Shardless

by Stephanie Fisher

  Ivain scowled. “I realize that the Seren Gate is open and that they’re undoubtedly dealing with all of the traders and supplies that are coming through for the Aion Gate connection, but Enix is usually more conscientious than this. Even without the new timeline in place, we should have received at least some backup by now.”

  Skye rubbed at his temples. Just thinking about the stack of paperwork waiting for him on his desk made him feel tired. In a few short months, Tempris would be inundated with people traveling from both the fey mainland and the mortal realm, and the logistical nightmare this presented for the little island left no shortage of work.

  The Marquess clasped his hands behind his head. The cigar perched between his lips garbled his words. “Surely, they don’t expect two people to handle all of the logistics for the Aion Gate connection. I just finished a call this morning with the Master of Letters in the Port of Marin, and the amount of backlogged mail and parcels bound for the mortal realm this cycle is truly staggering. We’re probably going to need to open every storehouse between Ryme and Litor just to hold it all when it finally gets transferred.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it. I swear if one more person asks me about their package delivery, I might stab someone. And don’t get me started on signage. We’ve already sold every last inch of available promotional space around the Aion Gate. I would send people to start setting up, but the army hasn’t arrived to secure the area.”

  Ivain pushed himself to his feet and began pacing the room, stopping to inspect the two hyaline pistols on Taly’s bench. “Unfortunately, the army has been delayed. When I spoke with the High Lady of Air, she confirmed that the regiment that was dispensed is going to be late.”

  “They need to get here soon,” Skye said with a sigh. “I have a feeling the magical beasts are going to put up a fight this year. It’s probably going to take several weeks to thoroughly sweep the area around the gate and run the creatures out.”

  Ivain nodded. “I agree. Although, if the beasts are so rabid that they’re attacking humans, maybe that explains why so many mortals are going missing. I had another five missing person reports delivered just this morning—all human. That makes 12 this week alone. Usually, I don’t see those kinds of numbers until much later—not until there are enough people coming from the mainland that the illegal Feseraa traffickers manage to slink through unnoticed.”

  Ivain picked up one of the pistols. “Is this… hyaline?”

  “Taly’s latest project,” Skye replied, grimacing.

  “Well, I can see I’m going to have to have another talk with her about not engaging in illegal activities—even if she doesn’t think she’ll get caught.” Ivain shook his head and placed the pistol back on the desk. He smiled when he saw Zephyr. “Of course, she took this old thing with her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hmm?” Ivain looked up. “Oh. Sarina cleared out Taly’s room at the tavern today. Apparently, she didn’t have much—just a stack of old glamographs and a little bit of gold. Now, I don’t know what she took with her when she left, but I find it quite interesting that after a year, the things she held onto were family pictures, the pistol you gave her, and this dagger. Judging from how skinny she is now, she missed a lot of meals, and just the crystals from that pistol could’ve brought in enough coin to feed her for several months.” He gave the dagger a practiced twirl, holding it up to the light. “If I recall correctly, this was the first air crystal you ever set.”

  “I wish she would just get rid of that piece of trash,” Skye muttered. “Throw it into the rubbish bin where it belongs.”

  “Shards, boy,” Ivain laughed. “You really are dense. You’re telling me you don’t know why Taly likes this old thing so much?” When Skye shook his head, Ivain gave him a good-natured glare. A flick of the old man’s wrist was all it took to embed the blade in the workshop door across the room. “When Sarina told Taly that she was too young to learn how to throw a knife, you snuck out to the training yard one night and taught her using that blade. You never could tell that girl no.”

  Skye felt a tug at the corners of his mouth, and some of the weight that had settled on his chest in the wake of his confrontation with Taly lifted. “Well, in my defense—when she pouted, she looked like a kicked puppy. You try saying no to that.”

  “Oh, I remember. That look—you know the one—got me into a lot of trouble with my dear sister. I still don’t think Sarina’s forgiven me for teaching Taly how to fight.” Ivain paled slightly before taking one last drag of his cigar and depositing the remains in the ashtray. “Well, I need to get back to work. I put a new stack of files on your desk, but you can set those aside. Something tells me that Enix would enjoy personally overseeing the public latrine repairs, so I think we should save it for him. We can just tell him that we were too busy to get to it since he forgot to send us help.”

  Ivain shrugged on his coat as he prepared to dash out into the rain.

  “Hey Ivain,” Skye called out before his mentor could disappear through the small crack in the door. His mind, dulled by stress and lack of sleep, finally managed to catch up with something the older man had said. “What did you mean by ‘Sarina cleared out Taly’s room?’ The last time I talked to Taly, she was adamant about going back to Ryme.”

  Ivain’s eyes widened. “Oh, you don’t know yet? Aiden convinced her to stay. Apparently, he got her to open up a little bit, and she decided to move back in.” He shook his head, a stark look of relief washing over his features. “At least one good thing came of this mess.”

  With that, Ivain turned and ducked out of the workshop, running through the rain at a speed that turned him into nothing but a blur of color set against the gray light of early evening.

  Sitting back, Skye smashed the tip of his forgotten cigar into the ashtray, a deep frown creasing his brow. Aiden had convinced her to stay. After basically telling him that he could go to hell, she had listened to Aiden—talked to Aiden.

  But not him. No. After 15 years of friendship, she had stopped confiding in him, stopped talking to him, seemingly stopped trusting him.

  Skye’s eyes stung, and he viciously swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. Pushing himself to his feet, he approached Taly’s bench and picked up the viridian dagger he had given her after their sparring match. The gleaming swirls of metal shone, even in the unusually dim, watery light pouring in from the window behind her bench.

  He didn’t tell her at the time, but he’d made this for her 21st birthday. It had taken him six months to get the design right, and he’d lost count of the number of times he’d almost finished only to find some imagined fault that would prompt him to melt it down and start over.

  And she hadn’t even wanted it. She’d tried to give it back.

  With a growl, he turned and hurled the dagger at the workshop door, his chest heaving as he stared at the two blades embedded in the splintered wood.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he tried telling himself, his voice barely above a whisper. “It doesn’t matter who she talked to.” Because she was home. She would be safe now. That’s all that mattered.

  Turning back to his bench, Skye resumed his place at his workstation, doing his best to ignore the hollow pit that had opened up inside him.

  It was late when Skye returned to his quarters. Closing the door and engaging the wards, he began peeling off his clothes, dropping them on the floor as he made his way to the washroom. The light from the fireplace cast a soft glow, and the carved mahogany panels set into the walls almost looked garish as the shadows flickered and swayed.

  He tiredly fumbled for the switch to the washroom, sighing when the light from the swirled glass fire lamp hanging overhead illuminated the cavernous space. Shuffling across the tiled floor, he barely registered the familiar gray-and-white marble that lined the walls as he leaned against the sink and took in his reflection.

  His eyes looked sunken, and his skin was paler than usual, making the violet ink that marked the flesh of
his right arm seem even darker in comparison. In addition to the four marks symbolizing each of the seals he had earned during his training with Ivain, a dragon surrounded by ribbons of shadow magic hugged his shoulder. Like all highborn nobles, he had been branded with his household’s crest when he was only five years old—just before he had been brought before the priestesses of the Faerasanaa for his Attunement Ceremony.

  Turning, he studied the tattoo inscribed at the base of his neck, between his shoulder blades. That one he actually liked. He had received the Gate Watchers’ crest—a sun rising behind an outline of the Aion Gate—the night he was initiated as Ivain’s Precept, his second-in-command.

  Suppressing a yawn, Skye splashed some water on his face, pulled on a soft pair of cotton trousers, and then made his way towards the unmade bed that sat at the far side of the main room. Already hearing Sarina’s reproach in his head, he gathered up his clothes as he went and tossed them over the back of one of the chairs in the small sitting area by the window.

  He needed sleep. Badly. Maybe a full night of rest would make this nonsense with Taly seem a little less… demoralizing.

  Before he could fall face-first into bed, a soft knock interrupted his thoughts, and when he turned to see the door edging open, his jaw dropped.

  Taly stared back at him through a crack in the door, her skin almost as white as the beaded nightdress she wore. She gripped the doorframe, and she was shaking from the exertion of having walked across the hall. “Skye?” she asked, her voice uncharacteristically timid.

  Breaking out of his stupor, Skye rushed across the room, catching her just before her legs gave way. “Shards, Taly. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Well,” she started, unsure. She trembled slightly, and he didn’t miss the wince that fluttered across her expression when he readjusted his grip, accidentally grazing the newly healed skin on her back. “I wanted to talk to you, but you never came back.”

  Gently scooping her up, he carried her back across the hall. “You could’ve just called me. You know I can hear you through the wards if you yell.”

  Her fingers traced one of the lines beneath his collarbone. “I didn’t know if you’d come.”

  Skye frowned as he laid her back on her bed and tucked the blankets around her. She had already started to shiver. “It hurts me that you would even think that,” he muttered, walking over to the fireplace and stoking her fire.

  Taly’s eyes followed him. “Well, after what you said this afternoon, it seemed like a fair assumption.”

  Skye smiled humorlessly as he leaned against the marble hearth. A line of little animals he’d carved when they were children were arranged neatly in a row along the mantle. “Well, after what you said this afternoon, can you blame me?”

  Taly’s cheeks flushed, and she turned her face away, intently studying the shadows that danced on the opposite wall. “No. I haven’t treated you very fairly as of late, and everything you said was perfectly reasonable,” she whispered, her words slightly slurred.

  That got his attention, and he turned to face her. “If you’re willingly admitting that you were wrong,” he said, walking back across the room and sinking down on the edge of the bed, “then that can mean only one of two things. Either the world as we know it is ending, or—" He glanced at the table set against the wall. A truly staggering number of potions and herbs littered the cluttered tabletop. “—you’re drugged out of your mind. I take it Aiden gave you something for the pain?”

  Taly nodded sleepily. “He gave me a lot of things.”

  “I can tell,” Skye replied, chuckling when her head lolled to the side. She’d gotten distracted by the fire. “Go to sleep, Taly. We can talk in the morning.”

  Skye started to stand, but her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. “Don’t go yet,” she mumbled, already half-asleep. “I wanted to tell you… I decided to stay.”

  Skye settled back on the bed. “Ivain told me. You seemed pretty intent on going back to Ryme this morning. What changed your mind?”

  “Aiden,” she sighed. “He’s helping me.”

  Skye bit back a growl. “So you’ll let Aiden help you, but not me?”

  “You can’t help.” She drowsily shook her head, and her eyes began to droop. “You can’t help with the dust. Only Aiden can help with the dust.”

  Skye gently flicked her on the nose. Her eyes were unfocused and glazed as she looked up at him. “The dust?” he asked, holding his breath. This was the closest thing to an answer he’d gotten yet.

  Taly’s brow crinkled in confusion, and then she started giggling. “Oops. I wasn’t supposed to say that.” When Skye frowned, that only seemed to spur her on. In a sing-song voice, she mumbled, “Dust, dust… can’t tell Skye about the dust.”

  “Taly.” Skye snapped his fingers, abruptly shushing her and drawing her eyes back to his. “Focus. Just how much painkiller did Aiden give you?”

  “Ummm…” She gazed into the fire for a long moment, almost seeming to forget that he was there. “I think… not enough. So, I took more.”

  Skye picked up a discarded cup on her nightstand and held it up to his nose. Wyrmwood tea—great for pain, but also a very strong sedative. “Well, that explains a few things.”

  Like drug-induced desires to clean.

  Dust, he thought, shaking his head. She hadn’t come to his room looking for him. She was probably trying to find a broom.

  “Go to sleep, Taly.”

  “Not until you say you’re not mad at me anymore,” she argued stubbornly, an almost childish whine to her voice. “I’m here now, so you’re not allowed to be mad anymore.” A large yawn interrupted her. “I wanted to tell you about the… and the… magic and harpies? I hate harpies… and wyverns… and magic…” Her words became more and more garbled the longer she babbled, and her voice trailed off as her face relaxed in sleep.

  Skye stared at her for a long moment before huffing out a mirthless laugh. “Are you kidding me?” he asked her sleeping form. “I’m not allowed to be mad? Is that a joke?”

  Taly mumbled something incoherent as she turned over.

  “I’m not allowed to be mad,” he repeated to himself. “That’s a good one. But Princess Tink has spoken, so I have no other choice but to obey, right?”

  Skye took a shaky breath. “Sorry to tell you this, but that’s not going to work this time. After what you’ve put me through this past year, after what you said to me when I found you in that bunkhouse in Ebondrift right after you left… Shards, after what you said to me this afternoon… I’m allowed to feel anything I damn well please. You don’t get to decide when I stop being mad.”

  Taly kicked in her sleep, wriggling to get comfortable.

  “I thought you were going to die,” Skye whispered, reaching up to tuck the blankets back around her. “I’ve been so angry at you for so long, but the moment that harpy grabbed you, none of that mattered anymore. And after spending a week wondering if I would ever get to hear your voice again, or see you smile, or even have you smack me for saying something stupid—I was ready to move forward. I thought you might be too, but…”

  Skye stopped, turning away and hanging his head. “But the first thing you did when you woke up was try to push me away. Again. I’m not going to lie—that fucking hurt. And then you know what hurt even more? After telling me to piss off, you go and talk to Aiden. You confide in Aiden. Aiden is the one that gets to know why you decided to cut me out of your life.”

  Skye wiped at his eyes. “Mad, Tink? I should be furious with you. I should be cursing your name. I should cut you out of my life the same way you did to me—let you see how it feels to suddenly have your closest friend run out on you with no explanation. Because let me tell you—it feels shitty. Really, really—"

  Skye started when he felt a hand on his arm. Turning his head, he found Taly staring back at him sadly.

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed. She still looked sleepy and dazed, but there was a little more clarity in
her eyes now. “I’m so sorry, Em. I’m sorry, I… I don’t know how to fix this. You’re still mad at me, and… I don’t know how to fix it.” Her lip began to tremble, and her face crumpled. She swallowed back a sob.

  “Don’t cry,” Skye said softly, wiping at the dampness that was swiftly collecting on her cheeks. “Yes—I’m still angry. I’m angry and hurt and confused and, right now, tired. But I’m not going anywhere. You are the most infuriating woman I’ve ever known, but I’ve given up trying to deny that I won’t keep running back for more.”

  “Tell me how to fix this,” Taly slurred. She was struggling to keep her eyes open as the sedatives and medicine began to drag her under. “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  Skye shook his head. “You need to rest, Taly. We can talk about this in the morning.”

  “Tell me,” she demanded mulishly.

  Skye’s lips quirked to the side. Even half-asleep, she was still as stubborn as ever. “Okay,” he began, hoping to placate her. “Well, I think a good place to start would be honesty. If you don’t want to talk to me about something, that’s fine. But don’t push me away. Don’t make up some hurtful lie about how you think you’re just some mortal pet or go around saying that you need to cut me out of your life right now because you're going to die in 60 to 70 years, give or take. That’s ridiculous, Tink, and you know it.”

  Her face scrunched up, like she was getting ready to argue.

  “No more lies,” he said hastily, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear and effectively shushing her. “Just talk to me, be as honest as you can, and tell me to shove off if I start to pry. If you can manage that, we can figure out the rest as we go along. Like I said—I’m not going anywhere.”

  Reaching for his hand, she twined her fingers with his. A sleepy smile emerged. “Deal,” she sighed as her eyes fluttered closed. “No more lies. I promise. I promise I’ll...” She abruptly stopped mid-sentence, and soft, kitten-like snores took the place of words.