T o say that it’s strange to be constantly surrounded by people who know more about you than you yourself do is an understatement. It was one
thing when it was Brayan, who I apparently hadn’t seen in more than a decade before I got myself thrown in Ilyzath. Another thing altogether to be surrounded by people who only knew me the way that I was, entire relationships crafted from memories that I just… didn’t have. The ghosts of that past were still there, and I could feel them every time I looked at Tisaanah or Sammerin—a faint shadow of intimacy, but everything that had created that bond was gone, stuck behind a door I didn’t know how to open. The rest of it, of course, was fairly outrageous, too—the Fey, the war,
the Lejaras. With every explanation Tisaanah, Sammerin, and Ishqa gave to my near-constant questions, Brayan seemed to increasingly lose the will to live. Even when we were children, he had never been very good at dealing with unknowns.
I, on the other hand, found them comparably easy to swallow. It was only once I tried to unravel my role in all of this—or the bonds that had put me there—that things got… difficult.
The door was closed. The voice would whisper in the back of my head,
You don’t want to go here anymore.
Yes, I fucking do, I told it, frustrated. But the headaches decided otherwise. I could only make it through a few minutes of questions at a time before the stabbing pain brought me to surrender. Tisaanah and Sammerin seemed secretly grateful for it. I knew there was something they weren’t telling me. I didn’t like feeling that I was being lied to, even if by omission.
It had been a week of this when, at last, we landed from another Stratagram leap and Ishqa turned to the west. It was sunset, the sky bright magenta.
A rare smile broke over Ishqa’s face. “We have arrived.”
He pushed aside some ferns, revealing a shoreline of gritty grey sand. Several hundred yards out into the still tidewater was an island, marked by a smattering of orange lights glinting in the distance. The island was visible only in silhouette, but its shape was taller than I might have expected, like all of the structures on it built up to a point. If so, it appeared to be mostly uninhabited, as the lights clustered only around the shore.
Tisaanah pushed through the ferns to stand beside me, and my skin prickled. The scent of citrus swept by with a breeze and briefly took with it my capability for intelligent thought.
I glanced at her and had to remind myself to look away.
At every moment, my entire body was acutely aware of her proximity. If I didn’t pay attention to where I was walking, I often found myself wandering closer without noticing until I’d stop and realize that I was close enough to trace the shape of the brown-and-white skin on the back of her neck, and count the strands of hair that fell over it. Every one of these minute features felt like a reminder of something important.
One evening, she tilted her head back to tie up her hair, revealing a crescent-shaped patch of tan skin on the underside of her chin. The sight of that little patch of skin brought with it another image, her leaning over me, body bare, hair wild and unkempt, her head thrown back. It was so vivid that I had to step away and take a few deep breaths.
And yet, despite this overwhelming—disconcerting, even—sense of intimacy, Tisaanah was the one who avoided me the most.
Now, she took in Zagos with a skeptical stare. “So this is the place that will solve all of our problems.”
“It looks barely inhabited,” Brayan said. “If this qualifies as a city, it’s a tiny one. This is supposed to be some hub of magical knowledge?”
Ishqa gave Brayan a disapproving look. “The size of it is irrelevant—” Tisaanah’s mouth went thin, an odd expression passing over her face. “—and has no bearing on what it can do for us.”
Tisaanah’s cheeks got red. Her eyes flicked to me, and my expression must have pushed her to the breaking point, because an ungraceful laugh burst from her clamped lips.
Meanwhile, I stared at her in slight bewilderment.
Ishqa gave her an odd look. “Why are you laughing?” “Right, why are you laughing?” I narrowed my eyes at her.
It wasn’t even funny. Unless you were a twelve-year-old boy. Even then, some had moved on to more sophisticated humor.
Still, a stubborn smile tugged at the left side of my mouth.
“It’s… nothing.” Tisaanah collected herself with only partial success. Brayan looked like he was ready to throw himself into the lake.
Sammerin looked affectionately unamused. Ishqa just looked unamused.
“We do not have time for… whatever this is.” Ishqa waved a dismissive hand at her, as if to wordlessly berate us for being unsophisticated humans. “We have places to be.”
He pointed to the left, down the beach. A long wooden bridge extended from the shore all the way out to the island.
“Does everyone here know how to swim?” I remarked. “It is perfectly safe.”
“Says the one who can fly. It looks like it’s being held together purely by the vengeful drowned spirits beneath it.”
Tisaanah now once again was very serious as she set off down the beach. “I think we all know how to handle vengeful spirits. Or at least we should by now, yes?”
 |
ONCE WE ARRIVED IN ZAGOS, I realized why the island had looked so odd from the shore. The entire city was built into ruins. Streets weren’t so much planned roads as they were paths between crumbling, ancient buildings. Collapsed marble columns cradled businesses, shops, and pubs, creating a strange blend of architectural styles. Strings of lanterns, some filled with fire and some with floating orbs of magic light, dangled between the violent peaks of shattered rock. Above us, in the distance, a decaying palace loomed over the city. It must have once been something to behold, but now it was a shrouded, misty shadow.
There was flora everywhere—crimson flowers perched on ivy that consumed expanses of stone, peeking up from between cracked cobblestones, flourishing over entire hundred-foot spans of sheer cliffs
above. I had to stop at one point and admire a particularly stunning bright red blossom, with seven pointed tips. I couldn’t bring myself to pick it—it seemed a bit sacrilegious—but I picked up one that had fallen to the cobblestones, smoothed out a crinkle on its petal, and handed it to Tisaanah. “It would be a waste to let it sit on the ground,” I said, by way of
explanation.
Sammerin gave me a look that silently said, Really? That’s what you’re going with?
But Tisaanah smiled faintly and took the flower, tucking it behind her ear. Red suited her.
As we continued into the heart of the city, the streets quickly grew more crowded. Everything was dimly lit, still—those who lived here apparently didn’t mind residing in darkness. But then again, that seemed appropriate. I had never seen a place that so loudly announced itself as a seedy underbelly of society. Suspicious eyes peered at us from the shadows. With every step, the haze of drug-sweetened smoke grew thicker.
Sammerin’s eyebrows shot up as a tall woman with long black hair walked by. At first I thought it was because of her beauty—fair enough— but then he said, “Was that a Fey?”
Fey?!
I looked at the people around us more closely. Sure enough, I realized to my shock that there were indeed some Fey here. Most of the people in the streets were human, or appeared to be. But perhaps a third of them had pointed ears, either a long point like Ishqa’s or subtle ones that were more easily mistaken for human.
Brayan lurched to a stop, shooting Ishqa a suspicious glare. “You brought us to Fey lands?” The question was all accusation.
“No,” Ishqa said. “This is Zagos. Just as I said.” Tisaanah looked around, confused. “Then how—”
“Zagos has only been known by this name for the last hundred years or so. Long ago, it was known as Niraja. For a time, both Fey and humans lived there together. It was hidden from human society, and exiled by the other Fey Houses. What is today known as Zagos is just a small part of what was once Niraja.”
Sammerin looked somewhat awed. “Is the idea of this as inconceivable to Fey as it is to us?”
“The world was very different half a millennia ago.”
“So what happened to it?” I asked.
Ishqa was quiet for a moment. “It fell,” he said. “To the Fey laws of old, interbreeding with humans was considered nearly beastiality.”
“How flattering,” I muttered.
“They were allowed to exist in exile for a century or two, but…” He stopped short, his gaze locking on something in the distance. “But?” Tisaanah prodded.
He didn’t answer. Instead, after another moment, he looked to Tisaanah and I.
“Please excuse me. The place that can help you, or try, is just ahead if you follow the fork to the left. The door has a lily on it.”
“Where are you going?” Tisaanah called after him, but he was already slipping away into the crowd.
“I will find you again later,” he said, not even bothering to turn. Sammerin let out an exasperated exhale. Tisaanah shook her head. “Does he do that often?” I asked.
“Always.” Tisaanah sighed and started walking. “But he always comes back.”
I matched her pace. I caught a whiff of citrus and resisted the urge to crowd closer.
“Is it smart?” I asked, voice low. “Trusting him?”
“Trust.” Tisaanah let out a small scoff. “I don’t know if I trust Ishqa, exactly. But we have— ah, what would be the right way to put it— a mutually beneficial relationship. The rebels have managed to capture four key Threllian cities, and we wouldn’t have managed to make it so far without Ishqa’s help. Do I think he’s loyal to us? No. But I do believe he’s loyal to his cause.”
“His cause.”
“I think there is nothing he wouldn’t do to halt the war between humans and Fey.”
Nothing he wouldn’t do. I didn’t love the sound of that desperation.
Tisaanah looked as if she read my mind. “It is possible there will come a time when his goals do not align with ours. But right now, they do. I’m not in a position to turn away help.” One eyebrow twitched. “Why? You don’t trust him?”
“I just recognize a man with secrets.”
Tisaanah chuckled. “If I didn’t trust anyone with secrets, I would trust no one.”
Well… yes. Exactly. “Farlione!”
The booming voice cut through the buzz of the crowd. I slowed, turning, but Brayan caught up to me and pulled me forward.
“Don’t acknowledge.” “What—?”
“BRAYAN FUCKING FARLIONE!”
Brayan cringed and walked faster.
A second later, a massive man with cropped brown hair and a scar over the back of his skull grabbed Brayan’s shoulder, forcing him to turn.
“Well, fuck me. It is you.”
“It’s impolite to grab other people,” I said, before I could help myself, and Brayan glared at me.
“Well, it’s impolite to ignore an old friend,” the man said.
Brayan donned a refined smile. It was funny how similar it was to the one he used to wear at our parents’ parties. Always far more convincing than mine. “How nice to see you, Atriv—”
“How nice to fucking see me? That’s how you greet me?”
Brayan scoffed and turned away, only for the man to yank him back. “You fucked me!” he snarled.
And Brayan—Brayan, the elegant golden child of the Ryvenai upper class—slowly flicked his eyes over his assailant and said, calmly, “You aren’t my type.”
I huffed a laugh, just because it was so unexpected.
The man’s face contorted with outrage, his shoulders heaving. Now he seemed to notice the rest of us, gaze turning to me, Sammerin, and finally lingering on Tisaanah. His stare was one part lecherous, one part curious.
My teeth ground. I did not like that. I did not like it at all.
I pushed past the man, putting myself, conveniently, between him and Tisaanah. “We don’t have time for this. Kindly excuse us.”
The minute I decided to do it, I knew what his reaction would be. I was ready for the blow. Big men like him threw their weight around carelessly. Oftentimes it served them well. This time, it made it easy to use his size against him. He was on the ground, arm twisted in my grasp, before the strike could land.
“That’s enough of that, don’t you think?” I said.
Tisaanah watched, arms crossed, looking annoyed. We had started to attract some attention.
Brayan’s friend slipped my grip and lunged. But midway through the movement, he jerked to a sudden stop, muscles straining before his limbs folded in on each other in an unnatural tangle.
Sammerin stepped over the man’s paralyzed form, now a heap on the street, and simply said, “Enough.”
We left him twitching behind us, very slowly pulling himself out of the knot Sammerin had tied him in. We’d be long lost by the time he was up again.
“That was unnecessary,” Tisaanah muttered as we pushed through the crowd. “Too many people were looking at us.”
She wasn’t wrong to worry. We were an unusual group, and Tisaanah’s skin tone made her especially recognizable. I certainly would have preferred that we made it through Zagos without being recognized.
Brayan’s face was completely still, which I knew meant he was furious. “Who was that?” Sammerin asked.
“And did you really fuck him?” I added. “Literally or otherwise.” That earned an actual scowl.
“No one important,” he said. “An old colleague from the Roseteeth Company. We collaborated for a time when we both went independent. I got some assignments he didn’t, and he never got over it.”
So not only had we been recognized, we’d been recognized by a mercenary. Terrific.
Tisaanah’s steps faltered. “You were in the Roseteeth Company?”
“A long time ago. Perhaps a decade.” Brayan said it with the tone of one humbly downplaying an obvious accomplishment. He didn’t realize that Tisaanah wasn’t exactly fawning over his accomplishments.
“Where did you fight?” she asked.
“Essaria, mostly. Why? Do you know someone who fought with them?” “No. They just helped conquer my country.”
She didn’t miss a beat. Just kept walking. My eyebrows twitched.
Brayan looked a bit like he had been struck. “I…” He cleared his throat. “It was an assignment. I didn’t get to choose.”
“I know.”
I refrained from pointing out that he did choose, actually. He chose to join the Company.
“What happened to the Essarians was unfortunate,” Brayan said. “We all wished it hadn’t gone that way. But commissions are business. It wasn’t… personal.”
She gave him a calm, cold stare. “It never is.” Brayan shut up after that.
|
By the time Tisaanah and I reached the door with the lily, it was just the two of us. Ishqa had not returned from his detour. Brayan had slipped into a weapons shop, claiming he needed to stock up on supplies, though I suspected he just wanted to avoid Tisaanah. Sammerin had nearly snapped his neck when he saw a beautiful blonde woman drinking alone at a pub table, so he was soon gone as well. Secretly, I was relieved. I had no idea what we were about to find here, and if Ishqa’s contacts could restore my magic and my mind, I wasn’t sure what opening that door would reveal. Admitting that the uncertainty made my palms sweat wouldn’t have been easy. Perhaps he sensed that.
The building was unremarkable. It was situated beneath ancient, collapsed stone, with the doorway framed by two toppled columns. There was no sign, only a lily burned into a plain wooden door.
I raised my hand to knock and hesitated.
“Good luck, Max,” Tisaanah said, offering a small smile that I returned.
“Good luck, Tisaanah.”
I knocked. The door swung open immediately. A white-haired man with faintly pointed ears greeted us with a wide smile.
“Welcome, welcome. Tisaanah Vytezic and Maxantarius Farlione, we are so very excited to meet you.”
