Caeden shifted, looking for any sign of doubt in the other man’s eyes.
There was none.
He grunted, suddenly regretting his decision to come here. “Then Shammaeloth has already won,” he observed tiredly. “A cheerful religion indeed.”
Gassandrid shook his head, either missing or ignoring Caeden’s wry tone. “Not a religion, Tal’kamar. Religion is the following of rules and rituals in the hope that they will somehow garner the favor of a higher power. This … this is fact. A true history, albeit one rarely told.” His voice became quiet. “And you are wrong about Shammaeloth having won. Visible or not to those beneath them, even gods have limits. Even gods make mistakes. Once El was within the bounds of this world, Shammaeloth could no longer risk touching it directly. He’d set the world on a path, but could not prevent El using the last of His power to make a final, small change.”
Caeden shifted. “Which was?”
“Us.” Gassandrid looked Caeden in the eye. “Immortals. Shammaeloth chose to make El suffer, to spoil the thing He loves most—and that pain and destruction is not something we can fully prevent. But our presence has bent the path. Our choices are still predestined, still made within the limits of Shammaeloth’s corruption of time … but they are not choices for which he originally planned. And that means that there is a chance for something more.” He leaned forward. “Through us, El can steer the enemy’s design toward a particular outcome. We can fix it. There is a way to make the world a place where we truly make the decisions, not Shammaeloth. A way to change everything that has ever been, in fact.”
Caeden stiffened, his skepticism momentarily fading.
It was what he had been told, all those years ago. One of the driving forces that had kept him searching, that had led him to Gassandrid in the first place.
“A way to make all things right,” he said softly.
“A way to make all things right,” affirmed Gassandrid. “A way to change the past and break Shammaeloth’s prison. A chance to save the world from fate itself.”
Caeden shook his head slowly. He wanted to believe—thought that maybe he could, after everything he had seen.
And yet something held him back.
“You still have no proof,” he said softly. “You are no different from any other fanatic. We may share the same longevity—I will grant you that—but it makes you no less likely to lie. Or to believe falsely, for that matter.”
“What if I could give you proof?” Gassandrid said the words eagerly. “What if I could show you, beyond all doubt, that what I say is true?”
Caeden shook his head. “Impossible.”
Gassandrid, though, didn’t look dissuaded. “I was the same as you, Tal’kamar,” he assured him. “But I met Him—as you already have. And He showed me.”
Caeden didn’t comprehend what Gassandrid was saying for a moment. As soon as he did, though, he scoffed before he even realized what he was doing.
“The being from the forest? You’re saying that was El? The creator of all things?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Gassandrid. That was no god.”
Gassandrid took out a sheaf of paper, neatly bound. He handed it silently to Caeden.
“What is this?” asked Caeden, taking the bundle with a mildly confused frown.
“Your proof,” said Gassandrid quietly. “Your future, just as El has shown it to me. He may be weak, but He is less affected by time than we. He can see into the inevitability of what is to come. He can see how we will shape Shammaeloth’s plan away from the ruin it was meant to be.”
Caeden snorted. “Vague warnings of what is to come will not sway me, Gassandrid.”
“These are not parlor tricks.” Gassandrid smiled slightly. “I do not ask you to join us now, because I know that you will not until you are ready. Read what is within at your leisure, Tal’kamar. Read it, and try to prevent it if you wish. Regardless of what you do—no matter how you strive—what is written on those pages will come to pass.” He settled back, a glint in his eye. “I do not care if you return in one year or a thousand. Once you believe—once you are certain—then, and only then, come and find me again.”
To Caeden’s surprise he stood, indicating that the conversation was over. Before Caeden could recover enough to decide if he wanted to ask more questions, he found himself being gently but firmly ushered outside.
Gassandrid turned as if to leave him, and then hesitated.
“You saw the man in chains on your way in?” he asked quietly. When Caeden nodded he continued. “He lost his temper over a small matter of coin, and ran his neighbor through with his sword. These facts are undisputed. He awaits only my judgment.” He looked Caeden in the eye. “The law demands death for death. So which should I throw to the cleansing fires of the inferno—him, or his blade? Which do you think would be justice?”
Caeden stared at Gassandrid, more certain than ever of his insanity. “You know the answer.”
“But do you, Tal’kamar?” asked Gassandrid softly. “Something to ponder in the coming years.”
Before Caeden could respond, he had closed the door.
Caeden scowled for a moment, then glanced at the bundle of pages in his hands. He almost threw it away in disgust.
Almost.
Shaking his head in disappointment, he headed back toward the square. There was nothing for him here except a madman, clearly.
It was time to leave.
Chapter 5
Caeden’s vision cleared, and he took a deep breath as the sparse furnishings and overflowing bookshelves of Asar’s quarters came back into view.
Finally.
So that had been Gassandrid—one of the Venerate. Intense, confident. So sure of his beliefs, even back then. The memory was an old one, though Caeden knew straight away it was not nearly as old as his memory of being beheaded. During that meeting with Gassandrid, he’d been perfectly comfortable with the concept of his own immortality. It had been a different body, too—lighter skin, taller and slimmer than when he’d been called Lord Deshrel. But it hadn’t felt strange, either.
He frowned as he straightened, giving a slight nod to Asar’s querying look. There were still things he couldn’t place. He knew that he’d found Gassandrid after searching for him—searching for others like him—but he couldn’t remember what had driven him to do that. He recognized phrases in the memory, but couldn’t pinpoint the context.
It was something, more than he’d had in a long time. But in the big picture, it was still just a glimpse.
“Is that really what you all thought?” he said slowly, feeling his brow furrow as he put together the pieces. “That Shammaeloth—this thing behind the Boundary—was actually El?”
“It’s what we thought,” Asar corrected quietly, though there was more than a hint of relief to the words. He’d been trying not to show it, but Caeden could tell that the other Augur had been getting nervous about their lack of progress. “We take it for granted now, but imagine a world without kan—one where no one knew that the future was inevitable. And then imagine that you were suddenly shown the truth, and that the only compelling explanation came from the one who showed you.”
Caeden shook his head, thinking back on the memory. “But I didn’t believe him,” he pointed out.
“You did after two hundred years of trying to prove his Foresight wrong,” said Asar. “You were the hardest to convince, and then the most fervent to believe.” He rubbed eyes that were red-rimmed from tiredness and strain. “This is good, Tal’kamar. This is very good. We are beginning to make progress. Not a moment too soon, either.”
Caeden acknowledged the statement with a wry nod, the weight that had been on his shoulders for the past two weeks just a little lighter, despite the myriad more questions the memory had raised in his mind. He opened his mouth to speak, but was sabotaged by an enormous yawn.
“You should rest.” Asar gave him an encouraging nod. “It won’t always be this exhausting. The more you go back, the easier it will be
.”
Caeden hesitated. “You don’t think we should keep going, then, while it’s working?”
“You can barely keep your eyes open—and that’s despite all the Essence I’ve been feeding into you. Even our bodies have their limits. So go.” He picked up a tome from the table next to him and motioned to the door in a clear dismissal.
Caeden smiled at the almost affectionate action as he rose. “What do you read in here all day, anyway?” he asked, gesturing to the bookshelves. “What is all of this?”
Asar’s expression turned serious. “It is everything we know about Shammaeloth. Every theory, every rumor, every religious teaching. Every scrap of knowledge that we were able to save.” He crooked another smile, though this one looked more forced. “We’re not all-knowing, Tal’kamar, even when we have our memories. Sometimes we actually have to do research.”
Caeden snorted, nodding a wry acknowledgment before exiting and heading back to his room. For once, the long, smooth black tunnel with the gently pulsing veins of color didn’t unsettle him.
Tired though he was, he and Asar were making progress.
Caeden stretched as he gradually came awake, gazing up contemplatively at the jagged lines on the roof as they morphed smoothly from one hue to the next.
For the first time since he’d arrived, he felt the faintest flicker of anticipation—of hope—at the coming day. Restoring his memories this way was hard, perhaps even harder than Asar had first suggested. But it was working.
“Tal.”
Caeden started, rolling to his feet with alacrity at the unfamiliar voice. A young woman stood in the doorway to his room, calmly smoothing back her waist-length black hair as gently shifting colors played across her perfectly formed oval face.
He gaped for a few seconds, silent, gaze locked with hers. Her eyes were a startling blue, even in the multihued light. There was something about them, too—they held a fierce hunger as she looked at Caeden, a strange joy that he did not understand. He found himself flushing beneath their intense emotion.
“Who are you?” Asar had assured him that they were alone in the Wells, and nobody else was supposed to be able to get in. “Where is Asar?”
The woman’s eyes flicked around the room, cool but evidently wary. Apparently seeing nothing to perturb her, she glided toward him. “The Keeper is in his quarters, Tal,” she said. “It’s just us.”
Caeden took a step back. “Who are you?” he repeated, this time more firmly.
The woman sighed, a sudden sadness in her eyes. “When you told me that you were going to erase your memories, I assumed you were lying,” she said softly. “You truly do not recognize me?” She gazed at him. “Your wife?”
Caeden barked out a disbelieving laugh. When the woman’s expression didn’t change, the room tilted a little, and Caeden swallowed as he grasped at the top of his bed for balance. “No,” he muttered. Whether it was in answer to her question or a refutation of the statement, he wasn’t sure.
The stranger opened her mouth to say something more, but whatever it was, he didn’t hear it.
Everything blurred.
Caeden glared suspiciously at the plate in front of him, unconvinced that anything on it was edible.
“Not drunk enough,” he muttered to himself, pushing the black-and-pink mass disdainfully to one side.
He tried to rise but instead slipped on the grimy, ale-sodden floor and staggered ungracefully back into his chair again. A few of the tavern’s patrons glanced over, but none laughed. Hardened to a man and always looking for sources of amusement, yet not one of them dared even to smirk.
It was because they all knew him, or at least knew the tales. Not the truth, of course—not the reason he drank until he couldn’t see straight, not the things he spent such a vast portion of his considerable income trying to forget.
If they knew about those, they would not have dared turn their heads.
Still, the tales were enough. In this sodden, dirty corner of Elhyris, nobody was willing to risk raising the ire of Tal’kamar the Blessed.
He leaned forward and laughed blearily into his cup at the thought. “Blessed” was the word they murmured every time he returned with more Vaal, every time they watched with wide, greedy eyes as heavy bags of gold changed hands for just a single one of the creatures.
If they’d ever seen him a few hours before those exchanges—ever seen the vicious, suppurated puncture marks all over his body—they wouldn’t believe that he was touched by Talis. No. They would realize how very much, in fact, the opposite was true.
But Caeden knew not to let them see. He didn’t enjoy this life, but at least it was rote. Waking up in another unknown land, ignorant of location or language or customs, remembering who he’d been but trapped in a body not his own … he couldn’t do that again. Wouldn’t.
His gaze shifted from the dregs of his ale to his hands, still strangely square and unfamiliar even after five years. That wasn’t the worst of it, of course. He was shorter than he had been. Stockier. His skin was lighter, almost white. His eyes were green, not brown. His black hair was curly, not straight. He was a little younger, perhaps, and more muscular.
But he was not himself. He was no longer Lord Tal’kamar Deshrel.
The only part of that man still surviving was the guilt.
He grunted, forcing his gaze up again and gesturing to the barkeep, indicating that he required a refill. The man nodded without complaint. He knew Caeden’s gold was good—and knew not to try telling Caeden that he needed to stop, too. After the first few … disagreements, every man here was aware of that rule.
Caeden’s eyes slid blurrily past the barkeep to the sight of a woman seating herself at the corner table. She was alone, which was unusual in and of itself—even women who could handle themselves rarely traveled these parts without significant protection—but there was something else, something that made his heart constrict.
The long, straight black hair. The set of her shoulders, even facing away from him.
It was too familiar.
Caeden stumbled to his feet, attempting to use the back of another chair for support. There was a crash as it slid sideways and he fell clumsily on top of it.
He barely noticed the pain. The woman had heard the commotion, was looking around at him.
He stared at her, wide-eyed.
The tavern went silent.
“Get out!” Caeden was still on his knees, crawling away in confusion as he shouted the words at the woman. “Please, away from me! I see your face too many times in my nightmares to see it here, too. This is my place!”
The woman just looked at him, her deep blue eyes filled with alarmed bemusement. Caeden vaguely heard the scrape of chairs as some of the other men stood; afraid of him though they might be, this was a disturbance they could not ignore.
It was too much. Too much. Caeden’s vision blurred one last time, the woman’s face sliding from his sight.
“My place,” he whispered as his head sunk to the floor, body curling into a tight ball, the alcohol and emotion finally combining to overcome him. “Oh, fates. I’m so sorry, Ell. I know it’s not you. I miss you.”
She was gone, gone forever. He needed to stop seeing her everywhere he looked. He needed to wake up …
Caeden stumbled as his vision cleared again and he shook his head, taking some deep breaths as the woman across from him looked on with a vaguely concerned expression.
Another memory. He still shook from the emotion of this one. Even now—even as his own thoughts took hold once more and the memory became more distant, easier to press down—he found it hard to believe that anyone could feel such pain. Could feel so broken.
Worse, though, was that he recognized the woman standing across from him this time.
It had been her whom he’d seen in the tavern. He was certain of it.
“You were dead,” he whispered. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he knew he’d believed that much.
“Obviousl
y not,” the woman corrected him gently. “We need to leave. Now.”
Caeden shook his head, still trying to come to grips with what was happening. “I’m not leaving.”
“You cannot trust the Keeper. He will only show you what he wants you to know—not what you need to know.” She held out her hand, and something about her eyes—shining as they looked at him—made Caeden hesitate. “Tal. Please. There isn’t—”
A blast of Essence ripped across the room, lifting the woman up and slamming her hard against the rock wall, a good twenty feet away from Caeden. The blow elicited a cry of surprised pain from the stranger.
Caeden spun to see Asar in the doorway, hand outstretched. The older man’s expression was grim.
“You cannot torment him anymore,” he growled. He stared at the woman, intent, as if Caeden did not even exist. “You made a mistake coming here. I don’t know how you found us, but I knew you were here from the moment you opened the Gate. And you were never strong enough to face me.” He held her gaze. “This time, I am going to send you back.”
Caeden shifted, watching the woman’s face. From Asar’s tone, she should have been terrified.
Instead, her lips curled into a slow smile.
“The problem with hiding away where you think no one can find you, Keeper, is that you never know what’s happening in the outside world.”
Suddenly the river of Essence pressing against her body appeared to … shift. Not ease, but somehow part a little. She slid slowly down the wall until her feet were firmly on the ground again.
Then she walked forward.
Caeden’s eyes widened as she pushed through the Essence as if wading against the flow of a torrential river, slowly but surely, step by deliberate step making her way toward Asar. It was clearly an effort, but equally as clearly she was overpowering the white-bearded man, whose eyes had gone wide with shock and effort. Asar’s cheeks were flushed, and beads of sweat stood out on his brow.
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