For their return trek to the city, Kai stared at his boots. Roszondas, at one point, had tried to start some sort of conversation, but Kai hadn’t responded much. The excitement he’d momentarily felt over the knowledge of their magic was now overshadowed again by dread, the truth and reality of the situation pressing down on him painfully.
At the age of eighteen, Kai had left the only home he knew up until that point. For almost a year he’d traveled across the lands of Visterra, earning coin when he could, but often reduced to begging and, when times were the hardest, even stealing. He did odd jobs and ran errands, did a day’s work at one farm and then another, usually earning only enough for a little food and water, and sometimes enough for a bed for the night—more often than not, he wasn’t given any gold, but kind farmers would let him stay in their stables or lofts or barns in exchange for work. Those nights, they would give him a warm meal and a blanket and Kai would thank them, and that was more than enough to get by and make it to the next morning.
On nights when he couldn’t sleep easily, when he had no place safe to lay and instead he rested against a tree or in an alley, afraid to sleep too deeply and drop his guard, he traced back over his footsteps. He counted the days and the cities as they passed—Riviel to Haverton to Theinna to Alsaray to Myrador—spring to summer to autumn.
As winter approached, he’d earned passage on a trade ship from Myrador to the Isle of Dyandra. It was in Dyandra that he finally found his home.
He’d suffered through nearly a week without being able to find any work, without enough gold for a place to sleep or enough silver for a proper meal. And it had been then that Enfys had found him, pulling him away from the edge of nothingness.
Kai had lived with nothing before, had not only survived it but to an extent thrived, but this was so different. He was not in the position he was before, starting with nothing to begin with—nothing to lose by leaving, by running, by crossing Visterra with only the clothes that his wore and the little magic ability he possessed. This time, it was because everything he had was shattered, and now he not only had to start anew, he had to pick up the pieces and move on.
And Enfys… he definitely didn’t know how to move on from him. He felt a pang in his chest and his hand found the obsidian dangling from his neck, trying to gleen just a little warmth from it.
The world around them grew steadily louder as they approached the citadel walls—the city, as always, was alive and bright, regardless of the time of day. People bustled about outside the walls, a steady flow of crowds leaving and entering the citadel; along with them were carts and carriages and horses. While they all moved, guards patrolled the upper wall, looking down below, all of them armed with heavy crossbows. Admittedly, Kai had never seen so many guards at the city’s border before—but, admittedly, he also couldn’t remember the last time he’d ventured out this far. Most of Enfys’s work was done within the walls of the citadel; on the rare occasions his work took him outside the walls, Kai was generally not brought along, and certainly never sent on his own.
A glowing light caught Kai’s attention. Upon one of the turrets was what appeared to be a sculpture of an animal, made of brass, eyes magically gleaming. The creature looked almost like a giant goat, from what Kai could see, but had two massive horns, far larger than those of any goat he had ever seen on the farms where he worked.
“What is that?” Kai murmured questioningly. Despite the object being strange and foreign, there was still something remarkably familiar about its design that he couldn’t quite place. He gazed up at it, tilting his head as though it would suddenly come to him. He swore that he knew it, knew its design, but he was certain that he’d never seen anything like it before in his life.
“Hells, you really haven’t been out of the city walls if you’ve never seen the centicores,” Roszondas remarked from at his shoulder. “They’re security—one of Auvryneld’s designs.”
The name made Kai’s heart nearly stop, and he was lucky he didn’t stumble. He jerked his head toward Roszondas as they joined the throng of people entering the citadel. “A-Auvryneld?” he found himself asking. “Enfys Auvryneld?”
“Certainly not Lady Finella,” Roszondas snorted. At this new name, Kai felt himself even more confused—never before had he heard the name Finella Auvryneld—but before he could ask, Roszondas plowed on. “She’s the one who hired him for the job, though, I suppose—along with the rest of the Council, of course. She’s the one who proposed it, though.”
Kai’s heart pounded, a loud thumping against his ribcage that somehow managed to muffle the sounds of the crowds around him. The Council? Enfys has never mentioned a job for the Council… Most of Enfys’s work involved philanthropic endeavors—he’d never said anything about creating something for the Kingdom’s High Council.
“Dyandra could be an easy target after all,” Roszondas continued. “Most of the mainland city-states are fortified enough, and calling upon reinforcements from the neighboring city-states would be much easier there. But out at sea, the concern was always that Dyandra could be taken by the East.”
Kai’s mind spun, trying to process what Roszondas was saying. ‘An easy target’? ‘Reinforcements’? ‘Taken by the East’? He couldn’t fathom out why it was that the half-orc was speaking as though they were still at war.
Then, he felt the weight of the brass sphere inside his pocket—the device that transported him to the city’s outskirts. Teleportation magic, that was one thing—something many skilled magic users were capable of. But the idea of traveling through time, even with the use of powerful magic… that was just impossible.
Wasn’t it?
“Have you ever wished you lived in another time?”
The question had been a strange one for Kai, startling him slightly. “What do you mean?”
Enfys didn’t look at Kai; he was working on one of his inventions, his journal at his side where he scribbled notes. There was a steady scritch scretch scritch of his quill against the parchment pages. “Are you happy to live during this time?” he asked.
“Of course,” Kai responded easily, simply. “I’m with you.”
There was a pause in the sound of the quill against the paper. After a brief moment, a small yet sad smile unfurled itself over Enfys’s lips. He still did not look up, instead setting his quill down and closing his notebook with the feather inside to mark his place. He clasped his hands together in front of himself.
“What if you were given the chance?” Enfys asked.
There was a quality to his voice that Kai couldn’t place—something wistful, something a little bit pained. It made Kai want to offer him comfort the same way that Enfys had for him—to take his hand in his own in a way that seemed to pick up every broken piece of himself and cradle them, gently fitting them back together until his soul was one more whole.
Except Kai was not brave enough. So instead, he balled his fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms. Instead, he asked, “Why?”
The resulting silence was far too suffocating for Kai’s liking. Enfys didn’t betray any of his thoughts on his face—a blank slate, an empty canvas, free of all emotion.
Enfys never gave an answer. Kai never pressed him for one.
“Roszondas,” Kai breathed, looking at the half-orc. “This might sound completely mad, but… please, just humor me.” The half-orc nodded. “What year is it?”
Roszondas’s eyebrows raised almost comically, and they eyed him for a moment, dubious; Kai watched as their emotions shifted, from trying to determine if he was joking and aiming for a laugh, to suddenly wary and suspicious of Kai. “What kind of question—”
“Please!” Kai pled, suddenly desperate. It didn’t feel possible, but there were too many small things that just didn’t quite make sense. “What year?”
“It’s 265, isn’t it, mate?” they answered, brow furrowed.
“265…” Kai repeated the number under his breath. “265… of… of the Silver Dragon?”
“Of course!” came the gruff response. “Otherwise, it’d be 873 Indah down East, or 412 Despiryn over in the West, yeah?”
Kai felt his hands trembling again as he tried to process the information. Year 265 of the Silver Dragon… year 873 Indah Era… year 412 in the Age of Despiryn…
A year before the war ended.
Comments (0)
See all