Wind-Speaker

Hey guys! This is a really fun prompt from writing-prompt-s on tumblr! You guys get the first look :) It's a little rough because I had to write it around a 60 hour work week, but I really love the story in it and couldn't wait to share it! Let me know if you'd like to see me clean this up as a bonus for next week :)

Without further ado, here's Wind-Speaker!

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Tell Miles, the wind whispers, that he’s a little bitch.

It’s only through years of long practice that Dyta’s able to keep a straight face. The King’s name is Miles? Everyone just sort of assumed he was named after his great grandfather, King Raymus since that’s what he’s written all over the kingdom. She tries to remember if she’s ever heard of a Prince Miles--

“Well?” King Raymus (Miles) asks. He looks down his nose at Dyta, thin lips thinning further. His knuckles are white around his gaudy scepter. “What did the Wind say? Will my reign be remembered? Am I truly the greatest King across the six kingdoms?”

There’re actually 208 kingdoms, the wind hisses out from underneath the door. Which Miles would know if he weren’t a little bitch.

“Yes,” Dyta blurts out. The guards’ glares have been growing each moment she’s been silent and she’s not interested in finding out at what point they use the spears they’re holding. “Super remembered.” She brings her hands up, trying to gesture just how remembered the King is, but the shackles around her wrists hinder the movement. “The wind knows your truth, King Raymus, and it spreads that truth across the globe.”

You never interpret correctly, the wind whines through the gaps in the stone walls. You are the worst wind-speaker I’ve met in centuries.

Dyta’s the only wind-speaker in centuries. That’s why she’s in this whole prisoner mess to begin with. It’s just luck that King Mi-Raymus is vain enough to spend the majority of her  captivity asking after what the world thinks of him.

There are much worse applications of her ability. Spying, for example. And assassination, though she tends to stay away from that one, much to the wind’s chagrin.

King Raymus grins, stroking his long, salt-and-pepper beard. “Ask, Wind-Speaker, ask if the Wind has met a kingdom more bountiful, more beautiful, more expansive than mine.”

Yes, the wind whistles near the chandeliers. Several.

“No,” Dyta says. “None.”

God, the wind rustles around her skirts, you are such an absolute downer.

“Do you hear that?” the King asks the dark-haired prince sitting at his side. He grins wide enough Dyta can see the lettuce stuck in his teeth.  “You’ll have quite the legacy to uphold when I’m gone!”

The Prince is the only one not looking at her, instead slouching in his throne and reading. Dyta’s not surprised. From what she’s heard about him, the prince is dreadfully handsome and, allegedly, dreadfully stupid. They call him the Peacock Prince because of it. Pretty to look at, sure, but not very useful otherwise.

Prince Cassius’ brow furrows. “Leg-a-cy?”

Dyta’s barely able to hold back a disbelieving snort at that. A prince that doesn’t even know the word legacy? She’d thought the rumors over-exaggerated but clearly--

Now that one, the wind whispers through her hair, that one will be great.

Dyta chokes, eyes flying wide despite her careful control. Luckily, no one notices as the King waxes eloquently about how big the shoes he’s leaving behind for Cassius will be. 

Dyta’s only heard the wind call someone great exactly once. 

That woman had saved the world.

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Saving the world was loud in the stories her mother used to tell her. This was long before Dyta even knew the wind had a taste for stories, long before she started seeing stories played out, long before she knew stories aren’t always just stories. This was when she was a little girl and everything her mother said was just the way the world was.

So when her mother told her that saving the world was loud, she believed her. She believed that the whole world would know who the hero was. She thought it would be impossible to not recognize that spark in someone, to not know their name before she ever set eyes on them. She thought that, when the deed was done, there would be songs sung in the hero’s honor and evil would be totally defeated.

Then she met Anise.

Anise with coarse, silvering hair at the age of twenty-three, Anise with stooped shoulders and callused hands from long days of hard labor, Anise with worn clothes and the oldest horse Dyta’d ever seen outside of a butcher’s shop.

Anise wasn’t like the heroes her mother whispered to her about. Anise was very quiet and very sad when she came to Dyta’s shop, looking for a new cloak. Dyta didn’t notice her at first, trying to parse through her late-mother’s notes on orders and errands for the shop. The loss was still new enough that her eyes were constantly tearing up at the gentle loops and swishes in her mother’s handwriting, missing her more than she ever thought possible.

She didn’t notice Anise at all, in fact, until the older woman cleared her throat.

“Why,” she had asked in her odd, croaking voice, “are your windows all boarded up?”

Dyta didn’t lift her head. She knew it was odd to have the windows boarded in the middle of summer. It made the shop hot and stuffy and dark, but the wind had started talking to her over her mother’s grave and she’d been trying to avoid it ever since. She told Anise, “I’ve got a hangover.” Hopefully it would explain the red eyes.

“Ah,” Anise said. She cleared her throat again. “How much for this cloak?”

Dyta didn’t need to look up to know the cloak Anise was holding. It was the oldest (and cheapest) one in the shop and smelled of the herbs her mother stored it with to keep the moths away. The memory brought a new wave of tears to her eyes and she stood abruptly, turning to the small storage room in the back. “Let me go check.”

She closed the storage room behind her, not particularly caring if the strange woman in the shop stole everything that wasn’t bolted down. She didn’t know if she could handle this like her mother thought she could; she never wanted to own the shop. But she was the only one left to inherit and she didn’t know what else to do.

She stumbled to the back, pushing aside boxes of clothes to try and find the pricing guide her mother stored there. A lopsided stack of hat boxes listed and lost the fight to gravity. She cursed, reaching for it too late. The whole thing toppled against the wall, banging against the window at the back just enough that a board swung loose.

“No—” she started to say and was cut off by the wind.

The wind rushed through the small gap in the window, kicking up ages of dust, and swirling around Dyta like a whirlwind. It picked at her hair and pulled at her skirts, whispering and whispering and whispering—

Look, it said, I totally get hearing my voice is new and scary, but you need to listen to me. You need to go with that woman in the shop. You need to go with her on her journey.

Dyta gasped, stumbling away from the wind. In her panic, it didn’t occur to her to question the wind’s insistence—it sounded so factual she didn’t think she could. “I—I can’t, I need to take care of the shop—”

You don’t want to, the wind hissed through the gap in the boards. You can’t.

That made Dyta feel something besides grief for the first time since her mother’s death. “I think,” she said, “that I can.” She wasn’t going to let the wind boss her around, not after she dug her mother’s grave.

The wind faltered at the steel in her voice. The whirlwind shortened, gentled, and collapsed until all that remained was a gentle breezing brushing against the fabric of her dress. Much later, Dyta will realize that the wind was changing tactics, looking for her weak points.

It found one.

If you go, it said slowly, twining around the boxes, if you go with her and give her a cloak and stay with her until her mission is done, I won’t speak to you ever again, if that’s what you wish. I won’t whisper the secrets of the world across the sea to you at night and I won’t knock over your laundry basket when you ignore me. You will be completely free of me forever, if you so choose.

Dyta didn’t know what to think. Her eyes narrowed. She’d been trying to get the wind to quiet for weeks. Why would it offer to stop now? “Why?”

Because, the wind murmured, I’m bored. Because you’re going to waste away here in the skeleton of your mother’s memory if you don’t. But mostly? Mostly it’s because that woman is going to be great.

Dyta felt chills ripple down her spine at the word. Great.

She didn’t know Anise was a hero then, too caught up in what her mother taught her a hero was. But she knew from that one word that the strange woman in her shop was special and that was enough for her to grab two of her mother’s finest cloaks and ask to be part of an adventure.

Dyta’s not put in King Miles—Raymus’ dungeons, though she thinks the guard dragging her by her arm would love to take her there. She’s been given a room opposite the royal wing, one with a window, a bed, and a small desk. The door locks from the outside though and that gives her enough reason to call it a prison.

She wrings her hands when the guard closes the door behind himself, watching the sun slide further toward the horizon. The lock clicks with finality. “Oh, I’m going to be late.”

You’re always late, the wind presses through the crack in the window. The bars outside keep the window from opening fully.

“Because you’re always making me late,” Dyta snaps. She frowns at where the curtains are blowing in the breeze. “You’re the one who told me to stop in that village for lunch. You’re supposed to be omnipresent! How did you not know there was a bounty out for me in this kingdo—” She stops abruptly. Takes a deep breath. Pinches the bridge of her nose. “You knew. You knew and you purposefully led me to be captured.”

He’s going to be great, the wind says somewhat petulantly. You love the great ones, you know you do.

“I love one great one,” Dyta corrects. “A great one I’m supposed to be meeting tonight in the next kingdom over! God, this is so like you. Anise is going to be so worried and I’m going to tell her it’s all your fault.”

Whoa, the wind protests, rattling the window pane. Let’s not get wild. It takes two to get captured. We’re in this together.

Dyta throws up her hands. “That doesn’t even make sense! Look, just get me out of here, if I make it by tomorrow morning, she won’t even know this happened. You won’t get in trouble, I won’t get in trouble and I can enjoy my honeymoon.”

I could do that, the wind agrees. It pauses, dropping the curtain for a moment before stirring it again, just barely. Oooor we could find out just what makes this guy great.

“You don’t have to keep saying it like that,” Dyta says, rubbing her ear. The air seems to pulse every time the wind does it and while it had been chill-inspiring the first few times, it’s decidedly tired now. “Look, we made a promise to Anise that we’d meet her tonight—”

And we totally still will, the wind hastens to say. But, Dyta, this guy is so interesting! He’s got spies, Dyta, actual spies in his father’s court!

That gives her pause and she’s aware she’s giving herself away before she even says, “But he’s supposed to be an idiot!”

I KNOW, the wind howls. It rattles the metal fastenings on the curtains. He’s been pretending, apparently. Guess for how long. Guess, Dyta. Guess. Guess, guess, guess—

“I don’t know,” Dyta says, resisting the urge to clap her hands over her ears. “He’s, what? Thirty? Maybe ten years—”

TWENTY. The wind nearly pushes her skirts up in its excitement. He’s staging a coup, the first in this country’s history. Please, please, please, can we stay? I haven’t seen a good coup in years!

Dyta knows that she shouldn’t. She tries to hold firm, but, like the wind, her interest is piqued. Twenty years? Twenty years? What made the prince begin his dull act? What exactly was he staging a coup against? His father’s unwillingness to trade with surrounding countries? The increasing taxes? Their somewhat archaic laws governing what the proletariat could and could not do in the privacy of their own homes?

“How long will it take?” Dyta hedges.

Like two days, the wind hisses. Tops.

Dyta gives in. “Two days. Anise won’t worry too much after only two days, but, after that, we’re out. Deal?”

The wind whirls around her, picking up her hair and kissing her cheeks.

A week later, she’s about to go on another life-threatening, soul-searing, horrible quest just to find a way to kill the wind. She’s been stuck in her prison nearly the entire time, not able to interact with the prince at all. In fact, the only interaction she’s had is with the stupid king who insists on asking her the same questions every single day.

The wind, however, is apparently having a grand time sneaking under doorways and watching the prince become great.

He’s snuck the seven legendary archers of Paillon into the castle, the wind whispered to her three days ago. It’d been nearly vibrating with glee. Tonight’s the night!

He’s got townsfolk with pitchforks waiting outside the secret tunnels in case the king escapes, the wind whispered to her two days ago. For sure tonight!

Then, yesterday, the wind had assured her that the Prince’s silence is a sure sign that it would happen that night, the night that Dyta had peacefully slept through with dreams of Anise—

Look, the wind whispers now, I know you’re mad. But, hear me out, the prince has recruited mercenaries to be in court tonight and I really think—

“You know what?” Dyta turns on her heel, glaring out the window. Her hair is a wreck after a week without a comb and her borrowed gown, given to her by the king, is ill-fitting and a baby-ish shade of blue. “No. No! We are leaving, tonight. I have waited for the coup and I can only imagine what Anise must be thinking! I’ve just about had it, this Prince clearly doesn’t need my help since he won’t even meet my eyes when his father calls me in like a dog—”

I haven’t told you the best news, the wind hastens to say. Dyta, the mercenaries—

“I don’t want to hear it,” she snaps. She folds her arms over her chest, glaring. “I don’t care anymore! I just want to see my wife before this time tomorrow even if that means you have to carry me to Andalopis. Am I clear?”

But, Dyta, the wind protests. I really think tonight—

“Tonight!” Dyta throws up her hands. “Tonight, tonight, tonight, it’s always tonight—”

“Um,” a voice says from behind her. Dyta whirls to find her usual guard at her open door, looking incredibly uncomfortable to be interrupting her ranting and raving. “The King’s called for you, Wind-speaker.”

Dyta laughs without humor, beyond pissed. She’s so tired of this. “I’m sure.” She storms towards him, sure that the wind is making her frizzy hair writhe around her head. She’s not listening to it right now. “Let’s go before you threaten to waterboard me again.” She pushes past him, not needing to be guided to the throne room anymore. She knows the way by heart.

The guard, clearly taken aback, splutters. “That was—you were refusing to come out of your room—” He scrambles to follow her down the hall. “Wind-speaker, tonight’s meeting isn’t like the others! Maybe you should take a minute to freshen up—”

“No one cares what I look like,” Dyta says. “They only care about what I can do.” She reaches the throne room doors and throws them open, registering the din of voices on the other side a moment too late.

Dozens of lords and ladies, more than a few barons and knights, and the Royals stare at her disheveled appearance with something like mild shock. The King, of course, is the first to recover.

“Wind-speaker!” He disregards her appearance with an almost audible click and smiles widely at her. “My subjects, may I introduce you to Dyta the wind-whisperer? She has been gracious enough to share the wind’s wisdom with me this past week.”

“Gracious,” Dyta says before she’s aware she’s going to say it. It’s with a distant horror that she realizes she’s snapped and all her careful work to avoid being executed is about to go down the drain. “That’s one word for it.”

There’s a muffled laugh from the back of the crowd to her left, nearest the Prince’s throne. Dyta thinks it almost sounds familiar, but, before she can look further, she’s being swept further into the room by her guard.

King Raymus grins as she comes closer, eyes sparkling. “My court would love to hear the wise words the wind has imparted to you, wind-speaker.”

Don’t ask, she thinks almost desperately. Her gut is rolling with all the repressed anger she’s been holding and she can feel it start to climb up her throat. Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask—

“Is it not true,” King Raymus says, stroking his beard, “that I am the greatest King to have walked these halls since King Bleum, first of his name?”

Dyta’s already answered this question. She answered it three days ago when he first asked, she told him he surely was because she’d been trying to avoid the guillotine. King Raymus is show boating and she’s so tired of being a sideshow attraction for this vain excuse for a ruler.

Somehow avoiding the guillotine doesn’t seem so important now.

“No,” Dyta says. The King stares at her, mouth dropping open as the word registers. The court titters and she hears that aborted laugh again, but she’s too focused on the King to try and find it again. Dyta doesn’t give him a chance to sentence her to death. “Actually, no, sorry, I lied when I said you were. Do you really want to know what the wind said about you?”

King Raymus is starting to turning an awful purple color. “You—I—guards—”

“It called you a little bitch,” Dyta says, putting her hands on her hips. “Miles.” She looks down her nose at him. “And, if I’m being honest, I didn’t need the wind to tell me that. I figured it out for myself when I saw you wearing honeyed shoes with forest green velvet.”

The wind rattles the chandeliers above in its laughter.

“Guards,” the King chokes out. He stands to his full height, eyes watering in his fury. “Guards, take this—this charlatan to the dungeon—”

“She’s no charlatan.”

Dyta’s head whips to her left where the prince is rising. He’s not absent like she’s seen him every day this week. His dark eyes are sharp as he meets his father’s eyes, his chest broad, his shoulders square. Behind him, his force begins to draw their weapons, bows and swords and a double-headed axe—

A double-headed axe?

“The Wind does not support my father’s rule,” the Prince announces to the assembled nobility. “Neither do the people, not anymore. If you stand with him, that is your choice. But, just like him, you will fall.”

For a long, long moment, no one moves.

“Arrest him,” King Raymus growls at last. His face is completely drained of color and he knocks over his throne as he stumbles away from his son. “Arrest—arrest all of them!”

You might, the wind tells Dyta, want to duck.

Chaos erupts.

Lords and ladies scream as royal guards and the prince’s forces collide over the appetizers. An arrow hits the mead, knocking it over and onto the floor where three King’s knights in full armor slip on the puddle. There’s a rush for the doors, thwarted as a wave of angry commoners sweep in, some holding legitimate pitchforks. The Prince leaps over his father’s throne and begins to sword fight three personal guards all at once as the King frantically paws at the stone wall.

Dyta stands frozen where she stands. She’s never been particularly good at fighting. She nearly gets brained with an éclair, but the wind sweeps in at the last moment to knock it off course.

MOVE, it bellows. It trips a guard advancing on her, cutting a chandelier from the ceiling to drop on another. I swear, I told you to duck—

“Don’t just stand there with your mouth open,” a woman snarls. “Every time I leave you alone, I swear—”

Dyta is yanked off her feet by a hard arm. Her breath is knocked out of her as an equally hard shoulder is driven into her midsection as she’s thrown over said shoulder. She blinks at the leather-clad butt beneath her in recognition. “Anise?”

Anise kicks a knight in the chest, swinging her axe with the arm not holding Dyta securely. She drives it through the knight’s helmet with far too much ease and starts chopping her way to the door.

Dyta is blinks again. “But—how did—how did you find me?”

Anise grunts as she parries a blow from another knight and then sends him crumpling to the ground. “There are wanted posters of your face all over this place, Dyta. How you didn’t notice them is beyond me.”

“I didn’t ask to be captured,” Dyta says. She thinks it’s very important Anise know that. “I—I didn’t mean to miss our honeymoon, I swear, but then I was here and the wind called the prince great—but then I was just locked up! The whole time! It wasn’t very interesting at all—”

“Do you think,” Anise pants, slicing through the butt of someone’s spear like it’s butter, “we could wait for the explanations until after I’m done keeping us from being killed?”

This, the wind whispers, winding through the fighting, is not as fun as I thought it would be.

Dyta hisses like an angry cat. “Oh, you don’t think so?!”

Anise, knowing she’s not the one Dyta is talking to, sighs. She knew what she was getting into, marrying the wind-speaker. She just didn’t think she’d have to participate in a foreign coup to liberate her wife within the first week of her marriage.

Not, of course, that she’s really complaining.

She grins as her wife continues to argue with the wind behind her, swiping her axe at the last guard before they can break into the hall. She’ll argue with Dyta later, of course, make her promise not to break their meet-up times like this again, but, honestly?

She wouldn’t have her love be any other way.