Seeing Thar felt like a relief and D’Argen’s shoulders sagged even as his feet itched to move.

“What are—”

“Shh!!” D’Argen’s mahee listened to him and he slid to a stop right in front of Thar with a hand over the man’s mouth. “They are looking for me,” D’Argen whispered out.

Thar did not fight the close contact or being silenced. He remained completely still. D’Argen did not remove his hand and leaned closer into the man, hooking his chin over Thar’s shoulder, and then reaching around him for the door. He opened it just a hair, could not see anything beyond, and let his mahee try to consume the sounds from the hall. There were none.

D’Argen let out a heavy breath and closed the door softly. He sagged into Thar’s body and finally removed his hand from the man’s mouth.

“I apologize about that,” D’Argen whispered out. When Thar shifted, D’Argen realized that he was practically hugging the man with how close they were plastered. He felt a heat run through him at the thought and an answering one from the body he was leaning against. A quick step back and he slapped his cheeks lightly. It would make them red for another reason.

“May I speak now?” Thar asked. The corner of his lips was slightly lifted.

“Yes, yes! Sorry. I just… yeah… sorry.”

“What are you doing here?” Thar finally finished his initial question.

“Ah! Well, you see, I took the passage way up, but there weren’t any torches lit so I opened the first door I felt.”

“And you said somebody is looking for you?”

D’Argen felt something inside him fight to answer. Thar was not attacking him. He smiled, but the words that came out were still a lie for some reason, “Vah’mor wants to saddle me with a horrible job. I ran away before they could.”

“A job?”

“A task. Run some messages for Acela. You know, to the mortals?”

“Ah yes, she did mention it. But she also said it would take a while.”

“Yes, well, I guess she’s learned the benefits of haste.”

“Has she now?” The way Thar asked the question made D’Argen stiffen up.

“Yes. So, when are we going?”

“Going?” Thar walked around him and to the table in the middle of the room. Now that D’Argen had more time to focus, he realized he was not just in a random common room. This was one of the smaller tea rooms.

“North,” D’Argen said and looked around. The door to the passage looked indistinguishable from the wallpaper and paint. “You wanted to continue hunting? I’m done my tasks, so we can go now. Do you have much to pack? You didn’t have a lot on you when we came back and I figured you don’t need too much, but anyway, it’s not like you need to pack, anything we may need we can find on the way.” D’Argen knew he was trying to rush Thar and that made the earlier lie taste even worse on his tongue.

“You are done all your tasks except for the new ones Vah’mor and Acela want to give you.”

“Yes, yes. But they haven’t given them to me yet, so, I am done all my tasks. Shall we?”

Thar was not even looking at him. D’Argen chanced a look at the door. It had not budged. He tried to find the secret door leading to the passage between the walls and could not see its outlines. At least it was still closed. Then his mahee twinged, eating a sound that he could not place. It was not coming from the passage.

D’Argen glanced at the balcony and considered the height. He could do it. Probably. He could use his mahee to jump and land on the lower outer wall of the castle, push off it too and be in the busy city streets. He could even do it with Thar. Maybe. The way his mahee was acting earlier, he was not sure if he wanted to risk it in a hurry.

Now, if only Thar would do something other than inspect the crystal glass in his hand.

The glass that did not fog up.

D’Argen felt his entire body stiffen when the door behind him opened. He could not, however, look away from Thar. The fear that surged through him was not because of the door. It was because D’Argen just realized that when he touched Thar earlier, the man was warm. When they had practically hugged, D’Argen felt a heat like his own touching him. When he had a hand on the man’s mouth, the skin did not freeze under Thar’s cold breath.

“You’re not him, are you?” D’Argen asked, afraid to hear the answer even though he already knew it.

Thar did not even bother to look at him.

Cana spoke up from the open door behind him, “Let me just put you to sleep and this will all be over.”

D’Argen turned to face her only to see she was not the only one standing there. The scent of her mahee, one of hemp, felt slightly off. It could have been the blood of Vah’mor’s scent where they stood right behind her. It could have been the ozone of Zetha’s scent where he probed at D’Argen’s mind. Whatever it was, it should have sent him into a daze with a smile on his face.

Instead, it made his entire body stiffen even more. He recalled the vision Lilian shared in the white space, their favourite memory, they said, of D’Argen rejecting the mahee. He had no clue how he did it that time, but he knew he was successfully doing it again this time when Vah’mor put a hand on Cana’s shoulder and pulled her back.

“Come with us,” Vah’mor said.

“Why?” D’Argen asked and took a cautious step back when Vah’mor stepped further into the room.

“You know why. You shouldn’t know why, but you do. If you come with us, we can put all this behind us and forget about it.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

D’Argen glanced at Vah’mor’s empty hands. Then he scanned his general’s body and noticed the black leather wraps of his sword’s hilt at their waist. His mahee closed off the moment he thought of rushing to steal the blade and Cana’s scent, though weaker, almost sent him to his knees. The only reason he did not fall was the hands that gripped him tight around the biceps and held him up. Those hands pulled him back against a firm chest. But it was warm. D’Argen wanted to cry.

“And do what?” Thar asked, lips ghosting against D’Argen’s ear.

But those questions made something inside D’Argen bloom. A sprig of hope. He crossed one arm over his chest to touch Thar’s where it held him tight. The fingers under his were not as cold as he remembered them, but they were still cool. Maybe… maybe Thar had not started to use the cold as a physical shield in this time, yet? He and D’Argen had touched so little in the past, the runner could not recall when the man’s skin became as cold as ice.

Maybe… this really was Thar?

Thar’s profile was as he knew it. He wanted to run the tip of his finger down Thar’s long nose, touch the thin lips under it to test their give, nudge the man’s chin up and trace the strong line of his jaw.

“—out of this!” D’Argen realized Vah’mor had spoken only because they yelled those last words.

“No,” Thar responded, his voice cold, and D’Argen felt it warm something inside him.

Thar’s grip on D’Argen’s arms tightened to the point of pain as Thar yanked him about and out of the way. Vah’mor’s previously empty hands were no longer so. Instead, they had the long glaive with blades at both ends connected by a staff of black metal with silver engravings on it.

The blade struck the ground hard enough to splinter the wood where D’Argen and Thar had stood a moment before. D’Argen found his feet just in time to see Zetha rushing at them. Before he could react to draw Thar away, Thar once more grabbed him and yanked him about as if he was nothing more than a straw doll. Zetha hit the wall hard with his shield then Vah’mor came at them again.

“Do you trust me?” D’Argen breathed out the question when Thar had them move out of the way again. They were running out of room.

“Always,” Thar responded and D’Argen felt the man’s cold breath on his cheek. D’Argen smiled and turned in Thar’s arms for a hug. His mahee, already open and waiting for him, wrapped around Thar so naturally it was like it was wrapping around an extra limb. Then D’Argen yanked it as wide as he could and he ran at the balcony.

The glass doors shattered around them but before even the smallest of those pieces hit the ground, D’Argen had already stepped on the railing and flung both him and Thar off it.

He wanted to step off the top of the small wall and jump them away, run far away from the castle and the city, but even as well as his mahee was wrapped around Thar, he did not have a strong enough push. They lost their height before they even came close to the wall. D’Argen flipped around in mid-air and as soon as his feet touched the wall, he crouched, holding Thar close to him, then pushed off again, aiming high for the castle wall and one of the multitude of balconies there.

Acela’s face appeared on one of the balconies. Olov’s on another. Vain. Halen.

Abbot.

D’Argen’s foot slipped on the railing but he had enough momentum to not need it. He stepped on the stone of the castle wall and pushed off yet again, aiming back over the wall. The stone behind him cracked and broke, he had enough of a push now and he was aiming high enough to be able to jump over the wall completely…

And then his mahee suddenly left him.

He and Thar hit the short wall surrounding the castle hard, so hard that D’Argen’s head was splitting and he was sure he broke one of his arms. The impact with the ground below was not as hard, but it did take all the air out of his lungs and then some.

When D’Argen could finally open his eyes, it was to see Thar standing over him and dozens of figures running at them. Thar would hold them back while D’Argen gathered his breath. Then D’Argen would run them out of the gates, if he had to.

But Thar did not hold them off.

D’Argen chin burned on contact with a blade made of ice. He tried to jerk away but the blade followed, practically sticking to his skin. It pushed up and D’Argen had to scramble to his feet and follow it up until he was standing, his throat bared to all the Never Born that had gathered and his eyes searching for any warmth at all in Thar’s gaze.

There was none.

Thar held his massive sword with one hand, keeping it perfectly steady, and with just enough pressure to threaten without actually cutting skin.

“Why?” D’Argen dared to ask. The question had his throat moving into the blade and the burn of the cold ice seeped through the small cut there.

Thar shrugged. A non-response, if there ever was one, and one that seemed completely out of character for the man. But, then again, that was not Thar. It was the same creation as the others so far, just wearing a familiar face. And it had not been wearing it too well, even if hope had blinded D’Argen for a few moments.

“Stop fighting us,” Acela ordered, the scent of her mahee, that of sunshine on a warm summer day, at odds with the ice under his chin and against his throat.

D’Argen hated the idea of bearing the entrance of his mahee to the others, his eyes jumping from one figure to another without pause. Yet the one holding the sword, the one forcing his chin up, that was the one that D’Argen was not afraid of, even if he knew it was not really him.

“What happens if I stop?” D’Argen dared to ask. The sword shifted just enough not to cut him as he spoke. D’Argen glanced at Thar out of the corner of his eye, but the man was not looking at him. Yet the blade remained completely still.

“We can make you forget all this,” Cana was the one to say. When D’Argen glared at her, Zetha shifted to stand in front of her, his shield up to cover her nude form.

“Is that how it was supposed to be from the start?” D’Argen asked with a growl. He no longer felt the burn from the ice sword at his throat. “It didn’t work the first time.”

“It will this time,” Zetha said and the scent of ozone was as unfamiliar as the feeling of the strongest mentalist of them all digging into his brain. D’Argen screamed. The sword at his throat trembled. Zetha never did this. Not without permission. Not without complete agreement from every party involved.

D’Argen felt him digging in and he knew exactly where Zetha was aiming. The first set of memories that D’Argen felt him attack were those of the village in the north where D’Argen and Kassar had been. A moment later, D’Argen remembered nothing of the mortals there and only the charred remains of houses as the demons rampaged.

The next memory that got brought up was the white space, where Vah’mor had told Acela how to do the ritual. It dissipated like ink in water.

Another memory. D’Argen screamed through the process. It was painful. It felt like everything was being ripped out of his head or torn to shreds. Some memories were replaced with similar ones, like Abbot and him laughing over a bottle of mead in a tiny hut in the middle of nowhere instead of his hands getting stained with the artist’s blood. Some memories were erased, nothing at all to replace them. Yet the blanks remained, making it feel like he dreamt of nothing but white and empty space.

Then Zetha dug deeper and farther into the past.

D’Argen remembered the mortals he was tasked to escort back to the place that eventually became Evadia. That first pilgrimage the mortals had to visit them. He remembered that Thar did not join him. He remembered sitting on a small hill and overlooking the festivities. He remembered a white shade sitting beside him—and then he remembered sitting alone and waiting for Vah’mor.

No.

Vah’mor appeared and sat beside him.

No.

Vah’mor smiled and leaned into him.

No!

Vah’mor took his hand and—

NO!

When he shoved Zetha out of his mind, it was with a wave of his mahee exploding out of him. Everyone screamed as Zetha’s powers assaulted them. D’Argen felt clear-headed even as the white shade faded away from his memories. He searched for Thar among the screaming and writhing bodies on the ground.

Thar was not screaming.

Thar was staring at his hands in horror. His sword was on the ground, already melting under the hot sun now that he was not touching it.

“Thar?” D’Argen dared to ask.

When Thar looked at him, it was with both wonder and fear. D’Argen had never seen the man so expressive before. His hands were shaking.

But no.

Lilian had said that nothing can exists in multiple realms at once. Whatever this place was, it acted the same as the realms. This was not Thar.

The others stopped screaming as one and all heads shot up and eyes locked on D’Argen like some weird copy of one another. All of their eyes were pure black.