“Magus Heild,” Natavali started. “These are two of the alchemists that I told you about.”

            “Alchemist,” Magus Heild scoffed, stopping a few steps away. “I can’t say I’m surprised, given young Ser Kevza’s talents. But this is a mage keep, not a guild hall.”

            “There’s no need for concern,” Kevza said dully. “You’ve made your point very clear. Since I’ve made sure they reached here alright, I’ll be going now.”

            “Nonsense,” Natavali said. “This is the only place we’re sure is safe right now. You said yourself- you have nowhere else to go.”

            “I am not welcomed here.” Kevza started to turn away, only for Natavali to reach through the shimmering barrier and pull him through.

            “Then allow me to welcome you,” Natavali said simply, the blue threads dispersing as easily as they had come. Kevza felt his eyes widen. Natavali, for all his magical strength, shouldn’t have been able to do that. Not unless…

            “You cannot just bring whoever you like through the wards, High Magus Natavali!” the old Magus exclaimed angrily. “We are in a delicate situation, and there are procedures to be followed!”

            “Ser Kevza is my guest,” Natavali said simply. “And as I have taken an oath to protect the people of this land to the best of my ability, I am honor bound to welcome him in his time of strife. As I might remind you, Magus Heild, so are you.”

            “The high council will not be pleased with this,” Magus Heild warned, his frown deepening. “Some things go beyond you.”

            “If the members of the council have something to say to me,” Natavali said, his voice going cold, “then they may bring it to my attention themselves, and not through the mouth of a man who bears no seat among them. Until that time, you are dismissed, Magus Heild.”

            The old man straightened, flicking the wide sleeve of his robes, and stalked off with the other two old Magus trailing behind him.

“You’re a High Magus?” Kevza questioned, looking at the man in awe as his brain finally managed to connect with the ability to form words again. “At your age?”

            “You were not the only exceptional apprentice Master Draan produced, Kevza,” Natavali said with a small smirk. “I will deal with amending the wards, in the meantime, let us get you and Captain Danae settled.”

            “Yeah…” Kevza dully followed after, still trying to wrap his head around the new information. Obviously, Natavali had been a prodigy, much like Kevza himself, except he had actually passed the Trials and earned his sigils. And the idea of him as a High Magus wasn’t exactly unexpected. He’d always had the gift for it, but he was only a few years older than Kevza himself! It was considered exceptional to reach such a rank by the time you were thirty, and Natavali was still several years away from that benchmark.

            In his daze, Kevza easily trailed behind his old friend through the black stone halls, with their latticework open on one edge to all manner of vibrant gardens and courtyards, young Magi milling about with their study work or playing games with their friends.

            It was just as it had been, back then, and yet entirely different.

            Or rather, Kevza was entirely different.

            Still, for all his changes, part of him was still surprised when they bypassed the dormitories, heading further into the Keep instead. Naturally, none of them were considered children anymore, and with Natavali’s position in the council, he would obviously have a set of rooms closer to the council chambers.

            The council chambers… which were right next to the Trial chambers.

            “You look pale,” Danae whispered to him.

            “Just need a moment,” Kevza whispered back. Natavali was going out of his way to host them, and the last thing Kevza wanted was to disrupt the small seed of peace they’d seem to have found since meeting again after Hawthgrove. Besides, they would simply be sleeping in the council’s guest quarters, there was no reason that he might have to go to the council hall at all!

            It would be fine.

***

            It was decidedly not fine.

            “You have no need to worry, this is simply a formality in light of everything that has happened,” Natavali was saying over their dinner in his suite. “I will be the one speaking on your behalf as your host. You will only be asked to verify or correct anything I miss.”

            “I understand,” Danae said, stirring her soup. “I just haven’t ever had to deal with the Coven’s way of doing things. Until today, I didn’t even know the Coven had a High Council.”

            “And… we both have to go?” Kevza hoarsely asked, his food forgotten in the bowl before him.

            “Well… yes.” Natavali gave him a confused look. “I was also planning on using the occasion to bring up the matter with the wards.”

            “Um… I need some air. Excuse me,” Kevza said suddenly, pushing back from the table and streaking out of the dining room, ignoring Danae’s voice calling after him.

            Natavali’s suite of rooms in the council tower was quite nice, filled with comfortable furniture and a welcoming atmosphere, much like how his dorm room had been back in the day. A few of Kath’s traditional styled art pieces hung on the walls, and a familiar woven blanket rested over the arm of one of the comfortable-looking chairs. But for all the comfort the rooms offered, they were still constricting around his lungs, squeezing tight around his throat.

            He threw open the doors to the balcony, rushing out into the cool, sea-scented night air and gulping it down by the lungful. The moonlight fell without breaking, not a cloud in the sky, and Kevza simply tilted his head back and let it wash over him for a moment. It was easier, here in the silence of the night, without the dark stone walls pressing in all around him.

            A breeze whispered by, and with it came a small, horrid jangling sound. Kevza turned, curious, and saw a small stand in the corner of the balcony where a set of long, misshapen windchimes made of pale stones clacked together. He reached out shakily and grasped their strings, silencing them.

            “Do you remember when you gave me those?”

            Kevza startled, turning to see Natavali standing with a hand against the doorframe, watching him quietly. They held gazes for a moment before the Magus stepped out, closing the doors behind him.

            “I was sick,” Natavali continued, reaching out to hold one of the stones in his dark palm, the old paint of an old rune already started to chip away on its surface. “It left me in the healing ward for days, and I was so unbearably upset by it. Master Draan had promised that we would go into the mountain and look for scrying stones, but I had to stay behind.” Natavali suddenly smiled softly. “You came back the next day with these, saying you had found each one on your own and painted the runes so they could hang by my window and bring me good health.”

            “Heh. I forgot how ugly I made them,” Kevza chuckled weakly. “I don’t know why you bothered to keep them for so long.”

            “They were a gift from my best friend,” Natavali said simply, fixing him with his stare.

            Kevza looked away, out over the grounds of the keep and to the grey moonlit sea beyond, something coiling in his chest.

            “Look,” Natavali continued. “I know that…” He paused, moving to join Kevza by the railing, resting his hands on the smooth stone. “I know you made your choices, and I have made mine. And you do not have to tell me if you truly do not want to, but even after all this time I can still tell when something is wrong.”

            “Look at the world Natavali, what isn’t wrong?” Kevza deflected with a morbid laugh. “We’re having a mass funeral tomorrow.”

            “Yes,” Natavali agreed. “But something tells me it is more than that. You were not yourself at the gate. You have not been yourself since we left the inn this morning, if not before even then.”

            “…I was worried about coming here,” Kevza confessed after a moment.

            “And you were so quick to willingly be turned away,” Natavali noted.

            “Can you blame me?” Kevza asked, leaning against the railing with a huff. “I haven’t belonged here in years. Why would I go back to a place filled with people that hated me?”

            “What?” Natavali asked, his bearing going still and his eyes narrowing sharply. “Who said anything about hating you?”

            “You never had to, Natavali, I have eyes!”

            “I don’t- what? I don’t hate you, I never hated you!”

            “You would hardly even look at me when we met up in Hawthgrove!”

            “Because it hurt, Kevza!” Natavali looked at him, his face transforming to one of indignation. “You were my best friend and you left without telling me what was wrong, or what I did to push you away. And you never wrote to us, never let us know if you were safe or alright. You never came back. We were worried you were dead! And I missed you. I missed you so much, and, and you-!”

            He turned suddenly, the numerous braids of his dark hair falling to curtain his face for a long moment in silence before he continued. “I missed you. And it hurt to see you’d moved on to find something new without so much as saying goodbye. Something to replace me and the Coven with.”

            “They’re not a substitution,” Kevza blurted out as Natavali straightened like he was going to leave. “I love them, but I never wanted to go. I never wanted to leave you, I promise.”

            “Then why did you?” Natavali asked, sounding defeated.

            Kevza looked over, the wind starting up again and weaving through his hair as he stared disbelieving at the other man for several long moments, something about their impassioned conversation finally clicking into place.

            “You mean they didn’t tell you?”

            “They didn’t tell me what?” Natavali questioned.

            “About what happened that night?”

            “The night you left?” Natavali shook his head. “All we were told was that you had gone and would not be coming back.”

            Kevza shook his head. He wanted to bury the words that threatened to bubble up over his lips back down in the caverns of his heart and drown them. He wanted to run, hide, and never have to admit to his sins again. But the vulnerable, quiet pain of an age that filled those solemn golden eyes would haunt him for the rest of his days.

            “I didn’t leave,” he confessed. “Natavali, I was kicked out. They said that if I was still on the grounds by breakfast, they would remove me by force, or maybe even worse.” He paused, looking down at his hands. They felt so empty and cold, like the hollow feeling in his chest. “You never saw what happened. They were right to make me leave. And besides, who wants to be friends with a freak?”

            “You are not a freak.”

            “You weren’t there, Natavali,” Kevza said, shaking his head. “The things that happened that night… I still have nightmares about them.”

            “…Is that why you never…?” Natavali trailed off, watching him with a solemn gaze. Kevza could see the pieces clicking together behind his eyes. “You thought they would have told us, and that we would be angry with you for whatever had happened.”

            “You would have been right to.”

            “Did you mean to?” Natavali asked, a sharper edge to his voice.

            “What?” Kevza asked.

            “This incident, this thing that haunts you, did you mean for it to happen?”

            “Of course not!”

            “Then it is not your fault,” Natavali said simply. “Accidents happen, Kevza. There is no shame in that. I would not have blamed you.”

            “It is my fault,” Kevza countered before sighing heavily, running a hand through his hair. “Look, Natavali, I’m tired. I don’t want to fight, I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t my choice. But I do admit that I should have reached out to you at least once to let you know I was ok, and I’m sorry I didn’t. Can we just… drop it now?”

            Natavali gave him a long, serious look before straightening up and flicking out his sleeves. “Alright. We do not have to talk about it anymore. But I still have not changed my mind.”

            Kevza sighed again before giving a small chuckle, something in his chest unwinding. “I forgot how stubborn you can be when you want to.”

            “Only when it comes to things I care about,” Natavali said, bumping their shoulders together softly. “And if you’re worried about tomorrow, leave it to me.”