Heirot

Havitharon sat on a stool in the corner, where he could keep an eye on the strange woman. He couldn't imagine how it was possible, but she really didn't know who he was. She's parroted back that absurd name with a straight face. She also seemed far too at ease in his presence. Before he'd taken it as a show of arrogance, but now he was starting to think it was naivete. Did that mean she had no intention of approaching him as a Yurivis either? She didn't seem to have anyone else to send against him.

He watched her study in silence. What was she looking for? He wished he could ask. He had no way to speak the countless questions on his mind, and it was maddening. He'd begun to concentrate so deeply on his thoughts that he nearly jumped when she lurched to her feet and began shouting. He rose as well, his instincts well accustomed to sliding into high alert. He flattened his back to the wall beside the door and glanced around it, spying onto the deck for signs of attack.

Tenara glanced at Havitharon as she tried to pull the sword from the floor. "No, she's not here. At least, I don't think she is..." Her arms shook as she pulled until the blade slipped free. She wobbled on her feet again, resting against the table. A bubble of frustration rumbled out of her in a low growl.

She needed to rest, at least a little bit longer. She healed faster than most mortals, but still needed some time. Maybe by tomorrow she would feel like she had strength in her limbs again. The problem was, she didn't feel like there was time to rest. She had no idea where to go. What to do. There seemed to be supplies on the boat, but it wasn't safe to keep it here and she didn't know how to sail it somewhere else. She definitely couldn't do it now, as she was. She needed to sleep. Surely no one would come looking for the sorcerer for a day or more, right?

Tenara slumped towards the small bedroom at the bow. "I need to sleep." And eat. And drink. There was too much to do. She felt like crying, but knew that was the exhaustion talking. She climbed into the sorcerer's bed, beneath the wool covers, holding the sword to her, a hand curled around its hilt and the other resting along the blade.

When he was sure the girl was asleep, silent steps brought him to the pile of books she had been studying. He sat beside them, frowning. The one sitting open was what had caused such a stir earlier, but he didn't recognize the print. He twisted to see what else was on the table, when his eyes caught on a narrow shelf nailed up against the wall. It contained several more books. The shelf was filthy, like most of the ship, except for one thick streak in the dust where a book had been recently moved.

He eyed the large tome with interest. Not that it mattered much... he wouldn't be able to touch it. He tried anyway, reaching in to grasp its leather spine.

To his shock, he felt his hands close around it. He drew it from the shelf and into his arms, and reached for the next book. This one passed through his hands, as did the others. Only the green tome he'd selected first allowed him to grasp it.

He glanced at the sleeping woman, then sat at the table and opened the book. He recognized the language! "The Path of Svuras." Upon reading the title, his excitement dampened. Svuras was a lost religion with notoriously twisted tenets. At one time long ago, it had been feared. These days, it was regarded as little more than a cult for madmen. What was such a thing doing here?

He paged through it slowly, reading, and wasn't disappointed. Absolute lunacy. Prophetic blood readings and sprawling, morbid prayers littered the pages in no particular chronological structure. It was more a collage of insanity than a narrative. Some of the pages seemed to depict rituals. Others read like grocery lists. He recognized many of the sigils and runic arcs in the simpler rituals, but most lacked any symmetry or intention. After several hours of reading, he stopped trying to read it in order and decided to try something different. Holding the book closed, he inverted it on its spine and released it to see what page it would turn to. The book plopped open with a loud thump, falling open to a page near the back. He stiffened a moment and glanced to the bed.

Tenara stirred, curling over the sword and settling further into the pillow with a heavy sigh.

After confirming she still slept, he went on reading where the book had opened. An illustration of a large, illogical rune made him pause. Three bloodlike splotches aligned closely together, and two more further apart on the other side of an almost circular form. The spatial relationship was familiar. He wasn't certain, but weren't there several large boulders in a similar arrangement back in the place where she'd summoned him?

He turned the page, and stiffened. It was another illustration. This one of a sword. Several large jewels were embedded in its hilt. Around them, hundreds of ghoul-like forms were shown hovering, like souls of the damned. And above it all, an undrawn figure silhouetted in black smoke. Black tendrils rose from the sword like chains, winding around the figure's feet.

Havitharon slammed to his feet, accidentally phasing through the chair he'd been sitting on. He spun to the bed, eyes wide and angry. "Yurivis!" he snarled.

Tenara shot up, eyes wide. She shifted back along the mattress until she pressed herself into the corner of the bow of the ship, hands shaking around the hilt of the sword. Again, she expected it to be Edan, or now, his mother. Instead, she found the ghost, and he seemed angry... at her. What had she done? Ignored him for a few minutes?

She just wanted to sleep. Just a little longer. Just a little bit. "What?" she asked, anger burning in her voice. "What's wrong now?"

He slammed the book he was holding down onto the mattress in front of her. His eyes darted to the sword she was clutching, but once again, it was oddly blurred. It was only a theory, but he had a disturbing gut instinct he was right. "That. Is that the same?" he demanded, tapping a clawed finger against the illustration hard enough to pierce through a decent chunk of the pages.

Tenara glanced at the book, at the way his nail cut into the paper. So he... could hurt things? She looked at him warily. She hesitated before easing forward, sliding along the bed until she sat closer to the book. She set the sword down and drew the heavy thing into her lap, turning it so she could see the image clearly. She glanced from it to the sword.

"Yes," she said. She didn't need to understand him to know what he was asking. She pointed to the sword. "That. He stabbed me with it..." She turned the page, and found an illustration of a humanoid shape, almost feminine, chained to one of the stones, with the sword driven through their chest. "This." She pointed to the illustration. Then she hesitated, frowning as she ran her hand along the stolen robe she wore. She grasped the fabric with both hands and pulled it open, just enough to reveal the space between her breasts and the three inch long iridescent white scar over her sternum. "He stabbed me and then..." She held up her hand, showing him the other white scars the blade made. And then, she grabbed the sword and laid the blade in her palm, drawing it along her flesh until it cut into the skin. She hissed at the feel, placing the bloody steel in her lap as the wound closed itself shut with another white scar. "I don't know what it means." She wished he could understand.

He shuddered at the sensation as she cut herself. This time, there was no mistaking the correlation between what she did and the heat he'd just felt. That tiny flicker of blue flame that healed her had been immediately sucked into the metal with a faint puff of smoke.

His fierce posture weakened as he just stared at the scars she was showing him. "I'm not on my world," he said, stunned. "I'm not on this one either... I'm..." He glanced at the sword, but didn't say it. He didn't want to say it, even if she wouldn't understand him. He reached for the weapon she was holding, slowly, and tried to close his hand around it. His fingers passed straight through.

Something else occurred to him. He glanced back at the picture of the wounded girl. Did this mean she really hadn't summoned him? She had been stabbed? Had that blue light saved her from a wound that large? Even if it had...

He reached toward her head, a little too fast for comfort, and looked over her scalp for her horns, meaning to check her temperature.

Tenara flung herself back, eyes wide. If he could stab the book with his claws, could he stab her? Was he becoming corporeal? Would he hurt her?

She forgot about her loosened clothing until she felt her back bump against the ship again. She fisted the fabric, drawing the robe back over her shoulders and holding it closed at her chest. She eyed the forgotten blade, lunging to grasp it and drag it back to her, letting it rest between her legs as she curled one hand around the hilt.

"I didn't do this to you," she told him. "He did. And he's gone. And I don't know how to fix it."

Havitharon froze as she withdrew. Her obvious fear was almost as strange as her sudden modesty. He arched an eyebrow at her, but didn't try to touch her horns again. He couldn't even see them. Even among royals, he'd never heard of horns that petite. Just how powerful was she? To think he'd been about to check her for fever like some worried nurse.

He wished he could understand her. She had a very nice voice, but it sounded tired, and afraid. "There would no point in harming you," he said. "Sleep." He pulled away from her bedside, taking the book with him, and sat at the table with his back to her.

She eyed him as he retreated back into the main part of the cabin, sitting at the table with his back to her. What had happened between them? Had he gotten the answers he sought? She watched him a few minutes more, until she began to nod off while sitting up. She slipped back down into the bed, drawing the covers over her for the third time that night. She curled herself around the sword and fell a sleep.

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Two figures appeared in a wash of black mist near the burned and disfigured remains of their brother just before dawn. The sacred place he'd chosen to do his ritual was in ruins, and so was he, which surprised the two because Edan had been so certain of his goal. He'd prepared for years, researching and learning a whole alien tongue to call the power he said would finally give him the chance to take the throne from his seemingly immortal mother. She'd even footed the bill, allowed him this luxury of research and sent a ship to retrieve something that would doom their entire kingdom if they were caught. Elias wasn't certain if his mother's support in Edan's work was because she thought he wouldn't succeed, or hoped that he, as she always dreamed, would destroy her. Then, he might be worthy enough for her throne. 

Elias crouched above his dead brother's body, and drew the remaining eye closed. "Well," he said. "I suppose you'll be king after all, Emil." He and Emil had always been closer than either of them were to Edan. Edan was nearly fifteen years their senior, and had been distant with them, almost resentful of their presence even if they'd tried to love him, in their own way. No tears would be shed at his loss, at least not by them.

"Do you think I find joy in this?" Emil asked, frowning. He was second oldest, always trapped on the cusp of potential, but forever regulated to the sidelines by his birth order. Second son, second best, while Elias had accepted his fate a long time ago. 

He was third born, and not only was he far enough from succession to drive him into obscurity at court, he was powerless. Not an ounce of his mother's fearsome magic, though he had found his own way of gaining power and respect.

Emil knelt as Elias stood. "Do you see it?" his brother asked, and Elias looked around. 

"The sword?"

"Yes, the sword. Do you see it? Maybe he succeeded after all. Magic has a price. Perhaps he paid it."

Elias looked around, but he saw no sword. He saw devastation stretching out, scorching and crushing the edges of this sacred place. He saw blood, and too much to be Edan's alone. Then, he spotted a pair of small footprints in dried brown blood running over the cracked stone at the edge of the dais. He smiled.

"No sword. Nothing but blood and destruction," Elias said. "Perhaps what fire devoured most of him also devoured the sword. Maybe the sword itself devoured him, and melted into the ether. It was an extremely powerful spell."

"The girl?" Emil stood. "Could she have done this?"

"Girl?" Elias snorted. "She's barely a decade younger than you. Do you also call me boy?"

Emil snarled. "Be serious. Do you see any sign of her? Look!" 

While his brother searched beneath the fallen pillars, Elias scrubbed the stained marks of her feet away with his boot, kicking a rock over another. "I see nothing. Perhaps the sword burned her up as well. There is nothing left of either her or the sword. She could not escape, could she? He was to sacrifice her, and for the damage to be this bad, he must have succeeded... well, failed, depending on how we look at it." He cast his mutilated brother a sympathetic frown. "Do you want to tell Mother, or should I?"

"I'll tell her," Emil said. "We should take his body back. Give it a proper funeral." 

"Perhaps I should stay here? I could sail his boat home... maybe I'll find some clues as to what happened or went wrong? We shouldn't leave it here with all his books..."

Emil nodded. 

"He was Mother's favorite," Elias added. "She will..."

"I can handle Mother," Emil said, but there was an edge of fear in his voice. Few people could handle Mother, but Elias was lucky because he rarely needed to bother with her at all. After all, he was her greatest disappointment. "I'll port a garrison back to look for the girl, just in cas—"

"That's not necessar—" Elias began.

"She's the princess of Hajara. If she escapes and gets home and tells her parents who took her, we are in a war that will last decades, if not a century. If I am to be King, I wish to avoid war at all costs." 

"That is where you and Edan are very different," Elias said. "He would have relished a war."

"If you find the girl, kill her. Otherwise, the garrison will do it."

Elias nodded. 

"And don't get bewitched. She's a pretty thing, but more dangerous to us alive. I'm serious, Elias."

Elias scoffed. "Pretty isn't even my type."

"All things are your type." 

The third prince shrugged bashfully, grinning. Then, he shook his head and cleared his throat. "Alright. I'll see you in a few days. By then, I'm sure you'll have a funeral fit for a king, or the king who might have been."

Emil swept his hand into the air and reached through a black void. He pulled from it a black canvas pack and tossed it at his brother. "Take this."

"I forgot that was in there..." When was the last time he and Emil went adventuring? Elias doubted the food was still edible, but the other things might prove useful. 

Emil stooped and gathered their brother's charred body into his arms. "A few days. Anymore and I'll send a garrison after you too." Elias smiled.

It was an hour or so past dawn, and Havitharon was sitting on the deck watching the strange yellow sun rise in the sky. He'd never seen anything like it. His stars were both a deep red. The clouds and sky looked alien as well. Were they really that blue, or was it the tint in his vision?

He'd taken stock of the supplies on deck. The tools were a bit different from what he was familiar with, but a boat was a boat. He thought, if he could somehow touch the tools, he could probably sail it. Of course, he'd need the girl if he wanted to interact with such objects. He reached out with the book and poked at a rope. It slid under the pressure. Apparently if he touched things with the book, he had some ability to interact? That had some promise, at least.

Promise? What was he thinking? At best, he had a book for a hand. He leaned against the mast and went back to reading. There was no chance he could sleep in this situation, so he'd ended up searching for answers in this book all night, until the weird yellow light had begun creeping between the deckboards above him and drawn him outside.

Tenara emerged a few minutes later, disheveled with a shoulder peeking out from the loosened robe. The sun caught her knotted silver hair, and it twinkled like diamonds in the morning light. She was groggily chewing a stale piece of bread as she wandered the deck, taking in the many parts of the boat while rubbing her eyes and yawning. Oh, what she’d do for a cup of coffee or tea… anything to clear the fog from her mind. She felt and looked as if she’d spent the entire night partying in the Indigo House and the reality wasn’t anywhere close to fun.

"Did you sleep?" she asked Thvoros, finding him still with his book by the mast, still looking for answers to a problem she didn’t understand.

A cool wind blew, and she shivered against the cold, tugging the robe tighter around her. Her feet were freezing against the wood, but the shoes below deck were four sizes too large. Perhaps, if she commandeered all the sorcerer's socks, she could make shoes out of the layers...

"The wind's blowing. Maybe we should try sailing? How hard could it be? I saw people do it all the time back home, it looked easy enough..." She admired the stowed sales all bunched along the boom, taking another bite of bread.

Havitharon lowered his book, alertly following the woman's movements around the deck. She didn't look particularly well, and yet she seemed much healthier than he'd imagined she would be. He stood and approached her. With his long legs and posture, the movement looked more like he was stalking up to her than walking. He stopped several feet from her, just out of reach, and held the book out. The page he'd opened it to contained several paragraphs of instructions in his language, and a large diagram of a complex casting rune. He nodded at the page. "Ith nap kik," he urged her. He pointed to the rune, like he was asking her to do something important and simple. "Tenara ith nap kik." He gestured at the deck under their feet suggestively. He touched his lips with a closed fist, and opened the hand toward her as if about to blow a kiss. Voth kik."