“I don’t believe it!” Jig burst out, unable to hold her peace any longer. “You spend weeks with your hair coloured then as soon as you get to the last place in the world to have white hair, you wash all the dye out!”

Saryth raised his head from the wash bowl on Pyetr’s kitchen table. His now-white hair hung limp over his face, still bearing a faint tinge of golden-red. “I prefer the natural colour,” he said, although he couldn’t argue with her logic.

“And what’s wrong with red?” Jig scowled, unappeased by his smile, then turned away to pick up the towel he’d left on the couch. “Will you take Aeryn home now?”

“I hope so.” He took the towel from her. “Thanks.”

“And are you coming back after?”

“That depends,” he said, muffled through the folds of thick cloth.

“On what Kite decides?” She sounded resentful. Saryth tugged the towel off his face and eyed her with concern.

“On what we decide,” he said.

“You’ll visit, though?”

“Of course!” He smiled at her, and she sagged back against the table and looked sulky again, but didn’t say any more. Saryth pulled his shirt on over his still-damp hair, and started fiddling with the buttons. Jig turned as Kite came into the room, her own hair now restored to its golden blonde colour, although she also had hints of the auburn dye here and there.

“Oh, you’re done,” she said, on seeing Saryth.

“Did you tell him?” He did up the final buttons and found his hair tie. Kite looked away.

“I couldn’t. I didn’t know where to start.” She sat down heavily. “How do you tell someone they’re a sun?”

“So - what did you say?”

“That we’re going to his home. Which is true. We’re leaving early tomorrow morning.”

It was a cold clear morning, only just deserving the name, but it had to be early enough for them to escape unwanted attention. Aeryn stood beside Saryth, without expression, while he and Kite said farewell to Pyetr, Jig and Aethelric, yawning from a chair just inside the door.

“Kite,” Pyetr said as she made to turn away, but when she looked back, he shook his head. “No, never mind. Take care, all of you.”

“Of course!” Kite said. “Thank you so much.” She seemed less miserable than last time, if still preoccupied.

“See you soon,” Jig said, and Saryth was relieved that this time she didn’t ask him to stay.

Aeryn said nothing, but as they left he cast one long look behind him, a wistful expression on his face.

They arrived at the Hub gates in Alt Dunmere late that evening. Unlike the last time they’d set out from Pyetr’s, Kite wanted to get the trip over with, and the quickest route was an artificial gate from Araithel to Alt Dunmere. They spent the day in Alt Dunmere to give Saryth time to recover, so that they set off across the lake at twilight, and made their way up the mountain path with just the light of the half moon to guide them. They were all shivering by the time they reached the little cabin. Kite knocked, and the door opened a few inches. A balding man stuck his head through, a grumpy expression on his face, and her heart sank. I wish it had been Ash.

“Who is it, at this unholy hour?” he groused, giving the little group a disdainful once-over.

“I travel in search -” Kite began, but was interrupted.

“Kite!” He folded his arms. “What do you want?”

“Uh, the gates, please, Tab.”

“And them?” He nodded to the two men behind her.

“They’re with me.”

“Hmf.” For a moment she thought he was going to argue, but he let it pass. “Come in, then, and quickly. You’re letting the cold in!”

The little hut was deliciously warm and cosy, and she understood why he’d given in so quickly. For all that he seemed to relish being awkward, it was much harder to deny access to people who were already there. Tab wrote down ‘Kite Seeker’, ‘Saryth Eabrand’ and ‘Aeryn of Ath Shera’ with minimal grumbling, then stood aside and let them go through the heavy curtain and down into the caves. Every worn stone step felt weighted with significance. Nearly there. She came out into the cavern and looked around, relieved to see Raven’s familiar figure slouching by the near gate. The gatekeeper looked up at the sound of their feet, her face brightening. I bet nothing usually happens during the night shift.

“Kite!” Raven hailed her with enthusiasm, coming over to greet her friend. “You’re back! And with two men this time!” She smirked. “Going to share?”

“Raven -”

“What?”

“Oh, for - never mind. Can you open the gate to Harien, please?”

“Harien?” Raven looked taken aback. “I’m sorry, Kite - it’s under interdict.”

“What?”

“The message went out a week or two ago, by dream transmission. Didn’t you get it?”

“I, um, I wasn’t sleeping well then.” A week or two ago they’d have been coming up to Rathnacarrick, and every dream had featured Vorannen and the hideous necessity of dealing with him one way or another, leaving no room for anything else. Kite pushed the thought away. “But Pyetr didn’t say anything,” she said, by way of misdirection.

“What has changed?” Saryth asked. “Why now?”

“I don’t know,” Raven said. “They didn’t go into details. But all the Seekers who were looking for the sun were recalled. They say it’s tearing itself apart.”

“But can you still open the gate?” Kite persisted. To have come so far and be denied right at the end was too much to bear.

“You want to go to a place like that?” Raven stared at her, all her normal cheer vanished.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Yes!” Kite stepped closer. “Please, Raven, I have a one-time pass!”

“Surely that’s been revoked?”

“Did the dream say so?”

“Not specifically, no...” Raven looked aside but Kite pressed her advantage.

“Well then! Please!”

“All right, all right,” Raven gave in, stepping aside. “Come on then. Stand over there.” Kite went past as Raven grabbed at Saryth’s sleeve. She heard her hiss at him, “you better look after her!” Then all three of them stood in the gate, and Raven was saying “good luck” as she pulled the lever, and her pale, worried face faded from view.

It’s a dark, grey world. Saryth’s first view of Harien was not promising. They were standing on muddy, flat ground, and there was a strange grey fog swirling around them. It was cold and clammy, much like real fog, but it held within itself a strange absence which shivered his soul the way the cold chilled his skin. Ahead of him, Kite stumbled, her boots slipping in the mud. Then Aeryn, who had been silent for the whole day, let out a wail of fear and dread.

“No - no!” He backed away from them, his hands raised in front of him as if to protect himself from some unseen danger. Saryth stared. The fog was swirling around him eagerly, almost as though it were attracted to his bright golden hair, his warm brown skin.

“Aeryn?” Kite said, worry in her voice. What had she expected? What is supposed to happen?

“It wants to take me back,” he moaned, then glared at her. “Where have you brought me?”

“Aeryn -”

“Don’t let me go!” He lurched forwards and grabbed her, and the fog trailed after him so that it looked like he was fraying, leaking foggy shreds of brown and red and gold. “Please!” He clung to Kite, and she stumbled back, dropping her staff. The fog heaved and writhed around him and Kite, tousling and pulling at her short hair.

“Kite!” Saryth staggered forwards and reached out to her but there was a growing weight in the air, a funneling force centred on Kite and Aeryn, and he couldn’t reach them. She looked back at him, panic in her face as Aeryn clung to her and the world’s absence reached for him, pulled at his clothes, his hair, not caring about the extra body he was clinging to. Greedy for what it was missing, it bore down on them with mindless ferocity.

Saryth stepped in front of them, his mind churning uselessly. Nothing he’d learned had prepared him for this. There were no patterns, no practised spells to defend against a world’s desperate need. What had kept Aeryn safe and whole before? Whatever it was that kept worlds separate. Whatever it was that he and Kite stepped through every time they went through a gate. He stared up into the swirling howling need that raged above and around him, and remembered what it felt like to create a gate. I can’t make a real one. I can’t open this world to another. He understood why travel here had been forbidden. Opening a gate now was too much of a risk. But is it possible to open one halfway? The shapes of the gates he’d used before had always had a start and an end, reaching from one world to another. Can I stop before I get to another world? The very idea of losing his way between worlds made him shudder, but - I can see how this could work. Slowly, working it through step by step in his mind, he brought his hands up, reached out and felt the world’s magic respond. Harien was a drained world, but it still had magic. He pushed and shaped it to his need until he felt the void forming in front of him, and as it expanded, the pull of the world on Kite and Aeryn slowed, then stopped.

Kite had lost track of the time in the howling chaos of the world’s need for Aeryn. As it subsided, it left her head aching, her mind feeling like it had been shredded. Slowly she opened her eyes and saw Saryth standing in front of them, holding his arms up, somehow making a little protective bubble for them. His spell, whatever it was, felt unsteady, unstable, but it was holding firm. For now. How long can he keep that up? She looked down to where Aeryn was cowering against her, shuddering, his face buried in her shoulder.

“Aeryn...”

“Please don’t make me go back.” He lifted his head to look at her, pleading in his eyes.

“Isn’t this your home?”

He cringed, dropping to his knees in the mud, his hold on her arms pulling her down to crouch beside him. “They killed children here.”

“What?”

“They killed children. Like Aethelric.” She had never heard such despair in another person’s voice. “They sacrificed them. To the sun.”

“Aeryn.” What can I even say to that? She reached out to touch his shoulders, and he flinched. “It’s not your fault, that someone got killed in your name. You didn’t make them do it.” She hesitated, then went on, “and more children will die - have died - because you are not here.”

“What about the bad world?” He was on all fours now, and she knelt beside him, heedless of the mud.

“It won’t be a problem,” Kite said, hoping that was a reference to Vorannen. “Aeryn...”

“No.”

“Wha -”

“No!” He looked up at her, a strange mix of defiance and pleading in his face. “I don’t want to go! If I go, I won’t be me any more. I know it’s not much... but I don’t want to not be here. I want to be free. Like you.”

Kite’s heart lurched at his words. Aethelric had hit the nail on the head.

“No-one is free,” she managed, feeling the weakness of her argument. “We all have restrictions.”

“But you -”

“If I could do whatever I liked,” Kite said slowly, “I’d fix Saryth’s eye.” Or I’d make it so I never made that mistake in the first place. But we don’t get to undo our mistakes. “There’s no such thing as unfettered freedom.” Being completely free would be unbearably lonely. “I think,” she said, feeling her way through it, “I think real freedom is found in being who you’re meant to be.” Who, and what, and where... easy for me to say. Aeryn turned his face away, eyes tight shut in denial. “I won’t force you to do anything,” Kite said, because what else could she say? Surely it’s better if it’s his decision. “But - where do you belong? Where do you want to be?”

There was a long pause, while Aeryn stared at the ground and Kite watched Saryth, who was now visibly shaking with the effort of powering his makeshift semi-gate. Then, almost too quiet to hear, Aeryn whispered, “home. I want to go home.”

Maybe Saryth heard him, or maybe he had managed to hold out just long enough. He staggered back as his spell collapsed, and the roaring world burst through and around him. But this time Aeryn reached back to it, dissolving into it in a rush of fiery gold. The turbulence around Saryth lit up in a burst of white and he folded forwards, falling to the ground. Even as Kite ran towards him, the disturbance faded, leaving behind a faint shimmer in the air, and she thought she heard the words “thank you” as though called from far away.

Saryth was half-lying on the muddy ground, head drooping, face veiled by his white hair. He had one hand to his face as though he’d been hurt. Kite knelt beside him and put her hand on his shoulder in support.

“Saryth? Saryth, what happened? Are you all right?”

He put his hand down and turned to her, and she recoiled in shock. The eye-patch was gone, and he was looking back at her with both eyes open, one blue as it always had been, and one gold. Like Aeryn’s eyes. She hugged him, and felt the tears coming, because it was almost like what she had wished for. Except - this doesn’t undo my mistake, only its consequences.

But he has already forgiven me.

After a little while of hugging, relief, tears and laughter, they disengaged and stood up. Both of them were a mess, although it was Saryth’s white cloak that showed it worst. It was a bad colour to pick. It didn’t matter. He grinned at Kite and she grinned back, and went to pick up her staff from where she’d dropped it.

“So... what happens now?” he asked, watching her go and blinking. His vision kept separating and blurring. How odd that I need to get used to it again. Odd, but nice.

“Now? I think Harien will remain under interdict. It needs time to recover.”

“What do we do?” He tried to sound light, as though it didn’t matter.

“Well, we have to report,” Kite said. “You promised Jig a visit, and it would only be fair to tell Pyetr what happened. And I’d like to go back to my family for a bit.”

“And after that?”

“After that?” She frowned in thought, as though she’d never considered it. “There’s always more things to do. More places to investigate. There’s all the time in all the worlds - if that’s all right with you?”

“Oh, yes,” Saryth said, feeling everything settle into place. “That’s all right with me.”