by Andi Van
Jorget nodded. “The more eyes on this, the better.” He looked over at Tasis and sighed. “Do us all a favor and go make Kelwin get some sleep. He’s been completely ignoring his own needs while he’s been trying to heal Yldost.”
“There’s one more thing,” Zaree said, clearing her throat uncomfortably. “Jorget is the only person in this room who isn’t aware of… certain things, thanks to that idiot Sireti. I’d like to get that cleared up now.”
Tasis immediately reached over and took her hand, giving her an encouraging smile. K’yerin, for his part, gracefully jumped onto her lap and purred loudly. She smiled at them in gratitude before turning her attention to Jorget, who looked worried. “Zaree is not the name I was given at birth.”
“Okay,” Jorget said slowly. “I don’t see why that would be a problem.”
Zaree rolled her eyes. “Just… shut up for a second and let me finish. When I was born, my father named me after him.”
The confusion on Jorget’s face deepened. “But you’re a girl.”
“I am,” Zaree agreed. “I simply happened to have been born with… certain parts that you also have.”
She waited then as Jorget mulled it over. Eventually, understanding dawned on his face. “Oh” was all he said.
“So, now you know.”
Jorget nodded. “I’m probably about to ask something stupid. Please don’t hurt me.” He cocked his head and looked her over. “What is it like?”
“Hell,” Zaree said firmly. “Not everyone in a similar position feels the same, but for me it’s like the Maker accidentally put my soul in the wrong vessel when I was born. I dislike it a great deal, and it’s something I can’t fix.”
“Is this why you and Sireti don’t get along?”
Zaree huffed. “He has opinions. All of them stupid.”
Truth, K’yerin chimed in.
“Well, it’s none of my business,” Jorget said after a minute of silent contemplation. “Denekk tried to get that through my thick skull for a long time, but I was apparently more stubborn than anyone realized, or I had to see it firsthand. I don’t understand it, and I may never understand it, but you’re still you. Same person you’ve always been. Does Reikos know?”
Zaree swallowed heavily, her gaze going to the purple cat in her lap. “Not yet,” she said softly.
“Okay,” Jorget said with a nod. “If you tell him, and he acts like a jerk about it, I know how to cast fireballs. Sort of. I might accidentally set the building on fire instead, but what’s a little structural damage between friends?”
It was exactly the right thing to say, and Kelwin smiled as Zaree drooped in relief. “Thanks,” she whispered.
“Well, it’s not like it’s that big a deal, when I think about it,” Jorget admitted. “I mean, I’m sure it’s a big deal to you, but I’m talking about in the grand scheme of things. We all have our quirks. Malik summons butterflies and flowers despite the fact he can’t even hold an intelligible conversation yet. Em’s an extremely tall short person. Nabiha’s clearly addicted to books, if the fact that she looks like she wants to go roll in them is any indication. Tasis rebuilds entire isles with a few words. Kelwin raises vampire dragons. I get myself stuck to ceilings. If you look at it that way, I’m pretty sure the fact your quirk is having been born with a penis makes you the most normal out of all of us.”
Zaree burst into laughter, though it sounded a little teary.
“Wait, what?” Tasis asked, looking at Kelwin. “Vampire dragons?”
Kelwin sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Right,” Tasis said, standing and offering Kelwin a hand. “With that, we’re going to go nap.”
Is that what they’re calling it now?
“Shut up, Rin,” Tasis said as his face went red.
Have fun. I’ll be here if you need me.
Tasis leveled the cat a glare and sauntered out of the room, leaving the snickering crowd behind.
Chapter 18
“IT WAS dark,” Yldost said as they stuffed another chunk of the pie Firea had made into their mouth. They were actually perched on the edge of the pie’s pan, which Firea had set in the middle of the table. She’d assumed everyone was going to share it, but having a dragon practically sitting in the pie had made that idea less appetizing. “I was weak when the girl woke me, and I tried to reach out to her and make her one of my people, but something went wrong.”
“And she was turned into a harpy instead,” Jorget added, watching as the dragon, still no bigger than K’yerin, managed to get more of the pastry on them than in their mouth. It had only been a day since they’d woken, and they were still emaciated, but a long conversation with Vashk had apparently given them speech the rest of the residents of the guild could understand. “Is there a way to reverse that?”
Yldost cocked their head and considered the question. It wouldn’t have been a funny gesture, except some of the pie’s filling was dripping from their snout. “Perhaps,” they finally allowed, though the tone was cautious. “I will think on it and see if I can find a solution.”
“So let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Tasis interrupted, leaning forward with his arms resting on the table. “The mural was an accurate depiction.”
Yldost pulled a slice of apple from the pie and began to take large bites of it. “Yes,” they agreed as they chewed. “I was fighting Gisik.”
“You mentioned that name yesterday,” Zaree said. Of all of them, she was the only one who was actively sticking her fork into the pie to take bites of it, even if she was eating from the side Yldost hadn’t attacked. “Who is Gisik?”
“Was,” Yldost corrected. “I think. He was dying when he trapped me in the box. He is… Father’s brother?”
“Your uncle, then,” Emlynn mused with a nod. “And he is—was—the black dragon?”
“Yes,” the dragon said. They shoved the last of the apple slice they’d been holding into their mouth and began to lick at their fingers. “He was not kind. Mean. Greedy. He was angry our mother did not want him. He started a war to try to force her to his side.” Yldost sighed and shook their head. “He tried that before. His tricks were never the same but the results always were. He destroys. He is… chaos.”
“What do you mean?” Kelwin asked, reaching out with his fork to spear a slice of apple, though instead of eating it he offered it to Yldost. The dragon trilled and pulled it free of the tines, munching happily. Jorget was pretty sure he’d never seen such an adorable thing in his entire life.
Yldost chewed, but from the way the ridges above their eyes drew together, they were probably thinking. “Vashk is the sea,” they finally said. “I am the sky. Gisik is chaos.”
“Wait, I think I get it,” Jorget said suddenly, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. “It’s kind of like the dragons are elementals. Vashk is the sea, specifically the Western Sea. I’m assuming you’re the Western Sky.”
“The fault in your logic is that chaos does not have a location,” Emlynn pointed out softly. “It is intangible.”
“Our siblings are like Vashk and I,” Yldost interjected. “Specific things. It is different for our elders. Our father is the void. Our mother is… life?” They thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, life. The elders… they are things that must be for magic to exist. Even chaos is necessary, but Gisik had grown warped.”
“And what happens if he’s dead?” Tasis asked, moving to rest his chin in his hands as he watched the dragon step into the pie itself to find another large slice of apple. “Also, you should be eating all of the pie, not just the apples in the filling.”
“The apples are the best part,” Yldost informed him. “And if Gisik did die, he will be reborn. Perhaps in the same form. Perhaps in another. That is how it works. The elders do not stay dead. They only change.”
“That sounds familiar,” Kelwin murmured, and Jorget nodded in agreement. That sounded like what Vashk did to the guild members who’d been killed.
“Are any of your siblings alive?” Zaree asked bluntly. It was, in fact, even more blunt a question than Jorget would have asked, and he winced a little.
Yldost, however, seemed nonplussed by the query. “Perhaps,” they said. “They may be in hiding. Some may be asleep, still healing from the things Gisik did to us. Some may be trapped, as I was.”
“So, wait a second,” Jorget said, the edge of an idea tugging at his brain. “Go back to what you were telling us about your elders. You said what they do or control or whatever it is—they’re required for magic to be a thing.”
“Yes,” Yldost confirmed with a nod. “There are more than the three, but void creates a space for magic to manifest, and life is the result. It is the job of chaos to make sure things are never stagnant.”
“Life is the result,” Jorget repeated slowly. “Are you saying your mother is the Maker?”
“Our mother is life,” Yldost said, sounding confused. “Life is part of nature. Nature is a part of magic.”
So not the Maker, but created by the Maker, perhaps. Jorget narrowed his eyes. He felt like he was missing something important.
“Do the elves no longer speak with the world?”
The room fell silent then, with Kelwin and Tasis looking at each other, then over at Firea, who had been in the process of making another pie a dragon hadn’t been sitting in. She set down the apple she’d been peeling and wiped her hands on her apron. “I’d better go get Aldris. He’ll want to hear this.”
“Yeah,” Kelwin agreed. “This is something he’d definitely leave the samples I brought back for.”
Yldost cocked their head to one side again. They did that a lot, and Jorget was beginning to wonder if the little dragon always looked at things from a tilted viewpoint. “They don’t,” the dragon said, realizing they’d found the answer to their earlier question. “But why? That’s why the elves were created.” They looked pointedly at the pendant that was still around Kelwin’s neck and frowned. “And aren’t you the keeper here?”
“The keeper?” Kelwin asked.
“You wear the key,” Yldost said as if those gathered should know perfectly well what the dragon was talking about. “Only the keeper of the key wears it.”
Kelwin held up the stone and looked at it. To Jorget, it looked like a normal pendant. “Looks like a stone to me,” Kelwin said. “What is this supposed to be a key to?”
Yldost stomped one foot, sending some of the pie over the edge of the pan with a gooey splat. “To the door. You went through it to get here.”
“You mean that shaft of light?” Jorget asked. “Is that the door you’re talking about?”
“What else would I mean?”
“Hold on,” Kelwin said. “This conversation is going in a thousand different directions. What exactly did you mean about elves being created to speak with the world?”
“I’d like to know that as well,” said a voice from the entryway, and they looked over to see Aldris entering the room. Jorget had met him, of course, but he’d seen the white-haired man only for brief moments since. Kelwin had explained Aldris’s attention was wholly focused on the samples he’d brought back, and he meant no insult by appearing to snub them all. Knowing how kind the old elf was, Jorget believed it.
“So much knowledge lost,” Yldost lamented, their wings drooping with obvious dismay. Unfortunately, said wings ended up drooping directly into the pie, and Jorget wondered if the feathers would ever be clean after that. “The elves used to speak to the world, to find out what it needed so that, in return, it would help protect those who could not protect themselves.”
Something snapped in place in Jorget’s mind. “Bahz,” he said, looking at the falcon who was comfortably napping on Emlynn’s shoulder. “When we were on the mountain, he said the trees were guarding the entrance.”
“Trees have magic,” Yldost said with a nod. “It’s a different sort. They lend what is needed.”
Jorget jumped from his chair so quickly it tilted back and landed on the floor with a crash. “I’ll be in the library,” he said, stopping only long enough to pick up the chair.
“Tell Nabiha to join us next time,” Tasis called after him, but Jorget ignored the words. A fire had lit in his brain, and he had an idea, finally, of how he could help.
He ran toward the library, his feet practically flying over the stone floor. He flung the library doors open and nearly fell face-first onto the floor. When he’d caught himself, he realized Nabiha was staring at him, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“What’s wrong?” the girl asked, getting to the heart of the matter. Jorget liked that about her. For all she was still timid and shy, when she spoke it was with purpose.
“It may be more along the lines of what’s right,” Jorget corrected with a grin. “I think I’ve figured something out.” He sat on one of the plush couches near the fireplace and gestured for her to join him.
She checked on Malik, who appeared to be sleeping in the crib Josephina and Firea had so kindly made Sireti move into the library, then sat on one of the chairs across from him, a keen interest on her face. “What did you figure out?”
“Yldost has been talking,” Jorget said. “When they haven’t been trying to wear an entire pie.”
Nabiha burst into laughter, but she waved at him to continue.
“They started talking about how elves were created specifically to talk to the world. It’s a long story, and I’ll make sure you get all the details later, but…. Do you remember how it was decided there was no real barrier we could put up?”
“I remember,” Nabiha agreed with a nod. “Any actual walls can be scaled, and any magic shield would need to be fed a constant source of magic, which would eventually kill the caster.”
“Right,” Jorget said, practically bouncing in place. “Yldost said trees have a different sort of magic. They said they lend what is needed.”
Nabiha sat in silence, soaking in the words as Jorget waited for a reaction. He was not disappointed, because it was clear when the girl understood. Her eyes went wide, and she darted to her feet. “The trees could feed the barrier,” she exclaimed.
“Exactly,” Jorget agreed, just as excited. “So we need to see if we can find anything about including someone else in a spell, someone who can directly ask the flora of the isle for assistance. I’m betting we can have a spellcaster put up the shield and have someone like Aldris do whatever he needs to do to get the power we need for it. Only problem is, no one knows exactly what this is anymore because so much has been lost to history.”
“Except we’ve got books going back for millennia,” Nabiha breathed. “So the answers may be here.” She looked around the library, eyes narrowed, and Jorget knew she was mentally reviewing every section she’d been memorizing the contents of. “Upstairs,” she said finally. “In the back, by the pillow I think K’yerin sleeps on if the purple fur on it is any indication.” She didn’t wait for a response, but ran for the grand, sweeping staircase leading to the library’s upper floor.
Jorget was fast on her heels, nearly slipping on the smooth floor in his haste. He grabbed the staircase’s railing in time to keep himself from crashing to the ground, and blushed when he heard Nabiha giggle. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I guess I was a jester in a former life or something, the way I keep making myself look ridiculous.”
“It’s cute,” Nabiha said as she continued to climb the stairs. “I like your clumsiness. You’re not afraid to make mistakes, but you’re also not afraid to apologize when you’ve made them.”
Jorget’s face grew so hot he wondered if the red of his cheeks was making his face glow. “No one’s ever called my lack of coordination cute before,” he admitted.
“Well, it is,” Nabiha said as she reached the second floor and began to wind her way through the multitude of bookshelves. “Em thinks so too.”
That was most certainly something Jorget had never expected to hear. “I
thought Em thought I was an idiot,” he admitted as he caught up to her.
“No, of course not,” Nabiha said. She was crouched in front of a bookcase, one finger trailing over book spines as she looked for something specific. “Em’s just awkward with people. I think that’s cute too. She’s like you, though. She wasn’t sure what to make of it when I told her.”
“Do you… like her?” It was such an idiotic question that Jorget actually rolled his eyes at himself as he let out a mental groan.
“You mean romantically?” Nabiha asked, pulling out one thick tome before she continued to search on a higher shelf. “I think so, but I haven’t known her long, and it’s not like I have much experience with that sort of thing. My days were spent helping on the farm. There wasn’t time to so much as have a crush on someone in town.”
“Oh,” Jorget said, suddenly feeling about a thousand times more of a bumbling idiot than he usually did. “Well, it’s obvious she likes you too, so isn’t that good?”
Nabiha let out a hum of agreement as she pulled out another book. “She knows I like you too,” she said casually, glancing at Jorget from the corner of her eye.
“Um. Oh. That’s… um.” If he hadn’t been so shocked, Jorget would probably have been mortified at what a complete fool he sounded like. Luckily for him, Nabiha’s words appeared to have stolen his ability to feel humiliation along with his ability to speak coherent sentences.
“But I haven’t known you that long either. So maybe once we’re a little safer, the three of us should have a nice, long talk.” Nabiha pulled another book from the shelf, then headed toward one of the many tables scattered throughout the library. “Come on, these should do for now.”
“You’ve been here less than two days,” Jorget said as he took a seat across from her and grabbed one of the books she’d selected. “How on earth do you already know what books the library has?”
“K’yerin,” Nabiha admitted with a small smile. “I asked him which books were oldest, because I wanted to see if I could find out anything else about the guild in the mountain.”