Kelsam

Kelsam never asked Esar what he saw in his dreams. When his husband woke up before dawn, muttering and cursing, Kelsam closed his eyes and pretended not to hear. And while Esar scribbled violently in his dream journal as if every word was a personal affront, Kelsam slid out of bed, dressed, and headed for the kitchen.

He started the kettle for tea and popped open the latch on the cook-pot to scoop out some of the rice porridge that had been simmering overnight. Through the wall, he could still hear the scratching of Esar's pen on paper. Kelsam couldn't help but wonder what he'd seen to put him in such a state, but prying would break the unspoken agreement they'd lived by for the past sixteen years.

Sometimes Esar woke up pensive, sometimes angry, sometimes even in tears, but the mood would pass. The dreams always did, eventually, and by the time he came to breakfast, Esar would be himself again. His random visions of the future might as well have been glimpses of another world, for all the effect they had on the life they shared while awake.

But this morning, Kelsam ate his breakfast alone. The sun rose, he drank a second cup of tea, yet still, Esar did not appear. Kelsam should have been on his way to the garden by now, but a nagging worry sent him back to check on Esar first.

He paused in the doorway. Esar was up and out of bed, leaning on the windowsill, looking out. If he knew Kelsam was there, he showed no sign of it.

“I'm going," Kelsam said. "There's porridge warming in the kitchen. You should eat.”

A slight nod, without so much as a glance in his direction. Kelsam turned to leave.

“Thank you,” Esar said.

Kelsam stopped. “You're wel—”

“For everything.”

Kelsam's heart dropped. “Everything?”

“I don't thank you enough. I ought to be more appreciative.” Esar’s voice was too controlled, his words clipped. He still gazed out the window at something Kelsam couldn't see.

“What's going on?” Even now, Kelsam couldn't bring himself to ask what Esar had dreamed.

Esar closed his eyes. “It's probably nothing.”

“Nothing that you're going to tell me, you mean?” Kelsam took a few steps into the room.

“There's nothing you can do.”

“How do you know that? How can you know that, when you won't even tell me what's going on?”

"You don't need to worry about it." Esar's jaw was clenched, and he gripped the windowsill as if holding on against a hurricane.

“I don't need to worry? I can't help but worry when I see you like this, and you won't even tell me what's wrong. Why won't you trust me?”

Esar flinched as if he'd been stung. As soon as the words were out, Kelsam wished he could recall them.

“I do trust you, Kels. But I can't trust myself.” Esar turned slowly to face him, real, deep pain in his stormcloud gray eyes.

"Esar . . ."

"I can't make another mistake. I can't . . ."

Kelsam reached out towards him, then drew his hand back. He didn’t want to dredge up any more of Esar’s painful memories. "You don't have to tell me. But I'm here for you, if you need—whatever you need."

"I'll let you know." Esar turned back to the window, leaving Kelsam shut out as surely as if he'd slammed a door in his face. Kelsam took a step backwards, then turned to leave the room, at a loss for what else to do.

Maybe it was nothing. It wasn't the first dream to have a strange effect on Esar, nor was it the first time he'd seemed to half hold his breath, waiting for some news that never arrived. Kelsam tried to tell himself that Esar wasn’t acting that much worse than usual, really, as he hurried up the lane to the garden's south gate. He made himself attend to ordinary details, the subtle changes that each new day brought to the garden. More leaves had turned gold at the tops of the trees, and there was a rosy blush on the green apples in the orchard. There were more visitors sauntering along the paths today, too, though nothing like the crowds that would soon be riding down on the linecar to see the fall colors at the peak.

The Sanctuary garden of Norana was one of the largest in Elorhe, and the finest, at least, in Kelsam's opinion. A Sanctuary of Rith offered respite and peace to everyone who set foot upon its hallowed ground, and today, Kelsam needed that solace as much as any weary pilgrim. He sought a balm for his anxiety in the familiar work that came along with the changing of the seasons. With the help of a new batch of student volunteers from the Sanctuary school, he set about replacing the withering summer blossoms in the planters around the reflecting pool with ornamental grasses they'd been cultivating in the greenhouse.

It was late afternoon when they finished, not enough time left to start a new project, but not yet time to think about supper, either. Kelsam dismissed the students and sought out the forest path, where he could get out of the sun and hear himself think. He walked in the shade of gigantic old trees with trunks too big to encircle with your arms, like pillars that carried the weight of years. Their crowns stretched high to drink up the sunlight, leaving only spots of light here and there to dapple the darkened ground.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The forest path led to the old fountain plaza, the place where Esar always went when something was troubling him. It was an out-of-the-way spot, and on the rare occasion that he found someone else in his favorite haunt, Esar could clear them out with a glare. So it wasn’t a surprise to find Esar there now, alone, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, glaring at the fountain as if it had just insulted him. He was wearing that slate-colored coat of his, the formal one he wore when they went to the capital. When he had to be a Tresuan.

Kelsam stepped up beside his husband and put a hand on his sleeve.

“Kels.” Esar acknowledged him without taking his eyes off the fountain. The sound of flowing water filled the silence that followed.

What was it that drew Esar to this fountain? It was nice enough, Kelsam supposed, if you liked that sort of thing. It was large—a few feet taller than Esar—but the design was simple; water poured over a slab of white stone to fill a pool contained by a low wall. There were some kind of carvings on the stone, but it was impossible to make them out through the water that flowed over the surface. The most interesting thing about it was that nice, dense coat of moss climbing up the side of the frame.

A ray of sunlight slipped between the leaves of an overhanging branch to strike the pale strands at Esar's temple, making them shine like silver against his ink-black hair. He wasn't yet forty, but the lines of his face and the gray in his hair made people tend to guess he was ten years older. He'd been through so much. Too much. And the way his jaw was set, the unnatural stillness of his posture—he was terrified.

“Anything you can tell me about?” Kelsam asked, making circles with his fingertips on Esar's back.

“It'll make sense soon enough,” Esar said. A moment later, he added, “or, it won't.”

“I see,” Kelsam said. He clenched his hand into a fist, squeezing the stiff fabric of Esar's jacket, then released it and let his hand slip to his side. The crinkles slowly relaxed and fell, and Esar was slipping through his fingers, becoming a Tresuan again, his power calling him further and further from the life they'd built together.

“Is there anything I can do?” Kelsam asked.

“I could probably use a towel, since you offered.”

That wasn't what Kelsam had meant by the question, but he did go home and pick up a couple of towels, along with a bottle of cider from the preserver. Had he really been afraid that Esar didn't need him? Of course Esar needed him, he would let them drain him dry all over again if he didn't have someone to look out for him, to remind him that he was more than a vessel for his dreams. Kelsam stopped at the post office and picked up a copy of the latest dispatch from Thaliron before taking a different route back to Esar across the north meadow. When he got there, he wasn’t going to let Esar brush off his concerns. He was going to—

A flurry of wingbeats and squawking erupted all around him. Kelsam jumped. A heartbeat ago, the meadow had been full of songbirds, but they'd all taken flight in an instant. He looked around for the cause and found it easily enough. An enormous raven perched on a branch that still swayed under its weight. It was pretty, in an uncanny way, its feathers shimmering with iridescent color in the light of the setting sun. But it unsettled him, and he questioned his resolve.

When Kelsam got back to the old fountain plaza, Esar was rooted to the same spot, oblivious to everything but his secret thoughts. Kelsam didn't disturb him—yet. He settled onto one of the benches to read and think, glancing at Esar over the top of the paper.

The sun sank low and the darkness woke the night lanterns, filling the plaza with soft blue light. Esar gave up on glaring at the fountain and started pacing instead, hands thrust into the pockets of his jacket. His shadow fell on Kelsam, and he reached for the half-empty cider bottle.

"I am glad you're here," he said.

"What, so you can steal my drink?"

Esar drained the rest of the cider and looked his husband in the eyes. "Because you're much better at dealing with this sort of thing than I am."

"Dealing with fountains?"

"No. With people."

It was an opening. "Who do you mean?" Kelsam set the paper down, but Esar was already striding away.

"I got something wrong, again," he fumed. "I've been standing out here for hours, wasting my time, looking like a bloody fool because I missed something. What am I missing?" Esar repeated that question a few times while he paced back and forth across the length of the plaza, gesticulating and digging his fingers into his hair. He stopped to take a breath, his back turned.

A prickling sensation at the back of Kelsam's neck made him shudder. The garden suddenly seemed too quiet, too still, and even the wind seemed to cease.

The fountain stopped flowing.

Other movement resumed after a mere heartbeat. Esar sprinted back to his position in front of the fountain. Kelsam jumped up to stand beside him and Esar seized his hand, weaving their fingers together.

Now that the water no longer covered it, Kelsam could see the strange carvings on the stone slab much more clearly. They looked like ceram channels—nothing more than a bunch of tiny lines squiggling all over the surface to Kelsam's untutored eyes, but there was definitely a pattern to them, even if he couldn't quite parse it. He quickly gave up trying. Following those lines with his eyes felt like getting lost in a maze.

Then the first tiny lights appeared, moving along the paths incised in the stone. The crawling sensation returned, and he scratched the back of his neck, but was soon so captivated by what he saw that he forgot his discomfort. Myriad colors appeared on the stone and flowed together, turning what had seemed like random noise into brilliant, beautiful patterns until the whole slab was aglow. Out of the corner of his eye, Kelsam could see the satisfied smile bloom on Esar's face, reflecting the colored lights that pulsed across the wall.

Two sparks, bright as twinkling stars, traced the pattern out from the center, leaving the stone dark behind them. When the first finally reached the end, it vanished, and a young woman fell into the pool at the base of the fountain. She was followed shortly by another splash, this one caused by a young man with yellow hair, shouting something Kelsam didn't understand.

Esar's hand gripped his so tightly that it hurt, and he spoke through clenched teeth.

"Always something missing. Always a gap. Why can I never see the whole damn picture?"

"You saw them coming," Kelsam said.

"I didn't know there were going to be two of them," Esar snapped.

Kelsam and Esar witness the arrival of two strangers from another world [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/571846492780757003/1132315151668879411/ood_ch1_art.jpg]