimed it immediately. It was a cold winter until they found and fixed the cracks, but it was more than branches. They didn't realize how far it was from the kingdom until they started going back for trading. Jonah had taken to hunting, Sihya to skinning, and pelts were the only thing they had to offer.

The queen found them that way, trading pelts for bread. They were little more than scenery—the villagers knew they belonged to the kingdom but not to any specific part. When Vahela took Sihya to the castle, her absence wasn't questioned. When she inserted Jonah in the North, his presence was unremarkable. Scenery.

A branch snaps.

"You went not where bidden," Jonah remarks.

Sihya smiles. "And yet you found me."