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Chapter 2: Coming Home

Kade just keeps staring at me, his disbelief slowly giving way to joy. He pulls me back into another tight hug I probably couldn’t have escaped from if my life depended on it. The quietest person I’d ever known was suddenly screaming in my rather sensitive ear, “I’m so glad you’re alive! I knew you’d find your way back to us, brother! I never lost hope!”

I pat his back, completely dazed. He’s speaking words I know, but they’re not clicking. “I’m happy to see you too, but it can’t have been a year. That’s… not possible…”

“You there!”

I’m startled as a group of palace guards approaches, their hands on the hilts of their swords. Bloody hell, this was just not my day. “Who are you, and why are you trespassing on royal grounds?” The woman addressing me is dark-skinned with a poof of similarly colored hair.

Kade’s arms tighten around my neck, and, pathetically, I did need the support the armor was hiding as I tremble and fight to rise slowly, steadily, to my feet. It was also just nice that he was finally here, in reality, as I gently ease him away, though he only drops one arm and keeps his other hand tight enough on my shoulder that he’s probably going to hurt his hand as I give the guard a level look.

“I’m the one who defeated the Dreadlord,” I remind them calmly, still feeling an itching in my heart as I remember the light leaving Nia’s eyes every time I have to acknowledge it.

“You’re the Hero of Whitetower?” She asks in amazement… like she’s meeting a living legend…

I stare at her in shock, and for the first time, I start to believe Kade. How could she not recognize me from the ceremony days ago where everyone had been in attendance…

“I’m so sorry!” She says hastily, her smile bright as she stares at my strange, ghastly armor, her eyes flickering between me and Kade eagerly. “Please forgive me for my insolence. It’s such an honor to meet you!”

“Right, yeah,” I struggle to smile at her. “Nothing to forgive, you were just doing your job.”

The guards bow deeply as they move back in unison, giving us space. “Of course. You must have many important things to do. We won’t keep you!”

As more people begin to gather around, attracted by the commotion, Kade takes my elbow and pulls me away. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

I follow him in a blind daze as he leads me expertly through the castle gardens. I gaze around the warm, cheery space, my heart frozen in ice as I recall the Ashen soldiers descending here.

Kade knows it too, turning back, fear and relief still at war in his eyes as he grabs my shoulders again. “Are you okay?”

I mean to answer, but all that comes out is a painful croak. My throat is so dry it cracks. Kade winces in sympathy and leads me over to a bird fountain, and I scoop up the crystal clear, pristine water without hesitation, drinking my fill until my gloves are scraping the bottom.

Kade watches me with such pity in his eyes as I brush my fingers over my still dry lips. “Now, start from the beginning. What do you remember?”

“That I didn’t used to be so much taller than you,” I whisper into the dregs before turning slowly back to face him. I still remember bickering in our youth, a race, a contest to stand taller than the other but neither of us ever quite managed it, that is, until he went off to the Shadow Realm without me. Upon rescuing him, I found I’d finally gained a whole several inches.

Now it was twice that.

It was disorienting, terrifying. I sat down on the stone bench, my hand brushing absently at the slight crack in the marble from a blow I’d once avoided. “I, I remember being here with everyone when a portal opened and we were attacked. I remember passing out as I was taken away. And then it was just… nightmares. A lot of them, crazy, horrible stuff. I woke up strapped to a table in the Shadow Realm, and they took me to see Valax.”

“Who?” Kade frowns, sitting down next to me. He can’t stop watching me. I know the feeling.

“The woman who kidnapped me, that’s her name. I managed to escape her, just barely, and made my way back here.” I gesture vaguely to my outfit, and he nods without interruption. “It felt like it had only been a day or so, tops…” but that wasn’t really true, was it. I woke up with the deep-rooted knowledge something was wrong and had been too afraid to admit it.

Kade’s still looking at me so anxiously, his hand strained white around me so that I’m beginning to be glad for the armor. “Well, it definitely was more than a day! I wonder why it felt so different to you.”

“The experiments, I assume,” I whisper, hating to watch my brother’s face grow in horror, but I’ve never lied to him. I wasn’t going to start now. “She only talked about them a bit, but she said it had taken her a long time to, to- it was probably easier to keep me unconscious while she figured out—”

“While she what Syrum?” He frowns at me with something burning in him. I’d never seen my brother so angry.

“She wanted my blood. I think she’d been taking it while I was out,” I can’t rub at my wrist where the most recent cut had been, not with him holding it steady, but my hands tremble with the urge to do so. “I don’t think it was working while I was out though, for some reason? Gods know what else she was doing, trying to figure out how to use me as a realm-walker, really. She wants to bring an army here, Kade. Worse than the Dreadlord…”

Kade taps his chin in thought with his other hand, his eyes darting away, and I take the chance, free from his adamant brown eyes finally releasing me, to take a good, long look at him. He’s almost the same. There are no longer any traces of the wounds he’d suffered at the hands of the Shadow Court. I let out a relieved sigh to see he’s been no worse for wear in the aftermath of my being ripped away this time.

There’s exhaustion in him though, in every line of his face. There are rough patches of scruff across his cheeks. He’d always wanted to grow a beard, but he kept complaining it itched and never bothered to go through with it… but now one is clearly starting to grow in. It’s uneven and unkempt.

He turns back and gives me an awkward smile. “What are you looking at me like that for?”

“You healed up okay?” I ask, my heart trembling uncontrollably. “You were really messed up, even after that greendrake scale. The Shadow Court didn’t leave any lasting damage, did they?” I’d seen him walking me here without issue, which was a relief all its own. I still gently touch his eye, having been worried for a minute he might lose it… he’d looked so awful…

He rolls his eyes at me! “Nah, it took a few weeks for all my injuries to fully heal, but now my scars have nearly faded.” He shrugs. He’d never shown me them all to begin with, trying to be brave, insisting I wait outside while the healers from the Temple mended his injuries with Nia… the ones too dark in magic for Mal’s little experimental potion to heal. He’d complained I babied him enough in Riverbend and was putting his foot down at last.

Guess he got his wish about that.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner,” I choke out, something I kept meaning to say, before, but he’d never let me finish. Now, he isn’t getting a choice. Something else is bound to happen any second. “I tried, Kade, but I should have pushed harder, I should have never even made you go to that temple- I- maybe I could have gotten it done faster if I’d just—”

He throws his arms back around me, holding me tight. My apology vanishes with it as I hug him back. “Syrum, you came for me as soon as you could. I know that, I never blamed you.” He leans back with an exhausted sigh. “I’ll never regret seeing how happy you were, finally out in the world with your friends. What matters is that you’re back and we’re together again.”

“Good,” I struggle to manage it, but I smile at him all the same. “Soon, you’ll have suitors lining up just to get a look at your pretty face.” I poke him lightly in the nose.

“They’ll have to wait,” he snorts, batting me away. “My brother takes priority.”

“-OH, speaking of all that!” I yelp eagerly, looking around in surprise, still questioning why he brought me here. “Where is everyone? I want to get them caught up to speed on Valax.”

“That’s going to be difficult,” he sighs. My heart jolts painfully as I look back to see his uneasy frown.

“ Why ?!”

Kade runs a miserable hand through his hair, longer than he used to let it grow out, his eyes darting nervously around. But we’ve always shared that trait of brutal honesty. “After you vanished, we spent ages trying to figure out how to reopen it and rescue you. When that didn’t work, we knew we had to look elsewhere for answers. I got a job in the Royal Archives… the others, well, they followed their own paths.”

I struggle to wrap my mind around what he’s saying, again. I’ve never had to pummel my brain so hard in my life just to keep up with Kade, and he practically speaks another language when he gets going on some of his books. “But, you know where they are, right? They're all okay!?”

“Mostly…” he bites his lip hard, apology clear in his eyes. He gives my arm another squeeze as he whispers, “we, haven’t heard from Imtura in months.”

“Wha—” No no no. His words batter the inside of my brain stronger than any storm could manage. I’d- I was just there, right there with her…

“Then I’ll find her,” I murmur, struggling to swallow, but damn it all, I’d grow gills and search the bottom of the ocean and the top of every mountain until I did. No way had she just died, not after everything… It’s not a pleasant sensation as I gasp and look away, realizing this is just a hint of the worry that’s been consuming him all this time, and all too familiar to me after the months I’d spent thinking Kade was dead or worse… gods, would it ever end…

Then, you take revenge. Sometimes, that’s the best option you get… my heart stutters in my chest at the advice she’d once given me about Kade’s demise.

It was one I would follow through. Until the end.

Come back to me… She’d been so desperate. She’d never begged me for anything. That had only been a dream, but well, I was starting to wonder…

The news that they weren’t all just waiting in a room over shouldn’t have surprised me. I’d always known our party had a time limit, we all had lives to get back to… but it still hurt. A year…

“What about Threep and Loola?” I ask distractedly. They were nespers, but mostly just cats with bat wings. Who could talk. Surely he couldn’t give me bad news about them, and they were supposedly planning to live around the castle last I heard anyways.

And as I ask, the door swings open, and two attendants step into the room, each one carrying a nesper on a cushioned pillow.

“Syrum! It really is you!” Loola springs forward in delight, fluttering her wings with such excitement she couldn’t stay aloft and had to finish at a run in a blur of pink and purple to leap into my lap, purring like a monster.

Threep turns to the attendants. “You may leave us,” he said with Tyril-worthy dignity.

The attendants bow and then vanish back through the door. Then he makes a wild sobbing noise and leaps on top of Loola to get to me, doing the same, nuzzling me tight.

“Oh, hey guys,” I say a little too wetly at just one thing being okay today, lovingly cuddling them as close as I can. The armor is clearly annoying them, they keep sniffing it and sneezing as they twine around me like very fuzzy snakes.

“I see you’re getting more spoiled by the day,” I chuckle at him, pressing him close so I can feel his purrs deep in my neck.

“And why shouldn’t I be?” He agrees, stretching languidly as he keeps smacking his paw against the skull. “A being of my legendary wisdom and brilliance?”

“Your legendary self has gotten a little round in the tummy,” I snicker, giving his hips a good, hard scratch and watching the jiggling.

“I deserve every indulgence after what you put me through,” he sniffs, head-butting me hard in the ear. “I leave your side for five minutes and you go and vanish on me!?”

“Never mind that,” Loola gasps, comfortable and planted on my lap as if never intending to move again while gazing up at me, her wings fluttering out of sight amid her massive fur as she tucks them in. It makes her exotic coloring somehow even more eye-catching without the appendages. “We’ve been so worried. Where have you been!?”

I sigh, telling myself I’d better get used to it as I try to relate as much of what transpired as I can, again, from the threat of the Ash Empire to my newfound realm-walker powers.

“And this Princess Valax,” Threep hunkers down low, finally settled in place on my shoulder once more, his nerves showing as his nails make tiny scraping noises against me. “She used your blood to open a portal?”

“I never saw it myself,” I say, shaking my head and frowning at the pit tightening in my gut, like my organs are still contracting in horror for me. “But that's what she said she was taking it for. She planned to kill me and open another one. Apparently, all of it will be large enough to move an army through.”

“And that voice in your head?” Kade adds. There’s not a hint of fear in him for that, his hand on me has finally relaxed the smallest bit. Not a trace of doubt in him.

“He called himself the Watcher,” I sigh. “He seemed to know all about realm-walkers, me. He’s the only reason I made it out of there alive.”

Threep flutters his wings anxiously. “I’ve never heard of a being by that name, nor of any Ash Empire.” He seems outraged at this lapse, and I smile and scratch his ears. He makes another sad ‘threep’ in the back of his throat as he leans into my touch.

“I’ve seen allusions to an empire rising from the ash in my readings on the Shadow Realm,” Kade nods slowly, “but I always thought it was a metaphor. And the scattered mentions of realm-walkers are shrouded in myth and rumor. Wholly unsubstantiated.”

“Miss our boring old life in Riverbend yet, Kade?” I ask in exhaustion.

The smile he gives me in return says it all. No matter the answer, here he is.

“The knowledge of them must be old,” Threep sniffs. “Or it was lost long before my time.”

“When I was in the dungeons,” Loola adds, shifting her weight anxiously, “I remember hearing the guards complaining about attacks from The Empire. I do wonder now if it’s the very same one.”

“But that would make them enemies of the Shadow Court,” Kade huffs. “Why would they come after you when you defeated them?”

“She said she could have defeated the Dreadlord herself if he’d been in a vessel,” I add with a fluttering heart. Valax never would have resurrected Nia after that task was done. “I believed her, it definitely didn’t seem like I’d done her a favor at any rate.”

“Perhaps the Shadow Court was just their competition,” Threep agrees with a groan, his head now resting on my cheek, trying to talk, purr, and not cry all at the same time. It’s very jumbled right next to my ear. “It seems they both wish to conquer the Light Realm.”

I huff at how much I’ve already been thrown back into dealing with all this, blind and ignorant as a kit. “Even if we don’t have the full idea, I don’t think ignoring the threat is an option. She seemed determined. They came after me once, and I have no doubt they’ll find me again. I’ll have to deal with this.”

I wish I’d seen what had happened to that bowl of blood as I escaped, to know how soon I have to worry about that threat as I glance anxiously around for some sign of how fast the process works.

“We will deal with them together, Syrum!” Kade snaps at once. He’s so rarely gotten angry with me, it throws me off greatly.

Threep bats my ear, claws retracted thankfully as he bites back a hiss. “When you know what you want to do, we’ll relay it to the king.”

I smile and brush a soothing hand down his back as I fight off the hopelessness already stewing inside that is held at bay as I look between the three of them. A year… and yet this hadn’t changed. “I just wish I knew where to find more information.”

Kade’s back to being anxious as well, shifting restlessly, hand back to squeezing tight around my wrist, but whatever he was battling with himself for, he said it. “There is one person who might know more, but you may not like it…”

“Who?” I ask in excitement.

“Aerin,” he reminds darkly.

“You’re right. I hate it.” I scowl right along with him. The thought had occurred to my fevered, panicked mind Tyril would try something similar, but I couldn’t imagine what I could ask him he hadn’t already that would be of any help.

Kade’s tone is as happy as he’d once been picking bog out of his toes as he tries to convince me to help him while I’d just laughed because I’d warned him. “He was in communication with the Shadow Court for a long time. If anyone in the Light Realm knew about this Ash Empire, it’d be him. I can take you to his cell if you’d like.”

I grumble something about removing his tongue, but nod. “We need to learn everything we can. Though I think he’ll be more willing to talk if it’s just me.”

“I’ll be right outside,” Kade agrees at once. “Don’t hesitate to shout if you need us.”

“If he tries anything, I will claw his face off,” Threep adds, and the deep hiss of anger he releases as he says it is no joke.

He rises, and I do as well, picking at the straps-

“Maybe keep the armor on,” Kade gently plucks my hand away. “I’d still say you’re heading into enemy territory a minute more. Even makes you a little intimidating?”

“Fair enough,” I sigh. Not like it was uncomfortable or anything. “Hey, what do you mean a little? I can be-”

Kade snorts out a laugh and pulls me away, but instead of down into dungeons, he leads me off towards the nearest table laden with food. I pluck up a few morsels in relief, focusing on the fruit and mushrooms which had always been my favorite, but really can’t stomach more than a few bites before my innards clenches in pain and I force myself to back away.

I didn’t bother to sit down, afraid I wouldn't get back up.

“Right,” Kade grumbles, “asleep…”

He’d always been the one on the receiving end of the sick bed and he was clearly struggling a bit now on what else to do as he glowered at me. I was entirely ignorant myself on if it was an elf thing, or I just had a robust sense of health. I gave him a smile as I gesture at him to lead the way. “Come on, let’s get this over with?”

He sighs in defeat and clearly won’t deny me on that at least for now as he leads me surprisingly leads me up the winding stairs to a prison tower. I’d thought a lot about what was to become of Aerin, and always pictured him in a nice, dank, dark cell below my feet. Not this. I think I’ve prepared myself, but then I catch a glimpse of the fallen prince through the small grate in the door.

“Wow Kade, he’s… where’s the Shadows?” Last time I’d seen him, he’d been a nightmare vision I’d had all too much recently. Twisted black veins, chalky dead skin, blackened eyes.

The kid in there looked, normal.

Though to call him a kid had never been fair. He was the same age as me, give or take a bit. He’d just originally been seen as a sweet, bookish, gullible person with a fast puppy crush on me that had clearly only grown stronger as I stood up to his abusive older brother Baldur. Whom Aerin had later joyfully murdered and then kidnapped Nia.

He reminded me a lot of Kade, back then, before all that awful shit happened. I’d wanted to protect him before I realized there was no helping the kind of person who’d already thrown their life away like that for the power and Shadows. I’d hoped the king would execute him any day now, before.

Apparently he’d just been given a life sentence instead. A pity, even if it was to my benefit now… but it was hard to put too much venom into that thought seeing him back to ‘normal’ instead of imagining him as a headless denizen of the Shadow Court...

“I don’t know,” Kade whispers back with his own troubled frown. “From what I’m told, one day his corruption was just, gone. He refuses to tell anyone how or why.”

I let out another long, exhausted sigh. “Because that bodes well.” The guards let me into Aerin’s cell, and his eyes widen as I step inside.

“Syrum?” His light brown eyes brighten at the sight of me. His black hair is a tangled, unkempt mess, his garb is plain green robes. The cell was neat, if bare, fresh hay in the corner, a bed with pressed sheets. An empty plate waiting by the door. He’d lost a lot of that childish roundness to his face, though it still lingered just a bit from his fathers genes, but I certainly couldn’t think of him as a kid again. His skin is even a tad darker from clearly being in his favorite spot. He was taller too, even sitting bored in the window gazing out before turning around.

It disgusts me, a lot. How well he was clearly doing.

He quickly schools his face, standing. “I wondered if you’d ever come and visit me. It certainly took you long enough.” His tone is, ironically, as arrogant as Baldur’s had been upon our first meeting. I wonder if he even realizes it.

“You weren’t worth my time before,” I respond in kind… it disturbs me more, in fact, how easily I match his disparaging, worthless tone. “You made your choices, and I made mine. I brought you here to face justice.”

He just smiles. It’s so cold in this warm cell he didn’t deserve. “And is that what this is?”

“You lost your crown and you’re going to rot in a cell for the rest of your life,” I snap. “That’s some measure of justice, at least.”

He just rolls his eyes. “So why are you troubling yourself with me now?”

Then, for the first time I realized something… he wasn’t surprised to see me. Not as much as he should be! Tyril, hadn’t come here… Aerin hadn’t even known I was gone. Perhaps the only person in the entire kingdom. Nobody had bothered to whisper to him the Hero of Morella had vanished. I have to clear my throat harshly. “Tell me everything you know about the Ash Empire,” I cross my arms, pleased at the way the metal of my suit slides like a blade across a whetstone.

Now he’s shocked at least. “How did you-” his mouth snaps shut, and he eyes me warily.

“So you do know about them,” I sneer.

“I suppose that depends on what you’ll do for me if I answer,” he grins pleasantly back.

“I won’t kill you!” I’m just barely not screaming, fingers flexing anxiously to strangle him. After what he’d done to Kade, how he’d ripped my heart away snatching up Nia for his demented plans! This was all his fault! I was only a realm-walker now because I’d saved her from the shit he’d caused!

“That would be of some small value,” he rolls his eyes.

“Very small. Smaller with every moment of time you waste,” I snap.

“Obviously,” he snorts, waving a flippant hand around, unimpressed. “Or you would have done that already. Next.”

“You owe me,” I manage through gritted teeth. “You're alive because of me, I spared your life and brought you back here!”

“Yes, to my luxurious jail cell,” he sneered right back.

“I should have left you there to die!” I agree. “Bet the mercy of the Shadow Court wouldn’t have been as pleasant, probably aren’t too pleased at you causing their masters death from your plan.” I was pretty sure they weren’t all dead too, hadn’t I once read somewhere there were twenty-something in total? I’d asked Tyril once how many he’d managed to hunt down, and he’d only said not many in that clipped way of his… but Aerin didn’t need to know that.

…”I did call it luxurious,” he finally admits with a mutter.

“So, talk,” I remind him as he just stands glowering at me.

He swallows something, probably several things Baldur had once called him, but finally shrugs and straightens back to his princely pride as he gives me a wide-eyed look like I’d been begging for a lecture. “Despite what the Temple of Light claims, it's the Ash Empire who rules over the Shadow Realm, not the Shadow Court. The Dreadlord was an Ashen noble once.”

His prattling little tone tapers off as he laughs darkly. “That’s exactly how you sounded when we first met,” he concludes with his sneer back in place. It might no longer be corrupted with death, but it was still a foul expression plenty on its own. “Gods I can’t believe how pathetic you were.”

I chew hard on the words to not slap back and remind him his pathetic little crush had seemed pretty real to me, but decide to brush past that. Let him have his little attitude as long as he kept answering.

Something of his tone drops to being more serious. An actual chill creeps down my spine as he continues meeting my eyes with cold delight. “But then he rose up against the Empress. From what I understand, she is not pleasant to work for. He tried to take control by establishing his own army.”

“The Shadow Court,” I sigh.

“Precisely,” he rolls his eyes at having to agree with me, arms crossed in a more undignified way as if this were already getting boring. “He thought that by conquering the Light Realm, he’d have the forces to defeat her. So he had the Court open a portal on the Field of Talenor. The takeover failed, of course.”

“Of course?” I echo, frowning. I still loathed completely how I was having to get this from him of all people.

“I can admit, the Dreadlord had his faults,” Aerin shrugs again, as if noting his drunk of a brother staggering about making a fool of himself. “Foremost, he underestimated the elves’ devotion to the Light. They would rather die than bow to Shadows. So they did, and they took him down with them. He lost his physical form. Though this convenient little fact allowed him to avoid the Empire’s detection and shield the rest of the Court.”

His reverent tone for that story truly would have fascinated me on a better day. Despite his own part to play on whose side of that war he’d been on, his tone was of wonder and joy for the elves, not the Shadow Court. “And that’s where you come in?” I shake my head in disgust at how he’d turned out yet again, when had it all really changed for him of whose side he was on?

“Perceptive as always, Syrum,” his tone, his eyes actually do light with a bit of mirth, apparently pleased with something. “I was to find him a vessel and open his way to the Light Realm. He intended to return to wipe out the Ash Empire, but, things didn’t quite turn out that way, did they?”

I swallow painful bile welling in my throat, my hands trembling as I hear Nia’s little gasp of relief, the darkness seeping out of her heart thanks to me… “no. They didn’t.”

Aerin nods carelessly. “With the Dreadlord dead, I imagine the Ash Empire is already hunting down the rest of the Shadow Court themselves.”

“Sounds like you chose the wrong side,” I smirk. “Seems to me like you’d have been better off throwing your lot in with that Ash Empire.” I’d have loved for Valax to drain him dry of all his blood instead at least. Then it would have been someone who deserved it.

“Perhaps,” he agrees with a shrug, making me frown suspiciously in surprise if he had any clue about that. I certainly wasn’t going to inform him. “But the Ashen refuse to work with Daywalkers. I couldn’t have allied with them even if I’d wanted to.”

“Then you might even enjoy it when the Empire comes for you next,” I smirk. “If they make it here, they’ll probably make special care in tracking down and eliminating you in your luxurious little cell.”

His confident expressions falters, true fear flashing across his once sweet brown eyes.

“So it would be in your best interest to tell me everything,” I prompt.

Aerin tries to hitch his scowl back in place. “What makes you think I haven’t?”

“Knowing you for more than five seconds,” I snort.

“Ouch,” he actually smiles like I was kidding.

I grit my teeth impatiently. I was exhausted, my friends needed me, and this was far past tedious. “I need to know everything if I’m going to protect the Light Realm. Which is where you live, in case you’ve forgotten.”

He looks away under the intensity of my gaze and runs a hand through his hair. “There’s only one other thing, and to be honest, I didn’t believe it until I saw it myself. The Empress has a terrible creature under her power. I caught a glimpse of it in the distance when I was bringing Nia to the Dreadlord.”

There was fear in his voice, but for this creature. The careless way he spoke Nia’s name made my vision go red for several agonizing seconds before I take a long, deep breath. “Which was,” I manage through gritted teeth.

“Massive,” there’s true dread in his voice as he tries not to shake. “Skeleton. A beast from nightmares.” A shudder runs through him, and for the first time, I notice just how tired he looks. Like he can barely keep himself upright.

A prickle stings the back of my neck… a nightmare I’d once had, and told myself couldn’t be real. I’d been proved wrong about that a lot today. “Thank you,” I grudgingly say, turning away. “For telling me what you know.” Gods Mrs. Foster owed me a lifetime supply of pears for my manners.

“There are few other demands upon my time,” Aerin says, back to his casual droll. I can now clearly hear it for the falsity it was. “And very little entertainment in this cell.”

I glance back to see him looking to the window that faces the street far, far below. I can hear people passing by beneath, flags and pennants snapping in the wind. The outside world is so close, yet barred away.

Good.

It was what Kade had woken up to for months, what I’d gotten a taste of. My one day of imprisonment had nearly broken my spirit on the spot. Maybe this was a better revenge than death.

He clears his throat awkwardly as I move to walk away and tries to catch my eye. “I don’t suppose, you might visit me again?”

To my shock, he sounds, hopeful, or sad. Some mingling of the two. Not like he’s trying to sound pitiful on purpose at any rate.

That little stroke of pity that had spared his life wells back up in me, but I don’t turn back around even as my eyes burn for a moment. He’d had a miserable life being abused here, to what extent I’d only gotten a glimpse of. He’d made some life-alteringly horrible choices… but gods I really only had an inkling of why he’d done what he did.

Maybe if we’d met sooner… I still remember his agonized face, like he’d been pleading with me to leap through time and save him. He’d just needed one good person in his life, one friend…

But that really wasn’t my problem anymore. He’d had his chance, and he’d spent it on Nia and Kade’s life.

“Don’t count on it,” I scoff.

“You’d leave me here to rot, then?” He doesn’t sound very surprised.

I whirl around so he can see the anger still bleeding off me, more powerful than whatever Valax had stolen. He staggers back right into the wall. “After everything you did! Absolutely. I don’t want to be near a traitor like you any longer than necessary!”

He swallows, and nods. “I see. Well then, I won’t keep you.” There is a strange acceptance in him.

I frown one last time and storm out, slamming the door behind me. The three of them instantly surround me in relief.

“Well, did he know anything?” Loola asks urgently.

“I got some stuff out of him,” I sigh with a shrug, relaying it all quickly as we walk away, Kade still leading.

“I’m glad it was worth the trip,” my brother sighs too, not sounding as pleased as he probably meant to. I can’t blame him. “You must be tired. I should let you get some rest.”

I very firmly push away how nice that sounded, in theory, as I force a laugh. I was still wired, a year's worth of adrenaline rush keeping me on my feet as I shake my head trying to chase away all that Aerin had caused in me. “Kade, I have spent nearly a year asleep. I’m not sure I could rest even if I tried.”

He gives me a very anxious look for that. “To be honest, I’m not quite ready to let you out of my sight anyway.” He hesitates, then smiles hopefully. “If you want, I can show you the Royal Archives? I’m not entirely done with my reorganizing, but I was in the middle of a particularly detailed treatise on rock wyrms when you arrived.”

A painful laugh bursts out of me as I hug him close. “Well, at least you made it to the R’s while I’ve been gone.”

“It’s only the D’s, actually,” he chuckles, throwing his arm easily over my shoulder. “The dragon section has been particularly troublesome. I nearly came to blows with the Head Archivist when he said I couldn’t put the kromp population reports in there.” He makes a derisive noise, and now he’s supporting my listing weight with ease as I keep snickering. “They’re reptiles who hoard shiny objects, and the females spit venom! So what if they’re nesper-sized? They’re dragons. Or at least dragon adjacent.”

On gods, I had missed him so fucking terribly. “Much as I would love to watch you nerd out over your beloved books, I’m not sure I could read a single sentence right now,” I manage around my brain still pinwheeling in my head as I try to straighten up.

“But it’s not just books!” Kade eagerly continues. “There are all sorts of magical items and relics. I can probably even lend one out to you if you think it’ll be useful.”

“And I’ll have food and wine brought down!” Threep promises.

Kade gives him a light frown. “Uhm, we really shouldn’t eat or drink in the Archives.”

“Nonsense, we’ll make a party of it!” Loola sniffs, prancing easily between our feet.

My heart aches and splinters… I want to get a move on, I need to find my friends… but like hells am I going to pass up a chance to finally see Kade in his element, happy, in the godsdamn Whitetower palace. He more than deserves it after everything he’s been through, and honestly, I’m too wired to even consider leaving his side right now as I struggle with exhaustion and terror, the feeling of eyes still upon me.

“Let’s go,” I grin, “lead the way brother.”

Kade does indeed, his confidence in this maze of a castle as mind-boggling as everything else since I’d woken up. I finally stop him to take off that armor, leaving it on a side table just like how I’d found it, unable to stand anything else between me and feeling free. I’m awake at last as I gasp and stretch out of it.

On my way, I pass a mirror and pause in horror as I catch sight of my reflection… I prod one of my sunken cheeks. My light blue skin has dulled a lot, down to a strange misshapen color like someone had snatched a plant from the sun but kept watering it until it drowned down to this, and that’s far from the worst of it. I’ve always been unreasonably thin. It was disheartening watching all the boys fill out and grow, even Kade despite his illnesses keeping him on the smaller end of the humans.

When I’d finally made it to Undermount, I saw it was far from unusual for elves, from what I could tell of them anyway under all their shiny clothes and armor, but my gangly physique would have fit in much better if I’d ever learned to walk like the species that seemed born with sticks up their asses.

Now, gods, even there I wouldn't pass in their halls for even a second as I sigh and brush at my hair impatiently before turning away, trying hard not to let my eyes linger. My hair had always been long, down past my shoulders, but I need to cut that crap off quick where it hangs past my elbows now in uncomfortable tangles.

Kade gives me a sympathetic smile of understanding as he leads me on. I imagine he’s gone through much the same horror at his reflection upon being back. It’s not something I’m proud to share, but as always, he understands me better than anyone as we walk on, down to the massive labyrinth-like shelves of the library. Books tower over, and glass cases line all the walls full of intriguing treasure and artifacts.

“Welcome to the Royal Archives!” He says, brimming with pure excitement as he snatches my wrist eagerly while waving his hand.

“I’m not even going to ask which aisle your bed is on,” I snort, watching him laugh shamelessly in delight. “Wow, I could spend days in here,” I admit in a daze. I’ve never really been a big reader, struggling a lot with sounding out the words far past the normal kids and getting impatient very fast with the tedious tasks, always preferring to have Kade read to me whenever it was available.

But I read a lot on my journey. Anything I could get my hands on to get a step closer to him, it made me feel closer to him. It finally forced my brain to overcome that stubborn little obstacle, at least from outright hating the task.

“I have spent days in here,” he laughs shamelessly. “And there’s still so many things I haven't even had time to do more than glance at.”

“I wouldn't even know where to start with all this,” I mutter with pride for him.

“I’m a fan of the myths and legends section,” he admits with a sly smile at me. “Can’t imagine why those stories always made me feel better.” My heart bubbles with warmth as I pull him closer again, and I smile as I really feel him against me now as he easily walks in step, still gesturing around. “There’s more here than I could read in a lifetime. Or a dozen,” he concludes with relish. “I don’t think anyone knows the full scope of this place.”

“How did you even find anything in here?” I gape. “I don’t care what organization system you claim, there must be fifty books over just the alphabet!”

“Seventeen actually, on each species,” his grin only widens. “That’s what the Archviest are for,” he reminds me, tapping his chest with nothing but fulfillment for his life in his voice.

“So you know where everything is?” I ask, agreeing with his obvious pride in himself.

“Well, not everything,” he admits with a jut of his lip in frustration. “But it’s an Arcthivest’s job to get familiar with all the texts so we can point people in the right direction.”

“That is a lot to remember,” I can’t stop my joy for him bubbling over as I ruffle his hair.

He laughs and doesn’t even brush me away. Gods, he really had missed me too. “There is a sorting system, but it’s so convoluted I still struggle with it. It’s easier to just memorize where the important stuff is. And make strong suggestions about where the new things should go,” he adds with a proud little smirk.

I envision Tyril getting a kick out of watching my brother square off and debate with those Archivists, and I laugh along.

He doesn’t manage to match my humor for long though, as he sighs and tightens his arm around me. “I thought for sure one of these books would give me a way to reach the Shadow Realm so we could rescue you,” he finishes, something truly painful wrenching out of the back of his throat.

“If it was that easy, everyone would do it,” I sigh. “Nia grew up around here, practically in this place too, didn’t she? Don’t blame yourself, Kade, the answers are never so easy.”

He means to argue—

“If you can’t blame me for getting trapped in that Shard while I fumbled on how to get you out, how can you blame yourself for not figuring this out?” I quickly remind him.

“True enough,” he grudgingly sighs. “Even Aerin needed the Shadow Court’s help to cross over, and he spent more time in this library than anyone.”

“So, he wasn’t a realm-walker?” I confirm in surprise.

“Not that I know. He used artifacts with Shadows embedded in them to cross back and forth,” Kade sighs.

I grunt and nod, but at least I don’t have to worry about The Watcher popping into his head next to tell him how to escape.

I vividly remember that stupid Solerne Head Light guy as I scowl around. “I bet the knowledge to cross is gone anyway,” I mutter, burning with anger for that whelp and everyone he’s aligned himself with. “The Shadow Court all but annihilated Elven society to free the Dreadlord from their realm. I can’t imagine the Temple of Light would want anyone else taking an interest in jumping ship.”

“You don’t mean—” Kade shakes his head. “You can’t mean they’d destroy all that knowledge.”

“Sorry, brother,” I sigh. “Not everyone’s going to use it for scholarly good like you.”

“They may have thought it was the only way to save what was left of the elven race,” Threep adds gently. “Or to save all of us.”

“And, to be fair,” I twist my hand this way and that in frustration through the air, much like Nia used to do when she sensed magic afoot. This kind was just much fouler. “No one successfully crossed over for two thousand years. I bet nobody’s made it back alive,” I sigh, running my hand over a few spines I pass along. The few who had might very well be in this room, along with four others, somewhere. “The Shadow Court were all powerful magic users, and they were still trapped in their realm for millennia. If they couldn't make it back…”

“Then it’s highly unlikely that anyone could,” he agrees, but the dead lilt to his voice from our time apart finally has a faint hint of hope to it again as he looks at me.

Threep stretches languidly in my arms, a familiar warm weight I keep as close as my brother through all this. “It might also be that crossing over itself is rare. It is not as if there are hundreds of Blades of Light lying around, just waiting to open portals.”

“For which we should all be very grateful,” I mutter bitterly. “That one Valax used up to get here was really broken then, I assume?” I’d seen the Shards shatter, but there had been a lot going on for my mind to really process.

“Yeah,” Kade nods miserably. “Trust me, given half a second, we all would have grabbed one to go after you otherwise.”

“I know,” I promise, hugging him back close.

“I wish I could be of more help,” Loola flutters her wings so sadly, “but I heard so little in the dungeons, and I was trapped there the whole time I was in the Shadow Realm.”

“It’s okay,” I promise her. “I’m just glad we were able to free you.”

“As am I,” she rubs hard against my leg again as she trots alongside me. Then, she purrs and flutters into my arms, making me oof at the extra weight, and I’m finally forced to release Kade as Threep shuffles over for my other arm, then she rears up and rubs her cheek against mine.

I smile and nuzzle them both with my nose. “Now, I believe you promised me there would be more here than books?” I remind them, my mind still buzzing and crackling around the edges, not quite sure I’m awake, but believing it the more I keep moving, walking, talking with them.

“Come on, the relics are in the back,” Kade clearly understands and leads me on through the rest of these catacombs up to a wall of glass cases, each full of strange artifacts. “These two can probably tell you more about all this than I can. I spend most of my time reading. And shelving.”

“Oh yes!” Loola agrees with a little flutter of her wings. “We can show you our favorites!”

“As long as we can have a snack afterwards,” Threep says with a pompous little tone back in his voice worthy of his name.

I shift my weight until they take the hint and hop onto each of my shoulders as I stop in front of a large case that holds, among other items, a plain gold mask, a statue of a human warrior, and a crystal ball. “Who’s the statue?” I ask, my eyes landing on the guy on a horse in solid gold with honest delight.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Threep agrees. “That is a human relic made of solid gold.”

I whistle in surprise, watching Kade nod too. “I don’t want to know how much that’s worth.”

“No, you don’t,” my brother agrees, “but I actually know about this one. It’s modeled after Katrina Vanu.”

“Vanu?” I ask. “Why do I know that name?”

“Because you actually listened to me,” he nods with pride.

“A famous warrior who led the armies of the Third King of Whitetower!” Loola gasps in delight. “Katrina drove out the marauding Orc Clans that had been pillaging the coast. She even went so far as to chase them out beyond the Shimmering Isles. But she was never seen again.”

“Legend says her spirit’s still out there in the tropics,” Kade concludes with that old spooky mysticism in his voice and a grin at me. “Trapped and restless, spirit wandering, searching… waiting for the end of time to complete herself…”

I laugh in delight. “That’s how you become a legend, I guess. And the crystal ball?” I ask eagerly next. Apparently the wrong option.

“Oh, that,” Threep sighs, ears and whiskers drooping.

“You don’t like that one,” I reasonably work out.

“He has no reason to,” Loola sighs. “They’re just decorative garbage if you ask me.”

“They were very popular among elves before the Great War,” Threep sniffs in disdain. “They would ask it questions and receive answers in the image inside.”

“It could tell the future?” I gape.

“Hardly,” Threep scoffs. “The answer was usually in the form of a cryptic phrase, such as ‘ask again later,’ or, ‘very doubtful.’ Plus, they were only right about fifty percent of the time.”

“Sounds to me like they should have been asking their wise little nespers then,” I grin, scratching his chin. “Remind me never to go near such a worthless item again.”

“Thank you!” He agrees, pressing himself in tight with deep pleasure.

My eyes fall on the last one on this display, the ornate golden mask that gives me unpleasant flashbacks to that Masquerade Ball I’d attended. “And that?”

“Ahh,” Threep seems much more likeable to this story. “That is quite interesting. It belonged to the founder of the Temple of Light.”

“It did?” I frown down at the creepy vibe it gives off. Somehow, even without eyes, it feels like it’s staring right at me. “But it’s so…”

“Plain?” Loola nods.

Not the word I was going to use, but sure, that too. “I figured it would be a bit more ornate, you know, studded with every precious gem under the sun and dribbling in fancy layers, not just plain gold,” I shrug, a bit hard to do with a weight on each. “Given what the Temple’s like nowadays.”

“This is on purpose,” Threep nods seriously. “She did not want people to view her as a living version of the Light. So she donned this simple mask to illustrate that she was only one small part of it, significant before the Light’s warmth and power.”

“Wow,” I smile, running my hand along the glass. “I bet Nia loved this one.”

“I’m sure she’s heard that story a dozen times,” Kade agrees with an affectionate laugh. Before I can move onto the next case to get a good look, something inside gives out a brilliant flash of light! “What the—” I yelp, pulling Kade close, whipping around with the ghost of adrenaline- And then full blown fear as an ominous clatter echoes behind me.

I spin in search of the sound and spot an old suit of armor rattling against the wall. It makes an eerie “eeerk,” noise as it begins to move. “What’s that doing in here?” I demand, wondering what I’d pissed off now. “It looks like it’s about to fall apart.”

“Not again,” Kade groans, looking to the ceiling in frustration. Before I can ask what he means, the armor takes a faltering step, then another, humming with energy, “hrrrrmm.”

“It’s walking?!” I demand.

“It’s charging!” Threep corrects. The nespers take off, and I sigh in relief as I roll my shoulders in determination.

“HRRRMMM!” It’s coming right towards me, anger radiating from its mask now, and I realize Threep is right. The armor advances on me menacingly, drawing an old sword that doesn’t look that intimidating, until it swings at my head. “Kade, stay behind me,” I snarl, ducking and pushing him back easily in one move as it continues humming. Even knowing there’s no one under that faceplate and old rust bucket, its presence is intimidating.

The sword whizzes over my head, and I hear panicked voices rise all around me as the sword crashes into one of the cases, shattering the glass everywhere. My brother’s hands fist up in my shirt for a moment before releasing me. “Syrum, go for its head!”

I nod as I move aside again, making it miss another swing, and then fling myself at the suit of armor, barely dodging yet another strike beneath the wild sword. I crash into it, slamming it roughly to the floor. The crash reverberates through me unpleasantly, and I’m shaking as my hands move to rip the helmet off. It begins to break and fall apart at the seams instantly with me upon it, popping off with ease but falling from my slack hands to roll and bounce across the floor into a wall as I gasp, my head swimming.

“What was that?!” I demand, clutching my temples as my head throbs and my empty stomach growls like an angry beast. Gods, but I am exhausted. If that thing had been anything more than a hunk of empty, slow metal, I would have been a goner.

Kade walks over to the glass case I’d been inspecting and points to a medallion inside with an apologetic frown. “The Animation Medallion. Every so often it goes haywire and animates something in the library, which invariably wreaks destruction.”

“It does this often?” I frown, forcing myself back to my feet with one last kick at the breastplate.

“Often enough,” he gives me a pitiful smile. “Usually it’s just armor, though one time it sent a whole stack of books flying at me.” His chuckle is old and sad. “The enchantment has a limited range of effect. Once the items get far enough away from the medallion, they fall inert. Usually I just get it to chase me away and it falls apart, but a time or two I’ve gotten its head to pop off sooner if I throw a heavy enough book at it.”

“That seems like a lot of potential chaos for a library,” I grumble, rubbing my forehead in frustration and holding onto a shelf for support.

He steps over and puts his arm back around me. I sigh in relief at his weight, his warmth, as he looks with interest between me and the relic. “Honestly, I’ve been meaning to talk to the Head Archivist about having it moved to the vault. If it’s locked away, whatever it wants to bring to life can march about to its heart’s content.” His smile grows as he leads me back over. “But now that I’m thinking about it…”

Kade reaches up to open the glass case and gently lifts the medallion from its display stand. “You’ll probably make better use of it wherever you’re going.”

Me, I notice as my heart sinks, watching it sway around. Not us. “Are you allowed to do that?” I ask rather than taking it, not meeting his eyes either. The medallion is a creepy thing, rings of gold with a white skeleton in the middle that has jade green gems for eyes. The sight makes my heart ache for my girlfriend, even if they’re several shades lighter than her skin. She probably would have loved this thing, bringing whatever she liked to life for a fight at the drop of a hat.

“Given the danger that is coming for the kingdom,” Kade says without a trace of regret, “I can certainly justify it. I’m technically a hero of the Realm too, you know. Just less flashy.”

“Still the brightest star in the sky to me, Kade,” I snort and force my fingers to move and take it. “Fat-headed, full of knowledge you are, over the strangest of shit.”

“Now wrap it in a cloth until you need it,” Kade instructs with a very old grin, his eyes looking a little misty at the reminder of that old joke. “If it can’t see things, it can’t get ideas.”

“You make it sound alive,” I sigh, quickly stuffing it into my pocket.

“Well, I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Kade shrugs without concern. “It’s the strangest Light magic I’ve ever seen. Just make sure you find something really good for it to animate. It gets bored.”

“You worry me, brother,” I chuckle for him. “You really do seem to have found your place here, Kade…” I say wistfully.

He smiles and stands a little taller again. “I still miss Riverbend sometimes,” he agrees softly. “I couldn’t make myself go back there though, never even considered it. I think I like the city better. There’s always something new to discover.”

“Do you think they ever wonder what happened to us?” I whisper, staring off into the dark abyss of the unknown all around me.

“Maybe, sometimes, not really,” he shrugs without concern. “To them, we were just two orphans who probably strayed too far from home. I’ll never forget where I came from, but, I think they might have heard our legend from word of mouth and figured we were happy at least. I think they’d still take us back into that old shack if we bothered, but…”

“Yeah, I couldn’t do it either,” I nod, looking back at him with a smile.

“Good, we need him around to keep us company!” Threep reminds me, fluttering right back into my arm as if he’d never left.

“I think you mean babysit,” Kade snorts, giving him a good scratch behind his wings.

“We’re very grateful for all your attention, Kade,” Loola tells him as she twines around his feet. “Especially when you scratch behind our ears.”

Kade laughs and bends down to do just that, releasing me, and I have to find another case to hang onto at once as exhaustion beats through me harder every moment. I can no longer stifle a yawn, my arms trembling even holding my nesper, who’s not so little anymore.

He notices at once and stands back up with a sad smile. “I will knock you out if you get some hairbrained idea about rushing out to find your friends before you sleep.”

As much as I’d love to stay and chat forever… he’s right, and I know it as my heart sinks, but I’d pass out before I made it down all those stairs. I manage around a cracking jaw, “I’ve had kind of a long day. I should find a bed,” I reluctantly agree.

Kade wraps me up in another long hug, smothering Threep, and then slowly releases me and urges me toward the door. “Of course, let’s get you some sleep, Syrum. I’ll be right here in the morning when you wake up.”

My feet are dragging as he leads me back to the same room Aerin had once allowed me to stay in. Threep rushes ahead, and by the time I walk in, he’s already prancing about my feet with some dried jerky in his mouth for me. I can’t imagine where he’s stashed that around here, but I smile and take it gratefully, nibbling on the first hunk as I look around with that same feeling of detachment I’d had looking everywhere but at Kade.

The place was oddly creepy as my eyes darted around. My skin tingled, my body stiff, half-expecting any of my friends to appear in here.

I hadn’t slept a night in that bed without Imtura. Tyril and I had spoken of Undermount right by that window while Kade had been resting, the first time I’d been able to tear myself away from him since I came back. Mal had made ten jokes about pricing and casing the place that probably weren’t really jokes, while Nia had gently shaken me awake every morning. All of my stuff was gone… the only thing of note was that orb of seeing that Mal, Nia, and I had stolen from the priests. It rested in a corner as if it had been thrown there and promptly forgotten. A strand of black-blue hair was wrapped around it.

I slowly walked over and picked it up, rotating it in my hands. Kade’s smile was strained, his eyes red. “Gods, you have no idea how many times I wished we shared blood, brother.”

“You’d look pretty crazy with blue skin and my ears, but I think I’d still put up with you,” I smiled, walking over and gently resting the orb on my nightstand, sinking into the bed. The food was about to fall from my hand I yawned so hard, and I stuffed it into my pocket, eyes straining as I fell back. Kade sat on the edge of the bed, legs crossed to get comfortable, with one last promising smile before my eyes gave me no choice and slowly sank closed.

…

That night, I find myself back in that dream-like space, full of reds and the unearthly glow as if I were standing inside the sun. I sigh as I look around in resignation as the mysterious figure steps through a portal and joins me.

I was starting to miss the nightmares about Kade being trapped. At least I could wake up from those.

“Syrum,” he says in that strange voice that still echoes in my head more than from his mouth. “I imagine you have many questions.”

“So many,” I huff. “But I’ll start with the easy ones. Who are you, and what do you want with me?”

“As I said before, I am the Watcher.” There’s still something so strange about him, impassive. It wasn’t like Tyril, who never showed emotion unless his guard was down, due to having been raised and trained in the air of keeping himself closed off in his society.

This guy was the opposite. It seemed a struggle for him to even have an emotion to show. He just watched me, as expressionless as a painting with life.

“The Watcher,” I repeated, unimpressed. Gods, I was sick of all these fancy titles people kept giving themselves. “The Lore Tablets. Why were you giving me those?”

“I have seen much in my many years. Those tablets are but a fraction of what I was able to share.”

I shift my weight restlessly, my hands grasping for my satchel that hadn’t followed me into my dream. “You didn’t seem to think very highly of the people of Morella,” I say.

“They have lost their way and strayed from the path,” he says simply, and anger curdles in my heart. He sounds like a twisting, mocking version of Nia and Tyril now. Paths, faith, choices to make in the spirit of some grand purpose for a twat like him who didn’t care either way. “Which is precisely why we must act.”

“Oh, it’s we now?” I demand. “What would you have done if I couldn’t get out of the Shadow Realm? Moved onto the next idiot who absorbed cosmic power?”

He blinks and continues speaking, almost looking right through me. “I have been trying to speak with you for some time. I’d meant to reach out again after your fight with the Dreadlord, but then Valax kidnapped you.”

“And it took you a year to wake me up!” I snap. “A year ! Anything could have happened to them while I—”

His face actually folds a bit, with sadness, and his grasp on his staff tightens, just for a moment. His eyes travel up and down my frame with a sigh. “Her magic proved difficult to penetrate. But now you are free,” he says, snapping back to his impassive demeanor, almost as if I’d imagined that flicker of emotion. “And I can tell you what you must know.”

I sigh and drag a hand down my face, but dammit, he had helped me… who knows if I ever would have gotten out of there without him. Anger wasn’t doing me any good. So I ask more politely instead, “Can I ask another question first?”

He smiles. It makes his whole face shimmer into something alive for the first time, pleasant, approachable. “Of course. And I will answer if I can.”

If. I bite back a snort of amusement. This wasn’t funny or a game, but at least I did always have a good sense of humor. I hold up a hand, and the strange gem I received in my nightmare appears in my palm, though hopefully it was still back in my pouch in the real world and wouldn’t linger in my head. “After I took control of my nightmare, I ended up with this in the real world. Do you know what it is?”

“Ah, yes,” he nods, and there’s a tone of pride in his voice. “That is dream essence. Dreams and nightmares hold great power, and when you vanquished yours, you stowed it away in that stone. If you were to crush that and direct its magic, you could inflict a nightmare on someone else.”

“Handy,” I say, admittedly impressed now as I give it a little bounce. “So you’re The Watcher, but what does that mean? What are you watching?”

Now his tone finally does slip back to that ethereal blankness, coming more from around him again. It feels like he’s showing off at this point. “From nearly the moment the Realms came into being, I have existed between them.”

A god. He was an actual god. I hoped he hadn’t heard me mentally calling him a twat… but I wasn’t taking it back either. Pious had never been my thing, exhibit A standing right in front of me as I tried to keep the anger from my voice when I asked, “then why haven’t you helped them?” I was already doing a poor job of it as my voice rose with anger. “So many terrible things have happened! Atrocities! Wars! Why didn’t you stop them?!”

He did not grow angry, nor sad, nor much of anything again. His gem blinked and swirled like a strobe, red on red on red in this plane. “I do not have the power to physically affect the Realms from here. I can only observe.”

A very useless god then.

But, I was alive. Not entirely useless.

“So your title’s literal,” I couldn’t help but frown, a swell of pity for him. Gods, I’d probably have turned into an emotionless rock too if I’d been forced to just observe life from a window for endless time.

“Very,” he said.

I swallowed and flexed my hands, shifting my weight around to be free of here, before I turned into him. Gods have mercy if this was the fate of all realm-walkers. “But you’re talking to me now, and you talked to me in the Shadow Realm. Doesn’t that count as affecting the Realms?”

“Doing so is very difficult and uses much of my power,” he gave the slightest nod of his head, though I sensed no trace of exhaustion in him. I still believed him. “But I had no other choice. Those you call the Old Gods entrusted me to maintain the barrier between the Realms, but as my power has waned, rifts have begun to form.”

“That, sounds, bad,” I said with plenty of terror for him he was really lacking in that kind of statement.

“Rifts allow the Realms to leak into one another.” Well, I’d lived in plenty of that being true! “That is how the Shadow Court was able to whisper into people’s minds and corrupt them.”

Yep, exactly what I’d been thinking too.

Wait, this was all happening in my head. He probably could hear all of my thoughts. Shit.

Wait, was this even happening in just my head… nope, this was getting too metaphysical for me to figure out alone.

“And as the gaps grow wider…” He trailed off, giving me a significant look.

“They found ways to cross over,” I finally agree out loud with what he’s been hinting at. Unlike him, there’s still anger in my voice, and I hope it never fades. “And there was nothing you could do to stop them?”

“Not alone,” he tips his head at me again. “But I am no longer alone.”

Pity and anger war back and forth within me. “You mean, me?”

“You are a realm-walker, Syrum.”

“So I’ve heard,” I grunt, wishing I could throw it back at him.

He ignores me. “With your help, I can close the rifts and fully seal the Light Realm off from the Shadow, restoring the barrier, protecting the boundaries.”

That. That I can work with, though. That makes all of this insanity feel like a purpose, a meaning… even as my heart already aches with exhaustion. But I would do it. Anything to stop Valax from coming here and making my nightmare a reality, as I give the stone in my hand a gentle squeeze. “How do we do it?”

He seems neither joyful nor repentant for my sudden swell of determination. He’s already receded back into that shell of nothing. “You must journey to each of the rifts in person. From there, I can help you mend the tears in the barrier. Once they are all repaired, the Ash Empire will no longer present a danger. It will not be easy. But it is vital to protecting the Light Realm.”

I grit my teeth and let out a long, slow breath through my nose. “Then we’d better get started. I won’t let the Empress, her daughter, or anyone else cross over ever again and hurt the people here. The sooner we seal off those rifts, the better.”

The Watcher does smile at that. It makes something in me relax, hope kindling again to replace the weariness I feel for this endless journey. “I admire your perseverance, young one. It will take you far.”

But perseverance alone isn’t going to be enough. “I’m not doing this alone,” I tell him pointedly.

“Indeed,” he tips his head without surprise, and I almost smile at that. “That would be unwise. You will need your companions to aid you in your quest.”

“I know that, I’m just—” I sigh, unable to help giving the dream-rock a hard squeeze. “I don’t know where they are. Kade said they kind of… drifted away?” My voice catches hard in the back of my throat, as if I tried to swallow this stupid stone.

He tips his staff ever so slightly toward me. “It is within my power to show you one of them. After that, I will need to rest and regain my strength.”

I gasp and stagger forward. “What if you had something else to amplify your powers?”

“Such as?” he asks politely.

I close my eyes and think of the orb we’d all stolen from Solerne to keep him from finding Nia. When I open them, it shimmers into reality in my hand instead of the red gem. It’s still swirling with purple energy, as vaguely threatening as the first time. “Could this help? It’s used to find people that don't want to be found… I don’t exactly have their blood, but—” My throat tightens at the memory of my nightmare, the wrath in the eyes of my friends still haunting me.

They’d been so angry, so full of hate… that might not all have been a nightmare. “Not that they don’t want to see me, I- I hope. I just need to see them. To know they’re okay?”

He takes it from me and studies it with vague interest. “Its magic should be sufficient for me to give you a glimpse of each of your companions.” He waves a hand, and the mist in front of me coalesces into a swirl of colors. There’s a painfully bright flash of white, and I find myself in a place that was once so familiar to me. A tavern. Dim, small, loud, the smell of alcohol heavy in the air. Not humans I recognize, though, and the patrons aren’t my focus.

I gasp, my heart leaping painfully as I see Imtura, alive! She’s passed out, head resting on the scratched and stained surface of a table in a shabby, rundown bar… She’s different.

Gone are her thick furs and the leathers of her pride in her Orc clan and mother. No matter the strain between them, she’d always held some reverence for her people. Now her hair is in a long plaited braid instead of the wild tangles I’d always loved, and it’s sticky with congealed beer on half her face. Even as she rests there, her face is angry, a deep scowl as her fingers twitch on the half-rotted wood of the table.

She wears a simple gray-colored, sleeveless vest over padding to keep her breasts accommodated and leather britches, with something like a choker around her neck… and gods, does that make my head spin like a top as I remember like yesterday the delirious notion of giving her a promise necklace like the people of Riverbend did to a betrothed one.

I’d been such a young idiot in love… still very much am, if I’m honest with myself, as I stagger towards her without a second thought. Her black horns look dirty, something caked into the wavy keratin. Her tusks are stained a slight brown, rustic color. She’d been filthy any number of times after a fight and reveled in it, but this? This is wrong—

Then I’m yanked away. I fight back a snarl of protest, I’d hardly gotten a glimpse of where in the Realm she could be- but then I blink at the colors bleeding into each other, reforming as Mal sits perched on a rooftop of an unfamiliar building, moonlight glinting off his face under the dark hood of his cloak.

He’s cut off his hair?! It’s darkened a lot, nearly black now, but the goatee is still there. He’s grinning just the same, a cheshire smile worthy of a nesper, he’s proud of himself for pulling off something and now wearing a fitted black, scaled sort of armor under that thick coat as he swings himself carelessly over a railing far below to the ground.

Gone. Flash of white. And then the moonlight glitters down on Nia, forming a halo of light around her as she looks solemn, kneeling in a beautiful marble chamber, the architecture vaguely recognizable in the circular room… her head bowed in prayer. She looks older, somehow. Gone is that sweet, naïve girl in her flowing pink dress I used to hold so casually against my side under my arm. She wears her long orange locks up now, twisted tight upon her head with only a few curls still straying loose down her temples, and she’s kitted with an entire official priest’s outfit, pants and some uniform of her status in the golds and whites of her position.

Gods, but I’d never actually seen her in pants. It was weird.

Then, at last, an image twisted and revealed a dark mountain. Tyril stood on it, sword drawn, grappling with a flying monster covered in radiant purple scales and feathers. The animal would have been beautiful if it wasn’t trying to kill him.

A wyrm-like creature, dragon-ish in its combination of snake and bird, wings fluttered out of it in three pairs along its back. On its head was a mass of trailing feathers forming a crown. It was hissing and snarling, trying to wrap around one of my friends with gleaming fangs.

It whipped around as he tried to jump free, slamming him into the ground with a powerful tail. He grunted in pain, and to my shock as he broke loose, I saw he’d finally ditched the armor his father had once given him. Now he wore something that was clearly still meant to be that, but different.

It looked older, more rustic, coming up to cover his neck and down his chest, across his shoulders in brown and bronze shaded plating. There was gold along his waist, strong and sturdier than anything else with a buckle to keep his sword at his hip now instead of across his back. He wore his hair tied back now on top of his head in a loose way, much longer than I’d seen it before.

Then, they were gone. I blink, seeing the dream-scape shift back to pulsing blues as I gasp and fight back a whirlwind of emotions. “Is there any way to get back to him?! I can open portals now, right! He needs help! What’s he doing out there alone against that thing—?”

“You can only open portals to the Shadow Realm and back,” the Watcher says, as unmoved as ever by my panic. “With our strengths combined, I could open a portal for you to pull him through, though it will mean I cannot speak with you like this for some time.”

“Fine, yes, do it!” I impatiently agree, gods please don’t let me be too late, not now—

I jolt awake, my heart pounding in my chest a mile a minute, and leap out of bed just in time to see a portal open in the middle of the room, purple, crackling with energy, the usual by now. Through it, I see Tyril battling that same animal still. And it is gaining in ferocity, lashing out faster as he begins to slow, trying to whirl around and stay behind her to little success.

“Tyril!”

He whips around to face me, stunned…. “Syrum?”

I reach through, grab his arm, and drag him back through the portal, only for the furious hissss of the creature to join us, barreling after him.

“Crap!” I shout as the portal closes, and Tyril squares up with it, giving me a chance to really look at him up close.

Somehow, we’re almost the same height now. That’s bizarre in itself. “What's with the hair? And can we talk about that vest?”

“You don’t think we have more important things to be dealing with?” He demands right back.

“Right, weapons,” I drag my eyes away, reluctantly, as the snake-amphiptere-dragon—an extremely pissed-off animal—makes a, “screeeeee!”, the feathers around her head crowning out to make her seem even larger.

I make a dive for my bow, the creature’s beady eyes following me. With a massive beat of its wings, it charges. I don’t have time to get any further, so I change course, leaping onto my bed. “Too slow!” I call, doing a small flip, grabbing my bedsheet as I roll, and tossing it over the animal like a fishing net, landing on the soft carpeted ground with a practiced roll.

It almost works like one, too. I hear its, “sssrk?” of confusion from within the thousand-plus thread count I really shouldn’t ever complain about again as it thrashes inside and falls across my pillows in a tangled mess. The snake-bird hisses again, only getting more twisted as its fangs pierce through the thick fabric.

“Quick thinking,” Tyril says, still blinking strangely in the new light.

The two of us face down the creature, falling into a comfortable rhythm as we box in our foe, trying to herd it quickly to one corner while it thrashes and hisses fearsomely right over the edge, not to be contained for long. “Whoa!” I yelp, too late with my warning, as with another beat of its wings, it breaks free and soars over both of us and crashes through the window. I rush over, peering out into the night.

“Do you see it?” He asks anxiously, not lowering his sword.

“Sshh,” I huff, closing my eyes and listening, concentrating for any hint of it. Then I hear the whip of feathers rising above me. I open my eyes slowly and sigh in relief. “It’s flying away, I don’t hear it anymore. What is that thing anyway? And why were you fighting it?”

“It’s called a fluria,” he answers like he’s possessed, his eyes widening the longer he looks at me. “Its feathers are known to have magical properties. I was attempting to retrieve one from its nest when—”

“Let me guess, it didn’t like you gate crashing into its home,” I chuckle.

“Not at all,” he agrees, his eyes boring into me. “It attacked me before I was even able to get close. However, that is not important right now.”

Though it might not have been a ‘year’ to me, I still smiled to see him, to watch his eyes widen while he gasped and looked right at me, to see me, and-

Tyril leveled his sword right in my face.

“Woah, woah -” I stutter, stumbling back, hands thrown up in defense, genuine terror at the look of loathing he pierced me with sharper than any blade… though his sword was about to make a good go of it.

“What trickery-” I know that look on his face. The anger, the betrayal. Shadows might not be pouring off of him, but it was the same one from my dream when he’d thought me the demon in his life.

“Tyril, stop, it’s me-!” But he’s looming closer as I keep backing away towards the door, mind swinging wildly but truly lost what to do here except run, which would be useless anyways, but, I couldn’t do that even if I’d wanted to. Behind that wrathful anger… I saw the pain there too- Kaya.

“We- we met at Port Parnassus!” I yelp, coming to a stop, cringing, but finally not backing away another step, hands still splayed gently in a sign of deference to him as the point rests against my throat. “You were, a jerk-” I can’t help but laugh about that all over again… and he stops. Freezes in place as the point of his blade stops digging in. “You thought we were smugglers, but, you killed the mayor and then left with us on Gerhard’s ship after I told you about Kade. That night, we talked under the Lantris stars… the archer.”

I smile tentatively as I watch something painful building on his face. “I, didn’t even realize the irony of that at the time, way to much going on meeting my first elf, but you did, didn’t you? That’s why you gave me the bow of Gal’dariel in the Deadwood, isn’t it-”

“Syrum!?” He repeats my name just like he did on the ship that night. A question, a completely lost air of what to do with a thing like me. “You- that magic- I thought, I-”

His sword fell to the floor with a soft clatter. I was in his arms before the noise even finished echoing around as he sweeps me into a sudden, fierce hug that lasts so long, I actually have to gasp and push at him to release me amid my breathless laughter.

When he does, he takes an awkward step back, still staring at me long and hard. “My, apologies. That was, impulsive.” His eyes flicker to the sword and back.

“Gods forbid you ever do such a thing like be impulsive again,” I can’t stop smiling as I rub at the side of my neck. “But I’m happy to see I really was a rotten influence on you. Nice to see you too.”

“Yes, truly it is,” he reaches his hand up and brushes at my hair, he looked like he was still half in a daze. I really couldn’t blame him. Kade’s slightly different appearance had been bad enough. The look of pure relief in his eyes to see me really tried to slam in how long a year was. “When did you- how did you get back? And why hasn’t Kade-”

“Whoa, relax,” as if he ever knew how to do such a thing before. I hold my hands up in placation again before he went tearing about the castle after my brother next, he’s still more tightly wound than a ball of barbed-wire. “It’s been, gods, not that long,” I stare at the dark sky, the moon a little over half full. So much for a good night's sleep. “Three hours, six tops since I got back. We haven’t had time to find you guys. Kade’s only told me no one else was around, I crashed to sleep not that long ago. How, are they?”

He stares at me for a long time before answering. “Complicated.”

I step forward and hug him again, and he sighs as he does so back, just as tight as the first time. “I missed you too.” I say fervently.

“You have no idea how I worried, how I searched for a whisper of you,” he murmurs, voice rough in my ear, pressing his cheek tight there.

“Oh I think I have some idea,” I mutter back, squeezing tighter still until I pull back again. He lets me, reluctantly. Gods my nightmare had been right. His eyes were so dark. I knew I still looked like a haggard mess, but I was downright coping next to the stress radiating off of him. “I do know Tyril.”

He’s still brushing at my hair impatiently because it won’t stay behind my ear, then tracing my cheek and back, his lip is almost quivering, and I chuckle as I watch him fuss at me, of all things. That was new. The soft noise of my laughter makes something sharp come out in his voice. “I, had feared the worst, for so long, not knowing where you were, how they’d torture you as well-”

My awkward little laugh as I finally brush his hand away makes any relief he’d been showing finally melt away, to be replaced with the fierce warrior. “What? What did they do?” His hands clench tight at his side, one already groping for his sword still on the floor.

“It’s, a long story,” I groan, flopping back onto the bed, making the mess of it all flounce around.

“With you, it always is,” he sighs, sinking down beside me at once.

Outside, a hissing shriek pierces the night. “Blast,” he’s back on his feet at once. “I can’t allow a beast like that to roam the streets of Whitetower. Someone will get hurt. I must go track it down. You’re joining me?”

It was half a demand, half a request as he scoops up his weapon. I knew the feeling, I wasn't so eager to let him back out of my sight either even as my hand trailed longingly towards my pillow as I got back up. Yeah, definitely never complaining about soft beds again as little as I got to use them.

“Have I ever turned down a fun time?” I chuckle, going over to the window, only to see the bow I’d stolen was now broken in half, the string across the room from that creature thrashing around.

“Come,” Tyril doesn’t bat an eye as he waves me on. “We’ll catch up while we secure that fluria.” Hopefully, he had my good bow stashed somewhere nearby. I roll my eyes but wave him out first with resigned patience. “Excellent,” he nods, reaching over one last time to tuck my hair back. “The fluria will likely flee to someplace high, as they typically nest in very tall trees.”

“Then we go up,” I conclude, “it probably made for the top of the castle anyway, no place higher around here. And if not, at least it’ll give us a good vantage point to see where it could be heading.”

He hums as he nods. “Glad to see your wits did not dull. A sound strategy.”

“Of course,” I snort, but I can’t exactly blurt out that it had only been ‘yesterday’ for me right now.

He swings out, and I easily match him as we scale up to the roof, using every foothold the castle offers until I spot the fluria just as it lets out a loud screech.

The noise seems sad, the “shhhrawwk!” reminding me of a call for help.

“What’s it doing?” I whisper to him.

“Calling for her babies,” Tyril murmurs back, his hand tight on my shoulder. “They’re back in the forest, where we were fighting.”

“Babies?!” I demand. “Were you trying to get your arse eaten, pulling a stunt like that?” The very first rule of hunting I learned if I wanted to stay alive: see the babies, run. Mama’s not far off, and she’ll be pissed.

He just blinks at me. “It was a calculated risk.”

I was about to give him a calculated shove off this roof in frustration before her eyes fluttered around suspiciously towards us, flapping her wings in a clear show of aggression. Saliva drips down her fangs, possibly even venom, as she hisses deep in the back of her throat. Gods, but she is beautiful as those purple scales and feathers constrict around a rampart.

“Okay,” I keep my voice level and patient as I avert my eyes from the mama before she takes that as a further sign of aggression. “Well, where’s her nest so we can get her back to it?”

“That forest is over a day’s travel from Whitetower, perhaps two if she fights us every step of the way,” he shakes his head. “We’d need something much stronger to hold her than your bedding. Flurias have a keen sense of smell, though. If we can lead her to the woods outside of town, she should be able to find her way from there.”

“Okay,” I frown, thinking for a moment before nodding. “I’ve got an idea. A little bribery might fix this.”

“Lead the way,” he nods.

I pull a small piece of dried meat from my pocket and hold it out, deciding that my empty stomach can complain later. The fluria approaches cautiously.

“Hey pretty mama,” I croon, holding it in the flat of my palm. “I know you’re scared and mad, I’m sorry, but I want you to get home too—”

“Hissss?” She asks, then quick as lightning, she snatches it and darts back out of reach. My fingers tingle in shock as I blink at my empty hand.

“Damn,” I mutter in delayed fear. So much for wooing her away, I think as I flex all five digits, grateful they’re still attached.

“Perhaps we should try another approach,” he says, fighting off a smile as he looks between us.

“Shhharwwwk!” She screeches, clearly not in the mood to be domesticated as she takes off in a flurry of wings into the sky once more, streaking toward the middle of the city.

“She’s headed for the market, we can’t let her get away,” I yelp, already swinging myself back off the ledge. Tyril clears his throat loudly and produces a rope, tying it firmly around one of the battlements, and it goes a long way down, speeding up the process as the two of us rappel and make up twice the time to get to the bottom. Once it does run out, we have to finish scaling the rest.

“Come on,” I land in a comfortable crouch, already taking off. “Let’s go!”

“Right behind you,” he needlessly assures, landing just the same. It makes me smile as I run like the wind, fighting off a burst of pure joy in my heart. It’s easy to outrun the memory that Valax is behind me, about to rip me back away. This time, I am running towards something.

We find the fluria in the night market, knocking over tents and crates as terrified citizens flee for shelter.

“Let’s see if we can back her into a corner,” Tyril offers.

“She can fly,” I remind him in exasperation. “We’d need to chase her into a windowless building to trap her like that.”

“Would you rather try chasing her back through the streets and hope she goes towards the forest?” He asks right back, perfectly matching my tone.

“All right, let’s see how this goes your way,” I sigh, easing forward, watching him split off to crowd the fluria back into an alley. Her gaze darts nervously between the two of us, and she hisses quietly as she continues backing away. Her muscles move, contracting and releasing, one set of wings fluttering like a pair of appendages to scoot her progress along.

She’s calculating. I can see her assessing the pair of us with recognition as her tongue flickers out.

“She’s about to take off again,” I warn him.

“Just a little closer,” he murmurs, coming in from her side while I remain facing her head on. His hands are thrumming with magic, I hope he won’t hurt her too bad-

A tiny yelp from behind draws my attention, and I look back to see a stray puppy struggling to its feet out of a wrecked crate. His golden fur is twisted with mud, he’s limping and shaking with a soft, “hruf?” He begins hobbling towards me on three legs, keeping his injured paw off the ground.

“Hey little guy, I see you’re hurt,” I say softly, my eyes darting between the enormous predator and the new baby only coming to me faster. “You give me one minute, okay, don’t come any closer—”

“Shrawk!”

“Look out!”

The fluria bowls me over as she rushes to the puppy. There’s a strange trilling noise from deep in her throat as she twirls around the pup, “sskkraww!”

For a moment, my heart is in my throat… but I see she isn’t eating him, she’s, cuddling him?! The fluria wraps her long body around him with a happy chittering noise, and after a moment, the puppy lowers his paw and hops excitedly in place, all signs of distress gone as he begins licking at her chin in thanks.

“She healed it,” I manage beneath my awe.

“Arrf, arrf!” the pup barks in excited agreement. The fluria trills, nuzzling the baby with nothing but affection.

“Fascinating,” Tyril is as stunned as I am. “Perhaps she’s mistaken him for one of her babies?”

“That’s adorable!” I yelp, resisting the urge to go over and hug her, my heart melting as she hovers around the puppy like an overprotective mother, clear as day. I can feel Tyril watching my smile as he helps me back to my feet, and I do not care. He’s always found my fascination with animals strange, why change now? “Gods, I love nature. She’s such a sweet mama, look how happy she is now.”

“Yes… I can imagine how she feels,” Tyril mutters so softly I’d swear I wasn’t meant to hear, but I do, that same love at the sight pouring out of him. “It is not unheard of for one species to raise the children of another after all.”

I glance at him, feeling a tug in my heart for guessing exactly where his mind has gone.

“Plus, it gives me an idea,” he says, returning to speaking calmly and clearly, that levity in his voice that comes from expecting to be heard without ever raising it.

Moving slowly, Tyril raises his hands, magic already beginning to gather between them. Moments later, the puppy begins to levitate gently out of her coils.

“Awrf?” he asks, more in confusion than distress as his little paws wiggle futilely through the air.

“How is giving it flight going to help?” I ask in vague concern what he was planning. He couldn’t just leave the dog like that… could he? The fluria was following the pup’s progress with more disciplined eyes than a snake-charmer could manage.

“Watch,” he whispers, and I finally tear my eyes away to see him smiling.

Quickly looking back, I feel him use his magic to float the puppy down the street, and the fluria immediately follows behind, making soft clacking noises as if scolding him to get back here.

She follows though, people rushing out of her way as the puppy stays afloat like a beacon of light, tail wagging and still panting with excitement as he tries to wiggle towards his new mother. Tyril leads us out of Whitetower, setting the puppy gently down at the edge of the woods. The fluria lifts her head into the distance, sniffs, and shrieks again, but this time, its happiness as she gently wraps her body back around him at last even while looking off into the distance.

“I think she smells the rest of her babies,” I say, feeling jittery head to toe at the way she keeps the tip of her tail wrapped around him while fluttering her wings anxiously.

“Arrr?” The pup asks, looking all around in confusion. He tilts his head to the side as he looks up at her. She curls her body more firmly, protectively around him, lifting him into the air with the length of her body. She hovers for a moment, looking back at me. The pup dangles beneath her like a bell, panting, tail still wagging, no longer particularly concerned at this mode of travel.

“Hsshrk,” she tells me, snorting loudly. A single feather falls from her head, and drifts to the forest floor. Then she vanishes into the night in a streak of golden purple.

“Can you imagine if her magic somehow passed onto him?” I ask. “Feathered puppies with wings! Gods, it’s so cute, Threep would never let me live it down, but I would have to cuddle those until she beat me away.”

“I would imagine they were more likely to be snakes growing paws, to compensate,” Tyril says.

I turn slowly, and grin at him. “You’re messing with me? Don’t ruin this for me!?”

“I’ve missed it terribly,” he says shamelessly, staring so hard at me it was a wonder he really had let me go of that first hug right now.

“That will make for one odd family regardless,” I chuckle. “Reminds me of ours. Which one has to be the puppy? It’s Nia right?”

Tyril laughs, long, loud, and shamelessly. “I will do you the favor of not telling her you said that. Besides, I think we both know who it really is.”

“Oh come on, Mal’s not that bad,” I snort. “We house trained him ages ago.”

He turns abruptly away and bends to retrieve the feather. By the time he turns back to hand it to me, I might have imagined he could ever smile. I take the feather, twirling it between my fingers. It was so beautiful, the same purple as her coloring, flaring white around the edges.

“At least we learned that the fluria’s feathers can be used for healing indeed,” Tyril says practically. “Not in the way I was expecting, to tell the truth, but still very useful.”

Weariness catches up with me, and I slowly sink down at the edge of the forest as I watch the sun begin to threaten itself in the distance. I need to get back to the castle, before Kade comes to check on me and panics at my empty room… but gods, I need to catch my breath.

“This is nice,” he says, sitting beside me.

“And here I was expecting something a bit more eloquent from you,” I snort.

“I—” For a long moment, he seems to struggle for the right words. I turn and slowly peek at him from the corner of my eyes. Then he swallows and presses on, a surprising strain in his normally confident voice. “Before I met you, I was accustomed to working alone. I thought it would be easy to resume doing so. But after you disappeared… it was so much harder. I felt so lonely. Alone, even when I was still with them, anyone.”

He hasn’t looked away from me. His intensity would have normally scared me, but instead I just lean my weight into his side, feeling the muscles there still trembling a bit, and he puts his arm around me gently in response. “I spent many sleepless nights buried in research or chasing down creatures like this fluria. I was… desperate.”

“To stay busy?” I offer. I’ve lived that feeling all too well while Kade was gone.

“To find something, anything to cross the realm, get you back, or at the very least…” he sighs, and I do with him. “I think I had nearly forgotten what it’s like to have a moment of peace with someone you care about.”

I clear my throat and don’t press him for any more, for now. “Well, I can think of one way to make it even better.”

“How?” He asks indulgently.

“Something cool,” I grin.

He grins, not a trace of hesitation in him. “As you say.” He closes his eyes, raises one hand, and a flare of sparkling motes of light rise from his palm. They dance around us, twinkling like the stars overhead. It finally chases the last of the darkness, the Shadow Realm from the edge of my vision as I breathe in the swirling lights, reminiscent of the time we thought we’d found a fae party. This is real, as they rain around like confetti.

I laugh in surprise, never having expected him to do something so whimsical with his magic in my life. “There, now it’s perfect,” I rest my head on his shoulder… “but it won’t last,” I can’t help but mutter, unable to twine my fingers enough to catch one.

He squeezes my shoulder tight as they begin to fade. “All the more reason to enjoy the moment while it’s here.” I sigh and rest for a long time, much longer than I should as the sun really begins to rise, but finally I force myself back to my weary feet as the two of us return to the castle. Thankfully, before Kade realized I’d gone off.

I take the time to go to a bathroom and wash myself, and hack off a good length of my hair back to where it should be around my shoulders. The blue strands look more vibrant than they had before, for some reason. It bothered me all the more now I’d never seen other elves like that, and I wonder absently again about my parents…

The light blue in my eyes has darkened a shade… no wonder Tyril thought I was some crazy copy. I barely recognize myself. I finally change into a new set of clothes, staring at myself strangely in the mirror once again in between.

There are burn marks all along me. Old ones, but they’re there, littered all over my body where they had never been before. The largest is barely as long or thick as my thumb, but painfully noticeable, crossing every major artery I know I have as far as I can tell, and several more besides. The most recent one on my wrist from where I know Valax sealed the wound has already started to fade. I touch one on the side of my throat and swallow, watching it move beneath my fingers… before turning away.

I feel violated in the strangest way. It’s so obvious she’d taken care not to kill me, not to cut the same place twice. She’d pulled blood from me in several different places during her experiments, I can count them now to see just how many times. But the strangest part is, they blend back into my skin so well, even the one on my wrist is just a raised little mark, only there if I look for it.

An elvish thing? Or something else she’d done to me?

Deciding I can’t stomach the anger in Tyril right now to ask him, I only get a few more hours of sleep before meeting up shortly after breakfast down in the market, of which I sadly hadn’t inhaled as much as I’d like. My stomach cramps painfully after the first few bites of eggs again, but it feels good all the same as Kade and Tyril watch and eat patiently before we exit the kitchens in silence.

There isn’t any tension in us as we walk out, but there’s a strange silence all the same, neither of us surprised to see the other, but I can still feel the oncoming presence of ‘a talk.’ I know they haven’t caught each other up while I slept.

It’s sad. If I’d taken the time to think about it, I would have wished Kade would have grown closer to my friends in my absence as I throw on a cloak Kade presses into my hands and shoulder a new backpack…

Why my nespers had sent a messenger to depart out of the castle, I couldn’t guess, but I follow my brother’s easy path through the unfamiliar streets until we get to a cafe that seems to have a lot of cats hanging around it for some reason.

“Tyril, you’re back!” Loola calls in joy as she begins bouncing around his legs.

“It is good to see you as well, Loola,” he grins, bending down to stroke her back.

“I’ve got to say, I’m impressed how fast you managed to get here,” Kade admits, looking from Tyril to me for an answer at last as he settles in with another cup of coffee, his fifth so far. He’d had three with breakfast and one on the way here.

I sigh and explain from the top. “I had the Watcher’s help. I spoke with him last night, and I know what we have to do next.”

“Magnificent!” Threep cheers.

“Only, it’s going to be very hard,” I stress, staring at my brother.

“Then you must tell us everything,” Tyril says calmly. “Whatever this task is, you will have my assistance.”

“I know,” I grin at him. “I’m going to need everyone’s assistance. As for what it is, that will be easier to explain once we have everyone back together. For now, all you need to know is, we’re saving the world, again. The woman who kidnapped me, Valax, wants to conquer the Light Realm, and she needs me to do it.” It’s easy now to psyche myself back up, to put that fire back in and keep moving forward, focusing on the one thought that will get me back on the road. I’ve had ample practice at it.

Anger, strong and unfiltered, flashes across Tyril’s face, but he nods, his voice still calm. “I am more than willing to defend the Realm from this threat, of course. To defend you.”

I grin like a dope at him, as if that had even been in question. I hope he never grows tired of stating the obvious for me to smile at, what would I do without it?

Kade coughs awkwardly, looking away. “I, erm, don’t think I’d be much use in a fight.”

I turn slowly back to him, having known this was coming, but feeling shaky all the same. “Kade—”

“No, really, Syrum, I’d just be a liability. I should—”

“Don’t say that,” I sigh, already knowing I’m fighting a losing battle. “I couldn’t learn half of what’s in your brain, I need you—”

“No, you want me there,” he finally looks back with a very sad smile. “But be honest, brother. You got caught because of me—”

“Kade!”

“—You’d never be able to fight like I know you can as long as I’m around.”

“That’s not true!” I fire back hotly.

He just stares back at me, unblinking.

“It’s not,” I whisper, my throat tight.

“I’ll be safe here,” he promises, forcing a smile. “I can be very useful in the Archives. I’ll dig up everything I can about the Shadow Realm, I’ve already got half the library done on it, I swear! I’ll look up more too, about these barriers, and the Ash Empire, now I know to look for that too.”

“Kade,” my voice breaks again, but I swallow and force myself to smile back at him. “That would be the biggest help.”

He smiles in relief as my eyes start to burn.

“We will assist Kade however we can since we have to stay near the castle anyways,” Threep adds.

I look down at him in my lap, feeling vaguely betrayed that even my little buddy wasn’t coming this time. Gods, things really had changed.

“To advise the king!” Loola adds, as if I’d forgotten they had actual jobs around here in between snacks.

Kade throws his arm lightly over me. “You’ll be busy hunting down the rest of your friends, so if I don’t see you for a while,” he pulls me into a tight hug, which I return fiercely. “Be safe, okay? No more disappearing into portals for a year.”

My fingers cramp as I clutch his shirt so tight. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I know,” he promises me the same.

“Bring back souvenirs!” Threep says, his nails digging into my lap just to stay in place as my weight shifts around. “Preferably snacks.”

“You don’t need more snacks!” Loola laughs, stretching out on the table in the warm sun. “The king gets you anything you want!”

“What I want is for Syrum to bring me snacks. Just like old times,” he huffs, still hunkered down low in my lap.

I laugh and hold him close too. “I’ll see what I can do.” I have to detach his nails from my pants leg one by one until he reluctantly slides to the ground and trots off, sniffling.

“Be well, Kade,” Tyril tells him gently, even giving him a small smile.

“You as well, Tyril,” Kade nods, easily meeting his eyes, but then looking away, fiddling with his empty cup.

I swallow and force myself not to ask what in the seven hells had happened while I’d been gone. I was departing with enough sorrow as it was.

Tyril waits patiently until I finally force myself up from the table. Every step I take to follow him hurts like a brand new wound, but it only strengthens my resolve as I finally lose sight of Kade in the crowd and turn properly through the busy streets.

I’d only had him back for three godsdamn days. Three and a half, if one wanted to count the vague amount of time I’d been back! And now this. Would it ever end?

“You’ll see him again,” Tyril promises, “on my honor.”

I sigh, tipping my face into the sun, savoring it all for one last minute before turning to him. “Thank you. So, where to first?”

Something ticks in his jaw before he answers. He snaps back, almost unintentionally it seems at this rate, to his brisk, casual self. He’s smiled more these past few hours than I’d ever seen before. That seemed gone for good. “I am not positive where Mal is at any given moment, though he’s likely still in the city, he doesn’t stray too far these days. Nia should be at the Temple.”

“The Temple?” I echo in surprise. That had been the least strange in the flashes I got from my dreams, but still vaguely concerning. “I thought she had decided to leave the priesthood. Why’d she go back?”

“In the beginning, I believe she was looking for information on how to reach you. As for why she stayed,” he looks away, lifting one shoulder in a small shrug. “You’ll have to ask her. I have been in Undermount, of late.”

“Helping your sister?” I ask in surprise.

His smile is rueful at how wrong I’d guessed. “Adrina can handle herself just fine. She doesn’t need me butting in and causing trouble.”

“You, cause trouble?” I snort. “Who’d have ever thought?”

Tyril fixes me with a hard stare.

“What? Don’t think for a moment I don’t owe you a year’s worth of teasing back,” I smirk.

“I know,” his face slips at once back into that smile I was really starting to get used to. “I had hoped Undermount would yield answers on how to get to you, but I had not had any luck.” It doesn’t last as he weaves easily through the crowds, though I can still feel him watching me from the corner of his eye.

“That crazy library full of rocks didn’t have anything?” I ask in surprise. It had seemed like a place of wonder to me. He has ink stains along the inside of one hand, and I can see a thick snatch of notes peeking out of the bundle of his bag on his other hip, the one the sword isn’t strapped to.

“I’m afraid not,” he says forlornly.

I tap my chin as I eye him for a moment, there’s something he still isn’t saying. His ease with Kade, the fact he clearly has at least kept up with the goings and comings here. He doesn’t hesitate as he navigates through the city streets, much like he once had his own home. “You’ve been helping smooth over some elven prejudices around here, haven’t you? Can’t imagine you’d let all that tension stand after you saw what the Priesthood was riling up.”

He stops in place, looks back, and then smiles and shakes his head at me. “Perceptive as always Syrum. Yes, that is a large part of why I came and went from one place to another. The elves have spent too long thinking they were better than everyone. Nia and I have been trying to help smooth the first steps of change for that. Traveling with you and the others showed me the depth of our error in that regard.”

“I hope you’re making progress,” I say with a grin as Tyril turns to keep walking.

“Not nearly as much as I’d have liked,” he says blackly.

I give him a friendly nudge. “It still means the world to me, that you looked for me at all in between that mess.”

“I looked,” he repeats as if the word somehow offended him, shaking his head. His hair tied back is kept permanently behind his ears, so it never falls in his face. It’s strange to watch. “I tore through libraries, delved into the catacombs, scoured for any source of power that would work. I meant to use that fluria feather to heal the shards back to use… but it would not have worked. I know that now. I found nothing of use. No way to reach you. I, I failed you.”

Pain hardens his features, and he’s marching more than walking now. I reach out and gently touch his arm. He stops again, looking at me and then away quickly, his eyes restless where he’d never allow himself to be anywhere else. “You didn’t fail me, Tyril. From what I can tell, there literally wasn’t a way for you to reach me. Do you remember that cloaked figure, the one we saw as we left the Shadow Realm?”

He nods, watching me with something like hope, as if he wants to believe I can relieve him. “Do you remember those tablets, the ones you once told me might even be gifts from a god? You were right. These stupid realm-walker powers you told me about, he’s been keeping an eye on me, like he knew all that was coming!”

That still really kind of creeps me out, and I can see how it troubles him too, but I press on. “It took him a year to get to me past Valax, and even then, he didn’t literally show up in person. A god,” I repeat for emphasis. “He opened that portal for you last night to get to me. While you were wrestling with a dragon, because you never gave up on me. That’s what matters to me.”

“Thank you, Syrum,” he says, giving me a nod and the smallest of smiles, as if he’s at least reconsidering his burden. Then he puts his hand between my shoulder blades so the crowd couldn’t hope to separate us as he turns back to the path ahead, where the Temple of Light looms in the busy street.

“Let’s go get Nia,” I agree eagerly, beginning to race ahead. I hear him chuckle behind me as he easily keeps up.

I step inside the Temple, only to find it crowded with people. A powerful voice echoes from some unseen speaker at the front of the crowd. “The Light is above all else. You must find ways to honor it in your daily life. One need not be a part of the Temple to serve the Light.” The voice is feminine in nature, but it echoes strongly around the large room, full of whispering people talking underneath her, making it sound a little jumbled to my ears, difficult to pick out anything in particular.

I frown as I edge around the crowd, watching as a man pipes up, “What about giving food to those in need? Is that service?”

“Sharing what you have with those who need it more is generous and honors the Light,” the voice agrees.

To my shock, I recognize Lady Pentechor, a noblewoman who’d once insulted Imtura in the streets. “How about donating money to the Temple? Does that count?” She asks with a flashy smile.

“What matters is your intention,” the voice agrees. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but the voice gets a little stronger… a little more familiar? “You cannot fool the Light with false gestures. One should be kind because they wish to be kind, not out of any hope for reward or absolution.”

I finally catch a glimpse of the figure standing in the middle of the room as I keep weaving through the crowd. She, I’m sure it’s a she, stands tall and proud in the center in golden and white robes, a hood pulled low over her face…

“They’re still indoctrinating people?” I hiss quietly at him. “Public sermons are just another way to persuade them to axiom agree!”

He gives me a vague smile. “You’re, close, but not entirely correct. There has been a lot of changes here of late.”

“I’d have to see that to believe it,” I mutter in disgust, waiting impatiently for him to lead me through the main atrium to this place's library or Nia’s private quarters or whatever.

“You will, I expect,” his smile is still a bit strange, he stays in place on the fringes of the crowd. “Note that all these people came here of their own free will, it’s not being forced on them.”

I give him a nod for that as we work our way through the crowd until I can see the speaker, who keeps revolving slowly so that they can speak to all sides equally. She’s a slim, elegant figure in white and gold robes. As soon as she catches sight of me on her next pass, she freezes. I watch in shock as she flings back her hood to reveal, Nia.

“Syrum?! You’re back!?”

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