In the mornings Aletheia practiced with Rook. He found two pieces of driftwood and with their Dwarven hatchet he fashioned them into sword-shaped sticks and until noon they would spar. Aletheia wanted nothing more than to be good. She wanted to be like Astera, faster than a striking viper and defter than a dancer in peril. She wanted to be a huntress who could heal, track, shoot a bow, duel any expert swordsman, and cast a dozen spells. She wanted to be anything except helpless. All her behaviors were dedicated toward betterment.
But Aletheia was not good. Not yet. She had been in continual practice with the Seeker’s sword, so light and easy to wield, for months on end. She had felt so confident when facing down the scarshades which dissipated at the thrust and hardly fought back. She thought she was making progress as Rook showed her the duelist’s stances and demonstrated how hetairoi in the Archon’s service fought in their armor.
Now they sparred in a chilly field. Now she couldn’t land a single hit. She saw an opening and struck at his wrist, but so much faster than her he stepped back and parried her wooden blade away and brought his own to her neck.
She knew he was ten years older than her and eight inches taller and a man who had been raised to fight while she was a girl who had never seen a weapon until she was twelve, yet all the same it seemed hopeless now.
At first she had been angry. Now she was resigned. She sighed and dropped her sword and fell down to the ground.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“I’m too slow,” she said.
“You’re not slow.”
“And too clumsy.”
He waved the sword in her face. “I hope you don’t plan on using that excuse with Lukon, or a pack of rabid hobgoblins. It won’t go well.”
“They can kill me.”
He leaned down beside her. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m not supposed to be here anyway,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t matter.”
Rook grabbed her by the shoulder. “Aletheia,” he said. “Don’t ever say that. Please.”
She kept herself contained during the day, but now the despair she felt bubbled over the boundaries of her heart. “I’ll never be as good as you.”
He sat down beside her. “You’re thirteen.”
“I’m supposed to be fourteen.”
“I know,” he whispered. He put a hand on her shoulder. “And if you could beat me every time right now, then I would be the one crying. No thirteen year old is good at anything.”
“Eris was good at magic when she was sixteen.”
Rook laughed at the memory. “No she wasn’t. She did everything wrong. Don’t you remember she spent half the year sick in bed?”
Aletheia smiled. She did remember, but it hadn’t seemed unusual then.
Rook glanced at Aletheia’s things, nearby at the swamp’s edge. Among them was her bow—Astera’s Elven bow. “Here,” he said, “we can play a game you’re sure to win—a marksmanship competition.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
So Rook took the hatchet and marked out a bullseye on a nearby tree. Aletheia went first. She shot five arrows and landed all on the trunk at ten yards, with one direct hit. The Elven string was effortless to pull back yet powerful and accurate as any arbalest.
Rook tried next. His first arrow landed with a plop somewhere in distant, unseen water. His second was lodged in a tree’s trunk—ten feet wide of the target. The third and fourth did hit near the bullseye, yet the fifth slipped from his fingers too early and fell to the ground well short of its target.
“You did that on purpose,” Aletheia said.
“Absolutely not!” Rook said. “I’m not good enough with arrows to intentionally be bad.” He motioned toward their final scores. “So you see, everything’s a skill to practice. I happen not to have this one—but then I’ve never tried to learn archery. You just need more time fencing. I’m here to help you get better every step of the way. In the meanwhile I’ll never be as good with you as a bow. I’m too slow and clumsy.” He pulled an arrow from the trunk. “I’ll also never be a magician, and let me tell you after three years floundering after you and Eris that’s a sure way for a man to feel inadequate. Speaking of…” He tossed her the arrow on its side. “It’s getting late. I’m sure she’s desperate to see you for a lesson today.”
Aletheia hung her head. “Yeah. You’re right. I should go.” A sigh. “Thank you.”
He hugged her. They often hugged each other. It was like taking a sip of water—an action that rejuvenated her will to keep going. Even six months after her resurrection she hated leaving Rook’s side. She wanted to stay with him all the time. It had taken months to work up the courage to leave his presence, and even now it was only in going a few dozen yards, knowing that he would be nearby, that she could stand to leave him in search of Eris.
Somehow Aletheia doubted she would be so supportive as a teacher.
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“You are doing everything wrong!” Eris snapped. “Did Astera teach you nothing about magic?”
Aletheia shook her head dumbly. She opened her mouth, but she was cut off.
“Do not bother with an answer. It will do nothing but drive me mad.”
Eris paced about the far wall of her room for a moment. She was clearly thinking. Aletheia rarely spoke to her without Rook around. Never, in fact. She was an impossibly intimidating woman. Tall and physically flawless and elegant and powerful and even though Aletheia knew she was younger than Rook, knew she was only five years older than she was herself, somehow the shape and silhouette of that dark-haired sorceress evoked thoughts of an adult.
She spent most of their time together trying to decide whether or not she hated her.
“Here,” Eris said, coming to a stop. “I know what is wrong. You have gone too long without learning new spells. You are over accustomed to relying on the impressions left in your Essence; you use the muscle memory of riding a horse to drive a carriage.”
“Okay,” Aletheia whispered.
“You can feel the strings of Aethereal Voice from our communion, yes? You detect it simmering within you?”
“Yes.”
“You cannot rely on that alone. Not yet. You must think through the magic you wish to cast. Imagine it. See it clearly in your mind. Visualize your will as it makes itself manifest in the world through mana.”
“Okay,” Aletheia took a deep breath. “What should I do?”
“Your own voice. Issue it from this window beside me as a ventriloquist. It does not matter what you say. See the location, focus on it, command your words to this place, and only when your mind has conquered not only your body but the world around you, only then think back to your Essence.”
She did as instructed. Focusing hard. Bending reality to her will. Commanding the very fabric of fate to her designs. Then she tapped mana from her heart and she tugged at a string of the aether and she sent forth the message, “Can you hear me?”
A moment passed.
Eris folded her arms.
A girl’s voice called out at her from the other side of the small room. “Can you hear me?” she said.
Energy flooded from Aletheia’s arms and legs. She breathed out, exhausted. Rubbing her eyes. A wave of pure lethargy overcame her. For so simple a spell, so pointless, so easy, she had never expected it to be so challenging to learn.
Eris watched her for a moment. Then, at last, “Good,” she said. “You may be teachable after all. Go rest; we shall continue tomorrow, if I am inclined toward generosity.”
With that Aletheia slinked back to her own room and collapsed onto the bed. Yet even though she was exhausted, she couldn’t fall asleep. It was often that way after casting magic. Still. She was happy to be learning. And she was happy that Eris, no matter how cruel and impatient she was, had proved to be at least a passionate and motivated instructor. She could hardly be called bad for that.
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The river ran red like blood mixed with lava. There were people all around yet no one said a word. No sound except the flowing of viscous torrents. The current carried them downstream, past weeping trees of gold and blue, beneath outstretched branches and under glistening silver leaves. Faces young and old. Children and old men and withered women and boys and girls all the same swept up in the current, some tanned and some pale and others black, all afraid, yet still in silence. And so many infants. Infant after infant. Hundreds washed away. Thousands of years of life unrealized together drifting toward nothingness.
They were deep underground. A mile overhead hung a steel moon that glistened gray, yet all around it were the coverings of a cavern, a dome, a ceiling from which extended stalactites and grew gnarled pillars the size of waterfalls.
The river continued for ten thousand miles. It snaked around bends. The trees and branches about its sides faded and cactuses grew in their place, cactuses with gray flowers and mesquite trees with orange leaves and thick desert brush that sprouted pink as the forest soil of the shores was replaced with desert brown. Then the cactuses disappeared, and next, in their place, came thick rainforest trees like those of the Telmos highlands, glistening in rainbow colors, and even though there were no clouds overhead nor any sky at all sanguine rain fell in torrents.
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Then all the foliage faded. The rain stopped. Years adrift had passed. No sensation existed but numbness. Now nothing but plains extended for miles in all directions, a savannah of silver beneath the glowing moon all the way to the enclosed horizon, to the cavern’s walls.
And they came to an islet. An islet where the river split in two, perhaps never reconvening, and there a pride of lions stood.
A pride of lions. Dozens, all male. They fished each passing person from the water. Their manes were red with blood. There they gathered every passenger, infants and toddlers in mouths, and in groups the lions led them away into darkness, out of sight.
A mouth clamped down around Aletheia’s wrist. It was like pulling an animal from tar, so thick was the river’s fluid, but soon she found herself ashore. There she lingered for a long time. Limp and useless.
A paw turned her around, to her back. When she looked up she saw a lioness. A white lioness with no blonde in its hair, twice the size of all the others, and it looked down at her with frosted eyes.
Aletheia knew then it was over. Death finally came in. She stood. The lioness beckoned over its shoulder with its head for her to follow. She took one step…
She stopped. Something caught her by the biceps. Invisible hands immobilized her. The lioness stopped and turned and roared, the first noise made in a lifetime, and soon all the pride around her turned her way and snarled at her, yet not at her at all, but past her, and she tried to take a step, but instead she fell backward.
The pride pounced. They were too late. The unseen grip pulled her back into the river and held her deep beneath the surface. Too deep. She couldn’t breathe. Deeper still. The moon above faded. She sank further still. She saw the shape of the white lioness on the shore, staring at her, and she was certain she saw sorrow in its eyes. But it was too late. Darkness overcame her. Her lungs filled with blood. Her ears swelled with fluid.
Then all she heard were screams.
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She woke up crying again. At first it had been terrible. Every night, when she closed her eyes, she saw nothing but the distant memories and dreams from that other place, now so far gone that she could hardly remember if they were real at all or just that—dreams, workings of her imagination, attempts to rationalize what she remembered from the moments after…
But she’d slept near Rook, with Pyraz, and that had calmed her. For a time she found comfort. When terror struck she could go to his bedroll or visit his room and be assured that security would be on offer. Even when he was sick. Especially when he was sick.
Now he spent every night with Eris. Now Pyraz was no longer Pyraz. Now Aletheia spent every night alone. She hated it.
The wind blew terribly outside her room. The rickety upstairs shack creaked and moaned in the storm. She decided it was worth the chance. She knocked on Rook’s door.
And he answered. No Eris beyond. Just Rook. And though she didn’t sleep again all night, she wasn’t scared so long as she was at his side.
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She considered the things on her bed. A circlet. Earrings. Weapons, armor, clothes, and a sword. She had stolen mountains of jewelry since joining the party. Aletheia wasn’t vain or obsessed with her appearance, as Eris was; she knew she was unremarkable. She neither cared for power. But there was something in nice things, expensive things which Antigone never let her have, which she still found hard to resist.
She picked up the circlet.
She never wore any of it. Never sold any of it. She just collected it, in case…an emergency royal ball erupted, perhaps. But that was the cover story. In truth, Aletheia wished she were a regular girl. Jewelry felt like some small slice of mundane femininity. She hated being a magician. She hated being an adventurer. No matter how many times she told herself she wanted to live up to Astera, she knew she never would, and never could, because she was not meant for this life.
Thus who she wanted to be was ever at odds with who she wished she was.
She put the circlet on and glanced at her reflection. She looked ridiculous. She took it off.
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In Telmos the days were long even in winter and there was always time to kill. Out of curiosity, while Rook was about town and Eris was doing whatever Eris did alone in her room, Aletheia visited with Pyraz on a pier.
He was fishing off its side. A hook thrown into the swamp.
“Do you know how to fish?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “No. But I watched the Chionids fish sometimes.”
He frowned. “Me neither. I haven’t caught anything in six hours.”
She laughed at that. “So why are you fishing?”
“…I have an urge to catch my own food. Chickens in cages don’t do. And vegetables—they aren’t fit for human consumption.”
“Vegetables are good.”
“They’re disgusting. But they’re not as bad as fruit.”
“You don’t like fruit?”
“A woman gave me a banana. I threw it up.”
Aletheia didn’t know whether or not to laugh, but the serious expression on Pyraz’s face gave her some hint. “So you’re fishing?”
“I can’t hunt without my sense of smell.” A bird landed on the water some distance in front of them. “And birds,” he whispered. “I don’t know why I hate birds so much. I go to catch them and they…fly away every time.” He shuddered.
“Can’t you just—use a spell? To catch one?”
He shook his head. “It isn’t the same.”
“I could teach you to use my bow.”
His neck craned in her direction very slowly, like a wooden doll, and he stared at her. She felt herself melting beneath his gaze. “Bows are the weapons of cowards.”
“Oh. Okay.” Then, “Did your people…not use bows?”
“Never.”
“Not even sometimes?”
“We used magic if we fought at range.”
That made sense, she supposed, for a time when mana was finite as arrows. She looked at his fishing rod. “Can I try?” she asked.
He dropped it in her lap. So Aletheia tried to fish, and for another three hours she failed—even as she saw fins beneath the murky water.
“I don’t think it’s working,” she said.
Pyraz watched a green fish swim beneath the pier, where the water was shallower. “I have an idea,” he said. With that he raised his right arm to the sky—and in it there materialized the wooden shaft of a spear, topped with a metal head. It glistened into existence with a flash of light, shining brightly then cooling into brown. He ripped his tunic off over his head and jumped into the cold swamp waters. Hardly five minutes later he returned with four fish speared through the guts.
He dropped them beside Aletheia on the ground.
“You should’ve started with that,” she said.
“I forgot I knew Arcane Weapon,” he said. He glanced at the spear—and a moment later it dissipated.
“…what other spells have you forgotten?”
“I don’t remember.” He grabbed one of the fish and, drawing his dagger, scraped one side of scales quickly, then cut it open, and…ate its guts raw. He groaned in, apparent, delight at the taste, then offered it to Aletheia.
“I’m okay,” she said. “…did your people usually eat fish like this?”
“No,” he said. “But dogs do.”
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The next day she sparred with Rook in the morning and practiced with Eris at night. They ate dinner together, but Eris was absent. Rook slept in his own room once again. The following was the same, and again, and soon Aletheia realized they were avoiding each other. She didn’t see them together again for nearly a week, when they discussed their plans for returning to Rytus.
Eris never looked at him.
“I spoke to a captain,” Rook said. “We’ll be fairly broke with passage for four to Vandens, but he’ll take us two days from now.”
“Maybe we should turn the forgestone into gold,” Aletheia said.
“It is more valuable in plastic form,” Pyraz said.
“I was joking,” she said. “Mostly…”
“We are not turning the forgestone into gold to fund our expedition to use the forgestone,” Eris said. “Do not be ridiculous.”
“I was joking?” Aletheia said.
Rook focused on Eris as she stared at a wall. “Just to point out that we’ll need to do something to maintain our lifestyle in Rytus. Just like old times.”
She sighed and said nothing.
Pyraz frowned and glanced between the two of them. “Why are you behaving like schoolchildren?”
“What?” she said.
“I don’t know. You’re acting erratically.”
“I am not acting erratically!”
“No more than usual,” Rook said.
“Shut up!” she yelled, but she still didn’t look at him.
Her voice was extremely defensive. Aletheia smiled. Eris was often blustery, but she usually had confidence. Now she seemed almost timid. It was sweet.
“This captain of yours suits me fine,” she continued, this to Pyraz. “I am in good enough health to travel. In fact it will be delightful, compared to last time, without you hounding me for mice to eat every three hours.”
Pyraz frowned. “Depending on the quality of the meals your services might still be required.”
“You’ll have less luck catching the bilge rats,” Rook said.
“We’ll see.”
“Are we done?” Eris said. “Is there anything else?”
“Eris,” Rook leaned across the table. “We can’t work together if we’re going to be—fighting like this.”
Now she glared at him. “We are not fighting. Use that tone a moment longer, however, and we may be soon.”
“What’s the matter?” he was getting exasperated.
“Does something look the matter?”
“Your head is tilted like an owl’s whenever we enter the same room, so I’d rather say it does!”
“‘Tis so my ears are better positioned to absorb your council as our brave leader. You do not want to be ignored, do you?”
“I’m serious. Can we not talk about anything?”
“It seems like we cannot.”
He gasped. “What do you want from me? Tell me and I’ll give it to you!”
She stood up. “You may try slitting your wrists and—ridding us all of your presence. That would be a start.” She fumed for a moment, then fled up the stairs.
They all stared her way in stunned silence.
“She has caught a brain parasite,” Pyraz said. “We’ll need to euthanize her.”
Rook shook his head. “It’s something I did—after we…I don’t understand.”
But Aletheia understood. She knew Eris was only that mean to someone she was angry at, and that she could only be that angry at someone she cared very deeply about. Everyone else was beneath her interest. That was just like Eris—to be angry at Rook because she cared about him.
Aletheia’s frown twisted into a smile. Rook was too much of a boy, too simple, to see things Eris’ way. She grabbed his arm. “Rook,” she said. “I think she’s in love.”
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Another journey across the Hepaz. As they approached the shores of Darom Aletheia’s heart caught in her chest, but this time they passed it by, sailing along the coast, then north to Chionos, until finally back to Rytus. For her it was hardly a year since they made the same journey in reverse. For Rook it was twice that. For Pyraz it must have seemed seven times longer still.
This ship was called The Twelve Hundred, after some battle centuries ago, and it was on a return trip to Vandens. Most of its hold was empty and there was plenty room for everyone. As the days trickled by Eris passed the time by teaching Aletheia two more spells—Hydropneumonic Purification and Hold Portal, which left her wondering if the older sorceress was not intentionally withholding her more useful magic for herself—while she and Rook continued avoiding one another.
Yet as the air grew desperately cold and they approached the frozen shores of Chionos, where fields of ice and glaciers grew off to the east, they had a long conversation together in the hold. Aletheia had no idea what was said, but after that tensions calmed, and though they kept apart at night, at least things were more like normal. At least she looked at him when they spoke to each other.
Then they saw Vandens. The shipping town that bustled with humans and halflings and dwarves from Kem-Karwene, where there were real buildings and paved streets and lights that stayed on all night.
Snow was falling as they pulled into dock. It was the heart of winter.
“It’s no Katharos,” Rook said, but then Aletheia had never been to Katharos; to her this was what the word ‘city meant.’ “Still, it’s nice to visit a place with glass on the windows.”
“Speak for yourself,” Eris said. “We are imperiled here. ‘Tis best we do not linger.”
He nodded. “Provision well. We might get stuck in a winter storm on our way to Dakru.”
“A storm is no danger,” Pyraz said. “A storm can be tamed. But your Seeker may still be afoot.”
“He won’t think to look for us here, right? Not right away?” Aletheia said.
“We have seen he has the ability to teleport, at least in emergencies,” Eris said. “There is no telling how quickly he might descend on us.”
“He ventured to Nanos afoot from Katharos,” Rook said. “But even so. Less talk, more walk.”
So they provisioned, and so they set out, and they climbed a snow-covered hill, and they looked out at the forests of Rytus covered in frost, and there they saw the huge black shape of the distant Spire of Dakru with its pinnacle shrouded by clouds. All around it snaked the aethereal aurora.
“You do have the forgestone, right?” Rook said to Eris.
She sighed. “Yes. I have the forgestone.”
“Good. Then let’s go.”