The rest of the night passed us slowly, restless and free of sleep’s terrible grasp. My head still hurt, and my chest throbbed, but not because of a cold. The feeling was so intensely surreal. Whiplash. Ripped from one world into another, and with no way to tether myself but to lie there with open eyes. In the end, though, dreams were dreams, and I knew what really caused the ache.
It didn’t matter if it was a fever or a ghost that caused it. When I was host to the wraith outside of Ethelburrow, I saw through its visions the thing I dreaded the most. It made a sad sort of sense then that it hadn’t changed. Loneliness: I was as afraid of it now as I always was. The only difference is that this was the first I’d been without it. All those nights, I was afraid of what I had, and now, I was afraid of what I might lose.
It was a cruel way to put into perspective how quickly my life was victim to change, even if I never did. In twenty-four years of life, it felt as though I’d lived all of it in the last two months, like I’d spent the rest of it sleeping. Cordella was there for only a short part of it, but she felt to me like a lifetime friend. Our relationship was already the realest I knew, so to lose her—to even imagine it—stung worse than any pain.
That next day, we had but a short trek back. Drysdan wasn’t far, and the earth had stubbornly decided to loosen its grip on Escalus’ hooves. Still, there was the matter of what to do when we got there. We’d agreed to ignore the crisis and lick our wounds, but we couldn’t just idle after they’d healed. We needed a plan, and though I recognized how that weighed on her, I was too withdrawn to bring it up now; I couldn’t even look at her. Every time I did, I saw her doubles, cold and hollow in the mine and the field. I hadn’t said a word out of fear of her vanishing—waking again in the same darkness. As expected, she grew impatient with me.
“Are we going to talk about it or are you going to spend the rest of the day sulking?”
I kept my eyes on the skyline.
“Okay, I know I gave you the option, but you don’t get to just stop talking like that! Riding is hell when I have to listen to myself think the whole time.”
“I’ll talk so long as it’s on a different subject. I just don’t feel like delving into my dreams right now.”
“Oh, but I’m too curious! It had to be horrific to put that kind of fear in your eyes. We can’t just keep on like it never happened.”
“Horrific doesn’t begin to describe it.”
“That’s why I asked you to,” she chimed. “I know you can be timid, but you aren’t the jumpy sort. I thought you’d been bitten by a snake or something the way you screamed.” She turned to me with a grin, obviously joking until she saw my hollow expression. “Kaiser, come on. It isn’t like you to shrug off my poking.”
I wanted to laugh, respond with some cutting remark as I so preferred to silence, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and I did a poor job of hiding it. My teeth were clenched, and my lips had a downward curl. She gave me one more chance to tell her, to convince her that I was fine, but the words were stuck to my tongue, for I mouthed several and spoke none.
This time, she turned fully around, swinging her legs over Escalus’ head to face mine. “What did you see last night?”
I shook my head, and just like before, my throat became hoarse. “In my dream, I woke up to your voice. Those bandits had tailed us from Drysdan looking for more of our food, but they attacked when you caught them.” I fought a tremble in my lip. “I couldn’t even move. By the time I knew what happened, they had already gotten you.”
I must have muttered, mangled what I told her because it seemed she didn’t immediately understand it. Her eyebrows lifted and fell, and she shook her head in gentle refusal.
“I—I watched you die.”
“That’s really what you saw? But you were in tears…”
“Why would I lie? If I could tell you I saw a snake, I would have, but why make up something so heinous? I still see it, you know? When I close my eyes, you’re just laying there, and I’m too weak or scared to do anything.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she reassured, but her voice faltered. “It was just a dream.”
“Last night, maybe, but not in Kaldris. The blood was real that time.” As I spoke, my eyes began to sting, and the same familiar sorrow threatened to take hold. Her own eyes grew with mine, but just as I detected a glisten, she twisted. When she returned, I could see on her face the red mark left by her sleeve.
“I’m so sorry. I never imagined the pain it caused you. I had no idea you felt that way.”
I didn’t know it either. I didn’t know what I felt, but the more I spoke it, the easier it became to grapple. The dam had already broken, and there was nothing left to stifle the emotion. It was all new to me. I kept precious few people close, and over the years, they’d only gotten further away. I knew it was short, our time together, but it’s all I had after the rest was lost. For that too to be stripped from me, it was no wonder that I reacted the way I did.
A hushed dawn paved the way for a dead-silent afternoon. Owed to my inability to stow my woes, they’d poisoned the person closest to me. She hunched on the front of the horse, and like a length of twine had been wrapped around her shoulders, they were tied stiff to her neck. When Drysdan’s meager architecture climbed the curve, it wasn’t the instant relief either of us had hoped for. We carried too much between the two of us as it was, but the weight continued to mount, and, muted as we were, there was nowhere to offload it
This time, when we wet the floors of the tavern, we carried all of our effects. The barman was more than shocked to see us, especially after his advice, but he didn’t refuse us. The rooms were right where we left them, made up like we were never there. A fight, a flu, and one rainy day later we were right where we started, an hour short of noon and already tucked away in our chambers. The door was shut, the room dark and quiet to make of it as I chose, and I still didn’t sleep. How could I expect to? A million things rattled my mind, not the least of which was what loomed over Mochada, but what else was there to do?
When faced with such a question, I found the answer in the same place that any man would, frothing in a deep wooden tankard. A golden brew to calm jarred nerves—I would’ve preferred something darker, but it’d do.
“Early once again,” he mused. The charm was lost on me.
The first round didn’t last as long as it took to ready the second, and when that too didn’t stick around, another filled its place. By the time I guzzled that, the next was in its place before I knew it was gone. The man learned fast, and quickly enough I’d rinsed and repeated enough to find myself fully washed; my gut distended over the counter and I had to piss something fierce, but my mind had stopped spinning enough for the room to take over.
“Are you alright?” the man asked. “On principle, I won’t tell a customer to stop—bad for business and all that—but I like to ask.”
I leaned back until the feet of the stool lifted from the floor, and my head rolled back to the ceiling. “Why do you stay here? Why do you all keep going if you know where things are headed?”
“Don’t tell me I got in your head, did I? I know I like to whine, but I’ll be damned if a little rain gets the better of us. These people are more resilient than that. We just need to wait out the storm, get Mochada’s shit sorted, and we’ll be just fine.”
Funny how our plans aligned. I may have been less confident than he was, but it was good to hear that these people maintained some optimism, especially when they’d been dealing with it for longer than I had
The bartender, although attentive, lifted his head at the sound of steps. I didn’t turn mine, expecting her beside me, but the man’s gaze carried past until I heard the sliding of dry wood from the opposite end of the room. “Wow, sullen bunch,” he remarked.
Politely, I declined the next drink and stood while I still had the ability. “Thank you.”
“Pleasure’s mine. You lot are making up for a lot of lost business, after all.”
Across the room, empty as it was before, Cordella sat with her back turned. She seemed enamored by the snap and sizzle of the hearth. When I pulled another seat from the table she leaned in further, and the glow from the fireplace climbed her drooping face. The heat was comforting, even if a little too much to endure.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Need a drink?” I nudged, and as if pretending I wasn’t there, she said nothing. “What are you thinking we do next? I know it’s my specialty, but that cold still has me in a daze. I stared at the ceiling for the better part of half an hour before I crawled those steps.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”
“How about something to eat then? Even after my binge, I think I’ve enough coins to treat us to something hot.”
“Suit yourself.”
I chuckled. She was glass, and I saw right through. “What’s bothering you?”
“Why, am I that obvious?”
“I guess you could say it’s a familiar scene.” I knew by now how she handled her stress, and with everything that’d happened—was still happening—it had to resurface sometime. While I complained every step of the way, she was loathe to crinkle her nose, and I knew it wasn’t because she didn’t feel it too. Not even she was impervious. “Are you thinking about Mochada?”
“No.”
“My nightmare?”
“No,” she quietly repeated.
I cocked my head. “It would be easier if you just told me.”
“And it would be easier if I knew what to tell you, but I don’t.”
And just maybe, I would’ve believed her had her mannerisms told the same story. While one hand lay in her lap, the other drug along and left a shallow rut in the wooden table. I didn’t like to pry, but I could see she was in a hole, buried with her feelings while they ate away.
“Is it that you don’t know what, or that you don’t know how?” There was a twinge in her lip as she came to the cusp but quickly backed away. “Because you should know there’s nothing you can’t tell me. Hell, we’ve been this far and nothing has turned me away. You can at least tell me what you’re feeling.”
Her nostrils twitched again as they passed a hot breath. “You want to know how I feel?” she asked, fingers curling at the edge of the table. The back of her neck tensed with anger, but when she turned, it all fell away. “I feel so stupid.”
“What? Why would you—”
“Stupid for coming here, and stupid for thinking that any bit of this made sense.”
“You aren’t stupid.”
“Then I’m thoughtless. How many more ways can I cause you anguish? How many more times until it sticks? I made you follow me to Hell thinking there could be anything but danger, all for my inane wish. I never even asked what you wanted!”
It was my spade that broke the surface and exposed the brackish oil, but I turned out to be ill-equipped to handle the consequences. All I could do was flail as I watched it spill. “I told you I’d follow. You didn’t have to ask!”
“That doesn’t change a damn thing. I know you didn’t want this, but I pushed and drug you along anyway, even when you told me you’d had enough. What kind of person does that make me? How could you have anything left but disdain?”
“Disdain?” I scoffed. “Is that what you think I feel? That hate made me react the way I did?”
Her face was wilted and red; glistening trails connected her eyes to her chin. Her silence was all the answer I needed.
I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “Cordella, you’re the only thing left that I’m afraid to lose. I wasn’t upset because I thought I might die—I was worried that you would.”
She sniffed until the tears stopped welling, but the ugly look on her face remained, as did the ivory in her knuckles. “Why should I believe you?”
“What makes you think I would lie? All this time, have I given you a reason?”
“No, but I’ve given you so many. I’ve caused you nothing but grief and wounds.”
“The only thing you’ve given me is direction. If you weren’t there holding the lead, I’d be wandering around lost. I need your courage to keep me on track.”
“Are my actions courageous, or impetuous?”
“It doesn’t matter which. Even when you’re hopelessly brazen, it’s only because you’re willing to chase your ambitions. Meanwhile, all I can do is overthink things until they turn me away. Ours are complimentary qualities.”
I could tell that, at my peeling, her immediate concerns lifted, but a layer remained. Her fingers dug away and her face wouldn’t meet mine.
“Even if you believe that, how does it help us now? I remember the speech I gave in the leviathan’s nest, and I remember where it led us. Now, we stand in the mouth of the next tunnel no better prepared, and the way forward and back are collapsed at our feet. I want to face it with the conviction that I did before, but for the first time, it feels hopeless. No matter what angle I try to approach this from I can’t seem to—”
Before her nails could bear any deeper into the wood, I laid my hand over hers, and her eyes lifted. “This isn’t Kaldris. Whatever happens, we’ll be ready for it.”
“And how do you know that? We’re already out of time, and your training has gone nowhere fast, nor have we.”
“Then we try something else. I know we’re on borrowed time, but we have to make the most of it or it’s all wasted. These people are holding out for us; if and when the rain dies down, we will be ready.”
After a nod, her face settled, and while our hands still overlapped, a soft smile shone from the dark. “When do we stop having to do this? Taking turns to reassure each other? One of these days it won’t work anymore, you know. We’ll be stuck in the same sinking boat with no one else to bail it.”
“As I said, we make the most of the time we have.”
That tenant, we chose to live by, and after mending the tear, the two of us would share one last drink before emerging into the still-overcast afternoon. Under the gray light, Cordella removed her hood for the first time since being soiled and soggied, revealing again the dark, dewy curls it had restrained. Little black ringlets were framed like vines against her brow, and a still-pink undertone glowed in the apples of her cheeks. Her renewed confidence was plain to see, and I’ll admit that I was shortly stunned by her return to form.
“Lead the way,” she beamed.
More than a big idea and a fresh mindset with which to concoct it, we had now the question of where to begin our newest pursuits. Without words, we knew that the tavern was hardly the place, and the rain, routinely set to ruin our parade, was a constant distraction, so the two of us sought somewhere quieter and with ample space should anyone get overeager. In this drenched little town, few places fit the bill, so we clung to the trees as we’d so often found ourselves doing over the week. A crop of them huddled on a hill in the outskirts, and once there, I wrapped the lead tight around the trunk of the nearest pin oak; I wouldn’t be taking any more chances.
When I turned around, Cordella was waiting with a wide, rooted stance and a sagely countenance. “At last, young scholar, it is time to demonstrate to me what you’ve learned.”
I didn’t show her a damn thing. For all of our traveling and across my many attempts, all I’d learned from meditation was that I didn’t much care for it. My fever had finally split, so I could easily have given it another go, but I think I’d had my fill. “Errm, perhaps we move on to the next lesson instead?”
“As you wish. Who would I be to stifle my students’ passions? What else did you have in mind?”
“As the instructor in this delusion, wouldn’t that be more your place to say?”
She pinched her thumb under her front teeth, rolling her eyes back. “No? No, I don’t think so. I prefer my teachings to be open-ended. You learn better the things you want to.”
“Because that worked so well the first time?”
“Escalus’ back is not the optimal place for self-discovery, and as I recall it, I told you it takes time, but you insisted.”
“Then tell me what doesn’t. I think you’ll find I’m an open-minded learner.”
She stopped again to think, this time in earnest. “I hate to tell you so, but I may not have an answer for you.” That was a surprise—especially after proclaiming she had all of them. “From what you describe of the man, there may not be enough hours in the day for me to give you the edge. At least in terms of magic, and I don’t see my swordsmanship being of particular use.”
These many days after hoisting up my hopes, she finally let them come crashing down. Not that it was new information, anything I hadn’t anticipated or told myself since the start, but it was deflating to hear it from her. “Then I’ll have to hope my skills are enough as they are. As badly injured as I was, if I could make do then, maybe I still could.”
“Hmm. Since you mention it,” she muttered, “How did you manage yourself the first time?”
“Patience, mostly. I waited for an opening and took advantage of his hesitation. It worked once, but I don’t see him making the same mistake.”
“Probably not, but you make a good point.”
I did?
“There’s not a lot I can teach in a few days, but it’s not as if you have no foundation. Beyond advanced techniques, you have most of what I could give you, so maybe what you lack is imagination?”
I appreciated the confidence she had in me, but it wouldn’t be the first time that it was misplaced. “What are you saying?”
“You’re so concerned with covering your weaknesses that I think you’re overlooking your strengths.” She pointed to my blade, prompting me to draw it forth. Then, carefully, she laid her fingers on the edge.
“What do you plan to do with that?”
“Last time, you turned his strength against him. What if you do it again? Now that you know what to expect.” I didn’t follow, and I certainly didn’t expect the intense jolt from my own weapon. My hand seized around the hilt and released the instant the current did. I glared at the culprit. She shook her head expectantly, eyes growing. “Do I have to spell it out?”
Evidently, she did, and weapon still precariously in hand, she held it out for me to take. Meanwhile, she recalled one more time her own experience: the research that laid the groundwork, in conjunction with the practice that made her what she was. In a way that I could never hope to imitate, her ether flowed strong and free like paint on an open canvas, but there were other mediums—alternate paths to mastery—each with different results.
Hers, despite appearances, had inefficiencies that she concealed with a lifetime of practice. While I had tried and failed to internalize my magic in the same fashion, I ignored the other half of the equation: expression. Precise manifestation was as much the key to potency as focusing the source…or so she told me.
“And what do I make of this information? Why should this be any easier to grasp?”
“In my experience, it’s not, but my magic and yours exist in two forms and from distinct starting points. By using a catalyst, you’ve practiced every day. You already have a strong grasp of controlling the ether that’s left your body, so while I can give you pointers on concentrating it, we’re leaving open another avenue.”
She made a dusting motion with her fingers and waited for me to make space. Then, with more of a crack than a snap, a burst of vermilion took to the air, writhing and folding over itself ten times in an instant before vanishing in a puff.
“Magic is energy—malleable in the body as it should be out, and should so remain after casting. Well, concept and practice are different beasts, and I could never tame the second. In the open air, my manifestations are as good as gone. They scatter. But in a catalyst?”
“They remain,” I said, slowly seeing the fruits of her lecture, but I still didn’t see what it would help. “So I can sustain my channeling by reabsorbing ether?”
Her lips curled. “You could, or you could do so much more. It’s novel, but I think you’ll have better luck than I did, and if it works, I guarantee he won’t see it coming.”