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1.
Dear Family,
I hope this letter finds all of you safe and in good health. I’m sorry I’ve not written any sooner, but I’ve simply lost the track of time. Things in Caed Nua are slowly settling down, the days seem to go by in a blur, filled with endless responsibilities. The gardens are coming along nicely, but even with all of Mother’s advice I feel like they are lacking something. Maybe it’s just not my calling. Or maybe you’ll have to come and see to them in person, Mom.
Thank you for extending an invitation for my companions, but I’m not sure if I understood everything right. Does it mean you’re planning on staying in the Plains for longer? You know, you don’t have to hide anymore. You could all just come to Caed Nua and start over here, with me. I’m still strengthening my position in these lands, but I do believe it’s stable enough for all of us to be able have a safe and prosperous existence.
It’s strange, writing to you about all those mundane, everyday troubles. After everything that’s happened, getting caught up in “normal life” feels a bit like living in a dream. Or maybe what happened had been a dream and I’m just waking up.
Azalia sighed, putting the pen back in the silver pen holder. It was a delicate, intricate thing studded with tiny pieces of adra; one of the seemingly endless little treasures of Caed Nua, found discarded and forgotten in a dark corner of the keep’s library.
She could hear the dogs yapping excitedly in the distance, a sure sign that Lord Frygh was coming back from the morning hunt, accompanied by her gamekeeper. The man’s love for hunting was probably as well known as his general boisterousness, and Azalia wished Sagani and Hiravias could’ve stayed longer, so they would either entertain or chase him away with their own gruesomely detailed hunting anecdotes. At least Azalia was excused from those trips, being “mild mannered and of delicate disposition as a lady should be” or some other nonsense, otherwise she was afraid she’d set the entire forest on fire in a fit of temper.
She didn’t exactly need Frygh’s support, but couldn’t risk his disapproval either. He was a wealthy and influential man, and staying on the good side of people like him would make it easier for her family to start anew. If they wanted to start anew, that is.
A quiet knock on the door pulled her out of her musings. Azalia put away the unfinished letter, resigning herself to concluding it next time Lord Frygh relieved her of his delightful company. Although, she should really send it sooner rather than later- otherwise her family would come to Caed Nua just to make sure she was still alive. And then she’d actually have to fake some kind of tragedy so she wouldn’t have to admit she simply neglected their correspondence.
“Come in!” she called, putting the letter away and vowing to herself to send it next morning.
Aloth stood hovering hesitantly on the doorstep and Azalia felt her heart sinking. He was wearing a sturdy travelling cloak, a sizeable backpack was hanging off his arm and his worn-down, heavy grimoire was attached to the wizard’s belt with leather straps. Azalia didn’t need her cipher abilities to guess what he was going to say next.
“It’s time for me to go.”
She wanted to say No, it isn’t. She wanted to say You don’t have to, but they had had this argument so many times she’d already lost count. Aloth was adamant both on dismantling the Leaden Key and on doing it alone, and the only thing she managed to make him promise was to report to Caed Nua as often as he could.
She just nodded, not really looking at him, but at this point Aloth knew her well enough to guess everything that went unsaid.
“You still don’t approve,” he sighed, taking off his backpack and putting it on the floor.
“It’s your decision. It doesn’t really matter if I approve or not,” she shrugged, while Aloth shook his head vehemently.
“You know I value your opinion. It’s just – “
“Aloth. It’s not about my approval or the lack thereof. I’m just worried. You’re like family to me. And I know I already have a lot of brothers, but it doesn’t mean I love you any less than I love them. But they are not here, and now you won’t be here either, and I’ll be all alone. Again. Just… worrying about the lot of you.” She stopped when she felt tears sizzling on her cheeks. She saw Aloth approaching, but she just held up her hand. “Don’t come any closer yet. I’m emotional. I don’t want to end up hurting you.”
Aloth just rolled his eyes and embraced Azalia gently.
“I will be fine.”
“You can’t promise that,” she sniffed.
“Then I can promise you to at least try.”
“That’s not as reassuring as you think it is.”
“You worry too much.”
“Now that’s just stupid. I worry just the right amount.”
Aloth chuckled gently to that and hugged her tighter.
They stood like that for a while, not saying anything more until Azalia started fidgeting.
“So…” she started a bit hesitantly, “you’re passing through Gilded Vale, I presume?”
Aloth stiffened and stepped away, blinking nervously.
“I’m… I’m not sure yet,” he said, absent-mindedly brushing the grimoire with his fingers. “Maybe? Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know, say hi to Edér from me?” she said with false innocence. “You know, after you… bid him farewell?” she added, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.
“I’m not, I’m just - . I - I mean, I will, of course,” Aloth was blushing furiously and Azalia had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. “Anything… else you want me to tell him?”
“Oh, no, no. I’m pretty sure you can… handle the rest,” she added with a smile.
Aloth just closed his eyes and sighed deeply.
“You are a menace,” he said, looking at her fondly.
“Got to keep you on your toes,” Azalia tried to sound light-hearted, but couldn’t help the sadness that crept back into her voice. “So… I guess this is goodbye.”
Aloth just nodded, and hugged her tightly one more time
“I’ll come back, I promise,” he reassured her, gathering his backpack and checking the fastenings on the grimoire.
“Be safe.”
Azalia willed herself not to cry, but in the end, she didn’t even get the time to gather her wits, before she felt a strange draft on her skin.
“Well, at least he’s going to see his man. Nothing like a good fuck before you go get yourself killed.” The Devil of Caroc emerged from one of the keep’s countless secret passages. She seemed to be discovering at least one every day, and at this point she could walk the length and breadth of Caed Nua unheard and unseen, materializing at the worst possible moments. Azalia was pretty sure the keep was rumored to be haunted yet again.
The Watcher sighed, rolling her eyes.
“Must you be so crude?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, not all of us were born with a silver spoon up their ass.” The Devil just shrugged and approached the desk to snoop through Azalia’s things.
“It’s a silver sp… Never mind.” Azalia rubbed her temples, and then hurriedly snatched her letter home from the Devil’s bronze fingers.
“Your statue lady doesn’t seem to like me.” The Devil just continued going through her drawers. “I think she’s envious of my legs. I mean, we’re basically the same, but she’s stuck there, looking at the same shit, every day, every night, for years. Maybe I should take her outside?”
Azalia caught her wrist just when she was about to pocket the pen holder. “Say, didn’t you want to travel the world?”
“Are you throwing me out?” The Devil sounded genuinely offended for a moment, but then she hesitated.“ Wait, no. You want me to go after him.”
“But… quietly. Just to get him out of trouble when it becomes too much?” Azalia pleaded, holding the construct’s bronze hand.
The Devil shook her head. “He won’t thank you for this.”
“I know. I don’t care. As long as he’s safe.”
“Well, I suppose I could go, stretch my legs. Unlike some!" she yelled somewhere in the direction of the Great Hall. “Maybe I’ll even get to kill something. It gets so boring, just staying in one place again. How can you stand it?”
“To be fair,” Azalia said as she heard Lord Frygh’s boisterous laughter outside her chambers, "I’m starting to wonder myself”
*
Dear Idiot Brother,
How many times do I have to tell you, there’s nothing between me and Aloth! He’s like a brother to me, except unlike you, he never laughed at my head, so I didn’t have to set his hair on fire. I’m just worried about him, so if he ever comes to you, please help him as much as you can. Or just… take care of him, no matter what he says. And be nice to him! Gods know, it’s like you’ve all been raised in a barn sometimes.
Instead of gossiping about my non-existent love life, better tell me all about Kalena’s fiancé. She’s oddly tight-lipped about him and I’d like to know at least something before I get invited to the wedding. She doesn’t think I’ll disapprove of him or some nonsense, does she? Obviously I can’t know him… unless it’s someone from the old home? Did someone find you? Please tell me, it’s not one of those idiots that used to flock around her proclaiming their undying love by yelling at our windows in the middle of the night.
How is your art? You promised you’ll send me something from the Plains. I’m still waiting!
I hope I can see you soon, all of you.
Love,
Azalia
It was a lovely afternoon, the kind when the sun seemed to paint everything in a soft golden colour, while the light breeze gliding through the flowers alleviated the heat. It would have been perfect for finding a bit of solace from everyday troubles, if not for that annoying and persistent itch at the back of her head. One she couldn’t scratch, buried somewhere inside her skull, deep into the brain, slowly driving her insane. Azalia knew it probably meant the vithrack were coming closer to the surface. Callous as usual with their natural mental powers, their mere presence was grating on her own cipher abilities. Running her fingers through her hair absent-mindedly, she didn’t notice a few wayward sparks landing on the letter until there was a thin trail of smoke coming from it.
“Aw… shit, shit.” Waving the parchment around only made it worse, so in the end she dumped it in the grass and then stepped on it with force.
“Hard at work?”
Azalia startled and turned around. Edér was standing between the rows of Pilgrim’s Crowns, holding a pleased calico cat in his arms, and looking at her with a small smile.
“Edér!” she got up, brushing the grass off her dress. “It’s so good to see you! Why didn’t you let me know sooner you were coming? I would’ve met you somewhere on the way here.”
“Maybe I just wanted to surprise you,” he said, putting the cat down gently on the garden path, where it promptly ran off, chasing a butterfly. “Or maybe I didn’t exactly plan on coming here and simply wanted to get away from being all serious and responsible.”
“Doesn’t matter, “Azalia waved her hand, “I’m just happy you’re here. It’s been so quiet since…since everyone decided to go their own way,” she stuttered nervously while Edér graciously pretended he didn’t notice.
“I can imagine. Say, why don’t we- “ He didn’t get to finish. Azalia stumbled and almost fell onto a flower bed, as she felt a jolt going through her head, and then her limbs, all the way to the tips of her fingers. It was followed by a blurred image of the top of the adra statue.
“Just whack me on the brain, why don’t you,” she mumbled, straightening herself.
“Huh? Is everything all right?” Edér looked at her with concern.
“I think I’m being summoned,” she said, but her friend only lifted a questioning eyebrow. “The vithrack are just below the surface. Usually I just get sort of… interference, but I know it’s not on purpose, so they must want something this time.”
“They never tried to communicate with you before?”
Azalia shook her head. “Sometimes when they come to the upper levels our abilities… clash a bit. They are naturally powerful and rather unconcerned about it. But this time it was much more… direct.”
“Huh. So, if we had another cipher with us, would your abilities… clash as well?” he asked suddenly and Azalia stumbled again. For a moment, she didn’t know what to say
“No,” she answered quietly. “It all depends on the cipher’s intentions. But meeting them can be… all-consuming. You can communicate in the most intimate of ways, feeling what they feel, experience everything with them on a deeper level. It’s quite… unique.”
“You sound like you know what you’re talking about,” he smiled knowingly.
“I… It’s…” Azalia stuttered, avoiding his eyes. “It doesn’t matter anymore. And it’s different with vithrack, because for them, their mental abilities are natural, they don’t feel the need to control them, it’s just how they communicate, so they never really, you know, turn it off,” she explained hurriedly, “And they are quite strong, hence the interference.”
“All right,” he held his palms up. “I’m not going to pry. Want me to tag along?”
“If you feel like a trip down the memory lane in a moldy dungeon, why not.”
“Great! It’ll be just like old times.”
“With a new, horrifying surprise on every level? I really hope not.”
*
The dungeon was dark and damp, exactly as they remembered, and yet as they went deeper, treading its corridors somehow felt less foreboding. Azalia remembered the heavy, suffocating air of madness on the lower levels and briefly wondered if it disappeared as well by now. Not, that she wanted to go and see for herself.
“Godlike Animal is not needing to worry. All levels are safe now, we made sure,” she heard Tcharek’s voice in her head, scratching and soothing at the same time.
“It’s not why I don’t want to go back,” she said, carefully stepping around a curious Widowmaker Spiderling. Tcharek was hovering above the top of the wooden construction around the statue’s head. “You needed me here?”
“We have finished the examination of the vessel.”
“You mean the Titan?”
“Yes. Yet we are not understanding it purpose. Was it to capture a god?”
“No.” She frowned, stepping around some loose beams. “Just a soul. A human soul.”
Tcharek snorted, an absurd, dusty sound that reverberated in her head and made her want to sneeze. “An Animal soul? It cannot fill it. It will be swimming in the adra, without purpose, without hope, lost forever. We thought it genius, but it is madness.”
“Grief often drives people to do mad things.”
“That it does. And beautiful. And terrible. Like the vessel here.”
“But did it help you? In your research?” Azalia asked, placing her fingers on the patterns in the cold adra. Below her, Edér was warily eyeing one of the vithrack’s pet spiders.
“We saw the genius and the madness and took it apart. We are knowing more now. We are done in this place.”
Azalia whipped her head around and looked him in the eyes for the first time. “You mean… you’re leaving?”
“Back to Sstravek’narith, yes. They are waiting for us. And we are waiting to rejoin them.”
She nodded and turned back to the statue.
“That’s great. I’m happy for you.”
“It is, and yet it is not. Why does Godlike Animal feel like it’s grieving?”
“I do not know,” she whispered, feeling utterly lost.
“The vithrack are grateful for Godlike Animal’s help. We will not forget. We will share the image of it with others, if Godlike Animal is ever needing help from the vithrack, it will be given freely.”
“Thank you.” Azalia bowed her head. “Um, be safe.”
She felt a mental nod, a wordless confirmation she didn’t know was even possible to convey, and then he left, slowly floating away.
“So, we done here?” Edér lit a pipe, and a small Spiderling hovering curiously by his legs, scattered quickly into the tunnels. “ You know I only heard half of the conversation, but we are done here, right?”
“We are… Unless you feel like venturing forth, level by level to make sure everything we killed stayed dead.”
“I feel like having some ale and going to sleep. On the surface this time.”
Well, there was no way she could’ve said “no” to that.
*
“Everyone is leaving me,” Azalia said suddenly, looking into a half-empty cup. She couldn’t help feeling a bit maudlin. Too much cider, too many responsibilities, and too few people around.
Edér glanced at her inquisitively, looking perfectly sober himself. Azalia resented him a bit in that moment.
“Is this because of the spider… things?” he asked, taking a puff from his pipe.
“No? Yes? It’s just… Everyone is moving on with their lives and I’m just… here,” she swept her arms around, almost knocking over the jug with slowly cooling cider.
“But… isn’t staying here, making a name for yourself, ‘moving on with your life’?”
“It is, but… I was hoping my family would join me at some point, but they decided to settle on the Ixamitl Plains and live a quiet life. My sister is getting married and I don’t even know to whom! It’s just… we were always together, and now they are there and I am here. I don’t want to leave and they don’t want to come,” she shrugged, taking a sip from her mug. “And then I met you guys, and it probably sounds pathetic, but you were like a second family to me, and I was aware everyone would at some point go their own ways, but still… I’m simply not used to being so alone,” she finished quietly.
“It takes time getting used to,” Edér admitted in a soft voice. “One day you are surrounded by people who love you, and then suddenly you have to somehow make your own way. It’s not easy, I get it,” he leaned forward and touched her hand. “But you are not alone. You have friends, anywhere you go, people that won’t forget you so easily. And you have me, just a day’s journey away. I know it’s not the same, but I’ll be there, whenever you need me.”
“Thank you,” she mumbled, feeling a tell-tale stinging behind her eyelids. “You know you can count on me, too, always.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” he said, winking at her playfully.
They kept drinking in silence, Azula’s head getting heavier and hazier by the minute. She hoped she won’t fall asleep on the table- alcohol and her natural fire rarely mixed well.
“You heard anything from Aloth?” Edér asked suddenly, pulling her out of her increasingly drunken musings.
“Not lately, no,” she admitted, biting her lower lip. “You didn’t see him? Before he left”
“He came to Gilded Vale, but caught me in the middle of a dispute. Didn’t really have much time to talk.”
“Ha! I bet you didn’t,” she said, giggling uncontrollably.
“You should really stop drinking before you set something on fire,” he said putting away Azalia’s mug and the jug out of her reach. “And get your mind out of the gutter. It’s not like we even got a moment alone.”
“You’ve disappointed me,” she sighed and shook her head. “Thoroughly.”
Edér just snorted into his mug. “I’ll live.”
“I might have sent the Devil after him,” she blurted out.
“Well, he won’t thank you for that.”
“If he keeps out of trouble, he won’t even know she’s there.”
“If he knew how to keep out of trouble, we would’ve never even met him”
“True,” she nodded, feeling her eyelids getting heavy. “I miss him”.
“I do, too,” Edér admitted quietly.
“I miss everyone,” she continued sleepily.” And I miss… being on the move, sleeping under the stars, not having to worry about… roads maintenance or whatever new problem I was given this morning. It was weird, but also simple, in a way,” she stopped, appearing deep in thought. “I don’t miss slowly losing my mind, though,” she added with conviction.
“Well, you don’t need to, obviously what’s done is done,” Edér snorted, looking at her quizzically, but Azalia ignored him, staring at the dying candle flame.
“I miss her voice in my head and how her smile made everything look brighter for a moment,” she mumbled, swaying a bit.
“I have no idea what this was about, but you really need sleep,” Edér got up, and helped her up from her chair.
“Ah, but did you forget? No sleep for the Watcher,” she said, smiling sadly. “And yet, I have slept, and I have rested, there are no souls to guide me, and no souls for me to steer. The morning came, and I’ve lost my way.”
“You will find it again. You’re good at that, remember?”
Ah, but that was the core of the problem, wasn’t it?
“No,” she whispered, before she let sleep claim her. “I don’t think I do.”