The Light That Binds

by Nathan Garrison

  “It doesn’t sound like luck to me.”

  “What does it sound like, then?”

  Lashriel smiled. “It sounds like that throne found the right man to fill it. A good man. A man willing to do the right thing even though it’s difficult. Even though he just wants to be left in peace.”

  Yandumar returned the smile, gratefully inclining his head towards her. He realized, of course, that the words were meant as much for Gilshamed as they were for him. He didn’t mind, though. I’ve no doubt she can do a better job of reaching the man than me.

  “All right, you two, off with ya now. We’ve plenty to do to get all these people settled. I won’t let it be said that Emperor Yandumar the Stubborn wasted time with talk when there was work to be done!”

  The pair turned, unfurling their wings, and waved goodbye—if only for now—as they flew off to begin directing the incoming refugees. Gilshamed remained quiet, contemplative, but the look on his face told Yandumar the man had at last shed his shroud of doubt.

  “. . . and for the sake of all sanity, put the Tristelkians and Kaunese on opposite sides of the camp,” Arivana said. “If that strutting peacock Prince Galhud so much as looks at the premier’s daughters again, someone—and I think you can guess who—is going to get their face torn off.”

  Claris did little to hide her amusement as she wrote another note in her ledger. “I’ll see to it immediately. Is there anything else?”

  Arivana sighed, running through the day’s tasks in her mind. Finding a place for everyone should have been a straightforward affair, if not exactly simple due to the sheer number of people involved. But the egos of the affluent never failed to complicate matters, and the promise of respite from the endless, desperate flight meant that most now had the chance to rekindle old concerns and old rivalries.

  Old assery, is more like it.

  She was astounded at how quickly pettiness took hold once the threat of death no longer loomed quite so large in everyone’s mind. Only the Fasheshish had proven easy to accommodate. Most of their soldiers and civilians had jumped at the chance to roost near the southeastern fortifications, which were still technically within the borders of their country. If they were going to shed blood in defense of a land, it might as well be their own.

  Everyone else was a headache.

  “No,” Arivana said at last. “That will be all. Please send Richlen in on your way out.”

  Claris bowed. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  As she turned to go, Arivana stood up from the rickety wooden chair that acted as her throne. “Aunt Claris?”

  The woman froze, sniffing loudly in surprise. It had been a long time since Arivana had used such a familiar term of address.

  “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  “I just wanted to thank you, for your loyalty and your service. Countless lives are made better by your efforts every day. My own included.”

  Claris’s face became stoic, unreadable. “You are welcome,” she said in a tightly controlled voice.

  “And whenever we’re in private, I wouldn’t mind at all if you started calling me Arivana again. If you’d like, that is.”

  For a long moment, Claris did not respond, her face becoming even more stone-like with every passing breath. Arivana almost wondered if she had erred.

  A tear broke free of one eyelid, and the woman said in a small, quavering voice, “I would like that very much.”

  Though she now realized it had been building for some time within her mind, the decision had been made on a whim. Which meant Arivana was not prepared for the emotions that welled within her.

  “I’m glad,” Arivana said, choking over the words. “But please, go. Before we both become useless for the rest of the day.”

  Claris nodded, drying her eyes, and pushed out of the tent without another word. The soft padding of her feet had barely faded before heavy footsteps approached. Richlen flipped aside the innermost flap and stopped after a pace, raising an eyebrow.

  “You called for me, Your Majesty?”

  “Have you acquired the things I asked you for?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Are they with you?”

  Sighing, he nodded.

  “Let’s see them, then.”

  He reached beneath his polished breastplate and retrieved two cloth bundles, tossing one to her. Arivana caught it and immediately pulled loose the knot of cord binding it together. A tattered, dun-colored cloak, much like one any peasant would wear, unfolded before her. A larger cousin of the garment she held dangled a moment later from Richlen’s arm.

  “You will take me now,” Arivana said. She flipped the cloak around her shoulders and pulled the hood low over her head.

  “For the record,” Richlen said, “I’m against this.”

  “Duly noted. Now get ready before I change my mind.”

  If the choice to rekindle familiarity with Claris had been a surprise, this decision was anything but. It had been clawing away at her mind relentlessly, ever since she heard the . . . announcement.

  He donned his own disguise, then stepped past her to the back of the tent. He pushed aside a chest and began unraveling the ropes that tied closed a section of the canvas wall. Once undone, he lifted the now-loose square, admitting a burst of cold wind and daylight.

  “Wait here a moment,” he said.

  He ducked through and disappeared. Arivana edged closer, just able to make out an exchange of whispered words. Footsteps drifted away. Twelve beats later, Richlen’s hand appeared, beckoning her with urgency.

  She lowered herself and stepped through the makeshift escape portal. Richlen stood alone.

  “I sent off the guardsman stationed to this post,” he said. “A good lad. Trusts me and knows how to keep his mouth shut. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure why we need to keep this a secret in the first place.”

  Arivana strode away purposefully, giving him no chance to but to follow. She waited until they’d cleared the tangled maze that was the official Panisian encampment—a task taking nearly a quarter toll—before answering.

  “The situation,” she said at last, “is volatile.”

  “I understand that,” he said.

  “Do you? Tell me, then: what was your first feeling upon hearing Vashodia’s announcement?”

  He trekked at her side quietly for a time. “Anger,” he said.

  “And did your fellow guardsmen react the same way?”

  “Some did.”

  “But not all?”

  “No.”

  “A varied response, even among those coming from a similar place. Have you wondered what others might feel who hail from different walks of life? Different countries? Different species?”

  “I . . . can’t imagine.”

  “Few can. Which is why I need to avoid rumors at any cost. I’ve no way to predict what shape they might take. No idea how much damage they might cause.”

  Richlen nodded. “I think I get it now, Your Maj—”

  Arivana cleared her throat loudly before he could finish, giving him a pointed look.

  He cringed. “Sorry.”

  She subdued a flash of anger at his lapse, instead gifting him a smile. “It’s all right. Just try to remember we’re being inconspicuous, hmm?”

  Red dappling his cheeks, Richlen nodded. “I’ll do better. I promise.” After a beat he said, “If you don’t mind me asking, what did you feel when we all heard the news?”

  Arivana lowered her head out of reflex, fighting the pressure that began building behind her eyes.

  “Sorrow.”

  He said nothing after that, leading her on to their destination as her eyes made a study of the ground before her feet and her mind wandered paths best left unexplored. After time indeterminate, a gentle hand on her shoulder brought her to a stop.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  Arivana lifted her gaze at last. A tent sat in the shadow of a nearby cleft of rock. It was perhaps ten paces wide, crude if sturdy, and encircled
by half a dozen men dressed in rough-spun wool, each going about seemingly innocuous tasks. She narrowed her eyes and was able, after a moment of scrutiny, to gain the impression of weapons hidden beneath their loose, deceptively shabby attire.

  Her heart stammered in protest to what she was about to do.

  One of the men set down the axe he was using to chop wood and walked over to them. “Can I help you folks?” he said.

  “You can indeed,” Arivana said, adding softly, “Warden.”

  The man flinched, then leaned forward to look inside her hood. His eyes flared a moment later, and he began bending one knee.

  Richlen grabbed his shoulder, preventing the man from completing his bow. “Now, old friend, no need for that.” He began leading the man off. “Is that stew I smell? Abyss take me, I could use a bowl about now.”

  Arivana looked past them. The other five had tensed as they studied the scene unfolding. The warden, whose shoulders were now in Richlen’s firm—if friendly—grip, waved towards his fellows in a gesture she hoped meant for them to remain calm. Firming up her spine with confidence she didn’t feel, Arivana marched up to the tent’s entrance, more than half expecting to be challenged. When none came, she stepped through the flap.

  Filling all the space inside was a cage.

  In one corner lay a cot covered in cotton blankets, while another held a pair of washbasins and a chest of clothes. A stool rested in the cage’s center, mounted by a figure who held a book in one hand and a small lightglobe in the other, inhuman eyes peering curiously over the leather-bound cover.

  Arivana flipped back her hood, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Hello, Flumere.”

  The ruvak woman dropped both book and lightglobe, her surprise punctuated by twin thumps. She drew her arms inward, as if hugging herself, and lowered her eyes to the floor. “I . . . don’t deserve that name,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  “Sem Aira, then. Believe me, I didn’t come here to argue semantics.”

  “You don’t understand my people at all if you think there isn’t more to a name than that.”

  “You’re right, of course. I don’t know much of anything about your kind. I did, however, learn one rather important piece of information recently. I was hoping to talk to you about it.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “This world,” Arivana said. “Specifically, that it once belonged to you.”

  Sem Aira’s deep-set eyes widened in all-too-human an expression. “How did you . . . ?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I need to know if it is true.”

  “Of course it’s true. Do you think we’d invade an occupied planet for no reason? We’re not monsters!”

  “You’re not human, you mean.”

  The ruvak hung her head again. “Those . . . are not my words.”

  “But you meant it all the same.”

  Sem Aira said nothing.

  “Look, I cannot claim to understand what transpired between our peoples in a past so distant as to be unfathomable. But is not that very gap of time reason enough to render the conflict between us meaningless?”

  “Meaningless? My people wandered the void for fifteen thousand years! We rode the brink of extinction more times than our own histories could count. Don’t you dare—” She stopped herself, breath warbling in her throat. “My apologies, Your Majesty. I have no right to speak to you so harshly.”

  “Why not?”

  “I . . . do not know how to answer that.”

  “Because to do so would reveal too much about your people?”

  Sem Aira shook her head. “Because I don’t understand how you can stand there without wanting to rip out my throat. Not after what I did to you.”

  Arivana felt a tremble coming on, a wave of old hurts she’d just barely managed to keep at bay. She shook herself forcefully, sucking down a breath, and locked her eyes on her former handmaiden once more. “You were just accomplishing your mission.”

  “I did far more than was necessary. I only needed to place myself next to someone in power, close enough to affect events towards disorder. I didn’t need to earn your trust. I didn’t need to become your friend.”

  “But you did,” Arivana said in a small, broken voice. “And I have no idea why.”

  Sem Aira closed both mouth and eyes, spinning on her stool until showing only her back. She didn’t look like she would be moved anytime soon.

  Arivana clenched her hands at her sides in frustration; not at Sem Aira, but at her own ineptitude in bridging the gap between them, her own failure to understand what once had been, and why she longed so desperately to get it back.

  At least we’re talking again. That’s something . . . right?

  She turned to leave, then looked back over her shoulder. “Until next time, Flumere.”

  The figure on the stool flinched.

  Clapping both hands along her thighs to banish the dust that had gathered on her dark leather leggings, Jasside settled her platform down near Mevon. The lumbering train of refugees stretched out before him into the distance while he marched behind alone, as if he were their sole guardian. The massive warrior turned up his gaze at her descent, his normally chiseled features overcome with an unfettered expression of joy . . . a look marred only by the faintest hint of disbelief.

  A feeling that mirrored her own.

  It’s hard for me to believe it, too. That we’re both alive. That we found each other. That after all this time, all this change, we’re still enough of who we were to be enough for each other.

  But we’re here now, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

  “Back so soon?” Mevon said. “I expected you’d be gone all morning.”

  Jasside shrugged. “I saw an opportunity and took it. And a good thing I did. We won’t have to worry about that ruvaki skyship tailing us anymore.”

  “You took care of it by yourself? I thought their vessels couldn’t be defeated by only a single source of power. Weren’t you waiting for reinforcements from the valynkar?”

  “I got impatient.” Jasside pointed behind her. “You see that hill over there?”

  He gazed in the direction she was indicating. Faded mountains made a jagged edge of the horizon, but the grasslands between were as flat as a pan. Mevon furrowed his brow.

  “All I see,” he said, “is a cloud of dust.”

  “Exactly. It doesn’t much matter which way they’re attuned when a thousand tons of stone and soil comes crashing down on their head.”

  Mevon laughed. “That will do it, all right. It looks like the tales don’t do you justice.”

  “What tales?”

  “If the rumors are to be believed, you’ve become at least twice as ferocious since last we were together. From what I’ve seen so far, they don’t tell the half of it.”

  “That’s not a hint of disappointment I hear in your voice, is it?”

  “Absolutely not.” Mevon smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  She smiled back, hopping down to land gently at his side. He reached towards her, but she held up one hand, palm forward to halt him, and proceeded to guide her platform up and forward with the other. A dozen beats later, it rested upon the deck of the nearest allied skyship.

  Turning back to face him, she saw his outstretched arm still spanning most of the space between them, leaving that last slim gap to be crossed in her own way, her own time. Palm upturned, his hand waited, patient and gentle, as if content to remain in place until the all the stars in the void burnt out; yet held firmly all the same, ready to vanquish any who dared try to keep them apart.

  In that simplest of gestures, Jasside read a promise of things to come.

  She reached with both hands and grasped it.

  Their skin touched and she gasped, her power gone in an instant. She could still sense that ocean of eternal darkness, but it was as if she were straining over the side of a boat to dip her fingers in a surface just out of reach, longing to swim in it, shape it once more.
/>   It also brought back memories.

  Her mind swarmed with images from their days fighting for the revolution. Their practice sessions where she used her special weave of energy on him, cutting through his nullifying defenses and rendering him helpless. The day that he’d finally gathered enough strength to push off the ground, straining with monumental effort. Touching her to end all games between them for good.

  The day she’d finally started to forgive him for the death of her half brother.

  “I’ll have to get used to this again,” Jasside said.

  Mevon raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps there’s a way to make the transition less unpleasant?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  He slid the hand she held up her arm, across her shoulder, then behind her neck. The other wrapped around her back. Both pulled, bringing her upwards to press against his unyielding chest as he bent his face down. She closed her eyes, lifting her chin.

  Their lips met, pressing and shifting urgently. Hot breath mixed with her own, smelling of dried meat that seemed to her, in that moment, the sweetest scent in the world. A different kind of energy coursed through her, awakening every nerve.

  I’ll have to get used to this, as well.

  Jasside pulled away suddenly, breathless and smiling. Though she wanted nothing more than to fold up into his arms and kiss the day away, they weren’t out of danger yet.

  “We should get moving,” she said. “But keep that little trick handy. It will do wonders for those awful times we’re forced to come in contact.”

  Mevon chuckled. “As my lady commands.”

  She laughed along with him, punching his shoulder as they turned, arm-in-arm, and began marching forward once more. “It’s good to see that you’ve developed a sense of humor in the time we’ve been apart,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I’ve always had one, I think. It’s just that now, with you, I don’t always feel the need to hide it.”

  “Don’t overdo it,” she said behind a wry grin. “You wouldn’t want me calling your sincerity into question, now, would you?”