Kitaryn

I sigh over the Moonbeam’s lengthy scroll of family records. It's little wonder I haven't found the sleep potion infraction. I need the Moonbrights. I slide the scroll back into its cubby and grab the correct one, scolding myself for the thousandth time about my lapsed attention.

Forgetting about Aodan and the Barleyblossoms worked–for part of a day. But every time I pass the lonely willow, its white turned icy in the overcast dim, I think of them. My work has stagnated, my mind slipping more often from papers into daydreams. I tell myself it is too soon to forget: that in a year, or ten, or fifty, I will not even remember the name Barleyblossom.

I carry the scroll to my desk. Plaensys is missing from the office and Chaleth sits in her place. It’s unusual but not unorthodox. Another glance around the low tables reveals that Trom, too, has disappeared. I shrug it off and sit.

No sooner do I find my cushion than I discover a small note written in Plaensys’ precise hand.

    "Fyr-Ceann,

The Ceann Willowbirth summons you to his office at your soonest convenience.

    Beautiful day,

    Plaensys"

Knowing my friend's habit, I flip the note.

"He seemed irritated, Kit. I think he noticed your work has been lax. I hope he is only worried about you.

    Best of luck!"

Dragged down by the weight of my dread, I heave myself from my seat on the floor and step quietly into the hall. At his door, I hesitate. It takes me a moment to square myself and tap. The heavy pine resonates at my soft touch.

“Kitaryn, come.”

I lower my head in penance and push open the door. The room is as oppressive as ever, its stone walls grand enough to make me feel small but near enough to close in on me.

Athyr sits upright on his pedestal, scratching at a scroll by candlelight. He doesn’t look up. “Sit.”

Head still down, I obey his command, tip-toeing so as not to disturb him while I cross the room. I sit on the hard stool across from him and wait. This seat is shorter than his pedestal, guaranteeing that no one will be taller than him when they sit–not that many reach his lean height anyway.

In the silence, my lips are rapidly brutalized by biting while my cursed imagination concocts punishments. I may be tasked with copying faded scrolls with fresh ink all night, as I once had when I missed an important deadline. I may be assigned to clean the offices and dust the libraries after hours for a few moons, as Chaleth had after she spilled tea on Plaensys’ desk.

Or I may be locked in the home office, alone, until I transcribe a book of his choosing. That is a favorite of his–though I rarely have needed it, unlike my bro–

Athyr places his quill in its stand. “Kitaryn, what’s wrong?”

His voice echoes deep against the stone walls.

I blink, my head jerking up. “W-what?”

“Fyra,” daughter, he says, “You come home on time. You eat, I believe you sleep, you even enter your workshop; thus I know you are not ill. Yet, for the last week, I have waited on your apology, not only to me but to Trom. You've a lot of work to do to repair that. Yet, you have not begged my pardon. In fact, I am led to believe you will not even beg his. Three days, and you've done nothing to correct your course.” He speaks each word precisely, as though his tongue is a knife sharpened on wet stones.

“And now,” he squints, holding back the silver fury in his eyes, “you cannot seem to complete a single task without the support of the secretary. So, child, what ails you? Because I cannot imagine that this is any form of rebellion.”

Bumps prickle my skin. I should have apologized to him; should have asked for his counsel on how to resolve my disagreement with Trom immediately after the festival. I should not have refused Trom at all.

I bow my  head to hide my stinging eyes. I know better than to cry. Not even from guilt. “I’m sorry, Athyr, I...” The sentence trails off, and I take a deep breath and brace myself. I must tell him the truth: I am ailed, and ailed greatly, with the desire for more. But to confess that directly will be to invite his disapproval. I must be tactical. If anyone can help me, it has to be him.

“Have you ever wished for anything... other than to lead the House of Tradition?”

“No.” The word bounces off cold walls.

“Never?”

“You are called to greater things than that family of Cultivators, my dear.”

A shudder washes through me. He knows. Plaensys? He could not know about the kiss, but about my secret wish for a kinder life. There’s no reason not to voice it. Is there?

 “It’s not truly about the Cultivators. It’s our family. My future. Athyr,” I swallow back my emotions, holding myself steady. “Our tree has been petrified for a long time; I fear there is no life left in it, and I’m struggling to see how I could possibly live well when all my efforts are dedicated to something... dead.” I wince at my own words. “I mean to say that perhaps I'm not meant to… follow…”

I trail off when he arches a heavy brow, reading me as a scroll rolled wide open. “You should let go of these ideas, Kitaryn. The Willow of the atrium is petrified, yes, but it stands across ages. It stands for something more than you and I: the birth of a nation, the strength of our path, our Tradition. Would you call that dead?”

I shake my head. It's our calling: lead the nation in the way it should go. The calling lives forever.

“Yet, you will kill the tree yourself if you keep reaching for a life not meant for you. The willow cannot live on the maples’ sap. You were not born for sweetness, but perfection. As Willowbirths, our future progeny must be the same.”

Sweetness. I think of my mother, of the earthen smell of clay and the whirr of the pottery wheel as she carefully, delicately shaped her art. She had treated me with that same dedicated gentleness. There had been warmth in her lap and under her hands. I remember my athyr scolding the poor woman, my mattan, for holding me while she worked. I can still feel the chill of the floor after being told to get down and “behave with some decorum.”

 I was barely school-aged. I cannot imagine recreating that. Not for any child of mine.

Isn’t a living tree lovelier than a dead one, anyway, even if it doesn’t stand as long? “But, why must it be me? Athyr, it’s not about the Ceannship. It’s... it’s the long nights alone and the cold hearth and... and–oh frosts–Trom is so incredibly boring, Athyr. I want to apologize to him. I do! I just don’t–”

“Trom,”–the flame of the candle flickers in the Ceann’s eyes, turning cold in their silvery depths–”is dedicated, precise, and willing to do exactly what is necessary to preserve Tradition and lead our culture. You would do well to do the same.”

“Maybe some sacrifices are too great for me.”

His jaw flexes as he leans back, tapping his fingers. “Perhaps it is time that I explained. Magic hides there: in the moments of connection, in the threads between us. It connects us to one another, but also to powers beyond us. Powers that would control us, even attempt to rule us. You must be the one to make the sacrifice. To be pure. Objective. It is us; it has always been us. It must always be.

“You asked if I ever desired something different. Yes. I made a mistake when I bargained to matron with your mother. She was too soft, too sweet with you. It is why you are weak now. I was a poor example to you of making the sacrifice. Do not make my mistakes.”

A rage burns in me, hearing his words. I can nearly smell the smoke of my own inner fire as it consumes me. “You would take the only elf who loved me and call her a mistake?” I speak low. I must not yell at him.

“We do not get to choose love, Kitaryn. We do not get to be loved.”

“Because we are Willowbirths? Because we choose Tradition? And for what? Because love is too powerful to be controlled?”

“Yes.”

 It's like a boot stomped out my fire.

I recoil. Embers still burn under the ashes, smoldering. “Is love itself against Tradition, then?”

“Against the Tradition of our family,” he says. “For to love is to invite whim, and whim leads us to chaos, and Chaos is the power of the gods.” His voice deepens, filling the room as it scatters off stone. “We do not serve gods. We must make this sacrifice. As the keepers of Tradition, we must protect the people from themselves.”

Love... leads us down the path to the old gods? That seems like a leap. Yet my athyr speaks with conviction. Not the invigorating conviction of the orators, but as a man who speaks an inevitable Truth. It's like cold water splashed on my face. I have a duty to my nation, and I’m denying it on a whim: on the faint idea that I could be happier elsewhere. The drops of water from that splash of reality form under my eyes.

Athyr reaches a hand toward me. “Kitaryn,” he offers in a steely whisper.

I place my hand in his. It's cold, like him, but not lifeless.

“I want to be loved, Athyr,” I whisper back. “And to love.”

“I know,” he says it with pain in his eyes. “And you will only regret it.”

I have seen my father’s regret when his gaze trails to the Goldencrowns every festival, when they land on Sanwryn, my mother. I never understood why. Until now. He might have loved her.

“Kit, there is much you still don’t know. The Willowbirths, we protect the people from knowledge that would destroy everything. Please, please do not abandon this purpose. Not you, too.”

My breath chokes in my throat. You, too. He speaks of my ardeten. He never speaks of my brother. Until this moment, I hadn't known what had passed between them.

I can remember the dusty shelves of the Archives of the Admonished, and my ardeten reading faerie tales to me in the dark. He was considered a child, but only barely. And I remember our Athyr’s anger. While I fled to the atrium, there was an argument. I had been frightened. Then, once I found them again, there had been a smell of smoke clinging to their clothes.

That had been when the rules changed, and access had become even more restricted to the libraries. 

That wasn't the biggest change. Where once my brother had been affectionate when our father was not looking, he had suddenly become distant, not even looking at me. I hadn’t known why. But now I did. Even before he’d run away, before he’d abandoned me and let me fulfill the Willowbirth calling alone, he’d betrayed us. He’d sought destructive knowledge. He’d tried to share it.

I will not be like him: a traitor. I will not walk away from my duty, from the calling.

I pull away my hand and bow. “Yes, Athyr, I will do my duty.” I rise and walk away. Despite the stomping and the splashing of cold water, the embers of my inner fire refuse to go out. Some part of me refuses to let go. I will do as I ought, I tell myself sternly. A tear trickles down my cheek, but I swipe it away as I step through the doorway into the main office.

There stands Aodan in his dirty work clothes looking as handsome as the sun itself. The weight of my duty has never felt heavier. He is bent over Plaensys’ desk, face twisted in anger, and he waves a paper in his hand at Chaleth. By the length and stiffness, I recognize it to be a formal warrant. “You’re telling me Kitaryn actually authorized the arrest of my mho-mattan?”

“It appears that way, sir.” Chaleth’s lashes flutter anxiously. She sends a pleading glance toward me.

For a hundred and fifty years, I have not questioned my purpose beyond the passing thought. Not even when my mattan begged me to leave my athyr behind and go with her. After everything, would I let something as simple as a family of Cultivators uproot me? No.

But, even if I cannot have love, that doesn’t mean I have to be cruel. And certainly, it does not mean someone’s grandmother needs to spend her days in a stone cell. The embers flare, and my fists squeeze. 

I know what my next duty will be. And it is not partnering with Trom; it is undoing his overstep. In his zeal, he's abused the very people he is sworn to guide.

Yes, I, Kitaryn Willowbirth, will lead the nation in the way it should go, and I will do it with compassion. Even if it disappoints my father.