Elekia’s eyes darted to his face and away, his passion reminding her acutely, painfully of the boy she’d loved. Rolling closer, the black shape resolved into the ragged shapes of trees. Massive trunks and shrubs climbed out of the soil, growing more distinct through the shearing rain. A low rumble built toward thunder. Alarm spurring her heart, Elekia nudged the Center. “Bring your People inside the bunker,” she clapped as shrubs and trees clawed toward them.
The Center uttered a long, piercing whistle and pressed a panel, closing a fibrous door on the horrible advance of the trees. Elekia backed down the passageway, wondering what the return of the rainforest could mean. Around them, walls trembled as the woods reached the exterior of the bunker.
“Our bargain is sealed?” Lornk clapped at the Kragnashian.
“It is sealed. Deliveries will be made to the seamen and the nomads.” The Center swept away toward the antechamber.
Elekia grabbed Lornk’s arm. “What have you done?”
His teeth gleamed. “Saved humanity—and ensured my place in history. And I have you to thank, my wife.”
A violent chill shook her spine. “Do not call me that.”
Grin melting, Lornk put his hand over hers. Her pulse throbbed, even as she wanted to squirm away from him. Fool, she swore at herself.
He released her with a shake of his head. “This gulf between us. Has too much happened to bridge it?”
The pressure behind her eyes melted, and her lips twitched toward a smile. “I was going to have you executed.”
He chuckled. “No harm done, my wife.”
The sad warmth of loss bloomed in her chest. What if they had declared that spring day so long ago? What triumphs and heartaches would she have known? The Kragnashian said the world had changed. Yet she remembered being seventeen, preparing for Fembrosh, being desperately in love with a handsome boy from Traine but knowing too that marrying him, she would never realize her own worth to the world. “I could never have been your wife.”
“And now you’re an outlaw.”
“And you are Commissar of Betheljin.”
A mischievous grin tilted his lips. “Wizardry is not illegal in Betheljin.”
“You’re not asking me now, are you?” She laughed and sauntered down the passage, contemplating the repercussions of this day. The Kragnashian said Meylnara was dead, and yet the forest was back. The world changed. Direiellene dry sand, an unending desert—she seemed to remember it that way, yet that memory was like a dream. The forest had always been there, hadn’t it? She thought of the history of the Council, how they had gone to war against a rogue wizard. After months of stalemate, the Wizard Thabean was executed for breaking the Code, and his heir was chosen to represent the Council in a final duel with the rogue. Thabean’s heir. The Heir.
A scream ripped out of her. She pitched forward onto hands and knees, wailed as her forehead met the floor. Her heart stuttered in her chest. Her lungs struggled for breath. Hands gripped her shoulders, a voice nagged her ear, but the words could not reach her. “My daughter,” she moaned. “My child.” The final payment for Sashal’s throne had been made.
* * *
Wineyll screamed, eyes wide, and crumpled. Ashel slid an arm round her, shook her gently. Her head hung loosely between her shoulders. “Can you do anything?” he asked Geram.
The Center announced that Meylnara was dead, and his mother and Lornk followed it out. Geram laid his hand on Wineyll’s head, and her eyes fluttered open. Woozily, she sat up.
“What happened?” Ashel asked.
She looked at him, at Geram, her eyes wet. “They’re coming home,” she said aloud, her voice thick.
“Vic?” he asked, voice cracking.
She shook her head and spoke aloud. “I’m so sorry. Bethniel’s gone.”
Ashel stared at her, certain he’d heard wrong. This was a mistake—Bethniel? Wineyll murmured condolences, and Ashel tried to understand. Geram believed her. Samson touched his heart and spread his fingers toward Ashel. He blinked at all of them. Bethniel? Geram’s certainty grew, not just a faith in Wineyll’s word, but in his own understanding of history. Ashel’s mouth and brows twisted as he resisted a shifting of memory and knowledge. There was no record of a Wizard Bethniel, was there?
The room rumbled and silt sifted through the ceiling. He stood, took a step toward the doorway after his mother, aching to say something but finding no words. The Center returned and went into the room housing the Device. Ashel gestured at it, turned back to the others, reached out with his hands and dropped them. Bethniel?
His mother’s wail drew him. In the passageway, she curled on the floor, Lornk’s hands on her shoulders, his mouth next to her ear.
“Let her go,” Ashel said. He cupped her cheek. “Mother?”
“No,” she moaned, lifting a tear-streaked face. “This isn’t what I wanted.”
“I know.” He pulled her into his arms, holding her with the same fierce affection they’d shared when Sashal died. Bethniel . . . he couldn’t understand why he was surprised. All the histories had spoken of a young wizard by that name, killing Meylnara in a duel, and dying in the effort. When they learned Vic and his sister were in Direiellene of the past, why hadn’t they expected this would happen?
Death always comes as a shock, Geram said.
Arms tight round his mother, Ashel led her to the antechamber. Her feet dragged. Each breath was a coughing wail. His sister was gone. He couldn’t fathom it. It was what was supposed to happen, but it made no sense.
They sat. Mother’s weeping slowly quieted, and he felt Geram’s longing to comfort her. Kissing her forehead, he stood, and Mother curled into the other man’s arms.
Thank you, Geram said.
Be with her while you can.
Mother grabbed his hand. Her eyes were swollen and streaked with red, her face mottled. “I am so sorry,” she whispered aloud. “This is my doing—your sister, your wife. It’s my fault.”
Each beat of his heart was an ache in his chest, but it was sorrow, not anger. Whatever she had done . . . it didn’t matter. “It is history, Mother. It’s no one’s fault.”
She crumpled against Geram, and Ashel turned to Wineyll. “Where is Vic?”
Her face was pinched with sadness. “On her way to the Device, in that time. It won’t be long now. They’re nearly there.”
In the room with the Device, the Center stood over the controls, touching knobs and levers with its antennae and forelegs. Beneath its stole, its wings fluttered, shining silver filaments peeking in and out from under its carapace.
“It says the world has changed. But it feels no different,” Lornk said.
Ashel looked down at his hands, turning them from palm to back again. On his right hand, the skin was folded over his knuckles, a stump with a thumb only. He clearly remembered Sashal’s assassination, the war, the time he’d spent in Olmlablaire, and everything Lornk had done to him in an effort to control Vic. None of these memories seemed odd or new to him. Why was he surprised about Bethniel?
Lornk’s eyes rested on the maimed hand. “I regret being unable to forgive your mother and father. I regret that my vengeance fell on you.”
Ashel loosed a bitter guffaw.
“The palazzo, the mines, they are all still yours.”
“Vic would never live in Traine.”
An eyebrow went up. “Perhaps after you explain how things have changed . . . you never know.”
“Do not mistake alliance for allegiance,” he’d said. Ashel glanced at Samson, thought of all the Oreseekers and outcasts who had fought in Vic’s name. Their enemies’ blood stained his clothes, crusted his face. Did he or Vic owe them any more? He was banished and Vic outlawed from a life in Latha, but a home on the Semena side of Mora was still possible.
“There is work to be done in Betheljin,” Lornk pressed. “I plan to build a new society, one that will regain the knowledge and skills our people have lost since Landi
ng. We will need people like you and your wife. People who remember.”
What Ashel remembered was another offer: denounce his parents and acknowledge Lornk as his father, and Lornk’s torturer would stop burning the flesh off his hands. Refusing Lornk, in the midst of that agony, had been the hardest thing he had ever done. He wouldn’t have succeeded without Geram’s help, nor would he have succeeded in resisting Lornk again, months later, when Lornk had chopped off his fingers. Remember, he told himself, turning his gaze toward the Device, Lornk did that, not Vic. Not Vic. His wife was on her way home. Tears spilled, a gush of hope. Not Vic. At last, he forgave her.
“She’s coming.” Wineyll ducked a shoulder under Elekia’s arm, helped Geram support her as they moved toward the Device. His mother walked like a woman twice her age, her steps small and tottering. Geram bore her weight despite the broken ribs grinding into the walls of his chest. Ashel felt a sharp echo of that pain, but his heart ached more for sight of his wife.
A mist coalesced into shapes; shapes became forms; forms became people. A man—the cavalier who had disappeared with Bethniel—cradled her body. Mother sprang forward and held her cheeks, moaning.
Gustave stumbled off the platform, a bandaged stump dripping. Samson caught him, and a gap-toothed smile lit the pirate’s face.
The last swirl of mist became Vic. She stood on the dais, still as a statue, eyes wide and frightened of the world, just as he’d first seen her, in the square in Traine. Mud and blood tangled into her hair, her face was ruddy, eyes bruised. They fell on him, and her lips quivered around the borders of a smile. Ashel felt what she felt—grief, but relief and joy too. She was here. They drew closer. The rank smell of her was perfume to him, the rough fibers of her clothing the finest satin, and her ratted hair, that sunlight that had warmed his memories, was silk in his fingers. She was here. She was in his arms, and he was whole again.
Appendix
Timekeeping in Knownearth
1 day = 40 hours (approximate Earth equivalent)
1 week = 5 days
1 month = 4 weeks +/- a few days (average: 19 days)
1 year = 223 days
1 year = 4 seasons of 3 months each = 12 months
Gestation = ~160 days or ~8.5 months
For a full explanation, see: https://amjusticeauthor.blog/2018/07/26/timekeeping-in-knownearth/
The Wizard’s Council
Saelbeneth—Council Leader. Rules lands surrounding Narath. Ancestor of Elekia of Reinoll Parish.
Thabean—Council Second. Rules northern and eastern Relm.
Nelchior—Council Third. Rules southern Latha, bordering on Thabean’s lands.
Grunnaire—Council Fourth. Rules lands in Eldanion.
Samovael—Council Fifth. Rules southern Relm.
Murnoran—Council Sixth. Rules Traine.
Halbert—Council Seventh. Rules eastern Latha, including large portion of the Kiareinoll.
Tirnor—Council Eighth. Rules Alna and northwestern Latha.
Valdesh—Council Ninth. Rules Aglor Duin.
Shirian—Council Tenth. Rules northern Eldanion, southern Betheljin.
Csichren—Council Eleventh. Rules western Latha.
Darien—Council Twelfth. Rules (in name only) northeastern Latha and Semeneminieu.
Acknowledgments
Writing is a solitary exercise, but by the time a book is ready to be published—or out of the kiln—a lot of people have stuck their thumbs into clay and made an imprint.
First and foremost are the beta readers who volunteered their time to critique what I thought was a final draft, but which turned out to be only an intermediate step toward the finished manuscript: Steve Howarth, C. C. Aune, and Devin Madson. Your feedback and guidance helped clarify the shapes in the clay. I also could not have polished the prose without the incredible advice and suggestions from Kimberly Wilbanks, Edward Buatois, Charlotte Hegg, Ashley Underwood, and Jesse Teller, and I thank Frank Dorrian, Luke Hindmarsh, and Jesse (again) for providing critical insights and information for the fight scenes in this book. It’s always nice to have a few strong lads around to help one out of a jam. Finally, I want to thank the Refugees for having my back—I know I can always count on you.
I owe the final product to the tireless efforts of my editor, Amanda Rutter, who helped me shape and refine the tangled threads of this crazy tapestry into a thing that made sense (yes, I have just switched metaphors). Designer Steven Meyer-Rassow and model Michelle Duckett once again created a stunning cover that captures Vic’s essence, and Steve’s maps and interior design fill me with pride. Last but not least, I am ever grateful to the team at Wise Ink, including Alyssa Bluhm, Patrick Maloney, and Amy Quale for their help and support throughout the entire process. The audiobook narrator, Leah Casey, deserves a shout-out for her outstanding vocal performances, which make the characters live and breathe in the ear.
Finally, I couldn’t have put in the time and survived the aggravation and angst that came from this work without the unflagging support of my husband and daughter. However, any typos that remain I blame on the cats.
The Woern Saga
“Kill Squad”
“The Weight of Bliss”
A Wizard’s Forge
Biography
A. M. Justice is an award-winning author of science fiction and fantasy; a freelance science writer; and an amateur astronomer, scuba diver, and once and future tango dancer. She currently lives in Brooklyn with a husband, a daughter, and two cats. She knows her characters live only in her head, but they’re real, and she puts them through hell.
www.amjusticeauthor.com
https://twitter.com/AMJusticeWrites
https://www.facebook.com/AMJusticeauthor/
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6903962.A_M_Justice
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