“Don’t let anger control you, it tends to make for rash decisions,” Tristian said, placing his hand on her arm.
“I’ve never been able to feel anger before. If I hadn’t seen Maître angry before I don’t think I would know what it was. I watched as his eyes grew darker and his nostrils flared as if he would spout fire. It’s horrifying.”
“What does it feel like for you?”
“It hurts. I don’t know what to do with it. I shouldn’t be feeling it. I need to remain placid at all times, because that’s what the strings want of me.”
The sun slipped through the window again, and within moments the strings descended to her bed.
“Help me, Tristian,” Serie pleaded.
“My power can only keep the strings away for so long. Only you can make the choice to walk away and be free of them.”
“I want to be free now,” she said, as the strings drove their way into her flesh. She resisted their urge for her to stand. After a few moments, she couldn’t hold off any more. They pulled her from the bed and into her usual routine. She wanted to rip them off her body as they pulled her along. She looked at Tristian as he climbed out the window. She watched as he walked freely down the path. She would walk of her own accord, even run if she could. One day.
Serie grew restless as each day passed. It had been weeks since her first meeting with Tristian and she was still a captive of the strings. But she pursued her training every hour that he was with her.
Serie stirred as Tristian sat at the edge of the bed. The two friends watched as the strings disappeared in the waning moonlight.
“You are going to walk tonight,” Tristian said.
She smiled, pushing herself to sit up in bed.
Tristian held out his arm for her to hold, but she refused it. She pulled her legs from the bed and dropped them to the ground. She let her toes curl against the scratchy wool of the rug; she had never noticed its coarseness before. She rubbed her feet back and forth, the sensation bringing tingles in her toes.
Tristian stood up and offered his arm again. She held on and dragged herself off the bed.
“How does it feel to stand up?” Tristian asked.
“It’s heavy,” Serie said, trying to hold herself up. She shivered as Tristian’s hand tapped the bottom of her spine: magic poured from his fingers.
“This might help a bit,” he said.
Serie felt her body become taller as her chest opened, and her shoulders loosened. Her legs held her weight.
“Your magic couldn’t just help me walk?” Serie asked as her legs began to quiver.
Tristian frowned. “Serie, a sorcerer cannot use magic to make someone do something. If I made you walk, you would not be the one walking, the magic would. It’s like the strings: they do the walking, not you. All I have done is repaired what is damaged, so that you can do it yourself.”
“If a sorcerer cannot make a human do something, how did Maître bring about the strings?”
“That’s a story for another time. Let’s focus on walking.”
Serie nodded reluctantly, clutching Tristian’s shoulder as she slid her foot across the floor. Her knees refused to bend. Her arms had made great progress as she had gained full fluid movements. Her legs, however, took some convincing to move at first. She could lift them and pull them towards her on the bed. Now that she was off the bed, her legs didn’t know what to do with all the extra weight on top of them. She had never noticed how the strings had made her walk for all those years.
She watched as Tristian almost floated across the floor. There was none of the usual thudding that Serie had become accustomed to. He would stride, as if nothing could hold him back.
She thought of the path that she always crossed on her way to and from work. How it called to her to walk down it and explore the places that it led to. If she could walk, she would follow the path and keep walking until she reached the ends of the earth.
With everything she had, she pushed her legs to move forward, her shaky start supported in Tristian’s hold. She hobbled to the edge of her rug and slid her bare feet onto the smooth timber floor. She circled around the room and Tristian’s hold became lighter as she found her rhythm. The more she walked, the less her shaky legs stumbled. Tristian was beside her the whole time, helping her get back up every time she fell.
“It’s almost sunrise,” Tristian said.
Serie grimaced. “If I keep walking, maybe the strings can’t catch me.”
“It doesn’t work like that. If you aren’t close to where they left you, it will raise alarms. Maître will be alerted so he can punish you.”
Serie sat on the edge of her bed. “This isn’t right.”
Tristian squatted down so he was face to face with her. “No, it isn’t, but the strings won’t be here forever. We will stop them.”
That thought played in her mind. There was a chance that not only her, but everyone could be free of Maître’s curse. Serie smiled, hope filling the empty void that had been in her heart for too long.
Four
One late spring day, Serie noticed that the city square of Kalan was filled with unusual activity. Brightly coloured lanterns were strung across the square, hanging over the boxy wooden tables sitting neatly around the edges. Nearby, a small group of women were placing vases of fresh cut flowers on each table.
To her horror, Serie remembered that the annual pairing was to take place that evening, and she was among the group of girls to be paired with the man who would soon become her husband.
Her eyes were drawn to the vases; the red and purple petals matched those of the flowers in the woods. The woods she may never enter again if she married a man from the city. Tristian couldn’t very well slip into her room with her husband sleeping right next to her. She couldn’t imagine herself with a husband, when she was so close to being free from her strings.
She would be twenty-one that year, and it was time for her to move from her parents’ home and start a family. Her brother, Silas, had moved out three years earlier, already married, and his wife, Lena, about to have their first child.
She missed her walks to Kalan with Silas. Though neither of them had ever said anything to the other on their way to school, she was fascinated by the way that Silas would hum a song to himself. Music was a rarity in Kalan, so Silas defying his strings to do such a simple task was something unexpected. When he finished school, he moved into the city to start work as a carpenter. His visits were a rare occurrence, and once she was paired, she was uncertain if she would see her family much either.
Serie was determined that she would be free of her strings before her wedding in three weeks’ time. Her contempt for her strings had started to become difficult to hide.
Serie walked to the change room in the late afternoon sun, feeling the beginnings of summer in the air. Fifty young women were crammed into the room, pulling on dresses and styling their long swathes of hair. She slipped on the pink silk dress that was given to her and tamed the stray hairs that were escaping her braid.
The girls around her were flushed in the cheeks, their breath wispy with hints of nerves mixed in. Was it their strings that dictated this behaviour? Or were they truly nervous about who Maître would pair them with? Though no one said anything as they put on lipstick or plucked a stray hair from their brow.
As Serie watched the action around the room, she saw a pattern in their movements. Each girl was doing something different, but the strings had a rhythm to how one girl would brush her hair on the same beat that another would blush their cheeks. It was the first time that Serie had paid attention to it. Such actions had been normal