8 A beautiful dream

Iota swam through the river of fire. He groaned and whimpered as the flames licked at his scorched flesh, but onward he kept swimming. The shore did not grow closer; it never would. But he knew he could not stop. Or else the flames would consume him whole.

Iota opened his eyes. The sunrise was slowly creeping over the trees, shining down on where Iota sat, his back against the trunk of a fallen oak. He was in a forest clearing, the green grass wet under his boots.

Warily, he looked around the clearing. Iota had never seen this place before. Large oaks surrounded him on all sides, the bright chirping of birds and cries of critters reverberating from the forest. For a moment, he frowned, wondering where he was, then Iota jumped to his feet after he remembered. It was Fafir's birthday today, and he still hadn't given her his present.

Dead leaves crunched underfoot as he scrambled out of the clearing.

Tucked safely away in his coat pocket was a palm-sized case. It was a necklace from a faraway land and nearly cost him half a year's wages too. He figured although it wasn't the most original gift, Fafir would still appreciate it. She had a fondness for jewelry that no one else in the family shared.

Iota froze. That didn't sound right. I could've sworn- He shook his head. His mother was a kind, gentle woman who had never shown even the slightest interest in superficial things like jewelry. She was a simple wise woman, who treated the villagers with the herbs she grew in their garden. And his father-

What about my father? Iota asked himself. The man had left ages ago, off to fight a war in a land that had no name. Apparently, the war meant more to him than his family did. He couldn't even recall the man's face. It didn't matter any longer. His father had died in that war and with him, so did a part of his mother. She tried to hide it, but he could see the tears come at night, hunched over the parlor table with a bottle of cheap wine. His eyes widened.

What's gotten into me, he thought bitterly, clenching his fists. His mother was a simple wise woman who never drank alcohol and cared deeply for her three children. So, just why had he imagined her in a dress finer than any he had seen before? Sitting in a room fit for a queen?

Ahead of him was a squat cottage nestled between two small hills. A spiral of smoke curled from the stumpy chimney. He could smell the scent of bacon frying, Sigur's work, he reckoned. She always woke up early to prepare breakfast for the family.

To the side was a fenced-off enclosure, built to keep chickens. Inside the fencing was a sizable roosting house, constructed from wood chopped down in the forest. He had built it from the ground up with Noa and-

Iota froze again.

That's strange. Iota didn't have any memories of the roost's construction. Shaking his head, he continued down the path to the cottage. Lately, his thoughts had been erratic. But it was nothing a little bacon and coffee couldn't fix.

As he approached the cottage, Noa and their mother came out to meet him. Noa had the same insufferable grin plastered on his face as always.

"I hope you managed to scrounge up a gift. Fafir should be back from her runs in an hour or two," their mother said, her lips forming the ghost of a frown. Her face was lined with years from the hard work that came with rural living, but a mysterious grace was ever-present in her features.

Iota grinned. He reached under his coat for his gift. "Who do you take me as? I've been preparing for this since the last harvest festival."

Noa rolled his eyes. "Whatever cheap trinket you managed to swipe from the peddler ain't gonna outshine my gift," he sneered goodnaturedly. "By the way, Jen came here looking for you earlier." He paused and frowned. "She seemed a little odd. Don't tell me you did something to her?"

"Oh, leave off," Iota snapped. "What do you mean, a little odd?"

"For starters, she seemed terrified," Noa said, shrugging his slender shoulders. "Kept looking over her shoulder, like she was watching for something," he smiled slyly. "Or someone."

Their mother cleared her throat and glared down at Iota with enough frost behind her eyes to freeze over the forest twice. "I swear, Iota Ashvan. If you've done anything even the slightest bit untoward to her, there'll be red and silver hell to pay."

Noa scoffed. "As if Iota has the guts to-"

Snatching the thirteen-year-old boy by his ear, their mother began to drag Noa back to the cottage. "You ain't coming back till you make up with Jen, you hear me? And you better hurry too, if you miss Fafir's coming of age party, I'll beat you over the head with a stick." She took one last look at Iota and harrumphed.

Iota sighed. "Did she at least tell you where she was going?" he called out.

"Nope," his mother shouted back, throwing Noa through the doorway and shutting it behind her.

What bloody great luck, he cursed. Jen was the only daughter of a neighboring homestead and a source of a great deal of Iota's stress. The girl was barely over her tenth year, and she was already clamoring for an engagement with Iota. Much to his chagrin, her efforts had been only doubled in the past few years. Like when she-

Iota's face turned to ice. He couldn't remember a single memory with her. Why was that? He should've been able to pull up at least one, but nothing came to his mind, just emptiness.

He wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but the forest's temperature seemed to dip significantly. He wrapped his coat tighter around himself. A dense fog settled over the forest, seemingly from out of nowhere. One minute it was sunny, and then it wasn't. His breath misted in front of his face, and he could feel the crunch of permafrost under his boots. The birds were silent, not even a single call among them.

Iota couldn't ignore it anymore. Something was wrong, not just with his own head but also with the weather. He looked through his spotty, fragmented memories. He saw his face bruised and bleeding, his back against an ornate wall, and his mother looming over him. He then stood over a man, dark-red blood seeping from his chest and staining the grass around his crumpled body.

He began to run, and for the first time, he noticed his surroundings. A barren marsh surrounded him. He ran past dead trees with twisting branches outstretched for the sky and boulders easily twice his size, oozing dark liquid from faults in their surface. With each step, the further his feet sank into dark mud.

Taking a deep breath, he held it in his lungs for a moment before exhaling. "This is a lie," he declared, mustering up the courage to stand tall. "I refuse to be cowed by-"

A piercing pain shot up from his neck and to his head, sending the boy crashing down on his knees. "Why remember?" someone's voice whispered into his ear. "Why remember, when you can live such a beautiful dream?"

He screamed. "Who are you?" Iota whispered, "and what do you want?"

"Why remember?" the voice said again. "Why remember, when you can live such a beautiful dream?"

His eyes squeezed shut, he shook his head. "It's a lie," he forced out, his voice barely above a whisper. "It's all a lie."

The voice was unrelenting. "Why remember? Why remember? Why remember?"

With a clenched jaw, he bit the inside of his cheek, tasting the flow of warm blood. Sweating dripping from his brows, he tried in vain to rise. An invisible force kept him glued to the ground. "Shut up!" he howled. "I don't have time for your games! I've got an idiot to find!"

And just like that, the voice left him.

Chapter 6 - Part 2 - A flower without a match

Fafir curled her lip and sneered. It wasn't a very ladylike thing to do, but considering the circumstances, she excused herself. Her mother paced around the dining room table, with her hands clasped behind her back, trying her best to appear cool and collected.

Iota was missing. No big surprise there, the boy always found the most inopportune time to disappear into the forest. But Noa was gone as well, and that didn't bode well at all. Noa followed a tight schedule. According to the servant girl who had seen them last, the two split up hours ago for a missing servant. There hadn't been a trace of them since.

"Can you, for the love of all things divine, stop your pacing, Mother," spat Sigur from across the suite, lying on her side on a velvet sofa imported from Sevaskarr. A recent purchase.

Their mother whirled to Sigur furiously. "Don't you dare talk to your mother like that," she snapped. "Your brothers are missing, and all you do is sit there. To think I've raised such callous daughters, do you care so little for your brothers?"

Sigur sneered. "That's rich."

"Excuse me?"

"You know what they say, Mother," Sigur said, smirking. "Children take after their parents. Before you start blaming us for anything, why don't you take a step back and examine yourself instead, Mother." Fafir shook her head. It was unfortunate that Sigur had inherited her mother's temper. With a level head, she would have the potential to surpass any of the current preservers.

Fafir could practically see the vein bulging from her mother's temple. "This is my last warning, Sigur Ashvan, settle down," she said through clenched teeth. "Or else."

"Or what?" Sigur clicked her tongue. "You'll hit me?"

Fafir sighed. Both her sons were missing, and the woman could do nothing but bicker with her daughter. No wonder even Iman the buffoon could outmaneuver the woman. It was apparent to everyone but her that she was on the losing side of the succession battle. Fafir knew about her nighttime drinking habits. The woman didn't even try to hide it anymore. Their mother didn't even have the strength to handle her family, much less the entirety of the clan.

She could smell it, the stench of decay. It wasn't just her family that was rotting, but the entire clan. The clan head had put all his hopes on Iman, a shortsighted man with a temper nearly as bad as her mother's. The rest of the preservers weren't much better. Elyse had virtually no interest in leading, and Isira was more focused on roleplaying a soldier than doing any substantial work. Besides their mother, Iman was the only other preserver with offspring, and his only son was a lout with no brains, more interested in courting village wenches than his studies. The clan was rotting. And everyone knew the best way to save a rotting flower was to cut away what was rotten and keep what was unblemished. As much as Fafir despised the role, she would have to play gardener. Dealing with a few rotting components wasn't entirely beneath her.

During the past decade, Fafir had conducted a thorough review on the condition of the estate. Her results: the clan would fall, either in her generation or the next. Weak leadership was just the start of a long list of issues. Two hands were all it took to count out the number of weavers within the clan. Their treasury had glaring discrepancies, and her mother's excessive lifestyle most certainly did not help.

The Ashvans considered themselves a first-rate clan, but Fafir knew outside their small corner of the world, they wouldn't even cut it as second rate. It was worrying, Fafir had no great love for her clan, but it was still her home. And she'd appreciate it if she didn't have to watch it burn during her lifetime.

She shook her head and shifted her focus back onto the argument between Sigur and their mother. "Now, now," she said, placing herself in between the two. "Let's all keep a cool head."

Sigur turned her cheek and sniffed.

"We have every able-bodied servant and guardsman on the lookout," Fafir said calmly. "They'll come up eventually." She picked herself up from her chair. "Now is the time to stand united. Mother, Sigur, venting our frustrations like this will most certainly not help the situation at hand."

Her mother gave a grudging nod.

"The best course of action will be to leave it to the servants and trust in their abilities," she continued. "Then, when the boys are found, we'll give them a stern punishment. It's been far too long they've been allowed to do what they please with impunity."

Sigur raised an eyebrow. "What do you have in mind?"

"Nothing too serious," Fafir said, bringing her hand up to her cheek. "Perhaps just a public lashing?"

She knew it would be a fate comparable to death to them, humiliated in front of the entire village. She had tried the carrot approach with Iota, but her efforts had gone unrewarded. Sometimes the only way to break a stubborn mule was with a cudgel.

"Absolutely not!" their mother exclaimed. "They aren't village boys. They're my children! They're your brothers!"

Fafir regarded her mother coolly. "I jest," she said softly, narrowing her eyes. "We can work something out. . . something not so publically shaming."

Sigur nodded hesitantly. "I can see your reasoning," she muttered. "But Mother will have the final say."

That can't do, Fafir thought. Sigur could still be groomed into the role of a future leader. But not while their mother's influence still hung over her. She supposed it was time to truly set her plans into motion.

Fafir clapped her hands together, and for the first time in a long while, she truly smiled. "Now that we've all cooled down, why don't I warm up some tea?"