by Leigh Evans
Would that running could be so easy.
Smoke in my nostrils; the taste of failure in my mouth. The irony hadn’t escaped me. No matter how long I stayed captive here, I’d never be able to hurt the Black Mage’s soul—I was another mage’s “nalera,” which I was starting to firmly believe was a synonym for one custom-ordered, superbound mystwalker.
Well done, fool.
The ever-vigilant breeze stirred the trees and blew a stream of thin air across the pitted ground, and with each sweep of its breath, it kept cleaning the battlefield; rolling a piece of moss, catching a fragment of torn vellum, sweeping it all toward the abyss beyond the tree of fire.
I want to go home.
The air suddenly thinned, as if it were being sucked into someone’s lungs, and then a honeysuckle wind tore down the clearing to buffet the smoking, blazing ruin of his citadel with the implacable intention of a housekeeper set on finishing the job. Soil parted with a groan. A flash of dark root tangle as the black walnut rolled onto its side. It held, poised for one fragile second, trembling on the brink of an abyss, then with a moan that sounded almost human, it plummeted over the edge of the world.
Maybe he’ll die when his tree dies.
Please, Goddess.
A moment of peace.
Then I heard the Old Mage speak. “Stand, nalera.”
And I did.
Forgive me, Trowbridge.
Chapter Twenty-five
The hem of Mad-one’s tattered dress snagged itself on a thin silver maple branch. It stretched to follow her, but of course it couldn’t. Though the Mystwalker had summoned up enough magic to fly, she did so without her heretofore skill. Both her altitude and horsepower were unimpressive and she kept getting hooked up on irritations such as leggy shrubs that presumed to grow into bigger things.
Sad little sapling.
Fireballs had gone astray in the wild woods, and with them had come much splintering of aged wood, and searing of young bark. Mad-one’s hem gave with a rip and the silver branch snapped back. It swayed, its leaves shivering a rebuke.
“Ah!” said Mad-one, who had paused. “Over there!”
She pointed deeper into the wild.
Why we were trudging through the wild woods, I hadn’t quite figured out—the Mystwalker didn’t appear to be setting a course so much as following a clue. Every so often she’d strive for some more elevation, where she’d bob, feet trailing, her gaze sweeping the tops of the trees.
I hated those moments because that’s when I felt the intrusion of the Old Mage’s curiosity the most strongly. He was defter at it than the Black Mage, but every so often—when he wasn’t absorbed puzzling over some secret that vaguely vexed him—I could sense him trying to pry up the lid of my treasure box. What scared me was how often he’d managed to inch it open in the last five minutes. Sooner or later all my pretties would be exposed for his perusal.
Part of me wondered why I was still fighting it. The battle was lost.
Couldn’t help it. I fought because that’s what I do.
“I can see the glow,” said Mad-one. “’Tis not far.”
Then to my absolute horror, my mouth hinged open and the old wizard spoke, using my larynx, my tongue, and my lips to sound his words. “Her light is very strong.”
“Yes,” replied the Mystwalker. “But the glow of her cyreath is not that of a DeLoren.”
Is that why we were traveling through these woods? To meet my soul ball? The mage was already squatting in my thoughts, ordering my vocal cords to work at his whim. A little de trop, no?
For the fifth time, I asked, “What is a nalera?”
As the mage considered whether to reply, I searched inside the edges of his control and discovered it strung like a net of spun magic over my self-will. Could I lift it? I tried. Too heavy. Could I slip under it? His rebuke was sharp— “Stop!” he shouted. I cringed, and hurried away from its edges.
My heart slammed in my chest as I waited for what came next.
“Shhh, child.”
I flinched as phantom fingers stroked my cheek. The caress was just like Mum’s when Lexi had drifted off before me, and I was too frightened of sleep, worried that maybe I’d be pulled into a dream, into Threall—
“Stop trying to steal my memories,” I said hollowly.
“You are beset,” he replied.
Another stroke. This time, a rough pat—Dad’s.
“Don’t touch me like that,” I said through my teeth.
“You are sad. Does this not comfort you?”
Being stroked like a pet?
“Calm yourself,” he said mildly enough. “You will become accustomed to my presence soon.”
“Says the puppeteer to his dummy as he walks to the incinerator.”
I sensed his exasperation through my palms.
“To answer your original question, I must first explain that mages are born but rarely, thus the prospect of a mage’s fade is frightening to the Court,” he said with that faux paternal air that I so distrusted. “Jalo, King of the first Court, appealed to the stars, requesting that the life of his mage be extended. His plea was granted, and since that day, each mystwalker has been born with the kernel of desire to become the nalera to their wizard—the single mystwalker chosen among many to win the great honor of sharing the citadel of their soul with their mage.”
Honor, my ass. However, it explained something that had been bothering me. “My Fae was just following her instincts.”
“Yes,” he said.
But Mad-one glanced over her shoulder at me, and I knew that reply was not the complete truth.
“You want to explain why we’re taking this field trip?” I picked my way over the crumbling carcass of a long-dead elm.
“For the binding to be complete, my cyreath must be placed in the boughs of your citadel.”
Oh sweet heavens. His soul ball hanging close to my soul ball.
“Not close,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Our cyreaths must merge and become one.”
“There!” said Mad-one as a flash of crimson briefly illuminated the sky, followed by a longer flare of frightened green.
* * *
The trees grew sparse, thinned, and then we reached the edge of a very small clearing.
“By all the stars in the heavens,” the Mystwalker said, appalled.
In the middle of that barren patch of grass stood a single tree. Very much alone.
“That’s me?” I said.
She nodded, her expression first sick, then oddly satisfied.
The black walnut tree was twisted and diseased. That’s me? I’m sick? At eye level was a prime example of my citadel’s decay—the remains of a stunted, now dead, lower limb. Where bark had been stripped, bare wood gleamed, bleached by the sun, raddled by beetles. Battered and somehow sad, the exhumed skull of a long-buried sinner.
“I’m a mage?” As I watched, a leaf dropped. “I’m an ugly, dying mage?”
“You are not a mage,” he said flatly.
But I sure as hell am a goner. Look at that tree. There’s too many broken branches. Too many see-through portions where the inner core has died, and all that’s left is a shingle of worm-eaten bark and a hole exposing a deep cavity of crumbling wood.
My citadel’s rotting from the inside out.
“The lights,” whispered Mad-one. “Master, there are two—”
“I can see through her eyes.” Though he’d chosen a flat voice, I could feel his dismay spilling inside me, foul as dirty water over the top of a levee.
Hah. The old guy had to be rethinking the “chosen one” concept. I let my stunned gaze wander, my lips puckering in gleeful schadenfreude. Take that, Old Mage. If I was going out, I was doing it in style. My inner fire wasn’t going to be contained by the skin of my cyreath.
My light was everywhere.
In fact, a startling, flowing interplay of richly colored illumination wove around my tree’s canopy—my own fuck-you version of the aurora borealis. Twisting and
lovely, but a tad ethereal for my taste. I was more enchanted by the way my northern lights’ reflection cast a patchwork of color on the ground—a dappled rectangle of red-violet here, some sapphire and royal-blue wavering squares over there.
My gaze swept the clearing.
Well, my, my. I was a veritable spectrum of hues. Jewels by my feet, and over there, where weak daylight still shone and grasses grew, another palette. Brighter. Wavering patches of gold, blurred blotches of vivid green, and small dapples of raspberry and blue—magic and love and open fields set to a whimsical poem of light.
Pretty, I thought, inexplicably drawn toward those.
Life—in the end, it all comes down to point of view, doesn’t it? You see long lustrous hair hanging down the back of a jacket that owed a lot to the Edwardian period and you might think “girl,” until you pass the person, and you change your opinion to “short, wannabe rock star.”
And so it goes, even in a world made from dreams. From the edge of the small clearing, I had perceived one impressively massive and sadly dying black walnut. But four paces forward and five steps to the right changed my entire perspective.
Oh dear Goddess.
I would have covered my mouth in shock if my hands weren’t full.
Not one tree stood in the clearing—but two.
Or, if you wanted to get really picky, whatever you call it when a walnut sinks a tiny filament of hope into the ground that takes root. The seedling develops into the beginnings of a tree, which in turn grows. Upward. Reaching for the sky like every other living thing. Then suddenly—for reasons only known to the Goddesses—the trunk of that tree decides it must split, and in one blind twist of fate, one black walnut becomes two.
Still joined at the same thick base.
Two trees, one root.
Twins.
Though comparatively speaking, my side of the black walnut—and that had to be mine, because what grew on the right above that split in the trunk was about a third the height and girth of my brother’s—was doing better than Lexi’s. From what I could see, no canker spots befouled my foliage.
Not dying … at least not my portion of it.
My gaze swung upward, searching for the heart of me. It was easy enough to spot—I simply followed the path of the green-blue illumination, and found it lodged in the crotch of two wonderfully robust boughs. Huh. My cyreath was the same size and shape as everyone else’s. Different color, though—the majority of the Fae had a sunnier undertone, whereas my gold had a greenish cast, with intermittent flickers of blue. Overall, it was relatively hale and hearty in appearance, other than one long, slanting brushstroke of raspberry staining its skin, and another patch roughened into a small and ugly scar.
For a second, I stared up at the gray blemish feeling bleak. The pain of Mum and Dad’s loss reduced to a single ashen callus? It should have left a bigger blight.
But what about Lexi?
Mouth dry, I searched for my twin’s soul in the other half of the conjoined tree. Leaf and limb had made an effort to disguise its location, but the spiraling heat of his self-destruction had seared away the green canopy above his cyreath. His true light spewed upward from the thinning thatch. Plum purple with hurt, bruised midnight blue with pain.
Oh, Lexi.
“What is his curse?” the mage demanded.
A sister who didn’t wake him when the boogeyman crept in.
“No more of this foolishness! You will not guard your secrets!” the Old Mage roared. “Go to his citadel. Place your hand on it and show me his soul.”
So my brother’s soul—what was left of it—could be fingered by another mage? His memories picked through like bangles and bracelets at a flea market? Had Lexi cringed when the door to the room of magic was pushed open? Fearing the dark? Fearing the touch?
“No!” I set my teeth together.
Much good my bravado did me. A moment later, my foot jerkily lifted, lurched forward, and took me a step closer to the black walnut.
Do not yield to him. Sweat popped out on my upper lip as I bore down on that overwhelming need to shuffle toward the black walnut.
Do it for Lexi. Do it for yourself.
“You are trying my patience!” he shouted.
My toe hoed a furrow of resistance into the soil. My nails dug into his sagging cyreath. Small rebellions. But mine. I will not cooperate. I never cooperate.
That’s when the pain came. A dull ache in my ear—only an irritation—that instantly grew hotter—a tolerable burn—and then it became a molten-hot knife held sizzling against the me of me—hellfire, inside my head—and yes, I did move.
Toward my unsuspecting brother. Toward my own self. Toward the obliteration of inner vows. Toward the rebreaking of us—because we were broken, we had been for quite some time, and now, we were going to be broken again.
Fae-me’s scream was shrill and disbelieving.
Too late she understood the fate of those who were the chosen.
So we stumbled forward. Whimpering, sweating, stumbling. Our talent for obstruction defeated. Truth be told, if we could have shot to that conjoined tree, we would have.
And if we could have done it babbling, “No, no, no,” …
Well, we would have done that, too.
* * *
The wind, when it came, was a definite windfall in terms of my personal fortunes. It whipped down from the sky with a moan to shake our citadels. A blinding maelstrom of twigs and leaves and fluffs of moss flew about us. It sent Mad-one flying backward with a startled shriek. It forced me to huddle over his cyreath, eyes tearing, shoulders hunched.
And then, the hurting, digging blade stopped twisting itself inside my head.
I fell to one knee in absolute relief.
The hurricane eased to a light sighing breeze. The delicate scent of honeysuckle perfumed the air, a layer of sweet over the stench of the lingering smoke. After a count of three, I raised my head and straightened. I turned this way and that, my gaze darting from shadow to shadow.
Nothing.
I licked my dry lips. “I’ll tell you what you want to know about my brother. You don’t have to—”
A sharp crack from the woods made me flinch, but it was only Mad-one coming back through the hole she’d made between two tall saplings after the sudden gale had sent her hurtling toward the top of the tree line.
The hairs on the nape of my neck were damn tired of standing at attention but now they positively bristled as Mad-one studied me, head canted to the side. Graceful as a swan coming in for a soft landing, she readjusted her altitude—slowly sinking from her lofty tree-top hover, stopping only when the long, trailing hem of her gown stirred the waist-tall grasses in the clearing.
The Old Mage gave up on trying to appear paternal or even kind. “Close your eyes,” he snapped. “And then open them, for we must meet.”
“What do you mean?
“Close them!”
Doing that required faith that Mad-one wouldn’t use it as an opportunity for attack. And there was something about the way she watched us—arms folded as if she were on the cusp of making a really bad decision—that had armed my alert system.
I sent a silent appeal toward my Goddess for a little heavenly protection, then closed my eyes. When I opened them, the mage stood beneath our tree. For all intents, fully corporeal, right down to the suggestion of a paunch. A patchwork of light dappled his ruddy cheek. Thinning, tousled white hair.
“Neat illusion,” I said, glancing down at myself. My trembling arms were still occupied cradling the mage’s soul ball and I was still on one bended knee. I rose stiffly. “It would have been a better one if I wasn’t still here, holding your cyreath.”
“Tell me about your brother,” he demanded.
“Lexi’s a liar and a thief—just like me. He’s cruel, and merciless, and … so damn lost. He’s what I could have been, if I’d gone to Merenwyn. He’s probably what I’ll be, after a few years as your unwilling soul mate … And yet…”
“And yet, there is a piece of the real Lexi inside there still. But it’s buried so far beneath his addiction that I can’t even remem—”
“What is his addiction?” he asked sharply.
The urge to squeeze his cyreath until it popped like bubble wrap was overpowering. But I couldn’t do that, any more than I could go over there and hit him, so I settled on giving him the facts coupled with a hard, accusing stare. “My twin needs a ration of sun potion every day, or he will die. Which is a real problem for him, because my world doesn’t happen to have any.”
The Old Mage’s eyes turned to slits, the wrinkles fanning outward in sharp emphasis. “Then he must return to Merenwyn.”
“He can’t go back,” I said, watching him stalk to the base of our citadels. “He’s failed the Black Mage.”
Don’t touch Lexi’s tree. When he didn’t—he just gave the northern lights a glance of irritation before he began pacing beneath my twin’s citadel—I realized that he couldn’t. There were limitations to his illusion and touching the host of our souls was one of them.
“How long has he been taking the draught?” he asked.
“At least eighty or more Merenwyn winters.”
He stopped, mid-stride, and slowly turned. “How many hours since his last dose?”
Hours? “About six.”
“Is there no end to this!” he snarled.
I’m missing something here.
He spun around to glare at me. “He will be dead within hours.”
“Lexi’s got wolf blood in him. He can fight this.”
“Can you not see with your own eyes?” The wizard drew in a seething breath through his teeth then jabbed at the black walnut. “There is no cure for what ails him in your world or mine. No elixir to swallow. He will die, and as your destiny is forever tied to his, you will shortly follow.”