by A J Gala
Allanis still wore a frown. “But what is this Protégé? Does Meeka know anything about this person, and why the Hunters are looking for them?”
“That’s the thing, Alli.” Lazarus rubbed his beard and stared up at the ceiling, away from everyone. “That’s where this all starts to come around. The Protégé is a nightwalker.”
“You don’t think—”
“I have no idea. She—they—are the only ones who would know for sure. We have to find those two.”
Ashbel crept up further, still. “Are we talking about Tizzy now?”
Lora made a loud, indignant noise. “Shush, you!”
“Wait.” Allanis stiffened. “You know?”
“No! No, actually—” Ashbel flailed, “—actually, I don’t. Err, I don’t know. I don’t know? Oh, Allanis, I’m sorry. I just… I guess I just figured it out or something. Right?”
Allanis’s vision swam. She couldn’t focus on any one face in the room as her heart quickened with anger. “Who told you?”
She didn’t see Lora beside her, staring down at her hands in her lap, shamefully scarlet in the face. She had no idea the love of her life had shared the secret with the rest of the Council. Lora remained quiet but swallowed hard.
Then, the youngest Hallenar spoke.
“It was me.” Athen sighed. Technically, it was true. While Lora had begun unraveling the secret, she had left it in his lap to drop the most shocking details, and he’d obliged.
“We were going to need to know it eventually!” Ashbel added. “Tizzy and your brother Aleth are nightwalkers. Look how relevant that wound up being! Please don’t be upset with Athen.”
Lora cleared her throat. “What about Meeka? What else did she say? Are there Hunters in Suradia?”
With all of Ravina’s doubt, Allanis didn’t think the conversation could afford to go back, but Lazarus continued with the intel.
“There are some Hunters here,” he said quickly. He had a scrap of one of Meeka’s memories, something from a time she had been casually speaking with other Hunters before making the trip down from Vandroya. He could feel her hesitance and how boldly she acted despite it. Dusk had fallen at the training grounds, and she chatted, trying to act like she had as much of a right to be there as the other much older Hunters.
And yet they had rolled their eyes at her. They laughed, and they mocked her. He could feel her fire grow inside as though it were his own. And then, a Hunter let slip exactly what he was looking for.
“They’re operating out of an inn called The Clarinet.”
Defeated, Allanis sighed. “I don’t know of it.”
“I do.” Ravina leaned back in her chair, her lips pursed as she crossed her arms. “It’s popular with the acting troupes that come in and out of town. Right on the edge of a nicer district. They probably use it as their base because no one hangs out long enough to care who they are. Not a bad idea, really.”
The room was quiet, waiting for Allanis to speak.
“So…” She couldn’t think past all the panic. “What do we do?”
With a glare still in her eyes, Ravina looked to Lazarus. “Did she tell you what they plan on doing with the Protégé?”
He shook his head. “No. I assume Lord-Hunter Cyrus plans to kill them.”
“Makes sense, but you’d be surprised. Someone always has an ulterior motive.”
Lazarus chewed his lip but said nothing. Ravina shook her head and let out a long sigh.
“Your Grace,” she started, “I believe I should refocus my efforts. I know how badly you want to find your brother and sister out there, especially now that we have Meeka’s intel, but the Hunters at The Clarinet pose the biggest threat to Suradia. I should investigate.”
Allanis nodded. “I agree. Set out as soon as you can and tell me what you find. Everyone is dismissed.”
Ravina was the first one to leave, eagerness for her new task filling her to the brim. The others paired off and left leisurely with plans of their own. Allanis watched them all closely until Lazarus started to leave on his own.
“Wait, Lazarus!”
“Yes, Alli?”
She approached him and tucked a curl behind her ear. “Um, thank you for taking care of the Meeka situation. You got a lot of useful information out of her. How is she?”
He forced himself to meet her eyes. “She’s not feeling well. I think she’s sick from traveling all that way in the storm. I’ll ask Rori to take her back to the cells and make something for her.”
“Alright, that sounds fine. Good night.”
“Good night, Alli.”
Vayven 8, 1144
A streak of lightning lit up the early dawn sky, and thunder rolled in mere seconds later. Tizzy pressed on through the rain and muck of the Bogwood, her boots slogging through the mud and debris. Her mind was focused only on getting to the next landmark. Getting closer to Sheerspine Spire. Getting closer to Aleth…
“My lady?”
The faint voice behind her was Amaranth’s. For a moment, Tizzy had forgotten all about the bloodslave. When she turned around, Amaranth was at least twenty paces behind. Tizzy’s heart fell a little, and she frowned.
“I’m sorry, Amaranth.”
“It’s alright, my lady.” She clutched her trembling hands to her chest and took a minute to catch her breath. “I understand I am a burden. I apologize for it.”
Tizzy fought back a grunt before pulling the bloodslave out of the rain and into the cover of an evergreen.
“Stop talking like that,” she said. “If I had really wanted to, I could have left you at the Convent. But obviously, I didn’t want to because you’re here.”
Truthfully, she had wanted to leave her there, but the number of people who would’ve expressed disappointment was enough pressure to do the right thing.
She looked Amaranth over, making sure she was okay after all the trips and slips and falls she’d suffered since they left. She was shivering and soaked through. Tan skin had paled, and big brown doe eyes had grown glassy with tears of frustration. Drenched dark hair dripped rainwater down the front of her dress. Tizzy thought she looked like she’d drowned in a river and crawled back out.
“We’re close,” she told the bloodslave, pointing to the telltale mountain just in the distance. “Less than an hour, I’ll bet.”
“I’m thankful for it,” Amaranth mumbled, rubbing her hands together for warmth.
They pressed on, and the storm worsened. Wind howled and assaulted them from a new direction every minute. Lightning flashed through the sky, branching through the clouds with its searing white light. The crack of thunder soon followed. Both women jumped.
Tizzy let out a shaky breath, then turned to Amaranth with a reassuring nod. They would be alright. They would make it.
A second round of thunder boomed and quaked through the woods, and Tizzy gasped. She hadn’t been watching the sky, and the lightning was coming closer and closer. Her nerves couldn’t take much more.
Still, the tight and painful sensation in her chest bearing down on her with every step she took toward Sheerspine was not anxiety from the storm. It was something else that was practically squeezing the air out of her. Something else that was making her heart buzz.
Was it him? Aleth had left her in such a hurry. As soon as he had heard Torah’s voice from the balcony—before she had even had a face to place the sound to—he’d left. Run off without a second thought, only just barely letting it out that he was going to Sheerspine at all.
And then she got to meet Torah. And she wasn’t impressed.
“Are you alright, my lady?”
Tizzy looked over her shoulder at Amaranth hustling to keep up. “Hm?”
“Are you alright? You look like you may get sick.”
“I’m fine.” Tizzy blushed. “I’m just… I really hope he made it to the Spire okay.”
“Your brother?”
“Yeah. The idiot never thinks things through.” She shook her head. “It’s annoying
.”
Before long, the mountain she sought towered before her, reaching into the low cloud cover in all its tall, jagged, wisteria-choked glory. The trees stopped growing some thirty feet up, unwilling or unable to conquer the mountain, leaving its naked peak to touch the sky alone.
This was it, she thought. She stared up, her relief competing with awe. She had made it in one piece, so if she could do it, certainly he could too. She approached the rocky mountainside and cleared her throat.
“Show me the Sheerspine Spire.”
The wisteria vines twisted away, revealing an old wooden door. At last, the feeling of relief won her over.
“Oh, thank gods,” she said. “I was going to feel really stupid if it didn’t work.”
She knocked a little more frantically than she had intended. Her heart was pounding, and the strange sensation she had felt along the way was only getting stronger.
A lean tan-skinned woman opened the door and greeted her with a three-eyed hazel stare. Naia.
“Well, well!” The triclops flipped her short brown hair over her shoulder with a flick of her wrist. “If it isn’t the bloodkin princess in the flesh! You got here fast.” She took a long moment to look Tizzy over, laughing inwardly. Drenched from the rain was the exact same way Aleth had shown up with her before. After a quick sigh of nostalgia, Naia wiped her hands off on her green apron and ushered them in.
Tizzy welcomed the soothing warmth of the bathhouse around her wet, frigid body. It was just as she had remembered it, but this time she could experience it with her own agency. She’d missed out on much of the experience being carried in unconscious last time.
The common room was quiet, filled with the sounds of the rain dripping off her and onto the wood floors, and the mumbling of only a handful of patrons. She was sure she wouldn’t have found the patrons at any other establishment, either. She spied a dwarf with dense, bushy chestnut hair—which on its own was not too uncommon—but he had a slender tail like a lion, idly whipping back and forth between table legs. Other patrons sported horns or strange splotches of color on their skin. The common folk feared such things, but they were understood and welcome at Sheerspine.
The sweet citrus scent of the wood polish mingled with the aroma of savory cooking behind the kitchen doors and the bitter fragrance of minerals from the baths. Wooden tabletops gleamed with yellow and orange firelight from a crackling hearth.
Tizzy would have been completely relaxed to be back, but the mysterious sense humming within her was almost unbearable. She turned to Naia as the woman closed the door behind them.
“Did he make it?” Tizzy asked. “He’s here, right?”
“You’re awful fidgety.” Naia jerked her head in Amaranth’s direction. “Who’s your friend?”
Tizzy swallowed hard and regarded Amaranth for only a second. “Just a friend I made at the Convent. She wanted to leave too.”
Naia pursed her lips and folded her arms. “I was being sarcastic. I’ve gathered how you are from your last visit. I know you don’t make ‘friends.’ Who is she? Why isn’t she saying anything?”
Cold sweat gathered in Tizzy’s palms. “Look, she’s supposed to be in my care, okay? That’s it.”
Naia pushed the choppy bangs out of her third eye’s sight and looked Amaranth over.
“Wait, no!” Tizzy waved her arms. “Don’t do that—”
The triclops smacked Tizzy’s arm. “A bloodslave?” she whispered. “Really? You bring a fucking bloodslave here?”
“I hate your bullshit detector.”
“I don’t!” Naia snapped. “Do you have any idea what kind of trouble this could cause? It’s a good thing you and your brother are the only bloodkin here, or I’d turn you all back out there on your asses!”
“So, he is here?”
“Can we please finish talking about what we’re going to do with your plus one?”
Tizzy shook her head. The anticipation was killing her. “I—I have to go.”
Naia watched her turn up the stairs and leave, each step creaking beneath her boots.
“Hey!” She threw her hands out. “Get back here! I didn’t even tell you where he’s at!”
But Tizzy already knew. The sense was magnetic and filled her to the brim, taking hold of her mind completely. She barely heard the ambient sounds of the other patrons around her as she followed it, knowing exactly where it would take her. It would take her straight to him.
She didn’t know how, but it couldn’t have been anything else. In her mind, she had imagined running to him the second she stepped into Sheerspine, but of course, Naia would spoil it.
Aleth was in the same room they had stayed in the first time. The sense pulled her there, down the hall lined with quartz crystals. They glittered as she passed, catching the yellow and orange glow from the candlelight in the sconces. Mayriel and Velana, the four-armed quadramanus attendants, scurried around with baskets, but they were too busy to notice her purposeful, dazed stride.
When she made it to the door, her stomach was in knots, and her heart drummed like it would break out of her chest. She knew with certainty this was it. Was it a new ability? The thought was pushed out of her mind by desire, and she turned the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. It opened, and she stepped inside, closing the door behind her.
Just like on her first visit, the room was warm and inviting. The gentle green hue of the tapestry separating the tub from the rest of the room coaxed her in. The scent of clove, anise, and cinnamon from soapweed pulp wafted in the air. And then, by a lit, crackling hearth was who she sought.
Aleth laid on the rug, half-asleep, in a careful position on his side with his back straight. It didn’t look natural or comfortable. Tizzy cocked her head as she took a step forward, watching his chest rise and fall with labored breaths. A thin book and an empty glass were on the floor beside him. He barely stirred at the sound of the door sliding into the jamb.
“Naia, go away.”
Tizzy was happy to hear his voice, but he wasn’t okay. She knew something was wrong. She took a few more steps into the room and slid her bag off her shoulder and let it fall to the ground.
Aleth soon realized the scent in the air was not Naia’s. It wasn’t the bouquet of soapweed, minerals, and smoke that usually followed her around. Instead, coldness entered the room. The rain, the wilds, and blood. His eyes snapped open, and he turned his head.
“Tizzy!”
She smiled, just as relieved to see him as he was to see her. Wasting no time, she ran over and knelt beside him, her rain-drenched curls dangling over him as she ran her fingers through his hair.
“You’re alive.” It felt so good to touch him.
He moved slowly, carefully as though he were planning every inch, until he was sitting up and facing her. Even sitting, he towered over her like the home that he was.
Her eyes watered, and she blinked back the tears as she met his stare. “Thank gods they didn’t kill you.”
He pulled her in close, feeling her cold, wet body against his. “Hunters? They sure fucking tried. But you’re okay? I didn’t think I’d see you so soon. I was afraid there’d be more of them out there, that you’d run into them on your way…”
“What do you mean? How many did you run into? What happened?”
When he didn’t respond, she slid her arms around him, drawing him into her. He was warm, his skin hot from the fire. Her fingers found their way under his loose tunic, and they crawled up his chest.
He winced and grabbed her wrist.
“What?” She looked up at him. “Aleth, tell me what happened out there.” She lifted the garment to see a lingering bruise around his ribs.
The corner of his mouth turned up a little. “Some of my bones are a little—” he shrugged, his cheeks turning pink, “—incomplete. Doddie says to give them another day at the rate I’m healing.”
“Gods! So what hap—”
He didn’t want to talk. He cupped her face and kissed her. She held on for as lon
g as she could, tasting his softness and letting his warmth soothe her. There would never be a better place in all the world.
“Next time you want to leave,” she whispered, “we go together. I don’t care what’s going on. We figure it out, and we go together.”
His mind was suddenly full of scenarios where they couldn’t go together. Any number of things could come up, could split them apart again—
“Aleth. Don’t get quiet on me! We have to stay together. You said!”
He had. In fact, he had said it right there, in that very room. He remembered when he had carried her to the Spire after her debilitating first impulse had stopped them in their tracks. The only thing he could tell her to reassure her of their fate was that they would be okay so long as they stayed together…
He took her hand and kissed it. “Okay.”
She embraced him, but more carefully than before, and pulled him in to meet his lips with her own. It was all so different this time, she thought. He was not the battle she had won. He was what she’d won the battle for. At last, she had tenderness in her, and her fears melted away. He was in her arms again, where he belonged.
“Tizzy,” he whispered into her mouth, “you’re shaking.”
She broke away and stared at her trembling hands. “Everything’s just catching up with me. I can’t believe I made it here with Amaranth in that damn storm!”
He unfastened her cloak that was heavy and cold with rainwater, then stood to hang it by the hearth. “Trust me, you didn’t see the worst of it.”
“You wouldn’t have either if you had just waited.”
Aleth shrugged. “What’s done is done.” He jerked his head toward the green tapestry. “We’re not getting the bath serviced till tomorrow, so you’ll have to settle for the buckets.”