Tharaiyelagh shifted his shoulders, but the sliding of the linen against his skin gave him no relief from the itching. If he turned away from the tree, or looked directly at it, the itch grew unbearable. He eyed the carpet of green stalks underfoot, and he wondered if rolling on it would offer any relief. Probably not. He shifted again, and he tried to ignore the looming presence of the tree.
“Here.” A small tin in his hand, Van-Dal knelt beside Tharaiyelagh. “Let me see your back.” He set the tin aside and helped Tharaiyelagh out of his jacket. Tharaiyelagh hiked his shirt up to his armpits, but Van-Dal pushed it all the way up over his shoulders. The fabric hung from the back of his neck and ensnared his arms. With a soft chuckle, Van-Dal touched the skin beside the bite mark. “I see,” he said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Tharaiyelagh blushed to the tips of his ears, but he made no move to cover the bite. The cool air and the warm light of the ever-circling sun soothed his itching back. “It’s no intrusion,” he forced himself to say with an artificial steadiness to his voice. His breath wanted to catch, and a fluttering had taken hold in his chest. He felt… excited? Thrilled? He wanted Van-Dal to interact with the bite mark?
“Hm,” remarked Van-Dal. He opened the tin, which contained some sort of salve. He dipped two fingers in it, then, catching Tharaiyelagh watching, gently nudged the back of his head with his own brow. He just missed getting jabbed with the tips of Tharaiyelagh’s horns. “You don’t need to watch.” He touched the salve to Tharaiyelagh’s back and began to spread it over the itching skin with small, circular strokes. The salve itself tingled, but it was the warmth of Van-Dal’s caresses that soothed his tense muscles until Tharaiyelagh felt like he might turn to liquid and melt away into the ground.
“Why are you so kind to me?” The words tumbled out rather without permission, and Tharaiyelagh frowned after them. Van-Dal scoffed.
“Kind?” he said. “I haven’t been kind. I’ve stalked you, cut your back open, and forced your blood to mingle with my own. The shock of it could have killed you.”
Tharaiyelagh considered the terrible pain of the breaking of the seal, and its aftermath. His frown deepening, he shook his head. “No.” When had he become so bold? “No, you would not risk my life so lightly.”
Van-Dal’s hands stilled on his back. “Am I so transparent, little one?” he murmured.
Tharaiyelagh shrugged. “Maybe?” He could point out that harming the chancellor of Seyzharel would make for poor politics. He could remind Van-Dal of his lifelong friendship with Baleirithys. He could even appeal to a male dragon’s inclination to protect and nurture. Instead, he shifted around until he could meet Van-Dal’s gaze. “You weren’t trying to hide the fact that you care about me… were you?”
Van-Dal’s tail lashed in the carpet of green beneath them. “Perhaps not,” he conceded. His fingers wandered from shoulders to nape, where he toyed with the silk cord he had given Tharaiyelagh. “Will you tell me what this is?”
North’s opal.
Tharaiyelagh’s hand closed over the stone where it rested against his chest. It felt warm, almost alive. He trusted Van-Dal, of course he did, but somehow he hesitated. “Ah… I’d rather talk about it later.” He glanced toward Seikhiel and Ragheiyont, who sat a little distance away, talking in low tones. Did he distrust his own brother? Probably. Possibly for the best.
“Hmm.” Van-Dal’s fingers stilled. He pressed his chin against Tharaiyelagh’s shoulder, quite near the bite mark. “That’s probably wise.” The scent of the salve wafted upward, menthol and sweet spice in the perpetual afternoon. Tharaiyelagh closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
“Oya! Get away from there!”
The alarm in Ragheiyont’s voice snapped Tharaiyelagh out of his momentary respite. He squinted up the hill. There, Tempest paced in broad circles around the tree. His wings shifted loosely behind him, almost an afterthought. If he had not hidden them yet, did that mean that he was still weak from exerting so much magic?
With exaggerated deliberation, Tempest stopped pacing. “Isn’t this tree the entire purpose for this errand of ours?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Good. Let’s examine it.” Tempest took a step closer, then hesitated, as though faced with in invisible barricade. “Strange,” he said softly, “how it entices and repulses me in equal measure.” He lifted his hand.
“I wouldn’t—”
The moment his fingertips brushed against the soft bark, Tempest snatched his hand away. Frowning, he examined his fingers, dragging his thumb across them. “I’m… not certain how to open it.”
“I’m surprised you still have a hand,” Ragheiyont said. “I can feel that thing from here. What were ya thinkin’?”
“Actually,” Tharaiyelagh ventured, struggling past a wave of uncertainty, “I can feel it too.” Like a bad sunburn, creeping up his back.
Seikhiel climbed to his feet and dusted his hands off. “If we’re all repulsed by the tree, then how do we open it?”
Van-Dal shifted his wings in a gesture that looked almost self-protecting. “I can probably—”
“Repulsed?” Akieryon plucked at the feathery green needles of a low branch. “You’re all repulsed?”
Tharaiyelagh shuddered at the thought of touching the dread tree. Seeing everyone staring at him in varying degrees of astonishment, Akieryon blushed and lowered his hand. Tharaiyelagh righted his shirt and stood, wincing as his leg gave a twinge of protest. Van-Dal didn’t know about that yet, but he would notice it soon enough. “It’s…” Frowning, Tharaiyelagh squinted at the tree. “It’s like an annoying noise, but one that you don’t really register at first. The noise doesn’t actually get any louder, but the longer it goes on, the more it bothers you. Until you want to claw your eardrums out.” Not a perfect analogy—he sensed the tree with his entire body—but it made enough sense that most everyone else nodded along. Even terrifying, golden Seikhiel.
Doing a poor job of concealing his confusion, Akieryon shuffled over to Tempest’s side. The moment their hands touched, a visible tension melted from Akieryon, leaving him alert and determined.
“I don’t know how it opens,” he said, “but I will help.”
“An’ we’re what, backup?” Bitterness sharpened Ragheiyont’s voice. “An audience?” He swayed, unsteady on his feet.
“Rahi…”
“If I can’t help, then what am I even here for?” He glared at the shards of his dagger, still in precise arrangement where Tharaiyelagh had aligned them.
Lightly, his footsteps making no sound on the hillside, Van-Dal moved to Ragheiyont’s side and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Raya,” he said, his voice low and his stare unyielding, “you brought me here. Seikhiel and I never would have come so far without you. Let me do this part.”
Ragheiyont gave a reluctant nod, and when he looked away, he looked to his brother. A flicker of understanding passed between them. Ragheiyont now realized what Tharaiyelagh had learned months ago: Van-Dal would burn down the world to protect them.
All of them.
A burst of noise, a sudden roaring sound broke upon the hillside. At the foot of the hill, a spray of mist shrouded a newly formed gate. Drenched but smiling, Atchi stepped forward into the sunlight. He tucked some sort of tool away in his sleeve, and he turned around, his arms open wide.
“Come, my friends! Behold! It’s—”
“Dry!” Luccan surged past him, nearly bowling him over. Szearbhyn sauntered through last, amusement plain in every line of his posture. Like the others before, the gate vanished, taking the roar of water with it. Luccan shook himself vigorously, then tore off layers of sodden clothing and cast them down on the hillside. Szearbhyn’s gaze searched for his brother. Atchi stared at the tree.
“That’s it.” He nudged Luccan, who had managed to strip down to trousers and undershirt. Luccan’s head snapped up, and he stilled.
“Bel,” he whispered.
Familiar stone stairs led the way up to the archive. Here he had broken a tooth as a child. There one step stood a little thinner than its neighbors, for someone having sanded the bloodstain away and buffed it back to a fine gloss. He looked away, turned away from the memories. He kept walking. In moments, he stood before the archive door, forcing his usual mask of calm into place before he reached for the handle.
A hiss and a flash of claws greeted him. His heart jumping in his chest, Baleirithys slammed the door shut again. He should have expected that, he chided himself. Of course the appearance of the Hawk prince would have unsettled Yrich, even enough to draw out his feral self. He should have realized sooner.
Baleirithys pressed his palm flat against the gleaming wood of the door. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He knew the situation had been beyond his control, but still the guilt tightened his throat and squeezed his chest. Pulling his shoulders back and settling his wings in a position of false confidence, he turned away.
Halfway down the stairs—on the step that had once broken Baleirithys’ jaw—Gavi stood, her head tilted a little to the side, watching him. Hot shame turned quickly to rage, and Baleirithys squashed both with the grace of long practice. He descended to meet her.
“Neither Laraghn nor Yrich is currently available.”
Gavi gave him a hard, calculating look which she swiftly covered with a wave of compassion. “Is he well?”
“Mostly.” Baleirithys wondered how much Gavi knew already, how much Laraghn had told her. Did it matter?
Of course it mattered. This was Gavi’s home now. Baleirithys took the final step down, putting himself on the same level as this newcomer. He forced his expression to soften. “How are you and Baaz settling in?”
“Oh!” Gavi blinked at him, startled by the casual conversation. Yes, Chaighan had reacted the same way at first. “I, um…” She gathered her wits. “Rather well. Your Highness is kind to ask.”
Baleirithys waved the compliment away. “Please, Gavi, you must use my name.” He turned away, took two steps downward.
“Why?”
The bluntness, the very brazenness of the question brought a genuine smile to Baleirithys’ lips. He turned, he stepped up one step, and he stared directly into Gavi’s eyes as he met bluntness with bluntness.
“Because too many people have claimed power over you by denying you the use of names. Theirs and yours.” When Gavi did not flinch, something savage stirred in him, and he yielded to it. “How many called you ‘girl’ or ‘child’ or ‘half-dragon’ or worse?” Oh, he had endured worse. Curled bleeding on the floor, shivering as his father spat curses at him simply for daring to exist, weak and hungry and so, so tired…
Gavi did not shy from him. She held her head high, like a dragon, like a warrior of the Hawk Clan. Her eyes narrowed a little in thought, and she almost nodded. “You’re not at all what they say you are,” she decided. “In the wildlands.”
An invisible tension eased between them. Half-turning, Baleirithys tilted his head in invitation. “Walk with me,” he said. “Tell me more. What do they say about me?”
Nine men sat in a circle around Ragheiyont’s ruined dagger. Washed and dressed and fed, they briefly recounted their journeys to one another. Tharaiyelagh rolled up his trouser leg to show the purpling on his shin. Ragheiyont bared his wounded arm. The sun circled above them, endlessly warm. When the conversation quieted, Atchi spoke.
“The seal on that tree is designed to hold the child of a Fallen. I think…” A flicker of a shadow crossed his fine features. “I cannot open it. Not without giving it something in return.” His gaze flicked to Luccan, then quickly away again.
“All holy seals demand something in return,” Van-Dal said.
“Warbringer could split it open.”
Atchi shook his head at his friend. “I would advise you not to stand too close to that thing. It could take you as well. And,” he added, shooting a pointed look at Seikhiel, “in anyone else’s hand, your beast of a sword is as likely to harm Bel as not.”
Luccan made a small exhale of dissatisfaction. Ragheiyont lifted one wing to shelter him, and Luccan pretended not to notice the gesture of dragonish comfort. Tharaiyelagh watched them, feeling oddly awkward. His brother had found himself a family. He had Luccan, sulking beneath the shade of his wing, and to his other side sat Seikhiel, stoic and golden, yet attentive to the thief at his side. How Ragheiyont had captured the affection of the most feared of Demonslayers remained a mystery to Tharaiyelagh, and his chest tightened at the thought. Ragheiyont would make room in his life for these two, but not for his own brother?
No, that wasn’t fair. Ragheiyont had changed in the decades they had spent apart. Where he had always looked raw boned and lean, now he seemed gaunt. Even the eternal sunlight could do little to bring color to his cheeks, and his eyes held deep shadows behind their merry blue. Ragheiyont had clearly suffered, and bitterness benefited no one.
Ragheiyont caught Tharaiyelagh watching him, and when his brother’s gaze wavered, Ragheiyont grinned at him. He tossed a small parcel across the circle of their companions, and in his surprise, Tharaiyelagh caught it. He unwrapped the careful folds of cloth, and there within lay a little almond cake. His throat constricting, Tharaiyelagh stared down at it. When they had begun this journey, Thrin had packed them three dozen of the delicious little cakes. Surely this one was the last. Ragheiyont had saved it for him. Or pilfered it from someone who had been keeping it for later. Numbly, Tharaiyelagh broke off a piece and passed it to Van-Dal.
“It’s decided, then,” Van-Dal declared when nothing of the sort had happened at all. “I shall break the seal, with the twins’ assistance.”
“I didn’t agree to that,” Szearbhyn said.
“We don’t know what to do,” said Akieryon.
Van-Dal gave them both a reassuring smile. “Just follow my lead,” he said. “Easy as falling down.”
“I wish you had chosen different words,” Akieryon muttered, and his brother glared.
“I must prepare.” Without waiting for further commentary, Van-Dal stood. “Chancellor Tharaiyelagh, if you would accompany me?”
Tharaiyelagh stumbled to his feet and followed Van-Dal down the sunlit slope. What help could he possibly offer? Of course he would render any and all—
“Tharaiyelagh.” Van-Dal stopped almost too abruptly for Tharaiyelagh’s halting steps. He turned, and the expression on his face stole away any reply Tharaiyelagh might have made. “My people make every effort to live life without regrets,” he said, his voice low and serious. “It is our way, one of the cornerstones of our culture, and yet I myself have been remiss. I…” He drew a deep breath. “I should have said something before we left Seyzharel.”
Tharaiyelagh watched him with a growing horror, a crushing feeling that whatever Van-Dal would say, it would forever change them. He would miss their easy conversations, their casual flirtations, far more than he had ever realized. Tears stung the corners of his eyes, and his throat tightened, but he kept his expression neutral. He clenched his fists and squared his shoulders.
Let change come.
“You were quite correct earlier. It should not be a secret.” Van-Dal lifted his wings to shield them from view, and he stepped nearer, so near, so very near. “You are not mine,” he said softly, his gaze never breaking from Tharaiyelagh’s face. “You never will be.” He tipped his head forward, letting their foreheads touch, and Tharaiyelagh almost choked on the weight of the moment. Or perhaps that was simply his tears. “But in the brief time we’ve known each other, you have become precious to me.”
Tharaiyelagh’s traitorous heart slammed against his ribs as the bottom dropped out of his world. How could this have happened? This was a political disaster, and yet he longed to throw his arms around Van-Dal’s neck, to feel the warmth of him, to allow a scent mark—
“Relax, little one.” Van-Dal tilted his head, drifting the softest of kisses against Tharaiyelagh’s cheek as he moved away. “I’m going to show this lot what a prince of the Second Sphere can do.” His tail snaked around Tharaiyelagh’s ankle for a moment as he walked away. Tharaiyelagh stood frozen on the sunlit hillside, stunned, feeling as alone as he had ever been.
Moonlight drenched the plains in soft tones of silver and lilac. Baleirithys stood alone at a marble parapet, gazing out into the night. At sundown Gavi had hurried off about her chores, but their conversation had left Baleirithys with much on his mind. Too much. Hours later he still stood atop the south tower, foundering in the maelstrom of his thoughts.
The people of the wildlands called him monster. They blamed him for the constant shifting of the borders while they manipulated his laws into a mockery of justice. The slavers clamored for his blood, but that was no surprise. In truth, little of what Gavi has told him had genuinely surprised him.
Except for the bit about him not being monster enough.
Some people, those who opposed the slavers, apparently wished that Baleirithys would commit treason. They wanted him to slay his vile father and assume the throne. They wanted a king who ruled Seyzharel without the mandate of law.
For three hundred years Baleirithys had maintained his father’s unnatural slumber, keeping him harmless, keeping him tucked away while the prince toiled to rebuild all that the king had destroyed. But claiming the throne? Impossible. Seyzharel law explicitly forbade it. To silence Thaghecii forever, Baleirithys would have to give up his right to rule. For three hundred years, he could not bring himself to make such a sacrifice.
Now he had a son. Now he could safely forfeit his birthright, and still he hesitated. He waited. His desire to rule his people stayed his hand where swift action would perhaps benefit them better. The throne, his throne, would pass to Tempest, who would surely not thank him for it. A cold mountain breeze tugged at his wings, and he shivered. How could he stomach his own cowardice?
“Don’t go feral on us now.”
Baleirithys closed his eyes against the crisp, clear night. Enci. Of course Enci would find him up here. He drew a deep breath, held it a beat, and let it out slowly. “Is that what kind of monster I am?”
Such a question.
“Is that what you think?” Enci said carefully, stepping closer. “That you’re a monster? You, our beloved prince?”
Beloved. Baleirithys took another slow breath. In a different life, perhaps. “When I’m at my most feral, perhaps.” When he bared his fangs and pushed venom into flesh. When a human convulsed and screamed and frothed and bled at his feet.
“You’re no monster,” Enci said, his voice softening, deepening. Something had happened to his voice in recent years, some subtle change. Now, in quiet moments like this one, his words reverberated within him, like velvet and wildfire, and the sound had a strange effect on Baleirithys. It reminded him of being young, so terribly young, and hopelessly lovestruck. “You’re hurting,” Enci was saying. “I want to help you heal, but I can’t do that if you won’t let me see where it hurts.”
It hurts everywhere. Baleirithys turned, and he watched the moonlight catch the contours of Enci’s face. How could he explain…? “I should kill him,” he blurted, his words too reckless, too thick with treason.
A flicker of worry creased Enci’s brow, then faded away into the night. “My prince,” he said, leaning a little on the possessive, “please do not act rashly. We need you.”
“But you’d be safe,” Baleirithys blurted. Words that should have caught in his throat came tumbling out. “Everyone would be safe. Tempest and Tharaiyelagh can govern and—”
“And Lord Tempest would begrudge you forcing the throne on him,” Enci interrupted. “You know he would.”
Any wisp of determination drained out of Baleirithys. He allowed his wings to droop a little, when in reality he wanted to lean against Enci and beg for reassurance. He had long since stopped making such childish requests.
“My prince,” Enci continued, the new purr in his voice vibrating over Baleirithys’ skin. “Stay with us.”
Baleirithys swallowed a sudden urge to flee. He gave Enci a sidelong look. “How fares your patient?”
“Much improved. When I left him, he was sitting up and playing crosscoins with his brother. But…”
“But his condition would worsen if the unknown spell returned.” When Enci nodded, Baleirithys heaved a great sigh. “Yrich is not himself right now. I won’t even begin to research the matter until tomorrow at the earliest.” Tharaiyelagh would have been allowed into the archive. Enci must have read the thought on his face, for he stepped nearer still. His wings blocked the breeze, and the heat from his body warmed Baleirithys on one side.
“He’ll return soon,” he said softly, almost inaudibly. Baleirithys should have flinched from the words.
Instead, he leaned a little to the side. He planted his shoulder against Enci’s chest, and his wings settled low. Closing his eyes, Baleirithys breathed deeply of the night air.
Yes. Tharaiyelagh would return. Or else Baleirithys would tear the worlds apart in search of him.
Enci’s wing draped over him, and Baleirithys pressed closer, accepting the gesture of comfort. They could stand like this all night, and neither of them would much mind.
For a moment, Baleirithys felt something akin to peace.