Esar, Age 19

19 Years Ago

A thread of light traced a path in darkness, its color changing as it traveled, brightest at the front and fading back to darkness at the trailing end. It coursed through a channel that Esar recognized, though he’d only seen it in its dormant form, in a dozen dreams tracing back to his childhood.

Then the room filled with light, and a man stood in front of the door. The way the light bounced off him made him look for a moment like a bronze statue, dressed in odd clothing, with glossy black hair that fell to his shoulders.

But he moved, stepping aside as another thread of light worked its way along the path, and a second man appeared. This man had darker brown skin and close-cropped hair, and his clothing was like nothing Esar had seen. He wore a matching gray jacket and trousers with a white shirt tucked into them, along with a strip of blue and green fabric tied around his neck. And he wore a pair of spectacles, even though he couldn’t have been older than forty.

“Unbelievable,” the second man whispered. He wiped his glasses on a corner of his jacket and put them back on his nose before continuing to gawk at the surroundings, even though they appeared to be in a storage room without anything particularly interesting.

The first man smirked. Esar couldn’t guess at his age, for all that his features were set in a more familiar Elorhan mold. There were no lines or wrinkles to mark him as aged, yet he seemed to carry more years about him than his smooth skin would suggest.

The bespectacled man poked around the room, lifting the lids of boxes. “Where are we specifically? I know this is the world where you were born, but—”

“An interesting question,” the ageless man replied. He stepped around behind the door but continued to speak. “This door used to be in the city where I was born, but that city now lies deep beneath the ocean. They brought it to the university to study many years ago, and here it has remained ever since.”

“A university,” the bespectacled man repeated. He was rummaging through boxes with abandon now, with little exclamations over the odds and ends, obsolete appliances and abandoned projects that were accumulated within them. “Can we take anything back with us? I want to compare this to—”

“Not yet.” The ageless man had changed his clothing and now wore a knee-length tunic of the drab blue-gray favored by many professors at the university. He headed for the exit of the storeroom, and his companion stood up to follow him, but the ageless man stopped him with an outstretched arm.

“Wait here.”

“You brought me here just so I could wait in a storeroom?”

“Patience.” The single, sharp word cut off any further protest. “You have told me many times of the potential implications of my arrival in your world, Jim. Spare a thought for what effect your sudden appearance may have on this one.”

“Of—of course.” The bespectacled man backed away, shrinking from the unbroken stare the ageless man continued to level upon him. Esar’s viewpoint shifted, and now that stare seemed to be fixed on him, impossible as it was, for he was merely an observer of this dream.

“If I can wait four hundred years for my freedom, you can wait a bit longer to do your sightseeing. I will bring our friend here to continue our conversation.”

He was still speaking to his companion, not to Esar, whose focus was less on what he heard but on what he could now see. The ageless man had red eyes. A deep, dark red, a color no eyes should be.

***

Esar awoke from his dream and habit took over. He tried to roll over to grab his journal, but he couldn’t. There was something on his arm.

There was someone on his arm.

He tried to slide his arm out from underneath Kelsam without waking him, but before he got his hand free, Kelsam was stirring. Even worse, his arm had fallen asleep. He tried to pick up his pen with fingers that were being pricked by a thousand needles, but fumbled and dropped it again.

“What are you doing?” Kelsam asked drowsily.

“Wait.” Esar shook out his sleeping hand, then picked up the pen again. He began to write, but the dream was already fading from his memory. The details—the layout of the room, the exact words spoken—were slipping away before he could capture them.

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Kelsam leaned against him. “Can I read it?”

“I guess,” Esar muttered, barely listening as he racked his memory. Had the man’s eyes really been red, or was it just the menace in his expression that made Esar think he did? “I know I saw more, but it’s gone now.”

“Red eyes?” Kelsam read. “What does it mean? Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Esar said. It was odd to have someone reading his dream over his shoulder, but that didn’t bother him nearly as much as the dream itself. He still felt that man’s stare burning into him, even as the rest of the dream slipped away.

Esar set down the journal and tried to push the dream aside and return to the present.

“It’s still early. We can go back to sleep, if you want.”

“Is that what you want?” Kelsam asked. There was potential in his words that made Esar shiver, but . . . not while that man’s face still lingered in his mind.

“Honestly I just want to hold on to you,” Esar whispered.

“Okay.” Kelsam curled up around Esar as they lay back down together. Kelsam started to stroke Esar’s chest, but Esar caught his hand. What he needed now was stillness and peace.

Esar listened to Kelsam breathe, and at last the nightmare receded. All his life he’d been stretching through time, glimpsing the future or trying to understand the past. His dreams were always with him. His worries always nagged at him. But all of that seemed distant now, insignificant compared to the sound of Kelsam’s breath, the warmth of his body, the scent of his hair. To live in such a moment meant more to Esar than all of the future’s untold potential.

“Stay with me,” Esar murmured into Kelsam’s hair.

“Mm?” Kelsam shifted slightly.

“Stay with me,” Esar repeated. “Forever. Please.”

Kelsam didn’t answer. Esar waited, the perfection of the moment slipping through his fingers. No, he couldn’t lose this now . . .

“I finally feel like I’m becoming who I’m supposed to be. I made a difference. People are alive because of something I saw. Now, with you here, everything is perfect. Please . . . please don’t go away.”

Kelsam shifted. “Do you realize what you’re asking of me, Esar?”

Now it was Esar’s turn to lie in silence, leaving the question unanswered. He could feel Kelsam’s breath, but he wished he could see Kelsam’s face.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen when I came here. Maybe I should have guessed we would end up like this. Maybe it was inevitable. But I didn’t know.”

Esar held his breath, waiting for Kelsam to go on.

“There’s a part of me that wants to say yes. That it would be worth it to throw everything else away just to be with you.”

“But you can’t,” Esar whispered. Kelsam hadn’t needed to say it; his tone, and the way that he wouldn’t meet Esar’s eyes, said far more than mere words.

“I don’t know,” Kelsam said. “My life was peaceful, Esar. I like peace.”

“You are peace. That’s why I need you,” Esar said, trying to gently turn Kelsam’s face toward his. “Please. I love you.”

Kelsam finally met his eyes, but he didn’t say the words Esar was hoping to hear.

“It’s not as simple as that,” Kelsam whispered.

“I’m not saying it would be simple.” Esar floundered for the right words. “But there’s nothing else in my life that makes me feel like this. And I thought you felt . . . something . . .”

“You’re amazing,” Kelsam said, “but you scare me, too. Your dreams scare me. You’re talking about being who you are, having visions and saving people. That’s wonderful. But I don’t know if that’s the kind of life I want.” He drew circles with his finger over Esar’s heart, just as an ache was settling there.

“I’m sorry.” Esar rolled away, turning his back to Kelsam. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Esar, no, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” Esar said, resisting Kelsam’s attempts to pull him back. “I just misunderstood.”

“You didn’t misunderstand,” Kelsam insisted. “I do feel something. I’ve always felt it. Ever since the day you found me in the woods, since the day you saved me, we’ve been connected. I kept asking myself, why did your power bring you to me? And the only answer I can think of is that there’s something connecting us. Something bigger than you or me that brought us together, because it was meant to be—”

“Fate.” Esar’s stomach turned over.

“Yes, fate. Why else would your vision bring you to me instead of someone else who needed your help more than I did? Because we’re bound by fate.”

Bound by fate.

That was why Kelsam had continued to write to him. That was why he’d come to Thaliron to see Esar. That was why they were sharing a bed now. Kelsam thought they were bound together by destiny.

Kelsam thought he didn’t have a choice.

It all made sense now, and the horrible clarity made Esar shudder with revulsion. His comfort, his happiness, his love, it was all built on a lie he’d tossed off carelessly and forgotten. Esar turned to face Kelsam, to look him in the eyes as he admitted the truth. He owed Kelsam that much—and far, far more.

“It was never fate, Kelsam. I’ve never dreamed about you. Ever.”