“No matter how many times you light a candle in the darkness,

the memory of what is lost remains.”

from the journal of Scanlin Ross, First Sword in Tyrian, Believer

Wake up!

Aralt struggled against the lashings of his nightmares. He had retired early, as had they all, but sleep eluded him for a time. Lian was restless as well, fevered and talking gibberish, speaking his brother’s name, begging for forgiveness for some unknown transgression. He had been forced to carry the boy to bed after the lad collapsed during dinner, sliding off his chair like a drunkard, eyes wide open as if he had died there on the floor. Spilled sweet wine, red as blood, only made the scene more macabre. Returning to dinner was useless at that point, with the entire kitchen staff in a panic, fearing they had inadvertently poisoned the next kavistra. Instead, Aralt had left Scanlin to contend with the local clergy—some of which he knew personally—while he conferred with Bethulyn’s ranking Swords regarding household security. Satisfied, he retreated to his suite on the third floor to sit on the balcony, sip Leythan wine, and count stars until he thought he might be able to sleep. Once successful, he wished only to escape the darkness of unalterable nightmares, where he struggled again and again, wishing he could wake up, wishing he might, at last, forget the unforgettable.

Glistening falls spilled down the towering cliff-face, turning to mist far below. Cold, cascading, crisp as autumn air. Deadly deceiver. He knew every outcropping, every narrow switchback, every stone-strewn terrace of the majestic Weeping Wall.

Kynlan rode behind him, his words lost in the roar of so much water rushing to the Pool of Tears at the base of the falls. At least one of them was talking. After their fight, the night before, Aralt wasn’t sure how long it was going to take to make amends. He only knew that his brother would be the first to apologize. They both knew it. He would miss Kynlan’s company. That was what he had been trying to say when it all went wrong, but they both knew it was more than that. Endru Kynsei was dead and his elder son, Devailyn, was to be Confirmed as kavistra. It was absurd. Not that Aralt had a solution. Now, Dev had conferred on Kynlan the honor of being one of his trusted counselors, a member of the klesia kaeli, a decision that brought objections from more than a few of the clergy and heads of state. Too young, they said. Too inexperienced. They said the same thing about Devailyn.

Devailyn.

The harp sang. Music swirled together with the water in Aralt’s dreams, carrying him far from Tyrian to the Kynseis’ house in Kyrrimar, where he flowed through mist and time up the stairs of the observatory and into warm light. The sound of crying. He searched the empty room. Lian, broken, bloody, weeping…he backed away, further, further, until he tumbled from a window, flailing…back to where he had begun.

The Weeping Wall.

A herd of double-toed sihshislii emerged from the mist, their hides like shimmering ring-scales. Desert dragons. He dodged as the creatures twisted by, passing from mist to bright sun, vanishing in the spray only to reappear on the far side of one of the shallow pools of the terraced waterfall.

“We don’t want to be late, brother.”

He whirled at the sound of Kynlan’s voice. Kynlan was smiling, as winsome as Aralt was brooding. Far below the trail, where tumbling water turned to a fine spray, the tower at Kyrrimar beckoned, blue light coursing thrice about the pinnacled roof. He groaned to himself. Late. He and Scanlin Ross, sailing the skies in the Aurora Dream, were late.

“Kavistra Devailyn is going to kill me…”

Three steps and he was falling, falling with no end in sight.

“Gareth?”

Alira Alwynn’s voice. That made no sense. She hadn’t been there, that day on the Weeping Wall, nor had she ever been to Kyrrimar, to his knowledge. He struggled to untangle the dream images. Her hand was warm in his.

“Gareth, what are you doing?”

“Dancing.”

And so he was. The Short Month drew to a close. The last dance of the night, and she was in his arms, spinning, laughing, warm. Luscious, impure thoughts settled over him as he drew her closer and she did not object. He could have this--and none of the guilt--if only he were to hang the wedding garland.

“My father is watching,” Alira told him.

He grinned and drew her closer, swaying to the beat of the orchestra, dizzy with wine and the flicker of traditional candles. Twelve tapers; the living flame. And the sound of the harp.

“Aralt, look out!”

Kynlan now, gripping his shoulder, dragging him away from Alira. Lonn Tirehl, his long blond hair streaming, his red crystal blade drawn, emerged from the door of the observatory as screaming filled the air. Aralt’s hand dropped to his sword belt. Blood and ashes! He had taken it off. No one entered the Kynsei home armed. He took Alira’s hand and ran as stained glass shattered, the rotunda tipped, and he was back in Tyrian. Water splashing across shale provided uneven footing and they fell. Her gown, ruined.

“Alira!” He turned to lift her, but Alira was gone. Instead, Larissa Kyncaid, dark hair slick and wet, slid though his arms, became one with the clouds and the mist and the pool, lost in the mirror of reality.

The harp sang.

Lian, running, fire in his eyes. The sound of crystal swords. The endless, desperate screaming. He followed, losing his way in the dark corridors, calling the boy’s name. At last, he burst into the garden that led to the Old City. And back to Tyrian, white-knuckled hand grasping his sword.

The roar of the water masked the approaching sihshislii until it appeared over a ridge, nearly trampling him. Lonn Tirehl sprang, lithe as a cat, as his mount stumbled and fell off the rocks into the swirling foam with a feral scream. Without pause for challenge or ceremony, Aralt charged, piercing red and yellow robes of spider silk with a sure stroke, but his adversary continued to advance. He sank to his ankles in the loose shale, sliding backward on the stones, grabbing his brother’s arm as they toppled into the current. Lonn Tirehl above them, his face, his ugly, snarling, grinning face.

“Tremayne, you know who your enemy is. Feed my shirrasah!”

Lonn Tirehl’s sword was a red blur in the bright noon sun. Kynlan fell, marathis sword spinning from his hand. A bloody stream ran down his wet face as he struggled up from the swirling waters, blindly groping for the rocks.

“Kynlan!”

He clawed at the merciless ground, the edges of the brutal shore slipping from his fingers as clay and silt seemed to melt away. Kynlan was heavy against him, a grotesque smear of blood and scalp where light brown hair ought to be. The current took them, slamming them into the rocks as they washed from one terrace to another. Lonn Tirehl faded in the distance as they swept perilously close to the greatest drop.

Lian struggled in the water beside him now, frantic. With effort, Aralt dragged his brother to a protected outcropping. He caught Lian around the waist with his sword arm, and the three of them clung together in the icy spray. Devailyn’s body washed over the terrace above them, his face grey with death. Lian screamed. At just the last moment, the kavistra’s hand reached out of the water, six fingers wrapping around Kynlan’s arm.

“Let me go,” Kynlan whispered. He was looking at Aralt.

“No!” he cried, eyes wet with the churning spray and tears.

“Let me go, or you’ll lose both of us,” Kynlan said. “Let me go.”

And as the raging current took his brother’s body, and the sweet and gentle touch Aralt had come to accept left his mind, Lian’s wasn’t the only throat raw with screaming.

The wine glass slipped from Aralt’s hand when he bolted awake, grasping for his sword, and finding nothing there. Fool! He had divested himself of baldric and scabbard hours before. He stepped gingerly over broken glass, moving from the darkness of night to a room lit only by the glowing coals on the hearth.

He searched the shadows for his brother’s sword hung above the mantel, the voice of the crystal blade beckoning gently to common blood, softly moaning the kaio’s howl, the bittersweet sound which had dragged him from the depths of unconsciousness and drawn him to it, wedged where it was in stones beneath the water. It was all he ever found of his brother.

His hands shook as he lifted the weapon down. The crystal sang a low, mournful tune, its melancholy voice the echo of his grief, a relic of the bond they had shared.

A shadow, darker than all the rest, fell at the chamber door. The bright scent of citrus and sunshine.

“Aralt?”

He froze, standing in the moons’ light by the terrace door, the marathis sword clasped to his heart. The dream tide rushed over him again, the choice between the living and the dead.

Scanlin’s voice then, close by. “Come awa’, m’lad.”

“But, I heard—”

“Come awa’. ’Twas naught but a dream,” was all Scanlin would say. And for that, Aralt was thankful.