I found Aami’s room at the end of the hall. The door to it was nestled around the corner, right next to a window peering out into the city. I stopped there for a moment, staring just beyond the manor’s walls and out into the world beyond. The mountains were green past the hanging vines around the city’s border.

It was almost hard to believe that just a week’s flight away, there was a war at the edge of the Heartlands. For a moment, I wondered if the weapon I’d helped make was doing well. If it was killing the blight like I intended.

My thoughts shifted to Elanah for a moment. Was she safe? Did she improve it? Or did she lose control of our sentient poison? There was still no word from the front lines. Not any that I’d heard, at least. The thought made me frown. I was used to this—not hearing from her, not knowing what the hell was happening while she was away from home. But now that I’d seen what she was up against, what she was doing for all those years…

I shook my head. It almost angered me, how I still thought of her despite how much resentment I felt in my heart. But the anger never came, because now that resentment was hollow. There was no fire to it like before, scorching, making me want to scream and argue and tell her how much frustration I had in my heart.

Now I just wanted the old woman home. With father. With my brother, who I hardly knew.

I wanted my family to be whole. Even if it was without me.

Father’s words came back to me, then. A small echo in the back of my mind. ‘Go to the home you already have,’ he’d told me. ‘The one with breakfast and dinner and people you can talk about meaningless things with.’

There was a part of me that hated that advice. A small, hateful part of me that wanted to tell him all about my life.

Thankfully, the rest of me was reasonable.

And so I turned, and I knocked on Aami’s door. There was a pause on the other side, then a big plop, heavier than my steps without my boots. The knob turned and Aami opened the door, a dozen smiles lighting up on her mass as soon as she saw me. I looked down at the black blob by the door and blinked.

“It’s been a while since I saw you like this,” I said, glancing up from her. The room beyond was a living room of sorts, with a luxurious couch and table, surrounded by shelves stuffed to the brim with books. Light trickled in from between the window curtains. “Didn’t you say sleeping was more comfortable in your amarid form?”

Aami crawled forward and up my leg, the black tendrils pulling her up to wrap around my shoulders.

“Mm. It is, since your brain-things have nice stuff, but I was too tired to keep it on.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Tired? You? What could possibly…”

My eyes found the door to the bedroom slightly open, just beyond the couch and the books. Inside, wrapped up inside a massive bed’s blankets, was a familiar head of hair, mussed up and snoring softly. I glimpsed a bare shoulder under the sheets.

A moment of silence passed. I turned my eyes to my eldritch backpack.

“Is that Priscia?”

The shoggoth yawned with six different mouths, “…Yeah.”

My initial shock and horror slowly morphed into incredulousness. I gave Aami an amazed look, “How?”

“I said I wanted to try it.”

“And she said yes?”

Aami’s mouths turned up into a smug grin, “Because I’m tall, pretty, and scary, she said. It’s appealing to her.”

“I knew you two were getting close lately,” I muttered, shaking my head. I closed the front door to preserve the cook’s dignity and stepped out into the hall. I gave Aami an asking look, “Should I leave you two in peace, then?”

Aami rolled off my shoulders and hit the ground with a splat. Quickly, the black tendrils making up her form compressed, rising up to weave into a humanoid form. Inhuman eyes closed. Hair flowed down. Black goop turned into pale skin, and clothes sprouted into existence over her flesh. Aami yawned and stretched her arms over her head, an amarid again.

“Why would you?” she asked, confused, before grabbing my shoulders from behind and lazily pushing me back down the hall. “Also, I haven’t had breakfast yet. Let’s go eat.”

I didn’t resist. We took a couple steps down the hall in silence.

I shook my head again.

“…I can’t believe you went and seduced our cook.”

Aami tilted her head, “Is there something wrong with that?”

“There is. I’m the bard, you know? I’m supposed to be the one charming people. That’s… that’s my thing. How could you possibly be the one to beat me to this?”

There was a pause, and then she smiled and reached forward.

“It’s okay, Rowan.”

“Don’t pat my head. It makes me feel inferior.”

“I’ll teach you how to be tall, pretty, and scary like me. And then I’ll teach you how to do what I did, okay?”

“I don’t think I like this condescending tone of yours.”

“I’m just looking out for you.”

“Peh.”

She laughed and I dropped the indignant act, straightening up to walk beside her with a bemused look. The manor’s vast halls stretched far ahead of us, bereft of life, leaving our voices to echo past the splashes of light rushing through the windows. We talked about nothing for a while. Just passing topics, like how pretty the suncatchers were, or how nice the view outside the manor was, or how cicadas fared against the taste of beetle. Stupid, meaningless little things.

It was pleasant. It was something I needed, after last night.

As we rounded a corner however, Aami gave me a curious glance, “Where did you go yesterday?” she asked. “You left before I realized it.”

My smile turned bitter, “I went to see my father. He’s okay.”

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“Did he…?”

“No. He didn’t.”

Aami stopped walking.

“Aami?”

I turned to her, blinking, but she was already reaching forward, grabbing at my arm, pulling me into a hug. She squeezed me tight. Warm. Silent. I felt something in me break. My breath hitched and I clenched my fists tight and I fought against the tears burning in my eyes.

“It’s okay,” she said, and I let her hug me even as my lips pressed into a thin, trembling line. I nodded silently onto the top of her head. I didn’t trust myself to reply.

We stood there for a few moments as I tried to calm down. Eventually, I patted her back, and Aami squeezed me one more time before pulling away. Her face was full of apology, set into a deep, self-berating frown.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I… I wasn’t there for you. I was here just enjoying myself while you—”

"No," I said, cutting her off. I wiped at my eyes and smiled weakly, reaching forward to rub at the top of her head. “You weren’t, but you’re here now. Thank you.”

She nodded quickly, “I am. I’ll be with you all day, okay?”

“Okay. Tell me about you and Priscia over breakfast, then?”

At my suggestion, Aami grabbed ay arm and started dragging me forward and down the hall, her grip firm. She stared straight ahead as if she were on a mission to save the Nine Realms.

“We’re going to eat until you’re feeling better. We’ll eat all day if we have to.”

“I don’t think I can do—”

“No,” she cut me off. “We’re going to eat a lot, okay?”

I smiled, “Okay.”

She dragged me forward again, and I looked at her back, at the long hair trailing behind her. I watched her wipe tears from her face that were meant for me as she stomped down the hall. And once again, I remembered father’s words.

I tugged on her arm, “Aami?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

----------------------------------------

Over the next seven days, I took the time to relax. Relax, and come to terms with certain things. I lounged, I played, I ate, I slept, and I cried whenever I needed to. I spent hours sitting on rooftops staring at nothing, and I spent the same amount of time in taverns, playing my heart out to crowds of people that didn’t know me. I didn’t sing in front of them. The kind of songs I was playing didn’t allow me to—not when a lapse in control sent my magic sputtering away.

No, I only played, practicing my glamours all the while. I wove illusions into my songs, limited as they were by Ashran’s lack of power. I brought scents and sights and feelings to my audiences. The brush of grass, the warmth of summer, and the smell of wildflower honey.

Most days, I came in, I played, and I left without another word. Some innkeepers paid me. Others didn’t. That was fine.

All that mattered was that I could play. That music could pull me away.

Ashran the Voiceless, they began to call me. A bard who didn’t sing, a musician of song without speech. I gained a reputation. Enough of one that some people would follow me out of bars and taverns, eating and drinking at whichever establishment I wandered into next. Every new regular that remembered my name strengthened my weave and my music.

It let me put more of myself into my songs.

Through them, I did my best to express all that I’d felt over the past year. The desolation of being forgotten. The weight of ten thousand miles, the fear of a Hag lurking in the woods, and the joys of discovering my potential.

I was an immortal. I told people what that was like through my music alone.

But today, I wasn’t playing at a tavern.

No, I sat under a rowan tree and over a blanket on the grass, in front of a plate of meat and cheese-stuffed loaves and tea. Two people sat with me. One was father. Still old, still frail, and still smiling as brightly as the man in my memories. The other was my brother, Kerban. He clapped along to my music, drumming his palms against his lap. They were my family.

I was their friend.

My hands finished strumming A Coin For Chaelyn on my lute and I set it down, next to my cracked bansuri on the grass. I leaned forward and smiled, reaching for a slice of stuffed loaf.

“Alright, that’s another song. Kerban?”

The imposing half-troll laughed, reaching for a slice as well. His hands were larger than mine—much larger. And he was tall, taking after father more than I did. I watched them both as father sat back. My old man leaned against the rowan behind him and Kerban cleared his throat.

“So—where was I? The broken engines?”

“Past that, son. The pirates.”

“Aha!” Kerban grinned, clapping his hands. He leaned forward, and there was a bright glint in his eyes as he continued, “The pirates are my favorite part. So it was my first flight as an airship engineer, apprenticed under a mechanic for the Summersky House, no? We were riding through the Aether after crossing the planar boundary between Caereith and Astalon, the issue of the broken engine behind us thanks to my master’s expertise. We thought the rest of the journey was going to be a smooth sail—empty space, nothing but clouds of mana-concentrate and floating rocks between us and another realm. But it wasn’t. Not when we discovered three ships on our tail.

“The sailors on our airship started panicking as soon as the metal hulls broke through the Aether dust. We were just a merchant vessel, after all. There were few armed, and we were passing official channels. Because who needed guards when you were traveling through a road guarded by the damn Novi? The best marksmen in the realms? We were sure no one would attack us.

“And yet, there they were. Three massive ships of metal, breaking through the multicolored clouds. They all flew the same flag—a black, elongated skull on red canvas, with two fangs as long as each of my fingers. Pirates. Ones who were Astalonian vampires, at that.”

I munched on one of the loaves as Kerban stuck a hooked finger into his mouth, pulling his cheek to the side to reveal his teeth. They were a line of crushing molars all around, like trolls would have, unlike my amarid shark’s teeth. He pointed to a tooth where a human’s canines would usually be.

“I was standing out in the deck when the first of them appeared on their ships. They were snarling at us with these massive daggers in their mouths, canines this big,” he said, stretching two of his fingers far apart. Easily three inches long. Kerban shook his head as he seemed to recall the sight, “They were all armed. Each and every one. Stolen magitech guns, enchanted cutlasses, artificed leathers and plates… it was like facing a foreign army. There were two hundred of them, at least. Half boarding our ship, and the rest pointing their cannons at us from afar.

“So you could imagine us there, standing, surrounded and unable to run. I thought I would die that day. That I’d be taken captive as blood cattle for the bloodsuckers, like the stories from Astalon said. But my master wasn’t afraid. No, he was furious.”

Kerban beamed and slapped his thigh with a booming laugh.

“Before I could even react, he grabbed my arm and dragged me towards the pirates’ captain. This man with red hair and fangs, with a black gauntlet that reached up to his shoulder. Full of runes, it was. An absolute marvel of artificing, and no doubt a weapon that could kill me and my master both in an instant. A normal amarid would have been afraid, no? Cowering. But my master—that old man started screaming at the vampire!

“Told him he was treating his ships like shit! Complained about the chipped runework, the banged up hulls, the whole of it all. I thought the pirates would kill us, but the old man had them stunned with his raving! Told them all about the dangers of their mismanagement, he did. And you know what he did after?”

My brother shook his head in disbelief as he swallowed a slice of bread down whole.

“That crazy old bat went straight into their ships without permission. Just dropped down to the ones below us, me in tow, and started working on fixing their engines without asking. I thought we’d get shot, but no. The vampire cap’n let us work the next four hours, and when we finished, he thanked us, put us back on the merchant vessel, and pulled all his ships away.”

Kerban snapped his fingers, “Gone. Just like that. He was a real gentleman about letting us go, too. Bowing and all.”

I rolled my eyes at him with an exasperated grin.

“Come on, Kerban. I know I seem gullible, but not even I would believe that. Vampire space pirates? On Novi-guarded planar paths? You’ll need to try harder if you’ll make me believe a story that crazy.”

“You’ll have to fly there and see it for yourself, sir Ashran. I swear on my right hand, it’s all real. And if you can’t believe it, you should hear about the return trip. Now that was—”

The sound of a gate opening cut Kerban off.

We blinked, and father, who was listening to us with a smile, turned his face towards the garden’s entrance. The gate was open, and a man was standing on the other side. An amarid in uniform—thick leathers and a livewood cuirass, two rapiers at his hip. I recognized the uniform immediately.

A Shissavi. And behind him was a small air gondola fit for eight people, sails spread open and ready for flight. The officer turned his eyes to father and bowed.

“Mr. Kindlebright?” he asked.

“Yes, yes,” father answered, grunting as he stood with the support of his cane. “That’s me. What’s wrong, soldier?”

The Shissavi turned to the side, motioning for us to board the boat.

“There is news from the front line, sir,” he said, his lips set into a thin line. His tone immediately sent a chill down my spine. “Miss Kindlebright has addressed a message to your family and…”

I stood as he met my eyes.

“…Sir Ashran.”