Esar, Age 14

23 Years Ago

How long had they been walking? The darkness confused his sense of time and direction. And then there were the noises, things running or flapping.

"Is there anything dangerous out here?" Esar asked.

"Nah. Just ghosts." It wasn't clear whether Kelsam was serious or making another joke. "They're all around us. My sister says there used to be a huge city right here."

Esar hadn't known. The idea captivated him, and he tried to make out the shapes of buildings or streets beneath the foliage. It was a futile effort when it was pitch dark out, of course, but it helped to keep his mind off his fears. Maybe his eyes were even starting to adjust. That shape almost looked like something.

At last they came to a clearing where a few stubby remnants of stone walls stood up, covered in moss. Kelsam ran ahead and hopped up onto one of them, then turned and waited for Esar to catch up.

"Take your time! No rush!" he called back.

Esar hoped that the glare he aimed at Kelsam could cross the darkness between them. He clambered up onto the wall just as Kelsam jumped down to the other side. Below was what had once been the floor of a building, perhaps, or the roof? Anyway, now it was just a flat, wide expanse of moss and grass, with a few scattered angles of stone jutting through.

Esar lowered himself cautiously. The drop was more than half his height, and the idea of twisting an ankle or breaking a leg way out in the middle of nowhere did not appeal to him.

"Now what?"

"Thady—my sister—says this used to be a temple. There would have been a spire, like a tall, pointy pyramid, right over there." He pointed at more of the darkness. "And there's some of the altar left, um, somewhere."

"Wow," Esar said. "I'm sure I would be really impressed if I could see something."

"I told you. This is what real darkness looks like." Kelsam sat down on the ground, then leaned onto his back, hands linked behind his head.

"Now what are you doing?"

"You can see the stars really well when it's dark like this. We're lucky it's such a clear night."

Esar sat down a couple feet away. He could just make out the shape of Kelsam in the darkness, but it was enough to flood his head with all sorts of thoughts. How were you supposed to tell if someone liked you, really liked you, or if they were always just nice and good and wonderful?

He leaned back carefully. The night was warm, but the moss was a bit moist, and he didn't want to find more mud with his head instead of his foot. He looked over at Kelsam, but Kelsam just kept looking straight up into the sky, so Esar did the same.

At first, he didn't see much. A few stars, but nothing amazing. Something tickled his neck and he shuddered, sure something was crawling on him. He didn't find anything there when he scratched his neck, but no doubt the night was full of tiny crawling insects that he couldn't see. He tried not to think about that, and focused on the sky.

The longer he looked, the more stars seemed to appear out of the darkness. The moon wasn't out, so the stars didn't have to compete with it, and no clouds were out to block his view. Instead, Esar saw clouds of stars that joined together into a river of stars. They had different colors, too; one with a reddish cast, another that seemed almost blue. Everywhere his eyes moved he saw more and more shimmering points of light in the limitless sky. He lost track of where he was in the world, unable to remember if he was lying on the ground or suspended above a sparkling ocean, looking down. If he lost his grip, he might fall off the planet.

Along with the darkness came a silence so absolute that only the sound of his own breath echoed in his ears. Esar had to peek out of the corner of his eye to make sure that Kelsam was still there. He was, close enough that Esar could reach out his arm and touch him, but separated by miles of uncertainty.

Esar let the sky and the silence engulf him. He didn't have to do anything or be anything. He drifted free of everything that bound him, everything that hurt, every worry and everything that could go wrong. None of it mattered on that unimaginable scale. It was wonderful.

Maybe he could just . . . go away, and never come back. If he could go just a little farther, he could let eternity claim him. Let go of everything, let it all fall away and stop being himself. He might find peace, unending silence, unending darkness. It couldn't be any worse than living, could it?

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

But Esar found that he was anchored to the world, unable to drift any further. He didn't even remember reaching out his hand, but when Kelsam took it, it was a relief. Esar couldn't leave just yet. Someone would miss him if he were gone. And that was enough, just to have something to hold on to.

A newborn baby cried.

Esar knew the sound well. He'd witnessed so many births in his dreams, events that were so precious and important to the people involved in them, but insignificant to a Tresuan who hoped to glimpse something of greater scope. Only this time it was different.

This time, it was his own mother whose baby was laid to her breast. And the father who leaned in to kiss the child's dark, curly hair was familiar as well.

"Esar? Did you fall asleep? Esar?"

He supposed that he had, though he didn't remember dozing off. Kelsam was propped up on his elbow next to him, close enough that Esar could see him clearly in spite of the lack of light. The world resolved again and the dream was fading. He didn't have his journal, so he blurted the words out loud, anything to hold on to the memory.

"There was a baby. My mother—she just had a baby—she was with Danthan—my mother's going to have another child!" Joy filled Esar almost to the point of bursting. "Do you know what this means, Kelsam?"

Kelsam looked bewildered, though he managed an echo of Esar's grin. "Um, you're going to be a big brother?"

"All this time, I've been thinking I'm the only one. But if my mother has another child, the Tresuan line can pass through them. It's not up to me to . . ." Esar drifted off. He had said too much, come too close to speaking of fears he wasn't sure he was ready to tell anyone.

"To . . .?" Kelsam prompted, but didn't push any further. The silence stretched as Esar looked for the courage to speak.

The thought of fathering a child had always terrified him. It wasn't that there would be any difficulty in the conception; he was sure there would be plenty of women willing to act as surrogate to a potential Tresuan when the time came. But having a child just to propagate the line, just to check "produce successor" off a list of duties—that was precisely what his mother had done.

"I can't be a father, Kelsam. Not ever. It's bad enough that I'm screwed up. If I had a kid, I'd screw them up, too."

"I think every parent screws up their kids," Kelsam said. "My mom wanted so bad for one of her kids to Devote themselves and become a healer—that was what she wanted to do, but she had to take over the ceramics business."

"So she forced you to—"

"Nobody forced me," Kelsam interrupted. "I thought I wanted to do it. And then I kept going because I wanted her to be happy. But when I wrote to her, said I didn't want to do it any more, she wasn't mad. She wanted me to be happy."

"What's that like?" The question was bitter on his tongue. "To have a mother who wants you to be happy?"

"Esar . . ." Kelsam sighed. "What is it that you want to do? If you could do anything?"

"It doesn't matter what I want to do," Esar said. "I'm a Tresuan."

"That's not all you are though, is it? You're a human being, too."

"Am I? I don't know how to act with people, I don't know how to—to say things right, and I—I don't even know what's going on right now. You're so kind to me, and I don't know what that means. I don't even know if you like—" He thought again of Kelsam watching Meliand at the tournament, and he wanted to curl up and hide, to protect the raw part of his soul that he'd just exposed. "You like girls, don't you," he finished softly.

"Well, yeah," Kelsam said. All hope drained from Esar, but Kelsam wasn't finished speaking. "But I'm not picky about that, because I also really, really like you."

Life returned. Esar's face grew hot, and his heart pounded loud enough to fill the silence. Nothing else that had happened that day mattered. Nothing else in the world mattered.

But the words that came to his lips were, "Wow, 'not picky' is an understatement. More like 'extremely low standards.'"

Kelsam burst out laughing. "I didn't mean it like that! I just mean—I don't know, it depends on the person. I was kind of thinking, maybe I liked girls a little more, and then I met you and I thought, hm, girls are okay, but I think I'd rather have a boyfriend. You know, if you want to."

"Yes," Esar said. He laughed, too, though he was afraid he sounded more like he was losing his mind.

"And I don't have low standards, either. You're a Tresuan, so that's aiming pretty high, isn't it? I'm nobody compared to that."

"Don't say that, please. Forget all about me being the Tresuan. You said I'm a human being, too."

"I didn't mean that I only like you because you're the Tresuan! I'm really making a mess of this, aren't I?"

"You're not," Esar said. Why was it so hard to put his feelings into words? How could he stop himself from saying something wrong? Love was fragile, and when it broke, the shards were dangerous. It would be just his luck if his first relationship failed before it could even begin. "Maybe we don't have to talk, right now?"

Before he knew what was going on, Kelsam was leaning in—closer—and then he pressed his lips against Esar's. It only lasted a moment, but the surge of emotion that accompanied that first kiss frightened him. This couldn't be real. He didn't deserve something this perfect.

"I didn't mean that you had to kiss me, right now."

"Oh! Sorry," Kelsam said, drawing back.

"Oh no, don't be sorry! I liked it!" Esar said, mortified. There he went, making things worse again. "I just need . . . I'm not . . . I mean, just you holding my hand was . . . nice."

Kelsam held his hand out, and Esar took it. He didn't know if the sweat that slickened his grip belonged to him, or Kelsam, or both.

He couldn't quite get back to that state of peace, but this was close enough, good enough. Distressing thoughts still arose, but he could push them back and tell them to wait for another time. He would have to leave Norana before too long and go back north. But until then, Kelsam. Someday his mother was going to have another child, and he'd seen it himself, in his own dream. That wasn't so much distressing as mind-boggling. But right now, Kelsam liked him, and that was enough. Someday Kelsam might uncover what a rotten person Esar truly was, and want nothing to do with him.

But for now, Kelsam. Kelsam. Kelsam.