I will open his throat and lick his blood from your fingers.
The next morning, I felt no sign of Reshaye in my head, save for the slight pressure lingering silently at the back of my skull. But it didn’t need to speak to me now. The words it had said to me last night were more than enough to haunt me all day.
I could barely bring myself to look at Max in the morning. Not that there was much time to socialize, anyway. We rose at dawn and immediately began preparations to travel to Threll. The boat that would carry us there was a beautiful creation, low and slim, sails fanning out like the spines along a lizard’s back. The rising sun seared through the white-and-gold fabric, emblazoned with a sun and moon, leaving little doubt as to who claimed it.
It looked nothing like the plain merchant’s boat that had carried me across the sea more than six months ago. And yet, when I stood at the docks, pungent smell of the ocean in my nostrils and salty air stringing my cheeks, the scars on my back throbbed.
I was surprised to find out that both Nura and Zeryth would accompany us, at least on the first leg of the trip. In addition, we would also be joined by two Syrizen. I had to
force myself not to stare at their neat, eyeless scars as we were introduced: Eslyn and Ariadnea. Eslyn, who was slight with sharp features and golden skin, seemed much friendlier than her taller, broader, fairer companion, but the two of them still were reserved and kept to themselves after greeting us.
I got the impression, based on their frustrated-sounding whispers and cold glances, that they were not particularly thrilled about coming on this journey. And yet, unnerving as they were, I was glad we had them.
Because that was it: just seven people to march into the home of one of the most powerful Threllian Lords on the continent. Or eight, I supposed, if we counted Reshaye.
Max stood against the dock railing next to me, and we both looked out at the sea, leaning into each other’s silence. My anxiety choked me, and I knew that if I so much as glanced at him, it would all come bubbling up. I could feel him staring at me.
I will open his throat and lick his blood from your fingers.
“Tisaanah…” he started, but before he could speak — to my relief — a louder voice broke through the air.
“But when you get back?”
Max and I turned to see Moth hurrying after Sammerin as he crossed onto the docks.
“I don’t know when that will be, Moth,” Sammerin said. “Helene will be an excellent teacher.”
“But when you do?” Moth pressed. “When you do come back, maybe then?”
Sammerin turned around, tucked his hands beneath his cape, and regarded Moth for a long, quiet moment. “Yes. When I come back, when I am no longer needed by the Orders, I will be your teacher again.”
Moth seemed only slightly comforted by this assurance, giving Sammerin a skeptical glance beneath a furrowed
brow. Then he caught sight of Max and turned to us, shrinking slightly under his gaze.
“I’m sorry again about the spyglass. And the flowers.
And the—”
The left corner of Max’s mouth raised. “What spyglass?” “The one I—”
“I don’t remember any spyglass.” “Remember, I broke it—”
Max sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, and, despite everything, I found myself suppressing the tiniest of smiles. “Never mind, Moth. It’s fine. It’s forgotten.”
“Oh.” Moth looked down at his hands, fidgeting. “Well, still—”
“There was a time when I broke a lot of things I didn’t mean to, too. Just keep working on it. You’ll get there. When you do, I think you’ll be a hell of a Wielder.”
Moth looked so startled that his whole body lurched. “You do?”
“Maybe.” Max shrugged. “Prove me right.”
This statement seemed to rearrange Moth’s whole world. Then he looked to me.
“Sammerin wouldn’t tell me all of it, but you’re going for the slaveowners, aren’t you? That’s why you’re going to Threll.”
“Yes,” I answered, and a shadow passed across his face. Most people that I met in Ara knew how to shield their emotions, but Moth’s still seeped into the air like a cloud. I knew he was thinking of my scars.
“I could help.”
I shook my head. “Not yet. You still have many things to do here in Ara.”
Things like learning and growing — slowly — I hoped.
Things that had nothing to do with battlefields and war.
His brow furrowed. “One day I will, though.” “I believe you, Moth.”
And, as I felt that cloud around him harden into resolve, I meant it.
A flush rose to his cheeks. He extended one hand and waited. When I stared at it, confused, he muttered, “Your hand, Tisaanah.”
I laid my palm in his and tried not to laugh as he planted a clumsy brush of a kiss against my knuckles. “Good luck,” he said, then too-quickly dropped my fingers as he gave the three of us one final, hurried wave and was ushered away with his new instructor.
“Moth, breaker of flowers, spy glasses, pitchers, and hearts,” Max mused, shaking his head. “He is your apprentice after all, Sammerin.”
“He’s a little smitten, I think. But I suppose it can’t be helped.” And I tried not to notice how Sammerin’s gaze slid to Max as he said, “When I saw that red dress, I knew we were all in trouble.”
 |
WE SET off so early that the sun was only just beginning to rise in the sky. No one seemed to feel entirely comfortable. We got through the day with tight, stilted interactions — easy enough, since there was so much to do. Long after the sun had set, we finally stopped to eat. Zeryth took his stew up above deck and dangled his feet over the edge as he ate at the front of the ship. Nura took hers off to a corner, alone. Max, Sammerin and I ate in long, awkward silence. That strange suspension still hung between us — not quite an absence of words but an overabundance of them — and neither of us, it seemed, were ready to confront it.
Instead, as I choked down bland stew, I couldn’t help but watch the two Syrizen across the deck. For two people with no eyes, they moved with such precision. There was no
stumbling over the location of the ladle or bowls. No second guessing as to where the pot was.
They couldn’t be fully blind. Not really. “You’ve never met a Syrizen before?”
My staring must have been obvious, because I turned to see Sammerin watching me thoughtfully.
“No. They’re—”
But as if they sensed that we were talking about them, Eslyn turned around, gave us a half smile, and sauntered towards us with Ariadnea in tow.
“I’ve got to admit, Sammerin. I was surprised to see you here, of all places.” The two of them settled beside us, and we scooted around to make room. Up close, everything about them seemed honed for lethal perfection. Their uniforms, crafted of black leather and stiff fabric, were identical and meticulous, their hair perfectly pinned, their spears gleaming beneath the lantern light. And of course, there were those scars — neat, straight, precise.
All of this seemed jarringly at-odds with Eslyn’s jovial friendliness as she settled down beside us. Even though, there was even something about that that seemed… predatory.
She cocked her head towards Sammerin. “Been awhile.
How’re things?”
“Well enough, Eslyn.”
“You know each other?” I asked.
“Many years ago,” Sammerin said, just slightly too quickly, and Eslyn’s eerie, eyeless gaze fell to me.
“Syrizen are recruited from the military, so once upon a time, we ran in the same circles. Didn’t we, Sam?”
“One might say so,” he said, mildly.
That tone was downright frosty, by Sammerin’s standards.
“We had a mutual friend,” Ariadnea said. She had a low, deep voice that reminded me of stone. Steady and heavy.
“Yes, one of our fellow recruits,” Eslyn added.
“Mm,” said Sammerin, looking down at his bowl. Interesting.
“So you knew each other before—”
“Back when I still had those big beautiful blue eyes, yes,” Eslyn said, and laughed while everyone else remained uncomfortably silent.
Ariadnea had not stopped watching me. “You have never met a Syrizen.”
It wasn’t a question, but I still shook my head.
Eslyn chuckled. “The staring made it obvious enough.”
“I did not mean to be rude. I just…” Gods, it was impossible not to stare. “You are very…graceful.”
“Expected us to be stumbling around like baby kittens, eh?” Eslyn chirped. “Well, we can see well as you.”
“Just differently,” Ariadnea added.
My gaze darted between them. “…How?” Eslyn replied, simply, “The layers.”
“The layers?”
“Magic is a series of layers, far beneath the physical world,” Ariadnea said. “Different layers, or streams, for different types of magic. Valtain magic, Solarie magic…”
I nodded. Common knowledge. The stuff of storybooks.
“It goes much deeper than those two threads alone. There are many, though those two are the only ones that human Wielders have been known to access. The Fey, for example, are theorized to have many threads of their own, inaccessible to human Wielders.”
“Syrizen,” Eslyn said, proudly, “are the only human Wielders able to tap into a deeper layer of magic.”
“If only for seconds at a time,” Ariadnea added. “And with great… concessions, in order to force a higher sensitivity.” She gestured to her own eye sockets with a wry smirk.
A shiver ran up my spine. “With your eyes gone, you feel it more strongly.”
“Exactly.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max shake his head, and an echo of my own discomfort panged in my chest.
My next question was clumsy — impossible to word. “So… why you?”
“There are many very specific qualities one must fulfill to be capable of being one of the Syrizen,” Ariadnea said. “We all are Solarie, because the more external, energetic magic of the Solarie is needed to give us the sheer power to push between the layers. But at the same time, we require a sensitivity to the movements of magic that most Solarie lack. There is a very intricate series of tests to determine each candidate. No one knows why, but overwhelmingly, only women tend to make the cut.”
“There aren’t many of us,” Eslyn said, “but we’re good at what we do. We may only be able to dip half a layer deeper, but even that gives us many unique powers.” Her eyeless gaze fell to me, and her smile twisted, widened, with a hungry curiosity. She leaned forward. “Though I hear that the thing that lives inside of you draws from much, much deeper than that.”
My mouth went dry.
{Me,} a whisper beckoned, from far, far away. {She’s talking about me.}
The voice was so distant that it was barely audible, weak and tired, gone as soon as it had arrived. But suddenly, I found myself pushing back vomit.
“It turns out that when you become a Syrizen, you don’t just lose the eyes, you also lose your ability to hold a conversation about anything other than your grand sacrifices,” Max muttered. “Tiresome, Eslyn.”
But I could feel his gaze on me, even though I could not look at him.
I stood up, politely excused myself, and turned away before I could hear their response.
 |
EVERYONE RETREATED below deck to their makeshift, curtained rooms early. I lay there and listened to the sounds of the ship slowly quiet. I tried to sleep. But I couldn’t stop running my fingers over the threads of my mind, again and again and again, checking for whispers and movement until I was about to drive myself insane.
And finally, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I pushed back the curtain and padded barefoot up the stairs, exhaling in relief when I reached the deck and was greeted by an infinite blanket of stars. Like the whole world just opened up.
I stopped and took a breath, trailing across the deck—
— and stumbling as I almost stepped on a face.
Specifically, Max’s face. Max, who was lying on the wooden floor, hands folded over his stomach.
He didn’t flinch as I leapt aside and let out a Thereni curse.
He opened one eye. “Careful.” “Max. What are you doing?”
“Lamenting.” He opened the other eye, both meeting mine in the darkness. “And, if I’m being honest, trying desperately not to hack my guts up. I’m not made for having anything other than solid ground beneath my feet.”
I rasped out a chuckle.
It was amazing how good that felt. Just to laugh, a little bit, even though it wasn’t really that funny. I clung to that fragment of our former intimacy like it was gold.
I lowered myself next to him, laying down on the floor. “I think it is more— wobbly down here.”
It took me a moment to choose the word. As fluent as I was by now, my mind was muddy lately.
“Wobbly, huh?” “Yes. Right word?”
I watched the corner of his mouth curl into a smile. “Excellent word.”
At least down here, my whole body swayed with the rise and fall of the boat, instead of just my feet — and the expanse of stars stretched all the way across my vision. Breathtaking.
We lay there in silence for a moment, listening to the water lap against the sides of the boat and the masts creak with each gust of wind. The warmth of Max’s body brushed my skin, though I was careful not to touch him. Uninvited, the memory of Reshaye’s words flitted through my mind: Now I understand. It is a sex thing.
I shuddered. The longer I could ignore that, the better.
I wasn’t sure how long it was before Max spoke. “You ready?” he murmured.
“Yes.”
No. I am not ready.
“You will be,” he whispered, and I felt my cheeks tighten. I did not dignify uncertainty aloud. But in some ways, it was nice to have someone who heard the things I didn’t allow past my lips.
“Are you?” I asked. “Hell, no.”
“Yes, you are. You just do not know it.”
A breathy scoff. I turned my head to see him already staring at me — a steadiness, an intensity, to his gaze that made me want to look away and fall further all at once.
Something I could not, or perhaps would not, identify ached in my chest. I looked away.
“So are we going to keep doing this?” Max murmured. “What?”
“You know me well enough by now to know that I’m not stupid, Tisaanah.”
I almost laughed. Stupidity had nothing to do with it. We’d simply moved past the point where either of us was capable of hiding from the other.
“I don’t know. Are we? If you open a door, it opens both ways.”
He scoffed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
A lump had risen in my throat, and when I turned to look at him, I felt it swell. “You should not have come back,” I choked out. “After everything that it did to you.”
Something tightened in his features. Almost a wince. “You should have listened to me.”
He was right, a part of me whispered. I should have.
“You should have told me.” “I couldn’t, Tisaanah.”
“Then tell me now,” I said. “Tell me everything. I need to know, because we are living it.”
My voice was still so quiet that it was barely more than a whisper. But the intensity of it hung in the words like smoke.
Slowly, he turned his gaze back to mine and held it. There was a part of me that wanted to break it, look away from those peculiar eyes. I didn’t.
“Six months,” he said, roughly. “I had it for six months. Maybe a little longer. I was in the military. A Captain. It was becoming increasingly clear that the war would not end easily or without significant blood. We’d been attacked. Azre, the Arch Commandant, wanted a successor chosen, in case of the worst. Me, Zeryth and Nura were among the candidates. And I wanted it. I wanted that title more than I’d ever wanted anything. So…” His voice trailed off, and when it resumed, it was rougher. “You signed that contract because it gave you the means to protect all the people you left behind. But me? I signed mine because I wanted to. Because I wanted power.”
He spat the word, and I could feel his regret, his anger. “For awhile,” he said, “It seemed like I got that. Because
Reshaye is wildly, insanely powerful. Nothing should be that powerful. My magic was my own, but… so much more. It was terrific, at first. But soon…” He let out a breath.
Shook his head. “It’s unpredictable. Possessive. Vindictive. And it’s willing to crush whatever defies it.”
Possess or destroy. I shuddered.
“Inhuman,” he muttered.
“Inhuman?” I shook my head. “Very human. The ugliest parts of humanity.”
“I believed that if I tried hard enough, I could force it into submission. It didn’t work that way. In Sarlazai, it all came to a head. And then…”
He didn’t need to continue.
My hand slid into his before I realized what I was doing, and his fingers folded easily around mine. In the contact of our skin, I felt faint waves of his nervousness pulse from him to me, even from behind those carefully guarded mental walls.
“The thing was, only a very, very small handful of people knew about the existence of Reshaye. Which meant that most people believed — believe — that I was personally responsible for what happened at Sarlazai. And it was war, but that was…”
His gaze darkened, and as it did, the memories skimmed the surface of my thoughts, too — his memories, of the fire and the flesh and the burned-up too-little corpses.
“There were pre-trials,” he said, “to determine whether I would be charged with war crimes. I wasn’t there. I was… not in a position to testify on my own behalf. But Nura testified for me. For hours. From a fucking wheelchair. I’ll never forgive her for what she did to those people, or, selfishly, what she did to me. But that… sometimes I still don’t know what to make of it.”
Nura. Ever the enigma. Every piece of information only made her more difficult to understand.
My fingers tightened.
“And they removed it then?”
“Yes. It was… bad. Like receiving it, but worse, because it rips out half your mind with it when it goes. And Reshaye very much did not want to go…” He lapsed into silence, then stared at me with a lowered brow. As if there was something else he might say.
But then he glanced away. Shook his head. “Well. It almost killed me.”
A realization clicked into place. “And you didn’t tell me any of this because you were bound to silence,” I whispered. “You made a blood pact.”
“Yes. They said that it needed to remain secret. And at that point, I would have agreed to anything to get it out of me. Hell, it didn’t seem like such a terrible thing, to never speak of it again. And their final gift was the perfect cover story. My father was a Ryvenai noble who was a close personal friend of the king. There were plenty of people on both sides who would have loved to see the Farlione family wiped out for that alone. And just like that, the murder of the Farliones became just another unfortunate wartime tragedy.”
His voice lowered, guttered, bit into the words like claws against stone. When he looked at me again, his eyes were serious and sad.
“I wish I could say,” he said, slowly, as if he were making a terrible confession, “that I wanted to tell you. But I didn’t, even if I could. I didn’t want you to know any of it. Not until I watched you walk into those towers and I realized what not knowing would cost you.”
His fingers tightened around mine until they trembled, folding me into a silent apology.
And I echoed it with one of my own. “I wish I had listened.”
I meant it.
Because it could just be us, right now. And I knew it was unrealistic. But it was such an appealing fantasy.
I will lick his blood from your fingers.
The memory of Reshaye’s words slithered through the darkness. I felt its presence in the back of my mind and shuddered.
“It hates you,” I murmured. “It threatened you. It already hurt you. And Max, if—”
My words tangled. What ones could I possibly choose that would express everything that had been roiling in me for the last two days? How could I explain what it would do to me if I hurt him — more than I already had? How could I tell him how much it meant to me that he came back and yet how quickly I would trade that for the promise of his safety?
Words were nothing, compared to that. It would be like trying to move the sea with a spoon.
I lapsed into silence and didn’t resume. But a wrinkle formed between Max’s brows, and I saw the understanding seep into his eyes.
“When we were in Tairn, at the foot of that tower,” he said, quietly, “and you asked me to let you help, my first thought was, No fucking way. Too dangerous. But it turned out that our only shot at beating that thing was doing it together.”
Bittersweet warmth suffused my chest, punctured with a pang of guilt.
I didn’t deserve him. Gods, I didn’t. And yet, traitorously, the deepest recesses of my soul were so happy he was here.
The faintest beginnings of tears stung my eyes.
“It turned out that we were a decent team,” I whispered.
A little smile warmed his voice as he replied, “Yes. We were.”
