Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Creatures

A special creature was living in a home that was made up of three houses, sitting side-by-side, in the backstreets of Mitia, of the Stellan Empire. They were owned by Maria Veila, the most well known woman in the entire port city. She was the foster mother of twelve young orphans.

Maria was perfectly happy to tell anyone how hard it was to take care of the twelve young children, how irritating and needy they were, how they never cooked and cleaned for her unless she forced them to, how she had to find work for them to get through the weeks, and how they ran her towards insanity.

Maria was the first foster mother in the history of Mitia, as far as anyone knew, so there was no way to validate her complaints. But they listened to her, and they talked to her. They would also invite her to festivals and celebrations. But Maria would always reject their invitations, preferring to sit in her one comfy couch in the middle house, staring at the opposite wall, alone even though twelve kids were housed right by her.

Many knew Maria from when she was still a barmaid in Morgan’s Bar, the only bar and inn in the backstreets of Mitia. The bar was also well known, even though it had just opened recently, since it was safer to drink wine than their water in those days. The customers enjoyed Maria and knew her to be brusque yet kind, dangerous yet beautiful, with pearly white skin, like winter’s first snow, talking to everyone, giving them orders while she took theirs, and even kicking out the drunk and stupid. On holiday nights, when everyone in the bar would be laughing and cheering until the building threatened to collapse on them all, Maria would wear a mean face, because she found loud noises unpleasant. Her white lips would be pursed together, her nostrils would be flaring like a wild boar’s, and her bright hazel eyes would be as cold as frozen lake water. Everyone knew Maria’s mean face well, and they rightfully feared it.

But, strangely, they would call her kind. They called Maria kind, though she would yell and scream at her lazy boss, Morgan; though she would always insult men when they told her what to do; and though she called babies ugly and nasty and animals rude and dirty.

They called her kind because she could use her words to put a man’s spine back into shape, because she could yell a woman’s tears away, and because she could stare down a beast and civilize it. She had a power, they said, and though no one thought it was possible for a surlier woman to exist, they still called her kind.

It was cause for celebration when it was finally known, in the year 6652 on the Stellan Calendar, that Miss Maria was getting married. She was a full twenty years old, and it was only five years since her coming of age.

“I don’t believe,” said a regular of Morgan’s Bar, a man named Killian. “Morgan, it cannot be true.”

“Aye, Kil, it sure is,” said Morgan, the master of gossip in the backstreets. It had not been half a day since Maria had been proposed to, and already he knew everything he could about the engagement. He was sitting at a table with Killian and a few others, sharing free drinks.

“Deary!” shouted a maid, past her prime, slamming two large flagons of wine on the table all the men were at. “You, Killian, you’ve known her all yer life! You should be proud!”

Killian said, “I am, Lilly.”

“Then, what’s all this, ‘It can’t be true!’ You, with a frown and all lemon-sour! We’re celebrating, you know!”

“It’s just tough…”

“What is?”

“You know…” said Killian, muttering. “It’s seeing her getting tied to another…”

Morgan laughed and said, “What? Are you joking?”

“Why in blue seas would I be joking?” said Killian.

“Now I don’t believe it! You telling me you didn’t know?”

Killian stared at Morgan.

“She hated you!”

Morgan was a middle-aged man, but he had hair as grey as a rain cloud on a horizon. He was big as well and took up half a bench at the table. His nose looked as if they were inflated, swollen to the size of a peach. His eyes were as grey as his hair and beard, and they had kind lines around them. He filled several mugs with the flagons the barmaid had set down.

Killian sighed after a moment, and he said, “Yeah, I know.”

A man laughed, putting one of the stone mugs into Killian’s hands, and he said, “Kil, brother, remember that night Maria kicked you into a wall, head-first?” Everyone at the table laughed. “And then,” continued Killian’s friend, “then you was like, ‘Oh! Excuse me!’ like it was your fault your buttocks were in the way of her boot!”

“Aye,” said Killian, “she’s so pretty when she’s ornery.”

“She used to tell me to stop serving you!” said Morgan, and then he guzzled down an entire mug in one fell swig. “And know she didn’t use those words! What was it? Oh! She said, ‘That runt, ratty, roaring piece of dog dung! Why you keep letting him in? He’s just stinking up this place; that he is!’ That’s exactly what she says!”

The barmaid, Lilly, came back, bringing one more pitcher to the table, and she said, “Don’t you be lying, Morgan! She’d never say that!”

Morgan replied, “Oh, yes she would! She’d have me outta here too if my name weren’t on the front!”

“Oh, Lord, I can’t believe she’s getting married!” said Lilly, ignoring her boss. “I am just so happy for her! What’s the man’s name again, Morgan?”

Morgan, filling his mug again, said, “Lenn-something.”

“Who’s he?” asked Killian’s friend.

“He’s a city guard, from a family of city guards. Heard the governor glossed him over as all the other guards were sent off last summer ‘cause ‘a some special duties of his. More than that, they apparently wall him from relishing a fine drink now and then, ‘cause I haven’t seen him yet. I mean, he lives here in our very own backstreets, he does, but he can’t seem to find the time enough to visit us.”

“City guard, eh?” said Killian, staring at his mug, not thirsty at all. “Bet he’s upper on the scale, and drinks finer wine up in the castle whenever he wants to.”

“Hey, don’t be knocking my product right in front of me!” said Morgan, laughing.

“Bet he’s richer than me,” said Killian.

“Oy, drink it off,” said his friend, forcing the mug up to Killian’s lips. “Maria’s too pretty for you! There it is! Come on! Down it goes!” The mouthful of wine went smoothly down Killian’s throat. “There! Feel better? You just have to think: after she gets married, and she’s all happy, she’ll quit this place and you won’t have to see her anymore!”

Killian drank again.

“She’s as mean as a raigelle and as strong as a troll, she is,” consoled Morgan. “You don’t need a girl like her. You’d never see the light ‘a day, sharing a life with her.”

Before Morgan had finished, Killian had emptied his drink, and then he filled his cup again by himself.

“I can’t bring myself to do anything today!” said the maid, hovering by the table. “I’m just too happy, and don’t we know there’s not been much to celebrate… When is the ceremony?”

Morgan, having done nothing all day except drink and spread rumors, said, “How would I know?”

“You said you knew everything about it already!”

“She was just proposed to today! They’re not gonna decide that right away! If you wanna know, you’ll have to ask Maria tomorrow.”

And so she and everyone else did ask her. The next day, when Maria walked into the bar for work, all anyone did was ask her about her new fiancé and how she felt about it and her wedding plans. She told them all off, saying that if they were not there for business or a drink, they were to leave right away. She called the tenth person who asked her about the engagement a rancid dead beast of a man, butting into business that wasn’t his. The eleventh fared no better. She had her mean face on all day.

Yet they all still called her kind and were happy for her.

When Maria returned home, back into the backstreets, she found her fiancé waiting for her by the door with sunshine yellow flowers, and flowers only grew miles beyond the streets of Mitia, and he held her and said that he loved her, and Maria took off her mean face and held the man right back.

“Maria,” said Lenn, “I cannot let you live here anymore.”

Lenn was a handsome man, with a large chin and curly blonde hair. He was wearing his city guard uniform, a thick pale tunic and a leather belt which held a sword against his hip.

“Are you evicting me?” said Maria, who normally hated when people were sarcastic, even spilling a pint on a man’s head for the same crime once before. She smiled.

“Yes, Miss, effective immediately.”

“Aww… Is there, by particular chance, anything I can possibly do to change your mind?”

“Hmm. I do not know, Miss. You might have to get especially creative.”

Two weeks later, they got married, much to the chagrin of Killian. After the wedding, Maria came to the bar only once more to yell at Morgan and to say thank you.

“And don’t come back, witch-woman!” called Morgan after her, laughing his head off, feeling sad and happy all at once.

Maria did indeed move in with Lenn, into the middle house of three on Feral Street. The other two houses were to be for the children they were to have, and they planned on having so many children, like every other family in Mitia. They had many dreams, and they talked about them every night, about Lenn eventually being knighted for his family’s long line of service, about Maria running a full house and raising little noble boys and girls, because the children of a knight became noble, and about a bright future together.

***

It was not long until Maria was pregnant. In those nine months, as Maria got bigger and bigger, the two were as happy as could be. Lenn would laugh and say that everyday there was more of her to love.

Even the continent was growing in peace. The rest of city guards had come back from battle, so Lenn had little duty to attend to. So, with all the time he suddenly possessed, in expectation of his child’s birth, he built a cradle with his own hands. Having never been good with woodwork, be built seven of them in all; the first six they gave away to other families. The last one, the one which was strong enough to hold Lenn and Maria together, they kept for their child. They put it in the only room on the second floor of the middle house, and they put their best blankets in it, and the room seemed bright as Maria visited it every day.

But on the day that was to be their child’s birthday, Maria got sick. She was burning up like wildfire, sweating through the sheets over her straw mattress, flailing about in bed because she felt like exploding. Maria kept thinking, Just a few more hours, and then she’ll be out, and I’ll be all right again. She knew the baby was going to be a girl, because it was so gentle, never kicking her or being rough with her like a boy would.

Her fellow maid from Morgan’s Bar was with her. She had seven of her own children already, and had helped deliver five. She was telling Maria, “Fight, girl. Just keep on fighting.” She was holding Maria’s hands, and Maria was clamping down on hers, and Lenn was nowhere to be seen. Maria wanted him there, even though there was nothing he could do. He would be in the way, with his big body, his strong body. He would take care of her, he was always there for her, but why he wasn’t there now—Maria could not remember anymore.

LENN, she cried, but all that came out was a long, loud moan, and then she could feel it start.

It was not a girl. It was a boy. That day, Maria got sick and gave birth to a still baby boy, and Maria could not bear the silence.

***

Then, two months later, there was a battle near Mitia. The flames of war across the continent seemed to have been extinguished, a thirst quenched, but the hearts of creation are never satisfied with any quantity of blood. A rouge group of dwarves attacked a human village in the city’s outskirts. Once the news got to the governor’s castle, Mitia’s knights and the city guard were sent to confront the rebels, Lenn among them. The guards, not having armor like the knights or the dwarves, were slaughtered. As the men of the city guard fell, the knights rode in on their steeds and rampaged into the line of dwarves, literally annihilating them.

Maria, three days after the battle was over, had not slept at all. She rarely slept or ate anyways, not since that day, two months ago.

Lenn had not returned from the battle, but he was not proclaimed dead yet either. As men searched the bodies of the fallen, identifying them, Maria could not lay down her head for fear her Lenn would turn up the moment she did, and all she could think of was the child she bore, about how it looked when she first saw it, how quiet it was, and how quiet the house was then… Why isn’t he back yet? She kept thinking to herself. Why isn’t he here?

And then there was a knock at the door.

Maria opened it, and then sighed when it was just the maid she used to work with.

“Good morning,” said the maid.

Maria said, “Moring to you, too, Lilly. What brings you here?”

Maria was in shambles. She had not brushed her hair for a long, long time, so it looked like brown forest vines. The bags under her eyes had bags. Her youthful beauty seemed to be wasting away. She tried to smile, but it would not come, so she settled on scowling instead.

The maid, Lilly, noticed the deterioration. “I’m just visiting, Deary. May I come in?”

Lilly spent three hours brushing Maria’s hair until it was perfect. They were sitting on Maria’s couch, the only comfy couch in all of Feral Street. Lilly then held Maria’s hand, not saying a word, just looking at Maria’s hazel eyes, and then Maria let loose tears like there was no tomorrow.

But tomorrow did come, and with it another knock on the door. It was not the maid this time, but three men. Two were holding a wooden box, too short for Lenn’s body. The other was standing before Maria.

“Miss Maria Veila?” asked the man.

“That is I,” answered Maria.

“Wife of Lenn Veila?”

“Yes, that is I.”

And then they dropped the box containing the pieces of Lenn, and they told Maria that he was dead, and that everything they could find of him was in the coffin, but it was not a coffin to Maria. She had to look, she had to, and it was Lenn, and it was not Lenn, and Maria did not cry that time. She closed the box and left it where it was.

She went to the only place she could think of. Her feet were moving by themselves. She did not want any friends or comfort. She wanted something far different.

Maria found herself in front of the governor’s castle, made of pure white stone and gleaming in the morning light. The iron gates in front of the castle walls were closed, like Maria knew there were going to be. And then she screamed. She roared a dragon’s roar, crying out every bit of anger and soul that she could muster, not shouting any words, just loud sound, and it was not long until knights came to the gates. They took her as she was still raving: right though the gates, past the grounds, and into the castle. They took her into a large dining hall where an old man in a long blue gown was waiting to receive her.

At the sight of him, Maria’s screams became coherent.

“MY HUSBAND! HE’S DEAD! DEAD! YOU UGLY, OLD FIEND!”

Maria was screaming and crying at the Minister of the Right, the man responsible for the civil law of Mitia. The color in the minister’s face quickly drained as Maria was yelling.

“YOU SENT HIM TO SLAUGHTER: LIKE AN ANIMAL! OR MAYBE YOU DIDN’T SEE WHAT HAPPENED? HOW HE WAS CUT DOWN BY BEASTS HALF HIS SIZE? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? COULD YOU NOT AFFORD SOME GUARDS FOR HIS SHINS OR HIS THIGHS? WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID! SO, SO STUPID AND WORTHLESS AND PATHETIC! YOU KILLED HIM! YOU! YOU BUTCHERED HIM, YOU FOOLISH, OLD MAN!”

The minister and Maria were separated by a large burly knight. Another knight, Sir Grum, was holding Maria’s hands behind her back. The Minister, pale as a sheet, looking past the knight, watched the woman with what seemed to be disgust and fear in his eyes. Maria did not understand that it was pity.

“Miss, what is your name?” asked the Minister of the Right after the woman had run out of breath.

“Maria,” she replied, her voice hoarse. “Maria Veila.”

“Miss Maria,” he said. Maria assumed that she was about to get coddled before being sent to a dungeon for torture. She had heard of a maiden getting her head lopped off for yelling at a knight with rusting armor before, so she figured yelling at an important person with expensive clothes must be worse.

“Miss Maria,” said the Right again, “Do you know who I am?”

Maria nodded.

The Minister of the Right bowed so low he was staring at his knees.

“I am beyond grief at the loss of so many of the guards. Please believe me.” The Right raised his head. “Ask of me one wish, your greatest desire, as long as it is in my power to grant it…and I will fulfill it.”

Maria looked taken aback, and then the fury returned.

“JUST. GIVE. ME. BACK. MY. HUSBAND!”

Maria roared her words, one by one, and a baby woke up from outside the hall. He was being carried by his nurse, and as they went by the entrance to the dining hall, the nurse could not help but start to overhear, especially since there was no door to the hall. When the baby started crying, the nurse looked shocked and ashamed. She was perfectly visible to the people inside the hall.

Maria, the two knights, and the Minister of the Right all looked at the baby and the nurse.

“I am so sorry, Minister,” said the nurse, a middle-aged, round lady. “I beg your pardon.”

The nurse started rocking the baby back to sleep, walking away, but was stopped by Maria’s voice.

“Wait!” Maria cried. “Can you bring him back?”

The nurse looked at the Minister of the Right, who nodded in allowance. The nurse brought the baby to Maria.

Maria had never seen anything like it. She had seen babies before, but there was something special about this one, this one baby, who was still crying, had curly black hair, and was enchanting. She wanted to hold him and take care of him, like she had held Lenn, tightly and with no mask.

She saw it crying as the nurse continued to rock it, but no tears left its eyes which were closed tight, and Maria felt an unfamiliar tug at the edges of her cheeks, and her anger was ebbing far off, as if it was blowing away like steam.

And then it was all gone, for anger cannot exist in the company of innocence as easily as in injustice.

And Maria remembered how her baby boy looked before she buried him. How peaceful it seemed, how pure it seemed. And the baby in front of her was pure and gentle and at peace as it cried like all babies cried. And she was at peace too.

“Who’s baby is this?” asked Maria.

“No one’s. That is, I do not know. For now, this baby has no parents, no relatives, and lives here only because we have no idea what to do with him.”

“Then this,” said Maria, softly, “if that is true, then this must be it. This baby. I want this baby. That is my one wish.”

The minister could barely hear her. He wanted to pretend as if he had not heard what the woman had said at all, but he did not. It was not because he had already given Maria his word, though that is what he would tell the governor. It was something else.

“You would have to take care of it,” said the minister.

He did not know why he said it. He saw Maria looking at the baby boy, and could not help but give her what she wanted. It was reckless, crazy, unlike him. Even the knight that was standing between Maria and the minister was shocked, looking like a startled troll, staring stupidly back at the Right as if the minister was indeed crazy. Sir Grum let go of Maria’s hands, allowing the woman to go closer to the nurse and the baby.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Maria, taking another step forward. “Always.”

“He must always be happy,” said the minister.

“He will be. I promise.”

“I’ll give you some money: an allowance for Edward once a month until the boy passes from your care.”

“Edward,” repeated Maria, hearing nothing else. “That’s his name?”

The Minister of the Right wondered again what he was doing. He closed his eyes. I am giving away a baby to a grieving woman, he thought to himself. And then he remembered that the baby did not belong to anyone anyways, and was only in the castle because of some strange, unexpected, unexplainable fate. A knight had found the baby in front of the gates, crying, with nothing to suggest it belonged to anyone or to anywhere at all. Why not let it belong to this lady, Maria, who they also found in front of the gates, crying, because of fate? The minister opened his eyes again.

“Yes,” said the minister. “His name is Edward. Do you really want him?”

“Of course,” said Maria, standing right in front of the nurse now, looking into Edward’s face. “I do.”

Maria took him back to Feral Street. She did not know how she made the journey back; she was in a daze the entire way through. It was different than when she left her house, though, because then all she could feel was anger. Now all she wanted was to get home, fearful that everything was a dream and wishing that everything was a dream.

She went into alleys, up staircases, across bridges, and finally got to her house which was squashed in-between the two empty buildings. She was holding the child, Edward, and was carrying a leather bag with her. She vaguely remembered the minister giving it to her. It was somewhat heavy, probably filled with the baby’s clothes and toys. She went past the box which contained what was left of her husband and went into the living room. Eventually, the pieces would have to be buried in the ground for good, but that would wait. Once inside, Maria set down the leather bag on the couch.

Then Maria held the baby up and spun around. She slowly spun in circles, bobbing the baby up and down, and then playing with its black hair, just as curly as her husband’s hair. Maria looked into Edward’s eyes, his black eyes. It was black like the night when it is its deepest and darkest, when only starlight can penetrate it.

Then she remembered her baby, her baby that she had had only two months ago, in September the first, and she would never forget that day because the baby was silent when it was born, with its eyes closed, and Lilly had told her that there was no pain, that it was still too young to feel pain, but Maria thought that that was nonsense, and Maria had cried then just as she had cried the morning before. But now she was spinning, trying her best to be happy again for the first time in two months, and she said, “Edward,” and nothing else, and she smiled.

And Edward, peering at Maria with his black eyes, heard her say his name, “Edward”, and he smiled too, and he tried to reach Maria’s face with his tiny hands, was laughing because he couldn’t, and he was happy that they were spinning, and excited that he was a world away from the ground, and he liked the sound of Maria’s voice, and she was humming now, and he liked that too, and he heard something else. He didn’t hear it through his ears. He heard it in his head. A voice that was soft and pleasant, melodious even, was rushing through his nerves up to his head where the voice echoed, and it made Edward so happy. You’re so beautiful, the voice said, and Edward was still laughing. You’re so beautiful, Edward.

Maria did not know what she was really carrying in her hands. She did not know that Edward had been left in front of the gates to the governor’s castle for a reason. She did not know that Edward was a creature beyond all reason and belief. She did not know that among every human being on earth, there is not one with pure black eyes, eyes that absorbed every particle of light, eyes that could see beyond what men can see, eyes like Edward’s eyes. In fact, there was only one thing on Earth just as purely black.

Edward, only a few months after he was born, was taken away from a large castle, far away in a distant land, across the sea. Adrift, both he and his abductor, a man in a large black cloak, took flight from the dark castle. They eventually arrived in Mitia, as the abductor had planned, and he set Edward down in front of the castle gates at dawn. The abductor knew Edward would be safe there, knew the governor of Mitia to be a kind fellow.

He was mistaken.

He could not have known about the governor’s negligence and cowardice, that the man would ignore a baby boy in favor of his own growing children and power.

Also, he could not have known about Maria.

And Maria could not have known that somewhere, far away, there was someone looking for the boy, someone in that dark castle, looking with every strand of being inside him for a boy with pure black eyes.

But the boy was with Maria, and she did indeed take care of him as best as she knew how. Then, as time passed, she took in others as well: eleven others over the course of almost eleven years. With each that came, there was more work and more noise. Before she knew it, the eleven years had passed, as quickly as a lightning bolt strikes the dead earth.

And now it was July of the year 6664, and Edward was just waking up on the second floor of his bedroom, with dawn shining into the room, about to start his day.