The Mage Heir

by Kathryn Sommerlot

  “Fast turnaround,” Yudai said, though his voice was neutral.

  “I think he wishes us out of his territory,” Jotin replied. He looked apologetic.

  If Jotin was going to say more, he never got the chance. Yudai waved him silent with his fingers extended towards the horizon. “It’s fine. I get it.”

  “We should urge the group to get as much rest as possible,” Jotin said to Tatsu. “As we near the Dar-Itusk Basin, the terrain grows far more difficult to cross.”

  The Oasa acting chief’s charity extended to two of the thin-skinned tents and a generous helping of water, stored in large clay jugs. It also included a quick dinner of salted meat and a strange, tart fruit that grew on trees near the desert’s oases. Without prompting, Yudai chose the tent furthest from the tith and their pen, and they split between the two, though even beneath the cooler shadows of the leather, Tatsu was unable to relax enough to drift off.

  When it became obvious that he was only going to hinder his tent-mates’ rest with his tossing and turning, he got back up and wandered outside. The sun, directly overhead, threatened to overheat him within minutes, so he slipped into one of the empty tents that housed the tith supplies. He walked slowly around piles of worn leather saddles, tangles of thin cord reins, and threadbare blankets designed to keep the animal’s back from chafing.

  Jotin joined him a minute or two later, and somehow, Tatsu wasn’t surprised.

  “Can’t sleep?” Jotin asked.

  “Too much on my mind.” Tatsu ran his fingers over one of the nearby saddles. His bad arm ached and he pressed at it unconsciously, prodding the skin until the pain subsided. Jotin had not moved by the time Tatsu looked back up. “It’s a lot of responsibility. Do you ever feel overwhelmed?”

  “By this?” Jotin clarified, and then his lips pinched together. “No. But I am not the one who has altered the course of a prince’s life.”

  Tatsu ducked his head down. “I didn’t—that’s not what I was trying to do.”

  “You were doing what you thought was right, and through that decision, you have changed the future. What would have happened to Yudai had you not taken him from his homeland?”

  “The world would have been devoured,” Tatsu said. “Of course I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Not just the world.” Jotin moved deeper into the tent, staring up at the curve of the skin stretched above their heads. “I know little of magic, but I suspect the prince would not have lived through the ordeal. At the very least, he would have been significantly changed.”

  Tatsu shook his head. “But I wasn’t trying to save the world. I was just… reacting.”

  “And now?” Jotin asked. “You are trying to restore the prince to his throne.”

  “I—no.” Tatsu fumbled for the words. “I’m just trying to keep him alive.”

  “Either way, the end result is the same. You have altered the future, both his and your own.”

  Tatsu glared down at the jumble of leather cords at his feet, so tangled he couldn’t pinpoint the start of it. “That’s worse, somehow. I didn’t mean to do any of this. I was just there at the right time, in the right place.”

  “Many people would say that was fate.”

  “I don’t know if I believe in fate,” Tatsu said and then raised his head. “Do you?”

  To his surprise, Jotin laughed. It was a rare sound, and it caught Tatsu off-guard. “You ask all the right questions, I think. I do not know what I believe. But I believe that I am on the right path, and that is enough.”

  The smell of the leather, oiled and thick, was strong in the heat of the day. It conjured up old memories that Tatsu had long since pushed aside, and the swelling within his ribs that resulted was disquieting. There was too much happening that was too important. His own feelings were lost within the swell of the journey, carrying them to their next destination as if they had no choice on the matter. In the past, he might not have cared, but things had changed.

  Tatsu pressed his fingers against his sternum, wincing. “I wish I had your confidence.”

  “Do you not?” Jotin asked, and his eyebrows rose. “I thought you were following your heart.”

  Tatsu barked out a laugh, the sound cutting off unfinished. “I don’t know if I can trust my heart.”

  Then he ran his tongue over the dry flesh of his lips. “Have you ever been in love?”

  “Yes,” Jotin said.

  “What happened?”

  “She died.”

  Feeling like a fool for bringing up something that had ended so badly, Tatsu’s bad arm began to ache in time with his heart. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you relive things.”

  But Jotin merely shrugged. “We were very young, and not yet adults. We knew the risks that the sands carried when we went out with the walkers. We were headstrong and confident, and we were wrong. I regret that she died, but I do not regret the love we shared.”

  “How can you talk about this with such a clear head?” Tatsu asked.

  “Time,” Jotin said. “It has been years, and that time has given me a much better perspective on things. Though I suspect that was not the answer you were hoping for.”

  Tatsu’s heart beat so loud he swore it must have sounded through the tent. He tempered down his next plea—tell me how to deal with this—and instead asked, “Have you been with the Cabaj-walkers all this time?”

  “Except for the times I was dispatched to Moswar, yes.”

  “And after this, you’ll join the High Council,” Tatsu said.

  “A different kind of responsibility,” Jotin replied, “but necessary all the same.”

  “Will you miss the freedom of the desert?”

  When Jotin smiled again, it was gentler. “I think we always miss that which we can no longer have.”

  Tatsu thought of his father and the simple, easy days of hunting together in the woods before the complications of the siphon and its wreckage had woven their way into his life, and agreed.

  After the long, hot midday, the idea of leaving as the sun fell back down was daunting, but Tatsu pulled his supplies together anyway and readied himself to go. The others seemed to be faring better. At least they appeared to have slept, which was more than Tatsu could claim. Ral was in high spirits, and Leil’s shoulders were straighter, though Alesh’s forehead was lined with sweat from the still-soaring temperatures.

  “We should pack extra water,” Jotin said. “As we get closer to the southern coastline, the heat will remain through the night more and more.”

  “Wonderful,” Yudai grumbled.

  Their new Oasa guide led them away from the camp and for the most part, stayed well ahead of them. Tatsu wouldn’t have been surprised if the walker thought of them as merely a short diversion from her main task. She didn’t engage them in conversation during rests and urged a relentless pace across the packed sands. The dunes, which had at one point seemed to tower as high as small mountains, began to flatten out until there were few rolling hills left at all, and the plains of the desert they made their way through was more dirt than sand, mixed together. More and more plants found their way through the clay-like soil, and the foliage around them slowly expanded to include large bushes, thick-ridged trees, and spotty blossoms with rounded petals.

  Near the middle of the night, the Oasa-walker called for another break near a small grove of trees nestled near each other. Tatsu was grateful for it—his feet were aching, and he knew if he took his left boot off, he would find skin rubbed raw off his heel.

  Leil sat down and immediately put her head into her hands as their guide picked a spot several paces away with a good view of each direction, unimpeded by the trees or their wide, curving leaves. Ral seemed more interested with the tree trunks themselves. Alesh, looking somewhat pale even in the blue-tinged moonlight, collapsed into a slumped seated position.

  “Is your hand getting any better?” Yudai asked, settling down into the dry sand-dirt mixture next to Tatsu.

  “A bit,”
Tatsu said, and it was true. More and more of the pangs in his shoulders were making their way down to his left elbow as the nerves began to register sparks of sensation again.

  Yudai gestured at Tatsu’s arm like he wanted to inspect it, and Tatsu complied by pushing his arm out into the space between them. When they brushed aside the linen and made contact, Yudai’s fingers were cool against his skin.

  “You can feel that?” Yudai asked. “Your hand flinched when I touched it.”

  “It’s muted, if that makes any sense,” Tatsu said. “I can feel it, but it’s a second late and far away.”

  Yudai slowly dragged his hand lower, down towards Tatsu’s wrist. Near his hand, the nerves registered less, but still he could sense the ghost of Yudai’s touch as the man ran his fingers in smooth, straight lines. Tatsu’s stomach twinged in response, his mind growing foggy. He closed his eyes, letting himself sink into the part of the contact he could feel.

  “And this?” Yudai asked, voice soft. It felt as if he were only barely touching the back of Tatsu’s hand with the tips of his fingers, light and soft like a butterfly’s wings. The hair on Tatsu’s arms stood on end as his skin buzzed.

  He opened his eyes to find Yudai’s fingers pressed firmly down into his flesh, and though the first sweeping wave of cold was that of disappointment—he should have been able to feel far more than a gentle caress with so much pressure—there was a part of him that didn’t want the ministrations to stop.

  “Should I—” Yudai started.

  “Don’t.” As the air left Tatsu’s lungs, the fingers on his bad hand twitched in response, a vibration that started in his chest and echoed down through his digits. “Don’t stop.”

  Yudai lifted his hand up and Tatsu worried that he’d said something wrong, that he’d crossed the invisible line he always felt he was toeing. Then Yudai returned his fingers to drag the short edges of his nails down the inside of Tatsu’s forearm. That was much more of a response from the damaged nerves; the feel of the pull against his skin pooled in his spine and pulsed like flames as Tatsu sucked in a quick hiss of a breath. His fingers jumped sharply again.

  Yudai’s eyes were very dark when he looked up, and that also sent a wave of tremors through Tatsu’s form. Yudai looked like he was going to say something, mouth parted as he began to lean forward.

  “Tatsu!” Ral called out, and the fear in her voice caused Yudai to drop Tatsu’s arm back onto the sand. “Tatsu, help!”

  Tatsu was up on his feet faster than he would have thought possible with the exhaustion weighing down his limbs. He spun to face Ral, who was kneeling by Alesh’s side, and Alesh—

  Alesh’s eyes were closed, her face very pale as she gasped out quick, labored lungfuls of air.

  Tatsu darted in to press his right hand against the side of her face. Her skin was blisteringly hot and clammy, far too much so to be discomfort from the heat.

  “Shit,” Tatsu said and tried to rouse her. “Alesh. Alesh!”

  The only response he got was the fluttering of her eyelids, which, after a second, squeezed shut again.

  “What’s happening?” Leil asked. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Ral pulled at the loose strands of her hair that hung down past her shoulders and looked to Tatsu with a crumpling expression. Tatsu wanted to say something reassuring, but he could think of nothing, and any possible words died on his tongue as Jotin sprinted over and skidded to a stop on his knees, leaving indentations on the ground behind him.

  “How long has she been like this?” he demanded.

  “Just now,” Tatsu said. “But I thought she looked pale earlier.”

  “And this morning, she seemed very hot,” Leil added.

  Jotin put a hand to Alesh’s forehead. “Sun sickness. She needs rest and water, but we cannot get more of those until we reach the next dominion.”

  “How far?” Yudai asked.

  “Two days,” Jotin said. He glanced back over his shoulder at the Oasa-walker to confirm his estimation. “Perhaps less, but we will not be able to make good time with her condition like this.”

  “Will she be all right?” Tatsu asked. He tried to keep his voice low, but Ral seemed to hear anyway. She let out a low, keening sort of whine and pressed her hands against her face.

  Jotin pulled Alesh up into a seated position, but her body was limp. He could only get her to stay that way if he held her upright himself. “She should recover if we can get her to the camp as quickly as possible, provided…”

  “We don’t run into anything else in the desert that wants us dead,” Yudai said, “or eaten.”

  As Jotin pulled Alesh to her feet, she groaned, but the sound was pitifully weak. Tatsu stood and turned to Ral, reaching out for her arm with his good hand.

  “Ral, did you see this?” he asked. “Was this supposed to happen?”

  “Sick,” Ral said, with a sad whimper that tore at Tatsu’s chest. “Help.”

  “We will, I promise. But I need you to tell me—did you see this happening? Was this something you saw in our future?”

  Ral stared at him for a long moment, cheeks streaked with tear tracks that glistened in the starlight, and then she shook her head.

  “If Ral didn’t see this coming, are we doing something wrong?” Yudai asked.

  “I hope not,” Tatsu said.

  Yudai leaned in, though his eyes stayed on Alesh’s limp figure, one arm slung over Jotin’s shoulders. “What do you think it means?”

  “I think it means that we’re on our own,” Tatsu said and gave Ral a small smile while patting her shoulder.

  Alesh woke intermittently, but never with very much coherence. Sometimes she would try to speak and it never made very much sense. To keep up their pace, it took two of them to half-carry, half-drag her across the sand, and they had to alternate to avoid succumbing to exhaustion themselves. The air around the party felt tense and strained; they were on the brink of something that none of them could see the end of, and it seemed to make everyone nervous.

  When he wasn’t helping to move Alesh through the desert, Tatsu tried to stick close to Ral, who was quiet as they made their way further south.

  “Alesh will be all right,” Tatsu said, and Ral burrowed into his chest like she wanted to hide her face from the world. “We’ll take care of her, I promise.”

  “Still sick,” Ral said.

  “I know. Can you see anything else? Once we get to the camp?”

  With her face mashed against his shirt, Tatsu couldn’t see her expression, but he felt her head shake sharply from side to side. “All dark now.”

  “Dark is bad?” he asked.

  “Sometimes. Sometimes just new.”

  Tatsu put his good arm around her shoulder. Jotin and Yudai were hauling Alesh in front of them, and the toes of her boots were dragging long, erratic lines in the dirt behind them. “When you see things that are coming, what do they look like?”

  “People shapes. Night shapes.”

  “Shadows?” Tatsu clarified.

  Ral shrugged. “Sometimes scary.”

  “I bet,” Tatsu said and sighed. “Like seeing ghosts all the time.”

  It was only after the words left his mouth that the thought floated up in his mind: if Ral could see forward, could she also see backwards? Perhaps he was more right about the ghosts than he thought. Perhaps they all had ghosts trailing behind them as they continued forward, memories from lost hours. He wondered if she could see their mournful, faded faces.

  He didn’t ask, and he wasn’t sure if he was more concerned with frightening Ral or himself.

  They continued in silence for perhaps ten minutes before Leil let out a shriek of alarm. A second later, a wall of dirt and sand shot up from the ground in front of her with a blast of force and noise, causing Jotin and Yudai to stop so suddenly they nearly dropped Alesh’s body. Leil held the mixture aloft with trembling hands, and Tatsu caught a glimpse of the snake slithering away, covered in mottled brown scales.

  The sa
nd fell back down to the ground after the creature had skidded out of sight, and Leil pressed a shaky hand to her chest.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, glancing between them. “I just reacted, and I thought with Alesh…”

  “It does not carry poison,” Jotin said.

  Flinching, Leil shrank back into herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s fine,” Tatsu told her, but as they continued walking again, he looked down to where the dirt and sand had fallen after being held aloft by Leil’s magic control.

  A shudder ran through Ral’s body still pressed against Tatsu’s side. “Dark again.”

  “Yeah,” Tatsu agreed and couldn’t quite get a handle on the uneasiness in his gut. “We need to take care of each other.”

  The Rist-walkers camp did not resemble the others; instead, the structures were made of mud and fire-burned clay, clearly built to be permanent rather than mobile. The benefits of keeping the camp in one spot were evident by the large herd of sheep-like animals kept in wood-walled pens and the sprawling gardens filled with desert flora. At the edge of the Dar-Itusk Basin, the ground was strewn with reedy, thin-stemmed plants that grew tall with fat leaves and small white blossoms, and the weeds seemed to be the food staple of the sheep that meandered through the paddocks on black hooves. Even with the sun rising overhead, the desert felt less oppressive—with the winds of the gorge rising up to meet them, the temperature had lost much of its bite.

  It felt much more like a village and much less a lookout, and when they took Alesh to one of the thatched-roof huts, the Rist-walkers who met them didn’t ask questions before taking her into the darkness and the cooler temperatures it offered. Tatsu was glad for the sense of priority, even if the subsequent meeting between their Oasa guide, Jotin, and the Rist-walkers acting chief did not include the rest of them. His presence certainly wouldn’t help the arrangements, and they worked faster without having to translate everything that was said.