Threshold

The sky was just beginning to lighten on its ocean edge as I stumbled through my grandmother’s door. My hands ached from the cold and my feet were numb--no better than hams attached to my ankles. At least the cut on my foot had stopped stinging. I lumbered through the cottage, catching a glimpse of blue lips as I passed the hall mirror. I tried to brush the hair out of my face, but the stringy sandy locks only ensnared my fingers. I collapsed into a wicker chair, pulling an afghan across my lap.

“Sweat Leaf!”

I flinched for a moment. I should have known my grandmother would be up. She’d been the sun’s wake-up call for as long as I could remember—any hope of not being noticed was both ill-founded and irreparably dashed. My grandmother stood in the doorway to the kitchen, an apron wrapped around her plump waist.

“Have you been out all night fighting sand monsters?” Despite the lightheartedness, I recognized the worry in her voice.

I brushed some sand off of the afghan and glanced at my grandmother sheepishly. “I fell into the ocean.”

“That I see. I’m just a bit worried about what sea-nasty pulled ye in. Come then.” My grandmother marched towards the washing room. I followed. It was always easiest just to listen.

“Now what bit of sorcery pulled ye from your bed and to the waters in the middle of the night, Scarlett, dear?” She asked as she set a kettle to boil and proceeded to draw a bath.

“I needed to think.”

“I find it easiest to think when my toes aren’t resembling the northern tundra.”

“A swim wasn’t my plan.”

“I should hope not. Unless swimwear has drastically changed since I last went into town.”
I glanced down at my bedraggled dress, a sopping mess of sand and salt.

“Is sand the worst of it?” she asked.

“Well…”

“I thought ye were in the ocean, not the well,” She replied keenly. “Off with it then, let me see the affliction.”

I peeled away layers of sand and fabric, discarding the soiled garments. I rinsed my foot in the warming bath, twisting to expose the scraped underside. My grandmother clucked, taking a moment to examine the wound before moving on to my shoulder. She ran her worn hands across the tender skin, tsking as she explored.

I took the moment to glance around the room, not caring to watch as she investigated bone and flesh. My grandmother’s house was well-loved. It was easy to see that she’d raised a son in the home after moving away from Caerwyn. The building itself was modest, not looking like much more than the houses all around Lasko, but my father’s money had found its way in. There was running water, a cast iron stove, and exquisite wood furniture. My grandmother still used candles, but there were plenty of glow stones about, a pair humming above my bath. The bathtub itself was much finer than any other found in town—which wasn’t really saying much, considering most people just used the hot spring. Still, the wood was smooth, and it only took a few kettles of water to warm. Despite the niceties, my grandmother’s hand could be seen in everything. The chairs in the main room were covered in handmade blankets, the drapes were all hand sewn, and the walls were covered in paintings.

“Just a bit of a scrape and a nasty bruise. It’ll be chancy, but I think ye’ll live.” She concluded. “Now into the bath, before your filth gets everywhere.”

I obeyed. The warmth reached into me, pulling away the tenseness and ache of the cold. My Companion hummed on my wrist, finally settling after the bought with frozen limbs. I scraped the sand out of its crevices, once again revealing its dark shine. The water tingled all around my feet, where blood flow was rediscovering the slumbering skin. I sighed. My grandmother returned with soap and a sturdy hairbrush. The weathered woman attacked the gnarled mess rooted to my scalp while I scrubbed away the sand.

After the water cooled, I climbed out of the bath and into exhaustion’s arms. My grandmother just managed to get some night clothes on me before I collapsed into bed.

I was immediately aware that it was a bit past lunch. At least long enough for the scent of chicken broth to adequately seep itself into every bit of the cottage. And long enough for the sun to be well on its way back towards the horizon.

“Good afternoon, Scarlett!”

I froze in the doorway of the kitchen, suddenly grateful I’d taken the extra moments to put on a pair of breeches and an appropriate blouse. Still, my tutor wouldn’t have been happy that I was wearing pants in front of a gentleman. Even a gentleman I’d known my entire life.

“Hello, Nicolaus.” I said with a yawn. Nicolaus was lounging in one of the wooden chairs, balanced on two of its legs as he leaned back against the wall. A cold glass of my grandmother’s citrus drink sat in front of him, glistening in the sunlight that lit his blonde hair on fire. “I didn’t know you’d be on the coast this weekend.”

“My aunt needed some chores done. Even as painful as it was to pull myself away from mysterious skin conditions to spend a week on the sunny coast, I knew it was my duty to help the woman that had fed me so many vegetables as a boy,” Nic replied with a mischievous grin. There were few times his lips weren’t twisted in a smile.

“And who am I to sit in the presence of such a saint.” I snorted, taking a seat beside him. “Seen a few interesting skin conditions then?”

“Something’s running amuck in North Caerwyn. Lots of puss and itching. Probably dragon pox.”

“Dragon pox is a hoax to get kids to stay in bed at night, and you know it.”

“Well, who am I to declare the nonexistence of such an esteemed disease?”
I bit back a chuckle as my grandmother came traipsing into the room, carrying a bag of tubers from the cellar.

“Sweet leaf! I was afraid the sleep elves might have gotten ye. Are you quite rested then?”

“Well enough.”

“Good, then ye won’t mind helping clean and cut some goodies for supper. Ye too, lad. Ye can make yerself at home, as long as yer makin’ yerself useful,” my grandmother warned.

“Yes, m’lady! I am at your command,” Nic proclaimed, jumping from his seat and taking a lavish bow. He towered over my grandmother, her head missing his shoulder by a few inches. Nic was lean, about as spindly as a horse, with broad enough shoulders to let people know that he was on the edge of manhood. His features, however, held boyish wonder.

My grandmother chuckled and handed him a few potatoes and a knife. I grabbed a pot to fill with water, but about dropped it when a jolt of pain ran up my sore arm. I sucked a breath through my teeth, and gingerly set the pot back down.

“Are you hurt?” Nic asked, his eyes suddenly filled with the intensity of purpose. Everything Nic did was filled with intensity, even his jokes and jests were undercut by an acute awareness. I had never met anyone so engaged with everything he did.

“Just a bruise and some scrapes.”

“That reminds me! I spent a bit o’ the morning mixin’ up a salve for ye,” my grandmother sang, jumping to grab a bowl from the counter.

“Well, can I take a look?” Nic asked, wiping his hands on a towel before retrieving a black ring from his breast pocket.

“That might not be a bad idea,” I replied.

“Oh, nonsense! A bit o’ salve and ye’ll be good as new before ye know it,” my grandmother protested, pushing me into a chair.

“A bit of salve isn’t going to work on my shoulder, so father would call a medic anyway.”

“Well o’ course it won’t! Yer shoulder needs a bit o’ rest and maybe a cool wrap.” My grandmother pulled up a stool and dragged my foot up into her lap.

“Grandmother, a medic is just going to heal it as soon as I get back to town!”

“Well, ye aren’t in town, now are ye?”

“Well neither is Nic. He’s right here.” I sighed. My father had definitely gotten his stubbornness from somewhere.

“Ma’am,” Nic broke in, “you would be doing me a favor to let me take a look. Maybe seeing what happened with Scarlett will let me help someone better in the future.” Somehow Nic had dug up the sincere innocence of his childhood.

My grandmother held Nic’s gaze for moment before sighing and waving him on. “If ye must.” Even after all of the years, my grandmother still couldn’t resist his requests. “But my salve would fix ye up right quick, better than muddling about with yer symbionts.” My grandmother had always been proud of what my father had done with symbionts, allowing for quickened healing and more thorough medical care, she’d just believed they were for people who weren’t as capable as she was.

“Thank you.”

My grandmother huffed a reply as she headed off towards the sewing room. Nic rolled up his sleeves, revealing a symbiont twice the size of mine clinging to his left wrist. He moved the stool to sit beside me and gingerly took my wrist. The black ring on his right hand started to hum as he let it rest against my symbiont. A moment later he closed his eyes. In a way, I knew what he was doing. I knew he was using the relay, the ring, to connect with my symbiont. I knew he could then use his symbiont to probe my injuries and direct healing. I just didn’t know what it was like. Only medics and the more capable physicians were given the specialized symbionts that could communicate with and instruct other symbionts. Nic had trained for years to earn his, but even then, all he could give me were vague descriptions and a lot of empty phrases to describe the experience.

“So, there seems to be quite a bruise on your shoulder.”

“I could have told you that.”
Nic’s eyes snapped open and gave me an icy stare. “Do you want me to help or not?”

“I suppose so,” I replied tiresomely. I got a smile from Nic before he returned to his work.
I tried my best not to flinch as Nice placed a hand on my shoulder. For a reason my father couldn’t explain, the distance between the medic’s symbiont and the injury effected the healing capabilities. I just figured it helped them focus. A sudden warmth grew in my shoulder and my symbiont buzzed on my wrist. A deep ache came next—another phenomenon we hadn’t explained—an ache that gripped my shoulder and intensified as Nic worked. A moment later Nic pulled away, looking a bit worn.

“How’s that feel?”

I rotated my shoulder, waiting a moment for the ache to subside. “Good. A dragon’s-worth better than it felt this morning.”

“Well, that is my job. Let know if it bothers you again?”

“Of course.”

“Ye right done then?” My grandmother called from the sewing room.

“Just about, Lady Ruth!”

“Nic, you should probably let her use the salve,” I counseled. “The scrapes are already healing anyway.”

“Fair enough. I should trek back to my Aunt’s anyway. She’ll be expecting me to help with dinner.”

“Thanks for stopping by.”

“It was that or eat vegetables.” Nic chuckled and grabbed his cloak off the doorframe. “Thank you, Lady Ruth, for the wonderful citrus drink!” He called as he disappeared through the door.

“Figures he’d leave before the cookin’ started.” My grandmother mumbled from the hall.

My father arrived that night, but he was preoccupied with some bit of business. I’d spent the rest of the afternoon hobbling around the cottage, babying my wounds and wrestling with my thoughts. My grandmother knew better than to believe my exaggerated lameness, but I figured she enjoyed babying me about as much as I enjoyed taking it easy. My grandmother, on the other hand, had bounced about the house, canning fruits, knitting some more, cleaning the stove, then cooking dinner. She’d never been one to sit idly.

Usually my father wouldn’t take the time to pick me up from somewhere—he’d much rather just send a carriage—but in some way, I figured he thought it counted as visiting his mother.

In that way, maybe he did have some sense of family.

He had her nose. And her lips, too, but her petite statue had been left out of the equation. My father was tall and spindly, his slim features accentuating the cool intellect behind his eyes. He hadn’t inherited her warmth either. Each of his movements were precise, not a motion wasted. At times, though, I could see that’d he’d been raised by her. Little moments, little actions that pointed to her.

Then again, after raising him by herself, something was bound to rub off.

“Are you ready, Scarlett?” My father asked brusquely, pulling away from a short hug with my grandmother. He barely offered me a glance before turning on his heal and marching back to the carriage.

“Care for yourself, Sweet Leaf,” my grandmother called sincerely.

“I will. Thank you.” I offered as I rushed out the door.

Caerwyn was a two hour trip by carriage from Lasko, one I usually slept through. As the moon rose in the sky though, sleep wouldn’t come. As soon as slumber dared to visit, crashing waves or crushing dark would flood my mind. I found myself just staring to the stars, wondering what the point of it all was anyway.

“Does anyone use Bind symbionts in this area?” I asked at last.
My father looked up from his papers. He took a moment to read my face before answering, “The royal guard, of course, but mostly just barons in the south.”

“Oh. But could someone?”

“The possibility exists.” My father turned back to his work. I began to wonder how he managed to read in the limited light.

“Someone with one, they could, I mean, do pretty much whatever they want—well not really, because of the safeties, but—“

“Words are not for wasting, Scarlett,” My father admonished.

I bit back the rambling, trying to find a concise thread to my thoughts. “What I’m asking is, are they free to do as they wish apart from the programmed barriers?”
That really got my father to pause. He fixed me with a cold gaze. “They can only do that which does not disobey or threaten their masters,” he replied slowly.

“So if they wanted to—“

“They are slaves, Scarlett. They have no will. They are simply tools to be used. They may be allowed a measure of initiative, but even that is limited.”

“Oh.”

“Now, I thought you had actually put your education to use. Now if Miss Varion isn’t doing a proper job, I can find you a new tutor.”

“No, I guess I just never really thought about what it would be like to be them.”

“Why would you care? They are meant to serve. You are meant to be served.” Then his eyes lit. “You met one didn’t you?” There was a foreign intensity in his voice, an instant interest.

“Well…”

“Scarlett, did you meet a boy with a Bind Symbiont?”

Something deep in my being begged me to hesitate. Some caution I couldn’t identify asked me not to yield.

“You will answer me,” he growled, leaning across the carriage towards me.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“In Lasko?”

“Yes.”

My father’s papers were shoved to the side and he twisted to open the slit that peered out onto the coachman’s bench. “Stop at the first messenger post,” he commanded.
Then my father was once again hidden behind his papers, madly scribbling a note for the messenger.

“Grandma mentioned that I…” but I stopped myself. I knew he was already far away, carried by his thoughts.

I turned back to the stars.