Tal didn’t reply for a few moments.
“We are,” he said softly. “I know that it is hard to hear, but we are.”
He gestured to his right; the Gate flickered, blue fire whirling into existence. The flames were muted, drawn toward the center of the shattered city as kan scrabbled hungrily at the Essence within.
“Go,” said Tal. “The Gate cannot withstand for much longer. Nor can we.” Fresh tears slid down his cheeks.
Caeden watched his friend—or the man who had once been his friend—and his heart broke. This was not the Tal’kamar he knew. Despite the calm exterior, this version was unstable. Dangerous. Utterly mad.
Caeden could not save Dareci, but he could ensure that its destroyer was not allowed to escape its fate.
He stepped slowly toward the Gate, then turned to Tal before he went through.
“I pray the Chamber cures you, Tal,” he said softly. “And I pray that we will meet again when it has.”
He formed two kan blades, angling them to the side and just behind him.
He stepped through.
He felt rather than saw the blades slash through the Gate’s machinery; there was a brief cry of horror from Tal, cut off as the Gate collapsed in upon itself, barely before Caeden had made it through.
He stood on the other side for a few moments, silent.
Then he fell to his knees. Sobbed. Wept for what had happened.
Wept for the friend he’d lost.
Caeden gasped, tears streaming down his face.
That had been him. Him, as seen by someone else. The body was different, the voice, the reactions … but he knew. Meldier’s memory had been painfully clear, as clear as if it were his own.
He stared into the fire for a few moments in numb disbelief, trying to fully grasp what he’d just seen. The memory didn’t have the same visceral impact of what he’d done in Desriel, nor did it have the same gut-wrenching emotion of the one from Elhyris.
This was far, far worse. This was murder on a scale that he couldn’t comprehend. This was …
He shook his head. It was beyond his emotional capacity to process. Not just the horror inherent in his actions, but … it was as if the sliver of faith he’d still had in his past self, the one he’d been nurturing since that first day in the Wells, had finally died.
He drew a shivering breath, then turned to see Meldier watching him.
“So. You see now? I could not be in this place and have a conversation with you, without you understanding what you did here. To do so spits on the people you murdered. The millions who died for your selfishness. The great civilization that you burned to the ground.” Meldier held Caeden’s gaze steadily, but his voice seethed with pent-up emotion. He’d clearly just relived it as well. “To this day, that memory haunts me above all others. To this day, I think of the friends I lost here and I do not forgive you.”
He shuddered. “And despite that? Despite that, Devaed? I understand what you did more than I understand what came after,” he said softly. “You once told me that conviction is nothing until it is tested. Though none of us ever accepted your actions here, we at least grasped why, and we worked with you to make them mean something. You shattered the Venerate, but many thought that your doing so was a necessary step. That you acted in secret to protect us. That you sacrificed your soul for the good of all.” He ran his hands through his hair. “But in turning your back on us after that, you made what happened here worse by far. You strove to make these deaths meaningless. For that alone, I should take Licanius and I should strike you down.”
Caeden swallowed, heart wrenching with every word. This wasn’t what he’d expected from his enemies. What Meldier was saying made sense. He sounded like a man who wanted only justice.
He sounded … right.
“But you won’t,” said Caeden, voice shaking slightly as he forced down the horror.
“No. Not now, because I understand what it is to sacrifice for the greater good.” That was clearly directed at him, a bitter jibe. “Because better to let a monster live than to condemn the world.”
Caeden closed his eyes, and silence fell as he took a few deep breaths. Forced himself to calm.
Some distant part of him was still reeling from what Meldier had revealed.
Another part—a part that he was slowly forcing himself to acknowledge—had already known.
Not the specifics, perhaps. Not the scope of the evil he’d perpetrated. But from the moment he’d discovered that he was Aarkein Devaed—discovered that his very name had been synonymous with all that people feared—he’d been heading toward an uneasy understanding that his memories would be something to endure, not welcome. An acceptance that there was nothing he could now do to truly make up for whatever had gone before.
He took another breath, and then another. It hurt, it sickened him, but all this memory had truly achieved was to confirm the worst.
And even if he’d done those things—even if redemption was truly beyond him—that didn’t mean that he shouldn’t try. He’d left these memories behind for a reason. He’d left that path behind for a reason.
So he pushed down the shame, the disgust. Buried them deep.
Those were Aarkein Devaed’s to bear, not his.
He opened his eyes.
“I believe you.” Caeden said the words clearly and calmly, even as his emotions still roiled. “And you’re right. The man that you just showed me? He was a monster.”
Meldier blinked, his brow furrowing. “But?”
“But that wasn’t me.” A surge of determination ran through him. “You can call me Aarkein Devaed all you like. You can show me my past—things that turn my stomach to even think about. But that isn’t me now.”
Meldier frowned, shaking his head. “You’re simply telling yourself that to give yourself comfort. To dissociate yourself from what you just saw. But when your memories come back, you’ll start to justify your actions. You’ll—”
“My memories have been coming back,” insisted Caeden. “Asar said something to me once that I didn’t think anything of at the time. He said that it was unfortunate that our plan didn’t go as it should have, and that I took a year to find him when I should have taken days. He acted as if it were a terrible thing, my meeting others and being influenced by them, forming a personality before trying to get my memories back.”
He nodded slowly, confidence building. “He was wrong. I don’t know whether I knew that it would happen this way, but he was wrong. Perhaps things would be different if I hadn’t met other people, good people, and spent time with them. Perhaps if I’d gone to him a blank slate, you would be talking to a very different man. But I didn’t. Instead, I see these memories and … yes, they become a part of me. But I reject them, too. They will stay with me always, but I will not let them take away who I already am.”
Meldier listened in silence, the heat of his initial emotion gradually dissipating. When Caeden was finished, the other man looked more sorrowful than angry.
“You have the confidence of a mortal,” he said eventually, quietly. He gave a tired smile. “And the failings of one. I know that this is hard to hear, but pushing down the pain will not make it go away. Better to face your sins, Devaed. Better to own them. When you live as long as we do, it is the only way forward.”
Caeden gritted his teeth, saying nothing. He was different. In many ways, what Meldier had just shown him was easier to accept than the other memories. Not because it was less horrific, but because it was so unthinkable, so foreign to him that he could easily identify it as something that he could never now do.
Eventually Meldier sighed, shaking his head. “But perhaps you have changed. In truth, I hope you have,” he said quietly. “Only time will tell.”
“It always does,” murmured Caeden, an automatic response.
He frowned as he realized what he’d said, saw the recognition of the phrase in Meldier’s eyes. Before he could say anything further, though, a soft, eerie whispering began fr
om outside the circle of black columns.
Caeden glanced around past the reach of the fire at the now-complete darkness, but Meldier didn’t seem to notice the sound, digging something from his pocket and holding it up. Caeden’s eyes widened as he recognized the bronze of the Portal Box.
Meldier hesitated, then irritably tossed the cube to him, followed a few seconds later by the steel disc. Caeden juggled the two Vessels, nearly dropping them in his surprise.
“Take them, then,” Meldier said resignedly. “There is nothing more for us to say.”
Caeden’s heart pounded, but he kept his face smooth. “And Licanius?”
Meldier scoffed. “You think that I would give it back to you?”
“I cannot defeat the Lyth without it,” said Caeden calmly, meeting Meldier’s gaze.
Meldier shook his head. “Explain why, and I will give it to you.”
“I’ll not tell you my plans.” Caeden pocketed the disc but held on to the Portal Box, quickly checking his Reserve. It was close to full again. “But I cannot leave here without it.” He hesitated. “Do you remember Paetir? That warlord we took on in Rinday?”
Meldier blinked, then reluctantly nodded. “When Diara died. The first time we found one of these.” He lifted Licanius slightly. “In a lot of ways, it’s where all of this began.”
“We were doing good, then.” Caeden’s heart pounded, but he didn’t let his nervousness show. He was gambling here—working with incomplete information—but it was all he had. “I want that feeling again, Meldier. I want to help people. But I need Licanius to do it.”
Meldier gazed at the sword for a long, tense second.
Then he grunted.
“Truth be told, Devaed, I’m not sure how far you can go without it anyway,” he said ruefully. “Andrael’s agreement with the Lyth means that it’s bound to you, and you to it.” He sheathed the blade. “You will get it when you are ready to leave. Not a moment before.”
“I can leave straight away,” said Caeden.
Meldier gave an exasperated sigh, and some of the tension went out of him as he gestured at the whispering darkness that surrounded them. “Not until dawn, you can’t. Trust me.”
Caeden frowned, but something in Meldier’s voice rang true. He nodded, unwilling to reveal the extent of his ignorance by asking further questions. “Dawn, then.” He did his best to keep the relief from his face.
Meldier turned away, the conversation evidently finished in his mind. Caeden breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. He needed the silence, the chance to catch his breath.
It wasn’t long though before his thoughts returned, however unwillingly, to Meldier’s memory. He chewed over it for a while but no matter how he approached it, there was no getting around what Devaed had done. What he’d done. Trying to comprehend anyone doing that was … beyond him. The evil was so great that it felt more an abstract concept than reality.
Devaed had been a monster—Meldier wasn’t wrong about that much.
But Devaed was also the past.
He clenched his fists. Meldier didn’t know him anymore. Caeden might not have all his memories, and he might not know what lay ahead—but he knew who he was, and who he wanted to be.
For now, tonight, that would have to be enough.
He settled down in front of the fire to wait.
Caeden gazed into the flames, trying to ignore the constant, unsettling susurrus from beyond the columns.
The sun was still some time from rising, and everything outside the ring in which he and Meldier stood was utterly dark. The fire illuminated the smooth stone plateau well enough, but that light did not extend an inch past the surrounding pillars. The whispering moans that emanated from the black drifted around them, unceasing since they had begun.
“What is that?” he asked abruptly, unable to restrain his curiosity any longer. When Meldier made no response—the man had been silent since relinquishing the Vessels—Caeden stood, took a few steps toward the nearest gap between columns, and squinted, trying to see out into the inky black.
“Stop.” Meldier’s voice was sharp, authoritative.
When Caeden turned to give him a questioning look, he sighed. “You don’t want to go out there, Devaed. El, even I don’t want you to go out there. Stay within the Nexus, and you will be fine.”
Caeden took a hesitant step back, trusting the concern in Meldier’s voice more than his words. He gave a final stare into the darkness, then retreated back to the fire.
“Another effect of what I did here,” he said quietly, not needing Meldier’s slight nod of acknowledgment to know it for truth.
“Effect or means, I have never been entirely sure,” said Meldier quietly. “The Darklanders have always been tied to the Columns.”
Caeden went cold. “Darklanders?” A disquieting flash of the memory Asar had shown him played through his mind, dizzying him slightly.
Meldier said nothing for a moment, and Caeden thought he was ignoring the question. Then he sighed.
“It’s what you called them. Shades from the other side. I don’t think they have much agency here, but if they sense life out where they can reach it, they will swarm. I’ve seen it happen.” He saw Caeden’s expression and snorted. “Don’t worry, Devaed. There’s no rift to the Darklands out there. Just … them. Drifting, aimless, so long as there is not enough Essence to burn them.”
Caeden nodded silently and held out his hands, letting warmth seep into them. Silence fell again for a time.
“How much do you really remember?” asked Meldier abruptly.
Caeden didn’t reply. He wanted answers, but revealing just how little he knew … it would be worse than foolish. He wasn’t about to disclose a weakness like that.
“El take you,” said Meldier in exasperation when it became clear that Caeden wasn’t interested in conversation. “Just talk to me. We were friends, you know, and … part of me still holds out hope for you, even now.”
Caeden glared over at him. “If you know about the Darklands and the rift, then I don’t see what there is to say. What you’re doing is going to unleash that horror on the world, Meldier.”
Meldier snorted. “Is that what Asar told you? Because you clearly don’t have all of your memories, so I do not see how you could possibly be doing more than just parroting that claim.”
“I know the story that you believe,” pressed Caeden. “I remember Gassandrid telling me that it was really El trapped here in this world, and that he wanted to set us all free—free from fate.”
Meldier scowled. “And do you remember meeting El? Do you remember the proof He showed us? The undeniable logic? You mentioned Rinday. What about back then? What about all the good we did together?”
Caeden glared, though he couldn’t help the shiver of uncertainty that ran through him. The memory of Rinday had been confusing; there was no denying the sense of peace, of rightness he’d had back then.
Meldier leaned forward, perhaps sensing his doubt. “Let that guard of yours down for just one second, and let your friends help. Look at what you did to me here—shutting me in the Tributary, using me as you would use an animal, an object. I can show you the truth. If we can just work together to—”
“No.” Caeden said the word calmly, but he felt his jaw clench. “You’ve made it clear that we are on opposite sides, Meldier. The truth of an enemy is not something I want to hear.”
“Sometimes that is the truth we need,” observed Meldier quietly. “Because the truth, Devaed, is that even if you are right? It doesn’t matter. You cannot deny that we are prisoners of whatever force has burdened this world with inevitability—and what is the point of living if we cannot truly make our own choices? What is the point of living without possibility?”
Caeden was silent for a moment, thinking. He couldn’t help but remember a similar conversation with Nihim, what seemed like forever ago.
“Even if our choices are inevitable, it doesn’t mean that they are not our own,” he observed eventual
ly.
“That is like saying that if I throw you from a cliff, you are choosing to fall.” Meldier leaned forward. “And whether it is thanks to Shammaeloth, or El, or some other force entirely, is irrelevant. Fate is the master of everyone in this world, and no one with a master is ever truly free. So I fight for the only side that offers me hope.”
Caeden closed his eyes. “Hope?” he repeated softly. This had the feel of an old argument, something they had debated many times, but he had no idea of how best to respond. He pushed down another uncomfortable flutter of doubt in his chest. “What you showed me? I was on your side when I did it. And as much as you admitted to hating it, you also said that you understood it.” He shook his head slowly. “Argue all you want, Meldier. I’ll never be on the same side as someone who understands something like that.”
Meldier’s expression faded to a scowl, and for a moment there was a dangerous anger in his eyes.
“Very well,” he said, sounding as though he were forcing out the words. “Never let it be said that I did not try. I suppose for now, all that matters is that you find the other part of that Vessel. Fail in that, and it won’t matter whose side you are on.”
Caeden frowned. What had Ell … Nethgalla … screamed after him as he’d escaped the Wells? It was all a blur, but he was sure that she’d said that he couldn’t stop the Lyth without something she had. The Siphon, she’d called it?
He grimaced, putting the concern to the back of his mind, at least for now. Even if she’d been referring to the other piece of the device, he knew that the creature who had stolen his wife’s form couldn’t be trusted. He would worry about Nethgalla only if he found himself with no other option.
A hint of yellow crested the eastern edge of the valley, and the whispering surrounding them abruptly dissipated.
Caeden and Meldier exchanged a glance, a silent understanding passing between them. They both stood.
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