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Some of the lines of worry smooth from Jester’s face as she listens to Essek’s reply. Her eyes light up as she relays his message. They’re close! Those spires are the sign they were looking for after all. A wave of relief washes over the Nein. They’re close to a friend. To help. And rest.
Caleb watches the excitement reinvigorate his friends like the sight of an oasis in the desert. After so many days of tension and pursuit, he can hardly blame them. But he can’t say he feels the same. A different tension fills his mind.
Sure, he’s always worried about something. Veth has chided him for it enough times, sometimes with Jester to back her up. And, as he digs through his pockets for the Bright Queen’s token, he’s more than happy to let them think he’s anxious about the welcome they may or may not receive, and their pursuers. There’s no need for them to know it’s a pair of violet-blue eyes making his palms sweat. Eyes as deep as the depths of the night sky and as full of questions and longing as a young boy in Rexxentrum’s once had been.
It’s what made him distrust Essek. Everything about him is what Bren could have been. The desire to know burned in him so brightly, once, that nothing else mattered. Not countries or thrones or (most) other people. Nothing had been more important than the next step, the next book, the next lesson, the next spell. More than anything, Bren had wanted to know how far he could go and what he could do. Even now, Caleb has to keep a careful rein on his desire to grow and learn. He now knows the price of what placing knowledge and power above all else is. That price is not worth it. Yet he still has to give himself that reminder--even now, as his fingers itch to delve deeper into the mysterious power that burned an eye onto his skin.
But as destructive as it is, as much as he knows where Essek’s mind is and what he would do…what he has done in his pursuits, the very same look makes him love Essek just a little bit. Caleb isn’t sure if it’s the recognition from one prodigy to another—knowing what mantle they both carry when few others know it. Or it could be the way understanding and excitement lights the air around them like electricity when they work together. Or maybe it’s just a longing nostalgia, a faint reflection of the bright years of Caleb’s life before That Day. A beautiful image of what he lost.
Or is it something else altogether? Is it just…Essek, all on his own. Just the way he stands (floats) so stiff and formally for the first few moments of every conversation but slowly sinks into a sort of awkward comfort around them. The way he forgets to be composed when he’s deep into theories, his silvery white hair falling into his face only for him to push it back absently, those night sky eyes burning with the excitement of discovery. The way he looks at Caleb with unasked questions in his face that Caleb can’t answer. The way he froze and then sighed into Caleb’s embrace as if—
Enough, Caleb tells himself sternly. It isn’t that.
For once, he’s glad of the harsh wind whipping about his face. He can blame the color of his cheeks on that, if anyone were to notice. But no one does.
The night sky is overcast. Essek looks down at the floor. When he turns his face to listen to whoever is speaking, his eyes never make it past chest level, thunderclouds of grief darkening their brightness. When he turns toward Caleb, those eyes never raise from the cold grey flagstones at all. He’s a different man. Or at least, the beginnings are there. Again, it’s something Caleb knows all too well. To know you did wrong, to deal with that, and then to be hunted by the Assembly like some kind of animal, to be killed and made an example of. To banish yourself far away, far from the comforts you once had, to buy yourself a day or two more to try to figure out a way to –if not atone, make a difference for what you’ve done. Change it somehow. Fix it.
It makes him smile a little, to hear his friends apply their wild imaginations to a way to save Essek. To make him some sort of hero, changed for the Greater Good. Veth hasn’t learned her lesson—she used to say the same things to him all the time. He was so good and kind to help her, and he would do great things and atone for the things he’d done and just be some wonderful hero. The alarm on Essek’s face is all too familiar.
“If we succeed and we all, y’know, destroy the Tomb Takers and Essek helps us and the world is saved, maybe we can take Essek with us,” Jester suggests, eyes alight with the idea. She turns to Caleb excitedly, “You can use the spell you used on Veth and then we can change Essek into something else so that the assassins can’t find him and he’ll live safely wherever he goes.”
Oh Jester, I’m glad you see the good in me, Caleb had said once. Her ability to look for the good in all people is one of the things he adores about her. But he looks at Essek and sees the hesitation. Longing to be safe, but knowing he doesn’t deserve it. Wanting to take the easy way out, but understanding that it’s not possible. Knowing that changing his appearance leaves him with just as long of a road to walk.
Without taking his eyes off Essek, Caleb shakes his head slowly.
“That won’t really help with the inside,” Caleb says, voice as gentle as he can make it.
A small smile holding no humor whatsoever crosses Essek’s face and he gives a nod, eyes still on the ground, not even trying to look at Caleb. Does hurt flash there, or is it Caleb's imagination?
“I appreciate the insinuation,” Essek says. It’s a little playful, a little self-depreciating, a little relieved, and very tired. Don't tell me what I already know.
Jester gives Caleb a stern look, as if he’s done something wrong or mean. But he knows better than anyone that this isn’t something that he can magic away. As much as his friends have helped him, it’s a journey he’s had to take, one step at a time. And the steps are hard and painful and slow—so achingly slow. Every single one is a fight. And no one can take that away. No matter how much they want to. It’s something Jester could never understand. Of the Nein, perhaps only Yasha truly knows. He glances at her and sees her face filled with compassion, but also an understanding. She notices his look and her lips turn up minutely.
As the Nein file out of the room, Caleb waits, letting them exit before him. All of the things he wants to say swirl in his mind. There’s so much he wants to explain, even knowing it’s pointless. If he could lay out the roadmap to get past this first, nightmare-filled length of the journey where everything is hard and grueling to a place where his grief lives in the upper floors of a tower built in his mind, painful as the day it happened, but organized and put away like neatly shelved books. Where the bottom floors are filled with fairytales and magic and love, and most of the time, these are the rooms he lives in. Where he doesn’t jump at shadows and look over his shoulder at every sound.
But there is no map to navigate this guilt and grief. There’s no textbook he can share to learn the right steps to take to move past it.
Perhaps if they had more time (it always comes down to time, doesn’t it?), he’d sit with Essek, just the two of them, and tell his story in its entirety. So that maybe, just maybe, Essek could understand a little bit what it takes. To know that there is a tomorrow. That the sun does, eventually, rise again.
They’re alone now. For once, even Veth isn’t intruding on this moment.
Essek’s eyes are still on the floor, staring into it as if all the secrets of Aeor are written in those stones.
Quietly, gently, but firmly, Caleb steps forward and grasps Essek’s arm. He feels Essek tense at the touch, a flash of fear crossing his face. Does he expect to be berated? To be punished?
Of course he does, Caleb chides himself, remembering.
“Breathe,” Caleb says softly. “Just breathe.”
Essek hesitates for a moment, then inhales deeply, his eyes fluttering closed. As he exhales, exhaustion and tension rolls off of him like a fog off the lake near Eadwulf’s house when they were boys. Something Essek has been holding tightly releases a little bit in the muscles beneath Caleb’s hand. When his eyes open, they rise slowly, carefully, up toward Caleb’s. It’s a calculated, purposeful movement. For the first time since they’ve arrived, Essek is looking Caleb in the face. Their eyes lock.
For a moment, Caleb loses sight of his own advice and forgets to breathe.
There’s a hunger there, deep and fearful. And just as deep, a trust. This is not something he would show to Jester or Fjord or anyone else. They have always had an understanding, Caleb and Essek. Now, more than ever. Give me something, his night-sky eyes beg desperately of Caleb as they search his own eyes. Anything. Help me.
Ah, if only he could lie. He wants to lie. To tell Essek that it will be all right. That it gets better. That he’s forgiven and loved, and everything is going to be just fine. If he could take all of the fear and pain away, he would. If he could use his grasp on Essek’s arm to pull him out of the darkness he’s in, he would do so in a heartbeat. His grip tightens subconsciously.
But, as much as he wishes he could, he can’t lie. Not about this. And not to Essek.
“Just…breathe that fresh air, mindful of the people about,” Caleb says, keeping his voice gentle.
Another deep breath, and more tension escapes. A nod, accepting Caleb’s answer, hunger fading back into defeated sadness.
“Time,” Caleb continues. At this, a small smile, a scholar’s smile, plays at the corners of Essek’s mouth. How often had they spoken, theorized, and argued about the concept of the material of time as they’d studied together? It’s almost an inside joke between the two of them, the concept of time.
“Not weeks, not years. It takes time,” Caleb says.
He doesn’t expect the cost to the words. To voice what he’s learned every moment since That Day is harder than he expected it to be. There’s so much more he wants to say…all of those things about taking it one step, one moment at a time. That it’s hard and painful. But that it’s worth it to simply keep moving forward. That one day, he’ll look up and he’ll find he’s able to laugh again. And one day he’ll realize he’s able to love again. And one day, he’ll discover that—much to his surprise—he hasn’t thought of his demons in the past few hours. And then the past few days. And then a few weeks. He feels like he has so much more wisdom to impart, but no more words with which to say any of it.
But as his eyes remain locked with Essek’s, some of the clouds darkening his gaze clear. A few stars twinkle in that night’s sky. A little bit of that old determination that drew Caleb to Essek in the first place returns. Not much, but the faintest glimmer.
“Indeed,” Essek says, as if they’ve made an agreement. His face is set, some of the defeat gone of out of it.
That’s one step forward, Caleb thinks. Good. He doesn’t expect the warm drop of pride and hope in his chest as he sees it happen. The logical part of him that’s always thinking knows that this is just one step. He knows how long of a climb Essek has to go. He knows that he’s nowhere near trustworthy. The desire for power—even the power to fix what he’s broken—is still too strong. But he’s making steps forward. And until now, Caleb had not realized how much he wants him to succeed.
I believe in you. You can do this. Caleb doesn’t know if he can say it.
He reaches up with his other hand to touch Essek’s face. Whatever words he was going to say die on his lips as Essek leans into the touch, eyes closing again for a moment. It’s not so much relief as rest that crosses his face. How long has it been since he’d experienced a friendly touch? Caleb remembers the peace he’d felt when his small goblin companion had inched closer and gone to sleep curled up in the bend of his knees for the first time of her own volition. He remembers the first time she grabbed his hand to pull him toward something she’d seen in a window, the way his fingers had burned for hours afterward.
The moment passes. Essek’s eyes open and Caleb draws his hand back. Essek gives the smallest of nods in silent thanks, his face exhausted in a different way. As if he's cast a very strong spell and has had the power drained out of him.
Come with me, Caleb doesn’t say. Essek has already made his answer. (Another reason to take down the Assembly, but that’s a chore for another day.)
Let me stay, is the next thought that does not cross his lips, surprising him at the strength of its temptation.
Instead, Caleb says nothing. He gives Essek’s forearm a squeeze, applying the same amount of pressure he and Beauregard have grown to use as a means of silent reassurance in their travels together. In that grip, he tries to pass over the thought that someone, at least, is in Essek’s corner. If he makes the climb, someone will be waiting. Does Essek understand? Caleb can't be sure.
Finally, Caleb releases Essek and follows his friends out the door.
Leave every place better than you found it, that purple asshole had said, once, back when he had been a friend rather than a foe. Perhaps, today, he had.
As he draws the careful lines of the teleportation circle on the floor, Caleb still feels the pull to stay. It wasn’t enough. It never is enough. Not enough time. Not enough words. But it was something. And, after all, he’ll be back.
The cold outpost gives way to the warm teleportation chamber in Yussa’s tower on the Menagerie Coast as the spell completes and Caleb follows the Nein through.
Caleb takes a deep breath and sets his mind to the next task. But there’s a part of him that wonders what the night sky will look like when he returns.
He looks forward to finding out.