Their fight raged no more. He could feel the momentum turning. Each move and action a tiny twist backwards. A small slip. Ranvir needed time. A bit of room to reconstitute his position.
Sweeping away from another boulder, this one had been broken during a previous impact, the cleaving leaving a nauseatingly large edge. Granite flakes pelted his back and wings as the stone impacted the ground.
Loce, he called, dragging the swarm around himself. A response thrummed through his body, dull and muted yet cutting through his attempts at drowning them out, anyway. A softening of his physique. Jelly in his knees.
Saleema, her sanity starting to come and go in waves, lunged toward him. Purple eyes burning like twin suns, rainbow light trailing behind her. If he pushed her too hard, calm would return to her features and she would reestablish control. Not only over herself, but the battlefield as well. The pillars would grow stronger, the boulders more accurate, and her attacks more vicious.
He danced on the knife’s point. Perching, like the vulture he in so many ways was, on the feather tip of her sanity. Now, as he swept power around him, he felt stirrings within her soul. The tapestry of her mind, illuminated within her spirit, shifting slowly back into place.
He reared back spiritually, winding up the power he needed. Blood sprayed high. The tip of Saleema’s weapon slashing into his hip. Pain flashed through Ranvir’s effort to suppress it. Breathing harshly, his resolve faltering, the mana dissipating.
Saleema’s blade came down to her side, the edge flickering and spitting as the warp-edge churned blood caught in its field into a fine mist. She was still grinning when he levered the remainder of his power, and pushed through the pain.
Once more, Saleema’s sight was gouged from her. Ranvir shivering from the sensation. He fled, diving into the near-lying forests within a cavern dug up by a furrow from one of her boulders.
Above him, Saleema’s mind roared to the forefront, slamming into lethal formation. She immediately reared back, the horror of the sensation attacking and overcoming her returning sanity. She fled, physically and spiritually. Ranvir closed his eyes, huddling in the dark cavern and clutching his hip.
He’d bought some time. His face set in a determined frown, he focused inward onto his spirit.
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Sansir lay in bed watching the darkly painted wall next to him. The colors leached by the night and refilled by the purple tint. Distantly, he heard one procession passing outside. Chants, cries, moans, and exultation. It seemed people didn’t know how to feel. Or perhaps they were feeling it all.
Grevor’s room wasn’t turned toward the current fighting. If he turned around, he wouldn’t see the pillars of light, even if the fight had remained close enough to be witnessed.
Yet, they were close enough for the pillars, hundreds of feet tall, to cast light on the dome. That light which touched the dome suffused the city. Splintering into thousands, spreading through every window and into every home. Even at the palace, in the tents, the light fell like a pall over the camps.
He wasn’t supposed to be sleeping in Grev’s manor, but they’d been sleeping in the tents with Ayvir and his monkey for days. Or getting as much sleep as they could. When the fighting ranged close, the sounds of combat transferred dull yet booming through the dome. When further away, other distractions plagued him.
Grev was a quiet and easy sleeper. All he needed was a soft place to put his head on and he’d be out in minutes. Ayvir was much the same, except for quiet. It was a trait of many soldiers Sansir had known. Somehow, the ability evaded him. So he’d been left in the tent, Ayvir’s noise, his monkey’s, Redpaw, quiet chattering and the heat.
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Three bodies put out quite a bit of heat at night, not enough to reasonably defeat the cold of winter, yet somehow their tent managed with ease. And with the heat came the smells. Sweat and general body odor didn’t bother him. Redpaw, though, smelled worse than a stable. Like a hundred animals’ concentrated stink trapped within a tiny creature no bigger than a baby.
Having walked the halls of the manor, even if only for long enough to get to the bedroom, Sansir wasn’t sure the trade was worth it. It smelled a thousand times better, but he had to look, to see the people. Men and women who understood to their bones that they couldn’t affect the events to come. They were suddenly face-to-face with the true meaning of tethered and the horrible power their mere existence held over others.
This effect was even more pronounced on the nobles, whose positions were normally protected by society and civilization. The raw potential of tethered having been minimized and pushed out of the way to the academy. Grev’s nephew had staggered past in a wide-eyed, pale-faced daze. Without ever noticing him. The servants had never held the illusion of power the same way nobles did, their fall had been… lesser in someway.
The door to Grev’s suite opened, follow by the slump of a jacket. Sansir listened quietly as Grevor made his way through the apartments, shedding clothes on the way. Finally, he appeared ghostly pale, white-eyes like lanterns dispelling the purple tint and casting Sansir in a new light.
He smiled as Grev crawled onto the bed, then him. He slumped on top, his weight pressing Sansir further into the mattress. “How did it go?” Sansir asked, reaching around to scratch Grev’s back.
The light-tethered groaned in delight and nuzzled in closer. “I talked with Es and Kirs. They are doing about as well as expected.”
Sansir let out a comforting sound from the depths of his throat.
“Ran into Baug on the way back.”
Sansir tensed as he hugged Grev closer. Grev’s brother was in many ways no better off than his son. “What did he say?”
“He wanted reassurances, mostly.” Grev’s tone suggested well what he’d thought of that.
“Your words didn’t go over well?” Sansir asked.
Grev shook his head. “Honestly, it’s not even him I’ve been thinking about.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Grev lifted his head, narrowing his white eyes at Sansir’s tone. “There’s a war going on.”
“A fight.”
Grev rolled his eyes and slumped back. “Still. Es and Kirs.”
Sansir slumped back in bed. “What about them?”
Grev raised onto his elbows to look Sansir in the eyes. “They couldn’t talk about what happened, and it tore them apart. It’s still tearing them apart.”
Sighing, Sansir sat up in the bed, letting the comforter fall to his waist. “You are walking around the subject as well, Grev.”
Grevor ran a hand over his face. “They lost a child and can’t talk about it. I…” he trailed off, then sat up as well. “I think for a while they could talk around the child, but…” he waved his hands anxiously, uncommon for Grevor. “It grew bigger the longer they went without acknowledging it. Eventually, every interaction was cast under the shade of that loss.”
Sansir worried at his lip, looking at his boyfriend. “Are you worried that is going to happen to us?”
Grevor shook his head. “Sansir, it might not be a dead child, but it’s been happening to us. Your father-“
“I get it,” Sansir said, cutting him off. Tension twisted like a venomous serpent in his stomach, fangs splayed, ready to bite. He ran a hand over his mouth. “I won’t make an attempt on Asmar’s life and I’ll leave the Sleeping Sons.”
Grev nodded. “Now that the Purists are gone, I don’t need to spend so much time around Baug and the family. We’ll have more time.”
“Once Saleema’s dealt with.”
A gloom settled on the room at Sansir’s last words. Grevor’s eyes darkened as he let go of his tether. “Once Saleema’s dealt with.”
Then he suddenly straightened. “There is something I have prepared.”
Sansir followed him out of the bedroom into the living room, where Grev had dropped his jacket on the couch. He noticed the slight hesitation in his boyfriend’s steps, the shake in his hand as he dug through the pockets.
“Grev…”
The blond tethered looked up, then frowned in the dark. He clutched a small dark box in one hand, but it seemed he’d forgotten what he was about. “The lights.” He whispered, voice shaking slightly.
Sansir blinked and looked around. The room hadn’t only seemed to grow dimmer, the purple cast to everything was gone. He licked his lips and extended his tether-sense, even knowing he couldn’t reach far enough to find them. Grev reached past him, his sense sharper and stronger.
Then, distantly, they heard cries and weeping. “The processions?” Sansir asked.
“I don’t know.” He stared out the dark window. “Dovar’s scouting the fight with Amalia and Pashar. They’ll know what’s happened.”
Sansir said nothing, already heading into the bedroom to get dressed. Grev waited for him in the living room in his old clothes. Sansir took his hand, which still clutched the box. “After Saleema,” he said, kissing him.
“Immediately,” Grev demanded.