by T. A. Miles
“Sharlotte….”
“I know it was the same for me. I could accept it because he delivered it so tenderly and put me above the others. It didn’t have to be love, so long as I came first, but that’s changed since you’ve come. Damn Merran for bringing you here!”
Korsten was surprised with how quickly he frowned at her in disapproval. “This has nothing to do with Merran. And you’re wrong about Ashwin. Can’t you see how it’s hurting him, what you’re doing? Sharlotte, he loves you.”
“All he ever does is think about you,” Sharlotte said before Korsten had finished speaking. “When he isn’t shamelessly chasing after you! Am I supposed to believe he does so with absolutely no encouragement from a depraved child-lover like you?”
That was entirely too far from the truth to cause any injury, but her tone stung well enough all the same. “I have never attempted to seduce your lover,” Korsten said, his tone pleading for her to listen. “Nor has Ashwin attempted to seduce me.”
“You’re a liar,” Sharlotte accused. She turned to mount the awaiting mare.
Korsten went to her, grabbing hold of her arm without intending to. “He’s never done anything more than invite, and only out of pity, as you said. And yes, that may be my blame, Sharlotte. I’m not strong or brave when it comes to facing my troubles. He might not have spell-touched me, had I not been so weak and selfish, but I never meant any malice. I never meant this.”
The woman glared at the saddle in front of her. “Take your filthy, demon-loving hand off me.”
Korsten’s grip firmed. “I know he loves you, as he loves no one else. Don’t—”
Sharlotte tore free of his grasp, then slammed both hands flat against his chest and shoved him back. “Don’t you ever touch me again!” she snarled, tears streaming down her face. “You don’t know anything! If I ever see you again outside of these walls—and I pray the gods grant me at least that much sympathy—I will kill you, Korsten. Do you understand that? I’ll not leave it to chance again.”
Blinking back tears, Korsten dared to continue arguing with her. “Sharlotte, why? Why do you insist so specifically that I be the target of your anger when I am not even one of the other lovers your spouse claims to have taken?”
“He is no longer my spouse,” Sharlotte said, lifting herself up into the mare’s saddle. “And while he may be able to forgive one who whores with the Vadryn, I cannot.”
“But….”
Someone else emerged from the stables just then, someone who commanded the tears Korsten had been holding back to fall now. He couldn’t even speak, seeing Lerissa, knowing her intentions. The girl offered a smile that only made him hurt worse.
Sharlotte guided her mount away, as if unconcerned with the gesture in friendship and in love that Lerissa was making. She was leaving the Seminary. Two mages … two Mage-Adepts were leaving, because of him.
I didn’t ask for Ashwin’s attention. I didn’t ask to be brought here.
Lerissa came toward him. “It’s okay, Korsten. I’ll look after her.”
Korsten closed the gap between them and put his arms around the girl. He kissed her hair and then just held her tight for several moments. “Who’s going to take care of you?” he whispered tremulously.
“I’ll be all right,” Lerissa told him while she hugged him back. “You know I have to go with her.”
“I know you love her.”
“I love you, too,” Lerissa answered, then pulled back. She brushed tears from Korsten’s cheek, kissed him in the same place, then stepped slowly away. “Be good, now,” she said when she was up on her mount. “Don’t give Merran any more trouble than he’s earned.”
Korsten nodded absently, too depressed to even hear what she was saying, only that she was speaking. He watched her ride across the Seminary’s outer yard, kicking up snow in her wake. Several minutes had gone by and Lerissa was long away before Korsten wiped at his face with one hand, pushed that same hand through his hair, and eventually turned back toward the Seminary.
Korsten wandered the Seminary for weeks, speaking to no one, avoiding everyone he could. He stayed away from the library and kept his door locked when he was in his room. The incident of Sharlotte’s leaving and Lerissa’s following her was not talked about in the passages, so far as he could tell. Nor was the matter of Ashwin’s feelings for either his former spouse or his newest student, both of whom had placed themselves beyond his reach. Thinking about what had happened … how it was his fault … Korsten temporarily forgot why it was he lingered among the mages. He fell into a deep depression that only Analee could understand. And for the first time knowing that she understood provided no comfort to her bond mate.
I’m beginning to think I’m a plague upon this world. I ruin everything. I destroy the lives of everyone I come into contact with. Ren, was it my fault, what you did? Was it because I was so weak that you felt you had to be even stronger? You were strong enough. I should have let you know that, instead of constantly weeping and moaning at you, like a helpless girl. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever met a helpless girl. Gods, I’m disgusting.
Korsten came to a window during his aimless wandering. A wide, lonely archway along a stairwell. He sat himself in the large sill, putting his back to a wall of stone traced with a spidery tangle of vines just coming back to life as spring returned. Fresh offshoots spiraled out of it every which way, seeking new purchase. Analee found one of these offshoots to light upon while Korsten stared miserably out at Vassenleigh spread beneath him. The peaked rooftops and pale stone appeared especially bright caught between a distant wall of storm clouds and the bright sunlight it had yet to overtake. The view was not a bad one, but direly unappreciated in Korsten’s current state.
He was dressed in the cassock and close-fitting breeches, his other favorite articles to wear besides the high-collared jerkin, with the soft white sash tied around his middle, knotted at his side, and his grown to shoulder-length-hair loosely put up. Tendrils of unsightly red spiraled down at random and the stubborn forelock remained as stubborn as ever. He liked the feeling of the sun-warmed floors in the passages with an abundance of windows and so his feet were currently bare. If anyone cared, they weren’t of a mind to confront the dismal specter that Korsten had lately become. He often failed to respond directly to anyone, and usually only sighed if he broke his silence at all. He’d done it enough times to Merran that the Mage-Adept … his friend, he might have done well to recall … finally gave up trying to reach him. Not even Ashwin bothered approaching him, but then his mentor had problems of his own to be dealt with.
“Fortunate for you, perhaps for all of us, that time is on a mage’s side. Even if he doesn’t realize it.”
Korsten managed to glance at the speaker, because it was no one he would have expected. Seeing Mage-Superior Eisleth made him curious, but not enough to do anything more than let his gaze linger before giving it back to the town far below.
“I recognize emotional suffering,” the mysterious elder continued. He still looked much like Ashwin, Korsten thought, but with black hair and robes. “However, I am not as inclined to understand it, since all of my gifts concentrate on the physical being. You needn’t worry that I’ll try to console you with sympathetic explanations you are currently not in the mood to hear.”
That actually wasn’t why Korsten had been avoiding Merran. Truthfully, he was avoiding the man’s touch. He deserved this pain and he didn’t want Merran accidentally or intentionally taking it away. Still, he wasn’t in the mood for explaining that to Eisleth.
“I do have a message for you,” the other man said, his voice very smooth, every bit as soft as Ashwin’s. “Information, actually, though I think you would have been informed in person, had Mage-Adept Merran taken the time to search for you.”
Korsten glanced in Eisleth’s direction again, saying nothing.
“He’s gone hunting,” the
elder said. “There have been unusual disappearances in a farming community east of here.”
Korsten let the man think that he didn’t want to curl himself up and cry himself to death. What if he hunts his way into another situation like he did in Haddowyn? What if Eolyn comes back without him? I’ll have only the memory of how cruel I’ve been to him these past weeks. And he’s been my only ally from the start. Sharlotte’s always hated me. She and Lerissa are gone anyway. And Ashwin’s interests … are Ashwin’s interests, alone. I should never have cried on his shoulder … or anyone else’s for that matter. At least I never wept on Merran. He would never tolerate it, the bastard, and now he’s gone again.
Analee … I’ve forgotten you again. I didn’t mean to. I know you’ve always been with me.
“Whatever you seek here,” Eisleth finally said. “You’ll never find it by gazing out of windows and neglecting your studies.”
Korsten frowned now, and looked once more at the man speaking to him. He’d just been scolded. And somehow that was exactly what he needed.
Eisleth walked quietly away and, after watching him depart, Korsten abandoned his perch, headed directly for the library.
“Will you open this book for me?” Korsten asked as Ashwin entered the library, hours after his student had settled into a stack of the more ancient texts. The book was open physically, but the characters were completely non-decipherable, not as a language yet to be learned, but utterly nonsensical, as if to deliberately confound the reader who wasn’t supposed to be reading it.
“You are the most extreme individual I have ever known,” Ashwin commented as he approached Korsten. “And I have known a great many individuals, as I’m sure you can guess. Never any who have been starving themselves of all life one moment, be it food, sleep, interpersonal contact, written words, or spoken words … and then trying to ingest large amounts of it all at once.”
“You’re right,” Korsten agreed immediately and with little patience. “I have no sound grasp of living. The book?” he prompted, holding the item out. “Could you, please?”
Ashwin stopped in front of Korsten’s cluttered space of floor, and took the book from him. He walked away with it, and Korsten dropped his hands into his lap helplessly.
“The answers you require at the moment are not in this book,” his mentor told him.
Korsten frowned somewhat peevishly. “I don’t require any answers. I simply want them.”
Ashwin looked back at him. “Answers to what, Korsten? You’re anger? You hold those.”
“Oh, then perhaps you can explain them to me. They don’t seem to make much sense currently.”
The exceptionally blond man turned to face his student, clutching the ancient manuscript to his chest. “You know that I loved her.”
“Yes,” Korsten blurted, his eyes suddenly wet. “So, why am I mad at you because she denied that love and left it? Why am I mad at myself for something I could not possibly have altered? Nothing I could have said or done would have made Sharlotte stay!”
Ashwin shook his head gently. “No, it wouldn’t have. And Lerissa has always done exactly what she sets herself on doing. Time can thin blood, but it does not alter it all that greatly.”
Korsten blinked, frowning confusedly. He wiped at his eyes with the back of one hand. “What? You mean she’s … I always thought the resemblance was evident, but you said….”
“And I spoke truthfully,” Ashwin replied. “We cannot bring about offspring upon becoming a mage, but all of us had lives before magehood. I came to this life at the age of thirty-two, having been a husband and father in the life I would leave behind me. Lerissa is descended of my blood.”
Korsten had nothing to say. He was mystified by this. That someone’s descendant, of several generations, could one day meet their ancestor, looking just as he did all those centuries ago when his actions continued the flow of their bloodline. Uncontrollably, Korsten wondered if any of his own ancestors had been mages, if they were living here now and he simply hadn’t met them yet. He hadn’t really met very many of his fellow mages at all. There were only about three hundred living at the Seminary, but studies and training, and brooding, kept Korsten occupied enough not to be properly introduced to anyone outside of the small circle of acquaintances he’d formed thus far. In spite of Ashwin’s speech about mages having only each other, there really was no sense of family or community here. It was a strange place, to say the very least. And it wasn’t home … not by any means.
“What about Haddowyn?” Korsten asked quietly, changing the topic of conversation as thoughts of home returned. His gaze transferred to a northwest facing window while he spoke. Home lay in that direction. Ren…. Ashwin held silent for a long moment. Eventually, he said, “While vengeance is nothing we wish to cultivate at the Seminary, in many cases, the only way for one of us to accept this new life and to be of greater use in the battle to restore Edrinor, is to return to the life behind. And to establish some semblance of closure.”
Korsten didn’t look at his mentor, unwilling to display the tears that had quickly formed in his eyes. “But … Merran’s task was left unfinished. I would’ve thought if it … if the circumstances were….”
Ashwin spared him trying to complete his thoughts. “Merran completed the task that was assigned to him. The new problem he discovered would have been a problem for the future regardless. It takes much planning and much caution to deal successfully with a Master of the Vadryn. While it’s true that our operatives are encouraged to act upon any threat they come upon if possible, I think that even Merran found himself in too deep with what he discovered in Haddowyn.”
A longer silence followed Ashwin’s words. Korsten held his grief in, determined not to break down. He found himself uncertain of the direction of their conversation.
“Renmyr Camirey is yours to deal with,” Ashwin said quietly. “When the time is appropriate.”
Merran was gone. There was no one to distract Korsten from his pain, not spiritually or at all physically with Lerissa gone as well. According to Ashwin, both she and Sharlotte would still possess their abilities as mages. However, without the constant rejuvenation provided by the blood lilies, they would eventually begin to age again, just as they would have had they never come to the Seminary to begin with. Their soul-keepers would stay with them, since they lived only for them, and one day … perhaps sooner now … they would return to the lily garden from which they’d been spawned, alone. Korsten counted each day that passed with no trace of Hessath a blessing. He knew that Ashwin would inform him if he’d failed to notice the black moth’s return.
Korsten resumed his training and kept as much to himself as possible. He spent his off hours with thoughts of Renmyr. It had been too long.
“What is this accomplishing?” he asked Analee on an evening when he had nothing better to do than lie on the floor of his balcony and stare out at the sky. “I’m losing track of time, losing touch with the world while I shelter here and supposedly study an element that is capable of combatting demons … and releasing humans from their will. I still haven’t attained Ambience and I know nothing of spells of Release except the hand movements required to invoke them. And whenever I do, nothing happens. How am I going to free Renmyr this way? He must think I’ve abandoned him.”
Ren, I haven’t. I wouldn’t. I love you … and miss you. I need you so much. I need to feel you again and know that I wasn’t dreaming. That I lived outside of this place once … with you. Ren, I’m so sorry about Merran. We’re nothing more than friends, I keep telling myself, but I still feel the guilt. And I can’t stop thinking of the way we argued that night … the last night I would have you in my arms. Gods, had I known, I would never have let you go.
Absently, Korsten lifted one hand, as if to touch the view of the sky. “What have you been doing in Haddowyn?” he wondered aloud. His hand lowered slowly. “If I could just … for a mo
ment….”
Korsten stared upon clouds bathed in the colors of twilight. And then he sat up. He closed his eyes and lifted his left hand up again, held it at chest level long enough to complete a brief pattern of motion, then reached with his right hand for the balcony, as if he could touch the place in mind. He did touch it. By invoking a Reach spell, he could feel the destination he wanted. He could hear its sounds and smell its familiar smells. Korsten drew his hand slowly back and opened his eyes. He could see the place he’d been thinking about. He was looking at home, at books on familiar shelves all around him.
Reality came to him slowly, in spite of what he’d done quite consciously. I’m not dreaming. I’m home. This is my library.
Korsten walked himself slowly to the table, using it to brace himself when his legs suddenly felt too soft to support him. His stomach turned over and his brain gave a belated spin in his skull. Lifting his hand to his head to steady it, he looked slowly over his shoulder, and didn’t see his room at the Seminary. For an instant he almost believed that the Seminary was a dream, but then he recalled the all-white clothes he happened to be wearing; a simple shirt and breeches at the moment, though the shirt was not tucked and it was unbuttoned after a lazy evening’s lying about. As well he glimpsed the scarlet butterfly flitting about him, too bright to be a natural creature of the gods. Analee…. “What have I done?” Korsten wondered aloud, then sought the nearest chair. He lowered himself down with an unexpected pang of remorse and concern for his actions. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t a prisoner at the Seminary. He wasn’t even obligated … much. The mages had saved his life, but he never asked them to. He never…. It’s no use. I can’t justify it. I shouldn’t be here now. He knew that immediately, so readily that it furthered to alarm him. I know I’m not ready. I’m not ready to face you, Ren … if it’s true. And what’s become of this town? Dare I look? Perhaps I’d better just go back.