There have been attempts made to combine multiple powerstones into one, in order to gain multiple affinities. DO NOT DO THIS. It will not work. You will die. With time and practice, you can expand your innate affinity, and no power is closed to those with enough determination.

Tales of the distant past are fanciful exaggerations and should never be treated as fact. Acting on stupid fantasies of attaining full mastery over all powers is nothing but suicidal idiocy.

-Between the Lines: Inheritance and power on the fringes of advancement

As I approached the tower I could see Pel pacing his balcony, blue light sparking off in random directions, forming into jagged shards of ice that fell to the ground and shattered. His feet splashed through slushy puddles, the dropped ice melting in the late summer sun almost as fast as he could form it, but he didn’t even seem aware of what he was doing.

I knew this mood. Something was wrong.

I timidly touched down on the balcony across from him, bubble instinctively spinning into place as Pel whirled to face me.

I couldn’t speak. Words escaped me. Was he angry at me? Or at something else?

For a long moment we stared at each other. Then Pel looked away, staring up at the sky, before gesturing for me to come inside. He opened the door for me, then followed me in.

The sitting room had been restored to its former cozy state, the walls and ceiling back in their usual configuration and the carpet replaced. Any trace of the grand ballroom from the party had been removed.

A fine breakfast lay ready for us, much like those Desten 1 could have provided, only with considerably more fish. Which I supposed made sense, with Northpoint being located right by the ocean. I wasn’t hungry, my stomach too occupied with tying itself together in dread, but I mechanically ate because I knew that I’d need the energy. For the flight home, if nothing else.

Pel didn’t eat more than a few bites, pushing food from one side of the plate to the other as he stared blankly.

“I’m glad you survived,” I finally said when it became obvious he wasn’t going to speak. “What’s this about?”

Pel scowled, focusing on me. “You.”

“What about me?”

“You came back.”

I shrugged helplessly. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Run off, leave me to sort things.”

“I started this. You think I wouldn’t finish it?”

“I wasn’t sure. You’re very … inconsistent.”

“How so?”

Pel looked at me but didn’t answer. “You once told me you care as much about Fyless’s wellbeing as I do. That you had no purpose left but to avenge Fylen.”

“Yes?” I swallowed nervously, remembering our last encounter before the party.

“Was that the truth?”

“It wasn’t a lie. I … didn’t know what I wanted. I still don’t. But I’d come this far, it seemed silly to stop so close to the end.”

“So you came back. Again and again. Forcing yourself into affairs that would have progressed perfectly smoothly without you.”

“I thought I could do something to help,” I said faintly. Last time I’d interfered my distraction had allowed Retti to stab him. “I never wanted to cause complications.”

“Your very existence is a complication.” Frost condensed out of the air and fell into a slushy puddle around Pel’s chair, soaking into the carpet as it melted.

I wilted a bit under his glower.

Pel leapt to his feet. “Come on, Astesh! Don’t just sit there looking sad! Who do you think you are?”

I tensed, pink lightning flicking along my hands as I slowly stood. “No one in particular.”

“NO! Wrong.”

He strode toward me, and I stumbled backward over the chair. I spun up a shield as I fell, trying to force it into something more solid than its usual flimsy form. “Please, Pel … I don’t want to do this again.” My voice shook, despite my best attempts to hold steady. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he growled, then spun and paced away, wet carpet squelching beneath his feet. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

I carefully got to my feet. “Um. What?” I must have misheard that.

Pel sighed deeply. The water solidified into ice beneath his feet, then hissed away into mist. Finally he spoke, still facing away from me. “You may be a misguided fool blundering about in affairs that you have no part in …”

I waited, tense, ready for his inevitable attack.

“… but I couldn’t have come this far without you.”

I laughed aloud at that, a startled bitter sound that slipped out unasked-for. “I contributed exactly one piece of useful information to this whole affair, and if I’d just given you that from the beginning we could have avoided all the—”

But Pel shook his head. “I’d all but given up. When you came, you had the drive, the energy, the focus to continue pursuing this that I was beginning to lose. You brought hope when I was close to giving up. Even though you had no part in this, even when it would be absolutely in your best interests to walk away and pretend you’d seen nothing. That’s the sort of person you are, Astesh Myen Varon. And now I need your help again.”

I faltered. “What could you possibly need me for?”

Pelys turned to face me, arms crossed. “You knew Desten and his family. Where would they go?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.” And I’m not sure I’d tell him if I did. I still couldn’t convince myself Desten deserved to die for what had happened, and I knew that if Pelys caught up to him in this kind of mood only one of them would come back alive. “He escaped?”

Pel caught the note of hope in my voice and his frown deepened. “He killed Let.”

Any brief hope I’d been feeling shriveled to nothing, constricting my chest. Even though I’d hardly known Let and Lan, I’d seen enough to know how much they cared for each other, and how close they were to Aneeyha and Fylen and Pel.

“Lanyss?” I asked faintly.

“We barely saved her. She’s with Vess in recovery.”

My voice caught on my throat, and I had to swallow several times. “You’re sure it wasn’t Retti?”

“Yes. I was fighting her at the time. We stopped chasing her to save Lan. They got away.”

My hopes plummeted even further. Desten on his own, we might be able to talk him down. He might not be willing to carry on his mother’s mad crusade with her out of the picture. But if they’d all escaped …

“Has anyone else been killed?” I asked faintly.

“Not that we know of. Not yet.”

“Desten 4?”

Pel’s frown deepened. “What about him?”

Oh, right. We’d been so busy fighting, I’d never gotten around to explaining what I’d figured out.

I quickly summarized Retti’s plan, how she thought that stealing powerstones from the dead could somehow stabilize her husband’s ailment though it was only making things worse, and that whatever happened with Fylen she’d basically forced Desten into it because of her paranoia about anyone knowing what she was doing.

“I honestly believe Desten would stop if given the chance,” I said, a note of pleading in my voice. “He’s so young, has so much potential.”

“Too much,” Pel said shortly. “Too much power, too much anger. I cannot trust him.” I could hear the tightness in his voice, the too-recent pain of Let’s death.

He’d been there when it happened. I hadn’t. I could still see Desten as a confused child more easily than a ruthless killer.

“He’s strong. Unreasonably so. I could tell the moment he stepped into the room that with even halfway adequate training he could equal me within a year or two. You personally witnessed what he did to Fylen. You know better than anyone how powerful he is.”

“But he’s so young.”

He sighed, looking pensive.

“What?” I asked.

“If they’ve discovered how to safely bond additional stones …” he said with concern, “that explains a lot.”

“They haven’t, that’s the whole point, something went wrong with Desten 4 and he’s been unconscious for a year now—”

“No. The son. He’s too powerful. I see talented students all the time, watch their progression and growth. Desten’s case isn’t normal. People don’t just show up with this kind of power. Everyone hears about it when someone has that kind of potential. If he’d been anywhere close to this level a year ago, I would know. It’s like the stories you hear about secret training regimens that can grant insane power boosts, but none of them actually work. Whatever he’s been doing, worked. If not for that, I would have let them leave. I don’t like destroying families. If there were any other option … but I had to be sure. He’s too strong, out of nowhere. Impossibly strong. If she hadn’t forced the issue, I would have.”

“You think they tried whatever messed up his father on Desten 5, but it worked?” I asked faintly.

“It’s far-fetched and fantastical to imagine, but I don’t have any reasonable explanation for his sudden increase in power. He took out Fylen in under a minute. He nearly killed Let and Lan both together, would have if we hadn’t intervened. He’s too strong.”

I wasn’t sure what was worse, Retti forcing Desten to kill to protect her secrets, or the fact that she’d apparently used him as a test subject to increase his power. Did he ever get a choice in the matter? Well, he was young enough, if she’d offered a power increase he may have agreed without knowing what he was risking.

“So now what?” I asked.

“Now we find them and finish this.”

“We?”

Pel met my eyes. “We.”

“Don’t you have anyone else? What about Reirn Ovnon? Now that we know who was responsible for his son's death, surely he'll want to help.”

Pel grimaced. "Yes, I have spoken with Reirn Ovnon at length. But as this was a Varon transgression, any official action must be sanctioned by a joint council of Reirn Ovnon and Reirn Ushan. It will be months before anything happens from that direction."

I nodded. It made sense for Pel to go after them unofficially. That's what he'd been doing all along, after all. "The rest of your friends?"

“Vess is with Lan, and there’s no way I’m letting Aneeyha anywhere near Desten. But if Let and Lan couldn’t bring him down, I can’t do this alone. I need you, Astesh. You’re the only other person I can trust.”

My power flickered out, the bubble puffing into nothing. “No way. I can’t.” Memories of Desten crushing Fylen, who was so much further along than me, who could build shields a thousand times stronger, filled my mind. Of the feeling of helplessness as Retti almost did the same to me.

I sat hard, suddenly unable to remain standing.

“I know you’re stronger than that.” Pel’s voice was low and earnest. “I know what went wrong last time. I can teach you everything you need. We can finish this together.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. You know that. I’m just a commoner, just a scribe. Not a fighter. Not a noble. Nothing. Nobody.”

“WRONG!” Pelys bellowed, making me jump. “You are my student, and you are my friend.”

“Yeah right. A couple weeks ago you were ready to kill me.”

“I only pushed you that hard to see your inner strength. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

“And if Retti ever sees me again, I will be dead! What’s the difference?”

“The difference is this time I know why you couldn’t progress. I was trying to train you like an adult, but your power is underdeveloped. At less than a year old, it couldn’t possibly manage the techniques I demanded of you. Now that I know the truth, I can adapt your training. You have strength, Astesh, you just need to learn to use it. Stop cowering. Stop apologizing. Stop giving in. If you’re willing to stand up for me, for Fylen, even for Desten, why aren’t you willing to stand up for yourself?”

I shook my head. I didn’t have an answer.

“Will you help me?”

“How?!” Frustration that had been building for days burst out in a torrent of words. “Even if we trained for the next year, Retti and Desten could be anywhere. I only met them a handful of times. I don’t know where they could possibly be!”

“Tell me everything you know about their family.”

I sighed, but began talking. Most of it was nothing new. I’d been to lunch at their house before touring season, I’d run into Desten 5 at a ryshglide tournament, I’d visited their house a couple times to look through Desten 4’s research.

Pel stopped me there. “Research?”

“Yeah, something about solving the marriage problem with commoners.”

Pel looked at me, his eyes widening. “That’s—” he seemed unable to breathe. “You’re a proof of concept.”

“Huh?”

“You. You’re a commoner. It— it worked. You’re not dead. Your stone, Fyless’s stone that was never meant for you, it integrated properly and didn’t shatter. There’s no resonance. Heights, they actually did it.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not— I have nothing to do with any of this. It was an accident.”

“Perhaps.”

“But, that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. They didn’t even touch the childstone. All they wanted was Fylen’s stone for Desten 4.”

Pel suddenly stood straighter. “Fylen’s stone. Desten 4 has it?”

“I assume so. He has blue in his aura, I don’t know why else they’d have taken it.”

“And you know where he is?”

I nodded, uncertain. “He’s in a special care room in the Varonhold hospital. They’re keeping him alive but he’s completely unresponsive.”

“We need to go see him.” He started toward the balcony doors.

“Why?”

“To see if Desten 4 can lead us to his wayward son.”

“How? He hasn’t woken up in almost a year.”

Pelys shook his head. “He doesn’t have to. All we need is to be in the same room.”

“You’re going to have to explain, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Just follow me.” He jumped off the balcony and shot away in a blur of blue light.

I stepped into the air and ran after him. I could hardly believe I was doing this, but at the same time it felt completely natural. He’d seen me at my worst, and somehow, even after everything, Pel still considered me a friend. Still thought I had something to contribute.

I didn’t quite believe he wasn’t being overly optimistic, but I wanted to. I wanted to be able to prove him right to put his trust in me.

Maybe I was being overly optimistic too.