It was late afternoon on Shayday. The temple grounds atop the hill were quiet and peaceful. Scribes walked the gardens or sat near calm pools. Worshippers spoke quietly and warmly. The occasional bark or flittering laughter carried through the treetops to a wooden-domed structure on the east side of the hill. It was the old temple of Edge.

The new temple cast a shadow upon the old even as it shone brightly in the setting sun. Towers set at strategic positions along the wall of the temple grounds had gilded facets. At all times of the day and year, the temple’s reflective roofs would be lit by the sun’s light from every angle as the towers acted like mirrors. The old temple was simply wood. The oldest trees in the valley grew around it and hemmed it in as if to keep it a secret or hide its ugly appearance.

Within the temple was a man and a woman sitting at a table. The room was dim, lit by a single crystal lantern. The purpling blue of sky could be seen through a tall window in the east wall. The window was behind a raised wooden dais much like the one in the new temple. Now, instead of worshippers, the room was an eating area. A distant sound of running water could be heard.

The paling light of the sky lit a piece of paper that was set on the table. The man scratched at his chin and picked up the document to read it but set it down again, realizing he would gain little more by reading it again.

“Kassim,” the woman said, “what do you think we should do?”

The man shrugged. He ran a hand through his copper-blond hair. “We can’t ignore it.”

The woman pushed her hair back behind her ear and motioned for him to give over the letter. He did so obligingly. She read the letter over again, then set it down.

“But we can ignore it. We aren’t a part of them anymore.”

Kassim scrunched up his face.

“We’re not,” she said firmly.

He took a breath in and held it for a moment. “Adilah—”

“No.” Her face grew stony. “We’re not. I’m not going back. We’re not doing what they say.” She swallowed and looked down to hide her reddening eyes.

Kassim’s brow furrowed at the middle.

A bird sang outside. Five notes as clear as a mountain lake and just as crisp.

Adilah sniffled. “They’ll take it from us if we don’t do what they say. They’ll take it all. That’s all they know how to do. That’s all we know how to do. We just take what we want.”

He sighed. “Perhaps we should have let the town be taken over by them. We would know what to do. We could have protected our friends, at least.”

She wiped her eyes and brushed her light copper hair away from her freckled face again. She looked out the tall window, and the pale light lit her features.

The man sighed. “I think it was worth it, though. There wouldn’t have been any peace like this if we’d let them have their way with the place.”

She nodded.

For a time they sat there in silence, brooding.

Casually, but such that it caught his eye, the woman turned her head, and her eyes darted in the direction of the back rooms. He calmly folded up the paper and laid it on the table. The sound of the rasping paper was loud in the silence.

They waited for a few moments, the sound of their breathing the only thing that could be heard, the steady thumping of their hearts the only thing that could be felt.

Kassim smacked a hand from reaching into the pocket of his priestly robes.

“Youch!” Leyla jumped back out of the shadow of his chair and shook the sting from her hand.

Then his arm was playfully slapped, and he grinned as he turned and held out his arms to hug his daughter.

“Well, hello, my little sunshine!”

Leyla smiled and stepped back, holding her hand to her chest. She tipped her head back and looked down her nose at him despite him being taller. “You shouldn’t use such words of sacrilege for your daughter. Such metaphors are only for the king. I doubt he would appreciate you calling him little. How inappropriate of the head priest!”

He smiled. “My daughter is far more radiant than the king could ever be. Now hug your dad, will you?”

She grinned and let herself be smothered in his arms. He wasn’t a big man. He was scarcely taller than she was, but even if she was hugged by a bear, she didn’t know of a warmer hug than his.

He tickled the side of her ribs, and she jerked out of his hug.

“Stop it!”

“You’ve really improved,” Adilah said and winked. “I think you almost got him this time. I didn’t even see you until the last moment.”

The young woman stuck out her lip in a fake pout.

“What gave me away?”

Adilah tapped the side of her nose. “Trade secret. How was your day?”

Leyla came around the table and hugged her mother. “It was okay. Rylen’s being a jerk, though.”

Adilah looked surprised. “Oh? How so?”

“It doesn’t matter… Oh, hey! Who’s the letter from?”

Kassim picked up the sheet and waved it. “Just some old friends saying hello to us and catching us up with things.”

“Where from?”

He tapped the paper’s edge on the table. “From the capital.”

“Are we going to see them? Or are they coming to us?”

“We won’t be visiting this time. By the way, Rylen was asking around for you. I take it you’re ignoring him currently?”

His daughter smiled. “No, I just haven’t talked to him for a day, that’s all. Anyway, I have something I have to finish up. I’ll be back in time for supper, okay?”

He waved with the letter as she left and then waited for a moment with Adilah until they knew she was gone.

“I really hope they don’t visit us,” Adilah said.

“They will. We’ve kept the Kamwa out for so long. They’re going to put the pieces together if they snoop around in the right places.”

“They might not.” Adilah sighed. “Why couldn’t we have raised her normally? We just hide behind these lies that we’re teaching her family history. I can see it tearing her apart.”

“She’ll be fine. She just needs to choose for herself which way she wants to go.”

“Well, she can’t make her way as a priestess.” Adilah bit the words off in her mouth.

“She could here. It isn’t like the rest of the country.”

“That’s because we are here.” Adilah was growing exasperated. “What happens when we grow old and die? There won’t be anyone to keep the Kamwa and all those lewd nobles away. Especially if she chooses to be a priestess. She’ll be nothing more than a cow to wolves.”

Kassim sat forward and laid his hand on hers. “My Lah, we fought them once before.” He looked into her eyes with a softness and intensity. “Leyla is a grown woman. She can take care of herself. We can let go now. We’ll have to. We…” He took a breath, preparing himself for what he was about to say. “We might have to keep her safe from the inside. We might have to join them again. In their eyes, we never entirely left in the first place. No one does.”

She grasped his hand in hers, and he completed the grasp.

“I don’t want to be one of them again,” she said softly.

He squeezed her hands in his. “We won’t be able to stay in Gwyan this time. We can’t even go back to Shabik. We’ll have to go much farther away. Somewhere they can’t reach us. We’ll make sure Leyla comes with us too. Okay? One more time. We can fight them one more time.”

***

Hyrestl worked unhurriedly, cleaning tables, sweeping, and dusting the various mugs he kept behind the bar. While relaxed, he was purposeful, lacking any laziness. They were the movements of a man well acquainted with the scope of his tasks.

It was late evening. The helpers had gone home for the day. Rylen was upstairs studying the Ara-Eran language and proper etiquette for the Gwyanian court as Hyrestl had advised him.

He took the sparse pile of dirt he had swept from the room and brushed it out onto the wraparound veranda, then methodically worked his way around, sweeping it all off the wood planks and onto the road.

This done, he trimmed the wicks of the two lanterns on the inside and outside of the front door. A couple of the guests had gone out drinking and hadn’t come back. He didn’t want them returning to a pitch-black inn and stubbing their toes on the chairs en route to their rooms. He went back in, checked the rear-door lock, and retired upstairs.

He passed Rylen, mumbling to himself and fighting off heavy eyelids. He felt the boy—no, the young man—glance up, but he paid him no mind. He slid aside one of the wall panels and went out onto the balcony. He retrieved a handful of flowers and returned to the tavern space. He placed one flower in a vase on every table.

He noticed a crack that was running up one of the chair’s legs. He took it and put it in the storeroom and retrieved one of the spares he kept for larger gatherings or events. He surveyed the rest of the chairs for any cracks like the one he’d found. Satisfied that there were none, he retrieved a large bowl of the last of the nuts in the storeroom.

He idly remembered that he had sent Rylen to get more but dismissed the point. He retrieved a smaller wood bowl and set both down on a table. He sat and took out a nutcracker. The night was quiet. The only sound was of breaking shells.

The front door opened, and he looked up. Jak sauntered over and dropped into a chair across from him. Hyrestl looked back down at his work.

“You feeling better?” Jak asked.

He cracked a nut, then another. “Yes.”

Jak shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Have you told him?”

Hyrestl glanced up but didn’t stop his work. “No.”

Jak rested his elbow on the table with his palm faced upward, his gesture indicating And why not?

Hyrestl took another nutcracker out of his apron and handed it to his friend. He scooted the bowl so it was between them and sat forward in his chair.

“You just had an extra one ready?” Jak asked, amused.

He didn’t respond.

Jak slowly took up the task. He looked idly around and listened for a bit.

“I know it’s hard to talk about something like that. Flames, if it’d been me, I don’t know what I would’ve done.” He looked across the table at Hyrestl. “There are many better men than me who would’ve walked away from the whole thing and never come back.”

The innkeeper looked up and eyed Jak, but it seemed the man wasn’t implying anything.

Jak smiled. “Flames, I remember when I lied to my boy once. Told him there was treasure to be found in the mountains, just like in the capital valley.” He chuckled. “I swear he searched every nook and cranny with Rylen that summer before he found out it was a lie.” His smiled softened to a sad line. “I know he had fun, but I won’t ever forget how he treated me once he’d learned the truth. I…I don’t think he’s ever trusted me quite the same again.”

“He also grew up. You can’t blame it all on yourself.”

For some time they continued breaking shells and placing the nutmeat in the smaller bowl.

One of the guests who had stayed out late stumbled in and said a bleary hello to them as he made his way up to his room. Hyrestl helped the man up the stairs, then returned and filled two mugs with beer before resuming his work. Jak took a drink and looked over the rim at Hyrestl before setting the mug down.

“So, are you just going to let him find out when it happens?”

“You’re comparing us,” Hyrestl growled, “but you’re forgetting that so many things are different between us.”

Jak waved a hand. “It doesn—”

“It does matter.” Hyrestl threw weight behind his voice. “He’s not my son. He never was. Our relationship will mean nothing after this is all through. He’ll go his way…and I’ll…go mine.”

Jak put down his nutcracker. “You’re wrong, you know that? Your relationship to him does matter. You think just because he’s adopted, he’s any less of a son?”

“He isn’t less of a son. He just isn’t one. Never was.”

Jak clenched his jaw. “See, that’s what’s wrecking the boy. You.”

A darkness came over Hyrestl’s brow, and he leaned forward. “We’ve both been doing our jobs. Why do you care about Rylen?”

“Maybe…it’s because I’ve got a family now. Rylen was a good friend to my son before they had to part ways.”

“See? You go on about how I should care for Rylen’s well-being, but you were one of the first to hurt him.”

Jak’s face grew red. “I have my son’s future to think about. I can’t have him hating me later because I let him be shunned for associating with a flaming Eran!”

He stopped as he heard the pitch of his voice grow too loud. He settled back in his chair and started cracking again but made his irritation evident.

“What do you have to lose?” he said. “If you really feel this way, I don’t know why you’ve stayed around this long. Any one of us would have been obliged by duty to take care of the boy in your place. Why don’t you go, if it pains you so much? Just go!”

Hyrestl stared at the grain of the table’s wood. He had tried. He had tried so many times. How could he tell Jak this? That he was cursed to never leave Rylen’s side? The man wouldn’t believe him.

There was only one time Hyrestl had felt he could run away. He had taken Rylen as a toddler and traveled with him down the valley and to the town of Tayra. The whole way, his biggest difficulty had been keeping the restless child from falling off bridges, sticking his hands into snake holes, or stealing fruit from stalls. It seemed like every way they turned Rylen was able to find the one thing he wasn’t supposed to touch.

At night, Hyrestl didn’t sleepwalk. He didn’t find himself back at Edge or in some random town. At the time, this served to confirm that for some reason he was tied to Rylen. His curse that kept him from returning home in Ara-Era was the same one that kept him from leaving Rylen’s side.

Thus, they made it to the town of Tayra and to the Tarawa Pass. Even from a distance, Hyrestl had seen that the massive stone gates of the pass were closed. He held out hope until he stood in front of them. Two lines of guards stood at attention in front of the barred gates. As he stood in awe looking up at the huge doors as impenetrable as a mountain, a guardsman approached and explained the doors had been sealed on the king’s orders.

Hyrestl had waited for a week after that, but they remained closed. Riots broke out on both sides of the barrier, as traders and merchants demanded a reason be given for the delay and that it be reopened. But the doors stayed shut, supplies ran short in the town, and people feared the doors would never open again.

After two weeks, Hyrestl had to leave. He walked the rest of the way back without eating. He only had money enough to feed Rylen bread.

Several months later, he had tried again. Again, the doors were locked shut. This time, he questioned the townspeople and found out that the doors had closed a week ago, only two days after he had left Edge. Before that, the doors had been closed for a full three weeks before they opened again the last time Hyrestl had visited.

So, he had returned to Edge and in another few months he traveled again with Rylen to Tayra. Again, two days after the day Hyrestl left from Edge the gates closed.

Hyrestl tried six more times. He traveled at night and stuck to the woods for two of those trips. Still, he found no entry when he reached Tayra. Another time he rented horses and a wagon on the premise that he was going to get quality timber for the inn. Even though he had pushed the horses to the point that they were frothing at the mouth, the gates were closed before he could reach the city.

He knew it wasn’t a coincidence. Even now, he thought he could feel himself being watched. A part of him suspected the men around him like Jak reporting on his movements. However, something nagged at him about Night’s Eye. Experience told him it was impossible for human eyes to make out anything in the dead of night through heavy foliage from something as far away as the tower. Yet, he had never once been able to travel to Tayra, or even the capital valley with Rylen in tow without the doors being inaccessible. But when he went by himself, the doors were always open.

Hyrestl cracked another nut and glanced across the table. His movements were calm and casual, whereas Jak couldn’t keep the flush of anger from his face. Several times, it looked like Jak was about to speak, but then he would shut his jaw.

An hour later, nothing else had been said between them.

Suddenly, Jak got up and left without saying a word. Hyrestl finished the job, and when he was done, he put a lid over the bowl and stored it away on a shelf. Then he busied himself with the last few things that needed to be done before bedtime. While he was stoking the fire for the night, the last guest came in, and Hyrestl helped him up the stairs. His work done, he treaded softly upstairs himself. He found Rylen asleep in his bed. He made his own bed and lay in it but tossed and turned before giving up.

He pulled aside a few of the wall panels and let moonlight filter into the room. He sat next to his bed and stared out into the night. His eyes wandered to the dimly lit tower and he glared at it.

Even now, he felt his frustration threatening to brim over. In his conversation with Jak, he’d had to breathe deeply and slowly to keep his nerves calm. A part of him had wanted to pound the man’s head into the table. But that wouldn’t solve anything.

Yasi’s birthday was the twenty-third of Himoyu. Molo’s was the fifth of Gohojo. He would be twenty-four years old. Yasi’s birthday was two months from now. She would be twenty-six then. She was only six years old when he left. He’d been gone twenty years.

He leaned heavily on his knees. He could never return to see his children grow into adulthood. They weren’t children anymore. They were adults by now, if they had survived. He wearily shook these thoughts from his head.

Twenty-six years old. Hyrestl tried to picture what Yasi would look like as an adult, but the image eluded him. He knew his dreams of her were vivid, but now…now his memories were only blurs.

Instead, he tried to imagine what her present life was like by comparing it to his own. What had he been doing at twenty-six?

He rubbed his brow and reminisced. He had been a father to two children. He was a captain in the military, and his wife ran a modest inn with some success. He was well-respected among the leaders of the small village. His children showed intelligence and physical prowess. He had everything he could have ever wished for.

Could he hope the same had happened for Yasi and Molo? Were they successful? If they were under Suspicion, he seriously doubted it. Rising through the ranks in the military would be nearly impossible. Few would employ them. Perhaps they were working as farmers or laborers.

Hyrestl sighed. He could remember the soft hands of his children. He couldn’t imagine them as farmers with calloused hands and weathered skin. Yet, if they were alive and well, able to make a living, he couldn’t ask for more.

What did they look like? Even if he returned, would he recognize them? Would they recognize him? Would they forgive him?

He sat, gazing out into the night as the clouds passed in front of the moon. He took deep breaths but couldn’t rest.

His squad had been sent on a raid against the Sae. They had made their strike successfully only to be relentlessly pursued. Even a thunderstorm hadn’t saved them from the Sae knight. He alone had been saved that night by a Deagon who had been passing by on a scouting mission. The Sae would have slain him otherwise.

He started. Hadn’t a dark figure been there as well? A…a Daja?

A chill tickled his spine, and he shivered. The Daja were only an old wives’ tale, something told to frighten children into obedience.

Someone, something had taken him away from his home and family. It wasn’t the Deagon. But perhaps it was. Who possessed the power to curse him, and to what end? To be cursed was one thing, to be cursed without reason or knowledge of why was another.

Who had he wronged? None that could bring a curse upon him. He had helped crush rebellious factions and fought the Sae… The Sae. Their arcane arts were second to none in the world.

Yet, for all the years he’d been taught how to combat them, nothing like a curse had been a part of it. There were Sae who wielded fire as easily as a sword, but none of them were known to place curses.

Daja. Daja laid curses.

Hyrestl shivered.

He sat still in thought.

His unanswered questions, his worries, his frustrations—he could feel them all in the pit of his stomach like brushwood in a fire pit. Whether it was a Sae, Ara-Eran, Telamian, or even a Daja if they were real, someone had cursed him. There was an enemy. And where there was an enemy, there was the opportunity for attack.

Hyrestl felt a small fire ignite inside him. He had an enemy. That small fire warmed him and relaxed his tensed muscles. Enemies could be fought and killed. Even a country as small as Telam fought the powers of the Sae. Hyrestl rose and closed the wall panels.

He lay down in his bedroll and stayed still, waiting for sleep to overtake him. Beside him, he could hear the soft sound of Rylen’s breathing.

Rylen. Wasn’t he the reason he kept being pulled back?

The wind swooshed gently against the walls outside.

Hyrestl hesitantly propped himself up on his elbow as if to get back out of bed. He could feel the knife he always kept close by.

Wasn’t Rylen an obstacle then? The only way he could return to Telam and search for answers was if he could return at all. What if Rylen were…removed? Would the curse still work?

He thought back to his days in Ara-Era and the times he had tried to return then. It hadn’t worked, but if Rylen…wasn’t around anymore, wouldn’t he return to Ara-Era? He would be half a world closer to Telam. He could find what kept him in Ara-Era, destroy it, and then…and then…hope flared inside his chest.

He gripped the hilt of the knife and casually flicked off its sheath. He sat up. He knew exactly where Rylen was sleeping. He could hear his shallow breathing.

The boy had been a chore all these years. An iron ball to Hyrestl’s chains. He remembered all the times he had tried to return home but had failed. He remembered building the inn, bit by bit. He’d had to feed and clothe and wash Rylen when he was just a little one. When he grew, Hyrestl had struggled to find new clothes almost twice a year, it seemed. He’d punished the lad when he’d misbehaved, taught him the art of fighting and the language of Ara-Era, told him stories, and conveyed what little he dared of what it took to be royalty.

A memory came to mind: Rylen running through the fields of wheat as a child. He was little more than a parting of the stalks in his passing. Fearlessly, fearlessly the little child ran toward the woods. All of Hyrestl’s warnings ignored, all of the times Rylen had hurt himself there or had come home frightened by a deer or something else, those times were forgotten in the joy of another chance of finding something new.

Hyrestl had seen it in Rylen’s eyes many times. He had been such an adventurous little spirit. Where was that boy now? Where was the courageous and fearless grin? He had seen less and less of it as he had grown up.

He stopped himself. If he wanted to return home, Rylen was in the way. He flipped the knife into a backhanded grip so he could stab downward with it.

His body didn’t move. The fires of anger and frustration burned inside him, and the winds of hope were fanning them, but his body would not move.

He clenched his teeth, trying to will himself to ease forward the few feet that would take him to Rylen’s side. His hand gripped his knife tightly.

He’d seen his children grow: Yasi until she was age six, Molo until he was four. He’d never seen them after that. He’d always had Rylen from the time he was only a year old.

Hyrestl’s breathing became labored. He imagined reuniting with Yasi and Molo; they were adults, and they recognized him on sight. They ran to him and hugged him, their tears wetting his shirt, and he kissing their heads. They would ask him what had kept him away and how he had come back.

Then he would remember. He would remember this moment.

His muscles shook as he strained against himself.

Then, suddenly, he flipped the knife around in his grasp and hurled it into the darkness.

“Raaah!”

Thunk! The knife buried itself into the wood frame of one of the wall panels.

Rylen sat bolt upright, gasping in fright. “What? What’s going on?”

Hyrestl did his best to steady his heavy breathing and pulled his covers over his shoulders, lying on his side and turning away from Rylen.

“Nothing, I just had a bad dream. Go back to sleep. Everything is all right.”

He could imagine the youth sitting up in the dark, looking around blearily. After a few silent moments, he heard Rylen nestle back under his covers and his breathing return to normal.

A new anger burned inside Hyrestl. One against himself.

When he was sure that Rylen was sound asleep, he got up and placed the knife back in its sheath.

He didn’t fall asleep for another hour.