The first-floor windows of the tower glowed with a healthy orange light. Damon hadn’t bothered to put out the fire in the hearth when he’d heard the disturbance in the forest. He stopped as they stepped into the clearing, savoring Vel’s reaction as she stared at their rebuilt home in disbelief.
“…What?” Vel shook her head, gaping and pointing at the looming structure as though she was the only one who could see it. “Am I dreaming, or is that…?”
“You’re awake,” said Damon. “Come on. Let’s—”
Vel took off toward the tower at a sprint. Damon shot a glance at Lilian, who seemed to share in his amusement.
“She told me a fair bit about the farmstead, and the tower,” said Lilian. “I was under the impression that it was destroyed.”
“It was,” said Damon. “Destroyed, and then meticulously rebuilt.”
He wondered if Vel’s elation would wane once he explained just who it was who’d gone through the effort, and how she’d no doubt be returning sometime within the next few days. That was a conversation for later, however.
“Is it safe here?” asked Lilian. “We went through the gauntlet on our journey. I was beginning to doubt whether we’d make it much farther, let alone track you down.”
“It’s safe.” He put an arm around her waist, and they started walking to catch up with Vel. “What possessed the two of you to set out into the wild?”
“You’re the one who told me to seek out Vel and Kastet in Silke, remember?” said Lilian. “It just so happens that once I did, Vel had been dreamspelling to Ria, who’d expressed some concerns about how you might be putting yourself into harm’s way. We didn’t know that you’d regained your sword’s enchantment.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” he said. “I think the two of you are overdue for some relaxation.”
He squeezed her against him, finding it hard to keep from staring at her dark eyes and pale violet face. She still had blood on her, bits of dried red along her neck and nestled within the full cleavage visible between the folds of her tunic. On anyone else it would have been ghastly, but somehow it suited her just fine.
Vel was running through the tower when Damon and Lilian reached it, throwing open doors, alternating between gasping and giggling. Damon had only seen her like this once before, back when they’d been children and Malon had surprised her with a pair of new dresses in her size.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Vel, but maybe sit down and take a breath or two?” he suggested.
“My old room!” cried Vel. “My old bed!”
She threw herself onto her mattress and started rolling from side to side. She’d already ditched her crossbow and traveling pack, leaving a trail of tiny messes in her wake that was so predictably Vel that it made Damon nostalgic.
“Is she having some kind of seizure?” asked Lilian.
“Throw a pillow at her,” suggested Damon. “Might snap her out of it.”
Lilian took his advice in earnest, grabbing a pillow and hopping on the bed next to Vel to swat her with it. Damon was about to join in and see if he could wrestle one or both into submission when they finally returned to the moment, catching their breath and moving to the common room.
“I can’t believe it,” whispered Vel. “How is this here?”
“It’s a long story,” he said. “Why don’t we all sit down and talk for a bit? I have just as many questions for the two of you. Dinner is over the fire, as well. I already ate, but there’s plenty to spare.”
He grabbed the pot he’d left warming against the edge of the hearth and brought it over. Nothing special, beef stew with some of the ingredients his aesta had left in the pantry supplemented by fresh herbs he’d gathered earlier that morning.
The last time he’d seen Malon had been just after his encounter with Lascivious earlier in the week. She’d returned the day after, though it had just been a passing visit to drop off a few essentials — food and wine, mostly.
“That smells incredible!” said Vel. “Oh, Damon. I don’t know if you understand how warm of a welcome this represents after being in the wilderness for so long.”
“Oh, trust me, I understand,” he said, ladling her a bowl. “What possessed you to undertake this journey in the first place? I seem to recall trying to convince you to come along with me back in Silke, to no avail.”
Vel and Lilian exchanged a glance.
“Lil went looking for me,” said Vel. “I was surprised, to say the least, but beyond happy to have her back. We went to Kastet after she arrived in the city, and… well, she was welcoming, in her own subdued sort of way. I suppose we did manage to put a lot of our old issues behind us, but…”
“Kastet could only do so much,” said Lilian, with a sigh. “It was clear enough that I couldn’t stay in Silke, not as I am.”
Damon nodded slowly. He reached a hand across the table, letting his fingers rest intimately on Lilian’s knuckles.
“I was also dreamspelling to Ria at the time,” said Vel. “This was after you and she had your reunion. She was worried about your plan to seek out aesta, but she was also overloaded with her own responsibilities. I told Lilian, and she resolved to set off looking for you. I just felt like… it was unfair to let her go alone.”
“She was worried I’d steal you for myself,” said Lilian with a smile.
“Lilian!”
“I’m joking, Vel,” she replied. “Mostly.”
“So, the two of you set out on your own,” said Damon. “Traveling… mostly just at night, I’m assuming?”
He shook his head, frowning as he imagined how dangerous their travels must have been.
“We were careful,” said Vel. “Well, as careful as we could be.”
“I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how stubborn she can be,” said Lilian.
“All too well.” Damon helped himself to another bowl of the leftover stew. He eyed Lilian, proffering the ladle in her direction, but she gave a small shake of her head. He wanted to ask her if she might perhaps be hungry for something else, but that question seemed better suited for after dinner.
“Your turn,” said Vel. “You saved us with your myrblade. How did you restore its power?”
He smiled and leaned back in his chair. “I didn’t restore it. Half of it is still stuck in my body, and it seems as though it’s the half with the enchantment.”
“Can you do everything that you once could?” Lilian’s dark eyes locked onto him with interest, and he understood why. Damon had once reached a level of power with his myrblade that bordered on matching some of the Forsaken.
“Not everything,” he said. “I’d say I’m about half as strong as I was at my peak. I’m not sure if it’s due to a loss of skill on my part, a loss of raw power from the breaking of the sword, or simply just the fact that it’s not winter anymore.”
“A bit of both, if I had to guess,” whispered Myr.
Damon grinned and let his thumb ply across the pommel of his myrblade. Having Myr back had been an indescribable buoy to his mood, especially across the past few days when he’d been otherwise alone at the tower. Her voice was as disassociated and ethereal as ever, though it seemed to sound more from over one shoulder now, rather than emanating from the sword itself.
“There hasn’t been a winter for years now,” muttered Vel.
“Well, it’s not as though I planned on waiting around for it to start snowing, anyway,” he said.
He saw the way both Lilian and Vel perked up at his phrasing. It was too soon to tell them everything just yet. He and Myr had been deep in discussion over the past few days about what their next move would be, about how to save the world from itself, no less. He hadn’t shared the contents of those discussions with Malon, not yet, not until he could present them in a manner that sounding more convincing than insane.
“We have wine,” he said, shifting the conversation forward. “There’s also some extra clean clothing of aesta’s in the closet if the two of you want to freshen up a bit.”
He hurried to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle and cups and pouring them each a glass. Vel and Lilian took enthusiastic sips, each letting out a matching sigh of contentment.
“True Divine, it’s good to be home,” muttered Vel.
“It’s good to be indoors,” said Lilian. “It’s good to know that I can go to sleep tonight without having to dig a hole to hide from the sun in.”
Damon blinked. “Do you… actually dig holes to hide in when the sun comes out?”
“No!” She glared and took another sip. “Well… not often. I can usually find caves or set up my tent in the shadow of a tree, or… a cliff.”
It was hard to tell against the surreal color of her skin, but Damon suspected that Lilian was blushing.
“It was a hard journey for both of us,” offered Vel. “It just feels so comforting to have solid walls and soft beds on our side again. Not to mention wine… Where did you get this, anyway?”
Damon met her gaze for a moment before giving her the honest answer. “From aesta. She brought it on her last visit.”
Both Vel and Lilian had a sharp reaction to his words. They glanced at each other, as though he’d just displayed or proven some unspoken point. In essence, he understood where they were coming from. Malon was still the Red Sorceress in their minds. They hadn’t seen her or spoken to her the way he had. They didn’t trust her.
“I’m not surprised to hear that you’ve met with her,” said Vel. “I hope you aren’t surprised to know that it worries me, Damon.”
She looked around the tower of which she’d so recently been singing the praises, apparently seeing it in a new light.
“Things aren’t as simple as they seem,” he said. “In the same way that I was once an outlaw to the masses, aesta has been painted to be someone she’s not. Lascivious too, at least to a certain extent.”
“Lascivious… destroyed the world,” said Lilian. “You can’t hand wave that fact away.”
“I’m not hand waving anything away,” said Damon. “I spoke with her. She’s not unstable, not like she was back then. She bears a responsibility for what she did which she can never atone for. I don’t deny any of that, it’s just…”
It was so hard to explain to them the conclusion to which he’d come, especially because it was so closely tied to what needed to happen next. The problem wasn’t Lascivious now any more than it had been Avarice five years ago, or Wrath during The Great War against Merinia.
The problem was what lay behind their power.