Of Mortal Dreams: Chapter I

Adevan

“Adevan.”

The sharpness in Sisela’s voice brought Adevan back to where he stood. They were in a circular stone room with scrolls lining the walls in specially made shelves, similar to those that would hold wine jugs. A round table lay at its center, with rough-hewn wooden stools all around and a formidable antler candelabra overhead. A lone armchair made of interwoven wood slats and animal skins sat by the only window in the room. Beside it, half facing that window, stood a thin woman of average height, leaning on a walking stick, her grey hair pulled back, away from her face. Her eyes were shadowed but he could feel her peering at him.

“Did you hear what I said?”

Adevan took a breath, pulling his hearing back from afar, from the common argument he had been overhearing.

“Yes. I just cannot believe that you would try this. Again.”

There was a moment of burdened silence.

“Iven’s drifts have never been wrong,” she insisted, as if she was convincing herself. “And if there is a free mage on the other side of the mountains, you need to get there before anyone else does. It could change our position in this war.”

War? He almost laughed. There was no war. A war required two sides that were nearly matched, whether in numbers or strategy or conviction. Even if every mortal house banded together, and even if that alliance didn’t dissolve into the kinds of futile arguments he had just been overhearing, their enemy would still be superior in every way. The Rebellion had been born and doomed the moment her father, Ieturr Ezouari, fled here with a thousand men, sixty years ago.

“Your father never wanted a war. He knew it wouldn’t succeed,” Adevan recalled, shaking his head. “He wanted there to be one place where people could live free.”

“That, too, is at stake. A mage lay down whatever magic keeps us safe here,” she quipped. “How long do you think that will last? How long before the Counsel untangles whatever it is? We need a mage of our own.”

The fear and panic on her had a sour smell.

“Do you remember what has happened every time we’ve hunted a free mage?”

She stiffened. “Don’t patronize me. Of course I remember!”

“But you were never there. You never saw it,” he said, forcing his voice to be even and controlled. It was difficult. “Orzan. We lost eight good men and women bringing him back from Boughmark, and ravenriders killed him anyways, once they saw how close we were to Blackmoor.”

He would have recounted the name of everyone they had lost, but she wouldn’t remember them. In spite of himself and the many years that had passed, Adevan felt the rage stir. Of all their attempts at apprehending a free mage, Orzan had hurt the most. They had been so close and the boy’s death had surely been the worst. He had never even said it aloud. He took a breath.

“Then there were Jenessie and Cylis—we got to them and they didn’t even try to run. They both joined the Counsel to save their families,” he gritted out. “And the riders hunted us back to Blackmoor, picking us off as we went.” 

Sisela stamped her walking stick. “Stop.”

“There have been many rumors since then and you’ve known better,” he went on. He came around to face her, angling his head lower. “Why now? Why thisdrift?”

Her brown eyes, usually clear like dark tea, were clouded.

“I am dying.”

The last Ezouari looked out over the forest. The light from the window struck her face. Her cheeks were pale, almost sunken, the skin around her eyes thin and darkened. Ash grey wisps of hair trailed down her neck and fluttered in a cool breeze. Adevan remembered when those curls had been brown. A shiver went through him. He put distance between them again, as if he could distance himself from the truth.

Gods. They had been young together. His stomach knotted. He had been warned that this day would come but he hadn’t believed that either. Not already.

The strange, sickening sensation of grief overcame him. Sisela would be the first mortal he knew well that would die of natural causes. But she wouldn’t be the last.

“You seem surprised. But you must have known,” she said at his back. She sounded tired. “If you can smell joy and magic and battle, I know you can smell death.”

He could. Now that she had said it, it came off her in great, billowing wafts.

What she meant to him, her singular importance in his strange life, had blinded him to the faint scent of decay. Adevan remembered the first time he had smelled it. It had not been on a battlefield or in a physician’s tent or at a deathbed. It had come off a mortal’s hair as she passed, distinct and unmistakable. She’d been young, no more than thirty years, and quite lovely. The mixture had confused and disturbed him—the sight of something good and the scent of something so very bad. The mortal woman had died a few months later, too thin to recognize, eaten away by bone-fever. There had been many since then, but he still thought of her when the wind was warm. That he and Sisela were now having this conversation, with a gentle breeze swirling amongst the trees outside, did not escape his notice. The gods were ever cruel in their humor. He faced her again.

“You must be glad,” she grunted. Her eyes never left his face. “That we never married, seeing how old I’ve become.”

Adevan tensed. “I cannot wed. You know that.”

Yes, she knew. And while not marrying Sisela in their youth was one of the few things he had done right, it somehow still remained one of his greatest regrets. There was nothing else to say, nothing more to say than what had already been said many times over. He took a breath but she waved it away. They were lady and swordswear once more.

“I fear that Blackmoor will die with me,” she rasped—slurred, really. “Regardless of who I name as successor, the Binashars and Chazris will take control once I’m gone. And they are yielding men.”

Adevan knew what she meant. Not everyone in Blackmoor had the same feelings about the Counsel. Some would do a good deal to get back into their good graces.

“Blackmoor must be protected. To do that, we need a mage.”

Sisela made her way to the animal skin chair and sat slowly, all life seemingly drained from her movements. Were Adevan a more sentimental creature, he would say he couldn’t do her bidding because he didn’t want to risk her dying with him away. But he knew that would mean nothing to her. She had said how he could help her in her last days. He could either serve her or deny her, and he had only ever been able to do one of the two. Even so, he wondered if she’d forgotten his other, older problem.

“You are asking me to leave Blackmoor. You know what that means.”

She nodded, letting her head fall against the chair back. “I do.”

“If he catches me,” he said quietly, again unsure as to whether she was simply out of her mind. “My allegiance will be at risk.”

That wasn’t quite right. Adevan’s allegiance would change completely if the worst happened. Sisela winced, her eyelids drooping.

“I know. But none of the houses will risk their warriors. If anyone can get there and back, it’s you,” she murmured. “And you can’t stay here forever.”

Forever. What did she know of forever? He was going to live a long time, longer than everyone now alive in Blackmoor. Adevan was not immortal but close enough to know that he was ultimately alone. Everyone he had fought with in the early days of the Rebellion were dead. Sisela, too, would soon be dead. Sooner than even she likely realized.

Her head slumped against her chest and her breathing evened out. Her heartbeat quieted to the rhythm of one in sleep. Adevan stood there, listening as the transition took place, his feet rooted to the spot. He considered moving her but decided that rest was more important. He ducked out of the room and closed the door behind him without a sound, stooped as he made his way through halls her father had built with his own hands. As he passed one doorway, he nearly ran into one of Sisela’s servants. The child yelped in surprise, cringing back from his path.

“Sisela fell asleep in the scroll room,” he said over his shoulder. “She’ll need a blanket and to lay down when she wakes again.”

He pushed through the last door and out into the noonday sun. Deep in the heart of Blackmoor, the Ezouari stronghold occupied the highest knoll for miles and overlooked a scattered array of cottages. Most had their own gardens and stone walls and muddy paddocks with woolly ponies loitering about. Women were washing in the slow-moving river that snaked through the so-called village, their light voices carrying back to him easily. Children squealed and their small feet pounded the damp earth. The most able men were in the far fields to the south, collecting spring crops or sowing the next, or protecting those who did. The trees grew less densely and the earth was more hospitable there, but the risk of encountering the enemy was greater. Here, far from the edges of the forest, the people felt safe and protected. But it was an illusion.

In the village below, a familiar group of young men sat around a low fire and shared a pipe, half-dressed for battle yet not looking particularly dangerous. He knew each face. It was always the same bunch that were left to protect the village. No one trusted them to be useful in a real fight, so they were left at the stronghold to smoke their days away. Adevan made his way down the knoll. As he passed through the cloud of heady pipe smoke, he caught the vacant, absent glaze over their eyes. They looked older than he remembered—no, they were older than he remembered. Their age had crept up on him the same way that Sisela’s had. He wondered how long he had been half-awake this time—weeks? No. Months.

Adevan heard someone shuffling towards him from behind. It was impossible to mistake the limping gait, the uneven tap of crutches, the laborious wheeze of someone trying to catch up to his long stride, and the determined grunt of the one person who would. Other living things were more wary of Adevan’s presence—the mother crossing the path with her child, hurrying the boy along when she caught sight of Adevan’s tall, lank form, or the cat whose ears flattened against its skull, whose teeth bared of their own accord. The ponies’ flanks shivered, and they scuttled to the farthest corners of their paddocks. Overhead, birds went silent or scattered into distant trees. The wilder the creature, the better it knew when it was outmatched. Adevan did not have that effect on Iven Binashar.

“My lord.”

“I’ve told you before,” Adevan bit out. “Don’t call me that.”

The stubborn boy came up beside him with great effort, his long standing injury not slowing him as much as it should. One leg was frozen in a half-bent position and the fingers on one hand were snarled into a mostly useless shape, both the result of a terrible childhood burn. Iven had dark hair, dark eyes and skin that turned golden with enough sun. He had grown up in the warmth of the south and was now constantly bundled up against the northern cold of Blackmoor. Thanks to the scarf his mother had wrapped around his neck, every time he turned his head, he had to turn his entire body. It always gave him a slightly comedic look.

“Where are you going?”

Adevan knew what he was really asking. “My home.”

“Oh.” Disappointment. “And then?”

Adevan came to a stop, giving the boy a chance to catch up. There were many names for what Iven was—a dwamish to halfbloods, a sandar to the people of the Shaandilar, a mesmera to the Counsel, a drifter to northern mortals, and still other names to other peoples. But they all meant the same thing. Iven could see bits and pieces about the future.

“Sisela told me about your drift.”

The boy’s eyes lit up. “She did! I knew she would, it’s—”

Adevan held out a hand to stop the boy, stretching his hearing to make sure they were alone. They were. The nearest heartbeat was too far for that person to hear what Iven was about to say, especially over the gurgle of the nearby river.

“Quietly,” Adevan hissed. “What exactly did you see?”

Iven wiped his nose in the crook of his elbow. “A woman.”

Adevan chuckled and started walking again, though more slowly. “A common dream among boys of your age, I should think.”

“She has black hair and light eyes, and she has this long knife,” Iven panted, swinging along beside him. “She lives in the valley, on the other side of the mountains.”

Adevan hummed. Iven was very young and, while his drifts had until now been good, this was the first time that Adevan would be following one of them blindly.

“What makes you think she is a mage?”

“I don’t know,” the boy admitted, seemingly ignorant as to how absurd the answer was. “She just is.”

Adevan wasn’t impressed. “You don’t know?”

“Well…” The boy stammered a little before trying again. “The mages I’ve seen have a darkness to them, a shadow that follows wherever they go. She has a shadow but it isn’t dark, exactly. It’s lighter,” he explained. “I saw this once, when I still lived at Ispralag. I was friends with a mage named Gar. I think he was a Tasseran, or Trajian maybe—”

“Iven.”

The boy cleared his throat. “Before Gar went to Institution, he looked the way this woman does in my dreams. He had a shadow that wasn’t dark,” Iven went on, breathing heavily even at the slower pace. “But when he came back to visit his family after a few months, his shadow had turned black.”

Iven fell silent, his brow furrowed. If not the exact steps, Adevan understood that mages passed a test prior to becoming members of mage society and that it changed them, unlocking the power that was characteristic to their kind. He wouldn’t be surprised if the change in Iven’s mage friend was related.

“How old is she? The girl in your dream.”

“Older. Twenty at least.”

Notwithstanding the fact that Iven thought twenty was “older,” this was still an important piece of information. The Counsel had mastered the art of finding mages early, so to find one that hadn’t passed the test at twenty was both rare and significant. Adevan felt an unfamiliar jolt of hope. If they hadn’t found her yet, it was possible they never would. Then, at least, he wouldn’t be racing to get to her first.

“I’ll need more than a physical description,” Adevan pressed. “Is there anything else? Any surroundings I can look for?”

Iven squinted. “I see her in a small village. It’s empty except for one companion—which is odd, but perhaps the drift is incomplete?”

Adevan checked again that no one was within earshot. “Who knows about this?”

“Just you and Sisela,” Iven admitted. “That seemed best.”

Adevan glanced over at the gangly boy, his mop of brown hair like a curtain around his ears and eyes. Iven’s older brother was one of the men Sisela detested, who would likely rule Blackmoor in the event of her death. He was part of the Counsel-favoring faction.

“But not your brother? He would find this interesting,” Adevan said. “I’m sure.”

“I trust Hokmir,” Iven explained a little sheepishly, answering Adevan’s unspoken question. “It’s who Hokmir trusts that I don’t. You know.”

Iven was young and over-eager, but he wasn’t stupid.

They had reached Adevan’s home, a small hut built into the side of a giant, white tree stump, mostly overgrown by vines and moss. The place was peaceful, far enough from the village that Adevan could sleep without hearing every snore, yet close enough that he could be at Sisela’s side in moments. The river was louder here than it was by the stronghold, ribboning over rocks and down narrow chutes. By it, brilliant white flowers with inky black centers cascaded over the damp earth and swung in the water.

“Gape, the isydenias grow well here,” Iven exclaimed. “I thought they’d all been harvested weeks ago. Mum loves using these.”

He dropped to his good knee and laid his crutches down, gathering what he could with his better hand. The flowers made tiny popping sounds as the boy tore them from their bases. It bothered Adevan but he couldn’t quite say why. He turned away and slipped his pack off his head, setting it by the door of his home.

“They’re no use to me and no one dares gather in my part of the forest,” he said, managing to unlock his teeth. “You can come back tomorrow when I’m gone, finish them off.”

Iven stopped picking. Adevan grimaced. Perhaps his irritation had gotten past his best efforts. But when Adevan looked back, the boy was staring into the distance at nothing in particular. Nothing anyone else could see, certainly.

“Be careful, Adevan.” The dire words sounded strange coming from such a young person, young even for a mortal. Iven blinked and his clear dark eyes fell on Adevan. “The world is becoming dangerous again.”

They regarded one another for a moment more before Iven stashed the flowers in his satchel, awkwardly got to his feet, and limped back towards the village. His somber departure left Adevan alone to think on what he would do and on what he had heard. Sisela’s impending death certainly proved the drifter’s point.

The world is becoming dangerous again.

Iven’s awareness that Blackmoor itself was no longer safe made Adevan wary of leaving Sisela at such a time. Discontented people were dangerous and people in Blackmoor, whatever promises they had made when they arrived, were very discontented. Many had once been counted among the greater houses of Arras but were now stripped of their titles by the Counsel—unnamed and shamed. In a single stroke, people like Iven’s house of Binashar had lost everything, and were then greeted by a chance to join a Rebellion that was little more than a collection of other rejected, destitute houses. More were now unnamed than there still were in favor. Such imbalance would not stand for long.

Adevan could only see one of two ends: Either the people of Blackmoor would negotiate their way back into Arrasian society, betraying all Ieturr Ezouari had tried to build, or they would make open war on the Counsel. It all depended on what kind of men would take command of the Rebellion’s forces in the coming months. Or weeks.

If those like Iven’s brother Hokmir took control, and there were plenty of them, Blackmoor would rejoin Arras and accept Counsel rule. This meant Sisela was already in danger. He needed to get to the western mountains, find the mage, and return as quickly as possible.

Adevan needed very little for any journey.

No horse would carry him and no companion could possibly keep up. He had never been cold, even in the deep northern snows, so clothing was more a formality than a necessity, a way to blend in with mortal kind at most. The rivers would provide the water he needed and hunting would be a welcome challenge. All he really required were items mortals might like, should he need to barter. Several bunches of dried feverspane, a powerful medicinal herb which didn’t grow well in the mountains, went in his satchel. The most valuable thing he could offer was the wood of the tree stump at the back of his hut. It was extremely hard, excellent material for knife handles once properly carved, and could burn much longer and far hotter than regular wood. He stepped outside to fetch this final form of currency.

The stump itself was larger than any other tree he had personally encountered, several horses across and almost perfectly round a few feet off the ground. Its bone-white roots stretched as far as the river, some of them as tall as his own waist, many partially cloaked in bright green moss or the medicinal isydenias that Iven had noticed. He wouldn’t pick those. He never had been able to. But he didn’t mind widening a particularly rough part of where the tree had been cleaved long ago. As he carved the intractable wood with his knife, he wondered as he often had how the tree had been felled. The cut was hardly clean, the jagged edge varying from as low as his shoulders to beyond his immediate reach.

He gripped the oversized splinter he had been loosening and pulled, as ever impressed by the tree’s resistance. It snapped loudly as it came free, nearly throwing him onto his back. He panted, his hand shaking from the unusual effort. He stored the wood in his vest, making sure the belt was tight—once he started to run, he couldn’t afford to lose anything he had brought. There was no time for error.

Six days. It would take a day or so to reach the last village before the western pass, maybe three to find Iven’s mage. That left him two days to get back to Blackmoor. Six days.

He started his journey at a steady jog, a pace that he could keep up for hours and one that wouldn’t startle any mortals he happened to encounter. Once he reached the westernmost parts of Blackmoor, beyond the last rebel settlements, he would be free to run at speed. That pace would get him to the village before the western pass in a day.

Overhead, the wind stirred the treetops with a musical shimmer. He looked up at the lacework of leaves and branches, swaying and weaving amongst one another—light green, dark green, and the deep wine hue of a daytime sky turning to nightfall. Very soon, the change of light would give him total freedom to move as he saw fit. Travel was easier at night when mortals were forced to sleep by their dull vision.

As night fell, Adevan aimed directly west, until he reached the border of Blackmoor. The wind was colder and harsher, sweeping across the barren foothills. He would only be cutting across the open terrain for a few hours. As only his kind could, he deepened his hearing, reached out far and wide, listening for any sign that someone was near. Satisfied with the lack of mortal effects—a clearing throat, shallow breaths, sniffles—he took off at the speed of a diving hawk, cutting through shrubs like a living knife. He wasn’t worried about leaving a trail. Anything stupid enough to hunt him would get what they deserved, assuming they ever caught up. There was only one creature in all of Arras that Adevan truly feared, and he wasn’t a tracker. In the traditional sense.

There had only ever been one village before the old western pass. It had gone by many names and he wasn’t sure what it was called now, but he knew where it lay and knew he was near because the land began to roll as he sped across it, and turned into foothills. By the time dawn rose at his back, the western peaks dominated his view of the skyline, aflame with golden light as the night sky rolled back. The pass came into view up ahead, a narrow gash between two of the lower peaks.

When Adevan finally slowed, his lungs were burning and he had begun to feel the exertion. It was the one flaw contributed by his mortal blood. The village wasn’t far and he quickly reached its edge, crouched just out of sight among the trees while he caught his breath. Like every other town, the people were chattering, gossiping, complaining, cracking jokes, dragging children where they didn’t want to go, eating, drinking. For some reason, after the night of solitude, it felt unbearably disordered.

Through the fray, he overheard someone call the town Dirth. Adevan couldn’t remember what it had been called when he was young, but it certainly wasn’t that. Again, and against his will, he was reminded that most of these people hadn’t even been born when he’d first learned of this village. And all of them would be dead in another hundred years. He thought of Sisela and his chest tightened.

Adevan breathed deep, taking in a string of various scents beyond the obvious smells of cooking meat and animal dung and dogs, of course. Goat’s milk near curdling, sloshing in buckets on a young boy’s shoulders. The hollow savor of cold, damp stone mixed with a pungent acidity—a jug of wine that had been spilled the night before, on the stone steps of a nearby shop. Wildflowers, their stems newly torn, bobbing by in the hand of a small child. Ground cloves and crushed grass coming off a young woman’s newly washed hair and hands as she wove between people, followed closely by a young man who smelled the same. Adevan shook his head. Mortals couldn’t hide much.

Finally, he caught a whiff of the scent he wanted—sharp lye and the tiny nick some poor fellow had gotten from a subpar barber. Barbers were the best place to start in any town. He unfolded, dusted himself off and looked at the sky overhead, checking. Always checking.

He stepped into the stream of village traffic, heading in the opposite direction of the man with the cut on his throat. Adevan kept his head level, not down, as that betrayed a desire not to be seen, and moved as though he had somewhere to be. In a very real sense, he had one chance to do this; in his experience, a second pass always drew unwanted notice. But his luck held out, and he shortly rounded a corner to find three men in rickety chairs, another leaning back in an even more rickety contraption, and a grizzled man with shaking hands trying to give him a clean shave. Milky suds peppered the blackish earth around the owner of the establishment—if it could be called that—and Adevan caught sight of a couple rough towels piled on a nearby board, stained by blood flecks of varying age. Based on the color, the man currently in the chair had so far escaped the sacrifice required for a smooth chin.

“Can I help you,” came the question, like a statement. The barber glanced up at him and smiled crookedly. “Actually, I can’t. Come back when you’ve some on you, lowlander.”

The three mortal men laughed. One of them was drinking a peppery, tree-ish smelling liquid from a leather flask. Adevan wrinkled his nose, recognizing it as borogin, a northern drink made of junifer bulbs and other distasteful ingredients. The Rebels used to drink it between battles, when Sisela’s father had presided over Blackmoor’s better days. Damn it all, but the past was coming on strong today. They were all wearing a wool that smelled of a very different place, not like any place on this side of the mountains.

“I’m looking to get over the mountains,” Adevan said. “Wondering if any of you have done it. Or if someone knows the way.”

Silence fell. The man being shaved grew still and Adevan could tell he was terribly curious, but that he didn’t dare turn his head. The barber straightened and looked Adevan square in the face, silent. His blade still hovered over his lucky patron’s exposed throat.

“Be on your way, now. We don’t want trouble.”

Adevan turned to the man who had spoken. He wore a thickly knitted cap and his dark brows were lowered blackly. Adevan lifted his hands, placating. He had no desire to kill these men or draw additional attention to himself.

“I don’t want trouble either,” he insisted, gesturing at their clothes. “I want to buy wool.”

The man drinking borogin spat. “Damn you. And all lowlanders.”

“We’re not fond of the Counsel’s bedfellows,” the barber barked. He flicked some foam off his blade. “You follow?”

“I’m from Blackmoor. Sisela Ezouari sent me.”

The group of men blinked, glancing between one other dumbly.

They looked almost sheepish. These were the looks of men who had said they would do something when they were young, who had meant to do more for a cause but hadn’t gotten around to it. The borogin drinker’s head was bowed, his face twisted by regret and shame. Adevan waited.

“Never been over myself but there’s an old man who brings wool from the other side. Keep heading the same way, until you see a red cart,” the barber said quickly. “And luck to you.”

“Luck to all of Blackmoor,” slurred the drinker.

It had been a long time since common men had wished Blackmoor well, or bothered to care what happened to the Rebellion at all. The hatred for the Counsel was stronger than he had expected.

“Thank you,” he said with a nod. “Much obliged.”

Adevan broadened his sense of smell, scouring the air for cured wool and savors that didn’t quite match the surroundings. It didn’t take him long to find both. He followed the invisible trail to a rickety, hand-drawn cart painted a faded red and covered in undyed fleece. Women were gathered around the piles of dirty white and grey fluff, bartering and arguing and flirting in some cases with the man who owned it. He was a grizzled fellow with uneven shoulders, whose face had seen more than its fair share of weather and wear; he was missing an eye and his voice was soft, unassuming. Adevan didn’t have to see any more to know he was looking at an old hand, maybe a warrior who had fought in Sisela’s service many years ago.

Wait.

There was a scent about him. Adevan tried to see between the wrinkles, the scars, the occasional grimace of pain. It was the lopsided smile and head tilt as he took payment from one woman that gave Adevan’s suspicion feet. Disturbed, he turned away towards the down-mountain forest. He felt he was looking at something that he shouldn’t be, something private—the decline of a man who had once been a mortal of mortals, a warrior among warriors. Disgust for life itself surged through Adevan’s body, rising from the pit of his stomach and boiling up his throat like a raging blaze.

“Hallo,” came the man’s voice. Adevan had heard it many times before. “Can I be of service to you?”

Adevan struggled to keep himself from being pulled into the distant past. He was gripping a tree, half leaning on it for support, his back to the small clearing where the man was selling his wares. He turned with his head down, his hood shading most of his face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to show it, wasn’t sure that he wanted this man to see the truth: That Adevan had not been touched by the ravages of time and never would be in one short, mortal life. But they were beginning to draw some attention from the villagers. Adevan pushed his hood back and looked down at the man.

It took one agonizing moment for the recognition to bloom then for disbelief to wash over the aged features. The one good eye widened.

“A—Adevan Dragar?”

It was jarring to hear his full name. Few knew it.

“Kyric,” he replied, stepping past him. “It’s been a long time.”

Adevan gave the man as much privacy as he could manage. Even so, he heard Kyric’s heartbeat shudder and his breathing hitch. Billows of sharp, smoky anguish filled the clearing and went straight to a part of Adevan’s body that only his kind had or fully understood. It was the smell of a breaking heart.

“You—” Kyric swallowed, his voice cracking. “’Tis truly you.”

Gods, help me. There was still work to do. Kyric’s downcast face glistened with silently falling tears, his back more hunched than it had been only moments ago. Regret filled Adevan as he realized the depth of grief he had caused. At this age, sudden sadness could be life ending for a mortal. He should go.

“I am sorry for causing you pain. This will soon be a fleeting memory,” he assured his old battle-mate. “I’ve been told that you know the way to the far side of the mountains. Sisela sent me.”

Kyric lifted his face again and it was like the sun had broken upon it. A crooked grin lifted his wrinkled cheeks high, in spite of the ancient scar. His one good eye brightened.

“Sisela lives?”

Ah, yes. Kyric had been in love with her for the better part of his younger years. Adevan should have remembered that fact. Too late now, of course. The emotions would distract Kyric and slow Adevan’s progress. But at least the old man wasn’t crying anymore.

“She lives.” He did not include the bit about her dying.

Kyric raised a hand, beckoning him to follow. “Come, come—have something to eat. Gratify an old man.”

He hobbled past his cart and to a simple encampment at its back. A shabby grey hound lay by an open tent, makeshift firepit, and three-legged folding stool. At Adevan’s approach, the dog predictably lifted its head and growled, its hackles rising. A moment later, it realized its place in the order of things and lay its head back down. Adevan sat on a nearby log that had been hewn and was conveniently placed, watching as Kyric pulled out some dried meat and fruit skins. The old man handed him the meager fare.

“Tell me about Blackmoor,” he demanded, sitting with a noisy grunt. “And Sisela. Did she ever marry?”

Adevan chewed the dried meat slowly, wishing it was fresh. “No.”

“And the Rebellion?”

There was little to say. “The tide shifted years ago.”

Kyric sighed knowingly. “We all thought it would happen in our lifetimes—the Counsel’s downfall. But the years just kept going by,” he mused sadly. “I suppose you’re the only one who’s going to see it.”

If it ever happens. His own doubt surprised him. Adevan hadn’t realized until then that he’d long given up hope of bringing justice to Arras.

“I can see you aren’t going to say much,” Kyric finally grumbled. “So why don’t you tell me what exactly you’re this far west for? I know it’s not for wool.”

Adevan had to be careful. He set the strip of meat down. “Not exactly.”

“Ah,” Kyric hummed knowingly. “You can’t say.”

“Where do you get the wool?”

Now, it was the old man’s turn to hesitate. “You remember the stories of the Lost Houses?”

Adevan frowned, confused. It was an old legend. “I’ve heard the tales.”

“Tales?” Kyric chuckled. “Where do you think I found these?”

He flung a hand at the piles of valuable fare on his cart, a mass of wool and animal skins. Fair enough. Adevan wasn’t going to argue with him.

“How do I find them?”

Impatience had crept into his voice. He knew, because Kyric looked at him, examined his face for a moment. The old man leaned forward on his knees and shoved a stick into the fire, unhurried.

“They’re not hiding. Take the pass and follow the shale path southward. That will get you to one of the larger settlements. They call it Tor. Yorian and Osper run things there,” he explained. “But watch yourself—they’re private folk. Took me a long time to get into their good graces.”

That made sense. People in stark places weren’t given to friendliness and neither was Adevan. They understood each other.

“Before you go,” Kyric said, glancing around. “I did see a ravenrider flying high, on the other side of the mountains. Not three days ago.”

Adevan stiffened and his pulse quickened. As usual, the Counsel was several steps ahead. He swallowed, afraid to ask his next question.

“Could you see which rider it was?”

Kyric shook his head. “I’m an old man, with old eyes. But I think I saw blue.”

Blue. Mages that served the High Hand of Dabdagan wore blue.

Only half aware of what he was doing, Adevan suddenly stood, possessed by the need to flee.  To find shadows and hide in them. His own fear, though well-reasoned, disgusted him.

“You’re off then,” Kyric sighed. “All right.”

There was nothing else to say. He was halfway to the trees when Kyric called his name. Adevan turned, reluctantly.

“When you come back this way, visit again,” the old warrior said. “I might like to live in Blackmoor for my last days. Better than this.”

Kyric’s mutt barked softly behind its teeth, as if offended, and Adevan slipped back into the forest, making no promises. In spite of himself, he listened to Kyric’s gruff chatting with his companion pet and the shrill bartering that took up again once he went back to the front of his cart. Adevan made himself stop listening, pulling his hearing back to his immediate surroundings and to the task at hand.

The mountains were a sheer, shaley type but he decided that he wouldn’t use the main road until he was forced to. Once he stood at the mouth of the narrow crevasse that counted as a pass, he understood why so few had ever attempted to traverse it. Kyric’s cart would have just fit through. Moisture from the ever-present mountain mist dripped from above and a rockfall seemed likely at any moment; he heard the soft hiss of shifting gravel near and far, every few breaths. The fissure itself meandered so that the other end was not visible from the entry and the sunlight did not quite reach to the bottom. One could be buried in a collapse and never be found again. He wondered idly if that had ever happened. Adevan had never tested his strength fully against rock and stone, but he imagined that he could weasel his way out of death’s clutches if it came to it. He stepped inside and began weaving through the cavern, listening as the sounds of the outside world faded into the soft, dripping quiet.

A discomfort lay in the pit of his stomach, one that he had no choice now but to observe, and he realized that his unexpected encounter with Kyric had shaken him. He didn’t like meeting those who had known him in youth. Already, the long years stretched out before and behind him with exhausting finality. Any reminder was doubly painful. His thoughts were drawn back towards Sisela and Blackmoor, and her precarious position.

What little light peeked through the mountain fog then between broken rocks began to fade with the day. On the rare occasion that he could see a patch of sky, it had begun to turn the colors of nightfall. A low howl rose as a heavy wind began to squeeze in from the western end of the crevasse, pulling at Adevan’s clothes. Up ahead, the glow of the setting sun whispered against the gnarled sides of the crevasse, promising an exit. By the time he reached the mouth, his eyes had so acclimated to the semi-darkness, he was half blinded for a moment. Once he could see again, he froze in awe.

He was standing over a lush valley, guarded on all sides by unforgiving shale peaks that rose like sentinels, casting their shadows across the deep green forest. The sun was setting in a fiery torrent of crimson and gold and violet, slipping behind another row of western mountains that, in all honesty, Adevan hadn’t known existed. Beyond that line of peaks, the range extended farther than even his keen eyes could see. On his right, he could just make out the white froth of a high and thunderous waterfall, a gift from the highest part of the near range, its peaks shrouded by fog. The waterfall split and became a series of rivers, joined by other smaller tributaries, until they formed a distant lake to the south. Just below him, a formidable series of cascades ribboned across the landscape.

The wind was forceful and truly frigid, as if it were offended that he had stood so long and was testing its strength against him. His immediate surroundings were a testament to its harshness—bare rock and only the toughest, most twisted of trees. Suddenly aware of his exposure, Adevan found the only semblance of a path and began making his way down into the valley, eager for the cover of the dense forest below.

As night began to fall in earnest, he caught the glow of lanterns and smoke rising in the peaceful valley below. As he expected, they were gathered more densely in some areas and those were likely the settlements. When he reached a fork in the path, which had become more visible thanks to the undergrowth, he made for the nearest abundance of lights. While he did, he began to consider what Kyric’s discovery really meant.

Based on Iven’s drift, he had expected to find a few, tiny villages made up of goatherds and shepherds. He had not expected to find tens of thousands of mortals living beyond the Counsel’s knowledge, one the other side of a single mountain range. There were roads and bridges below, even a few fortresses if his eyes were true. This was far from a legend. These people had been here for hundreds of years.

But it seemed impossible that they should have evaded the Counsel’s knowledge. The mages either knew and didn’t care—which was unlikely—or they simply didn’t know. But how? With their ravenriders and drifters, he had come to believe that they could see almost everything. Yet he couldn’t deny what he was seeing.

And, if the Counsel was indeed ignorant, for how much longer could these people remain hidden? They had begun to trade with Dirth. It was only a matter of time before they were discovered. Then he remembered what Kyric had seen—a ravenrider, flying high, wearing the color of the High Hand.

It seemed he had arrived just in time.