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THE SEA.
If I concentrated hard enough, I could see the Sea. I closed my eyes
against the glowing amber of the East Bright and focused my thoughts on a
dense hollow somewhere in the back of my mind. I breathed in long and
slow, and—yes. I could smell the brackish scent of ocean and mist. I licked
a trace of invisible salt from my bottom lip and fought harder against the
blankness that coated my memory.
Then I saw, without opening my eyes, the water pushing its way up onto
the crush of rocks and shells. The Sea called to itself, its waters clawing
back through the sand like a child not wishing to return to its foreboding
mother. Slowly, I inched toward it, begging the Mother to take me too, to
take me back. A warm hum crept into my ears, numbing the sound of
tumbling waves, louder and louder as I grew nearer. My legs took to a
sluggish run. Then the hum became so loud it shook through my muscles
and bones, tightening around my body. Too late, I realized, I was
suffocating.
As my toes reached the dying froth of the waves, I screamed.

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MY EYES OPENED. BREATH surged into me as if I had
been holding it for the entire vision.
An icy scatter of pain tingled on the palm of my hands when I
unclenched them, revealing small, iridescent slivers left in the wake of my
fingernails. The burning cuts glowed like a sheen of pearl against the blood
flowing back into my knuckles. I looked up at the large, glimmering
crescent in the sky and silently cursed it. The Wane just sat there, like it
always did, not bothering to defend itself, or even offer up a silent curse of
its own in return.
I stood from the grass and dusted off the crumbling earth still sticking to
my backside. The ground seemed much softer today, seemed to cradle me,
almost, but I knew that couldn’t be true. It was just my mind’s way of
creating excitement among all the monotony. There was no change in the
wind to make the hillside damp. Nothing about this night was any different
from the previous ones.
A frustrated heat flooded the tips of my ears. I had tried so hard to
remember, to see where I had come from, and to where I wanted to return.
All I had gained from the vision today was a splitting headache and an
acute sensation of failure. Even as I stood on the Mountain, deep within the
nightside of my world, the Sea roared.
Give in, it seemed to say. Stay with me forever.
I rolled my eyes, tossing the long waves of my platinum hair over each
shoulder, and began my descent. I could give up. Only for a little while.
Sleep and my grove were calling. The next time I traveled to the dayside, I
would try to remember again.
The Wane floated between a glitter of stars, fading as the East Bright
leaked golden hues from its own corner of my World. Just below it, the
Guiding Star flickered in place. I followed it home. Every day and every
night, I relied on those celestial objects, which never left the vast
multicolored sky, no matter how much time had passed—or didn’t. I
couldn’t tell which. Somehow, I knew that time existed, if only because it
was clear that I did not have it. Here, where I was, nothing ever changed.
 The forest was still as I ventured into it, void of any sound except for the
crunch of my bare feet through the brush and the small animals that roamed
the land. As I reached a fork in the path, my eyes searched for the large,
smooth cream stone perched atop a tree stump. A marker I had taken from
the ever-gracious Sea to make sure I never lost my way back descending the
Mountain. Becoming lost was easy to do, and in fact, I had done it before.
The ragged trail stamped out into the dirt wasn’t always easy to locate,
especially when I lost track of my routine long enough for some of the
vegetation to grow back. I’d once been gone so long that the fork
disappeared completely, and I had wandered in circles around a single cleft
of the Mountain until my legs quivered and begged for rest. When I finally
made it back around, I noticed the decline below the stump the rock now sat
and cursed myself for the mistake. I missed prayer that night just to comb
through the water-worn stones by the Sea. I picked out the biggest and most
striking stone and carried it back up the Mountain.
I was never lost again.
My grove was located near the border of day and night, on the nightside.
It was nothing spectacular, just a nook lodged in between a thousand trees
at the base of the Mountain. But it was warm and protective, a crowned
haven of drooping, leafy branches that curled like tendrils around me as I
came and went. The floor was essentially bare, packed mud with a patch of
clover and wild lily being the only soft thing upon which I could lay. With
the always-present Wane, my grove was not entirely devoid of light, but
quite the opposite. The combination of the glow from the Wane and the
violet-colored leaves illuminated the area to a soft twilight. Inside, it
smelled organically sweet from the moss that covered the grove’s trunks.
No bigger than I needed it to be, the grove offered plenty of space to rest.
That was all I used it for anyway.
My unconventional home was as convenient as it was cozy, being so
close to the Mountain. And the Sea, that was only three thousand paces
from the night to the dayside, as I had counted once. There was not much to
do here besides explore and count and try to remember. I managed to reign
in the boredom, though, by giving myself a strict schedule—as strict as the
lack of time would allow.
When I awoke from my sleep, I began the day picking food from the
trees that surrounded me, sating myself before the upcoming expanse of
chores. A dozen clusters of ripe and plump fruits hung just outside of the
curtains of my earth-made home, sweet and tender oblong capsules of
purple and red. Seeds and nuts scattered the ground, brought in by the wind
or pittering down from the high trees. I’d eat as much as possible to fuel
myself for the journey ahead. I wouldn’t return from the day’s work until
my belly was empty and grumbling about it.
In two hundred paces northeast, a large brook dribbled through the
cracks in the earth where I could drink and wash. Small and slick creatures
zigged and zagged underneath the sway of my feet as I slung water over my
body. Sometimes their orange and silver flecks dashed so quickly, that I
wasn’t sure they were truly there until I felt them launch their tiny assaults
on my toes and ankles. I’d let them have their fun, gently shooing them
away when I decided to head toward the Sea.
There, I would dig through the rocks or watch tiny, shelled fellows
mightily dig their way into the salty earth, or I would take long and
unending walks, all the while asking questions about how I came to be. The
Sea never answered, but I made myself pester it anyway, out of spite.
While the Sea and I disagreed over my memories and when it would
return them to me, I always felt a sort of calm spread through my chest
when I neared the grassy cliff overlooking the shore. It was beautiful—the
least wretched place in my World. And it was always so bright with the light
of the East Bright reflecting off white sand in a perpetual brilliance.
Sometimes, when I looked at its scope, I thought about how I could walk
forever in either direction, maybe long enough to fall off the edge into some
other dimension. I never tried. It would have felt like a waste.
The water that met the sand was an alluring gradient of clear to deep
shimmering midnight. So inviting, so turbulent, all at once. I had thought
about walking forever into it, too, a few times, but I honestly believed the
Mother would just spit me back out. My feet never braced the water.

THE PRAYER. I HAD no idea where the words came from.

Over and over, a thousand times they had turned in my mind, exposing
themselves from each curve of a letter, each snap of syllable, and each
length of a stanza, but from all angles, I could not catch their meaning.
From the strange way the Prayer ran from my mind as soon as it came, I
knew that I hadn’t made it myself. The words were taught to me. By what
or who, I didn’t know. In whatever amount of time, only I existed here. No
one else ever beside me. Between the Mountain and the Sea, the beasts
lived in their trees, the small creatures swam in the banks, little things
crawled up my arms from the earth below, and I danced along each path
that they set out before me.
Always alone.
Without a reason for me to tell, I felt the pull of the Prayer enchanting
me each day, each night. After a long bout of fighting with the Sea and the
Mountain, it was a welcome relief. Once I’d said the Prayer, my work
would finish, and rest would soon follow. Three hundred and forty-three
paces—give or take a few—from the entrance to my grove was a large table
of stone that protruded gracefully from the brush. Streams of light from the
Wane burst through the cracks between the trees onto its center as a
sacrament.
I leaned forward at my waist, now, never taking my eyes off The Wane,
and knelt to the soft grass at the hilt of the stone. Ceremoniously, I dropped
my chin and placed one hand at an angle in front of my face, allowing only
my center finger to touch my forehead as the rest of my hand splayed. I
cupped my elbow with the opposite hand so that it never touched the hard
surface beneath it. Then I closed my eyes.
Preserver of the Light,

let no darkness befall you,

no day evade your will.

Let the shadows be your place of rest,

for blessed are we who live in them.
I raised my head, peeking out from under my lashes lazily. Short and
simple, I thought. I felt nothing other than the urge to comply when I said
the words. I didn’t feel reassured or safe, and I didn’t feel any closer to the
divine objects that cemented my skies. If anything, I always felt further
away. Though the Prayer did nothing for me personally, there was an
intense swelling in my chest that ordered me to speak it into the nightside of
the sky. It was the only time I used or heard my voice, which was nothing
more than a graveled whisper from years or decades or millennia of
abandonment.
I had only missed prayer once, after getting lost on the Mountain. I was
so exhausted from the frustration and stink of the day that I flopped down
onto my clover bed and let sleep drown my anxieties. Not long after, I woke
up coated in a sheen of guilt-ridden sweat. Rest continued to evade me until
I trudged toward the mound and threw myself before the stone in
repentance. I said the Prayer until I felt the words soak into my skin and
harden around my bones. That was the only time I had felt the relief I
supposed was the actual purpose of the damned thing.
I shivered off the remnants of shame that lingered around the memory
and sighed. Standing to my feet, I tucked my hair behind my ears and
turned toward the direction of the grove. I was beyond ready to sleep. The
intensity of the Vision was heavy on my shoulders. My approaching dreams
were the only thing that would ease the pressure off them. I raced for my
grove, my eyes tracing each star above as I grew closer and closer.
They were bright, little dangling things that sent a rush to my head with
wonder. Beautiful. But they couldn’t compare to what would follow
them. In the sloping curve of the western part of my sky, I could already
imagine the twining colors. Luscious gold, sour chartreuse, and a magical
blue that was barely a shade above the black of the night sky. One might
miss them, if they didn’t have forever to spend in this World and if they
weren’t looking closely.
The Auriel—that is what I’d named it, as I had named everything in my
World—the show of lights, and as I reached the soft and cool mud of my
grove, I wondered what mood it would be in tonight. I hoped for quiet, if
only because on unquiet nights, all the colors converged, melding
themselves into the most peculiar shapes, as if the gods I prayed to were
molding them just for me. The gold may wrap tightly around the blue,
shaping itself into one of the creatures that balanced in the trees on the
north side of the Mountain. Small tangs of green would jump out of its
pointed mouth, and I would smile softly, almost hearing the chirpy little
song. Other times, the blue would engulf the warmer colors into a bubble
and swim along with the stars like the fish through my rocky brook.
On quiet nights, my favorite nights, the Auriel was a cosmic wind that
rippled softly against the sky, stretching from the Guiding Star to the
furthest curve of the Wane. Tonight, it seemed to be so.
I sent a tiny thank you to the gods, my eyes closed in reverence. I didn’t
think I had the energy to laugh through their puppeteering.
We will have fun tomorrow, I told them. I promise.
Burying myself in a thicket of clover, I stretched my tense limbs to their
limits and then tightly wrapped them around myself. I rolled over to my
right, tilted my chin toward the universe, and opened my eyes. A spear of
panic pierced my heart just before my stomach sank into the empty belly of
the night.
No.
I rose enough to snap my head to the ground and orient myself. My
fingers pressed into the soil, desperately feeling for the indentation of my
resting place, slightly sunk from thousands of sleeps. No, I hadn’t mistaken
my grove for another. I sprang to my feet and flung myself outside of the
curtains of trees, sprinting breathlessly toward the border of day and night.
Dust and rocks flew rapturously behind me, my hand smacking hard to the
ground as my balance slipped. Crouched there, underneath a fusion of
darkness and light, my eyes shot to the sky, searching all the way west of
the Wane through to the East Bright. There was nothing.
The lights were gone.

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HE CAME FOR ME on the dayside, three sleeps after the Auriel
disappeared.
I hadn’t closed my eyes but for absolute necessity, and even then, I
didn’t dare try to dream. I don’t know how I could have. Something in my
World had changed. Nothing in my World had ever changed. The time
before the Auriel, and the time after the Auriel–that was how I would
remember my life, now. A mundane existence that had been excited. I
wasn’t sure if I was more shocked or concerned.
The first two days and the first two nights, I spent every endless hour
scouring the land between the Mountain and the Sea, for any sign of
realignment. I walked for miles, determined to rummage through my entire
World if I had to.
Surely, I could not have been the only thing here seduced by the powers
of the Auriel. Would the creatures in the trees stop spouting their morning
psalms? Would the water in the brook start flowing backward into the rock
they ran from? Maybe the Mother would finally start talking back to me,
out of self-preservation if not for reassurance. I could imagine her voice,
soft and low as she apologized for being so cold and distant all this time.
She would know, now, that our World was ending. She would wish she had
spoken up sooner.
My hope was a bright flare that drew me through each slope of the
Mountain and every bend in the night forest, moving my chafed and
bleeding feet with a quick urgency. An anxious and needy feeling that
would only settle once I had found the source of my misfortune and put the
Auriel back in its rightful place, but with every leaf turned and all creatures
accounted for, that hope dimmed.
The only time I stopped searching for answers was when I decided it
best to throw myself to the mercy of the gods, to beg the Preserver. With my
center finger pressed to my forehead, I said the Prayer until my knees were
stained with the earth and my arms bled from scraping against the stone of
the mound. As if it were all some cosmic jest at my expense, the gods did
nothing.
No, despite the fact that a monumental shift had just occurred in my life,
nothing else seemed to change with it. The East Bright still shone over the
hills and valleys on the dayside, glaring off the deep emerald of the high
grasses. The Wane continued to reproach my attempt to find answers,
projecting a lustrous gloom throughout its half of the world. The Guiding
Star remained the brightest of its three-thousand and seven brethren—yes, I
had counted. The Mountain had not fallen and the Sea still roared.
Then there was me. I, too, remained.
Making my way back to the grove that first night, I half expected to find
the Auriel back in its rightful place, wedged tightly in between the
constellations in one of its peculiar shapes. It would laugh at me for not
recognizing it last sleep, but all the while flattered that I had searched far
and wide for some reason as to its disappearance. I would laugh at myself,
too, and let it comfort me with a dozen patterns.
But the space through the grove that hung above my head seemed even
wider the longer I stared into it. A thousand small dots of starlight had
flowed forward from the space where the Auriel had been. They, no doubt,
reveled in my tragedy. Reveled in the freedom to shine as brightly as they
wanted, now. Were there a way to curse them, I would have done it. But
there was no prayer to damn the stars, so I turned my face into the soft
patch of clover beneath me and did my best to ignore the tugging of my
heart. Sleep evaded me, and I, it.

EVEN I MUST ADMIT that by the third day without the

Auriel, I was frantic. There was only one place left to go for answers, one
conversation I dreaded, no other time more than now.
The Mother was waiting for me, her tide slapping low upon the beach. I
sulked onto her shore and sat on the packed sand where the water broke,
which was as near to the Sea as my courage would allow. I had never
ventured this far, and I wasn’t exactly sure of what I was to do, so I listened.
I closed my eyes, made my breath scarce, and tried to decipher the erratic
tempo of the waves. The rush of water drummed against the walls of my
ears. Tears began to prick at the corners of my eyes, so I crushed my lids
tighter against one another.
Even she sounded the same.
When I was able to breathe again, air came through my nose in short,
panicked huffs. Tell me, I begged the Mother. Anything, I pleaded. Tell me
anything about the Auriel and I swear I’ll never ask you another question.
I heard nothing back but the tide as it heaved once more.
What? You don’t believe me?
Those tears I’d stifled betrayed my face. I could offer up another
bargain. Such a vital trade that even the Mother would not ignore its value.
I’ll forsake the vision. I startled even myself, feeling the salted wind still
around me. I’ll stay here with you forever just as we are.
The vision was all that I had to separate me from this place. The only
thing that told me I belonged somewhere I was not. Without it, I would
never escape. Never escape her.
Cold water kissed the tips of my toes and I jolted back, expecting a
searing burn to engulf me as the water receded, but the sand soaked up what
the Sea had offered, and I found some sort of pleasant, peaceful feeling. The
water lapped over me again, and I was sure that a voice came from
somewhere between the hush of waves before my World fell silent again.
The Mother would need time to mull it over, and I would give that to
her. If I was patient for just a few more moments, she would see I was
sincere. She would be gracious with me.
I don’t know how long I waited—it could have been minutes or hours—
I would never know. Because I was there, in the place that never changed.
Even when the Auriel was lost to us, the Sea did not care. If I was lost, it
still would not care. It would keep on pulling and pushing until one day it
pulled too hard and sucked the World right into it.
I rallied myself in fury against the sand and stood to my feet. A boil
inside of me blew through my lungs and I screamed, “Give me a reason!”
The broken cry barely reached the crest of a small swell of her water,
maybe twenty paces in front of me, but it would not have mattered. Just as
I’d cried out, an intense, snapping sound seemed to split the air. My ears
buzzed and my mind scattered. I turned toward the sound and watched a
cloak of white light waft out behind the dunes that surrounded me.
My heart began to race, my stomach curling itself into a tight ball as I
waited, and for what? The light, so clear just moments ago and still floating
towards me, was gone in an instant. There was a crunch of the reeds that
embroidered the bottom of the dunes, and then silence. I took one step
from the shore, my pulse firing through my wrists so violently I could feel
the thump, thumping of it against my skin.
Great, I thought.
My little outburst earlier must have been the early signs of my
impending insanity. I was going to be hallucinating splashes of the Auriel
everywhere I went, probably forever. Had the Auriel even existed at all?
Was it possible I had been shoving these colors into the sky before every
sleep? My mind’s way of healing from the abuse I had endured under the
East Bright. I’d always been alone. I would always be alone.
Turning in the direction of my grove, I walked with a purpose that felt
only slightly paranoid. I was nearing the border of day and night, when I
felt the air around me change once more. It was subtle at first, then sharp—
a crackling against the nape of my neck that raised the hairs on my arm. I
couldn’t have been more than a thousand paces from the Sea, yet as I took a
shallow, nervous breath through my mouth, all I could taste was a dry, tangy
sweetness. It was nothing like the Sea air I’d grown so familiar with.
Then came a shift in the sand, the only warning I had that something
loomed behind me. I turned to face the current of charged air, unsure of
what lay in wait. A small mountain beast? One that had wandered too far in
the wrong direction? An angel? Some effervescent god that had finally
decided to answer my prayer after all this time? Whatever it was, I wasn’t
even sure the gods could have saved me.
The thing stood proudly, towering, stark against the sand dressed in dark
robes and metal plating, haunches bent to strike, arms outstretched at an
odd angle toward the ground. That was all I could make of the being; tall,
adorned, and on the attack. I could see nothing else. Nothing other than the
light. Gods, the light that poured from the center of a pair of hands stretched
out around it in a halo, refracting off the sand where we stood, a white
flame, eclipsed as I hid my eyes from it behind my forearm.
I held my breath and counted the seconds to what should have been my
end, before the light left my periphery, and the thick, cloying, unknown
taste left my mouth. I looked toward the being, swallowing what I could of
my fear. There was a face, or there must have been. Though the hood of the
being’s robe covered most of its features, eyes glowed softly out under the
darkness.
 Carefully, the being took a step toward me, the apprehension in its gait
was unmistakable. Was it just as afraid of me as I was of it? I opposed the
gesture, stepping backward and nearly fumbling on the uneven ground. The
being bounded forward, and I watched as light began to fizzle into the air
once more. A half-gasp, half-yelp shot from my throat and the being stalled,
twisting its head toward the sound.
“Who are you?” I shouted weakly across the space between us, hoping
that it might understand me, but there was no answer. I tried again, “What
do you want?”
In reply, the light reappeared, spouting across the beach, racing toward
me like a liquid fire. I was confused, and desperate for answers, but I knew
I wouldn’t get them this time. I never did. And the power tailing me was so
forceful and so sure, I knew I couldn’t escape it. On my right was an
opening to the valley that lay just below the Mountain. A path that melded
the land and sea floors, leading from the dayside shore to the nightside cliff.
If I could find a way through the forest, perhaps the being would become
fearful and stop following me.
Wiping the sweat from the back of my hands, I took a step toward the
light. Distracted by my sudden compliance, the being stalled. I took two
breaths, and then a voice sunk into my mind. Unlike the ghost of my own,
this one was deep and reverberating. As if it came from outside and within
all at once.
Don’t, it said.
The next moment, I sprinted for the valley, then up the hillside of the
Mountain, dodging through the trees and leaping over the rocks. I had the
advantage of knowing my World in a way no one else possibly could have,
but I could still feel the being behind me, pacing me as if it had turned each
leaf and stone in this place as I had done countless times. My breath was
leaving me in ragged blades of air, scraping up my throat.
I was almost to the forked path in the center of the Mountain’s ascent
where I could grab the stone marker I had placed there. I could use it as a
weapon, I supposed, or at the very least a deterrent. I hadn’t ever thrown a
stone before, especially one so heavy, but I didn’t imagine that the accuracy
of my arm would have much effect on how this would all end.
Stalling. That’s what I was doing, delaying the inevitable fate that
awaited me once I reached the Mountain’s summit. Was I going to die?
After all this time?
 The wind seemed to pick up around me, and for a moment I thought
maybe the Sea had come to my aid. Feeling the brush of air against my
cheek, the hairpin pricking of energy that had been there moments before,
simply disappeared. I made the mistake of glancing at my surroundings,
only to find that the brush to my right was rustling. The being was running
beside me.
I cried out into the forest, shoving my feet harder and harder into the
dirt, ignoring the burning in my calves as my muscles grew taught. I
swerved further into the vegetation, to the center of the Mountain’s forest
where the trees would provide the densest protection. In front of me, a strap
of light reached out, merely inches from my face. It was the same light I’d
seen on the beach, but far more controlled, three strands that were braided
around each other and glowing gold. I watched as it wrapped itself around
the trunk of an old willow about a hundred paces off.
A grunt came from my right, and then a crashing thud in the near
distance. The willow came tumbling down, rolling atop the forest floor
directly in front of me. I glanced to my left, nearly sobbing at the plait of
ivy thickets that ran around the trees, closing off my left flank. If I wanted
to get out of the willow’s path, I’d need to feint right, into the path that my
assailant now ran through.
The willow leaped down a bed of rock and flew wildly into another tree,
the strap of light still gripping it, guiding it to the very end. I had to choose
now: be crushed or submit. Unless…well, I had only tried it once. Merely
for play, and I wasn’t much for strength in my arms. What other options did
I have?
I forced myself to move faster, racing toward the willow, crumbling dirt
flying beneath the soles of my feet. The trunk rolled faster, too, like the
Mountain knew my plans and was pushing the two of us toward each other.
When the fallen tree was close enough for me to reach out and touch, I
jumped, my arms screaming as I reached for one of the sturdy branches in
the tree line above and hauled myself up and up, through the air.
My feet hit solid ground and the being let out a gruff laugh, almost like
it was amused, as if this was all play. To my amusement, I realized not only
had I survived the jump—thank the gods—but I landed right next to the
marker. With gritted teeth, I plied it from the center of the stump just as a
hand dove for my ankle, twisting it, and me, around to face the being. I
could see it had a face, one like my own, or at least the bottom half was
similar. A jaw, peach-colored and covered in a light bronze fuzz. I looked at
that jaw, admired it for the briefest of moments, and swung hard through
my shoulders.
The marker slammed into the side of its face and an awful, shattering
crack sounded in the quiet forest. The being jolted back, moving a hand to
the wound. I didn’t think twice about pulling myself from the ground and
heading for the cliff of the Mountain.
When the summit of the Mountain and I finally met, there were no
questions left unasked and no confessions to be made. I didn’t have time for
visions or goodbyes. I would turn my back on the Mother. Listen to her
scream as I took the last thing in this world she had.
But, again, what choice did I have?
“No!”
The being crested the summit at a run, bellowing at me from across the
cliff. Yet, something about the way it spoke was almost desperate, as if
killing myself would ruin us both. I froze, only for a second. My mind—
my will to keep living—catching itself.
Maybe I could face it, this Death. Maybe I could face this Death and
prevail. But that power…that endless, depth of power that had chased me to
this end...the being would just kill me anyway. Worse yet, it would take my
fate as its prize. I heard the sounds of footfall deepening. The being was
catching up to me with nothing left than a stride between us. I took one last,
fleeting glance at my World, my home.
Find me in the shadows, I said quietly in my mind.
Taking a deep breath, I failed to hesitate, and then I jumped from the
Mountain.
For a moment, one brief and blissful moment, I was weightless. An
intense feeling of suspension as I waited for the earth’s core to tug at my
own, but my paradise of death-adjacent was short-lived. I waited and waited
more. I never fell.
Instead, my arm was yanked up from the nothingness and painfully
twisted until my body was slung into a hard trunk. Not of a tree, but
something corporeal. A warm, dampish whisper stroked the crook between
my earlobe and neck as a cool sharpness braced the delicate underside of
my throat. The limbs that pressed me to the body were unyielding. I felt
fragile against the hard iron of its chest.
“If you try to fight me, Gwynore, I will spill your blood onto this very
earth. Do you understand?” the being demanded. I nodded slightly against
the blade and my assailant relaxed its stance ever so slightly. Expiring a
long breath, it said, “You must come with me. Now.”
I almost jerked my head around to look at it, to laugh in its face at the
absurdity of leaving this place alive. Up until this very moment, escape had
seemed impossible. The stiff repositioning of a blade at my throat made me
think better of it. Instead, I kept my eyes on the pillowy clouds frozen in the
sky above me.
“Where are we going?” I croaked, near agony in my voice, almost like I
had hidden away a hope somewhere in the pit of my stomach. I looked out
at the portrait of the World and felt it rip open around the two of us.
“Home,” it said.

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WHEN THE SIDE OF my face met with a hard thump against
the cool surface of stone, I thought I had died.
It hadn’t been the way I’d wanted to go, but at least it was quick and
nearly painless. The being was Death itself, I decided, coming to lay claim
to my soul after I failed to find answers to my life and its purpose. The
vision, the Prayer, and the endless days and nights, had all been a part of
some grand series of tests. And I had failed miserably. This death had
frightened me more than the death I had wanted, but at least I wouldn’t
have to answer for taking my own life.
My mind clear, I waited impatiently for the peaceful void to sweep over
me. I laid still, truthfully rather afraid to move. Surely, I couldn’t move
anything if I was already gone. It was possible, I supposed, that a tiny sliver
of my essence still clung to the familiarity of a physical world. Damned
mortality, always wishing to be anything but itself.
Just to be sure, I tried to wiggle a pinky toe, and where I had thought
there would be a disconnect from my body, was a strong and fully
functioning tether between it and my soul. Frustrated, I felt my brow
scrunch against my forehead.
Oh, no. Please, no.
When I opened my eyes, I came face-to-face with a blinding light. Not
the blinding light that you pass through to the other side, but the cold glare
that reflects against the even harsher reality of life.
I was still very, very much alive.
But if I really was here—wherever here was—and not lifeless at the
bottom of the pit of the universe then that meant...I rubbed my eyes
vigorously, and blinked furiously, begging them to focus on their
surroundings. With only the dull ache of my clouded vision, I twisted and
flopped around like a drowning creature. My ears adapted quicker than my
other senses and finally, I heard it. The shallow breathing of the thing that
brought me here, panting like it had been exhausted by our fall.
It occurred to me that perhaps I should be equally spent, but I had never
felt more alive with energy. The tips of my fingers were hot and tingling as
I crouched above them, my knees bent at my elbows. Instinctually, I pushed
my weight through them, trying to sneak away from the thing in stealth, still
mostly blind. It was unfortunate that my balance did not equal the
refinement of my hearing. The slight pressure I was forcing on the ground
sent me directly into the floor flat on my backside. A small shout escaped
my lips in a shrill.
My cover was blown, if not obliterated.
A large, black glob began to move slowly into my line of sight and let out
a groan which was quite silly. In the vein of annoyance more than anything.
Even still, I braced the ground waiting for...well, something surely
terrifying.
“By the Light, Gwynore. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you broke
my jaw.” The same voice that confronted me on the Mountain was light and
haughty as it dragged out another groan.
The sudden break in the silence brought everything around me into focus.
I lifted my chin from my curtain of hair and looked up into the deep cavern
of a canyon, with jagged ochre walls gilded from the light that funneled up
and into the well of darkness above. It must have gone on forever. I let my
eyes follow the warm glow back out of the abyss and gasped. Where I
thought there would be a field of stone pillars and impenetrable adamant
was a wide chasm gaping at the open sky. Clear and brilliant, soaking every
tree of the land below and every cloud above, and all the creatures blessed
between the two was the East Bright.
Except it wasn’t—it was in the west from what I could tell. And it wasn’t
entirely whole, like usual. I could just barely glimpse the top of the Bright,
peeking out from behind the skyline. Streaks of fiery reds and buttery
yellows tore through the sky as starry obsidian pressed down onto the day.
Rich magenta hues oozed out all over the earth from the weight of the
impending night. It reminded me of the way the skins of fruit at my grove
split with the crush of my palms, bathing me in their sweet juices. My heart
swelled and then quickly deflated.
No, this definitely wasn’t my World anymore.
“A stone to the face isn’t the worst you could have done,” the voice
started again, “but you might want to try to control those gangly limbs of
yours next time we are projecting.”
My head jerked towards the interruption, and for the first time, I saw him.
Yes, it was now a him. A man—the word came to me like a breeze through
my ears—hovering right over me, but less of a blob now, and more of a
chiseled fortress of an individual. I noticed his hands first. Brute and
covered by hardened skin, with long, lanky fingers that reached out to me,
inviting my hands to join them. I trailed my eyes to his torso, adorned with
an armored vest colored midnight atop a doublet in the same style. The
cloth strained against his muscled frame despite his relaxed stance. A
crested plate clasped to a brown leather belt right above the waistline of his
matching trousers, nearly blinding me as it glinted off the Bright.
Apprehensive, and quite embarrassingly nervous, I let my eyes find his
face. The hood of his dark robes was now bunched at the collar of his dress,
giving me a clear look at him. His strong features were composed, calm,
and intimidatingly reserved, the hard lines of his mouth set and waiting. A
flowing mop of dirty blonde waves fell on either side of his shoulders,
lighter in color than his brows which crushed together in displeasure. My
eyes found his, and it was such a shocking change in feeling that I almost
gasped. I had never seen such eyes—well, I guess that was all too true—so
striking, soft and honeyed, and flickering with light, like the power he’d
wielded on the beach. After a few seconds of me staring, those lights
winked out, cooled to black, and drew into slits.
“Well, are you going to say something? Or at least take my hand? We
need to get you out of the landing before the others see you.”
I stayed silent, still lacking the right amount of awareness to think as to
what he meant by others. Besides, I was scared. Before this day, I couldn’t
remember a time when I had heard a voice apart from my own during
prayer, or any sound that was directed at me, for that matter. His voice was
rough and gravelly, but not from underuse like my own. More like
consistent use, and where mine was weary and strained, his was rife with
confidence. It demanded my attention, and I gave it without asking what
for.
“Please don’t tell me you lost your voice and your wits in that place.” The
sharp angles of his face softened a bit as he spoke again, his eyes bugging
too widely to be intimidating. He wanted me to speak, but I couldn’t think
of anything to say. Still, I cleared my throat.
“Where am I?” I finally managed.
He withdrew from me pointedly, as if I had shoved him. Hands fell at his
sides, and his head cocked in perplexity. Golden eyes looked me over for
what seemed like the hundredth time during our short exchange. Behind
them, I could see the back and forth of his thoughts: a battle for decision.
There was a victor.
“We are in the Well in Leoth,” he said quite anticlimactically. The warmth
that had flowed through his voice before was gone. “Armory of the Light
faction.”
He removed the thick cloak from a pair of decorative brooches that
clasped over the shoulders of his vest and moved toward me cautiously.
When I didn’t startle at his advance, he gently draped the cloak around my
naked body. I hadn’t been aware of my lack of modesty until I had seen the
immensity of his wardrobe. He kept his eyes on mine while he tied a
delicate string near the hollow of my neck. He was, again, searching for
something. I waited for him to find it, and then make sense of anything that
he had said about where we were.
“Let’s get you up and find someone to bathe and dress you properly,” was
all he said.
His words seemed weighed down, disappointed, and that guilt I always
felt when I had failed to summon my visions, the guilt that blossomed from
disappointment, followed me here into this world, too. Already I am failing,
I thought, but accepted his hand this time when it was extended and let him
pull me to my feet.
I ached all over, and with the wave of exhaustion that I felt approaching
me from all sides, I thought it better to comply with the stranger than to
make a run for it. Run to where? I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought the
cliff of this mountain looked rather tempting, but I was simply too tired, or
maybe, too curious, too hopeful. I’d been sure days ago that all hope was
lost.
I looked down to smooth the cloak once the stranger steadied me.
Beneath my dirt-caked feet was a beautiful insignia etched into the floor.
Similar to the one on his belt, polished and gleaming. This one, though, was
intricately painted with dull oranges and yellows and blues. I couldn’t make
out the design before, but I could see it perfectly now. Two larger ovals
inverting on one another. At their center lay a four-point star, the only object
that remained untouched by color. Instead, the natural marble of the rock
beneath shimmered so brightly one might think whoever made it had stolen
a star from the heavens. Maybe it burned so intensely now, whenever the
light hit it, trying to illuminate the spot in the sky it had once been.
“The Preserver’s crest.” The stranger satisfied my curiosity as he, too,
struggled to pry his eyes from the magnificent design.
“The Preserver?”
I devoured the word. It was one I had grown too acquainted with. I paid
careful attention to the stranger’s expression as I repeated it back to him. He
knows of my World. It seemed absurd, but here we stood. He knows of my
life. His face remained indifferent, but I could see it was an effort for him.
“The Preserver of the Light. It is what we call the Sage who protects—,”
he stumbled over the word like it had jumped out in front of him,
“Protected the faction and all who dwell in it.”
Those eyes averted from mine.
Preserver of the Light, let no darkness befall you, I chanted silently,
pressing my lips tightly against one another, trying to keep the words from
literally slipping out of my mouth. I tried not to make much sound as I drew
breath slowly in through my nose and back out. Could this stranger know
how long I had spent walking from day to night, counting, dreaming,
seeing?
If he had felt the impact of my realization, he showed no signs of it. He
seemed to be looking through me at the long corridor on the back wall of
the cavern, eyes darting nervously.
“Come, now,” he said, his mouth drawing into a tight line when I flinched
at his reach. “We’ve wasted too much time out in the open. I’ll explain
more after you have settled in a bit.”
After I’ve hidden you away, is what his tone implied.
The rough skin of his hand latched onto my wrist, and he hastily yanked
me into the hallway. I stayed close to his side, not used to being so
completely in the dark. Already, I missed the comforting glow of my sky.
No matter where I was in my World, I was never shut out from the light.
A single moment passed, and then the hall brightened from within.
Suddenly, out of nowhere. A million tiny incandescents. Like stars. I was
truly amazed as I looked for their source but found none. The stone walls
that arched around us were smooth and solid. Even if the night had come so
quickly since we’d left the landing, there was no way for us to see it.
Next to me, the stranger’s face was tense with concentration. In the glow
that now blanketed us, I could see the dampness of his forehead. He kept
his eyes focused on a point I couldn’t see, somewhere in the pit of that
empty hall. As if he were aware of my attention, he drew his right middle
finger up to the center of his forehead, confirming what I had already
concluded.
“You’re doing this,” I whispered. It wasn’t a question, simply an
observation of what was becoming more and more obvious. “You’re doing
this with your mind,” I explained, to myself, I guess.
The stranger didn’t reply, only hummed in confirmation. I wondered if he
had felt the grief emanating from the part of me that felt lost from my World
already, or if this was simply out of habit. His strain implied the former.
Either way, I was grateful.
“Thank you,” I said low and soft. It was all my voice could manage, and I
didn’t want to cause him to lose his grip on the lights.
The hallway went on eternally, even past the reach of my companion’s
magic. The natural ridges of the rock in the landing had transformed into a
wide hall that ran off into tangential corridors. Every few feet we walked
was an opening on either side with stairs. The whole canyon seemed to be a
network of tunnels and rooms that led elsewhere, with us at the center. The
others could have been anywhere. Suddenly, I was keen to get out of sight.
Squeezing the stranger’s hand, I began to walk faster, my feet gliding atop
the rock floors.
We walked on and on until we reached a corner and turned left, then right,
and finally down a spiral of stairs that landed at a marble door. The stranger
dropped my hand and clasped his arms behind his back.
“This will be your room,” he nodded to the cool-faced barrier. “Do not
leave it until you are called for. I will send the handmaid, Rebekah, down to
help you get comfortable.”
Room. Such a word tugged on my memory almost immediately. Images
of shell-colored cloth and feather-filled pillows were drawn to the front of
my mind. A quiet solitude that I had somehow yearned for, though not for a
long time. And not right now.
“When will you be back? To call on me, I mean.”
The stranger, who had already turned to leave, stopped at the sound of my
raw, guttural voice. His back went rigid as he turned around, his shoulders
pulled back with enough tension to snap himself in two.
“When it is safe,” he replied stiffly and began to turn away from me
again. My hand shot out from under his cloak to take hold of his arm,
fisting his undershirt in angry desperation. He looked down open-mouthed
at my assault, clearly taken back by my sudden and inexplicable boldness. I
couldn’t believe it either, but I needed more answers.
 “Surely you mean to tell me exactly what’s going on,” I said. “You can’t
just come to snatch me and drag me through the entire universe, and then
shut me in my room.”
My head was faint and weary. I grabbed on tighter to his arm, more in
need of support than anything. The stranger stepped forward, the rings of
his eyes stretching against dark pitted pupils.
“I will tell you what you need to know when you need to know it. Now
go before you become more trouble than you’re worth.”
A demand, it seemed, but the words barely passed as anything more than
a whining plea. He, too, was tired of the day’s antics, then. Feeling my eyes
well with tears, I started to beg. “Just tell me one thing, please, I...”
“Gwyn,” He warned.
“No, that’s just it!”
Shaking his head, he tried to pry himself from my grip. I doubled down,
adding my other arm into the mix to keep him with me. I felt like screaming
but I couldn’t rid myself of the fear of being seen by the others.
“On the Mountain and the landing...” I was running my words together in
haste, “You kept calling me something. Gw—, Gwah—,” I tried to force the
syllables out into the space between our faces, but I fumbled.
“Gwynore?” he corrected smoothly.
“Yes! Guh-wen-o-ruh.” He grimaced as I butchered the word once more.
“What does it mean?”
The stranger’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened, but no sound came
from it. Then he swallowed, and timidly, he said, “It’s your name. You’re
called Gwynore.”
These words were the softest he’d spoken to me, yet. Almost melancholy,
like he was sad for me not to have known.
A name, I thought. My name.
I hadn’t given any thought to whether I had one. I named the East Bright
and the Wane and the Sea and the Mountain...the Auriel. But it never
occurred to me that I might need a name, or that I was already given one.
Gwynore.
In shock, I released my hold on the stranger who slipped greedily out of
my reach. He was already halfway to the top of the stairs when I called out
from below. Flattened against one of the boards directly above me, only his
bright golden eyes could be seen through the shadowed slats.
“Yes, Gwynore?”
 My cheeks heated at the way he gently uttered my name as if it was
important for me to be more acquainted with it. “What are you...called?
What is your name, I mean?”
The way the skin creased around the ledge between his cheekbones and
his eyes made me think he was smiling. That, or pulling a face at my broken
speech. He gave nothing of himself away.
“Kalen. That is my name,” he said quickly. “But I am called Kal.”
Without any more of an explanation, he whisked himself back up into the
light.

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WHILE I HADN’T MEANT to strike the handmaiden, she
was rather understanding of why I might have clubbed her on purpose.
That is because I had never seen another person so much like myself.
Somewhere in my bones, I knew what she was—a girl, a woman, like me.
That didn’t make her swift entrance through my chamber doors any less
alarming. It especially did not calm my fear as she stood directly in front of
me, tsking at the poor sight of me before moving her hand out towards my
matted hair. My fist acted on instinct, and instinct alone.
“I apologize, my lady,” Rebekah said, clutching her cheek with a shocked
expression. One similar to my own, though my vicious hand now cupped
my mouth. “I should have introduced myself before getting straight to
work. You see, it has been a long day. Clarisse, one of the other
handmaidens, is on leave with her baby, and all the guest needs have fallen
to me…”
“No,” I said. “It was my…fault. I am sorry. You took me…by surprise.”
Rebekah seemed uncomfortable by the choppy arrangement of my words.
Who would have expected a dullard to have such a sharp punch?
“Yes,” she replied, her green eyes still wide as she attempted to compose
herself. “Well, let’s get you clean and dressed in real clothes.”
The girl reached out to me again, slowly this time, and I found control of
my gangly limbs at last.
Three days had gone by since that first meeting. Or as I counted, six
passes of both the Bright and the Wane as they circled the cosmos painted
in the glass panes of my window. When Rebekah had finished applying a
salve to her cheekbone and made to pour my bath, I asked about their
movements. We had enough time to wait for the dirt that was pressed into
my skin to dissolve into the scalding tub of water for her to tell me the story
of their forbidden love.
She told me that the sun—apparently that is what we called the East
Bright—took his last breath as dusk settled over the world. He did this, she
said, all so that we could bask in the breathtaking luminance of his lover.
Rebekah said we called her the moon.
 I couldn’t believe that my entire life I had lived in the moments just
before such a tragic end. I had wandered unknowingly beneath the finest
hour, the most intimate eternity of bliss the two had ever known. I had stood
on the border of day and night, an unwanted and prying eye to the most
harrowing affair in the universe. What I wouldn’t give to go back and tell
them to savor it. To hold each other’s gaze until their lights bleated out and
the Sea swallowed them whole.
But maybe they were better off being so oblivious. What would it do to
them, and the way that they held each other, to be aware of how soon one
would be ripped from the other’s embrace? I shuddered at the senseless
cruelty, and decided it was better that they love without the fear of
knowing.
Rebekah gingerly swiped the cold tear from my cheek once she had
finished, her features soft with concern. “Lady, have I said something to
upset you?”
I shook my head, nudging off the impulse to sob. “No,” I whimpered and
tried my best to grin through the heartache. “I just really loved that
story.” Pulling my knees back up to my chest, I let her comb through my
hair in silence. I didn’t know if I wanted to know the answers to any more
of my questions. At least not for a while.
The loud burst of my door being thrust open pulled me to the present.
Tearing my eyes away from the sprawling hills and valleys made of orange
stone and deeply sage forest below my windowsill, I turned toward
Rebekah as she entered. She wobbled a bit, trying to balance the plates of
fruits and pastries and assorted teas in her hands and on her forearms. This,
she had told me on the second pass of the sun and moon, was breakfast.
My eyes drew themselves over her small body, trying to pick out any
changes that may have occurred overnight. Thick onyx hair swung between
her shoulders down to her belly as she turned to close my chamber. I
admired the way her beige wool dress swished across the floor when she
turned back around, breaking into a smile that enlivened her round face.
Everything looked just as I had last seen it.
It was strange to be in a room with another person. Kalen had been so
distinctly different from me that I had been too frightened to appreciate his
presence. Where his legs were stocky and strong, mine were lean and
delicate. Where his arms were dusted with hay-colored fuzz, mine seemed
less so. Smoother. Since he last disappeared into thin air, I hadn’t seen a
glimpse of my tall and mysterious conservator. Projecting, that is what the
people of this world called the disappearing. Which was just as well. I
preferred Rebekah. She smiled more than Kalen.
It seemed she liked my company as well. Her voice was warm and caring
every time we bid each other, “hello”. And though she and Kalen were the
only other people I’d met so far, I knew from our sparse conversations last
night that the Well was home to many.
Hundreds of Guardians, the soldiers of Leoth, were trickling through the
dozens of halls and caves that were carved out inside the bedrock. I wished
I could see them all. And count them. And maybe give them my “Hello,”
too. I had been practicing. But considering the haste with which Kalen
shoved me into a secret chamber, I thought it might be premature to start
making friends.
When I asked Rebekah about what Kalen meant by the others, she
confirmed that he had only meant the Guardians. She reassured me that
none of them would cause me harm. Apparently, my arrival was a closely
held secret, although, for what reason, neither of us knew. My arms tingled
with the prospect of a new world, a new secret, new memories to be
uncovered. And the wind in these canyons was far less biting than that on
top of the Mountain.
I finished ravenously attacking the breakfast plates as Rebekah pulled out
a new set of clothing for me to wear. My stomach was bulging, and my
throat tasted sickly sweet after the dozens of pastries I ate. I would have to
learn to stop stuffing my face, I decided with a moan.
“I should have warned you about the confections,” Rebekah answered for
my discomfort. “They are just as tempting as they are vengeful.”
I only sighed in agreement.

“Alright,” she said, “it’s time to squeeze you into this mess.”
Rebekah was pulling at the ropes of silk trousers the color of the moon
lilies in my grove, trying to loosen the waist enough for me to step in
without falling. I gripped her shoulder as I stepped in one foot at a time,
careful not to jut my leg into the unforgiving divide. She tried, and failed, to
disguise her chuckle at my clumsiness with a cough.
“These clothes are different today,” I observed. Rebekah had already
begun folding the ropes over my waist in a complicated pattern I would
never be able to replicate. She handed me a matching silk shirt with
padding inside the shoulders. I grazed my fingernails over the jewels sewn
into the bodice. Slinging the front over my chest, I waited for her to button
the dozen cloth-covered rounds that went up the back.
“Kalen has called for you,” she said quietly, waiting for my reaction. I
knew she felt my muscles tense and my spine straighten out. The lump in
my throat scraped its way down to the pit of my stomach to sit heavily with
my breakfast. I didn’t, couldn’t, say anything in reply.
“Oh,” was all I pushed out.
Rebekah said nothing more on the subject. I figured she was either
unaware of the details, or she didn’t want to put me on edge. I thought
about telling her it was too late for that, but before I could, she looped the
last button. The only encouragement she gave was a tap of her fingers at the
nape of my neck. Then she hurried out of the door to my room, this
morning’s crumb-coated dishes piled high in the crooks of her elbows.
I turned towards her, panicked. She couldn’t just leave me alone in here.
There were so many questions to ask, so many possibilities of confrontation
I needed to prepare for. Pacing away from the edge of my bed, I started to
speak. She stopped me with a slight raise of her palm and a brief shake of
her head. No, the gesture seemed to tell me.
“You will be collected within the hour, Gwynore.” Rebekah hesitated, her
pinched mouth quivering. It was obvious she knew more and was debating
on whether or not to tell me. With one squeeze of last night’s clothes against
her chest, she let go of her breath and decided against it. Rebekah floated
away without another look, shutting the door behind her.

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COUNTING. I WAS ALWAYS counting things.
Fish in the brook, stars in the sky, the number of times my feet struck the
earth. In my World, counting every step I took always made me feel some
sense of accomplishment. That, in an infinite expanse of trees and sand,
there were still borders, even if I had to make them myself. Here, inside the
confines of my room, my toes bent inside the stiff cloth of shoes. The
numbers never stopped. I was lost in them.
A rake of marble against stone knocked me back into my senses. I
whipped around toward the sound, nearly tumbling into the large hunk of
pretty wood—the dresser—that sat across from my window. Rebekah had
told me the name while brushing my hair at it this morning. Her thin fingers
running across my scalp as she sectioned away each thick piece of wavy
lock was the calmest I’d felt in days. I played with the carved knobs that ran
down the side, all four-pointed stars, smooth to the touch.
Now I gripped the stars in my hand, tightly, staring at the other side of my
room.
My chamber was wide open.
Through it, entered an ovoid cluster of light bobbling in the air. The orb
floated around each of my shoulders, kissing warmth into them, before
stalling in front of me. Waiting, it seemed. I leaned in to inspect it further.
My nose braced the cloud of energy surrounding the orb and it burst into a
million pieces that enveloped my entire body.
I was burning. Not in searing pain, but in a surge of power. I was cloaked
in a peaceful and brilliant layer of magic. The magic, I supposed, began
pulling me out of my bedroom—against all orders—and into the forbidden
hallway. It was a relief knowing that I could start counting until I got to
wherever the light was taking me.
Together, we floated up the spiral stairs and through the long corridor into
the landing where I had previously arrived through the universe. The
morning had cast a cool haze over the canyon that was so unlike the golden
shades that had drenched the Well when the sun hung low. Sunset, Rebekah
had told me just last night, though some of the words she’d prattled off to
me, I was beginning to remember on my own. Somehow, I’d known sunset
as soon as I laid my eyes on it.
The light pulled me to an archway similar to the one that led to my room
but on the opposite side of the crest. I hadn’t noticed it before but now
found myself propelled toward it. The sweet melody of magic that swirled
around me distracted my senses. A song more beautiful than that of the tree
beasts and far more ethereal. The pulsing of it nearly masked the sound of
heavy feet thudding towards me, their echo shortening in breadth. Whoever
was coming, was closing in. Fast. Too fast for the chance of escape.
I was going to be seen.
I stopped walking immediately, cast my body against the nearest wall,
and sealed my eyes shut, bracing for impact. The feet stomped right by me
and began to fade out into silence. I popped open my eyes.
Nothing.
Another pair of feet, sounding much more relaxed than the first, made
their way to me. A young man stepped out of the dimly lit hallway and onto
the center of the crest. He threaded his fingers through a whorl of red hair,
basking in the sunlight. A stiff draft of wind lifted the linen panels of his
tunic and flapped at the wool of his pants. Smiling, he turned, looking right
at me, or right through me? Then he was gone, walking swiftly down the
hall. I watched him go, all the while baffled. How had he not seen me?
I looked down, the Light oscillating over my body. Almost as if I had
soaked it all in and began to push it back out. Magic. The Light that bent
itself to every curve and angle of my body must have reflected my
surroundings to whoever saw me, blinding them to my presence. Whichever
way it worked, I was thankful, hating the thought of anyone finding me who
wasn’t supposed to. Not because of what they might do, but how Kalen
would react.
Despite now knowing that I was invisible, there was no need to stay any
longer out in the open. I gathered myself, and let the Light pull me quickly
through a maze of halls and stairs that snaked through to different caverns.
The intricate networking of them made it seem impossible that the armory
was anything other than an enormous labyrinth. Without my guide, I would
have surely been lost.
After walking for thousands of paces, the tension that moved my body
finally eased and the tingling energy of magic fizzled out. Inspecting myself
once again, I found the light had gone, leaving me at the entrance of a
room, seemingly empty with its door ajar.
 I entered, checking around each corner before fully stepping into the
room. An enormous round slab of oak separated the space into two halves.
Papers and wooden baubles littered the log’s face. A discarded dagger was
standing upright, stabbed into the wood, the sun glittering through a clear
gem in the hilt.
Behind the massive centerpiece were two lounges upholstered with brown
leather, sitting on either side of a large mirror in the back of the room. A girl
stood in the center, gawking. When our eyes met, she shrieked. I shrieked.
The truth struck us both simultaneously. The girl was me, only recognizable
by the outfit Rebekah had picked out.
I sprinted towards her, to see myself clearly for the first time in my whole
existence. When I reached out to run my fingers down her face, I gasped at
the cold touch of some sort of thick material. Like in the watery reflections
in the brook behind my grove, I watched myself move in real-time, but
when the I swirled the pad of my finger around, I did not ripple the surface.
Instead, a foggy smudge was left behind on the other Gwyn’s face.
Even with the smudge, it was a beautiful face. Heart-shaped, draped with
long, unruly, platinum waves that stopped at the curve of my hips. I was tall
and my muscles were lean but shapely from all my wandering from
Mountain to Sea. All of my World was written so plainly on me. The Bright
had even sent splashes of freckles across my skin, some dotting around the
edges of my wide lips. Then there were my eyes. Like crystals, clear as the
water that laps onto the shallowest part of the beach, wading around my
dark pupils. There was an oddness to them, something missing from the
place where the color was meant to be. Odd, I thought. But I liked it. A
smile cracked like ice hitting water, breaking out as I took myself in.
“Immortality is a wonder, is it not?”
The greeting startled me, and I yelped into the reflection. I watched my
cheeks redden in the glass before turning around to face him. He looked
beautiful too, although I could be sure he didn’t bother admiring himself to
know it.
“I can’t say I blame you for staring.” The corner of Kalen’s mouth pulled
arrogantly to the right. “You do look significantly better than the last time I
saw you.”
It seemed as if all of the kindness he had offered up at our last meeting
had expired. I ignored him because nothing, nothing at all, could have
overshadowed the enormity of what he’d just said. Not even slighted
compliments from a roughly handsome man.
“Immortality?” I asked, choking a bit.
“Yes, Gwyn. Of the Old Language, I believe. As in immortalis.” His
tongue curled around the “s” as he turned me by my shoulders back to the
reflection. Brushing a section of hair over my neck slowly, he brought up
my right palm. In a flash, the exposed flesh of my hand was ripped open by
a blade. I cried out at the searing pain tearing through my wrist and arm.
Then, just as fast as it came, the fire was put out, and I watched in disbelief
as my hand sewed itself together again.
“Not mortal,” he breezed.
“Mongrel!” I shouted. Snatching my hand away from his wrist, I moved
to...to do what? Hit him? I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter because Kalen
had already slipped away. He walked back over to the stump and slugged
the knife into the center of the log beside the dagger.
Bullseye.
“Don’t be dramatic. You wouldn’t have believed me unless I showed
you,” he said, then quickly changed the subject. “How was your stroll
through the halls today?”
I was still seething. I want to drown him in the Sea, I thought, and then
immediately felt ashamed. Kalen had saved my life on the Mountain yet I
couldn’t grasp the feeling of wanting to lash out against him. The guilt
came, pressing down on my heart in such a way I couldn’t tell if I wanted to
yell or cry or break something. Emotion. In my whole life, I’d never been so
overwhelmed with emotion. I closed my eyes briefly, counting and trying to
settle myself enough to give him some sort of answer. My reply came out
sharp and agitated.
“I saw two men, but they didn’t see me at all.”
“Mhm,” he grunted, looking down at the oak table.
“It was strange,” I added with an adjustment of tone, but Kalen seemed to
drop the subject completely. With quick and calculating movements, he
began to spread the tiny wooden baubles across a miniature scape of land
that rose out of the table.
“Who were they?” I drove on.
“How should I know?” Kalen was still shuffling. “One of the many
Guardians, to be sure. Don’t throw yourself into a fuss over it.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
He looked at me now, directly, face coated in ire. It was a subtle shift, a
slight hardening of his features, but the change felt so drastic that the whole
room seemed to shrink around it.
“Because they will never know you are here,” he explained. “Or that you
even exist for that matter. I’ve made sure of it.”
I knew he meant the magic that concealed me today. It must have been
him conjuring it. Without another word, Kalen shifted his attention back to
the small world below him.
It wasn’t much of a world, actually, more like a specific section of it. A
misshapen chunk of land divided into four sections that were nearly
proportionate to one another. There was a raised texture on the western
seaboard, little bumps of deep browns and green, like dirt and trees.
Splitting the center with it was a mountain range, tall and proud, capped in
powder. Below the center, in the southern quadrant, was a deep orange clay.
The northern section was blinding white. Rings of teal surrounded the
whole thing, a stretch of water that separated the main land mass from a
small island of coal grey.
I watched Kalen’s strong hands brace the edges of the table, and noticed
his fingers twitch. This was important to him, I realized, whatever he was
doing, even if it all looked like pointless maneuvering to me.
“Speaking of why I am here,” I said and paused to allow him to pick up
the conversation. He didn’t. He just sat there, leaned forward over his desk
looking indifferent. “Why am I here, Kalen?”
“I told you, Gwynore.” His knuckles whitened on the table. I tried not to
flinch. “You will know why you are here when I decide you need to know
it. Have you misunderstood?”
I shook my head once to the left and right in short spurts as Rebekah had
done to me earlier this morning. The gesture that said, No. He seemed
content with this and relaxed.
“Though I am interested in what you already know.” Kalen sauntered
lazily around the oak of the desk and sat down in a grandiose chair on my
right. He stretched and spread his thighs until he was comfortable and
pressed his palm under his chin. The only sound in the room was the creak
of the chair as it bore his weight. “Tell me.”
My face twisted in deep thought. What did I know?
“Well,” I hesitated, still unsure. “I know that I was in my World and
everything was just as it was supposed to be.” Kalen leaned toward me,
clearly vested in what I had to say for once. “And then the Auriel
disappeared, and you took its place. And now I am here, in the Well.
Armory of Leoth, the Light faction.”
I tried to repeat his words exactly as he had said them to me. For the past
three days, I had been going over them repeatedly from memory, trying to
organize my disarrayed mind.
“Where do you think you were?” he asked, surprising me. “The World
you claim is yours, what do you know about it?”
I perked up in my seat. Kalen didn’t appear to be confused by the
disappearance of the Auriel. Which meant he must know something. Then
the answer to his question occurred to me, with a punch of sharp pain to my
chest.
“I don’t know anything.”
It was true. However long I had spent in my World, I had truly no idea of
where it had come from, the rules that governed it, or what else it may have
had to offer up except for a mildly deranged girl, piddling around with no
memories. Kalen regarded me with suspicion, his forefinger rubbing at his
smooth jaw. I struggled to explain. “I have some issues with...I mean, I have
a hard time remembering much about where I came from. Never mind the
World that took me in.”
Saying it out loud, I couldn’t help but feel stupid. How many times had
this emptiness inside of me ruined everything? I looked down at my lap and
felt the shame of my shortcomings stinging my eyes. The rough calluses of
Kalen’s fingertips pulled me out of myself immediately. He had touched
me, gently lifting my chin.
“Do not ever think you failed because you could not control your own
mind,” he said quietly. It was a soft reprimand, but not out of anger. When I
didn’t say anything, he removed his hand. I watched him stretch his fingers
and wondered if his palm ached.
“I can tell you about it if you would like,” he offered uncomfortably. I
nodded, unable to speak. “You were in what’s called the Binding.”
The Binding. The name stuck to the back of my throat as I swallowed,
and Kalen continued. “The Binding,” he said, “is a place between the folds
of the universe. It’s quite literally like the saddle of a book.”
“A book?”
Jumping up, Kalen bolted towards the west wall of his office to grab a
thick, box-like thing. He brought it over and laid it in my lap, allowing me
to filter through the rough edges of papyrus. Admiring the delicate gold
lines that were engraved on the outer shell, my pointer finger felt at the bold
ink that dashed across the cream pages in between. I wasn’t sure what the
collection of black splotches meant, but it felt important enough to
appreciate.
Kalen took back the book and singled out two pieces of paper that lay
next to each other. Carefully, he peeled them from one another, emphasizing
the wide gap between the points they were sewn together. He prodded at a
loop in the stitching.
“Just here,” he said. “That is where you were in the universe.”
Kalen watched me carefully, assessing. I could tell he was trying not to
overwhelm me, waiting for a sign that I was ready to continue.
I was but on my terms.
“How...” I began, but my voice faltered slightly, and I cursed myself for
being so easily pushed around by my emotions. “How did I get into...the
Binding?”
Kalen puffed a ball of breath from his cheeks as he thought deeply, being
overly cautious with his words. “You were placed there,” he winced,
bracing for my reaction. I tried not to give him one, knowing somehow that
as soon as Kalen saw anything less than a collected arrangement of my
features, the information would stop flooding out of him. He fiddled his
thumbs anxiously in his lap. “It was for your protection. You are...valuable
to the faction.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. The way he had locked me in my room and
ignored me for the last few days had made me feel the complete opposite of
valuable.
Holding up his hand, Kalen gestured to me to stay put. He walked to the
far wall where a small table sat, and opened a drawer underneath it,
scrounging around for something—I couldn’t tell what. When he’d finally
found whatever it was, a whisper of elation passed from his lips.
“This,” he exhaled sharply, feeling the weight of the object in his hand as
he rushed back over to where I sat. “This may explain a little better than I
can.”
Kalen loosened his clasp around the object, no bigger than his palm,
revealing a lump wrapped in a thick grey cloth. He took his other hand and
lifted it gently, careful not to touch the bright emerald stone underneath. It
flashed against the light from the window as he rotated his palm for me to
get a closer look. Just below the stone’s surface swirled a molten cloud of
dark matter. I stared at him for a moment, not understanding.
“Take it,” he instructed gingerly.
My eyes never left his, but I did as he said and moved my fingers toward
the jewel. Still unsure, he gave me a nod as I brushed the fabric around it.
I took the stone in my hand, and the sky fell down on me.
ABDIEL WAILED AS I plunged a short sword into the wall of
his heart. Twisting it deeper, I hummed appreciatively as his breathing
staggered and a warm gush of blood spurted from the wound onto my hand.
In a last-ditch effort to thwart me, he pulled mercilessly at the long, braided
rope of my hair.
“Give,” I propositioned. The crack of his left forearm bone underneath
my boot vibrated up my spine. I watched the violet color in his eyes dull.
“Gwynore,” he gurgled.
“Have it your way, then.” I jerked my leg from his arm to get a better
angle, and pushed deeper into his chest, mentally searching for that sweet
spot that would cleave him from his life force.
“Honestly, Gwyn. You’re a sadist,” Owen barked from the corner. “You
know you can’t kill him.”
“Not until he gives,” I grunted back. Abdiel was always so damned
stubborn, the other Astralites were much easier to break. He was the best of
the King’s soldiers, after all. Abdiel protected the Astral Plane as if it were
the embodiment of his one true love. Perhaps that love had made him
strong. Or perhaps if I put my knee down on his testic—
“Enough!”
By the fucking Mother. Abdiel heaved when I yanked the borrowed blade
out of him and rolled flat on my back to the cold marble floor. Staring out
through the skylight at nothing in particular, I kicked my legs childishly.
“Why don’t you ever just let me have my fun?” I whined. Crossing my
arms atop my knees, I sat up to get a better look at the very annoying and
self-absorbed King of the Cosmos.
“I’m not going to sit by and watch you torture my best men all to cure
your boredom, Gwynore,” Gabriel huffed.
“Oh, come on, it’s not like he really dies or anything.”
The look of concern on his face was starting to rub me the wrong way.
We both knew he couldn’t care less if I actually did murder one of his
Astralites. Maybe not this particular one, but even so, it wasn’t like he
couldn’t Yield another one. Spoiling my training was another way to ensure
Gabriel got his cut of the entertainment.
“The fact that he never really dies or anything,” Gabriel’s porcelain
fingers curved in the air, “makes this show you’re putting on all the more
unnecessary.”
“Most of the things you do in your leisure time are unnecessary, Gabriel,
but you don’t see me plucking the fruit from all your wine glasses, do
you?”
“Oh please. When will you ever need to put on such a grotesque
performance?” Gabriel made a sweeping motion to the bloody mess that
was starting to seep into the cracks of his carved insignia—the crescent
moon pierced with the arrow of Time.
“I do not train because I fear a threat,” I replied simply. “I train because
when circumstance finally comes to force my hand, I’ll be able to shove
that hand down its throat.”
I knew as well as he did that no one in the universe was strong or brazen
enough to attempt a coup on the Sages, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t
daydream about what a real battle would be like someday. The feeling of
victory in my palm as I held the heart of the last traitor.
“Lovely as always, dear Gwynore,” was all Gabriel had the patience to
say. He and I would always bicker about this. I would forever be a time-
wasting troublemaker to him, and he would never stop being incurably
naive. With the nudge of his chin, I was dismissed.
“Tell me,” I said, instead of leaving him. “Who do you say will triumph?
Fate or Gwynore the Brave and the Ruthless?” The question brought a
small smile to his lips, but he quelled it with a roll of his star-flecked eyes.
I stalked away feeling indignant, my mind already strategizing a war that
did not yet exist. A war between destiny and myself. Just as my hand
clenched victory tightly in my fist, a biting gust of wind kissed my right ear
and a clean blade shanked the door frame in front of me. It gleamed, the
light refracting off the deep amethyst gem of its hilt.
“Gwynore?” Gabriel chimed. “Use your own bloody dagger next time.”

WHEN I CAME TO, my ear stung angrily where the blade had
grazed it in the dream—or was it a dream? It seemed very real, like a
vision. Like my part of my life had rushed back into me. My stomach rolled
at the thought. Bouts of forever spent on top of a damned mountain trying
to remember and all I had to do was touch a stone.
 Just like that, a piece of me fell back into place. Still, it didn’t fit exactly
as it should have. I looked down into my lap where the stone sat heavily.
Turned clear, its insides no longer churned, like it was relieved to have
finally let out the life it was holding onto.
I wasn’t so thankful to have gotten that life back.
The Brave and the Ruthless Gwynore. I didn’t know that brash and
violent girl the stone had shown me. All my years in the Binding was
peaceful and quiet. How was it that both of those things could live inside of
me without knowing one another?
“Gywn,” Kalen’s voice focused me. Warm hands braced my knees as he
kneeled at them now, watching me. He said nothing else.
“What is this?” I asked, not finding the courage to look up from the
stone.
“It’s part of your soul, hidden in this stone for safekeeping.” He
volunteered the information without any hesitation.
“Why?”
His hands left me as he stood up and began to pace. This, I guess, was
more difficult to explain.
“According to what I have been taught about you...” Kalen struggled,
stringing out the sentence like he was filling in the blanks of his own
memory, “when you were put into the Binding, your soul was separated
from your life force and broken into three pieces. They have been guarded
on earth. Waiting for your return.” Kalen looked nervous as he sank back
into the chair in front of me. “And for you to eventually find, once you were
freed.”
Three pieces of my soul. Taken from me. All of the fear I had felt
moments before dissipated, replaced by a feverous anger. “Well, this is only
one, where are the rest?”
“That,” he huffed, “is more complicated.”
I found the strength, buried under the noise of my busy mind, to look at
him then. Light flared in his eyes.
“Do your best,” I said.
OceanofPDF.com
IF YOU HAD ASKED anyone in the southern courtyard, Kalen
was alone, pacing the viewing corridor, which was a long outdoor hall made
of the same ochre stone that supported the Well but with gaping arches that
allowed anyone and everyone to watch the Guardians as they completed
their afternoon sword lessons. There were about a hundred of them if my
sweeping glance had given me the right estimate.
“They seem afraid of you,” I whispered, even though I knew the others
wouldn’t hear me. We’d made two passes down the walkway and no one
had a clue that I was walking beside him, or that I was anything more than a
breeze of sweet air.
Immediately after we left the war room, Kalen cast me into the same
magic he had used to conceal my journey through the armory. Instead of
cowering from it as I had this morning when Kalen drew the orb of light
from the center of his chest and broke it with a solid swing of his arm, I
leaned into the unknown power. The taste in my mouth was becoming
familiar, the brightening and sharpening of my surroundings exciting. Then
I thought, I shouldn’t like this feeling. Not when I barely knew what it was
or what it might do to me the more I was subjected to it.
To my left, Kalen shook his head. “In two days, this company is headed
north to a camp near the southeastern flank of Grovsney, the neighboring
faction,” he said. “The only things they have to fear are looters or rogue
assassins once they start moving.”
“Why must they go?” I asked, even though I’d only understood half of his
explanation at best. Kalen stopped walking, put his hands in the pockets of
his pants, and leaned against the wall. I stopped too, and folded my arms
across my chest as I waited. He stared intensely at the Guardians, his eyes
darting back and forth as each soldier drew a longsword simultaneously.
When the sound of sliding metal stopped, one man stepped forward, looked
straight ahead to Kalen, and began shouting commands.
Against the echoing shouts of the other soldiers, Kalen offered stoically,
“War.”
War. Like sunset, it was a word I instantly understood when I heard it in
the stone’s vision. Now, looking out into the neat rows of young men and
women, all dressed in brown leather, heavy under the weight of plated
bronze, I could see it. Covered in the grit of the canyon, sweat dripped from
each of their brows as the sun beat down on them, and they seemed to bask
in it with gritted smiles, trading practicing blows that came close to actual
cuts. A pair of Guardians who looked immeasurably young were scrapping
near the edge of the plateau of the canyon, unafraid. War was etched into
their faces. It was who they were. I was struck by the similarity of those
expressions to mine—well, to the version of me the stone had shown me. I
had known war, too, and liked it.
“When did it start?” I asked. Garnering information meant I needed Kalen
to keep talking.
“It hasn’t,” he shrugged, still surveying the Guardians as they started to
clash their swords together rhythmically. Shifting his weight he added, “Not
yet, not really.”
I must have worn a look of desperation because after one glance at me,
the entire story began to pour out of Kalen.
“Right before you were taken to that place, this world was on the brink of
war,” he said, “The gods, we call them Sages, went through a bit of in-
fighting, for lack of better terms. The Light Sage, who ruled and protected
this faction, got into it with one of her sisters over some very archaic laws.”
Kalen kicked at a collection of pebbles with the toe of his boot, shaking his
head at the ground with a sigh. “The Shadow Sage was in love with one of
the Preserver’s Guardians and wanted to turn him into an immortal, through
a process we call Yielding. Once a person is Yielded, their soul belongs to
the immortal who performed the Rite. But…”
“But the Light Sage wanted him for herself?”
Kalen nodded. “No one knew why, either. So they fought for him, brutally
—fatally, even. At the moment of death, The Preserver’s Light was taken by
her sister and kept hostage in the Shadow faction ever since.”
“These...Sages...were going to throw their factions into war over a man?”
Kalen laughed at my casual summary. “Blood has been taken for much
less, Gwynore,” he said, eyes darkening. “Even if you don’t remember it.”
I swallowed hard, knowing he was alluding to blood that I had spilled—
on a whim, perhaps. We fell silent, but the question itched at me,
clarification for what I’d realized.
“I was one of them, wasn’t I?” Kalen looked at me sharply. “I was a
Guardian?”
I could see in his hopeful expression, he thought that I was remembering
this. But I wasn’t. No other visions of my life were coming to me. I just
knew. He’d brought me out here to stir something, and he had. Excitement.
I wanted to run out there and pick up a sword, though I’d spent whatever
amount of time in the Binding, and had never even thought to fashion a
weapon. Kalen lifted himself from his place on the column and walked
towards me. He faced me, not seeming to care if the audience of Guardians
thought he was crazy for talking to himself.
“At one point,” he said, eyes scouring mine with the same intent he’d
watched the Guardians, “you were our best.”
“When?” I urged, closing out the space between us. “When was I your
best, as you put it?”
“Seventy-two years ago.”
His voice had lowered, like when he’d told me my name for the first time.
This was difficult for him, it seemed. Seventy-two years ago. I was still
getting used to time and it’s passing, but I could tell that for Kalen, this was
an unsettling amount of it.
Before I could wonder why, a shriek came from the courtyard.
Blood-curdling and loud.
Kalen and I both turned toward it immediately, scouring the formations of
Guardians for the source. Then, from the very edge of the canyon, three
men stepped forward. Rather, two stepped, the third hung between them, his
legs limp above the ground.
They were all Guardians, that was clear from their dress, but they hadn’t
been among the ones training with us moments before, they added to my
count. And they were dirty, their faces splotched with dry mud and…not
blood, but a dark substance that was as black as the ink in a book.
“Help,” the man on the right screamed, but no one rushed forward. All of
the Guardians in the training yard seemed frozen. Silence blanketed them
completely. Some had dropped their weapons altogether. Others had
stepped back into fighting stances, on instinct, I guessed, protecting
themselves from their own. “Help!” he said again, his voice nearly giving
out. “He’s been scarred for Light’s sake. Someone!”
At that proclamation, the stoppage of time ceased. Kalen sprinted off into
the center of the courtyard, joined by a throng of Guardians who’d finally
come to, and traded their weapons for the legs of the injured man. The
Guardians took over carrying the man, while his companions clung to his
arms, not wanting to let go. Kalen took the lead at the front, walking
hurriedly back to where I stood. I stepped to the side, allowing the group to
pass before taking up pace behind them.
“To the infirmary,” someone yelled, and the Guardians all turned in one
direction. Nothing more was said as we walked through the Well, passed the
landing and through another section of the labyrinth I’d never been before.
We arrived quickly to a room lined with plain beds, each only big enough
for one singular person to lay. It was dark and damp, lit by a lonely sconce
on the furthest wall. There was a large hearth to our left and a stove with
burbling pots sitting in wait. The Guardians laid the injured man gently on
one of the cots, and without instruction, began to leave the room.
“Dalwin,” Kalen called out, and one of the men who had been carrying
the injured man held back at the entrance to the infirmary. “Stay. He needs
someone he recognizes. Help me talk him through this, and his chance to
survive will be that much more.”
Dalwin gave a curt nod and closed the door to give us all the privacy. On
his way to the cot where his friend lay, he stumbled and knocked into me. I
held in my gasp, praying the poor man was too in shock at the image of his
friend, mauled, to know that he’d stumbled into a solid hunk of nothing.
Curiously, Dalwin turned and looked me straight on.
“I’m so sorry ma’am,” he said, rubbing his eyes, and then gasped, “Oh
thank the Mother, you must be a nurse,”
I jerked my head around to look at Kalen, but he was already looking at
me, his eyes wide with panic. Dalwin could see me. He could see me. A
slight flinch in Kalen’s expression told me he had no idea how. It was then I
noticed that there was no Light around me whatsoever, and I couldn’t
remember it being there since we had left the courtyard.
“She’s not a nurse,” Kalen recovered, turning to Dalwin. “She’s a
handmaid. New,” he added, along with a strange look in my direction. “And
she’s going to go get those clean linens from the corner and bring them to
me.”
I did as Kalen instructed, trying not to trip on my way over to the stacked
crate of cloth that was sitting next to a stove of heated water. I grabbed a
handful of the linen and returned to the two men without a word. Kalen
took a deep, reassuring breath as Dalwin sat next to his friend without
further incident.
Rolling his shirtsleeves up past his elbows, Kalen started to work on the
man. He was focused, assessing the would with featherlight touches. The
man’s upper thigh looked as if it had been mauled by some sort of animal,
but instead of blood glistening in the deep scars, black liquid filled the
space. As Kalen pulled a thread of the man’s pants near the bend in his leg,
the black poured onto the table and its clean cloth below, soaking it in a
matter of a second. Kalen cursed.
“None of it is healing,” I said, keeping my voice low so I wouldn’t alarm
Dalwin. This wound had to have occurred a while ago if the group of them
had projected in from somewhere else after they’d been attacked. The cut
Kalen had made on my hand had been shallow but healed within seconds.
“He’s not immortal,” Kalen answered, kneeling to grab a dagger from his
boot. “Most of them aren’t.”
He walked over to the stove and dipped the dagger’s blade into water that
was boiling in a pot. He held the blade there for a few moments and then
walked back over to the injured man, and began cutting his trousers.
“Look at me, Jason,” Dalwin said suddenly and reached for his friend’s
hand on the bed. His fingers fluttered over the back of Jason’s wrist, and
then he seized him hard, strangling him in his grasp as if he could feel the
open wound, too. As if he was bracing himself for what was to come.
Kalen gave a fleeting glance to Dalwin.
“Tell me how,” he ordered him, directing his focus back onto cutting the
strapping and cloth from Jason’s skin, peeling it backward slowly, and
sloughing it onto the floor.
Dalwin sat up straighter.
“We were crossing into Grovsney for the day, sir, for provisions,” he said.
“After we’d met with the suppliers, we decided to stop in at a tavern that
was across the village. We didn’t even see the Shadowfaders step across the
threshold.”
“They shouldn’t have been there to begin with,” Kalen replied angrily,
gritting his teeth. Then, he pulled his arms across his chest, his wrists
connecting and breaking until a stream of Light, as bright as the one on the
beach days before, sat between his hands. Dalwin grabbed Jason’s face,
forcing his gaze away from his own sizzling flesh. Shoving his palms
outward, Kalen sent the Light pouring onto the Shadow wound. Jason
bowed off the bed and screamed, the first sound he’d made since we’d
entered the infirmary.
“We drew on the Light immediately,” Dalwin continued, raising his voice
over Jason’s agony. “There were children, sir, in the tavern. It was midday,
and they’d come in from playing in the village…” Dalwin faltered, his chin
dipping down as he tried to recollect himself. “The Shadowfaders didn’t
care. Jason tried to hold the Light, but…”
Dalwin put his free hand up to his mouth, choking as he relived the
horror.
“It wasn’t enough.” Kalen finished for him. The Light that was working
on Jason’s wound began to slow out of Kalen’s palms. Jason’s screams
turned to whimpers. For a moment, I thought, it was working. Kalen was
healing him. Jason would live to help finish his friend’s recount of the day.
But then Kalen dropped his hands and the Light banked, left the room
entirely. He said, “It isn’t going to be enough here, either.”
Kalen walked to the back of the room and slammed his fist down onto the
work table, the crates of cloth going topside on the floor.
“Dammit!” He shouted, and Dalwin began to shake with emotion.
We all feel silent. All but Jason, whose shallow breathing became even
more elongated and weak. I watched his chest fall heavier and heavier as
the moments passed.
Kalen had said the war hadn’t started yet, not really. Then what was this?
And why, why was I here in this room, and not in my grove counting stars. I
couldn’t tell if it was the stench of black blood and burning flesh that was
making my stomach roil, or the prospect that anything this awful had
something to do with me.
Jason writhed below me, suddenly, as if the pain had seized him. Air
whined from his chest, and I looked to Kalen, waiting for him to start
working on the man again. But his hands swept up into his hair, and he
walked towards the door to the infirmary, and opened it. Kalen looked at
me, the Light in his eyes just a pale yellow, barely pulsing with his power,
like a slowing heartbeat.
“Thank you,” he said to me. I cocked my head inquisitively, and he gave
me a look that said, Go along. Let this be the one thing you go along with.
“You’ve done all you can. Please, handmaid, let me escort me back to the
workrooms while Dalwin says his goodbyes.”
I glanced back at Dalwin, who was now leaning atop Jason’s chest, their
hands still entwined. Tears spilled out onto his dirty cheeks in clean streaks.
Jason’s head lobbed to the side, and all Dalwin could offer was a chorus of,
“I’m sorry” and “It will be okay.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. There was too much at once.
Between the first stone and the death. Everything was too much.
After a moment, I gathered the blood-soaked linens from the table and
tossed them into a bin. To sell the story. I was a handmaid who’d stumbled
across this tragedy. I walked through the door and past Kalen into the hall. I
ignored the Guardians who were still lined against the walls, waiting for
news. I kept my head down and watched the floor. Kalen exited the
infirmary behind me and didn’t even bother to cloak me. Not that he had
any magic left to, it seemed.
We crept our way through the endless maze of hallways back to my room,
walking slowly, almost embarrassingly so. I couldn’t tell if Kalen was
attempting to be vigilant, what with me completely vulnerable to be seen, or
if he was just exhausted from it all. Kalen kept his attention in front of us
the entire time we walked, the anger in his steps was palpable.
We finally turned down the corridor that led to my room, my heart
sinking as we got closer. I’d asked him to do his best to explain what the
vision in my stone had meant, yet we had gotten no closer to the answer. It
had to be now.
I forced myself to grab his wrist. Kalen stopped walking.
“You never explained how I have anything to do with this war,” I said
weakly.
Kalen turned to me. Dark shadows were painting the sunken part of his
cheekbones. His head rolled as he moved to rub the back of his neck.
“You were there,” he murmured back. “During the final confrontation
between the Light and the Shadow,” he clarified. “You were there.” Putting
his hand down, he stuffed it into his pocket and shrugged with defeat. “The
Light was taken by the Shadows, you were placed into the Binding, and
everything in this world succumbed to darkness.”
Kalen opened the door to my room and ushered me in. I took a seat on my
bed and tried to remain as postured as possible. I couldn’t let him know
how much this day had affected me. He couldn’t see how terrified I had
become. He had to trust me enough to tell me everything.
“But why? Why did you rescue me from the Binding, and give me my
soul? What do you expect me to do about any of this?”
“Believe it or not, Gwyn, I didn’t do any of that out of kindness.”
“I certainly wouldn’t assume anything about kindness after the way you
knifed me this morning,” I scoffed, and Kalen laughed a weak, and wicked-
sounding chuckle.
 At once, he began to pace the marbled floors, his reflection flashing
across the swirls of black and gray and white. His hands flew to his hair,
almost franticly pulling the roots back. There was conflict beginning in him
again. Kalen was always at war with himself.
“You have to find the stones,” he blurted out like a blast erupting from the
front lines of his mind. The rest of it followed shortly, raining mortal
hellfire upon us both. “It’s the only way. There are three, I only had one,
and I gave it to you. If we can reconnect you to the others and get you
training again, you’d be strong enough to go back and retrieve the Light. To
—”
“Go back where?” I scrambled from the bed, placing my hand against his
chest to stop...him, his words...just to stop.
“To the Shadow faction. Where the Light was lost,” Kalen explained
slowly, like the reason I’d been brought here was obvious to everyone but
myself. Maybe it was.
I mimicked the look back to him. “And what exactly do you expect me to
do once I am there? Fight the Shadow Sage for it?”
He certainly couldn’t have thought I would go anywhere outside of the
castle walls. That I would risk running into whatever mortal hell it was that
attacked Jason and Dalwin. Especially after I’d just witnessed Jason die.
Had witnessed the Shadow of a Sage who seemed to kill anything and
anyone who stood against her, or sat in a tavern bar outside their sovereign
lines. Kalen moved to speak and then clammed up. My gods. That was
exactly what exactly what he thought. Kalen wanted to sacrifice me to the
most powerful being left walking this earth. Had wanted it so badly that he
kidnapped me from a place of safety and happiness to do it. Here I had
thought he was my savior, the person who rescued me from a hopeless and
endless life. But all that he had done was selfish and desperate.
“I won’t do it,” I spit, storming off in the other direction. My tone was
one of finality. End of argument.
Kalen caught my wrist, making me face him once more, and said, “Yes,
Gwyn, you will.”
“I won’t,” I repeated, “and you cannot make me.” I held his gaze and
willed him to feel that I was sincere.
We stared at each other for a moment before Kalen shook his head. Then
with a sudden strength, he yanked on my arm, pulling me into his chest.
“You’re right. I can’t make you. I can’t do anything apparently,” he
seethed. “Haven’t you noticed? My power is draining every day. So, I guess
you’re free to use up all of my magic, roaming the halls and counting out
loud to yourself like an insane person while the rest of us wait around for
you to realize your fate.”
I resisted the urge to shove him off of me, opting instead to lurch even
closer. This was the one thing he had told me today that made sense. Kalen
had put on his fair share of shows since we’d entered the landing, but he
failed in the infirmary. He’d failed even before, when he stopped cloaking
me in the coutryard. My arrival was stretching the bounds of his magic, and
with no source to draw back on, Kalen was limited. He was feeling the
pressure of it, which meant he would say anything to get his way. He could
be lying.
“I’ve been in the Binding for seventy-two years,” I countered. “Why did
no one come for me in that time? Why now? You say I have to save your
world, at your word. How can I believe anything that you’ve told me,
Kalen?”
“I don’t particularly care what you do or do not believe, Gwyn. You will
search for those stones, and you will do what must be done to take the Light
back for this faction—even if it kills you. Looking at you now, it seems that
would be a courtesy to everyone involved.”
Feeling cut off, I was in a rage. Kalen knew I’d been alone for the last
century, and had figured it made me meek, unable. I wasn’t going to let him
continue to think that his will was any stronger than mine simply because
he was louder about it.
“If you think that you can manhandle me,” I yelled in disgust, tearing his
hand from my arm. “If you think you can just have your way with my life,
so be it.” My words shot out at him with more ferocity than I had intended,
and he staggered. “But I promise that once you’ve had me trained, your
heart will be the first I plunge my dagger into.”
Deafening, my threat echoed through the hush that fell between us now.
Kalen’s face was splotched, and red, and he was breathing hard, like he had
just run a thousand miles within my room. I felt it, too, a searing heat
running up my arms and into my chest. So, I waited. Waited to see which
one of us would burn out first.
Without another word, Kalen turned on his heel. A rush of cool air met
my skin, was ice to my flame. The rustling of my trousers was the only
indication that he had left me, projecting out of the room. I stared down at
them, wrinkling the silk between my fingers.

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KALEN DIDN’T CALL FOR me the next day, or the day
after that. Two weeks passed after our fight. We hadn’t spoken, and whether
out of anger or fear of the threat I had made, he was nowhere to be found in
the armory.
The rumor among the Guardians, Rebekah had told me, was that he’d
woken at dawn and canceled all his audiences, delegating the rest of his
duties to a few of his trusted emissaries. Kalen gave word he would be on
patrol in Grovsney but didn’t stay long enough to say when he’d be back.
I decided not to tell Rebekah about our spat, still unsure if the information
he had given me was for my ears only. Part of me felt I could confide in my
handmaid, but the ways of this world were too new to me to risk it. Either
way, she refused to look me in the eyes while relaying that day’s gossip. It
was obvious she figured I had something to do with his speedy departure,
anyway. We sat close on the tan-colored lounges of my room, Rebekah
going on and on about the latest gossip in the servant’s quarters. I listened
and let out a giggle or sigh when I felt it was the right moment to do so,
trying my best to focus on a task Rebekah called needlework, but all I did
was prick my fingers and embarrass my already damaged ego. The whole
thing made Kalen’s refusal to see me even more humiliating.
The longer he neglected me, the more I hated him.
The crescent moon marked five days since Kalen had finally returned to
the Well. I hissed at it childishly through my window before pulling the
curtains shut. Then a light putter sounded against the outside wall of my
room.
He’s back.
I cursed the flutter of my pulse, patting down my hair and counting
slowly as I approached the door. Anticipating—hoping—to see a brownish-
blonde mop of hair fussed around an apologetic face. I schooled my own
features into a look of apathy. One that said, I don’t care that you are sorry
and I will still stab you in the heart, even though I’d already decided that
the threat I’d made against him was moot. If I killed Kalen, I would be
alone again. And I would never find my stones. I opened my door. The cool
air of the hallway met my skin and chilled it.
No one.
Only a stack of four books and a card were laid neatly in front of my feet.
Something was written on the card, a group of letters were in black ink
across the front of it. A task or a direction, maybe, but I didn’t try to read
what it said. In the bottom right-hand corner, an almost indiscernible “K”
was stamped onto the sun-bleached papyrus. I stared at the volumes for a
few minutes, unblinking, before I ripped the note into thick ribbons and
closed my chamber doors.
In the morning, the books were gone, and I decided to rebel.
When the moon took her first breath of night, I dressed myself in one of
the light blue strapped dresses Rebekah had brought me, messily tied up the
laces on my shoes, and shook out the braid that neatly held my unkempt
hair.
Not bothering to be discreet, I shoved the heavy door to my chambers
open with a screech. It was the dead of the night, and I was going to wreak
complete havoc. I practiced the smirk I would give Kalen once he came
scrambling to lock me away again.
Prancing up the stairs to the main atrium, I allowed myself to admire
Leoth in all its glory. Without worry of the other’s prying eyes, my own
were free to roam. Paintings of mortal wars long passed sat slightly
crooked. Citrine-glazed sediment glittered within the walls. I ran my fingers
across it glutinously. This was her court, the Light Sage, but it was far from
polished and regal. Every turn was a sharp jut of rock, every floor cased in
the blood and sweat of Guardians. The pathways had been pummeled with
urgent steps, not smoothed over with the grace of diplomacy. Uncouth, but
still so charming. With each sound of my heels against weathered stone, I
felt a growing sense of importance. Duty echoes and I heard it clearly
within these halls.
Walking through the endless cavern, I put on a show—for no one but
myself, although an audience I welcomed. Swirling around, stomping my
heels loudly, and twirling my dress. The stars winked seductively from the
clear glass dome above as I danced under their glow. Danced for them,
unburdening myself from my misery.
When that didn’t draw any visitors, I decided a song might be in order.
But I didn’t know one, so I styled my voice after the birds in my forest back
home and belted the melody loud enough so that they might join in from
their perpetual day-lit branches in the Binding. Whether or not they did, I
would never know. Because they had been stolen from me, or I, from them?
It didn’t matter.
All that concerned me now was finding some sort of snappy percussion to
round out the softness of my ballad. I sprinted to the pantry of the dining
hall and flung open the door. Searching through the dozen metal pots and
pans—tossing a few for dramatic effect—I finally picked out a perfectly
large and hollow boiler to strike with a mallet I had seen hanging near the
prepping counter.
I strolled over to the center of the hall, and let out my arms until I felt the
tingling pull of my joints. I couldn’t stop the smile that broke open between
the hard apples of my cheeks as I looked up to the ceiling, anticipating the
sweet chaos I was about to cause.
I counted three seconds. That was all the time I had to feel smug.
At four, the wind knocked out of me, and my head slammed against the
back wall. Somewhere pans clattered to the floor. I tried to cry out, but a
hand was clamped under my chin, thrusting my jaw up into the palate of my
mouth.
The fear that pulsed through me at impact rushed down my spine—in
relief—to hear the condemnation in Kalen’s voice.
“Are you out of your gods-damned mind?” He yelped. A singular curl of
his hair fell into his face, shielding me from the glory of his wrath. Beneath
the heat of his hand clinging around my neck, I could feel the sporadic
drumming of his pulse. He seemed more afraid than angry. His fingers
released my jaw, ever so slightly, so that I could speak.
“According to you.” I tried to grin.
“You’re not doing much to convince me otherwise,” Kalen said
breathlessly.
“You hurt my feelings and forgot to apologize.” I grinned fully now, and
fluttered my lashes innocently, hoping to disguise the anxiety that had sat in
my eyes for the last two weeks.
“By the Light, you are such a child.”
He took a step back, releasing me completely and letting his hands slump
to his sides. Ragged breaths paced his recovery from our encounter.
“And you—” I tried to think of something snarky to say back to him but
was distracted by my increasing awareness of his bare chest. I let my eyes
travel down as they searched for the start of his clothing, having enough
good manners to stop at the strong lines carving out his hips. A dark knitted
fabric hung from them like a shroud revealing some kind of art but
shielding the centerpiece.
Kalen cleared his throat, letting me know I had been staring for a bit too
long.
I jumped.
“You are naked?” To my embarrassment, the words squeaked out of me.
“What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? You’re the one singing ballads and smashing
pans in the middle of the night. I didn’t exactly have much time to think
about decency.” Kalen grasped at the blanket, pulling it up and securing it
tighter around his waist. “Come on, get back to your room.”
He walked around me, the balmy aroma of him nearly knocking out my
knees.
“Why?” I hissed. “So I can sit out my punishment while you wait for the
right time to let me kill myself for you?”
“You were going kill yourself a month ago, just for the Auriel. Why not a
better cause?”
Grabbing me by my arms from behind, he pushed and prodded me like an
animal towards its cage. But I dug my heels in, accidentally snapping the
stilt of my shoe and sending us both flying to the floor.
“Gwynore,” he growled.
Faster to his feet than I was, Kalen began to circle me once again. Instead
of carelessly grasping at any exposed limbs like he usually did, he held his
palms out above his shoulders in warning. When he pounced, I drew back
nimbly.
“I’m not going to let you get killed, Gwyn. You can fight her, and win. I
know it.”
“Well, that’s just the problem, isn’t it?” I rose to stand, falling into step
with his slow prowl. “You can’t know that because you don’t know me. I
don’t even know me,” I shouted as he lunged towards me, but to both of our
amazement, I caught him by the elbow.
My left hand had shot up in defense, while the other threw a marked blow
to his gut. Kalen doubled over, surprise the main show on his face. Looking
at where I’d caught him, instinct led me to twist at his arm’s joint, forcing
his palm backward and into the space between his shoulder blades.
“No amount of study you have done on my previous abilities is going to
help me when the time comes.”
I continued my assault, both verbal and physical. One quick kick of my
foot to the back of his knee and I had him. Fisting my hand into the roots of
his hair, I pulled back until his eyes met mine until I had his full attention.
“Stones or no stones, memory or no memory.”
Kalen only grunted as he strained against my hold. I let go immediately
and dropped him face-first into the marbled floors. What had just come over
me, I could not say. I had never fought a day in my life. The life I
remembered, at least.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly as he rolled over and rubbed his arm.
“You should be,” he moaned. I waited for him to unleash on me, but he
just sat up with a goofy smile plastered to his face. “You want to yell at me
for exaggerating your skill? Gwyn, you’ve just walloped me into the floor.”
Kalen laughed then, an earth-shattering laugh that ricocheted off the
adamant of the cavern walls. The most divine sound. Heavenly. It was
sacrilege to not join in. We both sat there, chuckling to ourselves at the
absurdity of it all. What would the men of the Well think if they stumbled
upon their leader, nearly disrobed, giggling with an utterly undignified girl
holding onto one broken shoe? Kalen sighed, a soft end to the amusement.
“They need you, Gwyn,” he said quietly. “We all do. The Shadows have
held the Light for so long. And what’s worse is they don’t do anything with
it. Those powers are meant for our people and those demons sit on them and
let them waste. Let us waste. Even the strongest of our people are starting to
lose their magic. If we don’t take back the Light soon, it will be too late. I
know that you don’t remember...” Kalen looked up at me and held my
emotions in his eyes so tightly I wanted to tear them from him immediately.
Run and never look back. “But if what you have left is any part of who you
were, you could do it. You could take the Light back. Moreover, you would
want to.”
I rolled my head to the side, letting my gaze naturally break from his. I
couldn’t handle the hope lingering there. As much as I cursed him for his
pompous attitude and general cruelty, with one look I knew his faith in me
was genuine.
I wondered, then, how many people might have that same faith if they
knew I had returned, that I was alive? How many people had lived in the
darkness that forced my departure, slowly losing hope after a few years, a
few decades? Knowing that nothing could be done for the sick and the
dying. Knowing that even with the protection of the Guardians, it would not
be enough. Feeling their magic fading just as surely as their hope for the
Light that would never return. Just as I would not.
“Okay,” I sighed and heard him inhale sharply, “I will try.”
Kalen nodded slowly, looking for any waffling in my agreement.
Reaching out his hand to mine, he moved to pull us both up.
“But...” I would go down, but never easily. “You have to promise me
something in return.”
“And what is that, Gwynore?” he challenged, not sarcastic, just
inquisitive. Patiently he waited, surely expecting another odd sentiment to
slip out from my Binding-fractured mind.
“No more half-truths,” I said. I couldn’t ask him not to lie, I had no
evidence he had done anything more than be ambiguous. “If I ask a
question, I need the whole answer. I don’t think I can do this with only one
eye open.”
A muscle in Kalen’s cheek barely twitched as he thought it over. A tell? I
shook it off. There was no way to rebuild our trust if I was starting
unreasonably paranoid.
“Alright,” he agreed, and I let him take my hand in his.

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THE NEXT MORNING CAME too quickly and with an
unexpected visitor. Kalen knocked on my chamber door just as Rebekah
began to ready me for the day.
“I thought I’d escort Gwynore to her lesson today,” he said slowly,
watching me with a curious look. It took me a moment to realize I was still
intensely pressing a pair of cold spoons into my face. Rebekah had given
them to me upon seeing the purple puffs beneath my eyes, saying, “Cold
reduces swelling.”
Mortified, I smacked them hard against the wood of my dresser.
“We have a meeting with a man known as the Preceptor.” He cleared his
throat as I quirked a brow. A meeting? “If you dress quickly, I will wait just
outside.”
I nodded and Rebekah closed my chamber door. She pulled a sweater and
trousers from the bureau and slipped me a pair of new sandals that lay flat
on the ground. I guess my late-night tryst had damaged our trust as well.
I found Kalen in the hall waiting, impatiently. He gave me a slight,
unappreciative nod before he started up the stairwell. I chased after him,
practically sprinting as he took the steps two at a time, completely unaware
of how far I was already behind.
“Could you slow down a little,” I called out to the back of his head.
“Please,” I added, hoping he would appreciate my manners.
When we made it to the landing, Kalen looked over his shoulder. “Losing
count?” he mocked.
“Well, actually, yes, but—”
“I really can’t humor any of your otherworldly quirks, today, Gwyn. We
are quite busy if you didn’t notice.”
I had noticed, so I didn’t take the time to be offended by the return of his
usual attitude.
“I have questions,” I explained.
Kalen glanced at me pointedly. “You always have questions.”
 “Well, that’s because I don’t know anything.” It was true and very
inconvenient as of late.
“Believe me, I’m painfully aware.”
We turned a sharp corner into a section of the hall that narrowed
substantially, and Kalen slowed down. Soon, my face was practically
pressed against his shoulder blade.
“Okay, so clear a few up for me then,” I said into the dip of his neck.
Kalen shivered. Embarrassed, I apologized quietly and gave him a little
more room.
“You promised,” I prodded him as we turned another corner, but he
pretended not to hear me, leading me to...well, where was it we were
going? Bouncing on the tips of my toes, I tried to get a clear view of where
the hall was headed. My chin bobbed over the broach of Kalen’s vest, and I
glimpsed two older-looking Guardians stalking towards us from the
opposite direction.
I began to panic. As our parties approached each other, it was obvious that
for the men to continue, we would have to sidestep one another. Except they
wouldn’t know to walk around me. Feeling stronger today, Kalen had
cloaked me in Light, but the magic wouldn’t do much against the inevitable
collision that lay ahead. Before I could think of a solution, Kalen swiped
my wrist with minimal commotion and swung me between himself and the
wall, pressing into my hips, concealing the effort as a polite gesture to the
senior Guardians. They nodded in appreciation as they passed us, rounded
the corner, and were gone.
Kalen’s chest rose, swallowing the air around us. His armor brushed the
soft knit of my sweater and fell back gently with a sigh. I could smell the
sweet mint that still hung on his breath from his morning tea. He looked
around quickly to be sure we were alone and once confident, leaned in
towards me. One strong leg pressed in between mine, the thin fabric of my
pants inched up against his thigh.
“Just a few,” he conceded with a hot breath against my neck. I leaned in
toward him without thinking and he startled, tearing himself from the space
we shared.
I blinked fast, completely flustered. It took me too long to realize what he
was saying. That he’d answer just a few of my questions. My questions?
Right. Kalen was slow to notice I hadn’t moved from my place on the wall,
and threw his head back in derision, impatiently motioning me to his side.
 Right.
“You’re not the same as the others who live here.” Minutes ago that
statement would have come out confidently. Now, my voice was tight and
shrill. I’d finally done it. Singled him out among the other men here. Out of
curiosity and mistrust, I told myself, but the skin between my hips where
Kalen’s had pinned me burned.
“Is that a question?” He picked up his pace again, shoulders hunching
slightly.
“N-No,” I stuttered. “I mean, it’s obvious that you are different. The
others in the Well look to you, for guidance. Jason was brought to you to
save.” Kalen’s shoulder stiffened at the name of the fallen Guardian. “And
then there is the obvious.”
That caught his attention, and he slowed his pace until we were shoulder
to shoulder.
“Your armor,” I explained, trying not to be so smug. “Every Guardian in
Leoth is dressed in brown leathers, and you strictly wear a color like
midnight.”
“That is what you waste your time wondering about? My wardrobe?” The
way Kalen laughed made me regret bringing it up at all. “Shouldn’t you
have bigger things to stress over? Oh, I don’t know, say, where the other
two parts of your soul are?”
“It’s just strange,” I reasoned. Actually, I was trying my hardest not to
think about the pieces of me floating around in the universe, unclaimed. So
intead of focusing on that, I found patterns within my new world, and Kalen
didn’t fit in any of them here.
“Everything is strange to you.”
He looked me over.
You are even strange to you, his face said.
I held his gaze, waiting for his explanation. Maybe it wasn’t important to
him, but he would never know what it felt like to be in a world you knew
absolutely nothing about. If I was going to find the rest of the stones and
restore the Light, I should at least be privy to the order of this place. Part of
that order included why he of all people in these canyons, stood out so
sorely. Beneath his snide façade, I think Kalen knew this, too.
“Everyone here is wearing the colors of their faction,” he grumbled. My
neck jutted out in a silent urge for him to connect the dots. He didn’t.
“So that would mean you aren’t a part of the Light faction, then?” I
coaxed.

“No, I am not. I was born in the Shadows.” A faint line appeared on his
cheek. Like he might have been biting it. Was he nervous? Did he think I
would reel in disgust? I wouldn’t. I had no reason to. Maybe the immortal
Guardian to the Light would have, but I wasn’t her anymore.
“Well, if you were born there, isn’t your duty there as well? Why would
you be trying to find the Light?” I asked.
“My home determines where my obligations lie, not where I was born.
The Shadow faction has not been that for some time now.”
For a moment, Kalen’s expression was lost, solemn. Even without
recollection of where I was born, I understood his meaning of home. Or
maybe it was because I could not remember my own, that the feeling came
so easily to me.
“What made you leave to begin with?” I asked, wanting him to look at me
again, but I knew he would not. Kalen lifted the enchantment and ushered
me past him into a small foyer.
“That’s one more question than a few.”
KALEN PUSHED AGAINST TWO great oak doors with
ease, opening them into a vast study. Bookcases lined the wall with
thousands of volumes from ceiling to floor, broken only by an oval gallery
that overlooked the large working desk and lounge. Dust wheeled through
the air as light from the corridor spewed into the room. I wondered how
long it had been since anyone had last entered.
Despite obvious neglect, the aesthetics were complete opulence. Intricate
geometric patterns of silver and copper divided up the ash wood panels of
the wall. An iron chandelier sat low over the center of the room, trussed up
by a long chain that hung from the highest point in the open ceiling. The
only tell of the room’s employment was a large turquoise accent rug that
seemed too pristine and modern amid mostly primeval decor. It covered the
entire floor, perfectly lined so that the Preserver’s crest sat gallantly in the
pool of sun pouring in from the window on the southern wall. It felt as if
you could jump right into its ocean-colored threads. The rest of the
furnishings looked as if they could have been placed here an entire century
ago or even millennia—no one would ever tell the difference. Sitting there
at the threshold, I felt ridiculously small and patently new.
Without any announcement, out of a hallway rushed a small and fragile-
looking soul. The Preceptor, I presumed, from the quick note Kalen had
given me this morning about our task today.
“Kalen,” his voice reached us before he did, deep and crackling despite
his size. A dark brown robe fell around his thin frame, his skin like ash
peeking out of the slats in the warm fabric. “To what do I owe the honor at
such a late hour?”
Was it so late already? I looked out the large window in front of us. The
sky outside the far window was still that baby blue, like the shell of a
robin’s egg, the clouds were stretched cotton above the canyon. It couldn’t
be past the midday.
“It’s barely the afternoon,” said Kalen, confirming my suspicions, “and I
scheduled this appointment with you a week ago.”
“Yes, that’s quite right. Excuse me. I do remember, of course. Is this her?”
he asked. “Your friend?” The Preceptor looked me over in a way that
suggested he was rather uncomfortable with the whole ordeal. I couldn’t say
I blamed him. Kalen turned to me, ignoring the old man completely.
“The Preceptor,” Kalen said, “is an expert in our histories and cultures
which are passed down to him orally, as is tradition.”
It was a speech of sorts and sounded thoroughly rehearsed. Kalen’s chest
rose and fell in short bursts, and despite his effort to conceal it, I watched
the twitch of his thumb against his middle finger, his hands clasped tightly
at his sides. Nervous. Almost to the point of being unsettled.
“Although,” the Preceptor cut in, boasting, “I do possess a very detailed
record.”
Pointing with long and crooked fingers he directed me to the west wall.
Between two large iron rods were at least a hundred strings of golden twine,
coiled tightly, twisted together, and branching off each other in all
directions. The cords ran like veins down the wall, pulled taut from the
ceiling down to the juncture where the wall met flooring. It shimmered even
though no light was cast upon it from the window. Magnificent and
completely enchanted. One could practically taste the magic that sweetened
the air around it.
“This is the Time Catcher,” he said, most illustrious. “A gift from the
Sage of the Cosmos, Gabriel, to his sister on her crowning day.”
My blood iced over. Annoying and self-absorbed King of the Cosmos, my
vision murmured. It had to have been true, then, what Kalen had said about
my previous relationships. I had been very acquainted with the most
powerful beings in the...well, everything. Close enough to have scolded
them, even.
“With one pluck, any of these strings will show you the moment of Time
they have captured. When played correctly, it sings the song of Creation,”
The Preceptor continued.
Suddenly, a chill spread through my arm, so cold it began to burn. I jolted
and looked down to see the Preceptor’s bony knuckles wrapped around my
hand. He pulled me swiftly to the instrument, tugging my body toward the
strings, pressing my palm into the metal harshly. Behind us, Kalen made a
low sound of discontentment. From the age of the hand wrapped around
mine, I doubted the old man heard it, much less was frightened by it.
“Try,” The Preceptor encouraged, looking into me with lifeless silver
eyes. Secrets of time past bubbled beneath them, the color of iron festering
on a metalsmith’s worktable. A worrisome thought occurred to me. What if
seeing what lay within the vibrato of these strings would make steel out of
me, too?
Shaking slightly, I picked the centermost string and pulled it gently. As it
snapped back against the wall, one glorious note rang out through the
room. Even though the sound was graceful and melodic, I began to drown
in the Time Catcher’s music almost instantly. As it moved through me, I
was blinded, my sight replaced with a starry void.
“In the beginning,” preached the Preceptor, “The Sages were born from
the universe, each holding a portion of her knowledge.”
As he spoke, I saw it all, as if I had been right there at the birth of the
world. Out of the darkness sprung her children, brilliant celestial bodies
without form. Spreading to the edges of the abyss, they each were rigid in
their power. “There are five of them—Land, Sea, Cosmos, Shadow and—”
“—and Light,” I finished for him. I could see her so clearly, a bright
unstoppable glow that flowed outside of the bounds set for her by the
universe. But wherever she moved, a swirl of darkness followed in swift
pursuit.
“The Light and Shadow are the most powerful of the five—identical
twins, born from the same vein of the Mother’s power. Two very different
sides of the same coin, so to speak.”
I watched the sisters try to outrun each other, neither of them ever making
much ground on the other. They swirled around, wrestling violently for
dominance, darting through each other’s mists. Inexplicably, I found myself
silently rooting for the Light’s inevitable triumph. My body tingled with
energy as she looped around her phantom sister, pushing out the ebony fog
with her stream of rays. The music stopped then and I was wrenched from
the past. Kalen had placed his finger on the string, snuffing out the tune. He
glowered at me with a knowing look.
“And what coin is that?” I asked. The starry void had already tapered out
to the fringes of my vision, and the gray, creped face of the Preceptor
emerged again. I fought the twitch in my fingers, that instinct to pluck
another string and crawl back into the unknown, just at the sight of him.
“Well—” The Preceptor began.
“Truth,” Kalen interrupted. A strange tension thickened between the two
men.
“Yes, exactly,” the Preceptor confirmed. “They both manipulate truth in
unique ways,” he explained. “One illuminates while the other shields, but
both can alter its reception. The similarities in power, however, did not
make them allies. They hated each other.”
“We will skip the tragic ending if you please, sir,” implored Kalen. “I’ve
explained most of it to her already. She will need to know only the history
of the other Sages.”
Sighing, The Preceptor obliged. “As you wish.”
He seemed disappointed by this, like he lived and breathed just to tell
these stories, and anyone who cut him short had slighted him. With a frown,
the Preceptor searched the wall, tracing his nails along the lines of time.
“Well,” he said finally, landing on just the right one, “all of the Sages
were born from the universe herself, but she conceived their physical bodies
to personify her love for a mortal.”
“Conceived?” My jaw fell open at the suggestion. The power that ripped
from the universe as she created her children warmed my cheeks even while
I watched from thousands of years removed. Surely no mortal could come
so close as to actually—
“Not literally, Gwyn” Kalen interrupted my thoughts, lifting his hand to
his brow line and frowning. “Let the man explain, please.”
I closed my gaping mouth.
“There was a time in this world when the universe kept all of her
knowledge from the living—mortals and beasts alike. There was famine,
sickness, and death. And the living began to grow tired of her selfishness,
stopped praying to her, and the like, but it just made her grow colder. Until
one day a priest, Thesion, put on a show of devotion for her.” As he
finished, he snapped another chord on the wall with vigor. His voice danced
lyrically over a melody as the Time Catcher called out to me once more.
I was sitting on the steps of a plaza in a city I had never seen. The sun
was hot, and the streets buzzed with commotion. Wooden carts lurched
behind enormous stallions whose hooves clipped at the cobblestones. The
smell of summer trickled through the air, bergamot and the sea. I inhaled
deeply, feeling the calm that always came along with being alone in the
middle of the hectic lives of other people.
A young boy, dressed only in a white robe approached me then, his palm
an offering. I took his small fingers in mine, letting myself feel the warmth
of his olive skin as he rushed us through the crowd. The gathered parted,
expecting me, and revealed a tall, homely man high up on a dais of
discarded apple crates.
The curls of his cropped hair were a whorl of gray that bled into the sky
he shouted at mercilessly, invoking the glory of the Mother. The knowledge
she held that he claimed would save them all. Looking out at the
congregation, emotions varied from pensive and thoughtful to irate. The
crowd began shouting at him, and throwing whatever they had in their
hands of little importance—cores of fruit, tears of cloth, some even chucked
a few decently sized stones. He flailed about still yelling, now, to spite
them. Thesion began condemning the hecklers who laughed at his lunacy.
Above, a plume of clouds forced the sun behind them. Lowly they
rumbled, blanketing the city with dread. When the plaza finally darkened,
Thesion’s belted torso twisted towards me. A face that felt a thousand
emotions at once. A pair of eyes that held no thoughts. They poured out of
his soul into mine.
And then he slit his own throat.
My cry broke into the silence of the Preceptor’s room. Kalen rushed to
my side immediately, embracing me to keep my legs from buckling.
“He killed himself,” I half shouted into Kalen’s chest, shaking.
“She was said to have been so moved by his act of faith, she cast his soul
back down to earth, making him immortal.” The Preceptor marched forward
through the story without any show of concern for how effected I’d been by
the vision of Thesion’s death. “With him, the Mother sent five of her
greatest gifts to bless and rule the living. Thesion became their father in a
lot of ways, helping them harness their gifts until each came of age.”
Through the opening under Kalen’s biceps, the Preceptor kept his focus on
the tangle of metal, one hand sliding smoothly over the bald crown of his
head.
Kalen tensed as I lifted my head from the protective warmth of his cloak.
I gave his arms a squeeze of encouragement, trying to reassure him I was
okay, even when I felt anything but. He let me go reluctantly but didn’t step
out from the space that lay between the Catcher and myself. Lifting my
shoulders up and back, I tried to stir up some confidence.
“What are the gifts of the others?” I asked, hoping the Preceptor didn’t
need the instrument to tell me. Relief flooded into me when he stepped back
from the wall.
“Most obvious,” he said, “is Gabriel. He dictates the flow of Time.”
Kalen spoke up then, seeing the lines of my forehead tense. Knowing I
was still having trouble grasping the natural movements of this new world,
he had tried to explain in terms I could relate to. “Gabriel can stop anything
in the universe from moving forward in Time, he can also propel things
backward through it. Like moving a fish upstream.”
I thought of the Gabriel I remembered, the one I’d met in a vision. A lean,
sand-colored frame bedecked in robes of violet and indigo, wielding an
authoritative grace as he spoke to me. His face was so sanctified and
reserved, while his tongue had been sharp even in its reprieve. The way his
eyes darted toward the action at the center of the room but held no concern
for the outcome. Like a man who always had both the past and present
bound to him. A man who knew what to give and what to demand because
it had already been done, here and there.
“As for the others, let’s see,” the Preceptor pulled one pale finger to the
temple of his head, lightly scratching as if to tease the memory forward.
“Ione and Dario, the Sages who dictate the physical elements. Ione can
change the tides with one breath and send them crashing into cities with a
single thought.”
My body stiffened at the image.
“But she mostly uses her powers for the sole benefit of her faction. There
has not been a drought in their lands since she first claimed her sovereignty
thousands of years ago.”
He was trying to reassure me but severely missed the mark.
“Dario...” he paced, “is another thing entirely.” The Preceptor stroked the
folds of his dress anxiously as he tried to string together an adequate yet not
all-fearing picture of the god. After a few moments, he sucked in both of his
lips and blew out a hiss. “As I mentioned before, the Mother created her
Sages to bestow knowledge and experience that those of us here on earth
needed to thrive. But she was no fool. Having watched the cycle of our
trials and miseries since the sun first dawned, she thought us mortals
insufferably opportunistic, and wished not for Thesion’s great sacrifice to
have been in vain.”
“She forged Dario within the pits of the earth, melting the squalor and
indecency of our kind right into his very core. Ensnaring the will of this
place we call home into the trappings of immortal flesh. He is a mirror of
our world, his every emotion reflecting into the physical realm.”
“And he is unfortunately moody,” Kalen added, his mouth curving into a
half grin.
“The simplest of offenses on his heart has been the impetus for
avalanches and fiery blasts from mountain tops. Raging as he rages,
quieting only when he sulks.”
From the distress in the old man’s sunken cheeks, I could tell this was the
watered-down truth. But for the sake of time—and potentially my sanity—I
didn’t press for any more than he was willing to give.
“You must know, Gwyn,” Kalen fixed his eyes on mine, capturing my
attention, “although the Light and Shadow are the most powerful of the
Sages, they are all lethal in their own right.”
The room seemed to darken, then, as if the clouds over Thesion’s sermons
had reached out from the past into it.
Neither of the men spoke again, giving me a brief moment to take in what
I had learned today. None of it seemed any more absurd than any of the
stories Kalen had told me about myself and the almost-war. Thesion’s
sacrifice had been brutal, yes, but could it have been so dissimilar from the
violence of other creations? The only thing out of place was the reason we
were here at all.
“Why are you telling me this?”
The Preceptor did not move to speak. I felt the warmth on my left side
disappear, a cold brush of air appearing in its wake. Kalen was walking
toward the window, hoisting a broad leg up onto the bay.
“What, now you’re bored with it?” he huffed at the glass.
“It’s not that,” I hesitated, needing to choose my words wisely so that I
avoided his tendency to be vague. “It’s just that you said you wouldn’t tell
me anything until I needed to know it. So why do I need to know this? Why
now?”
Kalen had been explicit when instructing the Preceptor to focus on the
Sages. As far as I could tell, they had nothing to do with my missing stones
and wouldn’t provide any type of path towardsretrieving them. There had to
be some other reason Kalen wanted me to familiarize myself with them,
with their powers.
Some birds had fallen into formation off the cleft of the mountain, and
Kalen’s eyes darted in sync with their movements. The line broke, the
leader dropping his wing and letting the wind push him to the back of his
flock. Kalen threw a glance in my direction. “You know for a daft looking
girl, you are quite observant.”
“What good would it do you to hold off any longer?” asked The
Preceptor.
“Hold off what?” I gasped, my attention focused squarely on Kalen. No
more secrets, we had said, had promised. He threw up his hands, swiping
them along his face, like he was trying to wipe away the mask he had
painted there for this meeting.
“The Sages are coming to Leoth,” he said, devastatingly apathetic. “In
five days’ time.”
“What?” I laughed a little, but it didn’t carry.
Kalen kept his hands on his face. Perhaps he thought whatever damage he
was about to cause between us would only exist if he looked at me.
Through the triangle of his hands, Kalen’s mouth spoke. “Our poor friend,
Dalwin, has looser lips—and more friends in the Astralite camp—than I
thought. Someone let it slip to Gabriel that a certain stunning, blonde
immortal was sneaking around Leoth as my personal handmaid. It didn’t
take him long to infer exactly who that was.”
His hands fell away, and Kalen shook his head at some invisible
annoyance. Something more he was not saying.
“How does he know with certainty it was me? I mean, no one has seen
me in almost...a century?”
When I landed on the appropriate frame of time, Kalen dipped his chin in
affirmation. Then he said, “You make quite an impression it seems.” His
mouth twisted up into a wry smile. I shook off the urge to smack it from his
stupid face.
“Why are they coming here?”
 He turned his back on me again, looking up into the sky. The birds were
nowhere to be seen. “I can’t ever be too sure of our gods’ intentions, but I
would say it has something to do with the fact that a plot has arisen against
their sister. Very suddenly, and without much warning, even with Gabriel’s
talents. They want to get a good look at who has been charged with the
errand, I suppose.”
From Kalen’s reflection in the window, I could have sworn I saw a hint of
absolute terror in his eyes.
“They want to see you, Gwyn,” he said.

OceanofPDF.com
I DREAMED OF THE MOTHER that night.
Colored in the same deep wayward shades of blue, the salt of her bowels
tasted sweet to me for the first time. How could I have missed her? I had
been at peace for too long, playing pretend in pretty dresses and gorging on
the decadence of this life. Maybe I had wanted her to remind me of the
wrong I had done, the debt I had left unpaid jumping from one world to the
next.
My ankles were already immersed in cold waters. Undercurrents exactly
as they were the day I jumped from the cliff—quiet and unemotional
rippling across the vast expanse. With every trickle of a wave against my
cured skin, a glacial chill spread further up my leg. First my toes had
numbed, and soon, would my heart follow?
Off in the distance, I heard the Mother chuckle—dark and callous.
You promised to forsake the visions.
My mouth dried out instantly when I heard her speak. It was not exactly a
voice, more like a feeling cast out upon the open water, hissing as it broke
on my ears like the tide breaching the sand.
And now you have, but for what purpose? To die not even as half the
person you once were?
A stream of red light flared on her horizon as she taunted me, disrupting
the still darkness that had surrounded us both. My stomach began to sink,
not with fear, but something far more commanding. Something like love or
sorrow—or maybe it was both. The light was moving closer, soaring over
the bleak pitch of the Sea.
You thought I wanted to take all of you.
Pushing out in all directions, a force hurtled towards me with so much
vigor it pulled me in closer against all logic. I could feel the grain of my
soul dissipating from my fingertips and into the centermost part of my
being.
Gwynore, the Mother said, I already did.
A stale punch of night air caught in my throat, nearly smothering me with
the bedding I had swept myself into. Flapping my arms about, I managed to
escape the soft depths of blankets and quilts. I looked down and saw my
night clothes drenched with an unknown wet. For a moment, brief but too
long, I feared the dream had been real. Panic ripped through me and I was
out of the bed without so much as a creak of shifting weight. My feet
thumped heavily against the wooden stairs as I sprinted towards the terrace
one hall above my room.
When I made it to the next floor, a chord of female laughter skittered
through the hall. I jumped in my skin, stepping back into the shadowed
stairwell. Who else could have been awake at this hour? Surely, the
Guardians were either asleep in their beds or on the night watch.
There was a throng of partygoers from the Sea faction—Aegedonia,
Kalen had called it—that had arrived for festivities a few days early. To
settle in, he said. Though it wasn’t their home, so I hadn’t been able to
make out what needed settling exactly. Perhaps it was one such group of
people, having a late-night party. Then a thought struck me, a pang of
excitement. The laughter had been a woman’s, it was bright and clear and
punctured the air. I was a woman. I could venture toward the sound, and
follow it until I found the owner. My dream had shaken me, and sharing a
laugh with someone could only help that. I didn’t have to be alone, feeling
like this.
Slowly I revealed myself, a streak of silver moonlight running over my
bare legs as I stepped out into the corridor. I waited for a moment, hoping to
hear the woman laugh again, and when she did, I nearly sprinted towards
her. Turning a corner, candlelight sliced the wall to my left, and on my
right, someone’s chamber door cracked open slightly.
I peered in, instinct tugging at me to assess the situation before I
catapulted myself into it.
It was a pleasant scene. A woman was giggling with shining, apple-red
cheeks. Standing barefoot, dressed down in her linen night shift, her long
auburn hair curled around her ears and sticking to the bare skin between her
shoulder blades. I angled my chin to fit the door frame, to see more. A hot
feeling appeared at the back of my thighs. There was a man. Or something
like a man? A tall figure, with sharply angled features, his hair short and
dark, but his skin was faintly scaled. He was gorgeous, certainly not mortal,
like the woman. He reached out for her, tugging her toward him boldly, his
long fingers groping everywhere.
 Oh. I shouldn’t be here. But…I had this inexplicable feeling that I
couldn’t turn away. That I should not. Something felt wrong.
The woman pushed his advance away. “You might be older than me,
Donis, but you have the manners of a child,” she said, sounding playful,
though something about her tone was almost nervous.
“Oh? Then why don’t you teach me some so-called manners,” was his
reply, his mouth craning towards her neck. She turned her head, allowing
him the kiss.
“Unnecessary. Surely you’ve had plenty of education on the subject…”
He chuckled. “Perhaps, but I never said I was an apt student.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
They traipsed clumsily along this same line of conversation for many
moments longer; him trying to seduce her with cleverness, and her putting
distance to his persuasion with a sharp wit of her own. The more he kissed
her, the stiffer she grew in his arms. I wondered how long it would
continue, and if now was the proper time to cut my losses and go back to
bed. But when the girl pushed the man away—a tad forcefully—and strode
towards the dresser at the opposite side of the room, my attention was rapt
again.
“Donis,” she sighed but kept a smile on her lips. Then she grabbed the
two wine chalices from the serving tray and walked carefully back to him.
“Why don’t we toast to something.”
This made Donis smile, and he plucked one of the drinks from her
delicate hands. “A toast, my dear Mirona,” he agreed. “To new friendships.
Hopefully, lifelong. ”
“To new friendships.” It was clear she’d rather not agree to the last part.
Mirona lifted the chalice to her lips and drank its entire contents in one
large gulp while Donis watched, sipping. When she pulled the rim away
from her lips, her lips puckered as she swallowed.
“Glory,” she gasped. “Does wine in Leoth always taste like piss?”
Donis laughed. “I can’t be sure. Though that could explain why
Guardians always look so solemn, on and off duty.”
“Must be…” Mirona said, and I couldn’t help but notice how hollow the
words sounded. Like there was barely any breath behind them. “Oh,” she
gasped, then hiccupped. “Donis? I don’t feel so…”
She collapsed into his arms. He caught her, thank the Mother, but her
limbs stayed limp. I only started to panic when her eyes rolled back into her
head. Gods, she needed help. Kalen, I thought. I could go to Kalen. If the
wine has been poisoned, then it might be too late to help her, but someone
needed to know. I was about to turn when Donis began to speak.
“There, there,” he said. Lowering himself to the ground and pulling
Mirona across his chest. Her eyes had focused again, wide and afraid. She
looked at him, and he looked at her, cooing, “Hush now, do not be afraid.”
Mirona began to squirm at the waist, and her head snapped to the door.
Mirona’s sea blue eyes met mine, and the terror in them made it clear to me
she wished to escape his embrace. Then Donis began to mumble words,
gibberish really, and that made her squirm more. Whatever he was saying
scared her. A dull moaning came from her mouth, and he shushed her in
between the intelligible speech. Reaching behind him, he brandished a
dagger, and all the breath in my lungs escaped me. “The next life will be a
beautiful one. Think of it. Us, together. Never-ending.”
With a grunt, Donis drove the dagger into Mirona’s heart. I screamed,
unable to help myself. Something overwhelming had taken hold of me,
watching him attack her. Without any thought, I burst into the room, driven
by something I could not explain. When I entered, I grabbed the first solid
object I could, a candlestick from the side table immediately next to the
door. And then I sprinted, not for Mirona, but for Donis, and slung the metal
towards his head. He tried to duck, but because of the awkward position he
sat in, failed. A crack rang out, and then a thump as Donis hit the floor.
With gentle, but shaking hands, I lifted Mirona gently off of him, sitting
her body at the foot of the bed. She was still alive, her breath hitting my
face in shallow wheezes. “You’ll be okay,” I said. “It will be okay.” I knew
I was trying to calm myself just as much as I was trying to calm Mirona, so
I took a deeper breath and tried to focus on stopping the bleeding.
I remembered a time, in the Binding, when a small beast had fallen from
one of the many ridges on the side of the Mountain. Its hooves lost footing
in the rock, and it landed sideways, sticking itself upon an orphaned branch.
I only needed one look at Mirona’s wound to deduce it was much the same.
The beast had not made it, but to comfort him, I’d placed my hand upon the
wound and held him still. It seemed to keep him alive longer.
I decided I would hold Mirona similarly. It was possible I could keep her
alive long enough for someone to stumble upon us and save her. Keeping
my eyes on Mirona’s dulling ones, trying to reassure her I wouldn’t hurt
her, I placed both hands over her chest and held it firm. Blood squashed
between my fingers, dribbling over my knuckles. I didn’t mind. I’d seen
enough blood in the last weeks. I turned over my shoulder anyway, looking
towards the open door. Surely someone had heard me scream and had sent
for help. Or at the very least notified Kalen.
Another wheeze rattled from Mirona’s throat. I snapped my attention
back towards her, but when I looked into her eyes, they were empty,
unseeing.
“No,” I whispered, keeping my hands pressed on her wound but shuffling
closer to her. “Mirona,” I tried, hoping her name would bring her back to
herself. “Mirona!”
“What in mortal hell,” came a voice from the doorway.
I turned, and let out a sob to find Kalen, in his night clothes, his dagger
clenched in his fist, and his eyes as worried and wide as mine.
“Kalen!” I shrieked, wiping the tears from my cheeks with my shoulder.
“Thank the Mother! You have to help her. I heard them, and I thought she
was alone so I came to meet her, maybe be her friend, but then he stabbed
her and…”
Kalen knelt to the floor, but not to aid Mirona in any way. No, he had
picked up the chalice she had drunk from, sniffing around the rim of it
before cursing to himself.
“What are you doing?” I shouted. “Help her!”
“There is nothing that I can do,” he said, running a hand through his hair.
Then he placed his hands across both of my wrists and began to pull me
away from her body. I fought against him, cursing him as he tried to lift me
from the ground. She couldn’t be dead. She could not be dead.
“Gwynore, stop!” Kalen yelped when I elbowed him in the side and
scrambled back to Mirona.
“She cannot be dead.”
“For Mother’s sake stop it, Gwyn!” In my haste, I had kicked Donis’ limp
body, and he groaned, rolling to his side. “He’s still alive?” Kalen looked at
me, his eyes accusatory.
I nodded my head, then said indignantly, “I struck him with the candle
when he stabbed her.”
Kalen cursed, and then rushed to Donis’ side, sitting him up and checking
the small slice across the man’s temple I’d caused. A sudden anger struck
me watching him. It was as if Kalen had no concern that a murderer was in
our midst.
 “So you will tend to a monster, but you will not help her?”
“The only person in this room I need to be helping right now is you,” he
yelled.
“What are you talking about?”
Kalen growled with frustration, turning to me. “You had no business
being in these halls at this hour. You had no right to interject yourself. How
many times do I need to tell you to stay in that gods-damned room unless I
say otherwise!”
“Are you insane?” I was nearly screaming. “He just murdered a woman.
You should count yourself lucky that I was here to put him down!”
“No, I should count myself lucky if Donis doesn’t remember anything
about what has happened tonight. You should count yourself lucky if it
turns out he did not recognize you!”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Kalen stopped what he was doing, and turned to me with a rabid look in
his eyes. “It is everything! Look around this room, Gwyn. What do you
see?”
What? Kalen let out a huff of air, waiting.
I leaned up from Mirona slightly and took stock. This chamber was large,
and the furnishings in it were far more luxurious than anything I’d seen
before in Leoth. There were several trunks of fine clothing and beautiful
weaponry, and one was filled with what seemed to be a trove of gold coins.
These people had wealth.
I still did not see the point Kalen was trying to make so I said rather
arrogantly, “I see a bed chamber, I see food and wine. Weapons…” I slid
my gaze over to him, “And I see a big-headed idiot.”
Kalen chuckled. Wickedly. “The man that lies on the floor next to me is a
general from Aegedonia, Gwynore. He is rich and powerful, a nymph who
commands Ione’s naval services. The woman you hold in your hands is now
his Yield.”
“His Yield?” That humbled me. Kalen had only mentioned that term once,
so I wasn’t very familiar, but from what I remembered, it meant…“He is
turning her immortal?”
Kalen just nodded, then leaned his head against the wall and closed his
eyes.
“How could you possibly know that?”
Kalen pointed to the chalice on the floor next to my outstretched thigh.
“That is the cup she drank from, yes?” I nodded slowly. “And Donis spoke
to her the Rite? Before he plunged his sword into her heart?” The Rite? I
couldn’t remember Kalen ever mentioning that. He seemed to realize this,
and explained, “I forget that you…well, that you forget. The Rite is just
words, in a language that was probably strange to you?”
This time, when I nodded, Kalen sighed.
“If Mirona drank from the cup of oleander and if Donis spoke the Rite
before he claimed her life, then she is now his Yield.”
I shook my head. “But I saw them beforehand, talking and...” And other
things. “She did not seem to want to be with him. She did not seem to want
to be his Yield.”
“And unfortunately, Gwyn, what you think Mirona may have wanted does
not matter. He Yielded her. She is his now.”
I scoffed. “You are going to let him get away with this? He took her life!”
“It is the law,” he replied, matter of factly. “It is out of my hands.”
“Out of your hands?”
“Yes. They’re quite full already having to deal with you.”
“Deal with me?” If my mouth could have opened any wider, it would
have landed in my lap.
“You see, in about an hour, when they both wake, if Donis remembers the
face of his attacker…” Kalen laughed, rubbing the heel of his hand across
his right eye. “...you and I are going to have very big problems.”
I looked over to Mirona, whose hand I was now holding in my blood-
soaked one. I leaned forward to close her eyes with my other hand. Like I’d
once done for the beast in the Binding. At least she will come back, I
thought. But back to what? A life she hadn’t chosen. Sorrow swept over me
for the things I could not change. It was too late for her.
When I was finished with her eyes, I found Kalen watching me, sadness
etched in his mouth alongside anger.
“What do we do now?” I asked, wanting to keep fighting him, but
realizing it was no use.
“We don’t do anything,” was his reply. Then he stood, walking over to me
and holding out his hand. “You are to go back to your room, and stay
there.” I took his hand and let him pull me up. He surveyed the blood
packed underneath my nails and said, “We will have to wait for Rebekah to
wake in the morning to clean you up. The other servants won’t be able to
keep their mouths shut about this one.”
 I didn’t say anything. What was there even left to say? That I was sorry? I
wasn’t. It was Kalen’s motive to keep me hidden. It was Kalen’s choice to
allow such things to go on under his watch. It was on Kalen’s conscience to
do nothing. So I told him I would stay in my room, and when I left, I
headed straight there.
When I finally entered my chambers, I made for the terrace, slipping out
onto the small balconette. I grabbed the railing, my view lining up with the
black pits of Leoth’s endless valleys as I leaned over it and heaved.
If I could just get a bit more air into my lungs, I’ll be fine.
For minutes, there was only the sound of my breathing and the cool
breeze that whistled over my clammy skin. Peeking through a partition of
massive clouds overhead, flashes of lightning flickered into my eye-line.
Trailing closely behind, a roar of thunder. I stood there, unmoving, silently
counting, until dawn came. Whether it had rained, I could not say.
I was already drowning.

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“NO ONE CAN CONVINCE me that there is enough time in
your universe to ready me for this.”
Another pail of cold water from the kitchen splashed onto my skin like a
million shards of ice. I sat naked in a great iron tub, Rebekah ruthlessly
scraping at my arms with a bar of iris blossom. The strong powdery scent
tickled relentlessly at my nose, but she had insisted on it for my grand debut
tonight.
“There is time,” Rebekah said, “but you are right, you will never be
properly prepared to meet a Sage with that hair.”
I aimed a deathly glare in her direction but the blur of the water droplets
hanging from my damp lashes only made a mockery of my ire.
I happened to like my wild hair, it had character, but Rebekah took no
more than five seconds upon entering my room to rebuke the sight of it, and
the miscellaneous braids and flowers I had woven into thick sections. She
took her time telling me how rude it was that I went around plucking the
petals and stems of arrangements that had arrived in preparation for the ball.
The Well didn’t often have celebrations of any kind, so tonight would be
special—for everyone.
It seemed like I was the only person in the armory who was not excited.
Soft music began to ripple down through the vents as I stepped carefully
out of the tub. The musings of a dozen harps and wind instruments fiddling
along in a curt waltz sure to give me a headache. The pace of it was
unbelievable, and moreover, impossible to dance to. I tried to count the
three-stepped rhythm, first in my head, and then aloud when my inner voice
failed to keep up. Absurd. But Kalen had said the Sages were an energetic
bunch by nature, of course.
The gown he had picked out for me lay perfectly flat against the base of
my overstuffed lounge, a shimmering heap of crisp pearl-colored satin. It
looked rather out of place against the dull fabric of the chair, and I couldn’t
help thinking how well that served as a metaphor for the entire evening—if
not for the last few weeks.
 Rebekah quickly finished the plaited crown of my hair she had been
masterfully working on for the last half hour as I stared in contempt at the
dress. A showpiece, but not quite, as I would not actually be attending the
ball.
“Too many prying eyes,” Kalen had said. “It’s bad enough the other Sages
know you have returned. None of this will have been for anything if a
creature from another faction catches sight of you. Especially one of those
gods-damned phames.”
Confusion was evident on my face. Not unusual for our conversations.
“Except for the phames, many magical beings–fairies, sprites, nymphs,
and the like were born here, many with long lineages that date back several
centuries, when it was more common for the Sages to mate with mortals.
That is to say, their offspring originate on this Continent.” He gave me a
sideways glance. “Where we live.”
Kalen let out a long huff and then an explanation. “The Sages rule
throughout all of the lands on this earth, but none of them have paid a visit
to their other territories in ages. It’s not hard to imagine how wars often
break out within and between people. The phames were granted refuge here
half a century ago after being hunted by a band of witches for their
inclinations. Notorious gossips. You can’t be seen.”
And that was that. The ball would go on late into the night, and only
when the fairies, witches, assorted creatures, and esteemed mortals of the
four factions had been plied with enough alcohol, was I to be escorted into
the war room to talk business with the most violent of deities. None of this
had seemed to phase Kalen, not that it should. The Sages wanted me. The
wickedly skilled Guardian turned non-earthling who had come back for
revenge. At least, that was the mask that Kalen had asked me to wear
tonight. Even though the gods knew who I used to be, Kalen predicted that
how strange I had become, even to myself, would be viewed as a threat.
Better that the Sages fear what they do not know rather than underestimate
it.
As he did what he could to school me on the ins and outs of diplomacy,
Kalen’s attention never left the trembling in my hands. I tried to mentally
chain them against my sides, but they only shuddered more intensely under
the pressure. At no point in the meeting, Kalen assured me, would he leave
my side. No matter what.
I could find no mercy when he reached out to steady my hands. Though
Kalen had assured me that Donis remembered nothing of me attacking him
and was living blissfully with his new Yield, I couldn’t stop thinking about
Mirona’s blood covering my skin, the way Kalen looked at them after what
I had done. I felt the phantom graze of his calluses against the delicate petal
of my palm, wrenching back into reality. A sharp pin pierced the bottom of
my spine. Rebekah had shimmied the gown up my thighs and was already
finishing the last-minute tailoring. I gasped and winced at the girl I saw
looking back from the mirror.
“Sorry, so sorry! These tiny pins are tougher to pull out than you might
think!”
But the pins were the least of my worries. The dress was a feat, there was
no doubt about that. Thin layers of tan organza pleated on either side of my
hips made up the skirt, and a stiff, shapely bodice made from silk and velvet
scaped up the length of my torso into a heart-shaped neckline at my breasts.
The silk fabric that draped between my thighs and over my backside ran
like milk down the curves of my body. I was glowing without magic, pearl
and iridescent white with sparks of yellow whenever the sun shifted further
into the sky from my window. It was a tad immodest compared to the other
dresses I’d seen sketched out in the atelier’s notebook when I’d been fitted.
But I was quite literally naked when I arrived here so what was modesty to
me, really?
Rebekah stepped back from me and sighed at my beauty.
I felt almost as deflated as her lungs.
I was excited. Mostly because today felt new. Now more familiar with life
outside of the Binding, I hated slipping into routine. But a party–even one I
couldn’t attend–was something I’d never experienced. Or at least I didn’t
remember ever having experienced it. So, yes, I was excited. But I was not
happy. The night of Mirona’s Yielding still hung over my head with its
thunderous skies.
I wondered if she would be there. Would she be happy? Or would she be
just another unseen girl in Well, not knowing herself or the man next to her?
Thinking about all of the choices she didn’t get to make. I looked once
more at myself in the mirror, uneasy as I whispered my thanks to Rebekah
and left the room, not bothering to shut the door on my way out.
THE FIRST THING I noticed was the sound—an enormous
roar of laughter that overwhelmed the dreadful music. Voices, there had to
be a million of them, in a delightful crescendo of chatter as I ascended the
spiral of stairs to the gallery above the main dining hall. The static of it was
comforting. I felt too vulnerable trudging through the Well without the
cloak of Kalen’s magic.
I halted just before turning the corner. Kalen would be there waiting for
me there, as we had discussed. Closing my eyes, I took deep breaths and
counted. Nothing in particular, just down from one hundred. Anything to
still my pulse long enough to reconsider running back to my room and
saying, To mortal hell with Kalen and the Sages. At zero, I stepped out to
face him.
Standing straight-backed and magnificent, there he was. A stone of amber
soaking in every ounce of golden light in this world and holding it there.
The frays of his hair were trussed up into the smallest braids, one on each
side curving over his ears. Atop his head sat a crown—a golden laurel of
stars. Kalen’s glorious omnipresence almost made me forget about the
hollow burn in my chest.
Almost.
As if he could feel me, Kalen glanced behind him, paying me less than a
fraction of attention, his sullen face showed no signs of even the slightest
interest in my arrival. I’d been only a momentary distraction. But just
before he let his head sway naturally back to the ongoing commotion, I
glimpsed the Light flickering in the honey of his eyes.
I pushed my shoulders down and eased onto the balcony, trying to drape
my arms gracefully on the railing. Through the sheer fabric of my dress, I
could feel the warmth of Kalen’s body next to mine. I could roll on the ball
of my heels, sink into his side almost unnoticed. Feel the fabric of his jacket
sleeve against my elbow. Anything would have been better than this hateful
pull between us, now.
I shook my head, trying to remember the way he’d yelled at me the night
before. Anger. That was the warmth I needed right now. An uncomfortable,
itching warmth. I turned my blazing cheek from his direction and focused
my eyes on the revelry below.
The dining hall looked brand new despite my familiarity with it. The
giant oak tables were no longer lined neatly along the walls of the room.
Glamoured, Kalen had informed me two days prior when I’d asked. The
enchantment had taken four of the captains from the Guardian regiments
who were gifted and Kalen himself to do it. Each shared equal parts of the
effort so as not to weaken their powers. Although even at their strongest
they knew none could take down a Sage, there was a comfort in being
prepared for the worst.
At least, it comforted me.
My eyes began to wander the floor below us, flitting from one group to
another, completely unable to take in the sheer amount of people stuffed
into the modestly sized throne room. Never in my life could I have
imagined there to be so many people in the world. Hundreds of creatures
danced with and through one another, ducking in and out, around and
around to the various tables and entertainment.
Women and children wore brightly colored gowns with skirts that barely
left any room for their men, and despite the excess, they, too, were
impressively dressed. Every single person was bedecked in the most
flamboyant shows of their factions. I could tell them apart with sharp
distinction. Like the lush turquoise robes covering the finned folk of the Sea
faction. Their faces were much more angled than that of the supple-skinned
mortals, who had mostly journeyed from the Land, the Sage Dario’s faction.
Their human faces matched my own wonder at all of the magic that
sparkled around them.
For a moment, I envied their naiveté. If only they knew. Time could not
touch immortals, but that did not mean their hearts were not hardened with
age.
I perked up against the balcony when I saw them, the magical beings that
called the Light faction home. I didn’t have to notice their pastel clothes or
their glimmering skin. All glowed with a sense of belonging. Faeries and
witches and immortals intermingled with each other, gossiping and drinking
and trading secrets, I imagined.
From my right ear, I could hear Kalen let out a snarky chuckle.
“What?” I groaned. Here we go.
“Nothing,” Kalen smiled. “I was just thinking about how right I was to
not let you anywhere near this party. You hide nothing in that striking face
of yours.”
He was right. I could feel dense crinkles at the corner of each eye from
the smile I had been wearing. Striking. A compliment? Probably
backhanded. I pulled on the leash of my heart when it began to race.
 A row of laughter sounded from below, and I jumped at the opportunity to
put my attention elsewhere. When I found the ruckus, I felt I might be sick
over the railing. It was Mirona, stunning and dressed down so scantily I
couldn’t help my blush. She’d toppled off the lap of Donis, splattering wine
down her front. And instead of offering to help his mistress, he made quick
jabs at her clumsiness and barked for her to retrieve him another glass. All
of the other men around him, also naval officers if their dress was any
indication, hooted and hollered at her expense. In a split second, Mirona
was suddenly on the move, red from head to dress to toe, flouncing towards
the serving tables to fetch her partner a new drink. She was a walking
contradiction. Her face was flushed and bitter, but her gait was still eager to
please. I tried my best not to scream from my place on the balcony. I didn’t
know what I would say, and I’d already almost blown cover once for the
sake of saving Mirona. It hadn’t done much good for Kalen and I’s cause,
either. So instead, I turned to him.
“Why is she acting so...”
“Obedient?” He was scrutinizing every angle of my face.
I nodded.
“Such is the nature of being a Yield. Donis is now the one person on earth
who has matched his heart with her own,” he explained, sliding his hands
across the rough skin of the banister.
I let out a sound of disgust. “You do her no justice romanticizing the
entire forsaken affair.”
“It is not my job to do the girl justice, Gwyn,” he replied, still looking
down at the congregation below. “You see her now. She is alive. Albeit with
a master to serve, but I’m sure she is quite thrilled to be breathing.”
“I can’t believe you would speak so heinously about this. In a way that
gives you no credence—not even a redeemable speck of compassion.”
“And I can’t believe you would expect anything different.”
I growled in response. “She is a child, Kalen. At least by our standards. A
child, taken and put into a world—no, a life she does not want and may
have no ability to understand. And she is restored, for what? To sit on
Donis’ lap and fill his cup?”
He surprised me with a smile. Dramatic and dazzling as it split open
nearly ear to ear. I reverted my face into a twist of anger, trading the
impassioned doe-eyes for judgy little slats.
“Don’t,” Kalen said with a chuckle. “I’m not laughing at you, I promise.”
 Good.
Kalen’s palms raised to his shoulders in defense. “It’s just...you are
exactly who I thought you would be. It is remarkable.”
The heat of his delight melted me faster than I would have ever admitted.
I was still upset with him. But I could never seem to stay that way for long.
“What?” I snarked. “Was I a high-strung champion of mortal rights even
before I got shoved into the Binding? Is that what your biographies on me
said?”
“Well, I never read of you attacking a man with a candlestick over it,” I
cursed the twitch of my lips. Kalen’s smile faded and he said, “But you
were something like that, yes.”
We both turned back to the bizarre celebration below. Mirona had
returned to Donis, who took the chalice from her hands, ignoring her as she
sat back on his lap.
“When we get through this, remind me to see to it those records are
burned to ash.”
Just as fast as the light had gone from his face, there he beamed again.
Dazzling.
“As you wish. But I must go now, there are a few obligations I need to
attend to before the party truly begins.”
Quickly, Kalen took a deep bow and turned on his heel towards the stairs
leading down into the hall. When he left my side, I ignored the pinch of
discomfort and decided not to let him leave my sight as he descended the
stairs to the main floor. Between all the pastel poufs and bejeweled bodices,
Kalen was as dark as a shadow splitting the crowd with ease.
Slowly, as he made his way into the heart of the party, I began to notice
that anyone he passed showed him courtesy. A graceful bow of the head
from the males, a bouncing curtsy from the women. A polite gesture to the
host? I couldn’t be sure, but the air had turned heavy and thick. By the time
he reached the huge crest painted in the middle of the room, a line had
formed at the star’s southernmost point.
“Who will be the first,” Kalen shouted into the dome. The strength in his
tone rattled against the glass and shot back down through the hall. I raised
slightly on the tips of my toes, leaning against the railing as I searched the
many faces below me for an explanation. What the hell was he doing?
A young mortal woman and her children approached. All too thin and
dressed in threads that were not quite as rich as our other patrons. They
were shaking, completely in awe of Kalen. That expression came over
everyone in the hall, myself included. Kalen was glowing. A subtle but
distinct brilliance that made everything around him seem lifelessly dull.
From my high vantage point, I could see the mortals start to shake, buzzing
with excitement.
Kalen let them approach. Bringing his right hand to his forehead, a pebble
of light was summoned and then pulled from his mind into the world,
balancing on his middle finger. Slowly, he ushered it onto the forehead of
the youngest boy, anointing him. Then the eldest, and finally the mother. I
saw her crumple at the slight brush of his powers against her. She started to
weep.
Kalen did not move to comfort her. Instead, he stepped back with
principal into the center of the crest. After a few lengthy minutes, her face
emerged from the swathe of her mud-brown hair, tear-stained.
The mother finally gathered her wits enough to choke out, “We beg to
pray, your grace.”
“You may.” Kalen remained emotionless. I, on the other hand, had
already gathered tears in the wells of my eyes from the whole display. What
had he done for them? They seemed as if they were indebted to his
existence. I didn’t understand it, but I could feel their gratitude and relief
just sitting at his feet. But my tears dried quickly, evaporated really, when
all three of his servants dropped to one knee, elbow tucked in their left
palm, the right splayed out to the center of their faces.
“Preserver of Light,” the youngest began, his voice shaking, and I thought
I would faint. Kalen gently urged him on, sparking the fire in his eyes for
the boy as encouragement.
Now the mother and eldest joined him. “Let no darkness befall you, no
day evade your will.”
The hush that had fallen over the crowd minutes before began to slowly
buzz back to life. Words I was too familiar with crooning towards the man
who had taken me away from the place that required them, or so I had
believed.
“Let the shadows be your place of rest.”
Kalen looked up then, beneath a tense brow. He was carrying shame in
his broad shoulders, and the clenching in his jaw told me he would be
digging his way out of this...this lie, later, but the shock of it had left me
unoffended. As our eyes met, I could feel one consciousness bleeding into
another, a mirror somewhere in my shattered soul recognizing his.
“For blessed are we who live in them.”
Kalen. Guardian to Light. God of my first World.
Preserver.

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I DIDN’T KNOW WHERE the strength had come from inside
of me. I think it may have been the result of utter rage.
That is, if the cracking sound of Kalen’s head against the wood paneling of
the war room was any hint. I had not spent much time in this world, but I
was becoming increasingly aware that the longer I stayed in it, the more
violent I was becoming. I thought perhaps it had something to do with my
stones, or with Kalen and all the lies he told, or the fact that his lying to me
was so easily accomplished, and realizing the fool I was had terrified me.
No more half-truths, I made him promise, when it should have been, No
more surprises.
“What was that?” Part of my hair had unwound itself as I pinned him
against the wall with my forearm. I felt a pang of guilt for ruining
Rebekah’s handy work. “Who are you?” I screamed. “I thought the
Preserver was the Light Sage? Does that mean you…” I shoved him harder.
“Who are you?”
“Let...me...explai...” Kalen croaked. I pushed even further into his throat.
Somewhere in the fog of my anger, a little voice piped up to remind me that
I would get no answers from a dead man.
But he is immortal. I could strangle him like this forever.
Kalen’s hand shot up instantly to his throat when I released him. I gave a
decidedly grumpy huff, and watched him clutch the swelling skin. Stalking
over to one of the lounges, I put some much-needed space between us.
Immortal or not, I felt like I could seize his life in my grasp and watch it
fade slowly from his eyes. When he finally did catch his breath, he got the
message loud and clear, and didn’t dare come closer.
“Go on then,” I said, leveling my tone to imply he should waste no more
of my time. Unless he wanted to compare the previous crush of my arm to
how the thick sole of my heels would feel on his neck. Kalen stood from the
wall, and I watched purplish streams the width of my forearm fade as his
body healed from within.
“By the Light! It’s a title, Gwyn. That’s all!” Kalen straightened out his
clothes and repositioned the crown on his head before continuing. “The
Light has been gone for decades, and the ranks needed filling. I inherited it
years ago. Out of all the Guardians, I held the most powers after...well, after
what happened. They elected me—the faction elected me, I mean,” he
sputtered.
“Good story. Warms my heart, really, to think of you so honored by your
fellow Guardians.”
Kalen seemed to physically shrink, his shoulders flattening out so much
that the jacket he was wearing slipped a little from his shoulders. He looked
strange, so out of sorts, flailing around, grasping for a way out of this lie.
His hair was fussed like mine, cheeks flushed, and eyes wide. I’d never
seen him look so young, so childish. I knew it wouldn’t last. He’d drop the
innocence eventually and go back to insults once he saw I was
unconvinced.
But I couldn’t bring myself to call him a liar or a fool or a pompous
bastard, even though he was all those things and more. I couldn’t find the
right words to insult him, couldn’t hear them through the chorus crying out
for the glorious Preserver in my head. None of it would have rid myself of
the sweaty guilt coating my skin, the extra layer of sticky film like the one I
wore the night I’d forgotten about Prayer. It seemed so long ago, but here I
was, seeking absolution.
After a moment of staring at him, I said, “What it doesn’t explain, though,
is why you had me praying to you every night in the Binding.”
By all outward appearances, I understood why Kalen looked so afraid. I
was trembling, surely red faced, and if I was mortal, the vein bulging from
my forehead would have burst already. Inside, I was a rickety scaffold of
emotions. One wrong thing said—or even one right thing—and I would
collapse.
“You…” the word stuck in his mouth, Kalen’s face frozen in a look of
shock. “You said the Prayer, every night?”
I watched his hands uncurl at his sides. He sighed with something like
relief. Was the confusion that flashed across his face just another lie?
Another mask of deception he donned to keep me in line with whatever
motives he hadn’t revealed yet. But counting the short breaths coming from
him, I realized it wasn’t shock he was feeling at all. Kalen was awestruck.
“Gywnore,” Sheepishly, he moved towards the chair next to mine. He
paused just before he sat, silently asking for permission. I didn’t give it. I
didn’t not give it either. So, he sank slowly into the cushion. “The Prayer is
for protection,” he said, looking up at me with hooded eyes, trying to
convince me. “Nothing more.”
“Why would I pray for your protection, Kalen?”
That inexplicable, hypnotic pull started between us again. I pushed back
against it. He shifted uncomfortably under the weight of my stare. It was
supposed to be filled with indignation toward him, but I was too exhausted,
so it just came out weary and contrite. Clearing his throat, he attempted a
joke to ease the tension. “You know, the thought of you on your knees for
me does sound intriguing...”
The words had barely left his mouth when I began to pummel him with
one of the books that lay next to me on the side table. He lifted his hands in
defense and we sparred—with me, ardently jabbing at the blank spaces of
air where Kalen playfully skirted my advances.
“But!” he yelped out as I finally hit my mark. “But, I am sure you were
praying for the faction’s protection. Not mine. You were in the Binding for
far longer than I have been playing the role of false god. You couldn’t have
known.”
I huffed back into my chair. It wasn’t the most seamless explanation he
had ever given me, but it made enough sense for now. It had to. We had
much bigger problems anyways. Soon, the Sages would arrive, and I would
need the rest of my energy for that fight. Was it a fight? I was so unsure of
this World’s current faction to faction relations. For all I knew, they could
hate their sister just as much as they supposed I did. They might even be
willing to help me find my stones. I began fitfully shoving stray bands of
my hair back into their braids, mind spinning all the while.
As if I had said all of this aloud, Kalen answered my thoughts. “The
Sages are loyal to each other, they value family above all else and the
Shadow Sage is that. Even still, Ione, Gabriel, and Dario each have their
own reasons for wanting to see you reunited with your stones. They also
have many reasons to keep you from your soul. By our laws, a Sage cannot
prevent any being on this Continent from pursuing their will. If you want
your stones, you have every right to them. But that does not mean the Sages
will not figure out a way to get around the law, to put a stop to you before
you can even begin your journey. It is important that, tonight, that you
persuade them from doing so.”
“And if persuading these gods is impossible? What happens if they don’t
want me to have my soul? The family they value so much is the reason I am
without it, are they not?”
 The corner of Kalen’s mouth flinched downward. It was a small
movement, but it said so many things at large.
My fingers, which were looping two locks of my hair around each other
endlessly, started to shake, my mind and my body both unable to focus on
the task ahead or the task at hand. How could I braid my hair when I might
be dead in the next hour? Because that is what those gods would do to me,
wasn’t it? To put a stop to me.
Some fear deeply rooted in my gut told me that the Sages would view my
death as the only way. How else could they keep me from my own soul, if
not to have me killed? One of the pins I was wiggling into place slipped
from my fingers, skimming across the floor. Before I could reach for it,
Kalen swiped at the wood slats, gathering the small piece of metal into his
hand. He stepped around my outstretched palm and marched to my back.
Hot breath swept down my spine as he spoke softly, but sure. “They will
hear what you have to say, Gwyn. That is why they have come. And if it is
your will to find your stones, the Sages cannot prevent you from searching
for it without breaking a vow to this earth’s people. They also value
perception. Our gods are seen by many.”
Pulling up the last misplaced strand of hair, Kalen fed it through the low
braid at the nape of my neck, double checking that it held. His hands fell
lightly to my bare shoulders, sending a rush of hot blood through my body.
Kalen leaned down so that his lips were aligned to the curve of my ear.
“I see you, Gwyn,” he whispered, and my heart splintered at the softness
of his voice. “They will see you, too.”

WE HAD BEEN WAITING on the King of the Cosmos for

the better part of an hour. The air between the four of us was sharp with
energy; the power of two Sages and one Preserver flowed back and forth
and in and out. With enough friction, I was sure we’d all be set alight.
I had felt Ione before I saw her, the way a bird feels the weight of a down
breeze making way for bad weather. And if Ione was anything, she was a
storm. Her pallid limbs drifted out on a phantom wind that carried her
across the wooden floors. A strong and static current kept her long hair from
ever settling, like swift clouds constantly ebbing against her tall frame.
Ione’s face was the heart of the Sea and her eyes struck like lightning on the
sand. Electrifying and just as fleeting. She had only looked at me once since
entering the war room. Even with such a brief introduction—she’d hardly
stalled long enough for me to bow to her—I could tell she wasn’t fond of
me. Perhaps for some action I’d once taken but could not remember. Such
was my life, now.
Ione was a storm, and by consequence, Dario was the long and vengeful
drought that followed. I barely noticed him slip in quietly behind his sister,
the full extent of his magic glamoured, hidden away, though immense
power still radiated from him. His sharp chin never relaxed downward, his
emerald eyes locked in a distant and arid stare as he gazed over Kalen and
me.
Never would I have imagined a Sage looking so young. He was almost
juvenile when you added in his less than sunny disposition.
“The literal personification of Time, and still the concept of punctuality
escapes him,” Dario scoffed from the permanent residency he’d taken up on
our lounge, skipping the royal pleasantries altogether.
The deep red fabric of the chaise complemented the forest green collared
shirt that lay without a wrinkle over his lean torso. Light from the fire
glinted off the golden rings stacked onto his forefinger as it twirled a copper
strand of hair. Cropped in a peculiar fashion I hadn’t seen before, the curl
snapped back in place just above the nape of his neck with a sproing. He
was a portrait of mortal youth, I thought.
As if summoned by the words of his brother, Gabriel burst into the
chamber without so much as a glance at the two Guardians Kalen had
posted just outside the doors. They both remained stiff bodied, ignoring his
attempt to catch them on uneven footing. Kalen was right to have chosen
them from the group of Yielded Guards—those who had found partners and
given them their lives. My heart let out a small thump of pride at the
immortals. They were holding their own better than I suspected even I
would.
Two oversized men flanked the Time Sage, emotionless but vigilant as
they scanned the room. I recognized them immediately. Owen and Abdiel
looked exactly as I had seen them in my vision, though it had been more
than seventy years since they must have stood in front of me. Each wore
enormous, silver-plated armor draped over plum leathers, long ink spilt hair,
and brilliantly violet eyes. Sharp jaws and tanned muscles unaffected by
time; they were gallant and forever beautiful as protectors of the Astral
plane.
Gabriel broke from his companions, his deep purple cloak rustling as he
moved elegantly across the floor, the wide lapels of his collar stiff around
his jaw. He pivoted towards the small circle the four of us had
unintentionally formed at the far end of the room. I remained strong in my
stance, refusing to let myself become unnerved as he drew near. That is,
until he froze at the sight of me, and I found myself falling through worlds
looking into his black pitted stare.
Gabriel’s hand reached for his mouth, the olive tone of his skin stark
against the flush on his face. For uncountable moments, he did not do
anything but look at me. Then he advanced, ever so slowly, taking each step
as if the floor might fall through, a wet shine in the waterline of his eyes. I
didn’t dare to step back when the tips of his sandaled feet met the soft
velvet of my slippers. I tried in vain to keep still when the palm that had
covered his lips reached out slowly to my cheek and held me there, the
warmth of his touch burrowing into my skin. Strong fingers gripped tightly
at the angle of my jaw, and the melting feeling fled from me instantly.
Oh, how stupid I was to let him take my face.
It would be so easy for him to kill me right where we stood. I still had no
idea if that was what Gabriel actually wanted. If the wet in his eyes was
preemptive remorse or the result of a wayward speck of dust. Kalen had
said these gods would hear what I had to say, but Kalen had also said a
Sage’s intentions were never clear. Looking up into his torn face, I could
only confirm that was true.
“Mother above...” Gabriel spoke softy, his cadence as smooth as stars
gliding through the night sky. “It truly is you.”
I took in the sharp breath that he exhaled, unable to reply. As if my
wordlessness amused him, his rose-colored lips parted with a smile, and
there was the briefest moment where I recognized him. A boy with the
weight of mountains on his shoulders, a crackling laugh, and an almost
always crooked mouth.
“You believe, now, Gabriel, having seen her with your own eyes, that
what I told you was true?” Kalen spoke from the left of our embrace. In a
blink, the boy I recognized in Gabriel was gone, and the King of Cosmos
turned to face Kalen with a wry grimace.
“Yes, Preserver, I do.” The words bit their way out through his teeth. “Too
bad you weren’t lying. I’ve been looking for a reason to pull thos mortal
guts from your body.”
“You may make your best attempt,” was Kalen’s reply.
Whatever warmth the two of us had established in the moments of our
embrace vanished as Gabriel’s hand dropped from my face. I felt my cheeks
blanch, but kept my attention trained on him. Still I could not stop thinking,
mortal guts. Mortal. Kalen was a mortal? How? I had seen his crystal skin,
the magic that whirled in his eye. Then it hit me, hard and fast.
Kalen was Yielded.
But, to who?
Gabriel and Kalen seemed to enter some sort of staring contest, and
before I could put much thought to how Kalen had come to be immortal and
who served as his master, Ione rose from her seat on the oak table where
she’d been restlessly toying with Kalen’s dagger.
“Enough, you two,” she said, lethally calm. “It is clear you still hate each
other. We waste time picking at old wounds.”
Gabriel’s chin lifted slightly in acknowledgement. “Well taken, dear
sister.”
“Gwynore,” Ione said, and my throat bobbed hearing my name on her
tongue, the tone so sinister yet mocking. “Come.”
I straightened immediately, trying neither to sprint towards her nor
acknowledge the way my heart grew wings, flapping against my chest,
trying to escape through my throat as I approached her.
“Kalen has told us about your journey to the prison world. The length of
time you spent there and under what conditions. While I…” her words
stopped abruptly when she looked towards me. I hadn’t even noticed my
mouth opening to speak. “What is it?”
“I apologize,” I said, not really sorry. I couldn’t help myself. “I don’t
quite grasp your meaning when you say the Binding was a prison world.
Yes, I remained there for a while, but it did not seem like seventy years. I
had no sense of time, and I only stayed because I did not know how to
leave.”
“A world without Time?” Gabriel spoke up from his corner, crooked
mouth reappearing. “I have known no other definition for the word
prison.”
He turned suddenly and pranced to the serving table along the far wall
that held assorted cheeses, fruits, and toasted loafs. Kalen had put it there
purely as a courtesy, not expecting any of the Sages to indulge while there
were such serious matters to be discussed. But the way Gabriel was dallying
along made me think he may have been inclined to balance the serious with
plenty of play. And sugar grapes.
The Time Sage had just popped one into his mouth when his sister
snapped: “Frankly, I do not care. Your comfort inside The Binding is a
trivial matter, Gwynore.” Her black painted nails tapped once atop her lap
as she seemed to quietly gather herself. “What I seek to know is how you
are here, now. Tell me, Preserver, how exactly is it that you found your way
into a place in which not even Gabriel’s power can reach? How is it
possible that Gwyn has been rescued?”
Kalen grunted, stalking forward to where Gabriel sat on the serving table.
I thought for a moment the wicked gleam in his eye meant he would yank
the stem of fruit from the Time Sage’s hands. But Kalen stopped barely a
foot’s length away, keeping his eyes on Gabriel while he answered Ione
dutifully.
“I commissioned a very powerful witch, I’m sure your brother knows of
her.” He looked down his nose at Gabriel, who answered his gaze with a
mischievous pop of dimples. “Ayona Burnwell.”
Gabriel’s brows shot up at this, and his throat bobbed with surprise. “That
wench! And she didn’t think to tell me?” He spoke as he chewed another
grape. “Still holding onto a grudge, I guess.”
“She didn’t tell you because she is dead.” Kalen answered simply, and
Gabriel’s smirk fell flat. “The enchantments she used to send me into the
Binding were of a very old magic—the Arts, you may have heard them
called. She grew weak when she summoned them. It overwhelmed her.”
Like it meant little to him, the price paid to bring me back.
Gabriel sucked on his teeth, but something in his eyes seemed to die the
moment he looked Kalen over and realized what he claimed was true. “Of
course, it did,” he said grittily. “Common, isn’t it? That your presence in
other’s lives often leads to death.”
Kalen didn’t reply. I searched his face for any clue to Gabriel’s meaning.
A crease in the corner of his mouth, a pinched eyelid. Something to tell me
there was a speck of emotion for whatever had happened to this Ayona
Burnwell. That the accusation Gabriel had made was some sort of
exaggeration or farce. Anything would have been better than the slack,
guiltless expression Kalen wore now.
 “There,” Ione said, distracting the pair once again. “We have solved one
mystery, now onto the next. You escaped the Binding, Gwynore, but you
did not leave intact. There is the matter of three stones. Parts of your soul
that remain hidden from you.”
“Just two stones, Your Grace. I have reclaimed one,” I corrected.
“Interesting.” Ione’s eyes squinted at this revelation, slowly tracing a path
toward Kalen. “You expect to do what, once you possess the other parts of
your soul?”
Gabriel scoffed. “Don’t be coy, sister. You know exactly where Gwynore
is headed once she realizes who she is.”
“If I wanted you to answer the question, brother, I would have directed it
at you.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes at Ione, turning his face to the wall to blow a
raspberry. I almost laughed, something breathy and relieved, finding a small
piece of respite in his childishness. But then every Sage eye turned to me,
waiting for an explanation.
“Gabriel is right, Your Grace,” I admitted, trying to muster some
confidence. How could she ever believe in my plans if it did not sound as if
I even agreed with myself? “Once I retrieve my soul, I plan to travel to
Sythe and reclaim the Light for my faction. Of course, I hope to ask for
your support in the endeavor. Kalen and I will—”
“No,” Ione interrupted, raising one of her hands as if she physically
wanted to wipe the words away. “No, I cannot allow you to do that. You
will not step one foot into the Shadow faction, Gwynore.”
“If it is Gwyn’s will to travel into any of the factions, by law you cannot
stop her,” Kalen argued.
“If it is Gwyn’s will to commit treason, you are right, I can’t stop her. I
won’t stop her. But by the same law, I’ll be forced to kill her,” was Ione’s
reply. Then she huffed, “Actually, forced may be too harsh a word. I think
I’d rather enjoy it.”
“Treason?” Kalen shouted. “On what charges, exactly?”
It was Gabriel who spoke next, rather plainly: “Attacking a sovereign
faction. Bringing harm upon a Sage.”
I took a step back, staring at Ione. In a matter of a seconds, it seemed
everything about Ione had become sharper, more lethal. Since she’d entered
the war room, it appeared she’d only been playing the role of diplomat.
Calm, reserved—an act of sorts. I didn’t realize exactly how good that act
was until she stood from the oak table, meeting my eye level, her face
tightening. Ione leaned in until our chins were level, her lips sliding into an
unnervingly polite smile. Ione repeated herself. “No matter if your soul lies
on the very bottom my sister’s dais, you will not step one foot into Sythe.”
I began to see many visions of my death, so many jarring possibilities.
Still, I pushed on. “I will go to the Shadow faction,” I said, watching as
Ione’s eyes widen. “I will take back the Light for my faction, and I will give
you my word that I will not harm your sister.”
Ione shook her head and turned, tracing the oak table in the center of the
room lightly with her fingers. “You seem to forget that you do not know
yourself. And it is true, I may not know what you have become after all of
these years. But I know my sister. If you plan to take the Light back, you
should also plan to pry it from her dead hands.” She stalled, looked over her
shoulder at me. “And Gwynore. Raise even a finger against any Sage, and I
will drown you on dry land.”
“That is not your place, Ione.” Dario said from the chaise. I was shocked
to see he had not fallen asleep, what with how bored he’d looked until this
very second. “Gwynore is not yours to end. Remember with whom you
have pledged your loyalty.”
“Brother, my loyalty is the only reason she still breathes,” barked Ione.
“Old wounds,” sang Gabriel.
Kalen growled, bristling visibly underneath his leathers, and without a
word, he began to advance on the sea goddess. I reached for him, to hold
him back, or to just hold on to him, I couldn’t tell. But before he came too
close, Gabriel appeared, tailed by a stiff wind that twisted around us in a
low whistle. Gabriel had projected from his spot on the table, nearly nose to
nose with Kalen, his hand blocking the advance, fingers pressed into The
Preserver’s doublet. Gabriel’s mouth was a wicked grin, and his eyes…his
eyes clouded into a milky white that glazed from corner to corner.
And then he turned to me.
“You will meet your fate within the next two moons, Gwynore,” Gabriel
said, and I realized quickly that he was Seeing. Looking through time.
Looking to the future that we all were barreling towards.
My chest sank. Meet my fate? That could mean anything. My fate to find
my soul, my fate to die. It could mean nothing at all. For my entire life, I’d
had no time, and now, two months was the only time that I would ever
have.
 “If you can see her destiny,” Kalen said, his voice straining, “feel free to
enlighten us, saiche. That is your only purpose, is it not?”
Self-pity escaped me, replaced by instant fear. Saiche. I’d heard this word
before in Leoth, sprinkled in here or there by Rebekah while she and I
gossiped. A cheap deviation from Sage. An abasement of Gabriel’s true
nature. I squeezed Kalen’s hand, which I’d unintentionally twined with
mine as the two continued to argue. My grip urged him to stop speaking.
We had already botched any effort to secure the support of a Sage, and now
the entire confrontation felt mere seconds towards some sort of outburst.
His insult was only a log placed on the growing fire between the five of us.
Gabriel glanced at our woven fingers, and to my surprise, he chuckled.
Unfortunately, Preserver, your raven-haired lover knows far more than I.”
A growl rose in Kalen’s throat, and I watched in horror as violence
overtook him at last. The words struck me in quite a different way, and I
dropped Kalen’s hand. He coiled back, gathering the energy to pounce at
Gabriel. But before the two had a chance to rip each other apart, screams
erupted from the dining hall. Two loud thuds followed against the great oak
doors to our room.
The Sage’s attention darted towards the sound but remained unafraid. I
jumped at the scrape of metal, the clamor of Astralites drawing their
weapons from the black sheaths at their hips. Kalen brandished a small
dagger, the silver runes gilding in the firelight.
Another scream, then grunt, then thud. This time, the latch to the door
rattled at the impact, the locking mechanism giving way to whatever force
had struck it. Hardly the best security for the most valuable people in the
world. The doors swung open and I watched as two limp bodies in brown-
colored leather sank to Kalen’s feet.
Our doormen.
Ione opened her mouth, as if to shout. The tip of Owen’s longsword
clanged against the ground, his hands falling limp at the sight of an arrow
protruding from each of the Guardian’s eyes.
Two immortals. Dead.
“Speak of the she-witch and she shall appear, indeed.”
Gabriel uttered it as a joke, but nothing of his expression was humorous.
I looked up at Kalen who stood stiff as stone. He only stared at the
Guards, friends of uncountable years impossibly lifeless before him.
Eventually, his eyes found mine, speaking to me in a language I once may
have understood, but could no longer hear. Nevertheless, the feeling that
leaked out from them was one I knew well.
Fear.
And then it was gone. He was gone. Charging towards the ball to defend
his family in arms.

OceanofPDF.com
I DIDN’T NEED A reason to follow Kalen head-on into danger,
though I had many.
For one, whatever horror that was the impetus for the screams of
hundreds within the dining hall was sure to be coming for us next. I thought
I would rather face certain death than let the thought of it terrorize me
slowly until it finally came. Then there was the small fact that Kalen had
saved me from a cracked spine atop the rocky embankment of the
Mountain, and for that alone I felt I owed him. But the reason that spurred
me the most, the one that made my legs itch with the need to chase after
him, was something I couldn’t make sense of at all. There was no logic left
in it. It would probably cost me my life, but I needed to help him.
I watched in disbelief as he ran toward the attack, drawing another sword
from the back of his armor, my heart beating so loudly it flooded my ears.
the Sages each turned their back towards the door, Ione brushing past me to
the back of the war room, followed closely by Dario. For safety, surely.
Gabriel was next, placing a hand on my shoulder. I kept my eyes on the
empty hall but felt the Time Sage lean into me.
“I say you,” he said into my ear.
Quiet, but stern.
The words broke my focus, and I whipped around to confront the god and
his siblings. But they were gone. Not huddled in the corner strategizing or
cowering, but vanished into thin air, along with the Astralites, their powers
emptying the room as they went.
All was still, not even a slight drift in the folds of a curtain to tell the
direction in which any of them had projected out of the room. The sting of
their disappearance rattled me. It was impossible. How could they do this?
Just leave us defenseless as the Well was attacked—abandon their own
people who had journeyed across an entire continent under their protection?
I had known they weren’t with us by any means, but this? They were sworn
to protect their people, were they not? I doubt they had written it down in
blood or a prayer, but they were gods.
Perhaps this was an extension of a Sage’s promise not to fool with their
people’s will. A promise that made them both friend and foe, leaving only
circumstance to decide which.
The sharp clack of Kalen’s feet striking tile began to hollow out, and I
realized he was moving farther and farther from me. I glanced towards the
flakes of dying embers in the fireless hearth. They fizzed and then defected
with one last pop and all that was truly left was me. I had to do something.
Think. Think, my mind paced.
Who do you say will triumph? Fate or the Brave and the Ruthless
Gwynore? That was what I had asked Gabriel in my vision.
“I say you,” I whispered into the empty room.
Gabriel’s answer. Despite all that had been said tonight, he must have
believed I was still what I always had been. A Guardian. At one time, I was
the best. So often since that day in the infirmary, I had thought about the
lethal champion who I used to be, though I didn’t dare to think about it for
long. I knew if I let myself linger there, even for a moment, knowing all of
what was expected of me, it would consume me.
Subconsciously, I knew there was a truth to it. Every day I spent back in
this world, I felt parts of myself coming back. The skillful memory of my
muscles as I fought Kalen in the hall, quickly disarmed a man twice my
size. The jaunt in my stride as I did something as simple as walking from
corner to corner of my room. I was strong, like any immortal I supposed,
but even more than that. I was a Guardian. Maybe I could still be the best?
There was no better time than the present to test out that theory, and no
better threat than death to see it through.
Picking up my skirts, I ran after Kalen. For the first time that night, I was
thankful to be dressed in so little. I wondered, heartsick, how in mortal hell
the beautiful women in their pastry-puffed gowns were fighting for their
lives, tripping over layers and layers of skirts. Fighting at a disadvantage set
out for them by a fanciful dress code meant to entice the Sages. Drenched in
heavy jewels and thick threaded bodices, all in hopes of catching the eyes
of their god and impressing them.
I imagined that for days now, they had bent themselves over tables lit
only by oil lamps, sewing beautiful robes and dresses out of the rich fabrics
they had no doubt spent too much of their coin on. Sweating through the
labor, laughing as they pricked fingers, and dreaming of something as small
as a nod of approval from the gods they worshiped.
Now they waited for those same gods’ magic to flood the halls and save
them from peril. The only comfort, I thought, was that they would be dead
before they knew no one was coming for them.
Kalen had long disappeared from my sight, but it wasn’t hard to find the
dining hall again. All I had to do was recount my steps. And follow the
endless screams. I was running down the corridors as fast as I could, but
dread soon found its way into my muscles, making them feel sluggish and
heavy. Despite that, I flung myself into the last hall with a squeak of my
shoes against the smooth flooring. I stopped immediately at the threshold.
Whatever I had expected to find, this was worse—devastatingly so. I
thought I might vomit or faint or both. Or maybe my heart would just stop
beating altogether. Gone were the beautiful linen trimmings and crystal
accents hanging from chandeliers. Everything was ripped and shattered and
crooked. It seemed as if the entire room was tilted off its center; banisters
hanging by thin tears of cloth, buffet tables overturned...people. People
were on their sides and slumped over one another. Bright pastels splattered
with clotted red.
Everywhere. There was blood everywhere. Mortal and immortal alike, but
it all poured out the same. I couldn’t even tell the difference between our
two species anymore, as the crowd weaved in and out of each other;
running and pushing, falling and dying. We were all the same. Even the
arrows, akin to those which had killed the Guardians outside the war room,
tore through their throats with similar ease as they rained down from
overhead, unrelenting and fatal.
My courage began to shrink. Just as it had at the Sea, my mind obviously
self-preservation over honor. It begged me to leave—this place, these
people, Kalen. All of it. But my heart fought harder, and my eyes anchored
me to the ground as I searched for any sign of Kalen within the frenzy. I
found him quickly, surprising even myself. It felt almost easy to pick him
out amongst the bloodshed. The rush of pure joy at having found him alive
nearly buckled my knees, but I forced myself to stay standing, to focus on
the small crowd that was beginning to stir around him.
Kalen was surrounded by six immortals, pressing him into a wall covered
in the shredded flags of the factions. I studied them intensely, trying to
discern their intent and looking for any route of escape for Kalen when
things inevitably turned ugly. There was no such path. Moving as one
underneath a deep purple armor, they looked almost exactly like a pack of
Astralites. I would have sworn they were Gabriel’s servants, but their skin
was sickly pale.
 The men finally moved in on Kalen, taking turns lunging at him with
bone-hilted daggers gripped tightly underneath white knuckles. I knew
nothing would prepare me to hear his cracked voice as it wailed in pain, or
the sound of his flesh splitting against a stranger’s bone, but I braced myself
anyway. Thankfully, no matter how hard or fast they swung, only a loud
swoosh kissed my ears.
The blades met empty air.
Kalen anticipated every throw, every step taken both towards and away
from him. Besides our few scuffles, I had never seen him fight before.
Hadn’t seen the pure strength in one swing of his forearm. And the magic. It
flowed from him now, steady and pure, out from his hand and clean through
the dagger he sliced into tough leather.
With a quick pounce and flick of his wrist, Kalen drove his blade up and
under the metal plating of one of his attackers, piercing between his ribs
and into his heart. In three more moves, all but two others fell, leaving the
rest with no option other than to scurry off in terror. Kalen looked at me
then. I saw his mouth move but didn’t hear the words. My ears were
ringing.
As he ran toward me, I was pulled towards him, my steps impatient as I
pushed through the crowd that rushed upstream. We nearly collided when
we met. Kalen gripped my arm to steady us both. Finger-sized swipes of
blood were left against my skin as he released me.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled, his voice finally clear to my
ears.
“I’m coming to help you,” I yelled back, louder. Couldn’t he tell?
His face was completely serious, not even a hint of amusement at my
audacity. “You need to go to your room and barricade the door. I will come
for you when it is safe.”
When I didn’t move, he grabbed my arm again, rushing us under and
around swords that smashed against each other with no sense of direction—
just wild, unchecked determination. I could smell the grimy tang of sweat
mixed with blood. It incensed me enough to veer back around and shove
him in the chest. He was unmoved, but his nostrils flared.
“Go,” he ordered. “Now.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I squawked back. I knew I wouldn’t leave. I could
not.
“Gwynore.”
 “I’m not leaving you!” I repeated.
Kalen took a step back, and I watched his face tense as he seemed to
argue with himself internally. He knew I was capable of fighting back.
There was not enough time to convince me to go, to leave him to his own
defense. He couldn’t do it on his own, and I had been the best. Kalen
snarled, angry with me. Angry with himself and everything going on around
him. Only a second was allowed for his emotions before he reached down
and wrenched a short sword from the stomach of some nameless Guardian,
chucking it directly into my fighting hand with unsettling precision.
Thank the gods. I had gotten this far. Looking down at the bluish, lifeless
face of the Guardian below me. I thought—now what?
“Now we fight,” Kalen said. I shuddered, not at his answer, but at all the
carnage that lay ahead.
I say you.
We traded nods, and I raced after him, keeping close to his coattails as he
made a path for us to the far wall. There, a particularly gruesome barrage
had broken out. A horde of warriors—Guardian and otherwise—were piling
on top of each other, shanking their weapons into whatever solid
appendages they could find. By the squabble’s end, no doubt one brother
would find himself impaled on another’s sword.
Kalen ducked under the swinging arm of a faux-Astralite, pulling me by
the wrist to the center of the scuffle. Back against back, we fought; the
muscle and bone of my shoulders sliding in between his as we mirrored
each other’s assaults.
Right arm up to block a knife to my eye, left hip swing, and the thrust of
my elbow to disarm the attacker with the hilt of my sword. When his
weapon clattered to the ground, a whimper left my throat. A rush in my
blood at what I had done. The power of it blew through me like I was a flute
of grass on the Mountain.
But it was short-lived. As he bent to retrieve his weapon, his friend took
the opportunity to swing a serrated shaft of bone to my throat. A sharp,
searing pain rippled through the skin of my collarbone when he missed.
Within no time at all my skin burned with a fire I hadn’t encountered yet in
this world—in any of the worlds I knew. Far more intense than the pain that
I had felt when Kalen split my hand. To make things worse, the wound
wasn’t healing. That much I could tell. I reached forward, bracing myself as
the demon parried his sword against mine once more. A jolt of fire ran
through my shoulder beneath the wound, and I shook as I tried to hold my
stance.
Kalen’s back tensed at the small cry I let out. Tapping his ankle in
between mine, I felt on instinct that he wanted to switch positions. I moved
over quickly, letting him flip us the rest of the way. I was grateful to find the
men attacking us had fallen. My stomach rolled at the thought of killing
someone. No matter how much these traitors’ eyes gleamed as they tried to
kill me just the same.
“Gwyn.”
“I’m okay,” I said as I righted myself, but the weapon in my hand
weighed like a hundred stones and I wasn’t sure I was telling the truth. I
closed my eyes and tried to listen to the calamity around us. If I could find
something to count, something to distract myself. I counted two shrieks of
the demons and a singular thud. Kalen tugged me around by my waist to
face him. When he saw my wound, his expression twisted with regret.
“Hey,” I gathered his face in my hands quickly. We didn’t have time. “I
will be okay. Now we fight.”
The echo of his sentiment seemed to bring him back to the melee that
resurged around us. Quickly he forced his thumb across my wound roughly,
and I hissed. He grimaced as if he felt the pain of what he had done. I had
the intense need to itch at my collarbone, and then it was gone. I looked
down and saw the cut, still red and throbbing but without the ore-colored
feculent that had lined the torn edges of my skin moments before.
“Thank you,” I whispered, adding it to the growing list of debts he held
over me. Kalen nodded swiftly and left without another word.
I left the circle of bodies then, too, and searched for another fight for us to
end. And then I saw her. A woman draped in red dress and wine. Her
features were forever soft, but her bright, emerald eyes were sharp with
courage. She had finally found an opportune time to escape her master. If he
hadn’t already been shanked clean through with an arrow, Donis wouldn’t
dare come back into this madness to search for her. It seemed, Mirona knew
that, too.
Stealthily, she climbed over chairs and under silken cloth table runners
looking for an archway or window that wasn’t crawling with fleeing
patrons. She picked up her pace once she finally spotted a broken glass
divider that led to a large balcony. A smart choice, I thought, as it had
access to other hallways in the Well, other passages to escape from without
much notice. I had used many of those passages to move through the
armory to do the same. Just as I was congratulating her in my head, her face
turned ghostly white, and she careened sharply to her left.
Mirona was now running as fast as she could...toward me? No, away
from something else. A giant beast who had joined our ranks without
anyone noticing. Probably because whoever did was already too dead to
shout a warning. The creature looked much like a wolf but stood like a man,
as tall as three Guardians standing upon each other’s shoulders. Sparse fur
covered its legs and arms in patches, revealing veiny muscles that pumped
toward her wildly. Pale lips curled around a mouth full of shaved teeth, the
points dripping with blood, saliva slathered across its jowls, and he was
made of Shadow.
In the distance, I heard a cry, “Beerwolven!” and then the creature roared,
called to arms.
I raced to Mirona now, gritting my teeth and willing every tendon in my
legs to push faster—faster. She saw me then, tears pouring down her face.
And when she saw my haste, she became more urgent, too. Wind from her
speed lifted the flounces of her dress.
“Go!” I begged her, but the sound was swallowed up by another
bellowing howl from the beast. She was running that so hard her face
turned purple from loss of breath. That is what hope does to you, I thought.
It makes you gasp for it.
We were so close now; I could almost hear her ragged sobs. I reached my
hand to her, feeling my rough skin brush against the silk of her wrist. I
started to curl my fingers around it, the world turning slowly, then
rescinding abruptly. Mirona’s entire body rended back onto a bright metal
plate. I realized, more quickly this time, that it was the beast’s blade.
In one swift movement, it tugged her feet from the ground into the air,
gravity pulling her body back down through to her neck until she dangled
by it. The beast roared in triumph, trails of Shadow thrashing as he swung
her body through the air. I choked back a cry and pivoted sharply in the
other direction.
Just like that.
She was dead and I was running. All the while, counting the strides back
to safety and trying to make sense of the look of relief on her face.
Clutching my cramped stomach, I found Kalen pacing beneath what was
left of Gabriel’s torn crest. My heart burned. It should be those unkillable
Sages risking everything beneath their own banners. Not Kalen. Not any of
these Guardians. Not our people.
I watched Kalen wipe the blood and grit from his face and let out a
private breath of exhaustion. Although the battle had calmed slightly, it was
far from over. He trudged towards a body that still twitched in vain, the
lines around his face drooping with pity as he plunged his knife into the
warrior’s temple. I watched with empathy for both of them. I pulled my
gaze away with an ache in my heart just for Kalen.
Another vigilant sweep around the room revealed a smudge of plum
darting from the corner of my vision. A demon, jaded from the beating he’d
received at the hands of The Preserver, barreling towards him. It was a sick
realization; that between the clashes of sword against bone and the pleas of
the dying, Kalen would not hear his fast approach, would not turn around to
defend himself.
Grabbing the base of my sword, I waited until he was close enough to
Kalen. Until he was within my arm’s range. I drew a sharp breath and
forced it out as my shoulder followed through.
Without time to reflect, I would never be sure, but I don’t think there was
a single thought in my mind as I made my kill. Just a flash of Kalen’s sun-
soaked face and the awful fate that was racing towards him.
My blade’s handle flew, brushing against my calloused fingers for
traction, and then the sword plunged into the brow bone of the demon,
pinning him against the wall. I froze, palm still outstretched, framing it all
like a painting.
His mouth slacked open.
Blood leaked from the wound and then poured.
The world and everything around me stopped. The shouting, the bodies
flying, the hoarse sound of Kalen yelling my name. If I looked up at the
sky, I knew I would find the moon and the stars had stopped their endless
movement, too. But I didn’t look up, only forward.
I barely felt the impact of Kalen’s arms around me. I barely noticed the
world fading around us as we projected from the Well.
I just watched. Watched as another life flowed out into the ether. Then
complete darkness, but even in the pit of nothing, two hollowed eyes
remained, warning.
Death was not coming for me; it was already here.
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com
THE DARKNESS SHROUDED US in a pool of night as
we moved through the Astral Plane across the Continent.
The first time we projected from the Binding to this new world, it felt like
dipping my toes into space, finding it freezing, and jumping back out into
another spot in the universe. Tonight was different. Everything around me
moved at a fractional speed. The sound of nothing winnowed in my ears as
I buried my face into Kalen’s chest, holding on as tightly as I could.
I was afraid, not of whatever waited for us on the other end of the world,
but of what I thought I may have left behind. A part of me dripping from the
blade of a sword, nailing a stranger’s skull against one of the walls in Leoth.
Wind whipped at my cheeks as the blackness tunneled us swiftly, though it
felt like the other side was intent on resisting.
Kalen and I waded to its end sluggishly.
Eventually, we landed, and much more gracefully than the last time the
two of us had traveled together. As soon as my feet were on solid ground, I
slumped to my knees feeling ruined. The deeply stained wood floors
beneath blurred around my empty hands as I stared at them. I blinked a
couple of times trying to clear away the fog that had ensconced me since
the battle’s end. It was thick and bleary, tapering as I looked inward.
Scrutinizing the faint lines on my palm, I tried to feel anything other than
deep, aching pain, but I couldn’t. It was so all-consuming that it ran from
my ears to my stomach to the center of my thighs. My entire body tugged
toward my center, trying to coil itself tightly around the remainder of my
soul and protect it at all costs. My shoulders shook violently as they
strained.
A shadow passed across the paneled floors, and I knew what was coming.
Kalen jerked me up by my elbows and pulled me into a tight embrace. His
pinched breathing made me think he was trying to put me back together by
force. Even I knew his powers would not be enough.
Looking over his shoulders I stared curiously at the tiny beads of water
racing down the back of his armor. A few more splattered against the dark
fabric of his vest and soaked through. Slowly, I lifted my wobbly fingers to
my face and felt the steady stream that rushed against my warm skin. How
hadn’t I noticed I was crying? And crying for what? The man that I had
killed? Mirona, who appeared to have been happier dead? Or myself and
the naive mind that had been imprisoned under the taut muscled reflexes of
an immortal murderess?
Was that what I was? A murderess, shoved into the Binding to be
reformed, only to return the same as I had always been.
I refused to wipe the tears from my cheeks. I’d let them dry to a thin crust
over my skin—as a reminder. For once, I knew something of myself, and I
would never forget it again. I wasn’t the girl who picked fruit from high
trees or braided moon lilies in her hair under a perfect night sky. I wasn’t
the girl who marveled at pretty dresses and sweet cakes in tin trays.
Mirrored in the place where memories lie, my truest form stared back at me,
disgusted by the weak thing I had become. She wore brown fighting
leathers and finally held the heart of a traitor in her hand, still pumping. My
heart.
“Are you okay?” Kalen’s voice was hoarse.
I pulled away, not startled but awake. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t.
“Are you hurt?” Kalen shifted my body from side to side, searching for
any more cuts from demon blades. I didn’t know. Was I? Did I care? Kalen
checked the wound he had healed earlier, placing the flat side of his hand
against it to feel for any warmth of infection. When he was satisfied there
was none, he asked one last question, “Gwynore, are you going to be
alright?”
Would I ever be?
“Yes,” I lied. Kalen placed his hand against the side of my neck, holding
my chin in his fingers. The worry faded on his face, replaced with a curious
expression.
“I guess I should be grateful,” he said after minutes of staring blankly at
my face. Again, he said, “I am grateful,” and his fingers gave way from my
face, “that you are only an idiot and not a wounded idiot.”
The air in the room condensed so dramatically that I almost felt headspun.
I looked him up and down, overcoming my temporary shock. “What did
you just say to me?”
“I think you heard, Gwyn.” He stomped across the foyer—I took notice
that we were in the foyer of a grand house—to lean on a small black
console draped in a pale blue chiffon table runner. The light fabric puckered
as his trousers pushed against it.
“Do you not understand how grave the consequences...” he began, losing
control of his breath. It rattled out of him, something deep inside his chest
coming loose. “If I lost you again…” he started, but I wouldn’t let him
finish. I wouldn’t let him reprimand me for trying to do something—
anything, to save lives. His, mine. A solid hurt formed in the back of my
mouth as I thought of Mirona and how she had looked at that sword like a
blessing when it ripped her in two.
“Are you seriously trying to scold me for saving your life? Did you not
see that mountain of a demon headed straight for you? He practically had
your name carved out on his blade.”
“Actually, I did, and I had it handled.”
Oh, this gods-damned bastard! This miserable, rotten bastard! I fought
the urge to pull my hair out by its roots. And the groan that rolled its way
out into the echoing chamber above me? That, I couldn’t fight.
“Grumble about it all you want, Gwyn, but you put yourself at risk
tonight.” He folded his bare forearms against one another, looking as
righteous as ever, plucking a tattered thread that hung from a tear in the
rolled-up sleeve of his doublet.
I scoffed. “Well, you didn’t seem to mind my help!”
He did mind, I knew that, but I was desperate to defend myself.
“You gave me no choice!” Kalen looked at me, dumbfounded.
I hadn’t. So, I chose to deflect. “You know what your problem is, Kalen,”
I let my eyes harden into the chilly expression he had often given me, doing
my best to intimidate him. “You think everything is your choice. That all
the world’s problems land on those disgustingly big shoulders of yours, but
guess what?” I puffed out my chest, and Kalen waited as I struggled to find
something clever to say. I wasn’t the best at quippy one-liners, so I settled
for the next best thing: bratty insults. “To put it simply, you are just not that
important.”
I didn’t think I meant the words as I said them. He was important—to me,
especially. Although I hated to admit it, his presence in my life had become
an anchor. I had no one but him. On nights when my dreams tore me apart
and my bed was a little too comfortable, I thought of the rough man who
always straddled the line between compassion and selfishness when it came
to me. I’d think of the smell of mint on his breath in the mornings, and no
longer would I ache for the scent of crushed leaves in my grove. I’d replay
his snarky and mocking tones in my head, and the buzzing hum of the
Mother would quiet. Knowing I would see him under the light of a new day,
that I wouldn’t be alone with only the Wane and the Bright...it all kept me
centered. But even if I didn’t believe myself, Kalen needed to hear it all the
same. For how concerned he was with choice, he had never asked me for
mine.
“You know, you’re right,” he said finally, chewing his lip. I lifted my gaze
from the floor, surprised. “I am not that important. But you are.” Standing,
Kalen squared his shoulders and straightened out his ratty clothes.
A sign I was in for it.
“Yet, you can’t seem to get it through that obscenely thick head of yours
that listening to me might keep you safe. In fact, it might just keep you alive
long enough to figure out who you really are.” He cocked his head to the
side. “Or is that what you are afraid of?”
I stepped back slowly as he advanced on me, hitting my head a little
harder than was pleasant against the wall. But Kalen did not stop, his breath
hot on my face as he closed the space between our chests.
“You don’t want to know what’s in those other stones because the first
vision scared you. And now you’re more than willing to sacrifice yourself
in a petty attack on the Well rather than face the Shadow Sage and fight her
for your honor.”
He was right about one thing and completely wrong about the other. The
vision of the first stone had terrified me, so much so that every time I closed
my eyes, I saw the face of a young Astralite begging for my mercy. My
heart would race, craving the feeling of power, and in turn, my guts would
churn with guilt. Every time I looked up at the night sky, I saw the black,
shimmering liquid of his blood running down my arms. And no matter how
hard I scrubbed my arms when I bathed—underneath the suds of the water
so Rebekah couldn’t see—the feeling of it never went away.
But as tormented as I was, the anxiety I felt didn’t make me want to die. It
was quite the opposite. It made me want to outlive the dangerous girl that I
was, that I am. If I could face the trials Kalen had laid out for me, if I could
find my stones without taking life and enjoying the rush of it, I could prove
that seventy years of my life in isolation had meant something. It was a
simple-minded hope, I knew that now. All that I was now was all I had ever
been and all I would ever be. Kalen had known the truth of it when he
pulled me from the Binding, and it was the only reason he had saved me at
all.
I looked up from where I had been staring at the hook of his jaw, counting
the pulses in the vein that was hammering away angrily.
“How did my first stone end up in your possession, Kalen?” I asked. He
looked at me curiously, distracted from his point for just a moment, but long
enough for me to lead him further from it. “The Sages seemed surprised
that the first part of my soul came to me through you. So tell me, how did
you come to have it?”
Kalen rolled his eyes as if the question was a ridiculous one. “Does that
even matter right now?”
“How could it not?” I screeched, lifting myself from the wall and
ushering him back towards the console until he knocked into it. I stopped
walking, keeping the shag covering the center of the floor as a neutral zone.
“It matters, Kalen. You speak of what terrifies me? Trusting you. How can I
possibly do that when you seem to have all the answers but will not tell me
anything of importance? You interrogate my motives and for what, exactly?
Control over the only person who can get you what you want?”
Even though his back was already against the wall, Kalen staggered. His
head shook back and forth in a stupor. “You think I am using you to secure
my throne?”
I always questioned Kalen’s motives, but from the moment we met, I
hadn’t imagined him as a power-hungry quasi-god. Staring at him now, and
the cruel way his gaze captured mine, that is exactly what I saw in him. So,
I said, “I think that the crown on your head might fit better if you controlled
every ounce of Light that came along with it.”
Kalen froze, stunned. I thought I probably looked the same. I felt as if I’d
stumbled upon the answer I didn’t even know I was searching for. Why was
Kalen bothering to rescue the Light at all? He hadn’t belonged to the
faction, and though he defended it nobly tonight, I had a feeling Kalen
never did anything that didn’t serve him. That feeling was only magnified
by Gabriel’s grand revelation that Kalen was a Yielded mortal. Because his
power had been given at his human death, it did not belong to him alone.
Someone else served as his master, and whoever held the source of the
faction’s power could choose how to use it, how to divvy it up, and to
whom.
We stayed silent for a moment, neither of us sure what to say. Then Kalen
rubbed his neck, his face looking…hurt. He ducked his head, groaning
tortuously at the tile below us.
“Did you ever…” he started, looking up once at the door behind me, then
redirecting his gaze towards the vaulted ceilings. Anywhere but me it
seemed. “Did it ever occur to you, that perhaps I am angry because I care
whether you live or die? That, maybe, I don’t want to lose you again. Not
just because the Light would be lost forever, but also because you...”
“Because I what?”
“Mean something to me, dammit!” His eyes finally met mine, wide and
desperate, almost as if he couldn’t believe he’d spoken those words. I felt
the air changing yet again. “That you mean something to this faction,” he
continued, his voice unsteady. “That if the ground fell out from beneath the
rest of this gods-damned world, and left only room for you to stay standing,
I’d go into the darkness, Gwyn. Gladly.”
“Why?”
It was always the question I had for him.
Kalen walked back over to me, not as close as before. Not close enough, I
thought before I could control myself. At my sides, my fingers trembled
slightly, like I was afraid. But I was not. And that was the problem, wasn’t
it? After everything that had been said, I should have been afraid of the man
towering above me with unknown intentions and a habit of provoking me
beyond measure. I should have been terrified of my hand drifting towards
his chest.
“Don’t,” his words met his clenched jaw. I froze. “Don’t ask me why.”
“What is it you’re not saying, Kalen?”
“I can’t,” he said, the lines in his mouth becoming tortured. “I cannot.”
“You cannot what? I don’t understand!” The question died on my tongue.
And then every thought deteriorated in my mind when he brushed away a
strand of my hair matted against my forehead. The world narrowed to the
pad of his thumb sweeping down my arm, coming to rest against my palm.
His fingers closed around my wrist, still hanging midair.
I may have been new to this world, naive in almost everything, but I
knew what Kalen was doing. I knew this moment was only a distraction, a
way to keep me from the thing I wanted from him most: answers. But I
couldn’t find a way back, not when I needed him. For no reason other than
the fact he’d been the first person I ever thought about besides myself. The
first voice I ever heard other than my own. The person I wanted to look
toward and find there waiting for me.
We leaned into each other, and I gave up my constant pushing against that
force that always tugged me to him, not knowing what would come next.
His free hand drew up under the base of my neck, our lips one brush away
from knowing each other, and—
“Agh,” Kalen doubled over at the waist, in pain. He dropped my hand,
clutching the space on his side where I’d begun to embrace him.
“Kalen, what’s wrong?” I panicked. Had I hurt him?
He stayed there, in a nearly fetal position, and let out shallow breaths. I
didn’t dare to touch him again, for fear of hurting him more. After a
moment, he finally found the strength to sit up slightly, leaning back on one
hand. I gasped as he lifted his shirt, revealing a wide gash under his second
rib. The wound didn’t look too deep, but thick black veins striped his
muscles and spread out over most of his side in a dark bruise.
“Why hasn’t this healed,” I nearly shouted.
“Mmph….” He winced, then poked at the swollen puff of his skin and the
poison began to leak out in small black lines, landing on the carpet with a
sound like rain. “You need to get me inside, now,” Kalen grunted in tense
bursts.
“What the hell is going on?”
The wound opened slightly, a burble of air and steam pushing the frayed
edges of Kalen’s skin back, spreading and severing the wound. Kalen
whimpered, but when I looked at him, he was almost laughing.
“I’m dying.”

WITH HIS ARM A dead weight around my shoulder, I dragged

The Preserver from the foyer into the main house. Nearly sweating I
decided that my fixation with the exuberant broadness of Kalen’s shoulders
was completely justified—he was gods-damned heavy.
As gently as one might roll a twenty-foot log, I sat him on one of two
couches that framed the sitting room. Glancing around at the more than
exquisite lodgings, I forgot all about the seriousness of the moment.
Where are we?
Kalen moaned in pain. I looked back down at him, and watched as he
lowered his hands over the wound in his abdomen, crossing his wrists and
drawing them back slowly. Light coalesced in the center of his palms,
strings of golden energy casting into the dark pit that burrowed into his
skin. Ever so slowly, the poison was pushed out, black blood pouring onto
the carpet below. I stepped back, worried the stuff might get on my shoe.
Hopefully, whoever owned this house wasn’t too attached to their rug. That
was a stain that would never come out.
“What by the gods, is that?” I was trying not to be so toward with my
disgust, but my resolve weakened by the second.
“Silverwood,” Kalen answered. Then he started to sit up, seeming to be in
less pain. So much for dying. He gave me a look but continued. “Ash from
the burnt remains of a tree called the Silver Branch in Dario’s faction. The
only thing that can kill an immortal and all of their weapons were forged in
it. I had to shank one out of a poor bastard just to fight them even.”
Kalen’s skin began to pale, the Light dying out in him as he used the last
of his strength to partially heal his wound. His skin pulled together into a
tight fold the color of grey agate.
“It was her who attacked us, wasn’t it? The Shadow Sage.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “One of her siblings must have told her you were here.
Her minions slipped into the ball tonight dressed as Astralites and
partygoers, and if I had to make a guess—it was Gabriel’s doing.”
“I thought we’d already established that Sages didn’t mess with anyone’s
destiny?”
“They hold the virtue of autonomy in high regard. If your heart inspires
you to act, the Sages will not forbid you from it, but that doesn’t mean they
won’t try and sabotage your attempts to carry out whatever destiny you
believe you are owed.”
“Yes, I think Ione made that quite clear,” I didn’t hide my biting tone. “Is
that why they simply left us to die, then?”
“If a Sage truly did expose you to the Shadow faction, then being in the
room where it happened would probably spoil the fun, don’t you think?”
And Kalen thought that Gabriel was responsible. The Time Sage had left
just as quickly as his siblings, that was true, but there was something about
him that left me unsure. Kalen hated him, and he hated Kalen, though I
didn’t know what for. Maybe by my association with Kalen, he hated me,
too. But when we met, when Gabriel looked at me, when held me in his
embrace...The moment was brief, and then he’d bickered with me.
I say you, he’d said.
There was a reason, there had to be, that when he made his choice
between fate and myself, he’d chosen me.
“I don’t think it was Gabriel who sold us out,” I said to Kalen at last. His
brows knitted in confusion.
“I think the leathers were a misdirect,” I explained. “Whoever helped the
Shadow Sage tonight wanted us to think Gabriel was her ally, but he
seemed genuinely vested in me. I’m not sure how, but I believe he
may...well, I don’t know exactly. Hold some kind of emotion towards me?
Dario was far too detached from our conversation, and Ione flat out
declared she would kill me if I tried to move against the Shadow Sage.”
“Ione may act the loyal sister, but I assure you, protecting her family is
not the only reason she threatened you. Ione fears the shifting of powers. If
you take back the Light for our faction, everything changes.”
“And Dario? What does he fear?”
Kalen grunted, seemingly from his wound or the displeasure of not
knowing exactly what we were up against. “I can’t be sure. Either way,
we’ll have to stay low for a while. I need to find out more about where your
other stones have been hidden. Not to mention you’re in desperate need of
training.”
I jerked my head towards him, offended.
Kalen smirked, planting his hand in the air for me to help him off the
couch. A gleam of excitement returned to his golden eyes as he stood.
“Don’t that the wrong way. You did alright tonight, but you didn’t fight
for long. You were quite slow, and I saw the mercy you gave that
Shadowfader when you disarmed him.”
Shadowfader. Another chill ran up my spine, perking up the hairs on my
neck. It was an effort to push the all-too-fresh image of the demon to the
back of my mind so that I might find any sort of reply. Kalen noticed me
hesitate but pretended he didn’t, walking around the back of the chaise he’d
just been sitting on.
I was thankful to have dropped the subject and took the next few silent
moments to look around the room we were in once more. The entire thing
was a large, open rectilinear space with grey-brown floors and moldings
that stood out sharply against the bright cream, woven rugs and white linen
fabric divans. Exotic pots and busts of half-naked women lined the tables
and shelves randomly, wherever space needed filling, I supposed. To my
right, a full kitchen opened up revealing sleek novelties and ware. I
amended my thoughts from earlier; whoever owned this place wouldn’t care
about that rug.
They’d just get a new one.
I looked up into the space above that was carved out by high angular
ceilings. They stopped just short of the cloud line, which I could see clearly
through a wall of crystalline glass. My mouth fell open at the sight of a
mountain filling almost the entire window, covered in wide drifts of
glittering snow. The ridge was far more eclipsing than that of my Mountain
in the Binding or even that of the canyons of Leoth. I’d never seen the snow
—or I couldn’t remember having seen it. The Mountain was all high grasses
that filtered the warm breeze before it caressed my skin. But this mountain,
with its snow that looked like the world’s largest, softest blanket, suddenly
made me want to roll myself up into it. Sleep my new life away.
“Welcome to Cypra, the Time faction,” Kalen said, resting his chin atop
my shoulder. I jumped, unaware that he’d come so close again. I ignored
the heat budding in my temples and on my lips as he let out an amused
snort.
“What is this place?”
“A safe house. The Light Sage kept one in nearly every faction, except for
Sythe, of course.” He wet his lips slowly.
“Of course,” I said and angled my face to look up at him. Abruptly, Kalen
turned towards the hearth on the far side of the divan and began to start a
fire. Embarrassed, I glanced elsewhere, finding safety in focusing on the
furniture once more, noticing it looked fairly new, especially considering
the Light Sage hadn’t been here in so long.
“It looks well kept...” I observed, trying to keep my tone neutral. I didn’t
want to give away exactly how anxious I was about being in a new place.
Nearly a century of sleeping in the same grove, counting the same stars and
within two months I’d had two new beds.
“I come here from time to time—to get some peace and quiet when being
the Preserver becomes a bit too taxing.” Kalen shifted his weight to his
good side, wincing slightly at his newly healed scar.
 “Is this where you were those weeks after our fight?” I said in between
the thunk of logs hitting metal racks, turning over my shoulder to look at
him. The profile of Kalen’s sheepish grin glinted in the faint glow of
firelight he’d kindled. His focus was still on the hearth when I rolled my
eyes, but his grin grew wider like he could see me just the same.
“Won’t Gabriel sense that we are here?” I asked, nerves rising again.
“The whole house is hidden,” he turned to me, shrugging his shoulders.
“On the inside—it’s a palace,” he gestured to the expensive looking
chandeliers and boxed archways. “But on the outside, the glamour coating
us gives off the impression of a very dangerous and impossible-to-climb
cleft of the mountain.”
I moved closer to the window, my breath coming out hot against the
freezing panes, leaving puffs in its wake. They grew in size as I sighed,
“The perfect hideaway”.
“Not quite.” When I turned back to Kalen, his eyes gleamed with
mischief. “Any immortal could always just project.” It seemed he enjoyed
planting small doubts in my already nerve-racked mind.
“Great,” I said, letting my forehead rest against the glass.
Kalen strode lazily to me. “Gwyn,” he said, taking my face in his hands.
“We are safe, I promise. Nothing will happen to you. It is my duty to protect
you.” His thumb brushed against the bow of my lip and slid to the corner of
my frown. It is my duty to protect you. His obligation. Was that all this was
to him? Possibly. But when we held each other’s gaze, I felt it. The shift.
Something had changed tonight. I didn’t know what exactly, but I craved
the feeling drifting between us. I’d want for it every waking second now
that I’d found it. Of that, I was sure.
Kalen’s eyes darted across my face, and I wondered if he craved it, too. A
torch of light flamed in his golden irises, and I knew he could hear my
question. Just like he’d heard every other thought I’d had without me
having to say it. But he just stifled a breath and said, “Let’s go clean up and
get some sleep.”
I followed him down the dimly lit halls towards the washroom, my hand
still in his. My limbs felt light and dizzy as I made my way over to the large
porcelain tub, though I wasn’t sure if it was the byproduct of exhaustion or
from the warmth of Kalen’s fingers laced through mine. A twinge of
sadness ran through me when he finally dropped my hand.
Kalen walked confidently toward one of the twenty white cabinets,
opened it, and plucked out a pair of the softest looking towels I’d ever seen.
He handed one to me and I did my best to avoid dirtying it with all of the
filth that clung to me from the siege. Kalen glanced half-heartedly at the tub
to my right and it began to fill with hot water. His eyes landed back on me,
and I swayed, unsure if he was waiting for dismissal or planning to join me.
The memory of Kalen’s hard-lined torso tied in loose blankets flashed
through my mind and my mouth dried.
Finally, he snickered, “I’ll be in the sitting room,” and turned on his heel.
As soon as the door closed, I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the
scalding water with a euphoric sigh. Inching myself lower and lower, each
set of muscles relaxing as heat seeped into them, only stopping at my chin.
But after everything today, even that felt like it wasn’t enough.
Behind closed eyes, I could see the Guardian to the Light. My throat
closed in on itself and I felt her hands push under my jaw. Not until she
gives. Her vile growl was mine too. I strained for one last breath, and
plunged into the water, letting it take us both out to the Sea.

OceanofPDF.com
I NEVER KNEW HOW much I liked being trapped inside
Leoth’s dark caverns until I woke up in a bed that faced the single largest,
most blinding, mountain. It was a common saying in Cypra, Kalen said in a
voice gravelly with sleep, that the Erudian Mount was so bright, even the
Time Sage couldn’t skirt the morning. I begged him to pull the curtain of
my room closed for five more minutes, but he just gave me a fleeting slight
of his eyes and called me lazy.
“I’d say after the night we had, we deserve to be a bit lazy,” I protested,
pulling myself up from the pile of quilts Kalen had stacked on top of me
last night.
When I finally came sulking out of my bath, it was only because the
water had chilled to a point even my numbed brain couldn’t handle.
Beneath the crushing weight of water and inner turmoil, I had completely
forgotten that Kalen was waiting on me. The hallway from the washroom to
the lounge was just long enough for me to mull over the tongue-lashing I
was sure to get.
I imagined his glare and pinched mouth as he remarked, “Quite high
maintenance for someone who spent the last seventy years cozied up in
clovers and dirt.” Directly followed by other mumblings about how
ungrateful and selfish I was.
I’d felt horrible when I wandered around the corner to find him slumped
miserably against the curved arm of the divan. The muscles of his thighs
twitched even as he slept. I gently nudged him awake, as one might poke at
a dozing snake with a stick. He was startled but gave a sleepy smile when
he realized it was just me. It was all right, he’d said, through all my
apologies.
Kalen moved slowly, the pains of battle still wracking his body, and made
for the hall. I stared after him, wondering how I’d been so self-absorbed not
to notice it: the way the things we had been through together were changing
him, too. He took one last look toward me and slipped into the bathroom.
Selfish. It was just a word and one that couldn’t begin to encompass the
way I had been acting all these weeks.
 Quickly Kalen bathed and returned to get me settled into the master suite.
He didn’t even gripe when I asked him a few times more if we were truly
safe. Each anxiety was answered with reassurance, only a slight retort here
or there about my ridiculousness as if to maintain his reputation.
When the door to my room was finally closed, I was completely alone.
My only company was the moon hanging heavy in the left corner of the
window. I looked out toward it, hoping one of my rituals from the Binding
might ease me into a dreamless sleep. But as I stared into the bleak night
sky, all I could focus on was how full it was, how round. Too round. The
thick drifts of snow that had brightened the night sky were now lying flat
against the mountain. There were no stars, no light from anywhere but the
porous face of an alabaster moon, too reminiscent of another face I wished
desperately to forget. Quietly, I rose from my bed and drew the curtains
shut.
Nuzzled in my protective little alcove of blankets and down, I closed my
eyes and thought only of the Auriel, a swathe of color above my grove, and
the warmth of Kalen’s thumb against my cheek.
Now, in the harsh light cast against the frozen caps of Cypra, I could no
longer feel the heat of it. Kalen barely looked at me as I rolled out of my
bed, balking at the feeling of winter stone on my feet. The Light Sage could
have at least opted for a few fur rugs.
I looked behind me for something to cover my bare shoulders and made a
face as I surveyed my options. Three quilts, handmade from an eclectic-
looking muddle of patterns messily strewn together with yellow-looking
thread. Considering the extravagance of each of her homes, one would
never guess that the Light Sage had such antiquated tastes when it came to
her personal effects. She did quite literally have an old soul, I guess.
I picked at the corner of one, where bits of it had unraveled into tattered
strips of cloth, and sighed into a now empty room.
Kalen had already whisked himself away into the kitchen by the time I
shuffled out into the hall, a dark midnight shag with tiny little stars
embroidered all over bundled up around my neck.
He had an intense look on his face as he sliced through an array of
delectable looking fruits. I nearly had to wipe the drool from my chin at the
sight of them; bright red apples, small round berries in all of the deepest
shades of purple and blue, iridescently neon citruses. I slid onto the stool at
the edge of the granite across from him and leaned onto my blanketed
elbows.
“Good morning,” I said, feeling oddly cheery. We had survived the night
despite all odds, which had been my hope as I chased Kalen through those
desolate halls in the Well. I’d just figured we would die anyway. Though
my time in this world was not considerable, I had already learned from it
that hope rarely breeds actual triumph.
Kalen only nodded in acknowledgment. He balled an orange into his fist,
gave it one lethal swipe with a blade, and chucked it, now halved, onto a
tray. The sound of metal clattering against stone was loathsome.
“What has you in a mood?” I asked, not bothering to be wary of his
temper.
Kalen’s face broke into a devilish smile. He had set a trap and I’d walked
right into it. He set the knife gingerly onto the countertop.
“Do you remember,” he said, shifting his hips into an arrogant stance, “all
of those sharp, pointy arrows flying at us? Death, destruction—oh! A very
large and terrifying Beerwolv ripping my entire faction to shreds last
night?”
My chest caved.
Stupid, stupid, girl, I chided myself.
“Or was that just some crazy dream I had?” His voice had lost its humor,
his stare frigid. There was no way to crawl out of the hole I’d dug for
myself.
“Have you heard anything?” It was all I could think to say.
“Not yet. I sent for word last night while you were drowning yourself in
our tub. No one has replied.” I watched another fruit meet the cleaving edge
of his knife and saw the anger I hadn’t noticed moments before. I should
have seen it. It was clear as day in the punch of his wrist, swinging through
the flesh.
“I don’t know how many we lost or if that was even the only legion she
sent. As far as I know, it could have been raining down arrows long into the
morning.”
“I’m sorry,” I offered weakly. For all of it, I was sorry. For every ounce of
trouble my reentry into this world had stirred up. For the trivial way I had
acted this morning. I hoped he knew what I meant, and I thought maybe he
did when his chin dipped down in affirmation.
“Me too,” he said. The words hung in the air between us like an invisible
stench.
 “Well, what can we do?” I jumped up from my stool and marched to the
corner where he stood. “While we wait for word to return from Leoth?”
He looked at me and my newly found seriousness with wide unsettled
eyes but did not hesitate to reply. “We will do what we should have been
doing since you first set foot back into this world. Train.”
The half-healed, gruesome looking wound on his side was still wet with
toxin around the edges. I stared at it, then at Kalen.
He quickly added, “The intellectual sort, for now, of course.”
“Of course.”
“You don’t have a clue what I mean.”
I shrugged. “Not at all, no.”
“Follow me.” Grabbing the tray of cut fruits, he sauntered down the long
hall opposite our rooms.
His callous demeanor had stung this morning, but I was surprised at how
easily we slid back into this snippy banter of ours. It was almost comforting
to pretend like last night was a dream brought on by a hot, maddening fever.
Like he hadn’t looked into the only parts of my soul I had left and marked a
spot for himself.
I trailed after him, catching up at the base of a spiral staircase made of
glass. Counting all the way, trying my best not to look down as we climbed
the twenty-eight steps. I held my breath until I was sure we had reached a
more solid and less transparent footing.
We arrived at the threshold of a rather cozy-looking loft. Some type of
study, I gathered, as I looked closer at the leaves of paper tacked into a
flurry on all three walls. Even more collected dust on the large ash-wood
bureau in the corner. There were map sketches and stacks upon stacks of
intensely scribbled on pages making miniature monoliths in the corners.
The small space was overwhelmed, some of the work spilling out onto the
floor. I stared at the curved writings for less than a second and already my
head began to throb.
“What is all of this?” I asked, as Kalen freed himself of our breakfast. I
ran a hand along the sanded wood of the desk. My nails scratched against
small stars and circles carved out into its panels, collecting thin powdery
dust atop the pads of my fingers.
“Being Preserver isn’t all heroic brawls and show-stopping magic, you
know,” Kalen said as he crossed the room to a shelf of books, filtering
through them until he landed on a small novella. “Sometimes you have to
fill out paperwork and run the accounts.”
He tossed the book right into my hands. The binding was smooth red
velvet with tapered edges. Some of the pages were tabbed while others were
beginning to wilt and blacken from dozens if not hundreds of turns.
Whoever had used this, used it well. At the back of the book, underneath
my middle and ring fingers, I felt the soft indent of a branding. I sought it
out immediately. I could make out these letters.
“A.H.” I whispered, thumbing the weathered groove where they were
embossed. Turning the text back over to the title page, I glanced at the
string of shapes and then looked helplessly at Kalen.
“A Soul Without Tether,” he said with a grin.
“Ha-ha.” I groused flatly. He just shrugged, clearly finding himself to be
hilarious.
“It’s an easy read,” he said simply.
I looked up at him, immediately confused.
“I’ve been trying...” Kalen began, but stopped to seemingly search for the
rigth words. “There are some things that you have forgotten. That once
were important to you.”
I blinked.
“I put these outside of your door in Leoth.”
The books. My cheeks flamed. I thought back to that miserable night,
when I had stumbled on that stack of antiquarian-looking texts outside my
bedroom door, finally understanding just how much I’d underestimated
him. I thought Kalen had taken my negligence to read them as a subtle jab
after our fight, but I should have known he was smarter than that. I looked
down at the thin novel in my hands, then back up at Kalen.
“These used to be important to me?”
“Very,” he said, breathily. Kalen inched towards me to put his hands over
mine, and we held onto the book together. “I thought, maybe if you
skimmed these, it might trigger something. Something we could use to find
your next stone.”
Kalen’s eyes looked from mine to our hands, and his forefinger swiped
feather-light across my knuckles. “Don’t worry,” his voice was full of
mischief. “They’re poems, and a few of them are snippy enough to even
give you a sense of humor.”
I was the first to step away, nearly yanking my hands and the book from
his grasp. “And just what strenuous work of the mind will you be doing for
the next few hours, oh Beloved and Faithful Preserver?” I ignored the
flicker of darkness in his eyes as I called him by his title. Just as I ignored
the tightening in my stomach.
“The important kind,” he answered. “Now sit down and get started.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kalen looked at me sharply. Why I said that I didn’t know. Just that I
liked to see him lose that steady composure he always kept centered on his
face. To know that I wasn’t the only one affected by a passing look, a touch,
or half-meant words. To be sure I could look to the frays of his expression
and see a tremor in his jaw or a bob of his throat. Those hardline edges that
always seemed fixed, but loosened just for me.
I looked for them, now, only to find that Kalen had schooled himself,
grabbed a stack of letters, and sat down in the bureau’s matching seat,
leaving the chaise by the window for me. A sigh fell from my lungs as I
sank into the cushions. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the ghost of his
smile. Mark for mark, I thought and turned the first page.

WE STAYED IN THE office for hours that first day, Kalen

making notes in the margins of his books and me staring dumbly at mine. In
between lazy cat stretches and pecks at the breakfast tray, we bickered
whenever one of us spoke. In truth, he mostly bickered at me.
The task Kalen had give me was fruitless. My memories weren’t the only
thing that escaped me as I read. Every five lines, the bird’s scratch in my
book would become an endless river of ink that meant nothing. I had tried
to hide it, on that first day, when Kalen was explaining the Binding to me.
He’d told me I was holding onto a book and I vaguely understood its
importance, but the words were illegible blobs of dried ink. I had only
begun to see the shapes and recognize the letters after my first stone, but
every time I attempted to make sense of them, my head pounded. A
blistering pang of blankness splintering out from the crown of my head to
the small crevices behind my ears. My mind refused to wade through the
text, let alone allow it to trigger some important revelaton.
I shoved my face into the too-stuffed cushions and let out a wretched
groan. There wasn’t a stone I wouldn’t give to be back in my grove,
threading lilies until my fingers bled. Anything was better than this very
specific kind of torture. As my mouth opened to emit the twelfth wail of the
afternoon, Kalen finally raised his head from his work, exasperated.
“Could you be any more insufferable?” he barked.
“I can’t be sure. Do you have any more dull poems? We could try and
find out.”
“How can you call them dull when you aren’t even reading them?” He bit
back swiftly, no longer empathetic to my plight, it seemed.
“The same way I don’t have to listen to your endless scribbling, to call
you impatient,” I looked at him sideways over the ledge of my book, “and
quite useless with an abacus.”
For the last half hour, Kalen had scraped the little metal beads of the
counting device back and forth along the rods of its wooden frame, failing
in his attempts to balance the ledgers of Leoth’s war budget.
“If you think you can do any better, please feel free to help.” He smirked
and flicked the stack of papers in his right hand. “That’s right, you have far
more important things to figure out.”
“You’re forgetting that I am quite an efficient counter. I count almost
everything. Just tell me what the numbers are, and I’ll work the beads for
you.”
The plea came out fast and in a tone not dissimilar to a child begging their
mother to release them from their daily chores. The look Kalen gave me
was like that of a mother, too. Reluctant and disapproving. Nonetheless, he
stood from his chair and perched his backside on the edge of the desk.
I squealed and ran to the chair, sinking into its worn upholstery. It was
still warm from the hours spent under Kalen, and the leather was scented
slightly with him. I reset the beads on the abacus and looked up expectantly.
Kalen gazed back with equal measures of curiosity and regret. It wasn’t an
unusual look, so I just waited for the numbers.

ON THE FOURTH DAY, it was finally silent between the two

of us. Only the scraping of beads against the rod and the dullest song of
numbers as we worked through the last pages of another ledger. From what
Kalen had told me, this one tallied up the levees made against some of
Leoth’s more miserly tenants. There were no insults, no awkward shuffling
around the office, no tense puffs of air expelled from even tenser mouths.
I hated it.
Whenever there was silence, my mind spun. Why does he sit so far away?
What is the look he gives me now? Do his eyes dim, or is it just the shade
cast by Erudia? The questions never stopped. The more I ignored them, the
harder they smacked against the walls of my skull. The effect was so strong
even my jaw ached to ask them.
I decided I would. Starting, of course, with the least threatening: “Don’t
you ever find it strange that you seem to know everything about me while I
know nothing of you?”
“No.” Kalen appeared unsurprised at my sudden question. He was still
looking down at the papers as if his answer was just another number in the
lines of his chart.
“Well, I find it strange,” I replied.
“I figured, since you took the time to point it out.”
There was a light smack of a bead hitting its twin on the opposite side,
and then silence. Kalen felt the absence of productivity and looked at me in
ire. I folded my arms across my chest.
“Keep counting,” he ordered.
“Not until you oblige me with a story of your youth, Preserver.” I was
keeping another tally in my mind. A private, pleasurable task. The number
of times I sent those glorious eyes spinning. As the air stilled around us, the
score racketed up and up.
Finally, he caved. “What would you like to know?”
Everything, I wanted to say. But I knew I could not, and that he would
make fun of me if I did. I closed my eyes and pictured the tangle of
confusion that surrounded Kalen in my mind. Carefully, I plucked at it,
feeding one golden string loop through loop until I landed on a knot.
“Do you have a family?” I don’t know why I asked it. There were so
many other things I wanted to know, but this one came tumbling out of my
lips before I could take it back.
“I did...I do,” he stammered, seeming as flustered as I was by it. “It’s
complicated.”
“Well, uncomplicate it. Start with the easy ones—your parents.”
He laughed. “There is nothing easy about my parentage.”
I gave him a serious look, one that told him I was not daunted, and neither
should he be. He’d seen my stubbornness before, and so he began.
 “The man I call Father, Akkius Herja. He was what they called the Light
Cleaver.” Something ancient in me quivered. Kalen looked up at me,
ashamed. “The Shadow Sage named him the strongest of the Faders in his
youth and so he led her armies throughout the centuries—though there was
nothing to lead. There had not been a war of any kind after the gods arrived
in this world. Sages weren’t the quarreling type.”
“Well, what type were they?”
“The plotting type. The scheming type. The kind of family who wore the
most beautiful smiles on their faces as they pressed blades into each other’s
backs.” Kalen stood up from his corner of the desk and moved to the divan
to get comfortable. “Not unlike my own.”
Kalen had six brothers; all bore before him. My heart softened at the
prospect of his being the runt of the family. I pictured him plump and pink
and adored. All those siblings to pinch at his extra fat, a father to teach him
the sword, and his mother, who would let him tug at her hair as they sat by
a fire in the great halls of Sythe. Mortal though the pair were, passing
moment to moment in a forever kind of love.
Adryada Fryga, she was called, had been a young apprentice in her
father’s apothecary when the Shadow Sage ordered the Shadowfaders to
depart from her island and breach the border lines into Grovesny, the Land
faction. They’d weathered strong winds and violent rain during the crossing
of the Alto from Sythe and arrived with barely any morale left in them.
Though they couldn’t be killed, Ione had sent a furious storm with the hope
that it would tear apart their ships, or toss a few demons into the angry sea,
at least.
The Sages had all grown wary of each other in the years right after they
came of age, and mistrust sowed itself into the dirt of every faction. For
months, the Shadow Sage had been sending out reconnaissance troops to
the corners of the Continent and Ione knew it wouldn’t be long until they
ventured inland. Dario was younger and even more lackadaisical than he
seemed now.
The precaution of his older sister was well warranted. Kalen’s mother had
said even as weary and downtrodden as the Shadowfaders were, their
blood-red eyes stayed sharp, seeking out death wherever they could find it.
They walked for miles and miles inland until they reached her small village
and discovered her quaint home.
“My mother was a witch,” Kalen explained rather bemused. “She could
smell the rot of their souls, the evil of their will.” He told the story with
large gestures, his face alight with pride. “The only problem was, my father
could sense her, too,” He frowned. “Call it his gift, or just finely-tuned
military tactics, but magic calls out to him somehow.”
Adryada’s father was mortal, but the success of his brews and potions had
been heard of far outside the boundary lines of Grovsney. Sweet tasting
elixirs sold in bottles of blown glass shaped like little hearts were sure to
make a princess fall in love with a pauper. An osha root draught drank with
a little knob of burnt bread would clear hay fever. The dusty old backroom
of the Fryga’s was filled with little miracles. Of course, none of the
ingredients in anything they sold would have been sufficient on their own.
But muddled together with a little bit of Adryada’s magic, indeed they were
miracles. Costly ones at that.
“He watched her for the week they were stationed in the village, and on
the seventh day he seized her. Yielding my mother allowed him unfettered
access to her powers for any use as he saw fit.”
The pretty family portrait I had constructed began to fall apart. “He stole
them from her?” I leaned forward from my seat at the desk, intrigued and a
little terrified.
“No, not exactly. When a mortal changes, any crafts they might have
remain theirs. But their soul...” he looked wearily out of the window at the
sun that hung so low atop the mountain. The two objects kissed a scatter of
silver light across the world. “It serves its master.”
There was no mistaking the defeat in the slant of his spine as he wrapped
his knees to his chest. Kalen was Yielded. Which meant somewhere in this
world was another being holding tight to the strings of his soul. It was
something of a concern, and I would have been lying if I said I hadn’t
thought about it a million times since the ball. It complicated his loyalties to
the faction, to the Sages—to me.
“She never fought against him,” he continued. “She gave him six sons,
which was like six golden goose eggs to a highly positioned general. My
mother gave him a legacy, and then she disappeared.”
Her soul was chained to The Cleaver, but Adryada’s heart belonged to
another. Her feet followed that of her mind, and her ship that of her will.
She was gone from Sythe for seven months before Kalen’s father could
locate her transport docked just outside of the eastern seaboard of
Aegedonia in a bay that channeled straight into the heart of Grovsney. “My
brothers said they were sure he would kill her, and I think he would have.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Me, I guess” Kalen shrugged his shoulders, unconvinced. “She was
pregnant, but no one knew how far along. None of the midwives could put a
date to the conception because she had glamoured her body to conceal it.
They couldn’t be sure if Akkius had fathered me. Not that it made much of
a difference. As soon as I was born, it was obvious what I was. What I
wasn’t if we are going to play semantics.”
“Each of my brothers had been born on the tail end of a veil of darkness.
They matured at an alarming pace and showed an affinity for Shadow
magic well before their second birthday. Akkius waited until mine, just to
be sure. But I was as ordinary as the day was long. A trait I inherited from
my very mortal father.”
“Where is your father now?”
Kalen had been looking at me with a soft smile, which disappeared
instantly.
“Dead,” he supplied, some kind of distance growing in his voice. “They
both are.”
The Cleaver was intent on defending his honor with the equally
dishonorable act of lover’s revenge. He killed Kalen’s father only a few
weeks after Adryada gave birth, and then he’d lived the rest of his vengeful
life, according to Kalen. Utter rage was the temperament of the man who
had unknowingly raised the future Preserver.
I looked up from the silken tassels of the quilt I held against my chest and
tried to look closely at the person who now stood before me. A god in his
own right who had seen what it was to be mortal. To be weak. And when he
finally garnered the power most forfeited their souls for, he had chosen to
keep his humanity. Yes, he could be cruel, but how could he avoid it? I was
sure that he hadn’t been brought up in the gentle ways I’d pictured before.
Despite whatever he had suffered as a child, Kalen grew up to be honorable.
Somehow it was possible, then, to be made of everything bad and still find
a way to be good.
“I wasn’t there, so I can’t be sure.” My voice was meek. It was not my
story, and I felt like an intruder to add or take away from it. I let out each
syllable slowly, trying to convince both of us that it needed to be said. “But
I’d argue you probably inherited less from your father than you think.”
Kalen’s expression turned dour, unenthused. “Does it matter?” He
demanded. “I will never know.”
He began to stare at me in a way that made me think The Cleaver had
been more effective in his rearing after all. The energy in the room lost all
camaraderie though I’d only meant to compliment him. It was clear in his
tense posture and the clasp of his hands that the storytelling was over. I
would have been a child to ask for more.
I was just beginning to think of ways to escape back to the comfort of my
room when something like a rock hit the window of our grand house. I
looked to Kalen in alarm, but he had mysteriously regained his zeal and was
taking great strides toward the sound. A crow with beady eyes of red was
perched on the outside ledge, pecking incessantly. The aimless direction of
its beak told me it was blind and must have flown straight into the window
as it came. Whatever it wanted, it was determined to get it.
Kalen removed a small iron rod from the mechanism of the window and
pulled hard against the frame. It stuck a little but opened wide enough for
the bird to slip a small roll of parchment into his hand and fly off to
wherever it came from.
“What is that?” I asked, as he unfurled the note to reveal a set of numbers
scrawled onto it in black ink.
His smile returned, and I thought of a pit of amber and all of the light in
the world. Dazzling.
“It’s the map to your next stone.”

OceanofPDF.com
FORTY-THREE DEGREES NORTH, twenty-seven and
a half degrees east.
Coordinates that held the key to finding where the next piece of my soul
lay hidden. It would take only two days to ride from our safe house in the
Time faction to reach them, according to the intricately sketched map
pasted against the wall of our loft. At least, I thought it was two days.
For the past few hours, I’d been using a pair of brass forceps and a thin
stick of coal to carve out the route we were to take to Grovsney. Kalen had
traced along a wide path with his middlemost finger against the map this
morning and asked that I count the miles to a small clearing in the bottom
left corner of the faction’s expansive forest.
I was eager to be put to use but took my time walking the divider from
point to point across thin paper. The task was tedious, but I will admit it did
a perfect job of distracting me. The implications of a fly-by pronouncement
of my next stone were too much for my mind to take in all at once. It
seemed unnatural that my soul could be within one mount of a horse and I
not have any clue about it.
In such a short time, I might have another piece of myself jabbed like a
knife into my mind. I was still healing from the cut of my first stone, and
who knew if the vision in the second would be a worse wound.
Put simply, I was afraid of how I might bleed.
We packed light, taking with us a few bags of coins from the trove
located behind a painting in my room. Kalen laughed at the way my face lit
up upon seeing the tiny mountains of gold hidden away like a secret
treasure.
“You didn’t know?” he asked and began filling four beige satchels with
generous handfuls of golden coins. “We’re rich.”
Three bags were filled for Kalen to carry and one for me to hide, fastened
to my waist underneath the jet black of my cloak. I pestered him about what
I felt was a blatant show of distrust. Kalen only confirmed that he, in fact,
did not trust me with an amount of coin that would cover a year’s worth of
rent for half of the tenants in Grovsney.
Soon, we would travel amongst beggars and thieves. Kalen wasn’t sure
what would happen first if he’d handed over more of the money: me on my
back, robbed, or me crouched over a vagrant, giving away the gold.
Personally, I would have bet on the latter.
“Do we have all we need?” I asked, looking down at the additional two
duffels of supplies that were to be strapped to our horses.
“About as much as I’m willing to risk taking,” Kalen sighed, hefting them
over his shoulders.
“Remind me again, why can’t we just project?”
With a silent command from the Preserver, the entrance to the house
opened as we neared the foyer. The black ooze from where Kalen had
healed himself was now cemented into the rug and smelled vilely of sulfur.
“The place we are going is too far for me to project with Silverwood still
in my body, and I am less desperate now to try than I was when I carried us
from Leoth.”
I remembered just how desperate he had been. I could still feel the
crushing way his arms pressed against my spine as we projected. Without
his touch for days now, I felt so light I thought I might float away. But I was
stronger than that, so I sheathed a spare dagger against the strap of my thigh
and continued.
We both stepped around the mess and into the stinging affront of the
winter air. It whipped against my cheeks and every wet thing in my body
began to frost. Crystals formed in my nose and crunched as I gave it a
wiggle. I blinked my eyes rapidly, but they remained dry as ice. The feeling
was uncomfortably crisp, but suddenly the world felt and looked incredibly
clear. As if I’d taken a long-overdue breath.
All was quiet over the cliffside of Cypra, save for the rushing of wind and
the stalwart chuffs of our horses. They whinnied and snorted from their
hitches on a nearby tree. Where in the world they came from, I knew not.
Not a barn or pen in sight, and the terrain surrounding us made the chance
that they lived within these mountains quite slim. Kalen didn’t explain and
didn’t seem to mind if it was impossible or not. He just slung a duffle over
each hind, mounted the black-coated horse, and began a slow descent down
the mountain.
I marched to the nose of my beast, a beautiful golden mare. Her coat had
been brushed and was shimmering so brightly against the winter sun, she
almost looked enchanted. A long white mane was braided into flat tufts here
and there, iron circlets holding them in place. Stroking her muzzle, I
laughed and thought back to how Rebekah had once disapproved of me for
wearing mine in a similar style. Even still, I thought it had character.
After mounting the mare, I gave a swift kick to her flank and found
myself thinking what a great pair the two of us made. Just two wild things,
far from home and with no idea of what lay ahead.

THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT kinds of cold, I

realized.
There is the cold that invigorates you, awakens your senses, and opens
you up to the world’s many temperaments. It is not forever. Just a
provisional freeze that encases what is precious to save for a more
reasonably weathered day. It stills the trees and the streams, and it glitters
so brightly, that you are convinced that you love its season all the more. You
may even forget about the pretty flowers that used to grow in between
stalks of lush, high green grasses or the fullness you felt from fat, warm
fruits hanging on vines. This kind of cold will plant a kiss on your cheek in
farewell and leave all of the things you love most dripping in a glorious wet
—ready to be rediscovered.
Then, there is the kind of cold that is death. A cold that parries all sense of
wonder and chilled delight. The sun does not penetrate its dense grey clouds
and the wind spurs furiously, carrying the last remaining seeds of life from
the dying ground so that they may live on very, very far away. The darkness
of it becomes so obsolete that not a soul ventures beyond their doorstep for
fear of becoming ash unto a blue flame. That is what traveling through
Cypra is like at night: A growing awareness of cold, unavoidable death.
When I told Kalen this, he said I was being dramatic.
“If you won’t oblige my long metaphors, will you at least oblige my
desire to keep my third and fourth toes? I think they are far into the process
of freezing off.”
“There’s nothing wrong with walking with a wobble,” he shouted over
the cull of a blizzard that had befallen us about half an hour ago.
Our horses didn’t show the slightest sign of displeasure, but even the
power within their corded muscles was waning against the force of the
Mother. I couldn’t make anything out through the whorl of white and blue-
grey that blurred my vision, but I was sure that we hadn’t traveled more
than a few thousand paces.
“Kalen,” I groaned, and he knew it was a plea for us to find somewhere to
stay for the night.
“Come on, Gwyn. We’re immortal, it isn’t like we will catch any
sickness.” Kalen had slowed his horse and allowed mine to fall into place
beside him. He looked miserable and his face had turned slightly blueish. It
reminded me of the dead Shadowfader.
“I realize that, you big lout,” I said, each word clipped with anger. “But
even glass must have a freezing point.”
Kalen studied me for a moment, and I held my chin slightly forward. In
reply, he gave me an even shorter grunt and clicked the inside of his cheek.
Slowly both of our horses started up again and I thought I would cry, but
within a quarter-hour, the storm broke to the east of us and we ventured into
a small village. The buildings were all built of conifer trunks laid gently on
top of each other. Between the cracks of their curves and the small four-
pane windows, the warm light of civilization poured.
We clacked our way onto cobble-laid streets from the forest into the heart
of the small town, past a tailoring shop and a few homes. I worried the
noisiness of our arrival may stir up a crowd of angry sleeping villagers, but
nothing moved from anywhere to come to meet us. By the time we had
finished tying off our mounts, I almost wished an angry crowd had
gathered. At least torchlights were warm, and pitchforks would mean a
quick death.
Kalen led us into the lobby of a small inn, carrying our bags at his sides
and then tossing them into a big brown lump at the innkeeper’s feet. The
stubby little man was a mortal, I realized. Not too old by our standards, but
the grey in his beard suggested he had surpassed young as far as humans
go.
“A room for the night, then?” he croaked, looking down his nose at the
guest ledger as he wrote. Red and purple veins were broken out all over his
skin, just another indication of his mortality.
“Two,” Kalen corrected.
Both the innkeeper and I looked up at him.
“Well, I apologize sir, but there is only one available. Surely you
wouldn’t mind taking up with your beautiful lady friend here.” I would
have been flattered, had the man not taken his time to rake yellow-stained
eyes down to the curves of my chest. Kalen pushed back his shoulders and
let his power flow out of him for but a second. He was glowing slightly, like
he’d done at the ball. Combined with his unpleasant expression, even I
grew nervous at the sight.
“I can see your ledger from where I stand and there are two rooms left.
We will have them.”
His insistence was becoming offensive. We’d been at odds since the
morning after the attack, but the bullheaded attitude he thrust out to the
human now was beyond interpretation. I couldn’t make sense of it, not that
I could ever make sense of anything when it came to Kalen.
“The other is in disarray,” the keeper explained. His voice shook, and his
eyebrows trussed up into the rumple of his forehead above them. “I am
ashamed to say we have had a few bad run-ins with the Shadowfaders
stationed in this region. Many come and go, tearing up the businesses and
insisting the Shadow Sage will compensate for their debauchery. Yet she
does not come. Many others who could tell you the same.”
Kalen blew air out from his nose and relaxed his stance a bit. His Light
dimmed and he said gruffly, “I don’t need to hear of the damage the
Shadows have done to you. I know that story well enough. Give us the
one.”
The key was tossed into his hand quickly and we made our way up the
stairs without any more incident. I made it a point not to comment on his
little temper tantrum as I passed through the door he held open for me.
Kalen had already focused the Light on the cabin and warmed the musty yet
strangely comforting lodge.
Slinging my cloak to the ground, I began to peel off my snow-wet clothes
and curled up into the bed. My hair had escaped from its braid and I shook
out the tangled lump of waves, brushing it through with my fingers. Waiting
for Kalen, I stared down into the fireplace, which had been raging before
we came in. Thank the Mother for competent innkeepers.
Minutes passed and his shuffling quieted. I turned around slowly, slightly
afraid of my own reaction to a dressed-down Preserver, but Kalen was not
there. I shot up, terrified, clutching the sheets tight to my body.
A thump sounded from the foot of the bed and I crawled towards it, only
to find Kalen lying in a heap of furs and skins, shivering on the floor. “By
the Light, Kalen, what are you doing?”
He jerked his attention to me, giving me an odd look for calling the Light
by its name. “I am going to sleep,” he replied and rolled over so I was
talking to the peach face of his broad shoulders, “which is what you were
begging to do just an hour ago, so I’d suggest you try it.”
“Kalen, the floor must be freezing,” I hissed. “Come here.”
“I won’t die. I have a much stronger will—and cut of skin, apparently—
than you do.” He raised up so I might take his demands more seriously.
“Now, sleep.”
“Could you get over yourself for two minutes? Sleep in the bed with
me.”
“Gwyn. I don’t want to lay beside you.”
“What?” I didn’t expect him to give in easily, but this was more than our
usual sparring. It reached out and sliced at my skin, biting.
“I don’t want to,” the words were muffled against one of the furs. “I
would rather take the floor.” When I didn’t say anything, he absorbed the
Light, leaving only the glow of the fireplace surrounding us. He retired with
a brief, “Goodnight.”
There was no coming back from that kind of declaration.
I flopped into the bed, cold again. After a while, I could hear his ragged
exhale of breath between my bitter thoughts. I was still yelling at him from
the safety of my mind, for being so stupid and cruel. The silence hanging in
the air was a living thing. I let it envelop me as Kalen would not and hoped
that Silverwood, like water, grew in its chill. Maybe whatever drops of
poison were still left in his wound would reach his heart and teach him a
valuable lesson about survival. Like the one I’d been taught tonight.
Sometimes surviving is impossible, especially when you care so much.

I REFUSED TO TALK to Kalen for the rest of the next day’s

ride. He grumbled a few times and tried to stir up idle conversation, but I
brushed off each attempt. It made for a rather boring day, but it did allow
for my attention to be taken up with all the details of a completely new
world.
We crossed the border into Grovsney a few hours into the morning, and I
was beyond grateful. This faction, it seemed, was far less polarized when it
came to the weather. Somewhere in between spring and summer, I guessed,
because the trees were ample with their blooms but looked mature. The
birds flitted into them, settling into neatly laid nests of twigs which meant
they’d be ready to sit and bear life soon. My heart grew heavy to look at
them.
They reminded me so much of my friends in the Binding and I wondered
how they may have fared after I left. If no one was there to hear their songs,
did they sing at all? It felt like so long since I’d been there, miserable and
alone. Though here I was, still miserable and alone in theory. I tried not to
let my anger bore a hole into the back of Kalen’s head.
The sun had crested above us to mark the half-day when Kalen put out his
right hand, urging me and my mare to stay put.
“Stop,” he said in a low voice of authority. He looked far ahead into the
forest and got down from his mount, stepping into the brush and
disappearing from my sight for a few seconds, before circling back around.
“We need to secure our horses,” he shouted from the trees. “We go on foot
from here.”
“What? Why?” This trip had been horrifying enough, even with a quick-
footed getaway between my legs. The prospect of trekking through who-
knows-how-many miles of dense and possibly beast-ridden forest was not
one I wanted to materialize.
“The ground is too soft and too steep. The next few miles to the clearing
is a rough hike with a lot of narrow ridges. It’s safer to leave them here and
go on our own.”
“Can you project us?” I asked, tying my horse to the large oak that stood
just inside the forest’s edge.
“What?” He asked loudly. I could hear the smile curving around his
words. For some reason, he was trying to draw my attention. I kept my
focus on the knot of straw rope in front of me. “You don’t want to walk or
are you just afraid of being stuck with me as your only company for the
next five hours?”
“Five hours?” I tried not to whine.
“Give or take.”
“Well then,” I sighed, securing my belongings in the hidden pockets of
my cloak. “I don’t know what will overwhelm me first: the hike or having
to keep up with you and your very attractive mood swings.” I let myself
give him a sarcastic grin. If we were going to be at this for hours, let it not
be unbearable.
“Careful,” he said in response to my smile. “I have half a mind to think
you are flirting with me.”
 It was my turn to roll my eyes. I’d never figure him out.
“And I just have half a mind,” I started up the hill with a swift and
powerful leap, taking the lead. I glanced back at him, unenthused. “How
unfortunate for us both.”
THE DENSE WOODS FINALLY opened up after what
seemed like thousands and thousands of paces. I didn’t bother to count. If
we ever made it out of this labyrinth of spindly branches and hilly mounds
that smelled like turned earth and animal droppings, I hoped we would
project. My mind was too weak and Kalen too impatient to try and retrace
the path we’d carved for miles. I’d almost fallen to the ground and sobbed
when we breached the clearing to find an empty field.
Not a single living thing resided there. Even the grass had turned brittle
and colorless. Years, it looked like, since anything may have taken up
residence there, let alone a person. When I looked to Kalen for an
explanation, he was annoyingly calm.
“Did you drag me out here to kill me?” I smarted, trying to catch my
breath. My arms and legs were coated in sweat. Thick droplets coursed
down my back underneath my shirt. “Or were you hoping our journey
through the woods would have done it? I’ve got to give it to you. This is the
perfect place to bury a body.”
Kalen kept walking until he reached the center of the field. I followed,
stopping at his left shoulder. “Too bad I survived, huh?”
“Are you quite finished?” he asked, expression flat.
“No.”
Kalen snorted.
“I hate you,” I added. “Alright, now I’m finished.”
“Good.” A brief flash shuttered in my peripheral and Kalen gave me a
small smile. “Look again.”
A common house made of cobbled stone stood before us, erected out of
the dying foundation from seemingly nowhere at all. The clay gables of its
roof sunk in a bit on the right side. Thick strips of ivy grew up the sides,
though there was no start to their roots. The house itself looked out of place.
Like a large stone bush that someone had planted in the ground.
Kalen began walking to the wooden porch, and I forced my screaming
legs to move with him. Knocking sharply against the door, Kalen whistled
faintly in an odd little tune. The darkness of the house subsided when
whoever lived inside lit an oil lamp. I watched the flame float through the
window, growing in size until it slipped out of view and behind the solid
frame of the house. Seconds later, the door swung open, revealing a tall,
middle-aged woman, elegant and lean. She wore a nightgown of heather
green and a cloak to match. Her hair was laid out in the most luxurious
curls of sable that fell behind her shoulders. It complimented her beautiful
oak-brown skin, glowing in the candlelight. At the sight of Kalen, she made
a face of displeasure. Even soured, she was grievously beautiful.
“You know I hate surprises, Preserver.” Her voice was low and smooth.
The teasing look in her eyes as she spoke to him made me feel like an
intruder, barging in on what should have been a very private reunion.
“Nice to see you too, Aya,” he said with a wink and I flinched.
She sighed and looked him up and down, disapprovingly. Smokey quartz
eyes slid over to me and grew wide. Without looking away, she clawed at
Kalen’s arm and shoved him inside, closing the door between us. Through
the gaps in the frame, I could hear her start in on him.
“Please tell me you did not march her through the entirety of Grovsney to
my front door?” The question was both sardonic and filled with alarm.
“March?” he responded. “You make me sound like a bore.”
“Well, I am sorry I wasn’t clearer. I meant to make you sound like a
moron.”
The shadow of Kalen through the curtained window drew back. “Adrien
has been stationed here for weeks, Kalen,” she continued, and I cocked my
head at the name. Kalen had never mentioned an Adrien. “You know as well
as I do that if he gets wind of her return...and finds out that you facilitated
all of this...” she paused, and I grew self-conscious. My presence always
seemed to be a danger to everybody else. “Adrien will kill you for it right
where you stand,” she continued. “He’ll kill us both.”
The floorboards of the house creaked with weight as one of them began to
pace.
“Which is exactly why I brought her here,” Kalen said, probably to avoid
her wrath and with a little bit of his own fear. “Honestly, I love what you’ve
done with the place. New curtains, polished floors, glamour,” he said
accusingly.
“Don’t take it personally, Kal. I had to disappear. Besides, the spell
clearly doesn’t work on the likes of you. I’ll be sure to fix that once you are
gone. Which should be in about two seconds when I acquaint you and your
backside with the grass.”
 “Aya,” Kalen spoke her name as if to reason with her. I recognized a
sweetness in his tone laced with a hint of flirtation. It was the way he talked
to me whenever I grilled him to answer one of my questions. “I need
information that only you have. Your glamour will work on my
Shadowfader brother, and we will be out of your hair before the soup on
your stove turns cold.”
Brother? My mouth gaped open, and a gnat flew smack into my face. One
of Kalen’s brothers was a Shadowfader, a soldier of Sythe, and he was after
me—or knew that I existed somehow? I shook my head, frustrated. How
many times had I let Kalen lie to my face? How long would I continue to let
him lead me blindly through my own life? I shouldn’t have felt so surprised.
“Get in.”
The door had opened as I’d been sulking. Aya stood with one hand firm
against her hip and the other resting on the golden doorknob. I swallowed
and ducked my head, stumbling awkwardly into her home until I stood
face-to-face with Kalen.
I couldn’t hide my fresh hate for him, so I turned immediately to the
woman and felt the urge to introduce myself. I’d never formally met anyone
outside of Kalen and Rebekah, and I’d hardly call the meeting with the
Sages anything along the lines of formal. Rebekah had once told me that
introductions were what strangers did when they entered each other’s
homes. I would have wanted to know the name of any person who’d
wandered into my grove, so I stuck out my hand and said, “Hello, I am
Gwynore.”
Aya did not move to take my hand. Instead, she stared, shocked, like I had
offered her a rotting apple in the palm of it. Kalen reached up to tuck a
strand of hair behind his ear and cleared his throat loudly. Wrapping a hand
around mine, he lowered it back to my side. “There is no need for
introductions, Gwyn.”
I shot him an icy glare, and snatched my hand back.
“But if you insist,” Kalen said and turned back to our host, gesturing
between us with his other hand. “Aya, Gwynore. Gwyn, Ayona Burnwell.
Otherwise known as the witch who saved your life.”
OceanofPDF.com
“THANK YOU,” I TOLD Ayona, for the tenth time since we’d
properly met. She placed a cup of tea in my hands and shook her head in
discontent.
“I told you, those manners aren’t needed here.” Her skirts swept
gracefully across her girdle as she took her seat in a maroon, cotton-covered
chair. I sat opposite of her at a wide tea table, fruit, and sliced cheeses snug
against a warm loaf on the plate sat between us.
“Kalen doesn’t seem to think I have any manners at all. I’ve found it’s
better to overcompensate.”
The Preserver was carrying in one of our duffels, procuring the items
Ayona had asked for to enchant a location for my second stone.
“He acts like a brute,” she said in a low voice, flat enough that Kalen
wouldn’t notice we were critiquing him from just feet away. “That boy is
about as soft as they come. You will know it someday.”
Before I could ask how she was so sure in her assessment of his
character, Kalen slid in between the table and myself to take his place and
kneeled on the floor. Carefully, he rearranged Ayona’s cutlery and
decorations to make room and spread out a map of the Continent. This one
was far more detailed than the map that graced the wall in Cypra. The
current figures known of the sea level were marked neatly next to the
shoreline, elevations of mountains drawn to match the key in the upper right
corner, and a marked “x” for each Sage court.
“Alright, here is the map, and here...” Kalen reached into one of his
pockets, pulling out the first of my stones. I’d left it on the chair in the war
room all those weeks ago. Discarded it, hoped to forget it ever existed. With
Kalen, it seemed, things never stayed forgotten.
Ayona sat forward in her seat, pulling out her own trove of tidbits from
the stitched pouches of her cloak, a jar of ground herbs, a small paint pot of
red clay, and a black velvet bag. In a speckled stone bowl, she whipped the
clay and spice into a draught, adding the dregs of tea left in my cup to
smoothen the concoction. Her fingers were nimble as they worked, and
even though the knots in them showed evidence of age, I could tell by the
shine of stretched skin that beneath it lay polished, unbreakable glass. I
imagined it clinking softly as she reached into the black velvet bag and
scattered the contents across the map.
Bones.
From an animal, I hoped. They were yellow and brittle old relics of life.
If the Shadow Sage did end up killing me after all of this, I thought it
might be nice if someone would use my bones in a spell. Seemed like a
waste of magic otherwise.
Anyona took my stone in her hands and closed her eyes. With one
profound breath, she began to hum. A deep, honey-sweet note, undulating
and never-ending. I tried to spot where she drew more air into her lungs, but
over the next few minutes, there was no such moment. The sound grew
louder as Ayona forced the air from her nose.
The table began to shake and the bones bounced rhythmically atop the
map. A heavy thumping began from nowhere—everywhere within the
room. Pots banged against the walls in a metal clap. The cooped chickens in
Ayona’s kitchen began to cluck nervously. With a sharp kick of air, the
stone bowl dropped to its side, draught leaking onto the area of the map
denoted Aegedonia, the Sea faction. The liquid’s infinitesimal grains
ossified, thickening into a lump in the center of the faction, staining the rest
a watery red. There was blood to be spilled, it said.
I don’t know how I knew, but the sudden feeling scratched at me.
“Ione.” My voice sounded strange. Thick. “It was Ione, Kalen. The Sage
who betrayed Leoth, I’m sure of it.”
“Are you sure?” he said, face twisting as he looked closer at the map and
flicked away the clump of residue that had gathered on top of a marker.
Ayona nodded to me. She did not have to look at the map to know.
“Gwynore is right,” she said and wiped at the sweat falling down her neck.
“A part of her soul lies in the High Mer’s castle. The bones of the dead are
never wrong.”
“I believe you,” Kalen attended to her now. “But that doesn’t mean Ione
knows that the stone is there, or that she attacked our faction. Your second
stone could have very well been planted by one of the others. Gabriel or
Dario.”
“Dario,” Ayona scoffed. “The sharpest arrow that ever missed its mark?
There’s not a chance in mortal hell that he had anything to do with it.”
“Bold words for a woman who is currently draining his faction’s power
stores to perform her Arts.”
To that, Ayona gave a small smile. The first I’d seen her make since
we’d arrived. “I didn’t say he wasn’t strong,” she agreed. “Just that he lacks
the cunning to stage a coup.”
“Yes, but he’s simple-minded enough to thirst for power. Power that the
Shadow Sage could give him,” Kalen countered. Then added, “Besides,
Ione despises her sister almost as much as she despises Gwyn,” He kept his
eyes intent on mine as he said, “Something about her face.”
Ayona sighed. “Look, Kalen. I can’t give you a reason why the Sages do
half of the things they do. Gods and kings are all made from the same cloth
of stupidity, and I doubt there is a reason for this mess at all. Far be it one
good enough. What I can give you is the location of Gwynore’s stone,
which you now have.” She uncrossed her legs and stood, placing her hands
above her hips. “My soup went cold an hour ago.”
“You’re right,” Kalen stood, too, so I felt compelled to join them. “We
should go. It’s a long journey to the shore of Alto.”
Ayona surveyed the two of us, staring an undeniable second longer at
me. “No, you’ll stay,” she said suddenly and then turned towards her
kitchen and her anxious pets. “Can’t have the fate of the two of you in these
woods at night on my conscious. There’s a spare room down the hall and to
the left.”
Ayona pointed with her right hand and yelled out to us. “And I’d strip
down tonight. The Land’s been scorching for the last week. Men and their
damn tempers.”

KALEN STAYED IN THE sitting room for a time more, going

over our travel route to Ione’s faction. I took the opportunity to be
completely morose and alone in the spare bedroom.
Knees tucked in tight to my stomach, lying sideways across the bed, I
thought back to the seconds on top of the Mountain before I jumped all
those months ago. I was so ignorant of what life was, what life could be.
The days I spent aimlessly had so much potential. Now I counted hours as
they slipped through my hands. I had so much more hope during those
never-ending days and nights than I did now.
Once I’d longed for the answers, would find no peace until I had them.
Now they flooded in, and still, no peace followed. I wasn’t sure if it ever
would.
The wool draped across the spare bed began to itch mercilessly at my
face, even as I lay still. I turned my cheek to the other side but didn’t find
any comfort. Not to mention, Ayona was right, the temperatures had risen at
least a few degrees even though the sun had sunk over Grovsney. I sat up
and began to kick off my boots when Kalen finally made his way through
our open door.
Quickly, I turned so that I was staring at the horrendous painting
hanging above the bed depicting an unrecognizable beast suckling its
offspring.
Noticing my foul mood, Kalen offered with feigned optimism, “It’s
good news, Gwynore.”
I chucked one of the pillows onto the floor beside me with enough force
to incapacitate a small animal.
“A fractional piece of good news tied to a string of nothing but other bad
news,” was my reply. “Not only are we completely unsure of which Sage
betrayed us, but we also have no idea what we are going to face when we
do enter Aegedonia. That is if we even make it there. Your power is
draining with every day, and all I have going for me is that I am a relatively
untrained, half-idiot, with a penchant for sharp metal.”
My cloak was shucked off, the rest of my clothes following quickly
behind. Through the linen gauze of my undershirt, I saw Kalen’s eyes go
bright with Light, and then he promptly turned his back to me.
“Gwyn, you are none of those things. You don’t give yourself enough
credit,” he said to the wall. His shoulder blades were flexing beneath his
skin with each staggered breath he took.
“And you do?” I spat. With my clothes discarded in a small pile by the
door, I crawled into the center of the bed and wrapped the sheets around my
body, my agitation clear in the fuss of my movements. Sensing that I was
modest, Kalen turned to face me once again. I threw the throw from the bed
to him. He looked towards the pillow on the ground and then back to me
with confusion. “You prefer not to be near me, remember?” I snarked,
nodding my head to the floor.
 Kalen clutched the blanket in between his fingers and expelled a breath.
After a moment of silence, he spoke. “Gwyn, what I said last night at the
inn...it isn’t exactly what I meant.”
“Oh, so you mean to tell me that you are a liar?” I mocked, soothing my
hot cheeks against the cool of my pillow. “Well, I hate to disappoint you,
but that isn’t exactly the revelation you think it is.”
“It is obvious you’re upset with me, but you’re going to have to lose the
sarcasm if you want me to explain.”
What an arrogant proposition. I wanted to claw his windpipe through the
tissues of his neck. See how well he could explain, then. But I was just as
hurt by his rejection as I was masochistic. I’d begun to like this hateful little
ritual we had. To see him squirm as he tried to explain away yet another lie,
another slight. Our back and forth just barely reinforced the absurd idea that
Kalen actually cared for something other than himself. Maybe, even
someone other than himself.
“You think I’m working some grand angle and leveraging my powers at
every turn, but the truth is –”
“If that is not the truth, then this will be interesting to hear after all.”
Mother help me and the mouth I did not know how to shut.
As soon as I’d let the words fly, the room shrank against the power
filling it. My head was snapped in his direction, my body yanked up.
A voiceless command, Listen.
Kalen’s entire face was chiseled from gold. I stared at him, even more
furious that he’d turned his magic against me. A vein in his neck throbbed.
The Preserver. He was awake.
“The truth,” he growled, “is that I don’t have a clue what to do with you.
I have no plan. Chaos is breaking out around us, and I have no real strategy
because all I can think clearly of is you, Gwyn. You, with your stupid
counting and your smart mouth. You, and your incessant need to put
yourself in danger to save my life in the Well. You, standing in front of me
with that look. I don’t have a plan for any of that because…well, how do
you prepare for something you don’t even believe is real?”
“You’re the Preserver,” I replied through a clenched jaw. “Shed Light on
the truth and see for yourself if you don’t believe it.”
He stuttered, caught. “You know that I can’t. Not when my powers are
weakened, and I—”
“Liar,” I challenged. Gold, glowing, bald-faced liar.
 Kalen’s hands dropped feebly against his sides. “Fine,” he admitted. “I
don’t need to.”
He took a step forward, trying to daunt me.
I raised to my knees on the bed, unafraid.
“When I look at you,” he said slowly, “I know every thought running
through your mind just as if it had entered my own. I can feel it. The way
you want me, now.”
I attempted to muffle the look of vindication that was surely beginning
to show on my face. I knew he could hear me. Too many times he had
acknowledged my thoughts before I’d voiced them. Too many times I
caught him staring at me in a way that felt like my heart was ripped out of
my body before him, reading like a torn page from a book.
“The flush blooming on the parts of your skin you’re desperate for me to
touch,” he continued, drawing so close to me, my chest met his when I took
a breath, only a sheet seperating that part of my skin he spoke of, blistering
from his words. He dipped his face into the crook of my neck next, his
breath ghosting over my shoulder. I felt the damp tip of his tongue and a
small bite of his teeth upon my ear as he let out a rough whipser, “The ache
in between your thighs...it’s as if I’m holding you against me and making it
so.”
His knees touched the bed frame as pulled slightly back. Leaning his
hands against the mattress, he bent down so that we were eye to Light-
bending eye. Kalen whispered, “But most of all, the way your heart bleeds
for me. I can see it. An untended wound. It pours and it never stops, and if I
come any closer to you, neither will I.”
Every ounce of arrogance I felt moments before, withered. To know he
could feel how much I wanted him was one thing. For him to understand
what fueled that want, was another completely.
The inexplicable feeling rooted deep in the walls of my chest whenever I
looked at him. Even when I didn’t look at him. He could be hidden in any
room, in any continent, in any world, and I would know it. My soul would
search for him like a lost stone. I would know it. Every bit of that certainty
choked the question I both feared and needed answered.
“You won’t...bleed for me?” I looked away, unable to face him as I
asked the real question. “You don’t want me?”
Kalen took a small step back, and a low sound rippled through his
throat, like he was disgusted I would even question it. Then he said, “I have
bled for you, Gwyn. You know that.”
“And wanting me? What about that?”
“We can’t.”
His eyes looked tortured, and he’d said the words as if they declared
some long forgotten-rule, made only to be broken by us, here, and now. I
leaped in one swift movement out of the bed, which gave out a long creak.
Looping my arm around Kalen’s neck, I felt his breath gutter in his throat. I
would allow myself to beg just this once.
“Please.”
The word was one of weakness, but it was all I had left. My fingers
twisted the roots of his hair at the base of his neck. Kalen bowed his head in
profound concentration. Like he was attempting to will himself to resist.
I felt a rush at the thought of his corruption by me. I drew him to me, his
lips barely touching the side of my cheek. His hips pressed against mine
and the quick meeting of them sent my mind tumbling, down and down
until it hit my stomach. Kalen tensed, stopped breathing, and tore himself
forcefully from our embrace.
I let my gaze fall, trying hard to blink away the hot and stinging tears of
disappointment that began to flow into the corners of my eyes. That had to
be it. I couldn’t do this anymore with him. Whatever he was holding back,
maybe it was better left under the surface of his malice. Only to break with
an occasional jaunt at my expense every hundred years.
I heard the scrape of his shoes against the floor and hoped they’d move
faster. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming, not all of them, and I wanted
him far away from here when they did. I counted the pace: one, two, three.
The wooden floors creaked with shifting weight. Four, five— there were
more steps than necessary, and I nearly cursed at him for dragging it out.
Until two rough hands enveloped my face, cradling my neck towards the
light coming in from a star-filled night.
Kalen’s mouth pressed hard against mine, to both our surprise, as he
gave into whatever vices he felt were wrapped up in me. My eyes closed,
the welled tears spilling out onto my cheeks, and the world became a color
I’d never seen. It was bright and warm and reminded me of home. The
Binding. Pure, untouched. A safe place where no time could pass. Kalen
sighed, relieved to have been so defeated.
I met the soft strokes of his lower lip, growing desperate as he tugged
mine gently with his teeth. His rough hand slid the fleshy tops of my thighs
that sat around the bend of his knees, unleashing something within me. A
wanton, unbridled need. At the same time, he ground his hips into mine, and
when his tongue swiped at my lips, I parted for him out of instinct, letting
him lay claim to that new uncharted place. With a soft pounce, Kalen
guided us back onto the bed. I smiled against his lips. He smiled back. In
the swing of it all, the sheets I’d had wrapped around my chest fell to my
hips.
Kalen rose, breaking our kiss, and let himself take in the sight of me.
The groan that came from his chest cracked and he swallowed for cover. In
his lap, I saw the tremble of his fingers. Lacing them through my own, I
brought our twined hands to the deep curves of my sides and let us find our
way up my goosed skin. He stopped the movement at my breasts and closed
his eyes. I watched him, curious at the somber mesh of lashes against
cheek.
My heart beat under our hands just once, and then his contemplation
was over, his shirt pulled above his head, and he was kissing me again. I
braced my hands against the smooth muscled skin of his torso. The pace of
his lips against mine slowed, and softened regardless of my own urgency
until they stopped completely. Kalen arched away from me when I pressed
in towards him, the need becoming devastating. His arms fell upon me, and
my vision blackened for a moment.
When I could see again, Kalen had put his shirt over my head and was
feeding my arms through the knitted sleeves. A faint smile played on his
lips. I snorted a laugh and looked up at him in confusion.
“We should sleep,” he said, and I choked.
“Kalen,” I whimpered in protest, moving my hands to the seam of his
trousers. He grabbed my wrists firmly and placed two swift kisses on the
tops of my knuckles.
“When we do this...” Kalen’s face was filled with lust. “And we will do
this.” I blushed as he continued, “I want you to know me as I know you. I
want you to understand just how I feel when you touch me, when I lay
myself into you. I want you to know it is true.”
It is true, I thought. It is true and will be truer still.
HOURS LATER, WE STILL lay together, my hand pressed
against the flat muscle of Kalen’s stomach. I swirled my fingers along the
center, scraping my nails lightly against his skin. Kalen sighed each time I
drew up to his heart.
“Can a mortal who has been Yielded use the Rite on another?” My
question was an abrupt end to the small amount of peace we’d found. So
abrupt that I almost regretted asking it.
Kalen slid his arm from the cradle of my neck and positioned it as a
prop for his tired head. The downward slant of his expression bemused.
“No. They can’t.” He wrapped his free hand around the dip in my back and
hauled my body against his in one bold tug. “Is that your roundabout way of
saying you want me to make you my Yield?”
I shoved at his chest playfully, putting enough space between us so we
could see each other clearly. “What makes you think I would want to be tied
to you forever? Though it would be interesting to call you Master.” Pink
stained the Preserver’s cheeks. I laughed as he flicked my nose.
“Then why do you ask at all?” He shuffled uncomfortably, biting his
lip.
“I thought maybe...well...I could tell Ayona was Yielded. I thought
maybe you had Yielded her, or she claimed you.” I felt small and silly as I
explained the source of my minor jealousy, “Raven-haired lover.” Her hair
was more of a brown than feather-black—but still.
“Gwyn,” Kalen raised his head and swung my body beneath his. The
stare he gave was utterly serious. My heart puttered against my ribs. “Ayona
is Gabriel’s Yield,” he explained.
“Oh.” I exhaled, looking down at the darkness that faded into the
blanket around our stacked hips. The desolation in the Time Sage’s eyes as
he learned of her death made sense to me now. For him, a star had been
knocked from his skies. It would be wrong to admit I was relieved, but…
“I do not see her. The one who Yielded me,” Kalen said, and I counted
the knitted loops of maroon threads, unable to look at him. “The Rite was
forced, a game to subdue boredom. I did not know my fate until it was too
late. She stayed only long enough to see me wake and realize the horror of
it. After, she left me alone, with this.”
He gathered the long hair that always swept from the curve of his ear
and down his neck into his fist, arcing his chin towards the light. A thin,
waxy line ran from the space behind his jaw underneath his chin and across
to the other side. I ran my forefinger along it softly. Tucked in a way that
only he could see, a scar that never healed.
“I don’t know why it stays,” he answered my thought. “A physical
bonding of the Rite, I suppose. No other Yields bear any trophies from their
own. Though I don’t know a single one that had their heads nearly cut off,
either.”
I grew instantly sick. Any rational thought vanished from my mind as I
tried not to picture it. What horror, indeed. No words I knew existed that
could take away that pain for him. No words to mend the scar that sat under
his chin or the ones I could not see but knew were there in his heart. If there
were, I would have said them to him. Part of me thought it would be selfish
to try.
“It’s alright,” he answered, dipping his face to my jaw and pressing a
solid, unhurried kiss there. When he raised to look at me again, his
shoulders gave a quick shrug. “If there were the right words for everything,
we would never stop talking. About retribution, love, hate. So much so that
we would forget to take those things for ourselves. It was long ago, now,
and I prefer to hate her silently.”
I nodded, pulling him back to my side and laying my ear on his chest.
Silence was a song I was accustomed to. I’d listened to it for seventy years,
and apparently so had Kalen. I could listen for many years more if he asked
that of me, but that noiseless thundering beneath his chest...I recognized its
call. Love. Hate. Retribution. We would have all of it—and more, I would
soon come to find.
But for now, silence.

OceanofPDF.com
WE TOOK UP A bed together from then on.
Every night, as we traveled through clusters of houses made from wood and
stone, Kalen offered to request a suite with enough space for two smaller
beds instead of one, similarly small bed. Every night, I recited the same list
of logical reasons why that was unnecessary. He didn’t have enough power
to heat such a room, I had said at a small inn a day’s travel from Ayona’s
cottage. We needed to save what little coin we had, and besides, wouldn’t it
be too conspicuous for us to travel so extravagantly? I’d thought up that one
as we ventured along the border of Aegedonia.
Kalen would roll his eyes in wide exasperated circles, but I never failed
to notice the quiver in his cheeks as they tugged against his grin. I’d watch
him struggle to regain composure and wonder who I was trying to convince
—him or me.
The answer was obvious. We had grown close in the past few weeks.
Naturally, I told myself. As one might when spending nearly every second
of every day with another. As one does when another holds them against
their heart, kisses their neck, and touches them in a way one had only
previously imagined, under the privacy of thick coverlets.
Kalen had shown me a few interesting ways to hasten the lull of time as
we moved through strange town after strange town. As the moon draped
night over a new city, some passing look would turn into a finger hooked
underneath my chin, a tug of my lip between his teeth, and on and on until
his hands were beneath my skirts, my back fitted snug against the Preserver
or flat atop the bed.
Of course, it was something I had done for myself, before, on nights in
my grove when loneliness fed into the basest need. Those nights had
quelled the burning that swelled through my hip bones. The wet, swirling
fire in my belly that made me want to jump out of my skin into the coldest
parts of the Sea. Those nights had been well enough. But this was different.
With Kalen, that sweet tightening and bursting relief only left me wanting
more.
A frantic whisper, “Like that?”
More.
“Gwynore.”
More.
Until the world splintered off in every direction, his tongue against my
skin a slick of heat coaxing me through throe after throe of pleasure as the
earth and I pieced ourselves back together.
After, I’d always wanted to return his favor, but he never let it happen.
When I asked why or grew insecure he assured me; the day he would be
spent, by the touch of my hand or the smart of my tongue, was the day that I
would know him, as he knew me.
Late one evening, I asked, “Know you? What, like how you are a
bastard of the enemy faction or how your favorite color is clearly black?”
He laughed, but told me, “No, that is not quite what I mean.”
What did he mean, then? I couldn’t remember what it was to know
someone.
My stomach grumbled through the quiet that followed. The most
egregious, embarrassing noise that could have ever been heard on the face
of the Continent. Kalen jerked his head, eyes filled with humorous wonder.
I couldn’t help but giggle along, hiding my face in the crook of his arm. He
cupped my chin with his hand so I would look at him.
“Let’s eat, hmm?” he asked.
I gave a nod, only slightly sorry to be leaving the bed.
We made our way to the tavern that was adjoined to our inn, a twenty-
room villa of limestone and gypsum with a basement hostel for traveling
seamen. Our stay was only a few miles outside of the gates of the High
Mer, as Ione was lovingly addressed by her constituents. Every citizen that
we passed wore a jolly expression on their salt-cured face. How could they
not? This faction was thriving and there was every display possible of the
benefits reaped. Hands may have been roughened from hard labor, legs and
arms scarred from prying treasures out of shell and rock, but bellies were
round and filled. Houses and shops were made of fine materials by even
finer artisans. Gold coins hit the table tops like fish on their sun-bleached
decks, scintillating and plentiful.
Dinnertime had long passed by the time we arrived, and the tavern was
overrun with desperate sea folk searching for their nightcap. I shoved
against jacketed shoulders on either side of me, trying my best to follow the
small path Kalen had already pushed through.
Cigar smoke hung in the air like a thick fog rolling off the open kegs of
drykkja, a putrid brew that Kalen told me was a favorite amongst
Aegedonian sailors. The smell of brine and spiced malt tickled the sensitive
shell of my nose in a wretched way. I forced air into my lungs and held it as
we moved past a dozen drunk sailors. They smashed their mugs together in
merriment, sloshing the brown liquid onto the bar.
“The Light, it’s coming back to us,” a drunken merrow bellowed. He
mounted his stool clumsily and shouted even louder, “She’s coming to take
it back!”
I froze, in shock, clenching my teeth as the legs of his chair wobbled.
“Right on Ollie,” an older mortal yelled back in jest. “And me mum’s
gonna rise from her grave, shove me back up her hooch, and bald me head
to youth!”
“Shut your mouth, you old bastard!” Ollie shanked his cup at the man,
splattering some of his drink to the floor.
“I will when you stop spitting nonsense! Putting your faith in the power
of dead Sages.”
The men grumbled back and forth for some time and called each other a
few choice names. The older of the two slammed his fist to the table at the
suggestion anyone could pry the Light from the Shadow Sage’s hands—
living or dead. The younger conceded that the older lacked faith but offered
him a pint to lift his spirits. And so, the conversation ended with a toast.
How strange that even the most contentious of topics could be laid to rest
with a few drinks.
“Ignore them,” Kalen leaned down to whisper into my ear.
I kept walking, doing just that, but couldn’t help losing myself in the
lunacy of it. People I didn’t know were arguing that I would fail, arguing
that I would triumph, arguing about whether or not I existed at all. The
merrow, Ollie, would blindly believe anything he heard of the Light
returning to Leoth because he wanted it so badly to be true. With one glance
across the congregation of hopeful sea-worn faces, I knew that he was not
the only one who would hold out hope until the bitter end.
So, there it was.
The rumor of my return had spread to the edges of the Continent. I
wondered if it had reached out across the Alto yet. If it had, I knew she
would be waiting for me, Shadows drawn out across that barren and night-
felled shore.
The top of my head collided with Kalen’s back as he stopped at the bar. I
kept my head low and braced my palms against the long teakwood
countertops. Through the curve of my hood, I could see dozens of bottled
liquors and wines, their green glasses glinting off the firelights from the
sconces on the wall.
In front of the rows of drinks, two servers moved swiftly past each other,
careful to avoid the knocking of stray elbows or untucked hips while they
shuffled around in the tight space. Now and then, one would stop abruptly
to take an order and the other would turn about like a spun top. The male
server had done just that when his companion caught sight of Kalen and
paused to take care of us.
I decided to ignore the way the barmaid hooded her bright teal eyes into
a seductive gaze at Kalen while he ordered. Instead, I focused on how
terrifyingly alluring she was. A nymph, by the looks of it, though she had
glamoured most of the glinting scales atop her skin. Although it was a slight
to her beauty, I guess it helped ease the mortal tourists that overwhelmed
the faction during the colder months of their own. Her hair was as dark as
night and pulled into a lovely knot just below the nape of her neck, small
shafts of it framing the sharp fish-like angles of her face.
The mischief in her eyes couldn’t strike a flint to that of her grin. And
like a flint, she’d sparked something in Kalen I didn’t recognize at first. A
gleam appeared in his eyes. Something like raw curiosity. Intrigue.
“What’s your name?” Kalen asked, lifting the hood of his cloak, which
had been pulled across his face like mine for discretion. The corners of his
mouth became uneven as he put on his best smolder.
“Aconitia,” she said, meeting his gaze. There was something in that look
that made my blood turn slightly cold. In my periphery, I could see Kalen
ghost his hand up to his thigh, where one of his weapons was hidden in a
slip between his trousers.
“That’s beautiful...Aconitia.” He let the middle syllable roll slowly off
the tip of his tongue. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a name like that
before.”
I could tell by the tightness in his jaw that something was wrong. The
waitress nodded her thanks and drifted casually towards another patron to
refill his drykkja. As her skirts swept against the floor, I caught a glimpse of
her steel-toed boots. An odd choice, I recognized, for a lowly barmaid. The
servants in every other faction wore felt or silk slippers, lacking the money
and the need in general to buy such industrial materials. They were
servants, after all, not warriors. But Aconitia’s odd choice of shoe could
easily be explained by the wealth of the faction, and the fact that every one
of Aegedonia’s working class seemed to grind themselves to the bone if it
meant they’d see a profit. Pretty barmaid’s included.
From a corner, whoops and hollers were shouted. I turned towards the
crowd that had filled in behind us. The barroom looked as if an entire fleet
of sailors had docked just outside the door.
A crowd of twenty or so seamen inched their way in, making a tight
circle around the area where we had been seated. All were dressed in tunics
of slate grey with silver embroidery, white blouses that puffed without
wind, all heavily strapped with weapons. As one man turned, I caught the
stitching of an insignia: an iron-gilded serpent, curled into an “S” shape,
devouring its own tail.
Ione.
Every blue and aquamarine face seemed to be looking at me, every
round fish eye stalled in my direction. No, I calmed myself, I was just
paranoid. No one knew of Kalen and my whereabouts since Leoth. We had
been so careful. Ione could not possibly know I was here. And if she’d had
an inkling, why she would waste putting more than a dozen Merlords to the
task of capturing us was beyond me. Surely she would want to do that
herself, and I doubted you would ever catch the Sage lowering her brow
just to step foot in a city pub. Nonetheless, I pulled my hood in tighter to
my face.
Letting my attention naturally drift back to the bar, I made one last pass
at the room only to find Ollie the Merrow, staring at me, face blanched. I
felt a swell of panic and swiveled my chair back to Kalen, who was staring
at a plate of food Aconitia had set down before him.
“We need to go, now,” I whispered sternly, low enough for only him to
hear. But he didn’t respond. Instead, he just glared at the pile of fish and
rice on the table. I observed it closely. The smell was mouth-watering. A
medley of spiced black, yellow, and red long grains underneath two large
fish. Their skin was charred and flayed, insides iridescent with a pink sheen.
The flesh was so delicate it almost looked electrified with the color. A flash
of pearl overtook the entire dish as Kalen pulled it closer. I blinked. This
faction was so well off, even the food was magic.
“Not magic,” Kalen said aloud to me and then looked at the barmaid
with a devilish slant in his features. “I take back what I said earlier,” he said
to her and drew his blade with a silent whisper of metal against leather,
propping his other hand against the ledge of wood next to his plate, relaxed.
“I have only heard of one other person with that name.”
The barmaid grinned at Kalen, her features mirroring his as if they’d
shared some secret joke. I frowned, riddled with confusion and fear. Kalen
stood and took his fighting stance as Aconitia pounced, slamming a meat
cleaver into the magic fish. The plate cracked and the metal thunked,
rendering the bar completely silent.
“Preserver, it’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance,” she said,
teeth bared.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Kalen replied, snarling with equal ferocity as
he drawled, “Queen of Poisons.”
Aconitia’s lean nymph torso breached the counter similar to a mermaid
upon a rock. She pulled herself up by her arms and swung over the bar,
landing a few feet from Kalen.
“Oh good, you’ve heard of me,” she crowed. “Which means you know
you don’t have much of a chance.” Aconitia drew her sword, which looked
more like the remnants of a dead sea beast. The blade was cobalt frayed
with the razored barb of a dead stingray. The same pearly sap dripped from
the weapon onto the floor. “Let’s make quick work of this shall we?”
Kalen walked tall, circling Aconitia with long strides. His muscles were
tensed, and the veins in his wrists corded with the agitation of his grip. I
inched back slowly, not yet making a move for my weapon. If I could just
get to her left side, in front of the growing crowd that had shoved me out.
Both fighters were unaware of the commotion that had settled around them
while they exchanged words. If I could just get to that left side, a quick hilt
to her temple would allow us enough time to escape through the rafters
above. No one had noticed Kalen’s hooded companion, thank the Mother,
and I easily slipped around the liveried shoulder I’d marked. Suddenly, I
felt the cool touch of a hand around mine, grasping desperately. A pale
green hand with an oiled sheen like the skin of a herring.
“It’s you!” Ollie almost sounded like he was praying, worshipping me
with those strange black eyes. Pitted though they were, I could still see the
wonderstruck look about them. I shook my head, unable to tell whether I
was trying to deny his claim or plea with him to keep quiet. If he held me in
such high regard, maybe he would listen if I ordered him to shut it. I was so
close to Kalen, if he would just let go of me I could...
Ollie pursed his lips. I tried to talk faster, to get ahead of whatever
announcement was bound to spring forth and wreck every effort that had
been made in the last week to get us here.
“Don’t, I’m not what you think I am. I—”
“I was right, you bastard!” Ollie exclaimed. In his drunken stupor and
one clumsy movement, he yanked off my hood, exposing me to the room.
“The Light is back! She’s going to get it back!”
It was too late. I pinched my eyes together tightly, thinking I might
disappear if I tried hard enough. Of course, I did not, and the entire barroom
shifted their attention from the fight and onto Ollie and I. Aconitia’s head
whipped towards us and I saw the moment she marked me as prey. Kalen
must have seen it, too, because he lunged with fury at the nymph, slashing
her across the thigh with his short sword as she stood distracted. Her silvery
mouth opened wide, but she did not wail. Instead, her pained features
melded into a look of excitement, of thrill. Aconitia lowered her head, bent
at the knees, and began to stalk her opponent. Kalen remained calm but I
could almost feel the dread seeping out through the sweat pebbling at his
temple. Aconitia sprung forward, extending her arm in a draw cut aiming
for his side. My heart stopped, if only for the time being, while they traded
shots.
Despite the fear I felt, part of me was in awe. I thought I’d seen enough
fighting to last me forever in the Well, but the whole thing was disturbingly
entertaining. Aconitia moved like water through an aqueduct, a consistent
flow of technique and angling with the occasional spurt of energy as she
moved to strike. Kalen took the defensive, dodging and shoving stools and
tables in front of him for cover. He even chucked a few dishes at her head.
Whenever they met again in the center, the nimble woman made the
Preserver look rather clumsy.
As he leaped at her, she feinted, refusing to meet metal with metal.
Instead, she focused on his side, an invisible spot she’d marked and kept
coming back for. Somehow, Aconitia knew that he was wounded there. As
Queen of Poisons, maybe she could smell the Silverwood on him as it
festered subtly beneath his scar. However she knew, she did not waste her
time trying to make a fresh cut because of it. If she could play the long
game, one hit to his side would leave Kalen crippled and at her mercy.
Growing tired of the cat-and-mouse affair, the onlookers began to jeer at
them, egging them on and hoping to garner either’s attention long enough
for the whole thing to be settled. Sensing this, Kalen moved in on her again,
and this time, their blades clashed. The middle of Kalen’s sword rested on
the thick base of Aconoitia’s weapon. A tense silence followed, and only the
sound of their weapons straining against each other vibrated out into the
room. They stared each other down, grunting and puffing, trying to hold
steadfast while simultaneously searching for the other’s weak spot. This
could be over in seconds, I thought, if Kalen would just summon the Light.
Distract her long enough, spook her even, into surrender. I knew he
wouldn’t do it, and my throat clenched to think of why. Kalen would not
risk exposing me even more than had already been done, and summoning
the Light would remove any doubts as to who we were and why we were
there.
It was the residual guilt I felt, for having been the cause of the decision
to snuff his powers, that had me reaching for my only weapon. The dagger
Kalen had given me in Leoth. The blade that had burned against the inlet of
my thigh since we left the safe house, that had felt so heavy as I walked
mile after mile thinking about what I had done the last time I wielded one
like it. It was for Kalen, I told myself, that I would raise my dagger against
another, again.
The gills on Aconitia’s neck bubbled and then wrinkled tight against
their slats as she took one last breath, holding it to parry the point of
Kalen’s sword until it brokeaway, and tore into that wound she’d been
determined to reopen. Kalen’s strength in his stance began to buckle and his
feet began to slide backward on the floor. One more push from Aconitia and
this would all be over. Through the pounding of blood in my eardrums, I
heard the gasps from onlookers as I sprang from my place on the sidelines
into the makeshift ring.
At my interception, all mortal hell broke loose.

OceanofPDF.com
OUR CAPTORS WERE SURPRISINGLY
accommodating, allowing us to be escorted back to our lodgings and gather
our things once they handed us our arses inside the tavern. They even let
Kalen and I saddle our mounts before binding our wrists to the tack with
boat ties steeped in the ash of Silverwood.
As we rode in silence, I was sure that the gag in Kalen’s mouth was the
only thing keeping him from tearing into me. I bit down on my own
restraint, the wound I’d procured on my leg sending a sharp jolt of pain into
my hip.
The mare’s coarse trot along the vast expanse of sand was doing nothing
to ease the sharp tingle of poison in my blood. Nor the sting of
embarrassment, which was arguably becoming worse than that of the
cut. The only thing keeping my pride intact was the knowledge that I’d put
up a good fight—albeit a short one.
Before my feet had touched the ground, Aconitia had broken blades with
Kalen, the force of her weapon curving outward and slicing the skin of my
thigh. I fell to my knees, the fast-acting agents of her poison ripped through
my veins, rendering my leg practically lame.
I managed to pull myself from the bar floor and sock my fist into the side
of the nymph’s mouth. She replied with a heavy hand of her own which
admittedly, was better aimed than my throw had been. The world swayed
back and forth, my dizzying head allowing me to blurrily bear witness to
two Merlords as they lunged at Kalen. Aconitia’s posse tackled him to the
ground and pummeled his face with their fists. With Kalen restrained, there
had been no point in fighting and the spectacle I’d summoned ruined any
possibility of our escape.
In short, I had mucked the whole thing up. But I’d gotten in a punch, and
no matter how much trouble I was in with Kalen, I couldn’t hide the busted
smile that frisked the cloth of my bindings.
 Far into the distance, the sun breached the edge of the world, slowly
filling the night sky with a pale, yellow ember. The sand turned from grey
to the color of flaxseed and the black tides slowly faded into a shimmering
teal. Had I not been in such a sour mood, I would have admired it a great
deal.
The way the waves lapped onto the morning shore, the sound of gulls
crooning above the mist, silhouettes of the city hugging the curved horizon.
The only thing missing from my sight was any indication at all we were
nearing the castle.
Despite the inn’s close vicinity to the palace, we had been at it for hours.
If someone didn’t tend to my wound soon, I was sure I’d fall off my horse
—dead. I knew I was catastrophizing, but the combination of Aconitia’s
poison draining down my leg and the heady feeling sinking into my brain as
I breathed in Silverwood had been doing some sort of lethal dance in my
system. Immortality aside, I was becoming wretchedly ill.
In fact, I was so ill that I barely noticed the blast of air shattering around
us as we breached a glamour. The magic was so potent that the salt air
smelled of rusting metal for the brief moment we walked the plane between
it. I wrinkled my nose and then gaped at the monument that had been
erected in front of us from out of thin air. Two towers reached upward to the
clouds, their domes forged in coppery metal. The sun glanced off each of
them in a halo, like a message from the Mother that this was a blessed
place.
The Palace was crafted from the Four Winds, each summoned for Ione by
Thesion when she was crowned queen. A gust from each cardinal direction
created such pressure that the beach had no choice but to bend its knee and
pledge allegiance to the new High Mer. That was the story Aconitia recited
at least, breaking the silence. Her lackeys grunted in affirmation as they
trotted at her flanks.
Taking a closer look, I thought it may have been true. The fortress walls
looked to be made of plastered sand, a beautiful color of beige that
glistened as if the Sea had just washed away from it at low tide. Broken
chips of shell were molded along the corners where the beach met the castle
in all shades of coral and peach. Of course, the palace was far enough
inland and behind so many protective dunes that the Sea would never reach
it unless called for by the High Mer herself. Stiff reeds of grass sieved
through the dry beach floor, tall enough to tickle my legs as we made our
way to the main gate.
We stood awaiting entry when very suddenly, my mare whinnied and
bucked. A tiny creature, strangely translucent, skittered across her hoof. It
paused, lifting a white armored claw bearing a deep cobalt stripe and
pinched at her heels before fleeing sideways up the steel railings. I rubbed
at her flank with the calf of my good leg. An attempt that was made to calm
the both of us, though definitely had little effect on either. With a jarring
creak, the palace gates opened and we made our way into the court of Sea.
Inside the castle, Ione joined us quickly. I sent a silent thank you to the
Mother, unsure of how much longer I could spend waiting at what felt like
the end of my life. I was groaning on and on in my head about the wound,
and from our place across each other, I could tell it was irking Kalen.
Stop listening if my whining bothers you, I thought to him in my head. It
won’t stop any time soon.
Kalen’s lips twitched underneath his gag before he winced and then
turned his face from me. Aconitia and her spies took their places on either
side of the dais. Not a single one of their muscles moved until Ione settled
into her throne, smoothed out her signature grey dress, and crossed her arms
gracefully against her stomach.
“Aconitia, release them.”
Ione’s demand rang out with regal clarity. The nymph spy stalked toward
me first, took out her blade, and stripped me of my restraints. I grimaced as
the cloth of my gag pulled skin from the corners of my mouth. Aconitia
smirked at my pain and moved to untie Kalen.
When she was finished with his bindings, she brought them to the foot of
Ione’s dais where there were two fat basins of stone and water. Tossing our
bloodied rags into the air, Ione misted them into water with a single glance.
Ashen rain splattered into the tubs. Quite a show. Finally, a Sage with some
royal flare. I grumbled, rubbing at the deep purple rings burned into my
wrists. “Thank you, your Grace, for such wonderful hospitality.”
One of Ione’s jet-black brows peaked with interest. “She speaks.”
If my leg hadn’t been leaking foamy blood onto her floor, I might have
taken the time to be offended. The wound on my thigh was becoming a
thought-blurring pain. Sensing my annoyance, Kalen took it upon himself
to be the diplomat. The Mother knew he was better at it.
“Are we your hostages, High Mer?” Kalen demanded.
Ione slowly pulled her eyes from mine. “You know, I’ve never liked that
term: hostage. It’s very biased. I’d prefer to call you my guest,” she replied.
A snide grin crept up her face. “My brother Dario wrote to me the other day,
after discovering that the two of you had passed through Grovsney, headed
to the Alto. I thought it unwise not to keep the promise I made to you in
Leoth, dear Gwynore.”
“Unfortunately, Your Grace, the promise is still yours to keep.” Ione
looked down from her throne, confused. I said as nonchalantly as I could,
“It was not my plan to step foot in Sythe—not yet, at least. Kalen and I
were headed here. According to our witch, it seems my stone lies
somewhere within the walls of this palace.”
“Your witch?” Ione’s chin tilted. I looked at Kalen as I realized my
mistake, which was just one of many I had made since last night.
“That is of no concern to you,” Kalen recovered smoothly, redirecting the
Sage’s gaze to him. “How did a piece of Gwyn’s soul end up in your
possession?”
Ione shrugged. “I suppose you are right, the witch is no concern of mine.
As far as the stone goes, I haven’t a clue what you mean. I’ve not seen it,
though you are more than welcome to go pilfering through the dunes of my
estate.”
I scoffed, open-mouthed. “Turning over shells on your beaches for our
own amusement. What, are we children?”
“No, you are ants.” Ione sat forward, resting her delicate knuckles
beneath her chin. “Below my eye-level, pesky yet impossible to stomp out.”
“Oh, I’d love to hear what you mean by that, High Mer,” Kalen’s grin
widened, the burns around the lower half of his face only accentuating his
taunt. Ione was not phased.
“You are to stay in my castle, under the protection of my guards, for
however long it takes you to retrieve your stone. After which time you will
be promptly escorted back to Leoth, and if I catch you entering my territory
again,” she paused, looking both Kalen and me directly in our eyes, one at a
time. “I won’t hesitate to make good on my other promise.”
At that, she took her eyes away from mine and began to stand. With that
gentle flap of her wrist, four servants circled us, two males for Kalen and
two females for me. I looked at my arms which were now in the handmaids’
unnaturally strong grips and back to Ione in alarm.
“You will take dinner with me, tonight. Once you’ve had time to rest and
clean up,” she ordered. “The two of you look like alleyway drunkards and I
don’t entertain that sort of depravity at my court.”
I saw only the black crown of her hair as she sauntered down the long hall
behind her throne.

“IS YOUR HIGH MER always so...gracious?”

I bit out the last word as my handmaids poured yarrow into my freshly
cleaned wound. To my embarrassment, the cut across my thigh was not as
deep or as gruesome as it had felt less than an hour ago. Now that the
poison and blood had been washed away, I could tell it was nothing more
than a superficial laceration. When Kalen asked, I would swear to him that
my leg had nearly been defleshed from its bone. Not that he wouldn’t know
the truth anyways.
“She’s usually much more deserving of the word, my lady,” answered the
younger girl— Elowen was her name. “You see, she’s in a bit of a mood.
Family drama as always, and the fact that her beau hasn’t visited her
chamber once in the last month.”
She gave a sidelong glance under frosted lashes to her companion, Myra,
who continued. “A Merlord named Tyr.” Her long pale fingers wrapped
thick green weed around my leg. The puffed skin around the cut felt like it
was on fire, but not a raging flame. More of a slowly kindled blaze. “He is
quite the rake and...”

“And of course, she knows that!” Elowen’s pitchy voice wrapped around
Myra’s.
“Of course, how could she not? He’s slept with nearly all of her personal
servants.”
“Nearly all,” Elowen bit back a laugh and I couldn’t help but smile as I
watched the two of them. Their conversation flowed with such accord, each
thought feeding off the other. I also couldn’t help thinking how absurd it
was that they were divulging their High Mer’s secrets to a stranger with
such laxity. It was so odd seeing a servant talk of their regent as one might a
schoolmate. Who knew, maybe in Aegedonia, fealty to one another wasn’t
so important. It surely didn’t seem like Ione cared much for loyalty.
“I’m sorry,” I struggled to cut in, “I’m not sure you should be telling me
anything of this.”
 Elowen gave a comforting smile. “No apologies necessary, milady,
and...”
“And we tell you about these things for no particular reason,” Myra
continued, picking up on the last syllable of her friend’s sentence with a
disorienting speed. “Just that we can.” She shrugged her shoulders, finished
tying off the braid she had weaved through my hair with a piece of teal silk
ribbon, and draped it over my shoulder. I marveled at the thick fishtail that
had suddenly sprouted from my scalp.
“Really,” Elowen said, kneeling in front of me to tie the laces of my
shoes. “It isn’t much more than that. The High Mer often calls us
busybodies, but we can’t help what we are.”
“What you are?” I tucked my foot out of her reach so that the girl might
look at me to explain, but it dawned on me before her eyes met mine.
“You’re a phame?”
She nodded with a sheepish grin. My mouth turned down before I perked
up. I didn’t want them to think I was offended so I quickly offered, “Well,
it’s just that I’ve never met a phame before, or at least I don’t remember it.”
Elowen giggled from the other side of the room where she tidied the
small mess we’d made getting ready. A pile of dresses made from the
thinnest fabrics was strewn messily across the thick white quilt on the bed,
bundles of matching ribbons and too many pairs of intricately beaded
slippers stacked neatly beside each other for easy accessorizing. Ione had
gone to great lengths to make sure I was presentable on the first day at her
court.
“That’s unlikely.” She folded one of the dresses across her midriff, pity
etched in her eyes as she tried to explain something obvious to everyone
who hadn’t had their memories taken from them. “Especially with you
being from Leoth. Most servants there are our kin, taken in by the Preserver
after the war in our homeland.”
I thought back to the Well, unable to comprehend how it could have only
been a month since we had left and not a thousand years. Kalen had warned
me that phames would be at the ball, but I hadn’t realized he had meant
from the Light faction. I’d had quite a few other things to worry about then.
Not even Rebekah had been able to focus my thoughts with mindless gossip
as we dressed for the occasion.
Rebekah.
I looked up at the two girls before me, their frames short and stout. The
curve of their high cheekbones was round, opening up their faces. Emerald
green eyes glinted with delight as their tales grew wilder and more
salacious.
While Elowen had the most colorless hair I had ever seen, purely frosted
white, Myra’s fell to the curve of her back in long black waves. Just like
Rebekah. Suddenly, everything about them reminded me of her. How they
cantered across the marble floors swiftly and with purpose. The way their
fingers were so thin, but strong, that they worked the ties and straps of my
dressings dexterously. But above all, as they chirped on around me about
who-knows-what, their voices melded into hers. I felt a sharp pang of
longing for the friend I had left behind. Was she my friend? I didn’t even
know if she had made it through the attack. Shame clenched a tight fist
around my heart for not even thinking to ask about her.
Elowen and Myra began to notice my staring, so I cleared my throat and
said as evenly as possible, “I did not know the Preserver had been so
generous.”
“Oh, come on, Gwyn.” A new voice had joined our midst. “You,
especially, should know I am most generous in everything I do.”
I stilled, my cheeks tingling with a wholly new kind of flush. Myra and
Elowen giggled as I turned to where I knew Kalen would be waiting.
My heart fluttered and I gawked at him, unabashedly. He stood in the
frame of my door with unmatched grace, leaned long and tall against one
elbow, his legs crossed at his ankles. Thin poplin slacks fell like sheets onto
the thick stone cut of his thighs. Half of his white linen top was unbuttoned,
the collar folding out towards his shoulder, exposing the broad curve of his
chest. Sand and salt from the air clung to the light fuzz that grew there.
When my eyes whisked up to his, I could see clearly the smug look he
wore. His hair was pushed out of his face into a low knot at the back of his
head, bits and pieces of blond locks falling naturally onto his strong
cheekbones. Kalen looked like he was made by the Mother himself. A gift
she brought to the Sea, and he knew it. That wherever he traveled, in each
place he was the person who not only belonged, but commanded. Standing
there at my door, Kalen could be the king of anything.
Without another word, his hand reached out with his palm facing the
ceiling, waiting for me to join him. I rose with as much grace as my
haggard body would allow, sweeping my skirt up in my free hand. I was
embarrassed enough to have been shown up in front of the handmaids, the
last thing I needed right now was to fall on these shell-marbled floors. My
new phame friends curtsied deep, once for Kalen and once for me, before
backing into the room and shutting the door. In the hallway, I dropped his
hand immediately and turned on him.
“Did you know Rebekah was a phame?” I asked accusingly, keeping my
voice low so those who lingered throughout the halls would not hear.
“What do you mean, did I know Rebekah was a phame?” Kalen looked
back at me as he began his descent down the palace stairs to the main floor.
When I didn’t answer, he said plainly, “Of course I did.”
“All this time you have been trying to figure out who is spreading the
rumor of my return and you never thought of her? A phame whom you let
befriend your biggest kept secret? Please, tell me how that is clever in any
capacity.”
Kalen winced. “Rebekah and I have an...understanding.”
“Well,” I said, stopping on the last step before the landing. “Do tell.”
“Rebekah is my...parrot, for lack of a better term. She only speaks to you
and me. We struck a deal that she was to report to me about your habits.”
“Habits?” I glowered at him, crossing my arms. Kalen shook his head and
continued. I raced on the stilts my handmaidens had called ‘shoes’ to catch
up to him. “You know you could have just asked me what my habits were.”
He flashed me a cocky grin. “That would be giving up the game.”
“I’m suddenly very grateful I never talked to her about you.”
Annoyance pinched in my chest. I’d been left out of the loop again. It felt
redundant to keep being shocked or hurt by that concept, so I just didn’t
bother.
“Why?” He asked. “What would you have said?”
“That you’re an insufferable moron who needs his arse kicked.” Despite
my harsh words, I let my arm hook through his as we reached the teal and
gold doors of the dining hall.
“I think my arse has been kicked plenty since you arrived,” he grumbled,
eyes rolling.
I sighed. He did have a point. “Would you please just escort me through
this door so I can ignore you for the next few hours?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
DINNER HAD BEEN AN unusually quiet arrangement, each
of the twelve guests only speaking when directly addressed by the High
Mer. I choked down my laughter as those seated at the far end of the
enormous dining table shouted reports of their well-being at her.
While the answer was often, “I am doing well, thank you, Your
Highness,” there was the occasional inquiry after one of the court member’s
relatives. This led to many rather embarrassingly inappropriate digressions.
I almost lost hold of myself completely when one of the court’s governesses
yelled, “Yes, my brother’s nasty rash has disappeared. I cannot be more
grateful that Your Highness had such an astute knowledge of sea lice.”
The moments of silence in between the bizarre chatter were filled with a
myriad of bell-like tones from silverware against porcelain plates and the
nearly soundless shuffle of butlers’ feet as we were served enormous plates
of charred fish, root vegetables glazed in ambrosia, and loads of sea
creatures I could not even begin to describe, even if I had the stomach to.
I averted my eyes from the little shelled things with an inexhaustible
number of legs only to find myself looking at the tiny translucent warrior
that had made his way in with our party this afternoon, his striped pincer
now laying limp against his shell. The warrior and at least a hundred of his
comrades piled up against each other with dollops of butter cascading down
their dead backs.
I couldn’t figure out which would offend the High Mer more, refusing to
eat or yacking all over her very expensive dining linen. After a few
moments of staring as everyone else made mountains of the stuff on their
plates, I caved, scooping up the little warrior and a few of his friends, and
then resigned myself to staring at my lap for the rest of dinner.
The evening began to come to a close, and I was grateful to have my
untouched plate cleared and replaced with what looked like a rather edible-
looking parfait of fresh fruit and cream. Silently, I sent a prayer to whatever
deity the little warrior might serve and hoped the nausea that roiled in my
stomach would ease.
As if everyone’s mood had immediately improved, each side of the table
fell into their own quiet conversations about this and that. I remained
pointedly unengaged. That is until my handsome companion shifted in his
chair, and I felt the overwhelming anxiety of having to attribute something
of substance to the party.
I was sitting next to what was possibly the most gorgeous man the Sea
had ever washed ashore, and the undersides of my arms began to sweat. Tyr,
Ione’s General, and frequent lover, folded his right leg atop his left knee,
leaning back as he took a sip from his wine. The curves of his body were
sensuous though he looked to be the most fit of us here. The muscles on his
chest, visible thanks to his untied tunic, contracted under his soft brown
skin as he reached his arm across the back of my chair and draped himself
arrogantly against his own.
“So Gwynore, my darling queen tells me that you are the one to thank for
that horrendous bruise on Aconitia.”
I swallowed considerably; afraid no words would surface from my
rapidly drying mouth. “In my defense, she tried to hack off my leg. I
apologize if you are offended.”
“Oh, no.” Tyr shook his head with amusement. “Quite the opposite. Being
the General, I’m partial to a good brawl. I train some of the sea folk in the
terrace levels of this castle. I thought if it were true, you might be interested
in joining us for some practice.”
I did not hide the direction of my gaze as it moved from the tops of his
curled hair to the white shine of his boots. There was nothing in his posture
that would give away exactly why he would offer to train what would be his
lover’s adversary. Under the pressure of my scrutiny, the immortal shifted
back even further into the seat, the perfect display of male bravado.
Harmless, to be sure. So, I agreed.
“Kalen has been saying I need to get back into the swing of things. So if
the Queen allows it, I would enjoy a chance to spar with you.”
“Fantastic,” he said with a playful wink. I blushed back deeply.
Tyr raised in his seat next to me, his mouth next to my ear as I held
completely still. “Just between us girls, Aconitia deserves far more than
your fist in her face,” he confessed. His voice was like molten sap, so hot
that it warmed my cheeks and so sweet that I didn’t feel I could pull away.
From his seat across the table, Kalen gave me a swift kick to my calf.
“I do apologize for taking such drastic measures, Preserver,” Ione spoke
up from the head of the table. “After hearing of your arrival into my faction,
I should have simply offered an invitation. I fear that our last conversation
left me sure neither you nor Gwynore would come on your own accord, so I
did what I deemed necessary.”
“Kidnapping us was necessary?” I couldn’t help myself. Pulling away
from Tyr’s charms, I sat up straight against my chair to look at the High
Mer. I knew I was being untoward, but that seemed to be the course among
the three of us.
“In terms of diplomacy, yes it was.”
Kalen sneered. “I won’t hold it against you, High Mer. We were on our
way to the palace, and it is nice to see that a Sage still adheres to the pomp
and circumstance of war.”
At that proclamation, Tyr straightened in his seat, his expression dead-
panning to utter seriousness. Most of the other guests also became static,
and side chatter dropped at once. For a moment, Ione’s eyes brightened
across the table.
“War,” she said in a tight voice, then licked some of the wine from her
lips. “You are certainly getting ahead of yourself, Preserver.”
Kalen didn’t miss a beat. “Far be it from me to cause alarm, but as queen
surely you can see the path we are headed down. You and your family make
a habit of disagreeing with each other which in turn makes a job of fighting
in your honor for the rest of us.”
“Yes...” Ione chewed, though she had nothing upon her tongue. It was a
subconscious habit I doubt she even knew she had. But I kept count of it as
she thought through her next words carefully. “Yes, I guess you are right,”
she conceded. “Disagreements between the Sages have been known to
cause fallout within the factions. But this particular hardship is unlike those
we have suffered before.”
“How so?” Kalen uncrossed his ankles, raising forward, curious.
“It is singular in the respect that it is a family matter. Nothing else.”
“I didn’t realize the partygoers of Leoth, and so many other factions that
attended our last ball were of familial relation.” His face, so carefully
composed moments ago, let in a small dimple at his cheek. “You must have
many, many cousins, Ione.”
The dinner party turned to each other with perplexed glances. Some of the
lords and ladies then turned their faces towards their queen, hiding their
outright confusion, but only mildly. No one, it seemed, knew anything of
what had happened in Leoth. Which was impossible.
Ione, herself, was present when the first fatal arrow had made its landing.
And even if she did not know the extent to which Leoth had been
devastated, nearly three weeks had passed since the attack. If rumor of my
return had reached the coast, then news of Sythe’s attack on the Light
faction should not have been far behind. Ione shifted uncomfortably under
the gaze of so many, and it was the only moment since I’d met her that she
seemed to cower. She looked down to her lap, refolding her dinner napkin.
The moment was fleeting, and Ione rediscovered her footing.
“I had heard rumor of a very devastating attack in Leoth,” she said, the
other’s at the table meeting her with gasps and whispered, “Oh, dear’s,” as
the she continued, “but I was not sure how reliable such a rumor was until
you confirmed it this very moment, Preserver.”
Kalen said nothing, but nodded his head and offered an undignified,
“Ah.”
“I must offer my apologies and condolences to your faction—”
“I must say I would rather you offer your support.”
Ione scoffed. “Your frustration is valid, Kalen, but you know what it is to
rule. Many suffered in Leoth, some from my faction as well, and despite the
fact she is my sister, I cannot control the Shadow Sage any more than you
can. To choose a side would be to offer Aegedonia up for retaliation. I say
that not even you would take that risk if you were in my position.”
“No. I would not,” Kalen agreed. Ione’s shoulders pulled back even
tighter against her frame. “That is, if I thought that the sacrifice of even one
of my people was worth the lives of many.”
“That is a principle by which most rule, Preserver,” was Ione’s reply. Her
hands came up from her lap, the napkin she’d taken the time to neatly fold
now crumpled in her left fist against the table. “You should know that any
of the choices I have made and will make, whether you deem them right or
wrong, are to protect my throne and my people’s livelihoods.”
Kalen did not answer, he did not need to. He was smart enough to let the
High Mer bury herself. Her words were far from an admission that she’d
had a hand in the attack on Leoth, but combined with the fact that she had
hidden such an occurrence from the noblemen of Aegedonia—from her
General for Mother’s sake—well…
The people of Aegedonia would never think anything of it, the noble
families may become suspicious, but they would hold that suspicion close
to their hearts for fear of being dubbed traitors. But Kalen…Kalen would
know. Furthermore, I would know. Even if that was the thinnest rope by
which we could hang her, Ione’s favor with her own people now hung
precariously in the balance. And a queen’s favor was her fate.
Ione of all people had to have known this. Had to have been thinking of it
all the while she stared down the Preserver, taking stock, trying to decide
whether he was worth the risk.
Her eyes hardened, and then the moment became so uncomfortably long
that it became apparent Ione was speaking to Kalen in her mind. At least it
was apparent to me. Kalen’s mouth twisted, Ione chewed again on that
nothingness sitting heavy upon her tongue and the silence began to tense
and coil and suffocate, and—
“Oh! By the Mother! Oh! Oh! Oh!” Ione’s cook lady burst through dining
hall doors from the kitchen, her wide hips knocking around the guest chairs
as she hopped and skipped and jumped, one stocky leg lifted in the air. The
woman’s cheeks were doughy and beet red, her hair had slipped from her
bonnet and the extreme stretch of her eyes caused immediate alarm across
our small party. Those of us who hadn’t been cast from the table by the
sweep of the cook’s skirts, stood immediately from our chairs to see what
had caused the fuss.
I had the urge to stay seated and catch my breath from our terse
confrontation with the High Mer. But when Kalen rose from his chair, so
did I.
The whole party crowded around the woman, making difficult work for
any onlooker, but once I finally had a good look at the scrimmage in the
corner of the dining room, I slapped my palm over my mouth to avoid
bursting out with laughter. Hanging on by the strength of one buttery claw,
was the tiny warrior, his spindly legs jerking and twisting in an attempt to
crawl up the cook’s calves. She howled and screamed, as he pinched and
snapped.
Before anyone could count to five, the woman fell stiff to the floor in
agony, some of the Lords rushing to her side in chivalry. A hiccup passed
from my lips through my clenched hand, and I turned my face quickly from
the cook and the crab.
Noiselessly giggling, I brushed at the skirt of my dress just to be sure. As
the silk settled, I felt a prickling sensation fall over me. It fizzled in the tips
of my ears and wisped down my spine. When I looked up, my eyes found
Ione’s. The High Mer was completely ignorant of all the commotion.
She was staring at me.
I swallowed and wondered what it would be like to drown in the middle
of a crowded dining hall. Unpleasant to be sure.
“Such a sight!” Tyr jeered with a sugary tone, leaning into the Ione, his
shoulder nudging her arm, putting a brief stop to our moment. The General
gave her a sly expression, one that begged her to join in on the fun. The
High Mer smiled at him, like one might smile at a child just to satisfy them,
before she set her eyes on mine once more.
“Such a sight indeed,” she said.

OceanofPDF.com
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU spoke to her that way.”
My fist hit the palm of Kalen’s hand with an embarrassingly soft thud. I
wasn’t nearly as strong as I should have been. Or at least as strong as I
thought I would have been by now. I’d been practicing punching Kalen in
various hard spots of his body for the last two weeks and still, my throws
were no greater than that of a new Guardian, according to the Preserver.
I wanted to remind him of the time I’d had him on his knees in the middle
of the Well, but I knew what he would say to that. You caught me by
surprise. I pummeled his chest with all of my might. He barely winced.
As if things could not be worse, there had been no sign of my stone
anywhere in this indecently large castle. Not that I had proper time to search
yet. Tyr hovered over me every chance he got. Especially during training,
when he spent hours complimenting my form or asking to correct it. Kalen
stared holes into his back every time his slender fingers drifted down my
waist to direct my center. I felt bad for the Preserver, but it didn’t hurt to
make friends with the enemy. Regardless, this was the first training day that
Kalen and I were truly on our own.
A new section of recruits had come from every corner of Aegedonia to
learn from the general. Twenty red-faced boys who believed wholeheartedly
that to become men, they must offer themselves up as fodder for the greater
good of their faction. They didn’t know that only immortals had enough
time on this earth to grow up and grow well, and sometimes even that
wasn’t enough.
“I can’t believe you flirted with Tyr right in front of me,” my punching
bag finally said. For only a second, his breathing labored as he switched up
the combination we were working on. Kalen clicked his tongue twice, a
signal that he was about to start hitting back. I nodded and began to add in
the footwork he showed me.
 “Accepting his invitation to train is hardly flirting,” I grunted. Kalen
swung his right fist high, aiming for my cheek through to the space behind
me. I ducked at the last second with wide eyes. “You really almost just hit
me?”
“You ducked.”
“Kalen!”
“Accepting his invitation is flirting if you are planning to neglect your
training partner.” Kalen deflected, taking his turn to defend himself, though
he’d seen my uppercut the second I’d thought about it. Dirty cheat. His fists
closed tight around his temples, his right shoulder jutting forward just so as
I came in from my left. Kalen let out a hearty laugh when my fist hit the
meat of his arm.
“I wasn’t going to go without you. But now that I know you’re a jealous
oaf, I might take the general up on his offer for private lessons.”
A gruff snarl came from Kalen’s throat as he dodged another of my
fruitless assaults. I tried again, swinging my fist to his nose. Kalen caught it
easily with an open hand, wrapping the other around my wrist and pulling
me against his chest.
“Does this sudden attraction to the General have anything to do with the
fact that I won’t tell you what Ione said to me at dinner?”
Kalen’s magic drifted out to me. The sweet tang mixed with the sweaty
smell of him and punched me right in the face. My heart began to thump
wildly beneath my ribs and not because I’d been kicking and swinging at
him moments before. I steeled my mind, drawing it to a blank so that he
wouldn’t see all of the Truth.
“No,” I said calmly. “I’m not one to make friendships out of spite.”
Kalen’s cheek tugged up with a smile. He pulled me tighter against him.
“Anything he can do, I most certainly do better. Or don’t you remember,
Gwyn?” he asked quietly, his powers flickering in the air around us.
My eyes scoured his face which was too close to mine now. A drop of
sweat fell from the space between his brows onto his mouth. Kalen pressed
his lips together, ridding the droplet with his tongue, his teeth scraping
lightly against the bottom lip as he watched me. I stopped breathing if only
so my chest wouldn’t brush against his when he looked at me like that. If it
did, if we touched just once more, I was sure I would drop to my knees in
the middle of this sandpit and let him remind me of all the things he did
exceptionally well.
 It had been too long. We were so busy looking for my stone that other
things had to be neglected. Not to mention Ione had stowed us away in
separate rooms several halls apart. If we ever did steal a moment to
ourselves, the only relief we found came in a violent smash of lips and teeth
in hidden corridors. It was never enough.
With Kalen, anything less than more was never enough.
“I’m going to take your silence for a yes.”
Before I could protest, my feet flew out from under me, my back
smacking against the pressed sand floor below.
Every ounce of air I’d had in my lungs escaped me at the impact. Kalen
snickered above me, and I realized that while I was caught up in all the
dirty thoughts I could possibly think about him, he bested me. Kalen began
to reach for me but was intersected by a familiar set of beautifully soft
hands.
“Are you alright, love?” Tyr’s honey voice settled over us like an
enchantment as he grasped my arms and pulled me to my feet.
I put on my best smile. “Yes, General. Thank you.”
“Of course, Gwynore. I could never let a woman as lovely as yourself be
laid out in the ring,” he said, looking over at Kalen. As their eyes met, a
silent challenge passed from Tyr’s mind to the Preserver, who he now
seemed to view as an unworthy opponent. If only he knew. I was never one
to be fought over, and I definitely wasn’t as enraptured by him as the High
Mer. I dropped my gaze to straighten out my clothes, ridding my leather
pants of a million flecks of salt.
That’s when I saw it.
My eyes flew back to Tyr, trying not to give myself away. I said as
sweetly as possible, “That is very kind of you. I wouldn’t want to distract
the recruits from their training with my clumsiness.”
It was the answer he was looking for, one of feminine remorse for simply
existing and unearned praise on his part for simply not being an arse.
“Speaking of which,” he nodded towards the congregation of young
seamen who were gawking at us. “I’ve got to get back. Somebody has to
deal with those untrained guppies.”
I let out a half-hearted laugh.
“I’ll see you tonight.”
Tonight. I’d nearly forgotten about the ball Ione had organized in Kalen’s
honor. She made sure to promise that my attendance was not mentioned. I
wasn’t necessarily traveling in secret to go kill the Shadow Sage anymore
but inking my name at the top of the invitations would not have helped my
attempt at keeping a low profile. Tyr gave me a wink as he passed to leave.
Immediately, I went to stand by Kalen, who was again staring a death wish
into the back of Tyr’s head. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have the patience, or
the time, to coddle a grown man.
Once Tyr was out of earshot I grabbed Kalen by the shoulder and pulled
him to my side.
“Kalen,” I panted, still out of breath from my fall. “Whatever happened to
your dagger? The one you kept in the war room at Leoth.”
Kalen looked at me as if I’d grown gills. “How would I know? It
probably got shanked into one of the Guardians after we ran.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think it did.”
I turned from him, my gaze returning to Tyr and the weapon I’d spotted
hanging from his belt as he’d helped me off the training room floor. The
gem in the hilt was filled with violet magic, churning like a cosmic
maelstrom. My lungs deflated; my arms began to tingle with energy.
There you are.
The stone flashed again in a glorious reply as Tyr paced amongst his
recruits.
“Gwyn?”
“Tyr has my stone,” I said and felt Kalen step back in confusion. “On his
broad belt,” I explained, still not looking at him. “The dagger—your dagger
—with my stone in its hilt.”
“That’s impossible. If my dagger had your stone, I would have known.”
Kalen moved quickly to my shoulder, his chest brushing against my back.
I shivered despite myself and tried to focus on the sudden change in his
demeanor. Kalen’s voice had grown thick with some feeling. Guilt?
“Not exactly,” I lowered mine to a whisper as I looked back to him, afraid
of what he may think as I confessed, “I think it just revealed itself to me.”
“How would Tyr have even lain sight on my dagger, let alone steal it?”
“How do you think? I saw Ione tossing it around the night the Sages came
to Leoth. She gave it to her lover, clearly.”
“But why?” Kalen said back, still refusing to believe Ione was
responsible.“Why would it reveal itself to you now?” His eyes held mine,
flicking back and forth as he searched for answers behind them. He could
not find the truth there.
 Neither could I.
“I don’t know,” I said, glancing back at Tyr. This time, he looked right at
me, as if he’d felt my frantic mind sweeping over him. His mouth slowly
formed into a grin. Tyr knew very well what I wanted from him, and the
sharp corners of his smile dared me to come and take it. “Maybe I wasn’t
ready before.”
“Okay, but listen,” Kalen wrapped his hand around mine, the rough tape
around his knuckles drew my attention back to him. His Light flared, the
magic cautioning us both. “We can’t just go up there and ask him about it.
No one besides Ione and her gang of spies knows exactly why we are
here.”
“You’re right,” I sighed. I hated to admit that, but I often had no choice.
“Now is not the time to pick a fight with a Merlord. But I have an idea.”
Kalen’s brows shot up. “Oh?”
“Tonight, at the ball. I’ll get it back from him.”
As if it would be that easy.
“How exactly do you plan to do that, Brave Gwynore?”
I gave him a nasty look. He knew how much I hated the nickname
everyone seemed to know about. Even someone as distant from me as Tyr.
Though I would admit I kind of liked the way he said it. On everyone else,
the title seemed to come off as one of nobility. A well-deserved epithet I
couldn’t remember earning.
But when the words tumbled off the General’s tongue, it seemed almost
suggestive, maybe even sensual. Then again, everything he said seemed to
suggest something worth blushing over.
My mouth turned up, and I was sure my cheeks actually reddened as I
made up the plan in my head. It was going to be the least fun I’d ever had
but finding my way back to my soul would not come without sacrifice.
Even if it meant handing myself over to the ballroom floor.
“You hate dancing,” Kalen said, breaking my focus. I turned to him; eyes
wide. I wished there was an enchantment I could learn to keep him from
inviting himself into my thoughts.
“I also hate when you read my mind without permission.”
“I wasn’t.” He scrunched his nose, offended that I would even suggest it.
“You hate dancing. It’s just something I know about you.”
Yes. That’s right. Because he knew me and I did not.
“The scholars of Leoth must have been pretty nuanced when they wrote
that book about my life.”
“Or you’re just easier to read than you think you are.”
Across the room, Tyr’s recruits spread out, forcing Kalen and me to the
edges of the training pit. I let my back press against one of the white stone
monoliths that formed a large circle around the ring and I looked up into the
cloudless sky.
Aegedonia’s sky was purest shade of blue I had seen anywhere on the
Continent, like the sky and the sea poured themselves into each other,
taking and giving until you couldn’t tell where one stopped and the other
began.
“That’s beside the point,” I whispered to Kalen. “Do you think it will
work?”
We were far enough away from Tyr and his troops, but not far enough to
ward off the flies on the wall, or the crabs in the sand, I supposed, that
could still be listening.
“What? Your plan to flirt with him all night long, ply him with alcohol,
and then dance him into a drunken stupor for just long enough to steal the
dagger back?”
I tilted my chin down at him in jest. “So you were listening?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
Kalen stuffed his duffel with our supplies, clearly eager to be anywhere
but the training ring. He hefted it across one of his shoulders. “Yes, the
gods-damned plan will work,” he grumbled and flipped an obscene gesture
my way.
I laughed, truly, for the first time in so long. Tyr’s men stared, but I didn’t
pay any attention, enjoying the sound as it spilled out of me.

THE GODS-DAMNED PLAN was not working. Perhaps I

had given too much of myself away earlier in the training room, or maybe
my ego had been so inflated by the general that I didn’t realize his flirtation
was all just a tease. Whichever it was, Tyr was pointedly ignoring me
tonight.
I stood hidden behind the curve of the dais, where Ione surveyed the
revelry before her. I watched, grateful that I was not asked to join her at the
top, seated a step below her throne as a guest of honor like Kalen had been.
She’d allowed me not keep cover, for reasons I was completely unable to
grasp.
Ione was not my ally, but with the threat of my identity hanging over my
head like a constant cloud, I didn’t feel inclined to question why she agreed
to keep my presence a secret from the larger population of her faction.
From the look of it, Ione had gone to great lengths to celebrate the
Preserver’s arrival. Hundreds of guests drifted in and out of the throne
room, lining up to the foot of Ione’s throne to give thanks, and then wading
out to the center to indulge in food and drykkja. Most of the party-goers
were members of the High Mer’s regime: royal merchants, Merlords,
esteemed privateers, and the like. However, some citizens who lived close
to the castle walls had journeyed to enjoy the palace they helped sustain.
The dress of the middle class was only one of the ways I could tell these
guests apart. The clothes were sturdier, built to last. Color palettes were
darker shades of teal and blue, like the deepest parts of the ocean they came
from. Looking at them, I felt rather immodestly dressed in my pearly silk
dress, but I was grateful for my deep neckline and the panels that cut across
my side. If there was one thing absolutely un-enchanting about this faction,
it was the heat.
My skin constantly felt like it was coated in a gloss, attracting every bit of
sand that floated through the air. The only relief I had found tonight was in
the frosted flutes of alcohol that some server or another kept shoving into
my hands whenever they were spotted empty.
Lifting the drink to my mouth, I let the cool glass send beads of
condensation over my painted lips and watched the entertainment. In the far
corner, acrobats beat huge drums made from teakwood stained a vibrant
red. The dancers jumped around on the tips of their silk-shoed feet. In one
hand, they held streamers in sheer cloths colored blue and purple and green,
which were twirled erratically around their bodies. In the other, large
wooden mallets were gripped tightly and landed with a force that seemed
nearly impossible for their petite frames to strike with. I tapped my feet
along to the music, the sound of the drums beating me into a deep, mindless
daze.
I wasn’t long into my ruminating when two warm fingers pressed into the
skin of my left shoulder. When I looked, no one was there.
 Odd.
Growing rather uncomfortable, I pulled my shawl up to my neck.
“Great plan, Gwyn.” Kalen laughed as I yelped, nearly jumping from my
skin at the clear sound of his voice in my ear. I offered him a roll of my
eyes, crossing my arms as he straightened beside me.
“It’s not my fault Tyr is ignoring me,” I said, still fidgeting. “He knows I
want the dagger.”
“And what? You plan to stare at him all night until he hands it over?”
“No.” Kalen glanced at me sideways, waiting, so
I huffed, “I just haven’t figured out exactly what I am going to do, yet.”
“What you are going to do...” he replied, voice growing a little more
demanding than I was comfortable with, “...is march over to our friend, the
General, and make him pay attention.”
I took a peek up at Kalen, who was already looking down at me. The cold
in between our shoulders melted slightly. “I didn’t realize you had such
confidence in my social skills.”
“Social skills, no. But you on the whole...I have never been more
confident in anyone else.”
Just like that, I was alight.
I studied Tyr from across the room where he stood at one of the
refreshment tables, laughing with the other officers. The men were newly
anointed Merlords, who had completed their training prior to tonight’s ball.
Each wore the silver embroidered sashes of their new regiment pinned with
Ione’s serpent crest. Their shoes had been shined so brightly I could almost
touch up the rouge Mary had painted across my cheeks in the reflection
from where I stood. Their hands sat loosely on their weapons as if to remind
the party-goers that power was something that slipped easily from its
holster.
I ground my teeth watching them laugh and look around the room and
think themselves so important.
“Okay,” I said, turning my back on the party. “But I’m going to need your
help.”
Kalen shrugged. “I figured.”
Minutes later, I was walking up to Tyr, his attention turned to the rows of
champagne flutes. Picking up one of the frosted glasses, I moved to his side
without notice. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and in one movement
of my arm, like a door upon a hinge, I swung for the dagger. In less than a
second Tyr’s hand latched itself onto my wrist, his attention still on the figs
he’d been gathering in his other palm. Icy blue eyes slid over mine, chilling
me from my core to the hard pulse of my wrist underneath his fingers.
“I must say, Brave Gwynore. I’m flattered, but women usually ask my
permission before going that low on the belt.” He lifted our hands like
evidence, cheeks dimpling.
I snatched my wrist from his. “I thought we were beyond asking, General.
Seeing as you have something that is mine hanging from your waist.”
The Merlords around him snickered at the innuendo and Tyr’s mouth
gaped with both surprise and delight. He hadn’t been expecting me to play
the game.
“I would be remiss in my duties to the High Mer to just hand this over,”
he said, patting the weapon at his hip twice before he took my hand again,
more gently. Tyr brought it to his lips, placing a kiss just above my
knuckles. Not a quick brush of his lips, but something more sensuous and
lingering. Smirking, he said, “But I’d say a good tumble with you might
convince me to do just that.”
I could feel my cheeks ablaze from his touch and the suggestion. From
his corner below the dais, I practically heard the tremor of Kalen’s bones
against one another as he tried to subdue his anger. Before I could help
myself, my mouth tugged up into a smile.
I sat into my hips, pulling my left foot up until the inside of my thigh
brushed against Tyr’s, fully aware of each set of eyes on the movement.
Especially the High Mer’s. Tilting my head to one side, I opened up the soft
flesh of my neck to Tyr. I stifled my amusement as I heard a single breath
hitch in his throat.
“I hear, lately, that you are often remiss,” I said as flatly as possible,
“when it comes to your duties to the crown.”
A chuckle rose, deep and hungry from his armored chest. “Those gods-
damned phames.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, in what was a test to see who
would back down first. Tyr had nothing to lose if he let me have the dagger.
I had everything to gain. He was thinking it, too, and that satisfied look on
his face assured me he would do anything to keep me from getting my
stone. I don’t know how long we looked at each other, but the room had
quieted around us. Now was the only moment to make my offer.
“What of a dance?” I asked, batting my lashes. “I’ve been very rude, and
would love to take a turn with you to set it right.”
Tyr’s devilish smile widened. “Only if my queen finds us well-matched.”
I looked to Ione, who was not nearly as angry as I thought she would be.
“Oh, I find you two to be quite matched,” she said, lifting her chin to
speak clearly to us from her throne. “Please, if your will is to dance until
your feet fall off, you know I cannot stop it.”
As Tyr took my hand, circling us around to the center of the ballroom
floor, the High Mer looked down at me. Her face remained carefully
composed, her eyes were trailing us as if she were a spectator and not a
queen. Ione wanted me to think she did not care if I twirled about in her
lover’s arms all night. I couldn’t be fooled. The dullness of her cheeks was
overcast, but her eyes were a storm. How she hated the very sound my
lungs made to breathe. And after I had my stone and had taken the Light
back for Leoth, she would hate me even more. Tyr was the first of many
things I was going to steal from her.
At least I planned to give him back.
The music began. A rich moan of violin strings rose as they moved
against the player’s bow. Tyr and I bowed deeply to one another, and this
time I did not let my chin down in womanly deference. I refused to let my
gaze drop from his as he cupped his hand under my arm and hung it at the
nape of his neck. My fingers drifted into the firm curls of his hair, scraping
my nails lightly until I was sure his skin had risen with chills. I rested my
other hand across his muscled shoulder, gripping him with just the right
amount of pressure to make his head swim. It was clear that I was feeling
him up, and I let him feel me just the same.
His hand explored the width of my hips and caressed the curve of my
waist as he drew it to my back. He looked down, distracted by the feeling of
my skin through the cutout panels of my dress and I took the opportunity to
let my nose drift across his cheek. A shiver rippled down his back, and I
smiled.
This was a duel, I thought. One for honor and soul.
The hum of the strings stopped suddenly, then changed pace, melding
with a melodic percussion that propelled us across the ballroom floor. Tyr
was light on his feet, the steps moving through him without any effort as he
pulled me along. I did my best to keep up, but as Kalen said, I hated
dancing and it was becoming obvious I had not taken any training in the art
form in my previous life. My legs kept their line, but I tilted at a clumsy
angle each time we shifted position. Tyr watched me, amused, as he seemed
to notice the crease along my forehead, a telltale sign of intense
concentration and my shrinking confidence. His shoulders slacked as his
own confidence grew. I did not know this dance. I hardly knew anything at
all, and I had the sudden thought that I was perhaps the most idiotic girl
alive.
Frantically, I searched the room for Kalen and found him quickly. He
gave me a small nod of encouragement, his hands holding steady his sword,
fingers tapping along the metal hilt in time to the music. I took a breath and
closed my eyes. I could do this, I thought, picturing Kalen’s count of the
beat and giving numbers to it in my head. I found the sequence easily, and
the rhythm spread from my toes into my center almost immediately.
I opened my eyes again, and Tyr was looking at me with inextinguishable
curiosity. I stepped forward as he took his leading step back, finally easing
into the count without much thought.
My grip on his arm squeezed tighter as I pulled him to my chest, putting
my lips against the shell of his ear. “Mind if I take the lead?”
“I’ve been waiting all night, Gwynore,” was all he replied.
Quickly, I switched our hand placements; laying my palm against his and
clapping my other hand over the curve of his back. Tyr gasped, and I prayed
he wasn’t reacting to how sweaty my skin had become.
I twirled us around at a dizzying speed, taking wide circles across the
floor and trying not to trip over the tail of my dress as it fanned out around
the two of us. Other dancers hopped awkwardly out of our way, some
taking considerable leaps in the opposite direction to avoid our barreling
sashay.
The music swelled, cymbals crashed and the bass line stomped us through
the crowd. I peered over the collar of Tyr’s uniform and sighed to see the
shining flash of mother-of-pearl inset in the dais stairs. Moving my feet
even faster, I pushed through the crowd. Tyr’s face was a mixture of relief
and shock as I careened us to the foot of the steps, spun him out to my left,
and yanked him back to me. As the curve of my arm caught his neck, I
dipped him low, and the whole room cheered at the spectacle. That was, of
course, before they saw The Preserver, leaning over Tyr with the blade of
his longsword to their general’s throat. I looked at Kalen, our faces level to
one another, and he winked.
“I hate to be the prude,” Tyr said below us, his chuckle quavering against
the weight of Silverwood. “but I’m a firm believer that three is a crowd.”
Kalen looked down, pressing into his weapon ever so slightly. “Not to
worry, General. I don’t find you nearly as pretty as she does.”
“Kalen,” I squeaked.
“Enough!” With the whip of Ione’s hand, the music stopped, replaced by
the sound of a roaring sea. The High Mer stepped down from her throne and
rushed towards us, a violent mist whipping at her back.
By the Light.
I sent the Tyr sprawling to the floor, the hand I was holding him with
swiping at his belt. Before I could chance any second thoughts, I ripped
Kalen’s dagger from its sheath and held on tight to my stone.

OceanofPDF.com
ALL WAS PEACEFUL IN our meadow. Even the wild mice
had stopped scrounging in the dirt long enough to listen as I read the words
of a long-dead poet to the boy I loved.
For what are the birds and the fish if not dreamers?
To live without fear among the tides and the winds.
To want only a life far beyond the high clouds.
Never needing the air to breathe again.
I closed the book, letting its hollow clap inform my dozing company that
our lesson was finished. “You know,” Kalen rolled over in the soft grass, a
playful smile dancing across his face. “I would have never pegged
Gwynore, the Brave and Ruthless, for such a romantic sap.”
He snatched the leather binding from my lap with one long arm and
squinted at the title. “A Soul Without Tether,” his lip quivered as he fought
to stifle a laugh. To his credit, he almost managed. As the snort broke out
through his nose, he buried his face into the branded cover.
I swiped at the arm propping his head up in leisure, but he only laughed
harder when his face struck the ground with a thump. His eyes shut tight
and his mind lost in our fun, I jumped at the chance to admire my dearest
friend.
He really was magnificent. His skin was covered in a soft sheen of sweat
as the sun beat down on us. Like oil paint as it dried against a canvas. The
soft gold strokes of his hair cascaded into the grass below him, his summer
tan fading at the cut-line of his trousers. The way his long, burnished lashes
fluttered slightly whenever my eternally cold fingers brushed the soft curve
of his side. Always on accident, of course.
It was easy to do, as we lay next to each other for hours on end.
Sometimes, I wanted to run my hands up to his chest, rest my ear against it,
and count how many times his heart skipped under my touch. But I never
did. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.
“What, no snarky remarks today?”
I looked up from the patch of wishing blossoms I’d been staring at
blankly and realized my gaffe. I straightened my back and flopped towards
the ground, so I could meet him eye to eye.
“Take all the jabs you want, Shadowson,” I said, fixing my lids to look
lax and bored. “Even at my sappiest, I can still throttle you into the ground
with one arm behind my back.” I broke out a brilliant yet threatening smile,
hoping my recovery had been convincing enough.
I thought he would laugh or throw me into one of those wrestling
maneuvers he’d been practicing in training. I would let him detain me for a
few seconds while he told me all about his fighting spirit, but Kalen just
looked away wistfully into the clouds. Small lines crinkled in the corners of
his face as he grimaced.
“Shadowson. Why do you always call me that?” he questioned without
looking at me.
I rolled on top of him and jabbed at his side with my knee, putting him in
one of the holds he’d been working on last week. Kalen struggled for a
minute, grunting and puffing hot breath on my forearm as I held him steady.
He slacked his wrists enough to wiggle out of my grip just like I’d taught
him. Then we were rolling once more, to my surprise, until I was beneath
him, both hands pinned under Kalen’s solid grasp. He looked at me,
waiting.
I sighed in partial defeat. “Because the alternative makes me want to puke
my guts out all over these beautiful flowers.” I twitched my foot
inconspicuously, gauging the space I had to work with to make a quick
counterstrike and free myself. “And I’d rather not subject our meadow to
that.”
Kalen flexed quickly, anticipating, sliding his knee up over my right thigh
to the hitch of my groin and pressing it firmly into the grass. That, I hadn’t
taught him.
“It’s improper,” he said, crouching down until his forehead brushed mine
and then hovered. He was teasing, I told myself. It had been quite a while
since he’d bested me and Kalen liked to gloat. But even so, the vein running
up my leg throbbed harder, and a delectable heat rose alongside it.
“Oh really? Who is going to tell me otherwise?” I challenged, pointedly
assessing our current position, then lifting my chin to him in defiance.
Kalen dropped his eyes and let them scour the tight space between our
bodies. They made their way back up to my throat and I swallowed, hard.
Kalen smirked.
“No one,” he conceded, pushing himself off of me and rising to sit on his
knees. “but if my father gets word that you are calling me by any name
other than his own, he’ll be sure to tell me.”
So, it was back to this, I thought. “He doesn’t own you, Kal.”
“It feels like he does.”
Kalen’s focus was glued to the patch of corn lily we’d tumbled into, his
slender fingers threading two stalks and then plucking them with a delicate
snap. I hated the frown that tainted the curves of his mouth whenever he
thought of his father.
Our hatred for The Cleaver was the thing that had drawn us together. It
seemed like decades, not years, that had passed since I’d ventured into
Sythe and found an ally amongst traitors.
Kalen was just nineteen at the time, fresh-faced, and eager to betray the
man he called Father. He’d been the best asset our espionage had acquired
in the seven years since. While I needed The Cleaver alive—for now—it
always hurt me to know Kalen often went home to a leather strap in lieu of
a warm hug.
“You know I could always fix that.” I threw my plait over one shoulder,
and leaned up onto my palms, trying to gauge the mixture of feelings that
lay behind his frown.
“Hmm, can you now?” He turned only half his face to me, still trying to
muffle the smile I’d conjured up underneath that incessant scowl of his.
“I know a couple of emissaries, who know a couple of handmaids, who
know the grounds cook at Sythe,” I reclaimed my book in one deft swipe
and held it over my face to block the sun. “Wouldn’t be too hard to slip
some Silverwood into his morning tea.”
Kalen scoffed. “Yeah, and then you’d have to deal with my brothers. The
apples never even fell from that tree.”
“If any of your brothers have a problem with it, they can feel free to fight
me themselves and taste fresh dirt.”
“All of them?”
I stilled, and the meadow grew utterly silent. It was a flippant reply, but
Kalen’s voice strained to heft the weight of a loaded question. Clearing my
throat, I lifted my book off the point of my nose and gave him a quick,
knowing glance.
“All of them,” I replied, and let the smell of freshly pressed papyrus fill
my lungs again.
I didn’t dare look at him. Whenever I did, it was like he could see the soft,
malleable spot in my immortal heart that beat so humanly for him. But I
knew he was smiling to himself, happy for my response. I felt a pang of
guilt in my third left rib.
“There is the other option,” he mused, too casually.
“I won’t have this argument again.”
Kalen rolled his eyes. “Yes. Yes, I know. Life is a gift and all that. Easy to
say when yours never stops giving.”
“I do not refuse to Yield you because I value your mortality, Kalen. A
small, human life is not all you would lose if we were to perform the Rite.
You know this.”
“Do I?”
“What is it you want from me?” I cried, tossing my book to the side so I
could look at him, though he turned his face to the side, looking at the walls
of forest surrounding us. “If I Yield you, you will die, Kalen. Yes, you will
come back immortal, but you will never be the same. Anything that I say,
you will agree with. Anything that I ask of you, you will do. Without
consequence, without want…without sound mind.”
That got his attention.
“And yet, here I lie. Mortal, and even now…” Kalen plucked a lily and
tossed it. “Anything. You know I would do anything.”
I sighed, knowing it was true. “Performing the Rite won’t take away the
possibility that I would lose you, still. I can’t—”
I can’t lose you. I’d almost admitted it, finally, and out loud. But Kalen
pulled himself from the space between my legs, and the feeling crawled its
way back into my heart, back to safety.
“Kalen.”
“I have to go.” He stood suddenly, dusted his breeches, and threw his shirt
back on. “Can’t spend all day behind enemy lines or the Shadowfaders will
start to get suspicious.”
“Wait!”
Kalen halted his step so quickly, that it was almost like he hadn’t meant to
leave at all. I rummaged through my satchel for the slender box I’d
smuggled into our meadow without him noticing.
“Happy Birthday,” I whispered, slipping the plainly wrapped present into
his large hands. Kalen opened it silently and removed the dyed cloth inside
—pale blue, for the Light faction and Kalen’s eyes.
The blade glinted off the sun in the brightest flash. Metal made of the
Otherworld always shined like that, a quick warning when it was drawn. To
remind immortals that only one thing in this world was promised, and it
wasn’t everlasting life.
“It’s forged with Silverwood,” I said and watched what little joy I had
given him dissipate.
Kalen was only turning twenty-six but already his body was aging; a faint
crease ran across his forehead, the forked impression of a bird’s foot on his
left eye he’d gotten from squinting too long under the sun. I could erase
every single one of them. He’d asked me to. Countless times. Countless
more, I had truly thought about it. Thought about how the Rite could
guarantee us a forever of afternoons in this meadow, talking and laughing
until our cheeks burned. Throwing small glances each other’s way. After a
while, one of those looks would turn into a gaze full of longing that brought
us more than our friendship ever could. I’d stop pretending we were nothing
more and I’d let him trounce me into a bed of flowers until our entire bodies
were on fire.
But in this life, where forever meant watching him die, I was a coward.
Until my work with the Cleaver was done, if it was ever done at all, I
would not Yield him. So I gave him a blade instead of my heart. An out
instead of an in. I gave him a gift that said; Stay mortal. You are meant to
live and die and hate me for it. Part of me hoped that one day he would find
a way to give the dagger right back; plunge it into my heart with frail and
withered hands, hurt me the way I continued to hurt him if only because it
would feel a little bit like the love we would never have.
The silence between us was becoming unbearable, Kalen’s thoughts about
the dagger and its meaning mirroring much of my own. He fiddled with it in
his hand, taking careful notice of the hilt’s edges and runes so that I might
not read the pain written so plainly on his face.
“I pulled some strings and got Dario to bring me a stem from the Silver
Branch. It’s a twin to mine,” I said and brandished the dagger he’d seen me
wield a thousand times before.
I had no comfort to offer him. I barely had any for myself. Finally, he
looked up at me, and I watched his pupils fight against the color of his
eyes.
“You remembered?” He said it so quietly, that I almost didn’t hear him.
The softness left me unnerved. They were just words, but there was a note
of resignation in them.
 A feeling of something forever breaking between the two of us.
“Well, you know me...” my reply came out breathy and inelegant. I
rocked on my heels to keep the feeling in them.
Kalen turned away from me, nodding once in appreciation and grasping
so tightly at the box that the tendons atop his knuckles were bone-white.
The emptiness I felt as he took his first step to leave hit me like nothing I’d
ever felt before. I should go after him, I thought. I should yank that dagger
from his hands and toss it into the deepest canyon in Leoth. But I stayed
put. I watched him go. As he crested the hill out of our meadow, I swore I
heard his voice whisk downwind.
“Better than anyone,” it said. Then he was gone, and I was sure all of it
had been a dream.

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, Gwyn?” Kalen’s voice

tugged me back to the surface of our world.
“What?” I said, turning my face towards the sound—towards him, and
felt suddenly like I was looking through a window far outside the castle.
Kalen’s eyes were gold, not blue, and the glittering flicks of moving Light
startled me for the first time since we had met. In fact, everything about him
startled me.
I looked again, slowly letting my vision reach out from the center of his
face to the hair braided around his ears. I’d never noticed he was so blond.
When he was mortal, the colors always seemed muddled together, turning
the gold streaks far duller. I reached out to touch his cheek because it was
blushed, and I remembered that was the same as it had always been.
But when my fingers met his face, I jolted back.
We felt the same. His skin was not as soft and mortal as it had been in our
meadow just seconds before. Was it seconds? No, it was a century. Kalen’s
face tightened with unease.
“You said, Better than anyone,” he replied, moving closer to me. I backed
away, feeling the breath leave my chest in a hoarse gasp as I suddenly
realized where I was...when I was.
Turning about the room I realized that we were not alone. The tall trees
encircling our meadow melted from deep evergreen to the jaded shades of
sea people. Merlords, servants, performers...they were all staring. At me, at
the ground where Tyr remained, grasping at the puckered skin around the
lower part of his neck where Kalen’s blade had grazed him. Ione stared, too,
her expression somewhere between amazement and absolute fury. The High
Mer’s hands were clenched at her sides, water dripping through the levee of
her fingers, the sea ready to burst forth at her command.
“Kal,” I breathed, my eyes so wide I could feel my lashes against my
brows. It was the first time I’d ever called him that. Well, the first time
since...
Kalen moved to my side, grabbing my hands desperately to get my
attention. But his mouth fell open and whatever he had meant to say to
reassure me would not come. Everything is okay, his eyes said, but it
wasn’t.
My chin jerked to turn around the room, looking for anything familiar to
grasp onto, but there was nothing I knew other than the dagger in my hand.
The dagger I’d gifted Kalen and hoped he’d shove into my chest. He would
never have to. I already felt like I was cut in two.
Before anyone could try to stop me, I ran from the throne room, sand
kicking up from my feet and the smell of wishing blossom wilting in my
lungs.
I can’t be here, I shouldn’t be here. I was supposed to be in the Binding
and Kalen was supposed to be mortal.
Seventy-two years.
Kalen was supposed to be dead.
Everything was wrong. I’d gone to sleep in my grove and woken up too
far away, and now there was no chance for me to go back. Two worlds lived
inside me at once. They did not fit together and they were going to tear me
apart. I ran and ran, hoping that I would be far from the castle walls by the
time they did, or else I would bring this entire faction down around me.
When the stone of the palace grounds softened into the sand, I let my legs
carry me until my muscles sunk towards the earth. My knees tucked to my
chest, my forehead hit the wet beach, ears pressed to my shoulders and my
hands clasped over the back of my neck. I panted in time with the waves.
It all made sense. Everything that Kalen knew of me, not because he read
it from a book, but because he watched me do it all; fight and betray and cut
deeply. I did those things to everyone I knew, but mostly to him.
There was a reason. An explanation. For all of it. All of the questions I
had asked that Kalen made a point to ignore. All of the lies and all of the
mistrust—the consequences of choosing myself over everyone else. Why
had I let him go at our meadow, thinking that I didn’t love him? I didn’t
want to watch him die, but he died all the same. By a brutal hand, instead of
one that he could have held. That scar underneath his chin. I’d all but put it
there with my refusal.
The tide swept in on me, lapping against my legs with a stinging cold. I
jumped to my feet at its touch. I’d been here once before, in the Binding,
when I thought that all was lost. But then Kalen appeared, and my life
began again. Did it always have to end this way? With a start, I backed
away from the water’s edge, clawing through the sand as it slipped through
my grasp and I fell flat on my stomach. Above, the moon was sinking away
from the earth, making way for the sun. I’d lain on the beach for hours and
hadn’t realized it.
Lost in time, again.
A flash caught my eye from the terrace just outside of my room at the
palace. A crown, I realized. From the sensation that ran down my spine, I
knew its wearer had set her cold blue eyes upon me. I pulled myself up
from the beach and began the long walk back.
Ione was waiting outside of my room, looking out towards the work of
the Mother, admiring the sea as one admires themselves in the mirror. As I
approached, the waters began churning with subtle angst. She breathed
through the wind that came in off the waves, her shell-colored lips pursed
together in a tight smile. I stood next to her, wishing that I could enjoy the
view without feeling desperately angry at everything and everyone.
The queen did not acknowledge my presence, so I broke what was surely
another palace rule and addressed her first.
“A dagger for your thoughts?” I asked weakly.
Ione laughed, an exhausted whinnying that puffed out of her nose. It
stunned me to hear such a sound come from her.
“I apologize if I startled you,” she said. “I meant to congratulate you at
the ball, but you ran off. I thought I’d grab some night air on the terrace
while I waited for you to come back. I became consumed with thoughts of
the past.”
I ignored her apology. It was nothing more than a formality. Ione despised
my very existence, and if I knew anything, it was that she couldn’t possibly
be sorry at all. I smiled at her, hoping she would find it genuine.
“That makes two of us,” I said. “Which stone did you touch?”
 Ione gave me a wary look and rapped her nails against the stone railing
before us, clearly engaged in some inner debate. Across the beach, a gull
careened from the dunes into the sky above the sea. It culled heartily as it
made its rounds above the waves looking for its morning prey.
“The stone of jealousy,” Ione finally answered, and I could not hide my
surprise. Jealousy? Yes, everything I had done tonight would spark envy,
but it was not a feeling I thought she would freely admit to having. It made
her look weak.
“Not over Tyr, Gwynore,” she said, clearly aware of the look on my face.
The look on hers was quite strange, her cheeks were bunched tight and her
eyes squinted, not against the sunrise, but some hidden pain.
“My sisters were always my Father’s favorites,” she said. “From the time
we were children, he strung them both along in a competition for his
affections just so he could weed out the weaker of the two. They were both
so powerful and so hard to understand. The only way he could control them
was to open them up and see what they were made of. It was cruel, but I
found myself always a step behind them, completing the same training as
them, the same studies, everything. Just so I could show him I had done it,
too.”
The blush on Ione’s face ran just across the bridge of her nose. A small
change, but one that set her in a new light. She looked younger, less rigid. A
girl who wanted everyone to see the woman she would be if they just paid
attention.
“He never noticed, of course,” she finished, straightening the sleeve of
her gown, “fathers like Thesion hardly ever do.”
Ione’s confession did nothing to soften my unease. Despite her current
vulnerabilities, I was still standing next to the person who wanted me dead
most in the world. To show empathy now felt much like cooing at a wild
beast as it drew back from you. At any moment, I knew she would strike.
“I’m sorry.”
I felt like I had to say it.
“I did not ask you to be.”
We stood there in silence. I counted the pace of her breathing until she
grew calm again, the violent rippling of water on the horizon smoothing out
until it stilled completely. The sun had risen fully above the water, edging
out the night that still lingered high above us. Our gazing stars began to
fade, replaced by the countless stares of sea people emerging from their
rooms in the palace for a full day’s work on the sand.
“You were smart, Gwyn—cunning, even,” Ione spoke up beside me.
“Leveraging Tyr’s lust, playing into his ego at the sake of your own. That
was something you would have done in your previous life.”
I would have mistaken her words as a compliment, if not for her ominous
tone.
“Will you kill me now, then?” I asked, “Because I won’t stop looking for
my stones, and I won’t stop at this shore of the Alto.”
Ione looked at me quickly, giving me a once-over and then returning her
gaze to the sea. “I have made many promises since you disappeared all of
those years ago, Brave Gwynore.” Her shoulders flinched as if to shrug.
“Some I value more than others.”
I sighed and looked down at my blade, watching the light of the dawn
glance off the metal as I flipped it in my hands, trying to figure out what her
words meant. Pondering the thousands of strategies she must have conjured
up to exact her revenge on me, and failing to see how stealing this stone
from me could possibly fit into any of them.
If she had destroyed my stone, thrown it into the depths of the sea, I
would have never been able to take the Light back. Not without my entire
soul. But all of this time she had kept my stone within my arm’s reach. And
within an arm’s throw of the dark island she forbade me from.
“Why did you steal this?” I blurted out.
So much for court manners.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Ione said without hesitation or offense. “I wished to
lure you here, to tempt you. At any moment since your arrival, you could
have very well lost your temper. Harmed someone, committed some
unforgivable act that I could punish you for without consequence. I do say I
was rather astounded that you did not kill Tyr when you found out he had
your stone.”
Bile sloshed into the back of my throat, burning. No matter how many
reminders I’d been given, the plain fact of my previous tendencies never
became easy to swallow.
“I know,” I tried, “That in my past life, my actions were not...honorable.
But I am not the same as I used to be.”
It was Ione’s turn to scoff.
“Aren’t you? At most, you have demonstrated that you can restrain
yourself, and even then, surely you understand the so-called honor you now
claim is yet a theory to be tested.”
“Then this was a test?”
Ione rubbed at her chin pensively, and signed a non-committal, “Mm.”
I scoffed. She had to have known Kalen would never let me give up so
easily. “How did I fair?”
The High Mer stared down at my stone, which was now empty, all of its
magic tucked safely back inside my soul, a tiny nook somewhere in my
heart, I supposed. The clear edges refracted tiny little diamonds of light into
the cup of my hand.
“You passed.”
Without a parting glance, her heels turned and she was gone. A light sea
mist braced my face in her wake. You passed. Both a declaration and a
threat.
I turned over the stone again, wishing I could have all of the answers and
trying not to think too hard about the fact that I still wasn’t whole.
In Cypra, Kalen had said I didn’t want to find my stones because I was
afraid of what the past would make of me. Was he right? I was acting afraid,
running out of the ball like that. The truth was I really didn’t know
anymore. I wanted to know how my life was lost, but this...this was
becoming bigger than myself.
The first stone had shown me that I was capable of destruction, of pain. I
was equally capable of love, that was clear enough from the way my heart
squeezed in tight on itself just from one look at Kalen. But when I was
pushing my sword into Abdiel’s chest, I felt strong and powerful. And
loving Kalen had felt weak and wrong. Was that why I’d let him walk away
out of our meadow knowing I would never give myself up for him?
Because I hadn’t wanted to? Who was I, if I refused to love and be loved?
Taking a deep breath, I gripped the dagger harder in my hand, brushing
my thumb over the stone again. If there were any more memories that
would help me piece together the broken thing that was Kalen and me, the
stone didn’t have them. I knew who did, but I wasn’t in the mood for that
conversation.
Turning from the terrace railing, I headed for my room.
OceanofPDF.com
MY BED WAS THE altar for my anger with me hoisted up on top
of the mountainous quilt, sacrificed to an endless night. I tossed and turned,
the frills of my pillows scratching mockingly against my face.
I had known Kalen, and he had known me. Better than anyone, my mind
taunted. The thought made me silently wail as I flipped over to my back and
pushed my hands into my eyes. Maybe if I shoved hard enough, I could rid
myself of the look on Kalen’s face when I ran from the ballroom tonight. If
that didn’t work, maybe I could hold my breath long enough to incapacitate
myself and wake up in a world where Kalen hadn’t played me for a fool
these last months.
Who was I kidding? I’d played myself for a fool.
It had never really made sense how he could have known about the
stones, about my past life, about everything. But I had accepted the half-
thought-out excuses he gave because even though it was my life, it was far
easier to let Kalen make all of the decisions. I pulled the heels of my palm
from my eyes and smacked down a pocket of air that bubbled inside the silk
of my bed.
This entire thing was absurd. Every bit. Being shoved into the Binding,
being forced out of the Binding, having no memories, having no soul,
having to find my soul and my memories which were apparently the same
thing. And above all, especially absurd was the idea that not so long ago, I
had been dragging Kalen through the heavily wooded areas of this gods-
damned Continent. That I had chided him much of the same way he chided
me now. Had refused him as he refused me.
I physically convulsed as the vision came back to me once more, less
forcefully than before but enough to make my head spin. After all of my
begging and pleading at the Sea and all of the strain in the veins of my
forehead trying to remember on the Mountain, I knew now why some
people lived their lives on the fringes of the truth. It was easier before.
Before, I could wonder what Kalen and I would become without the burden
of who we used to be to each other.
But now I did know and as much as I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t ignore it
either. I was intolerably uncomfortable about the feelings that the vision had
spawned. Hot, itching feelings causing a frenzy beneath the surface of my
skin.
I sat up in bed and wrapped my arms around my legs just to keep myself
from bursting open, wondering if Kalen was somewhere in this castle,
curled around himself. I hadn’t seen him since I stormed out of the ball last
night, and Kalen hadn’t sought me out even though he knew exactly where I
was. I’d spent the entire day in bed, watching the sun cross the sky and
trying not to think of the Light inside Kalen’s eyes. How it flared when I’d
called his name, only to be snuffed out as I turned to run.
He had saved me. So many times. And once I knew the truth about him, I
ran.
I rolled my body towards the window and was thankful to be met with the
sickle moon. I didn’t think I could handle the pull of a full moon. The
robust glow always tugged me into the past, where I’d already faced
everything I wished to forget.
A soft scuff sounded against the back of my door giving away the
presence of a silent voyeur to my confessional. I huffed. If it has to happen,
why not now?
“Kalen...how long have you been standing at the door?”
“Long enough to feel strange about it,” he admitted.
“Just come in...please.” I cringed at the edge in my voice, but there was
nothing I could do to soften it.
I turned towards the door expectantly. His shadow moved first, breaking
the space between us as he inched into my room. When Kalen’s face finally
emerged from the darkness I had to steady my breathing. He was even more
beautiful truly knowing him. Even frowning, he was devastatingly perfect.
His sleeping attire was slightly wrinkled, the pants hanging low on his
hips and the shirt bunched up at one side like he had spent the entire day in
bed, too. His hair was pulled from his face in that low bun I adored, the
gold in his eyes slightly more platinum as they soaked in the violet hues of
night. Cooler, almost blue like I remembered. His gaze held just below his
lashes, not daring to look at me directly just yet. He was afraid. My stomach
sank and burned.
I turned back to the window and pretended not to notice as his weight
shifted the bed, tilting me at an awkward angle. I could feel the warmth of
his body moving over me in subtle waves. My heart was stuttering already,
just at his proximity. I was a gigantic fool. I had felt this before so many
times since I’d come to this world. How did I miss this? We were so
painfully and obviously connected.
After an eternity Kalen finally broke the tense silence.
“I’m sorry, Gwyn,” he said, and the way he said my name made my chest
burn. I let the apology hang there in the air, too proud to admit that he was
not the one who should have been apologizing and still too angry to do the
right thing. He sighed and I could tell he was twiddling his thumbs back and
forth like he always did when he was anxious. It was still so odd, to know
what he was doing without looking. Not because he was predictable, but
because he’d had these habits for most of his human life.
“Gwyn,” he tried again, “this journey that you are on...these stones, your
soul...you’ve been apart from yourself just as long as you have been apart
from me. To have told you everything...” His hands flopped against his lap
in defeat. “I didn’t know what that would do to you or how you would
react. I couldn’t interfere. No matter how much I wanted to. You just...you
have to understand—”
That is where he lost me.
I jerked my face towards him, trying not to lose hold of my anger
completely.
“That’s just it Kal, I understand.”
He shifted back, bracing himself.
“I understand quite a few things, actually. Do you want to know what I
understand?” I took his silence as a yes. “I understand that months ago, I
was an ignorant and completely unhinged immortal who was living in a
magical little hell hole, blissfully unaware of how awful I had it. And then,
for no apparent reason at all, you came to pluck me out of the sky and throw
me into a completely different but equally just as awful alternate dimension
—to help you steal back power and hope for your people. I understand that
you put your entire world on the shoulders of your ignorant best friend and
left her to go it alone.”
Kalen gave up on his temporary vow of silence and shifted his entire
body towards me, nostrils flaring. “That’s not fair! You’ve been anything
but alone, Gwyn.”
“Do not tell me what is and is not fair!” I shouted, startling us both. “You
may have been leading me around this Continent, helping me fight my
battles and warming my bed, but I have been alone in this. You let me be
alone when you kept the Truth from me.”
The words cracked from my chest and I felt desolation wash back over
me. Kalen stared me down, expecting more brash insults and unfair
accusations, but I had nothing left. I was angry and I had fed on that feeling
until I felt nothing but the shame of it.
“I understand that you lied to me because you were in love with the girl
who went into the Binding.” My voice came to a whisper. “I understand that
you are terrified of the one who came out.”
So am I.
Kalen’s gaze dropped to his lap, and the Light in his eyes dimmed. There
it was. Everything I had never said but had been there in Truth all along.
My breathing was ragged and I tried to hold my breath so I wouldn’t cry.
Before the vision, I hadn’t fully understood how deep a cavity of doubt
and loneliness that seventy-odd years inside the Binding had eroded into my
soul. But I felt it now. How things that are lost, even suspended in time, can
be changed by the people who move forward without them. And I was lost
for so long. I felt like I had slipped from a mountain, pieces of my life
falling around me, a loose rock that I could not hold onto.
No matter how many memories I pulled from my wracked mind, no
matter how many stones I held in my hands. I would never know who I was
supposed to be. All I had left was who I would become after it all.
My body shook as I cried, even as Kalen wrapped his arms around me. It
was all too much. I couldn’t keep fighting with him and fighting with
myself. I would have to pick my battles and the game against Kalen was a
losing one.
With my face tucked into the space between his chest and chin, I sobbed,
letting go of all of my loathing, and crossing the fine line that lay between it
and the love I felt with equal measure. I didn’t stop until my throat was raw
and my eyes were dried out. Even then, my lungs heaved and ballooned
until I was drained. I forced myself from his arms and hugged my knees
back to my chest. Neither of us spoke. Another eternity passed before Kalen
stood from the bed.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled through my clogged nose. I didn’t like
the way Kalen was neatly reassembling my pillows as if I was going to
leave my bed anytime soon.
“Come on, I want to show you something.” He held out his hand. I
smacked it away.
 “No, just let me stay here forever.”
“Trust me. Please. Just trust me.”
Please. He so rarely said that word, and I think that’s why I grabbed his
hand without further question. We crept out of my room on our toes,
noiselessly stalking through the hall out toward the terrace. When we
reached the railing, I began to grow nervous. Kalen had neither confirmed
nor denied the fact that he was terrified of me and though I didn’t think he
would outright toss me over the side of the palace walls, it was probably the
most opportune time to do so.
“Gwyn,” Kalen spoke up from beside me, his brow at a disapproving
slant. “After all we’ve been through together, I hope I’d be a little more
creative than that.”
I laughed nervously and made a mental note to keep my thoughts in
check.
“Now...” Kalen pulled me in front of him so that he was holding me in his
arms again, his chin resting on the crown of my head. All that anxious
energy buzzing around in every limb quieted. A warm glow conjured from
Kalen’s skin and spread to mine. I squeaked in surprise. Kalen’s chest
shook with a burst of silent laughter before he leaned us back ever so
slightly, tilting our view to the sky. “Look up.”
If I had been sure that Ione wouldn’t send the sea to sweep me away, I
would have flung myself over the siding to the packed sand beneath us. Just
to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
“No!” I cried, turning around in his grip and smacking him in the chest.
He let me go, and I sprinted to the right of the railing as if I could get any
closer to the glittering stars that hung above us. As if I could reach out and
wade my hand through the bright hues of orange and blue and green that
had haunted my dreams each night.
Above us, between the Guiding Star and the Wane, was the Auriel.
“How?” I cried, staring back at him with wide eyes. But I didn’t even
need to ask. I knew, somehow, I knew that it was him after all of this time.
It was always him. Still, I croaked, “You?”
Kalen nodded, just the barest dip of his chin as he focused on the show of
Light above us. Softly he said, “I waited for you to return, Gwyn. I barely
slept, I barely ate. For two years, I sat in the war room and tossed that
damned stone in my hands. I didn’t know that you were in exile, that you
were never meant to come back.”
 I stilled, my hands like ice on the railing as I listened. Exile. I had not
been placed into the Binding at all, I had been sent there, without my soul.
The immortal murderess that lived in my mind was snide. Grinning. What
had she done to deserve that kind of punishment? What had I done?
“I went looking for witches, faeries, anyone who I thought might be able
to get you out. I found a box of my mother’s things in Sythe, with a bunch
of notes and scribblings. At the top of a page, next to yours, was the name,
Ayona Burnwell. I went to her in Cypra, where she was living with Gabriel
at the time. She told me there was nothing she could do—at least not right
then. The magic she required to retrieve you needed a celestial event that
wouldn’t come for nearly a century. I begged her, fell to my knees before
her, and begged as I had never done for anything in my entire life. She is
the one who taught me how to channel the Light. Against Gabriel’s orders.”
“That’s why Gabriel hates you then? He blames you for her death.”
“He blames me for many things.”
Above us, the Auriel condensed in on itself until it was the smallest ray of
Light focused on the Guiding Star.
“Ten years after I could control the Light,” Kalen continued, “we found
the Binding”
I looked at the largest jewel in the velvet night above us. So much time
had passed since I last needed its direction. Nowadays, Kalen was the Light
that took me places, and indeed the star seemed dimmer as I squinted up at
it.
“By that time, you had been gone for so long. I was immortal just like I
had wanted. But I’d never wished for that life without you.”
I thought of the dagger and Kalen’s face when he realized I would never
Yield him. That I would let him continue loving me unrequited, in hopes
that one day it would turn into hatred. Tears were threatening to carve out
rivers on my cheeks. How could I tell him what he meant to me when up
until a few hours ago I hadn’t even known myself?
“You used to look at me, Gwyn, like you wished I had never loved you.
Like it was a burden on your heart that I did, and some days, when I was so
lonely, I begged the Mother to let me stop.” Kalen turned his face from the
sky, and the Auriel vanished. “Seventy years. You cannot imagine how long
that is.”
I pried my eyes away from the empty sky just long enough to see the
silver lining his eyes. I felt mine well up, knowing that he was right. I
couldn’t imagine it, though I was starting to understand the loss between
us.
“Each decade that passed changed me,” he continued. “I grew older and
wiser and more afraid of what this all meant. By the time I reached you, I
had no idea what would be left of the girl I once knew. When I finally got
you home safe, you asked me where you were, what your name was...”
Kalen swallowed, knotting his fingers through his hair, and then he blew
out a stiff breath.
“You were right. I was terrified. So, I lied. And I told you the smallest
Truths until I found a way to lie again. Over and over and over. Because I
was not Kal, your best friend and the boy who loved you for seventy years
without seeing your face. I was the Preserver, and our people were dying. I
needed you to get the Light back, no matter the cost. Even if that meant you
would never know me again.”
Above, the Auriel shimmered, for me, I realized. Everything he had done
was for me and for Leoth. Every night, every day, I watched these stars and
prayed that they were watching back. Prayed that I was not truly alone.
Reaching my hand across the banister, I moved to Kalen’s side.
“I called it the Auriel,” I finally said. He needed to know how much what
he did mattered to me. “I watched it every night before sleep. It was the
only way I could sleep, really. When it disappeared, and you came for me…
I thought I had nothing left. I was going to…” My lips wobbled and the
words fell away from me.
“I know,” Kalen said quietly, turning from the banister to pull me into his
arms. I put my chin on his chest, needing to see him.
“It never disappeared.”
“No, it didn’t,” he said, cupping my face in his hand and rubbing small
lines down my cheek. “I had no clue you even knew I was doing it. When I
found you on that mountain and then you decided to jump rather than face
me, I...” he laughed despite himself. “I’m just really glad I caught you.”
I laughed back, and snot fell to the bow of my lip. Kalen made a face and
then offered me his sleeve. I took it, looking up at him sheepishly, and
cleaned my face. Taking his arm back, Kalen scraped his shirt against the
railing before wrapping himself back around me.
“How did you know?” I asked, leaning into his warmth as we both
watched the sky. “How did you know I loved the birds? And the fish in my
brook?”
 “I didn’t,” he replied, and I frowned.
“It was from a poem you used to read,” he explained, “It always stuck with
me.”
“For what are the birds and the fish if not dreamers.”
Both of our voices tangled in a sweet monotony and like a spell, Kalen’s
Light shot back into the sky, a glittering halo around his face as he projected
chirping birds of green and gold, leaping fish of blue.
The Auriel danced along the sky and a piece of my soul fell into place. I
didn’t need to search for its meaning. I loved Kalen a lifetime ago and no
time or space that we travelled without each other would be enough to stop
me from loving him again. I did love him. Maybe more than I had before,
even with less of a mind than when I’d first fallen for him. That was the
thing. You don’t need to know yourself to be capable of love. Sometimes,
loving someone else teaches you who you are.
Right now, with Kalen’s arms around my waist, I didn’t care if I was bad
or good. If wanting him was weak or if loving him was wrong. Let the
whole world fall to the Shadows.
I’d been dead before.
I pulled Kalen’s face to mine. The Auriel disappeared, and I laughed at
the confusion in the bend of his mouth when I kissed him.
For the first time, possibly ever in my two lives, I was unafraid.

OceanofPDF.com
NEVER BREAKING A KISS. Never pulling up for air. This
was how I’d spend eternity if I had the choice. Nothing less could ever be
enough, and anything more would make me beg for endless damnation with
him by my side. The perfect dream of death looped in my mind as Kalen led
us through the door of my room, my legs wrapped around his waist and his
hands pressing me against his body.
Kalen laid me gently onto the bed as he had on many nights since our stay
in Grovsney, but this felt different. The weight of my chest pressed down on
me as it hadn’t before. My throat felt dry and my blood thumped loudly in
my ears, rushing as he raised to pull his shirt from his body. As his
calloused hands roughly discarded my dress, my brain fell into a frenzy.
His mouth returned, this time to my neck, and my eyes fluttered shut
when his kiss mauled passionately down my throat. Kalen traveled across
the soft skin of my shoulder, then dropped down towards my navel, only
stopping to kiss and suck and nip at my breasts. I couldn’t stop the sounds
slipping out from behind my lips, as embarrassingly needy as they were.
My heart pounded excruciatingly beneath my ribs, the adrenaline it pumped
doing nothing to tamper the nerves racketing through my entire body.
He had kissed me like this before, I tried to remind myself. Had sent trails
of fire to the center of my hips with not so much as one moment’s glance.
Unraveled me with his hands and his mouth over and over again.
But that was all before.
Now I could understand clearly why he’d kept himself from me. It was
terrifying, letting him wander every inch of my body knowing he craved the
girl he thought I still was. The scars I had shown him which looked valiant
and well-earned on the Guardian, may turn out to be dull and unappealing
in the light of this moon. It was all too much—the feeling of wanting him
inside my very bones while hoping he’d come to his senses and stay as far
away as possible.
I placed a hand flat against his shoulder, halting his mouth as it reached
the curve of my hip bones. Kalen looked up, ready to do whatever I asked
of him. The sentiment made my heart ache. Lifting him gently by the nape
of his neck, I took his mouth with mine and rolled on top of him.
“Gwyn,” Kalen stuttered, but I cut him off. He had days and weeks and
years of being my best friend. All I had was tonight.
“Better than anyone,” I whispered against the curve of his jaw and
imprinted the words there with a kiss. All the while my hand raked down to
the sharp lines that carved out his lower stomach. He hissed as my fingers,
cold in comparison, traced slow circles on the hot skin just below his pant
line.
I took him in my hand, ignoring the tremor that raked down my fingers,
burying my face into his shoulder, kissing him to hide the shake of my
lungs as I moved between his thighs.
Kalen let out a throaty moan and I wanted to listen to that sound forever. I
lowered my mouth to his, not to kiss, but to bite. He grunted as my teeth
sank into his bottom lip, pulling it back slightly with a snap.
“Does that sound mean it’s good?” I laughed.
He was still watching me, and as I swept my thumb over him, he cursed,
planting his hand against his heart. “If it got any better I think I’d die.”
“I’m going to kiss you now, Kalen,” I said, and his brow bent downward,
confused as his lips left mine. I bent down, mouth traipsing over his hip
bones, planting teasing kisses on the sharp lines that carved out his groin. I
bit down lightly on the soft skin underneath, then glanced up at him as my
mouth hovered above the one place he desired. “Can I?”
“Yes,” he said, watching me as I slid my tongue against him, taking him
fully. With every movement of my mouth and stroke of my hand, the
muscles on Kalen’s stomach grew more taut. I dug my nails into them. The
feeling of him coming apart because of me was too intoxicating not to be
pleasurable. Kalen’s hand wound itself into my hair, and I moaned. Then,
with a sudden breathlessness, Kalen pulled himself from me, and flipped us
over.
“Better than anyone,” he said again. It was a simple truth between us, but
it felt far more complex hanging in the air between our notched bodies. “I
know everthying, Gwyn” he continued, taking the peaks of my breast with
his mouth, his kiss slowing, his tongue making wide, lazy circles that had
my hips squirming against his. I pressed into him, letting my thighs fall
apart ever so slightly, sliding his length through the wet heat.
Kalen hissed, “Everything,” he said. “Except for how you feel falling
apart on my cock.”
 I shuddered. Suddenly very aware of how close we were to finding out.
Desperate to know for certain.
His arms caged around me, the pace of his breath picking up with the
uneven rhythm of someone who was just as afraid to be loved as I was. He
lifted himself from my chest, his gaze meeting mine. I’d never seen his eyes
so heavy. Like he’d gotten drunk off of the feel of me and was now having
a sobering thought.
He confessed, “You never used to want me like this.”
“I want you,” I reminded him. I would remind him for an eternity. My
lips met his neck, and I whispered against it. “It’s been decades since you
last wanted me like this.”
“I never stopped wanting you, Gwyn.”
I want you. I never stopped wanting you. All had not been lost.
I was too aware of his body pressing into mine, the heat of him as he took
off his clothes and moved to hover above me, spreading my thighs with a
gentle push of his knee.
The last few minutes had been riddled with words both thought and said
that would never encompass the meaning of this moment between the two
of us. I could never tell him how sorry I was for being too scared to love
him, and how I didn’t feel any less terrified though I was sure of it now.
Kalen would never understand how his heart might beat only for me, even
after all of these terrible years between us. To speak these things would be
to live without taking this moment for ourselves.
So, we didn’t.
Kalen’s hands slid up my thigh, his fingers molding to the curve of my
hips as he lifted them. With a low exhale, he slowly spread the soft skin
covering my center, never breaking eye contact. Feeling the wetness that
slicked the hitch of my thighs, the usually slow kindle of Kalen’s magic
flared.
He pressed his forehead to mine. I wasn’t sure if I was breathing. Kalen
groaned as I cried out, our eyes trained on the place where our bodies met
as he sunk himself into me. He waited, pressing small kisses to my chest
while I adjusted to a feeling so far removed from my memory.
Every nerve in my body was alight, and as the moments passed I was a
fire, a desperate flame that begged to burn brighter and brighter. More. I
threaded my hand in his hair, wrapped my legs around his waist, and tugged
him to me. Again. And again. All too quickly, the feeling rose in the back of
my spine. Kalen’s breath caught in his throat and he swore, rocking his hips
more fervently. I needed him to look at me. I needed—
“Kalen,” I pulled at his hair, gasping. His chin lifted and he pressed his
lips to mine as I cried out. My neck craned, my muscles tightened and
coiled, pulling Kalen to the edge as I fell wondrously over it.
The poets say that in these moments, Time itself will cease to exist. But
they are wrong. Time did not stop. Instead, it pulled itself apart for me like
a spool of silver thread. Every moment extending, looping each second to
another in a long, drawn-out infinity. The print of my fingers would burn
into his back and stay there forever, his eyes drawn tight in a pleasure that
was the beginning, the middle, and the end of the world. He had held me, he
was holding me, he would always be holding me.
We stayed like that, two bodies joined together while everyone else
carried on without noticing. I could feel the Light inside him shuddering out
to meet me, tethering me to him in an inexplicable way. If I never found the
words or the courage it took to say them, I would tell myself that he was
always this to me: love unconditional, and worth any sacrifice.

“ARE YOU STILL UPSET with me for lying?” Kalen’s

fingers twirled endlessly through the waves of my hair while I lay draped
across his chest. A warm breeze floated into my room from the window, the
sheer pearl fabric of the curtains rustling against the wall.
“No,” I said, and I meant it. I traced little shapes on his chest,
occasionally poking one of his ribs just to annoy him. I jabbed at one
adding, “Anyways, it would be unwise to say that I don’t forgive you. I’d
only be starting a fight I can’t possibly win. My legs are numb.”
A hoarse chuckle rasped from him. “Even still, I’ll apologize a few more
times if you want me to.”
“If that’s your version of apologizing, then I hope you lie to me most
often.”
“Noted,” he said, snaking his hand to my bottom and giving it a light
squeeze. I looked up at him, ready to give him every reason to betray me if
it meant he made good on the promise that his eyes sent raking down my
bare body. My cheeks tingled and Kalen gave a wicked smile.
 I swatted his hand from between my legs, regrettably, saying “We don’t
have time for that. We need to figure out what we are going to do about
Ione.”
His sly expression went slack. “We need to do something about Ione?”
“Well, yes.” I gave him a smart look that raised his brows. “She may not
or may not be planning to tie me to a mast and drown me in the Alto, as we
speak. She admitted to stealing my dagger as a test and somehow I don’t
think passing it was a good thing.”
Kalen nodded, looking into my Truth as I replayed in my mind the
moments on the terrace earlier with the High Mer. After a moment, he
turned to face the wall, quiet and contemplative. I watched the Light form
spangles on the bridge of his nose as he thought intently about our options.
Watching him, I couldn’t help but wonder how he kept it all straight in his
mind; his thoughts, the thoughts of others, the Truth, and the lies that were
crafted to cover them all up. How he had adapted to such a power that was
never meant to be his, I would never know. Kalen’s success was nothing
short of the impeccable merit of his character. Eventually, he shuffled me to
his lap gently, raising his back to fit against the bed frame.
“Ione will want to keep you here as long as possible, to make sure you are
being watched at all times,” he said, his fingers still roving through the
crown of my hair. “Threats aside, I believe she knows it is inevitable that
you and the Shadow Queen will meet. Gabriel’s visions are subjective, they
can change, though that is a rarity. The second moon is almost upon us, and
your crossing the Alto will put her faction at risk.”
Kalen lifted his other hand from the pillows beside us and ran it through
his own hair, like he needed comfort before he said, “We can escape this
place. It is possible. The only problem being that we don’t have any backup
and it is mortal hell over high water that we avoid a fight with the
Merlords.”
Kalen stared out at the wall blankly again, and then he chuckled so hard I
was bouncing in place atop his lap.
“What?” I couldn’t help but match his expression as I raised to get a
better look at him.
“You could always seduce Tyr into helping us.”
“No,” I replied, waving my hand, ignoring the crescendo of his chuckle
while I groaned. “I have little use for a narcissistic Sea General, no matter
how trained...or handsome.”
 Kalen rolled his eyes. Arguably, the Preserver was far more handsome
anyway and I’d be distracted enough. But that wasn’t the reason I would
deny Tyr’s aid.
For too long, Kalen and I had been at this alone. Leoth was my home, and
I was at one point their champion, yet no one from my faction had laid eyes
on me. I was a rumor. A ghost, when thousands of men and women sat
ready in the Well, bound by duty to help preserve the Light and probably
pissing mad that they’d been attacked and hadn’t had the chance to fight
back. I knew I would be. Just the same, I knew that they would come to us
if we called for them.
“We don’t need Merlords or Astralites or any of the Sage’s help for that
matter. Not when we have an army.”
Kalen’s head cocked to one side. “You want Guardians?”
I pushed up on my hands, turning over so we were eye to eye. “Can you
get word to Leoth? I know the Well is still recuperating, but it would be a
death sentence to walk into Sythe without at least a ship full of our kind to
fight.”
“It might be a death sentence anyway, you realize that right? And you
would be asking every single one of our people to risk that fate beside
you.”
Kalen stared down at me, his gaze so intense and unreadable that I was
afraid I’d said the wrong thing. That I had peeled back that layer of
innocence, shown the wrongs I was capable of, and revealed the price I was
willing to pay just to be myself again. Still, I would not lie to him. I would
not be weak in my convictions for the sake of being good. I steadied my
breath and set my jaw.
“Yes, I do.” Kalen’s expression banked and despite my internal pep talk, I
rushed to defend myself. “Kal, this isn’t just about my soul anymore.”
The sheets of the bed wrapped tight around my body, I stood and began
pacing the room, explaining to the walls because it was easier than facing
the Preserver. “It’s become so much more about our faction, the Light, and
the people who have fought for so long against her. It’s risky and it’s
dangerous, but the Guardians already know that. They were in their own
home when she first attacked. What difference will it make for them to risk
death in hers?”
I had decided long ago, in the Well with Kalen, that I would fight to take
the Light back, and when I did, the rest of my faction deserved to share in
that victory.
“She took their hope from them,” I added, the heartbreak of that
realization deepening as I remembered the bodies, and the broken pieces of
our court we’d left behind. As I thought of Mirona.“I want to watch blood
rain from the walls of Sythe. And I want it to be at the hands of our
faction.”
The room grew silent and I winced with shame as I turned around to face
whatever disapproving look was sure to be on Kalen’s face. But his arms
were slung behind his head in leisure. Kalen was smiling.
“What?” I whined.
“You are so beautiful. Especially when you’ve got that lethal look on your
face.” Kalen smirked as I laid back down on the bed, then added, “I will
send word to Leoth in the morning.”
With my ear pressed against his chest, my heart thundered in time with
his. My legs and arms began to tingle in a potent mixture of fear and
excitement. With two of my stones, I recognized that buzzing beneath my
skin as an old friend, one I’d met most often in the fighting ring. My fingers
twitched against Kalen’s stomach, begging for the cool feeling of a blade in
their grasp.
“The plan is a good one. Except I think you’ve forgotten one minor
detail,” Kalen said, rubbing circles on my back.
I tensed under his touch. Usually, I enjoyed it when he was wrong, but I
found no pleasure in telling him this time. I could never forget, though I
might try. It didn’t matter where I was or what was happening around me. I
was always thinking of my stones. Right now was no different.
“No,” I sighed. “I’m not.”
From the window, the night sky had grown dense with clouds that drifted
quickly overhead. Now and then, the moon would appear between their
mists, and silver light would stipple the waters beneath. The sea was calm,
unhurried as it whispered onto the beach, an oscillating rush of sound that
left me unnerved. It was calling out to someone, but not on this shore. My
gut began to sink, to drown in the feeling. As I looked out across the Alto,
imagining a place I once knew, I could feel her looking back at me, the
Shadow Queen. If it was even possible, the night grew darker.
I whispered to the shadow, in a voice dry as sand, “I know exactly where
my last stone is.”
OceanofPDF.com
SLEEP HAPPENED SOUNDLY. WELL, as soundly as
possible considering the threat of death hanging over my head and a rather
enthusiastic lover in my bed.
The latter I welcomed, though Kalen would argue the right word was
encouraged. I couldn’t help myself, really. After seventy years of having no
one to share the night with, there was something so invaluable about
waking in the dark and knowing nothing other than that you were loved.
Sometimes, we stirred just long enough to come together again, over and
over until we weren’t sure the dawn would ever come. I would have
preferred it didn’t.
Eventually, the dark purple shadows cast on our wall were washed out by
cool blues and grayish yellows. I stared at Kalen now under a wondrous
cast of orange. His arm fell across my stomach, left leg slung over mine
under the sheets that rose just above my waist. Somehow my long hair had
become tangled between his fingers, part of him still holding onto me while
he slept. The morning sky was a pyre, burning out the sorrow of yesterday.
Dust wheeled around us, catching the light. This is what happiness is, I
thought to myself.
The stubble on Kalen’s chin scratched at my collarbone as he shifted
around. My lips pulled back into a small smile when he looked up at me,
one eye still closed against the light pouring into our room. Kalen moaned
before he flopped his head back onto my chest, peppering kisses between
my breasts, burrowing his head into the open space between my neck and
shoulder. I reached my hand to his hair, threading my fingers through it and
giving him a reassuring scratch. “We should wake up,” I cooed.
“No.”
“Alright. I made my best efforts.” Flopping my arms back down, I
pretended to snore. Kalen pinched my nose, taking my breath.
When I startled, he chuckled groggily. “Are you so easily persuaded?”
I nodded before he kissed me. My lips burned slowly against his. Kalen
took his time moving his arms along the curve of my thighs, plying the skin
of my hips into his hands, and palming my breasts. When I gasped, he
pulled away, sitting up between my legs with a dopey grin.
“You’re right,” he said, dodging the pillow I chucked at him. “You and I
have very important things to do today.”
I tackled him into the bed and wriggled down to his hips—teasing him
this way was quickly becoming my favorite weapon against his smug nature
—but we were quickly interrupted. In the distance, a low thrum began. The
paintings hung by the vanity began to skitter against the wall. I raised my
head from Kalen’s lap just before one of the fish-shaped figurines by the
room’s hearth slid sideways across the banister and crashed to the floor. The
porcelain scraped against the tile as it scuttled toward the baseboard of the
west wall.
Our whole room had begun to tilt.
A glance at our window showed me the rising sand of the beach, the
entire castle rising off the foundation. I looked out towards the sea,
confused when a high-pitched wail from outside started to move through
the room in sweeping motions.
“The alarms,” Kalen said, sitting up straight in our bed. Before I could
ask what he meant, there was a barrage of knocking at the door. I turned to
Kalen, my eyes wide. Calmly he instructed, “Go answer it, it’s probably just
the castle guards coming to collect us. If it’s an emergency we need to find
Ione—and quick. They’ll know the way.”
What did he mean, if it was an emergency? I sprang from the bed, pulling
my robe over my shoulders as Kalen shucked his legs into his pants. Taking
wide steps toward the door, my thighs burned slightly against the sudden
incline of our floors. The guards were still knocking as I reached for the
handle.
“I apologize, we were just—”
Two large hands shoved me back into our room, toppling me to the
ground. A blast of air shot through the threshold, silenced only by a sick
sticking sound. Kalen yelped from the corner, and I turned over my
shoulder to see an arrow, ripped from the bow of the guard and plunged into
Kalen’s thigh. Black blood poured down his leg, hitting the tile just a
moment before he did.
A scream rose in my throat but was stuck as our attacker stepped from the
shadowed hall, another arrow knocked into his bowstring. He entered
slowly, dressed in all black, a hood covering his face. The muscles of his
arms tensed as he transfixed his bow on me, the metal point of Silverwood
splitting my view of the man in two. Ink-tipped fingers held the weapon
tightly, dark as the night shadow.
Quickly, I recognized the man’s uniform: a vest of black leather, his
shoulders filling out the cut of iron feathered inlets that ran out across them
and then down his front. It was the same outfit that Kalen wore, except for
the small insignia of the sun in eclipse. Even in the darkness of his hooded
face, I knew—too well, in fact—from my first kill, that a Shadowfader’s
eyes still shone, bright and haunting.
The Shadowfader stalked forward, bringing with him a small legion of
friends. Quickly glancing around the room, I counted four of them. All were
men and all were armed to the teeth with bone daggers and Silverwood. As
they drew their weapons, none spoke. There were no questions to be asked
and no bargains to be made. Either Kalen and I would leave this room with
them, or we would never go anywhere again. Our assailant drew a deep
breath, seeming to understand from the slump in my posture that I would
not fight him. Still, his exhale would grant aim to the bow when he shot me.
I looked in the arrow’s direction and figured it would hit my shoulder
somewhere between the gap in my socket and the muscle that held my arm
in place. Nonlethal. The Shadow Queen wanted me alive then.
The silence in the room was harrowing, void of anything but the tense
groaning of the bowstring as it drew back. Then the room exploded, gasps
and grunts and short cries of death echoing from every corner. I counted the
bodies, again, as they fell—the two Shadowfaders by the door, the demon
holding Kalen’s wrists behind his bare back, and finally, the would-be
assassin in front of me. Bile rose in my throat as I watched my assailant
split apart in two as if he was being unstitched from chest to navel, finally
crumpling into a bloody heap at my feet. I searched the room for any
reasonable explanation but found none. Only Kalen, staring in disbelief just
as I was.
Before I could speak or scream or ask what in the Mother had just
happened, a pair of strong, tanned arms clamped my own, yanking me from
the floor and securing me against a tall frame. A hand swung down
haphazardly over my mouth to keep me from screaming. The putrid—yet
sweet—smell of blood and honey bit at my nose and I grew oddly
comforted. The man that held me did not feel threatening and I found
myself turning into his shoulder, but he kept my attention fixed in front of
me.
 A sound like splitting stone rang out before us, a portal ripping open from
a seam of ultraviolet light. Out of the Astral Plane stepped Abdiel, his face
unsmiling but his eyes wild with a warrior’s delight. Blood was splattered
against his leathers and speckled down his face. He drew the back of his fist
across his mouth before speaking.
“Is that all of them, then?” He was addressing Owen, who had slacked his
grip on me slightly.
“In this hall,” Owen replied. “Twenty more Faders are blocking the exits
and at least fifty raiding the servants’ quarters.”
“We’ve got to get them out of here.”
Owen shifted his weight slightly and moved us forward to Abdiel. “You
take these two with you through the Plane, I’ll take the back hall and meet
you on the sand,” he said. “There’s a Fader ship on the west sandbar that
looked prime for the taking. We’ll use it to cross the Alto.”
The Alto.
My teeth snapped against each other at the word, my jaw clenched tight.
Whatever resignation I’d had when the Shadowfaders had arrived turned to
ash in my blood at the sight of these two Astralites making idle
conversation out of what should have been my attempt to escape. I pulled
away from Owen, who, oddly enough, let me go immediately.
“Stop,” I shouted, and the two warriors fell silent against my command.
“None of us are going anywhere until someone tells me what the hell is
going on.” To Abdiel I asked, “How did you even find us? How did you
know we’d be in trouble?”
He shrugged his shoulders and gave a grim smile. “You think Ione’s the
only Sage interested in whether or not you get your stones back?”
“Gabriel sent you?”
“Who else?” Owen chimed from behind me.
He had a point. But why would Gabriel send aid to us? If the Time Sage
had wanted to rescue us from the Shadowfaders, why plan an escape to
Sythe? Unless he’d wanted to get me across the Alto to earn himself favor
with his sister, but the warmth and immediate trust I’d felt, even with
Owen’s hand around my mouth made me doubt that Gabriel meant to use
me.
Suddenly, something Abdiel had said earlier struck me. “They’re
attacking the servants?”
“As a distraction,” Owen answered. “Having their fun while allowing
these four the time they needed to get to you.”
A distraction. Fun. The Shadow Sage would sacrifice hundreds, and bring
down her sister’s faction just to get to me. I felt sick thinking about just how
many had already died because I still lived. A piece of my blue ribbon from
the ball caught my eye from its place on my desk. It was soaked in blood
from one of the Shadowfaders. Remembering the happy giggles of my
handmaids as they wove it into my hair, I prayed to the Mother to get them
out.
Across the room, Kalen pulled himself from the floor, letting out a rough
cry. I cursed at myself for not helping him sooner. In one stride, I was by his
side, lifting his arm across my shoulder to let him give his weight to me.
Even with all of the blood pouring down his leg, Kalen’s eyes were bright
with fiery magic.
“Where’s Ione?” he growled.
“Putting on the show of her life,” Owen replied. “The sea is ravaging the
halls—has been for almost half the hour now, but I’ve yet to see a single
drowned Fader.”
The Astralite’s fists clenched at his sides, his chest puffing rapidly as he
tried not to look so furious. His nostrils still flared, and it was clear exactly
what kind of accusation he was making. Kalen shook his head beside me in
disbelief.
“No,” he grunted. “No, she wouldn’t give up Aegedonia like this. Not for
her sister, not for anyone.”
“Wouldn’t she?” Abdiel asked, and the men met each other’s gaze. Abdiel
was speaking to Kalen, privately with his own truth, and the blood rushed to
my ears when they both looked at me.
“What?” I barked at the two men.
“Ione is with her,” Kalen finally admitted, and I almost smiled. It had
taken weeks since we’d performed the enchantment with Ayona in
Grovsney, yes, but he had finally come to his senses. Kalen gave me a look
that checked my satisfaction. “Gwyn, we have to leave now.”
My heart skittered to a stop in my chest. Kalen’s mouth turned
downward, but I got the impression it wasn’t from the pain in his leg, but
the guilt of what he was telling me. This was it. This was the day I would
meet the Shadows. We were leaving, Kalen was injured, and there were no
Guards to seize this moment with me. Death had come with little warning,
much like it always did. Kalen’s eyes searched mine, filled with regret,
pain, and many other feelings we didn’t have time to sort out.
Abdiel moved swiftly across the room, picking up my dagger from the
nightstand, and tossing my only weapon into my free hand. “I can only get
us to the edge of the glamour around the palace, then we have to run.”
A portal sliced open behind him, spilling the cosmos into our room.
Nodding at the Astralite, I adjusted my grip on Kalen as Owen stepped to
his other side to help. I looked at Kalen one last time.
“Now we fight.”
With a sharp tug, the four of us projected through time and space, hitting
the sand in a jarring quickness. Everything was so bright. The sun reflected
off the sand, momentarily blinding me as I took my first step from complete
darkness. My eyes demanded a few seconds to adjust, and when they finally
did, I had to steady myself to keep from falling at the sight before me.
The beach was marred with people—Shadowfaders, Astralites, Merlords,
Aegedonians, and the like. Bodies buzzed around frantically, some fighting
and some fleeing for mercy. Blood leached through the sand in chaotic,
random splotches, as if someone had whacked a paintbrush against a
dulling canvas. Some of it reached the sea, mixed with the waters, and
returned in a frothy red stain.
Weeks ago, I had seen this. Blood spilled on this very shore, on a map, in
a living room that smelled like incense and fresh bread. I shook my head to
clear it of the memory. We needed to get to the boat.
Looking around, I realized that Owen had been telling the truth. Ione had
called the sea forward, literally. A moat had formed around the castle,
thrashing waves into the stone. Spouts of water rose stories high and then
funneled into the doorways and windows of the castle, roaring down upon
whatever targets lay inside and then crashing back toward the beach. The
sand we stood on was riddled with rock and shell and flopping sea creatures
who, much like Kalen and I, had been wrenched from their peaceful
morning.
Abdiel pushed us forward, a translucent dome the color of violet
absorbing the space around us. The ship was moored off the bank of the
sandbar, hundreds of paces from us. It was a three-mast caravel made of
black painted teakwood, the metal rungs of cannon holes coated in
sparkling obsidian. The sails were still puffed from the Shadowfader’s
journey inland, and like Shadows themselves were grey. In the middle, they
were printed with a giant circular crest.
 A blood-red eclipse.
As I surveyed the transport, my vision grew dark, slowly fading and I
worried I may be fainting. That the shock of this entire morning was finally
catching up to me. Suddenly, the beach went dark, but I was still conscious
as a cacophony of shrieks filled the air. To my left, I heard Abdiel swear.
Suddenly I felt his broad hand at my back and his mouth at my ear.
“Go!” He shouted, “Get Kalen to the boat and go now!”
Before I could reply, I felt the sand brace my bare calves as he pivoted the
other way and ran. I stalled, turning my head to the sky, and cursed in
return.
A host of winged beasts burst through the clouds above us, blocking out
the sun in quick shutters as they flew directly toward the palace. Their
wings were as wide as the length of a stallion made from stiff quills that
raised upward on quick shifts of the wind. On their backs stood legions of
Faders, howling and crying and rallying for ruination. Some had already
landed, and I watched in slow-moving horror as Abdiel pulled his sword
from his back and charged into a crowd of demons in what was surely going
to be a rescue attempt for the other Astralites. Owen watched him leave
without any need for explanation or order.
It was clear, even to me. Abdiel was going to fight this faction out of
battle, and Owen would take us north to Sythe.
“Come on, Gwyn!” Owen yelled. He and Kalen were already a hundred
paces ahead of me.
Kalen was limp as Owen dragged him through the shallow water off the
beach and to the ship. With the roll of my shoulders, I pushed on keeping
my focus on the ground in front of me, counting my breaths and trying to
will the blood leaking from Kalen to stop. My gaze caught the dying
mackerel I’d spotted a few minutes ago, now frigid with death only a few
paces away.
Ahead, Kalen and Owen were knee-deep in the sea as it began to recede
again, pushing our boat even farther away from the beach. Kalen took
another step forward, his bad leg going limp and sweeping out from under
him. Owen cursed, dipping down into the water to adjust his grip on Kalen,
whose cry was swallowed by the sound of the wind that whipped as the sea
reeled back. My heart sank.
We were never going to make it.
“Gwyn,” Owen yelled, and I sprinted harder to catch up to them, but the
Astralite put his free hand out, pointed in the direction of the sandbar
opposite of us, and shouted, “Gwyn, look!”
I turned around, where the sea had become a wall of rushing water, up
and up and up. I gaped, watching it fall, trickle really, down the giant
underbelly of a serpent. Ione’s serpent, the living emblem of Aegedonia.

I LIVED IN A world with gods and faeries and witches and men.
Even before that, I’d been confined to one that made living things out of
ornaments in the sky, but as the serpent rose to tower over the mast of our
ship, its long spine curved in a sinuous arch, snout raised as it snuffed,
tongue slithering over a hundred gleaming teeth, I finally believed in
monsters.
The beast threw its head back, the sun glaring off its shell white scales,
flashing across the horizon as it loosed an ear-splitting screech across the
whole of Aegedonia. Slowly its neck careened down towards the beach
where the three of us lay and stilled. I stifled a scream and swallowed it
down against my dry, aching throat.
Up close, I could see the serpent was a creature both immaterial and
corporeal, made of muscle and magic. Oil-coated iron embossed the scales
that covered its neck and head. Long spires reached out in a circular
direction to form what looked like a crown. Impaled fish and vegetation
hung off of its crested back like a mane. And the eyes, they were the same
color as Ione’s. They looked down on me, gave me that cold, turbulent
stare, and for a moment I swore that the High Mer lived somewhere inside
that monster.
The serpent looked at me for only a second and then lunged for the
castle.
The creature’s body moved over us, splitting wave after wave, in a never-
ending whip of its tail until the serpent finally reached the Shadowfader’s
air fleet. Feathers and blood and bone began flying in all directions, the
serpent thrashing in and out of the melee, picking up bodies and shredding
them with one toss of her head. It roared a second time, a frenzying power
that went unchecked. There was no regard for the innocents who were
tangled up with the enemy, the beast just kept killing. My feet grew cold,
even against the hot sand.
Abdiel.
I looked toward Owen, whose attention was already towards the castle
and the battle that had ensnared his friend. Time’s magic flared inside his
eyes, he looked frantically towards Kalen. The parts of him that weren’t
being held up by Owen were floating with the waves of the sea. He was so
weak, he couldn’t even hold himself up against the tide any longer. Owen
understood this too, and was fighting against the desire to drop Kalen into
the water and go back to get Abdiel. When the Astralite finally looked up at
me, it was clear what he wanted me to do.
I should make my way to that boat and never look back, I thought.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave Abdiel. He was something to me before,
in the life I was forced out of and had now returned. I felt it. Something
more than just a warrior to spar with–to break. Because of the vision, I
couldn’t be sure of anything other than my sword in his body as I tortured
him, and yet, he had come to save me. To save Kalen. There was something
there.
A wave of exhaustion hit me, catching me by the ankles as I tried to stand
from the sand. Since I’d come home–and I truly felt now, how much this
place and these people were home to me–I’d been trying to pick apart every
vision and every piece of information to tell me what I was supposed to do.
Do I trust Kalen? Do I trust Gabriel and his Astralites? What should and
shouldn’t I say? And in the melee that surrounded me, at that moment, all I
wanted was to do what felt right.
Lifting his head, Kalen looked weakly between Owen and me, reading
our silent words to each other. Whether he used the Light to search my
mind, or whether it was obvious by the look on my face what I was about to
do, Kalen mustered up enough energy to scream through the wind that tore
around us. “Don’t you dare!”
“Owen, go!” I yelled back, rising fully from the beach. Trying to force
out a tone similar to the one I’d used with the Astralites earlier in our
rooms, I said to him, “Take Kalen to the ship.”
He nodded, following my demand immediately, looking relieved. Kalen
fought against the warrior but Owen and the ocean were too strong. They
gripped him. Then his Light flew out to me, wrapping around my heart and
tugging, tugging, tugging. In silence, Kalen begged, Don’t do this. Don’t
leave.
 “I will find you,” I said and turned from him quickly before I could
change my mind. As the Light pulled away, I silently added, I promise.
The blade of my dagger sang as it ripped free from its sheath, and some
part of me sang back, screaming that I was made for this. I sprinted towards
a black mass, hordes of Shadowfaders that had moved in around the base of
the palace moats. Abdiel was in there somewhere, he had to be. It hadn’t
been more than a few minutes since he’d run from our sides to fight, and I
was going to find him, alive. I had to find him alive.
Shoving myself into the front lines, it didn’t take long before I clashed
with a demon. In broad daylight, the Faders were even more appalling than
they had been in my memory. Two of them descended on me, sharpened
teeth curved into a sneer while skilled arms slashed in the direction of all
my vital organs. I ducked under the arm of the first demon which had
swung for my throat, plunging my dagger into the top of his groin, tearing
his muscle to the bone down his thigh until I was sure I’d hit the right vein
to bleed him dry. Turning just as he fell, I stuck my blade into the heart of
his friend. We were face to face, and this time, when red eyes dulled, I felt
all the more alive for it.
I moved in sync with the barrage, like a mad wraith. My thin white robe
swished around me, catching every breeze and splatter of blood as I fought
barefoot, armed with only one weapon. Silently I cut through the crowd, cut
down demons one after another. I must have looked wild. I felt wild.
I felt good.
With each Shadowfader that fell, I searched for Abdiel in the aftermath.
I’d nearly reached the bank of the moats with no sign of him when the
fighting halted. In a second, the crowd split, and screams ran through the
air. Ione’s serpent broke through the sky. It was wrestling something, I
realized, its body coiling and snapping as if it were trying to skirt an attack.
I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw him, Abdiel, dangling in the air with
his sword between the beast’s mouth.
The brief flash of joy I felt to find the Astralite alive was quickly subdued
by the reality of him hanging there, so high above us. The sand may have
been powdery between my toes, but the beach floor was indeed very, very
solid. Like he had read my mind, Abdiel looked down at the space below
him, his tan face blanching. For just a moment, I could read the fear on his
face. Then the warrior used his momentum, swung his legs into the jowls of
the beast, and jerked his shoulders, shifting the blade of his sword further
into its mouth.
With an unearthly snarl, the serpent dove and crashed down upon us,
sending drifts of sand flying in its wake. The body slid through the parted
crowd with a hiss, and suddenly I was staring at a waft of black hair only a
few paces from me.
The serpent hovered above Abdiel, who lay flat on his back, pushing his
blade as it splintered with the pressure of the serpent’s maw. I should have
thought more about what I did next, but I wasn’t really thinking anything
when I lunged for them, straddling the beast’s snout and grasping its horns
as hard as I could. The creature made a whinnying sound, startled when I
forced its gaze to mine.
Looking into the High Mer’s eyes, I wedged my dagger into the serpent’s
scaled cheek and pulled, carving my blade down the side of its face.
Ione’s serpent reared back, howling in pain before shooting up into the
sky and careening back into the Sea, tossing me, hard, to the sand as it
went. Just before the monster and its crown dissolved beneath the waves,
my dagger glinted against the sun, still lodged in its face.
I stared after it, feeling something like extreme satisfaction when Abdiel
grabbed my hand and tugged me forward. I looked at him, expecting to see
a disheveled and nearly broken immortal. But Abdiel was grinning from ear
to ear. He let out a howl, victorious as we sprinted through the sand.
Stupidly, I realized I was grinning, too. Even after all of the men I had
killed and the outright treason I’d just committed by banishing the serpent, I
was grinning like a blood-thirsty idiot.
We laughed to the edge of the shore. We laughed as we waded through
the water to Kalen and Owen, who were pulling up the anchor of our vessel
for our escape, and we laughed even harder as our backs hit the deck of the
ship.

OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com
“GODS, JUST YANK IT out, Gwyn!”
I kneeled on the splintered deck of our ship between Kalen’s legs, my
hand grasping the arrow that was still protruding out of his thigh. To our
right, Owen and Abdiel took turns screaming at me to put the Preserver out
of his misery. My fingers wrapped tightly around the arrow shaft of
Silverwood, I blew a breath to lose my nerves, but I couldn’t bring myself
to pull.
“Can’t you just do it?” I huffed, looking desperately between the two
Astralites under the purple haze that surrounded us.
“A little busy,” grunted Owen, who was focused on the port side, using
his powers to push us along the cusps of both the physical and the Astral
Planes. Abdiel was facing the other way, his back pressed against Owen,
their hands thrusting outward to the sky. We moved under a dome only
visible to us, overlapping glades of sheer purple light much like the one
Abdiel had been using as we had run from the Palace.
“I don’t think I can handle the blood,” I lied, trying my best not to look at
the black sludge that was slopping between my fingers. Kalen’s blood. I
took a breath, but the brine of the sea air only made the nausea worse.
“You took out a few Sythian households back there, and now you can’t
even look at a flesh wound?” Abdiel said, his back still turned from me.
I searched Kalen’s scrunched face for any sign that he’d registered
Abdiel’s comment. That he thought any different of me for murdering so
many men. For clearly enjoying it. But he was in too much pain, and I was
being self-absorbed.
Underneath my palm Kalen’s wound grew hot and began to fizz as the
Silverwood worked deep into his muscle. Spider-like tendrils of black and
purplish-grey reached out from the point of entry and up past his hip bone.
That the arrowhead had been ejected on the underside of his thigh most
likely saved his life, but if I didn’t take the stalk out, all of that good fortune
would have been for naught. It wouldn’t take long for the Silverwood to
reach his heart.
 “You have to take it out, Gwyn. I’ll die before we reach Sythe if you
don’t.” Kalen struggled to piece together the words. His chest heaved
upwards, then fell, a deep whine releasing from inside his throat.
The boat tilted on the crest of a wave, pushing everyone sideways against
the hull. The arrowhead sticking out of Kalen’s leg caught a notch in the
deck and pulled the shaft deeper into his thigh. The Preserver vomited as
the boat settled. By the Light. I frowned, surveying the wound again with
more urgency, knowing he wouldn’t make it past sunset if I didn’t get over
myself. Spitting and wiping his mouth, Kalen sat up again, begging me with
his stare. My heart clenched.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, scooting back over to him. I didn’t really care
about the blood or the gruesome way the skin of Kalen’s leg was puckered
open. But the way I was about to hurt him, the agony I was surely going to
inflict on him. The thought turned my stomach in a way, unlike the gore of
battle. I took a deep breath. I could do this, I thought. I had to do this.
Besides, I should be thankful I wasn’t pulling this arrow from his dead
body.
“This is going to be bad,” I warned. “Here,” I handed him the tie to my
robe. “Bite down on this.”
Kalen took it from me, hissing as I snapped the iron arrowhead from the
shaft and tossed it to the floor. It skittered across the wood with a metallic
ting. He stuffed the thick end of the tie into his mouth, fisting the slack tight
around his hand. Through the muffle of fabric, he said, “I can’t believe she
attacked her own faction.”
I shook my head and waited until he readied himself, grabbing on tight to
the grey wood. Sure, I couldn’t remember knowing Ione in my life before,
but it had always felt clear to me she would do anything to set herself
against us. Maybe it was her constant threats, or the fact she’d tried to cover
up the attack on Leoth, but somehow this betrayal of hers didn’t surprise
me. Either way, now was not the time for I told you so. Instead, I offered,
“Looks like you’ll have to kiss Gabriel’s arse from now on.”
Tearing the arrow from his flesh, Kalen’s howl of laughter turned into one
of excruciating pain. It was the last thing I heard before I passed out.
I WOKE TO THE sound of flapping wings.
No. It couldn’t be. We had made it out.
Jolting upright, I took in the paralyzing darkness of a night at sea. There
were no clouds in the sky, only clusters of stars bursting out around the
mast of our ship, but even as they numbered into the millions, no wave
caught their light. It was all a void.
Clenching the wooden rod that was still in my hands, I readied myself to
poke out a couple of giant bird eyes. The thick snapping sounded again, and
I jumped, pulling myself under the ladder that hung from the side railing of
the ship. Crouching, I let myself peek through the space between the hull
and the ladder’s rungs and immediately cursed myself. There were no giant
birds. Only the mainsails slapping and rolling against their ropes from the
wind.
Wind.
The domes were down, we weren’t in between Planes anymore. I looked
around for Abdiel and Owen but didn’t find them. Frantically, I searched for
Kalen, who I found only a few paces away from me, sleeping soundly. I
sighed and sat back down to watch the Preserver.
Kalen was lying on his side, his knees slung haphazardly to the right, his
head propped up on a pillow presumably from the barracks below us. An oil
lamp sat at his feet, flickering amber onto his shadowed face, which looked
peaceful considering all it had seen today. He was naked, a threadbare
blanket tossed over his middle to keep out the chill in the air. The wound on
his thigh had been tended to while I was out, new blood leaked from a fresh
white bandage that was wrapped expertly around it. I would have to thank
the Astralites for that later.
Another debt we owed them.
For a while, I just stared at him, watching his nostrils flare with heavy
breath and being so thankful as it came and went. Eventually, someone
nudged my shoulder from behind. I didn’t scare when Abdiel sat down
cross-legged beside me. The Astralite handed me a nob of overly baked
bread, and I took it greedily before asking, “How is he?”
“Better than he looks,” Abdiel replied through a mouthful. “Owen had a
time moving him around and bandaging his wound. Both of you lilies
passed out at the same time,” he added with a smug grin. Mortified, a hot
itch crawled up my chest.
“It’s been a tough couple of months,” I said. “I think we are both
exhausted.”
Owen plopped down on my other side, snatching the rest of Abdiel’s food
with one hefty arm behind my shoulder. “Everyone is exhausted, Gwyn,” he
said, then bit off a chunk straight from the loaf.
Shame joined in on the reddening of my skin. Of course, everyone was
exhausted. The factions had been relatively at peace before I returned to this
world and thrust it back into the throes of war. Now a city had been
swallowed by the sea, the Well had fallen, and I was left without a scratch
but still not nearly whole enough to fix the mess I’d left behind me. I
pinched the bridge of my nose between two fingers. Owen laughed as I
tried again. “Thank you both, for everything,” I said. “Kalen and I would be
dead–or worse, captured, had you not been there.”
“Don’t thank us.” Abdiel dusted his leathers, which were impeccably
clean, then leaned back onto his hands. He scanned the dark waters,
watchful even under the cover of night. “We are warriors, you know. Orders
are orders.”
“Well, that’s really what I don’t understand. Why would Gabriel send for
us? I mean, he hates Kalen, and I would only go so far as to say he enjoys
toying with me.”
I looked between the two men, waiting for either to reply. Owen glanced
between the bread in his lap and my face too many times to be discreet. I
turned toward him, crossing my arms around my legs and applying pressure
with my gaze.
Eventually, he stuttered. “The King feels...badly...for what he could not
help the last t–”
“The King does not need a reason to send you aid, Gwynore.” Abdiel cut
in, staring at his friend with a look that I would have hated to be on the
receiving end of.
The last time. That was surely what Owen had meant to say. Gabriel had
been there, then. When I was exiled. When I had done something so vile
that the gods of this world had no choice but to turn their backs on me. I felt
the blood rush from my face and watched Owen shift uncomfortably.
Abdiel cleared his throat and said, “I’ll be sure to relay your thanks.”
 And that was that.
“Alright,” I agreed. “On to more mannered subjects then.” The men
exchanged wary looks as I nodded in the direction of the violet orbs in the
vambrace of their armor. “How do you make the purple light disks?”
Owen was on his back before I finished the question, the plates on his
armor rattling as he shook silently. I looked back at Abdiel, confused, only
to see him look up at the night sky and swallow a laugh.
“They are shields, Gwyn—not disks. And that’s information sensitive to
the Time faction.”
Owen let out a whispered gasp, careful not to wake Kalen as he sat up.
“Diel’s only being tight-lipped because he doesn’t have a shit clue. No other
Astralites can summon them outside of us.”
“It was a gift from Gabriel when we were Yielded,” Abdiel finished.
“You two?” I gasped, my eyes bugging.
“Actually,” Owen rose and clapped a hand against his friend’s shoulder.
“Diel’s the one heart-matched to the King. I Yielded to an immortal in
Gabe’s court, but I still get the perks because I dominate in the fighting
ring.”
Owen’s thick brows danced along his forehead, causing Abdiel to blush
under the lamplight. “Yeah, definitely because you dominate, and not
because I asked him to let you summon.”
“Way to sell me short, brother.”
“Brother?” I felt like my mind was going to explode. “You two are
related?”
“No.” Abdiel shook his head, and the three of us fell quiet again. “No, we
aren’t related,” he said. “Not everything is so literal, Gwyn.” Running his
hand through his hair, he looked at me with inexplicable sadness. “Gods,
it’s so strange to see you like this.”
“Like what?” I spoke. “Feeble-minded and without my sword in your
stomach?”
I could never stop the memories from coming back when they did and
now was no exception. I played with the bread in my hands, pulling the
plushy dough from the loaf’s husk, concentrating on dulling the emotions
on my face. Here I had thought we’d been bonding. Yes, there was that stiff
shuffling through our conversation, that string of awkward delight that
wound itself around every new beginning of a friendship. But I thought
whatever this small moment was, sharing bread and laughing and blushing,
it would bring the three of us together. Heal something, in myself and
them. Erase the memory of the cruel immortal who used to gut the two of
them for fun. But again, those seventy years cast out would cost me.
Abdiel rose and I thought the two men would leave, but instead, he
plucked the food from my hand and tossed it out to sea. “Time for rest,” he
said with a stern brow and a crooked mouth. “If you eat any more of that
bread, you’re going to be sluggish tomorrow, and trust me, you’ll need your
energy.”
I would have been offended, but truth be told, I couldn’t stomach eating
any more than what I had after such a rotten day. When it landed in the
water with a plunk, the Astralite reached his rough hand back out to me. It
was still dirty, a light wash of rust color staining the lines of his palm. I took
it in mine, which was just as unclean, and looked at the warrior in front of
me. He nodded, his face glowing in the moonlight. He pulled and I pushed
to stand, feeling a few decades lighter.

LATER THAT NIGHT, ONCE Kalen had woken, I held

him tightly against my side, struggling to get down the stairs in one piece as
the boat rocked against the waves. On the second to last step, my foot
slipped, sending us crashing into the wall. The Preserver let out a slew of
curses. The hull of the ship was pitch black, slivers of moonlight sneaking
in between the slats of wood whenever the boat turned this way or that, and
I could barely see anything in front of me.
The room was suffocating and filled with supplies; stacks of produce and
weaponry, fine clothing and jewels, and anything else the Faders had
ransacked from the port once they had stormed it. In the corners, kegs of
drykkja were stacked between the supporting pillars. Any time I took a
breath, the smell of rotting wood and turned liquor burned in my lungs. I sat
Kalen on one of the kegs near a porthole and decided it was better not to
breathe at all.
“You might as well just leave me down here when we dock,” Kalen said,
looking around. I unfolded the replacement leathers Abdiel had stolen from
the barracks and began scrunching up the pant legs. “I’m just as useful as
imported goods at this point.”
“Stop that,” I said. Though I knew he was joking, attempting to thin out
an otherwise densely terrifying day, the words twisted in my chest sharper
than they should have. I couldn’t explain it, but seeing that arrow strike his
leg, watching him fall to the floor, and not knowing for sure whether he’d
ever get up, it had done something irreparable to me. He was important to
me, clearly, but I’d not known how much before this morning. “None of us
would be here without you.”
“That’s definitely not what I want to hear right now, Gwyn.”
I rolled my eyes at him, swallowing the acrid taste in my throat, and bent
down to the floor. Surveying me from such a position, Kalen cocked his
brow. I ignored it.
“Pants first. Get the worst over with.”
Kalen grunted as I lifted his bad leg, pulling the stiff material over one
calf and then the other. Sweat began to pebble above my lip and my hair
stuck to my chin as I huffed a breath and tugged his pants as hard as I could.
They wouldn’t budge.
Kalen did his best, wriggling his hips with as much effort as he was still
able to manage. It wasn’t working. I rose slightly, twisting my body to get a
better angle at the same time Kalen bent his leg. We both realized what the
other was trying to do simultaneously, but it was too late. Kalen’s knee
slung into the side of my face, knocking me into the empty crate behind
us.
My jaw stung and my ear rang, but even still, I laughed. Kalen made to
stand, but couldn’t, so he winced and cursed himself which set me off to
laugh even harder. Somehow the fact that he was still completely bare from
the waist down made the entire thing even funnier to me. The Preserver
stuttered a chuckle as I clutched my belly, a tear pricking the inner corners
of my eyes.
Very still and very concerned, Kalen sat, watching me slap my knee with
the palm of my hand, his new leathers still dangling half-heartedly from his
foot.
“Gods,” I breathed, regretfully taking in the dank air around us. “Is it
wrong to laugh? When everything is so dire? When you are like this?” I
wiped the sweat from my stinging eyes. “Tomorrow everything could fall
apart. The whole world could end as we know it, and I can’t get your pants
on.”
 My laugh turned quickly into a sob.
“Gwyn,” he said quietly, motioning for me to join him on the barrel. I
went to him until I was standing with his legs between mine, my waist
gripped steadily in his hands.
One side of his face was so dark I couldn’t make it out, while the other
flashed opal as the ship tilted once more. A ghost of a smile appeared upon
his lips. Kalen reached for my face, tucked away a strand of my hair, and
traced his hand from my ear down to my neck. The rough feeling of his
hands raised the bare skin of my shoulder. Gently, he slid his fingers
beneath my robe, tracing the curve of my breasts. The Light that bloomed
on Kalen’s face was still weak, but my heart gave a solid thump in
response.
“Kalen,” I breathed, watching his eyes turn molten beneath his lashes.
“Your leg.”
He looked down at his bandage, regarding it without much concern, then
asked, “Do you want me?”
“Yes,” I said. I always wanted him. “But...”
“Do you want this?” Bracing his palms against my hips, he pushed them
slowly to his lap, still careful of his injured leg. Kalen sat up slightly, put
his lips against the column of my throat, and pulled me towards him. My
thighs trembled, heat singing through my center at the feeling of him
through the thin silk of my robe. Tilting his chin, Kalen found the place
between my neck and my jaw that had me melting.
“Yes,” I half-moaned, holding on tightly to the roots of his hair as lifted
his hips and rubbed himself against me.
“It’s all I want,” he said. “To hold you, to feel you, to laugh with you at
the end of the world. It’s all I’ll ever want.”
There was a coarse quality to his voice that grated against all my
sensibilities. I stepped out of his embrace, needing to see if what he had
said was true. Because I couldn’t read his mind, but the lines on his face I’d
come to understand deeply.
Kalen stilled his hands which had already untied my robe and roved down
my stomach. There was no expectation, no dark and fierce lust in his eyes.
Just deep passionate love. It was in the curve of his mouth, the hard
conviction in his jaw, the way he blinked heavily as he looked up at me.
“I love you,” I said because I would never find the courage or the bravery
that I’d once thought I needed. Tomorrow, I would ask him to walk beside
me, to walk beside inevitable death. To do something so reckless that
neither one of us may see the Light again. And I realized that I didn’t need
an army, or a dagger, or that last stone. I needed this man beside me, my
friend, and the person who had believed in all that I was long before I ever
knew. So, I said to him I love you because I meant it and because nothing
scared me more than for him not to know.
For a moment, Kalen’s lips fell apart in surprise, but he quickly pressed
them together again and swallowed. Taking a deep breath, he twined his
fingers with mine and brought our hands between us.
“You always had my love,” he said into my palm, placing a kiss to
cement the words. “My devotion,” he leaned forward into the slope of my
neck. Guiding me backward into the cradle of his strong arms. His shallow
breath tickled my chest where his lips hovered. I felt my skin chill in
anticipation. “My heart,” he confessed, finally placing a deep kiss on the
curve of my left breast where my own heart drummed. I let my head tilt as
he drew me back to him, the tip of his nose sweeping up my body until it
nuzzled against mine. Then he said, “You’ve always had all of me,
Gwyn.”
Kalen grazed his hands down my spine lazily, and I whimpered when
they palmed at the flanks of my backside. Both of us gasped as he focused
on the soft skin of my inner thighs, his fingers trailing up and down the wet
heat between my legs. The boat took on a wave, rocking me further into his
hand. Kalen slipped two fingers inside me, stroking and curving. My moan
ricocheted despite the stiffness in the air. Heat rushed from my center, and I
let my chin drop to my chest, watching his thumb roll slow circles over
me.
I clutched the muscle of his arm, for stability, for anything to hold onto as
pleasure swept through me. “Kalen,” I breathed, “I want you. Now.”
His mouth formed a lazy smile, a near ruin. I groaned as he said, “I want
to watch you.”
My head craned back, and he pumped harder, Kalen’s eyes never leaving
mine, desperate sounds tumbling from my lips louder and higher as I rode
his hand. Sweat dripped down my neck and onto my chest.
“Gods,” he cursed, “You’re so beautiful.”
Kalen’s unoccupied hand snaked around my waist, pressing flat against
my back to hold me closer. He thrust his hips in time with his fingers,
creating the most intense rhythm as I cried out into his shoulder, muffling
the sounds with a bite of his soft skin.
Just as I began to lose myself in the salt and sweat and heady feeling of
that building pressure, Kalen slipped his fingers from me, drawing back just
slightly. I watched as he slicked the wetness of his fingers over himself,
almost coming undone at just the sight of it. But there wasn’t enough time,
not before he lifted my hips and pushed into me slowly, seated himself
inside me, his forehead resting on my collarbone.
I grabbed his face and rolled my hips gently over him. His hands dug into
the soft flesh of my curves, and I sighed when our lips finally met, coming
together in a new way. This kiss was deeper, and softer, like it was the last
time or the first time. I caught his bottom lip in my teeth, biting lightly,
urging him. More, I said, if you can.
Kalen responded with a hard thrust and I lost count.
Of the breaths we shared in that small space.
Of the number of times his hips met mine.
Of the fingers I dragged down his back.
Of the ways he said my name and the ways I cried his. Until those names
were the only two sounds left in the world, and we were the only two
people left to hear them.
The cabin took on a sweltering degree, our skin slipping against one
another as we met. Eventually, we’d come together so deeply, that I
couldn’t hold the feeling, couldn’t stop it from ripping through me. I
clenched around him as he spilled into me, his heart keeping time with
mine.
“I love you, too, Gwyn. So much,” he said into my hair. His hands circled
along my back until I fell asleep, dreaming of his laugh.
Dreaming of the end of the world.

OceanofPDF.com
I AWOKE LATE IN the morning, still in the hull of the ship, still
undressed, Kalen’s body stuck to mine with sweat. I peeled myself away
from him, to find him already awake, staring down at me. He gave me a
piteous smile when I grimaced at my aching neck, wrapping his hand
around it and tugging at the sore muscles for me.
I couldn’t remember leaning into him, couldn’t remember how our lips
became entangled again. Nothing, nothing in this world was real anymore
except for me and him.
That is until two Astralites began pounding on the cabin door and
threatening to tear it down if Kalen didn’t stop plowing me.
The Preserver chuckled when I scrambled from his lap, hitting my head
on the low ceiling. I swore at him, pulling out my leathers and shucking
myself into them. It took a while for the two of us to strategize getting
Kalen dressed, but once he was properly fitted, I’d had enough time to let
the embarrassment wash from my cheeks before we stumbled up the stairs
and onto the deck.
Owen gave me a sly look, turning his voice to the wind as he said, “By
the Light even a dead man can get laid.”
I walloped Abdiel over the head when he snorted.
“Damn it, Gwyn!” he shouted, dropping a platelet of his armor he was
refastening. “Owen said it, not me.”
“You laughed.”
Kalen walked around the three of us, smirking at the Astralites. “Not a
dead man yet, Owen,” he chimed.
Weakly, but still impressively, Kalen lifted his middle finger to his
forehead, then pushed out, refracting the Light into the glass of a lantern in
the crow’s nest of our ship. The Light broke into a thousand beams,
shimmering against fog in the air until the wood and sails that held steady
in the sky slipped away into grey nothingness.
For just a moment, we were invisible on the Alto.
Kalen let out a breath, sounding like the wind had been knocked from
him, and the Light around us dropped. His hands fell flat to his knees,
doubling over in exhaustion. I clenched my fists at my sides and stalked to
the side of our ship.
Behind me, Owen whistled. “No, not a dead man yet, Preserver. But
there’s still time.”
Some anger stirred in me at the Astralite’s ominous tone, but I pushed it
aside and tucked it away for when I would need it later against the Shadow
Sage. I found myself walking to the edge of the ship, leaning over the
railing to look at the miles of water behind us. Though we were nearly a
two-day trip from the faction, a cloud of Shadow and mist had appeared
high over the horizon line. I looked out at Aegedonia, which was now just a
speck in the distance, and my mind rushed and reeled with too many
questions. Too many fears and they all felt senseless.
The Sea barely moved, the water only sloshed forward, a nearly lifeless
thing that had stopped pushing us across the Alto by dawn. Abdiel and
Owen had been using their shields to force wave after wave through portals
of the Astral Plane just to keep us moving. The bloated carcasses of dead
fish and sea beasts burbled to the surface, turning a usually crystalline
stretch of gulf into a stinking, regurgitating bog.
We approached the island in silence. Much like I had imagined, Sythe
was indeed a barren shore. The beach was a cold grey, truly the antithesis of
the shining faction we’d left, where everything was bright and warm and
colorful. There were no Faders to welcome us, they’d all been sent to raze
Aegedonia. She was not waiting for us either, but I was not surprised. The
Astralites stilled our ship and briefly gathered what little belongings we
had; namely, their long swords, before tossing Kalen and me two stolen
bone daggers.
In the Preserver’s hand looked to be the jagged remnants of a sternum,
plated with Silverwood, of course. I twirled my weapon through from my
thumb to the other side of my wrist, testing it and myself. It was a karambit,
curved awkwardly but still lethally sharpened, its smooth face indicative of
the fact that it was most likely made from a human skull. I shivered slightly
and tucked the blade gently into the insets of my leathers as a portal ripped
open in front of us. Owen stepped in first, barely visible in the pit of the
Plane, his hair thrashing around in the windless ether.
We projected into the shallows surrounding the island, wading through
cold waters before trudging onto the beach, our breath heavy and nervous.
Like when we breached the High Mer’s Palace, I felt the protective glamour
break around us, turning the empty island wilderness into a bustling port
town. Well, I imagine it bustled once. There was no one there. The wind
howled around us, and I tried to ignore the cold as it shivered down my
back.
“Is this the city?” I turned to Owen, whose eyes flitted smoothly about
our new surroundings with a lethal determination
“Was.” The reply was curt, and he didn’t elaborate until a few moments
later when, seemingly, he’d finished taking an inventory of potential threats
to our location. “Sythe has been evacuated since your return. Even the
Faders were ordered to the mainland.”
“And the Shadow Queen? She’s just been here…by herself this entire
time?”
“Waiting,” Abdiel added, crossing his hands at his wrists before breaking
them across his chest. Another portal ripped out in front of us. “Only taking
an audience with her sister and brothers.”
“Has Gabriel been here?” Kalen asked, but he was met with a look of
obvious annoyance from both Astralites. Kalen shrugged. “Worth a try.”
“What in mortal hell could it mean that she cleared the entire island?’ I
asked, less because I was looking for an answer, and more because I needed
someone to confirm my worst fear.
“It means that when the two of you meet, no one on the Continent is safe.
Let alone this island.”
Fear was already burrowing into every facet of my core, and I doubted
the feeling could run any deeper. But if it could, Abdiel’s words wouldn’t
have helped. I’d been told many times that this day would be dangerous. I
knew I could die, I knew we all could, but seeing the preparations so plainly
laid out before me, made it real. Heavy. Devastating.
To my right, Kalen took my hand in his.
“Come,” Abdiel said, noting the weariness on my face with a concerned
crunch of his brows. I couldn’t tell if that solid way he spoke was a foothold
for me to balance on or a sign of the warrior’s impeccable training.
Hopefully, it was both.
We projected, falling through the streets of Sythe until the four of us
landed in a dark corridor, my fingers planting themselves in the wet grooves
of mortared walls. I jerked my hand away instantly, wiping them on my
leathers as Owen conjured a purple ring of light.
 “Where are we?” I whispered, hoping this hadn’t been Gabriel’s plan all
along. Gain my trust with his oversized, friendly, magic-wielding
companions and then trap me underneath the ground in enemy territory.
These desolate, run-down halls weren’t screaming royal decadence to me.
Kalen gave me a funny look, then assured me, “We are in the catacombs
under Sythe. The island terrain doesn’t allow for much burial space, so any
Faders that served their faction are buried here, in the heart of the castle.”
I grimaced, wiping my hands against my pants again.
“The center hall leads to the throne room. The more time we have before
she senses our arrival, the better,” Abdiel explained, turning to me with kind
eyes and steady encouragement. His overall expression was still grim, but
the blood slowed in my ears. The four of us rounded a sharp corner and a
misty white glow flooded the next hall. My heart pounded against my chest,
my palms sweating like they’d never left the wet stone in the corridor
behind us. Muddled voices crept into our earshot, barely discernible
through the thick walls. In only a few strides, we were at the threshold. I
kept walking, not seeing the need to wait, but Abdiel stopped me, throwing
his arm across my chest and giving me a wary look.
A male voice said, “Abdiel. Come.”
Gabriel.
Despite the danger that lay ahead, Abdiel’s face lightened several degrees
just from hearing the sound of the Time Sage’s voice. A display of their
bond, I figured. The King had felt his Yield’s presence, and Abdiel couldn’t
help his response to the acknowledgment. Or maybe it was more? Like how
in any room I could easily find Kalen, the only magic tying me to him being
a deep love for my best friend, for the person who held all of my heart.
Owen had called the pair “heart-matched”, but that was the way of
Yielding. Though the blush on Abdiel’s face made it seem more profound.
Abdiel answered The King immediately, entering into the throne room.
The rest of us followed the Astralite, stepping from the dungeon’s corridors
into what felt like a completely different world.
The throne room was magnificent. Shimmering black obsidian stretched
up the walls, a long table of stone for dining, archways of stained glass with
magnificent scenes of artwork stretching out around the entire room. I let
my gaze follow its natural course, seeing the whole thing as a story. A girl
grown from a rose, a man who loved her thorns and then cursed them to
imprison her. I shivered, pulling my eyes away from the final panel. I’d
seen too much blood in these short few days.
At the far end of the hall, I found the Sages; Ione, Dario, and Gabriel.
They all stood in their finery, the brothers looking pale and solemn. Ione
looked wary but indignant. A long table of stone stood between us, set for
dining with a fine rug pinned underneath it, extending from a set of iron
doors to the steps of the dais.
High on the throne of Shadow was the queen of Sythe.
My heart stopped pounding, stopped beating completely at the sight of
her, rigid underneath flowing black velvet. Her thin, taut legs were crossed
pertly, her hands gripping the black stone sides of her throne. Silver splices
were worn into armrests and though her nails were perfectly shaped and
painted, they fit soundly into those deep gashes. I tried not to imagine them
nestled even more comfortably into the flesh of my neck.
At the sight of us, she sat casually upright, uncrossing her legs and
folding her hands across her lap. The Shadow seemed to live in her,
draining her of a normal flush. She was pale under the veil that sat atop her
face, draped down under her chin and around the sharp edge of her collar.
The only color to be seen anywhere was on her lips, glistening through an
opening in her veil. They were a garnet rosebud, the stain like fresh, wet
blood.
I expected it to feel different–seeing her. A moment that should have been
so filled with pressure and tension that the pain of our confrontation would
be short and quick. Tumultuous, chaotic, and loud. Yet when the moment
finally came, everything was quiet.
The Shadow Sage paused, her chin tilted up slightly in interest, her focus
clearly on me. Too many were waiting for me to stake my claim. She was
holding court, I realized. Like I had brought a complaint to the bottom of
her steps and not a dagger to put into her heart.
I held my breath, terrified to let even the sound of my lungs whisper out
onto the cold stone that surrounded us. The Sage looked to her left at Ione, a
new tension between the two of them threatening to burst the room. And
then she faced me once more, decided.
“Brave Gwynore,” she said. Her voice was light but sharp, assertive.
“Welcome to Sythe.”
Welcome to my funeral, I thought.
There was a moment when we both looked at each other. Well, I thought
she was looking at me...I couldn’t tell. And in the next moment, I thought I
should say something, but say what? Thank you for having me. But the
empty seconds were fleeting. The Shadow Sage twisted suddenly, her
attention solely focused on the person beside me.
“And you,” she said, her chin moving slowly downward, seeming to
appreciate his form, her shoulders relaxing with something like familiarity.
“What a sight for sore eyes you’ve turned into. How’s that scar healing,
Preserver?”
Before he could respond, the Sage stood, descending the dozen steps
above us to meet him. The dark glittering panels of her dress lashed around
her legs as she advanced. From underneath her veil, raven-colored wisps of
hair blew out around her face.
I do not see her, the one who Yielded me.
The room around me blurred a little. Like I’d been spinning in circles
since we’d arrived, so quickly that I thought I’d surely be sick. So, I waited
for the feeling I had felt only once before when Kalen told me the story of
how he was made immortal. A queasiness that would bubble near my ribs
and flutter up my throat. Maybe even a punch to my gut of jealousy for
what she’d said to him, the way I was just now realizing they’d been
entangled in a past life.
No such feelings came.
I felt nothing at all. My head pounded and my mouth was dry, but mostly
I just stared at her, and then the seven of us in this room and wondered how
everything that I’d gone through could amount to this.
“It’s been seventy-three years, Your Highness,” he replied, passive.
“Pretending to care just makes you look desperate.”
The Sage grew a few inches taller, emboldened. She seemed pleased he
had chosen to push back, even just a little. Smiling brightly, breathtakingly,
she said, “And pretending to be a god makes you look…” one of her silver
nails swept the fleshy place under his chin, along the lines of his hidden
scar, “Well it makes you look rather delicious actually.”
My body flew forward, on instinct, I would have sworn. Ione tensed in
the corner, but the Shadow Sage grew more excited, loving every bit of
emotion I had shown. She was watching for it, anticipating it.
“Gwyn,” Kalen warned, his voice low.
“Don’t mind her. Brave Gwynore is only upset because she never looked
that good when she was...”
“Melany,” The voice once more belonged to Gabriel, finally letting that
facade of miserable disinterest decompose from his hard features. The
Shadow Sage shrugged back at her brother.
Melany.
It was such a simple name. Pure, almost, with the pretty way it floated in
the air of the room.
“Oh!” she yelped dramatically. “I forgot! We all have secrets today. You
know, to keep your fractured little mind from cracking into any more
pieces.” She turned over her shoulder, nodding to Gabriel. “I will be careful
from now on, brother, or may Erudia fall upon my head.”
Melany touched her fingers in a cross over her face and shoulders, her
mouth grave with fake atonement. Once the aping was done at Gabriel’s
expense, she refocused her good humor back to me. “So, what has the
society of Good Gods told you about their big bad sister?” she asked.
“Where is my stone?” I shot back. I was done giving her the show she
was asking for.
“Right down to business, then. You never did like playing games.” She
squinted at me like a child, suspicious but intrigued, nonetheless. “All right
I’ll give you a hint. So far, you’ve collected two parts of your soul,
correct?”
I nodded.
“One from the hand of your lover, and one in the hilt of his weapon?”
I nodded again, that sick feeling finally arriving.
“So one might say, the most common thread throughout this entire ordeal
is: a very hunky, ambitious but ill-prepared, ‘god’ with a habit of lying
straight to your face?”
Kalen’s chin shot up from where he’d been staring at the floor. I forced
myself to look away from him. Do not give her the show.
Melany picked up her skirts and sashayed back to the Kalen. Her free
hand traced one long finger across the back of his shoulders, circling him.
With each touch between the two, a Shadow sprang forth. Just a twirl of
smoke, and then a strap of darkness until Kalen was squirming against the
binds that appeared on his body.
Melany stepped back, assessing her handiwork, then smiled. “Now
Gwyn, I’ve been told you’re good at mathematics. What is two and two,
again?”
Kalen’s voice reached me through a fog.
“Gwyn,” he said.
 I pinched my leg at my sides, angering some other part of me to distract
from my heart’s fury. She was lying. Kalen and I had our secrets from one
another, yes, but those secrets were buried now, in another life. So much
had happened since the night of my second stone. We had happened, and
that meant something. It meant the Truth.
A thought struck me, something Kalen had told me about Yields that
lifetime ago.
Their soul...it serves its master.
When I failed to reply, Melany started again. “Alright, I will give you
another hint. It’s only fair since you have become so mindless over the
years.”
I didn’t take my attention off of her, but I could feel the other Sages and
the Astralites, even Ione. Pity poured out from where they stood and
watched.
“Now, I’d have been blind to not notice your reaction when I asked about
that scar–the hidden one, underneath his chin? And surely he must have told
you that I put it there?”
“You did,” Kalen barked, but Melany tightened her powers around him
until his breathing wheezed. I wanted to help him, to move, to do anything.
But I couldn’t. I needed to know.
“I’ll assure you, Gwyn, I opened that wound on his neck. Happily. But I
am not the one who closed it.” She paced the floors, throwing her arms to
the ceiling. “I mean imagine, Gwynore, how surprised I was when my
Faders told me the body I’d ordered them to go fetch was still breathing.
Naturally, I couldn’t help myself but use him to my advantage.”
A flash happened around Kalen, a burst of what little Light he still held
onto that shirked Melany’s Shadow back just long enough for him to get in
a word. “You’re lying.” He said to her, and then his eyes met mine. “Gwyn,
she is lying, I would have never given you up to her.”
“No, of course you wouldn’t, my sweet,” Melany cooed. “Not unless I
asked nicely.”
The Shadow Sage grabbed Kalen by his face and pressed her thumbs
deeply into his temples. “Remember,” she summoned. A streak of Shadow
passed over the milk of his eyes and was gone, leaving only devastation
there as he looked at me. It had only taken her a heartbeat, a heartbeat to
undo the past few months of my life.
“I...” Kalen’s voice stuck in his throat. He swallowed, and let out a hoarse
cry of my name. “Gwyn.”
I backed away.
It was true.
My miraculous return from the Binding, the scatter of my stones, the
crow, the horses, Kalen....they all hung from the tips of her fingers. In the
right time and place only because she put them there. But each will was
their own. Their legs had carried them to their destinations, their wants and
desires led them to act. Melany had only Shadowed the Truth, had only
pulled the strings. Kalen had wanted me back, but that wasn’t why he’d
rescued me at all.
Even Ione. Ione had wanted revenge, wanted to see me caught,
unprepared. Dead. And here I was. Caught and devastatingly unprepared.
Feeling as if I was about to die.
I looked around the room, meeting each of the Sage’s eyes. There was
nothing they could offer me, and hell if there was anything I could offer
them in return. I had come here with one purpose, and maybe Melany was
right. My mindlessness had gotten me into a situation I would never have
been prepared for, would have never had enough time or enough stones to
get through. But it was because of that naivety that I was brave enough to
do it anyway.
So, I asked into the quiet hall. “Why am I still alive?”
Melany drew back, blinking. I asked the question again, and she laughed.
“I mean we can make other arrangements if you like, but—“
“No. Answer the question.” To my right, Kalen stopped protesting against
his bindings. “It is very clear that I came here to take the Light, and that I
will kill you for it. Two things I’m sure you would hate to see happen. So I
will ask again. Why am I still alive?”
For a split second, Melany showed her shock. The next second her head
fell back in a raucous laughter, but it was all wrong. Her long black hair
slipped from her shoulders too slowly, and her mouth opened with the pace
of a yawn, not a roar.
Confused, I frowned, but that too, happened too slowly. My body fought
against the heavy weight of the air like I was moving against a strong wind.
In the corner of my eye, a purple robe flashed quickly, unaffected. I turned
and found Gabriel walking towards me, weakly, but in the right frame of
time.
“Hello, Gwynore,” his voice sang in a lower octave than usual, the full
brunt of his power soaking each syllable.
“Gabriel?” I gasped at the way my lips moved, smoothly despite the
slowing of everything around us. Gabriel’s gaze met mine. He was
protecting me. Concealing the moment we were captured in, somewhere in
a portal of the Astral Plane.
“What is going on?” I panicked, any mettle I’d managed in my nerves
was completely gone.
“We don’t have long,” he said. “Listen to me, carefully.” The King took
my hand in his, and I noted the dampness of his skin. The Time Sage was
nervous.
“There is something she isn’t saying,” I said. “She should have killed me
by now.”
“That is not what she wants.” Gabriel paused, turning my hand face up in
his, his tanned fingers tracing the map of my palms. “Haven’t you ever
wondered how the Light faction has been kept from her rule after all of
these years? Why Kalen had to be shadowed to become her minion?”
No, actually. That question had never occurred to me. When you are flung
into a new world, knowing none of its rules or customs, and someone tells
you about the evil goddess ruling it all, you hardly question the evil
goddess’ motives. So no, I hadn’t wondered why she never used that power
she stole, though now it was the only thought rattling through my leprose
brain. Then I realized. “The Light is not hers to wield?”
Gabriel’s signature smirk crept back onto his face. “No, it is not.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
In the corner, Melany’s eyes were tracking over to us, minutes behind, but
almost upon the moment in time we were stuck in. Gabriel felt it, the chasm
between here and there narrowing in on us. With a sudden jerk, he pulled
me to him, his eyes glittering with power.
“Gwynore, you are not just a Guardian.”
The room around our portal was beginning to dim, darkness crawling out
from the deepest part of the atmosphere, pouring into every corner of the
room from nowhere at all.
“Did you hear me?” His voice became frantic as we slipped further down
the plane, aligning the here with the now. “You are so much worse,” he
said, and I drew back, wrenching my hand from his. “You are so much
more.”
What could that even mean? These gods-damned Sages and their
parables.
Before I could ask, darkness moved out from Melany’s palm to meet us,
to meet Gabriel. Swirls of black night wrapped around the Time Sage’s
neck and then his eyes, taking his vision as it ripped around.
Claws of smoke ravaged him as he screamed. It was unfathomable.
To hear a god scream like a lame horse with a broken leg. It went on and
on until the sound was a whisper on the winds of Shadow, and then that
sound went on and on until there was nothing. Nothing coming from the
Sage at all.
At the same moment Gabriel quieted, Time surged forward, catching
itself. The Shadow released him, snaking its way back into its master’s
fingertips. From her corner, Melany shook with anger, stalking towards
where Gabriel lay still on the floor. Kicking at his side with her sandaled
foot, she growled at him, “Did you learn nothing from our last fight,
brother?”
Gabriel moaned, rolling over onto his back. Ione gasped. The whole room
joined in on her horror. Even Dario rose from his seat on the dais steps to
get a better look at the damage his sister had done.
Deep slashes rimmed with blood and Shadow were torn across his eyes,
the red color seeping onto his face. The Time Sage looked up at the
skylight, staring at nothing in particular. His milk-white eyes flitted around.
His chin thrust out as he raised his head and let the tip of his long nose
scour the air above him.
Pecking.
A crow at the window.
“I can’t...” he gasped, the words dying out on his tongue. “Oh, Mother,”
he cried, and crystal tears mixed in with the bloody mess on his cheeks. “I
can’t see.”

OceanofPDF.com
ABDIEL RAN TO GABRIEL with a ferocity I’d never yet
seen in my life. The Time sage cried as he felt his lover place a broad hand
flat onto the side of his face, wrapping his fingers around the back of
Gabriel’s neck. The warrior shouted, “I’m here,” then lifted his King to his
chest, careful of the fresh wounds that scourged his face.
“Diel,” Gabriel whispered. “Diel..” He gasped.
“I know,” was the warrior’s only reply. “I know. I’m here.”
In the corner, Owen stood as still as stone, his face twisted with rage and
confusion and worry. His violet eyes flicked between Melany and Gabriel
and then Abdiel and Melany, gauging with that trained intensity the threat
that lay ahead of us all. One hand had already moved to the hilt of his
sword, the other gripping the sheath on his belt.
Owen, just as much as the rest of us, was confident by the cold, sureness
in Abdiel’s features that the Astralite was going to rip the Shadow Queen
limb from limb. All of us watched, quiet, as we waited for the warrior to
decide his own fate.
“Diel,” Gabriel said again like it was the only word he had ever known.
His bloodied hand reached up to the warrior’s sharp jaw, his fingers flitting
around his cheekbone and temple, searching for purchase in the dark. “Take
me home.”
Abdiel shook, his arms vibrated, and his legs trembled, he ground his
teeth together. From her place in the center of the room, Melany lifted her
chin at him, dared him to do whatever savage thing he was envisioning that
very moment.
“Take me home,” Gabe cried in a hoarse, agonized whisper. “Please.”
That was all it took. That one syllable, lamented in such a piteous way
that even the anger drowning out the warrior’s senses quieted. Abdiel’s eyes
widened as they pried themselves from Melany’s smug face and looked
down at the god pleading in his embrace.
Without another word, Abdiel stood and walked to the far side of the
room. Melany straightened when he passed her, and balled her fists as if
ready for him to attack, even with her brother still limp in his arms. But the
warrior continued walking, keeping his chin high and holding on tight to his
lover as they made their way over to Owen.
A sharp chill blasted through the room, a portal to the Astral Plane ripping
out around the three defenders of Time. Owen clasped a hand onto his
brother’s back, stepping into the void, and closing the door behind them.
“Well,” Melany said. “Now that’s off without a hitch...” she motioned for
Ione with one long red painted nail. “Sister. Come claim your retribution.”
What?
Ione and I both turned sharply towards Melany, the High Mer’s face
turning a sickly grey-green. I could almost feel the room refill with the
tension that was intermitted by Gabriel’s punishment. It was as if I’d
forgotten all about why we were here as if it became the least important
thing that would happen today. But Melany did not forget.
“Well, go on,” she said, strutting to her sister, cuffing a hand around
Ione’s wrist and sending her stumbling in my direction. When we met face
to face, I gasped at the line of red that tore from the High Mer’s eyebrow to
her lip. I should have felt guilty seeing it, but I didn’t. For everything she’d
put her faction through, just to betray me, that scar was deserved.
Sensing that I was now under threat from the High Mer, I reached for my
bone dagger, ripping it unceremoniously from the band around my thigh.
Ione froze, like she was afraid, though I was sure the entire power of seven
Seas was far worse than whatever minuscule amount of Silverwood was
infused into my stolen dagger.
Ione clenched her fists, then unclenched them, and worked her jaw
around nervously, never meeting my eyes. Her breath quickened, I could
hear it jumping beneath her ribcage.
You’re not a Guardian, you’re so much worse.
“Pathetic,” Melany said under her breath, frustrated with her sister’s lack
of menace. She shoved Ione from her place in front of me. The Shadow
Sage was less than a step from my grasp, and I could finally make out her
wide lips just under her veil. She wore a freckled pout as she said, “I guess I
will have to do it myself. Though I should warn you, dear Gwyn, lest any
one of my sisters forget. I like to take my time with revenge.”
My breath stalled in my throat; my hands froze to my sides. The dagger in
my fist felt lighter than air, its cool touch tingling in my hand.
 Ione despises her sister. Something about her face.
I lifted my gaze from Melany’s mouth and found us the same height.
Nearly the same build and though she had the pallor of someone cloaked
constantly in shadow, I could tell we shared the same golden skin. I closed
my eyes, thinking I might vomit, and listened. A buzzing. A buzzing of
power beneath her skin. I’d never heard it in Ione, Gabriel or even Kalen.
The song of knowledge, the symphony of a Sage. How could I hear it in the
Shadows?
Identical twins. Born from the same vein of their Mother’s power.
My eyes shot open, I looked into that dark veil and felt my head start to
swim before I laughed. Melany’s pout turned saccharine as she said, “Hello,
my Light.”
My mouth flinched to make the sounds, but they barely passed on the
wind of her pounce. Melany’s fist flew up to my face, landing right on my
chin as I hopped back a step, trying to gather my thoughts, trying to
remember any of the training I’d done with Kalen. She swung for me again,
but this time I blocked her, slicing my bone dagger through the front of her
bodice.
Melany’s lips pulled back into a snarl, though I’d missed, before she drew
back from me, Shadow whipping from her hand and materializing a sword.
“Play fair,” she said like she was reminding me.
I lunged for her, ducking under the blade and grabbing her around her
waist. When we hit the ground, both of our weapons flew from our grasp.
The fall stunned me and slowed me down more than I had anticipated.
Melany knew this, and my vision grew dark. She lifted the Shadow seconds
before she grabbed my face, banging my head into solid flooring beneath
us. Lifting me with a strength I’d not met in this lifetime, she struck the
back of my skull once, twice, three times against the floor. I heard Ione yelp
at each crack that sounded. My vision blacked as Melany drew back a fist
full of spiked rings and whelped them across my cheekbone.
While I waited for the world to return to me, I couldn’t help being
surprised at how quickly the Shadow Sage had disarmed me. I thought I
would last at least five minutes.
Cold hands braced my face and the darkness lifted from my eyes. Light,
too much light. I could all at once see; the midday sky through the glass
dome above, my blood leaking beneath my leathers, and Melany, drooling
over my limp body like a hound in heat.
 “I’m so glad your back, sister” she taunted. “It would have been
bittersweet to kill you while you remained in such a state.”
There were no words I could say, nothing to voice the realization of what
I was and who this person, face to my ravaged face, was to me. I replied
with a swift knee to her groin. Melany let out a strangled gasp and I shot my
arm up to her throat simultaneously hooking my right leg around her thigh.
She clawed at my hand as I whisked myself over her, dropping my elbow in
a crushing blow to her stomach.
Melany squirmed, drawing up a hand to summon the darkness. Wisps of
smoke spewed out into the air, shrouding us, and giving privacy to this
moment. Seventy-two years of hatred and pursuit of retribution. This
moment was hers to take, or mine to take, or maybe she cast a veil around
us just so she could tell the story she wanted when this was all said and
done. Because her hand reached up to my throat, just as mine was around
hers. And she was so strong, I was certain I was going to die.
But as the darkness centered around us, there it was.
A stone of Light. And it was a stone, not a crystal, dangling between her
breast on a delicate golden chain, shoved out from its hiding place in her
bodice. Glaring there in the dark, shining without cause. My stone. The last
piece of my soul, revealing itself to me. In my shock, I swore it said, I have
been waiting.
And I have been searching, my heart answered.
It was a joyous song, and I let it flood my senses as I snapped the chain
from Melany’s neck and brushed my thumb along its smooth edges. So in
awe, I almost didn’t feel the Silverwood she’d pulled from her thigh sinking
into my chest. I almost didn’t hear the triumphant laugh that came from the
goddess below me as she twisted the blade’s hilt. I had been wrong.
Death, I thought as I slipped into its waters, was cold—but bright.

OceanofPDF.com
SYTHE
seventy-two years ago

I SAT AT MY FATHER’S right hand, as I always did during

family gatherings, sharpening my blade against the stone leg of the table. At
least once in a half-moon, our family was summoned to Sythe for meetings
of the Council. It was an odd name for such a group, I thought because it
really only consisted of the six members of our family. Sure, occasionally
one of my siblings chose to bring their Yields along for the drama of it but
putting such an official name to the occasion did nothing more than glorify
what most would call family dinner.
I was always the first to arrive, which was ironic, what with time being
Gabriel’s particular gift. Funny how Mother had divided up her powers. As
if she knew what weaknesses her children’s fleshed bodies would produce
and wanted them on full display for the mortals. I, myself, was the Light
after all, but my moods had always made it seem like I was born off the
breath that snuffed a candle—marked and resolute.
To Father’s left, sat Ione, the other suck-up of the family. She wore a
dress of whale skin that clung tight to her slender figure, a shawl of
fisherman’s net draped over her shoulders.
I thought I might compliment the windswept styling of her hair or the
shade of glimmering teal that shone only when the light hit just-so, but
decided better of it. In the last few millennia we had known each other, Ione
had never made even the slightest effort to befriend me, let alone partake in
familial flattery. She had been too busy coddling our younger brother.
Down the long stretch of the dining table, I could just pick out the green
flash of Dario’s eyes dancing across the basalt. He was testing his power
again, making the flame in the centerpiece candles move from wick to wick
in wild little leaps. The right side of my mouth curved down in pity at the
display.
Dario had come into his powers much later than the rest of us and had
taken it in a sign of good faith that he was ill-favored by our Mother. She
was generally disgusted by mortals—with the exception of our father—and
had gifted Dario control over what she cared least for. Sometimes, he
thought she had forged him from the molten core of the world for the sole
purpose that mortals would look at him and see what ghastly, hideous
creatures they were, a mirror for them to look into and see nothing but
insignificance and limp flesh.
I always hated those thoughts. Not because my brother had felt that way
about himself for the whole of his life, but because I felt them just as if
they’d risen from my own heart. My ability to see the Truth in all things, to
read people like bolded words on a clean sheet of paper, had kept me at a
distance from many. This applied to family first and foremost, especially
my twin.
Melany entered now, like my absent-minded thoughts had pressed a hand
at her back from wherever she had been and ushered her through the great
iron doors of her own hall. That could not have been true, of course. If I’d
had any sway over my sister at all, I would have used it long before now,
and for much greater a purpose.
Gabriel followed, several feet outside of the dark plume of smoke that
winded around Melany always. He wore a characteristically smart grin. I
took notice of the clock hands above the doorframe inching backward and
counted along with them in fives until they reached the three-quarter hour.
It made me laugh. Bastard, I thought, reveling in Gabe’s mischief about as
much as he did.
“Children,” Thesion’s choral voice rang out through the room as my
siblings settled into their seats. Father always spoke in that tone, as if he
were addressing a congregation of devout mortals and not his five, hardly
sanctimonious children. We were gods ourselves, and by consequence had
absolutely no interest in religion.
“We are summoned today by your sister, Sage of Shadows,” he continued.
“Vaguely, she has informed me there is a great development in the faction
of Sythe and she wishes to share it with us all. Daughter, you may rise.”
“Thank you, Father.” Melany wore a coy smile on her garnet lips and the
twinkle in my twin’s eye was so bright, I wasn’t completely sure she hadn’t
drawn on my own magic to amplify it. A quick sweep with my mind and I
was reassured all was well, at least as far as the Light was concerned.
There was something, though. A dark well that opened up in my belly and
hinted Melany was on the verge of leveling us all. Then again, I had
weathered plenty of her antics before now. I need not be paranoid, I minded
as Melany stood, very lady-like, and rolled her shoulders regally.
“My brothers and sisters. Father,” she repeated, sweetening her features
as she glanced dotingly at Thesion. “I’ve summoned you all to Sythe to
discuss a matter of particular excitement. I wanted you to hear it before it
was formally announced at my court,” she said haughtily. How lucky we
were, to hear it first, and from the Shadow Sage herself. I let my eyes take a
resentful turn about the room, pausing to note the haunting effigy of a crow
paned in the stained-glass dome above us.
“Oh!” Gabriel put a hand to his robe, feigned excitement gleaming in his
violet eyes. “You are finally putting in aqueducts to rid the city of that piss
smell?”
I dropped the glance he threw my way, not wanting to stir up any more
trouble. I’d already swallowed down the giggle that burbled inside my
throat at his gall.
“No, dear brother,” the look she gave him was dark enough to put out the
light in his stars, but Gabriel was not one to cower. “Although, I would
consider it if we had the budget. As you well know, the Continent’s coin is
currently being put to the fire in Cypra, what with that nasty syphillus
outbreak and all.”
At that, Gabriel’s smile slid right off his chin.

“Children,” Thesion warned, glancing over to me in desperation. I gave

him a bored shrug, trying to even out my more than smug face. This, I
thought, is why I am Father’s favorite.

Ione, noticing Thesion’s not-so-silent pleas to refocus the discussion,

chimed in her voice of silver, “Please, dear sister, do get on with it.”
She still wanted to grind Gabriel’s face into the dirt floor, but Melany
knew that scaled tone of Ione’s. Smooth and polite at one turn, sharp and
cutting at another. “You all ruin the fun,” she huffed, flopping down into her
chair. “I am to be wed.”
She revealed it as one would reveal the flavor of tart after a meal. My
brows arched in pure shock. Since we had come of age, Melany had never
expressed any interest in matrimony. A few unlucky mortal men and women
had taken to her bed and found themselves drunk on a potion of oleander
and ambrosia—unknowingly of course. But even then, my sister had never
made to marry any of her Yields. She’d always thought marriage such a
moronic institution, which about summed up her view on mortals in
general.
I took a careful survey of the others’ expressions before offering any more
of my own. Ione was rubbing a crease from beneath her hairline in stress.
Dario had remained bored-faced but perked up slightly in his chair, and
Father...well, Thesion was doing what any formidable parent would do,
gracing a brilliant smile across his rouged cheeks, a twinkle of pride upon
wet eyes.
“Marvelous,” Gabriel chirped, happy to find new amusement in
distracting us from Melany’s pointed drag earlier. “Tell us, sister, the name
of the unluckiest bastard in the world!”
My twin regained her mirth at the invitation, “Funny you should use the
term bastard, brother. You’ve always been so intuitive, powers aside.”
I recognized with quite a sick feeling the moment that we had all entered
into some sort of game. A clever little puppetry that Melany had
choreographed from beginning to end, with us at the center to pull and
shorten the strings of our own fate. We needed only to sit ourselves at the
table, and we’d done just that. Now having piqued Gabriel’s interest, she’d
secured reason enough to let it begin. Leaning forward sinuously, her
ribcage braced the edge of the stone table, seductive and terrifyingly quaint
as her delicate fingers laced under her chin.
“I figured you would all be so delighted, for you already know of him.”
Looking straight at me, she drew up her lips into a devilish curl. To some
secret servant tucked away, waiting in the wings of the hall, Melany called,
“Shadowfader, do go fetch my darling groom, Kalen Herja.”

I RUSHED INTO THE throne room, alone, determined to stop

the wedding. Wedding, I sneered in my head. She can’t do this, I thought
more desperately. But over the last few days, I had sought out every
possible ally—in Sythe and Cypra. All of them had shut me down. Even
those I commanded in Leoth refused to rise against Melany with me. It was
a sin, they had said.
 To refuse the Rite to any immortal, let alone a goddess and my blood, was
not only an act of treason, it was the highest form of it. I was of equal stay
as my twin and there were rules on this Continent that not even a Sage
could rend. It was written: there would be no plea I could make, no bargain
I could strike, no boon I could promise. Kalen was to Yield to my sister—
tonight.
The hall was quiet. Eerily so. It was near dusk, which meant the wedding
court and partygoers would not arrive for another three hours. Melany
would be readying in her chambers for what mortals dubbed the greatest
night of her life, while my other family members strategized over what to
do with me on the worst of mine.
Whether Thesion knew of my attachments to Kalen, I was unsure, but I
was positive Gabriel would have taken the time to explain it in great,
humiliating detail after I had projected out of Sythe, hurrying off before
Kalen arrived and Melany could ruin us both.
I paced from the dais to the dining table, trying to slow my wretched
breathing. There had to be a way, but I had never been good at finding
loopholes. Like my father once said: too much of the truth, and you will be
blinded to everything else around you. Rage sent a flame of Light through
my blood and I kicked a chair to extinguish it.
“Careful,” Melany called from behind, “You’ll scatter the roses.”
I looked down, and indeed there was a long aisle of blood-red and black
rose petals leading from the door to my sister’s throne. My anger returned
like it had never left me at all. She was going to celebrate taking his life
from him. And then after she took his life, she would take him from me.
Then the question that I’d kept to the fringes of my brain since the Council
meeting. Was he letting her Yield him?
I gritted my teeth. “Don’t you think you’re taking this a little too far?”
“I couldn’t possibly know what you mean.” Melany smiled with that
feline grace of hers.
“What do you want, Melany? Tell me what it is that you want from me,
and I will give it to you. Just let him go.”
Pressing a hand to her heart, my twin pouted. “Sister you wound me. You
assume I want something from you and that’s why I am stealing your
favorite toy. For leverage? I’d hardly need to marry Kalen for that.”
“Then why?” I hated the whine of my voice. “What does this treachery
amount to for you?”
 “Treachery? Gods, I couldn’t write this any better than it plays out before
me.”
Melany ascended the black stone steps of her dais, scraping her heel
against the base as she sat on her throne. She threw her palms out
expressively. “Maybe I just want him, Gwyn. Maybe I like his company, his
idle conversation on a pleasant afternoon. Have you ever thought of that?”
“When is it ever pleasant in Sythe?” I provoked.

“Alright, an unpleasant one, when the cloud and rain force us to play
inside...” Her eyes turned cold and she smirked. “Maybe I love the things he
does with his—.”
Before I could control myself, my dagger flew from my hands, shanking
into the stone at her feet. I knew I couldn’t kill her, but I wanted her to hurt.
My poor aim was only proof of how overwhelming my anger was
becoming. Melany looked down and giggled at the display. I marched up
the dais to her throne, each step hollowing out the place in my mind where
common sense lay. I may not be able to kill her, but maybe she’d reconsider
getting married with a busted lip and ten missing teeth. When I was at arm’s
length I raised my fist.
Melany didn’t even flinch.
She knew I wouldn’t do it, but before I had the chance to wager if I could,
Thesion shouted into the hall.
“Gwynore! Stand down at once!”
I forced my arm down slowly, controlled so that I wouldn’t crumple to the
ground and sob. My father charged through the room, his footfalls light so
as not to disturb the damned roses.
Thesion’s face was terse, but it made him look every bit of ruggedly
handsome. Dressed in his finery, he wore a black tunic and pants that fit
every taut muscle his immortal body had gifted him. The clothing was
embellished with red and silver threads to mark the importance of this day
for his Shadow daughter. Low in my abdomen, my gut twisted, just slightly
at the sight of it.
Thesion would do this for any one of us: wear our colors, place crowns on
our heads, walk us down the aisle—if that was what we wanted. But it still
hurt, the depth of the cut he was making on me in that moment.
When he’d finally trudged up the steps to meet us, Thesion took my
sister’s hands gently in his.
 “Melany,” he said softly, not even daring to look at me. I was grateful for
the opportunity to wipe a traitorous tear that had fallen. “You know that I
love you as if you were my own. I would do anything for you and I have
proven that time and time again...but...” Thesion stammered, a rare
occurrence and one that only accentuated how awkward this predicament
truly was for him.
Finally, he cleared his throat. Melany looked at him, making her eyes
grow round like she cared—very much—what her Father had to say. “Must
you Yield the boy so soon?”
My sister drew back, wrenching her hands from his. “And why should I
have to wait, Father, to take the love that by law I am promised? Are you
suggesting that a Sage be denied her rights? Are you implying treason?”
Thesion stilled at the word treason. I choked at the word love.
“You know that I would never betray my gods,” he replied hastily. “It is just
that your sister—”
“My sister wishes to end my life this very moment,” Melany hissed,
backing my Father to the edge of the risen stone we stood on. The roses in
the aisle below us began to rise on a phantom wind. Black veins swelled in
Melany’s arms as the room grew just two shades dimmer. “I may be only
privy to one side of the Truth but I do not need her power to see that. Just as
I do not need the Light to end your little experiment with immortal life.”
I unleashed the Light, filling the space between the Shadows. Her power
did not fade but stalled as it burned against mine. “Melany, if you don’t stop
this, I swear…”
“You’ll do what?” she laughed. “Sick your little Guardians on me?” She
released the Shadow from her wrists and the flowers settled back on the
stone. I relinquished the Light, allowing her to approach me. We were so
close I could feel her darkness trying to bind itself to my heart. “You’re not
the only one with an army, sister,” she said. “But I don’t need to tell you
about a strength you already envy.”
I swallowed. She hadn’t just said that. At least, she hadn’t meant it that
way. There was no way she could have known. I’d been so careful. In my
dealings with both the Cleaver and Kalen—I’d been so careful.
Discreetly, I reached out with my Light to search her mind, but my
powers were met with a fortress of impenetrable Shadow. A curl of smoke
caressed my mind, scraping like one long finger against it. The hair on the
back of my neck raised.
 As I drew back, Melany gave me a once over, shrugging her shoulders
apathetically. “To hell with all the frills and fuss,” she said. “Let’s start this
show right now. Fader, go fetch my siblings and my groom. I’m ready to be
a missus.”

I WAS A SELFISH, selfish girl. And I’d known that even before
Kalen entered the throne room, pale, disheveled, and absolutely terrified to
be marrying my sister. Even before he’d been released from the binds of
Shadow around his wrist, and pushed into her arms. I was selfish. I’d never
felt more relieved of anything than to know that he didn’t want this. That he
was being forced to Yield. My relief only lasted a second. One blissful,
guilt-ridden second before I saw the blood. Kalen’s arms were steeped in it
—a bright, red deluge.
“What did you do to him?” I growled, sprinting to the pair and wrenching
him from her grasp. “Are you hurt?” I asked, I yelled.
Kalen made no move to answer. He couldn’t even look me in the eyes. I
focused, sweeping with the Light in search of whatever shadowy
enchantment Melany had procured over him. I turned Kalen by his
shoulders, gripped him tightly, and fought off his attempts to shirk me.
“There is no enchantment, sister,” Melany said over my shoulder. “Do
you really think I would need the Shadows to compel my future husband?”
“Then what is this? Whose blood is this?”
It was Gabriel who stepped forward, crossing the aisle from where he and
my other siblings stood and into the center of the room. Ione and Dario
were silent, watching the horror unfold as if it were just a spat between two
older sisters.
“Melany,” Gabe said, his voice rife with concern in a way I’d never heard
from him before. “You know I am all about theatrics, but truly...this is too
much.”
“Is that so?” Shadows rose from Melany’s palm. “Because I’ve only just
started.”
Gabriel swallowed visibly, and then everything around us stilled. Time
stopped. The King of Cosmos looked at me, ready to open the Astral Plane.
I grabbed Kalen’s wrist, his skin sticking to me as he squirmed under my
grasp as he tried to pull away. I looked at him and then Time surged forward
again. Gabriel choked as Melany closed a fist of darkness around his throat.
Bones began to crunch under the Shadows. She would break him for
helping me.
“Try that again, brother,” my twin hissed, “and it will be your lover on
this dais beside me. Astralite or not.”
Gabriel’s eyes bulged as she gripped tighter, waiting for him to give. He
would not. Eventually, his body went limp in her hands and she threw him
to the floor for no apparent reason other than that it was not fun to torture
him anymore. Gabriel lay there on the cold stone, writhing in pain. No one
moved to help him. I told myself he was alright, that he was a Sage, and
that even if he needed me, Kalen needed me more. Melany smirked, dusted
her pristine velvet skirts, and looked at me to continue.
“Now go ahead and find the truth,” she said. “But remember to play
fair.”
I clenched my jaw and turned to Kalen, taking his face in my hands, and
forcing my way into his hollow skull for the first time since we had crossed
paths in these very halls. I let the familiarity of his gentle thoughts
overwhelm my senses. The sound of his inner voice almost crippled me. It
had been too long since we’d parted in the meadow, and I missed him. I
willed myself to focus, not to let my love for him engulf the pressing
urgency of the moment. Sternly I whispered into his soul, Son of Herja, tell
me all.
His glass-eyed gaze finally met me, just as I had willed it. “You let him
live,” he said, and I was taken aback. “He beat me, every day, yet you let
him live.”
The Cleaver.
I looked to Melany, my breath stolen from me as I searched for answers
anywhere upon her satisfied face. Kalen stifled a sob that brought me back
to him.
“When you told me in our meadow, how easy it would be for you to
poison him, I had thought there was a reason that prevented you from it.
That maybe you thought it would hurt me to kill the only father I ever had.
That even though he was cruel, some part of you thought I would hate you
for ridding the world of the man who raised me. That, I could understand.
How you might love me so much that...” His tears fell freely now as he
looked back towards the blood crusting in the hairs of his forearms, packed
and nearly black underneath his fingernails. “But there was no reason. No
person you love more than yourself.” He glowered at me, and the
murderous intensity of that look was all I needed.
“No. No, Kalen,” I gasped. It was all I could say. “No.”
I wondered if I looked even half as pathetic as I sounded, but I didn’t
care. I was too crushed by the understanding of what he had
done. Devastated, to realize that the blood on his arms was his father’s. The
Cleaver was dead. Kalen had killed him at the direction of my sister, and
now any chance I’d had at eternity with him was gone.
“Oh, yes, sister,” Melany said coolly. “I told Kalen all about your
consorts with the enemy. How clever of you to sweet talk both father and
son, The Cleaver and his bastard heir, as it were. I imagine if one of them
failed whatever little task you had, the other would suffice.”
“You were never meant to know. Not before I could—”
“Oh, they were never meant to know?” Melany feigned surprise. “Yes, I
suppose the Cleaver wouldn’t be inclined to say anything at all. It must
have been hard to hold much of a conversation as he carved out his son’s
back with a leather strap.”
“Kalen. You don’t understand. I was trying to find a way...” the words
rose swiftly and then curdled in my mouth. I swallowed the sour taste. I
must go on. “I was trying to make you immortal.”
Kalen’s ire melted, pulling himself from his shock just long enough to
morph into a look of incredulity. It was impossible to him, and I could hear
the thoughts racing behind his eyes. She is a liar. Stay mortal. The dagger
was proof enough. You are meant to live and die and hate me for it. She
never loved me. I killed my Father because she is a liar.
“Your mother’s magic,” I explained. “It comes from a line of power old
enough to call upon the Arts. We were working on a way to separate the
Light from myself, as Mother once did. I could not Yield you. I could not be
the master of your soul. I wanted you to have your own will. I wanted to
share the Light with you. Everything. I wanted to share everything with
you, you must believe me.”
His stoic features twisted hideously then, all of the contempt and rage he
had mustered against me turning in on himself. Whatever had led him to
finally kill the Cleaver, he could have never understood the repercussions.
Because I’d lied to him, I’d let him believe I would never choose him.
“She is his Yield.” My voice cracked. “I couldn’t do it without him.”
 Melany giggled. “What did you promise the fool?”
I sniffed, straightening myself. “A place in my court. The Cleaver was to
be General of Leoth.”
Melany smirked, not surprised in the least. She knew that I loved Kalen
and she knew the lengths I would go to keep him by my side.
“You didn’t want to take Kalen’s life and make him a slave to you, so you
sought out a loophole,” she surmised. “One that would make you a thief and
a traitor to your own family.” She looked to Kalen with a smile that turned
my insides cold. “We are alike, you know. Both of our fathers never loved
us. My Faders have told me your brothers always treated you cruelly. My
siblings were no better. If she’d succeeded you would have only been
trading one crooked family in for another. Thank the Mother it was not
so.”
Kalen said nothing. He just looked at the floor, hopeless, destroyed,
ruined.
I had ruined him.
“I didn’t want to watch you die,” I choked. A tear slid down my face,
scalding the skin beneath it.
“And instead, sister, you will watch what this treachery amounts to for
me. Nothing.”
My twin’s eyes flickered then with an indisputable display of will.
Immediately, I knew what she was making way to do. The muscle in my
thighs bunched tightly preparing to spring forward and stop what only I
knew was coming. But my body was halted by the warm strength of my
father’s arms.
My head whipped around and I knew the look I gave him was every bit of
hatred as it was betrayal. Thesion’s wrinkled brow folded in on itself in
sorrow. He bowed his head, ashamed. I am sorry, my Light, he whispered
into my mind. You must let him go.
I had a thought that Time was turning slowly, though I knew Gabriel lay
crippled on the floor. A horrible, strangled gurgle sounded in my ear.
I didn’t want to watch you die.
When I turned back towards my sister and her bridegroom, it was too late.
Kalen’s blue eyes were wide with shock and then empty by the time his
kneecaps shattered against the volcanic floors. Sheer joy gleamed bright
upon my sister’s face. Brighter than her blade, now sheathed in his mortal
blood. The cup of poison that had been procured for the Rite clanged
against the ground, like a bell of death, slipping from the ceremonial table
and spilling its unconsumed contents out into a pool of blood at Melany’s
feet. I stared at the liquid, a swirl of garnet and gold. Death and Life. All of
it was the same. All of it was for nothing. Nothing, Melany’s words
echoed.
Then I looked up and wished I had not. The jagged wound at Kalen’s jaw
gaped open wide. The cut was so deep that it had nearly beheaded him. No
matter how much I wished to pull my eyes from the horror of it, I couldn’t.
It was an endless chasm and it swallowed me whole. My worst fear lay in
front of me, the fear I thought would surely be my undoing. Yet, I had to see
it to know that it was real.
Kalen was dead.
In the dark of that moment, all I felt was immeasurable grief, and the
unbridled heat of Light as it ruptured from my skin, cindering my father to
ash.

OceanofPDF.com
IONE WAS WAILING. THROUGH the ringing in my
ears, I could still hear it clearly. I turned to look at my sister, eyes puffed
and blubbering, a never-ending scream streaming from her open mouth. She
held my father’s ashes in her hands, tightly balled fists with dark smudges
of a man once immortal. Some of that ash drifted in the air around us.
Gabriel was exactly where I’d left him when the Light overcame me,
lying mutilated on the floor, unconscious and unable to heal himself. Dario
was missing, and Melany sat upon her throne, the true Queen of Shadows,
watching it all with a look of marvelous wonder gleaming in her smoked
eyes.
I would have killed her then. I should have killed her then, but when I
finally spotted Kalen lying on the Light-burned stone, everything else fell
away.
I crawled to him, every one of my muscles still seared with white flame.
Pulling his body to my lap, I held his head to his neck and sobbed. Blue
eyes remained open. I couldn’t force myself to close them, no matter how it
haunted me. I couldn’t do anything but hold him and cry.
The sounds of my grief put a stop to my sister’s. And as she hauled
herself from the soot of our Father, and sprinted to kill me, I murmured into
my love’s ear, “I will meet you in the shadows. Wherever you are, I will
find you there.”
I felt the dark cloud roll in and nearly begged for the sweet relief of my
death. Melany shrouded the three of us from Ione’s sight.
“Melany,” Ione screamed from outside the twisting winds of shadow.
“Melany, I will kill her for this. Do you hear me? She will die by my hand
for this. By my hand!”
Melany did not reply. Instead, she coiled her Shadow tighter around us. I
clutched Kalen with all my strength. She had taken him from me. She
would not take this moment too. I deserved the death Ione was eager to
give. I thirsted for it. The only sound was my heaving lungs and the clack of
her shoes as she walked towards the pitiful sight. Bending at her knees, I
scented his blood splattered on her and in the pool around us.
“You killed him,” I growled at my own face.
There was no irony in that, and for a moment I wished her hair had not
been so dark, just so that it could have really been me I was talking to. She
had killed him, but it was my fault. I knew his fate the moment he’d walked
into the Council last night. I should have killed her then, too. So why didn’t
I? Why didn’t I Yield Kalen the second I’d known I was in love with him?
He had begged me, not once or twice, but enough times to fill our
conversations for seven years passed. Now he was truly dead, Melany’s
scheme to Yield him was simply a farce to lure me. She’d wanted to kill
him all along.
Why hadn’t I done anything?
“Yes,” she said softly, almost cooing at me. “I killed him, and you ask
Why?” She did not wait for my answer. “Because you wouldn’t,” she spat.
“For three thousand years, I have watched you conquer, torture, thieve, and
connive. For three thousand more, I would have admired you for it—and
then you met the mortal boy.”
She brushed the golden hair from his porcelain face and it took
everything in me not to reach for my dagger and cut off her arm. She
caressed his cheek with a pout, “Tell me, Sister. What is it about this face
that made you want to forsake everything that you are? I can’t say I see
anything worth that kind of sacrifice.”
“Is that what this is about?” I snarled at her, hot tears mixing with the
wetness of my mouth. “You want to teach me some lesson about self-
preservation?”
Melany’s expression banked. “You were going to give him the Light,
Gwynore. Power. Coveted by all, and gifted to you.”
“It is mine! It was my right to share with him!”
“Right?” She laughed. “You have no rights. You were created to rule, as
we all were. Do you think that I had any rights when Father decided that the
Light of Truth should govern nobly while I sat wasting in the Shadows?
When he pitted us against each other and made it clear to everyone that he
was betting on you?”
Melany stood and paced along the walls of her Shadow, never dropping
her gaze from mine. “I never wanted to be this thing that I am. I was born
with the gift of Shadows, but I was made to be feared. And you. Do you
know how long I have tarried under that power of yours? One thread of
golden stitch separating me from the throne at the canyon’s edge of Leoth,
yet you would give it away.” She took a step back, sneering, “To a mortal,
Gwynore.”
“I loved him!” My scream was so haunting...desolate, broken. My body
shivered in its wake.
“You loved him,” she nodded, truly somber. “Now here he lays. A bag of
bone and flesh on the floors of my court. So the lesson, dear sister, is this:
love is never a good enough reason to give yourself up.”
I looked up at my sister, whose face, arranged in a display of pity, was
off-center through the blur of my swollen, tear-soaked eyes. She shook her
head, muttering “rights” to herself once more, then disappeared through the
Shadow. From somewhere in the hall she said, “I will leave you to grieve.”
A sob barked out of me.
“But not for long,” she added. “I’ll expect your wrath to follow
swiftly...as usual. I must admit I look forward to whatever fresh hell you
will let loose on the morrow.”
And then Melany was gone.
I was alone in the Shadows, Kalen still prostrate on my lap, my hands and
my leathers sleek with the oil of his blood. I could not say for how long I
sat stroking his head and singing him songs and whispering his name over
and over. Kalen, Kalen, Kalen. Like an incantation.
The pain was unbearable. When I closed my eyes, white flame was all I
could see and it burned deeper than any other. I thought of begging Mother.
I did beg Mother. But there was no answer. I wondered if she grieved for
Thesion, at present and when he’d had slit his own neck all those thousands
of years past. Was this what she felt? A hollow ache of despair. Did she fill
it with her own blind anger?
That was what Melany expected of me.
I tried to imagine it, the way she pulled herself apart just to give my
father life again. Forging herself into all that was him. The Time he counted
on her stars were the freckles Kalen numbered with his hands along my
face. The swells of the Sea that raised wind and tousled his grey hair were
the breath Kalen took whenever I looked at him. The Land beneath my
father’s feet crunched in between my lover’s hands at our meadow. And the
Light. The Light that my father was to the Mother, so Kalen was to me. The
Shadow that I was despite myself, with all the horror the universe and I
created. It was his to keep.
 Whatever force had allowed the Mother to break apart her soul, tugged at
mine now. I listened to the call, crammed my eyes shut, and focused. I
loved him, I loved him, I loved—a rumble of the earth. The clatter of stones
hitting the floor. I looked one last time at him and truly laughed as his
wound began to mend itself with little rays of dawn. Kalen’s cheeks pooled
with new blood, his lips no longer muted in gray as I kissed them. I only
wished I could stay to see the blue of his eyes, but I knew I could not.
Melany was right. Even if Kalen did come back, even if he was okay. She
had killed him, I had watched him die. And father…By the Light, what had
I done to our father? That alone was all the reason I needed to let my grief
consume me, to go on hurting everyone I loved, hurting everyone I didn’t
love, hurting anyone I saw fit. On purpose or just because I was too prideful
to really understand. Somehow, this would happen, again. Tomorrow, or a
month from now if Ione failed to kill me on her first try. She wouldn’t.
If there was any chance of my survival, I had to leave—now. Kalen
would have the Light. He would take my place as Preserver and the faction
would protect him in ways I could not. The leather of my sleeve caught the
slick of snot running from my nose. I leaned down, pressing a kiss against
the curve of Kalen’s jaw, and said, “I guess I was wrong. You will have to
find me, my love, wherever I am.”
I looked to the skylight, behind the wing of a black crow, and found the
Guiding Star. With one hand bracing the floor, and the other clutching my
heart, I projected one final time. To a place where the Sea met the Land, the
Light shared the sky with the Shadows, and Time protected it all in a quiet
stillness.

WHEN I WOKE FROM the vision, my eyes were still burning

with Light. My mouth tasted sharply of Shadow, and there was a heavy
weight upon my arms that I couldn’t make sense of.
Before I could see again, I heard. Somewhere to my right, Kalen was
mumbling my name. Finally, I thought. You found me. I tried to reach out
towards that weak rush of words, but my body wouldn’t listen to reason. I
pulled at my limbs, but they were stuck on something—that weight...was it
the ceiling? Had I brought Sythe down around us all?
 I pushed against the heaviness again, and light and color began to leak
back into my vision. I managed to pull my arm from whatever wreckage I’d
caused, feeling the weight hit my lap in a solid thump. Gasping, I panicked
and began moving my legs around wildly, thinking I would be caught under
the shifting rubble. But the mass against my thighs moved flaccidly in sync
with me.
I heard Kalen move closer, and though I was still mostly blind, I knew he
reached for me. I let out my free hand towards his shapeless form, but he
jolted away.
“Please,” he said, his voice clear now and riddled with worry. “Gwyn,
please.”
Another shapeless form came into my view. “Kalen, don’t!”
It was Ione.
“I’m not sure which one of them is dead.”
Dead? As if the word was a spell, the Light lifted from my eyes. I looked
down at what should have been a pile of mortar in my lap.
“What in hell do you mean?” Kalen said, the words coarse.
“Did you not see? When the Light receded, the Shadow went with it. The
powers are now one. It is Gwynore’s body, yes, but it could be either of
them inside.”
I ignored whatever it was Ione and Kalen were fighting about, glancing
down at Melany. Her head sat still in the cradle of my legs, her veil
perfectly draped across her cheeks. The trim was a sheer black lace, a
mourner’s veil patterned with small Preserver’s crests. Through the fabric, I
could see her eyes were closed. I felt my fingers drift towards her face. It
had been so long since I had seen my twin, and I wondered if that mischief
had remained etched in the bones of her face and if her eyes still gleamed as
bright as they had when we were children. I paused to see the tips of my
first and middle fingers dipped in black ink. Like smoke pulsing under my
skin.
I’m not sure which one of them is dead.
I jerked my head and looked back down at Melany. Her chest did not rise.
Her mouth, pale and dry, yawned open slightly. Like she was about to tell
me a secret. Something she learned in the dark.
My hand still hovered in the air, unsure of exactly where to land, unsure
of what exactly to do. It stayed floating above her face as I searched for the
power inside my sister, the string that tied us together when we were pulled
apart to live and reign in these bodies. I tugged on that string and found
only myself to answer to. I tugged again, sure I was just out of practice.
One length of Shadow at a time, I pulled and pulled until the darkness
burned in my chest. The Shadow began to rise within me, rippling against
the Light, fighting against it.
Gwyn, Kalen said, his voice moving through my mind.
I snapped my head towards him so quickly that Ione jumped where she
stood at his shoulder. Kalen was unalarmed but there was that familiar glaze
of fear coating his eyes when he looked at me. Kalen began to move toward
my sister and me, but Ione braced her hand against his arm. I marked their
touch and a flicker of black flame danced across my wrist.
“It could be Melany, I...” she faltered. “I’m just not sure.”
But I was. I was not my twin because she lay in my arms, dead.
Yet somehow the Shadow still lived in me. And in my shock, I convinced
myself that all of that horrible Truth would not be so if it weren’t for Ione.
If she had just given me more time, hadn’t sold me out, had helped me—
truly helped me when I needed her the most. Melany would still be alive.
Our father might still be alive if she would have just helped me. My blood
grew cold and all of those thoughts, all of those ways I could blame her for
something even Gabriel could not have seen, melded into one: I was going
to kill Ione.
Gently, and without looking away from those fingers that held tightly to
Kalen, I slid Melany to the ground. My twin’s hand fell open as I stood, the
knife she had plunged into my chest clattering against the stone. My hands
ached to clench, to ball into fists on instinct. So I let them, feeling a wind
draft around my sides. Ione’s eyes grew wide and Kalen cursed under his
breath.
“Gwyn,” he warned, but I stalked towards my only living sister, well
aware of the cloud of Shadow trailing in my wake.
A loud whooshing pushed through the room and before I knew it, my
right hand was around Ione’s throat, her eyes bugging as I slammed her
head against the stone wall. Glass from the skylight above rained down on
us.
“You did this,” I sneered, but my voice was not my own. It reverberated
against itself, a tone I recognized as Melany’s edging every word. I laughed.
What was I blaming her for exactly? Kidnapping Kalen and I? Or the fact
that Melany was somehow trapped inside her good sister’s body.
 Whimpers and choked shrieks ground their way out of the High Mer’s
lips. I slammed her head against the wall again to quiet them. The whirring
and clicking of my two powers surrounded us, drowning out her cry. I was
almost sorry for it, to miss such a lovely sort of sound.
In my periphery, I could see the Shadows rising, threaded by sparks of
Light raging war against myself. I knew what that meant. Somehow, I’d
taken Melany’s power for my own, just as she had once taken mine. But I’d
done more than tie a stone of Shadow around my neck. This dark, billowing
pressure was living inside me, mixing with my blood, filling my lungs,
swallowing me whole. And my heart was fighting it. As if my Light knew it
was an abomination of the natural order to be both at once. My soul was
tearing itself into shreds from the inside out.
Yet all the while, my breaths came steady and true. Ione’s throat felt fuller
in my hands as I squeezed.
With the twitch of my brow, I called the Shadows forward, and they
listened. In a tailspin, the darkness tunneled itself into a dozen spokes that
raced toward my sister with one command. Until she gives. Black wires of
Shadow spewed from my fingers, fusing into Ione’s veins, razing lines of
purple and blue up her jaw. Her body thrashed and her legs thrashed against
my knees. She fought hard, gasping until blood spattered across my face. I
let my tongue swipe at my lips. It tasted like the Sea. I snarled. I’d run to
her when I thought the Binding would be the end of my world. If only she’d
known I’d be the end of hers.
“GWYNORE!”
My Shadows stilled when the Preserver yelled my name.
The Preserver? Was he still?
“Gwyn,” he said softly, melodically. “Listen to me. Listen to my voice.”
My jaw clenched. I wasn’t sure I was just Gwyn anymore.
“You are,” he answered. “And I’m just Kal. You are my best friend, and I
am yours.”
“You know me,” I remembered.
“I do. I know you. And I know that this is you, Gwyn. Not Melany. This
mess around us, this destruction...it is you.” His voice dropped, low and
reassuring. “And this is me and I can help you. I promise. Just let her go.”
Something bloomed in my chest. Pain. Overwhelming pain. Guilt. Nearly
fatal was that feeling. I did want to do this. And was that the worst thing?
So much had happened, so many things ruined because of the powers that
scoured the air around us. In my grief, they expounded and now not one,
but two of the people I had loved most were dead because of it.
What of a few more?
Ione sputtered, getting enough air from the loose of my grip to grunt out
to me. “Gwynore...look at...yourself.”
I growled back at her, but the sound stopped short as a waft of my hair
fell from my shoulders and into my eyeline. Black. Jet black with a purple
sheen underneath the lights. Dropping my Shadows momentarily, I turned
toward the broken window that sat to our left, my hand still clasped around
Ione’s neck. In the shattered reflection, I saw myself. I saw the truth.
Horrifying. That would be the only word for what I had become. People
would whisper it in the streets when they talked of their god returned.
Everything about me was now a harmonious contradiction. Like an
amalgam of my sister and me, an exposition of just how much we were and
had always been, exactly the same. My hair hung static around my body,
the white ebb of locks that were now streaked with black. Thick veins
crawled up my arms and throbbed with unreleased power. And my eyes; an
inky blot of solid black.
I had only seen Melany with these eyes once in my life when she was so
angry and hurt as a child that she’d almost razed an entire continent with
one whispered breath.
I blinked, trying to clear the Shadow from my vision, relief flooding me
when the darkness faded and only my Light remained flickering through my
iris. With the veil around us dropped, I found Kalen. He stood at the far side
of the room, his hands at shoulder height reaching out. He was testing me,
with every step he took forward, slumped into a crouch, his muscles
straining in alarm. His eyes were still golden but muted against my Light.
He jolted when my gaze met his. The look on his face was a mixture of fear
and awe. I read it so plainly on him. It was the look he gave me when he
was mortal and I was his god.
This was the moment. The moment when I knew that the choice between
being bad and being good—was mine. It didn’t matter that Kalen stood
there, still loving me though I was a living curse. Or that Ione’s screams
rang in my ears, her thoughts pleading with me every second I held her life
in my hands. Good or Evil? I was both even without the Shadow and now
that I knew that with my whole heart to be the truth, all I had to do was
choose.
 I released my hand from Ione’s throat and she fell to the stone, gasping.
Beside us, I heard Kalen take a breath. My sister curled into a ball, her
hands folded in at her waist as she began to sob. I waited because I
understood how it felt to find yourself stepping back into a life that hung in
the balance. I waited until her head rose from her chest and her bloodied
face lifted to mine.
As our eyes met, Ione moved quickly to her knees, placing her forehead
against the ground near my feet. She was bowing to me. I shook my head
pitifully, one long black tendril spouting from my fingers. Ione trembled as
I wrapped it around her, gently pulling her from the floor. When the
Shadow that gripped her dissipated, she nearly wept again.
“By my hand, Ione,” I said. She stood and wiped the blood off of her face
with her skirts before nodding. She understood, and from the calm that
spread through Kalen’s mind, I could tell he did, too. By my hand. It was a
promise; that there was nothing more to misunderstand about the power that
took hold of this room, and that there was not enough hatred for either of us
to hold onto.
I didn’t use my power again. Not there, in that place where it had broken
and mended so many pieces of my life again and again. And the two that
were left standing in the hall, I did not look at them. Not as I ascended the
steps of my sister’s dais, looked out at the glass and the blood and the body
that lay upon the crest that was not mine.
No. I did not look at them as I sat down on the Shadow throne.

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THE BINDING WAS A mortal heaven far beyond what I
deserved. I’d seen it in my mind, right before I projected. I had not been
placed there, as Kalen once told me. I’d created this World in the same
fashion as my mother once had. It shocked me, at first. How quickly I’d
accustomed myself to the power of birthing a universe. I had expected to
feel labored, exhausted, and downright drained. But I did not. Looking
towards the crescent moon, there was a dreaminess in my chest that I had
not felt in millennia.
I’d made a beautiful punishment for myself. Every nuance of this place
was an exact signature of the world I had left in the moments just before I
destroyed it. My father’s death was etched into the stars.
In my heart, I felt no guilt for it. Not yet. However, I was sure the day
would come when the pain I brought down on those I loved would creep
back up on me. In a day, in a decade—who knew? I certainly would not. I
wondered how long it might take me to forget Time itself. He had always
been my favorite after all. I took a deep breath and smelled the sweet brine
of the Sea. Now she...she will most definitely torment me, I thought.
I began to walk down the Mountain, taking my time canvasing the Land,
trying not to fill my ego with admiration for what I’d managed to
accomplish.
Not only had I made a place, but I had filled it with things, things that I
loved. Birds and fish and flowers, and even a small grove that reminded me
of the meadow. I hadn’t had much time—my World had been swiftly made,
but it was beautiful and alive. Could a god feel remorse for creating when it
came at such a high cost?
If a god could, this god did not. I laughed to myself, the sound carrying
away on a breeze and fluttering through the tall grass of the Mountain. My
breath escaped my chest with an ache. There was only one thing left for me
to do. I felt for that heavy thing that still sat in the palm of my hand, turning
it with my fingers, as if I could memorize it from touch alone. It seemed
impossible that I should forget this. But I would. I could already feel my
mind slipping from me.
 Walking along the shore, I felt the rush of the Sea as its tides called back
to itself. A warm hum breathed through my ears and down my neck. My
chest pounded with the last drums of regret and self-pity. My legs slowed,
following my heart’s order to turn back and face the things I had done. I
pushed through that suffocating feeling, the way I drowned on dry land. I
slung my arm back, heavy with purpose, and let go. Let go of everything.
As my toes reached the dying froth of the waves, I screamed.
I WAS THANKFUL THE dream had not stirred me so
physically. Though my hair stuck to my neck with sweat, and my muscles
trembled between my skin and bones, I had not woken Kalen. It would be a
long enough day.

At least one of us should get some sleep.

The combination of my slicked skin and the silk of a thousand counts of
thread made for an easy escape from our bed. Our bed, I thought, and the
pain I felt all over eased slightly. We were home, and had been home for
almost a week now. My return to Leoth was what I dreaded the most, or my
reception, rather.
This faction had long lived without its Queen, grown used to the ebb and
flow of life as it moved freely in the absence of that oppressive thumb.
Though he had ruled faithfully, even Kalen was aware his position had been
that of a figurehead. The denizens of Leoth and the Guards that fell in line
did so for the sole purpose of keeping faith. I doubted any of them expected
the Light to return at all, let alone with dark power rippling through the
vessels of her body and fusing with her very soul.
It was that power that I conjured as I shut myself in the tearoom down the
hall. I let its searing cold sluice down from my heart through the underside
of my wrists. Its black flame caught with the small twitch of my fingers.
“Hello, sister,” I sighed, keeping my eyes open as the Shadow filled the
room and enveloped me in darkness.
Ever since I’d come to my senses in Sythe, awoken from that bad dream
of murderous intent, I hadn’t heard my sister’s voice. I’d thought she would
stay with me. At the time, that thought had frightened me beyond measure,
but in some twisted way, I was okay with it. Sure, I might be cursed to share
this body with the girl I’d spent my whole life fighting, but I had killed her,
so it seemed rather poetically justified. Of course, Melany hadn’t stayed.
Death allows so few comforts.
The sound of celebration roared from outside. I had been wrong in
thinking my constituents would fear the return of something they did not
understand. No, in fact, they had reveled in it. I was the Divine, the Mother
reincarnate. I was the Sage Risen, and I had freed not only myself with my
great sacrifices, but many others who had once barely dared to breathe for
fear of my sister’s vengeance. What they failed to understand, was how
much of her still lived in me.
They were not the only ones who misunderstood. Upon entering the
landing of the Well, I was surrounded by the emissaries and high-ranking
Guardians of my court before the tailwind of our projection died out. Men
and women I had come of age with, who stood beside me as I was crowned
Preserver, and who I could now only recognize through the hazed mirage of
my memory. They had not seen or heard of me for almost seventy-three
years and were rightfully elated at my return.
Until they saw the black curls of smoke under my skin, striped up my
wrists to the bend of my arms. I was happy when they drew back, thankful
that they were smart enough to be wary. But that joy was short-lived.
Whenever a sudden mood burst from me, caused by my sister still
residing somewhere within, my court decided it was better to offer counsel
than to stand at alarm. One night at dinner, an ember caught in the hearth,
forcing a burst of white light through the room. I screamed, and my
Shadows shot out from my hands as I gripped the table, leaving us all in an
obsolete darkness. Wine spilled, tableware clattered, and guests at our tables
screamed. One server had been so badly frightened they’d wet themselves,
before passing out cold on the dining room floor. When the room was lit—
by candle, not my magic—I stared into the row of ashen faces at the table.
Rebekah spoke up first. “You are through the worst,” she said, taking my
hand in hers from her seat across the table. I had been happy to find her
alive and had elevated her to a small position on my court sorting out
refugee affairs. She indeed was a phame and had no trouble adjusting to the
gossip of politics.
“You have conquered the Shadow,” an emissary chimed in from the back
of the room. Others murmured their support and gave frantic nods. “The
force of your Light will reign in the darkness that mixes with your blood. It
will take some time. But soon you will be stronger for it.”
The others at the table agreed and handed out pats on my back like I was
a child in need of encouragement. All the while, I knew that they watched
me when I was not looking. They saw the deep smudges beneath my eyes
and the way I flinched whenever someone moved too quickly. They
watched me, and then they pretended I was okay. For my sake, they would
tell themselves. And then they would whisper to their friends about how
broken I was. Like I couldn’t hear the thoughts in their minds before they
ever spoke a word. Like I wouldn’t know what I had become unless they
pointed it out to me.
But here in the quiet isolation I’d made for myself, I felt the change in
myself. A change not due to the grief for my twin or the grief for my life as
it once had been. I was not sad about any of that. No, sad was not the right
word. I was angry.
Black. Cold. Anger. So desolate a feeling, the waters of it rushed far
above my head, ready to drown me. A door inside me opened—cracked,
really. And through that crack spilled power, potent and intoxicating as it
bubbled and swelled. With the grit of my teeth, I bared down on that strange
feeling and threw my head back in ecstasy as it surged through my wrists.
This was what Melany had meant when she said the Light was a gift. So
was the Shadow.
The world faded away, the Well crumbled to the ground at my feet, and I
stood on top of that rubble, triumphant. It was so dark and so delicious, that
I could barely make out the memory of amber flecks in Kalen’s eyes that
had always tethered me to my humanity. It was all gone. I would fill this
entire court with the feeling that leeched from my palms, I would swallow
them all into a perpetual night and I would scream into their hollowed
faces, “Is this the strength that you have waited for?” I would bring death
upon the dawn. And it felt so good to be what everyone said I should not.
A quiet knock at the door jolted me, and I clamped down on that
murderous feeling until the darkness reached out only far enough to blanket
me. The gilded knob turned and the door swung open slowly. Timidly,
Kalen peeked into the room. I could barely make him out, but that Light in
his eyes was clear to me still. He scanned my face, too, and only at the
barest nod of my head did he finally enter.
With just his presence alone the space began to lighten, little by little,
until it almost seemed normal again. In the corner, the porcelain blue
teacups began to gloss their reflections, and the wool lounge in the corner
was colored heather grey. Heat rushed to my chest. I was ashamed. Kalen
knew that, which is why he said nothing. Waiting on me. Waiting for me.
“I don’t know who I am,” I said finally, letting loose the hold on my
Shadow just enough to wisp it from the tips of my fingers. “I don’t know
what I am.”
Kalen’s eyes were filled with sorrow I did not deserve. I was almost sick
of it. Hearing my thoughts, my second in command came to sit beside me. I
had wanted him to keep the title he earned, and I was thankful that some of
the Light had stayed with him despite my return. He was thankful that my
truth was the only one he could hear anymore.
I couldn’t say I wasn’t jealous Kalen was spared everyone else’s thoughts
when I was not. It became a delicate balance for me, hearing the Truth so
plainly as I had before while trying not to accidentally Shadow it whenever
I dove into someone’s mind. I had been silently oscillating sparks of gold in
between the dark mist when Kalen finally spoke again.
“The ShadowLight,” he said.
“What?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly, it was such a whisper.
“That is what they are calling you now. The ShadowLight.”
I scoffed. “Seems rather contrary to itself, now doesn’t it?”
“It’s not contrary,” he said, tucking a strand of golden hair behind his
ears. “It’s just...aware.”
“Aware of what, exactly?” I couldn’t help the snarl that pulled back my
lips.
Kalen turned to me, gesturing wide with his hands as he tried to explain,
and tried not to take notice of the room as it darkened once more. “Aware,”
he said, “that one only exists because of the other. Without the Light, we
would never have the Shadow.”
Oh, how Melany would have loved to hear that. A dying wish, for her to
know that though I’d beat her, she would have an eternity of watching me
descend into infamy. I looked sideways at Kalen and snapped, “Now I am
to be the thing that people will blame for the darkness?”
“That’s not what I am saying...” he began.

“Then what do you say?”

Kalen let out a deep sigh. Not exactly a sound of resignation, but he was
definitely cross. “Do you know why we pray the way we do?” he spoke,
avoiding my question. “Let the shadows be your place of rest. For blessed
are we who live in them.”
No actually. I didn’t know why the prayer said that, had never understood
it. In fact, for years after the Prayer was written, by a man who disappeared
shortly afterward, that line had been the inspiration of my paranoia. The
subtle nod to my sister was the reason I had trained so ruthlessly with my
Guardians, prepared and over-prepared for an attack from within.
Kalen stood and reached for my unshadowed hand. I gave it to him
grudgingly. The least I owed him was compliance.
“We say that because those of us who are not so blessed to be gods...” His
rolling eyes stilled and became fixed on me before he continued. “We will
meet our deaths one day.” I began to interject, but Kalen silenced me with a
finger against my lips. “Even as an immortal, it is promised. But in the
Light faction, it is believed that we will find peace in that darkness.”
Kalen summoned the Light from my palm, pulling it through the air to
shine upon his hand. At the back wall, the perfect image of the two of us,
my body frigid next to his, the tilt of my head toward my hand which was
encapsulated by Shadow. I saw clearly the point he was trying to make.
That we, like many things, were just obstacles.
“Because any Shadow,” he finished, “no matter how absolute, means that
the Light persists. Somewhere, it goes on. You, go on. And that is well
enough.”
But it was not well enough for me. Not yet, and not when the feeling of
my sister’s dead body ached atop my arms as if I was still holding her there.
How could I go on? How could I endure the pain that she left with me, the
pain that lingered where my heart met my soul?
“I feel her sometimes,” I admitted, still staring at the wall.
“And you will continue to feel her. She lives within you. Not just her
power, but the memory of what she did to you. What you did to her,” Kalen
said bluntly.
“What we both did to you.”
“Yes.”
Kalen slumped a little beside me. I felt sorry for reminding him, but I had
to. He couldn’t forget that I had been just as culpable in his death as my
sister. He couldn’t forget that I was a god and a dangerous one. Not as long
as these powers gripped me.
 “Gwyn, I want to tell you that it will be better, but you’ll know I’m
lying.”
I leaned my aching head on his bare shoulder. His skin was warm against
the side of my face. He was always so warm. “Yeah, I will,” I sighed.
“Will you promise me something,” he whispered, “if I swear by you in
return?”
“You haven’t been off duty long enough to be handing out fealties, Kal.”
He chuckled, then said seriously, “Gwyn.”

I didn’t reply. Instead, I nuzzled my cheek further into the hook of his
shoulder. “I want you to promise me,” he said. “Promise me that you will
bear it. No matter how heavy this feeling, you will bear the weight of it.
And I promise, in return, to stay here with you, just as we are. With your
head on my shoulder, and my sword drawn at my side, until you know that
you are the only thing you will ever need.”
I lifted myself from him, tucking my power safely away as I pulled his
arms around my waist. “I will always need you,” I said, “even when I
don’t.”
We looked at each other for a moment, the Truth flowing back and forth
between our eyes, both lined in silver and glowing brightly. My breath
caught in my throat. I was so lucky. So very lucky to be looking at him, to
be holding him in these hands that had done so many horrible things.
Lucky, that even though the two of us had been through so much, there was
something about Kalen and I that would never change. We would never stop
saving each other, even if it cost us.
Kalen rested his forehead against mine. I reached up on my toes to kiss
him, but he pulled back, saying, “Well I hope you’ll still need me, or else I
am going to be out of a job.”
I snorted. “Gabriel would hire you. Maybe even turn you into an
Astralite.”
Kalen made a face. “Just what I need. One too-long glance from the
saiche and Abdiel would gut me like a fish.”
“Is that why you’ve always refused my offers to train in Cypra?”
“I’m starting to miss half-minded Gwyn,” he said, rubbing the sting on
his backside from where I’d just pinched him. “She was much easier to
fool.”
“And much easier to keep occupied in the bedroom,” I joked, winking
over my shoulder as I sprinted for the door.
Kalen gaped, chasing after me and wrapping his arms tight around my
torso as I squealed.
“Had you not snuck out on me,” he said, turning me to face him, “I would
have loved to occupy you, Oh Beloved and Faithful Preserver.”
I hummed into his chest as he snaked an arm around my leg and pressed
me into the door. His other hand ran flat around my waist, reaching for
something. He nipped at my ear, his hot breath pouring down my neck as he
breathed, “Later.”
Before I knew it, I was knocked sideways onto the floor, the tender
morning light spewing into the room as Kalen walked out of it.
“Come on,” he called from the hallway. “We have subjects to appease,
and you still need to dress. The sun will be cresting the Well in an hour and
Guardians are not the patient kind.”
“Oh, by the Light,” I groaned, jumping up from the floor and into the
hallway, dusting off my nightgown before shutting the tearoom door.

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LEOTH WAS STILL IN shambles.
It had been months since the attack, but as Gwyn walked down from the
upper layers of the Well, she understood why revisions were taking so long.
The tall, perfectly sculpted ochre walls of her home were mutilated;
rubble and broken glass littered the hall, deep black tears made for inlays in
the stone floor—Melany’s Beerwolv had slashed through the centuries-old
bedrock as if they were silken sheets. By her chambers, a whole wall had
been knocked down, and though many in her court felt it unsafe, Gwyn
insisted on spending at least an hour there each morning, watching the ruin
disappear. Piece by piece. Smaller and smaller. Healing, but still scarred,
nonetheless.
Despite all those scars, Leoth was the faction that remained the least
scathed by the disaster that had occurred in Sythe. The Shadow faction was
in complete disarray.
Upon hearing that Melany was dead and that the trove of the faction’s
power lived within a long-sworn enemy, most Shadowfaders left the
continent in search of a new life. And perhaps even new people that they
might train, learn from, and grow with. Until they felt they were strong
enough to return. Gwynore was not privy to the strength and will of her
sister’s people—not yet at least— but she had no doubts that their plans for
survival involved more than a lifetime of running.
With the Faders gone, the city was free to burn and for the past three
days, it had been. Almost every faction had burned a little. Even the Land,
who not for lack of trying, had stayed out of this mess amongst the gods.
But the Land was a stirring cauldron of people at the center of the
Continent. Many of Dario’s kind had not been directly harmed, but they
each knew of a dozen others who were. It was a quick lesson for the young
god. Vengeance is a disease, one that spreads quickly and has only one
antidote.
A wind blew from nowhere in the hall where Gwyn walked. She did not
smile at it but welcomed the nervous presence that followed in her steps.
Ione had come to stay in the Well, waiting out the uprisings in her own
faction. Most of her time was spent holed up in the war room with Kalen
and the court, other times she followed Gwyn around like a lost soul.
With Melany gone, there was no evidence to tie Ione to the attacks on her
own people, but many Aegedonians had seen with their own eyes how the
High Mer had lost control of her serpent and her Sea. When the water
finally did recede, and civilians had outnumbered Faders amongst the dead,
it was clear that Ione should take leave. At least until that ugly scar on her
cheek healed.
As the two sisters made their way to the war room, Gwyn’s shoulders felt
heavy. She would have to find a way to mend the things she’d broken. It
was something she had promised Melany before the flames of her pyre
dulled in their embers.
Gwyn ignored the impulse to fill the hall with Shadow as she approached
the war room. She shook her head at the sound of men yelling. They were
always in the middle of an argument whenever she happened to show up.
And when she left, she was sure the yelling would start again.
This particular argument was most likely over the plan she and Kalen had
cooked up last night. She’d admit, ceremoniously Yielding herself to Kalen
in a show of good faith for the joining of their two factions was almost
sickening as far as romantic notions go, but she thought it was poetic. They
had both become figureheads for the Light and the Shadow. Kalen was born
in the Shadow faction and had gained the Light, Gwyn was born of Light
and succumbed to Shadow. As terrifying as it was that the powers were now
combined. Maybe it would ease the tension amongst the factions if they
were truly married. Not just in power, but in ceremony.
Gwyn didn’t know how her emissaries would receive the plan. For
millennia, she had trained her subjects to be more than wary of her sister
and the Shadow, almost to the point of instilling a certain hatred for Sythe
and its queen. But when she pulled open the solid doors to the war room
and saw them, saw the older emissaries of her court, their weapons drawn
and the Light Kalen still held shifting through the room, she understood this
was no ordinary grating of egos. And then her eyes found Kalen his throat
pressed against her brother Dario’s blade, and she couldn’t help the Shadow
that flowed into the room behind her.
“Dario,” she yelled. “What in mortal hell?”
But Dario said nothing, just grinned, and pressed the blade tighter against
her second.
 Behind them, a man stood from one of the chairs, a ghost of her
childhood emerging from the glow of the east window. He was still so
roughly handsome, with his curly beard and crooked nose. Looking just as
she’d last seen him; dressed in all black, his breast pockets embroidered in
red and silver, his pants unwrinkled. And he wore a smile, so similar to the
one she always pictured him with when she dared to open up that deep cut
on herself and remember him.
But this smile was different. Wrong, it was all wrong.
“Thesion,” his name died on her lips, all of the air in her lungs escaping
through the open door.
Ione had gone still at her shoulder. “Impossible,” she whispered. Her face
grew pale, sea-blown eyes darting between their father and Dario.
“Not quite, sister,” Dario glanced toward the fire, lifting the ashes from
the belly of the hearth. Soot drifted around the room, like snow through
early spring air, then fell deftly into a pile in the middle of the war
room. Ione looked down at her hands, and in her mind, Gwyn could see the
memory her sister had called forth. The black smudges that stained Ione’s
skin a century ago. It was an image so clear, so untouched by time that
Gwyn understood without her powers the knife-twisting truth.
Their father had never been dead.
The room darkened, all of that control Gwyn had carefully built in the last
few weeks crumbling as her traitorous brother smiled at Thesion, tightening
his hand on Kalen’s shoulder.
“Dario,” the sound coming from her lips was more than just a growl. It
clamped its ugly teeth down on that power inside her and the entire room
webbed with Shadow. “Release him,” she demanded. “Now.”
Gwyn never took her eyes off Dario, if she had, she would have been sick
at the awestruck look on her father’s face.
“Gwynore.” The sound of her name in her father’s voice nearly had her
collapsing, but she focused on the burning inside her long enough to lock
her knees in place. “Dario told me about your transition,” he said. “I did not
believe it at first. But I can say I no longer lack the faith.”
Slowly, the old man approached, timidly reaching out to touch his
daughter’s face. Gwyn froze, like a child, when his thumb and forefinger
took her chin. Thesion lifted her face to him, turning it one way and then
the other. “Yes,” he said. “I can see you and your sister have become one.”
Melany, she wanted to scream. How could he not say her name? It took
everything in Gwyn not to spit in his beard. Thesion watched his daughter’s
eyes flame with bolts of Light and whispers of Shadow. Gwyn watched her
father’s smile grow wider. “Much has happened since we last saw each
other,” she finally spoke.
“Much,” Thesion agreed. “Come with me, and I will end this now.” Her
father leaned to ear, whispering, “Come with me, or I will make sure the
boy stays dead.”
Gwyn gritted her teeth as her father’s face rose, looking down upon her as
he did for the whole of her life. Though he had no power, his eyes grew
dark, too. She’d almost missed that look, the one that said he would burn
the earth, kill anyone and everyone, for her. And still, he would. For her.
Gwyn nodded and Dario immediately let go of Kalen. Frantically Gwyn
whispered into Kalen’s mind, Do not fight this, but she knew it was of no
use. She saw his hand move to the weapon snug against the inlet of his
thigh. She felt it because he drew on her Light in a way no one else was
capable of except for her.
When the blade flipped from the pulse of his wrist into the grip of his
palm, Gwyn sent a strap of Shadow across the room. Kalen grunted and
ducked around the black power, but he didn’t even pretend to be surprised
when he found it wrapping around his wrist. But the hurt, the sense of
betrayal. Gwyn could feel it, too.
I will always fight, he said low in her mind and a tear finally escaped
through the mask of Gwyn’s control. Her shadows gently ushered everyone
from the room. The last of them was her lover. Kalen did not look back and
Gwyn did not blame him.
Together, she and Dario ripped open a projection, and they and her father
stepped through. It was in the dark sea of the Astral Plane, that Gwyn
realized what her father was. A Shadow. One she had made long before she
called such things her own.
And it was time she faced him.

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This book was almost never published. The only reason that you as a reader
have come this far, is because of the following people:
My parents, who housed and fed and supported my son and I while I
wrote this book. Without your dedication and love to your child and
grandchild, ShadowLight would have never even been written, let alone
become a thing I can hold in my hands and stare at on my shelf. I love you
two more than anything.
My beta readers, Shelby and Summer. Sometimes I go back through your
notes just so I can remember to believe in myself and that this book was
never perfect, and is never going to be, but it’s still a story worth telling.
You took my book baby and treated it so kindly, while also giving me the
necessary feedback to make it the best it could be. I owe you big, big time. I
can’t wait to return the favor for your book baby, Shelby, and Summer, I
literally am obsessed with everything you write. Thank you, thank you both
My developmental editor, Siobhan Curham. You were the first writing
and editing professional I ever encountered, and it was a blessing.
ShadowLight became a real, live story thanks to your work.
Finally, my copyeditor, Jordyn, the first person outside of myself to hold
the book. I am so grateful for your help in putting the final pieces of my
dream book together. Here’s to the next one, fingers crossed

CHAPTER ONE

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