Esar, age 14

23 Years Ago

Three years had passed since that first construct broke free, three years since Danthan had vanquished it and come home a hero. Since then, three more seals had broken, but fortunately, each time Alzyn had dreamed of their escape in time to sound the alarm. Unfortunately, not even Zafrys was able to explain why the seals were breaking now. While Danthan and his comrades formed the Ethereal Guard, an elite force whose only purpose was to defeat the constructs when they arose, researchers examined the seals for signs of instability, engineers studied the ancient weapons of Kierfes and Isuld to duplicate their disruptive powers, and Esar's mother followed her hunches on erratic research missions to the far corners of Elorhe, from the Pardrials to Namai.

"We're relics of Bhadrat, just like the constructs," Esar heard her tell Danthan, once. "That's why I always dream of them. There's a connection. That's going to be the key to stopping them for good."

But Esar hadn't dreamed of the constructs since that first night. He was beginning to think it had been nothing more than a fluke, a stroke of dumb luck that would never be repeated, because Esar's dreams were more useless and mundane than ever. He tried to focus on the seals, or the continued lack of a Prince Ethereal, or other important things, and ended up dreaming of babies being born, houses being built, chance meetings that brought people together or arguments that drove them apart. Those moments might forever change the lives of the people who experienced them, but there was nothing in them for Esar.

He could take some comfort in the fact that his predecessors had the same sort of dreams, most of the time, night after night. He'd already read the compilations of the important ones, hazy visions of the distant future, and could recognize the handwriting of his mother and his granduncle in the commentaries attached to them. But in the past few months he'd started reading the raw journals of long-dead Tresuans, the pages they'd scrawled upon waking each morning. He was reading a dream about a dinner party gone disastrously wrong when his mother cursed.

Alzyn Semfrey threw the letter she'd been reading down on the table. "What the hell is wrong with them in Norana? We don't know when the next construct is going to wake up, and they're more worried about filling out forms and following standard procedures."

"They don't have to worry about any seals breaking near their Sanctuary," Danthan said. Though he had his own chambers now in the palace, he could be found in the parlor of the Tresuan house more evenings than not, lounging on the sofa and drinking palm wine. There was no formal commitment between Esar's mother and the founder of the Ethereal Guard, but the attachment had lasted long enough that Esar took Danthan's presence in his home for granted.

"I'll have to go in person," Alzyn said.

"Think of it as a vacation," Danthan said. "I wish I could go with you. I went to school there for a while."

"I've been there," Alzyn replied. "I found it to be the dullest place in Elorhe, and I didn't even have to dig through piles of records the last time I was there. Ugh, it's going to take months."

"Take Esar with you," Danthan said.

Esar looked up from the journal he'd been reading, then down at his lap again. He was almost fifteen, and they didn't send him off to bed while the adults were talking any more, but they rarely included him in their conversations, either.

"I was thinking about it. He's old enough to help out with the research," Alzyn said.

"Don't take him if you're just going to keep him cooped up with you in the archives all day, though. I was thinking you ought to let him go to school. Be good for him to be around kids his own age. What do you think, Esar?"

His mother never would have asked Esar what he thought, but Danthan did things like that, and even listened to the answers. It took Esar a moment to figure out what he thought, though, because he hadn't even considered it a possibility.

Go to school? Like a normal person? Esar didn't even know what normal was, except that it was something he wasn't. But if he might have even a little of the camaraderie and fun that he'd glimpsed among other youth, both in the city and in his dreams . . .

"I think I'd like that," Esar said.

Alzyn frowned. "He'll be ready for University in another year. I don't think that the school in Norana is going to have much to teach him."

"Some things you can't learn in books," Danthan said.

***

Two weeks later, Esar dozed as the linecar carried him and his mother south to Norana.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Let me go! I want to go home!"

The dream came in impressions rather than images. Discomfort, confusion, fear. A child's voice.

"Be a good girl and I'll take you home."

"Take me home now! I hate you!"

Struggle. A flash of hope. A fall, capture, pain from being held too tight. Terror. It all came to Esar through a thick fog, but the emotions overwhelmed him.

"Enough." A woman's voice, sharp and venomous. "I'm taking you to see your father."

"I don't have a father." But this was uncertain, resigned. Quiet voice. Panicked breaths.

The linecar rattled over a missing cycle and jostled Esar awake. The first thing he saw was his mother's dark gray eyes staring at him from across the aisle. He seized his pack from the storage bin beside his seat, pulled out his journal, and scribbled down all he remembered of the dream, feeling her eyes on him the entire time.

The hazy, distant visions were the most difficult to capture in words, but those were also the dreams where a Tresuan was most likely to witness something of great importance. The sort of dreams that later Tresuans would study and interpret years afterwards. He did his best to create a record of the vision, but it was so thin, so little to go on. No way to even identify the little girl in the dream. She probably wasn't even born yet.

Alzyn waited until he finished before she spoke. "You only dozed off for a few minutes." She made the statement sound more like an accusation.

Esar pushed his journal across to her. "I think I witnessed a kidnapping." She scanned his entry in less than a minute, then handed it back to him.

"So vague. Ugh, I hate dreams like that."

Esar didn't believe her. His mother had built her reputation on dreams like that—and her ability to interpret them. Esar put his journal away and slumped back in his seat, while his mother stretched to look out the window.

"Finally! We were supposed to be in Norana fifteen minutes ago."

The linecar slowed as it came to the end of the line, the terminus of the spine that connected Elorhe from north to south. The passengers, Esar included, prepared to disembark.

For the next few months, Esar and his mother would call Norana home. Esar was actually looking forward to it. He'd memorized the landmarks from one of his mother's picture books. The largest Sanctuary in Elorhe was depicted as a wonderland of flowers and fountains, grand architecture and quaint cottages. But when he stepped out of the linecar onto the platform, the chill breeze that greeted him was anything but welcoming. How could it still be so cold three weeks into the new year?

He wouldn't have minded so much if he'd found Norana covered in a picturesque layer of fluffy white snow, but the only snow in sight was one sad, grimy pile heaped up under the overhang of the station roof. Esar and his mother exited onto a large, circular green, only "green" wasn't the right word for the area—it was all soggy brown, and the rows of trees lining the path were bare silhouettes of gnarled branches. Underneath the gray, darkening sky, everything seemed drained of life and color.

Esar followed his mother through the town at a brisk pace, passing an elderly couple out for a stroll and a father watching his young child stomp through the mud in tall boots. All the adults wore the braided rope belts that marked them as Devoted. Esar's stomach rumbled, reminding him that it was past time for dinner, but he knew his mother wasn't about to waste the last hour of daylight on food. They were going straight to the cathedral.

Esar recognized it from illustrations, but the books hadn't prepared him for how truly enormous it was, or how beautiful. Six statues, painted and gilded in intricate detail, stood in alcoves across the cathedral's wide façade. Each figure was twice as tall as they would have been in life, each raising a hand in a gesture that might have been benevolent or foreboding, each dressed in robes that fell in folds to their feet. The statues gazed across the centuries, cold and austere, each one lit from above to cast long shadows across the ground.

Esar didn't know any of their names. If these people were important enough to deserve such a magnificent memorial, why didn't he know who they were?

"Come on, we don't have all night," his mother called back to him from the doorway beneath the two central figures. Esar hurried to catch up with her, glad to be back inside where it was warm.

"Do you know who those statues are?" Esar asked.

"Yes," Alzyn replied without further elaboration.

They'd entered on the upper level of the cathedral's main hall, a bowl-shaped room scooped out of the earth and surrounded by the wide balcony on which they walked. Esar started towards the nearest stairs, but his mother grabbed his sleeve.

"No, this way." They would have to go around the balcony instead to a side hallway.

"I thought they kept the records in the basement?"

"We've got to take care of something, first."

It had taken weeks of correspondence and negotiation for his mother to arrange this trip and obtain access to the documents she sought. He'd expected her to go straight down to the archives and demand the materials that she'd come to find. Instead, she pushed open a door with a sign that read "Dispensator." What was a dispensator?

There were two desks in the room, one empty, the other occupied by a man with an impressive gray mustache. He stood up when they entered.

"Lady Tresuan, it's a pleasure to finally—"

"Do you have the documents ready?" Alzyn said.

"Of course." He sat back down and opened a black portfolio, turned it around, and pushed it forward on the desk.

"Such a waste of time," Alzyn muttered, flipping through the pages. Esar remained a few steps behind her, too far back to read what she was looking at, though he could read the placard on the desk that displayed the man's name, G. Darveth. He'd seen that name on some of his mother's correspondence.

"Where does he sign?"

"He will need to read the forms for himself and sign them," Darveth said, then looked over at Esar. "If you have any questions about the adoption process, I will be happy to answer them for you."

"Adoption?" The word came out more like a squeak. "What are you talking about?"