TW: mentions of miscarriage

Vantra finished filling the water containers, and far more than she anticipated; Lorgan had to make more before she felt stable. She flexed her fingers and checked the shard to make certain it, too, held an appropriate amount of magic, then looked up at the scholar. He eyed the dozens of spheres she topped off. How had she absorbed so much excess? How had she not burst into a million wisps and met the Final Death?

“How are you feeling?” Lorgan asked.

“Better.”

He grinned. “We might want to look into a charging amulet for you. They come in handy when dealing with raw ryiam.”

She frowned. “I don’t think I know what that is.”

“They’re a nymph specialty. Grand mafiz fill hundreds and when the need arises, they drain them for power. I had a magizen at Reddown who had over a thousand in a special room at the academy. He mainly kept them for extra energy during dome problems, but he would hide three or four on his being when he dueled. I would think modern Sun temples would have some sort of container for extraneous ryiam in case an emergency rose.”

“They do,” Vantra said. “But they’re called Sun vases. On Talis, vases are left out during the day, and any ryiam collected is transferred to a healing glass. There isn’t something similar in the Evenacht, because there is no Sun to touch stray magic.”

“Perhaps there is no Sun, but one can still collect ryiam,” he replied. “The only limitation is the capacity of the vessel. Amass too much in one space, and, well, you saw what happened at Black Temple.”

Kjaelle floated up, Dough just behind, smacking her hands together. “Neither one of us saw or sensed any discorporated essences,” she said. “The spintop’s empty, and whatever belongings they had, they’re gone, too.”

“Did the wind get them?” Yut-ta asked. “The steward was outside the spintop, just like Yeralis.”

Yeralis cast him a seething glare for not using his title, then looked at the craft and the air above it. When he realized his allies had abandoned him with the enemy, his malleable face pulled down into a furious grimace while his lower lip twitched. Vantra hoped that made him more willing to tell them what they needed to know.

“I don’t think so.” Lorgan sounded distant as he turned in a circle, studying the surrounding area. “I don’t sense stray wisps or any residual essence left over from the Final Death. They must have used the wind attack as cover for their evacuation.”

“What about the ziptrail?” Kjaelle asked. “It’s a convenient source of energy flowing away from the castle, and at least one being among them knew how to interact with it, as it powered the wind spell.”

“And the wind would have hidden them phasing through the ground, which might have been the reason they cast it.” Lorgan stilled, and worry trickled through Vantra just as he shook himself. “The ryiam residue from shredded plants and broken stone is hindering my scrying. The trail was hard enough to detect before, and almost impossible now. They must have taken it immediately after the wind began, to reach it without interference.”

Kenosera stepped to Vantra’s side, his attention on Yeralis. “Luckily we have a convenient being to ask about it.”

“There isn’t anyone to ask,” the elfine pouted. “They all escaped.”

“But I would assume a strong magic user such as yourself would know about the ziptrail.”

Vantra never realized a ghost could blush in rage like that, but Yeralis did a magnificent job of turning a brilliant shade of purple that complemented his light tan. He must have exceptional control over his visage, and she wondered how many years he spent in front of a mirror, molding his appearance to mimic living qualities.

“He doesn’t know,” Kjaelle muttered, flipping her hand to disregard anything he said.

“You assume—”

“Rightly.”

“You never bothered to understand a thing about me!”

“I understood enough,” Kjaelle said, talking through her clenched teeth.

“You never learned what you ought.”

Yut-ta sighed. “I guess Kjaelle’s right.” Kenosera nodded sagely.

“Would you share deep secrets with him?” the elfine asked, turning away. “From me to you, he has a big mouth and a bigger ego driving it.”

“I know their secrets!” Yeralis yelled. His eyes lit with vindictive fire. “But you have to set me free to learn them.” He smacked the water with the back of his hand, then hissed and clutched it to his chest.

Dough joined Yut-ta and Kenosera in laughter. “You’ve no bargaining chips,” the pirate told him.

“Oh, but I do,” he said, his voice quieting, deepening. Something about his posture, the way his chest puffed out . . . Vantra did not like the game he played. “Don’t I, Kjaelle?”

“What could that possibly be?” Dough asked as Kjaelle’s visage darkened in suppressed rage.

“Kjaelle, Kjaelle, do they know?” Yeralis asked, jabbing his finger at her. Vantra had the urge to step in front of her, protect her, despite knowing a physical attack was not his intent. “From me to you, Kjaelle Kjaelle, let me go, and I’ll forget we ever met at this cursed castle.”

Kjaelle clenched her fingers and stalked to the shield. “What you hold is poison. It’s not fit for consumption.”

“You once begged at my feet for a mere touch. No poison in that.”

“Naïveté in youth is not the hammer you think.” Mist swirled around her, growing darker with each word. “Katta isn’t here. Mera and Tally aren’t here. Ye teila mi, kjou bou dodt, yehr hye ektau miv tabi ouddae cres teila Evening fesiri.”

He slapped his palms against the water, hissed again, and shoved them under his armpits. “Spel ziat!”

They continued in their native language, voices rising, and Vantra wondered whether to step between them. Their conflict would not help them find out what Yeralis knew about the enemy, and maybe make him more stubborn in revealing anything—though, if Kjaelle could make him angry enough to divulge something accidentally, that would benefit them, maybe even lead to questions they would not have thought to ask. She glanced at Lorgan; his face had darkened, his eyes gleaming with hard-suppressed anger. He followed the fight; what did Yeralis say, to upset him?

Kenosera and Yut-ta glared, but she did not have the impression they understood the words. Dough’s snake-intense scowl made her nervous; he may not grasp what was said, but something about the exchange piqued his anger.

“Lies are your water,” Yeralis finally snarled in Reckoning.

“There are no lies,” Kenosera interrupted. “We have traveled many days together, and we have spoken, laughed, fought together. She is brave, sacrificing for unknown others. She is kind, with sweetness for those who need care. She is crafty—”

“She killed our child!” he yelled. “She lied about—”

Purple lightning born of ages-old agony and rage crackled across the now midnight black Darkness magic. Vantra felt Kjaelle scream, though she uttered no sound. Yeralis crouched, hands over head, furious, unrepentant.

She rejected the malicious words as she flew to the elfine, more concerned about comforting her than the agitated Darkness swirling around her. Whatever Kjaelle had previously done, Katta never would have taken her as an acolyte if she had killed her own child. She slipped her hand into her companion’s palm and drew her back from her tormentor.

“I didn’t kill her,” she said, her voice guttural and adamant.

“You did everything possible to lose it,” he snarled, peeking out from the gap his bent elbow created.

“I DID NOT! I wanted her so badly—” Kjaelle’s shaking hand strayed to her tummy, cupping it as if she still carried the fetus, before dropping it to her side.

“That’s why the Beast threw you into the Fields afterwards. He knew your evil when he saw you!” Yeralis jabbed his index finger at her. “You were Judged, and found wicked in intent and deed.”

Loathing for him choked Vantra as her friend quivered at the words. That he used the traumatic experience of losing a much-wanted baby as a hammer against a woman he yearned to hurt, disgusting her. He subsided when his gaze turned to her, and he scooted back, bumping the inside of the water shield in his attempt to retreat. He winced at the contact, but did not move away from it.

“There is evil here,” she agreed. Yeralis’s eyes flicked behind her, and she had an uncomfortable flash of memory, where the other acolytes at the Spiral Sun did the same thing to emphasize how unimportant they thought her words. Anger she could not bury burned her chest. “But Kjaelle’s not it. Can you not feel it? Seeping through the ground, contaminating everything it touches with tainted roots? Perhaps you do. Perhaps you share a kinship with it, so it seems natural to you. It’s the evil that destroyed the Deccavent dam. It’s the evil that sought to drown all in the path of water, no empathy, no sympathy.”

He hissed at her, popped up, and raised his hands; a swirling mass of Nature magic formed between his palms, undulating with sick, yellowish green waves. The sense of mold and rot wafted from it.

“Kjaelle, is that how his spells usually feel?” Vantra asked. She had not gotten that impression when they first confronted him.

“No,” the elfine gritted. “His spells have a sky-blue tinge to them because of weather acolyte ancestors, and they normally feel like a soft breeze, even when he’s using them to deliver pain.” She lifted her lip. “I thought it meant he was a good being, someone of character, but I discovered, too late, it hid malevolence.”

Vantra knew how others manipulated their powers to seem more benevolent than they were. Always smiles and kindness for outsiders, so when those who suffered spoke out, others would shake their heads and declare those acts were not ones in line with the wonderful person they met five, ten years previous. She had learned to remain silent because too many refused to accept her word over an adult’s.

He threw the mass at them, delight plastered across his visage. It struck the interior of the shield and slid down to break apart on the ground. Flipping into rage, he attempted to form another attack, but the magic burst in his hands before he could actualize it. He stared at his dripping fingers, shocked, as Kjaelle managed a low, vindictive laugh.

“Our scholar studied at Reddown Under Lake. You’re not his equal, in any sense.”

“Reddown Under Lake?” Yeralis asked, appalled, clutching at his fluffy throat lace. “A human?”

“Nymphs may be snobby, but they know magical talent when they see it,” Lorgan said as he pointed his index finger down and made a circle, as hard as Vantra had ever heard him. A second shield formed outside the first, keeping a gap between them. “Which is why puffed-up elfines wed to their superiority never make it past the front door.”

Yeralis opened his mouth to utter some other despicable thing, but lights zipping from the castle caught his attention. A group materialized near Dough, a mixture of Aristarzians and pirates, Jare, Mica and Janny with them. Several ghosts bound in Light chains stood between four guards, their expressions ranging from furious to helpless. A couple wore attire that Vantra had only seen at wealthy religious exhibitions, where the attendees wished to prove their worth through riches rather than reverence.

Jare raised his hand before anyone said a word. “The rest are searching for information under Llel’s direction. There’s a lot of stuff there we need to save before it burns.” Without comment, he strode through Lorgan’s shields and snagged Yeralis by the scruff of the neck. The high-pitched whine did not make an impression on him. “That wind was weather-witch born. Who created it?”

“If you don’t get anything from him, I can,” Kjaelle said as Yeralis squeaked and squawked but said nothing.

Jare looked over at her and grinned. “I’m sure you can.”

“You’ll get nothing from me,” Yeralis shouted, then returned to squeaking as Jare shook him.

“Is he supposed to be a whizan?” Kenosera asked. Kjaelle blinked at the nomad, surprised at the question, as the enemy tried to rip himself away from the Light-blessed.

“Supposed to be? Supposed to be? My family is ancient Banjelith Madrine! We built—”

“Banjelith Madrine?” Kenosera asked, unimpressed, as the elfine continued to rant.

“They came from the ancient city of Banjelith, family name Madrine,” Kjaelle said. “A couple high-ranking seneschals for the Hethetor rulers came from their cousin’s family. By relation, they—”

“YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!” Yeralis screamed.

“You’re so wrong about that,” Jare said, silky-smooth to stress the words. He held the elfine up by his collar’s lace, ignoring the feet that uselessly kicked at his abdomen. “I can interrogate you however I wish, and we don’t have time to be polite.”

“Mokosie Hrivasine—”

“Hrivasine isn’t here. I am. Kjaelle is. And if you don’t talk to me, I’ll give you to her.”

“She already failed at that scary Darkness shit,” Yeralis snapped. “I know she can’t hurt me. It isn’t in her.”

The elfine’s sharp, malevolent smile proved that his words, however much he believed them, were a lie. Vantra squeezed her fingers in support as the Darkness around her deepened. What a horrid being. Poor Kjaelle, that she had to marry him for someone else’s political gain.

Dough pointed his sword at the man, a wide grin on his face. “How ‘bout you give him to me? We pirates aren’t known for our generous natures.” The laughter from his mates sent a shiver through Vantra’s essence, and she thanked Sun they did not direct it towards her.

“Good idea,” Lorgan said, and set a hand on his shoulder, giving him the trigger to the shields so he could walk through without being harmed.

“What can you do?” Yeralis scoffed, wrapping his hands around Jare’s wrist. “You have no Mental Touch to convince me of anything.”

The pirate captain chuckled and settled his weapon on his shoulder. “Mental Touch isn’t what makes a pirate a pirate,” he claimed. Yeralis sneered at him; he lunged through the shield and sliced through the elfine’s right arm.

Yeralis stared as his essence fell from his shoulder and dangled, his mouth open, no words pouring forth. Dough yanked it from the remaining wisps and kicked it away; it spun and entered the river, where the waves would beat it into nothing.

“Y-y-y-you can’t do that!” The first hint of terror filled his eyes. “Mokosie Hrivasine—”

“—won’t bother with a failure of an underling,” Dough finished. He set the tip of his sword beneath Yeralis’s chin and pressed up.

The elfine moved his head back, but being held off the ground did not give him the leverage to avoid the blade. Brightness engulfed his shoulder as he tried to reform his arm; it remained absent. He kicked at Dough, who laughed.

“My friend, the night hasn’t provided the excitement this pirate needs.” He leaned closer. “And you don’t want to become my entertainment, do you?”

Vantra looked at the pirate, at an astonished Kjaelle, at a resigned Kenosera, and kept quiet. Dough did not sound like Dough at all, but perhaps he channeled his living persona? He had been a vicious buccaneer, so that made sense.

“If you don’t know who the weather witch is, then who’s Prophetess Navonne?” Yut-ta asked. He stood with Lorgan, arms folded, glaring with the same fury Vantra felt on Kjaelle’s behalf.

“I, well.” He nervously looked over her head again. Dough pressed the tip deeper into the essence under his chin, and he whimpered. “She’s a Stans of Twisted Vines priestess. That’s all I know!”

“Really?” Kenosera asked. “She seemed to know you better than that.”

“And remember, coin-boy, your mates left you to rot with us,” Dough said. “They won’t be coming back.” His dark smile widened enough, Vantra quivered in response, and he did not even menace her! “We pirates know what to do with an abandoned mate.”

“I’m not abandoned!” he said, his frantic gaze flicking to the mounds behind them before returning to Dough.

Vantra peered over her shoulder, uneasy; was that why he kept looking over her head? He expected a rescue party to attack, using the night as a cover? Nothing unusual caught her attention, and she turned back to the confrontation, prickles racing through her. Kenosera scanned the area, then looked at her; she shrugged. Did he sense something, too?

“No?” Jare asked. “They came here for a reason. What was it?”

“I don’t know,” he whined. “I thought we were flying to Dryanthium. I have a house there.”

“Is he that clueless?” Yut-ta asked, annoyed.

“Yes,” Kjaelle confirmed drily.

“Who’s the yondaii?” Jare asked.

The flip from cowering to annoyed surprised Vantra. “Zepirz.” His mouth pulled down into a deep enough frown, he shoved his under-chin into the sword point. He jerked back as if he just remembered the blade sat there. “He’s loyal to Strans because he thinks he’ll send all the ghosts to the Final Death.”

Zepirz must have said something more derogatory than that because he could not hide his outrage—but then again, he seemed to run on outrage. A stereotypical elfine noble, if the scant few Vantra had met in the Finders were any gauge.

“Strans speaks through him, as if he were a puppet,” Yeralis continued, clearly disgusted and eager to tell them all about it. “The marks on him allow this contact, but I don’t know how. It’s not any communication spell I’ve ever learned.”

Vantra had the feeling he had not learned many.

“More symbol-casting,” Kjaelle said, the Darkness dissipating as she contemplated the information.

“It is not!” Yeralis immediately snapped, his essence flushing, his eyes gleaming. “I’d know it if it were.”

Vantra much doubted it.

He struggled; Dough kept the blade in place and eyed his other arm while Jare shook him into limpness. He huffled, muttered something, then glared at Kjaelle. “He promised he’d finish what the Beast started.”

Vantra wanted to smack him. That was the reason he joined? To get back at Kjaelle for something not her fault?

“Zepirz did? He promised the impossible, if so,” Jare said with clenched teeth. “If it were Strans, he has no power over Death in the Evenacht. That’s Erse Parr or Levassa’s domain. And they won’t share.” He brought his face close enough, the sword tip cut through his essence. “And if they try, they’ll meet Levassa sooner than they think.”

Yeralis laughed, a mix of choking and amusement. Too bad ghosts did not feel physical discomfort like their living selves, for Vantra had the feeling the interview would go much differently.

Kjaelle slid her hand away, unimpressed, upset, the final wisps of her power drifting away like ashes as she floated the spintop’s belly. Vantra glanced at Jare and Dough, decided they would menace Yeralis just fine without her, and followed the elfine. She studied the crashed aircraft, then the orange-bathed landscape beyond.

“Kjaelle?”

“You believe me, don’t you?” she asked, her voice soft, quivering. She looked at the dented metal, sucking in her lower lip before bowing her head, her shoulders slumping. “I wanted children. At least two, a boy and a girl. Children I could take into the forest and show them the trees and the animals and run with them through tinkling streams in meadows. Children I could sing to sleep, children I could snuggle with on cold nights while we read stories, children I could watch grow with pride.” She ran her trembling hand across her mouth. “Hethetor nobles weren’t supposed to do those things, but I wanted to. Yeralis didn’t care much, as long as I got pregnant. He already had plans for arranged marriages and needed offspring to accomplish them. And then something went wrong. I got sick, there was bleeding. I . . . he blamed me. Said I endangered myself with walks and rides, just like the folklore said. I should have remained in my room, demurred visitors, family, until the birth.” She pressed her hand harder into her tummy. “I died. And he prayed to the Beast, asked him to punish me for denying him—”

“Kjaelle.” Vantra hugged her, not certain what else to do. What words might help soothe the millennia-old pain? “I believe you. I believe every word you’ve said. You didn’t deserve what he put you through, and you didn’t deserve to die and not be able to try again.”

She looked up, blinking hard. “You believe that?” she whispered.

“Yes. And I believe Yeralis should be the one spending time in the Fields to rethink his life’s choices.”

Kjaelle slipped her arm around her waist and settled the side of her head against hers. “Vesh thinks he needs to be dumped in the Elden Fields.”

“Vesh’s right.”

“It’s why Katta saved me from the Fields. He knew I didn’t belong.”

“And Katta was right, too.” She may dislike that Kjaelle hid his identity as Veer Tul, but there were a myriad reasons to keep a syimlin’s presence a secret. There was no reason whatsoever for Yeralis to do what he did to her other than to inflict anguish on someone for his pleasure.

Despicable stain.

“Monsters are self-made, one terrible choice at a time.” Kenosera slipped to Vantra’s side and half-smiled. “Yeralis is nothing but a monster. Well, a monster and a coward wrapped up in riches to protect his frailty.” He put a hand to his chest. “I believe you, Kjaelle. And I believe Vantra and Vesh are right about the Fields. Why hasn’t Katta sent him there?”

“He doesn’t trust his judgement where Yeralis is concerned.”

“Then he should have Erse do it.”

Kjaelle stared at him with a startled laugh. “From me to you, I would never think to trouble Erse with such revenge.”

“I would.”

Vantra nodded her agreement, though her tummy twisted at the thought of bringing it up to Death. Kenosera was far braver than she, if he did so. Of course, Erse had never Judged him, either, and that made an oceanful of difference.

A flash came from the forest, just at the edge of her sight. She glanced over, then looked at Yeralis. He stared in the same direction before Jare recaptured his attention.

“There’s someone out there,” she whispered. “Yeralis keeps looking at them, and I just saw a flash of light.”

Kjaelle raised her head, frowning, then peered over her shoulder. “The wind kicked up the remnants of many things, and the noise is making it difficult for me to scry for magick.” She moved away from Vantra and motioned to Lorgan to join them. “Do you sense anything out there?” she asked as he joined them, head cocked in a silent question. “Vantra saw a flash in the trees.”

“Let me look.” He concentrated, then hissed. He stared down at the ground, then the river. Vantra did the same, his reaction worrying her.

Far beneath the waves, someone erected a barrier across the ziptrail, interrupting its flow. The thread of magic led back to the flash’s origin. Whoever it was, they did not want them using it.

“We need to go now, if we’re going to follow the enemy,” Lorgan said with crisp annoyance. “Yeralis did his job, distracting us.” He looked at her. “That ziptrail’s dangerous for Light and Darkness magics. You need to provide a shield to fuse with it, if we’re to take it.”

“Like what I did with the lattice?”

“Not quite.”

“Vantra.” Kjaelle grabbed her hands and turned them, palm-up. She created a bauble, one with an odd spell that she purposefully formed slowly. “That’s a variation on the way Katta and Qira use shields to protect their living selves in a ziptrail. That should work for everyone who goes with us.”

“Including Yut-ta and I?” Kenosera asked.

Kjaelle hesitated, then nodded. “Be warned, danger rides with us. If the shield fails, so will your body.”

“It won’t.”

That was a lot of faith to put in her, and Vantra did not think it deserved. “Kjaelle, if you can put that shield below mine, I can concentrate on keeping us in the trail and all together.”

Lorgan clapped her back and then cupped his hands over his mouth. “Someone’s blocking the ziptrail! We need to go now!”

Vantra floated to the river and concentrated, reaching for the ziptrail. Access rapidly closed, and she did not have enough experience with the flow of magic to interfere with it and not have the entire thing explode. Darkness encased her, and she glanced back; Kenosera and Yut-ta, Kjaelle and Lorgan holding spheres of energy she created, Jare and Mica, Dough and Janny. No more time; she set her Sun-infused shield around the protection, anchored a line in the shard, and threw its hook into the magic.

The flow caught it, jerked them inside, and swept them away.