The clouds bubbled like cakes in a giant oven. The wind spirits brought a breeze, but it was too late for Micah. He had already lted into the grass.
Sumr. It was too hot. He was bored. He missed his friends.
It had been over a month since he had last seen them, and the sumr festival had co and gone. He'd spent it with his family.
He could have stuck around school and watched the prospective new students go through the entrance exams and tours like so of the others did. They'd stolen his training grounds so the entertainnt might have been nice. But Kathy and a few teachers were running around and bugging people about student councils and residence assistants, and he didn't want to get caught up in that—neither did the other people they had scared off.
He could have hung out with Kyle, or Mason, or Jason more often if he knew where they went all day. Or all week. They didn't always sleep in their rooms at night.
The wind spirits were leaving, too. More and more had abandoned the wristband until it looked like a band of loose strings. A friendship bracelet.
He wished Anne were here. He pictured weaving a bracelet around her arm, touching her skin, being next to her in the grass …
Micah sat up. The wind spirits reacted to his sudden movent. So popped out of existence, and he frowned at the place where they had been. "Why do you do that?"
They were still there, he knew. They just turned incorporeal. Well, more incorporeal than usual.
He waited for them to slowly crawl back into his awareness. "I've seen other spirits before, but whenever they notice looking, they hide. Why is that?"
Even as a child, they'd hidden from him. From all the stories he'd heard, spirits should have no reason to be afraid of a human child. Micah wanted to believe there was an explanation here other than his crooked jaw.
Only a handful of spirits considered his question. The rest continued to roam the park.
He didn't know what he had expected since they couldn't talk, but after a long minute of deliberation, they shot off. One and all. A breeze rolled over the grass. Only a handful waited for a second to shoot him an expectant glance before they followed.
Micah hesitated, but it wasn't like he could let them run off on their own. He wiped the grass off his hands and wandered after them. The forerunners didn't slow, and the spirits swirling around him were impatient, so he picked up the pace. Before long, he was jogging at a brisk pace.
They led him out of the park and into the city streets. He was in better shape than ever, but he still began to sweat under the glaring sun. Not every street had shade sails, and the spirits led him in circles, changing their minds on a di.
When they reversed directions for the third ti, he hollered after them, "This better not be a prank!," and ignored the confused people around him.
But in-between the crowds he had to avoid, on crossroads, when he searched the sky, he saw them over rooftops: blurry eels, kites, and scarfs fluttering in the wind.
They waited a mont for a slower spirit to catch up and then, like a daisy chain, that spirit waited, and the next, and the next to pass a ssage on to the chaperones near him. Those led him down a street. The forerunners split up again.
They were scouting, he realized. What for?
Wherever they were leading him, at least it was sowhere cool. The bloated glare of the heat essence eased up, the world deflated, and the air filled with humidity as Micah slled water.
He stepped out of a damp alley onto a low street that bordered a canal. The stone was only a foot or so above the water level, and there was no fence. People sat on the edge and dangled their feet in the river. There were a few cafes further down the street. A plaza in the sun. The gurgling sound of the river's flow undercut the hustle and bustle of the city.
The wind spirits froze, and the breeze froze alongside them for one second. Micah saw them. They hung over rooftops and parasols along the river like a silent tribunal before they vanished from sight, leaving him alone and clueless.
He frowned. This was a great spot to relax, but why bring him here? Sothing about the river? If he focused, he could see its currents snaking like screens through the water.
Across the plaza, another canal fed into this one and threw the screens into chaos. It was difficult across the distance, but he spotted transparent fish swimming in the river essence. Lesser river spirits.
A wind spirit appeared, tackled his leg, and vanished into the alley. All in the blink of an eye.
Micah barely stumbled, but he got the hint and retreated into the shade to keep an eye on the river.
After a minute, it appeared on the opposite street: a spirit like a scaled cat with long whiskers and fins. It watched the river spirits as it crept closer. So of the fish noticed its attention on them and vanished. The screens they'd been swimming in drifted shut. One was too slow.
The cat leaped, blurred, and shot into the river like an arrow, too fast for Micah to track. It threw the river essences into a chaotic jumble, though the only physical sign of a struggle was a single high-pitched plop. A tiny shift in a current.
The chaotic cloud hadn't even settled when the cat spirit swam away with the carcass of the river spirit in its mouth, its scales crumbling into motes of light.
Oh.
The cat hesitated, paddling in place, before it spun to stare directly at him. Like the fish earlier, it had noticed his attention on it and vanished.
One by one, the wind spirits appeared again and returned to him, stirring up the musky sll of the alley in their breeze.
"Spirits hunt other spirits," he mumbled.
"I don't get it. They can kill us, but we're not allowed to kill them?"
Bastion gave him a concerned look as the [Host] led them to their table. The man wore a casual white shirt today, instead of a suit. They had to navigate a maze of tables and parasol stands to get anywhere, but the day was too nice to stay inside.
He waited for Shanty and Bastion to take their seats before Micah took his own. The host handed them their nus and excused himself.
"Of course, you can kill them," Shanty said the mont he was out of earshot. "The other spirits might not appreciate it, however."
They sat next to at least two other tables who could hear them, and pedestrians walked by the tables clustered outside of the restaurant. He didn't know why she'd waited. Who cared if soone heard them?
"They will kill you," Bastion translated.
Hugh gave a hearty chuckle.
"Golems are deadly," Micah said, "how many climbers do they kill each year? It's not fair."
"Life's not fair," Brian muttered.
"Exactly. So why are we taught not to harm spirits? If you threaten a life, you should expect to forfeit your own."
Bastion continued to regard him like a troubled child, but Shanty seed to understand, "You don't actually want to kill a spirit, do you?"
"I want to understand. As far as I can tell, we can only not seek revenge because we don't know any better." A year ago, Micah had barely known what a spirit was, let alone that the golems who killed so many people were suits of armor worn by sapient beings. Nobody talked about it. If the schools taught it, his hadn't done so in the first year.
If one of them had killed Ryan back then, he would have blad the Tower. Now? He couldn't go back to ignorance. There were people in the Towers murdering climbers for no reason.
Instead of answering him, the others looked up, and Micah followed their eyes to the waitress who stood next to his chair with a forced smile.
She waited a beat, aware she had interrupted them, and spoke in a light tone, "Hi! My na is Arin, and I'll be your waitress today. Can I get you started on so drinks?"
The humans took iced teas. The spirits … Well, Micah doubted Hugh could fish for a fire potion here, but what would a storyteller spirit even drink?
He supposed this restaurant was the answer: magic. The Wishing Well. Despite what he'd told Brian, in the end, Micah had only found the place because it was popular.
Arin jotted their orders down and left with a smile and a spring in her step, and Micah almost let himself be distracted. He turned to Shanty. Brian browsed his nu, but Bastion didn't touch his. He paid attention to their conversation.
"I'm not privy to the details of whatever deal those spirits might have made with the creator or overseer of the Towers," Shanty said, "but as far as I am aware, the arrangent they have found is a comfortable one. They have security and peace—"
"Excuse , but they have been fighting adventurers every day for over a hundred years," Micah said in a serious tone.
"They puppet golems to fight adventurers. Adventures who only know to defend themselves from the puppets, not the puppeteer," she corrected him. "And life for a wild spirit can be rough. They have a great deal of power, but they develop slowly, which makes them easy targets to exploit. In Narajana," she paused, "spirits are common, but they are treated as a resource first—tal, water, and batteries—as pets and livestock second, servants and muscle, and only then as equals."
"It's not as bad as you make it seem," Hugh comnted, fiddling with the condint box in the center of their table. "I worked my way up."
Micah hesitated. He didn't know what life for a spirit was like, but he doubted it could be much worse than murdering children. "Don't they have cities of their own?"
Shanty shot Hugh a glance. "So do. So live under the aegis of greater beings, but keep in mind that being around people can help spirits grow. And those who don't have cities …"
She trailed off.
Hugh picked it back up. "Fire spirits don't have a ho." He continued to fiddle with a condint bottle without looking at them. "There is no 'Plane of Fire.' We have the Balefire streams, but those are like … roads between planes. Shifting rivers. They connect most fires in existence. Every candle and star.
"Those who live in the shallows, near people? They can be normal. But those who live in the deeps? In so places, if a city burns, you people don't only have to douse the flas, but also deal with the fire spirits who flee before the coming of sothing worse."
Micah had brought up this macabre topic in the first place, but his words gave him pause. Not the nebulous threat of so malevolent deep fire spirit that might attack humans—he'd never heard of one of those attacking the Five Cities in the last century, so he doubted any world in the next. It was the simple image of a city in flas that made him pause.
He glanced at the buildings across the street and had been about to scoff, Don't they have firefighters? But of course, they didn't. At least, not Skilled ones.
He thought of what the wind spirits had shown him before they'd left, the cat spirit. He thought he understood.
"It still doesn't explain what the spirits in the Towers gain from killing us?"
If they wanted a ho, that was fine, but acting like monsters …? No.
Shanty wore a complicated expression, as if she had more to say, but wasn't sure he would understand it, or like she wouldn't want to get into this discussion with him, and Micah tried to relax.
He didn't think he was being annoying, but people sotis told him he could be without aning to. It wasn't like he was trying to argue, he just … wanted the universe to explain its aning.
"Aren't they like, employed by the Dwarf to test us?" Brian comnted. "Maybe they're just doing their jobs. Keeping their end of a bargain."
"The other end being that they're allowed to stay in the Towers, in a, what, 'high-vibrancy magical zone'?" He had no idea what the technical term for the Towers' oasis was.
"Maybe?"
"This place isn't that great either." Hugh made a face, and Bastion tapped his nu. "What?"
"You can eat what they serve here. Our treat."
The bottle in his hands stopped turning. A reflection of flas lit up in his eyes and the spirit snatched up a nu.
Micah addressed the adults. "Then … what if we can offer them a better deal?"
Shanty gave a relieved smile. "I think that may be part of the deal already."
"What do you an?"
She leaned forward and gestured as she spoke, "Look, think of it like this: imagine for a mont that more and more people like you reach out to spirits in the future, Micah, and you form contracts that grant you a great deal of power, until this becos commonplace.
"At first, people will rember what they have learned because, as you said, they do not know any better. They will think that spirits are unknowable and powerful creatures that can kill without remorse and are connected to the inner workings of the Towers.
"These spirits also gain sothing out of these deals: contact with people, control over the Five Cities through their contracted partners. But, if over ti the scales shift like in Narajana, and spirits feel as though they are being exploited, they can simply return to their posts in the Tower. All of you who will have gained Classes or positions of power based on your relationship will lose that power, and within a generation or two, human culture will shift again.
"And the spirits?" Shanty shrugged. "Keep in mind we live very long lives. They have only been here for a century. They may very well still be in a trial phase of this arrangent. If they have to reach out and withdraw from humans in cycles you asure in generations, it would be no different from a farr rotating their crops in cycles asured by the seasons."
She finished the impromptu explanation, and Micah stared. Green eyes, a human face, a dress covered in little pockets.
She was five hundred years old. She made it so easy to forget that. And if he glanced to the side, the asshole wearing a suit in over thirty-degree heat was even older.
How old had the earth spirits he'd pestered for days on end been? What did they see when they looked at him? No wonder why they wouldn't want to be his friend so easily.
He let out a tiny, " … oh." Suddenly, he felt very small again.
"So," Bastion speared him with a look, "are you going to offer them a better deal?"
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Micah answered honestly, "I don't know." If it stopped spirits from killing climbers, that could save lives, and there was no greater good than preservation, but … what did he have to offer?
Shanty gave him a smile and, sensing his contemplation, turned to Brian. Belatedly, Micah rembered to shoot them a quick, "Thanks."
He wondered if he could ask his mom to bring up the topic of diplomacy with spirits in a council eting? He didn't know if that was 'allowed,' because he was her son. He didn't expect to find a solution right now, but it still bugged him.
"So," Bastion repeated, "have you found the Theatre yet again?"
A quick scowl passed over his face, but Brian put on a constant air of confidence around their patrons. "Not yet. But I've found it more tis than most, so it only makes sense it would be more difficult for to find. I might have to climb beyond the twelfth floor."
He was a Theatre Chaser, then? Micah didn't know if he was surprised or not. The Theatre seed like a fluke to him, but he knew many high-leveled non-combatants were dipping their toes into the Towers or stepping out of retirent for a chance at a guaranteed level up.
Micah listened with one ear as he opened his nu. His eyes widened at the prices, but that was the whole reason he was here. If their patrons were willing to throw large sums of money at them, and invite them to places like this, he was willing to entertain them.
The Wishing Well was an upscale magic restaurant. All of the items on the nu were conjured or enchanted, which let them save on costs in inventory, but the cooks had to be trained in spellcraft and were restricted by their mana capacity, so it might have evened out.
Except, restaurants like this catered to a very specific clientele that let them charge exuberant sums. His sister and brother-in-law dabbled in the sa field now: magic restaurants could let you eat grossly unhealthy food that was actually healthy, or nothing at all.
Calories were literally empty when you ate an illusion.
He leafed through the nu and considered ordering what would amount to a potion of heart attack, but he was actually trying to eat more at recently …
A sundae? The last ti he'd eaten ice cream was when his sister and he had made so themselves from waterlon. Before that … he couldn't rember. They had a lot of ice cream options on the nu.
Fried ice cream? How in the …?
Mm. He wanted that, but he eyed their patrons. They were still quizzing Brian on his Theatre scenarios, and comnting on their own.
Had they invited them for a al and dessert? Micah flipped back just in case. He would adapt his order to theirs.
When he found sothing he'd spotted on one of the other tables—a wrap stuffed to the brim with toppings and sauces—he paid attention to their conversation again.
The Theatre was a special kind of guardian chamber that challenged climbers with a scenario tailored to them; hence the na. That alone was insane enough, but apparently, if you succeeded, you were guaranteed to level up.
Theatre Chasers tried to find entrances using treasure maps, clues from their last scenario, or clues other people sold. Unlike enchanting chests, there was a decent amount of public information thanks to Guild publications and rumor magazines, but …
Lisa and Ryan weren't around to buy those for Micah, and he was sort of busy. He had no idea what they were talking about.
Instead, when there was a lull in the conversation, he put on a smile and asked, "So are you looking for another entrance then?"
"No," Bastion said with a quick jerk of his head, "no, we are actually investigating the rumors of new humanoid species in the Towers right now."
"The mole people?" This, Micah knew more about. "Or, oh— the bird people! They talk, right? And sing?" He said it with a little too much enthusiasm, considering he would rather not fight humanoid enemies if he didn't have to, but it was nice to be able to talk about it.
"Reportedly," Bastion said, "though we are more interested in asserting their true nature—"
"They're sapient, aren't they?" Brian phrased it like a question, but he sounded sure.
"It seems that way."
"What, spirits?" Micah asked, frowning. His first thought was 'flesh golem,' but Shanty gave a tiny shrug.
"That's the question, isn't it? Though we didn't invite you here to talk about our work. How about we order and then talk business?"
She gestured, and Micah glanced back to see their waitress balancing a tray of cold drinks their way. She served another table that had their als already and made her way to them.
"Oh, right." Micah leaned over to fish so papers out of his bag. They were still in their opened letter envelopes, and he kept them on his lap. The school docunts he had received in the mail. Tuition costs. Book lists. First years elected their courses at the start of the school year, but second years could do it ahead of ti. So he already knew what he needed.
It was a lot of money. More than once, Micah had rembered the papers in his desk drawer and upended his training plans in the middle of the day, or at night, to go into the Tower on his own. Just in case.
His hands shook in his lap, and he put on a smile when the waitress served their drinks.
When it was his turn to order, she asked, "Small, dium, Large? Conjured, Quarter-conjured, Half, or Three-quarters?"
Bastion raised his eyebrows expectantly.
"Uh, large," Micah said, "half-conjured?" 'Quarter-conjured' would be plain, the bare minimum needed to give the al the right shape and consistency. 'Half' was more of a diet al, often vegetarian. 'Three-quarters' was hearty with only the details altered, like dripping fat.
It seed he'd picked a good combination, because his patrons looked happy.
When she left, he finally laid the papers out, avoiding a drop of condensation from the drinks on the table. Brian had his in a manilla envelope.
"So," Shanty said, "how can we help you?"
Micah's legs quickened. A feeling welled up inside of them. Energy that wanted out but couldn't, so it rose up inside of his chest and culminated in his cheeks and jaw.
He let out a whoop, skipped and spun, then ducked his head low and kept walking when the other people on the street looked at him. He hadn't been able to keep it in. Finally! No need to worry about the letters in his desk drawer anymore. He couldn't stop smiling.
A few wind spirits shared in his excitent. Those who had ford his wristband for him had left but every now and then, he ran into a group and they acknowledged each other.
They had grown restless staying in one place for a month, as his wristband, but they weren't gone forever.
His patrons, too, had made arrangents to et up again. They were interested in tracking their progress and projects. For now, he had sothing else planned:
Micah stepped into a plaza filled with a bustling crowd. Stalls lined every wall, ringed the statue in the center, and spilled out into the connected streets. The statue was of a man on a wolf—so old [General] Micah didn't care about. Probably old, guessing by the wolf. The first King, Lee, was supposed to have been a [Warlord] back when the base camps had still been divided. His troops had used dire wolves taken from the Towers.
Micah gave the statue a smile, thanking it for its service, and slipped into the shade and crowds. Shade sails hung overhead, so streets had clotheslines, and others were ringed by the walkways of apartnt complexes above.
He used street nas and a vague recollection of directions to find his way to a shop with mannequins in its display window and a pair pants he recognized. This had to be it.
He'd done so research on magic items he wanted to buy, but this ca first. Sion had recomnded this store once. Not to him, but Micah had overheard it and rembered.
A bell rang as he opened the door and the shop was full of shelves of samples, with decorative bolts of cloth overhead. No price tags. It wasn't that kind of store.
All the money he'd earned in a midday, or midnight, panic could buy him an outfit or two here. And he needed clothes. His were worn out, he'd grown a little, and … he wanted to wow Anne when she ca back.
He'd earned his wind aspect, he worked out a lot more, he was learning new spells, he had been taking care of his teeth ever since the Registry Ball—he still had to get a haircut.
Ryan and Lisa were coming ho soon, too. And his other friends. All Micah had to do was wait for them.
It was an odd thing, teaching soone else while receiving a lesson on how to teach. But Lisa wanted to take care of her siblings in her final days before her departure, so here she was, in the air, maintaining a linked flight spell while her aunt slowly demonstrated the right movents to one of her cousins. He flailed his wings without listening to a word she said.
Flying was sowhat intuitive for them. They had to practice the movents, but the patterns of their dragon bodies guided them.
Yet, flight required magic in most cases. And when a dragon grew too large, or when they mutated to adapt to their surroundings, those requirents could change. Adapting to the changes was not always intuitive.
If her siblings spent too much ti grounded, they sotis needed pointers or they would blast themselves around with half-baked wind spells. Or glide.
She knew her cousin could fly. She'd seen him do it, years ago, when his body had been different. These lessons were sothing they looked forward to, but … so people were just bad at listening.
He nearly slapped her in the face when she tried to offer advice, her concentration on the spell slipped for a second, and he plumted a foot, which only made him panic more.
He squawked in distress, looked down, and spat a puff of flas as if to scare off the ground.
Her aunt plucked him out of the sky and he sagged in her hand. "I'm going to call an early lunch," she said, "he's not the only one who needs help, but he needs to relax."
Lisa nodded and dropped her spell. The winds shifted as her aunt took control. She sent out a command to the other kids circling the Nest to regroup and descend … which went over about as well as Lisa expected.
The other groups didn't have to land yet. Why did theirs? It wasn't fair!
They balked, snapped when they ca close, and tried to fly off on their own. But if any of them could fly well enough to escape an adult, they wouldn't be here.
Wrangling them into taking a break took almost as long as a school break. Lisa was relieved when they touched down among the orchard roads. A few other caretakers waited with prepared als. And Sam.
It stared at the dragons with wide eyes, picked Lisa out of the crowd, and ran to her. Every ti a dragon touched down, the earth shook and it jerked but kept running.
It didn't even try to grow wings, Lisa thought with a sigh. She supposed she had to be patient.
It reached her, looked around, and interposed itself between her and the nearest dragons with an uneasy shuffle. Lisa understood it was afraid. Her siblings had tried to take a bite out of it earlier—and the other caretakers had subsequently outfitted it with wards. But … it looked like a cat trying to protect a giraffe.
She didn't even know if it was sweet. She'd transplanted Sam's enchantnt from its summoning crystal, but none of her mana fueled it, so it was acting out of habit.
It even shot her a glance that seed to say, What am I supposed to do here?
She leaned down. "You don't have to shield , Sam. This is my family."
Its eyes were full of doubt, but it didn't try to do adapt, didn't make itself more agile or larger.
It would figure it out in ti. She hoped. Lisa went to her aunt and offered to help handing out the als. Saphron, one of their most dedicated cooks, noticed her and called over, "Have you been to see Fray yet?"
Lisa hesitated. "Not yet. I was hoping he would want to spend ti with us instead, but …"
No chance of that. Her uncle liked to stay where he was.
"You're leaving soon, right? I made an extra al. If you wanted to, you could deliver it to him?" She held up a bundle of tins like the als Aber had brought her. "You'd save the detour on my way ho."
Sam finally caught up with her. Lisa scooped him up, placed him on her back, and accepted the bundle with one hand. "Sure. He's—?"
"At the graveyard."
"Of course. I'll be back before the lessons are over!" she called as she began to walk away.
"If not, thanks for the help today!"
It was a short trip, but she had to step lightly in the stretch of the forest she landed in. For a variety of reasons—respect for the dead. Safety.
Her family had chosen here of all places to bury their dead, where the tenuity between planes was second only to the rain lake. Despite their burial preparations, the dead nourished the land, and the other planes bled into the ecosystem based on the seasons and position of the stars.
The gravekeeper tended to the area, and he was the third reason Lisa took care. She didn't want to bother him any more than necessary. She felt the earth shift beneath her when she touched down. The trees and flowers swayed ever so slightly, and she kept Sam close.
Their graves were trees, stones, or shrines. Most of them were for children, a few for their myconid family mbers, though they had their own burial practices, and a few were for the scaled deers. Even fewer were for adult dragons.
One, in particular, she was more familiar with than the rest. Garen visited it without fail every ti he ca by.
Lisa stopped when she found the first one, but she hadn't co prepared for a visit. She had nothing to say that she hadn't said before. I wish I could have t you in life.
"Lisa," a deep voice said. It sounded sleepy and trembled the earth not from without, but from underneath her feet. "Leaving again so soon?"
"I brought food?" She set the stack down, and a bundle of roots slithered down from a hill to drag it away.
"Thank you."
"Saphron made it, so you know it's good, but the food at my welco ho party was also great. You should have co. They're throwing a farewell party, too. I think."
The earth chuckled and groaned as he moved. His voice spoke into her right ear. "Who's this?"
Lisa turned to where a clearing had been on her right a mont ago. He was next to her, staring at her with eyes like setting suns.
The earth clung to him in a veil, roots tearing, damp black soil cascading down. In the shade, she saw worms and beetles wriggling free. An ant hive had been cracked open in the shift, its eggs spilled like grain, and ants rushed about to save them. Even she wasn't sure where the earth ended and his scales began. They were dark and textured like wood and rock.
The clearing, the hills behind it, and the trees in the distance buckled as they rose on his shoulders.
Fray was eldest among them, the one who had approached the Mother the first. He had been there when She had left them. Right here beneath this blue sky.
Sam cowered behind her foot. "A … work in progress." She smiled in surprise. It had chosen to hide? "Sam. Apparently, it's a primordial, though I haven't seen much of that yet."
His eyes softened. He almost looked as though he would cry. "Fascinating. Did you create it yourself?"
"With help." Lisa sat. His head was larger than her, and the cave his veil created lood like a maw of the earth. "Sam, this is Fray. My uncle."
It didn't react. Definitely traumatized, she sighed.
A mound ford as he unearthed his hand. The dirt flowed around it like water and he reached for Sam, but it pulled back, retreating even further beneath her wing.
"Fearful, isn't it? Wise." His hand turned back on himself. With two fingers, he pinched one of the scales on his neck and tore it off, a wooden thing covered in mud and insects. He held it out to her. "Here."
Lisa groaned, pulling back, "No."
"I insist."
"I didn't co here for gifts, uncle."
He scoffed and said, "I don't care what you ca here for," in the sa tone another might say, Fuck you. "You're leaving—"
"I am, so—"
"Saphron tells about you." He smiled fondly. "You're playing mage with the Lilians. This is dragon wood. Material worthy of an archmage!" He mock raised his voice and held up the scale between his thumb and index finger like a mighty coin.
Still, Lisa hesitated. He had been among the few who had volunteered to grow, back when her family had realized their bodies had no upward ceiling on their potential for growth. They wanted to see how far they could go while optimizing their life essence.
Most of the other volunteers had abandoned their overgrown bodies after the experint and grown new ones. So had studied to find a way to shrink back down. Her uncle Brum had found he liked being big more than he liked being able to use magic, so he had kept on growing. Now, he couldn't move without having to expend a fortune. Of course, he also slept in a volcano and had his cult bring him offerings …
Lisa had visited him with her parents as a child. Once. She'd begged them for weeks afterward to let her have human servants of her own, to dote on her and cater to her every wish and whim.
The mory made her cringe.
But Fray had volunteered because he didn't care. And he'd stayed this size because he didn't care. He had less life essence to waste … She supposed he didn't care about that, either.
"Saphron told about the ritual, too." He inclined his head as to touch his forehead to hers, but didn't co any closer. "You're going back to protect your mortal friends?"
With a sigh, Lisa picked up the scale. "Thank you. I was going to ask if you'll co to my farewell party? Assuming I have one, of course."
He shook his head and glanced up at the clear blue sky. "No, thank you."
Lisa froze, surprisingly upset at the rejection. "Not even for a day? Then, if She does co back, she'll co back to us all together!" She forced a smile.
He t her eyes, and then his gaze wandered down to Sam again. With the flick of a claw, the earth flowed and the wind grabbed Sam. It couldn't escape this ti. He raised it on a mound of dirt between them.
"She would have loved this, you know? She would have loved you, Lisa, and been so proud. She will return. I know She will. And when She does, I will be here to welco her."
Lisa clenched her jaw and picked up Sam. "I have to go. We're giving the kids flying lessons. I'll be sure to say goodbye before I leave?"
His eyes softened again. "Do that. Pass my thanks on to Saphron for , will you?"
"Yep. And thanks for the scale!" She didn't turn around this ti as she called back to him. She kept the rebuttal she wanted to say to herself.
She would have wanted you to live your lives without her. All of you.
Minn couldn't rember the last ti they had had so many family gatherings because of one person. Of course, Lisa liked to get into trouble, but she called on them to work with one another as they had back then, during the first year with the Mother.
"Do you rember," she said to her husband, "when we had to join a hundred candle flas together to immolate intruders?"
Distracted, he gave a quiet hum of acknowledgnt. They both watched their daughter stuff her face at yet another feast in her honor, one she might not have earned.
They sat a little further away. Their brothers and sisters sitting around Lisa regaled her with stories of their adventurers, giving anecdotes and advice she wouldn't need. Places they wanted her to visit in the Five Cities.
It was so easy to beco obsessed with their solo projects, or to fall victim to the subtle routine of their ho. Minn was feeling nostalgic. Her husband was smiling, too.
"You don't seem concerned that she is leaving."
"I'm not," he said and tore himself away to et her eyes. She saw a twinkle in his own. Back then, linking up to cast their spells together, as now, he understood her so easily.
"Even despite not being there when she made her decision?"
He scoffed, "She made her decision long ago. I saw it in her eyes. I see it in yours." He leaned into her and laughed. "I'm not afraid because I know she will not be leaving alone."
With a warm smile, Minn turned to glance at other people at the feast. Aber. Faer. His young protege. Nearly a dozen others who would split into groups to investigate each city.
She supposed it should have been obvious, though her daughter hadn't caught on to it yet. No matter what they told her, they couldn't ignore the warnings of their uncle. It had been so long since she'd seen Garen's ho. Minn was excited to see how it had changed.
Reviews
All reviews (0)