2nd Yearsend, 998 NE
“Then why am I getting a big maelstrom on your past, Kas? Were you with Tanra?”
Emrelet almost stumbled as she followed Kas to the door.
“Don’t waste time on your hidden agendas, diviner. You can’t drive us apart.”
“Vot is zis?” she asked, looking between the two of them. Kas reached the door and opened it, but she’d halted halfway. She felt the usual swiftly-surging panic, and squashed it back down again by rote. She wasn’t about to start getting jealous over Tanra, not after the way she’d embarrassed herself on Yearseve. So what if he kept hailing her the saviour of Mund, so what if he somehow always seemed to be carrying her when she was unconscious… If it had been someone else other than Kas – if their relationship had been something else – then maybe matters would’ve been different.
But she knew she had nothing to fear.
“Oh, our pal Timesnatcher has it in his head that I should be with her, or something. Just another sad old scheme.”
Now that was something altogether different. She fixed her fiery eyes on the arch-diviner.
“You agreed with me, when I said it,” the seer noted.
“I did not!” Kas laughed tersely, and shook his head. “Unsoothsayer… who’d have thought it.”
“Not in words, you didn’t. But you knew I was right and –“
“And last night,” Kas yelled over him, “Em, look at me – last night, was I in love with Tanra?”
She looked him square in the unflinching face, and almost wanted to laugh at herself.
I’m being a stupid little baby.
She smiled, and shook her head.
“No, Kastyr. No you vere not.”
“Try your games, Irimar, meddle all you want.” The sorcerer opened the door. “I’ll be back later, once you’re done playing and we can get down to work.”
She followed him outside, casting a final glare in Timesnatcher’s direction before crossing the threshold onto the back step.
Kas turned to face her, and she could tell something was wrong.
What if I’m not being stupid?
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“You staying, or going? I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to hang around.”
She shrugged. “I vill see… I don’t know if I vont to leave Sol alone viz him, if he’s being like zis…”
Made my excuse – now deflect, deflect.
“But if he’s wrong, vhere vere you, Kas?”
He just shrugged back. “How am I to know if one of the people giving me directions around the place last night was an arch-diviner? I have no idea how many people I spoke to.”
That was a lie. She knew it, the way he said it – the way he couldn’t keep the terse warble from his voice.
But she just smiled again, and shook her head sheepishly. “I’ll fly you home.” She linked her arm through his and raised them both into the air.
Once they were aloft she said it aloud, having to test the words on the air: “I don’t trust you to get zere safely, in your current condition. Ve could do vizzout ze Liberator of Zadhal needing rescuing after a collision viz a chimney, and I can take some time to think about vot I vont to do.”
What I want to do… I know what I want to do.
He pulled her arm tight, clearly feeling dizzy again. She smiled to herself again, a genuine one this time. Even if he were lying to her, there was a chance it wouldn’t be out of malice. He’d just be planning some fifth-of-Yearsend celebration, or an extra surprise present, or something…
But that was just it, wasn’t it? It was the something that was worrying her. She couldn’t help but feel something was off with him. Ever since Shadowcloud and Winterprince were taken from them – ever since the heretic battle, the Tyr Kayn shenaginans…
But she was a more competent liar than him; she knew from the outset that she was going to speak again with Irimar and get to the bottom of things. Once Kas was safely tucked up in bed, she stormed back to the seer’s, opening the door with tendrils of wind before she reached them, before she landed –
“What did I say?” Irimar asked Sol.
The druidess shrugged, only meeting his eyes for a moment. “Even I knew she’d be back.”
“Tell me – vot is going on, Irimar?”
“You tell me.” He crossed his legs and spread his hands as he sat back, his narrow, scholarly face showing some self-directed scorn – showing defeat. “It’s not always easy for a man like me to admit what I don’t know. Give me a bit of credit, at least, Emrelet.”
“He consorted with an arch-diviner, for certain?”
“It’s stronger than inkatra, stronger than Zakimel… but Tanra… Duskdown…”
“Duskdown?” she repeated in surprise.
“I don’t know… the heretics, perhaps.”
Emrelet’s eyes narrowed. “Zis Everseer.”
“Perhaps.” He passed a hand across his face, his watery-looking eyes spilling a trace of moisture upon his cheeks in its wake. “Perhaps. I should’ve – no.”
Sol gave a small, humourless laugh. “Someone like you doesn’t start a sentence without meaning to finish it, though, do you? I am learning, you know.”
Irimar glowered at her, and when he looked back at Emrelet she saw through the watery eyes, to the hardness, the hidden ice beneath the waves. “I should’ve never let him have the book. It was my fault, and I only tried to be his friend –“
“You are saying – you did zis? If you –”
“No.” Voice like a glacier. “You did this. I did it. Even Sol did it, in her own small way. You cannot hope to comprehend the course of history, the intermingled motions of time’s substance, without my gift. You need to stop trying to place blame. Ah… such a fine line we walk. We need Kas.”
“Wait – are you saying Kas is a heretic?” Sol blurted.
“I do not think he vould be zat foolish.” Emrelet turned her gaze back to the diviner, feeling the electric aura of her power, knowing her eyes would be burning like orbs of liquid lightning now. “Not Kas. You.”
His sad smile was disarming, annoying.
“He isn’t a heretic,” Irimar said, “yet.”
* * *