“Interspace.” Raaqiel paced the front of the classroom, his hands clasped behind his back. “It’s harder to get out of than it is to get in. Who can tell me why?” Turning, he fixed the cadets with an expectant stare. As one, they dropped their gazes to their books.
Some things never changed.
Raaqiel circled slowly around toward the windows that lined one wall. Sunlight streamed in, just touching the edges of the desks. This was Seikhiel’s classroom, Seikhiel’s class. Raaqiel faced the windows, a cheap trick to hide his expression from the cadets. “No one?” Seikhiel ought to be here. The Fifth Sword’s activities were completely frozen and its officers were now under investigation. The situation did not look at all promising for a soldier whose absence no one could fully explain.
“Because…” ventured a voice that sounded far too timid to make a good soldier, “it’s between and beneath? Because it was made when Spheres were broken, and…”
Raaqiel turned to face the class once more. Elarna, a clever Cherub girl, flushed under his gaze, but she continued.
“And it’s nowhere and it’s everywhere?”
Raaqiel smiled. “Indeed. Interspace is made of the same stuff as Intangibles. It exists outside of time and space as we know it, which makes all travel difficult. All travel.” He arched an expectant brow. The question had no singular right answer, and therefore the students needed to give it due consideration.
“Well,” said a cheeky cadet called Maureil who would probably make Patrol Captain next year, “you can drop a coin through a crack in the floor, but you need to take up the floorboards to get it back.”
The great bell that towered over the Drilling Green gave a single mournful toll, and the class began to gather their books. Raaqiel sighed. “Three hundred words on this topic,” he said, to the collective groans of all the cadets. “Due in precisely one week. You are dismissed.”
No one moved.
“Master Raaqiel?” Elarna hesitated, but her classmates encouraged her to continue. “Sir? Is Master Seikhiel injured?” She trembled, but she held her gaze steady.
“Please, sir,” piped up another cadet, and soon others joined in, begging to know the fate of their missing instructor.
Raaqiel leaned back against the large desk at the front of the room, and he folded his arms across his chest. He knew exactly what he would have done in this situation, and he quickly counted students to make certain no one had rushed off on a hasty and ill-conceived rescue mission.
“You all deserve the truth,” he said quietly, and every cadet leaned forward, straining to catch his every word. “So do I. Unfortunately, all I can tell you right now is that a matter of some urgency called Seikhiel away, and I’m certain he never intended to be gone this long.”
“Something’s gone wrong!”
“We have to help him!”
Raaqiel held up his gloved hand to forestall further outbursts. “Right now,” he said firmly, “I doubt there’s anything any of us can do to help him. It’s hard, I know, but it’s a reality we must accept.” For now. “Anyway, you all need to hurry up. You have an assembly to get to.”
As the cadets rushed out the door, a profound weariness settled over Raaqiel. A rescue mission, huh? Perhaps, if he were three or four centuries younger. Perhaps, if Feriel had never drifted away from him. Perhaps, if Lielri hadn’t…
He snapped that thought shut like the slamming of an iron chest. Now was not the time to wallow in self pity.
He had more classes to cover.
Their assembled company sat in a circle, discussing their next steps, but Ragheiyont struggled to follow the conversation. Blood rushed in his ears, dulling their voices, drawing his attention again and again to Warbringer. The great sword lay unsheathed on the ground between Luccan and Bel. Occasionally, the smith reached out one hand to give the blade an absent caress, and Ragheiyont burned with need.
He shut it down with will alone, but that brought… complications. His eyes itched and ached. His head felt light and heavy at once. His hands had grown uncomfortably hot.
Closing his eyes, Ragheiyont focused on the throbbing in his arm. The bleeding had stopped permanently—so far as he could tell—but the injury remained, crimson and angry, spidered like broken glass over his forearm. It ached almost constantly, an ache to which he now clung, his lifeline in the storm of his own mind.
“Ragheiyont!”
Forcing his eyelids to rise, he found the world tilted sideways. The ground pressed against his cheek, the round little quillworts spiking across his field of vision. The eternally circling sun attacked him from the other side, too bright and far too hot. He shivered beneath its impartial menace. His skin burned and froze in equal measure. Drawing his wings tight, he squeezed his eyes closed again.
“Rahi!”
“NO!” Van-Dal’s voice cut through Tharaiyelagh’s panic, and Ragheiyont knew without looking that the prince held his brother back from him. Good. Long ago, he had left to protect his brother from himself, from his illness. Let someone else protect him this time. Someone more capable.
If he knew that Tharaiyelagh would be safe, perhaps he could let go…
“Ragheiyont.” Strong hands eased him upright, and soft wings encircled him. “You’re babbling.” Fingertips brushed against his lips. He made an unsuccessful attempt to shy from the touch before his groggy brain caught up to the moment. The sharp taste of blood jolted him back to himself.
Sweat slicked his face and his neck, but his hands were cold. Ragheiyont pressed both open palms to Seikhiel’s chest and gawked at him, never once turning loose of the finger between his teeth. Seikhiel smiled.
“There you are.”
A wave of irritation crashing over his moment of euphoria, Ragheiyont pushed back from him. “‘S always me, jo,” he snapped. “Sick or steady.”
“Of course.” Seikhiel recovered with grace. “I thought we were losing you. It…” He glanced down at his hand, which gripped Ragheiyont by the shoulder. “I was afraid.”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Ragheiyont blinked suddenly-heavy eyes at Luccan, who leaned close and bared his teeth at Seikhiel. He wanted a nap, but the two of them looked ready to fight again. “Helping,” said Seikhiel, his voice flat.
“That didn’t look like help,” Luccan accused. “That looked like public lewdness.”
“He’s better,” Seikhiel objected, a note of defensiveness creeping into his voice.
Luccan’s ears flattened. “If you hurt him, I will peel you like an orange.”
“Oh, like how you tried to split my head like—”
“Oya!” Ragheiyont waved his hand between the two of them. His fingers trembled. Fine, he would worry about that later. “I like ya both tip-top, so stuff it, yeah?”
Sitting back, Luccan heaved a tremendous sigh. “He’ll speak like a normal person eventually.”
“You don’t even like oranges,” Seikhiel grumbled, and Luccan hissed at him.
Ragheiyont looked around at all the other faces staring at them, expressions ranging from detached curiosity to horror. Well. He might as well bring the conversation back to a relevant topic. “We got here three by three,” he said. “If that’s the way out, we’re too many. I’ll stay.” He looked to Tharaiyelagh, half hoping for an objection. Tharaiyelagh merely sat in stony silence, his lips pressed together in a grim line. Ragheiyont lowered his head while Seikhiel and Luccan both argued against such a decision, to the tidy effect of making one another’s words unintelligible.
“That’s not necessary.” Bel’s voice cut through their argument and Ragheiyont’s gloom both. “The gates are all one-way.”
Atchi gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “You know a lot, considering that you’ve been in that dirty great tree for three thousand years.”
“Was it so long?” Bel closed his eyes, breathed deeply. “I had a visitor, sometimes. He always departed through the Gate of Eternal Forgetting.”
“I really don’t like the sound of that,” said Tharaiyelagh, and several others muttered in agreement. Ragheiyont wanted details.
“Forgetting what, jo?”
Bel showed double fangs in a sharp grin. “Oh, everything,” he said. “Or so I hear.”
“Uh-huh.” Ragheiyont considered the journey that had brought them here to this sunny hillside. “‘S close?”
Bel nodded.
“An’ it’ll get us back to a world that makes sense?”
“Arguably.”
Ragheiyont pushed himself to his feet. “Right. Which way, then?”
Wherever he is, I hope Seikhiel made a clean escape this time.
Crimson sunset streamed through the tall windows, borrowed light of a fading day. The essays spread across the broad surface of the desk had nothing more to tell him, but he tried anyway. If he could just parse this phrase or that scrawl, if he could do his work a tiny bit better, then perhaps he too could be free. Perhaps he could begin to atone for all the harm he had done.
Lifting his head, Feriel looked out the window. Across the yards, the dying daylight painted reds and oranges across the tops of the perimeter wall. Once, as a cadet, he had crossed that very wall with his friends. Once, life had seemed to him as fierce and bright as the midday sun. Now he too faded, though less beautifully than the daylight. Folding his arms on the surface of the desk, he bowed his head to rest a moment there.
The door opened, then closed softly. Feriel lifted his head and squinted through the gathering gloom.
“What are you doing?”
Feriel looked down. Fidgeting with a pen, apparently. His hands stilled. “Just finishing with these essays, sir.”
“How productive of you.” His footsteps a whisper on the office floor, Niseriel approached. “And?”
And? Feriel made a neat stack with the graded papers. “And—and your lesson plans for next—”
“And Seikhiel?“
Of course.
His mouth gone dry and his heart in the pit of his stomach, Feriel stared straight ahead. Slowly, too slowly, Niseriel circled around to stand beside him. “I’ve tried every locator spell. Every sending.” Feriel drew a slow, careful breath. “It’s as though he simply does not exist.”
“Oh, Feriel.” Niseriel’s fingertips brushed along Feriel’s shoulders. “You can do better than that. I know you can.” Feriel tensed, suppressed a shudder, and Niseriel leaned closer. “Choose to do better.”
Feriel looked down at his clasped hands. Had he done his best? Had he truly tried everything? Did he really even know what he was capable of? “I… can cast the spells again…?”
Niseriel ran gentle fingers over Feriel’s hair, and Feriel just managed not to shy from the touch. “Why do you disappoint me, dearest? Do you enjoy it?” Feriel’s pulse drummed in his ears. He felt hot and humiliated and sick. If he managed to deliver Seikhiel back into their commander’s grasp, perhaps he could have a few moments of peace. It was a weak, selfish thought, and Feriel swallowed it at once, though it just made him feel worse, and the words bounced up like bile.
“I… If I search the library at the Gallery of—of Mysteries…I’m sure there are magics I’ve yet to learn…”
Niseriel turned away with an abruptness that left a rush of cold where he had been. “Do it,” he said. “Go now. Bring him home.”
And he would. As much as he hated himself for it, Feriel had long since given up any pretense of resistance. He only wanted to be left alone, and so he kept trying, kept fighting in vain to become good enough, at last, to escape notice.
As Feriel hurried to comply with this latest demand, he reflected that Seikhiel was likely better off wherever he had managed to hide himself.
His arms wrapped tight around himself, Tharaiyelagh stood under the shelter of Van-Dal’s wing. He should focus on the plan for escaping Interspace, but… For the hundredth time, or so it felt, his gaze strayed to his brother. Ragheiyont grinned and laughed and needled Makesh Luccan, but he looked so frail under the relentless sun. How had Tharaiyelagh missed it before? How had he not seen that his own brother was gravely ill?
Hoarding Sickness. The dread plague. By Seyzharel law, Ragheiyont should be banished, exiled. Not that a thief such as Kleptomancer could be bound by law, but his brother…
Reflexively, Tharaiyelagh reached for the empty place on his belt where the Seal of State belonged.
“This way.” With unsettling confidence, Bel led everyone down toward the foot of the hill. Tharaiyelagh hung back, catching at Van-Dal’s sleeve.
“Please,” he said softly, and Van-Dal tilted his head, listening. “When we are closer to home, will you tell me what your people do…” He gulped a deep breath, then plunged onward. “How you manage the threat of Hoarding Sickness.”
Van-Dal slid an arm around Tharaiyelagh’s waist and pulled him into a brief hug. “Anything you wish of me,” he murmured. Tharaiyelagh felt his face flame crimson, and he turned away. Anything. Had this man not already given him back his wings? He brazenly caught Van-Dal by the hand and tugged him along after everyone else.
Bel gathered them around the curious rectangular pond, and he lifted his chin at Atchi. Atchi stared back at him, tail twitching. Bel’s eyes narrowed, and Atchi made a noise of exasperation. “I want to see the kit do it,” he complained, but Bel shook his head.
Atchi rolled his eyes, but he waded waist-deep into the pond. The surface of the water shivered, then broke into a rainbow iridescence so much like an opal that Tharaiyelagh’s hand flew to the pendant beneath his shirt. North’s opal remained in place, solid and warm. But Atchi had not yet finished with the pond. He drew a deep breath, and he ducked beneath its shimmering surface.
The water sank abruptly, revealing a sloping path and, at its low end, a squat square doorway. Atchi stood beside it, narrowed eyes fixed on Bel, barely damp. Ragheiyont let out a low whistle. Luccan nudged him.
“Let’s go.” Bel led the way down the path, blithely ignoring Atchi until the last moment, when he patted his shoulder and murmured something in a low tone. Atchi’s scowl broke, and he chuckled. One by one, their little company ducked beneath the low lintel and passed through into darkness. In moments, only Tharaiyelagh and Van-Dal remained, hands joined, standing in the fierce sunlight.
Eternal Forgetting.
Forgetting what? Tharaiyelagh took a moment to appreciate all the struggles and triumphs, the suffering and the joy that had brought him to this point. Young though he was, he lived a full life, and he would not trade a moment of it. No, not even the dark despair in a dank cell. He squeezed Van-Dal’s hand. “I don’t want to forget.”
Van-Dal tugged him closer and nuzzled against the side of his horn. “Even if I my mind forgets,” he murmured, “my heart will know you.” Then, releasing Tharaiyelagh, he stepped forward and ducked through the doorway.
His hand over the opal pendant, Tharaiyelagh followed him into the dark.
Baleirithys sat in his antechamber, looking down at his wrists. His white linen undershirt had slipped back, exposing the scars there. Oh, yes, the scars had faded with time, and still more under Enci’s careful hands, but he could see them. He could always see them.
The memories came upon him too swiftly: the heavy chains, the cold floor, the chamber dark but for what sunlight filtered through narrow windows high above. He felt the chill seep up through his knees and settle in his bones. He had gnawed through his own meager scraps of clothing as he outgrew them, as they became too tight. Then, denied even a threadbare blanket, he had huddled his wings over himself for paltry warmth, for unreliable shelter.
Try as he might, he could not shake the memories that weighed him down as heavily as the chains ever had. He did not deserve Tharaiyelagh’s open adoration. He did not deserve the affection he always craved from Enci. What did he deserve? The chill? The dark? The weight of the chains?
No.
No, he deserved better. And he would not spend this dark night alone.
Rising, Baleirithys paced across the plush carpet and put his hand to the panel that covered his precious hidden compartment. It slid open. The mirror within showed him his own face, pale and haunted, but he looked away. His fingertips traced the gilt frame, hesitating beside each gleaming blue gem. Who should he call to him? Not Enci, no. Not Thrin, faithful Thrin who had risked his own dear self to feed his captive prince. Nor Laraghn, who might be Yrich or his other unnamed self, nor Thanasc who belonged to Laraghn. Chaighan? Baleirithys tapped a claw against the surface of the mirror. No. Chaighan still needed time to settle, to outgrow chains of his own. Ah…
Gently, Baleirithys caressed one of the blue anchor stones, and the connected thread of magic hummed in response. Of course. In his most troubled times, he could always count on Ceirithi.
The panel slid closed with a soft click, concealing the mirror once more. Baleirithys turned away, but the magic still sang within him, repeating the call over and over until a soft knock at his door stilled it. Baleirithys stood immobile, poised and perfect as a marble statue, and he bade his visitor enter.
Ceirithi stepped softly, closed the door quietly behind him. He gave a shy smile. Never mind that Baleirithys had known him for his entire life. Ceirithi always smiled shyly.
Baleirithys beckoned. Ceirithi came to stand before him, not quite meeting his gaze, until Baleirithys lifted one hand and brushed aside the fall of plumage that he wore across one side of his face, covering the scars there. The scars put there by the same man who had chained Baleirithys, by the monster in the tower, the so-called Sleeping King.
Ceirithi did well not to flinch. He held his ground, held Baleirithys’ gaze. Then, slowly, he leaned into the touch. Baleirithys wrapped both wings around him and drew him close.
“Stay,” he whispered. “Stay with me tonight.”
He felt Ceirithi smile against his neck. “Of course, my prince.”
They stood intertwined, drawing mutual comfort from the embrace. Baleirithys breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the chalk-and-cedar scent of the tailor’s rooms, as well as the warmer smell of Ceirithi himself. Baleirithys took a step backward, drawing Ceirithi with him toward the inner chamber, toward his bedroom.
Another of the anchor threads twanged taught, yanking Baleirithys’ awareness out of the moment and into the swirling reserves of his own magic. He groped for the thread, stretching his mind toward its other end, toward—
The thread fell slack, its song silenced.
“No!” Clawing at his head, his heart, his core, Baleirithys slipped through Ceirithi’s arms. He sank to the floor, huddled in on himself. “No! Tharaiyelagh!”
Tharaiyelagh couldn’t be gone. He had to return. He promised.
“Baleirithys!”
Firm hands yanked at his arms, pulled them clear of his body, and Baleirithys stared in confusion at his bloodied claws. Ceirithi pulled him to his feet, then reached around him to tug the cord that would summon one of the castle staff. Which one of the pages would see him like this, his undershirt slashed through and stained with blotches of crimson? Baleirithys snapped his wings tight around himself. Ceirithi’s arms and wings wrapped around him, holding him, soothing him. Baleirithys tipped his head forward against Ceirithi’s shoulder. He closed his eyes, and he let his thoughts swirl and roil. Not Tharaiyelagh. Please, not Tharaiyelagh. Desperation battered him, and his knees buckled again. He had no strength. Not if Tharaiyelagh was gone. A sound of raw, animal grief rose in his throat, and he tried in vain to push Ceirithi’s hands away.
The door opened, its sound distant and foreign. Across Baleirithys’ bowed head Ceirithi commanded someone to run and fetch Enci. Quickly. Well, that was fine. Enci had seen far worse.
Enci would make it better.
He had to.