Chapter Text
Cyrus Wyvernwind, air genasi and runaway heir of the Silken Squall, rounded the corner and nearly ran over Dariax, who’d been coming from the other direction. “Did you find him?”
“Nothin’. Opal?”
Opal, whose thin veneer of disguise was fading to reveal the dark vestige she wore, tossed her long hair over one shoulder. “What the hell happened, anyway? I thought he was with you!”
“So did I!” Cyrus retorted. “One minute Dorian was there—we were laying low, y’know, like we all agreed. Then he gets a message that you’re looking for him,” he continued, pointing an accusing finger at Dariax.
“A message I never sent!” the dwarf protested. “At least I think I didn’t. No, no, I think I would remember sending a message to my best friend.”
Cyrus rolled his eyes. “If you’re his best friend then why weren’t you with him?”
“Enough!” Opal stepped between them, holding her hands up to separate them. “Let’s just find him, okay? Before something bad happens.”
Running a hand through his unruly hair, Cyrus nodded. He couldn’t believe this had happened here. In some little dead-end town on the ass-end of nowhere, Dorian had gone missing. “So, what do we know?”
“There’s a mine,” Opal pointed out. “Mines always want workers, right? There was this really shitty mine near Byroden…the foreman had the local magistrate in his pocket. Anyone caught thieving or whatever could find themselves sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor.”
“Dorian wouldn’t steal.”
“I said or whatever.” Opal rolled her eyes. “You think guys like that need an excuse to just haul you away?”
Cyrus frowned. He didn’t like to think of his brother in that situation. Dorian could take care of himself in that case, right?
“I heard this story once,” Dariax piped up. “There’s this rich guy and he wants a bard to play for him. Only he’s so cruel no one wants to go. So he has his thugs kidnap a bard and chains him to his throne to make the bard play for him every night.”
“His throne.” Cyrus knew his voice was flat, but he didn’t have the spirit to look interested in the dwarf’s story. He like Dariax well enough, as much as he liked any of his brother’s friends, but this wasn’t the time for tales like that.
“Yeah, I think he was a land baron or something. Little did he know his daughter would sneak down while everyone else was asleep and sit and listen to the bard tell stories until dawn. One night, she drugged her father’s wine and took the key from his belt while he was sleeping. Then she and the bard rode off and lived happily ever after.”
“Oh, well, we know that didn’t happen,” Opal rolled her eyes again. “Pretty sure Dorian would rather be swept off his feet by—”
“Yeah, we know,” Cyrus interrupted. They also didn’t have time to discuss his brother’s love life. “Okay. Rich land baron is out, right? Opal, where’s the mine?”
…
The mine, it turned out, was a tiny iron mine that barely kept its owners in business. Cyrus stared glumly at the open, well-lit doorway to the clean interior of the mine as the halfling woman who owned it showed them around. Not including her and her wife, they had a grand total of six employees, all living in their spacious bunkhouse, and mostly just dug up enough to keep the village in horseshoes and nails.
“That was a bust,” Opal grumbled as they walked away.
“At least she was nice,” Dariax replied around a mouthful of meat pie the mine owner had given them for the road.
Cyrus tapped his fingers on his thigh as they walked, anxiety building with every step. “And we’re sure there’s no rich lord kidnapping bards around here?” He looked to Opal, who’d been getting better at scoping out towns during their travels together. She’d come a long way from the naïve teenager wanting to find a place for herself in a world bigger than her hometown.
“The burgomaster owns a tenant farm to the south,” she replied. “Don’t know if he counts as a lord. His house is in town, though. We could stop by anyway, I wanted to see what he had in there.”
“No, hang on, I got it,” Dariax announced, tucking the other half of his meat pie into his pack. “We shoulda done this in the first place…I’ll ask for some divine intervention.”
Cyrus folded his arms to watch the dwarf take the pendant off from around his neck and set it on the ground. He spun it, waiting to see where the compass pointed to. “That way!” he announced, pointing back the way they came.
“Uh-huh. No, we go that way,” Opal said, stalking off toward the center of town.
“It’s the iron,” Cyrus offered, trying to spare his brother’s friend’s feelings. “That, uh…that attracted your compass.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Dariax nodded as he secured his pendant back into place. “Say, you’re almost as smart as Dorian! Keep this up and you could be second co-leader!” He slapped Cyrus on the back, right over his left kidney, nearly knocking him off his feet.
“Thanks?”
…
“There haven’t been many reports of disappearances, I’m afraid,” Master Gallant, the village’s burgomaster, stared between the three of them with a sympathetic expression. “We’re little more than a stopover on the way to Kymal. There are always travelers looking for a bodyguard…perhaps your friend took up with one of them?”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Cyrus said.
Master Gallant shot him an appraising look and followed it with a sad shake of his head. “I’m afraid even family has its outs sometimes, young man. Perhaps he merely wanted some time to himself.”
“My brother wouldn’t do that,” Cyrus turned on his heel to walk out of the burgomaster’s office. “Come on. We’ll find him some other way.”
He sensed more than heard Opal and Dariax falling into step behind him. Right now, he didn’t care if the both of them stole everything that wasn’t nailed down in this house, he just wanted to get out and keep looking for his brother.
“Excuse me! Sir, please!”
Cyrus stopped, Dariax bumping into him from behind, and turned to see a young woman in servant’s attire running after them. “Did you need something?”
“You’re looking for a man who looks like you?” she panted, cheeks flushed. “Lord, you people walk fast.”
“Have you seen him?” Cyrus demanded. “Little smaller than me?”
“Devastatingly handsome,” Dariax added.
“Blue skin,” Opal cut in over their voices. She met their indignant stares with a shrug. “What? You two stand out. Not a lot of air genasi around here.”
“Blue skin, yes,” the young woman said. “And pretty hair…I saw him leaving the inn early this morning.”
Cyrus squinted up at the sky. The sun was beginning to set…he hadn’t expected to be traipsing around town all day on Dorian’s trail. “And?”
“He got into a fight.”
He jerked his head back to stare at her. “A fight?”
She nodded. “I didn’t know who to tell. He followed a man out of the inn, and these others jumped him. I tried to tell Master Gallant, but he said it wasn’t our business.”
“Bold move for someone in a flammable house,” Opal muttered. Cyrus elbowed her, but luckily the young woman either hadn’t heart her or chose to ignore it.
“Do you know who they are?” Cyrus asked.
“Well, no,” she said, hands twisting in her apron. She looked up and down the street, as though checking for eavesdroppers. “You should check with Madame Atlar,” she added, leaning in to whisper.
“Madame Atlar?”
“She’s a soothsayer. Pitched her tent in the woods west of the mine last night. But you’d better hurry, she doesn’t stay for more than a night or two. If anyone can find your friend, it’s her.”
“So we’re looking for a witch in the woods,” Opal said dryly as the young woman scurried away.
“It’s all we’ve got,” Cyrus replied. He slapped Dariax on the shoulder. “Come on! Back to the mine!”
…
It was nearly midnight when they finally spotted the threadbare canvas of the soothsayer’s tent. She’d moved on from her previous campsite, but the mine owner had assured them that Madame Atlar wouldn’t have left the area yet.
Cyrus wasn’t at all surprised when she was waiting for them at the opening of her tent.
“So. At last you come to Madame Atlar for the answers you seek.”
She was every inch the stereotypical forest witch. A wild mop of tangled gray hair, eyes so clouded by age their true color was indecipherable, dirty fingers ending in long, ragged nails, and draped in filthy rags of every color imaginable.
“I’m looking for my brother,” Cyrus said, cutting right to the point. “I was told you could help.”
Madame Atlar cackled. “Come in, come in. Help I shall, for the champion of the spider queen.”
He shot a sidelong glance at Opal. She’d managed to keep up the illusion while they were in town but had let it drop once they were out of sight. Between the black ooze seeping down from the crown and the tears leaking from her eyes, she was practically a match for the soothsayer.
“My old eyes are failing me, child,” Madame Atlar crooned, reaching for Opal’s hand. “I can gaze into the bones but once tonight. Tell me that which you seek?”
Opal pulled her hand away. “Yeah, we’re looking for our friend? Dorian?”
“My brother,” Cyrus cut in.
Madame Atlar took Cyrus’s hand, and he bit back a shudder of revulsion as her dirty fingernails traced over the lines in his palm. “Ah, born to greatness, this one,” she announced. “I see a high seat, surrounded by many sails. The young headwind of the squall, yes?”
He snatched his hand back. “How did you know that?”
She cackled, her rheumy eyes taking on a pearlescent glow. “I see many things, young man. Two I can see for you this night. Your brother…or the ones who took him.”
Cyrus hesitated, glancing from Opal to Dariax. “Wouldn’t they be together?”
“Who can say? If one were to hold the glorious second sun in one’s hand, surely one would keep it close. Unless it were safer to hide it away.”
“What the hell?” Cyrus threw off Dariax’s restraining hand. “How do you know all of this? About me? And my brother?”
“I see many things,” she repeated. “Who seeks a prize, who seeks a brother. Where the second sun waits in fearful slumber.”
His mouth wouldn’t move. Dariax had a hold of his arm again, but it felt like a gesture of support rather than censure. Opal took his other hand, her grip quivering with suppressed emotion.
If they found Dorian’s kidnappers, they’d find him. One way or another, they’d find Dorian.
“You don’t have much time,” the old woman said, breaking the silence. “The men who stole him are stealing away, and his time grows shorter with every breath.”
It had already been almost a day.
He nodded, squeezing Opal’s hand and bumping his elbow against Dariax’s shoulder. “Very well. I want to know where my brother is.”
Her eyes lit up, her mouth spreading in an unsettling grin. “You wish the treasure, not the thieves?”
“Yes.” He swallowed, forcing steel into his voice, calling on his long years of training as the heir to his father’s position. “Tell me where to find the second sun.”
Madame Atlar cackled with delight, opening her mouth in a wide smile to show bright white teeth that seemed far too pointed to be human. She produced a handful of polished knuckle bones that had been carved with strange runes that made Cyrus’s eyes go funny when he tried to look at them.
She rattled the bones in her hand and tossed them into a shallow silver dish to mutter over them.
“To seek the second sun, find the hangman’s tree on the road to Kymal. Follow the wagon tracks three miles east.”
“Three miles east,” Cyrus repeated.
Madame Atlar looked up at him, her lips pulling back in another smile. “And two feet down.”
…
Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic.
If Dorian stayed absolutely still and kept his eyes closed, he couldn't see how tight the space around him was. The darkness.
Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic.
If he called on the unending breath of the air genasi, he wouldn’t suffocate. He couldn’t make a sound, and even his heartbeat seemed muffled in the unending silence around him.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don't sleep.
Don't panic.