And so, that is it now. Not even a memory of light remains. -- Helaena C. Moon

Ilaran had spent almost his entire life in Tananerl. He hadn't been born there, something he would very much like to forget for more than one reason, but it had been his home for so long it had almost become part of him. Immortals had a curious way of getting strongly attached to the place where they lived. Especially when they rarely ventured away from it. (Rumour had it some very old ones had actually become part of their homelands, part of the wind and the grass and the trees.)

Unfortunately this meant that leaving his home was almost physically painful. It was like pulling an old tree up from its roots and replanting it somewhere else, in unfamiliar ground under an unfamiliar sky, and expecting it to do well there. He spent his first two weeks in Eldrin almost hibernating in his wing of the Kelthír Palace[1]. He ventured out only to visit his uncle, or to pray at his mother's grave. It wasn't until just over a week before the Day of Comets that he finally felt able to go into Saoridhin society.

Even then he still felt dizzy and off-balance as he wrote to accept Prince Mihasrin's invitation to a dinner party. Ilaran had spent decades studying calligraphy. His handwriting was one of the few things about himself he could take genuine pride in. Yet today the lines were wobbly. The letters ran together. He crumpled up several attempts and started again. It made no difference. In disgust he scribbled the letter as quickly as possible and sealed it without looking at it again.

For the first time he would have a chance to pass Siarvin's warning on to Princess Abihira. He still hadn't thought of how. He knew perfectly well he'd already gained a reputation for being odd. Even so, walking up to a stranger at a dinner party and giving her a strange message would convince everyone he was a complete madman. What could he say anyway? "My aunt-by-marriage is planning something and she intends to use you because she thinks you're powerful enough to be a mage. Yes, I know there have been no mages for millennia and if you really were one the whole world would have heard of it by now." He could just imagine Princess Abihira's reaction.

Ilaran sent a servant to deliver the letter before he gave into the temptation to rewrite it for the umpteenth time.

When he closed the door and turned around he found a snake on his desk.

Snakes were a far too common sight in Tananerl. The vast majority of them were poisonous. And they had a most unpleasant tendency to get into the places they were least wanted. Ilaran's hand instinctively moved to one half of the hulaeð[2] at his waist. The snake watched him, motionless and apparently unconcerned. He forced himself to let go of the hilt.

"Hello, Lord Shizuki," Ilaran said, clasping his hands in front of him and trying to pretend he hadn't almost attacked his cousin.

The snake's appearance shifted and distorted until it was gone and Shizuki sat on the desk in its place. He swung his legs over the side like a small child perched on a chair too high for it. His plain loose robes had the same green colour and mottled brown stripes as his scales. For a minute Ilaran wondered if his scales became clothes, or if his clothes became scales.

"Hu. Lo," Shizuki said. His mouth moved awkwardly as he tried to form the word.

For the first time Ilaran realised having fangs and a forked tongue must make clear communication a nightmare. No wonder Shizuki had barely spoken in any of their previous meetings, apart from in that first meeting.

Ilaran's mother had beaten -- not physically, but the verbal equivalent -- certain rules of proper conduct into his head since before he was old enough to understand the difference between politeness and rudeness. One of them was that hospitality must be shown to all guests, no matter how unexpected, unwanted, or unusual.

"Would you like some tea?" Ilaran asked.

Shizuki nodded. He shuffled closer to the edge of the desk, rested his elbows against his knees, and propped his chin up on his hands. His wide, unblinking eyes never left Ilaran as the older man stirred up the fire and poured water into the kettle. It would have been very unnerving for anyone else. But Ilaran had prepared tea under far more stressful circumstances, including in an old theatre converted into a makeshift hospital while a battle raged right outside the door. It took a great deal more than his strange sort-of cousin to faze him.

Making tea was one of the few practical things every noble learnt as a child. Ilaran's mother had taken it a step further and insisted he learn how to prepare his own meals, mend his own clothes, and tidy his own room. Ilaran glanced over at Shizuki, sitting perilously close to his writing supplies, and thought he would likely need to tidy his room by the time this visit was over.

As the tea brewed he took the opportunity to study Shizuki as closely as Shizuki was studying him. He had often heard of this almost-relative's existence. Some very disturbing rumours circulated about his origins. What Ilaran had known about him before their first meeting could be summed up in two sentences. He was Haliran's bastard, the result of an affair with a snake spirit[3] from Seroyawa. Siarvin took pity on him -- for reasons known only to himself -- and adopted him as his son.

There was no way to deny that Shizuki's immortal form was unsettling. But once Ilaran could look past the snake-like yellow eyes, he could see the resemblance to Haliran. Their faces were the same shape, they both had slightly pointed chins, and Shizuki's nose was almost as sharp as Haliran's. No one who had seen both of them could deny they were related.

According to rumour Haliran had tried to kill her newborn son when she realised his appearance revealed her sin to the entire world. He was sceptical of most rumours, but Ilaran was inclined to believe that one. It fitted in perfectly with what else he knew of Haliran.

"How old are you?" he asked, mainly to fill the silence, as he poured out cups of tea for both of them.

Shizuki answered slowly and with a pause after every word, taking care to speak distinctly. "Five. Hundred. And. Two. Last. Summer."

Five hundred and two. Barely even an adolescent[4]. No wonder he hadn't learnt yet to change his appearance into something less... serpentine. In the vast life-spans of immortals it wasn't very long at all. Ilaran pursed his lips as he remembered his own childhood and adolescence. For most people's perspective that hadn't been long either. Yet it cast a long shadow over the rest of his life.

He handed Shizuki his cup. "Have you ever left Eldrin?"

Shizuki shook his head, then nodded it. He drank all the tea in one go, to Ilaran's alarm. That had been freshly-boiled! "No one sees me. Only Father knows."

That didn't make much sense. But asking for clarification would get them nowhere. Ilaran couldn't imagine anything worse than being trapped in one place -- especially if that place was Haliran's manor -- for centuries. "Do you want to leave?"

Shizuki nodded. "Want to meet sire." Ilaran's confusion must have shown on his face, because he tried to elaborate. "Siarvin is Father. Sire is... other father. Never seen him."

At last Ilaran understood. "You want to meet your birth father? Do you know who he is?"

Once again Shizuki nodded and shook his head in succession. "Servant's son. Sent away."

That confirmed at least one of the rumours. It also raised frightening possibilities about what other ones were true. Ilaran considered asking. This conversation was basically a long series of questions anyway; what was one more?

No, he decided. Some things I'd rather not know just yet.

Thinking back to their first meeting, something struck him about Shizuki's speech. "Have you learnt to change your appearance yet?"

"Sometimes," Shizuki said. "It makes me tired. Don't do it much."

Ah. So that was why his speech now was much more fragmented than a week ago. It also explained why he couldn't leave for long.

Shizuki poured himself a second cup of tea. He drank it as quickly as the first one. "Do you know why I'm here?"

Ilaran shrugged. "I suppose Uncle told you to visit me."

Shizuki gave him the sort of smug "I know something you don't know" smile that tended to infuriate even the most even-tempered people. "No. Came to help. No one sees me so I see everywhere."

Once again Ilaran's confusion must have been visible. His mother would be horrified. She'd always told him never to let anyone see any sign of weakness. Not even family. (Especially not family.) Shizuki sighed and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again they were a perfectly normal dark brown. When he spoke his fangs were conspicuous by their absence, and his tongue was no longer forked.

"I'll have to sleep for hours after this," he grumbled in an undertone, apparently to himself. "In my snake form I can go anywhere and no one pays any attention. Even if they see me they think I'm just an ordinary snake."

Really, Ilaran thought. He never had a high opinion of most other people's intelligence. It had just dropped dramatically. How can anyone think a twelve-foot-long, bright-green snake is ordinary? In a country where snakes of any kind are scarce and rarely venture into cities?

"You write a message to Abihira and I'll deliver it," Shizuki continued. "Mother doesn't like you. She suspects you and Father are planning something. It's best if you are never seen talking to Abihira."

Ilaran ran that plan over in his head. He came up with only one possible flaw. "How can you deliver a message? You don't have pockets as a snake."

"No," Shizuki agreed, "but I can put things in my pockets before transforming, and they're still there when I change back. I don't quite know how it works."

Well. That was odd. Ilaran tried to figure it out for a moment before giving up. "All right. Do you know what Haliran's planning?"

Shizuki tilted his head to the side. It was a surprisingly bird-like gesture for him. "She's angry because Father borrowed letters her friends sent her, made copies of them, and sent them to the police. She needs to make connections with more powerful people who'll be willing to look the other way. I don't think she believes Abihira's anything special at all. That's just the excuse she's giving in case anyone questions her. She just thinks she'll be easy to manipulate because she's a stranger."