Alana

A street urchin no more than a teenager by human reckoning, scurried from shadow to shadow beneath the shattered arches of the cathedral. He stopped for only a moment to tear down one of the faded call-to-action posters and threw it as hard as his small frame could muster.

Clothes torn and threadbare, stitched and repaired with care, but wholly unfit for the sharp chill of the autumn’s end. Dirt caked parts of his skin, and a streak of soot darkened one cheek like war paint. Human or Illevan? Alana wasn’t sure.

With the nimbleness of an acrobat, he jumped through the fence, moving with an agility she knew all too well. The kind that comes when you spend your youth running from guards and hunger alike.

Alana followed like the ethereal spirit she was as he sprinted across the grass to a low wall by the riverfront. A flicker of fate in pursuit of something she did not yet understand.

Beside a blackened barrel, he knelt and coaxed a few sullen embers into a roaring fire with practiced movements. Sparks leapt up with a hiss, chasing one another into the starry night. The flames bloomed in hues of ochre and green, the alchemical residue in gerrywood betraying what else had once burned there.

Nearby voices drifted through the haze, arguments, laughter, the kind of unsteady joy of people who had nothing to lose. The boy listened to them for a while with such intent that even Alana was afraid to breathe, despite knowing that nothing here could sense her because here and now she was less tangible than a shadow at the very edge of reality.

Still…

A sudden cough, wet and raw, broke the silence. The boy spun, heart thudding, gaze landing on a shape bundled up beside him by the wall.

A younger boy stirred in his blankets, sprawled on a grassy patch that still held life despite the damage done to the soil. In the firelight, his skin was a pallid grey, his cheeks sunken, his lips chapped.

Sweat gleamed on his brow from a fever, each shallow breath rattling like wind through a dying flute reed. Death was knocking on this boy’s door.

“Vakan ódir,” the older boy whispered in the illevian tongue which she somehow understood, despite never having learned it in school. “It’s me.”

Drawn by the tenderness, Alana moved closer. The boy stirred, red-rimmed eyes fluttering open. So young. Too young. Like the akati, all illevans had a prolonged lifespan that surpassed that of the other mortal races, but this boy was barely a youngling. Still a child with a life flickering like a dying flame.

Alana should turn back, return to her body. Her Walk was over. The committee was expecting her arrival. But something held her fast. A sensation unlike anything she’d known. She felt the Veil around her, thin and worn as it was, but interacting with it was like her mind sliding off ice. How could she ever explain it? Only… that there was something about this little boy by the river.

The child tried to smile, but his mouth only twisted in a grimace before another coughing fit wracked his body.

“Took your time,” he rasped between gasping for breath.

The older boy grunted and tossed another twig on the fire, stirring the flames. “They cleared out the institute. The holes were ransacked.”

A shadow of a smile touched the boy’s cracked lips. “Typical. Knew you would come up empty.”

“Didn’t say I got nothing, did I?” The older boy retorted with a flash of pride that couldn’t hide his weariness. “I found some bread. And clean water.”

He dug around in his pack and fished out a small loaf of dark bread and a dented flask. Gently, with a care that spoke of countless nights like this one, he helped his young friend drink.

When he reached for the bread, the sleeve of his jacket slipped to reveal the angry ridges of a nasty burn, a scar that traveled further up his left arm, showing clear signs of an old infection and improper healing.

Alana watched them, two castaway orphans in a world too cruel to remember its children. And though she was but a whisper in the Veil, she knew this moment mattered. She was meant to be here. To observe.

Based on the color of the little boy’s skin and the redness of his eyes, a type of drug was behind his ailment. Possibly Yijo Guo. A vile, sweet substance that hooked you straight away and made you crave the very thing that rots you from the inside.

The addiction was one you had to live with for the rest of your brief life. Alana knew it was doubtful this boy would even survive the night.

Before she could stifle it, the gasp of sorrow escaped her lips, a small sound that shattered the silence like a pebble striking glass. Across the fire, the young boy’s head jerked up, his gaze snapping toward hers with piercing clarity, steady and unwavering.

The world collapsed to a single point, just her and the boy. Two souls locked in impossible recognition, staring at each other like caught red-handed in the cookie jar.

“You cannot see me. It is impossible.” Alana used only her mind’s voice, not to alert the committee back home, but it quivered.

He blinked, tilting his head at the strangeness of her language. Of course, he was illevan, he didn’t speak akatian. But that small detail fell away in the chaos of her thoughts.

Every realmwalker was taught that it was impossible. The moment you learned of the Veil and the Walk, they drilled it into you: when you Walk you are a spirit trapped between the realms. You do not exist.

The path of the threads is one of observation, not presence. You can witness, record, remember, but never act, never be. You cannot be seen, not be heard, not be touched, or touch in return, lest reality fracture. A terrifying prospect, even before one grasped the enormity of what “fracture” truly meant.

And yet….

There he is. For all intents and purposes, a simple nobody, a dying boy gazing across the flickering firelight at the young woman in white robes who should not, could not, be there. Her leather sash cinched at the waist, her sandals ghosting over the grass.

“Who’s she?” the boy asked, voice raw but not afraid. Startled, she realized she could understand him as if both languages were layered on top of each other.

Hoping against hope, she still checked if there was someone else on the riverbank, but there was no one. Only Alana, who suddenly experienced what it was like when there wasn’t enough air to breathe. Distantly, she could feel herself growing weak at the knees and had to pull all her strength to remain upright.

The older boy looked up from the fire, alarm written on his face. But he, at least, saw nothing. His gaze passed right through her, scanning the river before them for any movement or strange women. A part of Alana sighed in relief. The other was reeling.

“There’s no one there, ódir,” he said through gritted teeth, eyes pained before going back to tend to the fire with studied determination.

“No, look. There.”

And he pointed right at her. His finger followed her as she moved around the fire. She froze. This had never happened before, not to her, nor any aspirant as far as she was aware. There were no stories of such an encounter, no lessons prepared them for this. Of course not. It was impossible!

Wild panic bloomed in her chest, festering in the pit of her stomach. She reached for the connection to the Orb.

“Stay.” A voice she had never heard before stopped her in her tracks, speaking in her mind like she was standing right next to her. It wasn’t her mother. Damn it. Alana felt like a fool trapped in a situation she could not control.

“I cannot. This is wrong.”

“This is as it should be, as it always was.”

“Who are you to tell me that?” Alana snapped, anger leaking into her voice, but there was no response from the dry voice, whoever it was.

Reaching for the Orb again, she found the connection too weak for her to return, and a new kind of panic gripped her.

Sensing her turmoil, the boy on death’s door on the banks of the river struggled to sit up, sweat glistening on his brow. Blankets fell away, revealing blood soaking through the gauze clinging to his torso. Pain etched lines far too deep for his young face, the effort nearly straining him into the hereafter.

Still, he saw her. Saw Alana’s fear. “I am not afraid.” His voice was weak.

The older boy pushed him gently back against the wall, steadying him as he groaned. “Hey, hey, stop that—save your strength. There’s only shadows here, ódir. You need to rest.”

“But—”

“Jamie, they are but shadows.”

Jamie’s breath was laboured. His voice small, but unwavering. “She’s right there. White and all.”

“Please. Please. There is no one there.”

The words, while soothing, did nothing to soothe the boy, blinking in the firelight that was all too bright for his sick eyes.

His friend gripped his shoulder briefly and turned away with a look of utter anguish. Like someone who knows their loved one doesn’t have long for this world and is struggling to remain by their side instead of turning their back, easing their own pain, forgetting the image of suffering.

The old boy’s eyes were empty, staring out into the darkness of the water, staring straight through her, staring at nothing. There was nothing she could do for him. No way to reach out and say that it would be all right. Because somehow it always was, even if the pain never quite went away. Even in a place like this.

Especially in a place like this.

Maybe it was out of fear, but Jamie’s face turned into a thundercloud. Pity filled her aching heart as she knelt beside him, her presence intangible even though he cocked his head. It was cute, the way his brow furrowed when looking between the two people who did not look at each other.

She resisted the urge to reach out, tuck away a strand of hair the color of barley. She couldn’t, shouldn’t, but the desire struck like lightning.

There was that tool Mijinn taught her to keep her calm if nothing else worked. Alana used it now to focus on the boy by the river instead of impossible things and strange voices, and her mind quietened.

Softly, she smiled, “Hello, my name is Lani. What is yours?” What language did she speak? She felt her tongue form akatian words but her ears caught the illevan drawl. Don’t think about it..

“I’m Jamie. That’s Alex.”

Alex looked up with a knitted brow. “Who are you talking to?”

“The angel,” Jamie said, gazing in awe at Alana. “Are you here to take me away?”

Alex’s expression shattered into grief. His hand shot out, pulling Jamie’s body down and tucking the blankets tighter around him.

“Not yet,” he choked, angry tears in his eyes. “Give me more time, please. Just rest. You need rest.”

Roughly, he wiped the tears from his eyes, shaking but trying to keep his composure. Jamie was so weak, so far gone, that Alex’s storm went by unnoticed. Full of strange peace, the little boy’s eyes never left Alana’s. Like she was an angel come to carry him away, and he didn’t mind waiting a few minutes more.

“Who has done this to you?” she wondered softly.

A violent convulsion shook his body. “Please… Help me.”

Alana leaned in, her spirit thrumming with urgency, the Orb beginning to at last pulse with warning. Time was pulling her back.

“Who did this to you?”

“Not who…”

The Orb tugged suddenly and violently, drawing the breath out of her body. She could feel her forehead covered in a thin film of sweat. Like a thunderclap, Jira Atal’s voice rang out across the realms.

“Kalar! Return!”

“I can help him,” Alana said through gritted teeth, straining to remain in place against the pull that was not her doing.

“Mind your place, aspirant.” Jira Atal’s voice snapped with venom and uncharacteristic panic. “Remember the Oath of Ayursha. Observe. Do not interfere.”

“But... He sees me.”

Jira Atal laughed, but there was nothing kind about that sound. “You are mistaken.”

Alana stared at the boy, his blue eyes, his young years so tainted by horrors no one should ever have to experience.

“Who are you talking to?” he asked.

Alana looked at him, realizing with a seeping cold dread that he could only hear one side of the conversation despite both of them being inside the Veil.

Alex stared at him, hot tears tumbling down his cheeks. “I said nothing.”

Then the night screamed. A loud, thundering engine shattered the silence and made them all look to the heavens. Streamlined and radiating certain death, behemoths came down through the clouds. No. They were not monsters. But they carried them, she realized.

Three ships drifted in over the unsuspecting, exhausted city below, so jet-black they blended with the night if not for blotting out the stars above.

Panic erupted. Screams echoed over the water. People screamed in terror, running for cover. Armed people dashed forward, ushering children and retreating friends away while others readied weapons and old shuttles with trembling hands.

Alana backed away, skin prickling. “Wait! What is that!?”

“Return, Kalar!”

“No! I need to see. I need to know!”

What little color there was drained from Jamie’s face. “The Akati.”

Her world tilted again as she watched her people, who valued honor above all, shatter the Accords her mother had fought so hard to protect.

“It cannot be…” Her voice barely above a whisper, watching the ships descend with markings that she knew so well.

Alex snuffed the fire with water from the river, hoisting Jamie to his feet. “Come. Now.”

“Wait—” Jamie struggled against Alex’s relentless pace down the promenade. “Lani...!”

“Ódir, ytir!” Alex urged, renewing his grip on their bags and his friend.

One ship was right above them now. A circle glowing at its prow. Fire and acid rained in waves. Screams exploded from all around them as the riverbank suddenly teemed with people fleeing the slaughter and the flames tearing through the tents.

Alana caught up with the boys and reached out, her instinct overtaking all training and oaths. “Take my hand. Please take my—”

A firm grip locked on her shoulder. With a snap, Jira Seora Atal, an imposing, elderly woman dressed in a blue and white pantsuit, materialized behind her, her eyes filled with a cold fury.

No amount of squirming and pulling could loosen that adamant grip that so far outmatched the aspirant in the Veil.

“No,” Alana breathed.

Abandoning all rational thought of laws and possibilities, Alana reached towards the young boy. Their fingertips touched for a millisecond before the world was ripped away.

A millisecond that sent a spark through the boy.

“NO!” she screamed in horror.

Alex swung around and stared at Alana, his face pale. Then the world shattered, and they were gone.