She set the charcoal to paper and sketched out the lines of his face in more confident strokes. She could still hear the crackling fire and see its light dancing across her paper, but everything else seemed to disappear as she drew. Even the scattered, anxious thoughts that had previously consumed her fell silent. There was only her and the paper and the charcoal in her fingers, and for a few precious minutes, she found some semblance of peace.
Valkyra returned before she had finished her drawing. She swooped in with a dead rabbit in her clawed forelegs and laid it on the grass next to Aleida. “Here’s your supper, dear.”
Somewhat reluctantly, Aleida set her drawing aside and knelt in front of the fire. “Thanks,” she said, picking up the rabbit. She made quick work of skinning and dressing it, then stuck it over the fire to roast. She washed her hands with some of the water still in her pack and returned to her drawing. Valkyra settled on her shoulder to watch her work.
“That’s very good,” she said, brushing the back of Aleida’s neck with her tail. “It looks exactly like him.”
“Almost." There was something in the shape of his nose and the curve of his mouth that didn’t look quite right yet. She sketched a few new lines over the ones she’d previously made, and, once satisfied, laid them down with a little more pressure. After that, she started shading, emphasizing the planes and subtle curves of Amar’s face until she had a portrait that was, if not an exact likeness, at least close enough to be recognizable.
By the time she was done, the rabbit had finished cooking. She touched her fingers to the paper and channeled a bit of altma to help preserve the drawing. It wouldn’t last forever, but it would at least prevent some smearing.
She set her drawing supplies on top of her pack and took the rabbit off the fire. It was still too hot to eat, and she was about to use magic to draw out some of the warmth when a faint rustle in the trees overhead caught her attention.
“Ah,” said Valkyra. “It’s Feros.”
Perched on a low-hanging branch above them, an owl-like creature blinked his large, pitch-black eyes twice as he stared down at Aleida. She held out an arm for him to come to, but he stayed where he was and extended a wing, preening at his feathers as if he had all the time in the world.
“Get down here, you stupid bird,” Aleida said.
Feros let out an irritated screech and fluttered down to rest on her arm. He dug his claws in a little harder than necessary, but it was impossible to tell whether the act had been intentional. Aleida glared at him and opened the small tube strapped to his back. She pulled out the rolled paper inside and barely managed to get the tube shut again before Feros turned a greedy eye to the heap of discarded rabbit entrails next to the fire. He hopped down and began picking at them.
Aleida wrinkled her nose. Strixes were faithful creatures, and highly useful with their unique intelligence and ability to channel limited amounts of altma for tracking. But there was something unnerving about their taste for blood and their proclivity for ripping the innards out of their prey. The legends didn’t help. In Libera, older children had told her stories about the wild strixes of old who loved nothing more than to tear human infants apart from the navel and gobble up their insides.
She shuddered. Tyrus would have said she was being ridiculous, and he would have been right, but he’d always been more attached to Feros than she was. It probably had to do with the fact that she hadn’t been very kind to the strix when she was a child. She was constantly trying to shut him out of the house, and on more than one occasion, she’d accidentally shut the door on a leg or a wing or his face. She’d always been terrified of him, sure she’d wake one night to find him ripping into her own stomach. She couldn’t count the number of nightmares she’d had about it, and to this day, she was still half-convinced that Feros hated her.
But he was useful—incredibly useful—and so she put up with his more unpleasant qualities. For Tyrus’ sake.
Trying to ignore the moist, squelching noises a few paces away, Aleida unrolled the message Feros had delivered. There were two sheets of paper. The first was a letter, written in Hasan’s hand and completely unintelligible to Aleida, who had never learned to read. The second contained a few of Tyrus’ ink drawings.
She held the letter up for Valkyra. The Spirit Tarja shifted her weight forward and began to read it aloud. “Dear Aleida, how are you? I’m sorry I haven’t written in so long. Hasan’s been busy and couldn’t help me until today. He kept saying I should write it myself because it would be good practice, but it’s hard to think of what I want to say when I’m trying to concentrate so much on the letters. Or maybe I’m just being lazy. Anyway, I hope you’re doing well, and I hope I didn’t worry you by taking so long to write.”
Aleida frowned. How long had it been since she’d sent her last message to Tyrus? Five weeks, maybe six. Normally he was quick to send back a response, and the delay might have worried her if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with everything else going on lately. Worrying about it would have done her no good, of course, but still, she should have noticed.
Valkyra kept reading. “Things have been quiet here. Hasan keeps teaching me to read and write and do numbers, and I keep ducking out of lessons every chance I get. Of course, that’s a lot harder to do with wobbly legs and feet that won’t cooperate. I can’t get far when I try to run away these days.”
Aleida’s frown deepened. The last time she’d seen her brother, he’d barely been able to walk, let alone run.
“That was a joke, by the way,” Valkyra read. “It’s all right if you laugh.”
Aleida rolled her eyes, but the corners of her lips quirked up a little despite herself. He knew her too well.
“In all seriousness, I’m doing fine, all things considered. Hasan has been trying some new treatments, and the pain hasn’t been as bad the last few days. I even did some drawings for you. They’re not as good as yours, obviously, but here’s a little glimpse at what life is like here in Chatanda in the summer. I hope you get a chance to come and see it for yourself. I miss you, but if you can’t come home yet, I understand. I know you’d be with me if you could. Please be safe out there. I love you. Tyrus.”
Aleida tucked the letter behind the second sheet of paper and studied Tyrus’ drawings with a concentrated scowl. There was one of Feros, ruffle-feathered and slit-eyed as he dozed on a branch. A second drawing showed a trio of young children running while a pair of dogs cavorted about in the third. The fourth drawing was an exaggerated caricature of Hasan, his heavy brows drawn together in a stern expression. Words were scrawled beside his open mouth in Tyrus’ own unpracticed letters.
Before Aleida could ask what the words read, Valkyra spoke. “That one says, ‘You really need to practice your writing, Tyrus.’” She did a fair impression of Hasan’s low voice, then gave a musical little laugh. “I doubt this is what he meant when he said that.”
Aleida forced herself to smile. Once, the drawings might have made her laugh, too. Looking at them now only tied knots in her stomach. Like her, Tyrus was a decent artist, and the physical deterioration caused by his illness was plain in the state of his work. What once might have been captured with strong, broad strokes had now been rendered in shaky lines and minimal detail. Inky smudges and haphazard streaks were scattered at random across the page, left there by accident when he’d struggled to maintain control of his quill. Something that would only happen more often as his illness progressed.
But he wouldn’t want her dwelling on that. He’d want her to recognize the joy and humor in his pictures. She studied them again and allowed a more genuine smile to spread across her face. He was showing her pieces of his life, opening a window for her to see into his world even though she couldn’t be physically present in it. This was their own unique way of communicating, and she was grateful to still have that binding them together even when they were so far apart.
They hadn’t ever had the chance to learn to read or write—not until Hasan began teaching Tyrus
. Aleida had never bothered to learn and still had no interest in doing so. She didn’t have the time, and she preferred the drawings to the letters, anyway. Words were clearer and more specific, but the drawings were more personal.
She carefully folded up the pages and set them aside. The rabbit had cooled enough to eat now, and she closed her eyes to offer a quick prayer to Artex.
Thank you for the food, and thank you for allowing Tyrus’ letter to reach me safely. Please watch over him while I cannot.
She cut off a piece of the meat and took a bite, chewing slowly. The fresh, warm meal was a welcome improvement over the stale biscuits and dried berries she’d been subsisting on for the last several days. The fire burned low as she ate, and her thoughts drifted to Libera and Tyrus and the parents they’d both lost in the invasion.
Valkyra hopped down from her shoulder like a cat and stretched her legs and wings in front of the fire. “You’re quiet,” she said. “Usually you’re happy to get a letter from your brother. What’s wrong?”
“What if he’s not doing as well as he says he is?”
Valkyra tilted her head to the side. “If something were wrong, I’m sure Hasan would have written about it.”
“It’s the drawings,” Aleida said. “I think his hands must be hurting him, or he’s losing more control of his muscles.”
“That’s to be expected, knowing the progression of Storm Withering Syndrome.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier to accept,” Aleida muttered.
“I’m sorry, dear. That’s not how I meant it. But this isn’t anything out of the ordinary, you know that. He still has time, but there are going to be some bad days along the way. Perhaps he drew those pictures on a bad day.”
Aleida took another bite and chewed slowly, trying to concentrate on the flavor of the meat and the smoky smell of the fire to hold back the tears pricking at her eyes. “I wish there was more I could do.”
Valkyra stretched up to rest her forelegs on Aleida’s knee and looked her in the eye. “Oh, sweet child, you’re much too hard on yourself. You’re doing everything you can to help your brother. I can only imagine how terrifying this must be after everything you’ve both gone through, but what you’re doing now will save his life. Think of how happy you’ll both be when you make him immortal and take away all the fear and uncertainty this illness has brought on both of you.”
Aleida nodded and wiped at her wet lashes with a finger. She went back to her food, not speaking the question that still loomed in her mind. She didn’t dare give voice to such an awful idea, but it haunted her long into the night, even after she closed her eyes to sleep.
She was racing against a merciless disease that was slowly ravaging her brother’s body and would eventually claim his life if she didn’t stop it. She was doing everything she could, pushing herself to the very brink of her limits, but that same question kept dragging her down as if she were a stone cast into the sea.
What if it wasn’t enough?
15
Amar
The touch of something wet woke Amar. He turned his head and inhaled the hot, rancid breath of whatever had woken him. A dog, he saw as he cracked one eye open. The beast was muddy and matted, skin sucked tight against a bony frame. He’d probably already picked up a few fleas just from being so close to it.
It went in for another lick at his face. Amar pulled back. “Stop that.”
The dog barked, and the noise reverberated painfully in his ears. He pushed himself up and put his hands to his head, which seemed to pound with increasing strength the longer he was awake. Had anyone in the entire history of humanity ever been this hungover before?
He forced his eyes open a little farther to examine his surroundings. The dog sat panting a few paces off. They appeared to be in an alley. The shadows cast by the tall buildings on either side shielded Amar’s sensitive eyes from the full strength of daylight, but he could see a bright blue sky and sunlit streets ahead. The conversations of the people who walked past filled the air with grating noise that made him long for silence.
He was still in Valmandi, at least as far as he could tell, but he knew no more than that. The previous night was a blur. He’d gone to a tavern to drink, and then he’d gotten into a fight with the barman, who threw him out. There had been some vomiting and some yelling, and he’d wandered off in search of more drink, but even those parts were fuzzy. Anything that might have happened afterward was a blank space in his memory, but he had plenty of those already. What was one more?
The part about the vomiting and the yelling seemed important though. What was it he’d been yelling about?
The crestfallen look on Mitul’s face floated into his mind. You’re a sad, lonely man desperate for a friend who doesn’t even want you.
Ah, that was it. A wave of guilt started to rise with the memory of those harsh words, but he quickly shoved it down. All he’d wanted last night was to be left alone. Mitul should have known that. If he didn’t like the response he got when he came looking for Amar, that was his own fault.
More details were coming back to him now. After his conversation with Mitul, he’d gone in search of not only more drink, but supplies for a journey to Atrea—a journey he had intended to make all on his own. A colossally stupid idea, he realized with the effects of the sohra wearing off. Atrea was still so far away, and getting there would mean going all the way around the Sular Desert, or crossing right through it in the height of summer.
Going through was the faster option, and a far more appealing one given his growing impatience for answers. But he couldn’t do that on his own, and hiring a guide meant entrusting his safety to a complete stranger. There were about a hundred different ways that could go wrong. Saya was obnoxious at times, but at least they had a history. He couldn’t remember it, but it was a starting point, and she’d proven trustworthy enough. Better to cross the desert under her guidance as they’d already planned than to put his life in the hands of anyone else.
Unfortunately, that meant he’d have to go crawling back to others in this sorry state. Whatever scraps of dignity he had left fell away in apprehension of their disapproval.
But why should he care what they thought? He didn’t. Did he?
Amar sighed. The sooner he got it over with, the better. He pushed himself up, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his skull. He patted the dog’s head on his way past, then braced one hand against a wall for support as he made his way to the adjoining street. With his other hand, he shielded his eyes against the bright, mid-morning light.
It took him a few minutes of wandering to figure out where he was. He made his way to the palace grounds and then to the temple with the mural of Princess Priyani. From there, he was able to find his way back to the Saffron Fox.
The others were waiting outside the inn when he arrived. Mitul had his saraj out and sat near the step playing the instrument. His fingers seemed to dance across the strings as he sang in a gentle, melodic voice. It stirred something in Amar that almost made him wish he’d stuck around at the inn last night, if not to play with Mitul, then at least to listen.
Saya was the first to spot him as he approached. She said something to the others, and they followed her gaze to him. Kesari stuck her hands in her pockets and gave him a nervous smile, but Saya’s face was fixed in a scowl. Mitul ended his song, and a few nearby listeners tossed coins into the center of the olive-green sash at his feet. He thanked each of them, barely glancing at Amar.
“I was starting to wonder if you’d ever show up,” Saya said when he reached them.
“What happened?” asked a low voice from the lantern clipped to Kesari’s coat. “You look absolutely horrific.”
“Shhh,” Kesari hissed, looking mortified.
Saya glanced down at Lucian. “You should be glad you don’t have a nose. He smells absolutely horrific, too.”
“I’m back now,” Amar said flatly. “Let’s go.”
“Oh, let’s go, he says. As though it were
that simple.”
Mitul put a hand on her shoulder. “Just drop it.”
She shrugged away from his touch. “No. He needs to understand. What about the supplies we needed? What about our plan to leave first thing in the morning so we could reduce the risk of running into that murderous Visan woman?” She put her hands on her hips and glowered at Amar. “You didn’t think about any of that, did you? You think it’s fine to go wandering off, doing whatever you want. But now—now that you’re ready to go—now we can leave?”
Behind Saya, Kesari nervously shifted her feet, her hands still stiff in her coat pockets. Amar dug his nails into his palms to stop himself from unleashing the anger that seemed to have become his default response to almost everything. That anger would get him nowhere. Nothing Saya had said was false, and her frustration with him was perfectly justifiable. He’d been stupid and selfish and far more immature than a man his age should be.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The animosity in Saya’s eyes melted away, but it was quickly replaced by suspicion. She let out a long sigh. “You know we’re only trying to help you, right? That’s all any of us have been trying to do this entire time. Especially him.” She pointed to Mitul. “And you’ve treated him the worst. He puts up with it because he cares about you, but I can’t stand it anymore. You can’t keep behaving this way.”
Amar nodded solemnly. She was right. He’d been prickly and standoffish at best ever since they’d left Tamaya’s house. Beyond that, he’d been downright hostile at times. His anger about his situation had made him mean, and he’d taken that anger out on them, hating them for knowing more than he did about himself. Skies above, a part of him he still hated them for it.
But that wasn’t their fault. And despite everything he’d thrown at them, they stayed. They were still trying to help him, and they certainly didn’t deserve the hostility he’d shown them.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, looking at each of them in turn. “I’ve acted poorly, and none of you deserve that. I’ll do better.”
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