Gerard’s paddle dug into the churning water as the silver light of Lhani’s scrying sparkled along its surface.

I will watch them as if they were my own, Maggie.

He’d said the words so recently. Yet so much had changed. In the moment, he’d meant it as a promise to protect his friend’s children from a storm. In the hours since, the words had twisted into something that meant so much more. He truly had treated Lhani, Arrad, and Tomyko as if they were his own children. Which meant allowing them to make decisions. To do what they felt was right.

When the storm passes we'll come back.

Had the storm passed? They had avoided it. Yet it still seethed in their wake as they placed themselves directly in its path. This storm would rage far longer than he’d thought at first. But to turn back now? He’d be returning broken shells of her children to Maggie. Turning back would shatter their senses of self worth. They’d decided their course. All he could do was see them safely through.

The canoe shuddered and Gerard knew something had happened. He saw Lhani shaking her head, mouth open to the sky as wide as it could go, fists clenched, and lips trembling. Gerard waited for her to speak, but she did not. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth again. Glim covered his ears with his hands and shrank down in the floor of the canoe, covering his head as if to escape some great ruckus. Lhani scuttled into the corner of the canoe and curled herself into a ball, mouth moving in silent screams.

Gerard muttered to himself.

“This is not good.”

He scanned the river ahead, saw no rocks, and took a risk. He gripped Lhani by her shoulders and willed her to look at him. When she finally did so, head lolling as her willpower drained, Gerard felt something tear at his heart. Lhani's familiar hazel eyes, typically so carefree, had widened in terror. Gerard smoothed her dark brown hair away from her brow and stifled a frown at the shock of white creeping into it.

“Lhani. Lhani! I will keep you safe. But I must steer this canoe so we don't run aground.” She nodded and Gerard went back to navigating the rapids.

“This is not good,” Gerard said again. But no one was there to listen. No one could help him.

⋅.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱ⋅.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅

Glim sat helplessly watching Lhani.

All of us, lost.

No matter where he went, no matter what he did, it hardly mattered. Glim felt consumed by Certe’s sorrow. Like shadow engulfs light, the certainty of inevitability weighed his every step.

All of us, lost, if you do not flee now.

Glim remembered the fallen. Red against white. He recalled riding a horse, which moved him into the warmth of Summerling Ridge.

Grey death next to frozen water.

This water, in fact, now unfrozen. He’d somehow returned to the very place where he’d killed so many. Why? How?

Glim watched the girl clamor around in the canoe, screaming. Somehow, she had pierced his lethargy. She’d reminded him that the rest of Æronthrall existed, and might need help. For that reason alone, Glim felt gratitude towards Lhani.

Screaming. He’d heard it.

She’d voiced it.

She'd settled now, and the alchemist had left her alone, probably thinking that Lhani was fine for the moment.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Glim knew better. This woman was not, and would not ever, be fine again.

He took her hand. Of every living person in the entire world, only she could hear his voice. Or lack of it.

“Lhani. I would have done anything to spare you that vision. I see my own madness reflected in your eyes.”

Glim massaged Lhani's hand in his, as if willing warmth into her limbs. But he had no warmth of his own to give. Panic clamped around his heart, as it had for days. By the look in her eyes, Glim knew that Lhani, at last, fully understood him.

“No, no... No... No...” She rocked back and forth, gripping her knees with one hand.

“Reason will return to you, Lhani. Even now I have moments of clarity. Your name is so beautiful. Perhaps you can tell me its story sometime.”

Lhani moaned, though no one heard it but him. “We are lost. We are... all of us... lost.”

Visions of people freezing into icicles and shattering sprang into his mind. The end of Æronthrall seemed so... quiet. Glim chased the image away.

“At least I'll have someone to talk to before the end.”

This last observation was the only thing that got through to her. Lhani stopped rocking and looked into his eyes. She flinched at the sight of his silver eye. He knew that reaction very well by now. Glim tried not to let it bother him, but it stung him nevertheless. Lhani softened.

“Glim. At last we can speak.”

“I don't think 'speaking' is what we're doing, but I'll take it.” Indeed, their lips had not moved a single time during this exchange. But it wasn't a remnant of their mental link. Glim could not hear all of her thoughts. Only the ones she expressed to him.

“Your essentiæ are so strong! Can you control them?”

“A little. It is like looking the wrong way through a telescope. I have to think very small.”

“How did this happen?”

“Perhaps it was the beacons in the... never mind, it doesn't matter.” He shifted his words when he saw horror dawn in her face at the memory of the giant's cavern. “So, Lhani... what is your favorite taste?”

Surely Lhani would be familiar with this question. Part of a restoration ritual taught to all who ply. Elementary level, but effective nevertheless. And a non-threatening way to take her mind off of... stop! don't think of it!

His mind conjured a perfect recollection of his townspeople flung about like dandelion seeds in a breeze. Spatters of red staining the snow. The sky splitting as Algidon's maw opened to cry out at him.

Glim found it hard to swallow. He pushed his panic aside as Lhani replied.

“I appreciate your efforts to distract me, but is this the best time for the restoration ritual?”

Anger flared inside of Glim. He glared at the girl in front of him. So attractive, with her light brown skin and perfect white teeth, but her naïveté annoyed him. Images of his slain friends and father asserted themselves again. He pushed them aside.

“There is no safety. My fortress has been destroyed and everyone I know is dead. That story will repeat itself, over and over again, across all the continents. You have crippled your mind merely to learn the horror that lurks in mine. We head to that very thing now, Algidon himself, with our only Æolist drained, and the rest of our party as innocent as kittens. So yes, Lhani. Now is the best time for that.” He sensed the hardness in his own face and the grim line of his mouth, but he didn't care.

“My... my favorite taste is blackberries. When they are just ripe enough to fall from the bush. I can never tell at first whether the berry will be tart or sweet. It takes a few seconds for my tongue to wrestle with the flavors and decide. And yours?”

“I would tell you, but I don't want to freeze the river again. I have enough essentiæ for now. And what is your favorite feeling?”

“Wind on my face! It picks up my hair and sends hints of faraway lands to my senses. The wind invigorates me!”

A breeze tossed her hair across her face. Lhani laughed. Glim soared inside at the sound.

“I won't play along, but if anyone ever asks me what my favorite sound is... at the moment, I can't think of anything better than the sound of you laughing just now.”

He held Lhani’s hand until her pulse beat steady and true. Her fractured breath found a rhythm, and her trembling settled. She’d survive this, just as he had. She fell asleep, which lightened his heart.

Glim crawled to the stern of the canoe to give Gerard a break. The man fell gratefully into slumber as soon as Glim took the oar from his hand.

Glim paddled and watched the trees drift past them in the dark. Whatever lay in wait for them in Hammerfall, Master Willow had been keen to find it. Glim would be ready.