The Tomb had not offered him a memory in a while. Glittering shadows and wafting black smoke merged until they set the scene. The darkness of Kyrell, heavy in those days, was not a place wandered by holy men willingly, but Master Mentia had made this abysmal journey to find him.
“There are rumors that he does not sleep,” Mentia had explained to his mother with all the gentleness of a man who had come to take a happy child from a happy home. His mother was a shield between them, willing Tynan to become the shadows at her back. He could feel her command in the way her hands squeezed his fragile shoulders, like a gnarled thicket that refuses to let go. “Two more Vessels have also appeared. Finding them all is nearly unprecedented. Your boy will not be alone, he will always be permitted to write and of course, he will be allowed to visit once he has completed his training.”
“Momma, don’t let them take Tynn!”
His sister’s cry had been a call to action for his father, who rushed in from his fieldwork.
His father was a tall and broad man, the kind made more fierce by the scant candlelight cast about their home. The low calm of his voice was a warning, “What shadows have led you to our door?”
“Your son,” Mentia cut in before his mother had a chance to speak, “Is the Vessel of Darkness.”
The stillness that fell over them reeked of the inevitable. The shadows showed him his mother with silent tears rolling down her face, his little sister frozen with her eyes on the men as if she could fend them off with her forkful of mashed potatoes, and his father had his gaze locked on him.
Tynan tried to push closer to his mother, and nearly took her off her feet, when his father lunged for him and dragged him out for the men to look at.
“Poppa, please,” he begged, “I don’t want to leave!”
“My son is the Vessel of Darkness?”
“Poppa, no!” His little sister tossed her mashed potatoes at their father in her small rage.
Mentia raised his hands in supplication. “Two others have appeared, young girls about his age. One in Ardeat and the other in Elysian.We were merely touring Kyrell when we stumbled upon a group of children who told us of a boy who doesn’t sleep or dream–”
“I sleep,” Tynan lied, “Just not often.”
His father ignored him. “How long will he be gone?”
Mentia, sensing a change in the tides, answered, “Just until we ascertain the levels of his power. He will, of course, be free to write home while he studies at Sanctum.”
Have I harnessed my magic enough yet? Tynan thought as the memory cleared to the usual oblivion of The Tomb. Black diamonds and smoke flitted around him while he floated just above the floor of shining obsidian. This place was not a dream, not a cavern for slumber, but a place for rejuvenation locked away in his corporeal form.
“Tynan! Erebus and Krishna have been at your window for hours!” a voice, distant but raucous, poured in around him.
He glanced at the fading shades of his family before his consciousness spilled back into his body, bringing with it a cacophony of knocks and mutterings. Elidi. He tugged at the sheets and rolled over. No, thank you.
“Ty.” His eyes snapped open at the familiar nickname. “They’re really desperate. Have you been drifting for too long?”
Through the blurriness and crust of his eyes, he could see the outlines of the two ravens contrasted against the white stone of the Sanctum. Erebus noticed his awareness, and clacked his beak at him, while Krishna continued to tap hers against the glass, only to be interrupted by her ear splitting wonk-wonk. He stumbled to his feet and nearly knocked over the pile of books he kept stashed at the foot of his bed as he swayed towards the window.
“You can see me,” he said. He opened his window and his birds hopped inside. “I’m fine.”
Elidi’s voice was like talons on glass at this hour of the morning, “They disturbed all of Sanctum.”
“Wait…all of Sanctum?” Koray’s voice was feathery by comparison, despite the grogginess that crackled in her throat. The two girls had been–
“The whole Sanctum!” he rasped as he wrenched his door open. “Get back to your rooms before they notice us –” Three sets of footsteps and the click of a cane made them freeze. Both girls ducked under Tynan’s arms and threw themselves into his room.He quietly shut the door, and glared at Erebus and Krishna. “The next time I need quills, I’m coming for those flight feathers.” Erebus tapped his talon against his perch while Krishna pecked at some dirt in her feathers, unbothered.
“Stop arguing with your birds,” Elidi snapped as she grabbed both him and Koray by the elbow. “I’ll try to use mirage, but if that doesn’t work, then Koray’s silver tongue is all we got.”
His world slowed at the proximity of her, despite the panic. “I’m sorry that they woke you.”
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“They didn’t. Elidi’s knocking did.”
“Oh excuse me for thinking that he was sleeping in your room again!”
“Would you stop being so loud!”
“Hmm…odd that Koray is not in her room at this hour…”
Master Caligo’s chipper observation rose above their bickering and they immediately scrambled into the far corner. With a raised hand, Tynan drew deeper shadows to the corner of the room and cast about a moderate darkness that he hoped would fool Master Mentia.
“Perhaps they have all set out for a morning meditation,” Master Mentia offered.
His optimism was met with a snort from Master Hathor.
“They know us too well.” Koray’s quiet whisper in the shell of his ear, the waft of her breath across his cheek, sent a shiver down his spine.
He looped his arm around her waist to pull her in closer, “After a decade, we can still hide nothing.”
Elidi leaned in from his other side, her hands illuminated with an abrasive light. “Focus on your magic.”
Big ask. He tried to drag his attention away from the curve of Koray against his side and focused on the silk of his magic wrap around his wrist to coax the shadows closer still as he fought the fragility of his element.
His door swung open and his Master peeked in, his eyes locked on the corner where they were all hidden. “You didn’t happen to see Tynan in Koray’s room, did you?”
“No, not even a trace of him.”
Tynan felt as though his Master could see right through their attempted illusion.
“What mirage are you casting?” he prodded at Elidi as he tried to ignore the bead of sweat at his temple.
Elidi’s eyes were closed, her brows knit in concentration. “I just realized…I don’t know what your room looks like normally.”
A hard yank on his magic had the silk dissipating to smoke in his hands as Mentia gathered the shadows to himself. The sharp snap of sparks beside him signaled their doom as Hathor turned the mirage around them to granules of sand with a swipe of her hand. The three were now scrunched in a corner, wide eyes transfixed on their Masters.
“Koray…” Tynan said out of the side of his mouth.
A soft starlight emanated from her throat, but before she could utter a command her mentor – who was glowing with the power of everything silver in the night sky – said, “Be silent and be still.”
The unpleasant but familiar tingle floated around Tynan’s skull. He felt it pull him down until his feet were made of lead and an ethereal taste forced him into silence.
The Masters approached their Vessels. Hathor was the only one who looked truly disappointed. Her golden eyes were sharp on Elidi who, from the smell of things, had literal smoke pouring out of her ears and nose. The swish of her Master’s saree across the marble floor was like the whispered warnings of a predator on the hunt.
“How rare, for the three of you to be together at this hour,” she commented.
By design, Tynan thought, glad for the command of stillness that kept him from flinching as that bladed gaze turned to him.
“An advantageous occurrence. A group meditation is in order,” Caligo added.
The trio’s inward groan was nearly audible.
Master Mentia tapped his cane on the marble floor. It was jarring to see his Master so aged when only minutes ago his visage had been so young in his memory. A decade's worth of gray hair and a face lined with stress was the result of his Vessel’s incessant troublemaking. “Better that conspiratorial energy be spent communing with your Patrons.”
“We will convene in the courtyard shortly,” Hathor’s magic jolted Elidi from her paralysis, but before his friend could run, her Master held her hostage by one of her long, mahogany braids.
“Stupid birds,” she murmured just before Hathor yanked her towards the door.
Erebus responded with a long croak.
Koray drifted forward to her Master, and took the woman’s hands in her own. “Did you go easy on us? That felt too easy to unbind.”
Caligo smiled warmly at her Vessel as she linked their arms.“It is a product of your hard work. All those hours spent in the books–” They sauntered through the door and out into the hall.
Mentia’s dark eyes closed as he listened to the sound of their footfalls as they faded into the Sanctum. The echo of Koray’s shut door reverberated down the hall, and his Master smirked. “I did not expect such delightful chaos this morning. It has been quite some time since you children have tried to link your magic to outwit us.”
Tynan smiled at the sudden warmth in his Master’s tone. While Mentia was stern with most, after the first five years of his training, he had allowed Tynan to crack away at his facade until he was reduced to the amused old man before him. “Children?” he stated, “I’m close to my twenties, Mentia. Hardly a child anymore.”
“Says the Shade who was just trying to get out of morning meditation,” Mentia laughed. “You have changed in many ways, but your mischief keeps your darkness twinkling.” Tynan was about to argue, when Mentia reached out with his withered thumbs to trace along the dark stains beneath his eyes. “Did we interrupt your drifting?”
He pulled the old man’s calloused thumbs away from his cheeks. “No, Elidi’s knocking did.” He turned towards his small wardrobe to retrieve a fresh tunic. He moved to grab something thick to protect him from the chill, but remembered, with an annoyed sigh, that he would be in the same room as an agitated Elidi, and opted for an old, comfortable tunic. Tynan brushed the sand off of his pajama pants.
“Is there a reason you have been staying in Koray’s chambers? Is your own bed not to your liking?”
“I was just in my bed, Master.” He turned to the small mirror that hung from the wardrobe and was displeased to find sand in his hair as well. “She’s had trouble sleeping. I am there on her request, for assurance and companionship.”
Mentia tilted his head in question. “Is she not assured by her years of safety within Sanctum? Or that wolf of hers?”
He shrugged. “I’ve said as much, but she still seeks me out occasionally, and more so lately. Perhaps she is still bouncing back from the trip to Ardeat.” A week in the desert had not been so detrimental to him, given the shade cast by buildings, and the vague darkness of their nights, but she’d had limited time in her element. “Like night to day, it will pass. Give her time.”
His Master chuckled to himself as he turned towards the door, his cane clicking with each step he took. “I am assured, Shade.” Tynan knew the second his Master’s severe facade snapped back into place. His tone was low and demanding as he took in his Vessel andsaid, “To the courtyard then.”