Children of Darkness

[Luned]

To say Luned felt like new the next morning would have been a vast overstatement, but she did feel better, and that was enough. If anything, the comforts she found her made her feel human again, her humanity now just something else she had lost in the Tular sands some weeks ago.

Mithread’s clothing was beautifully made, though she was forced to make do with the best-fitting garments in her rush to meet Pyralis. Still, tailored linen felt blissful against her skin after journeying in what essentially had been rags, and she cobbled together an ensemble that helped her recognize herself in the mirror for the first time in ages. Either Mithread or Ms. Sethrin had also thought to place a new pair of boots next to the chest, crafted with gorgeous burgundy leather. Luned recognized the mark on the sole –– a gothic letter G –– as Gravebeard’s seal. She pushed thoughts of Swan’raan’s lackey from her head and put them on, hoping they weren’t a sample from his orphan-sourced line.

And then she set out. To her relief, Luned finally felt ready. Ready to take on the burden of helping Pyralis, ready to face her fear of the sewers, and ready to find Flint and set things right.



Pyralis was already waiting for her when she arrived. The young elf had changed her own clothing into something still worn, but vaguely cleaner, and it appeared she’d given her face a good scrub. “I always figured you were secretly a proper lady,” she greeted Luned. “But I still barely recognize you. Have you recovered?”

“Yes, thanks. Here, for you and the kids.” The scribe offered a parcel containing some bread and fruit that she’d nicked from the inn’s breakfast spread.

The elf smiled and accepted it. “Thanks. But first, let’s go for a walk.”

The sun finally peered over the rooftops, its warm rays expelling the rest of the early morning chill. Ettermire was a gray city of stone and smog, and it appeared much as Luned remembered. Pyralis led her away from the tunnel into a busier part of town, weaving through the streets until they found a bench near the markets. The shouts of sellers rang above the white noise of the traffic, and as they sat, the elf leaned in.

“I wanted to talk somewhere Helethra couldn’t follow or hear. You see… I need your advice.” Luned nodded, watching the crowds pass by, and Pyralis continued. “I’m torn. I… you know that job I mentioned, that would earn me some Swaysong? It’s for this person, she has a tannery, but… she’s bad news. She asked me to betray Helethra. She thinks she’s competition, but I can’t imagine why.”

Luned looked Pyralis in the eye, freckled brow pinched. “You mean Swan’raan, don’t you?”

Pyralis gulped as she nodded, fully understanding the predicament by gut instinct, even if she was unfamiliar with the politics of such an infamous person. “I should be clear that Helethra and I aren’t exactly friends. She’s proud of her mutations, not that she shouldn’t be, she’s healthy and capable and can take care of herself. But not all of us are that lucky. I told her I was sick of seeing other kids die, that we deserve a way to opt out if we need it. She was so angry, Luned.”

A passer-by bumped into them as he carried some sacks of grain, and Luned lowered her voice further. “A deal with Swan’raan is never worth making. Please trust me on that.”

“I do,” the elf forced a half-smile. “In my heart, I’ve known all along. It’s just so hard to pass up any chance. Lufe has started fading, and I don’t think I can take losing another one.” Luned reached up to wrap an arm over Pyralis’ shoulder, who accepted the embrace. The elf stared into her eyes, lilac meeting blue with new determination. “I’m tired of being naive. You know more than you’re letting on, and I need you to tell me. I need to understand what I’m dealing with, here.”

Luned hesitated, sighed, and spilled. She told Pyralis, at length, everything: how she was going to purchase Swaysong from Swan’raan, but a thief got it first and drew Luned and one of Swan’raan’s thugs, Flint, into the sewers; how they met the terrible creatures living there, barely surviving; how that brought them to Helethra and her scientist mother, Ezura. “All Ezura wanted was a cure, but it pushed her daughter away until Hel started hiding in the sewers. We didn’t realize until it was far too late that Ezura had stolen the Swaysong and given it to Helethra. She almost died.” Ultimately, Swan’raan captured Ezura, but it was Flint who exacted revenge by forcing her to take some Swaysong, herself. Luned and Flint eventually escaped together and hoped they’d never look back.

The elf listened in fascinated, horrified silence, until Luned finally trailed off. “I’m so glad we met,” Pyralis took the scribe by the hands, tears in her eyes. “I had no idea what Helethra’s been through, and I can’t believe I ever even considered betraying her to someone like that. Maybe I should try talking with her again, now that I understand… well, you know.”

Luned offered a wistful little smile. “I’ve received a tip that Flint is here in Ettermire, as we speak. I need to go now, I need to find him, but when I have, I’ll come to you and we’ll devise a real plan. At the very least, we can find Lufe a doctor. Does this sound all right to you?”

Pyralis wiped her eyes on the grimy sleeve of her tunic. “Yes, yes it does.”

[Luned]

Within a few hours, Luned ran out of the savorier options of where she could get a lead on Flint. Distant mutual connections, past business relations, and even Gravebeard couldn’t help her. The dwarf wouldn’t budge from his place at his workbench, where he nailed a heel onto a silk shoe with such delicate finesse that one never would have guessed at his cruel choice in materials. “With all due respect, ma’am, if you don’t leave my shop in the next ten seconds, I will be forced to tip off Swan’raan to the presence of your brute. You’re not the only one looking for him.”

There were two options she hadn’t explored yet, but she hoped so deeply that Flint hadn’t gone back to working with Swan’raan that she opted for the second, which was only marginally more enticing.

The tavern-brothel-general place of ill repute was mercifully quiet this time of day, as morning hours were generally reserved for the recovery of both patrons and hosts. But still, the pragmatic organization wasn’t one to turn away any business, and Luned was welcomed by unlocked doors.

“What’s your pleasure, miss?” a yawning barkeep mumbled from the floor.

“Just looking for a friend,” Luned waved him off, much to his relief. “Won’t be long.”

Flint had taken Luned here when they were on the run, though now that she looked back on it, he’d probably only thought to drag her with him as some insurance his boss wouldn’t have it out with him over allowing the Swaysong theft. After all, as a buyer who never even met Swan’raan face to face, she probably didn’t have much to fear, herself. At the time, this place had overwhelmed her, but with the morning sun betraying its shabby, pitiful face, it wasn’t as bad as she remembered. But, then again, she returned a changed woman.

Luned searched as efficiently as she could, sidestepping piles of vomit and sleeping bodies as she climbed stairs and roamed hallways. She didn’t expect to find Flint here as much as she hoped for a sign of him; he’d used this place for his stash before, and though she didn’t think he’d use the same place again, it was all she had.

The scribe peeked into yet another room, spied a couple lithe, slate-skinned bodies snoozing on a naked mattress in an otherwise nondescript room, and gently closed the door. As she stepped away, she felt something pull on her skirt, and looked down to see one of the drunkards peering up.

“Excuse me,” she whispered, pulling the cloth from his grasp.

“Excuse you,” he laugh-coughed, then tsked. “Not very nice to spy on others.”

Gut reaction said to shrug him off but Luned was desperate, and instead, she looked him in the eye. “Do you come here often?” she whispered, kneeling at his side. “I’m looking for someone. Very tall, light skin, bald head, black beard. Built solidly, huge even, but definitely human. Wears a lot of leather. Have you seen him?”

The prone man’s grin oozed sleaze. “Hmm, might ring a bell. Let’s get a room and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Never mind,” Luned sighed. As she stood to walk away, his fingers found their way up her calf, and in one smooth motion, she struck his hand down against the floorboards under her heel. She glared down at him, reminded of yet another nuance of the horrors she experienced in this godsforesaken city. “Did I give you permission to touch me?”

“Bleedin’ sakes, woman,” the drunkard howled under his breath. When she released him, he pulled his hand to his chest and laid on his side. “Bitch!”

This was a silly idea, and Luned knew it. She walked toward the stairs, so incensed and anxious that when someone stepped out of a room in front of her, she just about leapt out of her skin. Before her towered a wiry dark elf in black leather decorated with many straps, all of which held blades of various sizes and shapes. Her silvery hair was short and mussed; perhaps she’d just woken up, as well.

“Leaving so soon?” the thug greeted Luned, easily blocking her path with her long limbs. “He’s right, you know. What sort of person creeps about a place like this, spying on others? Can’t be up to any sort of good, wouldn’t you think?”

Luned did her best to stand tall. “I apologize for my intrusion, I was just looking for––”

“––a friend?” The thug’s purple-red lips slid into a sharp grin. “I thought you looked familiar.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve only been here once, years ago.”

The elf’s musical laugh filled the dusky hallway and she lifted her arms into a malicious shrug. “It’s my job to never forget a face and I haven’t forgotten his, either. Especially with the interest that followed. I’ve been looking for a gift for Swan to get her off our backs and it’s just fallen into my lap, like fate. Will you help me find him, or shall I let her deal with you, herself?”

“You’re mistaken,” Luned glared back at her. “Please allow me to leave.”

“No,” the thug replied more seriously as she reached for one of the daggers at her hip. “That would be silly of me, wouldn’t it?”

Unconsciously, Luned stepped back. She tried to remember –– they didn’t use the stairs to leave last time either, did they? As the elf stepped forward, Luned twisted and took off down the hallway, bounding over bodies as she went. She’d seen an open window just a few minutes ago. She just had to get there.

Attempting to outrun the gazelle of an elf with her short legs was a fool’s errand, but she did manage to scramble around the corner before she caught up. The thug grabbed her by the back of her shirt, sharp fingernails tearing holes in the fine linen, and Luned swung her right arm back in what she’d hoped would be one smooth motion, but was more of a defensive flail.

The thug shrieked as Luned’s blade clipped her thigh, surprising her just enough that her grip faltered. As the scribe took off again, her dagger vanished into thin air, droplets of the elf’s blood falling to the floor in her wake. “The fuck was that?” she spat after her, taking up the chase once more.

Luned finally reached the room, swung the door open, and darted through to the window on the other side. Someone groaned in disgruntlement from one of the stained mattresses on the floor, but she couldn’t be bothered to apologize. Instead, she started to climb through, but only when she was halfway through the process did she realize this window didn’t face the roof or anything else. Below was a three story drop to the pavement below. There was a balcony across the alley, but too far for her to jump.

The elf’s laugh startled her from behind. “Nice try,” she grinned. “I won’t hurt you if you come willingly.” And then, swiftly, something swept the amusement from her face. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

The breaking of bones was a new sensation for Luned, one she’d anticipated and braced herself for, but she learned the hard way that there was no way to prepare oneself for one’s limbs to collapse under them. She probably screamed as it happened, though she wasn’t self-aware enough to hear it over the visceral crackle of her legs snapping into gods knew how many pieces. She felt it through her entire body as she hit the ground hard, but through the temptation to vomit, pass out, and call it a day, she recalled a spell she hadn’t cast since she left Radasanth.

Again, in the blink of an eye, that pain vanished. Luned picked herself up slowly, looking down at her legs to see her new skirt bloodied and torn, but her limbs as healthy as they were when she knelt on that windowsill. That surreal thing happened to her again where it was like watching her life through the eyes of an onlooker and she realized others were watching, passers-by who stood shocked and upset by what they just witnessed. Should she feel self-conscious? She couldn’t tell.

She did know, however, that she had to move. Luned picked herself up off the street, dusted off her ruined new clothing, and pushed her way through the small crowd that had collected when she’d fallen. She ran, though she wasn’t sure where she was going.

As the scribe wove her way through growing crowds of workers on their way to or from their shifts in the industrial quarter, it dawned on her: she had no idea how to find Flint. Maybe he wasn’t here, or perhaps even worse, he didn’t want to be found. Maybe Resolve was right about everything and he was just… gone, and not worth searching for. Her skin broke out in a cold sweat as she ran with labored breath, her legs sore from exertion, heart tight in her chest. It felt wrong. Everything was wrong.

It got even wronger as an arm darted out in front of Luned just ahead, clotheslining her and dragging her coughing, sputtering self into the shadows of an alley. The familiar thug threw her down on her back and pressed one steel-toed boot onto the scribe’s chest, pressing her hard against the pavement and hindering her breathing.

“Nice trick,” the elf smiled in triumph. “You’ll have to teach me how to do that later.”

“Listen, you h––” Luned started, ending with a wheeze as the thug placed her weight almost entirely on her breastbone. Her lungs refused to inhale, and little black spots danced in her vision.

Her assailant leaned down, bearing even more weight on the scribe’s chest, and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt. Luned’s eyes squeezed shut as she struggled, shuddering as she found herself unable to even gasp. “Now,” the thug glared down at her, “you’re going to cooperate.” And then, for a second time, something swept across the elf’s face as she suddenly stumbled forward: pure astonishment.

The elf still grasped the scribe’s collar in her fist, but there was no one left inside the shirt. Luned had vanished.

[Warpath]

And then Luned could breathe again.

She opened her eyes, confounded by momentary blindness. Her vision adjusted to the sudden change: she was no longer in sunlight, but somewhere deep underground, cool and damp and stony. Goosebumps sprang along her arms and shoulders in the sudden chill, and the muscles of her back and shoulders complained when she sat herself up to look around.

She wrapped her arms around herself to preserve heat, surprised - and then suddenly not - to find that she was down to her silk camisole. The memory of her teleportation spell was back again like it had never been gone, and she was mildly amused at the thought of her assailant left throttling an empty shirt. Still, now she was missing the extra layer.

This was the sizable workshop of someone with magical talent. The outside walls were hidden, floor to ceiling, behind towering bookcases overstuffed with academic texts on magical and alchemical theory. There were tables arrayed throughout the room in the style of a chemistry class: each table an exact distance from the next so orderly rows and aisles were created in between, like roads. The tables were neatly covered in alchemical instruments and most were in active, dizzying use. The sound of bubbling liquid and low burner flame was everywhere.

The exception to the layout was at the front of the room: there were no bookcases hiding the naked stonework wall there, and the bench that ran all along the wall’s length was not divided at all. She knew this was the domain of a wizard, not merely an alchemist, because the entire chamber was lit by hundreds of enchanted candle sticks that floated just overhead, tirelessly exuding an antiseptic blue-green light and never dripping wax.

There was a huge body on the table, amid all manner of mechanical instruments, and it was covered head to toe in a thin white sheet. Luned’s heart sank. They’d already killed him. She should have listened to Resolve.

She stood arguing with herself for a long moment, knowing what she was going to do but not wanting to, and instead procrastinating by trying to decide what she should do. She felt numb. She either didn’t know the appropriate emotion to feel, or didn’t have it anymore.

She felt her breath tremble, hitch a bit. No, she decided with no relief, the feelings were still there. There were just too many at once to make sense of.

The scribe forced herself to walk toward the figure, one foot in front of the other. She stepped up to the work bench and reached out haltingly toward the sheet, and pulled it slowly downward. It was Flint, of course, eyes closed and face impassive - deeply browned by the sun, somehow, but still sickly in the clinical light of the room. She recognized him instantly despite the fact that she’d never seen him with much in the way of hair at all, and now he was covered in it. It marked the passage of time for her starkly, made it real: his hair splayed out all around his head long and thick and straight. His beard was fuller than she’d ever seen it. His cheekbones stood out alarmingly on his face.

How?

She furrowed her brow, confused. He’d fought dragons, been eaten by leviathans, and should have died from a million more mundane wounds long before now. Fate was cruel, sure, and she wasn’t surprised that the universe would let them pass going opposite directions through death’s door without realizing it. They seemed destined to suffer twice over to earn a day of happiness. But why the hell would fate or the universe or the gods have a say? The man couldn’t die. She pulled the sheet down further, exposing his chest and his arms entirely. Something was missing.

“You idiot,” she whispered to him. He’d taken the gauntlets off. Why the hell would he take the gauntlets off? “Why would you take them off?”

Because of course the one thing that could kill him was inside him - swaysong. She’d wanted to be angry at their enemies, but in the end he’d killed himself. She glared over at his face, struggling with that. There was a little war in her heart for a minute. At first it was between anger at him and a sense of propriety, like one shouldn’t feel anger toward a dead man, only pity. Then her mind started to work on the why, on what might have been going through his head, all the myriad possibilities. The anger didn’t fade as understanding grew, but it mingled with something like sympathy. She reached out and rested her hand on his chest, over his heart. At least he was free of all that…

His heart was beating under her hand.

[Warpath]

The scribe’s eyes flicked over the scene. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her sense of purpose was back with a vengeance. First, she needed to make sense of all this.

She hoisted herself up on the bench and half-crawled over Flint’s considerable bulk on her hands and knees. There were tubes running from the arm opposite her, a multitude. Some carried blood out of him, others carried a clear fluid into him. The tubes passed through small Aleraran machine-work that clicked and whirred and let out little hydraulic hisses periodically, and then fed another set of tubes into glass tubes and beakers. “What in the world are they doing here?” she muttered to herself.

She pulled the tubes out of his arm one by one, gently. The wounds bled for a couple seconds, and then stopped.

She bent over him and gently shook him, touched his face, brushed his hair back out of his eyes. He didn’t stir. Was she imagining the heartbeat, driving herself insane? But no, she reassured herself by pressing her palms to his chest again. It was unmistakable. She again tried to make sense of the machines and the unlabeled chemicals, but that didn’t add up. The swaysong would have prevented him from being drugged so effectively.

Luned hopped off the bench and scanned the room again with fresh eyes. There, at the far end of the work space, she saw the only stool in the room. Sure enough, there was a large manuscript there. She sat herself lightly down on the stool and started on the first page. Luned knew a little bit about everything because of books, and in turn she knew a lot about the written word itself. She a master of the art of skimming for relevant details, and she began leafing through the handwritten volume at a furious pace.

It was part work log, part scientific document, part notebook, and part diary. Its author was a wizard - an honest-to-gods one, serious business - in the employ of Swanra’ann. His appointed task was simple and two-fold: first to keep Flint asleep, alive, and away from Swanra’ann, and second to find a way to extract the swaysong from Flint’s blood. The wizard’s name was Berivar, and he was technically brilliant. Swaysong was a chemical mystery the world over, as far as Luned knew, and yet Berivar had already made incredible strides in isolating some of its alchemical features and behaviors. He was on the verge of a breakthrough.

Luned didn’t want to imagine swaysong in the hands of someone like Swanra’ann. She glanced over at Flint’s sleeping form, and bit her lower lip. There was no telling when Berivar might return to his workshop, but she guessed by his notes that he wouldn’t want to be away from his work from long at all. She’d need to figure something out, and soon. She’d already spent too long here.

Berivar’s notes had woefully little detail on the spell keeping Flint in limbo, though he did speculate admiringly on its likely composition. Most of the theory was beyond Luned’s expertise - her magic was more innate than the result of focused study - but she grasped enough to start formulating a plan. She stole Berivar’s ink and pen, and hurried back over to where Flint was sleeping. She didn’t let herself hesitate or plan because there wasn’t time, and she didn’t need doubt slowing her hand. She dipped the pen in the ink, and began drawing on Flint’s skin in quick, short strokes.

There was some force acting continually upon him, and she didn’t have the means to sense or see it. She put herself in a thoughtless trance, a place of pure creative wandering. She felt out the ethereal tides and eddies that made up the man - the magical and natural forces that comprised him and bonded body to spirit and made up his essence - and traced them on his skin. Soon she abandoned the pen altogether and drew on him with her fingertips. This was Flint. The lines needed to be bold and sharp, tribal, savage arcs contained in squared geometries that reminded her of clockwork machines. His chest, shoulders, and upper arms were covered in what looked like black tattoos.

Luned lifted herself up on her knees, looking over him. She was unaware of the smear of ink down her right cheek, and right now didn't care. She rubbed her nose with the back of her right wrist, and then paused. There. She licked her pinkie finger and diligently scrubbed away a set of incongruous lines while a pulse ran through her from her spine. There was static in the air, making it heavy, making wisps of hair stand out around her face, but she paid it no mind. Magic, for her, came from a place of creative surety and never from doubt and contemplation. She wanted Flint back and by gods, she was going to get him.

She leaned over him close, keeping her ink-stained fingertips curled away from his face as she pressed the heels of her palms to his thin cheeks, and she pressed her lips tight to his. “Please wake up,” she whispered against his mouth. “Please, please wake up.”

She lifted herself back, brow furrowed, and looked down at him.

He was staring back up at her, head cocked to one side.

[Warpath]

She wasn’t sure how she got him sitting up, but she did.

Flint was awake, but he wasn’t back yet. He stared around the room blearily, his gaze always lingering on her behind an unsure expression, but he didn’t say anything. He was clumsily tying the sheet around his waist, which was an encouraging sign, but Luned was busy. She was rushing from one side of the room to the other, raising the heat on every burner she could find, randomly dumping chemicals and reagents from one beaker into others on opposite corners of the room. She was wreaking havoc on any progress Berivar might have made, ruining months-old experiments. She gathered up every vial of Flint’s blood and washed it down an iron drain. She tried to use one of the enchanted candles to burn Berivar’s book, but the eerie flame wouldn’t catch. She rolled it up and squirreled it away instead. She’d have to find some way to destroy it later.

The air in the room was filling with unpleasant, acrid odors, and thin gray smoke was gathering above the candles. Somewhere in the back of the room, glass popped and fell tinkling all over the stone floor. Luned hurried over to Flint and put her hands on his stomach lightly, looking up at him and speaking slowly, firmly. “We have to go. You have to walk.”

He grunted dryly, feebly, but he lurched toward her. She pushed all of her weight against him when he almost stumbled, but she knew she didn’t have the strength to stop him from falling. Thankfully, he caught himself on the edge of the table.

She found a hidden door between two of the bookcases, locked from the inside. She could feel the magic emanating from it in waves, untold numbers of wards and counter-spells like a complex magical tumbler to prevent anyone from opening the door from the outside except he with the magical key. Thankfully, it was much easier to leave than it would have been to enter this way. She unlocked the door and pushed it open and peered into the hallway beyond. Stone, low, empty, and dark. She snatched another of the candles out of the air, and motioned Flint over to her.

He walked with unsteady, lurching steps. He was slow and heavy, leaning alarmingly on anything within arm’s reach, but he followed.

“’MmI drunk?” he muttered, disbelieving, confused. “Where…?”

He was leaning against the door frame, shaking his head. She closed her eyes and pressed her back against him. She didn’t want to be worrying about escape, or what she’d do if he fell. She wanted to hold him, explain everything to him. No time.

“Stay with me,” she whispered.

If he understood, he didn’t acknowledge it, but when she crept into the hall he stumbled after her, arms stretched out to steady him as he lurched from one wall to the one on the other side. She wished he weren’t so big, so she could have at least pretended to support his weight. There was only one way to go: the hallway trended upward, and every so often turned right, and then right again, spiraling ever-upward.

There were doors in the short hallways wherever the way turned, and Luned had ventured a peek inside one. Inside there were bunks, and sleeping dark elves. She had closed the door silently, but quickly, praying her light hadn’t disturbed them. They’d looked more like academics than guards, but she didn’t doubt there were guards to call for. Flint wasn’t in a state to fight anyone at all.

She coaxed him forward when she needed to, one arm wrapped around his waist, one hand pressed to the center of his chest. When he lurched, she stumbled with him, but he never fell. The air was getting warmer.

“Who’s that?!”

Luned whipped around. Flint didn’t seem aware of the voice. There was an elf down the hall from them, raising a lantern high in the gloom. He was young, bookish. He filled his lungs to call out again, but Luned acted without realizing, until it was done. One minute he was standing in the middle of the hallway, the next his body was a crumpled mess against the wall to his right. Luned had frozen him in time for the briefest instant: he had stopped moving entirely, but the world had gone on spinning without him. In his perception, the wall had suddenly lurched out and smacked him out of the living world as if he were an insect.

The scribe felt a pang of guilt, but Flint’s unsure weight in her arms made it small. Still, she stood watching for far too long, wanting to be sure his chest still moved. Gods help anyone else who got in her way.

[Warpath]

The underground laboratory was hidden underneath some kind of factory, which Luned was now leading Flint through. Workers stared down at them from scaffoldings as sparks and smoke rained down from somewhere above. It was hot here and the air was thin. Two more elves lay unconscious in the secret chamber behind them.

They found a door at the side of the factory and Luned pushed Flint outside, and then closed the door behind them. There was a thin sheen of sweat on both of them, mingling with ash from the factory. The ink was smeared all over Flint’s chest and shoulders now as he leaned back against the brick wall of the factory, his hair falling like a veil over his face. It reached his shoulders, and stuck to his skin.

There were elves out here too, and dwarves, all looking at the pair uncertainly. They wouldn’t do anything, the scribe knew, but if they knew someone to tell they might do it for a little money. She and Flint weren’t safe yet, not by a long shot. She tried to lead Flint toward a busier street - she hoped to flag down a carriage - but there weren’t enough walls for him to lean on and he couldn’t stand of his own accord. Instead she led him down an alley. It was darker and there were fewer prying eyes and plenty of things for him to lean on. It didn’t escape her notice that for the first time in her life, she felt safer in a dark corner of a city than in the bustling light.

They reached the far end of the alley and hurried out into the street, and Luned tensed. Dark elves in military dress were in the process of ordering everyone out of the street, closing it off with barricades. She pushed herself back against Flint, urging him back into the alley, but when she looked back she realized more of the elves had stepped between them and the alley, drawing rifles.

Now others were beginning to notice them, drawing rifles and shouting - they were yelling so quickly and so insistently that she didn’t understand them. They were aiming their rifles at Flint, at her. The brute growled behind her; she felt the rumble in his chest against her back. She spread her arms out and pressed herself back against him protectively. She didn’t know if she was trying to protect them or trying to protect him, or, no, protecting him by preventing him from throwing himself against them. She didn’t know what might happen.

A steam carriage rushed down the street and came to a skidding halt, spilling out a commanding officer of some kind before it was fully stopped. She shouted orders and shoved the ends of drawn rifles downward, and held a placating hand out toward Luned. “Don’t,” the elf was saying. “Whatever you’re about to do, don’t.”

“Leave us alone,” Luned said. She hoped she sounded steely.

Flint ruined the effect. One of his knees went out, and he knelt down with a harsh groan.

“Luned Bleddyn,” the elf said cautiously. “You’re not in trouble.”

Luned raised an eyebrow. This felt like a lot of trouble.

“Put your damn guns down!” the elf barked, still holding her hand out toward Luned. “Miss Bleddyn. You aren’t under arrest. Grahf Holjaer requests your presence. He ordered no harm to come to you, if you come peaceably. We don’t want a scene here, but we really do need to go. Now. The police are not popular in this neighborhood.”

Luned looked back at Flint. He was on his knees, panting, wearing a sheet and struggling to keep his eyes open behind a curtain of greasy black hair.

“Okay,” she said.

[Warpath]

Flint’s world was reduced, blessedly, to the base essentials.

He needed food so desperately he couldn’t believe the depth of his longing. Someone put food in front of him, so now he ate. He didn’t know how much he ate, or for how long he’d been eating, just that he needed food and now it was supplied. His body was visibly human, but mechanically something very different. He felt unnamed biological systems, unique in all the world to him, as they slowly came to life within him and began processing his meal. Strength flooded into muscles too-long unused. His vision cleared. Gravity seemed to loosen its hold on him.

His awareness of the world around him - his comprehension - grew. It was as if someone was shining a very narrow spotlight on him, and beyond the shaft of light were vague shadows and echoing, indecipherable sounds. As he ate, the spotlight expanded. He felt scratchy and greasy and disgusting. The carpet was red, thin but fine. The table he sat at was more of a desk...or was he simply too big for it? Four large containers sat empty in front of him, emptied of the whole milk they’d carried. Someone came into the room - he didn’t care who or what - and carried away the chicken carcasses he’d mangled in the search for meat. How many had they given him already?

He didn’t feel full. He didn’t think he would ever feel full again. He felt alive again though, capable.

Someone had supplied him with a large napkin, utterly ignored until now. He used it, along with a little water left over at the bottom of an upturned pitcher, to try to wipe his face clean. He had hair, which was immensely confounding and set his heart thumping in his chest. He hadn’t worn his hair this way since he was a child. He was no child now though, his beard was ponderously long, wild.

Why was he covered in ink smears? Why was he wearing a bedsheet?

He demanded more from his memory, but it supplied nothing. The last he recalled were scenes of his rampage; all his grief and rage. The little furnace in his gut sputtered to life and he exhaled slowly, pushing away the reason for those emotions. He needed facts now.

He remembered, faintly, a trap. The floor crumbling out from beneath him, burying him in heavy stone. Someone had fired a cannon? He’d almost freed himself when he’d heard chanting, felt his body struggling against magic. And then the final, hazy vision: a black-skinned man looking down on him not unkindly and then...dreams. An eternity of dreams.

The rage was like a voice inside him now, eager to feed the furnace of his hate. It told him he had yet another new enemy, another nameless antagonist. He ought to...he was going to…

And then there was a small, hesitant knock at a door he wasn’t aware of until now, and all his fury was focused upon this person that stepped so slowly into the room. At first he didn’t react at all, because he couldn’t believe the gall, the outrageous foolishness of it. They’d managed to dream up the most suicidal attempt to manipulate him he could fathom, though not before this moment.

They’d sent someone to impersonate Luned Bleddyn.

[Warpath]

Flint was up and halfway across the room before even he was aware of what was happening. The table crashed to the floor with an incredible cacophony of noises: splintering wood and shattered glass, breaking china. He didn’t even remember flipping it over.

He had his hands outraised: kill now, questions later.

But something made him stop.

Maybe it was her expression. She saw him coming, but didn’t flinch. There wasn’t fear in her eyes, but something else - remorse? Resignation? Or just...sadness? Behind all his fury, he told himself that he was hesitating for tactical reasons, that something just didn’t add up.

In fact, he would eventually admit to himself, he just couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter that she was a fraud. She looked like her, so much like her, that he could never bring himself to do anything remotely injurious to her. The look on her face alone turned his blood cold, doused the fire, and set him pacing in front of her.

“How dare you,” he rumbled.

This was clearly not how she pictured this going, and that confounded him too. If the plan was to trick him, shouldn’t she have come in expecting this? Shouldn’t there have been a plan, a plot for every conceivable outcome? But she just stood there for a long moment, gaping, wringing her hands and looking for words.

“I’m sorry,” she finally blurted out. “For laughing. I’m sorry we fought. I’m sorry I….”

Flint blinked, shook his head slightly as if he’d been struck.

“You’re not her.” He wanted to declare it, but it sounded unsure, petulant.

Again, she seemed too surprised to find words.

It was true though. He knew Luned Bleddyn. This woman, whoever she was, looked like an idea of Luned Bleddyn. The color of her hair was a little too saturated, the red standing out too much. The color of her eyes stood out too bright, the tone of her skin too even, each freckle like it had been placed by design rather than chance. The scars he’d always admired - gifts from a badly mutated Helethra - were gone, replaced by white ink designs that mimicked the old wounds like pretty tattoos.

But even that gave him pause. If this were a trick, why fail in the duplication in such an obvious way? How would anyone miss that?

Flint’s brow furrowed. “You died,” he said at last. He was sliding down to his knees in front of her so he could look up at her. “I watched it happen.”

She approached him tentatively. Not as if she were afraid of him, but for him. “I know,” she said, still as if she weren’t sure what to say. This conversation was, to be fair, utterly new territory. What does one say about dying and coming back? “I’m sorry,” she tried at last. “That you went through that. I don’t remember it very clearly…”

Flint was searching her face now, and she sighed. “I’m me,” she said finally. “At least I think I am. I didn’t at first, but now I remember almost everything. I remember the library, and Bleddyn...Resolve. Otto. Ags. I remember how cold it is in Andvall, and how warm it is in your parents’ house. I remember how tightly Suska hugs, and how scary your mother is, but how good. I remember how good it felt to drink tea after we escaped Ettermire the first time...I remember meeting you for the first time. Formally, and informally. I remember the first time I kissed you. It was on Carcosa. We thought we were alone.”

A ghost of a smile played over Flint’s lips. “But Bleddyn was there.”

Her cheeks actually reddened, and she laughed at the memory - lightly, cautiously, but relieved too. “This is...new,” she began, reaching out to let her fingertips play very lightly over his cheek. “I mean, I don’t know if anybody in the history of the world has ever had to deal with this. For awhile I was afraid you were...you know? That I lost you, too. I know it’s not the same, but…”

Flint nodded, ever-so slightly. “We’ll figure it out,” he said very quietly.

“So you believe me? That I’m...me?”

He started to nod, and then to shake his head, and then looked a little pained. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “I believe you believe it. I feel it in my gut. But I’m afraid of it, too. Both ways.”

She tilted her head to one side.

“If you’re a trick, that will hurt. If you’re not,” he thought about it, looking her face over, “I don’t know if I’ll survive losing you again.”

Luned shook her head slightly, and there was something otherworldly in her confidence when she spoke next. “I don’t think you have to be afraid of that,” she said. “I don’t plan on dying again but if I do, I’m pretty sure I’ll just come back again. Flint, I don’t think I can die. Or rather, stay dead.”

Flint locked eyes with her for a long time, not saying anything. “Luned,” he said at last, “our lives are very fucked up.”

She laughed again, harder this time, easier. She leaned forward, putting her weight against him, and she rested her hands on his shoulders. She was nodding her agreement. “But we don’t have to deal with it alone,” she said. “I’m here.”

Flint nodded, wrapping his arms delicately around her waist, almost afraid that if he touched her she’d disappear. She didn’t. He closed his eyes, pressed his cheek against her upper chest. She wrapped her arms around his head, so gently, and pressed her cheek against his hair.

“I didn’t know you had such pretty hair,” she murmured to him.

“I need you to help me cut it off,” he murmured back. “I also need pants.”

“I don’t agree,” Luned said airily. “On either count.”

[Luned]

One of the servant-soldiers who had welcomed them to the keep earlier, a dark elf named Vendesa with deep lines over her brow, interrupted Luned and Flint’s embrace with a delicate knock at the door. She wore vivid indigo cloth draped over her armor, a mark of status, though she hadn’t betrayed her title just yet. “Pardon. The Grahf extends an invitation to dine with him tonight, allowing you the remaining daylight hours to recuperate from your respective trials. Meanwhile, we would like you to feel comfortable here. What can I do for you?”

Flint pawed at his glossy tresses with a grunt and Luned articulated for him. “A bath, please. Scissors, a straight edge razor, and good soap.” She paused, then laughed. “And some trousers, I suppose.”

“Our pleasure, Miss Bleddyn. I’ll return for you in just a moment.”



Flint didn’t really fit in the elegant clawfoot tub but he sat down in it anyway, too weary to argue. His struggle to find a comfortable position displaced much of the hot water, staining the matte slate floor in a slick dark blue. Luned’s bare feet stamped ripples in it as she stepped up behind him, armed with scissors, but hesitant. She couldn’t resist running the fine silver comb Vendesa had provided through that inky black hair, and she admired how it ran surprisingly smooth under her fingertips. “It’s lovely. I can see why your mother wants you to grow it out.”

“Cut it off,” Flint grumbled from between his knees, which he was forced to keep raised to his chest.

With a sigh, Luned complied. But from the way Flint’s own back rose and fell with relief as the scissors sang their first snip, she understood. He needed to reclaim control over his body, and this was the easiest way to start.

“Where did you reappear?” he finally spoke up again.

“The edge of the Tular Plains.”

“Why there? What do you remember from when you reappeared?”

Luned held another length of hair between her fingers and cut it away, dropping it to the floor at her feet with the rest. “I don’t know. I wonder if I just appeared wherever Carcosa manifested at the time. Do you remember how Bleddyn needed decades to track it down, because it kept moving? I woke up on a wagon. They told me they’d found me buried in the sand, as if I’d just… fallen asleep there. I never forgot who I was, exactly, but it took me some time to recall what had happened, to find my magic again.”

“Hmm.” Flint stared blankly ahead. A tapestry of black velvet and silver thread added some warmth to the cold stone wall, but not enough to make it feel anything like home. “Do you remember being dead?”

“I…” Luned faltered. “I remember dying, I think. The fever, at least. But… I don’t think I really died. Carcosa must have felt I was in trouble and called me back to it, healed me.”

“We buried you, Luned.” Flint twisted as much as he could in the narrow tub to look at her, and she finally saw it: he wasn’t just hungover from a magical sleep. He was still grieving.

“I…”

“Are you sure you’re Luned? How can either of us really know? Maybe you’re someone else who’s just stolen Luned’s memories. Maybe even they believe they’re Luned now, but they’re not. Or maybe you are you, somehow, but you’re different. Maybe this body is a new one. Do we need to dig you up?”

After months of watching her life from a distance, it was as if Luned’s soul was called back to her body, and the room spun. She knew, intellectually, what had happened. But now that she actually had to really think about it, reason it out, and deal with the consequences, it became tangible for the first time.

“Or would that just be traumatic?” Flint continued, turning back around to allow her to finish his haircut. The swish of the water in the tub was loud in Luned’s ears, and the scissors suddenly felt heavy in her hands. “Why didn’t Rez know you were back?”

Finally, a question she could answer. “She did,” Luned replied. “She found me, told me what happened, where I could find you. She…” the scribe trailed off as she trimmed the last of his mane. “Flint,” she began again, setting the scissors aside. Worry wavered in her voice. “Why did you remove your bracers?”

[Warpath]

The question caught Flint by surprise, and all his ruminations about Luned were - miraculously - put on hold. Until now, he’d either been waiting to wake up or for the next dream to start. When had his dreams ever questioned their own mechanics, though?

“You were dead,” he said dully.

Luned was about to call him out on repeating himself, but he continued: “I couldn’t stop it. All my strength, all the control I had over the world around me, and there was nothing I could do but watch you die. You’d been attacked, and I had failed to protect you. I didn’t even know who did it. I still don’t.”

Flint shifted in the tub with a small, frustrated growl. More water sloshed all over the floor. His hair was short now, but still longer than she’d ever seen it. For the first time, she realized how much softer his accent had become, how easily he was speaking Trade, without needing to stop and think for the precise word to convey the deep thoughts he was prone to. He had changed. More evidence of lost time.

“When it was over, and you were gone, I was profoundly empty,” he said. “But if you are concerned that I took them off because I wanted to die, don’t be. I’m not religious,” understatement, “but the consensus seems to be that you and I wouldn’t end up in the same place.”

Flint wanted to face her, to read her reaction. He sunk, slightly, and rested the back of his head against the edge of the tub. He still couldn’t see her, but she could see more of his face as he spoke. “I wanted...I needed to take back some of the control I’d lost. I couldn’t save you, so I had to avenge you. Before you say it, I know you would never ask me to. They hurt you in your own home. Insulted you. They had to be punished. So I started looking for those that had made it possible. A lot of people were opposed to Chronicle, and a lot more had thrown money into undermining us - you. I followed the money to all its sources and dead ends. I chased the rats from the Brotherhood and the Knights into holes. I killed a lot of people.”

He let that sink in, raising one of his naked forearms from the water. The sight of it, without the metal vambraces, was strange to both of them. “Toward the end, I had the gradual realization that the bracers...well. The swaysong alters me on the fly, evolving me based on my moment-to-moment needs. The danger of it was always a matter of focus, ever-shifting requirements would cause my body to be ever-shifting. But now my focus never changed. All I cared about, thought about, dreamed about was hurting the people that hurt you. The vambraces protected me, but they also limited me. They were a crutch I didn’t need anymore.”

“But,” Luned said, and hesitated because she was afraid of what the realization might cause in him. “But what about now?”

Flint shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m not dying. Maybe my body has learned to regulate the swaysong on its own or...or maybe I’m still waiting to wake up. I don’t know.”