by Andrew Rowe
“Were we? I mean, we hadn’t seen each other for years.”
Patrick scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “That didn’t really matter to me, you know? We were friends when we were younger, so…”
I was momentarily stymied by that. “I, uh…sorry about that.”
He laughed. “It’s okay. Not blaming you or anything. Just…maybe think about that when you see Roland again?”
“I…uh, sure?” I shook my head. “Can we change the topic?”
Sera sighed. “Sure. I guess we’re getting off-track. Back to the main subject, then?”
“Please.” I tried to search back in my mind for what we’d been talking about, but I’d lost track. “So, we were discussing…”
“Climbing team members,” Sera added helpfully.
“Oh. Right.” I nodded. “Since you apparently have unparalleled social acumen, do you think there are any good options?”
Sera considered that for a moment, then frowned. “No, not really. Most of the people I’ve met at the lab are working full time. Or probable spies for Farren. Or both. Mostly both.”
“Mercenaries, then?” I asked.
“Don’t like the sound of that, if I’m bein’ honest,” Mara replied. “Gotta have trust when yer climbing, and I’m not gonna trust someone who is only with us for a few coins. Not when you two, if you’ll forgive me for sayin’ so, look like easy targets.”
Sera blinked. “You mean Corin and me? We’re from a duelist family!”
“You’re from a rich family. ‘tuned or not, you look wealthy. Which, to some, means you might look like you can’t fight. I mean, I know better, ‘course, but…”
I folded my arms. “I sincerely doubt most people would have that impression. Nobility comes with a higher likelihood of getting an attunement. Wouldn’t that make us appear more dangerous?”
“Not so much as you might think. Means that to some, you come across as, if you don’t mind me saying so, like the type to buy your way up. Now, a smart merc will figure out real quick that you’ve got sword trainin’, but if they came in with dark deeds to do, they might not change their mind.”
“I’m not sure robbing people is really all that common, Mara,” Patrick objected.
She gave a shrug. “Don’t know the numbers on it, but it does happen. And all I’m sayin’ is that if you look like you’re a couple teenagers on winter break with a lot of money to throw around…”
I sighed. “What other options do we have?”
“We could look for other students that are on vacation,” Patrick offered. “We weren’t the only ones on the train and there were other trains arriving over the week, too.”
“Caelford has some schools on break as well.” Sera noted. “It’s not a bad idea. If we could find some compatriots from back at home, that’d be perfect, but if not, I wouldn’t mind linking up with some Caelford students — or even recent graduates.”
“Where would we even look into that?” I asked.
“There are places where people post that they’re interested in climbing over near the spire,” Patrick explaining. “We could go look for some familiar names, or just people our age?”
Sera nodded to him. “Seems like a better idea than just sitting here, at least. We can discuss other options on the train.”
Patrick’s stomach grumbled. “…Breakfast first?”
“Breakfast first,” Mara agreed. “I haven’t had a real meal in a week.”
***
We discussed more options as we ate, then Sera pulled me aside for a private talk.
“What are we conspiring about today?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “We’re not conspiring. This is fairly straightforward — you should write Father and tell him we’re heading into the spire.”
“Let me think about that…hmm, no. Going to go with no.”
Sera grimaced. “Corin. This is important.”
“You’re right, it is. It’s important that I be able to assert myself as an adult and say, ‘I am not telling my father a thing’.”
She shook her head. “You might be an adult, but he’s still your father. Our father. Do you remember how upset he was when we didn’t tell him about the ball?”
“Oh, you mean when I got into a fist fight with him in the middle of Elora Theas’ house? Yes, I vaguely recall that incident.”
“This isn’t funny.” She folded her arms. “You could have avoided all that if you’d kept in touch with him better.”
“Are you seriously blaming me for that?” I bristled, standing up straighter. “Are you kidding me?”
She raised her hands in a warding gesture. “No, no. Sorry, I’m…it’s obviously not your fault, but it could have been avoided. I’m…” She sighed. “Let me start over. He’s already lost one son to a spire. How do you think he’s going to feel when his other son goes into one in a foreign country without even telling him about it? What happens if you don’t come home?”
“I assume he’ll blame me for some kind of failure to follow his perfectly designed will. The man is an absolute mastermind at blaming other people for his own failings.”
“In this case, not writing him would be your failing.”
I shook my head. “That’s not a failing. That’s a choice.”
She folded her arms. “Corin. You’re being deliberately obstinate and obtuse. This is a simple, traditional thing to do.”
I rolled my eyes. “I have no obligation to pay into that tradition.”
“Maybe not, but what does it cost you to at least let him know you’re going?”
I clenched my hands into fists. “The cost is validating him. If I write him and say, ‘Greetings, honored father whom I respect and adore, I hope you will forgive me for going into this spire without asking for your permission’, he’ll take that as reinforcing his right to control me. And that,” I spat, “is unacceptable.”
“Oh, yes. That’s definitely how you’d write the letter. By all means, make a caricature of yourself to prove a point.”
“If you’re so invested, why don’t you write one for him yourself?”
“I already did!” She snapped. “I just haven’t sent it yet, because I was waiting — and hoping — that my brother would send one with me. Do you realize how angry he’s going to be if he finds out about this and I’m the only one who wrote to him?”
I sighed. “Then just don’t write him, and hopefully he won’t find out about it.”
“I don’t think that’s moral, Corin. And even if I did, he’s very likely to find out eventually.”
“How? It’s not like we’re going to go home and chat about our journey over a nice family dinner.” I growled. “That would require having a family.”
“Corin…” She reached out, then pulled her hand back. “We do have a family.”
I lowered my head. “Do we…? For years, that was all I wanted. To rescue Tristan, to bring him back home. Maybe Mother would come home, then. Maybe Father would stop trying to…train me. Even back then, I knew it was unrealistic, but I still had to motivate myself somehow. Without something to believe in, what point was there to keep doing anything at all?”
“Corin…”
“It’s okay.” I took a shuddering breath, then looked up and gave her a fake smile. “No, wait. I’m lying to myself again. It’s not okay. It was never going to be okay. I might be okay, or you might be okay, but the family? It’s not going to be okay.”
“…How long have you been feeling like this?”
“It’s been building for a long time, but…I think the key was when I found out that Father was screening the letters you and Mother were sending me. Of all the things he did to me…I think, in some ways, that was the cruelest. He deliberately sought to stop me from having connections with anyone else. He made himself the center of my world and cut off any chance of escape.” I shook my head. “So, no, Sera. He doesn’t get a letter from me. He already stole enough of them for a lifetime. He doesn’t get a th
ing from me.”
Sera shook her head. “You…maybe he doesn’t deserve it, but if you don’t write him…there are going to be consequences. He’s going to be angry, Corin. More than last time.”
I turned my gaze to meet hers. “Then don’t send him your letter, and we’ll swear the others to secrecy. He’ll never know.”
“I…don’t know, Corin. That’s an even bigger gamble. At least if one of us writes him, that’ll mitigate some of the damage. If he finds out neither of us wrote him at all, then…”
I took a breath. “Then I’ll handle the consequences when it comes to that.”
“…You’re sure about this?”
I nodded. “Very sure.”
She hesitated, then finally, sighed and nodded her head. “Okay. I’ll stop bothering you about this, then.”
“Thanks. Let’s get ready to go.”
“Wait.” She raised a hand. “Corin…this goes beyond Father. You’re clearly hurting. You’ve been hiding it well enough that I didn’t really notice, but if you need to talk….”
“I don’t need to talk.” I said a little too fast to be convincing. “What I need is to get moving. To get that token. To help you, to help Tristan. The only way to lower my burden is to succeed.”
“Corin…that’s not a healthy way to live.”
I gave her a sad smile. “What other choice do I have?”
***
Sera spent another couple minutes trying to convince me to open up. I wasn’t receptive.
Finally, when I proved I wasn’t capable of discussing things further, we broke off from our talk to get back to the others.
She never did tell me if she’d decided to send the letter.
After that talk, we headed to the train station. We didn’t get a private train compartment for such a short trip. Instead, I sat across from Sera, and Patrick and Mara found seats elsewhere.
For a time, we rode in relative quiet, making small talk on occasion.
I weighed our chances of making it through six floors with just the four of us. It sounded plausible, but plausible wasn’t worth risking our lives on. We’d either need to find extra people or make a better plan. Maybe someone else had one of the tokens that I needed available for sale, for example. It didn’t sound particularly likely — I’d never heard of them before, and as far as I knew, they were only used by Arbiters — but that didn’t make it strictly impossible.
We could have also just abandoned the whole climbing plan. I didn’t like abrupt changes of plans like that, but perhaps we could find a different way to track Warren Constantine. Or, of course, we could simply try to recruit someone else to Tristan’s cause. Tristan had asked for Constantine, but he couldn’t be the only valuable option available in the entire nation of Caelford.
When I mentioned that, I got a bit of a look from Sera. “Are you really sure you even want to be putting all your effort into this, Corin? I mean, I know you want to help Tristan, but…”
“You don’t trust him. I get it.”
“Oh, no. It’s not that. I mean, I absolutely don’t trust him, but that’s not really the issue. Even if he’s telling us the truth about all of his goals and all that — which he’s not, obviously — do we even agree with them?”
I’d been thinking about that a lot. “He presented it in a very idealistic fashion, but I think some of the core ideas are good.”
“Okay. But ideas alone aren’t what we’re dealing with here. We’re dealing with actual people. And as soon as people get involved…”
“Yes, yes. I know. This isn’t perfect. But what’s the alternative? Side with one of the other factions?”
Sera opened her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Or, you know, maybe a bunch of modestly trained teenagers should avoid getting too heavily involved in international politics.”
I snorted. “That’s the opposite of what I’d expect from you. You’ve always been the ambitious one.”
“Oh, true. Someday, all will tremble before my might, or whatever. But right now? We’re not equipped for this. You know that. I know that.”
“And yet here we are.”
Sera covered her eyes. “Here we are indeed. Just…let’s make sure we don’t do anything we regret, yeah?”
“If that was such an easy thing, our world would look very different.”
“…Fair.” Sera conceded. “But let’s…maybe err on the side of not starting any wars or plotting to kill any visages?”
“Yeah, that’s probably wise.” I exhaled a breath. “You think that’s Tristan’s endgame? He was pretty explicit about not working with that whole Godslayer faction.”
“Corin…they’re not going to forgive him for his involvement with Tenjin’s disappearance.”
“I know.” My reply was a whisper.
“So, even if his plan is uplifting humanity to a higher level of power, then eventually—”
“It’ll be ‘kill or be killed’ for Tristan. I know. That’s part of why this trip to the spire is important. It’s not just about following Warren. Sure, it’s possible he went through that gate, and we’ll find a trail if we go in there. But the gate has its own purpose, and…”
“You want to talk to Ferras about Tristan.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I want to make a deal. A few, actually. I want to save Tristan. And I want to help you with the scarring, too.”
“That’s two, not a few.” She gave me a look.
“And I want fantastic magical powers?”
She smirked. “Better. But don’t worry about me too much. Get me in the door and I can make a deal with her of my own.”
“What, you going to ask her to sign a Summoner contract?”
“No, Corin. It’d be an Invoker contract.” She gave me a wink. “And, of course, I’d like to get my scarring dealt with.”
“Sounds good. We both have completely implausible plans. It’s almost like we’re related.”
Sera snorted. “Sounds unlikely to me.”
We were quiet for a moment before she spoke again. “Corin?”
“Yeah, Sera?”
She looked away. “Don’t get your hopes up about a deal to save Tristan’s life. Even if Ferras agrees, I don’t think she can bind the other visages to it. And…I think Tristan knows what his odds are.”
“I’m sure he does. The way he talked…” I shook my head. “I’m glad I got to see him. And I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure it’s not the last time.”
***
It took hours to arrive back at the spire. Once we got there, we were more than ready to get rolling. I was half-tempted to go straight into the place just out of sheer boredom, but I stuck to the plan.
We went to find the boards Mara and Patrick had talked about where prospective climbers posted notifications looking for groups. I was only just starting to look at them when I heard Patrick shout something in a gleeful tone.
“Professor! Over here!”
I turned to see who Patrick was shouting at. I found the familiar face of a black-skinned woman turning in our direction in surprise. She was leaning heavily on a long cane — even more heavily than usual, if I wasn’t mistaken — but her lips twisted up into a grin when she saw us.
“Well, children. This is an unexpected surprise.” Professor Meltlake began to walk in our direction with obvious difficulty. Patrick rushed toward his mentor, immediately offering her an arm to help her. “Oh, don’t be like that, Patrick. I’m not some old woman that needs help to cross a street. Just recovering, is all.”
“If you’re sure.” He sounded worried, and I didn’t blame him. When we’d last seen Meltlake…
…Well, that wasn’t a pleasant memory.
I walked over to her as well. “I thought you were in the hospital, Professor.”
“I was, and for entirely too long. Got out of there the moment they were willing to release me. I’ve only just arrived in Caelford.”
“How’s your recovery going?” Sera asked.
>
“Not as well as I’d like, but my body isn’t…” She sighed. “Let’s not talk about that. It’s a pleasure to see you all, but…what are you all doing here?”
“We’re going to climb the spire!” Patrick grinned.
“Are you, now?” Meltlake gave him a dubious look. She scanned our group. “I see four of you. While Miss Callahan is quite the capable warrior, and you’ve learned a great deal over the last year, Patrick…four is not a climbing group.”
Mara blushed brightly at the compliment. “We were gonna find some other students here if we could, but we’ve only just started taking a look.”
“Well, don’t let me bother you, then.” Meltlake smiled. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Wait,” Sera asked before Meltlake turned away.
“Yes, Miss Cadence?”
“Is Derek here with you?” She sounded maybe a little more invested in the answer than I expected. It was a good question. I’d almost forgotten that Derek was Meltlake’s nephew, and that he’d been visiting her at the hospital.
Meltlake looked strangely disappointed by the question. “Oh, Derek? Right, right. You were living with him for a while, weren’t you all?” She nodded to herself. “He’s not here. Had some business in the Unclaimed Lands, I think.”
I blinked at that. “Is he heading to the Seventh Spire again?”
She gave me a quizzical look. “He told you about that? Hm. How interesting. No, I don’t think so — not that he told me, at any rate. Boy doesn’t share as much as he used to. But I can’t blame him too much. He’s a grown man, he can make his own choices, as much as I might disapprove of some of them.”
From her tone, it was quite clear that she did, in fact, disapprove of some of his choices — and rather strongly.
“Was that all?” Meltlake asked, sounding a little impatient.
“Ah, what are you doing here, Professor?” I asked. “You wouldn’t happen to be climbing…?”
She gave an evaluating look. “I wasn’t planning to, actually.”
“Just sightseeing, then?” Sera asked. “No. Wait. You weren’t here for a Judgment, were you?”
Meltlake turned to Sera with a sad expression. “I was…considering it.”
Patrick’s jaw practically dropped. “But you’re famous for only having one attunement! You’re a legend!”