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Chapter Text

“My heart was nearly dead when you invited me here. Another few months and I probably would have said no, because the worst thing, the very worst thing, is that I nearly believed it myself.” – The Hands of the Emperor, Chapter 12

“And he could not quite help but think that if he had stayed, that one day he would have gone out swimming and not come back.” – The Hands of the Emperor, Chapter 70

()

And . . . there. I drew back from the details of the working to look over it more fully. That should have been the last knot. I’d been more fiddling than truly productive for a while now, arranging paths for the most minor rainstorms. I cast my senses across the Wide Seas, feeling out the net I wove.

Nothing was straining. I would need to check on it over time, but for now, the calming of the storms across the Wide Seas was complete.

I lingered for a moment in the magic of Zunidh, then reluctantly started to pull myself back to my body.

It hurt. It always hurt, coming out of a deep trance. I let Conju guide me up, one sense at a time.

I pushed myself through it, a sort of giddy anticipation building. I had been trying not to think about it, trying not to let myself hope. Cliopher’s offer of a vacation in the Vanagavaye-ve – his home – had lingered in my mind. I’d been so sure that something would come up to prevent me from going.

Then I noticed the paper waiting on Conju’s desk.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, interrupting Conju. To his credit, he didn’t try to deflect me.

“It’s Nijan. The leader of one of the political factions died, and the riots have started up again.”

I closed my eyes. Of course. I’d been waiting for something like this to happen. I quietly laid my hopes to rest.

You opened your eyes. “Send for Cliopher.”

()

You worked through the Little Session.

You sent Cliopher to Nijan with guards, and did your best to work out a solution from the Palace of Stars.

The Ouranatha took the opportunity of your free time and the end of my latest great working to fill your days with rituals. Without great workings of magic to do, you managed to push my magic deep enough that you were merely made nauseous by the workings of schooled magic.

Conju had noticed of course. The food you were served was soft and bland and easily digestible. You wanted to ask if a little spice would kill you, but you remembered well enough what had happened the last time you tried to be more adventurous while undergoing a series of intensive rituals, and you had no wish to vomit.

Court started up again. Without Cliopher there, it was agonizing. You met with a rotation of secretaries from his Offices of State every morning, and Saya Kalikiri once a week for sensitive matters. You considered, absently, if this was what your days would be like when Cliopher retired.

You sat in the sun when you could, trying to soak up its warmth. Conju had noticed this tendency, and you found yourself with a growing number of quilted robes, the chairs placed out for you more padded.

You sat in my private study. An hour a day, you had promised me, but I couldn’t find it within myself to do anything. So it was you who sat there, running your hands along the samples and bolts of fabric I had collected. You could not touch your own clothes so, not without worrying that you might dirty them and make more work for your launderers.

The situation in Nijan resolved itself eventually under Cliopher’s expert hand, just in time for his yearly vacation. You sent a letter through the Lights telling him that he was to take his vacation without passing through Solaara. The assistants he had taken with him could return and speak of the compromises Cliopher won for you. You strictly told yourself you were letting him go. Cliopher was growing older – getting to the age where people started to retire. You had to learn how to let him go, so that you could when he asked.

The Ouranatha came by for one of their rituals one day, while Cliopher was taking his vacation. High Priests Bavezh and Iprenna, who rarely bothered themselves with the day to day rituals that were still supposedly so necessary for you to perform.

When the ritual was complete, your eyes stinging from the incense, they paused to talk with you.

“Your jubilee approaches, Glorious One,” Bavezh said.

They had informed us so before. I had laughed and asked which one, to which they had sternly responded that my thinking about Zunidh’s broken time would only make it worse. You wondered why they thought to bring it up again.

“The Grand Duchess of Old Damara, Glorious One, is not a great mage such as you are. She will not be able to hold Lordship of Zunidh, and you are no longer so young as you once were.”

You did not tense as I would.

It was a relief, you thought distantly, that they had finally resigned themselves to your refusal to sire an heir in the aftermath of the Fall. You did not like that they were still considering your sister as your heir when you fully intended for the Empire of Astandalas to die with you. But they were not wrong that it was perhaps time to begin to consider finding my successor as Lord of Zunidh.

“We understand,” you murmured, and motioned dismissal.

You were glad when Cliopher returned finally to the Palace of Stars bright eyed and with a new hundred–some page proposal to change the world.

You met his eyes, and I felt like I was drowning as I clawed myself to the surface.

“Good morning Cliopher.”

“Good morning my lord.”

I managed to pull myself to the surface again and again, day after day. I spent my allotted hour in my private study, reading and thinking.

Our chess games and dinners and luncheons with Cliopher continued – little comforts for our cage. But we called for him less. He was a comfort, but it took energy we didn’t have to rouse ourself enough to respond to him as he deserved. And he was surely busy, or spending time with his friends. He was rearranging your government for us, the least we could do was give him the time to do so.

You turned your attention to the dual projects of bringing Cliopher’s latest plan to fruition and working out how you might appoint a successor.

I relied upon Cliopher, of course, to bring me research on how such a thing as appointing a new Lord Magus might be done. He seemed surprised, but he was as efficient as he ever was, and soon you were provided with a wealth of resources.

One of the first books provided was a monograph called The Succession of the Lords Magi of Zunidh from Ialo to Artorin Damara by one Zemius Mdang. I managed a smile at the name – one of Cliopher’s innumerable cousins no doubt. It was a fascinating read, and I allowed myself to nurture a flare of hope as I considered Zemius’s thesis on a seeking spell used by the Lord Magi of Zunidh. But even as I hoped, I knew it was futile. I would not be allowed out and about on my own for an adventure. I set the book to the side to read the other books Cliopher had found me.

I wrote to the University of Tara on Alinor for advice, and in turn to the Lady Jessamine of Alinor and the Lord of Ysthar.

My regular correspondence with the university was intermittent given the time difference, but of Alinor’s universities Tara was the one I was most familiar with. They were the ones who published the papers I wrote in my private study, the ones who reviewed my efforts to record what I had done for the future, unsure though I was how helpful a wild mage’s thoughts might be for any hope of replicating or changing the effort. My correspondence with the Lord of Ysthar was even more erratic, mostly passing through the University of Tara as we responded to each others’ writings. The Lady Jessamine had withdrawn long ago and no longer responded, but I thought the courtesy worth it.

The Lord of Ysthar’s advice was this: forfeit when challenged to the Great Game Aurieleteer, or find a willing god to pass it along. I apologize, Lord Artorin, but truly that is the best I can offer. My own acceptance of the position was hardly something that I will be able to reproduce when the time comes.

The University of Tara had its own advice and legend and story.

Ultimately though, I fell back upon the imperial records of how Lord Magi were appointed. There were extensive records on which noble families produced mages of sufficient power, records on which families had most recently been given the honor, records on which families were more inclined to the magic of one world and which families could if necessary take up the magic of any world. There were records on the bindings and how they were transferred.

I set Cliopher’s office to the work of tracking down those lineages compatible with or accepting of Zunidh. I let Cliopher’s office write to those who yet lived, inquiring delicately about their younger members and mage ability. More had survived than I would have expected, and any action on my part would be as subtle and helpful as a bull in a china shop.

You worked with Cliopher to push through the universal stipend. It was a beautiful culmination of all that he had been working towards all these years, and you were in awe of Cliopher all over again to see it and to look back and see how he had held true to his course for so long.

It took years. Cliopher went on his vacations and came back. Every time he left felt like the tolling of a bell – one year closer to his retirement. One year closer to when he left you. You might have delayed on pushing through the universal stipend had you been a worse person.

Cliopher’s office filtered down the candidates for my successor as Lord Magus, and a small group were summoned to begin the final selection process. Some of those summoned were so young. You felt exhausted seeing them and their energy. And it was you who spoke to them – the magic was mine, but the necessary politics were yours.

We had a heart attack.

I heard my name called, sung, offered; a great naming, a great acknowledgement, even as careless hands, desperate hands handled the heart of what I was and broke –

I gasped back into physicality, as hard as surfacing from any deep trance, with warmth against my skin that made me reach –

You slammed my hands down.

We strained to breathe, even that made difficult and unfamiliar with pain.

We could barely register the world, but you saved Ludvic. You saved him.

It was a bitter thing in the aftermath to realise the Ouranatha had been correct. We were getting old.

Cliopher had managed admirably during our long and lonely convalescence, but it had worn on him.

You pressed forwards.

You chose my successor: Tanaea Au'auēna of Ziukurui. When I had first been searching for a successor, she had been far too young, but time had moved faster for her. She arrived at the Palace of Stars as an adult. Her father’s line and his name were known and respected among the clinging remnants of Astandalan nobility. Her mother was a Wide Seas Islander, and something of her magic spoke of the ocean and of islands. We found that comforting, a reminder of Cliopher for us to hoard after he was gone.

You managed the slow transition of your political power to her.

I managed the transition of my magical responsibilities.

Your ritual duties remained your own.

The Ouranatha would accept Tanaea’s authority on the magic of the world, but she was not a descendant of the Sun and Moon, and they would accept no substitutes. You wondered what they would do when you died. You had managed to separate your position as emperor so sufficiently from that of the Lady Magus of Zunidh that the Ouranatha no longer even spoke of your sister as your heir.

The rituals remained, but you did not need to do anything for them. You thought absently that a doll could fill this role just as easily. The Ouranatha had certainly managed their rituals with only your sleeping body those hundred years you lay in state, and had been distressed when you woke and were able to contradict them again.

Cliopher was busy. There was no more magic for me to perform, with Tanaea having taken upon herself the role of Lady Magus in all but name. I found myself retreating within you once more, sinking down away from the world. You sat in my study and wondered at the fabrics again.

Cliopher had appointed his own successor – Sayu Aioru of the Kallarrahroo. Aioru worked with Tanaea, and together they managed all of your political duties. For once, you found yourself with as little to do as me.

There were only the rituals, the endless rituals, and court.

By the time your jubilee arrived, you were as numb as I. The weight of the world sliding off my shoulders was not enough to rouse me.

We both managed . . .  something for Cliopher’s retirement. A spark of life, to ward off the concern in his eyes. We didn’t quite reassure him, but we managed enough that he left us to tend to his other guests. We managed to avoid being maudlin until we were once more in your rooms, alone behind the curtains of your bed.

We walked Cliopher to the sky ship. With our duties gone, we had time for that.

We had all the time in the world, and nothing to fill it but rituals and court.

You sat in my private study, watching the light from the window move across the floor. You said to me, buried deep, “There’s not much left of you, but there isn’t really anything left of me either. Just this hollow shell of a doll to be dressed and made to shine, and then tucked away in the padding again until it's time.”

There were the rituals, always the rituals.

We were cold. We ached. Our appetite, long small, lessened further. Conju worried and fussed. The food grew, if possible, blander and more digestible. There was more padding, more quilted robes. A soft smothering, almost gentle.

We did not need to do the rituals. So many had become unnecessary after the Fall, and many more I was certain the Ouranatha made up.

But there was nothing else to fill our days.

You sat in my private study for one hour a day, even though we could afford longer. You watched the light from the window move across the floor, and thought –

I stirred. The magic was mine.

Your guards would be reassured to know that you were safe. They’d always worried about your safety, alone in my private study. More wards would reassure them.

I built the wards up slowly, one hour at a time. I’d never done this before – not something that was meant to last. I built atop those first, barebones wards I laid years, centuries ago. I’d modified those to allow Cliopher in, in case I was needed for something important. With Tanaea and Aioru settled in, there was nothing that important anymore, so I didn’t bother to modify them. I laid down new wards for privacy, wards of protection. Nothing that would hurt anyone if they tried to breach them – I already hated that the doors to my private chamber were warded so. Just . . . layer upon layer of wards. Through the door, through the walls, across the open glass of the window. I had the time, and there was no reason not to.

At one point, I realized absently that my little room might be better warded than the heart stone was. Oh, the heart stone had been warded well, but even it hadn’t been subject to quite so much focused attention by a planetary level great mage.

I thought about the way Conju was trying to help us: padding and warmed towels and quilted robes. I drew that feeling up and wrapped it around my private study too: draping it like a soft blanket over a table the way children create blanket forts.

We endured the rituals.

I laid another ward, disguising the window on the side of the palace.

Another protection – your guards would be happy.

The rock I had enchanted to buzz when my time was up vibrated next to me. I opened my eyes and sat up. The palace bells had long stopped penetrating the walls of my study, and I had wanted to ensure you were on time for your commitments.

You reached for the stone, stopping the vibrations with a gentle tap. You lay back down on the couch and closed your eyes.

()

We thought about Cliopher. He’d been retired for – a while now. We had lost track.

You wondered what he was doing without the mundial government to distract him. He loved maths and reports – would he seek them out in retirement?

I wondered if he had taken up singing. I hummed to myself all the snippets of songs I could remember him humming over the years. There was Aurora, and That Party, and Kissing the Moon, and so many other works I’d written. There were folk songs from the length and breadth of Zunidh, and a selection of offerings from Alinor and Ysthar. There were snippets of grand orchestral symphonies and operas, condensed down into what one voice can achieve humming absently. There were songs that even I, as widely travelled as I was, didn’t know.

()

It grew dark. I was only rarely in my study after dark. We had tried, but we were always too tired after court. I’d fallen asleep only once, and woken with my heart pounding when your attendants had knocked at the door in concern.

I lit a candle and found one of my books.

We curled up with it together, and I read it for you, Artorin Damara. The emperor was not welcome in my study, but you had sat there time and time again because you promised me one hour a day. I read for you Artorin Damara, because who else but Fitzroy Angursell would think to read a book of children’s fairy tales to the emperor?

()

We slept.

It had been a long time since I was the one marveling over the fabrics we had squirreled away, but I found myself uninterested. I found a violet angora blanket, and I let you marvel at how soft it was as I pulled it over us to sleep.

There was a chamberpot in the room. A plain, undecorated thing that must have been sitting there for ages before we commandeered the room for our own purposes. I banished our waste easily enough.

()

We were tired when we woke. It felt like a luxury beyond any the palace offered to just roll over and go back to sleep.

()

Our mouth felt dry. I ignored it. I read to you again.

What do you think of Olor, Artorin Damara?

What of the Saga of the Sons of Morning?

What of daring adventure, what of your great and ancient ancestors?

It was hard to find your response. You were not made for imagining adventure, even only in story form. Even Aurelius Magnus’s adventures, so much closer in history than Damar and Yr, seemed strange. On the battlefield at eleven, emperor at sixteen, allowed to travel on his own to meet the Seafarer King. You could never.

I couldn’t think of what you might say, hearing for the first time these stories so familiar to me.

()

We slept.

()

There was a book we had been delaying in reading.

I had the thought when we woke, and you grabbed onto it.

The Lays of the Wide Seas, with sheet music and translations. What should a foreign spouse marrying in know? you– I– we wrote. We’d addressed it to the Cultural Studies department of the Gorjo City University in a fit of petty jealousy, after the Emerald Conspiracy. The Lays had only been one resource offered, but by the time the response got back to us, the jealousy had died a miserable death. Still, we’d thought that learning the history of one of your provinces was worthwhile, and felt excited by the prospect of music. We’d been saving the book as a reward. What better time would we find to read it than now?

Our throat was too dry to talk or sing, but we mouthed the words. My fingers twitched in the air, feeling out the strings of the melody.

We poured over the pages.

We found – Aurelius Magnus, and his friend Elonoa’a, the Paramount Chief, not the King.

()

The noon sunlight was streaming honey–thick through the window when we remembered that we had some wine in here.

We were very thirsty. If we got up and found the wine we would be less thirsty, and our head would hurt less.

. . . if we got up and found the wine this would take longer.

. . . I wasn’t sure how long we had. The room was more protected than the palace’s heart stone, but Tanaea was a planetary level great mage just as I was. How long would it take her to break through the wards? How much time would she even be able to dedicate to doing so? I had built up the wards over such a period of time, but destroying things can be easier than making them.

If we pretended we hadn’t remembered the wine, we could pretend we didn’t know what we were doing.

If we drank the wine this would take longer.

. . . you were very thirsty. You, the emperor who had known nothing but bodily comfort, except when the Ouranatha bound you with their rituals.

I felt a queer sort of tenderness for you – you who had protected me from the world for so long. And I did not want to be to you as the Ouranatha were.

I could – a cup would help. Drinking a bottle of wine, or even all three bottles I knew were in here, would slow this down, but a cup wouldn’t do much, even as it made you feel less thirsty.

I swayed when I pushed myself to my feet, dizzy and weak and listless.

I felt distantly disappointed with myself. I had been in a better state after the same length of time, the last time I had been denied water. You reminded me that I was much older now, and had been in somewhat poor health for . . . centuries, by some measure.

I found the wine bottles, and a goblet. I poured you a cup, and put the cork back into the wine bottle. I gave the cup to you and let you sip it slowly. It was fruity wine. You – we both like fruity wine the best. You had never had fresh fruit, and I could not forget it. It wet your parched mouth and throat.

You thought longingly of the rest of the wine. You set the cup back on the desk, and went back to the couch, and the Lays.

()

We slept.

I dreamed of prisons, of a tower in a burning forest, of the great deserts of Kaphyrn.

I woke to the moon’s glow through the window. I turned my back on it and pulled the violet angora up over my head.

I dreamed of the open ocean.

My lips were chapped by the wind, and by the salt that sprayed in my face as I leaned out over the water passing below the great double hulled ship. Someone pulled me back, solidly onto the ship, and I turned to see Cliopher, laughing at me.

I dreamed of a white sand beach, coals glowing, shimmering with heat.

I could feel the baking heat against my skin, the way sweat dried before it could form, as I watched the figure before me dance over the coals in awe. There was a final triumphant run back and forth, and then Cliopher stopped before me, chest heaving, arm high, eyes burning, exuberant.

I dreamed of the Sun’s embrace, and the arms of the Moon, and Cliopher’s face as they stole me away.

I dreamed of dreaming, of hearing the declaration that I would not be left to suffer alone.

()

We slept.

You dreamed of the rituals.

Ancient incense was waved in your face until your eyes were red from the smoke and your nose running black.

You held a position so long your muscles burned with disuse and quivered when you were finally allowed to move.

There had been one ritual that demanded your spit. It took hours to fill the cup you had been presented with, over and over trying to dredge up any moisture in your mouth for the undignified act of spitting into the cup.

()

We lay there upon the sofa for a long time, upon waking.

Our study of the Lays had been informative. We knew now that Elonoa’a would not have done the fire dance that still so fascinated Shaian audiences so many years later, but Tupaia, a tanà, a Mdang. The Lays we had read had been less clear on who a tanà was, or how one became such. The dream of Cliopher dancing the fire lingered in our minds regardless.

My second dream was a lovely one. Yours had been a nightmare only outpaced by our waking life.

Our head hurt. Even the gentle morning light felt piercing to our eyes.

I pulled the violet angora further over our head.

Our throat was too dry to hum, so I just told you stories in the silence between our thoughts.

We could feel the beating of our heart against our fingertips where they rested on our chest. It was faster than it should have been, and it threw off my attempts to recite poems for you, rushing the timing. Something in our abdomen cramped.

My thoughts felt slow, and sometimes I struggled to complete my sentences. It had always been more difficult to keep you close when I was feeling unwell, and your responses trickled to a stop until I was just telling stories to myself.

I drifted.

I felt even more alone without you, you who had protected me for so long. I hated you and I felt sorry for you.

I thought to myself again, as the afternoon sunlight turned honey–gold and molasses thick, that I’d expected to last longer. You didn’t respond.

I tried to remember what you had said. Something about how we had been in poor health for centuries. But how could we have been in poor health for so long at the heart of your empire, with all the best physicians in the world attending us?

()

I was aware, at some point, that I’d started having trouble breathing. The effort of taking the next breath felt insurmountable until I managed it. And then there was the next breath. And the next.

Moonlight cast everything around me in silver when I slit my eyes open, and it made me feel sick to my stomach for an endless moment before I forced my eyes closed.

()

I heard the door open. Nearly soundless – you attendants wouldn’t have allowed anything else.

Ah, I thought. The delirium has started.

“Oh my lord,” I heard Cliopher say, sounding distressed.

I thought that was kind of my imagination. I hadn’t thought I had it in me to imagine something so kind as Cliopher here for me, worried for me.

I turned my head slightly towards the direction Cliopher’s voice had seemed to come from, but resolutely kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want to open them and find no one there. I didn’t have the energy to open them.

Something brushed against my forehead, and there was a faint snapping sound.

I was fairly certain the delirium was not supposed to get this deep this fast, and yet.

I allowed myself to imagine that the touch had been Cliopher as well. I would be safe with Cliopher, under his watchful gaze. He had never observed any of the rituals the Ouranatha put me through.

I was safe.

Chapter Text

I drifted lazily in a sea of warmth.

Someone held me, their chest at my back, their arms around me.

Someone was coaxing me to drink, small drips and dribbles at a time.

It was nice. Delirium had never been so kind to me before.

Voices spoke around me, but I made a concentrated effort to let the sounds fall unintelligibly through me. I did not trust them to be kind.

I felt like I was floating.

()

There was the gentle back and forth of being carried on my litter, but someone held me, murmuring and humming and singing quietly.

I imagined the music of the Lays of the Wide Seas, the sheet music in black and white dancing across my vision.

()

Someone held me.

()

Someone held me.

()

Someone held me.

()

Eventually, I had to admit to myself that this delirium was lasting much longer than it really should. Also that I was feeling much less confused, and much more clear headed, and much stronger, even as I tracked the way my body moved just slightly in time with the breathing of the person holding me.

It had to be delirium, no one could touch me.

And yet. It had been so consistent. Had my mind finally broken? Had I finally fallen to the madness that plagued my family line?

I wouldn’t have thought madness would feel so soft. Not – not padded, not the smoothness of the silks and fine linen relegated to the fate of your clothes and bedsheets. But the softness of muscle and fat padding bones beneath me, skin to skin, the hand stroking gently down my back.

()

My madness was obsessed with feeding me liquids.

I supposed that made sense.

I imagined fruit juice often, sweet and cool and thick with pulp.

I kept my eyes closed. I was scared to open them and find myself back, alone in my study again, without even you.

I could feel you again. You held me in your serenity, protecting me as you always had. All of your other duties were done, passed on and taken care of, but still you were there to hold me, to keep me safe.

()

Finally, I opened my eyes.

It was dark, and I was glad for the darkness. I was not in my study. You held me close, kept me safe, buffered me from the wanting and the shock.

It was dark, and overhead there were delicate spheres of glass, and beyond that – the stars. There was no moon I could see, but there were the stars, glimmering through the glass. You would never have been allowed in such a room in Astandalas. After the Fall there had been more leeway – you had been allowed outside, but. You couldn’t imagine being allowed to sleep under the stars even after the Fall. You had barely been able to see the great River of Stars from your terrace, with the lights of the palace blotting out the sky.

Even here, wherever we were, the stars were not so bright as I knew they could be, but they were far more present than you had ever seen.

I became aware again that someone held me.

I rose and fell slightly with the motion of their breath. Their bare skin was warm against mine, slightly tacky with sweat. I turned my head to see the sprawl of an arm across the sheets. Gold glinted somewhere in the folds of the sheets.

You held me. I trembled, and you held me. You had never touched another but for that single time it killed, but you held me.

Look, you urged me. There is no burning.

I trembled and gasped, and you held me and I fumbled my way to your understanding. There was no burning. There was no burning.

I managed eventually to pull myself up into a sitting position, feeling as weak as a newborn foal. It was Cliopher, who I was lying on. Of course it was Cliopher.

I twisted and managed to position myself so I was sprawled over him on my stomach rather than my back. I watched him for a while, my chin propped on his chest.

I thought, absently, that I should roll away.

You thought – you had not requested this. You had not implied that you might want it. You had been so careful about that. Every indicator pointed to this being, somehow, Cliopher’s choice.

I turned my head and rested my cheek on Cliopher’s chest. I closed my eyes.

()

It was morning when I woke. Cliopher was shifting beneath me.

“Did you move him after I left?” Conju asked, and Cliopher stilled.

“No I didn’t.” I felt the stutter of Cliopher’s breath in his lungs. “My lord?”

My trembling started anew, my hands finding the cloth of Cliopher’s sleep trousers and clenching.

“Oh my lord,” Cliopher said, and then I felt it again: his hands stroking down my back.

“Thank the Sun,” Conju said.

And then: more hands on me. I stayed as limp as I could manage, though I trembled still, and I couldn’t help but flinch away from the touches sometimes.

They got me sitting upright and across Cliopher’s lap, leaning slightly against him. There was a rustling sound, and then footsteps retreated across the room.

“I hope you feel better soon, my lord,” Conju said. “Cliopher, ring the bell if you need help.”

“I will.” Cliopher sounded exasperated.

The footsteps retreated further until they were lost.

I opened my eyes, blinking against the strong sunlight. Cliopher was looking away from me, reaching for something with his other arm. He turned back to me, and I watched in wonder at the smile that lit up his face when he met my eyes.

“There you are,” Cliopher murmured.

I blinked. I tried to dredge up the strength to move, but I couldn’t. You held me and kept me from panicking.

“Do you think you can open your mouth for me?” Cliopher asked. “Say aaaaaaa.”

My mouth dropped open to match Cliopher’s automatically, and he brought a spoon up, carefully feeding me some soup. It was vaguely embarrassing to be fed like a baby, but you kept that from me as well. We weren’t entirely sure I could feed myself at the moment. Cliopher fed me slowly, and patiently.

There was gold on his hand, smeared messily across his fingers.

At one point my face contorted into a grimace for no reason. You couldn’t stop the panic that overwhelmed me, making my breathing speed up, but Cliopher didn’t seem surprised. He set the spoon to the side and just gently rubbed his thumb along the ridge of my cheekbone as I trembled in his hold.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he murmured. “This will pass. You’re safe here.”

When my face relaxed, he picked up the spoon again and kept feeding me.

After he had finished feeding me, Cliopher quickly wolfed down a pastry of some kind. One hand absently drifted up to my mouth as I watched him eat, and the other hand plucked at the fabric of the sleep trousers I was wearing.

“One moment, my lord,” Cliopher said when he was done eating, “let me put this by the door.”

Cliopher managed to shuffle our positions so that I was sitting at the edge of the bed on my own. I watched as he carried a tray from the bed over to set it on the floor next to the stairs. He came back over and sat next to me again, taking one of my hands.

My other hand was still plucking at the fabric of my sleep trousers. I couldn’t get it to stop. I couldn’t open my mouth to ask what was happening – what had happened. I couldn’t figure out how to get my mouth open again. My jaw felt wired shut, and my throat almost frozen.

“My lord. I should probably tell you what happened, now that you seem a little more awake.”

I managed a single, convulsive nod.

Cliopher smiled at me. “We’ve been worried about you for a while now. As far back when you were doing the great working to calm the typhoons over the Wide Seas. I invited you on a vacation then, do you remember?”

He said that as if the invitation hadn’t been one of the greatest treasures we’d received from him. That we hadn’t been able to go was – I couldn’t say it was one of my greatest regrets, not when there was so much I – you – we had done in our early days as emperor. But it was certainly something I held close to my heart.

I heard myself say, “Worried about you.”

“Right. Well, we were relieved when you started looking for ways to step down as Lord Magus of Zunidh. We thought that would help – that it would relieve some of the burden.”

Cliopher paused, a frown creasing his forehead.

“It didn’t. Oh, you let the magic and politics go, and that helped some, but the Ouranatha descended upon you like the vultures they are. Ritual after ritual, day after day – even though we knew you were a wild mage, even though we knew just how much those rituals hurt you.” Cliopher’s scowl was a terrifying thing, and I felt entirely safe under its protection. His face softened, and he squeezed my hand. “I’m ashamed to say, my lord, that Conju’s the one who drew the line. He’s the one who declared that while you certainly deserved all the glory and luxury of an emperor of Astandalas, you wouldn’t be getting any rest while you stayed in the palace.”

“I’m ashamed to say,” I echoed.

“Of course, if we wanted to get you out of the palace there were the taboos –”

“The taboos,” I echoed, very worried.

“– to worry about. Conju said that he could have managed something short term by bringing what you would need from the Imperial Apartments, but none of us have enough talent with magic to purify what you would need in the long term. Bringing a member of the Ouranatha with us to purify things would have defeated the purpose, so . . . Conju started talking with the Mother of Mountains, and with the candidates you called to the palace for evaluation. At first, I think that he was just trying to work out somewhere we could arrange for purifications without needing the Ouranatha – and the Mother of Mountains did profess a willingness to allow either you to stay at her abbey in the guest room, or to provide the necessary purifications while you lived in the nearby village. We thought – at the time, we thought you might like that.”

My breath had sped up again. Had they thought that? Had they? How could they not realize I would go mad like that?

Cliopher looked sad, and he squeezed my hand.

“Don’t worry. We thought better of it.”

“Thought better of it,” I echoed him.

“We might not have had much of a choice still – but Tanaea asked us why you were even still bound by the taboos, why you even needed your environment purified still. The taboos and purifications came with the Pax, and since it fell shouldn’t they have fallen too?”

“Fallen too?” I echoed.

I knew the answer to this question at least. The taboos had partially fallen with the breaking of the Pax. But the broken pieces of the Pax still clung to me and you, and with them the ritual taboos and some of the magic taboos had lingered. I’d had time to study the broken pieces of the Pax early on, hoping that I would be able to untangle myself. I couldn’t. The magic had been wrapped around me, perfectly smooth without any edges I could grasp. I would never have been able to break them from the inside, and there had been no one I could ask to do so from the outside, not when the Ouranatha were so determined to make me a god.

“Well, Tanaea’s been working on removing the taboos. We all decided – that is, Ludvic, Rhodin, Conju, and I – we all decided I should go ahead of everyone else to get a house ready. I’m actually fairly certain they were just trying to make me retire early so I wasn’t implicated in case something went wrong, but in any case, that’s what I did. We were going to ask you – and if you didn’t want to live here, there are other places. I don’t know that I could live away from home anymore, but I would have visited.”

“Something went wrong,” I echoed.

“And then–” Cliopher’s voice broke. He dropped my hand and turned to pull me into an awkward embrace. My arms drifted up without conscious thought, but then I found it within myself to tighten the loose hold they’d settled into, clutching Cliopher as desperately as he was clutching me.

“I was so worried,” Cliopher said, his voice thick. I felt something hot and wet hit my neck. “They waited – they didn’t try to open your study until the next morning. Conju says they were worried that you might have had another heart attack, except that the lights held steady. They asked Tanaea, and she was able to confirm that you were still alive, so they waited until the morning.”

His arms squeezed tighter for a moment. “They waited until morning to knock. To try the door. They didn’t bring Tanaea in until noon. My lord, what were you thinking? No one could get in. What if you had had another heart attack? You would have died in there alone.”

More tears dripped onto my neck, and I found myself trembling again, compulsively squeezing and releasing my grip on Cliopher. I resolved immediately not to let a word of what I’d been thinking in that room slip past my lips.

“They didn’t send for me until that evening, and only then because they thought I should be there when – I was on Loaloa, and it took an extra twelve hours for Oriana’s sky ship to get there, then back to the Lights. And only that little time because the crew apparently staged a revolt against the Princess for trying to refuse use of her sky ship when the orders came through. Tanaea said – Tanaea said she couldn’t tell if you’d somehow tied yourself into the wards. She was deathly afraid that trying to break them would force you to spend your energy – would . . . “

I couldn’t tell if I was trembling or Cliopher was as he cried. Eventually he managed to pull himself together.

“I got there, and Tanaea told me to try the door. And it opened for me. And you weren’t responsive my lord, so I carried you out.”

“Weren’t responsive,” I echoed.

“Tanaea cut through the last of the taboos and the Pax and all that right then and there as Domina Audry assessed you. And – you were so dehydrated my lord. I was so worried – there’s a point of no return, you know? Where you can’t help someone so dehydrated anymore, and you can only do your best to make their death painless. I was so worried – and you weren’t responding.”

Cliopher sniffed wetly.

“Domina Audry said you’re catatonic. Stuporous catatonia, she said – because you weren’t moving and weren’t registering the world around you. She said there could be many different causes. She talked us through some other symptoms that might present themselves – like how you’ve been echoing my words back to me.”

“Echoing my words,” I said.

“Exactly.” Cliopher sniffed again, then pulled back from the embrace. “Mostly, though, we just need to keep you safe while you’re like this. Feed you, keep you hydrated, keep you clean, keep you from developing bed sores. It’s been fifteen days since you didn’t come out of your study. You latched onto me at some point during the examination, and even though you weren’t responding to anything else, you panicked when I tried to leave. Domina Audry said something about skin hunger and touch deprivation and told me I should give you as much skin contact as I was comfortable with.”

“As I was comfortable with,” I echoed, the words bouncing around in my head. As much skin contact as he was comfortable with. He wasn't wearing a shirt, as he turned to rifle through something next to the bed, and came up with a handkerchief to wipe at his face with. I wasn’t wearing a shirt either. And – he’d hugged me and fed me, and let me sleep in the same bed.

Maybe once I would have wanted more, but I hardly knew what to do with this much. This much, and from Cliopher, who had saved me and stood by my side so long as he built me a better world. Cliopher, who retired and left – not because he was tired of me, but to clear my path out, and finally and thankfully for his own protection.

I was aware of my face snarling into another grimace even as tears welled up and my breath hitched and I tipped over into sobbing.

“Oh!” said Cliopher when he turned. “Oh my lord.”

He found another handkerchief, then shuffled closer to throw his arm around my shoulders. He wiped away my tears gently.

()

I came back to myself a little at a time.

The periods where I found myself unable to move grew shorter.

Domina Audry visited, and prescribed a medicine for me to try – “fresh from an intermundial trade” – and that helped immensely.

I stopped involuntarily echoing what other people said, but I didn’t quite get around to talking. Domia Audry had words for what that meant, and I smiled and nodded acceptingly. But really, at the heart of it, I thought that the issue was that I had given all my words to you all those years ago, when that final poem had refused to be written and I published my sonnets to the wind. I gave all my words to you, and you hadn’t used the poetry much, but you had used the words. I gave all my words to you, and you weren’t very present anymore.

You still held me when I needed holding, still did your best to buffer me from the world. But you had been as tired as I was, towards the end. You were the one who turned off the timer and rolled over. You were the one who went first.

Had you died, I wondered, in those hours you fell silent before Cliopher came to rescue me? Had I performed some sort of necromantic resurrection on you? Had I called you back from the Field of Reeds, from the Forest between worlds, from the great Sky Ocean, all to comfort me once again? Had you traded away our voice to return to me? I knew some stories that went like that.

It was a silly thought, I knew. We were not so detached, you and I, that you might die and leave me behind alone. I was you and you were me, no matter how I dreamed and disassociated the two of us.

Still, I hoped that you hadn’t died. You, Artorin Damara, deserved better than to be called back to life after having found peace. I hoped you had only folded yourself down to sleep, and let me be your protector for once, let me bear the pain.

When I could reliably walk and stand, Cliopher brought me down the stairs and showed me the rest of the house he had bought and had renovated. There were rooms for all my inner household – Cliopher, Conju, Ludvic, and Rhodin – everyone I had thought to bring with me to visit Cliopher’s islands. They were all here – we were all here, in Cliopher’s islands, though we were in Gorjo City where Kip grew up, and not the summer palace of the Duke of Ikiano.

Conju was determined to offer me choices. He’d tried to offer me choices almost his entire time with me. Long after we had grown so familiar with each other that he didn’t have to ask, he had continued to ask.

Conju was determined to offer me choices. Mango juice or pineapple juice? Sea-food broth or vegetable broth? He laid out clothes for me, and looked eagle-eyed over my choices, and every day he presented me with more and different until it actually felt like a choice, and not just blindly reaching away from black and white and yellow and gold, away from unimaginable luxury.

Now that I was aware enough not to work myself into a panic attack every time Cliopher left my sight, Cliopher did leave sometimes. He left me always in the care of someone else.

Ludvic would sit quietly with me, or he would recite his own poetry for me. I’d heard his poetry before. I’d wanted to write it down in a book to give to him. I knew it wasn’t his way, but I thought he would understand what I meant by it.

Rhodin had settled down easily in Gorjo City – connecting with the apparent horde of cousins Cliopher had. Rhodin said something about Cliopher being related to a third of the city, but that was surely an exaggeration. Rhodin related the goings on and gossip of Gorjo City with much the same glee he had related his spy network’s own gossip collection where no one was hurt.

Conju, the first time he had been asked to watch me, had sat me down and sternly told me that I was to show him somehow if he made me uncomfortable. Then he promptly went down a long list of tasks he and my other grooms of the chamber had done without really asking, and asked if I actually enjoyed them, if I would enjoy them still, or if I wouldn’t mind doing them on occasion but didn’t particularly want to, or if I wanted to stop the activity.

I was crying by the time we were done, and Conju was clearly uncomfortable with it, but he’d continued with the list when I’d gestured for him to do so.

He told me that it would take a while for the depilatory cream to wear off, but that my hair would grow back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “for not asking these questions earlier. Some of these options I couldn’t have offered before. But your opinion still mattered. And I should have asked.”

()

As I settled into a new normal, Cliopher’s multitudinous cousins started dropping by the house.

Cliopher defended me valiantly against their attentions and their words, entirely ready and willing to kick them out of the house if I looked the slightest bit distressed.

“This is your lord, Kip?” one asked, looking at me sceptically. “He doesn’t really look like much.”

I’d blinked placidly at said cousin. It was a fair enough thought, all things considered, but Cliopher immediately bristled and shooed the cousin out.

Cliopher was much less proactive about defending himself.

I was amazed to find that even with Cliopher constantly calling me his lord, not a one of Cliophers’ cousins seemed to recognize me. Even after they realized how prickly Cliopher was about me, a good number continued to needle him about his choices.

“You spent so long away from home, and you don’t even have anything to show for it.”

“All those decades, and Gaudy managed to surpass you in five years, eh?”

It took me a few of those visits to work out how to manufacture a look of mild distress. I was so used to you rising up with your serenity so we could protect those around us that actively attempting to look distressed took effort.

I knew Cliopher wouldn’t kill his cousins for making me mildly distressed, so it felt a little like sneaking down into Kasiar’s kitchen to steal cookies under cover of darkness. The worst that would happen was that they would need to swing by another day to ask Cliopher their questions.

Sometimes, as Cliopher hustled them out of the house, I managed to catch their eyes and glare. I was, perhaps, not quite so careful of my magic as I could have been, but after a thousand years of meeting Cliopher’s eyes, I was fairly certain that they would only go away with a bad headache at the worst. And that was well deserved – how could they not know what Cliopher had done for them?

()

Ludvic found a harp for me.

He just set it down on the table in front of me one day, and then wandered off. I stared at it blankly.

“Oh!” said Cliopher when he glanced up. “Ludvic’s been asking around after a harp for a couple days now. I’m glad he found one. I didn’t know it was for you though, my lord.”

The harp stayed there, on the table in the common room, untouched for days before I was able to bring myself to lightly pluck one string. Overwhelmed, I immediately turned and walked right back out of the room.

I’d tried again the next day, leaning awkwardly over the table to slowly pick out a scale. I frowned down at the strings, wincing a little as the lingering vibrations meshed discordantly. I glanced back at Cliopher, who was lingering in the doorway.

I hesitated for a moment, then walked out of the room again.

But I went back the next day. I sat in front of the table and grabbed the harp, determined. I plucked at the strings and tuned them one by one. Occasionally I managed a rusty hum when a string was particularly stubborn about not quite settling on the note. I’d been faintly worried that I might have lost my pitch after so long, but . . . no. The notes came back to me as easily as breathing.

Cliopher’s brow was furrowed when I glanced up, but he smiled at me when he realized I was watching. “I’m no expert player, but I can go dig up my oboe if you want accompaniment later,” he offered.

I gestured assent, then turned back to the harp.

When I was done tuning it, I hesitated for a moment, then resettled it against me and replayed the scale I’d played yesterday. It sounded good. Better than I’d expected, for my first time tuning a harp in oh, centuries. Even when I’d played regularly, it could take a couple passes to get all the strings correctly tuned. I hesitated for a moment, absently plucking out the scale again, then I started a warm up. An arpeggio rippled up and down, and then the next warm up in the series, and the next.

I had to pause when I remembered, towards the end of an exercise, that Master Tutor had been tortured into insanity. He’d taught me music along with everything else. I remembered the scales going up and down and up and down in the practice room, tucked away from the kitchen so we didn’t annoy Cook. I’d picked up other warm ups since, but this was one that he’d taught me.

Eritanyr had him tortured into insanity for knowing me, for raising me, for doing his best. Here I was, just a little insane myself, crumpled under the weight of the empire. Here I was, still broken despite the faith and efforts of my Inner Household to reach for me past the restrictions of empire. I blinked away tears and stilled my fingers on the strings of the harp, dampening their sound.

Cliopher was watching me, an odd look on his face again. I wanted to ask him if he was surprised that I could play, if he had expected me to play something else. I wanted to ask him if there was anything he wanted to hear, I wanted to tell him I would play anything for him, if he would just ask.

The words wouldn’t come. I dropped my gaze down to the harp again as I plucked out a scale.

Then I started in on Aurora. Cliopher liked Aurora, I knew that.

Aurora for my Tenebra, who brought me down out of my tower when I couldn’t rescue myself.

I couldn’t sing the words, but that was alright, I knew how to play the melody over the rest.

My fingers were raw and cramping by the time I reluctantly put the harp down.

“Well, if you like Aurora, then you might be pleased to hear this,” Cliopher said. “Tanaea revoked the ban on Fitzroy Angursell’s music.”

He smiled at me when I jerked my head up to look at him. “She declared that the ban was just another part of the outdated tyranny of the Empire, and said that with the Ministry of Censorship closed and related laws rightfully expunged, it was very much meaningless. So she revoked the bans.”

I couldn’t tell what my face was showing. Wonder? Longing? Embarrassment that I hadn’t done it myself?

Whatever it was, Cliopher’s smile didn’t fade as he urged me up and brought me to Conju.

Conju tutted over the blisters, but he didn’t say anything about buffing callouses off or softening them with cream, only found me a warm enchanted rock to help ease the cramps.

Later, when Cliopher left me alone with Ludvic again, I bent my head over the harp and plucked out the strands and snippets of melody that I remembered from the book on the Lays of the Wide Seas. The harp didn’t quite suit them, but I didn’t have the voice to sing. 

Who is this that comes out of the sunrise?
Who is this?
Who is this whose ship comes across the Wide Seas?
Who is this that comes?
Who is this that comes from the house of the sun?

Cliopher’s people had welcomed my ancestor Aurelius Magnus. Despite Cliopher’s prickly wariness, his cousins welcomed me too. I remembered how easily the Cultural Studies department had sent me resources for a foreigner marrying in.

“Cliopher would be happy to sing you the Lays, if you would ask him, my lord,” Ludvic said during one pause between motifs, and I blinked at him. “He’s got a number of notions about not forcing himself on you more than he already is, helping you with your illness.”

I blinked again. I couldn’t see how Cliopher was imposing on me, and not the other way around. I needed care, and he had cared for me. I’d panicked when he left, and so he had stayed with me. The night we had tried to sleep separately, I had a wild enough nightmare that my magic swirled through the house like a storm until Cliopher climbed the stairs and grabbed my hand, pulling me out of slumber.

There was gold on Cliopher’s hands, where he had branded himself to help me. I don’t know why – he shouldn’t have needed to touch my skin to carry me from my private study.

But also, I wasn’t entirely sure how I could ask, as I was.

()

Cliopher started bringing me with him sometimes when he left the house.

We moved through the city, and I watched as every couple streets, Cliopher paused to say hello to one cousin or another.

We went to a bookstore, and I searched out another copy of the Lays. The one I found didn’t have the music noted, but it was beautifully illustrated with woodblock prints, and I lingered over the pictures until Cliopher tipped the book up to check the price.

We walked the trails of the reserve on the flanks of Mama Ituri’s Son. Cliopher let me choose our path. Most of the time I didn’t aim to take us very far, but once, I kept taking the turns that led high and higher up the mountain, around the shoulder and up and up, until we reached the peak. I was more winded then Cliopher, and I let myself fall into a crouch as I panted. I tipped my head back, reveling in the feeling of the wind against my skin.

After a long moment, I let my head fall so I could look out across the scenery. Gorjo City lay spread before me: all the canals and houses and pools and courtyards and boats and people. To the right was the Spire, the familiar Eastern Wonder tied up alone. Cliopher settled next to me, and I shuffled a little to press close. He quietly pointed out various places we’d been, and the islands we could see hazy in the distance.

When I’d cooled down enough, and Cliopher was just a silent comfort at my side, I stood. I rested a hand on top of the cairn. I linked arms with Cliopher for the trip down. We plunged back down into the jungle, and out again at the edge of a high cliff, a rope bridge linking one part of the trail to the next, going past a waterfall.

Cliopher stopped. He wavered.

“Please, go ahead first,” he told me, gesturing. “I’ll be right after you.”

I crossed the bridge easily enough, but when I looked back, Cliopher was still on the other side. He swayed, and I swayed watching him, my heart in my throat. Little shivers ran up my spine, and I felt frozen again watching him. His eyes locked on mine across the space between us. Then he closed his eyes and stepped forwards.

Every shuffling step, I took another breath, even though something in my chest burned.

I saw Cliopher’s foot catch, halfway across the bridge. I saw his eyes open as he looked down and froze.

The wind picked up, and the bridge swayed, and I was abruptly terrified. Cliopher was just staring at the emptiness below him, and I could see that his knuckles were white on the ropes. I took one step, then another, then another. I edged across the bridge carefully. I’d never been scared of rope bridges before, but I’d always had confidence that I could catch myself. Cliopher was so far away, what if I couldn’t reach him in time?

I kneeled down in front of Cliopher on the bridge, and I freed his sandal from the splinter that had caught it. Cliopher didn’t notice, his eyes caught by the fall, little whimpers rising and falling with the wind.

I stood, one hand tight on the rope. I reached out to cup Cliopher’s cheek. He jerked, his eyes coming up to lock on mine again.

I opened and closed my mouth uselessly. Nothing. The words wouldn’t come.

I leaned in to set my forehead against Cliopher’s and tried again. Nothing.

I turned my attention inwards, dredging the depths of my being, and you offered me . . .

“Kip,” I said, easy as breathing. “Kip.”

“My lord,” he said.

I straightened and shuffled back half a step, as far as I could get with my hand still on his cheek, and Cliopher shuffled forwards to match me, his eyes locked on mine.

I took another half step backwards, and another. Cliopher followed, transfixed. Step by step, we crossed the bridge. We stepped onto solid ground and Cliopher gasped, but I kept my hand on his cheek and didn’t let him turn away as I led him step by careful step over to the bench. I pulled him down to sit next to me, and into an embrace.

It took a while for his breathing to slow.

Eventually he pulled back, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry my lord. I’m not much fond of rope bridges.”

“Kip,” I admonished, and Cliopher stilled, his hand lowering to blink at me.

“My lord?”

“Kip,” I repeated. I smiled at him. No other words came to me, but that was okay. Words would be nice, but I had people who would listen to me even without them now. I reached out for Kip and pulled him back into a hug again.

Chapter Text

I stretched out lazily on the daybed in Cliopher’s study, watching him write. He’d grown more used to not needing to entertain me at all times, but he still glanced over every once in a while.

I would admit that in the first month or two since they had brought me here, I had been quite simply entertained. Now though, I was starting to grow restless. There was nothing to do but read and play my harp and watch the members of my Inner Household go about their lives, and while that had been very restful at first, I was finding myself a tad bit bored.

I sat up and shuffled over so that I could lean against the end of the daybed and peer at the letter Cliopher was writing.

At the top of the page, written in his print–perfect handwriting, was the name Basil.

I contemplated that as I watched him write, the marvelous mechanism of skin and muscle and bone and tendon all coming together to allow the exacting precision Cliopher moved with.

I remembered hearing about his cousin Basil before, from Conju, talking about the cheeses that Cliopher liked and how he’d first tried them. Rhodin had reported on Cliopher’s letters to his still missing cousin on Alinor as well, noting occasionally in his reports that Cliopher still hadn’t gotten any reply. Conju had mentioned, at some point, that Cliopher hoped to go to Alinor to look for him once he retired.

I squished my cheek against the wood of the bed frame. Cliopher hadn’t gone to Alinor once he retired, he’d gone home, to prepare things for me.

I suppose, he could have gotten a letter back from his cousin since, but after so long . . .

()

I wandered the house, poking into the closets, trailing an indulgent Ludvic.

I made a little triumphant noise when I found a nice, sturdy canvas pack laying crumpled and abandoned under a pile of other produce bags. I took the bag with me back to the room Ludvic usually watched over me in, where he had his woodcarving tools and bits of scrap wood and a range of little carved figures and toys. He gave these away to the neighborhood children and various visiting Mdang cousins at a steady rate that never seemed to decrease the amount that he had at any one time.

I curled up in my chair, pointedly ignoring Ludvic’s amused gaze as I examined the bag. It was, perhaps, not quite so nice a bag as the last one I had enchanted like this, but it was very workable, and it wasn’t as if the bag needed to be nice for what I was planning.

I traced my fingers over the seams, learning the shape of the bag, feeling out its dimensions in the world. I let magic spill out of my fingers in little dribbles and soak into the fabric of the bag.

You’re a bag, I told the bag. Your job is to hold things. You hold what you’re given, no matter how big or small, and keep it safe until you’re asked to return it.

I hummed as I stroked the sturdy canvas, telling it the songs I’d written about my first Bag of Unusual Capacity. I’d written three songs just about that bag, so delighted had I been by its wonder and whimsy and usefulness.

You’ll hold what we need, won’t you? I asked the bag, and it shivered happily for a purpose after sitting abandoned.

()

Rhodin was the one who followed me into the kitchen’s cold room and watched my contemplations of the provisions there.

“You know, if you want something more to eat, I can make you something,” he said as he watched me hover over two different blocks of cheese.

I glanced back at him, then I grinned, swept both blocks of cheese into my new bag, and held the bag out for him to take.

Rhodin frowned a little as he hefted the bag, which had deformed not at all with the addition of the two blocks of cheese. He reached into the bag, and it obligingly produced one of the blocks of cheese for him.

“Hmm,” Rhodin said.

I took the opportunity to drop a loaf of bread into the bag, and then a few of the fruits sitting in a basket as well.

Rhodin peered into the bag, then glanced up at me as he dropped the block of cheese back into it.

“Alright. Would you like more food? We can go out and buy some.”

I nodded, and the two of us spent a lovely afternoon out and about. Rhodin first plied me with a variety of staples – things that would keep well even if they weren’t in my Bag. Then, after I dropped a whole flying fish sandwich into the bag and pulled it out again in perfect order, he dragged me around the city to get whole meals from his favorite restaurants. At some point in the whirlwind tour, he found me an almost absurdly big box of salt and assortment of spices to make Ludvic proud.

“This almost feels like stocking up for an adventure,” Rhodin said cheerfully as we wound our way home through the city. “Ludvic’s been half convinced you’d go harring off on one the entire time I’ve known him.”

I tilted my head, then hummed a snippet of Aurora where Tenebra packed as she planned her journey.

“Exactly!” Rhodin laughed.

()

I snuck down to grab dishes while Cliopher was performing his nightly ablutions.

I was dropping the plates into the bag when I heard Conju’s hiss and froze guiltily.

“Well,” Conju said. “I heard you were storing up food, but plates are another matter. Rhodin was correct, wasn’t he? You intend to go on an adventure.”

My shoulder crept up to my ears, and I refused to turn to see what the expression on Conju’s face was.

I startled at the hand that touched my shoulder, but Conju just kept up the gentle pressure until I turned, my eyes fixed on the floor.

“Oh. My dear lord, it’s alright. That’s the whole reason we got you out of there – so that you would be free to do as you like.”

I slowly dragged my gaze up from the floor. Conju’s expression was soft, and a little concerned. When I finally managed to meet his eyes, he nodded.

“There you are. Now, what I’m most concerned about is how prepared you will be. Rhodin stocked you up on food, and I’m fairly certain I can trust his abilities there, but you haven’t asked me for any extra clothes, and if you’re truly going on an adventure, then Cliopher’s–”

I quickly shook my head, and Conju stopped eyeing me.

“Cliopher’s the one who would know what to pack to travel . . .”

I shook my head again, more emphatically.

“You don’t want Cliopher to know.”

I gestured assent.

Conju looked sceptical. “That doesn’t seem like you.”

I glanced around the kitchen, and found the pot of basil that Ludvic had set up to be used in the collective cooking efforts. I left my bag on the counter and went over to grab a leaf of the basil to offer to Conju.

“That’s basil,” Conju said, raising an eyebrow.

I nodded and pointed at the leaf again.

“You don’t want Cliopher to know you’re going to go on an adventure because of basil?”

“Cliopher’s cousin Basil, I assume,” Ludvic said, startling both Conju and me. He nodded easily at the pair of us as he stepped past us to put the kettle on the stone. “I’ve got your tent and a pair of bedrolls whenever you’re ready for them, my lord.”

“Ludvic! You knew?”

“I watched him make the bag,” Ludvic said. “You might want to help him pick out an assortment of clothes for Cliopher as well.”

()

Between the three of them, Conju, Ludvic, and Rhodin had me better outfitted for an adventure than I’d ever been, even after a decade on the road.

Even after he’d made sure I was well supplied, Conju occasionally wandered by to stuff another cushion into the bag, or drop in another tea cup, or even at one point a whole medical kit.

Rhodin cheerfully filled me in on all of the information on Alinor that I hadn’t needed to know before.

Ludvic obligingly wandered around the island with me as I felt out the fabric of Zunidh, searching for the thin spots between worlds.

I found it and –

I hesitated. What if Cliopher didn’t actually want to go? What if he didn’t actually want to know? What if he was content, writing to the void?

I had bad days still. Days when I just lay in bed. I didn’t go catatonic again, but sometimes I almost wanted to. It would be easier not to hate myself if the reason I wasn’t moving was that I couldn’t.

What would happen if – when I had an episode like that on the road?

But ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ only get you so far, and I wanted to do this for Cliopher, and for myself.

I tugged Cliopher out the door the next morning. I winked at Ludvic, and hefted my backpack suggestively.

Cliopher and I walked hand in hand across the city to the reserve. We walked through the reserve, and I tugged Cliopher down less and less well trodden paths until we were tromping around on broad blades of grass that didn’t see passage very often, winding between the trees. I had to drop his hand to keep my balance on a patch of fallen leaves.

I paused in front of a great palm tree with fronds taller than I was, one half fallen to brush the forest floor. Moss had started growing on the tattered brown leaves.

“Kip,” I said.

“Yes, my lord?”

I hummed the introduction to Aurora.

Cliopher laughed. “You keep humming Aurora. I really do wonder where you heard it, my lord.”

I stepped back to stand between the palm tree’s trunk and the great falling frond. Magic buzzed on my skin and the air smelled sweetly of tillarny limes.

“Kip,” I said, and I held out my hand.

Kip stepped forwards, smiling, to take it.

I tugged him under the palm frond with me, and out the other side. The smell of the tillarny limes grew stronger and more real. Behind Cliopher, the fallen branch – still half–connected to the tree by splintery shards – sagged further. The fabric of reality between worlds was still thin, but the gate had only been a temporary one for the momentary similarity, and now that it had been used its energy was spent.

“What – this is Alinor,” Cliopher said, turning and turning, staring up at the trees that surrounded us. “This is the Woods Noirell.”

“Kip,” I said, grinning, and I hummed the introduction to Aurora again.

“My lord,” Cliopher said, delighted as he swung to a stop, facing me. “Are you asking me on an adventure?”

I gestured assent.

“We don’t even have supplies!” Cliopher said. Before I could shift the pack around to open it, he turned again to look at the forest again, at the path between the trees. “I think I can solve that. If we’re in the Woods Noirell, my cousin’s inn should be around here.”

Cliopher looked back to me and squeezed my hand. “Does that sound alright?”

I nodded. Together, we set off.