Feshen, 11-on-Rye, 568

Feshen, 11-on-Rye, 568

The meteorite—if that is what it truly was—came three days after leaving Toӧr. It burned bright in the sky, a corona of cool blue cloaking a heart as fierce as ember. It was beautiful. Then it winked out, leaving us motionless in the dark, the rest of the night sky re-emerging in dim jealousy.

I looked to Brae. My mouth parted in readiness, lips trying to find the right shape. But no words came. Just an unusual silence. Brae shuffled, stones crunching underfoot, eyes squinting toward that point on the horizon.

Then came the explosion. Or something like an explosion, for there was light but no sound. Just a strange light I will never forget. It spat forth from the horizon, insistent on its escape, illuminating the sky with a narrow prismatic jet. Then that too was gone, lost to space.

We waited, still too stunned to move, expectant of the sound that never came. There was no rumble of the ground, no shock-wave. If we had been asleep, we might never have known of its passing.

Perhaps.

“What?” I said in dumb whisper, the lone word finally finding itself.

But Brae had said nothing. She breathed several deep breaths and motioned me forwards to continue our journey, stepping up her pace as she moved. Though the moon’s waxing crescent was thin, yielding just enough light to see the mossy way below our feet, Brae lit a torch and held it high as we walked. The light struck the myriad tree branches lining the path, casting each leaf and twig into darting shadow-shapes that leapt at us. Somewhere nearby came the low snort and rustle of an animal. Jackhog, most likely. Scavenging in the night, we must have startled it with our footsteps and flame.

In truth, if I am to be honest here, Brae’s sudden insistence on the safety of fire had unnerved me. We had walked with the moon’s silver guidance for hours, so why the change? What significance had that celestial body brought?

“Why the torch?” I asked, words echoing thoughts as I brushed aside a low branch.

“Would you rather I put it out?” she said, her first words in over an hour. Those words carried something strange. Something out of place, even for Brae.

I could have answered. I could have set forth a series of questions. With Brae, that was what I did: ask questions. And receive no answers. It was a game I played; a game I’d always played. And despite her silence, I knew when she favoured my words. It was in her eyes, in the way they creased, as if her face were trying to smile without her lips knowing. That was my hope, at least.

But this was no time for such a game.

Instead I shrugged, though I doubt Brae could tell. We had reached a larger clearing and she had taken the lead, sweeping the torch in what I felt were unnecessarily wide arcs until she caught sight of the forest hedge again. “I don’t care if you put it out or not,” I said, forgoing my own silence. “I just don’t see why we need it. There is enough moonlight. Why waste a torch?”

“Waste?” Brae stopped, whirling to face me. In the flickering torchlight, her hair flared a shade more crimson than usual.

This was not going well. I held up an appeasing finger. “Not waste.” I kept my finger there, like a banner pole bereft of any actual banner. “A flame at night, waste no light, drown the ghost, appease the blight.” I spoke the charm in my best lyrical tone. “Yes, yes, powerful and true and all that.” Of course, Brae was superstitious. I just didn’t see how that superstition fit with what we had just witnessed.

She said nothing back, staring instead at my unwavering finger. Finally, I let it drop. Her eyes in turn shifted to mine. They were deep set and cold, entirely devoid of creases.

“Brae,” I said coolly. “What was that? What did we just see?” The meteorite already seemed like a distant memory—like a dream, something that may not have actually occurred.

Brae continued to hold my gaze, inspecting me as though I were an outsider.

“I don't know,” she said, dropping her eyes and slumping her shoulders. “I don't know,” she repeated, her voice drained of any power. And then, in a moment of honesty that felt distinctly juxtaposed to the impervious Brae I had spent so long trying to crack, she added, “but it is not the first I have seen.”

Not the first.

I wondered deeply on those words that night. I wondered at their meaning, at the fear writ across Brae’s face. At what may lay ahead. Everyone has seen meteorites. Especially night rangers. Those that wander unseen in the cloak of dark.

It is only with the silent passage of time, with deep regret, and with my own slow stupidity that I caught her true meaning. No, it was no meteorite that we saw. It was something far more profound. Something intangible, even for me now.

Brae shook her head, as if ridding herself of some unseen insect. “Let’s move,” she said. “The night is still upon us, and we have a ways before camp.”

I had almost protested, stopped her and demanded some answers, or at the very least set upon her some questions. But instead I let it go, motioning an as you wish gesture with my hand.

A decision I have forever had to live with.