I didn’t hear Andiya speak for a week. Not in the mornings, when she would eat quietly on the balcony and stare out at the passing scenery, nor during our days following Irina as she signed orders and spoke with advisors, nor at night, when she would collapse onto the bed from the strain of holding herself upright all day.

The Korongorod revolved around us. At first, people had simply bowed to Irina and been on their way as we passed—now they froze in fear, whispering to each other when they thought us out of earshot. The fear and whispering grew with every passing hour as the rumours spread to every cook, every maid, every letter bearer and scribe and stable keeper. That’s the High Order, they said. She killed the archon. The servants’ eyes only passed over Irina momentarily now. All of them fell right to Andiya, and to the deep hood that kept her face as mystery.

It had been nearly ten days since I’d woken up bonded to Andiya. Most of it felt like some strange dream. I couldn’t really be here, in the princess’s chambers, guarding her door as she drank a morning coffee.

“Kain,” Irina called.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“What do you think of the view?”

I peered out the balcony. It was like a slap to the face. “Ardila Vos.”

The Korongorod had halted beside a low, sprawling city of pale wood and stained glass. It was built against a sparkling lake ringed with willow trees, the fields around it flush with a rainbow of blossoms. Ardila Vos, capitol of Azherbal. A place I had not been in many years.

“I’ve heard it called the most beautiful city in all the Canavar lands,” said Irina. “Seeing it in this light, I am inclined to agree.”

“It certainly is a sight, Your Majesty,” I replied in a forced flat tone. I never thought I would see Ardila Vos again. Right now, I wanted nothing more than to run away from it. From what I had done.

“You are Azherbali, Kain, are you not?”

“I am, Your Majesty.”

“And yet your captain has consistently requested assignments in Novosk and Os Tjerjik. I’m told your bonding expedition in the Teeth is the first you’d been in Azherbal in nearly a year. Does your captain have some aversion for your home country?”

I kept my face flat. How much had Irina looked into my past? How much did she know of Barje Vos?

“No, Your Majesty. He put those requests in because I asked him to.”

“So it is you with the aversion to Azherbal?”

“In a way.”

“I see,” Irina said with a small pout. “Well. We should be off. I’m expecting a guest.” She pulled on a floor-length fur coat and met another Eon at her door. “Come along, Kain.”

But Andiya was staring out the window.

I leaned over to her and whispered “Let’s go.”

“You lived here.”

Her voice was rough from disuse. I was so surprised by it that I answered without thinking.

“No. But not far. The other side of the lake.”

“There’s nothing on the other side.”

“Not anymore.”

She looked up at me, and I caught her eyes from under her hood, pushed in a confused frown. “I saw something. When you bonded me. A city, just like that one, but burning. Screaming. I heard swords and death and war.”

“You heard daemons.”

I left before she could ask more, but I saw that confused frown loosen with understanding.

Down the spiral staircase we went, and after a time I heard Andiya behind us, struggling to keep up. We went farther down than the council chamber, farther than the throne room and ballrooms, deep into the belly of the Korongorod’s base. When we emerged we came to a wide open training area for the palace guard: a high-ceilinged complex carved out of the rock, blunted weapons and training swords, targets and mannequin and stores of arrows and throwing blades. In a far corner, pairs of guards sparred hand-to-hand, dripping with sweat.

One of the guards spotted Irina and appeared to swallow his tongue. He waved for everyone to stop, and we were greeted with a line of deep bows.

“It is an honour, princess,” said a gentle voice behind me. The familiarity of it shot through my heart.

I turned to see Sage Jawahir in his official red robes, a tender smile on his face.

“And how happy I am to see you again, young Rozin.”

For a second, I forgot my new station. I crossed the floor and almost swept Jawahir into a tight hug—but the weight of the wolf pelt on my shoulders reminded me who I was. I slid to a hasty knee in front of him.

Irina’s hand dropped to my shoulder. “I flew the Korongorod to Ardila Vos in the hopes of meeting your former tutor,” she said. “The Canavar need our Eon trained to control her High Order. I thought the process might be faster with a familiar face.”

“We begin today,” said Jawahir. “And I will not accept any excuses.”

He never had.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

*

Turan Jawahir did not believe in violence. It was why he had joined the Magi, and why he had spent the better part of thirty years studying to be a sage. The sages took no daemons, held no weapons. They studied magic without ever wielding it; they pored over ancient manuscripts and meditated among the trees, searched the depths of abandoned temples and pondered the mysteries of the universe. The sages traded in knowledge, not in blood.

Andiya and I sat cross legged on cushions across a low table from Sage Jawahir. We’d been given a private room just off the training hall, and it gave me the impression of an alchemist’s laboratory. It was stuffed with shelves of scrolls and inkwells, instruments for measuring ingredients, a table laid with a map of the coalitions, and all manner of jars and tubs of salves and herbs. Jawahir prepared a teapot on a small burner, humming to himself as we waited in terse silence.

“Sage Jawahir,” I said, and he didn’t look up. “Why are you here?”

“To train you,” he replied. “Did you not listen to the princess?”

“Train me in violence? That’s not your way.”

Jawahir crushed tea leaves in a mortar. He hadn’t changed at all since the day we met. The sage was a diminutive figure, drowned in his red robes like a coat on a pole. A black and silver braid fell from his shoulder, into which he’d woven thin strands of leather and glass beads. He still had the same wrinkles in his dark skin, the same way of moving so slowly that the rest of the world seemed too fast.

“I did not agree to train you to fight,” said Jawahir. “I agreed to teach you control.”

“So that I can fight. I don’t think the princess intends for me to suddenly become a pacifist.”

“What you choose to do with your training is up to you.”

“I believe it’s up to the archon.”

Jawahir let out a slow breath, his hand pausing on the pestle. “No, Rozin. It is not.” He turned to Andiya, frowning. “Andiya. You may remove your hood. We shall not stand on formality here.”

She did, and Jawahir handed her the first cup of tea.

We took our tea in complete silence. After he’d drained his last drop, Jawahir stared at Andiya. I felt her disgust rise in the bond.

“Do you know who I am?” Jawahir asked.

“The man the princess hired to tame me.”

“I am the man who taught Rozin to bond.”

Fury lashed up the bond. Andiya’s teacup shattered in her hand.

“Then you are just as guilty as she is.”

“More, some might say. But that is a conversation for another time, another drink. If I may, Andiya—you are injured. What happened?”

Andiya’s teeth clenched as she glared Jawahir down.

“Seylas,” I said. “His interrogators worked on her.”

Jawahir’s eyes tightened in pity. He knew the name Seylas just as well as I did. I didn’t need to tell him anything more.

“I apologise for your treatment,” he said. “Human wickedness is reigned in only by our own will, and some of us have no such will.”

Andiya snorted derisively. “You apologise?”

“For those who will not. There are some for whom admitting fault is anathema.”

Andiya’s eyes flickered to me. I pretended not to notice. “I do not accept your apology,” she said. “And I shall not, so long as I remain enslaved to your wicked kind. For that is what I am, Sage Jawahir. Not a bonded, not a monster. A slave. And a slave cannot forgive.”

I couldn’t look at her. She was speaking the words that had run through my head for days. A slave. As much as I tried to think of her as just another bonded, another weapon, she was nothing like them at all.

“I was hoping, Andiya,” Sage Jawahir began carefully, “that we might spend today getting to know one another. I’d like us to establish a sort of trust—”

Andiya shoved away from the table and yanked her hood back up. “I’m not doing this. We’re going, Rozin.”

“We’ll go when I say we go,” I said.

Andiya’s fists clenched. “We are going now.”

Sage Jawahir stood and offered his hand to Andiya. She glared at it and didn’t move.

“Until tomorrow then, Andiya,” he said pleasantly. And as if he’d only then remembered I was there, he added, “And to you, Rozin.”

His eyes remained in that crinkled smile as we joined an Eon escort and left.

*

We guarded Irina the next morning. I was slowly becoming immune to the staring as Andiya and I were paraded like prize horses throughout the palace. We took long, odd routes to reach our destinations. It took me little time to understand why. We took paths that directly crossed those of whatever noble or dignitary was visiting that day. The Canavar had a High Order, and Irina wanted that rumour to spread as far as it could go.

After Irina dined with a delegation from the Mehraki Merchant Guild of the All-Seeing (who could not stop sneaking glances at a cloaked Andiya) we were again told to join Sage Jawahir in our training room.

We opened the door to find the sage once more brewing tea. This time, he’d also set out a tower of delicate cakes.

“I am glad to see you again, Andiya,” he said in his hushed tone.

Andiya took the seat furthest from Jawahir, and so I took the pillow across from him.

Jawahir pushed a teacup at her. “Elderflower from Alta. Honey?”

Andiya didn’t reply, so he mixed in a spoonful for her anyway.

Our “training” session went similarly to the first. We drank in silence, no one uttering a word until we’d all sipped every last drop.

But this time, Jawahir didn’t ask any questions. Instead, he launched into a monologue about his own interests; he told us of the artisans he’d met in his travels, of the Creator ruins he’d once spent the night in by the Gold Sea, of the tea terraces in Tianji that glowed with the sunrise, of the noble families in Bel Arben who commissioned enchanted glowing silks from the Magi.

At this subject, Andiya’s eyes finally looked up at him.

“Enchanted, you heard right,” said Jawahir. “By the bonded of mages.”

“You are of the Magi,” said Andiya. “Where is your bonded?”

“I do not have one. The Magi are only our order. Mages study magic within, while sages study magic without. Together, we are able to unravel the mysteries of the arcane.”

When we left, Jawahir once again held out his hand. Andiya glanced at it and stalked out.

*

For our sixth session, Sage Jawahir spoke of music.

He seemed to have exhausted stories of his own travels, and instead spoke of the cultures themselves. We listened to tales of Ustaadian musicians who could play audiences to sleep, of throat singers from Dai Fen whose voices rumbled like thunder, of temple choirs from Etvia that sang for three days and nights without pause. Neither Andiya or I ever offered any stories in return.

Bored, I felt along the bond. But Andiya’s wall was gone. She was actually paying attention to Jawahir’s every word—and so her consciousness lay unguarded, waiting like an open book. I crept towards it. The secrets she held … I couldn’t begin to imagine what we could do with the knowledge of a High Order.

But I hesitated.

“Do you have any interest in music, Andiya?” Jawahir asked.

“No.”

“Surely you must enjoy a song or two—”

“I don’t.”

“That’s not true,” I pushed in. “Andiya plays the harp. I heard her play.”

“He didn’t ask you,” Andiya growled, and I decided that the argument wasn’t worth it.

As Andiya remembered my presence, her mind snapped closed once more. I drew back. It was probably for the best. I might have preferred fighting my way into her mind, where Andiya had a chance to push back. I didn’t like the idea of sneaking in. It felt like a violation.

When we left the sage, Andiya didn’t even wait for me to stand before breezing out the door.

As I should have expected, for our seventh session the training room was filled with instruments.

“I thought we could play together,” said Sage Jawahir. “We might prefer it to speaking to one another. I’ve had a harp brought down. Would you care to give us a demonstration, Andiya?”

Andiya gazed longingly at the harp, but I saw her shoulders set. Her eyes flicked back to me with that low burning hatred. “I don’t feel in the mood.”

We left after a perfectly silent cup of tea. Before reaching our rooms, I stopped by the palace artisan’s office and said “There’s a harp in my room I need repaired.”

Later, I tucked myself into my makeshift bed on the couch. From the bedroom, Andiya asked “Why?” to my back.

“For when you do find the mood.”