Quade’s mouth was all grit. He tried to spit, but couldn’t summon enough saliva. So, reluctantly, he took a swig from his canteen. The water was hot, brackish, and growing limited in supply.
He glowered at the surrounding desert. It was a horrid place—a great sweep of sandy nothing, that promised death a hundred different ways.
Quade Asher was afraid.
It was not a natural or comfortable sensation, and yet he could not shake it. What if he had misunderstood the Fifth’s prophecy? What if the maps he’d consulted had been faulty?
What if…
What if he died out here—alone and ignoble, a thirsty and scorched-skin demise, that no one would remember. A story not worth the telling.
Unacceptable.
He clamped his dry mouth shut and trudged onward. The sun blistered, even through his hood. A mirage appeared in the distance, a place where the sky seemed to be reflected on a wet surface.
He knew it was a trick, and yet a foolish part of him still hoped. That was the other problem with the desert: it told terrible lies. It meddled with a man’s mind.
This Spiritsforesaken sweep of Adourra was like his sister in topographic form—lying and belittling and withholding of love.
He’d thought of her often in these past days, as his feet blistered and his skin peeled. Ellora.
She would no doubt delight in the sight of him suffering this way. She would be gleeful to see her baby brother brought so low. Powerless, wasting away in a place where his remains would never be found.
As insignificant as a beetle beneath a boot.
Those words, how they had haunted him. And plainly his darling sister had recounted them to Bray Marron, so she might throw them in his face again, so many years later.
The things that hurt you as a boy never stop hurting you.
She probably thought him incapable of feeling pain, and she was right, in a sense. He suspected he didn’t register emotions the same as other men. But he did burn, he did long, he did anguish. Ellora had never given him a chance. Perhaps if she’d been a better sister, he might have been a better brother. A better man.
He hoped that thought came to her often. He hoped she stayed up at nights, chewing over the possibility until it ate her up from within.
Quade had his own regret now gnawing at him. He had underestimated this desert. Usually, he was well-researched and thoroughly prepared when he approached a new undertaking, but in this case he’d been hasty. He hadn’t understood what was required to cross this land. It required more than fortitude. It required—
Quade blinked. He was tempted to dismiss this sight as one more cruel illusion. But no. Up ahead, there was a caravan. A train of men and camels cut through the desert. People.
He nearly tripped over his feet in his haste.
Because, deep down, Quade Asher was a people person. He needed an audience to perform for, whether to draw forth adoration or terror. It little mattered which. He enjoyed both.
The caravan made camp, and Quade pressed on into the evening so that he could join them. By the time he staggered into their circle of tents, the temperature had plummeted. His burnt skin shivered.
“Ho, stranger!” a man called in Adourran, beckoning him forward.
“Greetings,” Quade answered in that language, though he stumbled over the word. His tongue felt overlarge in his mouth.
The speaker—a middle-aged man with a great belly and congenial eyes—approached and offered a flamboyant bow. “A Dalishman?” he asked, switching to Quade’s native tongue. “Out in our desert, and all alone?” His laugh was warm and rattling. “Are you lost, man?”
Quade swept his gaze over the gathering. They were not so large a party as he’d first assumed, perhaps just three families. They’d built up a fire and the children played and laughed around it, while a trio of women prepared the evening meal.
“I fear that I am,” Quade said in a scratchy voice.
“Well, come and make yourself at ease. Have a drink.”
A tall woman poured him a cup with ceremonious formality. Quade recalled reading about the cultural significance of exchanging water in southern Adourra. It promised safety. He took the small bowl in two hands, bowed his head in gratitude, and drank deep. This water was far crisper than what remained in his own canteen. It was like nectar on his tongue.
“Thank you,” he said with an earnestness that was unusual for him. The woman only inclined her head and refilled his cup.
“This is my wife Kilrra,” the man said, indicating the woman who’d poured his drink. “And my daughter Alvien,” he continued, gesturing to a girl of perhaps ten years, who was dark of skin, with eyes wide and guileless as a doe. “And I am Pevrre. Very pleased to have crossed your path, mister…?”
Quade cleared his throat. He thought it unwise to give his true name. Even out here, in this vacant wasteland, the name Quade Asher might be known. “Delton,” he said, dipping his head. “And I can say I am more than pleased to have crossed your path, sirrah. You may well have saved my life.”
Quade had not grown accustomed to his own voice, after so many years with a gift that turned his words to honey. His natural voice had all the cold bite of a sheet of ice cracking beneath a boot. But this foolishly kind man took no notice.
“How did you come to travel alone, Master Delton? If you’ll forgive my curiosity.”
The whole party appeared to be listening. Eight sets of brown eyes were locked upon him, though Quade was not certain they all spoke Dalish. They were traders, so it seemed possible.
“I was bitten by a snake, and my company left me. They must have thought me beyond hope. But it would seem they underestimated my desire to live.”
“By the Spirits, that is cold. To just abandon you?” He shook his head wonderingly. “What business had you in the desert?”
“I’m an archeologist,” Quade said. He leaned forward, unable to disguise his hunger for information. “Perhaps you can help me, sirrah. I am looking for a place in these deserts, an old place. There would be a circle of stone, probably with ancient markings. And at the center there would be a stairway—”
“The Spirits’ Stair,” Pevrre interrupted. His countenance changed, and he spoke in rapid Adourran to his wife, before turning back to Quade. “Yes, we know it. It is a cursed place we traders avoid. But you are not far. It is just there,” he pointed to the east. “On foot? Under two hours. You are on the right path.”
Quade smiled, his chapped lips cracking.
I am so close.
Of course he was. It was not his destiny to die in this desert. No, he would commune with the Company of Spirits, and they would return his gifts. And then he would set everything to rights.
“Thank you,” he said again, his eyes twinkling.
They fed him. The food was plain, but satisfying. The families huddled by the fire as the desert grew truly dark around them. Pevrre’s wife told stories for a time, and though Quade could not understand every word, he found the rhythm of her voice oddly compelling. She was an attractive woman, with skin as smooth and dark as polished stone.
The girls giggled together, and the men talked of business. Quade was satisfied to sit and drink in their company. This desert had made him hungry for people. It was a comfort not to be alone.
He grew lethargic and content, his eyelids heavy. But then he started awake, his pulse surging, at an unmistakable sound. A lion’s roar?
“Calm yourself, Delton,” Pevrre said with a laugh. “We’re traveling with animal cargo for the new menagerie in Leonne. But do not fear, our cages are strong.”
This piqued Quade’s curiosity, as he’d never been to a menagerie. He wandered along the line of wagons, examining the collection of strange and exotic animals, until he found the one in question. A male lion paced within its cage—regal and fearsome, but diminished for its captivity.
“You don’t belong in there,” Quade told the animal. His golden eyes held wisdom and sorrow, despite the fact that he
was only a great cat. “I would release you, my brother, if I could be certain you would not eat me.”
The lion settled down on all fours, its tail flicking. Quade smirked at the beast. “Well, goodnight, then.”
He slept more deeply than he had in weeks, and woke early, along with the rest of the caravan. He wished they did not have to part ways, but their paths were about to diverge.
“Do you think your party of archeologists might be behind you?” Pevrre asked.
Quade looked to where the man was staring, and caught sight of a stir of sand that suggested movement.
“It’s possible,” he said, his heart kicking into a canter.
Bray. He was so looking forward to this meeting. His blood beat hot beneath his chapped skin.
“I do not know if I would forgive men who left me for dead,” Pevrre said. “But it is safer to travel as a group.”
“How far behind would you say they are?” Quade asked with feigned nonchalance.
“Oh, under an hour, I should guess,” Pevrre said.
“Thank you.”
Quade really was starting to sound a grateful sort of man. How many ‘thank-you’s did that make, now?
“Sir?” Pevrre asked, fear creeping into his voice at last. “Why do you have such a sword?”
Quade licked at his dry and painful lips. “It is actually a very famous blade. My second greatest archeological find to date.” His first having been dumped into the ocean by enemies; the memory of this often sent him into a seething rage.
Not that he needed much goading to be sent into a rage.
“Yes, but why—”
Quade made quick work of the families. Their screams did not last long. He had to chase after one of the women, which was a nuisance, but soon all were rendered quiet—save for the daughter.
She did not seem a screaming type, and nor did she cry. Perhaps she was wise enough not to waste hydration on something so futile as tears. She was silent as he tied her hands behind her back, and she remained calm—staring wide-eyed at the remains of her family—while he ransacked the caravan for anything of use.
“This is a handsome length of rope,” he said, making a show of tying it into a noose and then looping it across his chest. “I do hope you like it.” He grazed his hand along her slim throat, and she shivered.
Last, he went to his friend in the cage. “It’s a mercy,” he told the beast. “You would die a slow death, otherwise.”
His blade flashed and the animal mewled. It was the only death he regretted. A magnificent creature such as this deserved a more noteworthy end.
Quade glanced over his shoulder. He couldn’t see Bray, but the knowledge she was near was enough to arouse. He cleaned his sword and sheathed it at his back.
After selecting a camel, he saddled it with his bags and stolen provisions. He would not ride it—he did not intend to enter such a sacred place upon a stinking beast. Besides, it would make for a better tale if he crossed the entirety of the desert on foot.
Quade prodded the girl between the shoulders. “Walk.”
“Why have you left me alive?” she whispered.
“Because you may yet be of use to me, either as insurance or as decoration. But if you prove uncooperative, matters could change. So walk.”
The day brightened, warming steadily as he and the small girl carved tracks into the sand with their feet. He looked back often, and each time he espied his pursuit, he quivered in anticipation.
Pevrre’s directions proved accurate. Quade had not gone an hour before he found his destination, at the base of a valley. The ruin took his breath; it was a place laden with wonder, like stepping into a dream. Quade’s myriad discomforts melted away as his mind yielded to awe.
The pillars of rock surrounding the ancient stairway were carved with recognizable runes. They matched those that marked the archway at the Temple, far from here, on the western coast of Daland. It was a language long lost, and every time he saw it he was hungry for all the knowledge, like this, which had slipped away from human memory.
He guided his captive through the arch. As the Fifth had described, a stairway sat at the center. It led nowhere at all; a structure that appeared entirely without purpose.
What Quade had not anticipated was how disconcerting the sight would be. As he approached, something like dread settled into his stomach.
“Go up, dear,” he said, once again prodding the girl.
She was shaking, her overlarge eyes growing even larger. She shook her head. “It is not a good place. I can feel it.”
Quade slipped his sword partially from its sheath, so she could see the glint of metal. “Then it is not a place you’d like to die. Keep moving.”
He followed this trembling child, and with each step his body grew heavier. Sweat dampened his brow, and he struggled to draw breath. This was a dark kind of magic, something old. It seemed to whisper to him: turn back, turn back. But Quade’s resolve to proceed was absolute. This is a test.
The young Adourran took one last, difficult step. She wavered at the very top, staring down at a precipitous drop.
“Well, keep going,” Quade said.
“Where?”
In answer, he shoved her off the precipice. The girl disappeared, not over the edge. Rather, she vanished into hot air.
So Quade Asher followed. And he stepped into the Aeght a Seve.
He spun in a slow circle, taking in the familiar scene—the sheer stony steps rising all around him, the blue sky overhead, and the single tree at the center of a precise ring of grass. All the dread he’d experienced faded, replaced with a sense of deep contentment. This was his place.
It was the retreat of his mind, but in physical form. Quade had never imagined that the Aeght a Seve might be real. Yet here it was, just the same as usual.
Except for the tree. He stepped forward, half tripping, and a foul feeling pinched at his guts. He couldn’t name the sensation, apart from the fact that he did not like it.
“Not gone after all…” he murmured, but they were not his words. He felt momentarily violated, to hear another person’s thoughts coming from his own mouth.
But he set aside this discomfort, because the sight before him was more transfixing.
The tree had been burnt, but from within the dead shell of the old trunk, a new sapling was in bloom. It was young and delicate, with pale branches and light green leaves.
The tree sang to him. He wanted to put his hands upon it.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Quade’s head snapped to that well-known voice. Disbelief left him mute.
“Hello, Quade,” Vendra said.
She leaned against the tree, her arms folded across her chest. She wore an expression he’d never seen on her face in life.
Vendra was laughing at him with her eyes.
He snatched at her wrist, but his hand passed straight through her.
She clucked her tongue. “No, I don’t think so. You can’t touch me any longer.”
He remembered the feel of her neck caught in the crook of his arm as he’d choked her to death. She’d bucked so deliciously against him, until her movements slowed and she’d drifted away.
Quade composed himself. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Vendra. Would you believe me if I said I missed you?”
“I might,” she said. There was poison in her dark eyes. “Not that I think you feel regret. You aren’t capable of that, are you?”
He grinned at her. “I’m capable of more than you can imagine.”
She made a show of yawning. “I doubt that.”
A second shape emerged from the tree. “No, my son never was one for remorse. Were you, Quadie?”
Quade blinked furiously, trying to clear his vision, but his eyes were not lying.
Delton Asher stood before him, though he’d been dead for decades. He looked just as he had all those years ago, with his smiling eyes and his full, dark mustache. Seeing him again was like a punch to the stomach.<
br />
Quade did not regret killing his father, but he had certainly thought of it—of him—often ever since.
“Quite the reunion we’re having here,” Quade said, striving to sound amiable and unaffected. “Do you two know each other?”
“Typically, only one spirit greets the living here at the Confluence,” Delton Asher said.
“But you were in such high demand,” Vendra said, picking up the conversational thread as if she and his father shared a mind. It was eerie.
“So we’ve made an exception,” Delton said.
And then the Aeght a Seve exploded with ghosts—the spirits of men and women, visible yet intangible, poured free from within this tree, this so-called ‘Confluence.’ They teemed around him like a swarm of hornets. And though he could not touch them, they were bitterly cold as they passed through his body, icy enough to cut. He began to shiver uncontrollably, cringing away from this barrage.
So many—men, women, children. Quade discerned a recognizable face now and again. He saw Pevrre, the trader whom he’d so recently cut down, and the girls he’d left hanging for Bray Marron in Andle.
He caught a glimpse of the Pauper’s King, of Jo-Kwan Bellra, of the old Chiona Dolla Adder.
These were all people he’d killed, either directly or indirectly—and they were all screaming.
The sound filled his head, thousands of accusations and taunts and curses. Hate and anguish, mixing into a poisonous cocktail. It pounded through his skull, shredding him from within, and he fell to his knees.
“Stop!” he bellowed.
But they did not. They tormented him. He had come all this way, crossed land and sea, survived the blighting desert and passed through a spiritual gauntlet, just to be tormented.
No!
He struck out wildly with his fists, roaring his rage—adding his voice to the deafening outcry all around. He could not see, and his ears were full of the shrieks of ghosts, but he swatted and swung and gnashed his teeth. His hands passed harmlessly through the air, until at last they hit upon something warm.
Something living. The girl.
He dragged her straight through the horde of spirits. She struggled, but his grip on her thin arm was iron. He could not see, but he managed to fit the noose around her slim neck. He tossed the length of rope over the limb of this cursed tree and tugged it taut.
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