Cedric dreamt. Not of suffocating darkness and cruel, greedy hands, but of things he didn't recognize. He'd experienced such an influx of unfamiliar images once before, on that fateful night when he'd fully surrendered himself to the black diamond.

Once he awoke, this would be the comparison he'd assign to the nature of these dreams. But while he was deep in the midst of them, borne along waves of delirium like a helpless ant down a frothing stream, he didn't think much of anything at all.

Countless centuries passed him by. The dissonant yet unified cries of multitudes shredded at his ears. He was birthed and slaughtered a thousand times over. The sun and moon chased each other in frenzied cycles as quickly as eye blinks. Once-imposing mountains softened and flattened into endless dancing plains.

Come. Come to me.

The voice, ageless and sexless, rose up above the screaming cacophony, inhuman and irresistible. He knew that voice. He'd heard it before.

A circle of old stones stood before him. Ancient, motionless, the central axis of a world that spun dizzyingly around it. The rapid cycles of day and night continued their perpetual circular dance.

Come to me.

He was suddenly falling, falling down a bottomless pit of nothingness. Helpless terror seized him in a suffocating vice.

Cedric snapped awake all at once, utterly disoriented. But as his vision cleared of the last vestiges of induced sleep, he recognized Adrian's worried face not a foot from his own. He was kneeling beside him, a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"How do you feel, Cedric?"

Cedric moved to touch his own face and was glad to confirm its existence. The ground beneath him was comfortingly solid and unmoving. His fever had also vanished, though the persistent ache in his injured right side remained.

Oleanna handed him a wooden cup of something hot. He glared.

"You can trust her. Drink it."

Without breaking his gaze, he sat upright and sipped. It was an infusion of mint and something unidentifiable that cleared his head and sent strength surging through his body.

"Why did you force those dreams upon me?" Cedric demanded.

Oleanna raised a gray eyebrow. "My brew only put you to sleep, loosened a few barriers at most. Beyond that was purely the work of your own head."

He couldn't take that last statement to heart. Something had called out to him. Someone.

Come to me…

Cedric drank more deeply this time. "What were you two up to while I was gone?"

His friend's eyes gleamed brighter than he'd ever seen them.

*

"Terramancy?"

"Aye, apparently I've an affinity for it."

As realization struck, so did both delight and melancholy in a single, bittersweet surge of emotion. "I think I knew someone who was a terramancer. He wove miracles out of herbs and roots, too."

They sat beside each other, midway down the hill of Oleanna's cottage. Cedric had craved a much-needed reprieve from the overpowering aromas of her house and garden, and Adrian had joined him, eager to catch him up on what he'd missed.

"Could you have the Touch as well?"

"No," Cedric said definitively. Unlike Adrian, he'd spent plenty of time among the natural world, even learned a few recipes from Alvir, but he'd never encountered anything like what Adrian described while handling the earth's bounties. Incidentally, his own mixtures had never come out quite right. Alvir had assured him that it was merely a matter of time and practice, but he'd been wrong. As wrong as he'd been for choosing to associate with Cedric in the first place.

"Thank you, by the way," Cedric said to Adrian. "I feel better, now. Though I'm still not sure of Oleanna."

"Because you're not the center of attention for once?"

Cedric shot him a glare. He grinned impishly back, but it quickly faded as he fiddled with the crisp yellow grass beneath him. Nightwind, still dutifully standing vigil at the bottom of the hill, briefly raised his head and whinnied.

"I should be thanking you," Adrian said softly.

"For what?"

"Risking your hide to save me. Letting me accompany you, even after I…" his voice hitched. "The anticipation has in some ways been worse. But you're not the type, are you? You'd sooner let me stew in my own guilt, eat myself up from the inside."

Cedric was baffled. "Guilt? For what?"

Adrian threw up his hands. "For selling you out and getting you poisoned, you bloody idiot!"

"I understand why you did it. Your circumstances were grim; even I could see that."

He snorted. "And that is how you feel? Truly?"

"Aye, of course."

Adrian looked incredulous. "If you're sold to eternal imprisonment, Cedric, you're allowed to be angry. To take a swing or two."

"But you didn't sell me out. You changed your mind."

Adrian blinked. "You heard?"

"I did."

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Oh." He paused. "You're really not angry?"

Cedric shook his head, exasperated now. "Even if I were, I could never… hurt you." The prospect alone made his stomach turn.

Adrian didn't appear to believe him, but he only shrugged. His neck, however, had deepened slightly in color.

*

They partook in potatoes, garden greens, cheese, and dried fruit for supper, with Cedric and Adrian contributing the latter two from their supplies. The meal was delicious, thanks to Oleanna's inspired use of herbs and seasonings.

While they ate cross-legged on the ground, she regaled them with tales of the many eccentric, mad, or otherwise unbalanced customers who'd come to her over the years. The crown jewel of her stories, however, was the time that Anastir's previous Enforcer, eager to prove his mettle as a devoted Apostle, had riled up a mob of townsfolk to her front door. It'd taken a specially tailored paste, slathered across her bordering wall, to send them away retching and gagging.

They stayed the night at her cottage. There wasn't much in the way of extra bedding, but at the very least they had a roof over their heads. Upon Oleanna's stubborn insistence, Cedric and Adrian shared the narrow straw mat and thin covers while their unlikely host snored atop the stool, slumped over a cleared patch of her work table.

"Just like old times, eh?" Adrian muttered. The two of them lay on their backs side-by-side, facing the dense hanging landscape of plants above them. Adrian turned and smiled at Oleanna. "She's like a passed-out drunk at the Silken Hog. I never understood how one could sleep like that."

"She may have learned out of necessity," Cedric whispered back. "Getting rest wherever she could."

"Are you speaking from experience?"

He stiffened from the innocent question. Adrian felt it, of course, and asked no more.

Cedric hated how his body seized up of its own accord, even when there was no danger present. He hated how it rebelled against his mind, against reason and sense. All it took was the most periphery reminder of his time as that starving, shriveled creature of the dark.

Though that period now seemed as distant as a dream, or another life entirely, the impressions stored in his lowest primal instincts remained as fresh as ever. Terror, disgust, helplessness--their potency was no more diminished than it was on the day of his liberation, all those months ago.

Had Alvir not worked tirelessly to restore his body and mind over those long, grueling weeks? Had he not done everything in his power to return him to normalcy? Perhaps Cedric had simply been too broken, beyond even Alvir's capacity to fully heal.

And now I look down the brink of certain death. What a waste it has all been.

Fever brushed at his temples like a barely reined-in beast, and he hoped that Oleanna's claims about taming his symptoms were true. Since he was destined to die either way, he preferred that it not end in agony.

"You never told me your story," he said to Adrian, eager to move past such grim thoughts. "How did you wind up in Laetera after the Purge?"

"My mother died before I could remember her. I'm not sure if the Madness was involved, though the timing would have been right. Once the mass exile of Dark Apostles began, a close friend of hers took me from Crystallinus to Laetera."

"Where is he now?"

"He could no longer support us both, so he left me with Bigby while he pursued a livelihood elsewhere, in Faircross or Velaris or some other richer city. I was four, or thereabouts."

"Did he succeed?"

Adrian huffed lightly. "He never returned for me, so likely not. I don't remember much of that time, only his face and how I called him Uncle. I've been scrubbing, fetching, and serving ever since. Not much of a story, really."

Cedric switched sides to face him, though he saw no more than a faint silhouette in the darkness. "You loathed Bigby's tavern, and Laetera as a whole."

"I meant it when I called them rabble. Dim, greedy, roaring louts without a trace of propriety. My noble bloodline would have never truly let me be one of them. I know that now."

Cedric frowned. "I've met plenty of good, decent commoner folk."

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Adrian turned his head toward him. "Well, when you're ready to tell your story, I'll be ready to listen."

He found those words unexpectedly comforting.

"There's something odd about this place," Adrian said. "This year has seen nothing but failing crops and livestock, right? Incessant droughts and hot days, even this late into autumn. Like some undiscerning pall of ill will has fallen upon the kingdom."

Cedric had felt it too. Though neither Alvir nor Jana had been farmers, this so-called pall had touched them just the same: the dwindling and eventual total absence of wild game, the gradually diminishing variety and substance of their meals--though Alvir had made the most of them--as well as the brief glimpses he'd gotten of Grace and her father's troubles with their farm. Even the family who'd saved his life twice--Thomas, Freya, Bree, and Goran--had been visibly struggling.

"Yet among all of that, Oleanna's garden somehow prospers," Adrian mused. "Strange, isn't it?"

*

They bid farewell at dawn after a light meal of boiled barley. As the three of them stood outside the bounds of the wall, Oleanna handed Adrian a small leather wallet as a parting gift. He unfolded it, as Cedric peered over his shoulder, to reveal dozens of individual pockets lining the inside, all filled with crushed dry ingredients. Terramantic ingredients.

"Back in my nomadic days, this little beauty was my dearest friend," she said fondly. "But I have a home now, and therefore little need of it. You, on the other hand..."

The leather was soft and faded with age, but still sturdy.

"Someday, when you settle down, I hope you'll do the same for another."

Adrian nodded, though it was clear on his face that he considered the concept of ever "settling down" unlikely. After a last wave goodbye, he began to make his way down the hill toward Nightwind.

"Thank you for everything, ma'am," Cedric said, and went to follow him.

"Cedric, wait," Oleanna said. "I'd like a word."

He turned back to her.

She waited until Adrian reached the bottom of the hill. Her expression had grown cold again, and no trace of her former amiability remained. But even when it'd been present, she'd tolerated Cedric at best. He didn't have the faintest idea why. Perhaps it'd been as simple as Adrian being a terramancer, her kinsman of sorts, and Cedric lacking those same proclivities.

"Do you plan to tell him who you are?" Her eyes were as hard as flint.

A chill scuttled down his spine. "Tell him what?"

"At my age, I simply feel it. Suffocating dark power flows from you like water… Rava."

He swallowed. "Have you known all along?"

"I knew you were out in the world ever since word spread of some airborne Beast scouring the night. You made quite the impression on the poor folk of this region."

"You don't trust me."

"Your predecessor massacred half the kingdom."

"So why help me?"

"Foolhardy optimism, perhaps. The meager hope that you have a part to play in restoring what your own kind broke."

"My kind? You mean the Heirs?"

"It began far longer than seventeen years ago. The Madness was merely the final blow."

To what? Cedric nearly asked. But he somehow knew that Oleanna would not be able to provide him with a proper answer. He would need to find it elsewhere.

Come to me.

The faint voice echoed out from within his mind, yet Cedric's head snapped instinctively to the west.

Come. Come...

Oleanna followed his gaze. "Indeed, you have much work ahead of you, Rava."

"Until I die within the week, you mean?" His voice hitched and broke, undercutting his dry tone.

"Aye, that appears to be your appointed fate, for now. Perhaps the Goddess wills otherwise. Don't lose hope until it is finally ripped away from your bleeding fingers."

"Is that how you've survived all these years?" Cedric met the old terramancer's eyes, dark against dark.

She grinned. "That, and keeping my wits about me. Work on that pudding between your ears, boy. You'll be needing it."

*

Adrian greatly anticipated making camp tonight, and could almost feel Oleanna's gift calling out to him from the saddlebags. Perhaps he'd try out a few experiments after supper.

Sometime in the early afternoon, Cedric tugged the reins and brought Nightwind to a slow trot.

"Up ahead," he said.

Adrian shaded his eyes and peered out from behind Cedric's back. In the distance were a pair of riders whose silhouettes stood out clearly against the bright, empty sky. They were following a road that ran flat across the horizon.

There was no cover to hide behind out here, where even trees and foliage were sparse. And they were on the lower ground, at a worrisome disadvantage.

"Could be innocent travelers," Adrian said, though he hardly believed it himself. Truth be told, they were already unnaturally lucky for having avoided crossing paths with anyone for this long. And from what he'd heard back at the Silken Hog, the numbers of bandits, slavers, and other desperate, opportunistic folk had greatly multiplied over the past years, in perfect tandem with the failing harvests and livestock.

Adrian could feel the muscles of Cedric's back grow tense as he pulled Nightwind to a full stop. They watched the riders cross their field of vision, prepared to burst into a furious gallop if needed.

"You told me about slavers," Cedric said. "How common are they?"

"I only know they're the worst of the lot," Adrian said. "Kiran, a regular, got snatched up while taking his wares to trade. Managed to escape a few days later, missing an eye and an ear."

"He lost them during the escape?"

"No. They'd already been torn out, as punishment." Adrian's mouth thinned. "But those were just the marks we could see."

"I don't recall a man with one eye and ear at the Silken Hog."

"He drank himself to death a few months ago."

The riders eventually vanished from view, having remained ignorant to Cedric and Adrian's presence. Adrian let out the unconscious breath he'd been holding, and felt Cedric do likewise.

Nightwind tossed his handsome dark head and fidgeted a little. Cedric flicked the reins gently, and they set off at a more cautious, measured stride.

*

"Tell me again how you knew there'd be a stream here."

Adrian crouched on the bank to fill their waterskins while Cedric set up a fire about fifteen paces away. They were about to cook for the first time, but it was best to do so before the sun set and the flames began to attract unwanted attention in the darkness.

A little foliage was present, barely sustained by the nearby stream. The tough bushes weren't good for much, but their dead branches littering the ground provided decent fuel for a fire.

Cedric was concentrating on his task, and the tip of his tongue sat between his teeth. "I didn't," he said shortly.

"It's your own fault, you know. If you hadn't put me at ease, I wouldn't be fearlessly plying you with questions."

He saw Cedric crack a grudging smile, but he still didn't answer. A few seconds later, a tiny flame came to life amidst the small pile of dry grass and twigs, driving all else from his head.

"Bless the Goddess," Adrian cried. "I can smell the sausages already!"

Still, they were forced to wait until a good bed of glowing coals had collected at the base of the fire. The small iron pot that Brianna had provided was big enough to fit two of them, and the smell that rose up from the sizzling meat was rich, savory, and utterly exquisite. They both inhaled deeply, kneeling around the fire and leaning in like excited young children.

"Mmm," Adrian sighed happily. "A smell worth dying for."

A chasmic, crushing silence followed. Adrian's belly clenched in horror long before his mind realized what he'd said. His eyes snapped up to meet Cedric's.

"I'm so sorry… I--I didn't--"

Cedric's expression was impassive. "It's all right, Adrian." He pulled a brief, forced smile, then studied the sausages. "Are they ready?"

They'd been seared a deep brown on one side, and Adrian turned them over with quick fingers. "A few more minutes." Mortification burned in his cheeks, and he kept his eyes determinedly fixed on their food.

When the sausages were finally cooked, they snatched them out of the pot and took large, eager bites, burning their fingers and tongues in the process. Hot, golden fat ran down the sides of their mouths as they chewed the richly spiced and tender meat.

Adrian rinsed the pot in the clear running waters of the stream, and both of them splashed their faces. It was blissfully cold against the relentless heat of the day. "I can't remember the last time I had meat that wasn't old leather in disguise. Lord Caelum was certainly living well, eh?"

"Aye, one of the few," Cedric said. He dipped his long, flowing hair into the stream and lathered it for a bit. He then tossed his head upwards in an arcing splash and combed it back from his face.

The sight struck Adrian dumb for a good handful of seconds. A mythical forest creature or water spirit came to mind, all effortless grace and natural assurance, an entity who was a vital part of the world rather than a mere inhabitant of it. But then the impression faded, and Adrian shook his head to clear it for good measure.

"That hardly seems fair," Cedric said.

"He was an Apostle, a servant of the Divine Heirs. Of course he'd be better off than the rest of us."

He frowned, clearly dissatisfied with the explanation.

With supper taken care of, Adrian hopped over to Nightwind's saddlebags and retrieved Oleanna's leather wallet. He sat beside the stream and unfolded it. Cedric joined him at his side, still dripping.

The first compartment of the wallet contained dried, crushed flakes of something dark violet and pungent. Adrian took a little pinch and rolled it between his fingers. He waited patiently, mind open as Oleanna had advised.

"This would do well as a tea," Adrian said. "To help with sleep."

Cedric looked impressed. "What makes you say that?"

"I'm not sure I could describe it. It's more of a feeling, really. Images, impressions."

"Then tell me why you can't just give that to someone to eat. Why brew it as tea?"

"Terramancy is about drawing Eris' power through our bodies and repurposing it. The more I work with the ingredients, the more potent the final result becomes." He brightened with realization. "That's why Oleanna spent so much time grinding and cutting. If she'd fed you the raw components of that paste, they would have hardly done anything."

"The terramancer I knew did the same," Cedric said. "I'd always thought that he put a little of himself into his creations, something that I couldn't match."

Adrian stared at his open palm in wonder. He'd spent his whole life at the bottom of the hierarchy, casually beaten and dismissed as no more than dumb labor. Until now, he'd never known the taste of even the smallest morsel of power, and unlike his fanciful daydreams of wealth and luxury, this was real.

He chuckled. "Bigby would have never dreamed that his bar boy was capable of anything like this."

He moved on to inspect the other ingredients, of which there were about two dozen. Endless potential combinations blossomed in his imagination. He didn't have much in the way of tools or instruments, but he had a pot, water, and fire, and those were enough.

Adrian filled the pot halfway and set it on the coals to heat up. They still had time before dusk, and he planned to make the most of it.

He worked by feeling and instinct, adding a pinch of this and a pinch of that. He was an artist building up various colors one brush stroke at a time until they formed something bigger, something that even he couldn't fully anticipate before its spontaneous birth into cohesion.

Cedric watched him attentively, undeterred by the outward monotony of Adrian's actions. Even Nightwind trotted over to find out what his two masters were so wordlessly absorbed in, though he snorted and turned away a few seconds later, unimpressed.

The nameless brew was complete by the time the sun began its descent. Adrian set the pot on the grass to cool.

"I hope you won't force me to drink that," Cedric said. "At least Oleanna had some idea of what she was doing."

It took Adrian a few moments to realize that Cedric was teasing him. Cedric. Teasing.

"I'll have you know that I am a naturally-adept terramancer," he huffed. "If you refuse my masterpiece, it'll be your loss."

He emptied Cedric's waterskin back into the stream and poured in his freshly-brewed tea, careful not to spill a drop. "Truly, though, it will do you good." Adrian handed it to Cedric.

"I promise."

*

A terrible, wet coughing sound wrenched Adrian into consciousness. He shot upright, heart racing in visceral alarm.

Cedric was choking in his sleep.

Adrian seized his jerking shoulders and heaved him onto his side. A wet splattering sound hit the grass, but the night was too dark for Adrian to see whether it was vomit or something worse.

Cedric's coughing grew louder and more frantic as he awoke, though at least his airway was no longer blocked.

"Breathe, just breathe," Adrian said frantically. His free hand found Cedric's face, and his fingertips came away wet and sticky. The metallic smell turned his stomach.

Blood.

Cedric cleared his throat and spat onto the grass as the coughing finally subsided. "Could you… help me to the stream?" His voice was small, ragged. Adrian slung Cedric's arm across his shoulders and lifted him to his feet. Cedric was heavier and taller, but they managed to stagger their way well enough.

He rinsed his face and mouth, spitting the bloody water back into the stream where the current swept it away. Adrian stared, speechless, at the hunched silhouette before him.

He almost died right beside me, choking on his own blood.

Gooseflesh prickled his arms, and he crossed them tightly against his chest. His throat had contracted to a pinhole, his short, panicked breaths utterly inadequate.

He's really going to die, and there's nothing I can do.

It's all my fault.

The weight of such a horrible, inescapable truth drove him to his knees.

Cedric knelt by the bank and turned back toward Adrian. In the darkness, his expression was unfathomable. Two pinpricks of light, eerily present despite having nothing to reflect from, indicated where his eyes were.

"I guess Oleanna oversold her abilities," he said. He was joking, of all things.

Adrian couldn't imagine wanting to laugh less. His fingers dug harshly into his own crossed arms, and he began to tremble.

"Adrian, are you all right? You seem--"

"Shut up, Cedric. For Eris' sake, shut up!"

And then Adrian was weeping, his whole body wracked with wave after wave of helpless anguish. Burning tears ran in endless rivers down his cheeks, and it was all he could do to slip in gasping breaths between sobs.

Arms, warm and strong, enveloped him. It would have been more bearable to be beaten to a pulp.

Adrian's cheek rested at Cedric's collarbone and shoulder. He smelled of blood and was damp from the stream, but despite everything, Adrian didn't want to let go.

The night around them was cool and, despite the dearth of insects and animals, strangely alive. The darkness was an entity of its own, unspeakably ancient and ever-present. It curled in around them like a motherly caress. Adrian welcomed it into his mind and body, and felt his sobs gradually calm and the tears run their course. He sniffed hard and dragged a rough hand across his eyes. Cedric's hold loosened, and he rested his forehead on the crown of Adrian's tangled hair.

They separated.

"I'll lie on my side," was all Cedric said before they lay back down and sought sleep once more.