Let me tell you a story. It is not a story of heroism, nor even of wondrous feats. At its heart lies hubris and folly, that one person could believe that the act of creation yields its own merit. That its value is inherent and unimpeachable. That the art itself cannot corrupt.
But you are young yet, scarcely out of your first millennium. Before we begin, I must ask you…
Azazel, why are you here?
A feeble shaft of sunlight pierced the roiling clouds above, painting the hillside unfortunate shades of rust and bile. The wind had died down for the moment, taking with it the stink of the fetid marshes nearby. Ragheiyont wrinkled his nose.
“Why’s it always the Third Sphere?” he complained to no one in particular. “This place is nothing but poison and peril.”
Something like amusement danced in Atchi’s eyes. “There are other entrances to Interspace,” he said. “Some are stationary. Some move around rather a lot.”
“With the quaking of the Spheres,” added Seikhiel, “stationary is safer.”
Of course. Ragheiyont steered his brother around a creeping vine that grasped after them, reaching for their heels, seeking to ensnare them. “Where are the other ones?”
Couldn’t keep his fool mouth shut, could he? Surely nobody would hand such information to a thief—
“The First Sphere,” said Akieryon.
“Aha…” Apprehension crept up Ragheiyont’s spine.
“The Fifth Sphere.” Atchi’s eyes twinkled. “In the Tiger King’s palace.”
“They’re still at war, aren’t they?”
“And,” added Seikhiel, “there’s one in the Fomorians’ holy caverns. If you’d care to give that a try.”
Ragheiyont glanced across their assembled company. “On my own, perhaps.” He could resign himself to this unpleasant leg of the journey, but no one said he had to like it.
They gained the crest of the slope just as the clouds succeeded at smothering the sun entirely. On the next ridge, a crooked black stump jutted against the seething sky.
“There,” said Luccan. “That’s the gateway.”
Raaqiel would never say that he hesitated outside the office door. No, not precisely. He simply paused to collect himself. His right thumb brushed against the sword at his hip, his one constant companion. It gave a soft vibration in return, a hum of reassurance for a troubled mind. He was no cadet come to receive a scolding, yet somehow looking a the scrawl of a calendar on the closed door still made him feel like a boy a mere century old.
He lifted his hand to knock.
“Come in,” said the headmaster.
“Lord Sidriel.” Raaqiel strode into the office and threw himself into the nearest chair, as was his habit. Showing respect would only arouse suspicion. “You wished to see me?”
Sidriel took a long, deliberate sip of his coffee, maintaining eye contact the entire time. When he lowered the cup, he thumbed a stack of papers on the desk in front of him. “This is your doing.” Not a question. A fact.
Raaqiel slouched deeper into the chair, the leather creaking, scabbard banging against his leg. He would not confess so easily, as the headmaster well knew. “What is my misdeed this time?” He knew. Without even seeing the papers, he knew.
Sidriel pressed fingertips against his temples as though staving off a headache. “Raaqiel, please. You’ve commanded the Third Sword for over three centuries. Isn’t it time you put your childhood feud to rest?”
Interesting. Sidriel thought his motivation lay purely in vexing Niseriel. Not that thwarting his old nemesis was not its own reward, of course. Raaqiel bit back a smile. “Sir?” he prompted, giving a hint of a frown.
Sidriel’s irritation progressed from temple-press to single-handed forehead squeeze. “You’ve sent Seikhiel, a member of the Fifth Sword, out on an unspecified—”
“Necessary,” Raaqiel interjected.
“—mission to an undisclosed location.” Sidriel lowered his hand, revealing a bone-weary sort of exasperation. “And you forged my signature to approve it.”
“Yes, sir.” Some lies just weren’t worth the effort.
“Niseriel is furious, and rightly so.” Sidriel’s eyes narrowed a fraction, as though he understood just how Niseriel’s impotent rage warmed Raaqiel’s cold little heart. “Couldn’t you have sent one of your own soldiers?”
“No one else possessed Seikhiel’s unique qualifications.” Of volunteering for it. Of deciding to go, proper channels be damned.
“He is not yours to command.”
“Of course not, sir.” As though Raaqiel would ever presume to order Seikhiel to do anything. He almost laughed at the thought.
Sidriel sighed that long, resigned sigh that seemed to characterize the very music of his soul. He steepled his fingertips before him. “Raaqiel,” he said, pronouncing each syllable with great care. “Where. Is. Seikhiel?”
Raaqiel gave half a shrug. When Sidriel shifted as though to stand, he offered the only honest answer he had: “I do not know, sir.”
Ragheiyont bounded ahead to inspect the stump. It split and twisted in several directions, as though a great blast had splintered it long ago. Tharaiyelagh hung back, stuck close to Lord Tempest’s side. Whatever power had shattered that tortured trunk could yet linger.
“There’s an inscription!” Ragheiyont called out. “I… can’t read it.” He fingered the hilt of his cursed dagger.
“Let me see—” Seikhiel approached too quickly, stepped too close. Ragheiyont shifted his wings at the wrong moment. Seikhiel ducked as Ragheiyont shuffled his feet. They bumped against one another, and Ragheiyont swayed.
Put up one hand to steady himself.
Touched the blackened stump.
A jolt of energy hurled him backward. He slammed against Seikhiel, and both of them tumbled in a heap to the unforgiving hillside. Complaining loudly, Ragheiyont struggled to free himself.
“‘If you would cross the threshold into Interspace,'” Prince Van-Dal translated, careful not to touch the stump even as he leaned near enough to see the inscription, “‘take pains to carry… completion in your…'” Stepping back, he shook his head. “That could say ‘pocket’ or ‘basket’. The meaning has drifted.”
Ragheiyont bounced back, bounded to Van-Dal’s side. “So it’s a riddle. How d’ya carry completion?”
“I’m not sure we can all cross at once,” Akieryon said. “It doesn’t seem large enough.”
Szearbhyn shrugged. “We could try.”
Frowning, Van-Dal turned and beckoned to Seikhiel. “This symbol here. It could indicate a fraction? Or… an enclosure?” He flicked his claws against his chin and pursed his lips.
Ragheiyont crowded the two of them as they studied the inscription. Seikhiel nudged him, and he nudged back. Tharaiyelagh opened his mouth to chide his brother, but then Seikhiel took a half step back.
“It looks like we won’t be able to see what the gh’yecei points indicate until we open it.”
“That, or it’s weathered off,” Van-Dal grumbled. Nonetheless, he held one hand over the inscription. A soft hum vibrated beneath his palm, the sound of it almost lost in the wind. The stump shuddered and creaked. Impossibly, it twisted more. “Oh, it lines up as—”
A shockwave burst from the heart of the stump, hurling the assembled company to the ground. Beside Tharaiyelagh, Lord Tempest spat a curse into the dust. Tharaiyelagh lifted his head and squinted up the slope. The stump had settled back into its original position.
Ragheiyont, Van-Dal, and Seikhiel were gone.
“Rahi!” Tharaiyelagh scrambled to his feet and charged back up the slope. His heart hammered in his chest, and his mind reeled. His brother was gone. After all this time, after their chance reunion, just when they had an opportunity to overcome their estrangement…
A hand on his collar snatched him back before he could blindly reach for the inscription. “Calm down.” Tempest gave him a little shake, then set him back on his heels. “It’s a gate, remember? We just have to open it again.”
He lifted his hand toward the stump.
Raaqiel stood just outside the open door, his gaze lingering on the solitary figure bent over a stack of papers. Feriel’s pen scratched with sure, short strokes. Merciless. Raaqiel’ slips twisted in half a smile.
“Grading homework for him again?”
Feriel’s head snapped up, and the pen clattered from his fingertips. Raw panic flashed across his face for an instant, replaced just as quickly with annoyance. “Raaqiel,” he said, exaggerating his tone of forced patience, “it’s rude to startle people.”
Raaqiel shrugged. “It’s also rude to rat me out to Lord Sidriel.” Feriel looked positively haggard, and Raaqiel instantly regretted teasing him. Until he spoke.
“If you think Lord Sidriel needs my help uncovering your latest bad behavior, you’re not half as smart as you think you are.”
Raaqiel leaned against the door frame. “I suppose not,” he conceded, his eyes following Feriel’s hand as he picked up his pen and resumed his work. Tension filled the air between them, almost stifling him. He sighed. “Would you like a hand with those?”
Feriel’s head snapped up again, and a hunted look flashed through his eyes before he could compose his features. “Are you out of your mind?” he hissed through his teeth, his gaze darting to the corridor behind Raaqiel. “Do you know what he’d do if he saw your handwriting on even one of these papers?”
“Fail the whole class?”
Without comment, Feriel bent over his task again. Raaqiel watched in silence for a minute or two, his chest aching at the sight of his old friend worn down to a mere shell of his former self. Was this the result of Seikhiel’s absence? Or did something else trouble Feriel?
With a start, Raaqiel realized that the two of them had hardly spoken in years. Certainly not ever of anything but work.
“Feriel,” he said softly, “are we still friends?”
Feriel’s pen stilled on the page. He sat motionless for a moment, his head bowed, his shoulders hunched, as though gathering himself for a reply. Raaqiel’s throat tightened, and the ache in his chest swelled. Had he truly not noticed the growing distance between them?
Feriel lifted his head, and he summoned a wan smile. “Raaqiel,” he chided, “you ought to know better than that.”
“That I can’t get rid of you?” Raaqiel prompted, tamping down the hope rising within him.
“Of course not.” Feriel snatched a pencil from the desk and threw it at him. “Now go away and let me do my work.”
Heartened, but still worrying for Feriel’s health, Raaqiel backed away from the door.
He would obey. For now.
“Of course it only allows three to pass at once,” Atchi said. “Thrice three, as Mercy said. Completion, made pocket-sized.”
Szearbhyn fixed him with a scowl blacker than the wretched stump. “You might have mentioned before it took my brother.”
“Oh, yes, I might have.” Atchi’s tail twitched, and his eyes sparked mischief. “But I didn’t.”
Luccan stepped between them before Szearbhyn could bare teeth at Atchi. “We can argue about this later,” he said. “Right now, we need to get to Bel.”
Szearbhyn glared in silence, his expression darkening to match the restless sky when Atchi chuckled.
“Such fine parenting skills. It’s for the best that you’ve adopted another.”
“Don’t suggest—”
“Not you,” Atchi interrupted, casting a look of scorn toward the Soul-Stealer. Gauging. Testing the edges of his ill temper. His ears pricked forward at deadly attention, and a tremor of excitement stirred his silvery tail, with good reason. Soul eaters were rare enough, and this one in particular had earned quite the reputation for his intemperate nature. Of course Atchi could not resist the chance to needle him. No fox would. “Tell me,” he continued, turning a broad grin on Luccan, “does the poor kit know?”
“Open the gate, Atchi,” Luccan said, keeping his voice pitched low, keeping the irritation from showing in the set of his ears.
Atchi studied him, unblinking. Another tremor ran down his tail, and Luccan tensed. He hated to agree with Szearbhyn, strictly on principle, but the others could have encountered trouble while the three of them dallied at the doorway. Who could even imagine what trouble Ragheiyont might get himself into in Interspace? Seikhiel would be no help in that regard. Indeed, Seikhiel was as likely as not to make himself the cause of trouble.
Atchi threw back his head and laughed.
“You should see your faces,” he said, grinning into the rising storm of Luccan’s ire. Without looking, he waggled his fingers over the inscription on the blasted stump. The letters began to emit a faint glow. “Don’t you trust your loved ones to survive five minutes without you?”
“Of course I do,” grumbled Szearbhyn, but he sounded unconvinced. Luccan drew a steadying breath. Of course Ragheiyont was competent, despite his youth. Of course he had survived a century alone, in the face of cruel odds. Still, he had no idea how to be a dragon, and someone had to teach him. He needed Luccan.
The blackened bark peeled open in a sideways scream, a sensation like falling, a sick feeling that ran marrow-deep. A flash of light left Luccan blinded, falling, weightless. He tried to call out to his companions, but his voice had withered in his throat. The wind died away to a distant memory. Something unpleasant squished underfoot.
Luccan blinked his eyes hard to clear his vision. The spots that hung behind his eyelids cleared away, but still he saw nothing beyond a vague grayness. Reflexively, he reached for Warbringer. The cool, smooth metal of the guard reassured him. He decided to test his voice.
“Akieryon!”
Szearbhyn’s shout came too close, and Luccan ducked away from the sound, his ears flattening against the sharpness of it. He flinched Warbringer loose in the scabbard, and the usual rumble of pleasure coiled up his arm, tempting him.
“Akieryon?”
“Silence, you fool,” growled Atchi, all levity gone from his voice. He whispered a word in old dragonish, and the air stirred, pushing back the veil of gray. The fog. It left them feeling damp and cold. Luccan blinked and peered around them.
They were alone.