9 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

The Akana, north of the Wash, Akanûl

Uthalion!”

Ghaelya ran to the fallen human, diving at the shaedling that crawled through the grass toward him. She stabbed at its back, kicking it down until it stopped moving. Shadows curled through the grass, mingling with blood that soaked into the soil. Uthalion mumbled something, his eyes fluttering, but lay still.

She stood over him and turned in a circle, protecting him.

Brindani slashed madly, fighting two of the fey, his sword a blur as he taunted them through clenched teeth. Unable to leave Uthalion, Ghaelya breathed easier as Vaasurri appeared, pouncing like an animal from the vine-trees. The bone-sword became a glowing beacon as blood filled the blade’s runes. The curved light dipped down, disappearing in a mass of flesh, then returned brightly, trailing droplets of the doomed shaedling’s life behind it.

Instinct made her turn and duck as a shadowy chain swung over her head. As the weapon swung away, and the dark fey reversed its angle of attack, she jumped forward, rolling and rising to slash at the hand that swung the chain as she threw herself behind the bladed edge of the weapon. The chain fell away, and she drove her shoulder into the fey’s stomach, gripping its legs and dragging down its frantically beating wings.

They rolled in the grass, and she was blinded by shadows spewing from the writhing spinnerets in its abdomen. Ignoring the blows from the beast’s armored fists, she stabbed at it, its resistance growing weaker with each new wound, until she sat, straddling its stomach, her arms wet with blood and dissipating bits of darkness.

She stood over the corpse and looked back, feeling deaf in the sudden silence that had descended.

Brindani walked slowly back to the wall, collapsing against it and panting as he slid to the ground. Vaasurri watched as the surviving shaedlings retreated to find easier prey or to crawl back into their lairs and lick their wounds.

Uthalion breathed deeply, fluid rattling in his throat as he feebly tried to move. The killoren approached and laid a hand on the human’s chest, holding him still as he pried the sword from Uthalion’s weak hand. Ghaelya helped to drag the human back into the corner of the wall and laid him down, bundling his cloak for a pillow.

They gave him sips of water, and he drank a little easier, only coughing a little as he settled into his delirium again, his eyes rolling at the stars and the clouds. Brindani crawled around to their side of the wall and sat shivering in his cloak, still catching his breath from the battle.

Ghaelya and Vaasurri did not speak as they made a sparse camp of the little shelter. The wind grew stronger, and thunder rumbled as they made futile attempts to shield themselves from the rain. She chewed on dried fruit, letting the fiery tempest within her cool to a still surface of lapping waves and quiet depths. Her heart ached as the element of fire, the chosen element of her family, faded away. It was as if Tessaeril had been with her again, if only briefly. She felt very much alone.

Choosing the element of water had been mostly instinctual for her as she’d grown older, serving as a passive rebellion against her mother despite the awkward rift it had created between the twins. She’d not turned to the fire for many years, feeling only the anger in the flames, but she’d forgotten the bond it made with her sister.

Troubled, she washed the blood from her arms and found herself admiring the clean seafoam green skin beneath.

Water flowed freely, adapting to whatever it encountered. It could move mountains or sit quietly in a pristine pool. She had kept herself in a glass for so long, living in Airspur, and only recently had she spilled herself into an unknown world, feeling it slowly change who she was. She had never had reason to kill in her city life—desire at times, perhaps, but never anything real to fight for. Outside of the city she had adapted to a different way. Something new and strange rippled in the pools of her spirit, mingled with old flames, as she wiped blood from her sword and heard Uthalion’s labored breathing grow slightly calmer.

“Blood and bloom,” she said under her breath, finding the name for what she felt in Vaasurri’s words and hearing them echo somewhere in the back of her mind, in the dream-song that would return when she slept. She repeated the phrase quietly and leaned back against the wall, covering herself in her cloak and letting the constant patter of rain lull her to sleep on endless shores and thundering tides.

Ghaelya stirred in her sleep, tossing and turning as the dream returned with more force, insistent and irresistible. Somewhere, red flower-blooming eyes watched her from the bottom of a deep stairwell. Dancing flames within the crimson eyes seemed to whisper, calling her down and down into the dark in a singsong voice.

She resisted at first, but as she fell deeper into sleep, her will was slowly overcome.

“Tess?” she muttered in her sleep, a musty scent, of old wood and faint lavender, surrounding her.

A groan escaped Brindani as he awoke. He rolled onto his side and clutched his stomach for long moments before breathing again and carefully sitting up. His entire body trembled in the rain that had become a thin misting, little more than a damp fog. Dark clouds still hung overhead, occasionally growling with soft thunder, and he sighed in relief. Though he was glad the sun hadn’t risen to blind his sensitive eyes, he dreaded the day to come and the day after that.

Dreams of Caidris, still fresh in his waking mind, were more detailed than they had been in some years. He recalled standing in the dusty road of the town square, shaking as the horde from Tohrepur had come shuffling into town from the south. Fellow mercenaries had stood with him, their swords ready and fear on their faces. Their names, forgotten for so long, came back easily enough. There had been Faldrath, a talkative soldier who’d been speechless that night, and Efra, a skilled young woman with old dueling scars. And the farmer, Khault, who’d bravely given them shelter in a deep basement after the first long night of bloodletting.

He shook them away, banishing the old faces and the horrible town along with them. He stretched, rising to one knee. Uthalion still lay nearby, mumbling occasionally, but breathing more evenly. The human’s eyes were half-open, not entirely asleep, but seemingly unaware of his surroundings. Ghaelya mumbled incoherently in a fitful sleep, but did not wake, passed out after the night’s exertions. And Vaasurri—Brindani looked around curiously—appeared to be gone.

Alarmed at first, wondering what had happened to the killoren, Brindani slowly realized he was alone. Shaking quietly, his hand drifted to the small lump hidden at the bottom of his pack, a single bit of silkroot the pilfering Vaasurri had missed. He sat still for a long time, longer than he might have several days before. The small piece of his will that desired freedom had grown stronger, a little louder in his thoughts, and enough to be heard within the screaming pangs of his need.

In the end though, no matter how much he wanted to listen, that piece of him was powerless. He cursed himself for not throwing the drug away—for not having the strength to get rid of it. It made him weaker rather than stronger in denying it when temptation was so close.

Quietly he stood, leaving the others and winding his way carefully through the vine-trees to hide himself in the twitching forest and the drifting mist. The early morning scents of rain and grass were sharp to his nose, more vivid, though sickening as a sudden nausea gripped him. He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut and choking down the bile that rose in his throat. In that brief darkness behind his eyelids, he imagined the road north out of Caidris, remembered bidding solemn farewells to those soldiers who had chosen to stay in the little town. He and Uthalion had promised to return one day—they never had.

Opening his eyes, he stared at his boots, willing them to remain still, forcing himself to endure the growing pain in his guts as he contemplated turning around. For the first time in years, he feared finding that quiet, lonely place where he could sit and lose himself in the drug’s fog of buried memories.

“Are the leaves helping?”

Brindani gasped as Vaasurri shifted slightly, revealing himself amid the mist and greenery several paces ahead. The killoren’s eyes had returned to a deep green, their darkness drained away sometime during the night, though they held hidden mysteries that still chilled the half-elf to his core. He exhaled slowly, almost relieved at the interruption.

“Some,” he answered hoarsely. “Enough to get by.”

The lie slipped out so casually he almost believed it, like a reflex to protect his need. He considered for a moment taking the words back, apologizing and telling the truth—but he didn’t, still not yet ready to let go.

“A brave thing that,” Vaasurri replied and stood straight, comfortable among the vine-trees. He ignored their stinging thorns, and it seemed they somehow recognized him as one of their own. “Few have the strength to abandon the silkroot so readily.”

“Few have good reason,” Brindani said. “I couldn’t risk leading those things, the dreamers, any closer to Ghaelya than I already did.”

As he said the words he felt himself die a little inside, wishing he could be the kind of person to say such things honestly. A sudden flash of pain ripped through his stomach, and he could almost feel the tiny holes in his gut, eroded by use of the drug. He slipped to one knee, accepting the punishment for his lies, as he fumbled at his pack for one of the leaves Vaasurri had given him. Stuffing it into his mouth, he chewed hard, as if the extra force would expedite the soothing effect of the balm.

“The pain will pass in time,” Vaasurri said quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder before moving to join the others.

“Perhaps,” Brindani whispered through clenched teeth as stars erupted before his eyes, leaving him dizzy for several moments. He looked to the south and could almost feel the nearness of Caidris. He knew they would pass through the town, knew it was inevitable, a marker on his and Uthalion’s journey back to Tohrepur. Standing slowly as the pain faded, he wavered a moment before turning back to the little camp.

He made an effort to keep his hands away from the little lump in his pack, folding his arms and wondering who they might find in Caidris, if anyone. He wondered if he could face them, wondered what he might say, what lies he might invent under the dark of yet another storm in a place that had seen one too many.

Coughing and hacking, drops of blood staining his lips and filling his mouth with a coppery taste, Uthalion rolled onto his side and clutched at his chest until the fit subsided. Rubbing his eyes, he blinked, trying to bring the cool morning into focus as memory of the night returned. A broken stone wall was at his back, wind whistling through a hole that had once been a window. The small camp before him was empty save for a discarded cloak and a couple of travel packs.

Ignoring the pain in his chest, he reached for his long sword and found it gone, taken away at some point during his delirium. Wincing, he sat up, braced his boots, and pushed up on the old wall. His eyes darted wildly around for any sign of his companions or, he dreaded, the shaedlings. A stabbing pain accompanied each breath as he staggered forward, spotting his sword near Vaasurri’s pack. Gripping the cold hilt, he recalled a half-remembered dream of black wings and vicious flames, screams mingling with the recurring images of his old nightmare.

The silver ring sat secure upon his finger, though he wondered briefly if its magic had failed him, letting him sleep while the others fought.

At a slight noise he whirled, leveling his sword at the intruder, only to find Vaasurri staring at him curiously down the length of the blade. Breathing a sigh of relief, he lowered the weapon, as Brindani appeared in the killoren’s wake, confusion in the dark-ringed eyes of the half-elf. Vaasurri scanned the area swiftly, seeming alarmed before looking to Uthalion with a grim knowing stare.

“Where’s Ghaelya?” Brindani asked quietly.

Relief faded, and Uthalion stood with a groan, shouldering his pack and sheathing his sword. His body ached, feeling several seasons older than his modest thirty-six, but he was ready to move as Vaasurri studied the ground just outside the small circle of the makeshift camp.

“Vaas?” he asked as Brindani gathered his cloak, wringing the rain from it. Unsurprisingly, the killoren gestured south through the forest of vine-trees. Uthalion nodded. “Let’s go. If we’re lucky, I know where we’ll find her.”

“And if we’re not lucky?” Brindani mumbled.

“Same place,” Uthalion replied and followed the killoren into the thin, twitching forest of thorny trees. Though he held onto a moment of hope, suspecting they might stumble upon the genasi simply answering the call of nature, he quickly discarded the idea as time passed.

He grew accustomed to the popping and creaking of his aching joints, the growing knot of pain in his back from prowling stooped through the low branches of the vine-trees, but the constant stabbing pain in his chest was much harder to discount. The chalky, bitter taste of the wyrmwind filled each hacking cough, bringing with it memories of the ochre wave washing over and around him. It curled above him, breaking against the rocky wall of the cliff, blinding him, filling his lungs with burning, and somewhere deep inside he wondered if, just for a moment, he’d let it in.

Choking back another surge of bitter bile, he buried the morbid idea and focused on attempting to find Ghaelya’s path, though his skill at tracking was nothing compared to Vaasurri’s.

Breaking through the edge of the writhing grove, lightning illuminated the pale blue morning, flashing across a scattered collection of old, overgrown buildings. The barest thinning of tall grass outlined what had once been a well-used dirt road, now left to the inexorable crawl of the wild, nature reclaiming the temporary haunts of mortals.

Cautiously following the old road, Uthalion stared in wonder at the changes that all the time that had passed since he was last in Caidris created. The well ordered fields of the farmers were gone, gaping holes marked the roofs of buildings on the edge of collapse. The blood-soaked killing ground he’d left behind had produced at least one harvest, the fouled soil feeding people he’d once sworn to protect against the horde out of Tohrepur. He hadn’t acted out of honor or even pity. That the town had been here at all had been his only reason for making a stand, a tactical choice of a defensible position.

Several times after that night, though, he’d imagined himself as the man these people had seen, sword and shield against a horrid host.

“She’s here,” Vaasurri said, interrupting his thoughts, “But the weather obscures her tracks.”

Drawing his sword, Uthalion considered the town proper, where the majority of buildings centered around a common square. Standing in the old road, he looked to Brindani and wondered how much like mere ghosts they appeared, haunting an abandoned town beneath the dark clouds of the storm.

“You two stay together,” he said. “But call out if you find her.”

“Where are you going?” Brindani asked.

Uthalion strode through the tall grass wordlessly, weeds clinging to him as he passed. He did not answer the half-elf and knew he didn’t have to as he veered toward the looming silhouette of a large farmhouse just outside the center of town—Brindani knew the place well enough.

Like the lyrics of the nearly forgotten song from his wedding, he felt there was a poetry in returning to the abandoned home of Khault, a rhythmic melody in his decision that he was hesitant to trust at first. Lightning lit the shadowed porch, the house’s dark windows gaping like the sockets of a yellowed skull as Uthalion approached, somehow certain that Ghaelya would be inside, but also unable to turn away from the dark at the bottom of those stairs.

Much like the ethereal song that called to him in the night, he had to know, had to see what summoned him and haunted his nightmares. He twirled the silver ring on his finger nervously and placed a boot on the first, creaking step.

After six long years, he’d finally come back.

Ghaelya felt as if she were floating, the world racing by in a dark blue blur of clouds and lightning. She felt her arms and legs moving, knew she was following something important, but could not focus on the details. Thunder and singing filled her ears, the storm’s rhythm matching a soft, enthralling voice that sounded so much like her sister—save for a harsh undertone, an insistent, hidden melody that bent her will to its own. The inner fires that bonded her to Tessaeril grew stronger, hotter as she rushed to an unknown place, searching for what she must see, the sign that would shape her quest to find her twin.

Dark shapes prowled gracefully amid the straight-edged shadows of dark structures rising from the ground. Dim, glassy eyes watched her from afar, lightning dancing in the lidless discs as a second wave of thunder rumbled from thick throats. The beasts darted out of view like figments in a nightmare only to melt into a hazy background that rippled like water.

She drifted on the warm currents of dream and song, surrounded by lithe beasts and misty rain until a sudden darkness wrapped cold dusty folds around her body.

Her stomach lurched as she slowed and fell forward, stumbling as the song faded away. The dreaming sense, the detachment from her surroundings, was still strong and made her dizzy. Her boots skidded on a dusty floor, and she leaned against rough wood, splinters scratching at the backs of her arms as her pounding pulse filled the silence left by the singing. As she shivered, the scents of lavender and dust grew more pungent and overpowered her senses as she turned toward a tall rectangle of limitless black.

An old door stood open, and the first step of a stairway was illuminated by blue flashes of quiet lightning. A faint whispering drew her to the dark descent, and she stared into the shadowy depths, bleary-eyed and trying to focus as two pinpoints of deep red light flared to life at the bottom of the stairs. The crimson glow throbbed in time to her heartbeat; the whispers, though unintelligible, beckoned her down in pleading tones.

She took the steps one at a time, pausing at each to balance herself on damp walls of wood and soil. Trickles of water ran between her fingers, the swirling energy lines on her wrists flaring at the touch of her favored element. Flashes of light from the doorway shined like stars at the base of the step, reflecting on the still surface of a basement flooded by heavy rain.

The red eyes shimmered beneath the water, blossoming into flowery blooms that pulsed and grew as Ghaelya drew closer. Slowly they retreated, deeper into the dark beyond the stairway, a soft wake rising and lapping at the lowest step.

“Tess?” she called, though her voice was slurred, her tongue heavy and unwieldy in her mouth. Panic gripped her as the glowing blooms dimmed to tiny dots of fiery light. She tried to descend faster, reaching for the light as the whispers grew softer. She stumbled, disoriented on weary legs, and fell toward the glistening surface of the pool.

Clinging to the shadows, Sefir’s clawed hands dug deep into nearly rotted wooden rafters as he writhed and gritted his teeth in the throes of an exquisite agony. His back twisted beyond the range of his old body; bones popped as they loosened and adapted to his changing form. His jaw ached as blunt, useless teeth were pushed aside by rows of sharp, needlelike teeth. Blood trickled through his lips, dripping onto his dark robes as he accepted the Lady’s gifts and gave quiet thanks for her blessings and pain.

Only the palm of his left hand, where he’d touched his mistress’s warm, sinuous body remained unchanged and painless—the mark of her lasting favor and a symbol of his place among the Choir, her chosen.

His skin had grown cool to the touch, smooth and translucent, during his swift journey with the pack of dreamers. Khault, he had mused, would look upon him with pride when they were reunited. But Sefir remained alone, waiting in a web of shadows as a rhythmic torrent rushed through his veins, making him stronger with each new exertion, each act that professed his faith in the Lady’s song and the ethereal beauty of her voice.

Somewhere in his haze of pain he heard footsteps echoing across old wood, clumping on the floorboards as they drew closer, and he grinned widely, his sharp, new teeth scraping unevenly against one another. He hissed quietly in pleasure, his new appendages curling from beneath his robes to grip the rafters above. Puckered slits opened at the base of his neck, flaring excitedly in anticipation.

He studied the dark, searching curiously with his remaining, lesser, right eye, hearing and feeling far more than any mere reflection of light upon a surface could provide. His skin tingled with the slightest movement of air, and every sound thrummed acutely in his sensitive ears.

“How blind I was,” he said to himself, “Fumbling through a dull, lifeless world.”

Slowly he drew his heavy, serrated blade, the sound of steel sliding on leather vibrating through his palm, a beautiful shriek of battle that was his alone among the Choir. He lowered his head as ripples circled outward from a strident clap of splashing water, the sound reverberating from every surface, shaping his view of the murky basement in fine detail.

“This servant has been patient Lady,” he whispered and let the tips of his dangling toes descend into the water as he recalled the prophecy preached by Khault, the purest among the Choir. “Twin shall embrace twin, and all the world will shudder to hear their voices.”