by Devon Vesper
“And you are a very resourceful young man,” Thyran reminded. “Keep that in mind and put your anger aside. You said you had a precognitive feeling in regard to this training, so set it aside and let us continue.”
Blowing out a breath, Valis nodded and went through a few moments of breathing exercises to try to calm himself down. When he was no longer shaking with his anger and frustration, Thyran patted his back and gave him his most paternal smile.
“Try again,” Thyran said, completely shifting focus. “You got it five feet this last time! You’re getting better!” He patted Valis on his shoulder, grimacing at his soaked shirt. After wiping his damp hand on his own tunic, Thyran motioned to the storage closet at the end of the arena. “Go get more dummies and let us continue.”
Valis crunched across the arena toward the closet. Every inch of the floor was littered with wooden splinters and coated in so much straw and burlap dust that every step brought up a puff of the stuff and clogged Valis’s nose until he sneezed so hard, he saw stars. It took three more sneezes before he had the great idea of putting a shield around his nose and mouth.
Eighteen more training dummies, and Valis finally made a successful transfer from one side of the arena to the other without an explosion. The dummy made it intact, and Valis was dripping with so much sweat from the exertion that he sloshed in his boots.
“How on earth do you work up such a sweat when wielding magic?” Thyran asked. “You are quite the mess.”
“Shut up before I hug you,” Valis groused. “And you’re getting the dust pan and bin for this mess while I sweep.”
Thyran let out a soft sound that could have been a groan and followed Valis to the storage closet. “This was supposed to be your job.”
“It was mostly your fault.”
“True.” Thyran sighed. “True. Let us hurry so you can throw your smelly self in the bath.”
Gods, Valis wanted a bath. But more than that, he wanted food.
“Deal.”
Chapter Ten
“Did you really have to destroy the arena while training?” Cassavin asked. She stepped further into the arena and tossed her waist-length auburn braid over her shoulder before planting her hands on her armored hips. As one of the reliquary guards, she gave Valis a respectful nod, but still kept a stern, motherly look on her oval face and in her hazel eyes as she stared him and Thyran down. “This place is a disaster. I swear, you two ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You were never this messy when you first came to the monastery, Valis. You used to be such a tidy boy!”
“It’s his fault,” Valis whined playfully as he pointed at Thyran’s chest. “He made me do it.”
Cassavin snorted and rolled her eyes. “Let me get more hands in here to help clean this shit up. Some people need to actually train today. We can’t very well do that if the place looks like someone decimated an entire forest in here.”
Her partner, Nevesar, smirked and shook her head as she looked around. She stood half a head shorter than her wife, but was bulked with a bit more muscle. She tucked her black hair, cropped short to her chin in a straight bob, behind her ears and headed for the supply closet. “You round up hands to work. I’ll get started with the clean-up. Leave it to the men to destroy the place.”
Valis gaped at her, but she winked at him and gave his shoulder a playful shove as she passed him. “Keep working. We’ll get this mess sorted quickly so you can go about your day. Hopefully with a bath first. You’re rather rank, Valis. What did you do? Get sprayed by a skunk?”
Valis lifted his arm and took a sniff of his armpit and groaned. “No. That’s all Thyran’s fault. He worked me to death.”
“Just as well. Let’s hurry before your stench scares away the others before they even get here.”
An hour and a half later, and with the help of fourteen Aesriphos, they managed to get the arena back to normal. And by that time, Valis’s back and arms hurt so bad from sweeping that all he wanted was a hot bath and food.
His stomach growled loud enough to make the six women giggle. The men teased him mercilessly, calling jeers about the beast he carried inside him. Their joviality helped keep him from falling over, but only by a small margin.
Actually, perhaps food first… that way he could sit down and rest.
“You stink, my boy,” Thyran said. “Bath first. Your friends shouldn’t have to plug their noses while they eat. It would be rude to subject them to your odor.”
Groaning, Valis stowed away his broom and thanked all the gods in succession that other Aesriphos had agreed to take out the bins full of splinters and straw and burlap dust for burning. If he’d had to do that, he would probably collapse on the way back, if not on the way to the furnaces. Then even more people would be “subjected to his odor” when they had to move him from wherever he fell to his suite.
“Go bathe,” Thyran said in a kinder voice. “I will meet you in the dining hall for lunch. Just make it quick. I fear you falling asleep in there and drowning.”
Waving a rude gesture in Thyran’s direction, Valis shuffled off, staggering through the arena and nearly colliding with the wall beside the entry.
After a quick bath, Valis wanted to soak, but knew he didn’t have time. And as Thyran had feared, Valis thought his chances of falling asleep and drowning were too high to chance it. Instead, he drained the tub, dressed, and after brushing his hair and tying it back, headed to the dining hall.
His friends all sat around their usual table. Tavros took one look at him and perked a brow. “What the fuck happened to you? Your eyes are all red and puffy, and so is your nose. Please don’t tell me you’re coming down with an illness…”
Valis rubbed his nose, and promptly sneezed, barely covering his face with his elbow in time. “Burlap and straw dust from training. Please. Just feed me.”
“He had fun exploding things this morning,” Thyran supplied helpfully. Then he motioned to the serving line. “Go get your food and quit complaining. At least you smell better. Now fill your stomach so you can work on your personality.”
Grumbling, Valis went and got a tray of food, purposely not heaping it as high as normal so he wouldn’t dive head-first into food coma. When he sat down, Tavros wrapped an arm about his shoulder and pulled him in to kiss his temple. “You look awful.”
“I’m exhausted, and I wanted to soak, but I figured Thyran would come yank me out of the tub if I did. That, or I’d drown like Thyran predicted.”
“You are not far wrong, Child. I was tempted to peer into your mind to see what was taking you so long.”
Snorting, Valis tuned him out and started in on his plate, barely tasting anything of the rich steak and gravy with creamy, buttery mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, soft, steamy buttered rolls, and crisp salad with some kind of zesty vinaigrette dressing. It looked good, smelled great, but he was so tired, the taste barely registered as his mind blanked out into white noise.
“Valis?”
Valis grunted.
“Valis!”
Someone shook him, and Valis glanced up with bleary eyes. “What?”
Tavros chuckled and rubbed his shoulder. “Finish eating. Then you’re going to take a nap.”
A nap sounded wonderful, but Valis tried to figure out if he had the time.
“We’ll make the time,” Tavros said in a tender tone. “Everything can wait for two hours.”
Groaning, Valis nodded. He barely managed to finish his plate of food without falling asleep in it, and when he finished, Tavros excused them and dragged Valis away. Before he knew it, his husband had them both undressed and in bed, Tavros cuddled behind him. And that was the last thing he remembered until Tavros gently shook him awake.
“Love, it’s time to get up.”
For once, Valis didn’t remember dreaming. He rubbed his eyes and rolled onto his back to look up at his lover. “Now I don’t want to get up.”
Tavros chuckled and leaned in for a kiss. “Too bad. I promised you two hours, and it�
�s been three. Get up. What did you have on your agenda until dinner?”
Sighing, Valis glanced at the clock. “I want to do a bit of scrying practice. Then perhaps some endurance training.”
“With as tired as you are lately,” Tavros said hesitantly, “why not skip anything strenuous? One day of rest won’t ruin all the hard work you’ve put into your body.” He leaned close and cupped Valis’s jaw, stroking his thumb over his cheekbone. “I’m worried about you. You’ve been running ragged since we found Kerac, and it isn’t doing you any favors. You need to pull yourself back together before you mentally fall apart.”
Valis thought it over for a moment, but it was the worry in Tavros’s eyes that made Valis nod. “All right. Nothing strenuous. But, I will do some scrying training. Then, I’ll spend some time with Papa before dinner, and perhaps have an early night tonight.”
The slow smile that brightened Tavros’s face was worth every concession Valis had just made. He reached up and wrapped his arms around Tavros’s neck and pulled him down for a slow kiss. “I love you,” he whispered against Tavros’s lips. “I’m sorry I’ve made you worry.”
Tavros shook his head. “We’ll make it through. You just need to rest. I wish I could have let you sleep longer, but then I feared you wouldn’t sleep tonight.”
“Good call.”
With a yawn, Valis slowly sat up and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, rubbing the sleep from them. “Scrying training, and then I’ll let you lead me wherever.”
“Sounds good. Do you need me to leave for your training?”
Valis thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. “No. If that changes, I’ll let you know.”
He stepped to the chair where he’d tossed his uniform and redressed. Once he had his scrying bowl filled and settled at the side table, he cleared his mind. He needed to find the exact location of the enemy compound where Darolen was being kept. That was the key to getting Brother Bachris to let him go on a rescue mission. Everything hinged on that one piece of information.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Tavros said from his seat on the corner of the bed facing him. “You’ve gone absolutely rigid. What has you so tense?”
It took a few breaths to force his muscles to relax. “I just want to find Father. Every thought keeps circling back around to him.”
“Are you looking for him?”
“In a way, yes.”
“You’re looking for his exact location, then,” Tavros guessed.
“Yes. One way or another, I will make Brother Bachris sanction a rescue mission.”
Tavros sighed and gave him a nod. “Just don’t tax yourself too hard. You’re already exhausted.”
Truthfully, after that nap, Valis felt a bit rejuvenated. Yes, he was still tired, but nowhere near as bad as he had been at lunch. Now that he’d had a nap, he was rather pissed at Thyran for making him work so hard with that levitation spell, needed or not, because he could have used that energy now in his scrying attempt.
But, it was what it was, and Valis knew he had to let go of petty excuses.
With a deep sigh that rippled the water in his scrying bowl, Valis worked to clear his mind as best he could. He pulled his focus in, concentrating on just one thought: Find Darolen.
The water in the bowl swirled with dark clouds. They changed color and texture several times before the image stilled to an inky blackness that Valis was almost certain was the cell in which his father was kept. He didn’t want the cell. He wanted to see the exterior of the compound, so he tried again.
Just as before, the bowl roiled with multicolored clouds. But every time he tried to nail down an image, it always came back to that blackness and the sound of Darolen’s wheezed breathing.
Valis broke off his concentration to rub at his eyes, only to find that his hands ached and his palms bore half-moon indents from clenching his fists tight. He shook them out and when he rested his hands back on the side table, he noticed his fingers trembling.
He needed to calm down if he was to have any success, but the harder he tried to find the location of the compound, the more his frustration built. And the more that frustration grew and churned inside him, the harder it became to focus at all.
“Are you making any headway?” Tavros asked quietly.
“Not at all,” Valis muttered. “It just keeps showing me blackness filled with Father’s wheezes. No matter what I try, I can’t see the outside of the compound.”
“Do you think they might have something going on like what happened with Aryn? The way he kept you from scrying?”
Valis rubbed his forehead and leaned heavily on his hands, letting his head hang low toward the bowl of water. “I don’t know. They could have some kind of anti-scry shield up, but then how would I see Father in his cell? It’s not making any sense to me!”
“Calm down, love.” Tavros came up behind him and rubbed his shoulders, digging his fingers and thumbs into knotted muscles just hard enough to release the tension and make Valis groan. “Maybe think of a different tactic. Have you used the same one throughout this exercise?”
“I—”
Did he? He kept trying to intend to see the enemy compound where Darolen was kept. In every scry, he had Darolen at the forefront of his mind. Groaning, Valis straightened and leaned back to rest his head on Tavros’s shoulder. “Yes.”
“Then switch it up. It will come to you eventually.”
Valis could only hope. With any luck, he would get it today so he could relax before he confronted Brother Bachris again tomorrow.
This time when he tried, he concentrated on seeing the route to take to the compound. Then he tried looking for the mountain that loomed over it. But, everything Valis tried either showed him nothing, or it showed the blackness of Darolen’s cell. He always knew the cell because of Darolen’s harsh breathing, or his hacking coughs, or the wet splashes as he created more waste on the cell floor.
And the more he heard his father’s misery, the angrier Valis became until his head pounded with his heartbeat and his pulse raced. His entire body shook with his restrained rage. When he looked up, even his vision pulsed with his heartbeat from the tension and strain of his anger.
He took a deep breath, but it didn’t help.
“Valis?”
Valis roared and punched the wall behind the side table, leaning against his fist while he heaved for breath. He needed to get his shit together before he hurt himself, or worse, Tavros.
He heard footsteps approaching. Tavros’s hands came to rest on his shoulders again, and Valis shrugged him off. “Give me a moment. I’m… I—”
“I understand,” Tavros murmured. “Tell me what you need.”
“I just… Give me a moment to calm myself down.”
Gods, his voice was such a low growl that he almost didn’t recognize it. His entire body shook and he squeezed his eyes shut tight, trying to block out the pulsing darkness in his periphery, trying to block out the way his entire body felt like a throbbing, festering open wound.
It was strange, too. During the scrying, itself, he had felt almost normal. But the moment he pulled back from it, the sheer fury was still there, growing to unmanageable levels that he didn’t know how to deal with.
His hand throbbed. He shook it out with a curse and stared down at his swelling knuckles. After a breath to regain some semblance of control, he filtered golden magic into the area with the intent to heal before it became too painful, and thus add to his anger and misery.
“What happened that time?”
“Same as before,” Valis growled. “Just swirling clouds and the blackness of Father’s cell. I don’t know what else to try.”
“What does Roba have to say?”
Valis glanced over his shoulder at his husband with a perked brow. Roba had been quiet the entire time, and he hadn’t even thought to consult him on how to find the compound via scry, or if he might know the location off the top of his head.
No, Roba said, his ton
e full of regret. I fear I do not know the location. I haven’t been to any of the compounds or outposts for Qos on the eastern side of the continent.
Do you have any idea how I can find it through scrying?
His birth father went quiet a moment, then let out a ghostly sigh. Unfortunately, as I’ve said in the past, scrying was my main weakness. I never was able to do long-distance scries without help or a relay, and anything specific that had nothing to do with a person with whom I was familiar was beyond my capabilities. Whether it was because I didn’t have the ability, or because I lacked the aptitude for learning it correctly, or whatever other reason there may be, it was something I never had been able to grasp past rudimentary skill. You are already so much more advanced than I ever was.
Sighing, Valis roughly scrubbed his hand over his face now that his knuckles were healed. “Fuck.”
“Bad news?”
“I forgot Roba had told me that scrying was his worst skill. And he says he doesn’t know the location because he’s never visited any of the compounds or outposts on the eastern side of the continent.”
“Well, shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you at least calmer?”
Valis shrugged. “I’m less likely to bite your head off, if that counts for anything.”
At that, Tavros came up behind him and wrapped his arms around Valis’s chest. He pressed a gentle kiss into the side of Valis’s neck and rested his forehead there. “I wish I could help.”
“You are helping,” Valis whispered. “Just being here helps. Wanting and trying to calm me down helps.”
“I know. I just wish I could help in your searches.”
Groaning, Valis turned in Tavros’s arms and settled his hands on his husband’s hips. “What if it’s really impossible like Brother Bachris said? What if I can’t find the location at all?”
Tavros went quiet for a few moments, his breath washing over the side of Valis’s neck in soothing waves. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Even if you did see the outside of the compound, it wouldn’t tell you how to get there. And I’m not good enough at scrying to see as much as you are, so I don’t even know where to begin in helping.”
