Evadia.

For some reason, D’Argen knew that would be the name of the city that was being built in the field of the gods before it was announced. It sounded familiar and warm. It sounded like home.

Acela tasked D’Argen with finding all the gods that were not in Evadia—not yet complete, but with dozens of stone buildings standing around the wooden and clay ones to protect them—and to bring them to their new home.

“Another century or two. Three, at most,” Acela explained with a wave of her hand when D’Argen asked how long until all plans were completed.

“Longer,” Halen corrected her with a raised chin. “Since you refused to tear down the old, we have to work around it. Plus, if more mortals keep coming to live here, we will have to keep expanding.”

“A short time. More than enough for you to find everyone.” Acela turned Halen’s words away and focused on D’Argen.

D’Argen nodded, collected the messages Acela wanted to send out with him, and ran.

It took him a decade to find the first dozen. Another few decades to find the rest. But there was someone missing. After the third time he returned to Evadia empty-handed, Lilian pulled him aside.

“You are running yourself ragged. You should rest,” they said.

“Yeah, I know. And I’m feeling it too,” D’Argen agreed and let himself be led toward the large circle where everybody was gathered in celebrations without reason.

“Here, here.” Abbot waved the two over with his pipe in the air.

The three sat around a small fire, barely big enough for the chicken Abbot was roasting over it. D’Argen turned away at the smell but Lilian had a firm grip on his wrist.

“There is not much work left,” Abbot said once he tore one of the legs off and tested the meat. “You do not have to keep running around to avoid it.”

“I’m not!” D’Argen immediately protested then gagged when Abbot handed him the chicken leg. He took it anyway and started picking at the dark meat with his fingers, taking only tiny clumps of meat to put between his lips.

Both Abbot and Lilian ignored his denial and instead started talking about the spices Abbot had used on the meat. Lilian was eating it like they were starving.

D’Argen glanced around. There were multiple small fires like their own, strewn all around the large open field that Halen had argued to keep. The new stone hall was at the end of it and stone houses ringed it in a perfect circle, expanding further out in streets both big and small. There were more mortals than gods there, but D’Argen did not notice the first five even when he stood up to stretch his legs.

Then he saw the white shade.

“What is it?” Lilian asked him.

D’Argen waved the question away and gave them what was left of his chicken before walking off. The fires were bright, the laughter and joy almost festive, and so many people were getting up and walking around that D’Argen quickly lost sight of his target.

He stopped and tried to figure out where the other could have gone. In a flash of white robes, D’Argen found his feet moving again.

“Pardon me,” he repeated absent-mindedly every time he ran into someone, but he refused to tear his eyes away from the shade walking away. A man. After a few stumbles and nearly walking through one of the smaller fire pits, D’Argen realized he was at the edge of the large circle.

The man in white was gone but a flash of his robes between two of the houses had D’Argen jogging that way. He walked between the houses but saw no one. What was his name? To call him? He jogged to the end of the small alley before entering a wider street. There were so many mortals all around him that he barely caught sight of the edge of a white sleeve disappearing behind another house.

D’Argen did not dare open his mahee and rushed through the crowd without it. When he turned the corner, there was nobody there.

But D’Argen felt him. He knew that white shadow that had been at the edge of his eye for almost two thousand years. The shadow’s mahee was calling to him. It did not call back to the large circle where all of the gods were gathered but in front of him. Barely two steps. He took them and the pull became stronger. Still not enough.

“Did you hear about the pillar?” D’Argen stumbled into a group of mortals as he exited another small alley.

“Pardon me,” he repeated, yet again, refusing to look at them.

They all bowed their heads and moved out of his way as he searched yet another street. This one also had many people on it but the flash of pure white—one so bright it was almost like it gave off a light on its own—led him through the crowd.

“Yes, I heard! It is so tall that it disappears in the clouds.” He heard from another group of mortals.

The white disappeared.

D’Argen ran to the edge of the street and jumped, grabbing a low roof to hang from for a moment and see above the crowd.

“Apparently, it is covered in some types of markings.” Someone else said just as D’Argen thought he saw a head of pure white hair.

D’Argen turned to the small cluster of mortals in confusion then to another when they continued the conversation even though the groups were apart.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“It is symbols that even the gods cannot read.”

Pure white eyes focused on him in the distance and D’Argen ran without his mahee toward them. Then someone stepped in his way and D’Argen slid to a stop before he crashed into them and lost his balance, his mahee still searching for the white shade. He fell back. The mortals around him backed up. D’Argen looked up.

Vah’mor was scowling, as per usual, but they still held a hand out to help him up. Their glowing silver eyes flashed white in the lanterns around them and D’Argen stumbled.

“Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

“Who?” Vah’mor asked and did not let go of his arm.

“I… uh… I wasn’t able to get everyone back on time,” D’Argen replied instead of the name he felt at the tip of his tongue but could not pronounce.

“Everybody is here,” Vah’mor replied, and their eyes narrowed. “Were you following me?”

“What? No! Is there a reason to be following you?” D’Argen scoffed out the question, expecting a roll of eyes or an easy grin in return. Instead, Vah’mor’s eyes burned bright—almost white, but not quite—and they turned away.

D’Argen did not dare follow Vah’mor’s retreating back. Not when it led back to the circle. He looked around and the mortals were all staring, as if this was the most interesting thing they had ever seen. He smiled, waved at them, and then the crowd parted. It parted to lead him back to the circle. With a final glance around him, no white shade in sight, he resigned himself and returned to his friends.

Abbot and Lilian had eaten the entire chicken and were sipping out of the same wine skin when he found their small fire again.

“What happened?” Lilian asked with a grin.

“I thought I saw something.”

“Should have told me you were going. I was going to ask you to fetch us more wine.” Abbot shook the skin and then squeezed it.

D’Argen rolled his eyes and took it from him. Lilian called for him to bring them some fish this time. On his way to the open stands where the fresh food was available for all, a few others threw their own orders at him. He had to dodge around so many bodies and fires that by the time he returned to Lilian and Abbot, the fish wrapped in leaves was practically smoked.

“You were looking for Vah’mor earlier, no? They just arrived.” Abbot took the fish from him as he spoke and then frowned down at it.

“I was?” D’Argen asked, not sure what Abbot was referring to.

“Can you get us another?” Abbot asked instead and lifted the fish back to him.

D’Argen felt a twinge of annoyance at being ordered around but he took the leaves. Instead of returning it back to the stands, he dropped it off at a small fire with only two mortals around it. They thanked him, but he ignored them as he continued on.

It was not Vah’mor he was looking for earlier. Vah’mor’s black robes and long black hair were distinct. And though their skin was pale, it was nowhere near as pale as… as…

“Hey, Vain, I’ve a quick question for you.” D’Argen grabbed the man’s arm before they could pass one another. “There… is there one of us here with… white eyes? I mean pure white?”

“Vah’mor? They went back to the hall,” Vain replied and shrugged off his arm.

“I…” D’Argen stuttered. He stopped another few of the gods to ask, went as far as describing pure white eyes, but every single one of them called Vah’mor’s name and directed him to the stone hall.

It was not Vah’mor, and it felt like nobody was listening to him at all. But there was something about the man in pure white, the one with long white hair who sometimes used a single ribbon to keep the strands from falling in his white eyes. The more he thought about him, the more the image cleared. Taller than Vah’mor—the same height as D’Argen himself—but broader, his shoulders wide and muscles compact as if he was used to carrying around something heavy. His eyes were pure white save for a black ring around the iris and the pupil.

When he described that to Asa, they smirked and responded with, “Are you in love with Vah’mor or something? You make them sound so romantic.”

D’Argen brushed them away and then, finally, gave up and made his way to the stone hall.

He had not entered it since the doors were originally built, but they were thrown wide open now. The bannisters around the top were wider and the flash of white on the third floor had D’Argen running up the stairs without a thought.

Just as he reached the top, he tripped on nothing at all and when he landed, it was not on stone or wood. It was on ice. The black veins that ran through the ice under his hands were both completely new and so familiar. He looked up, but the stone hall was gone, the dark corners where the torches did not reach were even darker. There was a single light, pure white, coming from somewhere and throwing strange shadows all around him.

A cavern of some sort.

He got up slowly, careful not to slip on the ice. There was a single formation not that far from him, the ice from both below and above connecting in the middle. The light was coming from the other side of it. When D’Argen neared, the light danced around and made his shadow demonic—demonic? What did that mean?—as it somehow shined from behind him. He looked back, but there was no light source. He circled the pillar, but the light circled with him, always out of reach.

Why did he know this place?

How did he know this place?

He reached for the formation to ground himself and it felt wet under his hand. Wet and warm. The contradiction to the ice around him had him pulling his hand back as if scalded. When he looked down at it, his hand was covered in blood.

Freshly coughed up blood.

Because…

Suddenly, he was breathing air so cold it tore his throat and lungs apart, a moment later, the cold seeped into him like a comfort and the warm blood on his hand burned him. Then he looked at the light to see it hanging over a pale hand with long digits. That hand led to an arm in a white sleeve and as he focused, as he remembered, he looked at Thar.

“What are you doing up here?” It was not Thar that spoke the question.

D’Argen turned to the source and found himself standing on the top floor of the stone hall and looking at Vah’mor. He looked behind him for Thar, but the man was gone and so was his light and so was the ice cavern where the two had connected.

Will connect.

D’Argen remembered this.

He remembered when the stone hall of Evadia was finished and then torn down to become only arches that led down the main road to the castle. He was there to help with the construction, laughing beside Abbot as they threw mud at one another. He was running away with Lilian’s flowers, sprinkling their petals so that they could cover up the stench of sweat and compost during the hot summers. He stuck close to where Thar worked in the summers for the cool and in the winters for the absence of it.

D’Argen suddenly remembered killing those nomads that had stolen the pilgrims’ women and children. He remembered Thar was with him. He remembered crying over it and Thar trying to comfort him.

He did not remember Vah’mor ever looking at him with such scorn. Even before they became friends.

“What is this?” D’Argen asked.

Vah’mor glared at him and pointed to the stairs, sending D’Argen away.

D’Argen felt a veil fall over his eyes and mind. It did not lift until he was sitting back beside Abbot and Lilian with fresh fish on a spit over the fire. The veil edged at his consciousness when a white shadow appeared at the corner of his eye. He turned away from the shade, responding to Lilian’s question, and the veil disappeared.

It was only much later, when he was alone on a small hill looking at the lights of the city of Evadia that he realized: he was not sitting alone. Not the first time. Not the last time. Because he knew it now – something was really wrong. He remembered the last two-thousand years, but he remembered some of them twice. And one of those times, there was another person sitting beside him on this hill.

Now, if only he could remember the name that went along with those white eyes.