The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  Trell’s brows shot to his forehead. “A Warlock.” He speared an astonished stare at Ean, then added with a faintly apologetic smile, “I’m honored to meet you, Rafael.”

  Rafael nodded to him. Then he sighed. “We really must work on your introductions, Ean.”

  Ean met Trell’s wide-eyed, what-the-hell-Ean? stare with a shadowy grin. “I guess we have some catching up to do.”

  “Yes,” Trell leveled him a voluminous stare, “so it would seem.”

  “After we’ve taken a moment to replenish ourselves from the long night.” Dareios leveled Ean a pointed look while explaining to Trell, “I hosted a family wedding a few days ago, Trell, and the celebration of this union continues. It would be my preference to break our fasts together in solitude, but alas, ’tis not to be.”

  He stroked a finger along one triangular brow and added with a slight wince, “I am a man with too many sisters, you see, all of whom believe they were put upon this earth to run my life for me. No manner of logic has been effective at dissuading them from this. Hence, the banquet we shall all be attending this morning.”

  Dareios indicated a door near the terrace. “Trell, you’ll find the bath through there. Tannour, I’ll show you to your rooms. If you’ll each be so kind as to join me—”

  To which Trell heard, lend me your support.

  “—in the Jasmine Court in an hour’s time.”

  Trell smiled at his host. “I look forward to meeting your family.”

  “Yes, so you say now.” Dareios motioned kindly to Tannour and they departed.

  Ean grabbed Trell into another hug and said as he held him close, “I’ll be back soon.”

  Shortly thereafter, Trell sat in a steaming bath with his wet hair dripping down his neck, staring at his stone hand.

  An uneven line demarked the boundary between Merdanti and flesh. He felt no real difference in texture, save that the hand was hard and cold and his skin soft and warm. He curled and released his fingers, still bemused at how foreign they felt to him. The thinnest link of life must’ve remained within the stone, for the hand responded to his thoughts without delay. Again, he had the sensation of his hand being heavily wrapped in gauze. He wondered what Alyneri would say when she saw it.

  He still couldn’t reach her.

  At Ivarnen, he’d thought it a product of the wielder’s compulsion. Now he realized it must’ve been coming from her end. He considered what he knew of her activities but came to no logical reason for her to be out of touch.

  Though he felt a slight apprehension on her behalf, he trusted her to get safely out of whatever trouble she’d gotten into. She had Vaile watching over her, after all, and his lady love could have no better protector.

  After his bath, he found a set of deep blue shalwar-kameez hanging in the wardrobe for him. The calf-length silk tunic was stitched all over with silver thread in a diamond pattern and was heavily jeweled at the placket and forearms. Its beadwork matched the band around the ankle of the kameez, as well as on the curled-toe slippers.

  Ean joined him only moments after he’d finished dressing, poking his head through the doorway. “Ready?”

  “As ever.” Trell joined him, and together they headed down the hall.

  Ean was wearing garments similar to Trell’s but in a deep red. The hue accentuated the rich cinnamon hue of his hair and reminded Trell with a deeply wistful pang of their mother. Missing his mother aside, to see his little brother so grown, so confident, and with a subtle power in his presence that reminded Trell of the Mage...it warmed Trell’s heart beyond measure.

  He glanced sidelong at his brother as they walked. “So...a Warlock, Ean?”

  Ean ducked a sheepish grin towards his toes. “I don’t even know where to begin, Trell. Tell me about you. I heard of your rescue from Darroyhan. And after?”

  So Trell told him about training in the cortata with Alyneri—which Ean had been truly surprised to hear—reuniting with their father at Raku and his subsequent mission to Khor Taran. He spoke of the flood there, and Tannour’s daring rescue at the waterfall, and he described briefly their hunt for the warlord Raliax.

  “Raliax.” Ean turned him a startled look. “That man has more lives than a cat! I ran him through when chasing after Sebastian in Tyr’kharta, and Sebastian ended him definitively at Ivarnen while we were rescuing Rhys—or so we thought. Now the man’s become eidola.” Ean shook his head. “Shade and darkness, I feel for him.”

  “I was feeling an unwelcome fellowship with him there for a while myself,” Trell remarked, looking at his hand.

  Ean eyed him speculatively. “You were fighting the working tooth and claw, you know. Your life pattern...” his expression turned bemused, even marveling, “how many times has Björn Healed you?”

  “Twice that I know of.”

  Ean shook his head. “He’s really been looking out for you. I...” Ean pushed palms to his eyes and stopped walking, for a moment overcome. Then he seemed to gather himself again. He dropped his hands, resumed his pace and turned Trell a wondering smile. “I don’t think I can ever thank him enough.”

  Trell wrapped an arm around his little brother’s shoulders and pulled him close as they walked. “He’s looking out for his Kingdom Blades. There’s no great mystery in that. I would do the same, were it in my power.”

  They continued walking through a hall with a chequerboard floor and soaring gilded columns. Ean considered Trell quietly all the while they were passing beneath the golden space, clearly wanting to say something but apparently not knowing how to approach it.

  Trell eyed him sidelong. “Something else on your mind, Ean?”

  “It’s just...” Ean frowned, “when I Healed you, I noticed a connection to elae I hadn’t known you possessed.”

  Trell’s lips formed the quirk of a smile.

  Ean angled him a look. “Care to share how that came to be?”

  “Ramu wakened me to elae so Jaya and Náiir could bind Alyneri and me in the Adept bond.”

  Ean’s feet suddenly anchored to the floor. “You and Alyneri are bound?”

  Trell stopped a few paces beyond him and turned. “Does that upset you?”

  “By Cephrael’s Great Book, Trell!” Ean took two steps and grabbed him into a fierce hug. “It’s incredible news!” He took his shoulders and captured his gaze. “Do you realize that now you could learn to Pattern? You could work the Pattern of Life! We could—” but he broke off.

  Trell knew his brother’s mind. He met Ean’s suddenly glassy gaze and finished quietly, “We could all be together through the centuries.”

  Ean swallowed, nodded.

  “Yes. I do realize that.”

  “That’s why your paths are so intertwined.” Ean gave a decisive exhale, more to himself than Trell. “No wonder I couldn’t find you separately in the pattern.”

  Trell eyed him askance. “I’ll pretend I understand what you’re talking about.” He tugged on his brother’s sleeve to start them walking again. “Come. I don’t want Dareios to have to face his family alone.”

  Ean led Trell past galleries and halls, down staircases and through courtyards, until finally they were following a paved path that wound down the side of the mountain between lemon trees growing in huge marble pots. All the while, Trell sensed that his brother was eager to tell him something but didn’t quite know how to do it.

  Finally, as they were descending a long staircase built into the mountain, Ean glanced at him. “Trell,” he said, sounding deeply contrite, “I have a confession to make.”

  Trell eyed him amusedly. “You don’t say?”

  “When I saw that you’d been woken to elae...well, I couldn’t help myself. I took a liberty.”

  “Yes?”

  Ean met and held his gaze. It’s this.

  Trell froze. He stared at his brother. You bound us?

  I just thought...it would allow us to communicate from anywhere, but...it can be undone if you wish.

  Trell grabbed him close and
let that be his answer.

  Ean was beaming when they reached the breakfast party.

  In a courtyard surrounded by trellises brimming with flowering jasmine, a table long enough to seat fifty had been set for the meal. Already two dozen colorfully silk-clad guests were milling about; some seated, some standing, many gathered in a pod surrounding the unnervingly handsome Warlock. The women all wore scarves over their dark hair and enough jewelry to outfit a government. Children were playing a game of tag among the jasmine trellises. Trell could hear bells jingling.

  And a large, predatory cat was seated in the chair at the table’s end.

  “That’s Babar,” Ean said, noting the object of Trell’s surprised gaze. “She runs the roost—at least, she thinks she does. Come, I’ll introduce you.”

  “To Babar?” Trell said doubtfully.

  Ean chuckled. “And everyone else.”

  So it was that Trell met Alyneri’s aunts and uncles, both distant and near, along with first, second and third cousins, all of whom had big, welcoming smiles for ‘the third val Lorian prince and lengthy names he would never be able to remember despite his propensity for languages.

  Trell was exchanging kisses with Dareios’s bevy of unwed and astonishingly beautiful sisters while trying to manage the many offerings of sparkling white wine being thrust into his hands when he caught his brother’s gaze across the way. And how did I come to be third in this ranking?

  Ean smiled into his wine. I fear you’re just not as handsome as Sebastian and me.

  Are you sure it’s not an inverse scale of intelligence, on which I would clearly be at the top and you at the bottom?

  Ean smirked at him. I don’t know how intelligent it is to let Dareios’s sister Sanjana attach herself to your arm like that.

  Trell sent him a helpless look. Come to my rescue?

  Ean chuckled and started his way.

  They’d just managed an extraction when Dareios arrived with Tannour in tow, the Vestian wearing traditional Kandori garments of violet and silver and Dareios resplendent in gold. Absent the scarf that perpetually draped Tannour’s head and shoulders, the lines of script tattooed on his neck stood out prominently.

  Trell did a double-take.

  Then he turned a stare at Ean. “You were busy last night. Did you sleep at all?”

  Ean angled him a curious look.

  “Tannour’s tattoos have gone dark. If that means what I think it means, then you had to have something to do with it.”

  Ean smiled into his wine. “I might have.”

  Trell couldn’t quantify how much he loved his brother in that moment.

  He took Ean by the back of the head and brought their foreheads together. “Little brother,” he breathed, “I have never been more grateful for you.”

  Ean’s hand found the back of Trell’s head in kind, and for a lengthy span of heartbeats, they simply basked in the warmth of reunion.

  As they separated, Ean nodded unobtrusively towards one of Dareios’s striking, dark-haired sisters, who was wearing a sari the color of the sun. “You’d best alert Sanjana to your ineligible status before she sets her sights on you too firmly. Sebastian never did escape Ehsan’s eye—not that he minds overmuch. You’ve never seen him so happy as when he’s with her.”

  Trell exhaled a slow breath, thinking of the road ahead as much as the one behind, recalling his last glimpse of his older brother, so tortured and conflicted, with neither of them knowing the other yet both somehow knowing each other. “I really hope to see him again.”

  “You will.” Ean cast him a reassuring smile. He seemed far more certain than any of them had a right to be, considering the game they were involved in.

  Trell didn’t have time to question him though, for Dareios was shooing the wildcat out of his chair—Babar went with an indignant yowl and a very unnerving hiss—and calling for everyone to find their seats.

  Dareios’s mother, Nîga, held court from the other end of the long table. Trell thought her a rather imposing woman in her middle years, though her age was likely misleading given the sheer number of her grown children. Her sari was richly patterned in peacock colors, and her bracelets nearly reached her elbows.

  Surrounding Nîga sat a colorful flock of Dareios’s sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, all with their eyes on the Warlock Rafael, who didn’t seem to mind in the least being the center of their attention.

  At the table’s other end sat Dareios with Ean, Tannour and Trell, the wife and daughters of Dareios’s cousin Bahman, the latter of whom was apparently traveling with Sebastian, and a distantly related—Trell wasn’t exactly sure how—close friend of Dareios’s named Nahveed, who sat with his wife and their two sons. In between sat two long rows of others who Trell had yet to meet.

  It was no wonder Dareios’s palace was so huge. He needed a whole town just to house his own family.

  They were midway through the meal when Dareios settled his shrewd, crystalline gaze on Trell. “I heard you and my niece were traveling together for a time. I regret not keeping closer tabs on my brother’s only daughter. What might you tell us of Alyneri?”

  Trell let every bit of his admiration for Alyneri brighten his smile as he replied, “She’s as headstrong as you might imagine. She’s the reason I’ve regained my family,” his eyes shifted warmly to Ean, “and recovered my identity. Until recently, she was staying at the First Lord’s sa’reyth, studying swords with the zanthyr Vaile and learning Patterning from Dhábu’balaji’şridanaí.”

  “Astonishing tutors,” murmured Bahman’s wife, Taahira. “Prince Trell, were not you and our distant cousin Alyneri once betrothed?”

  “We were,” he nodded to her, smiling as he added, “and are.”

  And possibly because Dareios’s sister Sanjana had been candidly staring at him for most of the meal, Trell thought conspiratorially, so that Dareios might overhear without having to announce it to the world, Jaya and Náiir bound us before I left the First Lord’s sa’reyth.

  A smile lit Dareios’s handsome face. He immediately reached for his goblet and rose from his chair, chiming the crystal for everyone’s attention.

  All fell silent beneath his summons.

  “I have news!” He warmed Trell with a brilliant smile, clearly brooking none of this conspiracy. “My brother Jair’s daughter, Alyneri, and Prince Trell were bound beneath the blessing of Jayachándranáptra and our very own paterfamilias, Náeb’nabdurin’náiir! Brothers and sisters, Trell is family!”

  The cheer that erupted was deafening. Trell spent most of the applause with his face flushed and holding his brother’s smiling gaze across the table.

  I guess I’m not number three anymore, hey?

  Ean winked. It would appear you’ve jumped to the top of the list.

  It was many minutes before the hubbub settled down, what with the men continuously toasting their union, the women all atwitter about planning their wedding, and Dareios watching him with a deep affection in his colorless gaze.

  The conversation after that was more a cacophony, but towards the end of the meal, it made its way off of Trell and Alyneri’s apparently imminent wedding and around to Tannour instead.

  The Vestian for once looked the part of the prince he was, dressed elaborately and with his straight dark hair swept back, halting midway above his shoulders. Yet his pale gaze with its rim of dark blue was always inscrutable, speculative... calculating. For all Ean might’ve freed Tannour from the bounds of his tattoos, Trell noted the Vestian still observed the world with an assassin’s alert eye.

  “Tell us, Tannour,” said Nahveed’s wife, Kashvi, whose brow displayed the Khoda Panaheh, marking her an Adept like her husband, “which path do you walk? What is your strand? We know so little about Adepts from the Sorceresy, yet we’ve all heard the truism that they believe all paths are valid.”

  Tannour opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. Confusion flurried briefly across his features before dissipating. Whereupon he blushed sligh
tly and said, “My apologies,” and darted a look at Ean. “I was about to answer you that I could not answer, yet I find now that I...can.”

  I definitely unworked that one, Ean told Trell as he sipped his wine. I knew exactly what it was doing.

  Kashvi considered Tannour with soft compassion. “Were you truthbound before?”

  “I believe that is the term you use, madam.” Tannour dropped a bemused expression to the remains of his meal, then darted another look at Ean. “I don’t know half of what Ean did, save that I think he has helped me more than I can ever repay him for.”

  “It was my pleasure, Tannour. Very enlightening for both of us, I hope.”

  “Unquestionably, Ean.”

  “Tell us then,” Dareios said while scratching between Babar’s ears, which were just barely visible above the table’s edge. “We’re all eager to understand how the paths work.”

  Tannour looked back to Kashvi, then let his gaze include everyone as he answered, “I’ve come to understand that I am fifth strand, to use the Sormitáge vernacular. As far as the Sorceresy is concerned, I’m an airwalker.”

  “Which is much more than just being an Adept of the fifth,” Ean inserted. “You should see what Tannour can do with his talent.”

  Kashvi asked, “How does your nature as an airwalker relate to the paths of Alir? I have always been confused by this.”

  “And I as well,” Nahveed admitted. “Are the paths associated with the strands of elae, or...”

  Tannour darted a glance between Dareios and Ean. “I don’t think so. From what I’ve come to understand about Adepts, your nature is integral to one specific strand. But my uncle is a lightbender—like Prince Dareios—and he walks chrys’alir, the Mirror Path. Yet, if another path had chosen him, he would’ve learned to walk it instead.”

  Dareios had his chin propped on one hand while his other hand continued pacifying the wildcat. Trell could hear her purring from three places down. “If I’m understanding you correctly,” the truthreader said, “a Healer, a truthreader, a Nodefinder—any of these could walk chrys’alir, hal’alir...mor’alir?”