by Rachel Dunne
The cellar door opened, and as the darkness rushed in from outside, Anddyr thought it actually felt darker—as though the little lantern they’d left him was able to fight back a cellar’s worth of gloom, but quailed in the face of the unending night. It was easier to fight the smaller problems; the bigger ones had a tendency to suffocate.
Anddyr, holding tight to the pieces of his fraying sanity with two clubbed fists, was struck by how very much he felt like that lantern. Strong and bright if given the chance, but shuddering like a breath and flickering into obscurity when faced with anything too big.
Anddyr realized he was still half lying on the ground, his ear pressed over Rora’s heartbeat. He quickly pushed himself up, clumsy with his bound hands, but he’d had what felt like a handful—Hilarious—of days to get used to how useless he was. He made it to sitting before the first person descended fully into the cellar, boots clomping down the ancient ladder. The ladder would crumble away to nothing someday, leaving Anddyr trapped down in the cellar with his useless hands and the life he couldn’t save.
The first face was unfamiliar, but it was a woman whose every inch screamed fist, and she was followed down by another before Anddyr finally saw one he recognized: Aro, of course. He was a loyal brother, and he visited every day.
“Hullo,” Anddyr said. He raised both fists in the best he could do to approximate a weak little wave. None of the three responded to him, but they rarely ever did.
Aro gave him a guilty look, though his gaze quickly slid away as he knelt at his sister’s side. He felt her forehead and her throat, careful around the lumps and lacerations Tare had left, careful around the manacle at her wrist. “She’s still stable,” Anddyr told him. No response, of course, but he’d begun to suspect that didn’t really mean anything. “She’s been awake off and on . . . mostly off, but some is better than none. Her breathing still concerns me, and her heart hasn’t leveled out yet . . . I think there’s something we may have missed.” That last bit he said very carefully. There was no we, but Anddyr had to be cautious about placing any blame. A man with no means of fighting back, trapped in a small dark place with two shovel-faced fists glaring harder with each word he said . . . it wouldn’t be a surprise or a mystery to anyone if Anddyr ended up laid out along the floor just like Rora.
The fists moved around the cellar, the man collecting the pail of refuse Anddyr had pushed as far into a corner as he possibly could, while the woman leaned her back against a wall, arms crossed and glare ever present. As the man carried the pail up the ladder at arm’s length, Anddyr turned his shoulders slightly, putting the woman more to his back, ducking his ears into his shoulders. “You need to check her heart,” he said as softly as he could. It was a command, plain and true, and he saw it touch the twisting skura-sickness within Aro, saw it shiver down his spine before Aro went stiff all over. Anddyr ignored the twisting in his own gut; that was a different flavor of disgust, and he knew how to live with self-loathing. “Like we did before, remember?” Aro’s fingers faltered, fluttering, hovering over Rora’s neck. Her breath wheezed in through her mouth, hitched, stalled, and then rushed out painfully. Aro’s breathing was, in that moment, much the same. Finally he lowered his hand, fingers splayed, thumb and forefinger bracketing his sister’s neck. “Good,” Anddyr breathed. “Blood is easiest, remember. Follow the blood, find where it stalls or pools or poisons.”
He could taste the magic in the air, and stared, breathless, at Aro’s eyes flickering behind their lids, darting as he searched, not knowing enough to know what to look for. Sure enough, his eyes opened and met Anddyr’s briefly, darting away with a quick shake of his head. If he’d had use of his hands, Anddyr might have torn at his hair.
The woman-fist grabbed his shoulder roughly, pulled him back from Aro and Rora. “Enough whispering,” she said, and this time her glare turned to Aro. “Tare said to do your plan and then go back up top. Plenty to get done without wasting more time on them.”
A muscle jumped out in Aro’s jaw, and his fingers curled reflexively where they still lay below Rora’s throat, but he didn’t argue that he was wasting his time. Anddyr could understand some of that—the pack all viewed Anddyr as a waste of breath, it really wouldn’t be all too surprising if they’d brought Aro around to their way of thinking—but if they’d done the same to Aro’s thoughts about Rora? They’d had their fight, to be sure . . . but they were twins, bound tighter than blood, bound tighter than anyone beyond them could understand. Aro would never think of her as a waste of his time.
Surely.
“Up,” the fist said, hauling Anddyr to his feet. A shove sent him sprawling against the back wall of the cellar, his nose bouncing off his bundled hands as he landed and making bright stars dance before his eyes.
“Wait,” Anddyr said muzzily, stretching his hands up like he could stop them somehow, and trying to fix his eyes on Aro. “What plan?”
Silence was his only answer for long enough that he began to wonder if, somehow, his head-bounce had damaged his hearing as well as his nose, but no, when he managed to focus on their faces he saw that none of their lips were moving either. Both fists, the woman and the man with an empty bucket at his feet, both simply glaring with their mouths set. Aro stared down at his sister, and Anddyr had seen the look in his eyes before, that lost glimmer; the twins had their own silent way of communicating, and this was the way Aro asked Rora for help, asked her to tell him what to do, asked her to choose so that he wouldn’t have to. Only this time Rora couldn’t see it, couldn’t help him. And maybe, with the way things had been, she wouldn’t help him even if she could see.
“What plan?” Anddyr asked again, whispered it like a prayer.
Aro’s jaw worked, the muscles in his throat jumping and twitching over and over. They stood out starkly in Anddyr’s blurred vision, as though the scope of his world had narrowed to the war being fought along the length of Aro’s neck. “To give you more . . . freedom,” he finally said, the words fighting free, “while still keeping you contained. Harmless.” A sickly smile shivered across his face. Anddyr wondered who it was meant to be directed at, him or Rora or Aro himself. “You should make yourself comfortable, Anddyr.”
It was like the slam of a prison door, walls dropping down all around Anddyr with a horrible finality, and it threw the world into sharp relief. He’d wondered how long it would be, how much longer they’d let him stew in his filth and hatred and fear before they sealed him up. Bound hands could only provide so much security—bonds could be slipped, chains could be loosed, and after all, the Twins had been bound and then broke free . . .
“Wait,” Anddyr said, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. “Please . . . let me heal her first. She needs help.”
He could see the uncertainty waver across Aro’s face, watch his eyes dart to the two fists and settle on the damaged sprawl of his sister. That was when his shoulders squared. “He’s going to heal Rora before I seal him up,” he declared, voice stronger than Anddyr had expected.
The woman-fist jerked forward. “Tare said—”
“I say he’s healing Rora,” Aro interrupted, and then he took a step toward the woman.
There was nothing inherently threatening about the motion, but the woman still took two quick steps back, fingers of one hand curled into a warding sign. Anddyr could only see half of the bleak smile that twisted Aro’s face, and it had vanished by the time he turned back around. He crouched down in front of Anddyr, and though he had his back to the fists as the woman scurried quickly up the ladder, Aro said in a low voice, “You’d better be quick about it.”
Aro put a shield up around Rora and Anddyr, a heavy barrier to contain them both. It took the younger man a few tries to correctly weaken the barrier so that he could stick his hands through the barrier—a few false starts while Anddyr watched sad-eyed as his knuckles thumped against solid air without passing through. His face twisted with frustration, sweat glossing his forehead, but he got it right, finally, and quickly
undid the binds around Anddyr’s wrists and palms and fingers.
It was like the first breath after drowning, flexing fingers that had gone stiff and bluish.
Anddyr wasted no time—the fist would be back soon, with others who could override what little authority Aro had scraped together for himself. Though his fingers were less than nimble, they were good enough to weave sigils in the air, good enough to press against the soft flesh at Rora’s elbow and temple, and send his magic skittering down into her.
Follow the blood, he’d told Aro, and he did just that, skimming through from toes to skull, steadying the flutter of her heart, sealing a slow-leaking tear here and there, and finding, finally, that nagging problem, the source of her painfully slow recovery: a swelling in her brain, a bruise on the soft tissue, and Anddyr could pretend the bruise was in the shape of knuckles so that he could sharpen his anger against that certainty. It was easy enough to heal, a steady flow of magic and gentle coaxing. Perfectly easy, if one knew what to look for.
With his hands curved into healing shapes, Anddyr couldn’t make fists, but oh, he wanted to . . . He wanted to punch and bite and tear, to scream, This is easy. You should know this. You must know this.
His anger was meant for the woman who’d beaten her, made her brain swell, left a tapestry of bruises over her body . . . but it was a broad anger, and there was enough of it that a little could be spared for Aro.
It was a broad anger, and unreasoning. When he saw Rora, slowly dying and so easily saved, he thought of Etarro. The boy was dead now, probably, or perhaps worse than that, and it was because of Anddyr. I chose her, the voice of his anger screamed, and it turned howling to Aro, I chose you. And look at what you have made of my choice. Look at what you have done.
Anddyr opened his eyes a few breaths before Rora opened hers, and he held her brother’s gaze above her. “You have so much to learn,” Anddyr said softly, came close to spitting it, and then Rora’s eyes opened.
Aro’s eyes widened and then narrowed, and he barely spared a glance for his sister as she shrugged herself awake, began to tug against the chains around her wrists. “Back against the wall,” Aro said, deepening his voice, as though that were all it took to make someone listen. Anddyr did listen—the fists would make him otherwise, and he knew how fists hurt—but he obeyed slowly, his fingers trailing reluctantly over the manacle on Rora’s wrist before he shuffled away to the far end of the room. Aro’s barrier slid across the floor around him, leaving Rora behind, containing only Anddyr.
He huddled against the wall, wrapping his anger tightly around himself, glaring out at Aro as the boy began to weave his hands through the air. There was already sweat streaming down Aro’s face, and as he wove his new spell while still holding the barrier around Anddyr, his face turned bright red, a slight bulge around his eyes, a wheeze around the muttered words.
The spell settled, and the barrier fell away from Anddyr along with the rush of Aro’s breath. What was left behind was a different kind of barrier.
Intrigued in spite of himself, Anddyr pushed himself to standing against the wall, stalked toward the new barrier. It was visible in the same way air grew visible on a hot day, a shimmering distortion, and it was perfectly solid when he pressed his hand against it—just like any barrier Anddyr had ever made. But it felt different. He slapped it lightly with his palm, and beyond the distortion, he saw a faint twist to Aro’s face—almost like a wince. Almost like he’d felt the blow.
Through the shimmering wall that sealed Anddyr off at one end of the cellar, he stared at Aro, his captor, and the boy’s sister slowly waking at his feet. Aro still had so, so much to learn.
At the Academy, where Anddyr had learned to control the fire in his blood and bend it to his own use, the masters there had a special way, sometimes, of teaching their most recalcitrant young mages. “Loosen the leash,” he’d once overheard the masters muttering to each other. “Let them run. They’ll learn their own limits quick enough. Or they’ll run too far, and snap their necks when they reach the end of the rope.”
Anddyr was a good teacher. He’d done all he could to teach Aro well in what little time they’d been given. It shouldn’t reflect on the teacher if the student was unwilling or unable to learn the lessons he was given; it shouldn’t reflect on the teacher if the student ran too far too fast and snapped his own neck.
Circles and circles, the masters at the Academy had taught. Malefaction and justice. Always and eternal and balanced. A meed to fit the deed.
He stayed silent as he watched Aro through the shimmer between them, his sister at his feet with her chains rattling as she pressed a hand flat to the side of her face, to the myriad bruises there slowly fading.
Let the boy learn.
The skytower hangs empty, or nearly so. Anddyr stands upon its floating clouds, solid beneath his feet but soft like swampland. Anddyr does not fill the space of it, though. The loneliness does. Oppressive as a summer’s heat, and it presses Anddyr’s back against the insubstantial wall, flattening him, making him small.
Almost as small as the boy curled against the wall across from him.
The boy lifts his tear-streaked face from his knees, and the shape of it wavers between Etarro, Rora, Fratarro, Aro, Avorra. It never stills, never settles. Etarro whispers, “Please,” and Fratarro, “Find me.” Rora, “Leave me,” and Avorra, “Cold,” and Aro, “Don’t,” and their whispers surround Anddyr in a choking cloud as he is pressed back and back through the wall of the skytower. He passes through layers of cloud and air spun glimmering, until the tower releases him and he stands on air alone, and then Anddyr is falling. He can only shout, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” and hope that they hear him.
Anddyr lands, and he is scattered, and he is broken.
Chapter Eleven
In his dream, Keiro stood at the center of the fire.
Bodies crashed and raced around him, in terror and pain and fury, and their screams wheeled like the stars. They shouted at him, begged him to make it stop, crumpled writhing at his feet. He saw their flesh cook, their blood boil. In the red ruins of their faces, their eyes stared wide, accusing, hateful and hurtful. They could not flee the flames, and so they watched him as the fire devoured them. Watched him with bubbling skin and lipless mouths frozen in ringing screams.
Keiro stepped toward the closest one. His hands passed through the flames, the heat of them flickering against his skin, but he did not burn. He found a face. Resting one hand against the top of the hairless head, he slid his other hand down to the neck, to cup the jaw where the scream vibrated against him. It was all bare, sticky flesh beneath his palms. Still the flames danced around this body, devouring, eating away—and still the body stood before him, screaming, staring. The fire burned, but it would not kill them.
Only he could do that.
Keiro’s hands moved, his arms flexed. It was an unfamiliar motion but it came to him easily. The snap echoed loud through the night, louder than the flames, louder than the screams. His hands fell, and the body fell to the ground, silent and closed-eyed and completely consumed by flames.
All the bodies surged forward, their hands reaching, pressing, leaving behind pieces of black flesh so their bones scraped against him. Screams tore through their throats, a thousand voices begging for relief, begging for release.
Keiro reached for the next one.
He jerked awake, a scream halfway out of his mouth, and tried to thrash weakly free of the reaching hands. There was one wrapped tight around his arm, another pressing hard against his chest, more and more and more crowded at his back, the heat of their burning flesh suffocating—
A soft, soothing rumble vibrated through Keiro’s body. He lay still, panting with his eyes wide open in the dark, telling himself that it was Cazi like a pillow beneath his shoulders, Cazi whose chin rested against Keiro’s chest as one clawed foot held his arm firmly but gently, that it was the mravigi’s warmth rather than the heat of a fire. When Cazi’s eyes opened, their dull red
glow was not the comfort Keiro would have wished: in the darkness, the light made Keiro’s flesh look mottled black and red, the skin sloughing away . . .
The rumble again, a wordless reprimand and consolation both. Keiro forced his breath out through his teeth, his hands clutched into motionless fists at his sides. “I had to,” he croaked aloud. Surely a sound would shatter the dream, send it skittering away to the dark corners of the room, to the dark corners of his mind. But his voice didn’t sound like his own voice. Keiro turned onto his side, knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped around them, his face pressed into Cazi’s flank. If he pressed his eyelids tightly enough together, his vision turned white, both eyes seeing the same.
“You’re allowed to feel pain,” a soft voice said. It was not Keiro’s voice, truly not his voice, nor was it Cazi, and Keiro’s shoulders went stiff with alarm—not because it was a stranger, but because he knew that voice. “I made an old friend of pain. It’s easier, to think that a friend would hurt you. That way, at least, you can justify that it’s done out of love. It gives a reason to the mindless screaming inside you.”
Keiro sat up slowly, swiping at his cheeks with the back of his hand. Behind him, Cazi shifted, wrapping himself into a smooth ring around Keiro: head on one knee, tail tucked over the other. Keiro could just barely pick out the lines of the slight form crouched in the cave’s entrance. “Good evening, Brother,” Keiro said, and there was only a faint waver in his voice.
“There are some people,” Fratarro said, “who attract pain. It’s always been so, since the start of time. People who pain follows like a second shadow. You seem to be one of those people, Keiro.” His eyes shone, but in the darkness Keiro could not tell whether it was with fury or with tears. “You would do well to make a friend of pain, too. I do not think it will be leaving you anytime soon, and a friend is easier to bear than an unwelcome guest.”
