Chapter Text

Chapter One: Widdertown

Lorand held his breath as footsteps approached his hiding place inside the barn. Unfortunately, the small sack next to him happened to wriggle at that moment. The soft rustle of straw drew the heavy footfalls closer, until Mildon’s new boots peeked through the narrow gap in the foundations of Lorand’s bale fortress.

“I know you’re in here, Lor!”

Distraction, he needed a distraction. Carefully, Lorand reached out using his Earth magic and let a tiny trickle of power flow through him.

Through his talent, he could see Mildon clearly in his mind. Sixteen years old and still growing, the eldest son of Camil Coll stood with his feet planted wide, arms folded and head turned towards the far side of the barn, where next season’s seed stock slept. In Lorand’s Earth vision, his older brother didn’t glow, an indication that Mildon wasn’t touching the power right now.

Good. They might have a chance after all.

He quested out with his senses, looking for something to draw Mildon’s attention, long enough for him to sneak out the open barn door. A blurred figure climbed the bales somewhere above him and a ways off to the right. Why was Talitha shielding? She wasn’t supposed to—

“If you come out now, I’ll let you drive as far as the main road to town. Seeing as today’s your birthday and all.”

That made Lorand pause. Mildon must be in a hurry. Most afternoons, he got to drive home under his brother’s careful eye. In the mornings though, he wasn’t allowed to even touch the reins.

Anxiety spiked beside him.

“Just a little longer,” Lorand whispered as he patted the sack, soothing it with his talent. Maybe if Mildon was in real hurry, he’d get to drive all the way to the Guild school.

Then the ground started shaking.

Mildon stumbled as wooden planks groaned, punctuated by the clinking of shears against scythes and the louder clanking of the plough. Lorand grabbed the chittering sack, clutching it to his chest as he started to squeeze his way through the gap towards his brother.

Who was now looking upwards, towards Talitha. Her unshielded figure was now crisp and clear to Lorand’s Earth senses—arms flung wide, perched on the edge of a teetering bale of hay. It toppled over and she hung in the air for a moment between breaths, a kitehawk about to swoop down upon its prey. Her shriek joined the cacophony bouncing off the barn walls and was abruptly muffled as the bale landed, blocking Lorand’s exit. He pushed at the bale, one handed, without success. Not surprising, since it weighed as much as he did.

Power flared from Mildon—bright as a bonfire—and the ground calmed a second later, much like an unruly horse at the feel of its master astride its back. Lorand scrunched up his eyes against the early morning sunlight as the fallen bale floated away, in the company of the other five that had comprised his fort. The bales settled in a neat row against the barn wall, a quiet rebuke against the haphazard heap of what had been an orderly stack last night.

He sat up and cracked open one eye, braced for a lecture and extra chores. At this rate, he’d be doing all of the weeding for next summer.

To his surprise, no lecture was forthcoming. Instead, Mildon lay flat on his back—hat in the dirt, eyes closed, breathing deeply—with Talitha sprawled across his chest in a tangle of skirts and limbs. She whooped when she saw Lorand and scrambled to her feet. His brother wheezed as she inadvertently kneed him in the stomach.

She ran over and held out her left hand. “Did you get them all?”

“Every one I could find.” Lorand handed the sack over. It began squirming vigorously as soon as it left his arms. “Don’t open it!” he hissed as Talitha reached for the neck of the sack with her right hand.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were.”

“Was not.”

“You would’ve, if I hadn’t said.”

“And I said it was past time we were gone.” Mildon’s shadow fell over them. “What are the two of you up to?”

Talitha tucked the sack behind her back. She turned her wide eyes and bright smile on Mildon, prepared with her story. “Homework! Master Lugal wanted each of us to bring something in today.”

His older brother eyed her dubiously as the sack squeaked. “Thought your class wasn’t due to learn Persuasion until the autumn.”

“We aren’t.” Lorand squeaked himself as Talitha jabbed a fingernail into his side. “Not with talent, that is. But, uh, you know how Master Lugal is. Wanted to cover the basic theory, get one of the older kids to do a demonstration, that sort of thing.”

Mildon rubbed his forehead, like he was in pain. Lorand was sure the bale hadn’t hit anyone on the way down. Had his brother hit his head when Talitha fell on him? But if he had, he would have Healed himself. After all, Mildon was a certified Middle practitioner in Earth magic.

“Ma left you some wrapped lunches in the kitchen, assuming Jeris didn’t eat them for breakfast. Go get your things while I tidy up in here.”

Grateful not to be questioned further, Lorand and Talitha raced towards the barn door, sack in tow. He felt a brief twinge of guilt as he heard his brother mutter a prayer to the Highest Aspect for patience.

* * *

Lorand sulked the whole wagon ride into Widdertown, wedged between a basket of leafy greens and a crate of root vegetables, with the tied up sack churning in his lap. Despite the earlier promise, Mildon refused to let him drive. He had tried to argue that he’d been making his way out of the bales before Talitha summoned the quake but his older brother remained unmoved. And she hadn’t gotten into trouble at all!

It was downright unfair, the way Talitha never got into trouble. Even now, she dangled over the side of the wagon bed, skirts hiked up almost to her waist with one trousered leg hooked over the ropes tying down the barrels of salted pork. Yet nobody—not Mildon nor any of the townsfolk they passed—batted an eye. Most people ignored her, though Lorand glimpsed one or two of the more elderly folk making the sign of warding against Chaos when they thought she wasn’t looking.

The wagon clattered to a stop in front of the weaver’s shop, right on the edge of market square. Lorand’s mouth watered at the scent of freshly baked goods that wafted over from the bakery next door. Mildon’s boots thumped on the cobblestones as he climbed down from the driver’s seat.

“Out.” He rapped his knuckles on the side of the wagon as Talitha sat down to wrestle her leg free of the ropes. “You’ll need to run if you’re to get there before first bell.”

Lorand scowled. “Can’t you drop us off in front?”

“Sure, you could’ve, if you hadn’t made that mess in the barn.” Mildon grabbed Lorand underneath his armpits and lifted him out of the wagon, as if he was still a baby and not ten years old. “The sun waits for no man, not even if it’s his birthday.”

“The sun, or Allia?” Talitha grinned, waving at the weaver’s daughter as she emerged from the shop clad in a gown of pale blue cotton.

“Both.” Mildon blushed as he handed Lorand his wrapped lunch and sack. “Now get on with you.” He ruffled Lorand’s hair as he turned to help Allia up onto the front bench of the wagon. “Oh, and Lorand?”

“Yeah?”

His brother pointed at the sack, which had wriggled out of his arms and fallen to the ground. “Don’t put that near Master Lugal’s desk.”

“Why not?”

“Three years ago, I left a corn snake in the first drawer on top of his papers. Thought he’d scream but he just smiled then looked me straight in the eyes. Heard he kept it as a pet.”

Lorand’s jaw dropped as Mildon drove off with a laughing Allia seated beside him. He looked over at Talitha, who pouted and crouched down to untie the sack.

“I’m losing my touch,” she said, shaking her head as a dozen rats scampered out onto the cobblestoned street. “Suppose we go find a skunk?” Most of the rats disappeared into the gutter, though two of the more adventurous rodents scurried towards the bakery. Talitha’s eyes gleamed and she looked as though she wanted to follow.

Lorand grabbed her hand. “You heard him, Tali, we gotta run!” He started hauling his best friend in the direction of the Guild house before she could get him into trouble. Again.

* * *

For the rest of the day, Lorand tried his best to get a glimpse inside Master Lugal’s desk. He had to use his eyes, since snakes were near invisible to Earth senses unless you were at least a Middle. Lorand was strong for his age, but it’d be a few years before he could take the tests.

He sat up straight in his chair and pretended to listen to yet another lecture on the origins of the Gandistran Empire. Master Lugal gave the same talk every year—right around Lorand’s birthday—without fail. Lorand was certain he could recite the thing in his sleep. The soft snoring coming from the desk behind him meant Talitha beat him to it.

The Guild Master had to be in his eighth or ninth decade, though the wrinkles in his face looked like they had been accumulated due to laughter rather than age. When he spoke, his light tenor voice resonated through the classroom as if he were a storyteller with Air magic.

“—and lo, the Four proved no match for the Blended might of Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit!”

Of course, Master Lugal couldn’t use magic at all. He had the Guild talent: a touch of every aspect, enough to let him sense the strength and nature of anybody’s magic. Normal people could only manifest the Prime Aspect in one of five aspects but people like Master Lugal were blessed: the Highest Aspect itself protected them from any harm by misuse of magic. Their holy duty was to help everyone embody as much of the Prime Aspect as possible by strengthening their talents.

Today, the Guild Master wore the five-colored robes of his office belted over a loose silk shirt and wide legged trousers. His clothing flapped in the breeze created by his reenactment of the Four’s defeat at the front of the classroom. Lorand stared at the left pocket with narrowed eyes. Was it his imagination, or did the pocket’s contents shift slightly?

“When the Five were Seated, they vowed to uphold every duty the Four had forsworn in their rule of our Empire, including the sacred tradition of competition for the Fivefold Throne.”

The next part would cover the Seated Five’s first decrees and how they sought to undo the harm inflicted by the Four. For this topic, Master Lugal liked to question the class and usually wrote each response on the large slate hung at the front. What if he volunteered to scribe? One snapped chalk and he’d have a good excuse to scrounge around for another piece in Guild Master’s desk.

“The Five’s early reign is a fascinating period of history—”

Lorand’s hand shot up.

“—but Their Excellencies remind me that time grows short.”

...what? That wasn’t in the script. Behind him, Talitha stirred in her seat.

“Attend, children.” Master Lugal gestured and bowed deeply to the newcomer leaning against the doorframe. Chairs scraped all across the classroom as Lorand and his schoolmates hastily stood and made their own bows. “We are honored by Adept Hestir, favored of the Seated High in Earth magic, His Excellency Elmin Ofgin.”

“At ease.” The Adept’s voice was husky just like in the stories; whether it was from disuse or shouting on the battlefield, Lorand couldn’t recall exactly. She had the yellow-tinged skin of someone with Astindan blood. Her hair—a shade darker than Talitha’s—was shorn close to her scalp, which was decorated with intricate tattoos. They spiralled down behind her right ear and once around her throat before disappearing into the collar of her tunic and peeking out from the silver bracer on her left arm. The emerald green overrobe of her station—trimmed in gold ribbon and stitched with tiny Earth magic symbols in gold thread—had to be worth more than Camil Coll’s farm.

She didn’t step inside or straighten in the slightest. Instead, she studied each of the thirty students, one by one. The younger children—those who were only seven or eight years old—were quickly dismissed. Lorand shivered when her gaze reached him at last; it was accompanied by a tingling sensation from head to toe as she scanned him with her Earth senses.

“You,” she pointed at Lorand, Talitha and three others. “Follow. Lugal, come after dismissing the rest.”

They all bowed again and hastened to obey.

Lorand took advantage of everyone’s distraction to walk behind Master Lugal’s desk on his way out. The first and second drawers contained chalk and papers. He nudged them shut with his talent, as he’d walked past the desk by then.

A faint hiss sounded as the third drawer slid open behind him.

“Fates take me,” Talitha breathed. “Mildon was telling the truth!”

* * *

Adept Hestir led them to an empty field outside the western gate.

The fact Widdertown had not just one gate, but four, was a point of pride. Lesser towns and villages didn’t need gates as they had no walls. But Widdertown was close enough to Gandistra’s western border that the Seated Blending sent three Highs in Earth, Water and Spirit to build the walls. His father had never gotten used to them, though they had been built thirty years ago at the end of the last war against Astinda, and often said they weren’t true walls. Lorand had no idea why. The tops were so high he couldn’t see over them even if he rode on his father’s shoulders and Camil Coll was the tallest man in town.

Out here, the hot summer wind displaced the stink of open sewers with the scent of fresh-cut grass curing in the afternoon sun. The soil was warm through the calluses of Lorand’s bare feet, a welcome change from the hard cobblestones of town’s main street. In the distance, Ofgin’s Teeth rose up to meet the sky. Its jagged peaks were high enough to remain tipped with snow and ice.

Somewhere nestled in those heights was Fort Quellin, where Adepts, their handpicked Highs and an entire company of guardsmen stood watch over the pass into Astinda, even now. Public coaches—marked with the twisting lines of the Air magic symbol—arrived at the turn of every season to disgorge a handful of link groups, armed with newly forged swords and spears. These traded places with weary comrades on home leave: some would take a riverboat from Hemson Crossing, bound for southern Port Entril, but most boarded other coaches headed to Rincammon in the north or the capital of Gan Garee in the east.

Three in ten guardsmen returned from the border as bundles of personal effects carried by the slower supply wagons. Master Lugal had been particularly grim in class that day and avoided looking at Lorand. Everybody knew his aunt and uncle had died in the war, leaving his father to inherit the farm.

Camil Coll did not like to be reminded of that. He did not like Lorand’s fascination with the guardsmen and Highs. And he definitely would not like Ofgin’s very own Shadow taking an interest in his second son.

Not a word to Pa tonight, Lorand decided. I’ll make Mil take us over to Riven farm for dinner and we’ll drive home once everyone’s asleep.

The Adept stood at the farthest edge of the fallow field, facing the mountains. She had kept up a brisk, long-legged march all the way from the Guild house and they had half-jogged to keep up. Mollit arrived first, flanked by his cronies Idroy and Refe, with Lorand trailing close behind. They gathered in a loose half-circle about a horse-length away from the Adept’s back.

Talitha could have outrun them all if she hadn’t stopped half a dozen times to pick up pebbles, beg food, leap railings and toss sticks. Her wavy hair flew behind her—errant locks fluttering in her eyes, damp with sweat, much like Ma’s best shawl when washed and hung out to dry—as she galloped towards the group. For the third time this week, Lorand pulled a leather tie from one of his pockets and held it out.

Talitha snatched the tie and fell into her usual place beside him. “Thanks, Lor. Could have sworn I had one this morning.”

“You used it to tie up the sack,” Lorand reminded her.

“Oh yeah,” she chortled. “What did I do with the Chaos touched thing after we let the rats go?” Across the half circle, Mollit murmured something to Refe, who snickered. Talitha glared at them. “Tied Mollit’s breeches to his chair, right?”

For the second time that day, Lorand was interrupted by an earthquake.

Unlike the faint rumbles Talitha had summoned in the barn, the entire field rippled as the top layer of soil—packed into hardened furrows by a year of wind and rain—exploded into the air. Lorand shouted and reached for his Earth magic reflexively as the others screamed. Power answered in a flood of strength, detailing the world in lines and smudges of green. Beside him, Talitha shone with her own emerald light as she surrounded them both with a shield. Another three glows bloomed, barely visible to Lorand’s eyes through the vortex of dirt.

They were all pale candles compared to Adept Hestir, who blazed brighter than the sun. The amount of power she wielded was immense; it knocked the wind out of him, like Surefoot had knocked over a six-year-old Lorand when he first tried to hitch the horse to the plough. Dirt—crushed into fine, uniform grains by the Adept’s Earth magic—flew by him, leaving dusty streaks on his worn tunic. These soon disappeared as the dust itself was drawn into the vortex by the Adept’s talent. He coughed and tried to spit out the lungful of dirt he’d nearly swallowed before Talitha had shielded them, but his throat was so dry he couldn’t manage it. Mollit, Idroy and Refe were all retching on their knees too.

Beside him, Talitha laughed and clapped her hands. She’d dropped her shield to stare up at the sky, where all of the dirt in the field had gathered in a massive globe that was wider and taller than three men standing atop each other. At the Adept’s command, the globe divided itself and twisted into a complex five-stranded braid.

He recognized it at once: the final control exercise in the tests for a Middle practitioner of Earth magic. He’d watched all last winter as Mildon had practiced over and over again, behind the barn. His brother hadn’t used this much soil though.

The completed braid floated in the air a moment longer, before the Adept let it crumble to the ground into five smaller mounds. One for each of them.

“Now,” Adept Hestir said, as she finally turned away from the western border to face them. “Show me what you can do.”

* * *

The fire had burned low by the time Lorand finished eating his dinner. Talitha’s own bowl was half-eaten and sat unattended on the floor, dangerously close to being upended whenever she shifted her position at her father’s feet. Phor Riven himself sat on a stool by the fire, content to listen to his daughter’s outrageous stories of the day’s events and laughed each time she slapped his knee to emphasize a particular point. His tanned, ruddy face—framed with sandy curls—contrasted sharply with his daughter’s pale looks and wavy locks.

The two younger Rivens had long been carried off to their beds while the two elder sons had gone outside with Mildon. The only other person who remained was Talitha’s maternal grandmother.

Grami Riven sat in a huddle of blankets in the room’s only chair. She was old—nearly as old as Master Lugal—and where Master Lugal was stout like a gnarled oak, Grami seemed as frail as a spider’s web. She often stared off into the distance, focused on things nobody else could see. Mindshock, his father had once explained. She climbed Ofgin’s Teeth in winter and survived. But she paid a heavy price.

Grami rarely went into Widdertown. She made most townsfolk uneasy.

Tonight, she seemed better. Her eyes followed Talitha as she flitted around the cottage. Looking at Grami was like looking ahead at his best friend’s future: her wavy locks bleached silver as a birch tree by decades in the sun, and her yellow-tinged skin spotted and wrinkled with age. The only difference was Grami’s stillness; even in her sleep, Talitha tossed and turned frequently.

“Just you watch, Pa! Lor and I, we’ll be Middles before we turn thirteen,” Talitha said. “Adept Hestir didn’t so much as look at the other lads once Lor managed to braid three strands—Mollit couldn’t even manage the one!—and she liked how quick I was to shield.”

“I bet she’s here for recruits,” Lorand said. “There aren’t as many guardsmen coming from the capital as there used to.”

“And there’s less of them going home.” Talitha added quietly. “They say Astinda’s going to attack again.”

“Thought I told you two not to hang around the tavern.” Phor frowned. “That’s no place for young ones.”

“Lor’s ten today, Pa,” Talitha pointed out. “And I’m near eleven. We’re old enough to hear the truth.”

“And I’m old enough that I need my bed, or I won’t finish planting that crop of beans tomorrow.” The stool creaked as Phor levered himself up gingerly and kissed the top of Talitha’s head. “Adept or no, you’re to come straight home after lunch. We’ll need you to Encourage the seedlings.” Phor nodded once to Lorand. “Tell Camil I’ll come round to help him fix that fence at week’s end.”

Talitha sighed as her father disappeared behind the thin curtain that hid the bedroom, and Lorand patted her shoulder as he headed for the door. “See you in the morning, Tali.”

Someone grabbed his arm.

He turned and blinked in surprise to see Grami Riven clutching his elbow with both hands. She had shed her coverings in order to catch him and a trail of blankets now stretched from her feet to the chair by the fire. How had she moved so quickly?

“Grami!” Talitha was at her grandmother’s side in an instant. “What are you doing? You’ll catch a chill. I’ll help you back to the fire.”

Grami Riven shook her head. “Boy, get brother. Stay. I story.”

Lorand hugged her then gently pulled away. “Mil and I have to get home. I’ll come for your story another night.”

“No more night.” Grami shook her head even more vigorously. “Fates speak. End tonight. You. Brother. Stay—”

She froze. Confused, Lorand looked at Talitha, who shrugged.

“She gets like this sometimes. Only the Highest Aspect knows why.” Talitha waved him off when he went to help her carry her grandmother. “We’ll be fine. See you in school.”

* * *

The ride home was quiet, save for Mildon’s whistling and the rustle of the night breeze through the trees. They drove along the road, its length running south from the main road to the end of the Riven farm, where the western edges of furrowed fields met the shadowed depths of the forested foothills of Ofgin’s Teeth. It was late enough that the moon had risen, a gleaming half-circle accompanied by hundreds of stars. The sky was clear, allowing the moon to gild the fields with its bluish white light and sparkle off bits of the gravelled road.

His older brother was in a good mood. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Mildon now carried Allia’s pale blue handkerchief, tucked away carefully in his shirt pocket. What was so special about a girl’s handkerchief that got Mildon all muddled up? Talitha gave him her handkerchiefs all the time—they were usually crusted with snot or blood, or wrapped around some sort of slimy creature intended for Mollit’s shoe. Gross.

Lorand wobbled his way over to the front of the wagon bed. “Can I drive?” he asked.

“Thought you’d be done in by all the excitement today,” Mildon called over his shoulder.

“Come on, Mil, it’s my birthday. You promised!”

“Oh, alright then,” his brother said, pulling Surefoot up. “Get over here.” Mildon swung Lorand up from the wagon bed, into the driver’s seat beside him and handed over the reins.

Huh. Mildon was in an unusually good mood. As he urged Surefoot into a steady walk, Lorand wondered if he could beg off his chores for tomorrow afternoon. Phor had made a point of avoiding questions at dinner. Why was Adept Hestir staying at the Widdertown inn? Master Lugal had explained that she was on official Adept business, though her visit to the Guild school hadn’t been part of it. Lorand doubted her stay in town was either; Highs and Adepts normally headed straight to Quellin from the capital by more direct means.

Despite his best intentions and the thoughts circling in his head like loose chickens, Lorand’s eyelids grew heavy. He yawned—three times—and found himself snuggled against Mildon, who had the reins firmly in hand.

They were almost at the turnoff to the main road, leading east towards the Coll farm and Widdertown, when the wagon jerked to a halt and started Lorand awake.

“What—” he began, but was cut off as Mildon clapped a hand over his mouth. He twisted in his brother’s grip, blinking sleep out of his eyes furiously, and tried to stand up. To his surprise, he couldn’t move. His limbs were frozen, under the command of Mildon’s Earth magic.

Angry and terrified, Lorand reached out to the power for the third time that day. It was normally effortless—faster than thought—but he was so tired, it felt like he was wading through mud up to his chest trying to catch a very nimble hog. As he struggled with his magic, Mildon hoisted him over one shoulder and jumped, abandoning Surefoot, the wagon and the road to run into the fields.

They crashed through Phor’s neat rows of corn, careless of the plants they trampled. Lorand’s legs stung from being whipped by the leaves; why was that? What in Chaos was his brother doing? Even a Low in Earth magic could move unencumbered through plants and his brother was supposed to be a Middle!

In the deepest part of the cornfield, Mildon stopped running and sank to his knees at last, drawing in deep, shuddering breaths. He released his grip on Lorand—physical and magical—who tumbled off his shoulder onto the ground. Now that he wasn’t being jostled around like a sack of potatoes, Lorand finally managed to get a hold of the power and take a good look around.

He immediately wished he hadn’t.

Three glowing figures lit up the night to his Earth senses as they emerged from the forest near Surefoot and the wagon. Each of them seemed to burn as brightly as Adept Hestir, in ethereal shades of red, blue and yellow, and gossamer strands of each color linked their figures together. Mildon’s familiar green appeared subdued compared to the brilliance of the three strangers and Lorand’s own glow was fainter than starlight.

Astindans! Not just a few raiders, but a link group. Either they had snuck through the pass at Quellin—somehow—or they had found another way around the mountains.

“Lor, listen very carefully.” His brother wasn’t looking at him. “I need you to shield yourself and run as fast as you can. Find Master Lugal and that Adept of yours. Don’t take the road.”

“But you’re coming with me.” Lorand’s heart thundered in his chest. “Aren’t you?”

Mildon shook his head. “They don’t have an Earth magic talent with them. I might be able to distract them for a while.” He took the square of blue cotton out of his shirt pocket and pressed it into Lorand’s hands. “Go. Quickly!”

Lorand opened his mouth to protest but his brother had vanished into the night under his own shield. Trembling, he got to his feet and did as he was told, praying to the Prime Aspect as he fled through the corn plants. His worries churned over each other in his mind, like the poor rats he had caught in that morning.

Earth magic didn’t work well at a distance; everyone knew that. Mildon would have to get close—far too close—to work a distraction. The moment he summoned a quake, or tried to use Encouragement to restrain them with plants, he’d be assaulted by both Fire and Air magic. Assuming the last raider didn’t decide to drown him in a bubble of water.

He’ll be dead before I make it to town.

That was wrong. Like the sun setting in the east and rising in the west.

One Middle against a link group of three Highs—Mildon was outmatched, both in talent and in power. What could a ten year old kid do?

I could join him, Lorand thought. Linking won’t do any good but two distractions are better than one.

There was no logic to that and he knew it.

He heard, rather than felt, the ground rumble as he burst clear of the Riven corn and dove into his father’s field of tomatoes. Four glowing figures winked out of view to his talent.

What about Talitha?

They'd linked before, often, and she was close by. He knew the feel of her power almost as well as he knew his own. The two of them together, linked, were probably equal to a strong Middle—and with Talitha’s preternatural skill in Decay, they might even give a weak High a hard time. If he stopped running for help and reached out to her through the power...

Idiot! Lorand berated himself, nearly turning an ankle as he tripped over a vine that had escaped its trellis. The moonlight had trouble piercing through the tall staked ranks of tomato plants and their tangled shadows made it difficult to see the ground clearly. She'll come running straight out here and you'll get her killed too.

There was nobody else…

Nobody to help his brother, unless he found a way to summon Adept Hestir herself. And she might not be enough. One High against a link group? People told stories but that’s all they were: stories.

But if she was here, Lorand thought, I could call Tali. One High, a Middle and a linked duo against a linked trio of Highs would be bad odds, but not impossible.

He sent his Earth sense behind him. Had the raiders taken Mildon’s bait? Or were they on his tail? His talent told him nothing out of the ordinary: a feral tom hunted mice three rows down, the cornfield complained of thirst and the tomatoes wanted more manure.

The absence of glowing figures set him on edge. He tried to run faster. In the distance, he could just make out five mounds of dirt in an empty field.

Breath gasped in his throat. Sweat in his eyes. The night air felt hot to his skin and his feet protested at each stride. Behind him, a dull, orange-red glow illuminated the horizon, like the sun rising in the west, its heat beating against his back.

NO!

Lorand screamed, reaching eastward through the power with his hands, his mind, his talent. Desperate, he thought of Master Lugal; imagined him at his desk, waving his arms as he waxed enthusiastic about the Five Fundamental Theorems; Adept Hestir pacing the common room of Widdertown inn with her unrelenting gaze and confident stride; even legendary Elmin Ofgin, with his forbidding face stamped on one fifth of the Empire’s coins, seated upon the Earth Throne in far off Gan Garee.

Too late. He was too late.

“Lorand?” Someone shook him. “Lad?”

“Mindshock,” said a husky voice. “And exhaustion. Otherwise fine.”

Fine? No, he wasn’t fine. The sun had risen in the west. That was wrong.

“Where, Lugal?” That sounded like Adept Hestir. “Where are they?”

Green light pulsed in the distance. Weak. “Young Coll’s lying low in Phor Riven’s bean crop. He doesn’t have enough energy left for a shield.”

Lorand finally found his voice. “Raiders!” He looked up at the Adept. “My brother. Please—please save him!”

She kept her eyes on the Guild Master. “Others?”

“My Search found three, all shielded. The Fire magic user’s circled to the north, trying to flush him out. Water and Air are going to flank him to the south and west. No Spirit magic.”

“Fates be thanked,” Hestir grunted. She sprinted off towards the inferno without a backward glance for either of them.

“Will she...will she be enough?”

Master Lugal hesitated.

That was all Lorand needed to know. He staggered to his feet and stumbled after the Adept.

* * *

Camil killed Mildon’s body at dawn. Stopped the heart with a light brush of his talent, the same way he would put down one of the farm animals. A tiny reversal of the Earth magic skill for Healing.

Adept Hestir had said no Earth magic could Heal burnout; nor any Spirit magic. Burnout shattered the mind, allowed the soul to break free from the body and return to the void, leaving the body to return to the Prime Aspect.

Allia came to the funeral that afternoon, riding in the back of Phor Riven’s wagon along with Talitha, Master Lugal and Grami Riven. She left a pale green handkerchief, right above the folded blue square Lorand had returned to the pocket next to Mildon’s heart.

Lorand stood by and watched as his mother held his father, who howled worse than Jeris had when his cat lost one leg to a rusty rat trap.

He did not cry.

All his tears were used up by the time Camil carried him home. Lorand had held on to Mildon’s hand the whole way to lead his brother home but kept his face buried in his father’s shirt.

His brother’s vacant eyes haunted him anyway.

The Guild Master spoke many eloquent words of Mildon’s courage and sacrifice in his storyteller’s voice. Adept Hestir herself called up a sparkling slab of granite from the earth for a grand tombstone and carved upon its face a fitting epithet: Here lies Mildon Coll. Firstborn son of Camil and Vadra Coll. Champion of Widdertown, Blessed of Earth. Returned to Earth and the Prime Aspect in the ninety-third year of the Gandistran Empire.

So many words to say so little. What of his brother’s tender care for his five younger siblings? Who would know of his unending patience for a little brother who constantly got into scrapes? How would people remember that Mildon kept every single promise, even when Lorand didn’t?

One by one, they left. To return to their farms, their shops, their houses, their duties, their families. All except Talitha, who remained by his side until the moon rose once more high in the cloudless sky.

“I never told him I was sorry,” Lorand said. “About the rats.”

“I didn’t either.”

“It was my birthday. He still let me drive.”

She hugged him.

“It’s my fault.”

She hugged him tight.

“I don’t know how to be him, Tali,” he whispered. “What do I do now?”

She didn’t answer except to hold him even tighter.

Neither of them had the right words.