by D. T. Kane
As she watched, frozen in place, father’s head began to turn to one side, as if hands she couldn’t see pressed against the opposite side of his face and he was trying to resist them. He let out an agonized groan.
“Ferrin. Now.” His voice was like sandpaper on rotten wood. “As. I. Told. You. Last night.”
Then a terrible snapping sound, like a chair collapsing under too much weight. Father’s head turned in a way contrary to anatomy and his body toppled to the ground. As if from a great distance, she heard someone scream. Her throat burned.
This couldn’t be happening. Her mind began to blank, shielding her from the impossible event she’d just witnessed. Father was wise. Strong. Nothing could ever happen to him. She could only stare at his unmoving form, waiting for him to get back up. His favorite chair was only steps away, where she’d seen him so often enjoying a book, or speaking to her of life’s intricacies. The room seemed to grow brighter, even while her own vision began to darken.
Vaguely, some part of her muted brain recognized Ferrin starting in her direction. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then race towards her, father’s sword in hand. She was dazed, watching as if looking down on the scene from out of her body. Valdin had regained his staff and, as Ferrin sprinted towards her, launched it at his retreating back like a javelin. Somehow, the weapon seemed to move through the air slower than it should have, though that must have been an illusion of her shocked senses. But even so, she saw it would take Ferrin through the midsection, and likely her as well. She could only watch, wondering what it’d feel like to be impaled.
Ferrin bowled into her right before the projectile struck, jolting her body backwards. She braced for the impact of the study’s cold floor. Or perhaps the piercing pain of the staff as it skewered them both.
Instead, she continued to fall past the floor. Into darkness.
Part 2: Travel
18
Devan
Right and wrong are what the True Path makes them. But who says where the Path goes?
- Excerpt from Stephan Falconwing’s Commentaries on The Lessons
“WHAT DID THEY SAY?”
Devan had been back for some time now, but still wasn’t sure how to answer that question. And all he wanted to do now was go to his memory parlor and rest after the debate he’d just endured. Much simpler than to face his friend’s questioning. The hearth of his small home might have been ablaze, but the atmosphere since he’d returned had been all ice and dread.
Val slammed a fist into the table that stood by the door. Several gears from a chronometre Devan had been fixing clattered from a shelf by the fire to the floor. It was meant to be a gift one day soon, though now he worried he’d never have a chance to give it.
He sighed. If Val glared any harder his eyes would be on the floor.
“Time. They’ll allow my investigation of her timeline to proceed so I can figure out how to stop what’s been discovered.”
The frenzy of Val’s stare hardly lessened.
“Time? So they have her on a clock now? What happens when it strikes midnight? If you fail to find what’s wrong?”
Devan went back to staring into the flames.
“I don’t fail, Val. You know that. Never once have I foundered in my duty to set the Path right.”
“That’s what worries me,” growled Val. “That the Conclave will favor fixing the Path over her life.”
His unspoken accusation hung in the air like a body from the gallows. That Val included him in the Conclave.
“The others don’t control me,” Devan responded quietly, restraining the anger his friend’s words had sent burning through him. “And this is more important than simply resolving a rogue strand. She’s one of us, Val. It means everything.”
Val’s look could have shattered glass.
“It means everything to you?” Vitriol flew from his lips. “She is my beloved.”
“And my pupil.” Devan tore his eyes away from the fire to meet Val’s glare. “And my friend. The best I’ve got, besides you.”
Val’s expression blazed a moment longer, then sagged. He dropped like a sack of rocks into a chair before the fire.
“Oh, Devan,” he murmured, barely audible over the hearth’s crackling. “I fear for her.”
Devan grasped his shoulder, but no longer held his gaze. Val was right to be scared, more so than he knew. His friend didn’t know how many fruitless hours he’d already spent searching for an answer before he’d even told anyone of what he’d discovered about his pupil’s future. He’d hoped to simply fix it before anyone found out. There still had to be something he was missing. It was just so Path-forsaken difficult to search the timeline of one you knew so intimately in her own time. Crossing his own timeline was nearly impossible to avoid.
“I won’t rest until this is resolved.” Devan tried to give Val a smile, but mirth had never come easy to him, even in the best of times. “Soon it’ll be back to old times. And we’ll be celebrating raising her to the Conclave.”
His words had the opposite of their intended effect. Concern fled from the anger that flooded Val’s expression.
“The Conclave,” he practically snarled. “They sit up there, upon their mountain, drunk on power. They’d annihilate whole races before allowing their precious timeline to fail. Or just one girl.”
Devan shut his eyes.
“It won’t come to that.”
A tinge of expectation, perhaps even hope, suddenly colored Val’s voice. “Perhaps this is finally an opportunity to test the Path’s circularity. If we simply allow her to go on, unhindered, we may find we can steer the Path onto whatever course she directs it.”
The words turned Devan’s face to stone.
“You shouldn’t even think such things, Val, much less speak them aloud. The Path has weaved its circular flow since the birth of the elements. The Seven challenged that order once, and if not for Stephan all would have been lost.”
“Or so he claims,” Val muttered. “There were once hundreds of Aldur before the Cataclysm. Now we number a mere dozen.”
Flaming timbers on a path of dry leaves! Val had been relieved of his senses, speaking such slander.
“Don’t look at me like that, Devan. Stephan would stop at nothing to protect his vision and you know it. You’ve carried out his will more than any of us, probably more than the rest of us put together.” Val’s face paled. “That’s why I’m so scared.”
Devan clutched his friend’s shoulder once more, trying to convince himself Val’s blasphemous words could be attributed simply to fear for his love.
“I will find a way to save her.”
Val nodded, flames glistening off his eyes.
“Just promise me you won’t put the Path before her wellbeing, like all the others already have.” Val turned to look at him. “Promise me.”
Devan tried to meet his friend’s eyes, but could not, instead turning his gaze to the hearth. For a long time he didn’t answer. He considered lying, but knew Val would see through any dishonesty on this subject.
“I will do everything in my power, Val. But you know I cannot violate The Lessons. Please don’t ask me to make a promise I cannot keep.”
Val’s expression hardened like steel pulled from a forge. He inhaled as if to speak, eyes like drills. But he must have seen the despondent resolve in Devan’s face. So rather than speak, his jaw set, further pleas and accusations left unspoken. Then he rose without a word and was gone.
Devan sensed the trail of Val’s peregrination, considered latching on and following. But there was nothing more to say. Staring into the flames, he hoped with every particle of his being that he would never have to pit his allegiance to his friends against his duty to protect the True Path. Because he knew which would win out.
And he hated himself for the answer.
19
Ferrin
Why am I friends with Trimale? You might as well ask me why there are five elements. The answer would be the same.
-From Tragnè’s Oral Histories
IT HAD WORKED.
Half amazed he was still alive, Ferrin blinked and sat up, spitting pine needles and bits of dust, rubbing sap from his face. Morning sun blazed through the trees, the sky clear and tinged with red as always, like a faded wine stain. Shadows waltzed over the ground as branches caught in the breeze. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the setting, other than the fact that they’d just been in Raldon’s study moments before. Tall pines, spruce, and oak dotted the landscape, their leaves littering the small clearing with detritus. He peeled a sap-covered branch from his arm, and a large swath of hair with it. But he hardly noticed the pain.
It had actually worked. He’d barely understood Raldon’s words the night before in the library, and even less so when he’d repeated them after the Parents had dragged him out to the stables. But once he’d witnessed—and felt—the true brunt of Valdin’s power, he’d known staying in the study hadn’t been an option. So he’d put blind faith into what Raldon had said, impossible though it’d seemed.
He had to see it again to be sure. And there was plenty of shade here to do it. He a took a deep breath as birds chirruped from somewhere above him. His brain arched back like an arm reaching up and behind. Then he uncoiled his will, slinging it forward.
A splatter of blackness shot from his hand like a dragon’s sneeze. The evergreens it touched immediately began to wilt and before long were reduced to dry scrags, needles blowing away in the gentle wind. He could only stare from his hand to the dead trees in wonder.
“What are you doing?”
Jenzara’s voice, heavy and reproachful, snapped him from his gleeful awe. He hadn’t even bothered to get up from where he’d landed and she stood over him, casting a long shadow in the morning light. Her tear-streaked face was smudged with dirt from the forest floor. Several twigs and a giant leaf caught in her hair. The fresh tears burgeoning her lids did nothing to quell the fires of her violet eyes. Even Jenzara’s angst was lovely.
He rose and reached out a comforting hand to her. She jerked back so fast he nearly lost his balance, tripping over the blade he’d rescued from the study. Rikar Bladesong’s own. How strange it was to see it there among the leaf matter rather than proudly on display behind Raldon’s desk.
“When were you going to tell me?” she demanded, a tear rolling down her cheek.
He recoiled at the spite in her voice.
“Tell you what?”
Her fingers clenched and unclenched. “I just watched my father’s head twisted off, Ferrin. Don’t play games. Tell me that you’re one of them.”
He blinked at her before realization crashed down upon him. His brows dropped and he clenched his own fists. Half-a-dozen retorts spawned in his mind: How she’d been so stupid to actually think the Grand Father had pure intentions, even after how he’d looked at her. How she’d failed to stand up for Mapleaxe last night. Or how she’d failed to throw her knife at Valdin when it really mattered. Had she been anyone else he would have spat a curse back at her. But for Jenzara he was able to exercise some restraint.
“I just found out myself,” he replied, setting his jaw, hopeful that would hide the extent of his anger.
“Taul’s axe you did!” she cursed. “You know everything about, well—” she stammered, anger apparently outpacing her thoughts. “About everything,” she finally said.
This caught him off guard. Should he have known he was shadow attuned? Looking back, he’d never exhibited symptoms of one attuned with any of the four prime elements. No unexplained fevers or chills, no sensitivity to plants or sunlight. Sure, he could do little tricks here and there, start a dust storm, raise a bonfire, but nothing special. But he had shown other symptoms, he now realized. Favoring dark places on summer days. Strange things happening when the sun dipped behind a cloud. The frustration in his elemental lessons with Raldon.
No. It was easy to look back now and put the puzzle together. But he hadn’t known, and certainly no one had encouraged him to explore such things. Self discovery is a heavy burden when society decries what lies hidden within you. And oddly, even now, that gnawing sense of something missing still tugged at the back of his mind, even after this revelation.
“I see you scheming,” Jenzara cut into his thoughts. “Don’t bother offering me one of your sly excuses. I won’t buy, not for all the silvs and gilts in Tragnè City.”
He forced down another blaze of anger. It was grief talking; she’d just watched Raldon die. At least that’s what he was going to tell himself for now. But the mistrust in her eyes caused a deep ache in his chest all the same.
“Where are we?” she asked.
He glanced around them before responding, though he already knew the answer. A plot of red flowers at the edge of the small clearing in which they’d appeared swayed in the breeze.
“Somewhere in Falume,” he finally replied.
“Falume? Impossible. That’s more than two days from Ral Mok. At least.”
He winced as Jenzara’s glare deepened. She was looking at him like one might examine a poisonous plant. And he doubted his next words would improve matters.
“The fire orchids.” He motioned at the flowers. Jenzara stole a glance over her shoulder, then her eyes darted right back to him.
“They don’t grow anywhere in such numbers save for Falume,” he went on. That was actually an interesting story. The flowers had used to be a rarity everywhere, one in every thousand orchids. But in Falume they now grew in bunches. But he doubted very much Jenzara would care about such things at this moment.
“And besides the flowers, your father told me. Last night.”
For a moment she was only a distraught young woman, lower lip shaking. But the mask of skepticism quickly returned to her face.
“You were in the stables all night.”
He nodded. “Yes. But he spoke to me in the library before the banquet. And then again, after the Parents took me. They brought him out after Shinzar had broken too many of the shadow children’s fingers.”
“Brought him out? What are you talking about?”
He shut his eyes, swallowed. He’d hoped to never think of this again.
“Last night. Shinzar said Valdin had given him strict orders not to harm me. Shades know why, but that’s what he said.” He clenched a fist, picturing the ravenous look in the Priest’s eyes. “But that didn’t stop him from torturing others to get information from me.”
Jenzara stared at him in disbelieving silence.
“He began with the shadow children. Snapping one of their fingers each time I didn’t give an answer he liked. He was convinced I knew something about a plot your father had to hide a shadow attuned in or around Ral Mok. But of course I didn’t.” He gave a hoarse laugh at that. It’d been himself all along. Or had it? The thought abruptly ceased his laughing.
Jenzara didn’t seem to notice his sudden uncertainty. Her eyes had narrowed as soon as he’d begun laughing. He hurried on.
“So he kept breaking bones. And when he ran out of fingers, well.” Ferrin swallowed hard. “He decided to bring your father out and do the same to him.”
“No. I don’t believe it.”
But Ferrin barely heard her. “At one point, Shinzar threw him to the ground and he landed right in front of me. He managed to whisper a few slurred words to me: The shade of the bookshelves will take you to Falume.” Raldon had said one other thing, but Ferrin held that back for now. “He’d mentioned the bookshelves earlier when he spoke with me at the library, but I didn’t understand any of it until about three seconds before I brought us here.”
She stared at him, incredulous, running her hands down the front of her tunic as if wiping at a scummy residue.
“That’s impossible. Elemental portals haven’t been used since Tragnè died a thousand years ago. And you’re saying father had one made of... of shadow in his study?”
“I don’t understand it either,” he replied. “But be glad it wa
s there. We’d be dead otherwise.”
“The Grand Father wouldn’t have harmed me.”
Ferrin threw his hands into the air. “Stop with the denial. Valdin used illegal enchantment on you. And me. And your father.”
“No,” she stuttered. “There must be an explanation. Father, he attacked Grand Father Valdin. He... There was...” A tear rolled down her cheek. “The Grand Father would never do something illegal.”
“You mean like murder your father?”
Ferrin regretted saying it even before she slapped him, so hard he bit his tongue. The blood tasted of lemons and cold iron. He turned to the side and tried to spit the taste from his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he said through half-open lips once his ears stopped ringing. “But you were there. You saw as well as I.”
She stormed away, not replying. He took the fact that she hadn’t hit him again as a small victory and reminded himself that her entire existence had just been flipped on its head. Raldon killed only feet from her. The Grand Father, a man she’d viewed as a symbol of law and order, turning out to be a villain. Worse than a villain. And the revelation of his own shadow attunement. She would need time. He wanted to go to her. Clasp her shoulder; hold her hand. Tell her all would be well. But that wouldn’t help. And she wouldn’t allow it, besides.
“Jenzara, if I’d known I was shadow attuned, I would have told Shinzar when he asked me. I wouldn’t have let them hurt those kids. Or your father.”
She turned back to him. But even through the tears, her eyes narrowed. “It’s just like the Edicts say. The fifths have slippery tongues. You’re trying to trick me. What would father be doing with a shadow portal in his study? Men can’t even make such things any longer. Traveling portals are from the Age of Heroes. The stuff of fairy tales.”
