23rd Illost, 998 NE
“You’ve almost got him, Tanra!” Jocey said excitedly.
“I have got him,” the seeress replied. “It’s just a matter of time.”
Kas, sitting beside Killstop, had a beatific smile on his face; opposite the sorcerer, Em was staring at him, a careful non-expression fixed like a mask across her features. Jocey got the impression the Liberator of Zadhal was going to pay for his boastful demeanour later in a more-private setting.
When the careful manoeuvring of a mountain allowed Kas to take one of Em’s prized pieces, the sorcerer crowed in delight; on the very next go, Tanra finished Irimar off, executing the Sow Matriarch’s complex triple-move flawlessly.
“You should give the poor chap a chance one day, young woman,” said a gentleman standing nearby, one of their regular audience – he was clapping along with the others, though, and while he clearly thought Tanra’s accent too lowborn to win her the appellation ‘young lady‘ his smile wasn’t disapproving.
Jocey clapped along with them, but then she gave Irimar a hug, testing his reaction, testing her own.
There was electric between them – she didn’t know if he felt the same, but she felt it. She sensed him tremble, a judder running through his flesh.
“Don’t tell me I make the city’s greatest diviner nervous,” she whispered in his ear.
“I – I’m sorry,” he responded quietly. “And last night – I don’t know what’s come over me –”
“Later,” she said, drawing away a little to look into his face. “Walk me home, again? I wasn’t trying to get away from you.” She moved the wavy curl of hair out of the way of his eyes. “Not ever. Hehe.”
He pulled her close again, to drink in the electric – she knew it.
Her eyes were almost closed, head buried in his neck, but she caught the glance of Neko over his shoulder.
The druid in particular should’ve had a disapproving frown on his face, what with Lightblind only having passed recently – respecting the dead was a druid’s prerogative and Jocey knew that this hardly looked good, in that light – but Neko was just smiling like he’d been drugged.
She moved about, getting a glimpse of Sol. The druidess’s eyebrow was raised, but that was all.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Maybe they’d just be seen as good friends. Maybe people didn’t have to know about them for a while. She’d be alright with that. She would have Irimar – she could wait. She wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. She – they – could wait as long as they needed to.
After they finished the round and tidied up the game boards, Em left for work; Kas went to see his fortify opponents off to bed; Sol and Neko went off on their Nighteye shift; and Tanra was hardly surreptitious when she excused herself two minutes after Bor left.
“Poor Bor.” Irimar grinned tightly. “The boy’s got no idea what he’s bitten off there.”
“Really,” Jocey said archly.
Suddenly she shivered, feeling uncomfortable, fearful for some reason.
The arch-diviner put his hand on hers. “Are you alright, Jo?”
She looked, for the first time, squarely into his eyes. Deep into them. Watery blue irises, oceans of meaning, surfaceless and bottomless.
Pupils large, unnaturally black…
“Do you see me?” she whispered.
“I see you.” His voice was quiet, husky.
“And – do you –“
She waved a hand. She had no idea what she meant.
When he kissed her, fast, hard, she knew what she’d meant.
He took her home, and between one blink and the next they were in her room.
Flesh. It was a marvellous thing.
Jocey was no maiden, but, whether it had something to do with his powers or something to do with her own, this one night was like an abyss of time, brimming with unlimited sensations, an abyss into which they entered, together. It never ended, horizons of perception rippling outwards in every direction and dimension, drowning her in an inconceivable array of experience, time and again – his eyes, his eyes, she was drowning in them, in their forgotten oceans – a day had passed, and another; and then moons were rising and falling, yet still they were together, still lost in their moment of simultaneity, as years turned to dust and the stars of millennia went crashing through her, breaking her mind, her soul, laying her bare in her essence –
* * *
24th Illost, 998 NE
Irimar stilled, and she felt his displeasure, even though she had no idea what was wrong.
Then he was apart from her, dressed in his robe and mask, a thin spectre in black and white.
“Zakimel,” he spat.
She hurriedly threw on her robe, fixed her own mask in place, before accompanying him out of the room.
“Zakimel?” she called down from the rail.
“Lovebright!” came the cry from the hall below.
With a whip-crack, the aged magister appeared there, standing right in front of them on the landing, arms folded across his chest.
“What do you want, Tervos?” Irimar asked. “I begin to tire of you. Your appearance is always to my detriment.”
“It could not wait – you’ve been ignoring our attempts to link, our glyphstone communications –“
“Slow down, Zakimel,” Jocey said. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Well – it’s –“ The magister looked from her to the tall, severe figure of Timesnatcher, who had also crossed his arms, then back to her again. “Can we speak of this with him present?”
“I beg your pardon?” Irimar intoned.
“Of course we can!” Jocey laughed, but inside she felt an awful void, a place in her mind devoid of context.
What does he mean? she wondered, perplexed.
“Lovebright – it’s the twins. The twins have appeared.”
She stared at him. Stared hard.
The twins?
* * *
It’s happening. It’s actually happening.