The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  All Tannour knew of the Vestals was the admonition to stay far, far away from them. He shifted a startled gaze between the two men. “You...know the Fifth Vestal? Personally?”

  “I’m bound to his sister, Tannour.” Ean looked him over with a smile. “Whose game do you think we’re playing?”

  While Tannour tried to wrap his head around that astonishing piece of news—never mind everything else Ean was saying—the prince told Dareios, “With each skill mastered, the associated patterns are bound to his lifeforce through the tattoos. Whatever this ink is made of, it’s like—it’s almost its own strand of the lifeforce, Dareios. It binds these patterns to him in a way that makes them innate to his thoughts. It’s molecular trait modification. They’ve given him permanent variant traits.”

  Dareios arched triangular brows. “No wonder the Sorceresy is so secretive about their activities.”

  Ean looked Tannour over voluminously. “They’re tailor-making Adepts that defy the natural order of the strands.” He sat back, still studying Tannour intently. “But I wonder, the way you work it all now...at this point, you might be able to do it without the tattoos. The patterns are innate to you now.”

  Tannour held Ean’s gaze, practically vibrating with new understanding. Viewpoints he’d long held as truth suddenly dissipated, while others he’d rejected found themselves occupying new places of certainty.

  For long years he’d resented his tattoos and all they represented; now he realized he simply resented the hold they allowed the Sorceresy to maintain over him.

  Ean meanwhile looked to Dareios with a slight furrow between his brows, clearly making his own further connections. “It’s exactly what Arion was trying to get across to the others at the Sormitáge. If we’re limited by what we can envision, per the Fifth Law, then we’re limited even by our own teachings, our own instruction, by the way we conceive of the strands. What wielder would’ve ever thought of doing what Tannour can do?”

  Dareios nodded to him. “A fair point, Ean.”

  Ean scrubbed at his jaw. “And these tethers...I wonder if they’re not the same in essence as Adept bindings? They really do seem like another strand of the lifeforce—as crazy as that sounds.”

  “Om’ram,” Tannour murmured.

  Ean and Dareios looked to him.

  He let his gaze include both Adepts. “That’s our name for the one path that everyone walks—the path of affinity that binds us all.”

  “Om’ram.” Dareios arched expressive brows, considering the word. “Intriguing. That would make his tethers very like Adept bindings, as you say, Ean—mutual bindings, in any case.”

  Ean exhaled a forceful breath. “I wish I had more time to spend studying your tethers—”

  Tannour froze, caught on the plural. “What do you mean, tethers?”

  “Well...there’s two of them. The one you have on my brother and another one that may have been an earlier tether, based on the thickness of the line.” He looked him over intently again, as if assessing the tether even in that moment. “It’s hard to say without more study. I don’t have comparable observation to inform my theories.”

  Tannour scrambled to wrap his head around this. “But...they cut my first tether.”

  Dareios pressed his fingertips together thoughtfully. “If the tethers really are formed through affinity, perhaps it simply re-grew. Is that possible?”

  Perhaps it simply re-grew...

  All those years...he might’ve had his powers back much sooner if only he’d had faith in himself, if only he’d mended things with Loukas sooner...if only he’d had reason enough to try. Trell had given him those reasons, that necessity, and another tether.

  Tannour fell back in his seat.

  When they’d ordered him to betray Loukas, he’d thought that they’d wanted to test his loyalty... perhaps legitimately to test the strength of his tether, but in truth, they’d wanted to compromise it. They were trying to weaken the integrity of his tether so they could easily sever it.

  No ties. No family. No friends...this was the reasoning behind these Sorceresy rules; so that he was entirely dependent on them, so that he made only one tether, which they could control; so that they could more easily control him.

  And this is why they hadn’t shut him down at Ivarnen, or Khor Taran before that, because he wasn’t using his tether with Loukas. He was using another tether they knew nothing about, one that connected to no tattoos, and thereby one they couldn’t control.

  Tannour focused back on Ean with realizations continuing to bombard his consciousness, blooming thorns that drew as much blood in their truth as they had in the initial lie.

  “Severing my tether shouldn’t have resulted in the loss of all of my abilities,” Tannour managed thickly. “How did they do that?”

  “I imagine it was through one of the other binding tattoos.” Ean met his gaze with his own deeply compassionate one. “Tannour, would you like to be free of them?”

  Tannour caught his breath. Several seconds passed before he managed to answer, hoarse with emotion, “I’ve dreamed of little else for most of my life, Ean.”

  Ean held out his hands.

  Once more, Tannour laid his hands in the wielder’s, again marveling that he could find such trust for a man he’d only just met.

  Yet Ean was more than Trell’s brother; he was clearly a prodigy at his craft. Tannour had already seen him do impossible things—never mind having solved the lifelong mystery of his tattoos within the span of the sun’s first blooming.

  Ean pressed his thumbs to Tannour’s palms and held his hands firmly. “I’ll need to study the bindings,” he advised, “starting with these tattoos at your wrists. You may feel some slight discomfort. I won’t unwork anything connecting to your ability, though I suspect it wouldn’t matter now.”

  Tannour nodded mutely.

  Ean set to work.

  It did feel...odd, whatever he was doing. Tannour could perceive Ean’s native power wrapping around him—because it was his power, too; that of elae’s fifth strand. It suffused him, even sustained him in those early moments when his breath simply wouldn’t come.

  Sometimes he felt the fifth in surging winds and swirling eddies that made him slightly dizzy, heady or weak, but most often his body remained still while some ephemeral part of him tossed on an unseen force, buoyed and buffeted like a kite fighting against being carried off by the wind—and grounded by the line of Ean’s working.

  And as Tannour watched, the metallic sheen of the tattoos around his wrists faded away.

  Indescribable!

  His throat constricted, and he closed burning eyes against emotions violent and severe. Feelings long repressed tumbled tumultuously back, and for the first time since he was a boy, hope led a charge.

  Ean continued his unworking for long minutes that each felt like hours, so attuned was Tannour to the unsettling feeling of seemingly innate parts of himself being pulled into unraveling threads. All he could do was pray that Ean was unworking only the unwelcome parts and leaving the important ones unharmed.

  In the times when he opened his eyes, he stared at the dark mountains across the valley and took deep, tremulous breaths. His discomfort felt every bit as furious as the sun’s fire backlighting those peaks, but when uncertainty threatened to overwhelm him, he reminded himself of the purpose:

  All those years, all their terror...to be finally free of them?

  Several times he closed his eyes, squeezed them, in fact, lest tears escape him. His road had been so long and so full of sacrifice, all for the crime of being born a third son with a talent they could manipulate.

  But as resolve replenished itself in purpose’s spring, Tannour recalled Trell’s comment that he knew the path they were choosing was both right and wrong; even so, they had to walk that path together.

  Now Tannour understood why.

  He sucked in a tremulous breath. He would never be able to thank Trell enough. How else could this impossible moment have ever come to
be?

  It might’ve been an hour that Tannour sat there, captive to Ean’s working, letting the fifth rip through him while perceiving patterns falling off him in unraveling streams. While he worked, the sun inched above the dark eastern peaks until it shone so brightly that Tannour had to look away. Finally, Ean released Tannour’s hands and looked to Dareios, who nodded with admiration in his colorless gaze.

  Ean flashed a smile. “How do you feel, Tannour?”

  Tannour drew in a deep breath and let it out again. He pushed hands through the long strands of his hair. He felt...

  Different couldn’t begin to describe it.

  Clean—no, scoured, but in a good way. The muck of decades of subversion had been scrubbed away and his life pattern once again shone as brightly as the day of its beginning.

  All around them, dawn was painting the sky in rose, gold, and aqua blue; the clouds were tinged every shade from violet to palest grey.

  A new day—a new life—had dawned for Tannour. One without the constant shadow of the Sorceresy looming over his every thought. He could hardly believe it.

  He met Ean’s gaze and managed a choked, “Thank you.”

  Ean placed a strong hand on Tannour’s shoulder. “Thank you for trusting me to help.”

  Whereupon the Warlock appeared in their midst via a chilling whirl of dark smoke and inclined his head politely to them all. “I apologize for the interruption. Ean, your brother is awake.”

  Sixty

  “...and the faery prince sayeth, ‘I dub thee Caldar,

  greatest of all my stallions’...”

  –Excerpted from the Dianracht of Arawn,

  Collected Tales of Faerie

  Trell roused to the gilded light of an azure sky dotted with rose-hued clouds, a breeze scented with jasmine, and a handsome, dark-haired man standing over him. The man’s eyes were the same aqua-gold as the heavens.

  “Good morning, Trell val Lorian.” His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I’ll let the others know you’ve awoken.” Whereupon, he vanished.

  As he lay staring at the place the man had been standing, Trell reflected it was a strange world he lived in when a man could disappear right before his eyes and he didn’t even blink.

  Speaking of eyes...he pressed palms to his and let the ache of waking merge with a deeper ache whose cause he couldn’t quite discern. His head felt woolen, but his body, save for a slight, lingering headache and a bit of numbness in one hand, felt more or less refreshed.

  Dropping his arms heavily at his sides, Trell looked around at an elegant bedchamber appointed with marble and rare woods, mosaic walls and arches carved with arabesques. Beyond the open terrace doors, a line of rugged, snowcapped peaks scraped the dawn.

  The fact that he was waking as himself made him wonder on some level if it had all been a dream. That is, until he looked down at his numb hand.

  All the horror of the last few days came rushing back with a vengeance.

  And yet, in feeling that horror, that revulsion at what they’d done to him, Trell knew with a gust of relief that it was now, somehow, all behind him. He let those terrifying emotions drain out again through an inadvertent shudder. Then he inhaled deeply of the truth and embraced it fully as he exhaled a slow, relieved sigh. His mind and his body were once again his own.

  Well...except for his right hand.

  Trell lifted it and studied his black stone fingers, trying to envision the rescue he couldn’t recall, mentally exploring scenarios for how his miraculous recovery could’ve been possible.

  When he hit upon the explanation, it bloomed with such certainty that a smile split his face. Truly, there could be only one answer, for he’d perceived them playing together on the field now for many weeks.

  He rose from the bed and donned the robe that had been set out for him. Still smiling to himself, Trell walked onto the terrace to admire the wonders of the day.

  He was standing at the balcony railing, gazing out across a stunning landscape, thinking about how odd it was to feel his right hand as if wrapped in thick gauze, yet to have it respond to his thoughts as it should—right now, for example, it was gripping the railing just like his left hand, but he had only the barest sense of it being there at all—when he heard a knock on his bedchamber door.

  Trell turned to see Tannour entering. The Vestian still wore his fighting garb and looked exhausted, but a glint in his eyes told Trell that something momentous had occurred.

  They met beneath the terrace opening and took each other firmly by the shoulders. Their meeting of gazes said everything that needed to be said, yet Trell’s gratitude was so overflowing that it still wasn’t enough.

  “Tannour,” he breathed, studying the Vestian with wordless awe. “You found me.”

  “Of course, A’dal.” Tannour’s tone said this went without question, but his gaze said, Thank the heavens it worked.

  Trell smiled at him, thinking how incredibly grateful he was for the Vestian’s unwavering loyalty. Then he kissed Tannour on each cheek, and once more, in the way of the desert tribes. He gripped his shoulders even tighter as he said formally in the desert tongue, “In this grace of three, I mark you as my brother beneath Jai’Gar’s eye,” and he added the traditional blessing, “may Inithiya see us as one.”

  Tannour caught his breath.

  Trell noted his shocked expression. “That is, unless...”

  Tannour hurriedly choked out the expected response: “And may She take our spirits together!” He stared at Trell in amazement.

  Whereupon a voice said amusedly from beyond Tannour, “Is there any language you don’t speak fluently, brother?”

  Upon hearing that voice, those words spoken with the accent of Dannym, Trell’s face split into a beaming smile and his heart flooded with warmth. His brother’s voice was deeper than he remembered yet unmistakable to him.

  He released Tannour with a nod to again convey his ineffable appreciation, and, suddenly heady with anticipation, looked beyond the Vestian to see his little brother standing in the doorway. Only he wasn’t so little anymore.

  An instant later, they were holding each other tight and close.

  Laughter burst out of Trell, and Ean too, while they wrestled each other in a hug that somehow began to make up for all of their missing years.

  Then Trell had his little brother—who stood of a height with him now—by the shoulders and was looking him over with a smile so big that it hurt his cheeks. Even so, he couldn’t stop smiling.

  “Ean, by the gods, I knew it had to be you!”

  Ean grinned foolishly at him, still the little brother who’d been his closest companion for most of his life. His grin turned lopsided as he looked Trell over. “I remember you being taller.”

  Trell laughed. “I hear you’re making a vocation of heroic rescues—first Sebastian and now me.”

  “Well, you know to what lengths I’ll go to avoid becoming king.”

  Trell grinned and shook his head. “Raising two brothers from the dead speaks rather loudly of it.” He angled a smile at Tannour. “I look forward to hearing the story of my rescue. I seem to have unfortunately slept through it.”

  Ean sobered slightly at this. His eyes glanced to Trell’s right hand. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t...it was too far gone, Trell.”

  Trell shook his head. “There are far worse things than having a hand of Merdanti stone—like an entire body of it, say.” He met Ean’s gaze to convey the force of his gratitude.

  Ean cracked a smile. “We can discuss my payment later, then.”

  “Payment.” Trell laughed. “You’ve already got my horse. What more could you want?”

  Ean leveled him an uncompromising stare. “Caldar should’ve been my horse to begin with.”

  Radiating the warmth he felt suffusing his heart, Trell took Ean by the back of his neck and planted a kiss on his brow. “I agree.”

  They stood grinning at each other until a man of impressive stature stepped forward. A swirling tattoo made a flo
urish between his brows, which announced a wry humor in their aspect. His crystalline eyes danced with welcome. He was dressed like a prince, so Trell assumed he was one.

  “Ean, perhaps you could make the introductions,” the man said politely, “and then we might adjourn to an airier locale to break our fast.”

  “Yes, my apologies.” Ean held a hand to the man who’d spoken. “Trell, may I present Prince Dareios Haxamanis, our most gracious and, might I say, infinitely patient host.”

  Dareios pressed palms and bowed courteously to Trell. “Khosh amadid, Prince Trell. It is my pleasure to welcome you to Kandori.”

  Trell studied Dareios with a marveling smile. So this is Alyneri’s uncle—and mine by extension, I suppose. He could see a family resemblance in the shape of their eyes, though Alyneri’s coloring was not quite so deeply caramel.

  Dareios meanwhile eyed Ean sidelong as he quipped dryly, “I’ve now survived hosting all three val Lorian princes in my humble abode. I feel a trophy of some kind must be in order.”

  Ean laughed. “More like a princedom, except you already have one of those.”

  Trell shifted a suddenly hopeful look between Ean and Dareios. “Where is Sebastian?”

  “Alas, he and Captain val Kinkaide left several days ago with my sister Ehsan.”

  “Rhys was here?” Trell brightened even more at this news. “I’ve heard nothing of the captain since we parted in the Kutsamak.”

  “He serves Sebastian now, and I believe very proudly so.” Dareios placed a hand on Trell’s arm. “You must know the relief both Sebastian and the captain expressed upon learning of your safe recovery from Darroyhan. We’ve been following your exploits from our secluded valley for many moons. It is truly a pleasure to meet you, Trell.”

  “The pleasure is mine, Dareios.” Trell shifted his gaze to the last man awaiting introduction then, the one who’d been standing over him upon his waking. He was striking enough to be a zanthyr, but his polite and unassuming manner, if not the color of his eyes, somewhat ruled out that option.

  Noting the direction of Trell’s gaze, Ean turned with a knowing smile hinting on his lips. “Last but by no means least, may I introduce you, brother, to the Warlock Rafael.”