PLATINUM 1.4: THE PROMISE

“There are forms of self-destruction available to all archmages. The enchanter can fall into delusion, and live on in their fantasy land, forever lost to reality. The diviner can become trapped in their vision, incapable of choice, locked in a prison of time and space no one can see or hear. The wizard can rip apart their flesh, channelling energies beyond the tension-point of mortal shapes. The druid can sink into despair, understanding too-well the inherent violence of nature, becoming themselves animal in their dissolution. And the sorcerer – this much should be obvious. Only the sorcerer can risk their very soul.”

– from ‘The Syth Codex’, 3:22-25

She pulled me inside, pushed the door shut behind me, then embraced me tightly. She was quite a bit shorter than me, but stronger than she looked, and when she squeezed me she was just the right height to catch me between my ribs. An “oof!” sound went blaring out my mouth like a trumpet for the second time tonight.

She cackled a bit, then released me, stepping behind me to lock all the many, many bolts on the door.

“You’re back. You have the money?”

“Tomorrow.” I said it with a bit of a wince.

She turned back to me, and raised an eyebrow. “We’re cutting it fine now, Kas. Before the deadline, right?”

“I’ll get it at noon, alright? We’re going to be fine.”

She punched me in the bicep, with one of her stronger-than-it-looked arms.

“You don’t say that, man,” she complained, turning away.

Sheepishly, I followed her into the main room.

We’d shared our apartment with Xantaire, her grandfather Orstrum, her half-brother Morsus, and her four-year-old son Xastur for almost three years now. It had been the only way to pay the rent, which was the hot topic of the hour.

Fifteen days ago our landlord had sent his heavies to do a sweep of the block, and they’d found out we were sleeping seven in a two-bedroom flat meant for four at the most. Then Peltos himself showed up, the landlord I could barely even remember seeing before, perhaps once or twice, five years earlier or more. I’d refused to tell him how long they’d been staying with us until he threatened he would make it ten years back-pay. When I said eighteen months, he’d left it there and smiled.

After he’d doubled it for the deception, it came to a hundred and sixty gold pieces. Enough to buy two prize warhorses, a brace of healing potions to cure all maladies, a suit of fine plate armour – enough to buy a little farm outside the city, probably. More money than I’d seen in my life at any one time, I think. That was sixteen thousand copper pennies. We paid a hundred copper, the equivalent of a single gold piece, every week for our rent. Now he was asking for eighty weeks twice over. More or less the three years’ worth we actually owed him, I ruefully acknowledged to myself later.

That night, we’d heard Xantaire crying through the paper-thin wall. It made Jaid cry, then Jar. I’d resolved to do something. Anything. Rents were so high these days, we’d had to beg, borrow and steal for everything we had and we still basically had nothing. If we didn’t pay up, not only would we get broken bones for our trouble, we’d be kicked out and forced into the street. Living like the rats, moving from alley to abandoned property and back again, over and over, enduring the constant dangers posed by being out there at night.

I was not going out there, and neither were Jaid and Jaroan. Neither were Xantaire, Xastur, Orstrum and Morsus. I would fix things.

I couldn’t sleep, so I went alone to visit the graves of our parents, behind the Shrine of Yune. While there, as it just so happened, I encountered a fairy and a faun – and found out I could speak to, control and even ingest all manner of extra-planar or otherworldly creatures.

I did briefly wonder if someone had slipped a hallucinogenic into my food. But no.

Just a perfectly normal day.

When the heavies, the so-called ‘Gentlemen’ (sarcastically-named, of course) showed up to collect or kick us out, I was so convincing in my protestations that they went back to Peltos, to get me a reprieve if I promised to pay double. My excitement was plain to see. I’d kept the cause secret, of course, but my mood had infected my house-mates, and when I told them I had a sure-fire way to get some money it was met with enthusiasm. It wasn’t like I hadn’t brought in a big mark or two in my time, and they all knew it. They were all relying on me.

For the next days, nights, days, I racked my brains – both of them, the new fey voice sharing my skull-for-one included – searching for the best way to make that much money in time. Nothing was coming together in the grand-plan department that wouldn’t result in my immediate arrest. Becoming a champion – putting my life on the line in that way, so quickly and without preparation – wasn’t something we’d even considered.

A week ago, we were in the graveyard when I saw the Bone Ring. I sent the kids running home, and did what had to be done. The night’s watch found them with plenty of air still left in the coffins I’d sealed them into, with the friendly assistance of a hundred rancid zombie hands; I’d sent the watchtower a quickly-scrawled summary and my directions proved accurate enough. Feychilde, the name I came up with on the spot, was born. I’d added the ‘e’ as if I’d got the name from some ancient text, but it was as made-up as any other.

We champions and darkmages didn’t seem to like recycling names.

The grand plan formed, after that. I’d ‘borrowed’ a few books from one of the Bone Ring members upon Zel’s recommendation – all bar one of them turned out to be trash for beginners, but it was a start.

I knew about the bounties, and gathered my information. Well, my fairy gathered information while I sat on my backside, but still…

It was funny how things turned out sometimes. The old Lord and his sycophants had confronted me, as they spotted me in the graveyard chatting to my faun after a goblin-hunt. Zel had later speculated that he’d had something watching out for nearby feats of sorcery. Either way, I’d whooped him so severely that it assuaged my doubts, and I set the wheels in motion.

Bringing me to tonight.

Our home was four little drab rooms, but it was home. Jaid, Jaroan and I used the larger bedroom that had been our mum and dad’s, big enough for two beds; Xantaire and Xastur took the smaller one and shared a bed. Morsus and Orstrum would throw down a ragged bit of carpet and used thin mattresses and skin-quilts right here in the main room, moving the two little benches to the end of the tiny room near the hearth in order to get enough space to stretch out.

It was nearly nothing, this place, but sometimes if all you had in the world was, say, a carrot, you would fight tooth and nail if someone tried to take the carrot off you.

Damn it. Now I was hungrier than before. The shelves covering the walls of the room were filled with books, tools, books, utensils, and even some books: every imaginable inedible item. It only then occurred to me that I still had three pieces of crust from my afternoon bread, safe under my bed in my room.

Soon. I’ll get to it soon.

Morsus was standing, reaching out to take and shake my hand eagerly. He was about twenty-five, and Xantaire about twenty; he was darker-skinned with dark eyes and thick hair; she was lighter-skinned and shorter, but with the same eyes and hair as her half-brother. He wore a smock and trousers in two shades of red; she wore a simple grey dress.

I let him take my hand and did my best to hold on as he tried to dislocate my shoulder. He took my arm just above the elbow with his other hand as he did so, as if to get a better grip for breaking my arm.

“My friend,” he crowed. His voice was redolent with the accent of his homeland, unlike Xantaire’s. “My greatest friend; you are happily returned, and you have the money, yes?”

“Soon, Morsus, soon!” I converted my ‘get the hell off my arm’ feeling into what I hoped sounded like enthusiasm.

He released me. The ordeal over, I cradled my neck in a fair bit of unfeigned agony, and offered them a smile I imagined to be weary.

“So – what happened?” Xantaire pressed. “You said ‘success’, but you don’t get paid till tomorrow?”

Morsus sat back down at one end of the bench, and she took the other end, gesturing for me to park my cart between them.

I declined, looking across to the door of my room.

“You should go check on them in a minute,” she said, reading my mind in the way that didn’t require you to be an enchanter. “They were worried, with you out so late. Grandpa’s still telling them a story.”

I smiled; the old man’s stories were awesome, but I didn’t miss the fact she was desperate for me to fill her in.

I looked back at her. I couldn’t blame either of them for being anxious. This whole situation had been all that was on any of our minds for so long now it felt like a never-ending nightmare in which I could writhe and struggle but from which I could never awaken.

I sat on the other bench so that the table and candle were between us, perching on the edge of the plain, wood-carved divan as if to make my intention to be brief obvious to both of them.

“I can’t tell you everything, Xan,” I said quietly, “but basically, I’ve carried out a task for someone important. Someone magister-important.” I let that sink in for a moment – Morsus was nodding along with an unchanging expression of interest, but Xantaire looked stunned. “I’m getting a reward of thirty plat tomorrow in Hightown – Blackbranch, or something, it’s called… Enough to cover the debt and then some.”

She bit her lip, then met my eyes and said, “But you told them to double –”

“No, no, no,” I interrupted in what I hoped was a soothing, cheery tone, “I’ll have that talk with Peltos. Trust me. I’m sure he’ll be accommodating. Hopefully we’ll even have a little left over to put aside, or buy something special.”

“You’re meeting someone in Hightown?”

I nodded.

“A noble?”

Was she? Despite her noble appearance, given her foreign sound and archmage status, there was a chance she wasn’t one of the highborn, wasn’t there? It was hard to tell. Emrelet…

“Kas?”

“Sorry. No, not a noble, necessarily. A magister, though.”

“A woman.” Xantaire sat back on the bench and smiled, like she’d won a game I hadn’t been aware we were playing.

I tried to laugh it off coolly, but I sort of tittered instead, a feeble, tinny sound that was a bit hysterical even to my own ears. I felt myself blushing.

“And you’re nervous!”

“Aaaand I’m going to check on the kids now,” I declared, getting back to my feet and approaching the bedroom door.

Xantaire muttered something about young love behind my back. I decided I wouldn’t rise to it – not till my cheeks stopped glowing, at least. I’d normally done a better job of hiding my infatuations from my parents: they’d never met Osi, my first ‘girlfriend’, and they certainly never heard about Fina ‘Feel-Ma-Curves’ Curz.

I opened the door a crack. I could see the three kids tucked up together under the covers, all their heads squished onto one upright pillow. Jaid’s golden hair was braided, Jaroan’s left loose and messy more like mine. Xastur’s complexion was no darker than mine or the twins’ but his hair was a mop of thick, dark curls, and it was all of him I could see – I suspected he’d fallen asleep awhile back. And Orstrum half-sat, half-lay across the foot of the bed, a bit of a ragged fur blanket over his knees.

He was pushing eighty, but had an immaculately-trimmed white beard, and there was no discolouration to the bald pate of his chocolatey scalp, no halting in his rich, soothing voice:

“– over a dozen or more of them in the way, but Arreath knew where they would move next, where they would swing their swords.” The old man laughed ruthlessly, as if commenting on the chances of Arreath Ril’s foes. “He ran right through them, to the other side, while they hacked and slashed at the air – and they couldn’t touch him! Then he looked over his shoulder at them, and ran back through them. Same thing; they swung with all their might, all their training, and every one of them missed. After a second or two, he was back – in his starting place! Then he drew his sword.”

Because I knew Orstrum would appreciate the cliffhanger better than an interruption while he was in the middle of speaking, I chose that moment to push the door open a little farther, letting them see me standing there.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Kas! Kas!” Jaid cried in joy. As she leapt up from her place under the covers I stepped into the room, swinging the door out of the way just in time for her to avoid knocking herself out on its edge as she barrelled at me. She wrapped her arms round my waist and turned her face up to me for a kiss.

Her twin brother, Jaroan, sat forwards in the bed with a tight smile on his face. I could tell how worried he’d been. I gave him a thumbs-up while snuggling Jaid for a moment, and he gave me a bit of a hesitant one in return.

There was a certain look to everyone’s face, I’d realised since coming home. Expectancy, like a kind of hunger.

The shocks and wonders of the last hour. I was a bit crazy, for sure, but I wasn’t insane – not yet, at least. I had to come down to earth at some point; the trembling that kept coming over me would resurface in the middle of the night and I’d puke my guts out. I knew I could close my eyes right now and see the thastubabil, the hag, the crawling things all over her body… I could close my eyes and see a knife bouncing off the steps a split-second after I threw myself down…

I could close my eyes and see Emrelet.

The hardest part was done. I just had to collect.

“I think we’re going to be okay,” I said to them.

Jaid’s hug tightened; I winced a bit again at the pressure against my sore ribs, but I didn’t care. Jaroan’s eyes closed, a shuddering smile on his lips. I could hear the changes in his breathing with Zel’s gift, now I was concentrating, and it was as though he had only been able to stave off sleep until this very moment.

This has been so hard on them.

Orstrum sat up with a bit of a creak, and his leathery hand took my left. It was the wrong hand for me to shake hands with – I had the other hand on Jaid’s back – but he took it anyway, clasping it tight.

I looked into his rheumy eyes and was surprised to see tears running down the creases of his wrinkled face.

Even more surprised to feel tears in the corner of my own eyes.

No, not surprised.

Hard on all of us.

I blinked them away as well as I could, and took a seat on my own bed, moving Jaid around so she could keep clinging to me while I divested myself of my satchel and got comfy.

Orstrum was still sitting up, and I could feel the tension in Jaid. She wasn’t close to sleep yet.

“Don’t let me interrupt you, old man,” I said.

He smiled, and sat back.

“Well, when he drew his sword, that’s when they lost it,” he said with a chuckle. “They tried to charge him, and he just stood there, letting them come. One by one, two by two, three by three, it didn’t matter. He moved, like a dancer, from one pose to another, and they missed, again and again. And every time they struck, his blade would flash, striking back at the hilts of their own weapons in just the right way to jar them, make them fall from the wielder’s grip. One by one, two by two, three by three he disarmed them…”

The old man’s voice went on, and I drifted. I knew these stories by heart anyway. I was an avid reader, though these days the words tended to go in one ear and out the other – or one eye and out the other – however that went. But these stories I’d read fifty times or more as a kid. Arreath Ril was the King of Time, one of the Five Founders, the original archmages who created Mund almost a thousand years ago. Maybe some of the first human archmages. It was the year 998 NE, the New Era, now; I wondered idly if the arch-diviner who had conceived the plans for this city had ever bothered to look ahead this far into the future, to see how things were doing, how his legacy held up. If any of the legends were true, that was.

The time before the rise of Mund at the hands of the Five Founders we called the Age of Nightmares, marking it as ‘PR’ or Preceding-Realm on our calendars. All agreed that chaos had dominated the world for two to three thousand years. (We were unsure exactly how long, as reportedly the historians of the Drathdanii elves – the world’s most renowned lore-masters – disagreed with each other most vehemently with regard to the timeline.) Ever since the close of the Golden Age, whenever it was, demons and empires of evil had owned the world – until those five ridiculously-powerful archmages put an end to the strife. They tamed magic itself, so went the story, creating the rules which allowed ordinary mortals to access it.

But in the centuries after the passing of the Founders, everything had changed. Was it inadvertent, or had they intended to allow the rich to pay for the ability to control reality? Their own children, by all accounts, had been archmages. But after a while it started to skip generations, then disappeared entirely, becoming random. It seemed more and more archmages were being granted their powers just like I had been, chosen by whatever grace of the gods or quirk of the universe made us what we were – was this some kind of cosmic balancing act for their foolishness? The temerity of the Five Founders, in teaching magery itself? The more mages, the more archmages?

I checked; Jaid was still awake, but she was starting to go. The old man was talking about the first time the Five came together, now.

Arreath Ril, King of Time, the Sage.

Nimmenvyl Olteron, Queen of Souls, the Mentalist.

Litenwelt Kordaine, Lord of Demons, the Summoner.

Brenwe Bathor, Lady of Life, the Healer.

Wyre Eldervane, Master of Elements, the Builder.

As Orstrum named them in the course of telling his tall tale, and reached the Builder, I realised that I had the answer to my first question. Our empire, the so-called Mundic Realm, reached thousands of miles into the East and West, and we traded with those various kingdoms on the borders which had, centuries ago, adopted our model of magically-outfitted armies in order to resist our conquest. Mund was the jewel of the world, and even our enemies came here to learn from us; their poor and rich alike settled in our city in their droves. Word on the streets was that there were between one and two million people here within these white, marble-like walls, and word from afar was that no metropolis had arisen to rival it, in all these years.

But why make the city so small?

Oh, it was absurdly overlarge. We were taught that the Founders had created the city to be the greatest ever to exist on our plane – preceding their reign, during it, and forever afterwards. It was a near-perfect oval, apparently. The walls stood two hundred feet tall in all places, no matter the elevation of the foundation, a barrier so smooth as to be unscalable, boasting gleaming fortifications all along its rim. Those quartz city walls encompassed the hill and the valley below it, the hub where two rivers joined a third, greater river which wended its way down to the sea.

But if Arreath had known – if he had foreseen the city as it was now – he would have instructed Wyre, the Builder, differently. Had the Founders recognised that a quarter of the city would be preserved as Treetown, used exclusively by nobles for manor-houses and little keeps and hunting-grounds, in what was probably the world’s least-wild forest? Had they spared a thought for the million of us crammed into wooden hellholes? More arrived every day than left, at least two for one, word was. Here in Sticktown and the Lowtowns at least, it felt like the city was fit to burst. Our shallow sewers weren’t fit for purpose; our apartment-blocks groaned under the burden of their occupants. The biggest city a virtual demigod-archmage could dream-up wasn’t big enough.

No. Arreath never saw this. And maybe he couldn’t have, even if he’d been real – Zel had once explained, in the course of describing her powers to me, that even the strongest diviners couldn’t see to the ends of time. The walls of the city might’ve been raised by magic – I wouldn’t argue about that. But some grand plan? Some meaning, to all this mayhem? I harboured serious doubts. It was mostly lies. Twelve Hells, one of Arreath Ril’s names was Father Time, the elf who left presents for children, cheap gifts wrapped with the skill of an inept older brother.

I checked again; Jaid had dropped off. I looked at her sleeping face for a moment; she looked so different. So… peaceful.

“– but Litenwelt drew out a special spell, and when they raised the archway they called it the ‘Summer Door’, because it was no simple archway, but a portal…”

I met Orstrum’s eyes and gave a gentle nod. He mouthed an “oh” silently, then pressed a finger against his lips. Smiling, he creaked his way to his feet, wrapping his blanket around his shoulders.

I manoeuvred my arm out from beneath Jaid’s floppy head, laying her softly down onto my deftly-moved pillow. She curled up, and me and Orstrum exited the room as quietly as his popping joints would let us, blowing out the candle on the way.

“Gods, man, you sound like a firecracker,” I whispered as I closed the door to behind us, leaving it somewhat ajar. “Don’t they have something for that?”

“Yeah, a spade and six feet of soil,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder and laughing dryly at his own joke.

“That’s not funny,” I said, frowning.

“What are you laughing about, old man?” Xantaire asked, getting to her feet and smoothing down her dress. “It’s way past your bedtime.”

“Don’t blame me; blame our young hero here.”

She smiled beatifically at me, and I squirmed at the adulation.

“Look, Orstrum,” I mumbled, “maybe it’s time we talked about changing things up a bit. You really need a bed at night –”

“No, Kastyr, I need a flat –”

“A flat, hard thing to sleep on? Like a board? Like back in your youth?” I’d heard this line of argument a dozen times. Some people acted twice their age and others acted half their age, but aside from him I’d never heard of someone acting a quarter of their age. “When was the last time you tried a bed? They’re lovely and squishy, you know.”

Orstrum shook his head, grinning. “Look, my boy, I really appreciate the gesture…” Then he waved a hand at me and turned away.

“Leave him alone, Kas,” Xantaire said, stepping in, “he can do what he pleases.”

“I’d have thought you’d be on my side,” I said, a bit stung; “if we found one, we could fit another bed –”

“I am,” she whispered, getting close to me, “but you aren’t ever going to change his mind, and besides, I need to get in his good books.”

“Why?”

“Assuming tomorrow goes the way you think it will,” she said, not stopping to check how many tablespoons of scepticism to slather on top of her words, “I’ve got a new herb for him to try. Maybe something that’ll actually work.”

“Oh, you know how he hates –”

“Exactly,” she hissed, “and I want him in the best possible frame of mind to listen to what I have to say. So,” she suddenly raised her voice, “you let my old man do what he wants, or you’ll have me to answer to.”

I smirked, and gave her a quick hug. Then I stifled a yawn. “I need to crash, guys,” I said. “Early start tomorrow.”

We said our goodnights, then Xantaire went into my room for her son. She hefted Xastur and retreated with him still sleeping in her arms into their bedroom, then Morsus started moving the benches while Orstrum gathered blankets.

Meanwhile, I borrowed the table-candle to light the stub in the fourth room, the wash-room that was little more than a cupboard. We had a newish toilet bucket, emancipated just last month from someone’s doorstep when no one was looking, and it had no cracks in the wood yet. We were still in the sweet spot where it felt luxurious to be able to empty my bladder into a non-leaking bucket.

Probably not something highborn have to worry about.

I returned the candle to the table, went in and relieved myself, then stepped outside to dispose of its contents in the most-intact of the three nearby gutters. I blew out the wash-room candle before taking a pitcher and bowl to the doorstep and cleaning myself up – the cool water on my face and under my arms was reinvigorating.

By the time I crept into my room, Jaid had spread out a little, arms and legs akimbo, and it took all my strength and control to lift her and move her into the bed next to Jaroan without waking her. She wasn’t so little anymore. Once I got her settled, I collapsed on my own bed and pulled off my boots.

I was glad to have Zel’s augmentation, allowing me to see in the nearly pitch-black room. There was a tiny glimmer of starlight making it through the curtain at the end of the room between the beds, but without the sight-boost I probably wouldn’t have been able to get my sister tucked in without bonking her head on something.

I stashed the knife that’d been thrown at my back under my mattress at the foot of the bed, where it wouldn’t disturb me, then I lay back under the covers, feeling the exhaustion creep over me. It was a delicious feeling – knowing I was home, that I had sorted the problem, that I could relax now… That I had met Emrelet…

I still had the nagging memories of the struggles tonight had entailed. The… closeness to death. But really, the closest I got was with the stupid Bagger Boys, and that could’ve happened to anyone, anytime. Nothing that special about it.

Anyone. Anytime.

I extended my toes, pointing my feet at the bottom of the bed so my calves stretched. Simultaneously I bent my arms at the elbow then reached up, letting my shoulders out.

“Brondor, bless your poor servant with coin.”

I almost moaned the prayer, then I closed my eyes.

The night rushed over me, but they weren’t the images I’d expected. The room full of knives, a great wave of wine rushing through it. Puddles of blood in the alleyway, mounds of filth piled against the fences. Little Tanny Dengen, all grown up with his eyes wide in terror. Arreath Ril, running unharmed through a thousand enemies.

It was as I felt myself slipping, falling into that open abyss of sleep: it was then that I saw her, my white wizard, exquisite as any painstakingly-carved statue, soaring, luxuriating in the magnitude of her power.

As I knew I would, I dreamt of Emrelet.

We walked along a beach. A sandy beach. I had never seen a real beach – our river-beaches here were mostly rocks, which was apparently true even of the harbours of Salnifast, on the shores of the sea two miles away from the Treetown Gate. No, we got pebbles at best, and boulders more often than not.

But I’d had beaches described to me by the writings of dozens of travelling-writers, the scribes of the legends. I had imagined them in the past, of course. But this was unlike anything I’d conceived before.

We walked along a beach, but I was far behind. Heat permeated me, the air more like a hot bath than anything I’d ever experienced. The sun was a lance piercing my eye when I cast my gaze aloft, radiating ten brilliant blades of glare that flickered across the unblemished blue sky. Emrelet walked where the crushed pearl met the gently-lapping sapphires, and with her white robe and pale hair she would have been invisible to me except that she would at times step into the waves, disturb the perfection of the unbroken shoreline.

She broke the shoreline and the sapphires became onyx shards. I tried to walk towards her.

She’s always in front of me – I can run, I can summon hordes of demons to claw and crawl in an endless race to reach her – I can sweat, stifle, drown in the overheated waters of the air – I can do it all and still I can advance less than one step, less than one hair towards her.

The mouth of the sea opens.

It’s black, I see, beneath: black and raw. Not blue, as I had imagined, hoped, believed. The abyss is empty and it is immense and it will devour Emrelet. Devour us all, if it has chance. If we are less strong than we need to be.

She strides into the sea; waters part before her so that she walks a steep path downwards, on the dry bed of the ocean.

Miles and miles of descent in the darkness await her, taking her to places that have never known breath, love, light.

I can move. I can run.

I give chase.

Chase though the sand becomes a desert of glass-shards, though it becomes an infinite terrain of dunes standing like mountains in my path.

And I stand on the shore, where she disappeared.

Jaid takes one of my hands and Jaroan the other.

“Death,” they say.

Now I walk through grass. I recognise this place. The only nature I have ever really gotten to know. My bare feet are availed of the softness of soil, of the gentle caress of green blades’ kisses. Here I can rest.

“We could rest, Kassy,” says Mum, taking Jaroan from me, pressing him to her side.

“Before you came,” says Dad, taking Jaid.

I cry out to the twins. Come! Come back to me.

But their faces are gone, shrouded by the black clothing worn by my parents.

I’m there again, kicking their gravestone. I’m there again, suddenly sensing their corpses down below, hearing their voices echoing in my mind.

I can feel it. Their undead flesh stirs in their coffins six feet beneath me.

“We died,” says Mum.

Jaroan is gone entirely now, melded into her.

“Because of you,” says Dad.

Jaid is gone too.

This time when I flee, I don’t encounter any faerie queen and faun. I’m being chased. The trees have no betweens, no way-throughs, no places I don’t rip at my clothes and skin with every onward step. Is it the walking dead behind me? Is it the hideous hag? Is it my childhood friend, being ordered to kill me because I know his face? I hurl myself through thorns to escape but when I escape I’m soon to die from my self-inflicted wounds.

“If only you had been there instead.”

“You could have done something.”

“You could be dead instead of me.”

“Instead of us.”

But this time when I go instead of them, rather than being killed by a street-thief like they had been, I summon the kinkalaman, and command it to bisect the vile human standing before me. I slay him. Slay him. Toras.

I stand on the shores of the sea and it opens for me too. The darkness. The everlasting night beneath the waves.

Now there is no one to hold me back. No little warm hands in mine to remind me of this. This world, up here, above the silence that beckoned me.

And so I step beneath, and am devoured.