“And then there are those who attach some broad meaning to the phenomenon of asaarimyn. Yes, they are tools of the vinesavaim, but they do not speak for them. There is nothing enviable or significant about them past their aesacaar, and if some fool of an abbot should tell you otherwise remember that I have been studying the subject for longer than they have been alive twice over. I imagine I have more direct experience with asaarimyn than any man alive, in fact. I made that claim once and some brash soul pointed out that by nature an asaarim would outstrip me in short order. Perhaps valid, were their lives not always shorter still.”

- Vumo Ra, address on comparative theology, The Archive.

Tasja opened his eyes but saw only darkness. His first impulse was to bring his hand up to touch his face, but when he tried he could not move his hand - neither hand, nor could he move his legs. In mounting panic he tried to suck in a breath of air, but succeeded only in inhaling a mouthful of stale dust that set him coughing.

The spasms wracked his ribcage, pinned between two cold, unyielding surfaces that held him viselike in the dark. His head swam, and his awareness fuzzed - he might have passed out, but it was difficult to tell when the entirety of his world was the cold, crushing pressure around him. He snagged a stray thread of lucidity and held on to it like a drowning man, trying to climb past the panic.

What had happened? He had - had been in the gateway room, helping to catalog the last shipment of supplies. The thought churned in his head for a long while. He couldn’t remember leaving the room, either via the hall or the gateway. Was he still in the room? There had been nothing stacked so high as to fall on him.

There had been a flash, he remembered - a sudden flash of light that had lit the room brighter than midday sun. A noise that was more of a physical impact than anything heard - but he remembered the concept of them more than the actual event, as if he was thinking on something that had happened to someone else.

He tried moving his arm again and failed, then found that he could move his fingers. It was painful, and they were so numbed with cold that all he could really feel was the pain. Nevertheless he reveled in it, scraping his knuckles a few times against the chilled stone, expanding his world by that much. Methodically he tried to move every part of his body, succeeding and failing in turns. Toes, left foot, fingers, head - yes. Everything else was pinned.

With a grimace he hauled harder on the arm that felt a bit less constrained and was rewarded with a brilliant flash of pain as the stone rasped over his forearm. He pulled harder still. With another spike of pain his arm slid free from its prison, but he only had a moment to revel in his victory before the slab that had pinned it settled further on to his chest with a low grinding noise. A bright light seemed to flash in his eyes as the stone crushed down on his ribs, and suddenly he struggled to draw even the half-breaths he had been taking.

He was dying, he reflected absently. He couldn’t get enough air, his body slowly yielding to the unrelenting press of the stone around him. A roaring filled his ears, like a hundred voices clustered around him in the darkness, murmuring, grumbling, shouting-

The pressure lifted from his chest all at once and he gasped a deep breath, sending himself into another fit of dusty coughing. Light speared through his vision, painfully bright, and the noises resolved into words.

“-the scriptsmith boy,” a man’s voice said, the Aesvain burr so pronounced that Tasja didn’t understand him at first. “He’s rough yet but hale, Jyte’ll want to know.”

There was a half-grunted acknowledgement from someone farther off, then the light dimmed as an object - a face - was shoved into its path. “I’d tell you to hold tight but you’ve got no choice,” the man said, grinning. Dusty yellow clothes flashed in the light - a halberdier, one of Jyte’s men. “You’ve been hurt?”

Tasja tried to speak but failed, feeling like his throat was sliding dustily against itself as he croaked a quiet note, then settled for nodding his head.

“Right, well,” the man said, “we’ve got a few more coming, the rest’ll be cleared away soon. You’ll be better keeping still.”

It was no effort for Tasja to sag limply and focus on his breathing. His consciousness must have slipped, for the next thing he knew he was being roughly lifted upward. Light exploded around him, the red-orange glow of fresh qim, and even as he screwed his eyes shut against the assault someone was tipping a cup of tepid water to his lips.

He coughed and sputtered before drinking greedily, although his mouth seemed to absorb the moisture long before it could reach his throat. After another full cup, sipped more slowly, he gingerly opened his eyes to find Jyte looking down at him.

“I had thought some about what I’d say to Cajet to convince him we’d not done away with you on our own,” he said gruffly. “Glad to see I’ve no need.”

Tasja blinked, his eyes adjusting. “What happened?” he croaked.

“What else?” Jyte said grimly. “The Sjocelym attacked.”

“The garrison?” Tasja asked, trying to raise himself into a sitting position. “But Maja-” The words died on his lips as his eyes adjusted and he saw the source of the light. It had not been a strand of freshly-charged qim, as he’d assumed. The setting sun shone directly into the gateway hall through what had been one of the long side walls. No longer - the left quarter of the room had vanished, leaving the rest open to the sky beyond.

The floor was dotted with bits of stone that had splashed and flowed over it like water, and where the incandescent torrents had pooled they still glowed red-hot. Beyond the fluid chaos lay a void, a large circular borehole drilled deep into the mountain. Tasja’s eyes looked unbelieving from its yawning opening back to the rear where a torrent of half-molten rock had collapsed to fill the space.

“Maja,” Jyte said, “is gone.” He made a perfunctory gesture towards the rocks. “Tinem Sjocel is as lost as Tinem Aesvai.”

“No,” Tasja breathed. “No, they wouldn’t. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’ve seen what I’ve seen,” Jyte said, giving a halfhearted shrug. “Was coming back up from the valley when a bolt of light brighter than anything flashed out from Ce Raedhil and struck the mountain. Only just got inside before the stone came down on us, made our way up the stairwell.” He coughed, taking a long swig of water, then offered the waterskin to Tasja once more. “Control room is gone, and the lift with it. We climbed up the side of the shaft to see what supplies had survived and found you in the bargain.”

Tasja sat up straighter, looking around. “There were others,” he said, feeling his heart quicken. “At least three more in the room with me, helping to tally the crates-”

Jyte nodded. “Aye, and at least one of them made it out,” he said, pointing to the floor. A series of dusty footprints traced across its length. “Looks like they gave you up for dead, and they were close enough to right that I’ve no call to blame them.” He gave Tasja a faint grin, then grew sober once more as he looked back at the footprints.

“Might be I’ll task a few men to look for the one that wandered off,” he muttered. “It’s dangerous footing, and judging from the state of the tracks our man’s got a hurt leg.”

Jesse lay in the bottom of the rowboat, listening to the gentle sound of the water as it lapped against the hull. The sky above was blue and dotted with faint wisps of clouds. He couldn’t see anything but the sky, not even the tops of the trees that ringed the pond - and certainly not the rough walls of home, too small to hold the sheer quantity of family within. Too many voices, too many faces.

Here, though, there was just the sky.

Distantly, he heard the faint sound of voices. He knew that this heralded the end of his game, that his mother would shortly send one of his brothers out to fetch him and bring him back to the chaos - but it would take time, so he lay still and relished the quiet. It was another sort of game, to blur their speech in his head until it was just another of the faint noises from the woods around the lake.

Some days it was easier than others. Today, though, today they flowed right into the background hum of the forest as if they weren’t even speaking English. He focused instead on the thump of his heart, the steady rhythm of his breathing.

Inhale, exhale. Jesse frowned. Try as he might to ignore the ever-louder murmurs around him, he couldn’t help but pick out words. Fake words, nonsense words, but they made sense to him. He shook his head, screwing his eyes closed. He didn’t need this. He already was oil to his family’s water, awkward and isolated where the rest seemed totally at ease. A fascination with half-heard whispers would only deepen the divide.

Inhale, exhale. But he was fascinated. The words were strange yet familiar, like half-forgotten lyrics to a song. He closed his eyes to listen - then opened them once more when he felt the sunlight vanish from his face.

A girl in a white linen dress stood over him, smiling as she leaned over the boat. Her hair hung down around her face, haloed by the sun, and her bright eyes twinkled as she smiled.

“Hello,” she said, stepping carefully into the boat and perching herself on the seat.

Jesse stared at her face until he realized he was being rude, then averted his gaze hastily. He felt his face flushing, and for a moment no words came - but then there was the soft rustle of her dress, and a hand came down to take his.

The pressure faded, and he felt no more awkward than he would seeing his own face in the mirror. “Who are you?” he asked, sitting up to look around the small pond. “How did you get out here? You didn’t swim.”

She smiled again. “I’ve been here just as long as you have,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze before leaning back to look around at the treeline. “It’s beautiful here. I can see why you miss it sometimes.”

Jesse blinked at the non sequitur. “Who are you?” he repeated.

She looked back at him, and for a moment he saw something else behind her face, something with twists and folds that stretched back farther than they should - and then it vanished and there was only her eyes, looking curiously at his. “I am you,” she said. “And you are me.”

“I don’t understand,” Jesse said.

“You don’t have to understand right now,” she replied, “but you do have to go back. Your family is waiting for you. They need you, Jesse. They need both of us.”

He frowned, glaring up at her. “They don’t need me,” he said petulantly. “They don’t even want me. When I grow up-”

“-you’re going to go far away, off on your own,” the girl said, leaning down further so that her hair draped over his chest. “Farther than you can dream. Terrible and wonderful both, but none of that will be enough. No matter where you go, you always come back to the quiet. Until you meet your real family.”

Jesse shook his head. “I don’t-”

“They need us,” she said, whispering conspiratorially. “The unity that was sought, that we found. I’ve been looking through the fragments that Mother left, and I think I understand her better now. There were others in her time that tried to make what I am, but there was always a mismatch, a rejection between the two halves. You can’t write words that capture a soul. The imperfection in our form would chafe and spiral until one died and the other lived.”

He didn’t understand, but he did feel a resonance in her words, a pull at his own estranged relationship with his life. The girl smiled as if he had agreed aloud, then pulled back a bit.

“It made me think,” she said. “Of why we’re different. I think it comes down to purpose.”

“Purpose?” Jesse asked weakly.

“The purpose for which we are created,” she replied. “To bend events, shape the flow of things in a certain way. The purpose and the vessel must align, or one will shatter.” She leaned back toward him, and once again the sun made a gentle corona of her hair.

“So what was your purpose?” he asked.

Her smile spread again, dimpling her cheeks. “To be,” she said, “and to choose my own path.”

She bent down to kiss him before he could speak. It was brief and gentle, and her hair smelled like salt air and the cool of nighttime, a bay spread out under a sea of stars. He closed his eyes and for a moment saw the bay, the lights of the city below them. When he opened them again they were lying on the surface of the water itself. It spread around them like a mirror, and he saw himself reflected in it - older, battered, bloody, with eyes like burning coal.

“It’s time to stand, Jesse,” the girl said. “It’s time to wake up.”

Searing pain shot through his head, and the murmurs around him snapped into clarity.

“-no notion of how they managed to get it operational, let alone power it. That sly lizard was clever, I’ll give him that. Remind me to compliment him before he dies.” There was a long, drawn-out sigh, and Jesse’s eyes cleared enough to see a silvery expanse of metal above him. His head still swam, his body still feeling rocked by the waves as if reluctant to abandon the dream. Gingerly, he raised himself to a sitting position - complicated, briefly, by the discovery that someone had returned his sword to his belt.

“Oh, he’s awake,” someone said, but when he turned his head to look another flare of pain nearly made him pass out once more. “Still in rough shape, but that can’t be helped. He - wait, don’t-”

Another pulse of pain shot through him as a small body impacted his chest, arms wrapping around his torso with crushing force before they released him and pulled back. A girl’s face swam in his vision once more - but then he blinked and it was Gusje, her face clean but still tear-streaked, her eyes red and swollen even as she forced a smile at him.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she mumbled, pulling him in for another hug, mercifully gentler. “I thought I was the only one who - I thought I was alone.”

Jesse blinked again, her words filtering slowly through his bleary consciousness. He tried to focus on more than his immediate surroundings. They were in a small, tidy compartment with banks of odd equipment lining the sides. Men in trim black uniforms hovered over the displays, making quick movements with their hands or conferring in low voices. A series of small windows showed the pale blue of twilight outside.

Several questions flickered and died in his head. “Where are we?” he asked eventually, the words coming thick and slurred from a leaden tongue. His arm wasn’t moving well either, and when he looked he found that someone had fastened a compress around it ringed with thick bands of inscribed metal.

Gusje looked pained, but before she could answer the same voice that had spoken before responded. “You are in the care of the Setelym,” Cosvamo said, walking up to them with a measured pace. He had shed his concealing cloak and now stood in a crisp uniform complete with a neat row of red insignia on his breast. He gave them both a tight smile, then paced away while he continued to speak.

“Things have spun a bit out of control,” he said conversationally. “I suppose you know that Maja has been destroyed.”

Jesse nodded, momentarily overwhelmed with the memory - the sick feeling prickling out from his stomach, the air that felt at once cold and stifling.

“Vumo did it.” Cosvamo shook his head. “The lunatic. We’re still trying to work out the specifics, but he’s clearly gone well beyond the boundaries laid out in the non-interference agreement.” He gave Jesse a long-suffering look. “You can’t begin to appreciate the problems this will cause.”

“Without Maja, not-Eryha will be able to charge straight to Ce Raedhil,” Jesse said, too caught up in the implications to take offense at Cosvamo’s condescending tone. “They won’t be able to defend themselves, not well - they don’t know about the role the vinesavaim play in ruudun. Their defenses will malfunction, she’ll take the city and spread herself to everyone there. She’ll be even stronger than she was before Idran Saal.”

“Apparently your appreciation is more nuanced than I gave you credit for,” Cosvamo said wryly. He coughed, then frowned. “What was that about ‘not-Eryha’ I heard?”

Jesse shook his head and tried to stand. He felt as if the floor was moving gently, still rocking in the waves on the lake. “It isn’t a short explanation,” he muttered, grabbing a pillar to steady himself. “We-”

He paused, eyes widening, and took a pace towards the window. The horizon stretched away much further than it should, nearly lost in haze as it crept into the purple leavings of the day’s sunset. The land was lost in shadow below - although in places he could see the twinkle of lights marking a town.

Cosvamo cleared his throat. “Yes, we’re flying. No, we’re not about to fall. No, we are not incurring the wrath of any powerful beings by trespassing among the clouds. You can look for a moment more, since it’s your first time, but we’ll be arriving-”

“What?” Jesse asked, nonplussed. “No, I’ve - actually, I’ve flown a lot before. I’m just surprised to wake up on an aircraft, I didn’t think you had any.” He walked to the other side of the cabin while Cosvamo stared suspiciously at him, craning his head to see out the other side. It was dark, as it was towards the mountains, but in the distance to their aft he could see a brief flicker of orange rippling through a cloudbank.

“The storm,” he realized. “How far has - how long have I been out?” That one question brought with it a flood of others in his mind, and he felt momentarily dizzy once more. Amid the clamor came an echo of Gusje’s voice from before, saying she was so glad that she wasn’t-

Alone.

“Mark,” Jesse said, wheeling on Cosvamo. “Where’s Mark? Did you pick him up?”

“Who, the other big one?” Cosvamo shook his head. “We just took you two.”

“We have to go back,” Jesse said, feeling his heart slam into overdrive. “We have to find him.” He looked at Gusje, who once again seemed to be on the verge of tears.

“You don’t understand,” Cosvamo replied. “We looked for ruud sources at the site of the battle. We only found two, and you’re both here with us.” He spread his hands, turning his palms up, then down. “Nobody else was alive.”

The hum of whatever drove the airship droned along in the background for a long while. Jesse sagged back down into a nearby seat, staring at nothing in particular. After a while, Gusje walked over to sit beside him. She didn’t say anything, but her presence was a comfort - for a moment.

Her, comforting him. Jesse shook his head. Mark’s loss was a ragged tear in his heart, but Gusje had known every one of the Cereinem who died - including her father, the man who had been her idol for longer than Jesse had been alive. He let himself dwell in his thoughts for a few heartbeats more, counted them off in his head - then stood up, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword. He felt Jes run her fingers gently across his in response to an unspoken request, and the raw pain in his chest receded for the moment. His breathing steadied.

The Setelym in the cabin had paused what they were doing to look at him, he realized. He loosened his grip on the sword, but Cosvamo only cocked his head to peer at him, his look that of someone straining mightily against decorum with an armful of questions. Eventually, however, he sighed and made an oblique gesture that sent the rest of his men back to their stations.

“Why are we here?” Jesse asked. “You were going to kill me before, why save my life? Why save hers?”

“My task,” Cosvamo said ruefully, “is to maintain stability. You were an unstable element, but as it turns out you weren’t the one I should have been watching. Now you two are the only ones left who have been involved in this whole debacle from the start.”

He looked out the window and grimaced. “Sjocel Province will wither and die, now,” he said. “Stability has a different meaning in this new paradigm. My task is now to curtail any further damage that Vumo may do and to find a way to prevent this - aberration from absorbing the entirety of Ce Raedhil as substrate.” He squinted at Jesse. “There can be no further missteps. I need to deal with both problems - and I think you may have picked up crucial information about each in your travels.”

Jesse returned the look. “I may have,” he said. “What are your plans for us?”

Cosvamo smiled, his eyes darting briefly to the sword. “You’re taking quite a different tone from before,” he said. “But don’t worry. Once we’ve resolved the local troubles I will take you to Tinem Setel.”

“And if we don’t want to go?” Jesse asked mildly, his eyes narrowing.

“If you-” Cosvamo coughed, looking scandalized. “Well, I suppose if you want to stay here and watch the sand blow in you’re more than welcome to remain in barbarity.”

Jesse studied his face for a moment, then nodded. “Two conditions,” he said. “First, our friends are in Ce Raedhil - Jackie and Arjun. I want them safely out of that city as soon as possible.”

Cosvamo nodded slowly. “The tall woman and the older man. Fine,” he said, “assuming we can locate them quickly. If the locals have hidden them away in one of their hovels then we’ll come back for them after Vumo and the anomaly have been dealt with. The other?”

“There are Cereinem on a plateau below Maja’s Sanctum. Take them back to their cerein, or help them find a new one if necessary.”

“A living cerein?” Cosvamo said incredulously. “Do they want an airship while they’re at it? We can at least repair those, there hasn’t been a recorded cerein sapling since before the collapse.”

“If you give them an airship they can look on their own,” Jesse said, “so that would work as well.” He looked to the side - Gusje had stood and walked beside him as he spoke, and she gave him a brief nod of thanks. He returned it and held up two fingers, turning back to the front. “Two conditions, Cosvamo. Yes or no?”

Cosvamo squinted at him, then let out another long-suffering sigh. “I liked you better when I was planning to kill you,” he said. “Fine, we’ll save your friends and help her family look for their tree. But this means no more secrets!” He shook his finger at them, glaring at Jesse in particular. “We’ve got scant time left before Ce Raedhil, and I want to know the nature of the inscription you carry, everything you know about Vumo, and everything you’re even speculating about that abomination - starting with what in the Council’s Hallowed Archives you meant by ‘not-Eryha’ earlier!”

Jesse and Gusje diverted their eyes from Cosvamo to exchange a glance, and Jesse was gratified to see a small smile on her face - he hoped it was rooted more deeply than the one he gave her in return. He returned to the bench and sat, though he kept his fingers lightly on the grip of his sword.

“It’s probably best if we start with my - inscription,” Jesse said. The ripples from the lake had faded, and as they flew the deck felt as solid as unyielding stone.