Like therapy, relationships, or a good game of backgammon, accessing a spirit’s memories was a two-way street. Unfortunately, Geoffrey was not really in a trusting mood right now, to say the least. Ordinarily, this would have made things difficult. When uncooperative spirits refused to bring up certain issues or memories, I had to either set the matter aside or force my way into their psyche—and the latter could cause damage. However, Geoffrey’s regrets and pain were prominent in his mind; if anything, he couldn’t stop himself from remembering them. He was torturing himself, and the tumult in his heart made it quite easy to access his depths.

I felt I owed it to him to try to help him deal with these issues.

It was my job, after all—both as a doctor, and as a wyrm.

I barely had to do anything to coax out Geoffrey’s memories. They sprouted up like kudzu. As far as personalities went, Geoffrey’s was definitely on the obsessive side.

I gathered the ones I needed from him and from Yuta, and then plotted the course we would take through them.

Hopefully, this treatment plan would yield results.

I opened the first memory I’d plucked from Geoffrey’s soul. It was a beautiful landscape, worthy of a master painter. The colors were intense—vivid—with an immensity to them that made the moment feel truly lived.

There was green below, and blue above; trees and hills, and clouds and sky.

I pooled our emotions. We all felt Geoffrey’s deep nostalgia.

Wind swept through the hills; grass rustled in the breeze. Butterflies blew from tree to tree. Farmlands stretched out down below, their golden fields rich with summer’s grains.

Up atop the hill, Geoffrey sat with his younger brother Harmon in the shadow of a great cypress tree. The tree stood on a patch of moist earth, covered more by shed needles than grass. Dried sap trickled down the cypress’ trunk, redolent with a cozy tartness. The boys wore tunics—one blue, one brown—along with simple pants and comfortable boots made from a fine, supple leather. Looping, curling patterns were embroidered on their tunics’ shoulders, rendered in gold-colored thread, unlike anything a peasant could wear.

The four of us stood off to the side, watching the boys talk.

“What is this?” Geoffrey demanded, in the now. “What are you doing?”

“Sharing,” I said. “These are your memories, Geoffrey. We’re experiencing them together.”

“Why?” he demanded.

I turned to him and Yuta. “To get you two to understand each other, and to get you to trust me.” I tilted my head at Geoffrey along with the “you”.

Geoffrey stared at me in no small amount of shock, only to gasp softly as his gaze drifted over to his little brother.

“H-Harmon?” he said, in a plaintive tone.

Harmon—the boy in the blue tunic—stretched his arms and yawned.

Little Geoffrey rubbed his brother’s head.

“Hey!” Harmon said, squirming about, trying to shove Geoffrey off.

Little Geoffrey grinned. “I gotta wake you up, Harmon. It’s midday and you’re still yawning. That’s ridiculous!”

“You know I have trouble falling asleep,” Harmon replied.

Geoffrey flexed his arms, showing off his muscles. “If you spent more time sparring with Karrick and me, you’d have no trouble falling asleep!”

A voice called from over the hill. “Your lordships! Your lordships!”

Both boys turned to look.

It was Jennifer. The servant girl came running over the hill, her dainty shoes pressing down onto the grass. She carried a basket of mushrooms in her arm, which rubbed against her dirndl’s long blue skirt as it jostled about.

She slowed as she approached, and then stopped, panting for breath. “There you are!” she said.

Younger than Geoffrey but older than Harmon, Jennifer was the daughter of their estate’s head chef. Little Geoffrey thought she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Her eyes were like gems in reflecting pools.

“What are you doing out here, your Lordships?” she asked. “Sir Karrick has been looking everywhere for you!”

Harmon gave her a timid glance. “Well, what are you doing here?”

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Jennifer gestured at the mushrooms in the wicker basket. “Looking for mushrooms,” she said. “Father wants to make a sauce of them with some wine.”

“Is that all?” Geoffrey asked.

“I was also looking for you two,” she answered.

“Well,” Little Geoffrey said, “I found him first.” He grinned, and then glanced at his brother. “Harmon was watching the birds. Or maybe he was talking to the trees, like one of those old witches?”

“Geoffrey, please…” Harmon whined. He lowered his head, evasive and downtrodden.

“Harmon of House Athelmarch of Seasweep,” Geoffrey teased, “show some backbone. There’s a beautiful maiden standing right there.” He pointed at Jennifer, who curtsied in acknowledgement.

“You honor me with your praise, your Lordship,” she said.

“It’s like father says,” Geoffrey continued, “an aristocrat ought to shine like the Sun. Girls aren’t going to notice you if you don’t shine.”

But Harmon kept his gaze averted.

“He’s plenty handsome already,” Jennifer said.

Harmon shivered, his cheeks flushed in the most extraordinary shade of red.

Meanwhile, Geoffrey scowled. For the first time in his life, he worried he might have to compete for Jennifer’s attention.

Not wanting to do that, nor wanting to drag out the awkward conversation any longer, Geoffrey stood up and stretched his limb.

“Well, come on Har,” he said. “Sir Karrick must be very peeved if he sent Jennifer to look for us. We have sparring sessions. He brought his son Yoric to duel you.”

Finally raising his head, Harmon looked his brother in the eyes. “I don’t want to fight Yoric.”

Geoffrey rolled his eyes. “It’s not a fight. It’s training. No one gets killed in training.”

“I don’t like the way I feel, when I fight them.” Harmon said. “ I…” He stammered. “I don’t want Yorric to get hurt. It… it keeps me up at night,” he admitted. “I’d rather we be… well…” He lowered his head again. “…friends.”

“People get hurt in battle, Harmon,” Geoffrey said, trying to be as kind as he could. “They die. That’s the way of the world.”

Harmon got up and pushed off the tree;s trunk. He walked away.

“Harmon?” Geoffrey said. “Harmon!”

Harmon kept walking, toward Athelmarch Castle’s shadow.

“He was always so sensitive,” Geoffrey said, in the now. “My brother was cut from a different cloth than the rest of us. A gentle man in an ungentle time.” He smiled wistfully. “But he had greatness in him.” Geoffrey turned to me. “He taught himself to read, you know. He memorized the opening of the Words of the Witnesses, and used it to learn his letters.”

I had to exert some force to actively suppress the rage in the two men’s hearts. However, it helped that the memory was there. That made it easier. The memory gave off strong emotions, which easily wrapped around Yuta and Geoffrey’s thoughts, distracting them from their quarrel.

“He does not have a warrior’s build,” Yuta said.

“No, he didn’t,” Geoffrey said, “and in better times, it wouldn’t have mattered. But these were not better times.”

I sensed Geoffrey’s wistful mood go belly up as he turned to glare at Yuta. “Thanks to you and your kind, Mewnee, times were hard. Cruel.”

Stop it, Geoffrey, I thought.

The effect was immediate. Geoffrey’s focus turned inward once more.

He shook his head and sighed. “It would have been difficult no matter who I was. But my brother and I were born to a blighted house. For all my ancestor’s sins, we might as well have been demon-spawn, ourselves. We were not permitted to receive Unction in public. And when my father died, I…” But Geoffrey cut himself off.

He stared at me.

I could feel his soul writhing at my grip on its memories.

“No.” Geoffrey blinked and shook his head. “Wh—… why am I sharing this with you? You don’t deserve to know my pain!”

“Why not?” I asked. “Before, you said Yuta didn’t know your pain. Wouldn’t you want him to know?”

“Enough of this!” Geoffrey yelled. “I will not have sympathy for my brother’s killers. They are inhuman beasts, down to the last!”

And suddenly, things got a lot more difficult. Geoffrey’s emotions burned in my grasp. They stabbed me like thorns, resentful of being held.

“Mewnees don’t deserve to know my pain,” Geoffrey said. “They will know my wrath, and it will be the last thing they ever know.”

“No wonder your House is cursed,” Yuta said, grimly. “Your hearts are as black as coal.”

Geoffrey was the first to strike. He tried to tackle Yuta and topple him onto the grass, but I bound Geoffrey’s limbs with a forceful thought.

Someone had to be the grown-up in this situation.

“Act like a man, Geoffrey,” I said, somberly. “Use your words, not your fists.”

Gritting his teeth, Geoffrey hissed at me. “I am a better man than you will ever be.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

Geoffrey lowered his head. “That winter,” he said, “my father dropped dead, and suddenly, all his responsibilities were thrust onto me. I was young and inexperienced,” he shook his head, “but it made no difference.” He swallowed hard, and then turned away as I released my hold on him.

“I wouldn’t have endured without Harmon. We helped each other. We looked out for each other, and for our subjects. I cared for them. I cared for him. Of the two of us, Harmon was always the more intelligent. He helped me plan and decide. It fell to me to take action and sway the people. It was Harmon’s idea to drain the swamps. He said it would put an end to miasma and pestilence, and he was right. He tended to Mother as her mind slipped away. My heart was not strong enough to face her, and none of the servants had the authority to give her orders. People depended on me! They depended on both of us!”

I looked Geoffrey in the eyes. “You’re not the only person who’s had responsibility thrust upon him before he was ready,” I said.

Then I put my hand on Yuta’s shoulder, and the scene changed.

We stood in a one-room wooden shack, roofed in thatch and dried palm leaves. Herbs hung from the wall beside the bed, left out to dry. Salted sea bass smoked on a spit above the fire pit outdoors. A depression in the middle of the shack held a hollowed stone bowl, filled with ash and dead embers.

The shack was cramped and destitute. The roof leaked when the rains came—and they came often. It had only one window, covered by a pair of flimsy shutters too water-warped to properly close. By all accounts, it should have been a place of misery, and yet, as we stood there, we felt nothing but serenity and contentment.

Turning my head, I looked through the lone window and beheld a tropical paradise. Palm trees swayed beneath the unbounded sky. The sea was a turquoise jewel, lapping gently at the black-sand beach. Yuta’s memory of himself sat inside the shack, at the rickety table he’d carved by hand. His wife, Mayumi, sat beside him, leaning into him tenderly as they both stared in wonder at the treasure Mayumi held, swaddled, in her arms.

Uzé.

Their son.

Yuta’s spirit stood beside me. I didn’t need to look at him to know that he was crying. We all were. Our chests burned with the love Yuta felt for his wife and his newborn son. That love turned our thoughts to our own children. Me, to Jules, Rale, and Rayph; Geoffrey, to his only child, his daughter, Elaine.

“Look at that, Count Athelmarch,” Yuta said, pointing at his past. “Look at that and tell me that I am inhuman.”

Geoffrey averted his eyes. “Children are children,” he said, softly. “That never changes. But it doesn’t redeem you. It doesn’t redeem your kind. It…” He shook his head, and then sighed in defeat. “It doesn’t redeem anyone.”

Yuta raised an eyebrow, confused. “What does redemption have to do with it?”

“Everything…” Geoffrey muttered.

Then time passed forward, and we found ourselves elsewhere.