by Andi Van
If time still made any sort of sense, Tasis would have guessed it was a long time before the pain stopped, but things were such a confused mess in whatever reality they’d landed in that it could have been only moments and he probably wouldn’t have known. Eventually, though, the two were left panting on the floor, with Tasis in a cold sweat as he remained curled around K’yerin as best he could. He didn’t get tired or hungry, but he felt pain and was capable of sweating. He had no idea what that place was, but he knew for certain that he didn’t like it.
“I’m so sorry, Rin,” he finally croaked, his voice a hoarse rasp. He’d probably torn his throat to shreds with his screams, but he couldn’t tell, not with the thrum of remembered pain still beating through his entire body. Likely he’d feel how raw his throat was later. “Are you okay?”
Oh Maker, the cat whimpered in the back of Tasis’s mind, the voice weak and trembling. Oh great Goddess Maker, the pain. Tasis, I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever you’ve hit… it’s evil.
“There’s no way we can chance burning it down,” Tasis said with a sigh as he propped himself up on one elbow and looked over at the wreckage of the chair that lay scattered across the floor. “Hitting it was bad enough.”
No, Rin said, forcing himself to stand on wobbly legs. Burn it down, Tasis. Burn it down until it’s completely gone. Whatever it is, it’s in our heads. Both of us. Maybe it’s what’s keeping us here.
“You think it’s a barrier of some sort? Is that possible when you and I haven’t been able to do any magic at all?”
Rin let out a snort and sat to groom one of his front paws. Tasis could see that the familiar’s paw was trembling, and he managed to sit up so he could pull Rin into his arms. Rin let out a noise of contentment and buried his face against the crook of Tasis’s neck, his whiskers tickling the skin there. You of all people should know that not all magic is the same, Rin reminded him. Look at Kelwin. Look at Arin, even. Their magic is different from yours, yes?
Tasis sighed. “I suppose you have a point. But, really? You want me to try burning the walls down after that kind of pain? Much worse and I’m pretty sure it could have killed us.”
If we don’t get out, our being alive or dead isn’t going to matter, Rin pointed out. The king will attack and everyone we love will drown in a sea of blood. And yes, I know, your friends are capable of taking care of themselves, but not like this. Not without you. You’re like Triv, making people want to do better simply by being yourself. You may not realize it, but you’re what’s bringing everyone together to win this battle. Without you, they’ll be lost. And with them, the war, the magic, and ultimately the world.
“Because magic is what binds the world together,” Tasis added. “Yes, I know. But I don’t think I’m as important as you make me out to be, Rin.”
Oh, but Tasis, that’s the beauty of it. True heroes never think they’re as important as they really are.
Tasis let out a snort and shook his head. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.” He stared at the broken chair, then tilted his head so it rested against Rin’s furry body. A small purr echoed in his ear, and he smiled at the comforting sound. “Are you sure you want me to try burning our way out?”
Can you set it on fire without magic?
“Oh yes. The Gyrn are nothing if not survivors. And I spent a good piece of my life around them. They taught me long ago how to start a fire without a flint.”
Then burn it, Tasis. Burn whatever monstrosity we’re trapped in to the ground.
“This is going to hurt,” Tasis warned, setting the cat on the floor before forcing himself to his feet.
Of that, I have no doubt, Rin answered, his small body shuddering as if with remembered agony. But as an old friend once said, sometimes you have to go through the dark places to find the light.
Tasis looked down at Rin, his eyes narrowed. “Yeah, funny how you knew Daro all along,” he said. “I’d wanted to ask you about that, but then things happened. Do you want to explain now? Maybe start with why you hid it from us?”
The cat sighed and looked up at him. There are rules.
“Rules,” Tasis repeated, not the least bit amused. “Uh-huh. Right. Dammit, Rin, I trust you. Even knowing you’re hiding something, I trust you. I just really hate not knowing what’s going on.”
Rin wound himself around Tasis’s ankles before leaning heavily against his leg. I really don’t know much. When you started to set things in motion and I could tell the time neared, I was told Daro would be a part of this. I was to pretend he was a normal wolf. He was told to act as one. Neither of us know why. But when our elders give orders, we listen. It’s always important. Mostly we leave each other alone.
“You really don’t know?”
I really don’t, Rin promised. If I did, I’d at least tell you that I do know but that I couldn’t share the reason.
Tasis stared at him in silence. As he’d said, he really did trust Rin. He might have the typical sneakiness people attributed to regular cats, but he’d never lied to them. There wasn’t a malevolent bone in his familiar’s body. Mischievous, but not malevolent. Tasis took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh of air. “Fine,” he said. “I’m not thrilled about it, but it’s not like you had a choice. For now, let’s concentrate on getting out of here.” He stepped closer to the shattered fragments of chair, sat, and began arranging pieces as needed.
Rin sat next to Tasis and watched in silence as Tasis picked through the pieces he needed and rearranged them.
It took a good deal of time. Well, it felt that way to Tasis, at least. It wasn’t the best of situations, and he had to make do with what he had, which meant it took several false starts before he managed to get a minuscule friction fire going, feeding it thin splinters of wood until it was a more stable flame. Eventually, it was large enough that he felt comfortable holding the end of one of the larger pieces of the chair to it, setting it alight.
“Right,” Tasis said. “Stand back, Rin.”
Me? You’re the one with the flaming chunk of furniture. Throw it from the middle of the room or something. We have no idea what will happen when it hits the wall.
His familiar had a point. Tasis shuffled back several paces, took a deep breath, and looked down at the cat who was pressed against his leg. “Hey, Rin?”
Rin looked up at him and blinked wordlessly.
“If I’m wrong about this and it ends up killing us—”
It won’t, Rin countered immediately.
“If it does,” Tasis continued, “I just want you to know I’ve really loved having you around.”
The cat made an odd sound in the back of his throat and nodded. Yeah, he said, headbutting Tasis on the leg, and Tasis was more than a little surprised that the mental words actually sounded choked up. Yeah, same here, Tas.
“Right,” Tasis said. “Let’s do this thing.” He took another deep breath and flung the burning wood against the wall.
If the pain from flinging the chair against the wall to break it had been agony, it paled in comparison to the excruciating pain that shot through his entire body when the fire slammed against the bleak surface. He dropped to the ground as if he were a puppet and someone had cut his strings, a lifeless heap unable to stand or move because of the horrific feeling of fire running through his very veins. His insides were ablaze, and there was such an overload of physical torment that he could only lie there, his mouth opening and closing like a fish who’d been thrown onto land and was trying to breathe.
But like for the fish slowly suffocating on land, there was no release from pain for Tasis, either. The inferno coursing through him heightened, and he began to see spots before his eyes.
What he could only vaguely see through the haze was that the moment the fire had touched the walls, they’d immediately been engulfed in a flame so hot that its colors shifted from orange and yellow to blue and white, the waves of heat clearly visible, if Tasis had been able to focus on them. Behind the flames,
strands like strange cobwebs became evident, and as the flames gained heat, they began to fray like a rope might have.
And then one of the strands broke, and the flame was gone, leaving behind charred fibers of whatever it was that had been on the singed walls. A hand reached through the wall behind the broken strand, grabbed hold of one end, and yanked.
And then the walls fell down, leaving only rubble behind as the strands also landed on the ground in a pile of ash. The woman standing behind the destruction smiled in satisfaction before she hiked up the skirts of her gown and stepped over the ruins of the barrier that had kept Tasis and Rin trapped. She strode gracefully up to the prone duo, knelt, and reached out with her hands to touch them.
The moment her hand touched Tasis, he sucked in a breath, then let out a sob.
“Oh, my child,” the woman said, caressing the side of his face. “You’ll be okay. Just breathe. The pain will pass quickly now that you’ve broken the spell.” She picked up Rin, who was breathing great gulps of air in a similar manner, and held him close for a moment before kissing him between the ears and placing him on Tasis’s chest.
“Mother?” Tasis croaked, still out of sorts and seeing spots.
“No,” the stranger said with a warm laugh that settled something inside him. It was a beautiful sound, something that made him feel as if everything would be right with the world in the end. “But also yes, in a way, I suppose.”
Tasis blinked several times, and the spots that had made it difficult to see started to clear. The woman kneeling next to him was probably around the age his mother had been when she died. Still young overall, but with the air of someone who’d lived long enough to see many things. Her hair was white, but instead of making her look old, it merely made her look otherworldly.
Well, and the horns spiraling up from either side of her head probably contributed to that.
“Are we dead?” Tasis finally managed to ask.
“No, though I rather imagine you wish you were,” the stranger said. “I’m glad you figured out why the chair was in here. It was the best I could do while keeping to the rules.”
“Rules?” That sounded as if the whole thing had been a game, which made no sense. “What do you mean?”
“First things first,” she said, turning her attention to Rin. “K’yerin, how are you feeling?”
Ow.
The woman laughed again, easing Tasis further. “I suppose that answer is as good as any right now. At least you’re able to answer at all. Tasis, can you move?”
Tasis was pretty sure even moving his eyeballs was going to hurt, but he tried turning his head a little anyway, wanting to please the stranger who had joined them for reasons he couldn’t grasp. When that hurt far less than he expected, he slowly moved his arm until he could lay a hand on Rin’s fur. His familiar let out a halfhearted purr before going silent again.
“Good,” the woman said. “Let’s see if we can get you on your feet so we can move you someplace more comfortable.”
Tasis looked at her and wrinkled his brow. “Who are you?”
“You may call me Nirena,” she answered as she brushed Tasis’s hair out of his face.
“Nirena,” he repeated. “But who are you? And where am I if I’m not dead?”
“So many questions,” Nirena said fondly, caressing the side of his face again. He wondered why her touch soothed him so much. “They will be answered. But come. More comfortable surroundings await you, as well as some company that is very eager to see you.”
“Who?” Tasis asked. “And what is going on?”
Nirena smiled at him, then ran her fingers through Rin’s fur. Her touch must have been as comforting to him as it had been to Tasis, because he let out a slightly stronger purr. “All will be made clear,” she said. “I swear to you. But I prefer to do it someplace other than this prison that was put up without my permission.” She wrinkled her nose as she looked around the space and let out a snort. “Disgusting.”
She sounded so like Zaree that Tasis couldn’t help but let out a laugh.
My intuition says we can trust her, Rin said softly. If my opinion matters, I think it would be best that we follow her. If nothing else, there’s bound to be someplace more comfortable to sit than a stone floor.
Tasis gave him a small nod, and Nirena, as if knowing what Rin had said, gently lifted him from Tasis’s chest and stood. She shifted the cat to one shoulder and held out her free hand to Tasis, offering assistance that he was grateful to take once he was able to force himself into an upright position. His body still ached, but it was more like the ache he always had after sparring with his sister than the pain of having been burned from the inside out. There was a surprising amount of strength in the woman’s grip, and he nearly fell into her when she pulled him to his feet. She smiled at him again once he’d managed to steady himself and handed over the familiar. Tasis was grateful to take Rin into his arms, pressing his face against the fur and breathing in the well-known scent of warm sunshine. When he looked up again, Nirena had crossed the room and stepped over the rubble.
Tasis rushed to catch up with her, then following behind as he took in the surroundings. The wide hall they walked down felt familiar, somehow. Perhaps it was the fact the walls were a smooth stone similar in appearance to the walls of his guild.
They’re glowing.
Tasis stopped in his tracks and took a good look at the wall next to him. “Huh.”
“What is it?” Nirena asked, pausing to look over her shoulder at them.
“The walls. They’re glowing.”
“Yes, I rather think you’ve seen something very similar,” Nirena responded placidly, a smile teasing her lips. “It’s a complicated spell, but remind me to teach it to you so you can teach it to your Speaker. He’s more likely to be able to make use of it than anyone else in the little family you’ve made for yourself.”
“How did you know?”
Nirena gave him a grin then, but merely continued her walk down the hall.
She answers about as well as Vashk or Yldost, Tasis told Rin silently. Do you think she’s a dragon too? Or something like them?
I don’t know, but I have a feeling we’re about to find out.
The door Nirena had stopped in front of was ornate, and again reminded Tasis of something within the guild. It was quite like the front doors, though it was a single door and without the inlaid glass. The similarities were more than slightly unnerving, though Tasis still didn’t feel as though he was in danger. Rin seemed to agree, as he merely looked about curiously, his body relaxed. Nirena reached out to open the door, then paused and eyed Tasis.
“You’re in for a surprise,” she warned him. “Though not an unpleasant one. You might wish to brace yourself, however.”
That did nothing to comfort him, but Tasis merely nodded, and Nirena opened the door and strode in. Tasis looked at Rin, who nodded, and he followed after her.
The room on the other side was a plush, comfortable space. It rather reminded him of the library, though smaller and with far fewer books. It held the same comfortable-looking seating, though, and a similarly warm fireplace. As he looked around, he realized the space also held four other people. When his eyes landed on the large, burly man with dark hair and a dark beard flecked with white, he nearly dropped his familiar. He knew that man, knew him almost as well as Zaree did, and remembered all the times he’d ridden on the wide shoulders when he was a child.
“Oh Maker,” he said in a hushed tone. “Daro. I really am dead.”
Zaree’s father barked his familiar rumbling laugh before standing and grabbing Tasis in a hard hug, and Tasis felt tears begin to gather behind his eyes. Rin managed to squirm out of Tasis’s arms, and landed on the floor awkwardly before giving a shake to help smooth his fur. “Oh, lad,” Daro said. “What a fine young man you’ve grown into. We’re so glad to see you. Aren’t we, Zizi?”
The nickname tugged on part of Tasis’s memory, and he remembered that Zizi was what Dar
o had called Zaree’s mother. He looked over at the woman he’d never had the chance to meet and was astounded to see that while Zaree had inherited her father’s dark hair, she could have been her mother’s twin. He took a step back from Daro and bowed at the woman. “It’s an honor to meet the woman I’ve heard about my entire life,” he said.
Before she could answer, someone sniffled, and Tasis turned to the sound. When he saw the person who was wiping their eyes, he let out a sob, and the tears he’d been holding back escaped down his face. She looked beautiful, and healthy, and just as he remembered her. “Mother,” he whispered.
Evina didn’t answer. She simply stood and threw herself into his arms with a cry.
Chapter 4
“I DON’T know,” Josephina shouted over Tasis’s screams and Zaree’s yells that demanded answers. “He just started screaming. Thank the Maker Kelwin is still knocked out, or I would have had to fend him off too.”
Zaree had charged up the stairs like the king was on her heels when she’d heard her brother’s screams, only to find Tasis and K’yerin writhing in pain while Josephina pinned them to the bed to keep them from falling off. If everyone hadn’t been so terrified, they probably would have found it amusing that Kelwin, in the bed next to his fiancé, slept through the entire thing.
Abruptly, the screams stopped, and Josephina heaved a great sigh of relief as she cautiously lifted herself off Tasis and Rin’s prone forms, pausing to take a good look at both of them through narrowed eyes. After a few moments, she gave a nod and straightened herself.
“They’re breathing,” she informed the other occupants of the room. Everyone had come running at the commotion, just as Zaree had, and the room was more than a little crowded.