the shadows are whispering again.
I'm sharpening my claws on my Academy-issue Magic Tome because I have to do something with my hands and sleeping is not
I'm not going to sleep. the fledglings are playfighting outside. hunting parties coming back. ocean doing what it always does. flowers or whatever.
I hate this damn place.
Tide is back from the hunt. I know because his gold eyes are on my nest again, which is
he does this. every time. like a job he has never once considered resigning from, like he clocks in, like there is a schedule, like the watching of Dovetail's nest is written into his daily obligations somewhere between eating and breathing and
it's fine. I don't care.
[I care a little. I'm noting that I care a little and I'm filing it under: irrelevant, leaving tomorrow, his problem.]
I give my wings an unthreatened shake. he can look all he wants. glaring won't make me love his sister any less. I've been loving his sister for a long time. I will continue. he can't do anything about it and he knows he can't do anything about it and that is, honestly, the funniest part of this, that the thing he hates most about me is the one thing he has never been able to
anyway.
In the ruins tonight I'm going to tell them I'm leaving. I have a plan. I am not terrified. those are the three things I'm going to say and I am going to say them clearly and I am going to mean them, especially the last one.
[I'm a little terrified. not writing that down. already wrote it down. damn.]
when Glint flies over the territory her wings do this thing in the light.
I've spent thirty years not writing that down and I'm writing it down now because tomorrow I'm leaving and she doesn't know and I need to put it somewhere.
like a piece of the sun that doesn't hurt when I touch it. that's the thing. I've touched it. I've touched her and it didn't hurt and I keep thinking about that tonight for no reason. for no reason at all.
I told her: one last time in the ruins. I think some treasure is hiding from us.
she said
[she smiled. the low quiet one. the one she saves.]
[I'm noting: she doesn't know. she thinks this is just another night at the ruins. she has no idea I'm]
[I'm not going to finish that.]
I gave her one last time in the ruins and she said yes and she smiled and she doesn't know what I was actually saying and I
I need to go. the ruins are waiting.
I found it in the fourth chamber.
I don't know how I knew to go there. the others were in the second and third, Glint calling back about the carvings on the east wall, Vow with her torch held high, Tide quiet the way he gets quiet when he's watching. I went deeper without deciding to.
the magic was pulling and I followed it. I've been following it my whole life in secret and tonight was supposed to be the last time so I followed it one last time.
the fourth chamber was empty except for the dark.
and then it wasn't.
the walls lit up. cold pale light, shadow-blue, the kind that doesn't come from fire. I've seen it in the outer ruins before and I've always kept walking. tonight I didn't. something in the dark was warm and specific and pulling at something in my chest I've spent thirty years pretending wasn't there.
the amulet was in the floor. not buried. just there, like it had been waiting. like the ruins had been keeping it for someone with the right hands.
I picked it up.
the shadows opened.
[I don't have another way to say it. they just opened. the whole chamber. like they recognized me. like I was the right thing arriving at the right time and everything that had been waiting could finally]
[Tide was in the doorway.]
I don't know how long he'd been standing there. long enough. his gold eyes were doing something I'd never seen them do before. nothing. usually there's contempt in them, the familiar performance of the watching. this was flat. certain. decided.
he said: I always knew.
I said: Tide
he said: the mountain doesn't forget what you are.
Vow came in behind him. her eyes already guilty, which means she knew, which means she came tonight already knowing, which means the ruins were never. the last time was never.
Glint was there.
my Glint. she came in last and she looked at me and she looked at the amulet in my claw and the light still moving in the walls and she
she said nothing.
I had time to think: okay. I understand. and then Tide hit first and the thinking stopped.
I am flying.
blood on my face. hot. I know it's mine because it's everywhere and I'm the only one bleeding. the trees below are the Skorrn's trees, our trees, I have landed in every one of them, I know their names, I am bleeding on them.
I can still feel the claws.
the wind knows me. it always has. my wingspan is wider than a pure griffin's by three finger-lengths and the wind has never found this strange, the wind just grabs on and we go, and we are going, we are going right now, I am going.
Tide hit first.
the mountain doesn't forget what you are he said and his claws found my neck before I finished processing the sentence and Vow was already there, Vow who I have known since fledgling, Vow whose family are heroes in the hymn, she said I'm sorry. I truly am. she meant it. I know she meant it. it didn't
Glint was there.
Glint watched.
the tailbarb came and I was trying to rise and Tide was too strong and the blade took my cheek and then my eye and I screamed. I want the record to show I didn't intend to do that. and then they let go and I ran and
and
and the damn hymn came. without my permission. from somewhere I didn't know I was still keeping it.
wind and sky carry me
wind and sky carry me home
I don't know if it helped. I don't know if it made it worse. I have been singing that hymn since before I could fly and it has always meant: you are held, you are carried, the sky loves you.
the sky was the only thing that did tonight.
I'm still singing it. I hate that I'm still singing it. I'm so glad I'm still singing it. I can't
I found the cave by falling into it.
The ruins recognized me when I came through.
I don't know how else to say it. The walls lit up the same cold pale light as before and the shadows opened for me and the stone didn't resist and I think
I think the amulet was pulling me here. I think it has been pulling me here since I left. I think some part of me knew and came anyway because there was nowhere else.
I found the cave by falling into it.
Which is
that's very me, actually. I want the record to show I'm aware of that.
The cave is the same one. The fourth chamber, or something beneath it, something the ruins kept for themselves. The stone is warm. The shadows are loud. The amulet on my chest is humming at a frequency I can feel in my back teeth.
I'm not going to make it out of here.
I know that the way I know things through the magic — not a thought, just a fact the dark is telling me. The injury is bad. I've been running on something that isn't quite adrenaline and isn't quite shadow magic and whatever it is it's running out.
The amulet is warm.
I keep coming back to that. Everything else is cold and it's warm. Like it's trying to tell me something I don't have enough time to learn.
I want to write something important here. Something that would matter if someone found this. I've been sitting with that intention for a few minutes now and what I actually have is:
Glint's laugh. The low quiet one she saves.
Kraeven. The sky holding me. The sky not knowing what just happened and holding me anyway.
Vow on the outer wall in the gold afternoon light, saying I don't know how I hold both.
The amulet, warm in my grip in the fourth chamber, recognizing me. Those are the things I have. I think that's enough. I think
This is earlier than I expected. Considerably earlier. I had a whole — there was a speech. I had prepared remarks. Years of prepared remarks, actually, very good ones, and you've arrived ahead of schedule and now I have to improvise, which I can do, I am exceptional at improvising, but I want it noted that this is your fault.
You are dead. Temporarily. I've caught your soul — you're welcome, that was extremely difficult and I did it flawlessly and the situation is recoverable if you stop panicking and listen to me.
I am very good at this. You are in excellent hands. Metaphorically. I don't currently have hands.
[he showed up in my diary. he is IN MY DIARY. i have questions]
[there is also someone else here. nocthaari. his head is not attached to his body. it's floating. he hasn't said anything. he's just watching me with an expression I can only describe as tired.]
I can see your annotations. Yes. The diary is — well. You've been writing into the void for quite some time and I am, as it happens, considerably more interesting than a void. I've been listening for years. You have a good voice. You get that from my side of the family.
My name is Callisto. You don't know me, which is frankly a failing of your upbringing rather than mine, but we'll set that aside. I am your father's brother. I was, before my untimely and entirely avoidable death — avoidable by others, I mean, I made all the correct decisions — the most powerful shadow mage in our bloodline's recorded history. Possibly the most powerful shadow mage in this hemisphere. The records are incomplete but the evidence strongly suggests.
I have been anchored to the moon for eleven years watching events unfold through the amulet. It has been, at times, extremely frustrating. You'll understand why shortly.
I have a proposal. The window is narrow. Try to keep up.
[he's my WHAT]
[also "adjacent to the void" is genuinely the most insufferable thing anyone has ever said to me and I've met hierarchy officials]
Yes, yes. The situation is as follows:
You are dying. Your soul is — hold on, I'm catching it, stop moving — there. Caught. You're welcome. That was, again, exceptionally well executed on my part given the circumstances.
The amulet is a tether between your bloodline and the moon. Your grandmother made it that way. She was talented, though not on my level. When you die with it around your neck, your soul comes to me. I can send you back. Your body is — the eye is gone, I've already attempted to restore it three times because I am thorough and I do not accept failure gracefully, but it won't take. Everything else I can manage. I have managed it. Already. While talking to you. You're welcome.
The question is whether you want to go back, to which I imagine the answer is yes, so let's discuss terms.
I need someone in the world. My power is diminished — anchored here, limited, it's a deeply undignified situation that I will not be describing in detail. I need artifacts. Specific ones, scattered across the wider world, and I need someone with shadow magic and sufficient resourcefulness to retrieve them. I have a list. I've had eleven years to make lists and I have made excellent ones.
In exchange: your life. My knowledge, which is extensive and frankly worth more than you currently appreciate. And my company, which you will come to find indispensable.
Do we have a deal.
Also, Bracken said, he's not as difficult as he sounds. That —
is, said Callisto, an extraordinary thing to say. I'm setting expectations.
I am extremely easy to work with.
She should know.
...
Fine. He's occasionally difficult.
[okay]
[okay I'm listening]
[I hate this so much]
The deal is simple. You go back. You live. You retrieve the artifacts — I'll provide full specifications, locations, historical context, relevant warnings, everything, I have prepared extraordinarily thorough documentation — and in exchange I restore your life and share with you the accumulated knowledge of the greatest shadow mage of this generation.
Conditions: keep the amulet on your person at all times. Don't do anything cataclysmically fatal in the first week while your body finishes reknitting. Listen to me when I tell you things, which I will be doing frequently because I am right about most things and the sooner you accept that the more efficiently we'll operate.
Those are the main ones.
Well. Do we have a deal or would you prefer to simply be dead. I should mention I've been waiting eleven years for this conversation and I'd rather not have it end there.
[he's been watching me for ELEVEN YEARS]
[through my NECKLACE]
[I have so many questions and none of them are about the deal the deal is fine.]
[obviously yes. what else am I going to do, stay dead? I'm going to be so annoying about this]
I can still see your annotations.
Yes. The deal is yes. Excellent decision. I want to be clear that this is going to work out extremely well, primarily because I am involved.
Now. First artifact. There is a settlement beyond the mercury river called Irontrees — named for the black cylinders in the fog cavern beneath it, which are not trees, whoever named them had clearly never seen a tree, but the name has stuck and we're all living with it. One of those towers contains something I need. I don't know which one. I trust you to find it.
You'll know it when you touch it. Shadow magic. It will recognize you the way the ruins did.
Cross the mercury river carefully. You have compromised depth perception now and mercury is not forgiving. Beyond that — I trust your judgment.
Bracken, he added, do you have anything to add.
No, said Bracken.
Useful as always.
You told her everything.
...
Yes. Fine. Go. The amulet will reach me when you need me. Try not to need me too often in the first week.
Hold on. This part is going to feel very strange. I've done this before — well, not this exactly, this specific situation is unprecedented, but I've done comparable things and they went fine. Mostly fine. The relevant ones went fine.
Hold on.
[it felt very strange]
[I'm alive]
[one eye. cold all over. cave floor. alive.]
[hi void. hi uncle I didn't know I had. hi amulet that has apparently been a telephone this whole time.]
the floating head man watched the whole thing without saying a word. when it was done he looked at me for a long moment and then looked at Callisto and then back at me.
he nodded once. like
welcome. or maybe like
I'm sorry. or maybe both.
I'm going to need a minute.