Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The melon rays of morning had barely peaked over the horizon when Janner awoke for the final time. His eyes did not flutter open before squinting shut, surprised by the light invading them, because he felt rested or whatever other positive feelings or emotions existed. Rather he woke because it was barely morning, the chilliest time of the entire day, when the sun’s heat from the previous day had expended its lingering presence on warming the night and the new warmth had yet to fully take effect. That was without even mentioning the torrent of emotions and images that had haunted him in dreams and woken him again and again in the middle of the night, feelings of despair, grief, uncertainty, frustration, and guilt mingled with images of Kalmar’s face, first radiant with joy as he had seen him in the Maker’s World, far too quickly turning sour, pinched, and tragic in ways that should never have been allowed. Whatever part of his mind that had decided to taunt him had made a terrible mistake. He would take vengeance on it for its cruelty somehow, someway.

Half-heartedly, he slipped his arm out from underneath the thick cloak Artham had mercifully covered him with when he fell asleep against a tree trunk and held his hand up to his face. It was thin, but still looked enormous compared to his arms and likely the rest of his body, at least proportionally speaking. He knew melding with the Cloven on Rysen Hill had left him gaunt, like the wolves that released too much of their life or Yurgen after Gnag had melded with him. Janner shuddered at the memory. 

Yet strangely enough, he didn’t mind it. He did not mind that he was so thin a light breeze could blow him over, nor that he could not stand or walk for more than a few minutes without needing support from someone else. What he minded was the grief and despair over Kalmar’s death that too often trumped the hope and joy in his heart. He could handle physical weakness and frailty and pain if that was necessary, but those qualities residing both in his body and his heart? With that combination, he felt as though he would slip beneath the waves, only breaking through the surface when someone grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him up, choking.

And that was without even considering how much it hurt Nia and Leeli. He suppressed the urge to groan aloud and instead opened his eyes, doing his best not to squint against the sun’s rays that were barely even bright enough to really hurt. That was nowhere near as painful as what his mother and sister suffered, though, and neither was anything else he could think of. In the end, he resolved that there was nothing he could endure in that moment that would be the equivalent of their pain and stopped trying, at least for a little while.

He couldn’t just lay there on the ground, though, listening to nothing but his thoughts and the sound of his family breathing the breath of sound sleep. That had its comforts, but he was not asleep, nor would he manage to be again. 

Instead he fastened the cloak around himself as it was meant to lay and reached for a low branch of the tree so he could pull himself up. It was arduous work, as was slowing his breathing to a nearly silent gasp, but he was standing, and that was what mattered. 

Janner rested against the tree for a moment and gazed at the few people remaining: Oskar, snoring, his spectacles slipping off his face, Nia very near him, mercifully asleep, though her face was troubled, Leeli in her arms, cuddled close as if looking for protection, her crutch leaning up against the tree trunk, and Sara, a bit away from the rest of the family, curled up underneath a cloak, completely hidden. Artham was likely on watch, mostly because old habits die hard. They were safe in the Blackwood and they all knew it, but only so many things could be forgotten. 

Deciding it was as optimal a time to test walking around on his own with little to no chance of assistance as any, Janner began doing so, pondering the former Cloven and the First Well, because as of that moment, neither had purposely broken his family’s hearts.

The last newly-transformed person named, Janner didn’t even bother trying to disguise his exhaustion and practically fell to the ground. He had put up a remarkable mask for hours already, and every little bit of energy inside him had long ago been expended.

He barely heard Artham speak to him through the fog of his mind, but he heard the words, “you” and “feel” and pieced together the gist of the message. 

“Not…great,” he mumbled in response, his words lost in their quietness.

His eyes bleary and ears ringing, Janner barely heard Artham and Sara’s ensuing conversation about rest and food (though the latter thought made his stomach churn in disgust and concern), but he did know when Artham lifted him effortlessly and when his uncle set him down again soon after. Miraculously, all colors, lights, and sounds disappeared almost immediately.

When he woke it was to the sound of fire crackling in front of him and Artham sitting near it, poking it with a stick. Charred remains of some sort of something scattered around him made for a confusing part of an otherwise straightforward scenario.

“I tried heating dried diggle in water to make some sort of broth for you, but the makeshift bowls always fell apart,” Artham explained, all without looking at him to see if he was awake and alert or not. “Then I found a metal pot in your mother’s pack and used that. Try this. It's not really salty, even though it's made out of dried meat, which is confusing me a little.”

Gingerly, he poured the contents of the metal cooking pot into yet another makeshift bowl and brought it close. “Here,” he said softly, handing it over. “Go slowly.”

Janner smiled tiredly and sat up halfway, taking the bowl in his trembling hands. “Thank you, Uncle Artham.” There was a part of him that was glad his uncle’s idea had eventually worked, because he was starving, but then at the same time, he felt unsure about trusting his stomach with anything.

Artham watched him in what looked like a mixture of internment and concern as he held the bowl up and took a small sip. Though the first taste was odd and a bit foreign and made him feel the slightest bit queasy, he decided he would do his best to manage it.

“Hulwen came an hour ago,” Artham began speaking, it seemed as an informative session. He kept the cadence of his voice even and low, though, so as to not wake anyone else. “She asked if we were ready to return, but I told her we were hesitant and then explained why. Even so, she offered to escort the people to the Green Hollows. As none of them objected, they set off.”

“They could help repopulate the Hollows,” Janner suggested, placing the half-drunk bowl of broth on the ground. “Obviously if they have families in Skree and want to go back they can, but if the Hollish want them—”

Artham’s eyes twinkled. “You spent a good few months around the Hollish, and you know how stubborn they are about letting people in. But if their numbers are really all that low, they might not object too terribly.”

Janner nodded. “So why didn’t we go with everyone else?”

Artham gave him a withering look. “Janner Esben Wingfeather*, I believe the answer to that is quite obvious. You can barely stand without assistance and would not be able to walk all the way to the Hollows. Speaking of which, you did not finish your broth. Once we get back to Anniera, you know Nia is going to be all over you with—”

“No she won’t,” Janner interrupted dejectedly. “I mean, maybe she will. I don’t know. No, wait: she will do that. And she might just worry herself to death, and it’ll be all my fault.” Unbidden tears sprang into his eyes, and he blinked rapidly, trying to keep them from spilling down his cheeks. There was no need for him to cry; he shouldn’t cry. Nia and Leeli were hurting far more than he was and besides, he had said goodbye to Kal!

Artham squeezed his shoulder, and when he did so, Janner could feel how thin it was. “No, Janner; it isn’t your fault. You made a choice that kept Kalmar from dying and saved the Annierans, and Kalmar made a choice that saved so many Cloven and brought you back to life. You’re no more at fault for Kalmar’s death than I am for yours.”

Janner looked up at him and met his steady, blue eyes. “Why would you think you were responsible for my death?”

Shaking his head, Artham waved it off as if it were something he would rather not discuss. “It came from some misspoken words of anger in a time of grief. It doesn’t matter now. The point is this isn’t your fault. You could not have prevented it. Kalmar made a choice, a wonderful, nobel, kingly choice. He was influenced only by himself and the Maker.”

Nodding more to placate Artham and convince him to drop the subject than to declare that he felt no responsibility for his brother’s death at all, whatsoever, Janner’s mind wandered to where they were and what it meant and also to when they would be leaving. “Uncle Artham, why didn’t Kal try and find the Water to heal everyone?”

Artham smiled sadly. “I don’t know, Janner. We came with the First Well in mind, and yesterday morning he told me the rest of his plan. If I’m being completely honest, I expected the next step after melding would be a trip to the First Well to bring both him and you back to life, but that clearly didn’t happen.”

“Can’t we…still try and find it?” Janner asked. “For Anniera and Leeli and maybe Mama. I don’t know if the First Well can heal broken hearts but we can at least try. And I know it can heal broken legs.”

Artham found a twig on the ground and began twirling it between the fingers on his right hand as if it were a pen. “I suppose it won’t hurt anything,” he conceded. “Though, remember, it is only found if the Maker wills it so.” 

Janner nodded fervently. “Perfect, so can we start t—”

 “My main concern,” Artham interjected. “Is that you won’t be able to walk there without collapsing.”

Even though he groaned briefly in response to that, Janner couldn't help but smile at his uncle's concern. “I’ll  be fine…I think.”

“Whatever the case, we can set out tomorrow if no one objects, but you must sleep now and you must accept help if need be.”

Janner smiled lightly, feeling unexpected tiredness creep over him. He wondered if he had always sounded so exacting to Kal as Artham did to him. Of course, the circumstances were very different, considering that when he told Kal something it was generally as an idiocy preventative, whereas Artham was simply trying to keep him alive. And because of that, also combined with the knowledge that his uncle was an adult, Janner was perfectly willing to oblige. “Don’t worry, I will.”

“You better,” were the last words he heard before drifting off to sleep, hope mingled with guilt and sorrow filling his heart.

That had been sometime in the middle of the previous night, of course. Now he walked alone in the Blackwood, using tree trunks as support perhaps more often than was necessary. He could have walked without their assistance, but he wanted to manage something like that later when they all made their way to the First Well, if it was indeed the Maker’s Will they find it. He stayed within the very close vicinity of their camp, of course, not wanting to worry Nia in case she awoke and found him missing. 

After another minute or so, he turned around and began walking back to their makeshift camp. He didn’t know how long it would take him, going at as slow of a pace as he was, but he did know cold nights and mornings meant light sleep and early wakings. That combined with the grief he knew tortured Nia’s heart (after all, the entire night he had dreamt of Kalmar and a whole slew of wonderful and terrible things, so it stood to reason her night’s sleep had been even worse) illustrated an incredibly clear image of her waking up and immediately panicking when she realized yet another one of her children had disappeared.

A sudden rustling came from somewhere unseen and Janner jumped in surprise, landing off-balance enough that he tumbled to the ground. He bit his lip in frustration as an unwanted rock stabbed into his back; he hadn’t thought through the fact that he was once again “all elbows and knees” as Nia had stated months earlier, though now it was because any hopes of a build he had earned in Durgan training had vanished in a blink rather than a struggling growth-spurt.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Sara’s head appeared, not some wild animal. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I startle you?” she asked apologetically, offering him a hand. 

Janner smiled and took the assist, surprised again at how much easier it was to get off the ground when he didn’t have to rely on his own feeble strength. “Just a little, but it’s alright. I’m…I’m usually paranoid.”

After a silent, undiscussed agreement, they began walking back toward the camp. “Artham asked me to see if I could find you,” she explained. “Your mother isn’t up yet, but he didn’t want her to worry at all, so, you know.”

Janner nodded and swallowed the burning in his throat. “Yeah, I know,” he whispered. 

Sara set a slightly faster pace through the wood than he had when he had come through initially, but that was alright. She kept a hand hovering near his the whole time, probably in case she needed to keep him from falling. At least, that was what Janner told himself so his cheeks wouldn't turn bright red. He began to doubt it after the back of her fingers had brushed his six times.

“Uh, we’re thinking about trying to find the First Well today,” he said a little awkwardly, unsure of what sort of conversation the situation called for. 

Sara looked at him oddly. “The First Well was where Ka— where your brother wanted to lead us. Are you going there because of that or something else?” 

Janner shook his head. “No, that’s not why. Well, I guess that’s sort of the reason. It’s mostly for Leeli’s leg, though. And in terms of it being Kal’s plan…I don’t think he initially realized he would meld. He really did want the First Well to be the solution. I don't think there was supposed to be pain in his wake.” He realized too late that Sara had asked nothing related to the entire latter half of what he had said.

“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?” she asked softly after a few moments of silence. 

Janner stopped abruptly, feeling very exposed and even more so when she looked straight at him, her diamond blue eyes filled with empathy. “I—” he stammered, wishing the cloak would swallow him whole. Not that it would be a difficult task considering how big it was when proportionally compared to him. “Let’s…let’s get back so we don’t worry Mama.”

Chapter Text

They saw Nia the moment they walked into the camp, and the worry in her eyes made Janner sick with guilt. Or maybe he was just nauseous because he hadn’t eaten anything other than half a bowl of makeshift diggle broth that really hadn't been all that appetizing.

“Mama,” he greeted her pleasantly with a wave, smiling a little, but not too much. There was no need to pour salt on her wounds. “How…how are you?” 

She walked toward him quickly, lines of grief and guilt and worry etched deeply into her face. “As alright as I can be, all things considered,” she stated briskly, a flicker of a smile that looked a bit more like a grimace fluttering over the lips. “How are you doing?”

Sara almost inaudibly whispered, “I’m gonna go,” and made her escape to sit with Leeli, who was putting something together for breakfast. 

Janner watched her without thinking about it, noticing the way she brushed a wavy strand of hair back that had managed to escape from its braid and how she smiled and dipped her head before sitting down next to Leeli. 

“I should say someone is doing well, perhaps a bit better than well,” Nia answered her question for him, her face smiling, even though the light did not reach her eyes.

A nervous chuckle escaped Janner’s throat and he wanted to do something with his hands, like rub the back of his neck or run his fingers through his hair to dispel the awkwardness in his mind, but he lacked the motivation to raise his arm up that high with the heavy cloak hindering him. It was beginning to make his shoulders and neck ache, anyway. 

Instead, he simply clasped his hands tightly behind him and shook his head. “I mean, I guess I’m okay. I’m glad Sara’s here—more than glad, I guess—but with everything else…well, I'm actually more worried about you than—”

Nia shook her head and held a hand up as if to stop him. “Not now, Janner,” she said quietly, her eyes grieved. “Please. Don’t say anything. It’s better this way. Not thinking about it…it just spares you from part of the pain.” She smiled, but it was the sort of smile someone gave in an effort to fight through their grief, not to represent joy or happiness. 

“But, Mama,” Janner began, guilt and concern weighing on his heart. “That’s—”

“We'll discuss it later, I promise. But let me take this from you; it’s too heavy. You’ll tire yourself out too soon if you aren’t careful.” She nearly wrested the cloak from around his shoulders (however she did allow him to undo the clasp himself) and bustled off with it, putting it in a neat pile with the rest of the cloaks they had turned into blankets the night before.

Janner was left standing there, shivering, not because of the cold but because of fear. He knew what was happening. He had seen it when his Papa had died, truly died, a few months earlier. Nia had put all her efforts into taking care of them and cleaning the house and making sure everyone was alright and helping out neighbors even more so than she normally would have. It was how she dealt with her grief. She simply shoved it away and shoved busy-ness and caring for others into its place so she wouldn’t have to think about it. 

Now three people had died: Podo, Rudric, and Kalmar. Her father, her love (for a time, at least), and her son. All snatched away from her in a blink, a hateful blink that had no regard for humanity or love or the searing pain of loss. Suddenly, Janner wanted to scream for the grief and the sorrow and he wouldn’t care who heard him. He didn’t know if it was his brokenness that hurt him most or if it was Nia’s or Leeli’s—oh, Leeli. Precious Leeli who wept and poured her heart out before mending it by caring for others. At least she let people in so they could see her pain—or maybe it was all of them combined. What he did know was that his was the least, the most easily mended. Others’ sorrow mattered far more. And Nia’s was by far the most concerning. He wondered if she would open up to anyone, if there was someone who could convince her to spill everything out. Janner prayed there was.

“As the penmaker Limel Tins declared,” Oskar crowed suddenly from where the most of their group was sitting around a steaming pot of something. “‘Join us, my good fellow who stands quite a ways off! It’s nearly time for breakfasting.’” 

Janner laughed and shook his head, figuring that if Oskar had been willing enough to draw his head out of the journal or book he had worked on unceasingly to both have breakfast and call him over, refusal would have been rather rude.

“So why, exactly, are we planning on embarking on a walk to the First Well when who we came here for has already been given back to us?” Nia asked, an edge of frustration in her tone. Leeli clutched one of their mother’s knees tightly, and whether that was out of fear or an effort to placate her, Janner was unsure. He couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably at her comment, though. “And, Janner, please eat your porridge.”

Janner looked at the porridge Leeli and Sara (and Artham; since he was actually good at cooking) had made and did his best not to wrinkle his nose. Picking up his spoon and swirling it in the still-warm mixture of cooked oats and dried fruit, he scooped a morsel of the porridge onto the spoon and ate it. Nia practically glared at him from where she sat up against a trunk a few trees away, and he forced himself to take another bite as Artham answered her question. It wasn’t as though he didn’t like the porridge. He just…wasn’t hungry. And not being hungry made any food he ate nearly curdle in his mouth.

“Because, Nia,” Artham replied kindly. “It was what Kalmar wanted initially.” 

Nia turned away from him at those words, and once again it hurt Janner to see his mother hiding something that pained her so.

Artham sighed. “Well, we really want to see if we can get some Water so we can heal Anniera.” He met Janner’s eyes after speaking and nodded in what looked like a diplomatic manner. 

Smiling gratefully, Janner placed his bowl of porridge in the grass and cleared his throat before speaking. “So if anyone wants to go, we’re leaving as soon as breakfast is cleaned up? I guess?”

Nia looked at him sharply. “You’re going? Janner, what makes you think you’ll survive the walk through the Blackwood? And for that matter, what makes you think you’ll be able to walk through the Blackwood?”

“Mrs. Wingfeather,” Sara spoke up nervously. “He took a walk in the forest this morning before anyone was up, and he’s still alive.”

“And I’ll be watching over him,” Artham added, when the look of dismay on Nia's face failed to leave. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper and directed his words at Janner. “Of course, I’ll be watching everyone who comes to make sure they don’t get eaten by a toothy cow or something else, but I’ll pay special attention to you.”

Janner felt a smile tugging on the corners of his mouth. He had missed this Artham, the Artham who enjoyed jokes and making other people smile and had a bit of a sassy streak, too. It had appeared in Peet on occasion but rarely in Artham, even during the few times in the hold of the Enramere he had been lucid enough to recall. And then there had been so little time, so painfully little time between when Nia had allowed him out of the hold and when Artham had left for Skree. That had been it. There would be more times for him, for which he was glad, but that was it for Kalmar. Kal would never get a chance to develop a close relationship with their uncle, never. 

Janner wished with all his heart that he could change that, somehow. 

“And I’ll play my whistleharp to try and keep wild animals away,” Leeli chimed in cheerfully. Janner glanced at her, realizing for the first time that she did indeed have her whistleharp. “I don’t actually know if it’ll keep animals away or not, but we can find out!”

Nia laughed nervously on hearing that and pulled Leeli close briefly, perhaps to remind herself that her youngest was there and safe and alive. “That sounds lovely, but let’s not find out if your music would work exclusively, dear.” 

Leeli sighed, politely stating, “Yes, Ma’am.”

All the while during the discussion of the Well, Oskar had trembled with delight and constantly looked everywhere. Janner had noticed it through the corner of his eye, his old friend vibrating like a geef. “And though I do not know if it is even a small comfort,” Oskar began, sounding as though he had just been dying to speak for the longest time. “I will write it down, Nia, so we can always remember exactly what happened and whose shoulders the blame for someone getting chewed by a creature lies on. Oh, but I'm sure that won't happen,” he added hurriedly. “You needn’t worry.”

Despite the “reassurance,” Nia visibly cringed at Oskar's suggestion and glanced at Artham who mouthed, don't worry, that's not going to happen. She breathed a shaky sigh of relief and finally said, “I suppose. How can I refuse everyone else seems all too willing? But keep in mind that I am agreeing to let you all go—and I will also come with you—on one condition.” She stared intently at each of them in turn, and Janner swallowed the nervousness inside of him when her gaze settled on him. “Everyone—and I repeat everyone—must come back alive.”

They all looked at each other with uncertainty, and it broke Janner’s heart to think that life had become so unstable lately that they were unwilling to guarantee Nia even that. 

“We will,” he stated firmly, meeting her eyes. “Don’t worry, Mama. We won’t lose anyone else.”

They couldn’t.

Chapter Text

They cleaned up any mess from breakfast and put the bowls, pot, and utensils into the pack they were originally in (Nia’s), which Artham promptly seized, and, with a twinkle in his eyes, nimbly climbed up a tree and tucked it securely between some of the higher branches for a reason he had yet to reveal to them. 

Part of Janner was surprised that his uncle still had the same agility he had had when he was a Cloven or fully melded, but Nia gave him (and Leeli, Sara, and Oskar) the answer to his unasked question. “He’s always loved climbing trees. Excellent at it, too.”

There was a hint of nostalgia in her voice, as if she were seeing a different place, a different time, a different Artham, perhaps even a different version of herself. Yet the memory of such a thing that surely involved Esben in some way did not bring her grief, only happiness. 

Janner wondered if she, or any of them, for that matter, would ever be able to remember Kalmar in that way, with joy and laughter rather than with burning throats and stinging eyes.

“It’s up there so toothy cows don’t get it,” Artham explained once he had joined them on the ground again. “And I can put the cloaks up there, too, if you like, Nia.”

She nodded, glancing at the pile of cloaks she had folded almost as soon as everyone was awake. Leeli and Sara had offered to help her, but she had declined in what Janner supposed was the most polite manner possible. “Yes, please. And thank you. Just, leave the thinnest one down here, alright?”

All the cloaks gathered in his arms, Artham came over and handed the thinnest to Janner. “I believe this is for you,” he said with a wink before scaling the tree once more, this time using only his right arm, unhampered by cloaks.

Janner resisted the urge to sigh and put it around his shoulders, making sure the clasp was secure. Admittedly, he didn’t really mind the gesture because he was cold. At least it was familiar: his Durgan cloak. He wondered if he would ever be able to train with the Durgan Guildlings again, or if it was pointless to hope. Then again, did he even want to if Kal wasn’t there? Kal was the reason they had trained in the Durgan Guild anyway, and though Janner had hated it at first, he had grown to love it far more than he ever would have enjoyed Bookbindery. Those memories (some good and some quite painful) were all thanks to his brother. How many times had he complained to Kal about how it was his fault he was stuck doing something so miserable? Had he even ever apologized? Janner knew he had felt guilt in his heart over the matter, but he couldn’t remember truly saying anything. Now he would never get the chance.

“Janner?” Sara’s gentle voice pulled him out of his thoughts, and he blinked his mind back to awareness.

“Sorry...what is it?”

She lowered her voice a bit. “Everyone is ready. We’re just waiting for your word.”

Janner felt his face flush, and he guessed seeing some sort of color in his cheeks was the cause of Nia’s smile. He had never truly realized how awkward Kal had felt when everyone stared at him, waiting for him to tell them to do something. Janner took a breath and, while purposely avoiding Oskar and Nia and Leeli and Artham’s gazes (but not Sara's), said, “Sure. Let’s go.

The first bit of time they spent picking their way through the Blackwood, following the somewhat-cleared path past the mouth of the slope that led to the Deeps. Artham, Sara, and Oskar took the lead explaining what had actually happened around that mouth and down at the bottom of the slope, the latter popping in largely for exact quotes at relevant points in the story. 

That recount took them all the way past the patch of flowers they had accidentally grown with the Water by giving a bit too much of it to Oood and a stretch beyond even that.

Out of breath long before but trying to (and succeeding in) hiding it, Janner eventually asked for how long and what distance the had walked.

“Only for about twenty minutes,” Artham answered promptly. “And less than a mile. I was going to suggest that we break, though, maybe so you can make a guess with me as to which way we’re going to go next.”

Nodding, Janner made his way toward his uncle, stepping over and on top of underbrush and ferns and rocks and roots when need be. Artham had stopped right next to a boulder that looked wondrously like a seat and was somehow even covered in delighted, green moss. He barely resisted the urge to sink down on it, since if Artham wasn’t sitting, maybe he shouldn’t either. Not only that, but everyone knowing how exhausted he felt was the last thing he wanted.

His worries were assuaged the moment he reached Artham’s side, when he called out, “Janner and I are going to go a bit ahead to look, alright?”

No one looked particularly convinced, so haltingly, Janner added, “I didn’t actually go to the Well…Kal did. And this is the place he left from…so we might need a little to figure out the right direction…from here, that is.” He felt his cheeks warming and wondered if anyone had noticed the breathless, quiet gasps he had taken at random intervals.

No one said anything, though, and, his hand on Janner’s back, Artham led him just a stone’s throw away to a spot concealed from the rest of the party by a thick stand of bushes and trees.

“Sit,” he commanded, pointing to a spot on the grass, and Janner gratefully sunk to the ground, letting out a breath of relief.

“Thanks,” he murmured in between shaky gasps. “Do...do you actually—”

Artham held up a piece of pinkish fruit to his face that had appeared out of nowhere. “Eat this, please. I know you don’t want to eat, but you need to if you want to get to the First Well. And maybe once we get there, consider drinking some of the Water.”

His cheeks now truly burning, Janner held out his hand, dismayed at the way it trembled uncontrollably. Artham placed the fruit directly in his palm, clearly not trusting him to keep a firm hold on it. “It’s an orzeer. It’s not very sweet, but it’s good and food and I want you to eat it.”

Janner still wasn’t very hungry, but not eating wouldn’t get him anywhere. Before taking a bite, he asked if Artham actually needed to know which direction to go. His uncle glared him into trying the orzeer before answering, though.

“Yes, because preferably we won’t have to wander around in these woods for hours. For that matter, you can’t wander around in these woods for hours. Please, Janner, I...I need you to stay alive and safe and as well as you possibly can considering you look like you were starved in the Deeps for a few months because I care about you and we all care about you, and also, I think your mother might come after my head if I let another one of her family members die.”

Artham had started rambling with the second part of his explanation, becoming more and more nervous, though not in a crazed manner like he had for so long. It was normal nervousness, normal concern. It was the normal worry of a Throne Warden. 

Janner could have seen it as annoying, having everyone constantly trying to micromanage him and act as if he would fall apart if someone looked at him the wrong way. But the truth was that he knew how feeble he was and that not only was their concern and borderline franticness well-placed, it was the culmination of the horrors these past few weeks had thrown at them. 

That was without even mentioning that Nia simply worried and fussed out of grief, and Artham fussed because…well, because of the reason he had given. To Janner, that made sense. He had been a Throne Warden, albeit for a brief period of time, and was still. He felt that guilt, that concern, that responsibility, that weight constantly. Even though Kalmar was gone, he still felt it. He still felt the pain of it.

He wondered if Artham felt it for Esben, Kalmar, and for him. He wondered how one man could carry that much weight on his shoulders.

While those thoughts had run through his head, Janner had obediently eaten the orzeer fruit, not finding it particularly appetizing but continuing anyway. Not that he had found anything he had eaten since he had come back very tasteful.

“Now that we’ve taken care of that,” Artham began, the usual twinkle in his eyes again. “Do you know which way Kalmar went?”

Janner took a breath and studied the forest ahead. It all looked the same: trees, trees, some underbrush, and more trees. He tried recalling what direction Kal had set off in during his search for the water, but the trouble was that he had smelled his way directly to the Well, not simply walked in a straight line. Of course, if he had picked up the scent correctly, presumably he had walked in a straight line, which meant they had a higher chance of finding it, at least in their own power.

“Anything?” Artham asked patiently.

Janner shook his head before closing his eyes. “Not yet,” he murmured as he tried picturing Kal and his grey, furry body and his pointed wolf ears, his tail twitching as he sniffed the air and then bounded off into the forest. 

Eyes flying open, Janner pointed, not quite straight ahead, but slanted a little to the left. “That way. I think that's the way he went. At least, that's what I hope.”

Artham nodded resolutely. “Wonderful. Now we're going to sit here until you're actually strong enough to walk.”

“Uncle Artham,” Janner protested. “I…I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon, at least not for the long term.”

“Well, you have two options then,” Artham held up one finger. “One: you walk up front with me while I support you, discreetly, of course; or,” (his second finger popped up) “Two: we find a walking stick that's the right height and weight to where it works and isn't dragging you down in addition to helping you walk.”

Janner considered the two carefully. The first one was somewhat obvious, but it could be written off as the two of them simply leading everyone else in the (hopefully) right direction. The second was also obvious, but no excuses existed. Plus, it would take time to find the right stick and he would likely need Artham's assistance later anyway. “The first one, I suppose,” he said slowly. “But please don't make it obvious. I don't want Mama to worry.”

Artham looked at him, his eyes grieved. “Janner, your mother will always worry, and there's nothing you can do about it. Now she wants to worry more than not, because it distracts her from all the loss.”

Janner stood up and clasped his cold hands together. “That doesn’t make her worry any better,” he murmured.

Placing an arm around his shoulders, Artham gave him a gentle squeeze that Janner felt throughout his body. “We all cope with grief in terrible ways,” he noted as they walked back toward the others. “On our own, at least. With the Maker's help...that can change. We just have to ask Him. I think you already know that, though.”

Chapter Text

They were close. Janner didn’t exactly have any reasonable way of explaining how he knew they were close, but he knew they were.

Unfortunately he also knew he was ready to collapse and hoped Artham was the only one aware of it as well. 

“Perhaps we should stop and get our bearings?” Nia suggested, bringing them to a halt and dashing Janner’s hopes to pieces. She never would have called a break so soon after the previous one ten minutes earlier.

Of course, he noted dimly, his mind in a fog. Everyone already knows and has known for a while, so why did I want to hide it at all?

“Wonderful idea,” Artham replied, almost too much relief in his voice. Janner wondered if the way he trembled uncontrollably was really as obvious as all that. 

Bending down to whisper in his ear, Janner heard Artham's voice, low and not-piercing, say, “We can stop here or go a few feet more. Which would you rather?”

Janner shook his head. “Here’s...fine,” he mumbled. As soon as he said it, his legs turned to water and he crumpled to the ground, a gasp or two (not his, though) accompanying the motion.

“I'm okay,” he whispered faintly and squeezed his eyes shut, more to block out the dizzyingly vibrant greens of the Blackwood than anything else.

“Janner, please, I need you to open your eyes,” Nia said softly, cupping his face in her hand. When had she gotten there? “Can you do that for me?”

Wondering briefly where the rest of their party had gone—it felt as though he hadn't heard or seen Sara or Leeli or Oskar or Kal...no, wait, Kal dead. He was gone. The others, though. They weren’t “gone,” he supposed, not like Kal. They had just stayed silent for quite a long time—he forced his eyes open, resisting the temptation to shut them again when light and color and spinning foliage and Nia’s worry attacked his mind. 

“Good,” she whispered, a choked sound in her voice. Janner's heart hurt when he heard it. He hadn't made her upset or worried on purpose—he hadn't meant to do that. He closed his eyes, keeping a few tears from trickling down his cheeks. “Artham's finding something for you to eat, alright? I know you don't want to, but please try when he comes back. We're going to camp here for the night, or maybe in a clearing close by, but you will not be doing any more walking. Then when morning comes, we're leaving this place whether we've found the Well or not.”

Janner opened his eyes again at those words and tried convincing them to focus on her face without the image shifting or morphing together or splitting. It didn't work, though. “Mama, wait,” he mumbled. “We're close. I promise.”

He thought Nia shook her head, because only such a movement would make the bleary images of her face rattle in such a manner. “Unless we find it when we're walking to a clearing to set up camp, we are not taking any extra efforts to find it. 

“Leeli, Sara?” She broke off from her original point. “Here's my pack. There's some food in there. Don't prepare anything quite yet, but think about what we could eat.”

There was a rustling, and a brown-haired, stunningly blue-eyed girl drifted into the shifting shapes of his sight. But she didn't shift, not at all. Somehow she was steady, and she looked at him and met his eyes and mouthed, don't worry, we'll find a way.

Janner breathed out shakily and murmured, “Thank you.”

“You can sleep now if you want,” Nia whispered, and Janner felt himself pulled toward her, and then he was curled up against her in a way he hadn’t since he was little, but had wanted for so long. She began humming a low, soothing tune, one he vaguely remembered her singing back in Glipwood anytime one of them was sick. He felt a bit of a tired smile flit onto his face at the sound of it, and as his eyes fluttered shut and he drifted off to sleep, he couldn’t help but think that even though he needed no coaxing, it felt wonderful just the same.

“You weren’t supposed to stay away for so long! What if something had happened?” 

Nia’s hushed but still very much irked voice woke Janner, but it wasn’t quite enough to pull him out of sleep. He didn’t feel like he was about to crumple into bits because of exhaustion as he had earlier, so he supposed that was a good thing. The only drawback of it was that now he had the energy for feeling absolutely mortified and horrified that he had worried Nia so much. The concern and fear in her eyes the last time he had seen her had been palpable, and he vowed to never, ever do something so foolhardy as allowing something like collapsing to happen—in her presence, at least—again.

And then there was Kalmar. Tears filled Janner’s eyes even though he still kept them shut and he brushed away the ones that escaped down his cheeks. He hated this rotten mess of waking up, when he recalled all the horrible happenings of the last few days slowly, each one filling his mind with dread and grief and guilt to the point at which if anything else happened, he didn’t know what he would do.

Artham’s response pulled him away from such thoughts, though. “I left Janner’s sword with Oskar. You know that! Besides, toothy cows and other sorts of vermin don’t venture in this clearing in the Blackwood. I promise, you were safe. Besides, did you really expect us to camp here and possibly freeze to death in the night?”

The word “clearing” confused Janner. When had they moved into a clearing? He supposed they might have moved unbeknownst to him. They must have. It was the only thing that made sense.

“And how would you happen to know toothy cows or horned hounds or dangerous creatures don’t come here?” Nia retorted fiercely, obviously ignoring the latter part of Artham’s explanation.

“Because...because they just can’t! It’s hard to explain. Please, just believe me! There’s...an invisible barrier that keeps them and all sorts of other creatures out.”

Leeli’s voice now danced among his uncle’s and mother’s, lovely and firm, reminding him a bit of Podo. “You know, if you were trying to keep Janner from waking while still arguing, it didn’t work. He’s awake.”

Crickets’ chirps actually flitted through the air in the silence that followed Leeli’s statement.

Janner opened his eyes at the sound of rustles coming toward him and began sitting up on his own, but Artham appeared and helped him the rest of the way, laying him against his chest. “Are you cold?” he asked quietly.

“Not really,” Janner whispered back. It wasn’t the complete truth. His hands and feet and face were absolutely freezing, but other than that he was mostly fine.

“Well, here’s a warmer blanket since I know you’re lying at least a little bit,” —Janner felt a heavy warmth fall over him almost immediately, and it was wonderful. Artham must have gone back to get the cloaks they had left behind. That was what Nia had yelled at him about— “And here’s something for you to eat. I think you’ll like it.”

Janner slipped his hand out from underneath the cloak and felt something warm pressed into his palm. He looked down at it and blinked, a little confused. It looked like any sort of normal fruit—it looked like a silvery plumyum, for that matter— but it was warm. It might have been warm simply because Artham had held it to get it warmer for him, but it wasn’t just a surface warmth. This warmth fused into his hand and up his arm, tingling as it went along. 

He raised the fruit to his mouth (his arm and hand did not tremble as he expected them to) and took a bite, just a small one in case Artham’s guess proved incorrect.

It didn’t.

That one bite flooded his entire being with such sweet warmth, but it wasn’t a tooth-rotting or sickening sweetness, it was a different kind, a lovely kind he couldn’t exactly pinpoint as he had never tasted it elsewhere, but—he closed his eyes briefly, relishing the taste that was one of light and beauty and wonder—oh, in an odd way it reminded him of the Fane of Fire, not the time had sat outside, but the time he had gone inside.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Artham asked him, his eyes twinkling.

Janner nodded, suddenly not feeling as tired anymore. “What is it?” he queried before taking another bite, one that was a bit larger than the first.

“It’s from a fruit tree that I believe is fed constantly by the First Well, or at least the underwater stream that fills it,” Artham replied gently. “The Well...it’s just over that way.” He pointed, and following the direction with his eyes, Janner saw it, still visible in the evening light.

There was a light gasp and an exclamation of words that sounded as though they came from Oskar, but Janner didn’t bother to make them out. He was too focused on Artham’s words and what they implied.

The hand holding the fruit fell listlessly into his lap. He had never meant to benefit from the Water. He had never planned to drink it and receive healing from it. The Maker had returned his spirit to Aerwiar already—wasn’t that enough? Coming to life again because of the Ancient Stones and healing his weakness with the Water from the First Well seemed inconsiderate or ungrateful or wrong. If the Maker had wanted Him physically healed, it would have happened during the meld, wouldn’t it? That had not happened, though. Was even eating the fruit a usurp of the Maker’s decision?

“But—” he replied, realizing there was a good chance he had forgotten to truly reply. He was dimly aware that Artham looked at him expectantly while the rest of their party flitted in the background murmuring things he hadn’t the mental capacity to make out. “Uncle Artham, I can’t just...it’s wrong to...I was never—”

“Shh,” Artham whispered soothingly. “I know. I knew you would refuse to drink the Water. That was evident from when we first talked about it. You mentioned healing Leeli and Anniera and Nia—though I don’t know if the Water can heal a broken heart, since it seems to work in the physical realm, not the spiritual—yet you left out the one most obviously in need of healing: yourself.”

“That’s because,” Janner felt himself floundering. “The Maker already healed me as much as He saw fit. I...I don’t want to usurp His decision.”

Artham smiled at him a little sadly. “I know. I didn’t pick this fruit because it is fed by the Water, though. I picked it because I saw it, because I thought it might strengthen you. I only saw the Well and the Water afterward. My heart did not tell me giving you the fruit was wrong. Did your heart ache when you received it?”

Janner shook his head. “No. It was warm. And perfect. Almost like—” he craned his neck and looked up at the sky, glowing millions of majestic shades. “Almost like the way the Maker’s World felt.”

“Then finish eating it,” Artham said quietly. “I doubt it will fully restore you, but maybe you’ll at least be able to make it back to the original camp tomorrow. Nia refuses to leave tonight.”

Janner glanced over at his mother, sitting silently with Leeli near her, Sara a bit further away (by her own choice, he guessed) and Oskar, his mouth gaping open taking in the wonder of the clearing, unable to write. “I don’t blame her,” he whispered. “But I don’t think worry is the only reason.”

“Oh?” Artham looked at him, curious.

Smiling, Janner stood with much more ease than he had in the past day, even though his frailty had not left and likely never would, at least not fully. “She’s at peace, for a little while,” he said softly. “I can’t bear the thought of taking that away from her.”

Chapter Text

Heal My land , had sounded in Janner’s dreams over and over again, to the point at which when his eyes opened and the vibrantly beautiful day met him, the words still echoed, a soothing, reassuring echo that told him their journey was founded not on whim but a command.

“If no one minds, our priority needs to be filling enough canteens with Water so we can bring life back to the actual land of Anniera,” he began when they were about half-way through a fairly quiet breakfast. 

“We don’t mind,” Nia said softly. “But thank you for the consideration.”

“There’s a good chance we’d need the entire Well for that, my dear boy,” Oskar pointed out, adjusting his spectacles. “And as Yiddon Mason once said, ‘that, I believe, is a bit too heavy. And cumbersome. And all-around impossible.’ The context was Yiddon’s answer to a few customers who wanted a mountain moved so they could see the sea from their back porch, and Yiddon was a stonemason.”

“Remember, Mister Reteep,” Leeli piped up, and Janner saw Sara lean in a bit closer, reminding him that she actually had yet to see the Water from the First Well working in any capacity. “It’ll only take a drop or two per thing we need to make alive. We might only need two canteens of it.”

Sara looked at her incredulously. “Wait, really?! That’s all you need?”

Leeli nodded. “And if you use too much, things get big. Like my dog, Nugget.”

“Or Oood the troll,” Janner noted, but his words were lost in Leeli’s rapid-fire version of what had happened to Nugget less than a year before. It was odd thinking of how grieved Leeli was when Nugget first died saving them compared to the pure joy and love with which she spoke of him now. Even odder was the thought that eventually they would remember Kalmar in the same way. Janner winced inwardly at notion. That way would be long in coming, if it ever came. General logic stated they would eventually, but current circumstances spoke otherwise. He wondered which one he should believe.

“Back to the point,” Artham interrupted, laughter in his voice. “Janner, what are we doing after that?”

Quickly slipping a smile onto his face, Janner turned around and glanced at the Well, sitting innocently among verdant bushes and trees. “You’ll see.”

They did indeed. After Artham, Janner, and Leeli had carefully filled and corked three canteens full of the First Well Water—they felt heavenly to the touch—came the second priority, the one Janner was most excited about.

After the Maker had told him again and again to heal Anniera, he had asked a question dear to his heart: “may we heal Leeli as well?”

The Maker had said, yes .

“Leeli, come here,” he said, beckoning her toward him and away from where she gone to stand with Sara and Nia again.

She cocked her head, puzzled, but limped forward anyway. “What is it?”

“The Maker said we can heal your leg, if you want it,” Janner told her softly, realizing as uncertainty flickered onto her face that her limp had connected her to Podo in a way she held dear. He had crafted her crutch by hand. Now he was gone. Would she be willing to accept healing and sever a physical bond such as that?

After a minute of careful thought, she looked up at him and nodded, tears in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “And thank you. That was a ‘thank you’ for both you and the Maker, by the way.”

Janner laughed, and after Leeli had sat down on a rock and rolled the legging on her twisted, right leg up, Artham knelt and dipped his hand into the Well Water, then held it over her knee as one, two sparkling diamonds fell. The drops seemed suspended in the air for a moment and they turned every which way, glistening, shimmering, holding everyone’s undivided attention.

The Water landed, the drops trickling down and around, criss-crossing Leeli’s entire leg below the knee in a most intricate fashion, as if they had minds of their own and wove a wondrous tapestry.

Janner tore his gaze away from the droplets and focused instead on Leeli’s face, the very sight flooding his entire body with love and warmth. On her face was written an image of pure astonishment, in her eyes danced joy and wonder, and her lips moved, as if ready to burst out in song of gratitude and joy.

As if in slow motion, she stood, and everyone held their breaths, their eyes fixed on her, on her leg, on the Well, back to her. Leeli took a step and lurched. Everyone gasped and Nia nearly rushed forward to hold her steady, but then there was another step, still unsteady but less so than before, then another, and another, each one straighter and more confident than the last, until the steps turned into walking, the walking turned to running, the running to skipping, then dancing, then whooping and leaping into the air for joy.

Janner didn’t realize tears ran down his cheek until Artham cleared his throat, pulling him out of his reverie.

“Yes?”

“Did the Maker give you any other instructions?” Artham asked solemnly, the cork of the canteen in his hand still off.

Janner shook his head. “No, nothing else.” He glanced in Nia’s direction, an odd mixture of sadness and gratitude in his heart. He had asked the Maker if there was any way for Nia to be healed of her grief, and the only response was, it will come in time, My son. Her heart will not ache forever. I will heal her in time.

“You asked Him about Leeli’s leg specifically and nothing else?” Artham raised an eyebrow, suspicious but still in good humor.

“I asked for Mama, but He said it would come through time, not the Well.”

Artham stared at him. “And you didn’t ask for anything else? At all? You didn’t ask if you could drink any? Janner, this was a one-time opportunity! You know this Water we have in the canteens is going to Anniera. This…this is it.”

Janner simply smiled as he recalled the conversation.

I already know you won’t ask Me for healing for yourself. That is your choice. But why do you make this choice?

He had paused at that. Why did he truly make that choice? You’ve already given me the gift of life. How can I ask for anything more than that? Wouldn’t it be selfish?

Light laughter had answered him. Some might say that, and others might not. You have made your decision because of how your heart has convicted you, but you must know that either choice is good. Neither is wrong.

Janner was silent for several moments after that before finally answering, I still choose to remain as I am. This is how You and Kalmar restored me. 

He had felt a warmth enveloping him as he said the words, as if the Maker’s presence had embraced him. Very well. As you have chosen, so it shall be. Now that you have made your decision, I want you to know my desire for your life and legacy as you walk this path.

Janner had nodded, then waited. 

My son, Davion, was stripped of his right to the Throne by wicked men with selfish, hateful intent , the Maker had begun, and though Janner did not know the full story, he knew the words were true. It is My desire for you to rule as he might have, weary, broken, uncertain, so that both you and Aerwiar will know My Power flows through all who follow Me, and I make the weak strong .

“I know this is it. And that's alright,” he replied quietly as he looked out into the clearing where the rest of the party danced and ran and leapt, even Nia coaxed into joining them. She smiled in what Janner knew was a genuine smile, and though the light in her eyes had yet to fully return, he saw a glimmer. 

Perhaps the Water from the First Well had healed her some after all.

They began the trek back to the original camp not long later, now laden with three canteens full of precious Water and a number of winter cloaks. The former were strung together and carried by Leeli, while the rest of them wore cloaks that varied in weight and thickness based on the physical prowess of the wearer. This largely meant that Artham wore the thickest and heaviest while Janner, much to his chagrin, wore the thinnest and lightest. He protested briefly at the start of their three or four mile walk, saying that he could handle more, but Artham retorted saying, “We’ll allow you to handle more when you both feel and look like you can. As of this moment, only one of those is the case.”

Janner dropped it after that, figuring it wasn’t really worth arguing. Besides, he would probably manage to convince Leeli to let him carry the canteens of Water, considering how much she wanted to run ahead and run back to them, then run around them in circles and spin and cartwheel, all unhampered by a twisted leg.

He did succeed in that endeavor about twenty minutes into the walk. Five minutes after the transaction, Artham noticed and ruffled Janner’s hair in a teasing manner, to which Janner mock-glared up at him, ready to burst out laughing all the while.

The trip to the First Well had filled them all with lightness of heart, even Nia, who talked happily with both Sara and Oskar, the focus on everything ranging from libraries to gardening.

Yet even with all of it and the knowledge that he, too, felt such a wonderful thing, Janner’s heart and mind did not flutter with happiness as much as the rest of the family’s did. Something told him this moment was a fleeting thing, that while it was a step toward recovery, there would be many, many steps back, and perhaps not so many steps forward. 

Janner prayed the Maker would help them rejoice in both.

Chapter Text

Even though their pace was rather slow, Janner felt his strength waning by the time they reached the clearing where they had first set up camp. Still, it was not even comparable to the day before, when they had made their first stop (at his request) only twenty minutes into their hike. That plus not having a strong desire to lean against a tree for support was something he counted as a win.

But, of course, without pure exhaustion distracting him, Kalmar and grief and his worry about Nia and even Sara took over, leading his mind around in circles that tired him more than walking had. He couldn’t show it on his face, though, because then Nia would ask him about it and he would either have to tell her the truth and feel guilty because she grieved far more than he did, or he would have to lie and spend the rest of the evening being fussed over again. 

A misplayed, particularly-high note on Leeli’s whistleharp, followed by a fit of giggles, drew him out of his thoughts and somewhat aimless meandering enough to see Leeli and Sara together (perhaps he needn’t be so worried about her; she seemed as though she connected with their family well), Nia looking into the contents of her pack as if trying to decide on what she could make, and Artham and  Oskar discussing something likely book related by a rather large boulder he hadn’t noticed before.

Suddenly, something swept over him and he staggered for a moment, wondering where the gust of wind had come from, before he realized it was not wind that knocked him off-balance, it was a gust in his mind: one of a vision. His eyes closed, he listened closely, hoping beyond hope that he would hear something familiar, something, or, rather, someone more than anything. Sounds of nature, of perfection, of wonder entered his mind and then...and then he began seeing things. 

Janner’s eyes flew open, though it did not distort the image in his mind. He saw the Maker’s World in as much majesty as he could on Aerwiar: the forests, the flowers, the seas. What he did not see were people. No trace of Kalmar or Esben or Podo or Wendolyn or Rudric or Nugget, none of them. Janner’s heart sank. He had longed to hear them yet—

Then his heart lurched and his mind throbbed, and he pressed his palm against his forehead automatically. How could he think such a thing? If there was anyone in their family who should see Kal, it was Nia. Nia was the one who needed closure, not him. How selfish was he?

The music from the whistleharp and the Maker’s World skipped as if a dissonant note was plucked, and everything faded except for Janner’s throbbing mind and the re-discovered need to seek support from a tree. When he opened his eyes to find said tree, though, he saw Hulwen and walked toward her, though now the trip across the clearing seemed an arduous one.

Artham headed the same direction as well and was ready the moment Hulwen began speaking. Janner wasn’t. Though her voice was far quieter than Yurgen’s had ever been, any dragon’s voice resounding in one’s mind could be a painful process.

The party has yet to reach Ban Rona, she began gently in terms of the dragon spectrum of gentleness. I believe it would do them some good to have the Throne Warden, High King, and Song Maiden of Anniera serving as diplomats in terms of discussing everything with the Hollish.

Artham said something in response, but Janner didn’t hear it over the aching in his head. He only heard, Throne Warden, High King, and Song Maiden of Anniera, echoing in his mind again and again. Oh, the words were the same but the people were not! Why was Kalmar gone? Why couldn’t he be there? He was the King, Janner was his Throne Warden. That was the way it was, and that was the way it would always be. In his heart, Janner knew he would never be king. He was a Throne Warden, first and foremost. 

He felt Artham’s hand on his shoulder and heard the words, “Janner, what do you think about Hulwen’s suggestion?”

Janner nodded dumbly in response while eyeing the blades of grass at his feet. “Yeah, it sounds great. We’ll do that,” he murmured, unwilling to raise his voice anymore than that for fear someone would realize how much the thought of ruling bothered him, even though the Maker had given His approval.

Even though he stared at the ground, he knew Artham trained his gaze on him. Then his uncle knelt, looking straight into his eyes, forcing Janner to blink; he hadn’t realized his vision had blurred.

“Was it the the music and window, I guess you might call it?” Artham asked softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice immediately; I was listening a bit too hard, I suppose.”

Janner shook his head and winced at the movement. “It’s not just that…it’s everything. Hearing Hulwen hurts, too. No offense,” he added sheepishly.

There was a rumble from Hulwen’s throat that sounded almost like a purr, and she dipped her head as if to tell him she understood without actually saying anything that would pain him further. Janner smiled and whispered, “thank you” for her consideration.

“Well we need to get to Ban Rona,” Artham continued. “Preferably before all of the former Cloven show up there. I’m guessing Clout would prefer a warning. Hulwen said she would take multiple trips for us. If you, Leeli, and Sara go now, Oskar can go next, and Nia and I can follow on the last trip.”

“In the words of Plog Dray,” Oskar spoke up. “‘No, my good fellow. You go second, and I’ll wait for third.’ You and Nia may be needed, far more than I will, at least in terms of diplomacy.”

Nia looked at him, aghast. “Oskar, you can’t stay out in the Blackwood alone for hours. You might get eaten by some wild animal!”

Oskar shook his head. “No, and I’m putting my foot down. You five need to be in Ban Rona more than I do.”

They realized it was useless to argue with him and dropped the subject. If Janner’s head hadn’t ached so much as Artham helped him and Leeli and Sara onto Hulwen’s back, he likely would have protested. The thought did not even occur to him, though, and they were soaring through the chilly, evening air on Hulwen before he noticed an extra cloak fastened around his shoulders that he was very grateful for in the end.

He did his best to stay awake as his mind grew more and more distant from reality, and even so nearly drifted off to sleep a few times. By the time they reached the Field of Finnley, where Hulwen alighted and let them slip off her back, their “goodbyes” and cries of “thank you” were nearly lost to his tired mind, though he did manage to think that it was disappointing that his first dragon ride was clouded by exhaustion.

Sara’s question of, “So now we just wait?” gave him enough motivation to rouse himself to a point of awareness.

“I don’t exactly know,” he replied uncertainly. “I mean…how long did the flight take?”

Leeli glanced at him quizzically. “You don’t know?”

Janner chuckled sheepishly. “I wavered between half-asleep and half-awake the entire time, so not really.”

“I don’t think it was much more than half an hour,” Sara mused, looking off into the distance as if trying to see Hulwen. “So your mother and Artham shouldn’t be more than an hour. What can we do in an hour?”

Shaking his head, Janner resisted the urge to sink onto the ground. The final battle of the war had been fought there, and he had suspicions as to whether the once-grass (now dirt) ground was fully cleaned from the massacre that had taken place. “I don’t know if we can do much. It’s too far to walk all the way to town, check and see if there’s a room in the inn, and come back.”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait,” Leeli sighed. “I would play my whistleharp but it seems too somber a place for something filled with joy.”

Sara shifted her gaze between both of them. “Wait, what happened here?”

Janner wanted to at least smile bitterly, but he didn’t even manage that. “The final battle of the war was fought here. Too many casualties, too many lives lost.” And now Kalmar was one of those lives, gone like the morning mist. Only unlike the morning mist, he would never come back.

An uneasy look settled in Sara’s eyes as soon as she heard they were standing somewhere that had been a war zone a little over a week earlier. “Maybe we can at least move to somewhere else?”

Leeli shook her head. “The battle was fought all over.”

Sara wasn’t done. “But grass means less trampling, and less trampling means less fighting, while more dirt means more trampling, and more trampling means more fighting, right? We’re standing on dirt right now...so can we go and stand in that grass over there?”

Glancing in the direction she pointed, Janner shrugged. “Sure, why not?” A few rocks that looked as though they would make good seats were in the area as well, and sitting down would be nice. 

As soon as they walked over though, he made sure to offer to Sara and Leeli first. Chivalry was not dead and would not die if he had anything to say about it. At first both girls said they were fine, but once Sara remembered that by chivalry’s code, Janner couldn’t sit until both of them did, she coaxed Leeli into listening, winking at Janner as soon as they were both seated comfortably on rocks.

Only the two were actually worth sitting on, so Janner opted for the grass next to one of the rocks, which ended up being more comfortable anyway. The side of the rock was far softer and more comfortable than he had expected, so comfortable in fact that he felt his eyelids drooping and no matter what he did, whether it was pinching himself or yawning or pulling up blades of grass or trying to listen to Sara and Leeli’s murmuring conversation, sleep took over his mind with ease.

The next thing Janner knew, someone whispered his name and clutched his shoulder as if trying to wake him. Opening his eyes groggily, he blinked the someone into focus. It turned out to be Artham, crouching next to him. 

“Uncle Artham?” he asked sleepily. “What is it?”

“Hulwen got a bit of help from one of the other dragons, so your mother, Oskar, and I were able to come on the same trip. Do you think you can walk all the way to the Orchard Inn? Leeli said the room all of you stayed in before might still be available.”

Janner closed his eyes briefly before nodding. “Yeah, I can.”

He felt himself lifted to his feet a moment later, and soon he was walking (stumbling) with the rest of the family, Artham supporting him. Though his mind grew a bit more alert as they trudged onward, Janner knew his thoughts drifted and bordered on dreams more often than not, and his tired...everything never would have been able to get him anywhere on his own.

The urge to fall to the ground and curl up in sleep grew stronger as his energy waned, to the point at which one time, after drifting back into reality, he heard Nia murmur, “Artham, he’s asleep on his feet. Just...just carry him.”

Insisting against that certainly occurred to Janner, but by the time he worked out the words to do so (his...word creator wasn’t creating coherent thoughts correctly) the sensation of being picked up and carried like a child—not an infant, nor a deadweight, but a child—came over him, as did a wave of peace. Artham’s gentle murmur, “sleep now, it won’t hurt anything,” and the soft cloth rubbing against his cold face were the last two things he remembered before drifting into welcomed rest.

Wakefulness tip-toed in again at the sound of creaking wood, likely floorboards, painfully loud and seeming though they echoed forever. Janner thought he heard Nia whisper, “it's a miracle no one is staying here yet,” at the same time as the security of Artham's arms left him. 

More murmurs followed, some hushed as well, but he couldn't properly place any of it, not really. Oh, but he heard the whisper in his ear, quiet but not breathy, saying, “goodnight, Janner,” and he couldn't help but smile as sleep took over him again. 

Sara.

When he woke the next morning, sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the familiar room of the Orchard Inn, one of the only two left somewhat undestroyed. They had stayed there, all of them, after Davion’s death, and the memory of it nearly brought tears to Janner's eyes. They had talked of rebuilding Chimney Hill, and Kal had told them all that another home awaited them. 

How cruel it seemed that the only one determined enough to speak up about Anniera would never live there, would never rule there as he deserved.

 Janner supposed it wasn't truly cruel, though. Kal had made his choice. He had chosen to stay with their Papa. Many would live in Anniera now, and someone would still rule over them. Me, he thought dejectedly, his heart aching and quivering in uncertainty at the thought. How was he supposed to be King? He didn't know any better than Kalmar had and now…now it was thrust upon him. It seemed as though that was how it would always be in life, having responsibilities thrust on him that he hadn’t the slightest idea of how to fulfill properly. 

Maker, please help me see this as a blessing, he prayed silently, closing his eyes and feeling a tear roll down the side of his face anyway. I don't want this. I want to be a Throne Warden. I understand that, better, at least, than being a king. But...since it is Your Will, please give me the strength to fulfill this task.

“Oh, Janner, you're awake. How are you?” he heard Nia say pleasantly, and he subtly removed the evidence of the tears from his face before sitting up to prove that he was still alive.

“I'm okay,” he said, pinching himself underneath the thick cloak that served as his blanket in lieu of wincing and revealing how hard the movement of sitting had been. Nia didn't need to know that. It wasn't necessary. 

She smiled at him as brightly as was expected (more brightly, actually) before speaking again, busying herself around the half-broken room of the Inn as she did so. “Artham left at dawn to meet with the people and take over the dragons’ job of escorting so they can join the others. Oskar, Sara, and Leeli went about an hour ago after breakfast to find Clout or Olumphia or someone who knows of their whereabouts to give them a preview of who is about to arrive on Ban Rona’s doorstep.”

Janner started at Nia's recollection of the time at which the latter three had left. “You had breakfast over an hour ago? Why didn’t you wake me?”

Nia laughed lightly. “Janner, I saved some for you, if that's what you're worried about.”

Shaking his head in frustration, Janner thoughtlessly began. “No, I wasn't worried about that at all. I'm not—”  he stopped himself, his face and throat and eyes burning as he thought about what he had almost said. Kalmar. He had almost said, I'm not Kalmar. Of course it was true, but it hurt. He couldn't breathe or think or move or do anything. He just sat there, staring at the wall just beyond Nia.

After a few minutes he shook himself and blinked the world back into focus and saw Nia aimlessly dusting the windowless windowsill. Janner forced himself up from the floor, using the wall as support, and walked unsteadily over to her. “Mama, I'm sorry,” he said quietly, shame burning in his heart. His guilt only increased when her eyes turned to look at him, grieved and despairing. “I didn't...I wasn't...”

Nia gently placed her hand on his cheek. “Janner, it's alright,” she whispered thickly. She jerked a bit, and as if realizing a terrible mistake she had made cleared her throat and continued more briskly. “But there are some leftovers over there. It's cold porridge so I don't know how much you'll want it, but I don't want you passing out when we join Oskar, Leeli, and Sara, so you'd best have it now.”

Feeling dreadfully helpless, Janner watched as Nia walked toward the place he had slept, likely planning on folding up the cloak that lay crumpled there. How could he help her if she wouldn't let anyone in? And what were they supposed to say to Clout when he asked where Kalmar was?

Chapter Text

They walked down the ruined streets of Ban Rona in complete silence. Janner said nothing to NIa, nor she to him, except for the few times she told him to watch the bit of rubble in front of him he was about to trip over. Even so, he did stumble several times and once actually did manage to make contact with the ground. Nia caught his shoulder, though, so it lightened the impact.

Perhaps the oddest part of making their way to the loudest part of Ban Rona (which was presumably where Olumphia or Clout was, considering one of them would be in charge of any reconstruction), Janner couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable regarding the odd stares and glances and shaken heads directed at him. It dawned on him after a few minutes: there was a good chance that whatever had brought Oskar along on their journey had alerted others in Ban Rona as well. If any knew, they still thought he was dead.

They had no idea Kalmar had taken his place. 

Janner nearly opened his mouth to ask Nia about how much the Hollish knew about what had happened but thought better of it. Something seemed wrong about disturbing her silent reverie. He saw the way she looked out at the demolished town, that glint in her eyes, one of determination and love and grief and anger. She had grown up in Ban Rona. It had been sacked ten years earlier, and now she saw that same destruction again. Janner couldn’t imagine seeing Glipwood again after the Fangs nearly tore it to the ground.

No, he realized. I can imagine it. And I think I understand it all too well.

It wasn’t until they had nearly reached the clutter of noise and dust and building sounds that someone actually spoke to him.

“Janner Wingfeather?” a semi-familiar voice called to him from somewhere off to his left. Janner stopped and swung his head in that direction, not seeing anything. After about a minute, though, a boy around his age emerged from the ruins of a home.

“Is that really you?” he asked, coming closer. 

Janner grinned, the boy’s name suddenly appearing in his mind. “Yeah, Owen. It’s me.”

Now just a few feet away, Owen stared at him, his eyes flickering this way and that, as if assessing Janner. His hands were in his pockets, but his fingers still tapped against his legs in nervousness or excitement or confusion, Janner didn’t know.

“Wow,” he finally said, shaking his head “Those of us who heard all knew you were…well, that you died and that all of you were going to the Well, but we didn’t actually think you would find it, and then if you did find it, none of us thought it would work. But I guess it did, because you’re here and I saw your sister walking without her crutch just an hour or so ago.”

Janner did his best not to let his face fall as Owen spoke, and he tried ignoring the grief and sense of failure that throbbed in his heart. He considered raising his voice and yelling, “NO, the Water didn’t work! It didn’t do what we wanted it to. I’m only alive because my King melded with a bunch of Cloven and brought me back to life!”

He concentrated so much on those words, on that desperate admittance, that he nearly missed Owen’s, “Well, it’s great to see you! You’re probably busy and I need to work on the house...talk later, maybe?”

Janner felt his mouth smile and heard his voice say, “Sure, sounds great!”

Then they walked away in silence, a deeper, more grieved silence than before. It was almost enough to drive Janner mad.

He saw the way Clout’s brow furrowed when he and Nia finally found him speaking to Oskar, Leeli and Sara nowhere in sight. Janner instinctively drew his Durgan cloak around himself more, glad that hid at least part of his gauntness. He didn't mind it physically and he didn't mind being fussed over (yet). What he did mind was scrutiny, and Clout had always been the master of scrutiny.

“The Well Water truly worked, didn't it?” His (former?) guildmaster asked finally after staring at both he and Nia for quite a long time.

Janner bit his lip, unsure of what exactly to say. He had hoped Sara, Leeli, and Oskar would explain, since he had yet to find a decent way to explain the truth.

“Not really,” he finally said haltingly. “I mean, it healed Leeli's leg, but it was…um, it was Kalmar melding with the Cloven formerly trapped in the Deeps of Throg that saved them and...and me, I guess.”

Clout nodded, and Janner found himself unsurprised by the sadness and perhaps even genuine grief and compassion in his eyes. When he had first met Clout, seeing such a thing would have stunned him. But now? Now he knew how much his guildmaster loved his students fiercely, and the thought of one of them dying, even if it was a noble death, hurt.  “The brown-haired girl did tell me Kalmar was gone,” Clout said quietly. “I truly am sorry, Janner. More than sorry, but I'm not sure what other words to say. Nia, it just seems wrong for it to happen after—”

“Thank you, Rusand,” she interrupted him, unexpectedly using his first name (which Janner had never heard spoken aloud). “But it was the Maker's Will, and we shan't question it. Janner, why don't you give all the necessary details regarding the coming party while I go find Leeli and Sara.”

“Mama, but—” he began, but she was already gone, making her way through rubble and construction. Unable to keep himself from sighing, Janner looked at the ground, dejected, until he mustered the courage to explain about the Cloven whom he knew very little about, probably less than anyone in their group! Nia shouldn’t have had to deal with Clout’s scrutiny either, though, and it was clear she had been hurt by more than her own mind multiple times that day. He was willing to spare her from any more of that.

Janner felt Clout's strong hand clasping his shoulder and winced when the grasp proved tight enough to squeeze the bone uncomfortably. He hoped his former guildmaster would not notice.

Based on the flicker of concern in Clout’s eyes, it seemed as though he had. “What happened to you?” 

Sighing, Janner tried figuring out the least detailed method of explanation before speaking. “Nothing. I mean, when someone or something melds it takes all the life out of them or it. When I came back…it just didn't really change anything physically, just spiritually.”

Surveying him from gaunt limb to gaunt limb, Clout finally nodded. “I still don't understand all this mess with melding and the Stones, but it grieves me this has befallen you.”

The words, after you worked so hard, hung in the air, and Janner gave him a light smile. It made sense that Clout of all people would point something of that specific degree out. He had worked hard in Durgan Guild. It had been grueling, and after the first bit of time, he had loved nearly every second of it. All that was gone, now, all of his evidence of effort, at least, but he had a new trial, a new chapter to work through now: acceptance. “It's alright,” he said, still smiling. “I can manage it.

“But onto the reason we're really here,” he stated, switching the subject abruptly. “Kal redeemed many Cloven who were trapped in Throg, and they're people now. Artham us with them right now, and they're still making the trek here. Like all people now in Anniera, we're offering them the chance to return to Skree or Anniera or, if it's alright with you—”

“Live in the Hollows,” Clout finished for him, stroking his beard as if deep in thought. “Now that is an idea. Our numbers have finally stopped dropping (we hope) but they're low. We’ll be having a ridgerunner problem soon enough, I'll wager.”

“I know they're not trained Hollish warriors,” Janner added, just to be sure those details were not missed. “So I don't know how well they'll assimilate.”

Clout nodded in acknowledgement. “In normal circumstances I would be concerned and opposed, as would most of the Hollowsfolk. For that matter, many of them likely will still be opposed. But our numbers are at a dire state, even worse, somehow, than when the Fangs came through almost ten years ago. Come on.” 

He began walking away quickly, and Janner picked up his pace, nearly jogging to keep up. He had a feeling he would have regrets later, but he couldn't do much about it in the moment.

“A meeting in the Great Hall is what this calls for, but the purpose of it is really to gather together. We can just have it in the middle of the town, since almost everyone is working on rebuilding things there anyway,” Clout explained, walking even quicker as he spoke.

Janner was breathless by that point and his legs burned, but Clout was the last person he would admit something like that around.

Thankfully the center of noise and rebuilding was close, and when they reached it, the clouds of dust billowing up from it sent him into a coughing fit that hid what would have otherwise been painfully obvious gasping.

“People of the Hollows!” Clout roared over the cacophony, easily getting everyone's attention and immediately ceasing all sounds of building. “Janner Wingfeather, King of Anniera, and I have a proposition for you.”

Janner's heart sank. Though he supposed the declaration may have been necessary to some extent, it wasn’t as though he had been crowned. Not even the Annierans knew yet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nia, Sara, Leeli, and Oskar all standing together and couldn’t help but feel a little bit betrayed. He had hoped they wouldn't tell anyone.

Chapter Text

For a brief few seconds, Janner puzzled over why Clout had not mentioned that someone had told him about the new and very uncomfortable monarchy arrangement. They had spoken as normally as was possible considering the circumstances, and there had been less awkwardness than he had expected. Though, he supposed that may have been Clout’s reasoning: he had wanted to give him a break. Janner smiled inwardly at the thought, even though he practically grimaced outwardly. Perhaps Clout’s silent encouragement during their one-on-one exchange would be enough to mentally get him through the agonizing, inevitable address to the Hollowsfolk who now stared at him.

During those few seconds, no one spoke, and it took it to mean the unfortunate news that he was expected to speak first. “Many cloven were still trapped in the Deeps of Throg,” he began. “King Kalmar healed them, though, and they're people now. They are making their way here as we speak and will need somewhere to go. Would you consider allowing them to live in Ban Rona, building homes and lives?” He purposely left off any mention of the former-cloven “becoming” Hollish, since who knew what exactly would bend someone’s nose out of joint.

Perhaps because he chose not to say those specific words, a murmur of approval ran through the crowd of burly men, women, and children, though most of the individuals present were young, as many had been killed in the fighting. 

“Now, what’s most important is that we all agree on this,” Clout inputted, his voice immediately booming somehow. “The last thing I want to deal with are later rivalries sprung from dissatisfaction with the original idea. So if you have any complaints, we’ll work through them now.”

The next chunk of time was spent listening to concerns regarding the idea. Many of them were repeats like, “will there be enough resources for all of us?” or “do we have to treat them like real Hollish?” Some of those questions were easier to unravel than others and some were much harder, creating confusion. There may have been one or two brawls, and there were a good deal of shouting matches. Janner felt his legs searing in exhaustion not long into the question and answer session, and seeing as how Clout both managed nearly every question on his own (or with Olumphia’s assistance if the question was one fitting her department better) and told him to take a break if it was needed, ended up joining Nia, Leeli, Sara, and Oskar, where they stood, danced while playing music, sat, and wrote respectively. 

Janner lowered himself to the ground beside Sara and sighed, looking out at the Hollish and the ruined and barely-reconstructed town. Leeli's whistleharp sand a sombre tune, mimicking not the joy of rebuilding but the grief the war had caused. It seemed fitting.

Sara looked as though she was about to speak, but Oskar muttered something loud even to sound as though he wanted to say something. "Yes, Mister Reteep?" Janner asked politely, feeling a bit guilty about somewhat indirectly cutting Sara off.

"As many writers like Redin Hunt have said, 'I'm sorry, did I say something? I may just have been thinking aloud.'" Oskar winked at him. "Just working on this, my boy. I look forward to continuing it in my study later this evening. Oh, you should expect a few callings from me over the next few days if it's at all physically possible. I may in information from you."

Janner smiled. "Sure, Mister Reteep. Anything you need."

Silence other than the whistleharp's mournful melody and the far-off haggling of Hollishfolk filled the air for a few minutes before Sara said something Janner guessed was akin to her intended words from a few minutes earlier. “Was it that bad?” she asked quietly. "In terms of getting tired, I mean. You sighed pretty heavily when you sat down."

When Janner looked at her, he saw concern in her eyes and decided to respond truthfully(ish) rather than twirling around the real issue. “No, not really. Guildma— well, Keeper Clout’s stride and pace are a lot faster than I remember. Keeping up with him while we walked over here was…interesting.”

Sara shook her head disapprovingly. “Look, I know your mother and Artham are already hovering (for perfectly reasonable reasons, of course!) and you don’t really need someone else telling you not to accidentally kill yourself, but please be careful.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Janner saw Nia glancing at them. He wasn't sure what she was thinking but guessed it was in agreement with Sara's statement. Focusing his attention on her again, Janner flushed in embarrassment when he realized the worry and perhaps even fear in her face was genuine. She was truly concerned. “Sorry,” he mumbled, looking down at his intertwined hands. “I’ll…I’ll do my best.”

There was silence for a few minutes before Sara began speaking again. “I wasn’t trying to sound like I was scolding,” she said apologetically. “I just…I was in the Fork! Factory! alone for so long, and then you came and gave me hope. Then you were gone again, and the hope stayed. I…I sort of clung to the idea of you for months, I guess. You have no idea how much I wanted to see you,” she whispered, her cheeks now turning a lovely shade of pink and her diamond eyes transforming into sparkles of sea. “Then we were sailing to Anniera and I was going to see you. When we got here, you were gone and that was hard. You’re back now and…I just can’t lose you again.”

There was a tenderness in her words, one that made Janner’s heart flutter and his entire body feel warm even though it had been bordering on cold before. He grappled for the words he needed to respond to her, because what she had said desperately needed a response. “I dreamt about you a lot,” he said softly, and he wanted to say other things more than anything else in all of Aerwiar, but then other thoughts invaded his mind. Thoughts about how it was wrong to even think about caring for Sara the way he wanted to when Kalmar was gone. Was there no mourning period? They had not even had a funeral for Kal, and he was focused on confessing his feelings to Sara?

His cheeks felt as though they were on fire, ashamed embarrassment coursing through his mind and body. He stood quickly and swayed a bit, feeling his mind go cold and his ears ring. There was a flutter of movement on the edge of his vision; it was likely Nia, standing in concern. “I’m…I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, turning to look at Sara, hoping his grief was truly written on his face and that she would understand it was his guilty conscience that would not let him rest or find pleasure in anything. “I want…but everything says no…and—” he bit his lip in frustration and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, all his hopes deflating on seeing the look of confusion and a touch of hurt on Sara’s face. He began walking away quickly, ignoring anyone who called for him to stop, unsure of where exactly his feet were taking him.

They took him winding through broken alleys, nearly climbing over rubble, holding onto unsteady walls for support, sinking to the ground when he could walk no further, clinging to a walking-stick looking something or other for support as he made his way to his subconsciously determined destination: the Field of Finnley.

Janner fell to his knees when his legs gave way, mouth gaping open at the sight of so many people making their way towards the very ground on which he knelt. Though he could not make him out, as the crowd was still too far away to pinpoint individuals, he knew Artham walked at the head of the group, leading them the right way. 

Uncle Artham has done so much in the past two days, Janner realized. He’s led us through the Blackwood, he’s made sure we all stayed alive, he’s done whatever was asked of him, he’s even led the people to the Field of Finnley, at least as much as he was able.

He would make an amazing King.

Janner’s heart sank at those words. Not because he doubted them, but because he knew how true they were. Artham would be an excellent High King, far better than he. Artham knew what he was doing, he knew how to be a diplomat, he knew how to place others first, and he knew how to lead. 

Oh, Kal, he cried out, grief and a hint of anger in his words. Why would you task me with this? I can’t lead Anniera! I could barely even protect you; as it was, half the time I failed. I was a terrible Throne Warden and never could have been a Throne Warden for all of Anniera: what in your right mind made you think I could be King?

He heard no answer but the blowing of wind through the meadow grasses. Janner was a bit disappointed; he hadn’t expected to hear any response from Kalmar, but one from the Maker would have been encouraging. An even stiffer silence seemed to fill the field, the grief in his heart and mind growing tenfold, taking over him and making him wonder if there was really even a point.

Shaking legs raised him up of their own accord; it was not his doing. They knew better than he that it was necessary to meet Artham and the people and began carrying him forward slow step by slow step. He felt detached from reality and his body, as if he was simply watching events play out in another person’s life, seeing someone else’s uncle run toward them and catch them before they fell, feeling numerous people crowding around, nearly suffocating the two now on the ground with their closeness, hearing another’s gasps that were a substitute for barely held back tears of grief and shame. He saw the boy who had fallen walking, mostly supported by his uncle as they made their way to the ruined town of Ban Rona, and he couldn’t help but wonder when a semblance of order would come over everything.

It seemed as though it never would, as if everything kept spinning out of control, neither caring about nor seeing the destruction it left in its wake. He just wanted everything as it was before. 

Before when? something inside him whispered. Before his melding? Before blindplopping? Before Ban Rona? Before Peet? Before Glipwood? 

There was no way back. There was no time in his life completely filled with peace, completely free of anxiety and frustration and, at times, anger. If what he sought was perfection, it did not exist. It never had existed. 

As they made their slow way toward the streets of Ban Rona, Janner couldn’t help but think about how that made him feel more hopeless than ever.

Chapter Text

They left for Anniera that day, the new citizens of Ban Rona settled as well as could be hoped in a ruined town, eager—and already beginning—to work on rebuilding and contributing to society. A few when given the option did ask for passage to Skree, but all who requested it did so for the families they had left behind and hoped to see again. The Wingfeathers promised to send a ship their way within the next few days, one of the ships from the Fang fleet still anchored in one of the Annieran harbors. 

Janner couldn't help but think that depending on how many of the people in Anniera chose to either go to Skree or even live in the Hollows, they might need to send more than one ship. He was too tired to bother noting that verbally, though, and chose to leave the thought unspoken. If need be, he could express it later. 

As it was, though, he noted as the wind blew in his face and hair, freezing the former and crazing the latter, they were heading for Anniera now. Leeli had ended up playing her whistleharp out of boredom and accidentally called Hulwen, which in the end worked in their favor. They needed to leave anyway and promptly did so, saying a temporary goodbye to Oskar, Clout, and Olumphia and accepting people’s condolences as best they could. It was hard to do so without wanting to keep again, though, and multiple times during the process, Janner found himself not so tired that he was incapable of crying.

The memory brought tears to his eyes, reminding him that soon there would be more people, more questions to answer, more announcements. 

He winced inwardly. He hated that they had to go through the pain of constantly speaking of Kal's death diplomatically and adding in his appointment as King like it was a bonus or something positive. It wasn't positive at all, that was the truth! It was wrong, so very, very wrong. It was not as it had been for epochs. The oldest was meant to be Throne Warden, to serve his younger brother or sister and Anniera, to protect, to uphold nobleness and integrity for as long as they lived. The oldest was never meant to be King. It went against tradition, against conscience, against…did it go against the Maker?

Janner felt himself briefly slipping back into reality, long enough to know that he sat in front of Artham and was held close and secure, even as the powerful winds buffeted him and made him feel as though they would carry him away at a moment’s notice. 

But back to the concerns over Throne Wardens and Kings, he reminded himself.

Did Kal’s choice, that of choosing him as the successor, go against something the Maker had set in place? Was the Maker the one who chose that the older would serve the younger after the disaster with Ouster Will, or was it another’s choice, the choice of man? Either way, the Maker had not rebuked Kalmar’s choice; He had even gone so far as to nearly approve it. Janner had heard Him speak, had responded, requested, received answers. Why, then, did he find believing it so impossible.

Maker, help me, he cried out in his heart. All he could do was pray when his heart ached, trust when he seemed impossible, believe when all was hopeless. They were known facts residing in his mind, so very well-known in times of peace. In times of grief, though, they seemed as though the truth in them teetered on a thread.

Shaking his head a bit, though not so much that Artham would ask him what was wrong, Janner looked past the blue dragon’s great, majestic head and saw in the distance a mass of land, great cliffs, though not so great as those in Glipwood, rising up on one side, covered on top by a hint of lovely greens and whites and other colors that confused him. He cocked his head and without turning around asked, “That's not Anniera, is it?”

The last he had seen of Anniera had been a charred and blackened land, its wounds from the nine long years of burning numbed by the glorious flowers from the previous night’s rainstorm. Now, though, not only did the land glow with millions of shades of flowers but lush greens of beauty and vibrancy covered every swooping stretch of land visible. Seemingly overnight, grass had grown across the entire Isle, joining with the new life of the redeemed Cloven and Fangs. 

“Indeed it is,” Artham replied grandly, and without looking, Janner knew his uncle smiled with delight. “She’s not quite like she was before Gnag came but in time I know we can rebuild. Perhaps not quite to the height of before, but with everyone there'll soon be homes and villages, and the rise of Rysentown and Lorryshire and the other great cities,” nostalgia crept into his voice, and when Janner finally did turn his head, Artham's eyes stared off into the distance, dwelling in memories.

Smiling, he focused his attention on Anniera once more, marveling at the land and her people. They had never really counted the number of those who came for healing initially, but he realized with a sudden pang that not all the Fangs had come for healing—about half had stayed behind, scattering into the Blackwood or the far reaches of Dang. It was a miracle they had not been attacked while looking for the Well, or even before, when Kal and Artham had worked with the other plan. 

By the second, Janner became more and more astonished and baffled by the situation as a whole. In truth, he and Kalmar were the only ones in their family who had known about all the Fangs left behind, yet he had just remembered seconds before and it had likely slipped the latter’s mind and somehow not ended in more death.

Yet even so, he thought, his heart aching and sending a shiver of weariness through his entire body. It still did end in some death. His death. It shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t have died. I should have done something. I'm his Throne Warden. How could I have failed Kal so horrifically?

Janner felt tears gathering in his eyes again, but too weak to withstand the wind from the dragon’s wings, they streaked across the side of his face, damping his hair, instead of rolling down his cheeks. He was thankful for it, even more thankful that any residue dried almost immediately. No one needed to know he had cried. His tears didn't matter. They...they didn't mean what Nia’s or Leeli’s tears did. Their tears were ones of grief and sorrow. His contained a tinge of that, but they were selfish. 

“Coming in for landing!” Artham called out, more for Nia, Sara, and Leeli’s benefits than anything else. Janner felt a shift in the blue dragon’s form, and then a fast downward spiral began, one that sent his innards churning as only the rocking of the Enramere had during a storm.

Rather than focusing on his personal dis—

Janner felt his mind shift, as if it had zipped away for a moment before coming back again. He realized first that there had been a brief second of soundlessness, then that Artham’s grip around him had tightened. It seemed as though he had a memory of someone whispering, “slower,” but couldn't be certain.

“Sorry,” Artham murmured in his ear. “That was too fast. Are you alright?”

Nodding, Janner chose to respond with, “yes,” even though a pounding headache had manifested. That wasn't important though. Pushing past it, he worked to focus on Artham. Something was different about him. A levity in his tone and posture had come when they came within the close vicinity of Anniera. Janner wracked his mind for anything that would change Artham’s countenance so drastically, and a smile crossed his face when it dawned on him.

Arundelle.

If one Cloven had been healed, they had all been. If Artham had arrived in Anniera after his death, he would have seen Arundelle. They would have reunited, only to separate yet again for a venture of grief. Now, though, they were free to spend time with each other, to love, to marry, even, if they wished.

At least one thing will be right in the world, he thought as the dragons landed on the Isle, allowing them the chance to slip off before the first fragments of the close crowd came closer.

“Please go find Arundelle,” Janner whispered as Artham helped him down from the blue dragon’s back. “You should. You've been waiting for so long—”

“And abandon my King when he’s about to be swarmed by people and still in danger of collapsing?” Artham raised an eyebrow. “I don't think so.”

Janner sighed, choosing not to argue that he was pretty sure he was capable of keeping himself standing upright and walking on his own. Part of the reason he chose not to argue was because the first portion of Artham’s statement left him so speechless he could not reply. “Alright,” he said quietly, looking at the ground to avoid the prying eyes of not just the Annierans, but those of his family. “You'll see her afterward though, right?”

“Of course,” Artham murmured absentmindedly, squeezing his shoulder to provide reassurance. “Now do you want to explain to them, or should I?”

Janner felt himself flinch at the question, and he shivered next, more because of the gust of wind that swept toward him when the dragons left than anything else. “You can,” he replied quietly as he looked out at the crowd gathered around them, murmuring expectantly. “It seems right.”

It was terribly awkward waiting for Artham to explain everything to the crowd before them, more so since after the first few seconds in which Janner stared intently at the ground, Nia told him to look up at his people.

He did so, grief taking away his breath at the thought. The Annierans…they should have been Kal’s people. Not his. And if all had to exist at its worst, they should have been Leeli’s. The information Artham relayed, the news about the monarchy: Leeli should have been the subject. Leeli was the second oldest of them now, after all. Leeli was the one with the most right to the Throne. Leeli was the one who at least knew how to make decent decisions without rashness or slowness thrown into the mix. She was the perfect monarch. 

Maybe there’s still a chance that we can switch it before Uncle Artham says anything, Janner thought hopefully, his mind barely aware of the words Artham said. He wasn’t paying attention to them. He couldn’t. He knew if he listened to the way Kalmar had died, he would begin crying in front of everyone, or at least coming close to it. That was the last thing he wanted to do.

Janner wished crying in front of others truly was the least of his worries.

“He appointed a different monarch in his place,” Artham said, the first full sentence Janner had actually bothered paying attention to. He supposed it was a good sentence to come in on: if he had any impromptu requirements, now was the time the prompt for them would be given. “King Kalmar named Janner Wingfeather, Throne Warden of Anniera as his successor.”

Confusion, uncertainty, and palpable doubt rippled through the crowd, churning Janner’s stomach with worry and fear. He saw their faces, a patchwork mix of grief, distrust, acceptance, and even anger. A shudder of exhaustion ran through his body and suddenly his mind raced: he was alone, no one else was there, everyone had left him, an angry crowd stared him down, blaming him for something that certainly was his fault, and he just didn’t know what to do. He felt as though a noose had tightened around his neck, drawing him away from air and reality and kingship and Sara—

Janner’s heart fluttered, and air slipped into his lungs again. A blink, then another, were all it took for him to realize that no one had seen his panic, and in the middle of it, the crowd had bowed low to the ground.

Embarrassment flooded through him and he shook himself, glancing around frantically for Artham. He needed to fix what was happening. He found him after a moment’s search, off to the side, down on one knee.

“Uncle Artham,” he hissed. “How do I get them to stop?”

Artham raised his head and smiled a little. “Ask them,” he said simply.

Sighing, Janner pushed away his irritation, vowing to unleash it later on someone, but only when he had the energy to do that and continue functioning without help. He bit his lip, hating that although he knew every moment he hesitated to say anything was another moment in which everyone bowed, yet an increasing reluctance to say anything for fear of saying it wrong mounted by the second. 

Clenching his fists, Janner finally muttered, “Let’s just get it over with,” before clearing his throat and saying, “Thank you…you can stand again if you want to.” He felt a flush of color creeping into his cheeks; he had meant the words to sound like an invitation rather than a command, but they also sounded as though there was a chance he wanted everyone to continue bowing if they were comfortable with it.

The tightness in his chest did not dissipate, even when it was clear everyone had ignored the portion of his offer he feared he had implied. So much so, in fact, that it nearly distracted him from hearing Artham’s next words. “Though now you will all know him as King, I assure you, he is your Throne Warden also,” were the steady words of consideration that came from his uncle’s mouth. “It is in his blood, his mind, his heart always. He served the late king as Throne Warden, and now he will serve you as both Throne Warden and King.”

Tears of gratitude filled Janner’s eyes, even as he wasn’t quite certain of the reason for it. Artham had vocalized the weight he already bore upon his shoulders, yet somehow it relieved him rather than terrifying him. He was still Throne Warden. His instinct had not been stripped from him. He would protect the Throne until the next second-born could take the Throne, until a rightful ruling fell in place. 

Resolve coursed through his veins, and though he knew it would disappear soon, he held onto it for the brief moment it rested in his heart. 

“I will,” Janner whispered, his gaze drifting across the crowd of attentive, acceptant, uncertain people, over Sara, Nia, Leeli, and Artham, unsure, grieved, expectant, and compassionate. “I will.”

Chapter Text

“Who. Released. The. Prisoners.?” A menacing voice hissed, the usual honeyed sweetness gone.

Ilana twirled a strand of her honey colored hair, then brushed it against her cheek. Soft. A nervous tick. Dizzy flutterflies tumbled around in her stomach, making controlling her panicked breathing ten times more difficult.

The woman said the words again, yelling, growling, near-screamed this time. Ilana winced. Her hair twirled faster, stroked her cheek again, cool against the flush of terror burning there.

It would only be another few moments before she was found and then what? She had never angered her mother before; not in this way. Talking too much, fidgeting too much, asking too many questions: these had all frustrated her mother or grandmother or uncle more than she preferred. Meaning their frustration made her feel unsafe, in a way she really thought no child should feel. 

But this time…this time her mother was truly angry, boiling fury spewing from her voice and her…her eyes that now came into Ilana’s view. Her mother’s eyes peeked through the cracks of her hiding place (in the abandoned room with the half-rotted door), and the blazing hatred in them was palpable, sending her stomach spinning. 

Ilana swallowed nervously, worried she would retch, forcing the breakfast she had not eaten onto the floor. She supposed it was a good thing it wouldn't make much of a mess, but the sound of her throwing up would surely alert her mother to her location, and then all attempts at hiding would be pointless anyway.

Footsteps grew louder; her mother came closer, louder, breathing heavily in anger. Ilana squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to do nothing but disappear. She would be found in seconds, then those hatred-filled eyes would bore into her, burning her with all their might.

For a brief second, she stopped, wondering what had caused her to have such fear of her mother’s anger when she had never really experienced any sort of full wrath from her. A lump in her throat and memories flashed across her mind: her mother’s honeyed-kindness to some that could change to blistering, seething fury in a matter of moments. That was the cause of her fear. She knew what her mother was capable of, and the thought of her suffering the brunt of it was more than she was sure she could bear.

The door creaked and Ilana’s eyes flew open, showing her the turning knob—stuck, but only for a moment. Oh, if her mother couldn’t get it open with all the rattling of the knob in the next few moments, she would kick the door down, Ilana was sure. It was a rotted door, the wood soft and weak. 

The knob and lock finally gave way and the door lurched open, showing its age. Trembling, Ilana stared at her mother, her slender figure draped in dark cloaks that made her lovely in a terrible sort of way. 

“Child,” she whispered, her honeyed voice peppered with anger. “Did you release the prisoners?”

Ilana stared, her knees shaking, her stomach churning, her head spinning, her breath seizing, her eyes blurring, her ears ringing. “Yes,” she heard herself whisper weakly. Oh, why couldn’t she tell a lie?

“And just how did you do that?” Her mother’s words were clipped, angry, muffled by the cottoned-terror stuffed in Ilana’s mind.

“The keys,” she whispered as she clung to the wall behind her for support. “They work for every cell.”

Her mother came closer, eyeing her, some sort of horrible thought in her mind, Ilana was sure of it. “Who told you where the cells were, all of them? Some were hidden.”

There was something in her voice that told Ilana her next words could mean the life or death of someone or something, or maybe even herself. She knew what her mother, her grandmother, her uncle were all capable of! Killing and more; killing and far more. 

Swallowing, Ilana prayed she could lie to protect the trolls who had helped her, even though she was terrible at lying to protect herself. “I found as many as I could,” she murmured, looking down at the floor.

A hand seized her chin and jerked it upward. Her mother glared at her angrily. “Say it to my face,” she hissed. “And look me in the eyes.”

Ilana’s breath stopped in fear, and she gasped out, barely able to maintain eye contact, “I did it on my own.”

The hand left her face, then came back in the form of stinging fury across her cheek. Splinters dug into Ilana’s palms as she caught herself from slamming into the floor, and she held back a sob. 

This isn't normal, but it'll be alright, she thought, wincing as her mother’s slender, cold fingers dug into her shoulder and jerked her up from the floor, forcing her to walk wherever she was led. It’s so much worse for the other kids she hurts. With me…her anger doesn’t last forever, it never does. It’ll be over soon, and then it’ll be okay. 

“In there, you conniving brat!” Her mother spat, shoving her into the cell on the main level that had everything else, like the private dining area and the bedrooms and everything else making such a cold place habitable. 

Ilana fell on her knees this time, and by the time she had gotten up and rushed to the cell door to beg for mercy, her mother was gone, stalking away angrily, completely obvious to the tears wetting the stone floor of the cell. Falling to the floor and wrapping her arms around her knees to create some semblance of safety, she wept for what felt like forever. She wondered if what she had done had any worth, if the people and cloven had reached safety, if they had been recaptured, killed, tortured, imprisoned, if anyone else would suffer for her crimes against her family. 

She prayed they would not, that good would come of her actions. Ilana clung to that desperately as she fell asleep, dreaming of rescue and love and fathers, because of course fathers had to be wonderful, since she had never had one.

Pacing, Amrah surveyed her assets. Her mother was not one of them, nor was Gnag. They had both met their death, Gnag by the hateful hands of the Hollish and Jewels of Anniera, and her mother by the jaws of a Sea Dragon. Those curséd stones! At least she had benefited from the oldest Jewel’s death. Being a mutant crab for the rest of her life would not serve her well.

Back to her assets. She had herself. The child, if she played her hand right. She had no Murgah, no Gnag, no prisoners. She had some Fangs, but without any Stone they would eventually become wild and unpredictable, useless, unreliable, better off dead. 

Amrah wanted nothing more than to hurt the Wingfeathers. She smiled wickedly as she thought of the power she held over them. The only trouble was finding a way of letting them know of the fact. They had no idea of what she wielded above their heads. It was better than any Fang army, better than any Ancient Stone. It was a weapon that could destroy the core of their family so many times over, slaughtering trust, love, and life all at once. 

No, it was not a weapon that could annihilate all of Anniera or one that could bring the land under her control. Amrah had no desire to control the entire Isle or people, just a select few of them. She could bend and twist them to her will once more in an even more dastardly way. 

Why did she only want to destroy the Wingfeathers? Well, that was simple. They had hated Gnag. They had tossed him away like he was a piece of trash. The Jewels had hated him the moment they saw him and had brought about his death. They had destroyed his handiwork that had taken years of research in a simple blink a flash. It should not have been so reversible. Such transformation of the soul should have taken years to undo, but they had done it in seconds. What a lack of reverence, consideration, respect. 

Amrah hated those who could not find it in their pure hearts to respect Gnag. That was exactly why she would destroy them now. It would work. It had to work.

“To the Phoobs we go,” she laughed menacingly. “But I suppose a quick stop in Anniera may be necessary first. Or some semblance of it, at the very least.”

She couldn’t wait to see the pieces fall into place.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Their trip back to Castle Rysen was shaded and draining. It was not long before Janner felt himself leaning against Artham, and though it was not his preference, it was better than collapsing.

They nearly made it out of the forest and so close to Castle Rysen without having interaction with another human being, when an auburn-haired girl (about Kal’s age) seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

“Hello,” she said pleasantly. “I sort of got lost in here…I was walking through the meadow looking for flowers, and then this forest appeared out of nowhere! Do either of you know the way back to where everyone else is?”

“We're actually going that way right now,” Janner replied with a smile. Miraculously, it seemed as though this girl had no idea who he was. If at all physically possible, he wanted to keep it that way for at least a few minutes. 

Even though he knew he would regret it later, he moved away from Artham’s support and was very glad when his uncle did not protest in any way.

Any conversation had would be shallow, but Janner desperately wanted shallow, normal conversation that had nothing heartbreaking in it. “So,” he began. “What do you think of Anniera?” He heard Artham snort, as if to say, seriously? That's all you can come up with? but chose to ignore it. 

“Well, the land itself is beautiful,” she said quickly. “But the currently non-existent towns aren’t much to speak of. I'm sure they'll look amazing eventually, but as of right now, it's clear Castle Rysen was the crown jewel in its day, since it's the only thing still partially standing.”

Janner nodded. “I suppose some might have called it the crown jewel. The people, though, were the true jewels in the crown, and the Maker’s love and will the gold of it.” He could feel the strain the extra breath needed to speak had put on his already tired body and took note so it (hopefully) wouldn't happen again.

The girl stared at him, her mouth parted in wonder. “Why, that's beautiful,” she murmured. 

“Indeed,” Artham muttered, a hint of what sounded like frustration in his tone. “I really need to find a pen and paper, because at the moment I want nothing more than to turn that metaphor into a poem.”

Janner cracked a smile at that and did his best to hold in a sigh of relief when he saw the trees thinning ahead, revealing openness that eventually led to the ad hoc Rysentown and the castle. 

“We're nearing the edge,” he said breathlessly, pointing ahead and hoping neither she nor Artham would see the way his arm shook. Then something would be said, likely his name, and the girl would know and then everything would be uncomfortable and she would feel terrible and awkward and so would he. That was not what he wanted.

“Oh, wonderful!” The girl exclaimed. “If you don't mind, I'll run ahead. My…well, the kind couple who took me in are probably expecting me so I should go. It was lovely meeting you! My name’s Galya, by the way!” She added as she ran off, skipping with delight.

As he fell back to lean against Artham again, Janner couldn't help but wish he could enjoy the same gaiety as she did. It seemed like such a wonderful thing. A wonderful thing that was completely out of reach and impossible to relish.

He wasn't hungry at lunch but forced himself to eat anyway, more for others’ sake than his own. Exhaustion had swept in full force, and Janner was too tired to do much other than focus on the food before him (cheesy chowder; Nia really was trying to get him to eat something).

That was the reason why he was stunned and frankly horrified when he tuned into the conversation at Artham's  words, “Don't forget the coronation.”

The words had made his blood run cold. Janner had read enough novels about royalty that he knew exactly what his uncle spoke of. Crowning him. As King of Anniera. It wasn't right. He wasn't right.

“Wait,” he forced his frantic mind to squeeze out of his mouth into some semblance of something that made sense. “Didn’t we already do that? Just the other day?”

Artham looked at him sheepishly. “Well…yes and no. We made the people aware you are King and you accepted that in front of them, but there is an actual ceremony that must take place. A passing of the throne, if you will. In this case, your mother will pass it on to you.”

“Of course, it’s not only passing on the Throne,” Arundelle added. “It’s a passing on of all the Jewels’ roles, that of Throne Warden, High King or Queen, and Song Master or Maiden.”

“But why do we have to do it?” Janner pressed, beginning to feel a bit frustrated. “Tradition” was not a good enough answer for him. “Uncle Artham, you’re already Throne Warden, there wasn’t a Song Maiden or Master before Leeli and I…I already agreed to do it.”

Nia eyed him seriously. “You, Leeli, and Artham have to do it because it has taken place during every transition of the crown in Annieran history. How else can we rebuild Anniera except by building on that which is tried and true?”

Janner felt his jaw clench and looked down at his hands pressed in his lap. He didn’t want to do it because he had already done it once. He didn’t want to do it because it was like usurping Kalmar again. He didn’t want to do it because he wasn’t even truly meant to be King, rather, Leeli was meant to be Queen. He didn’t want to do it because he was already suffocating. 

Artham cleared his throat and Janner glanced up. By the look in his uncle’s eyes, it appeared that an attempt at bringing levity to the situation was about to ensue. “Of course, it can’t really be as it always has been, since we seem to have misplaced the traditional scepter and the crown.”

Nia rolled her eyes while Arundelle and Sara cracked a smile. Janner did his best not to scowl. He wanted neither coronation nor crown, but crowning someone without actually having a crown? It was preposterous! Though, he mused. The benefit of it is that I can more easily tell myself it’s a stewardship rather than a kingship. 

Leeli’s eyes had grown wide when Artham mentioned the scepter. “Wait, so it's a real scepter? You weren't just being figurative?” she asked, turning to Arundelle who laughed and shook her head.

“I remember the last coronation,” Nia said softly, and when he looked at her, Janner saw that her eyes were lost in the past, in memory. “Esben was only thirteen at the time. It seemed cruel.”

Janner’s stomach clenched. He was only thirteen. And it did seem cruel.

“He had been groomed for it for years, of course,” Nia said, smiling as though she remembered something sweet or entertaining about said grooming. “It was hard for him at first, but he managed. Artham, you were more helpful than anyone else.”

As the conversation took a few turns down memory lane, Janner felt himself once again detaching from it as the borderline anger he had felt before changed to panic. Terrified acceptance kicked in. There was a ceremony. He would have to be part of it, and he would be in front of everyone. His Papa had done well as King, but his Papa hadn't had kingship thrust upon him when his brother died, nor had he spent the majority of his life living in a small town with next to no training.

Not to mention—

Horror washed over him at the thought that went through his mind and he heard ringing. He wasn't sure if conversation stopped because of him or if it was simply muted, but it really didn't matter. Shame and guilt and grief and terror rushed through him all at once, a raging river against the fragile rocks of his inner being. He was too tired to suffer their cruelty without help. 

“Janner, what's going on?” Sara’s voice whispered in his ear, sending a breath through his lungs.

“Nothing much. Just…” he bit his lip, trying to decide whether telling her was the best idea or not. “We need to have a funeral for Kal and my grandfather, and we can’t possibly do anything until we’ve done that—”

“You're right,” Nia graciously interrupted him, though Janner was the only one who knew it was gracious of her. “I’ve thought about it but…all the people. There would be so many.”

“We could do it down by the beach,” Leeli suggested, and it was only when Janner looked at her face that he saw the grief residing there. By the sound of her voice, no one would have thought anything was amiss. “Somewhere a lot of people or ships won't be.”

Arundelle spoke next, her eyes warm. “If all of you want to take tomorrow away from everyone else and just have some privacy, I can help with corralling people.”

“They’re people, not horses, Arun,” Janner thought he heard Artham whisper teasingly, making Arundelle blush. 

Sara sat up as straight as possible and quickly offered, “Miss Arundelle, I can help too.”

Janner wondered if she saw or sensed the disappointment flitting into his heart, because the next moment she whispered, “Janner, I’m sorry. But you and your family should have the time together, and I’m not really a part of your family.”

“Yes, you are,” Nia said fiercely (in a mothering-sort of way), overhearing. “Please don’t think you’re not. Sara, I would be honored for you to be there at our family gathering, and, Arundelle, I would love it if you were there as well. It’s not forced, of course. Do as you wish.” 

There was an awkward silence for several seconds before Sara finally said, “Thank you so much, Mrs. Wingfeather. I appreciate it, I really do. But helping Miss Arundelle seems prudent. May I be excused? I was hoping to visit my orphans sometime this afternoon.”

Nia nodded. “Of course, dear.”

Watching as she walked away, Janner couldn’t help but grieve the (brief) loss of her companionship. On remembering what he seemed to have to re-tell himself every hour, he mentally smacked himself in the forehead. That disappointment…it was because he wanted her to be there. He wanted her there because he cared for her in a way he had never cared for anyone else. If Kal was still there, still alive, then maybe it would be alright for him to care for her in that way. But Kal wasn’t there. He wasn’t alive. And Janner couldn’t care for Sara in that way, in a way that made him actually feel a little happy. 

So distraught was he over his repeated offense, Janner completely forgot to protest when Artham insisted on him lying down in their temporary home (i.e., the castle cellar) to rest, and by the time he had worked through it enough, he had already fallen asleep.

Chapter Text

It was dusk when the small funeral began on the beach. The overwhelming silence of grief was split only by the sound of wavelets lapping along the beach, mournfully, almost as if they, too, grieved. Palpable sorrow filled the air as they all waited for words to come. What could one say comfortably at a funeral for those whose bodies had already been taken? Not even a physical reminder stayed behind, only memories still flooded with despair.

Leeli felt words on the edge of her tongue, ones that wanted to escape, but the tightness in her throat tethered them, holding them back. “We'll never forget you,” she finally whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks as she did so. There was no use in wiping them away; she had kept so many tears, so much grief hidden, it deserved to come out now. She may have accepted the deaths of her beloved Grandfather and brother, but that did not take away the sting.

Nia's hand squeezed her shoulder and pulled her close, making it even harder for Leeli to hold back a full sob. Why was it that when invited to grieve, one did so willingly even though they did not want to? Through her tears, it was difficult to see Janner and Artham in the fading daylight, but by their blurry stance, they shared her sorrow. Of course they did. How could they not? They all shared the sorrow, yet refused to speak about it. Failure to speak did not heal hearts well.

The sound of footsteps behind her startled her a bit, and the sight Leeli saw when she turned around surprised her even more and sent other tears cascading down her face.

It was everyone, or at least looked like everyone in Anniera who had somehow managed to slip past Sara and Arundelle to attend Podo and Kalmar's funeral. Choosing not to care what anyone else thought, Leeli gave them a wobbly smile. Nia stepped away, quite possibly to try and do something She pinpointed Thorn first, and when he came close to her she whispered, “Thank you.” She suspected he had had something to do with their presence. No matter what she had said to the family, in truth, she felt as though both Podo and Kalmar deserved far more respect and recognition than a small funeral. Though she had said little to Thorn about the notion, she supposed there was a chance he had made an educated guess and acted upon it.

Thorn took her hand a bit awkwardly and looked her straight in the eyes. “I know ya wanted this,” he said softly. “An' Kal an’ your Grandfather are deservin’ of it.”

They stood that way for as long as the funeral lasted, the silence only occasionally broken by words of love and remembrance from Nia or Artham or even Arundelle, who had several sweet words to say about Podo. What broke Leeli’s heart the most while at the same time soothing it were Janner’s words of love for and memories about Kalmar, ones that made her want to weep and laugh all at once, somehow.

When she looked up at the dark night sky full of thousands upon thousands of twinkling stars, she couldn’t help but wonder what the Maker’s plan was in all of it, because as of that moment, it seemed only as though each person in her family had been torn to shreds beneath the surface and simply hid it well beneath a cloak of serenity.

That night, she slept soundly, the crutch Podo had made for her under her covers. When she awoke, her pillow was wet with tears.

“So what do you think about everything about Anniera? And I mean other than last night,” Leeli added, turning to Sara. Mornings on the Annieran beaches were lovely, they had discovered, and early was always the best time to find the prettiest shells. It was the morning after the funeral, and though it did seem wrong to snap right back into their regular schedule, not many other choices remained. Routine did seem as though it was the best distraction from raw grief, and Leeli didn't object to that.

Smiling a little too cheerily for it to be real, Sara nodded. “Well, then, it’s wonderful. Everything is wonderful. Your mother is wonderful, you’re wonderful, Anniera is wonderful, her people are wonderful, the way they all miraculously work together is wonderful—”

Leeli eyed her suspiciously. “You’ve used the word ‘wonderful’ way too many times. What’s wrong? And don’t say, ‘nothing’s wrong,’ because just because things are wrong with pretty much everyone in our family, it doesn’t mean you can’t have problems, too.” She knew she did not imagine the tears she saw in Sara’s eyes at the mention of “our family,” nor the husky relief in her voice when she spoke again.

“Well,” Sara began. “We’ve been in Anniera for four days and’ve worked pretty hard. The skeletons of Rysentown are starting to go up and—”

“Sara,” Leeli said again, frustration and love for her unofficially-adopted sister bubbling in her heart. She slipped her hand into Sara’s and squeezed to simulate safety. “Those are all things. They’re not you. So what’s wrong? I know something is. Just tell me.”

Sighing, Sara cast her gaze inland, then at the Sea, then at her feet, and then at Leeli’s face. “It’s your brother,” she murmured as she pulled her hand away.

Leeli blinked in surprise. “Janner? What about him? Did he do something wrong?”

“I don’t know how to talk to him!” she stammered, her cheeks turning pink. “I say something to him and we exchange a sentence or two, and then he spaces out and either panics and fumbles with his words or just walks off unexpectedly muttering, ‘I’m sorry.’ What am I supposed to do?”

Letting out an exasperated sigh directed at her brother and very glad the problem had little to nothing to do with the grief raging through their family, Leeli reached up and took hold of Sara’s shoulders. “Please, listen. Janner has always been terrible around girls. He’s dreadful at it on normal days, and since these are bad days, he’s absolutely hopeless. He’s working through stuff. He’ll respond like a normal human being at some point.”

Sara huffed a bit and kicked the sand, seeming as though she wanted to say more. Leeli decided waiting patiently was the best option and it paid off. 

“I just,” Sara began, sounding reluctant. “When he first came back, he was so…well, forward. He very nearly proposed to me without saying the words. I felt like I was flying. Then all of a sudden after Ban Rona, he starts acting the way I described a few minutes ago. I don’t get it. If all he wants is friendship, that's alright. I understand. But he won't stick around for even that!” 

Leeli pursed her lips. She wasn’t certain about that one. Someone like Artham or Nia would be much better help in this situation, and though she was honored Sara had confided in her, her heart wished she had spoken to someone who could be more helpful. 

“I don’t know,’” she admitted as they turned and made their way up the sandy incline to the “path” through the grass that would take them to the remains of Castle Rysen. “Janner has always confused me. He’s a walking contradiction. Plus, he’s a guy.”

Sara laughed, and Leeli felt herself grinning. She was glad the short statement had brought some sort of levity to her dear friend’s heart. 

“I suppose he is,” Sara agreed. They started up an even steeper grass hill that led to the plateau on which Rysen rested. Conversation ceased while they climbed, but it picked up again as soon as the castle remains were in sight. “Maybe I shouldn’t be worried. After all—”

Sara’s words stopped, as did her feet. Leeli looked at her, silently imploring her to explain what was wrong.

“Look,” Sara whispered, her voice breaking.

Following her line of sight, Leeli happened upon the cause of Sara’s distress. It was Janner and an auburn-haired girl talking. It was too far away for her to hear any words, but Leeli could see that both smiled and even laughed on occasion, something that had become so rare for Janner. Then—Leeli couldn’t help but gasp at the sight—Janner reached out and laid his hand on the girl’s shoulder. He walked off a few seconds later, likely to give out the day’s assignments.

Leeli knew they needed to go and join the crowd so they would hear what needed to be done, but she couldn’t move. She could barely think. Confusion reigned in her mind; she knew Janner cared for Sara and had even dreamt about her. What had caused him to connect so quickly with this unnamed girl, then? 

No, she scolded herself. You’ve seen it wrong. So has Sara. You missed something. He hasn’t connected with this girl! It’s something else. 

“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” she offered lamely, even though she had no idea what such an explanation might be. 

“I’m sure,” Sara whispered. “Let’s not tell anyone, alright? Please? That might get weird and…um…if Janner wants this thing, then he can have it without anyone else spying on him.”

Leeli’s eyes widened. “That’s...surprisingly generous.”

Sara gave a half-laugh, but it sounded like she was scoffing more than anything else. “Not really. Note how I said, ‘anyone else.’ I will be spying, and if you’d like to join me, you’re quite welcome. But in the meantime, we have a day’s worth of work ahead of us, not to mention a coronation.”

Leeli was left staring after her friend, feeling very small, confused, and worried. No matter what Sara had said about being willing to simply have a friendship with Janner, the idea of Janner caring for someone else over her was hurtful.

She really hoped Janner didn’t actually care for that other girl.

In the middle of cleaning up after lunch, Leeli was almost too distracted by Baxter's begging for table scraps to hear the sound of boots thumping on the stone of what used to be Rysen’s courtyard. 

She wasn’t, though, and spun around, her face aglow with happiness even before her eyes settled on Thorn O’Sally’s goofy smile. 

“Thorn!” she cried happily, throwing her arms around him in what might have been considered an inappropriate manner. At that point, she didn’t really care what other people thought. She was stressed. No matter how happy she looked on the outside, on the inside everything was a mess. It turned out Thorn was very good at helping clean up said mess, just by talking. Plus, no one was in the vicinity. Janner was sleeping below in the Castle, Artham was doing some sort of construction in town, and Sara, Nia, and Arundelle, were all doing various things she wasn't actually certain of.

Thorn looked surprised at her gesture but hugged her back anyway. Afterward he stepped back and cleared his throat awkwardly. “So…Leeli,” he began, grinning when Baxter began licking his hand as if some remains of food resided there. “Do ya wanna talk or find somethin’ ta do in town or—”

“Actually, there is something super important I need your help with,” she interrupted. 

Thorn grinned. “I’m great at important things. Like jest last night! Now, what ‘xactly is this new ‘thing’?”

Smiling, Leeli beckoned him closer. She lowered her voice to a whisper and prayed he would have the sense to do the same. “Janner’s coronation is today—”

“His what?” Thorn asked, a bit louder than Leeli preferred. Baxter barked as if to voice his disapproval.

“SHH,” she hissed. “We’re making him the monarch—”

“A wh—”

“He’s becoming King of Anniera today!” Leeli finally exclaimed as quietly as was humanly possible. The thought of it hurt her heart, but nothing she did or said would change anything. Kal was gone, and he wasn't coming back. Like her Grandpa. And Rudric. And her father. And Nugget. She brushed those thoughts aside, though. “Officially, I mean. And everyone knows you can’t make someone a king if they don’t have a crown.”

Realization dawned in Thorn’s eyes, and he nodded vigorously. “Wait,” he said, his face falling. “Ya don’t have any sorta crown. Aren’t they usually gold or somethin’?”

Leeli nodded. “Yes, they are. And that’s the problem right there: we have no crown. Now, maybe they’re usually gold, but they’re not always gold. So we are going to go into the meadow and the forest and make one before the ceremony!”

Thorn gasped in amazement. “Leeli, that’s a great idea! Are we gonna make one for you an’ Mister Artham too? Wait, why’re we whisperin’?”

Wincing inwardly, Leeli really hoped Sara and Nia and Arundelle weren't actually hiding somewhere and had heard their conversation. She was also glad Baxter couldn't speak and tell on them, though she was certain if she swore him to secrecy, he would never tell a soul, anyway. “Janner is sleeping in the cellar because my mother and uncle threatened to tie him to the bed if he didn’t allow himself rest before the ceremony, because he needed it, considering how little sleep he got last night. This thing that we’re making is a surprise for him, so I don’t want him hearing since we’re so close. And Uncle Artham and I don't need crowns or anything. Janner’s...Janner’s the one who’s becoming King.” 

“Okay. I guess if that's what ya want...but about the secret thing, got it!” Thorn said, nodding vigorously. “We’re gonna go soon as ya finish cleanin’ up, right?”

“Right,” she replied quickly, working on washing a few bowls. They would be cleaned soon, and then she and Thorn could go look. Janner might not have wanted to be King (who would?) but there was no way she was going to let him feel any less unworthy of it by not having a crown.

Thorn appeared at her side suddenly, and she glanced over at him. “Yes?”

“Well,” he said gently. “I figure you’ll finish faster if someone’s helpin’ ya, and since I’m here, what kin I do?”

Leeli smiled and handed him a newly cleaned bowl. “You can dry them if you want.” Baxter made sure to thump his tail in approval.

“Now, to make a crown,” Leeli said from amidst a tree’s branches, reaching for tender twigs she could braid together. “We need three bendy twigs.” She had made plenty of twig-and-leaf-and-flower crowns back in Glipwood and was thrilled to see the skill coming to good use. Of course, it was coming to use a bit illegally, in a sense. Technically, it was her day to stay at Castle Rysen with Janner. Instead Baxter was taking care of it, and since he would do a wonderful job, the only concern that remained was Nia or someone else returning home before she and Thorn got back.

“Leeli, ya know, I coulda gotten those for ya,” Thorn said from a good ten feet below her.

Glancing down at him, Leeli smiled. “Thorn, are you worried about me?"

“‘Course I am!” he exclaimed before shamelessly stating: “If we're gonna get married later, I don't want ya hurtin’ herself fallin’ from a tree or dyin’ early.”

Leeli’s cheeks warmed at the mention, but it wasn't a bad sort of thing. “Thank you for your concern,” she replied softly. “But I'm not going to die falling out of this tree. And I got them anyway!”

Three twigs of the right size procured, Leeli began climbing down carefully. It was certainly an experience for her, considering that although she had walked among trees quite a lot while they stayed with Artham in his castle, she had never actually climbed them for herself. As she swung down, she couldn't help but laugh at the way her hair flew back and bounced down her back again when both her feet hit the ground. “See? I'm alright,” she told Thorn. “But it's sweet that you care,” she added as she beckoned him to follow.

“Where are we goin’ now?” he asked. 

“Well,” Leeli replied as she stripped the twigs, then began braiding them together as they walked. “We're looking for something to decorate the crown with. Though now that I think about it,” she mused, stopping abruptly in the midst of the meadow, filled to the brim with wildflowers. “Janner might find it odd if we filled his coronation crown with something so fragrant."

Thorn considered this. “Ya shoulda left the leaves on. Or gotten some twigs with more leaves ‘n’ stuff. Then, it’d just look nice an’ kinda regal.”

Leeli looked at him, puzzled. “Where did you hear the word ‘regal’?”

“Oh, Mister Artham used it,” he explained. “I told ‘im I wanted ta make my vo-cab-u-lary better fer ya, so he told me a few words an’ their meanin’.”

Leeli couldn't help but smile. Thorn was probably the only person born in the Green Hollows willing to improve his vocabulary and grammar for anyone’s sake. “Well it is a very nice word, and a great suggestion.” She glanced morosely at the braided twigs already twisted into a circlet. Shrugging, she tossed it to the ground. “Oh, well. Let's find a bush or something, and maybe it'll have the sort of leaves you mentioned.”

Starting off for a different part of the forest edge where it looked like that kind of bush thrived, Leeli was surprised to not hear Thorn following her. “Thorn, what are you doing?” she asked when she spun around, only to see him poking in the long, meadow grass. 

He stood up more quickly than she had thought humanly possible. “Not much,” he said oddly before running toward her.

Leeli considered asking more but figured it wasn't worth it. He had probably seen a big or something that had interested him, and as much as she liked animals, she hated bugs and had no desire to look one in the eyes. “Okay. Let's go, then!”

Chapter Text

Janner knew it would be only moments before Nia or Artham or someone else came down, letting him know it was time. He shuddered at the thought of it being time for what should have been his brother's coronation as rightful High King of Anniera, yet here he was, the role thrust upon him. Once again, he thought of how it was not a true kingship, just a stewardship until the next rightful second-born took the Throne. It was a small comfort, very small. The most comforting of all would have been Kal’s presence, Kal groaning and whining about how he had to look presentable, Kal protesting about wearing nice clothes, even though the nicest clothes they had to wear were the ones on their back.

Tears gathered at the edges of his eyes and Janner blinked, not caring when they rolled down the side of his face and onto his neck, dampening the collar of his Durgan cloak. He wore it all the time now, even if he wasn't really an official Durgan anymore. It provided decent warmth, and he was always cold.

The door separating the cellar from the rest of the exposed ruin opened suddenly, and Artham appeared. He had spent a good deal of time helping Janner with the Water distribution (which ended up becoming more of a planning session on just how to determine the best rivers to pour the Water into so Anniera would "heal itself" in a way) and just recently began working on other building projects, but he had made sure to construct a door for them, providing some privacy. 

“It's time,” he said as he came down the stairs, holding an oil lamp so he wouldn't stumble over something in the dark.

Janner sat up quickly, wincing as his entire body protested. He didn't want to appear completely against complying, since the Maker had technically pushed him in the direction of kingship as well. There also wasn't a need to make petty trouble. 

“How did you sleep?” Artham asked, holding out his hand for assistance.

Eyeing the gesture suspiciously, Janner gave in and accepted the help. He didn't want it, but he might have needed it. And appearing agreeable might mask the lie he was about to tell. “Well enough. Leeli and someone who sounded like Thorn were being a little noisy at first, but after they left, sleeping wasn't that hard.”

Artham nodded and smiled as they began walking toward the stairs, their way unnecessarily lit by the oil lamp. “I'm glad to hear that.”

Janner chose not to reply, feeling guilty about lying. The truth was that he hadn't slept at all, and none of it had been Leeli or Thorn’s fault. His mind was the culprit, robbing him of sleep more often than he cared to admit or share with his family. Even when he was exhausted the thing wouldn't shut down, taking him around in redundant circles of doubt, of guilt, of frustration.

They came out into the chilly night air among the ruins of Castle Rysen and what looked to be the entire Annieran population, the sight of which caused him to close his eyes, breathing in and out slowly, and open his eyes again; a different person. At least, he appeared to be a different person now. This was the ruse he had worked hard on, the diplomatic one he had a feeling he would need quite a lot in the extended future.

Artham placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you ready?” he asked quietly. “I know you don't want this. I can't imagine having kingship thrust upon me if I was in a similar situation, but I know it hurts. Is there any way I can ease your pain?”

Janner glanced at him, trying to block out the rest of…of everyone staring at him, expecting something he was not ready to give. There was a softness, a compassion in his uncle’s eyes. Artham was sincere. He shook his head anyway. “I don't think so.”

“If you ever need to talk or just need someone to listen, I'm always here,” he whispered, despite what Janner had said less than a moment before. “The rest of the family is over there, waiting.”

Janner's eyes followed in the direction Artham pointed, and he saw his family (plus Sara) standing there. “I guess we shouldn't keep them, then,” he said, forcefully cheery.

“The time has come to pass the Throne on to the next generation,” Nia declared, her voice unobtrusive yet powerful enough to carry across the entire crowd. “Though the circumstances are far from traditional, they are not any less official or ordained. The Maker’s Will as well as that of the former King, High King Kalmar Wingfeather, resides in these decisions.”

Standing between Artham and Leeli, the former calm and the latter oddly jittery, Janner couldn’t help but feel terrified. He was not alone, and for that he was thankful, but even the support of his dear uncle and sister, whose ceremonies had already occurred, was not enough to chase away everything taunting him.

Terror and dread and frustration and anger and doubt and every single negative state of being possible filled his mind, racing through at a speed that sent his heart into his throat. The only thing keeping him grounded was an undercurrent of acceptance that ran through it all, an acceptance that only the Maker could have placed on his heart. Half the time, he didn’t even know if the acceptance was real or fake, but when he focused on it, when he zeroed in on the idea of it, on that speck floating around in his mind, he knew it was true, solid, firm, safe ground. That told him the Maker created it, for if it was a figment of his imagination, as soon as he set foot on it, the idea would shimmer and disappear, sending him plunging into nothingness. 

 “Although our land lies crippled from its demolition, lacking hearth and house of the material kind, that which resides in our hearts defines us, as it has always defined Annierans,” Nia continued, and Janner knew her words stirred up joy in many hearts. “And I believe we will all say our union is a beautiful one.” 

Janner watched the crowd, enraptured as it was by Nia’s words. He only caught a glimpse of the side of her face every once in a while, as she looked out at the people the majority of the time, but every so often her eyes met his, and he saw the way they shone with a million thoughts of every kind.

Nia abruptly turned toward him—it was not really abrupt, it only seemed so in his mind—and he knew it was time, time to swear he would do something though he had not a mite of faith in himself.

“Janner Esben Wingfeather,” she said clearly, calmly. “Please, step forward.”

He felt Leeli squeeze his arm encouragingly before he did so, and despite the terror running rampant in him, Janner couldn’t help but think it was odd that she seemed so agitated. Panic began taking over his heart, but he did his best to push it away, focusing his attention on Nia rather than the enormous crowd of expectant people behind her, all staring.

Nia looked at him thoughtfully, and something about her eyes made Janner’s heart want to break. “This should have been your father’s role,” she whispered, nearly choking on her words. They were clearly not meant for the general public’s ears. Janner couldn't help but think Kalmar was the one who should have stood there, not him. “Do you swear to seek the Maker’s counsel in all you do?”

“I do.” His voice trembled. He wondered if anyone heard.

Smiling a little, Nia nodded and continued. “Do you swear to serve this Land and her people for as long as the Maker allows?”

“I do.” His voice trembled less, but only because he forced himself to speak that way. 

“Do you swear loyalty to your people, your family, your land, and your Maker?” There was a weighty tenderness in Nia's words, conveying an odd sort of paradoxical truth.

A unfamiliar voice made its way to Janner's ears, and he thought he heard the question, "Speakin' of families, who'll your Queen be?" His head spun at the thought and he felt his hand groping about, as if searching for something to cling to so he didn't fall over. 

Then someone's fingers brushed against his arm, held onto it tightly, and whispered in his ear above the ringing, "Janner, it's alright. You don't have to answer that now. Focus on your mother, not on any other voices.

Blinking, Janner's vision cleared, and when it did he saw Sara making her way to stand with the rest of the family again. He smiled and again said, “I do,” his words clear and unobstructed for the first time.

A little light flickered in Nia's eyes before she spoke again, almost as if she knew he would agree to and never sway from the next vow. “Do you swear to rule honestly, fairly, without favor for one over the other?”

“I do.”

“Do you swear to abide by the Maker’s morals, to spare life when the time calls but also to order it void when necessary?” Gravity flitted onto her face, gravity that was rightly placed.

The thought of such a thing made Janner’s heart waver, and it was with barely audible uncertainty that his said, “I do.”

“Do you swear to guide your Land and people in the Maker’s ways, to guide your family, your children, your grandchildren in the same?”

Fear struck Janner’s heart that such a task had been placed on his shoulders, but again, Sara's face managed to drift into view. It was a moment for he softly said, “I will do my best. All have free will.”

Nia nodded approvingly when she heard those words. “Do you swear to serve the Maker above all?”

With a steady voice Janner prayed would not be a lie for much longer, he replied, “Yes.”

“Then, my son,” Nia said tenderly with what sounded like confidence. “Please, kneel.” 

Janner obeyed, his right knee pressing into the ground while his left arm rested on the other leg. He felt himself trembling with fatigue and desperately hoped she would not keep him in the position longer than he was able. 

“Though we have neither a crown nor scepter, the lack of those does not make you any less a King in the sight of your people,” Nia said, gently, yet loud enough for all to hear. She stepped forward and bent, taking his right hand in hers. “Janner Esben Wingfeather, I—”

“Wait!” someone hollered from the crowd. Janner blinked in confusion and surprise when he saw Thorn O’Sally, caring what looked like a collection of odd brush in his arms. “My ‘pologies, everyone,” Thorn said when he was in full sight of the entire crowd of people. “But Missus Wingfeather, Leeli an’ I made this.” His arms outstretched, a circlet of verdant shades of green leaves, a few of the silvery white flowers woven into it, lay in his hands. 

“Thank you, Thorn,” Nia murmured after she recovered from the shock of having an entire coronation interrupted. Gingerly she took the crown and turned back toward Janner. “It seems there is a crown after all,” she said, smiling.

Janner bowed his head and felt the circlet press into it, weight slamming down on his shoulders as it never had before. It was not the only thing given to him, for Rudric's sword followed suit.

“Janner Esben Wingfeather,” Nia began again, and like before, he felt her hand slip into his that did not clutch the sword. “Rise, my son and King.”

As the people cheered, Janner looked up at her, and saw grief and love in her eyes that he was sure matched his own. Standing with effort he gazed out at the people, wondering how in Aerwiar he would serve them when his head already spun and his body threatened to collapse on the spot. He had not the strength for it, neither in heart nor in mind. 

Look to Me, and I will give you My Strength, the Maker said in his heart, the words far louder than those of the clamoring crowd.

Chapter Text

It was the beginning of more change. Nothing was as it had been, and it never would be again. Rebuilding Anniera was grueling, even with everyone working, and dismantling the unneeded ships in the Fang fleet, fitting frames together with minimal tools, some makeshift, as Ban Rona needed them as well, and slowly erecting true houses proved as difficult as had been anticipated. 

Regents were chosen with care, six to be exact (seven if you counted Artham), and they took people to the farther reaches of the Isle, hoping to settle Anniera as before. Janner and Artham went with one of the groups who forded the Rivers of Anniera, the ones that spread out across the entire Isle. There, they poured the Water, and thus the whole land received the Maker's gift of life.

Artham had never expected ease in the work, but he had hoped for cooperation between the people. He had hoped for the Anniera he had once known to rise again, slowly but surely. Truthfully, it seemed as though that had happened. Other than the fact that they were literally building from the ground up, at least. It was an odd Anniera to build up, one with veins of old and new coursing through it, tradition and spontaneity. Yet the Maker had approved it all, even the unconventional choice of Throne Warden and High King that presented its own complications.

Janner's mindset reminded him so much of Esben when he had first taken the Throne after their parents died, their father in a freak hunting accident and their mother of grief weeks later. The thought came to him every time he saw his nephew, still far too gaunt and pale, too easily exhausted, too fragile. It came so often, in fact, he was ever astonished no guilt or grief related to Esben accompanied it. The weight of Esben’s death, of all that had happened to it—the moment Kalmar had melded with them, it had disappeared in a blink, the most glorious blink he had ever experienced. How thankful he was that he had been left with only love for his brother, not tormenting grief and guilt. Somehow, though, and only by the Maker’s blessing, he felt no guilt regarding Janner’s condition or Kalmar’s death. For that, he was infinitely grateful.

He was Throne Warden for a new king, now, yet this King grieved silently for his fears, frustrations, and failures. Frankly, it was nearly enough to break Artham's heart. Would guilt and grief never be absent from their family? They had trampled so many hearts for years, and they still did. The look in Nia’s eyes, the hauntedness in Janner’s countenance, the discomfort in Sara’s composure, and the tearful acceptance in Leeli's face, oh it hurt. Not in the sense of torturous guilt, but it hurt nonetheless.

Artham wanted to fix it more than anything.

“Luv, what are you doing in that tree?” Arundelle’s laughing voice called to him from the base of the enormous tree he perched in, one of the many that had sprung up from their "accident" with the Water. 

Without losing his balance from being startled out of his thoughts, Artham quickly scrambled down, running a hand through his hair. He liked escaping to trees to do his thinking; he always had. He had made his home in Glipwood in the forest and in trees for a reason.

“Just thinking,” he replied cryptically, knowing even before he said the words that Arun would crinkle her eyes and cock her head before taking his hand in hers, non-verbally demanding to hear his thoughts.

She did, in fact, do just that, and it made his heart flutter with the urge to write yet another poem about her. The only trouble was that with everything he had written about the First Well, about Janner, about Anniera, about the healing of the land, and, of course, about her, he was running out of room in his journal.

“Do I really have to ask what you're thinking about? Artham, you usually figure it out as soon as I look at you that your thoughts are what I want.” A bit of disappointment lilted on the edge of her lovely voice, and Artham shook his head and kissed her hand as an apology.

“Please forgive me,” he whispered. “I was lost in thought. Both times. Just now and in the tree.”

Arundelle smiled at him, and all was forgiven, if there had been anything to forgive in the first place. “And what were those thoughts?” she asked as she took his arm, leading him on a walk through the forest.

Artham hummed, trying to decide what all needed telling and what could stay inside. “Just a jumble of all the normal things, I suppose,” he began. “Janner, grief, failure, Kalmar. All of that lot, really.”

Arundelle looked at him sharply. “Whose grief and failure?”

Sighing, Artham shifted his gaze away from her and into the woods. Why? “Please don't think I’m still tormented by everything. I'm not, I promise. Esben…that's alright now. I was thinking about Janner’s grief and how he thinks he has failed.”

Abruptly stopping, Arundelle sighed deeply and looked him straight in the eyes. “Artham, I wasn't talking about Esben. I was talking about…well, about me and—” 

It sounded as though she wanted to say something, and Artham knew exactly what she wanted to say, but it did not need saying. Instead, he pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly as if he would never let her go.

“Oh, Arun, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, closing his eyes against the prickle of tears. “I...I didn't forget you. I felt—feel— terrible for what I did to you, and I am so inexplicably sorry. Will you— can you forgive me?”

She pulled away a bit, and Artham forced himself to look at her, studying the necklace she wore more than anything else for fear of seeing something terrifying in her eyes, like sadness or disappointment or anger. The necklace was simple, nothing like the grand jewelry she had worn before the Fall, but it was beautiful just the same. Not as beautiful as she was, though. Nothing would ever be as beautiful as she was. And even if she was angry, her beauty shone brightly just the same.

So concentrated was he that he nearly missed her whispered, “I never blamed you anyway,” and the kiss that followed, as her perfect, soft lips met his.

The relief washing over him was a cooling rainstorm, and Artham couldn't help but laugh a bit. Taking her hand and drawing her close, he led Arun through the sunlight-filled forest. The “path,” if one could call it that, was one he had created himself, and when followed correctly, it looped to the skeletal Rysentown and crumbled Castle Rysen after a nice trip along the beach. He needed to get back to the rest of the family, he truly did—more to keep Janner from killing himself during that afternoon more than he had in the morning than anything else—but it was still off-hours time of the day when no one could do labor. It was probably fine.

He and Arundelle continued walking, emerging from the woods near the beach a stone’s throw away. A small drop-off separated grass from sand, and Artham jumped down quickly, turning to lend Arundelle a bit of help. 

Giggling, she took the hand he offered, then gasped and laughed aloud when he pulled her into his arms, holding her bridal-style, and spun her around. “Artham P. Wingfeather! Put me down,” she demanded, smiling all the while. “What if someone sees?”

Artham chose to listen, and set her down gently, grinning boyishly as she began walking away. “Now, Arun,” he murmured, and she stopped in her steps and turned around, looking at him only as she did when he used his pet name for her. As soon as she was within his grasp, Artham reached out for her hand. “We’ve hidden this from…a number of people for ten years. How much longer—”

Arundelle shook her head, pulling her hand away. “You're the one who wanted it in the first place, and you can be the one who tells them. Choose the time, choose the place.”

Irritation flashed through her eyes, and Artham hated it. He didn’t hate her or even her irritation, mostly that it was directed at him and that he had been the cause of it. “I…I know I should, but what if they’re angry? It is too much to spring on them now, what with everything?”

Arundelle’s eyes softened, and the tension in Artham’s shoulders he had not realized existed vanished in an instant. “Who are you worried about? Nia is the only one who would actually be upset, but we don’t have to worry about her. She knows.” 

“She’s never mentioned it though. Not even indirectly. She buries the feelings she doesn’t want to deal with, you know that. What if...”

Her eyebrow raised a bit, Arundelle finished, “What if it’s really because she’s angry about the whole thing?”

His response of his eyes shifting from her face to the sand beneath their feet and back again was as good as a “yes,” he knew.

“Well,” Arundelle said briskly, beginning their walk across the beach. Artham followed and shortened his stride to match hers, though she had always been tall (taller than him for quite a while when they were children, in fact) and the shortening was not of a great amount. “Clearly this goes back to your concern that Nia will eventually decide hating you is the best option.”

Artham flinched and immediately began inwardly scolding himself for doing so. He was past all that. He was past the guilt. He was supposed to be so completely and totally done with it.

But that doesn’t mean the worry will ever go away, he heard from a corner of his mind. 

“Luv, I’m sorry,” Arundelle said softly, laying a hand on his upper arm. “But there’s really no use beating around the bush, is there?”

Shrugging, Artham forced himself to smile a little, and after a moment of smiling, it wasn’t forced anymore. Perhaps he had been right about the guilt being chased away. “No, there’s not. You’re absolutely right.” He took a breath of resolve and continued. “I am worried bringing this…thing up will push her over the edge. Even though she knows...”

“I do believe Nia has been pushed over the edge already, Artham,” Arundelle interrupted drily as she went around a collection of shells she obviously didn’t want to break.

Though the truth in her comment made a fist in Artham’s stomach clench, watching her avoid the shells in an effort to preserve their beauty slipped a smile onto his face. “True,” he admitted. “Alright, then: I don’t want to tie a millstone to her when she’s already swimming in rough waters that she fell into after falling over the cliff.”

Arundelle shot him a glance of horror when he said that. “Are you making fun, or did you write a poem about Nia?”

Artham chuckled nervously. “Arun, you know I wouldn’t do something like that. Making fun, I mean. I did, in fact, write a poem.” He had it with him at that very moment, folded up in his pocket. He planned to add to it someday, when a change had come, when joy shone through the grief. Giving it to Nia was his eventual intention, but who knew when that would be, or if he would actually muster up the courage to do so? He had shared much with his sister-in-law (who was really more of a sister than anything else), but his poetry had not been one of those.  

“Aside from the poem,” Arundelle picked up where he had dropped off. “I understand where you’re coming from. But if you ask me, I don’t think there’s anything for you to worry about. Nia never struck me as the type to harbor anger on account of a decision made out of love. It’s not in her nature.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Artham murmured, only half-hearing what she had said. Not on purpose, of course. He would never fail to listen to Arundelle on purpose. 

Something had distracted him. Caught between two rocks, it fluttered in the sea breeze, being pulled this way and that. Curious, Artham stepped toward it, wondering what was on such a piece of parchment stuck on the beach, for what else could the cream, flappy thing be but parchment, and what else did someone do with parchment but put something on it?

“Artham?” Arundelle questioned, an edge of impatience in her voice. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out what exactly this is,” he murmured as he reached out for the piece of paper, carefully working it free from the rocks. The last thing he wanted was to rip it, because if he did, he could miss part of what was on the paper. The thought that nothing was on it crossed his mind briefly and left as soon as he saw ink, and the thought that nothing important was on it did as well, until he looked closer and read the words and felt the way his head spun and his stomach clenched and his heart raced. 

“Artham?” Arundelle asked again, but this time her voice was much closer, with a note of worry in it. “Luv, you’re white as a sheet. What is it?”

Blinking, Artham handed her the note, for it was a note, a note with words intended specifically for them. His hand shook and he whispered hoarsely, “Read it.”

Her brow furrowed in concern, Arundelle took it from him and began to read, her lips moving, her hands trembling more by the second. When she was done, her eyes traveled back up and she began reading again, then again and again, until Artham’s mouth was dry with the stress of watching her.

Finally her arm dropped to her side, the piece of paper still clutched tightly in her hand, so tightly Artham wondered if it would rip soon. 

“Artham,” she said softly, her voice shaking. “What are we going to do?”

He pulled her into an embrace and looked out at the waves, coming into shore so completely oblivious of everything, of the note that had just rocked their world. “I don’t know. I truly don’t know.” 

Chapter Text

There was tension at the dinner table for some reason, Janner knew it. And it was exhausting. 

The strangest thing was that it wasn't the sort of tension that had persisted for the past few weeks that was a mess of worry about Anniera and rebuilding and Kalmar and him and quite likely everything under the sun. It had always been a worry shared by all of them, except for the guilt that usually lingered as well. That was Janner's contribution to the mess. 

This tightness—that was so palpable he felt sick—came from Artham and Arundelle, the two last people he expected anything—

He stopped himself. That wasn't true. Arundelle was the last person he would expect to worry, but Artham was probably the first. Artham had worried at a constant rate from the moment Janner’s eight-year-old self had first laid eyes on Peet the Sock Man. Arundelle, however, did not seem like the type to worry quite so much. Why, then, was the trouble in her eyes so clear now?

“How was everyone’s day?” he asked awkwardly*, forcing himself to look at his family (plus Sara and Arundelle) instead of the ruined walls of Castle Rysen, now turning gold and pink in the sunset, surrounding them. He really would have preferred as little conversation as possible, since conversation led to energy expending which led to exhaustion. Unfortunately his desire to somehow right the tangled currents, or at least find out the reason behind them, won out over personal preferences.

Nia shot him a glance, and Janner shrunk back in his seat, smiling at her sheepishly. It looked as though she was about to say something along the lines of “you need to stop tiring yourself,” or “work less,” or something else he had grown painfully accustomed to. At that point he might not have minded so much, as a comment like that was a segue to sleep, but considering his intent was to settle the tension, such a thing would not work in favor of...well, settling tension.

Leeli inadvertently decided for them and spoke up. “Thorn and I were able to help in the gardens and we caught thwaps and we built pens for animals and fed animals and I found some really cute puppies and we talked to them in dogspeak and taught them some tricks, and one really wanted to come home with us, but Baxter wouldn’t like that.” Baxter, who was watching over Leeli from several feet away, woofed in agreement. 

Janner began laughing but stopped as soon as the threat of a cough sparked in his chest. Thankfully, no one noticed, since Leeli’s declaration impressively spoken in one breath made Nia and Sara chuckle and Artham and Arundelle smile. 

Any amount of mirth in Janner’s heart faded seconds later, and he felt even the smile wavering on his face. It had to stay there, though. It couldn't leave. If it left, everyone (or at least Sara) would know that the way Leeli rambled, the way she spoke without taking a break, even the light in her eyes—oh, it broke his heart reminding him of Kalmar! She and Kal weren’t the same, not in the very least, but…it didn’t matter, since now the thought was on his mind. He wondered first when it would leave, then if it was wrong it wanted it gone.

“My day was good, too,” Sara added with a smile. “My Orphans—well, I guess they're not Orphans anymore, nor are they mine—rather, the children are doing really well. I checked on them, did a few things in town, washed clothes, had a nice walk on the beach.” She winked at him, and Janner felt his cheeks warming. The family had convinced him to work only in the morning and rest in the afternoon, but they had also posted a watch to make sure he didn't sneak off and overexert himself in said afternoon. Sara had been “on watch” that day, and they had taken a walk along the beach simply to pass the time. And he enjoyed it. And felt a little guilty. 

Nia eyed him quizzically. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Clearing his throat and risking a coughing fit (it was worth diverting prying eyes, though) Janner looked at Artham. “Uncle Artham, how did work on the Striggs’ home go this afternoon?”**

His blue eyes staring off into space, Artham did not respond until Arundelle nudged his arm with her fork, at which point he blinked. “I’m sorry, what was your question, Janner?” He repeated himself, and Artham smiled boyishly. “Well in that case, it went rather well, and I believe you have another young lady interested in you.”

Janner nearly choked on his sip of water. Actually, he did choke and it went down the wrong way a bit, which did make him cough. “I’m sorry, what?!” he wheezed after several moments, inwardly grabbing his hair because of the way Nia was looking at him.

“Why, Galya, of course,” Artham replied nonchalantly, thankfully seeming unconcerned about his well-being. It was strange, but honestly a relief. “You weren’t aware before? I guessed it the moment you first met in the forest.”

Janner couldn’t resist pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I…I didn’t mean to make her think anything!” The cough he had tried suppressing managed to escape. “I just wanted a friend to make small talk with!”

Light laughter that sounded a bit odd escaped from Sara, and it was accompanied by several snickers from Leeli. Baxter began thumping his tail on the ground, as if chiming in with them.

“What is it?” Janner asked, looking at both of them. “It’s not funny! I don’t want to have to deal with that.”

Leeli’s eyes sparkled with mischief, but she still collected herself sooner than Sara and took over the role of responding. “Nothing much more than some concerns and a bit of spying. But it’s not important.”

“That may not be,” Nia said, interjecting unexpectedly. Janner glanced at her and saw that she was eyeing Artham and Arundelle suspiciously. “Is something going on between you two? And are you planning on sharing with the rest of us?”

They exchanged a look, an odd look, a look that seemed to be a mixture of relief and concern and fear and uncertainty. Janner couldn’t help but puzzle at the exchange. It wasn’t normal, not for them.

“Well, there is something we need to tell most of you, other than Nia,” Artham began. “Arundelle and I, we—”

Leeli jumped up in her seat and blurted out, “YOU’RE PLANNING ON GETTING MARRIED?!”

“No,” Arundelle stated shortly. “We did that already. And we’re going to explain everything, but it all pertains to a very pressing matter that just can’t wait for discussion.”

Everyone except Nia stared in surprise as Artham put his arm around Arundelle and whispered something inaudible in her ear, something that was enough to quiet the franticness blooming on her face. 

“Yes, so,” Artham began after clearing his throat, eyeing each of them in return. “Arundelle and I legally eloped as per Nia and Esben’s suggestion four months before the Fall of Anniera. Leeli was two months old.”

Janner stared at him, shocked and a bit unsure as to what he should think. He certainly wasn’t angry, just a little confused. “Wait, but why elope?” The fact that Artham and Arundelle were married brought much more sense to Arundelle’s recollection of her reaction to seeing Artham leaving Throg and certainly explained her happiness upon hearing he was alive. He did his best not to focus on the fact that Kal had been there with him when Arundelle had told them, and that it was when he had first heard he would be a seed. He had been a seed. As had Kalmar.  

“Traditionally,” Nia explained gently, answering his question and drawing him out of his thoughts of grief. “The Throne Warden dedicates his or her life to serving the monarch and Anniera. Many consider having a family a burden or an inappropriate choice on the Throne Warden’s part. A number of Throne Wardens choose not to marry simply for public appearance.”

Arundelle cleared her throat and gave a slight smile. “Artham was going to choose the same but—”

“That didn’t happen,” Sara finished her sentence this time, nodding understandingly. “Mrs. Wingfeather, I am very glad you convinced them otherwise.”

Nia laughed. “And I as well.”

Despite the smiling faces and his urge to congratulate his uncle and aunt, Janner couldn’t help but see how worried they were. Something was wrong, dreadfully wrong, and it had something to do with their marriage, though there was a flicker of familiar guilt in Artham’s eyes. “What is actually wrong?” he asked promptly, knowing everyone would prefer it if they got to the point.

“Something I didn’t tell anyone,” Arundelle said in a choked whisper. “Is that I was pregnant. When we were sacked—”

Nia’s hand flew to her mouth. “Arundelle, they didn’t—”

Arundelle shook her head. “I had the baby in Throg,” she whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. “A girl. They took her away, said she died a few hours after she was born.”

Janner’s heart ached for his aunt and uncle. He wondered if Artham had known it, had seen it. Based on the pain in his face and his eyes, he had. How much more grief and hurt lied beneath the surface of their family’s already obvious pain? What more would they discover in this broken land of memories?

He wasn’t sure if he felt guilty or not for mentally calling Anniera a broken land of memories. It seemed as though that was all it was, all anyone he knew had felt there. Or at least it was all they remembered.

After he had drawn Arundelle into a tight embrace, Artham pulled a relatively crumpled piece of paper out from who-knew-where and passed it to Nia, not quickly enough to hide the fact that his hand shook, with fear or anger, Janner wasn't sure. “We found this on the beach,” he explained briefly, his tone clipped.

Silence prevailed over the group, other than a steady growl from Baxter, and Janner knew his eyes were not the only ones fixated on Nia as she smoothed the paper and began reading it, her brow furrowing, a sheen of surprise coming over her, then darkness settling in her eyes. “How do you even know she’s telling the truth?” Nia demanded, her hand clutching the paper tightly. “You have no proof this is even true!”

Who is “she”? Janner’s mind screamed. And what did the note say? As much as he wanted to ask, it was better to wait. Emotions and mental states were roiling, and it was not the time to upset someone.

“How can we assume anything else?” Artham retorted, eyebrows knotting together in fear and anger. “I won’t risk it Nia, I won’t. I can’t. I can’t fail her too.”

Janner’s head spun and a chill flooded over him along with realization. “Oh, Maker, help us,” he whispered. Sara’s fingers brushed against his arm, and though his heart sped up at the contact, he did his best to ignore the way it felt and instead focused on what the gesture meant. She wanted to know what he had realized. “Someone has their daughter,” he said simply. “Someone from Throg. It can’t be Davion, so it has to be either Amrah or Murgah.”

“It’s Amrah,” Arundelle choked out. It looked as though she planned on composing herself, but by the way her eyes still trembled, Janner guessed that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. “She has her.”

Artham kissed her head and laid his cheek against it for a moment before continuing tersely. “And she’ll kill her if we don’t rescue her in the next month and a half.”

Chapter Text

They all stared at him, unable to speak. For the first few seconds, Janner found it nearly impossible to wrap his mind around the thought that Amrah would kill a child for no reason at all, other than the fact that she was a Wingfeather. Though the note did not say those were the means for her motivation, it seemed like it was the only half-way reasonable answer. Then he realized of course Amrah would be willing to do something like that. She had Fanged children willingly without a hint of regret as to how she twisted their hearts and minds. She had Fanged Kalmar. Even as the memory of his brother made his heart ache, Janner’s boiling anger toward Amrah overpowered it in the moment.

Nia was the first one to speak after Artham’s declaration, but it was neither words of comfort nor hope. “It says you, Artham,” she said worriedly, her eyes wide with concern. “You’re the only one who’s allowed to get her.”

Clenching his jaw, Artham waited before responding. “Yes, I know it says that. But I can’t exactly leave, can I?”

Janner looked at him oddly. “Why not?”

“I’m your Throne Warden.” Artham said it as if it was the most obvious thing in Aerwiar. “I can’t leave you unprotected for who knows how long while I go hither and yon in Aerwiar looking for Amrah, even...” he was unable to say the words, even if it means my daughter dies. Arundelle sounded as though she was holding back a sob of grief, understandably so. 

Admiration for his uncle became even greater, as did Janner’s resolve to convince Artham to go. He was torn between the duty that kept his heart beating and the blood running through both his and his daughter’s veins. “Amrah is probably in the Phoobs,” Janner said almost without thinking, and it was not until everyone else looked at him as though he had two heads that he procured enough logic to explain, even though he felt like he didn’t have the energy to. Of all the times for no one to notice. “A month and a half. The Phoobs are about a month’s sail\ away, plus two weeks for planning and freeing her. Amrah’s certainly not at Throg; it’s too easy.”

The fear glinting through Artham’s eyes at the mention of the Phoobs was unmistakable, and Janner felt bad about bringing it up so coarsely, as if his uncle’s memories didn’t matter. It was a minute or so before Artham shook his head. “Despite that deduction that actually makes a good deal of sense, I can’t just leave you! I have to protect you. I swore an oath! I can’t break that oath again.” Yet even as he said it, the grief in his eyes told Janner just how much he wished he could break that oath.

He wanted nothing more in that moment than to give Artham peace of mind in fulfilling the task to rescue his daughter. “There’s nothing for you to protect me from. I am safe. Please, go rescue her!”

“I still have to protect Anniera!” Artham was standing at this point, the frustration and heartbreak obvious in his tone.

Sara and Leeli watched their exchange in silence, and Janner saw them making eye contact , as if sharing an unspoken thought. He couldn’t help but think—even in the midst of such a discussion—the way they had bonded as sisters, though they shared no blood, was beautiful.

There would be time to think about that later, though. Convincing Artham to rescue his daughter was most important. As much as he wanted to raise his voice in an effort of persuasion, Janner had a feeling his chest would protest with a coughing fit. “The war is over,” he said calmly. “No one is coming for Anniera.” He did consider that there was a decent number of Fangs running around in Dang, but that was in Dang. They had no stone, no stonekeeper, and swimming to Anniera would be quite a feat, since Anniera had taken their fleet. Besides, he couldn’t mention it. Even the hint of a threat would either convince his uncle to stay, or at the very least make him feel guilty for leaving.

“Well, I have to protect you from yourself!” Artham sputtered, at this point sounding as though he knew he fought in an already lost battle. It was evident everyone counted that as a victory.

“I can take care of that!” Nia, Leeli, and Sara said simultaneously, then began laughing, making Janner want to cover his face and sink into the ground with embarrassment. Did they really think he was that incompetent? It didn’t matter. What did matter was that it was yet another step toward convincing Artham to leave.

Looking a bit defeated on all fronts, Artham sighed wearily and rubbed his hand over his face. Arundelle appeared as though she lit up at the sight. “If I’m going to leave, I need your permission,” he said quietly, walking over and kneeling at Janner’s feet, his head bowed. “Whether or not you like it, you are the King, and I am under your command. Technically I'm allowed to defy you if listening compromises your livelihood but...”

Janner smiled lightly. “It doesn't as of this moment. Please, Uncle Artham. Save your daughter. And if something goes wrong…don’t destroy yourself because of it.”

Artham raised his head, palpable fear mingled with shining determination glowing in his eyes. “I’ll do my best,” he said softly, straightening. “As long as you do your best to remain alive while I’m gone.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

Discussion on various details resumed the next morning before breakfast, though no matter what they covered and how many times Janner gave his permission and approval, Artham couldn’t help but feel uneasy about leaving. There was a part of his heart that had known as soon as he saw the note that he would leave one way or another, whether or not he received permission. The thought that something or someone had already set his mind toward defying or abandoning his King absolutely terrified him. 

He had done that once already, twice if he counted Kalmar. Perhaps the heart-wrenching guilt and voices had finally left him alone, but he still remembered and couldn’t bear the thought of either enduring the consequences or doing something so heinous again.

In fact, the thought was almost enough to convince his mind not to go but to stay, even though everyone insisted he go, even though the life of his daughter was at stake. Yet his heart told him otherwise, and he was glad of that. In a way. The blood pumping through his veins screamed two different commands: serve your King! As the Throne Warden, he is your charge! and find your daughter! She is your flesh and blood, and no one else matters more!

Whatever his heart begged, whatever his mind ordered, he would defy something, feel guilt as a result, and have to endure the emotional consequences. It was all he could do. Janner and the rest of the family had practically ordered him to leave Anniera, and at that point, defying Janner would be defying his King. Hadn’t there been times when he had defied Esben? 

If I recall correctly, though, Artham mused as he and Janner walked toward the Striggs’ partially built home, the latter already turning pink from his comment regarding Galya the evening before. It never really seemed to work out well when I defied him. When I didn’t keep them safe and ran to him and to…to Arundelle, a mess came about because of it.

Perhaps listening to his King was the best choice.

After they had worked for about an hour, Artham insisted Janner take a break and was thankfully backed by Galya, who immediately appeared out of nowhere with a glass of water and cookies.* Artham did his best not to smirk or burst out laughing at the shade Janner’s cheeks turned. His best was better than normal that day because his mind was torn in two serious directions in that moment: how dreadfully pale (more so than normal) his nephew had been before the forced break began and the same thoughts that had plagued him the entire day and night before.

Going back to work and hammering a few boards in place—simultaneously keeping one eye on Janner who was concerning him more by the minute and now he’s coughing—did little to distract him from either. Sighing, Artham stepped back from the halfway-built home and craned his neck, looking for Connor Striggs. 

“Connor, I’m so sorry,” he said after he spotted the older man, working on a door for the home. “Janner and I need to head back to Rysen. I may be back soon.”

A sound of half-hearted protest came from his nephew, but Artham ignored it.

“There’s no need to apologize. You've both already been more than generous with your time.” Connor smiled brilliantly in the way only an elderly person can that just warms the heart somehow, almost magically.

“Thank you for understanding. And please, give Mrs. Striggs our best if I don't come back today. It was nice seeing you Galya,” Artham added as he eyed Janner, who looked as though he wanted to protest more than anything else in Aerwiar.

Galya nodded. “And you, Mr. Artham and Janner.”

Janner’s mortification at the sound of Galya's voice and his awkwardly mumbled, “yes, it was nice…being here,” was enough to put a real smile on Artham's face, in spite of the circumstances.

It was not until they were out of earshot of the Striggs’ home that Janner finally protested their exit. “Uncle Artham, there was still more we could have done! I was fine. You could have—” a series of unexpected coughs cut him off, making the roiling concern in Artham’s heart beat even louder.

“You don't sound fine to me,” he began, stopping and laying a hand on his nephew's shoulder. “If it helps at all, you're not the only reason we left. I can't get Amrah and my daughter out of my mind, not to mention the whole thing about me leaving.”

Janner stared at him, temporarily managing to stop coughing. “You can't stay here! I don't care what the circumstances are, you're going.” He choked out the last word before stopping abruptly, closing his eyes as if to convince his chest not to heave anymore.

Artham bit his lip, torn more than ever before. “How can I go when you're sick?”

“I'm not.” Janner glared at him, or at least came as close to glaring as Artham had ever seen. “And you will go. As your King, I order you to go save your daughter and focus on her, not me. Please!”

The look in his nephew's eyes shifted from angry to desperate, and Artham felt himself caving. “Alright,” he said finally. “I will.”

It didn't stop the thoughts from racing through his mind, though, all torn between one way or the other.

Chapter Text

It was still dark outside that early in the morning to the point at which the stars were visible. Artham had slipped down to the beach an hour or so earlier, unable to sleep, mostly just to ponder things and make sure he had what he would need for the estimated week-long trip across the Dark Sea. Pondering took up far more of that time. Being prepared in terms of supplies had never been a top priority of his; that had been Esben’s department. Still, he had managed to learn something from his precious younger brother, and now it honestly made him smile to think of his current mindset focused on responsibility as a sort of gift from Esben.

In that sense, of course, even his attempts at preparation led to pondering in their own ironic way. Esben’s life and legacy were not the only topic Artham pondered over, though. His daughter and the journey that lay before him came to mind many times, as did the concern that something dreadful would happen if he left Janner to his own devices. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to stay with Janner more than he wanted to rescue his daughter—rather the opposite, in fact. He had always known he had only the option of finding and hopefully rescuing his daughter, and that those thoughts and feelings undermined his sworn duties as a Throne Warden sent doubt encroaching on his mind.

Janner’s permission meant nothing if his heart already blazed a path of its own, if he had already planned on defying him. What sort of Throne Warden was he if barely a month into the job, he chose a form of failure again?

The sound of soft footfalls on the sand came from behind, and when Artham turned he saw Arundelle, her silvery braid slipping from side to side as she walked. “What are you doing out here so early, Artham?”  She asked, sitting down next to him.

“Just thinking,” he replied quietly, looking out at the lightening sea as the sky became more of a morning grey* or lavender instead of navy.

It seemed as though Arundelle did not determine asking him exactly what those thoughts focused on had necessity, considering she skipped asking and went straight to discussing. “I’ve been thinking too,” she said slowly, picking up a small shell and turning it over and over in her palm. “About our daughter and you leaving. And I’ve been thinking that maybe I should,” —oh, please, please don’t say it, Artham begged silently— “come with you.”

Wincing, Artham closed his eyes trying to come up with a response that wouldn’t make her upset. Arundelle was a strong woman, he had always known that. He was sure she had even more strength after the horrible experience in Throg and her Queenship in Clovenfast. She had more confidence in herself that he had ever had in himself, more than he ever would have. There was a good chance they would fare well if they went together, rescued their daughter together, defied Amrah together. 

But then he risked losing her. After so many years of already thinking he had, he couldn’t bear the thought of it happening again.

“Luv,” he whispered, already knowing his words would cut someone—either her or him or both of them—like knives. “Please, I have to do this alone.”

“I am going!” Arundelle insisted, her eyes blazing now. “She’s my daughter too, you know!”

Artham sighed wearily and glanced at his pack, as if rechecking the contents could serve as a buffer in what was already turning into a rather uncomfortable argument. “You can’t come, Arun,” he replied as gently as possible after he stood so he could look her in the eyes. “I’m sorry, but you just can’t.”

Arundelle glared at him, sending his stomach into knots. Artham hated it when Arundelle was upset with him, and what he hated even more was that he was the cause of her frustration and anger. “I am just as capable as you are when it comes to walking into a giant cave system and liberating someone. Who joined you and Esben in the fencing ring years ago and held her ground better than anyone expected her to?”

Having no counter for that since it was true—Arundelle had joined him and Esben in fencing and sword fighting practice, and she had done very well, winning several times and not because they let her—Artham steadied his resolve. It was not because he wanted to hurt her that he made his choice, rather because he loved her too much to lose her again. “I don’t doubt your abilities. I just want you to stay safe, Luv—”

“Don’t ‘Luv’ me!” Arundelle interrupted. “It is not going to work. You will not pacify me, Artham Wingfeather! I am going, I want to go, she is my daughter whom I gave up willingly like a fool.” She choked on her words, and grieving shame swam into her eyes, distorting the anger and showing what it truly was: guilt.

Feeling his heart break once again, Artham pulled her into his arms and tucked his chin over her head. “Arun,” he whispered. “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known. I didn’t know.” 

“You at least told them to stop,” she countered through her tears. “I did nothing.”

Artham closed his eyes, remembering the day it had happened, remembering the grief it had caused, remembering that it truly was not Arundelle’s fault, no matter what she thought. “They must have drugged you,” he said softly, seeing her fall to the floor of the cell, the baby tumbling with her, landing on the ground, a cry, then silence. He hadn’t really pondered on the memory of it until the past few days, preferring to put the horror of it out of his mind as much as possible. It seemed Arundelle had done the same. 

“It...it was in your food. They came for the baby later and she was so still…you did try, Arun, I promise. You tried.” She tried as much as her drugged mind would allow her to, reaching out her arms feebly for her child as she was snatched away, crying out and scrambling for the cell door when the Fang guard pushed her away, weeping long after the lock had clicked, weeping because her child had been snatched from her, weeping because he could not comfort her.

Artham blinked back tears as he remembered the next part. “Then the guard came back a few hours later, saying she was gone. Forever. And you believed it and I believed it and never tried convincing you otherwise.” He believed it for so many years because their daughter had looked so pale and limp…and dead when the Fang had come for her. Assuming she had died when she slipped from Arundelle’s arms had not been the wisest choice, it seemed.

“You aren’t as much in the wrong as you think,” he whispered, taking his wife’s hand in his and massaging it comfortingly. “I’m at fault more than anyone else. I could have done something. I could have found some way out of that cage. I could have tried harder. I didn’t though.” He had lost hope. Despair had settled over his heart, his mind, his being. They had taken Arundelle away a day later. Time with the animals had begun then as well. A spark of defiant hope had worked its way back into his heart, one that said Arundelle was alive, that she would wait for him. It was one of the reasons he had resisted longer than Esben. His brother had lost all belief that his family lived. The blame for that, too, lay at Artham’s feet. 

Arundelle breathed in shakily and looked up at him, her violet eyes** filled with tears. “No, Luv. You’ve blamed yourself for too much in this life. I…I don’t believe there’s anything either of us could have done that would change the way it is today.”

“Then I thank the Maker. He’s given us a second chance,” Artham murmured. 

“We don't deserve it,” Arundelle whispered, and though Artham couldn't help but think they hadn't deserved having their child taken away from them either, that led to a whole slew of other thoughts related to guilt and mistakes he really didn't want to deal with in the moment.

Instead he only kissed her and said, “But He’s given us this chance, and we’re not about to let it slip out of our grasp, are we?”

Goodbyes were called for at dawn. Artham had never been particularly fond of them as a whole, but none had ever made him feel as guilty as those exchanged that afternoon. The reason for guilt lay entirely at his feet; no one else instilled it in him. Nia and Sara and Leeli were all so supportive, and even Arundelle chose not to mention her frustration (he wondered if he imagined seeing it in her eyes, though). 

What (or rather who) really bothered him was Janner. Perhaps it was only his imagination…but something was wrong. Not on an emotional or mental level, but on a physical one. It wasn’t particularly obvious, just a subtle change in his eyes or expression or stance that told him all was not as it was supposed to be. Yet at the same time, the wrongness practically fled from his sight as soon as he peered closer, as if he only imagined it or Janner noticed and hid it from him. 

“You don’t look good,” he murmured in his nephew’s ear, knowing if he had imagined it, the last thing Janner would appreciate was unnecessary hovering. 

A head shake was the only response he got at first, though after several seconds it was followed by a quiet, “I’m alright. Please, just…worry about yourself and your daughter. Keep both of you safe.”

Unwilling to promise that for fear of failing, Artham only straightened with a nod that could be interpreted as anything and pretended not to hear the stifling of a cough as Arundelle embraced him for one last farewell. 

As he climbed onto Hyrindale, the green dragon who had carried him and Kalmar to the Blackwood a month before, uneasiness failed to leave his heart, and even when Anniera was practically out of sight, he found himself constantly looking behind him as if such an action would keep everything from falling apart.

Chapter Text

I don't get it, Ilana cried inwardly as the little boat her mother rowed came closer to the heart of the Phoob Islands, black as death against the red and gold of sunset. What does she expect me to do?

They had had as little conversation as possible, first during the weeks sailing across the Dark Sea of Darkness. Many might have been terrified, but Ilana was not. She had made the trip with her mother many times, going to and from the Phoob Islands and Throg. Normally they had more conversation, more playtime, more harmony during the sail. 

It had not been so this time. Bitter Fangs had watched over her closely, guarding her, yet every time her mother had walked into her line of sight, a honeyed smile like those so normal had accompanied her.

It was a relief, really, seeing that smile even after what she had done. Ilana had been sure something dreadful was in store, but the kindness in her mother's face had been a comfort. It was like the Fangs held her captive while her mother looked on…though she wasn't sure why. That last bit didn't make much sense, she supposed, but nothing really did.

Just Mother and her had left the ship, though. Somehow the Fangs disappeared in the middle of the night without a trace. Ilana had halfway expected there to be some form of conversation when they were finally “reunited,” but other than instructions on how to get into the little boat safely, none occurred.

Ilana’s most recent question, what does she expect me to do? came from her mother's clipped, out-of-the-blue statement: “I know you'll do as I expect you to.” 

What in Aerwiar did that mean? She hadn't the foggiest idea—there were endless possibilities! Sing the song like so many other children? Find a child, rescue him, fall in love? Wait in a cage like some people? Befriend a starving boy in a cage and run away with him? Tend to the captured animals? Find an adorable kitten and love it until the day she died? Keep the semi-sanitary living quarters clean? Become a maid for a rich family and fall in love with another one of their lowly servants?

Who knew what was asked of her!? All concerns aside, the possibilities were fascinating and wonderful. Or they were terrible. Some were just average, and there was a good chance others were well-deserved. She had let all the prisoners loose with the trolls’ help, and as of that moment, she had not received any severe punishment for it, other than the day or so in the cell three weeks earlier. Well, being guarded by Fangs on the sail over to Skree may have also been a form of punishment, since they had scared her. She was used to fear, though, so even if she didn’t like it, it didn’t feel like something out of the ordinary.

“Come on,” her mother snapped unexpectedly, and when Ilana looked, she saw the boat had finally docked and she was the only one in it. “You're taking too long. Hurry.”

Scrambling out of the small, wooden craft, Ilana held tighter to the bag dangling from her shoulder and down her side. It didn't hold food or anything, just her doll, book, journal, and pencil. Maybe that had been a mistake. Perhaps more useful things would have served her better. It wasn’t as though she had any way of really knowing what her mother planned on walking her into.

“What are we doing here?” she finally risked asking when they slipped into the Phoobs’ fortress through the back entrance. Squinting in the darkness of the tunnel that would eventually open to the drafty cavern, Ilana held her breath, just waiting for an answer from her mother, an answer in the form of a lantern flare or quiet words that would hopefully be honeyed and not chilling.

The sound of a match strike filled her ears, then golden, shadowy light as the flame caught the lantern oil ablaze. Smiling a little, Ilana turned to look at her mother, only to be greeted by serious eyes and a pinched mouth.

“What is it?” her mother hissed in frustration or anger, her eyes hard. The flame sputtered a bit, as if flinching away from the words and hateful tone.

Wincing, Ilana shook her head. “Nothing,” she murmured, tightening her left hand around the strap of her satchel and beginning to twirl a loose strand of hair with her right. 

The fluttery motion against her cheek lasted only a few moments before her hand was grabbed and she was pulled along. With no time to wonder why her mother suddenly began racing her along, then practically dragged her up the roughly hewn steps cut into the stone of the cavern’s wall, Ilana only followed silently, questions screaming inside her mind. 

When they finally reached the top of the enormous flight of stairs, she gasped for breath, not used to ascending them so quickly and all at once. After hours or during lulls in the melding, Ilana had run up and down the stairs as carefully as possible, but she had always taken at least two breaks on the way. That was how many steps there were.

She had no break this time, though, and continued trotting behind her mother, sighing (gasping) in relief when they came to the living quarters they stayed in while in the Phoobs. Here they finally slowed, placed the key in the door’s lock, and slipped inside, almost stealthily. Ilana wanted to know why they were sneaking around and what good it did them, but her mother had always told her to speak after being spoken to, so she was silent.

Instead of speaking, she stood and watched as her mother fluttered around the room, muttering to herself and throwing the lantern light haphazardly. After all, what was she supposed to do? If she interfered and asked if she could help, she would be silenced immediately or sent to bed or completely ignored, at the very least.

Once her mother had looked around the quarters more than five times, she finally turned towards Ilana, smiling but in a worried sort of way. 

“Ilana, dear,” she said quietly, sitting down in an armchair and beckoning her close. 

Ilana came and sat at her mother's feet. “Yes, mother?” she asked sweetly, thrilled to finally be hearing the mostly normal, not angry voice.

“Have I ever told you about your father?” She asked after a pause.

Eyes widening with eagerness, Ilana shook her head vigorously. “No, Mother, you haven't.”

A smile crossed her mother's face. “Well, then,” came the honeyed words. “I suppose it's time, isn't it?”

Ilana held her breath as the truth about her father was revealed. Her heart beat faster, racing with excitement and expectation. He was wonderful, she was sure. Courage and ferocity flowed through his veins along with kindness and gentleness. It seemed like a contradiction, a contradiction so wonderful that it couldn’t be, but for him she knew it was the truth.

“He cared nothing for you.”

Those first words stopped her heart, her breath, her mind. Hair twirling began.

The rest of the words came from afar cold, devoid of emotions other than hatred. “When he saw you in what he thought to be a near death state, he did nothing. He let you lay there, let you get taken away by Fangs that wanted to hurt and kill you.” 

No, Ilana begged silently, feeling tears spring into her eyes. No, it can’t be true. He wouldn’t do that, I know he wouldn’t! It’s just not possible! I know him! It just isn’t true.

“Then when he did have the chance to rescue you,” her mother continued, now trembling with passionate anger. “He didn't take it. He ran without even considering the possibility of taking you to safety because he is a coward who cares for himself and no one else.”

Staring at her, Ilana blinked, a tear rolling down her cheek. “A coward?” she whispered, her heart breaking. 

“Yes, and I’ve never seen him as anything else.” Her mother’s eyes were dark, bitter, and angry, and through her pain Ilana could not help but wonder what her father had done to her to make her that way. “And he’s a hateful beast of a man.”

Taking in a shuddering breath, Ilana tried to calm her heart and mind that raced with grief and uncertainty now instead of anticipation and joy. “He’s not kind and caring and—”

“No!” her mother roared, jumping up and taking her by the shoulders. “He’s a heartless coward who thinks about himself, himself only and he doesn’t care about you and he never has. He left you and he hasn’t come back. Why do you think he hasn’t come back?” Ilana did not have time to answer. “Well, I’ll tell you why! It’s because he does not want you and he does not love you and he never will.”

Ilana felt her face twisting into sorrow and grief and she rushed into her mother’s arms, clinging to her with all she had. “Couldn’t you have told me sooner?” she sobbed as the image of her father crumbled to bits and pieces in her mind’s eye, washed away by the torrent streaming down her cheeks. “I loved him f-for all this time, and now, and now—”

“Shh,” her mother said soothingly, the anger dissolving in an instant, a soft hand now rubbing concentric circles into her back. “It’s alright. I’m here. I love you. You can forget about him.”

Ilana nodded into here mother’s shoulder, shuddering, agreeing, but somehow, she didn’t think she would be able to forget.

Chapter Text

Janner was suffocating. Partially in the same way he had been since he came back from the Maker’s World, only to remember Kalmar was gone, discover he was King, and nothing would ever be the same again. Yet it was more than that. Those troubles still weighed on his mind—constantly, horrifically, terrifyingly, agonizingly—but he now felt as though he was physically suffocating, like every breath was an effort, an effort with the potential result of a coughing fit that he would then proceed to stifle if he was around others and try not to kill himself in the process of if he was alone.

When he thought back on it, the stifling feeling in his chest had increased slowly, gradually over the weeks they had lived in Anniera. It had woken him up many times in the middle of the night, along with other dreadful thoughts, and always plagued him after times when he was supposed to have slept restfully. 

Handling it hadn’t been too dreadful when Artham was there. His uncle’s presence had served as a motivation of some sort, in the sense that he wanted to impose on him as little as possible. Janner knew how hard it was to be a Throne Warden and that he wasn’t making it particularly easy for Artham, so he had wanted to stifle the suffocating issue in some odd way of relieving him of a duty. One less thing for his uncle to worry about was always a good thing.

The day or so leading up to Artham’s departure had made masking the suffocation nearly impossible, though, because for whatever reason, his body decided he could not handle it anymore. For that matter, Artham had nearly found out as he was leaving and sounded as though he was halfway tempted just to abandon the entire search for his daughter one account of a cough or a sickly pallor or something ridiculous and true but irrelevant! Janner would have never forgiven himself if that had happened.

The pressure in his chest mounted, his head buzzed and throbbed, Artham was gone, and all Janner’s motivation for masking and hiding his physical problems had left with him. It was strange, really, to stop hiding everything and want to be found out, to want someone else to notice. Stranger, though, was that Nia, or someone else, failed to recognize it the day Artham left, the day after, and even the morning after that!

If Janner had been vocally frank, he would have told someone how frustrating it was. He dragged himself out of bed that morning with the expectation that Nia or Leeli or Sara or even Arundelle would notice something was wrong with him, really wrong, that he had almost no energy, that he could barely think, barely eat, barely speak without choking on a cough. 

No one had said anything, though, and Janner thought there was a high probability of him dissolving into tears if anyone spoke to him in a way that was tender or angered or some other “different” emotion. He was glad he didn’t have to worry about addressing everyone about everything. The regents Artham had helped him appoint had taken the Annieran citizens to various places on the isle to populate and build up there, meaning only about a hundred or so remained in what once was and would eventually be known as Rysentown. 

Since Artham was technically the regent in charge of Rysentown, Janner should have had to fulfill his responsibilities in his absence. As it was, though, Arundelle did it, perhaps because she figured it was her responsibility since Artham was gone or perhaps because she noticed something was…off at breakfast that morning. Janner really would have preferred her to say something about the “off-ness” rather than simply observing and acting upon it but acting was something and he was grateful.

As it was, he ended up wandering over to the beach because he couldn’t really do much to physically rebuild Rysentown. The wind was strong, and the waves were loud there, and though the former may have induced coughing, the latter swallowed the sound whole, and it was lost to the open sea.

During the middle of one of those coughing fits, Galya appeared from out of nowhere (she seemed to be good at doing that). Janner wanted to stand up chivalrously and greet her, he really did, but on such short notice, he was almost certain it would be impossible. 

Instead, he smiled pleasantly to her somewhat concerned-sounding greeting and eventually choked out, “What brings you here?” before he had to stop.

“Nothing much more than a desire for a walk,” she began, sitting down a few feet away from him and furrowing her brow a bit. “Are you alright? You look…well, you look frightfully ill.”

Janner’s breath caught in his throat when he heard those words, and by the time he managed to subdue the coughing fit the breath had brought on, tears streamed down his cheeks. He wasn’t even certain what emotion they related to, whether they were for joy or grief or frustration or anger. They were just there and spilling out almost uncontrollably, partially deafening Galya’s repeated words of concern. 

“Do you want me to find your mother?” finally came through, and Janner felt himself nodding, his arms wrapped around his chest because coughing was starting to hurt too much, and now some of the tears were ones of pain, too.

Somewhere in the back of his mind shame pattered around, having to do with literally breaking down in front of Galya. He didn’t have the energy to feel shame for that, though, and just the thought of having to use energy for something like feeling shame was almost enough to convince him to lay down and sleep on the beach.

Some form of rationale still lingered in his throbbing head, though, because it told him that would scare Galya and Nia when they came back, and he really didn’t want to scare them.

He had control over the tears and almost managed the coughing, too, and that was the moment when Galya appeared in the distance again, Sara running behind her, not Nia. Janner did convince himself to stand up that time, because Sara and Galya should not have been the ones forced to handle whatever sort of situation was happening. Standing made his head pound, but he still raised his hand and waved and even opened his mouth to speak when both girls were in reasonable hearing distance. 

An enormous gust of wind and wave wrecked that idea, though, and before he knew it, he was sprawled in freezing cold seawater, choking and coughing and gasping all at the same time. Someone grabbed him and hulled him up, then wrapped their arm around his back, leading him back to the beach, now dripping wet. 

What Janner was most aware of in those brief moments on the sand—in which ease of breath and mind failed to come back to him, and they began walking back to Castle Rysen—was that Sara was soaking herself as she supported him and her catching a cold would just be dreadful.

At some point in time Galya left, and the cellar door of Castle Rysen appeared in front of them, seeming as though it just begged them to open it and go inside. The darkness welcomed them, and Janner couldn’t help but groan when Sara lit the candle so they could find their way in the dark. 

He felt guilty when he heard her murmured apology—she sounded truly stricken—and did his best to force an assuaging response out of his mouth but was unsure if he actually succeeded. 

Changing out of his soaking wet clothes was a feat in and of itself, and he nearly broke down sobbing behind the partition as he peeled off his outer layer because of just how done he was. He didn’t want to be cold and wet and tired and hurting; he just wanted to sleep and make it all stop. 

Sara helped him into bed as soon as he was ready, and aside from the agony of having to stumble all the way over to the corner of the room where his bed was, the experience of getting into it and laying down and feeling the warm covers fall over him was wonderful.

“Galya went to find your mother,” he heard Sara say softly, but there was something else in her tone. Fear. 

Guilt crashed over him. “‘m sorry,” he whispered, opening his eyes and focusing on her blearily in spite of the blinding candle in her hand. “It’s my—” that was as far as he got, though, before another series of hacking coughs took over his body, and tears filled his eyes once more because it hurt. As he shook and jolted and gasped for breath that only prompted more coughing, Janner took comfort in the way Sara’s hand held onto his, because it was something he could feel and see in his mind’s eye, and it didn’t hurt at all.

Chapter Text

Landing in the vicinity of or anywhere near the Phoobs would have been a terrible decision, one quite possibly detrimental to rescuing his daughter from Amrah's clutches. Instead, Hyrindale diving underwater with him on his back was the best solution, as they could get close enough to the Phoob Islands without being sighted. 

Artham came up sputtering, an arrow's shot away from one of the smaller (and outer) Islands, one hopefully not swarming with Fang scouts or others Amrah might have employed. The swim was somewhere between barely manageable and grueling, and many concerns regarding the state of his sword or supplies ran through his head as he made his way to shore. 

Sincerely hoping his assumption that the small island was abandoned held true, Artham pulled himself out of the water and onto rocky, dry land that, unlike him, did not drip and create obvious water-spot trails. 

Finding a way to get to the main melding station of the Phoobs that isn't this sounds like an excellent, because dripping all over the island sounds a bit like a, HELLO, I AM HERE!!! message, Artham thought drily as he pulled his shirt off and wrung the water out from it. Salt water dried into clothes would turn into a dreadfully itchy mess if he did nothing, and while he could resist the urge to scratch, anything hampering stealth reconnaissance tended to, well, hamper stealth reconnaissance. 

Speaking of reconnaissance, how he would actually carry it out was another issue. As of that moment, nothing came to mind. His wings were gone, so his previous method used when rescuing Kalmar would not work anymore. Very few times in which he actually wished he still had the enormous things some classified as weapons, but this was one of them. They would serve him well now.

Yet the Maker had seen it fit to instruct his King to rid him and many other people of what were handicaps in a way, and arguing with such a choice seemed a violation of trust placed in him. Artham knew he was not his wings, for though they were (in a way) a gift from the Maker, they were still a symbol of brokenness, of wrong choices. 

He was a Throne Warden, first and foremost, and even though he did not directly serve his King and nephew as of that moment, he did obey. That in and of itself was a form of service, of love. What better way to prove his courage than bringing home a dear member of their family, one lost for years? One who was his daughter. 

Artham glanced toward the core of the Phoob Islands in the distance, the one in which the melding chamber, and hopefully Amrah and his daughter, resided. Once again, the doubt in that the trip, his halfway-formed plan, the wavering hope, was based on Janner's logical hunch fluttered into his mind. How could it not? It wasn't as though he didn't trust Janner—quite the contrary, in fact. The lad had had genius ideas at times, perhaps the one most tender to his heart when he climbed the Great Tree in Ban Rona and jumped.

It was rather the opposite, in fact. He did trust Janner and Janner's hunch. He agreed the Phoobs was the most logical place Amrah would take his daughter to. And it was just the sort of location she would want to lure him to as well. That was it, of course. He was unwilling to admit it out loud, almost completely reluctant to whisper it into his mind, but he was nervous. Anxious. Scared, even. Amrah and the Fangs had held him in the Phoobs for weeks, dangling above the melding chambers, seeing child after child swayed into Fangishness because they had lost all hope.

It was the same view he and Esben had had in Throg, one where their cage dangled, facing the melding chambers where day after day after day people willingly turned their souls over to Gnag and his Stonekeepers. That had been after they had taken his daughter and Arundelle away, of course. Perhaps it was how cruelly and mercilessly the Fangs treated them was what pushed Esben into such dark hopelessness: if Gnag and his monsters were willing to hurt a young pregnant woman, and later her child, for the fun of it, what wouldn't they do to the Queen of Anniera and her Jewels?

Memories and fears aside, Artham had around five weeks to plan and carry out a rescue mission, and exhausting all the time was not his intention. Two weeks was the maximum amount of time he wanted to spend in the Phoobs, and the earlier he carried out his yet-to-be-formed plan, the stronger the element of surprise.

That was one thing he could not lose. He would botch the entire mission if Amrah discovered he had already arrived, since he had technically broken her rules regarding him being the only one to rescue his daughter. Hyrindale had helped with transportation and given him an enormous advantage. Such a thing would surely infuriate Amrah, and he did not have any desire to test her patience. 

Like mother, like daughter, though, and even if he had not seen her anger, only odd forms of ecstasy and honeyed persuasion, Murgah's burning anger had terrified him. She was cruel in her anger, throwing her prisoners into the melding chamber if they refused and hitting them into submission if it was necessary, sometimes just for fun. Maybe that was why Podo had so successfully deterred him when he came to Glipwood: the anger had reminded him of Murgah to the point at which he had run like the scared Cloven he was. 

Ah, another point. From the moment he ran out of the Deeps of Throg, he had known few things, but one he was sure of: the title "Cloven" branded him. A split, crushed, twisted thing he was, inside and out. He could do nothing to fix it, nothing to change it.

The Maker and Kalmar had changed that, though, and he was Cloven no longer. He was whole. And no matter the cost, he would rescue his daughter from the black, looming mass crouching amidst the sea and sunset.

Doing reconnaissance was difficult when you couldn’t actually scout your target in any way, Artham realized. He had no boat to get him to the main island and swimming sounded as though it was a poor choice for many reasons.

Because of that, nearly all of his reconnaissance was done from memory, of what he remembered about the island, its layout, its weak points, its innards, its escape routes. He had dangled there for weeks, after all, and that had given him plenty of time to observe the inside where the melding chamber resided.

The main entrance was the one used by the Black Carriage and its driver, the one normally carting children to their inescapable fate. Yet…it seemed as though there was a second entrance, a smaller one, the one he had come through.

The Fangs had dragged him, of course, and he had been crazed and only half-alert at the time, but he knew he entered through the back route. All those coming through the main entrance were transported by the Black Carriage, but one thing he was acutely aware of was that he had been kicked, shoved, and finally dragged along down a dark, claustrophobic tunnel. Well, he was acutely aware as long as the tunnel hadn’t been a figment of his imagination that unfortunately worked a bit too well at times.

Artham shook his head. He did not have the luxury of second-guessing himself. That state of mind would have to wait for a different time, one when lived he cared dearly about were not on the line. He had to believe the Maker would give him sound recollection, because otherwise, all reconnaissance would have to occur the moment he set foot on the island, whenever that might be. 

It'll be when I can find some sort of boat, Artham thought ruefully as he looked out at the water. Already he had been there an entire day and had yet to come up with a single idea related to boatery. And honestly, he was making excuses, considering he had had the several days' trip to the Phoobs to figure it out. 

His mind decided to wander for a moment, and Artham couldn't help but grin at the thought that once it had been an anomaly to cross the Dark Sea in five days, and here he and Hyrindale had done it in four. His smile faded as he realized the wrong sort of people could exploit that dreadfully. As soon as he was back in Anniera, he would present the suggestion to Janner and the other regents. 

Oh, and Janner—his mind was wandering more than he planned. Good thing no one was around to jump him. His nephew had crossed his mind so many times, to the point at which Artham almost believed something was actually wrong, that the cough had developed into something horrible like pneumonia or consumption or something else dreadfully life-threatening to the old and young and weak.

But that didn't happen, Artham told himself, crossing his arms as if that somehow bolstered his confidence. It didn’t happen because it just wouldn't. It's illogical that something would happen as soon as I left Anniera. That sort of thing only happens in books.

“Do not shift thyself another hair, my transpiring fellow,” came a very familiar voice from behind. “Or I may find that the head that sitteth between thy shoulders maketh a top-notch centerpiece.”

“Gammon!” Artham exclaimed, whipping around to face his friend, clad from head to foot in his somewhat ridiculous Florid Sword garb. He had yet to fathom why in Aerwiar his friend was on the outskirts of the Phoob Islands, but it was an easy enough question to get an answer to. “Actually, you're just the sort of person—”

Gammon's eyes narrowed to slits in his mask. “Nay, sir, do not address me as such! I am Florid, and no other! Remove thyself from these premises faster than physically possible, for if thou dost not, my threat from before stands still.”

Laughing nervously, Artham put his hands up. He hadn't considered Gammon might very well not recognize him as a result of the melding. After all, before he had had feathery hair, reddish skin, talons for fingers, and enormous, black wings. Now he looked like a normal person. Confusion wasn't completely unexpected. “It's just me—”

But before he could get another word in, Gammon's sword had sprung from its sheath and drawn a line across his upper arm. Artham's mouth dropped open in surprise, and as he backed away, he couldn't help but feel relief that his shirt was crimson. It would make it harder for Arundelle to spot bloodstains from any superficial injuries later. 

Like those dished out from someone you would consider a “close friend”? he thought drily as he spun to avoid another one of Gammon's jabs. 

“Remove thyself from these premises!” Gammon ordered again, louder this time. “The first wound was a warning; the next will be a command.”

Artham pursed his lips and glanced around the small island, observing for any sort of cover or obstacles that might take part in what could very soon spiral into a duel if he couldn't convince Gammon of who he was.

“Gammon, I promise,” he began again, casually moving away from the feinting point of his friend’s sword. “You know me. I'm Artham Wingfeather! Remember, the crazy guy with wings who met up with you in Kimera and helped liberate the children in Dugtown?”

Glaring, Gammon scoffed at him. “Sure, and I am a normal human being without stealth capabilities. Thou hast met thy match, imposter! The true Artham Wingfeather is in Anniera as of this moment, and last I checked, he has wings.”

Anger flashed in Gammon's eyes, and with the next jab of his sword, one that was certainly meant to be a direct hit and not a feint, Artham reluctantly drew his sword. As suspicion and even triumph mounted in Gammon's posture, he could only hope his fighting style would be recognized. 

Their blades clashed, a lovely and yet deadly sort of zing ringing out through the evening. Brief concern that one of Amrah's potential scouts would hear made its way into Artham's heart, and urgency took over his mind. He would have to convince or subdue Gammon as soon as possible, otherwise his entire purpose for being there could be in jeopardy. 

“How's Maraly doing? Or, rather, Shadowblade,” he asked during a bit of a lull in the duel.

“That is none of the concern, hideous imposter!” Gammon grunted angrily, his sword coming down hard on Artham's blade, using his full weight to shove him into a rock that appeared behind them. 

Clenching his teeth at the effort of pushing back trying to keep both himself and Gammon from being dreadfully wounded in the process, Artham settled for breaking the rules of duels and shoved him onto the ground with his shoulder. 

Success was his, and Gammon toppled, his sword flying in one direction as he landed on his side in what looked to be a bruise-creating position. 

“You cheating, self-centered, disgrace of a—” Gammon growled, looking as furious as a mad cat.

“Before you kill me,” Artham said calmly as he planted his foot on Gammon's chest only to keep him down, the tip of his sword several inches away from his friend’s nose. “I need you to listen. I am Throne Warden of Anniera, Artham P. Wingfeather, Son of Jru Wingfeather, protector of those who cannot protect themselves. If I was an imposter, I would have killed you by now. After all, I do have you at sword point.”

Glaring at him, Gammon raised himself into a sitting position. “You put forth a decent point, no pun intended. Answer me this, then: if you are Artham, what happened to you?”

Artham smiled and considered whether or not he should sheath his sword. Probably not, he decided. Gammon still looks kind of apt to attack. “It's quite a long story, but the short one is that the Maker saw it fit for Kalmar, may he rest with the Maker and his forefathers, to meld with the Cloven still trapped in Throg, and I was healed at the same time.”

Pure confusion passed over Gammon’s face, but it was gone in a flash; Artham didn’t mind. It was an odd thing to see his friend confused or nervous or concerned or pretty much anything other than confident and audacious. 

“That makes almost no sense,” Gammon said drily, a hint of concern in his words. “There's no way Kalmar is gone. And, frankly, I really don’t—”

“ARTHAM!!” came Maraly’s crowing voice, and in seconds, her arms were unexpectedly wrapped around his waist. 

Artham blinked in surprise for a brief second before smirking. “I suppose that banishes your disbelief, doesn’t it?”

Gammon’s mouth had dropped open in surprise the moment Maraly flew onto the scene, and after Artham had sheathed his sword, he semi-begrudgingly accepted the helping hand up.

Maraly had decided to stand off to the side stoically as was normal and cleared her throat as if to erase her ecstatic nature from moments earlier. “Hey,” she grunted, and Artham burst out laughing. “Gammon, how’d ya manage ta think he was anybody ‘sides Artham?”

Gammon pretended to cough  and adjusted his eye mask that really didn’t need adjusting. He seemed embarrassed, and Artham couldn’t help but see the hilarity in the situation. “That’s not important,” he muttered, sounding more ashamed than dismissive. There was something else in his eyes, though, related to what had been said minutes before about Kalmar. Questions would need to be answered. “Artham, my friend. What brings you to the Phoobs? It isn’t exactly a pleasure spot.”

“No, it’s not,” Artham agreed. “Frankly, I would never come back here if there was no need. But there is a need. Amrah the Stonekeeper is holding my daughter captive, and I suppose the Florid Sword and Shadowblade could come in handy in terms of getting her to safety.”

“Great!” Maraly exclaimed, whipping a dagger out from who-knew-where. Apparently, she didn’t feel a need to ask where his daughter had spawned from.  “When do we start?”

Chapter Text

“I’m fine,” Janner said hoarsely, barely holding back a shudder when an icy drop rolled down his neck. 

Sara shook her head. “No, you’re not fine. Please, save your breath. You don’t really have much of it...and I’m sorry about the drip,” she added sympathetically, her eyes shifting toward the damp rag in her hand. “But you’ve had a fever for days, the water is meant to cool it, and you nearly bolting upright when just-cool water fell on you tells me said fever may very well be higher.”

Janner groaned as she got up, partially because it meant the bed bounced uncomfortably and sent his mind spinning, but also because of what she was doing. The candle- and lantern-light made her movements clear, and that they took her toward a small table with a pitcher and a cup even more so. A stream of lukewarm liquid fell into the cup, and only seconds later it was in Sara’s hand, coming nearer. 

Pushing himself into more of a sitting position—as if that would do anything to deter her; Sara was a force of nature—Janner looked at her in what he knew was a pitiful way, figuring trying it was better than not trying at all. “Please, don’t. It’s really not—” but the intake of breath before he began speaking had been haphazard and more, apparently, than his lungs liked. 

The next several minutes were spent hacking painfully, gasping for shaky air in the middle of it, clutching his stomach because it hurt so badly. When it was over, Janner fell back, his breathing shuddery and erratic. He squeezed his eyes shut, tired of the little of Aerwiar he could see being blurred and out of focus. It was strange how fevers and lack of air could do that to someone.

“I know you still don’t want the tea,” Sara murmured, the bed shifting a little when she sat down on it. “But it’s for your own good, and it does help.”

Too exhausted to risk another coughing fit, Janner nodded reluctantly, his face twisting automatically the second the tea touched his lips. Osier bark.* Excellent for bringing down fevers and making someone feel so nauseous it prolonged their illness. 

He knew the last thing wasn’t true, but he had begun thinking about it. Nothing anyone had tried had helped; if anything, all attempts had made him feel far worse than before. It was getting to where he was tired of trying other things and just wanted to let whatever it was attacking him run its course. That was what illnesses did, after all. They ran their course eventually. 

To her credit, Nia had not tried everything. Thankfully she had decided not to listen to suggestions from Mother Madalana (formerly Mother Mungery) as they were nearly all feet related and did not seem applicable.

“Can’t we just stop?” Janner whispered, opening his eyes just enough to where he could see Sara, dipping the rag into cool water again. “It’ll do whatever it wants and then leave. Why not wait?” He was so tired, and the past few days had felt like endless, burning, freezing, aching weeks. 

Sara’s head turned toward him, her blue eyes snapping with seriousness. “Yes, illnesses usually just hang out for a while and then leave. But no one thinks this one is going to do that, do they? Do you know why? I’ll tell you why: it’s because physically you cannot fight this on your own.” 

Janner sighed and felt tears prickle in his eyes the moment it sent a rough breath down his throat. It hurt, and he knew she was right. The fact that she was right scared him and angered him and frustrated him more than anything. Not that he was angry with her, but with himself. It had been a month since the Blackwood and the First Well. The lenlit fruit had helped a good deal in the immediate and the long run. Why did it fail him now?

Sara wasn’t done speaking, though. “Your body isn’t strong enough. It needs help. That is why we’re trying to help you. You feel like trash right now, but that’s only because the illness is countering our attacks on it. Like any enemy, it’s fighting back. Please, Janner, accept our help. And don’t lose this battle. If you do…” 

Her voice trailed off and she looked away focusing on something in the corner of the room. “We care about you. I care about you. Just,” she traced a pattern on the covers blindly, and then her cold fingers brushed his hand, almost shocking him with how icy they were. She jerked a little bit at the touch, her diamond eyes focusing on him suddenly. 

“What?” he asked softly, feeling guilty about asking her a question when he knew he would plunge into sleep any moment. The edges of his vision blurred even more, darkened, and the blue stars faded.

“Nothing,” she murmured. “It’s almost time for your mother’s shift, that’s all.”

If he had had the energy to pursue the fact that she definitely had not told him anything, Janner would have. He didn’t, though, and as everything around him drifted into blackness, he knew his body had opted for sleep anyway. 

Sara’s lips pursed in worry, her chin resting in her hand. The sound of the cellar door tore her attention away from Janner’s feverish face, and she saw Nia who was indeed ready for her shift. She hadn’t exactly lied to Janner; Nia was coming, just not so soon as she had implied. It didn’t matter, anyway. He had slipped into something far nearer to unconsciousness than sleep almost before she had finished speaking. 

“How is he?” Nia whispered, placing one hand on Sara’s shoulder comfortingly as the other brushed across Janner’s forehead. The way her brow furrowed only deepened Sara’s worry, worry she was honestly getting tired of. It hadn’t been long, only a few days, but worrying constantly was becoming tiring. 

She wasn’t sure if she had ever worried so intensely before about a single thing, other than when Fangs had shoved her into the Black Carriage. Then she had worried about her family, about where she was going, about where the Maker was when she really needed him. Her worry had mounted to the point at which she actually made herself sick with it. The Fork! Factory! had seemed like a mercy compared to a life captured and tortured by Fangs, even if it was a mercy riddled with despair. 

It was not until she felt Nia’s eyes trained on her that Sara realized she had failed to answer her question. “Not great,” she stammered, brushing a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “He was coughing for a while, and I think his fever is up. But you already knew that.”

Nia nodded and squeezed her hands in her lap, her eyebrows still knitted together. “Thank you, Sara. You’re welcome to do whatever you want, and that includes staying here, if you so desire.”

Sara felt a flicker of a smile crossing over her face at the suggestion, but she shook her head anyway. It was too generous of Nia, and she had a feeling being alone with Janner was what she really wanted. “Thank you, Mrs. Wingfeather. But—”

“Nia,” was the quietly spoken name that interrupted her. “Please,” Nia said softly, turning toward her. “I know I said both ‘Mrs. Wingfeather’ and ‘Nia,’ and even ‘Mama’ if you like, were fine, but the former seems too impersonal. We’ve been through too much for something like impersonality to get in the way. You’re family, Sara. Either of the latter options would be lovely.”

Feeling a bit awkward and unsure of what she should go next, Sara gave a little half-nod and smiled lightly. “Thank you,” she said softly, trying to focus on Nia’s face and not Janner’s. “Thank you so much.”

Outside of the cellar, away from the courtyard, on the sandy path down to the beach, Sara still pondered what Nia had told her. It was her only other option, really. She could focus her attention on Nia’s request or on Janner’s illness. Though, there was the option of talking to her former orphans. The thought of it didn’t sit with her well, though. Not at that moment. Something about it seemed wrong. She needed to think and maybe meander along the beach as she did so. 

First order of things: Nia. She wanted Sara to call her by her given name or even by the name her children addressed her: ‘Mama.’ Was it not some sort of intrusion? The name ‘Mama’ was one reserved for mothers, one only their precious jewels (no pun intended) called them. Nia had lost one of her children only a month before, and now another was dreadfully ill and—

Sara’s mouth dropped open in horror mingled with great, great sorrow for the woman who she honestly wouldn’t mind calling Mama. Nia…she missed hearing her name called by her children. By her child who was no more. Sara knew she could never replace Kalmar, it wasn’t possible. No one could replace him. It did seem likely, though, that Nia wished to fill the void in some way, and that she was desperate enough to ask it from the girl who had interacted with Janner once or twice—before the past few weeks, at least—broke Sara’s heart. Not that she was offended, not in the least. Honored was far closer a word to describe how she felt. 

She thought of her own ‘mama,’ not Mama to her, of course, but Mother. It was odd, Mother and Papa had been their names, not Mother and Father, nor Mama and Papa. Sara never really wondered why she had not called her mother Mama until that moment, but she supposed—a lump of sorrow came into her throat with her supposing—it was because they had never been close, not really. She and her Papa were always far closer, bonded by their love of stories of Anniera and tricorns and magic. Her mother had been witty, yes, practical, yes, but not loving in a way Sara had understood. There had to have been love in her heart, though. It must not have been a love she could comprehend yet, that was all. She wondered if she would understand it now. 

She wished she had understood it then.

Chapter Text

“Are you certain you don’t want backup or an extra scout?” Gammon asked again.

Maraly crossed her arms and glared at them. “Or two!” she interrupted indignantly.

Artham shifted his mindset away from the small boat he had nearly hopped into and shook his head. “No, but thank you. Both of you,” he added, giving Maraly, clad in her Shadowblade attire, a kind smile. 

Both she and Gammon had stuck around for two days, more or less, at least. The time had been spent constructing a sketchy plan that wasn’t much more than “don’t get caught.” Of course, there was the benefit of the borrowed boat, plus the promised assistance if anything looked awry. 

Gammon gave him a brisk nod and studied the ground a bit oddly. Cocking his head, Artham stared at him, wondering which of many hidden things raced through his friend’s head in that moment. 

After a few moments of silence, in which Maraly began picking her nails because she lacked skills in whatever department was taking place, Gammon looked up, and facing straight ahead, not looking at anything but the island beyond said, “I pray the Maker lets you find her Artham, I do. If the time arises…save her no matter what the cost. Knowing you gave your all is the only way you’ll be able to live with yourself.” His voice had grown quieter as he continued speaking, and his hand had strayed uncharacteristically and clutched Maraly’s upper arm. 

Artham nodded. He knew what Gammon spoke of. His daughter. His wife. Those he had lost. The similarities between the two of them were odd. Perhaps that was why they had hit it off so well in Kimera. “I know,” he said quietly, reverently, clapping his friend’s shoulder in parting. 

Glancing up at the barely visible moon, Artham couldn’t help but feel as though someone watched him, as if a beacon of light shone on him in the boat, exposing him and rendering the hobbling plan useless. It was ridiculous he had such thoughts, considering it was the deepest part of the night, and nothing except the water the oars disturbed stirred.

Though, paranoia never hurt anyone, he mused, looking out into the darkness of lapping water, twinkling stars, and crouching islands. All the little bits of the Phoobs were distractions, obstacles. His aim was the largest, the most secure, most fortified. 

Of course, it was also a good distance away, especially when considering how agonizingly slow he had to move in order to avoid detection. It was a precaution more than anything else. Unless Amrah had scouts giving her information—frankly, it was quite likely—she wouldn’t know he had technically cheated (not entirely on-purpose) by involving Hyrindale and Gammon and Maraly. They had given him a bit of useful information: they were in the Phoobs checking out a report from Fort Duid of a lone Fang ship that had passed through just days earlier. It had to be Amrah.

Speaking of them, he thought suddenly, his mind flashing back to when he had told them. There had been an awful lot to tell, especially since the Enramere was only two weeks into her return journey; she and her crew had stayed a bit longer, helping the land and her people onto their feet again.

It meant Janner’s death and life were news to them. A few tears escaped from Maraly’s stronghold at the first announcement and even more at the next, to which she also jumped and punched Artham very hard in the arm—it smarted since she managed to hit him in the same place Gammon had swiped his blade—demanding why he hadn’t led with that information. 

Kalmar’s subsequent passing was a shock too, though perhaps the most heartbreaking part of it was when Maraly asked, her voice breaking, “He didn’t come back though, right?”

Nodding was nearly impossible, but Artham managed. “He died well,” he added softly, as if that made it any better. It didn’t, not really. Not in the moment. In the long run, maybe it mattered. But when the pain was fresh, no one cared how or why a loved one died. They only wish they were alive again. 

“Now it feels wrong that we were happy about Janner bein’ alive,” she murmured afterward, twisting her black mask in her hands. “But not bein’ happy ‘bout ‘im seems wrong, too.”

Artham closed his eyes and nodded in response. “I know,” he whispered. “We weren’t sure what to think either. We still aren’t.” He didn’t think they ever would be. It wasn’t the sort of thing one ever understood. Artham knew what Janner felt, the way it hung over his head constantly. He hated seeing his nephew suffer in any way that was even akin to what he had felt. 

Sighing, he refocused his mind on the task at hand and again looked out at the water, his eyes settling on the mass swallowing more and more stars by the second. 

It was so close. His heart quickened. A few breaths, in and out slowly to calm himself. The boat thumped against the island and he nearly jumped, his hand clutching the side of the boat for support.

Artham bit his lip in frustration as he stepped out of the boat and onto shore, being certain to secure it so it wouldn’t drift. The last thing he needed was difficulty escaping while being chased by a crazy crab lady.* Chances were that no matter how the Maker intervened, getting out of the Phoobs and securing his daughter would attract unwanted attention. 

The boat quickly but securely (and hopefully secretly) tied up, Artham began his trip ashore. Painfully conscious of the crunch of pebbles underneath his feet as he crept toward the mass on the island, the fortress focused in the natural caves, he held one hand out, preferring not to bump into an enormous stone wall. Rather, he preferred his sword to stay put and not swing into stone if he walked into it. The clang of his sheath against such a hard surface would pierce the night and at least alert Amrah someone was near, even if she failed to actually find him in the dark. 

His fingertips finally brushed against rough stone, feeling a bit hewn, as if someone had taken some sort of buffer to it in an attempt to turn it regal rather than dilapidated. They had failed, of course, since the job was poorly done where it had been “completed” and only spanned only a small section of the outer cave. Artham couldn’t help but smirk. One couldn’t expect much in the artisan field from Fangs, it seemed. They were deadly and formidable when it came to combat, but they could not create. Melding snatched beauty from their minds and bodies, and the illness affected all they touched.

Artham felt as though he held his breath briefly with each step he took, with each inch his hand slid along the edge of the rock. He let it out when the step and slide yielded no results, then held it again with the next step and slide. 

The tension running through his mind at the thought of what could happen once he found the entrance to the cave, the back entrance, preferably, was so intense, so all-consuming, so at the forefront of his mind that when his fingers brushed not stone but empty air, he didn’t realize it at first. His mind was dumb for a moment, puzzled as to why his ability to feel had disappeared so suddenly. 

When it dawned on him, a thousand thoughts raced through Artham’s head in a moment, and a thousand metaphors accompanied them. He was running back to his captors, an animal of prey making its way back to the trap from whence it escaped. Yet though he did this, he was the same prey no longer. He had a purpose in running, a goal, a drive. 

Besides, he did not run in fear, he marched with courage (he took a step into the dark, a calculated step, a step of caution). 

Courage the Maker had given him, courage that would not waver (he ventured forward, knowing inaction was not an option, that it would be a mockery of everything wonderful bestowed upon him). 

Courage he should have had all along, courage that perhaps he did, but he had never recognized it (he walked further into the blackness, inky blackness that wrapped around his fingers and neck and mind). 

Courage that now coursed through every fiber of his being, sending his fingers tingling with the excitement of it (the tunnel continued on and on, seeming as though it would never stop, but that was alright. He had never been afraid of the dark).

Courage telling him he would give everything, even his life for his daughter he had not seen in years because he loved her dearly, fiercely, with all his heart (he took another few steps, and the sound of another’s breathing stopped him in his tracks).

Artham felt his heart leap into his throat briefly, and his hand went to his sword. He didn’t draw it yet, for drawing it would create a racket no matter how slow or swift he moved, and then he would lose the element of surprise. There was the chance whoever was in the tunnel with him was unaware of his presence. 

The sound of a striking match and a triumphant hiss put an end to that hope though. “You’ve got to be joking,” he muttered as he drew his sword, ready to very quietly end the life of the Grey Fang standing before him.

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” it asked gruffly, narrowing its eyes at him before he had the chance to swing.

Artham considered this for a moment. “Not so smart as some, perhaps smarter than others. I’m not really sorry, but I’m going to have to kill you.”

The Grey Fang smirked. “No, you’re not. But I’ll take your sword you’re so kindly presenting to me, thanks.”

In a half second, Artham felt himself kicked from behind by something, and before he knew it he was on the ground. His sword did not fall from his hand because he was trained; that could never happen. Unfortunately, it did happen (sort of) when something dreadfully hard knocked into his skull, and the blade was wrenched from his grasp.

“Beasts,” he mumbled, blinking rapidly, desperately fighting to stay awake as they began dragging him in the direction he had been going. He hated it when his enemies hit him in the head hard enough to render him useless, but not so hard that he lost consciousness immediately. The lantern light was dimming. “I’ll have your heads soon.”

“I’m gettin’ tired of ‘im, Gronst,” said a high-pitched voice, likely belonging to the apparent Green Fang. “Can’t we just gonk ‘im an’ keep ‘im from talkin’?”

“Really wouldn’t prefer that,” Artham breathed, watching the darkness deepen. 

The Grey Fang, Gronst, snorted. “I don’t care what you prefer. Might as well get to hear a cry of pain.”

In the same moment blackness from the original hit crashed over him, something, likely his own sword, cracked into his mind, flashing white hot before plunging into a ringing abyss. 

He wasn’t sure if he cried out and satisfied the Fangs or not.

Chapter Text

“Please, Mama, I can’t breathe in here,” Janner wheezed, his head and chest stuffed full of cotton, hot cotton that wanted to ignite more than anything.

“I know, sweetie,” Nia whispered. “But we’ve aired it out as much as we can.”

Struggling to focus on her face, Janner did his best to look her in the eyes. “What about outside?” he mumbled, almost unintelligibly.

Nia did something that might have been a shake of her head, but it sent his ears ringing. “I’m sorry, but we can’t.”

Janner wondered blearily if her words were really choked or if it just sounded that way in his mind. He felt something cool touch his hand, and then it (his hand?) was near her cheek, being pressed and squeezed reassuringly. Puzzling as to how she was able to lift his leadened hand with such ease took his mind on a bit of a sluggish journey as did the way his hand, and what he could see of his arm, looked. Everything was blurry, and nothing had crisp, defined edges—he squeezed his eyes shut briefly before opening them again. The thought of edges hurt—but it seemed as though his hand was thinner than it was the last time he had seen it. 

He’d barely eaten; that was why. Even water made him feel sicker than he already was, broth was barely tolerable, porridge had sent his stomach heaving and left him even more miserable the rest of the day. That might’ve been the day before, but he wasn’t sure. They were all starting to blur together. All the same. Many times worse, a few times much worse, never better, but all the same.

The sound of pouring water slipped into his ears, and the words, “do you think you can drink something?” predictably followed. Neither shaking his head nor nodding in response—he would have to drink either way—Janner watched the cup listlessly as it came nearer, first microscopic and then inhumanly ginormous in his mind’s feverishly distorted view of it.

As water squeezed down his throat, practically choking him in its merciless journey that gave him chills, he couldn’t help but be the tiniest bit thankful moving was unnecessary in the already terrible drinking process. He was slanted, not quite sitting up and not quite laying down to make “breathing easier” as someone had said. It might have been Nia or Mother Madalana or both of them or neither. 

If his opinion was asked, he would say it certainly didn’t seem as though it helped. The weight pressing against his chest was becoming unbearable, and sitting half-upright wasn’t making it slide off his body. 

“Wouldn’t slide off at all if I was laying down,” he murmured aloud accidentally, the room was sliding around again, and when it slid around, his mind did too. Or maybe it was the opposite. It meant sleep was near, which was a miraculously dulled version of the normal heat and strangling. Of course, it mingled itself with horrifying worries and worst-case-scenarios about Artham and mountains of guilt and doubt and regret about Kalmar but…it balanced out in its own twisted way. At least he could go outside during a nightmare.

When Janner awoke at some unknown hour of the night—he could hear everyone else breathing deeply, evenly, and couldn’t help but envy them—he felt tears streaming down his cheeks. Why they were there he did not know, but he didn’t think it was because of his dream. Kal had been in it, and it had been a sort of summary of his brother’s life, all the bits he could remember flashing by so suddenly, ending with the Maker’s World and fading. 

He hadn’t felt sad by the end of the dream, more content than anything else. It was odd what a contrast that contentment was to how he felt now: miserable, disparaging, helpless. Come to think of it, he felt rather like he had when he had awoken in the Blackwood, trapped, strangled, breathless, hopeless, despairing. The only thing missing was Sara, standing by to free him. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” came the soft voice of the very person he had just thought of. Janner puzzled for a moment, wondering if his fever was high enough that he had started hallucinating.

“I…I don’t know,” he mumbled back, wondering if when he opened his eyes, a shimmery figure of Sara’s imagined form would be there. 

A cold hand slipped into his, and imagined-Sara whispered, “Why are you crying? Does something hurt, or was it a nightmare?

Feeling absolutely childish and pitiful for saying it, Janner blinked open his eyes and looked at “Sara” through his tears, saying, “The air’s too thick. Breathing it hurts. Can we go outside?” his voice broke on the last bit, not because he wanted it to or planned to add it for special effect, but because he was desperate. Desperate enough to ask an imagined form of Sara if she could help him outside, like she had a month before. 

There was silence for what felt like an eternity of barely-breathing, and then Sara said, “Alright. But we have to be quiet.” Then his blanket was somehow arranged over his shoulders and a steady arm was behind his back, a gentle murmur encouraging him enough to where he sat upright—slightly slumped and definitely shivering, but that wasn’t important—and had both feet planted on the floor. They didn’t look like they were planted, of course, what with the way his head spun, but they must have been stationary. He certainly hadn’t told them to move. 

After a few minutes his legs stopped twisting themselves into pretzels, and there was an arm around his waist, and his arm was around someone’s shoulders, and he was standing—dizzy but standing nonetheless—and even walking (shuffling) and going up a flight of stairs!

There was no way Janner was managing it on his own and since with imaginary Sara meant the same thing as “on his own,” real Sara had to be there. And it had been real Sara the entire time, since he had woken up and she had asked why he was crying. 

Unless, of course, everything was just a dream and he was still actually lying in bed, fitfully asleep.

“Am I dreaming?” he asked, slurring his words a bit. With the way his head spun, anything else would be impossible.

“Shh,” was the answer he received. “Not until we’re outside. I don’t want to wake everyone.”

Janner couldn’t help but think that was a fairly dream-like answer, one where the other “person” in the dream just postponed answering your question, so it never really got answered and you never really got confirmation for the thing you had suspected since the dream began.

All of a sudden, a breath of cool air hit his face and hands and body and slipped into his lungs as if it were the simplest thing in the world. The air was so thin, so breathable, so perfect aside from the chills and dizziness, though the latter had begun subsiding the moment real air came to him.

They walked a few more steps before he was eased to the soft, grassy ground with utmost caution. “Thank you,” he said softly, smiling. “I know it’s just a dream, but it’s a wonderful one.”

Bell-like laughter followed, and as her hand squeezed and began massaging his, Sara said, “You’re welcome, but it’s not a dream, Janner. It’s real. You’re really outside the cellar in the middle of the night. Can you breathe better?“

Blinking, he turned his head, risking dizziness and not being met with it. Sara’s lovely smile and diamond blue eyes came into view, and he focused on them intently for a moment or so, wondering how it was possible, how she was possible. 

That was before chivalry snuck up behind him and reminded him to answer her question. “I can breathe,” he said, simply at first, then elaborated when he found out he could elaborate without choking. “The air is so thin, and…I don’t know. It just…goes in better?”

Sara’s brow furrowed in a sort of way that made him think his words made even less sense to her than they did to him, and considering they made almost no sense to him, her managing to understand them would be a miracle.

“Sorry,” he whispered, resting his throbbing head in his hand and closing his eyes. It seemed as though everything ached and burned and seared, especially his chest and stomach that felt like they had been torn to bits or maybe even whipped to shreds by the uncontrollable coughing and choking. He was so tired, tired enough that he wanted to fall asleep then and there, sitting up, actually breathing. That couldn’t happen, though, because then Sara might get in trouble.

Going back into the cellar that seemed to have one goal, suffocating him, sounded like a completely unbearable option. He wasn’t trying to be dramatic (though perhaps his fever was making him as such), but it was true. Or at least it seemed true.

Sara’s hand fluttered onto his shoulder and his mind told him to look at her since it meant she was about to say something, and looking at someone while they spoke was always polite, but his body refused to respond.

“Janner,” she said softly, near his ear. “You’re shaking and look exhausted. We need to head inside. We've been out here for a while.”

He felt her pulling him effortlessly into a standing position, looping his arm around her neck, then her arm was around his back, and they moved forward haltingly, despite his scattered, mental protests. 

“But I can’t breathe in here,” he finally managed to squeeze out, pitifully, childishly, perhaps playfully, when they were back in the stuffy cellar again, but in that moment, he really didn’t care that he couldn’t manage anything else. 

Sara hummed as if to avoid responding, and they continued inching forward. In the moment when Janner’s legs trembled so much he was sure others heard it, the feeling of being helped into bed greeted him and he sighed with relief. Somehow sighing didn’t hurt as badly as it had before.

“I know,” she whispered, compassion filling her tone and words. Janner felt something cool brush his cheek briefly—likely her fingers; perhaps she was making sure his temperature hadn’t risen too much, because that seemed to make a bit of sense—before leaving. “I…I hope the outing helped a bit though.”

Smiling weakly and certain it was one of the two only things he had the energy for before sleep would claim him again, Janner did the second: expressing appreciation. “Thank you, Sara,” he murmured as tangible reality slipped away again. He was asleep before he heard a reply, but he hoped whatever it was, it involved her lovely smile.

Chapter Text

Concussions had been a close friend of Artham’s over the years, so he knew how to handle them, how to give in to them, and when to tell them to shut up, because it really just didn’t matter anymore. He also knew the signs of waking up after the delight events that led to obtaining them in the first place, and he was experiencing those signs at that very moment.

The first thing Artham noticed was the army pounding mercilessly in his skull, and he couldn’t help but groan. Armies were so stubborn. They never stopped marching. It was unlikely this one would either, especially when considering—his fingers moved toward the back of his head and made contact with something that was sticky and sent a jolt of pain through his mind—it wasn’t actually a real army. It was one made out of what seemed to be a blinding headache which was, of course, the result of something hard bludgeoning his head. 

It occurred to him that testing the “blinding” theory might actually be a good idea, considering that not having the use of precise vision might make his mission—rescuing his daughter—rather tricky.

His eyes snapped shut automatically when he opened them which he supposed was a good sign, since it meant he could see, his eyes and mind were just sensitive to it. But that was to be expected. On trying again, perhaps a bit more carefully, he saw that though the world around him was slightly blurred and also swimming in sunlight, it was visible, and he could focus…somewhat well. 

Nothing would be accomplished if he just laid there—“there” being wherever the Fangs that had attacked him and/or Creepy Crab Amrah had thrown him—so Artham resolved to stand up, or sit at the very least, and get a bearing of his surroundings.

Something that looked rather like a pole shifted into his vision, and he sat up slightly, reaching for it. As it was, the pole was closer than his mind perceived, and his knuckles ended up knocking against what was certainly very strong and a bit rusty metal.

The contact made his blood run cold. Unless he was imagining it as a result of the concussion—in the past, though of all his senses had been impaired after similar blows to the head, touch was the one that always stuck with him—the pole was not just any pole, but one of many, one of many bars holding a prisoner—him—inside of yet another cage.

No, no, NO! his mind screamed of its own accord, forcing him to stand, making his head hit the top of the metal cage. The metal thing swung as a result, and he whimpered and dropped to the bottom of the cage on contact, holding his now-even-more-pounding head. He begged himself to stop sounding like the cowardly buffoon, Peet the Sockman. Those were the noises he made, and he knew them all too well. 

“Ahh, so the crazed cloven has been resurrected, has he not?” Amrah's grating voice appeared out of nowhere, and Artham couldn't help but flinch at the sound. 

Raising his throbbing head against his better judgment, Artham found himself staring straight at her through the bars of his hanging cage, and visually, it was not unlike it had been all those months before. In fact, he couldn’t help but blink in surprise at the sight of her. Janner had briefly made note of her crab-like state, and he had expected that. He definitely was not looking at a crab now, not in the least. She looked normal, albeit rather angry. She had always seemed sinister beneath the sugar-coated surface, but now she was furious.

He wanted to ask what had happened to her and why she didn't look like a monster any more than she had the last time they had made contact, but there were other priorities, namely one.

“Where is my daughter?” he demanded, ignoring her questions and his questions and any other questions floating around the room.

Amrah smiled in a sickening way, though the churning of his stomach might have been a result of the concussion and the cage's swinging more than anything. “Why Artham,” she crooned, reaching out and brushing her hand against one of the bars in a very creepy manner. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out by now.”

“Figured what out?” he hissed through gritted teeth, more done with her than he ever had been. How had he stood listening to her drone for hours on end when she had trapped him there, dangling in a cage?

“Well, Artham,” she began, twirling a strand of her hair in a disturbingly girlish way. “You broke the rules. I said, ‘only you.’ I never said you could have help.”

Clenching his fists now, Artham stood up suddenly, blinking away the rainbow splash of colors flooding his vision for a moment. “What are you talking about?” he asked, grabbing hold of the cage bars. It jostled the cage again—that was seriously beginning to get on his nerves. He couldn’t risk denying the matter; what if she hurt his daughter because of it?

Now one of Amrah’s white, slender hands came through the bars, getting close to him, close to his face, and Artham stumbled backward, falling to the cage floor. He bit his tongue to keep from saying something unsavory as the cage began to sway again.

His head didn’t appreciate the sudden change, both from the drop and the swinging. As the world swam, Amrah’s honeyed laughter peeled through the entire cave, bouncing off the walls endlessly. It was all Artham could do to keep from clamping his hands over his ears. 

“Just your help from…well, I suppose the dragons,” Amrah said briskly, a touch of anger in her voice. At least it was better than raucous laughter. “One of them got you here early, I presume? You haven’t had time to find my note and arrive, even if the winds were in your favor.”

“Fine,” Artham admitted, glaring at her more steadily now that his senses were working as he wanted them to. “You’re right. Perhaps I did receive a bit of help. But I’m the only one here to save her. No one else is coming. I’ve forbidden the family to, and they won’t risk her life.”

A little half-laugh came from Amrah this time, the annoyingly endearing sort. “Oh, bless your heart, Artham Wingfeather,” she said belittlingly. “I suppose you’re righteous then, aren’t you? Free from every wrongdoing? Perfect? Blameless? Because you followed my rules, only bending them a little?”

“Of course I’m not,” Artham replied slowly, wondering what trick she was using now. “No one is perfect, least of all me. I’ve made mistakes, I admit that. But this was not one of them! I will not put my daughter’s life on the line again, and you had better know that now!”

Amrah clucked her tongue a bit. “Well, now, Artham, I’m impressed. This is a much-improved version of you compared to the last one I saw. Only in spirit, of course, not in body. The other was far more beautiful, my most beautiful creation.”

Wincing as he heard those words, spoken just the same way they had been months before, when they were in a rather similar situation. “I was never your creation,” he whispered, his head down, more to keep himself from falling prey to her trap than anything else. “What did you say?” she asked, her voice suddenly high, painful again. Her eyes snapped and glittered angrily. 

Taking a breath, Artham raised his head, praying it was the right decision. “I was never your creation,” he said again, calmly, looking her directly in the eyes. “Even when I fully sang I was twisted, twisted into something a bit beautiful, perhaps, but still twisted, never whole. I am whole now, but I am not your creation, nor I am my own. I am His. His and no other’s.”

Amrah flinched the moment he mentioned Him, the Maker. He did not even need to say His Name for the realization to dawn on her that He was the subject, that in a way she stood in His presence as they spoke.

She was silent for a bit; her hands fell to her sides, and she stared at the ground, her mouth moving a bit as her body trembled. Artham prayed with all his heart that whatever she was thinking, it would somehow lead to his daughter’s freedom if not his own.

Those hopes were shattered the moment Amrah raised her head, her eyes narrow, an awfully snake-like appearance taking over her being. “Were you His when you left her to die on the floor of a cell, when you let the Fangs take her, when you let the Fangs take your wife?” she hissed, cruel and deadly.

Artham closed his eyes and let out a shuddery breath. “I lost sight of Him then,” he whispered, feeling a tear roll down his cheek. “I was scared and hopeless and I made dreadful mistakes that—”

“That you’ve never forgiven yourself for,” Amrah added, an angry cackle in her voice.

His hands twisted together, apart, together, apart, together, apart now, and his legs trembled. “Not all the way,” he murmured almost inaudibly, familiar shame flooding through him.

Amrah took a step closer, her eyes wider, hungrier, angrier. “And you were a foolish coward to leave her. You know why you did it? I’ll tell you why. It’s because you didn’t love her, that’s why. Cowardly Artham Wingfeather never even loved his only daughter, didn’t love her enough to save her.”

“YES, I DID!” Artham roared, leaping toward the edge of the cage and clutching the bars, shaking them, his voice breaking as his tears flowed more freely.

Staring at him steadily, almost pityingly, Amrah reached her hand in again and brushed his tear-covered cheek with her deathly cold fingers. “No, you didn’t, Artham,” she said sadly. “You know how I know?”

He shook his head, whimpering, crumpling to the floor of his cell, covering his head in his arms because he couldn’t stand hearing her and all the true lies she told.

“I know because…because you didn’t save her. You didn’t even protest when they took her away. I’m the one who kept her from being another experiment, you know. You should thank me. I did what you couldn’t. I stood up where you crumpled to the ground. I had strength when you had only your cowardice. You don’t love her, Artham, and you never did. You’re only here now to keep your guilt complex quiet, and trust me, from what I know about you, that won’t satisfy it for long, even if you succeed. It will clamor and scream and stab you your entire life because it is you, you are a coward, and that is simply how your life was meant to be.”

The sound of her shoes hitting the rocks grew louder and louder in Artham’s mind as she walked away, until they clamored along as loud as the voices scorning him, mocking him, taunting him in ways they never had before.

Chapter Text

“So what’d he say?” Ilana asked half-heartedly, not bothering to look up from her journal that was currently filled with nonsense and story-openers she hadn’t endings for. 

Her mother sighed, and by the sound of her voice, it was easy to guess the look on her face: one of pity. “Ilana,” she began motheringly, coming closer, then placing her hand on her shoulder. “Remember, I told you to keep hope at a minimum. As I expected, he admitted to cowardice and denied ever loving you.”

“Admitting when you’re wrong is a good thing though, isn’t it?” Ilana murmured, still unwilling to look up from her journal. She wasn’t writing anymore, just staring at her pen.

Her mother sat down next to her and patted her knee out of affection. “Darling, it’s not good when you’re not sorry for it, when you pride yourself on it. I know it’s hard for you to grasp but…he’s not a good man. He never was. This should prove it to you.”

Ilana chose not to respond that time and instead went back to actually writing. It was something that didn’t really make much sense, but words were better than no words. 

Sighing as if in resignation, her mother stood up again. “I’ll leave you to think about it, hmm? I know it’s hard, darling, but you’ll understand it soon. I promise.” 

The sound of steady footfalls departing followed the words, and Ilana was left on her own again, blissfully alone. Not that she absolutely loved being alone. She would far rather someone be there with her. The sort of thing she was trying to process was not what one processed with others, though. She had to do it without help.

Closing her journal and leaving it on the small sofa where she sat, she stood up and walked to the door of the room. The door was perhaps the only obstacle between her and her father, or at least the man (or monster) whom her mother said was her father. The thought that he wasn’t really her father—that he was an imposter or some sort of evil twin, come to trick her into grieving too soon, or maybe that he wasn’t even actually there—did come to mind, but something deep inside her heart told her that wasn’t the case. 

The man somewhere on the other side of the door was indeed her father, and nothing she thought or hoped would change that. The question that remained was whether he truly was a monster as her mother had said, or if there was something else hiding beneath the surface.

Ilana had heard the Cloven and prisoners called monsters hundreds, if not thousands of times throughout her life. Those were the nicknames her mother and grandmother and, at times, uncle had given them. They were defective products of attempts to create beauty, a masterpiece or they were those who failed to bend to the wishes of their masters.

Had her father been called a monster in that respect? Was he really just a wayward cloven (whom she had always secretly adored; she had loved them and the prisoners) or a trapped soul, suddenly come to the Phoobs the very moment she arrived?

How could that be the case, though? Most Cloven were mad, many prisoners insane. Few could form a complete sentence, most could only say a word, and a handful couldn’t even speak. Yet her father had spoken. He had spoken enough to convey his hatred of her, his pride in his cowardice (who had ever heard of such a thing?). 

A part of her longed to chalk those mutterings up to be those of a deranged man or creature, one who had no knowledge of what he said or what it really meant. She had spent enough time around madmen and cloven, though, to know the purest truth about them, about their hearts, came out when they had no control.

Her heart sinking, Ilana feared there were only two rational possibilities. All sorts of irrational ones, ones she loved, ones she adored, existed, but many of those involved her mother’s burning anger, and she was terrified of that. Yet for some odd reason, she had no fear of her father.

He was either stark raving mad and capable only of telling the truth unmasked: that he hated her, that he wished she had died, that he was a coward, that he was proud of it, that he had left her mother willingly, that he was proud of that, too; or he was perfectly sane and capable of forming complete thought and sentence: his words were true, he spewed them freely without regret or remorse, and he really didn’t want her.

Ilana sighed. Both were terrible options, and the only way something else was true was if her mother had lied over and over and twisted the truth again and again. 

She wouldn’t do that, would she?

Leeli bounced up and down on her toes, her hands clasped behind her back as the ship from Ban Rona slowly edged its way into the Annieran port. One had come every week or so, bringing extra supplies like animals, seed, building materials, and food. Neither country was in excellent shape, but the Hollish were willing to help where they could, considering they at least had houses to rebuild and uncharred food resources.

Another thing—rather, a person—who had come or gone every other week was Thorn O’Sally, whose actual motives for spending time in Anniera were still a bit unclear. Leeli felt silly thinking he was only there to see her, but it didn’t quite make sense for him to spend so much time helping them rebuild, since while he had been somewhat helpful, he hadn’t been incredibly helpful.

The truth was that she wasn’t completely certain how she felt about him coming this time, either. Things were such a mess at home, what with Artham’s absence and Janner’s sickness and everyone’s anxiety. Even though she desperately wanted something (Thorn!) to take her mind off it all, it seemed just a tad inconsiderate. But she was only nine, wasn’t she? How many nine-year-olds had dealt with everything she had?

“Hullo, Leeli!” Thorn’s voice called to her from the deck, and she couldn’t help but smile when she saw that in her mental absence, the ship had nearly docked and was about to send the gangplank down. 

Waving at him perhaps a bit awkwardly, Baxter’s incredibly joyous woof on sighting Thorn was enough to send her into a fit of giggles, which was how she remained until Thorn was at her side, grinning the goofy way he always did. “An’ how’re ya doin’ Princess Leeli?”

“I’m doing well, thank you,” she replied evenly, the smile still on her face. “How is everything going in Ban Rona?” 

As they made their way toward Castle Rysen—she and Thorn would be having a sleepover outside, laying in the grass beneath the stars while he was there. Arundelle would be supervising because she had nothing better to do, and she was happy to. She was nice like that—an excellent aunt—he answered her, more or less saying repairs were underway and going very well. “An’ it’s breedin’ season, of course,” he added. “So we’ve got plenty o’ puppies an’ dogs ‘n the Houndry. Do ya want another one?” 

Baxter growled a bit, and Leeli sighed longingly. “Thorn, I’d love another puppy. But Mama has a lot on her mind right now, and Baxter’s already jealous of Frankle!”

Thorn nodded. “Alright. I git it, an’ thet’s jest fine. I wanted ta offer, thet’s all.”

A couple of boys chortling their way into the forest to their right passed them, and Leeli made sure to smile and nod at them in greeting (while Baxter barked politely) before she answered. “And it’s so sweet of you to do so,” she replied. “I wish I could have one, I really do.” A puppy to train would be just the thing to take her mind off what had happened and was happening and would happen, because if she had learned anything in the past year, it meant whatever they dealt with in the moment was just the calm before the storm. She really didn’t like the idea of the dreadful in the moment becoming a storm.

“Ya seem kinda quiet, Leeli,” Thorn observed when they had drawn closer to Rysen. “Is somethin’ goin’ on?”

Leeli pursed her lips, taking the moment to peer at the crumbled courtyard a bit more closely. If she wasn’t mistaken, it looked as though two people—who if she wasn’t mistaken again were Nia and Janner; whatever was he doing out of bed?*—were sitting there, not doing much other than that.

“Well,” she said, finally replying. “Uncle Artham had to leave because one of the Stonekeepers, Amrah, has his and Aunt Arundelle’s daughter and threatened to kill her if he doesn’t rescue her. Aunt Arundelle is dreadfully concerned about him and has tried busying herself around Rysentown so she can be productive. Not to mention that Janner’s been sick practically since Uncle Artham left, and Mama and Sara are both nearly worried out of their minds.” 

As she spoke, she felt herself growing more and more worried at the thought of everything, and she did her best to calm her nerves. She had kept from panicking by not thinking about everything too, too much so far, and if at all physically possible, she wanted to keep it that way. Not that she wasn’t worried about Uncle Artham and that she wasn’t concerned about Janner, more that she knew she couldn’t do anything and as such didn’t want to be terrified constantly.

They stopped behind the castle, looking out at the sea. “I’m sorry ta hear thet, Leeli,” Thorn replied quietly. “Can I do anythin’? Do ya wanna talk ‘bout it? Or do ya want a dis-trac-tion o’ some sort? I’m happy ta do whatever.”

“Thank you, Thorn,” Leeli whispered, her voice growing thick. She cleared her throat and blinked so she wouldn’t cry. “I…I think maybe start with a distraction and then maybe talk later, and then end with—”

“‘Nother dis-trac-tion?” he finished, smiling.

Laughing through a few tears that had escaped to her cheeks, Leeli nodded. “Exactly. That’s exactly what I’d like, if you don’t mind too terribly.”

Thorn smiled and held out his arm, and they began walking together toward the actual town of Rysentown. “Why, o’ course I don’t mind,” he began. “We’re gonna get married someday, Leeli, an’ I gotta be willin’ an’ happy ta do whatever ya might need. I’m jest practicin’ early, gettin’ a head start ‘n’ all.”

She burst out laughing on hearing that, and it was loud enough to where she saw (out of the corner of her eye) Janner and Nia turning their heads, trying to see what in Aerwiar she was doing. 

The day passed in a lovely blur of talking to Annierans, helping them with tasks, doing a few harder jobs, some lighter jobs, strolling to the forest for the walk (and talk), eating berries, crying a little bit, receiving tender comfort, heading to the beach to look for shells and starfish that needed rescuing from gulls, running into Arundelle and chatting with her, going to the meadow and picking flowers, and finally making their way back to Castle Rysen when it was nearly dark and the sun had begun edging its way toward the horizon. 

“Thank you for today, Thorn,” Leeli said softly when they were still a way’s off from the courtyard. “You were so considerate and it was just wonderful.” She felt lighter than she had in days, weeks, maybe even months, and it was all thanks to him. And the Maker, Who had surely sent him.

Thorn slipped his hand into hers very briefly. “I was happy ta give it ta ya,” he replied sweetly. “Seein’ as how hard it’s been, ya jest looked like ya needed a break.”

Leeli nodded. “I did need one. Something…something tells me I’m going to need it for the storm ahead.”

Furrowing his brow, Thorn pressed a bit. “What sorta storm?”

“A mess,” Leeli began. “It seems to be a regular occurrence in our family. Things get dreadful sometimes, really dreadful. I feel like they’re going to get worse really soon.”

Thorn turned a bit, now grasping both of her hands. “I’m here for ya if ya need me,” he said earnestly, looking straight into her eyes. “I promise.”

“Thank you,” Leeli whispered, smiling and blinking back tears.

Chapter Text

“He’s not waking up,” were the words Sara first heard when her eyes blinked open, and she wasn’t sure what they meant at first. They were so random, so unexpected so…so odd sounding that she couldn’t even manage to place them. Who would not wake up, and what would the reason be for? It seemed ludicrous.

The moment her blood ran cold, it didn’t seem so ludicrous anymore. The covers flew off of her, and she was up in an instant, her mind already frantic with panic and worry and pure terror. Nia’s voice had spoken the words, “he’s not waking up,” and there Nia sat on Janner’s bed, holding his limp, gaunt hand in such a tight manner that Sara wondered how she had not broken it yet. Swallowing in fear, Sara forced herself, her far too frozen self, to make the “journey” toward her adoptive mother and her dear, dear, friend.

“What’s wrong?” she finally managed to force out, standing in front of Nia, her eyes wide with panic. 

Nia shook her head, not shifting her gaze from Janner’s face. “I don’t know,” she whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek. “He won’t wake up. He’s still here, he's just…I don’t know where he is.”

Sara couldn’t help but stare, just stare blankly, yet feel horrible staring because it seemed so wrong, so inappropriate, so intrusive. A memory came flooding back, one from before the Fangs had taken her away. She and her cousin, Rella had spent nearly every moment together, playing make believe outside whenever they could, creating enchanted patches filled with fairies and elves in the middle of meadows, among streams. 

And then something happened, something she never really understood at the time. Rella stopped playing for a little while. Then her uncle came by suddenly someday, saying Rella wouldn’t wake up, that it was almost over. He had been right. And the funeral was one week later.

Chills spread throughout her entire body as the horrifying realization dawned on her that…that Janner might be dying. Nia knew it too, for though she hadn’t said so, her posture, the grief in her eyes, it said as much.

“Where’s Leeli?” Sara asked suddenly, still quietly, though. 

Nia tilted her head a little, as if remembering or thinking about anything other than what—rather who—lay before her was a trial, one she wasn’t sure she wanted to endure. “I think I sent her off with Thorn,” she murmured absentmindedly. “Preoccupying her seemed best in the moment. I’m not sure it was the right choice now, though.” 

Nodding, Sara reached out and placed her hand on Nia’s shoulder. “It’s as right a choice as you can make, I suppose, considering the circumstances. Do you want me to see if I can find Mother Madalana or someone else who can help?”

Nia sighed wearily. “They won’t do anything, will they? They can’t. He’s…I don’t even know if he’ll…I-I’m sorry, Sara,” she said suddenly. “I shouldn’t have—”

“I already knew,” she replied quietly, her eyes stinging. “It’s alright, Mama. I already knew.” 

Silence filled the room after that, and because Sara couldn’t bear hearing anything other than the sound of hers and Nia’s steady breathing and Janner’s halted breaths, she did the only thing she could think of that might add a bit of noise. She hugged Nia and as if on cue, her adoptive mother choked, sobbed, and then tears began streaming down her cheeks.

Sara stood at the top of one of the cresting cliffs of Anniera, one blanketed atop by grasses, flowers, and sky, the one with crashing waves as its footstool.* Wind swept across it, blowing her dress so it billowed, twisting the free strands of her hair that had slipped out of her braid into hopeless knots.

She didn’t care, because the wind also dried her tears as soon as they spilled down her face and left salt trails behind, almost as if it wanted to wipe away her sorrow, if only for a moment. Not that anything of the sort was possible. 

Nia had asked her to give Arundelle some sort of message to convey to the people around Rysentown, one briefly detailing the circumstances they now faced without going into so much detail things would seem dire. Sara understood the logic in it. Why concern anyone until it was truly necessary? Yet by holding back the core truth, it seemed as though a sort of denial was happening. A denial that now conveyed it would be alright eventually. Because deep down in her heart…Sara was sure it wouldn’t be. And it seemed as though Nia knew it as well.

She hadn’t seen Leeli all day. Granted, “all day” meant the hour she had spent with Nia, the fifteen minutes she had talked with Arundelle, and the three hours she had stood there, looking out at the sea and sky and seeing nothing while feeling everything.

Why was this happening? She knew it sounded so dreadfully selfish, but she was tired of life being absolutely slaughtered. It had happened to her so many times in her short life. There was Rella and the Carriage and the Fork! Factory! and the terrors in Dugtown and Janner being…dead and Kalmar dying and Janner coming back and now…now Janner was dying.

What had she done to deserve this? What had Janner done to deserve this? What had Nia and Leeli and Arundelle and Artham done to deserve anything, this and other tragedies included?! It was completely, utterly and totally nonsensical. 

“Why, Maker, why?” she whispered, her throat burning. “I don’t understand. What have we done? Where did we go wrong? Maybe I haven’t done much for You but…but the Wingfeathers have sacrificed everything! Half their family is dead or has died because they followed You, and now this comes hurtling at them? Would You really allow Janner to die after everything You’ve done to bring him back to us?”

He couldn’t, could He? But, no, if that was His will, He could. And if it did happen…she couldn’t blame Him, could she? Terrible things happened to people every day, whether they trusted in the Maker or not. That was simply a fact of life. Her family hadn’t done anything to deserve being ripped apart, yet she was torn from their arms by the Fangs. Neither had the Wingfeathers done anything to deserve the pain they had gone through. In fact, the Maker had blessed them and her despite the pain. He had brought them together. He had given them hope. He had given back life. 

He had come through so many times before. Would He come through again now? 

“‘xcuse me,” a tiny voice piped up out of nowhere, and Sara turned her head to see a blonde-haired, cherub-of-a-girl staring at her. “Why’re you crying, Miss Sara?”

Raising her hand to her cheek in an effort to wipe away whatever tears the wind had not dried yet, she replied, “A friend of mine is sick, and I’m worried about him.” It was an understatement of unparalleled proportions on so many levels, but she didn’t need to trouble the girl with things weighing so heavily on her heart. “You know my name…but I don’t know yours.” She hadn’t been one of her orphans, which meant she must have been one of Armulyn’s who managed to slip past her watch.

The little girl beamed. “I’m Layna! Can I ask another question now?”

Sara nodded, checking to see if the smile was still on her face. It was, but it wavered. 

“Is your real name Sara Cobbler?” Layna asked, her eyes now taking on a more serious quality. 

Affirming this, Sara cocked her head, curious—and for a moment, curiosity hid her grief and fear. “But why do you ask?”

“Because,” Layna began, plunging her tiny hand into a small pocket in the pinafore over her dress. The moment she found whatever she had searched for was obvious by the way her eyes lit up. “I have something for you.” Then she pulled her hand out, her fist clenched tightly around something. “I think this is yours,” she said softly, her face suddenly solemn, but a joyous sort of solemn. 

Sara watched as the small hand turned and the fingers uncurled, revealing…she gasped softly, tenderly picking up the little thing in Layna’s palm.

As she turned it over and over between her fingers, she couldn’t help but how it looked just the same as before, the eyes perfect indigo dots, the mane ratted and beautiful, the cobalt twisted horns majestic, the body soft, silky, white, and somehow unmarried but for a few smudges of brown on the legs.

“Where did you get this?” she finally breathed, unable to look at anything but the lovely, little, silk tricorn her Papa had won for her on Dragon Day.

“A kind man,” Layna began simply. “He saved me. I think he was your papa.”

Sara’s heart beat wildly. “Saved you from what? Whom? Where is he?”

Lanya shuddered. “Lizard monsters. They took me and he saved me.” She didn’t answer the last question. Perhaps she didn’t know the answer to it.

“What happened then?” Sara asked, knowing that somehow Layna had gotten to Armulyn, so maybe even if Layna didn’t know what happened to her papa, Armulyn did. There was a chance.

She received a bit of uncertainty for that answer. “I don’t know,” Layna began, her brow furrowed. “I think…I think he was sick. Like your friend. He told me to go to the music man, and I did!”

Sara stared at her, and even as her heart sank with fresh grief, her spirits rose. Children had a wonderful gift for perception others lacked, and even if they didn’t…somehow she knew her father was gone. Truly gone. And she had known it for a while, just failed to admit it. But her little tricorn was left, as were her memories and the knowledge her father had died saving this little girl. 

“Thank you,” she whispered in spite of the tears rolling down her cheeks. She knelt, and Layna came forward, immediately accepting the hug. 

Thank You, she cried in her heart, knowing the Maker had given her a sign to trust Him. He knew all that happened in Aerwiar, all that happened beyond. He had sent this lovely little girl to her at just the right moment, giving her a spark of hope she would hold fast to, no matter what the outcome of the current pain. 

A breath of warm air swept into her lungs, and it filled her heart and her mind with peace and comfort. It didn’t just give her those things, it spoke to her, He spoke to her. Dearest, He whispered. It will unfold as I have planned. I need you to trust me. Trials will come for you in the future, ones that will require patience, understanding, and raw faith in Me. Trust in Me now in this, for I have given you the measure of faith required.

Chapter Text

A soft moan jolted Artham out of restless sleep and into numb reality. It was not numb for long, though, and the moment he saw Amrah dragging someone—-a child, my child, MY DAUGHTER, his mind screamed—he leapt from where he had laid moments before and grabbed the bars of his cage. It swung, but that didn’t matter. Let it swing, he thought angrily.

“What did you do to her?” he cried, terrified his daughter was dead—murdered—and absolutely furious.

Amrah waved off his question in a way that made Artham want to break the bars of his cage and hurt her in some horrible inhumane way. “Hush now, Artham,” she replied patronizingly. “All I did was give her a bit of sleeping powder. She’ll be awake in an hour or so. And then you two can catch up for as long as you like.”

Smiling wickedly, she made her way toward his cage. When she stood directly in front of the door, she dropped his daughter onto the ground, seeming as though she enjoyed it.

It only made Artham’s blood boil more. “What are you doing?” he asked furiously as she pulled a keyring out of nowhere.

“As soon as this thing stops swinging, I’m letting you two catch up,” Amrah replied innocently. “There are just a few rules, Artham. When I open this door, you can’t rush out and scoop up your daughter, playing the hero of the story.”

“And, pray tell, why not?” he asked through gritted teeth.

Amrah looked at him half-lidded, her hands on her hips in an oddly teenage fashion. “Because then all my hard work at vengeance will have gone to waste.”

He returned the sarcastic stare, all the while keeping one eye on his unmoving, prayerfully asleep daughter. “What’s stopping me?”

Now Amrah smiled at him coolly, smugly. “If I see you move even a hair from the back of your cage, I’ll use the dagger hidden in the folds of my cloak to kill this girl, and then I’ll dump her body off this cliff onto the stone below. Now how would you like to see that, Artham Wingfeather, Throne Warden and Protector of the Innocent?”

Artham breathed out slowly, his nostrils flaring in fury. He wanted to scream or shout or sob more than anything else, but he couldn’t. All he could do was back away into his cage as far as he could and watch. 

He did so, and Amrah nodded matter-of-factly. She said nothing, though, until the majority of the swinging had subsided. “Good job. Now watch, Artham, as your one chance of tantalizing freedom dances before you temptingly.”

Clinging to the wall of bars pressing into his back as if life depended on it—his daughter’s did, that was certain—Artham watched in grief and fury as the escape opened so his daughter would pass through. It and Amrah taunted him mercilessly, and the worst was when she left the door wide open, wide enough to where he could leap forward and go through, but not without endangering his daughter. Instead of looking at the open door and freedom, he focused on his daughter’s sleeping face, her lovely face that looked a bit like Arundelle when she was little and a bit like him. The bit that looked like him was the scared, worried, anxious part. He didn’t want that for his daughter.

He wondered whose eyes she had, what she sounded like, what she loved, how she told stories, how she played, and all those musings, all the endless possibilities were enough to distract him until the cage door closed with a bang and the lock rattled. 

Those sounds, as well as the cage’s new motion as it tried adjusting to a second occupant, jerked his attention back toward Amrah, and he watched her, now both curious and angry. 

“Have fun with the reunion, Artham,” Amrah smirked, the pleased smile gone from her face. “And enjoy breathing while you can, because it won’t last much longer. Next time I come back…well, I’m sure you can guess what’s coming.”

“I won’t go down without a fight,” he breathed as she disappeared, her swishing black skirts making her nearly invisible in the darkness of the cave. “And I won’t be leaving you, either,” he added, crouching and positioning his daughter in a more natural way, one that had to be less uncomfortable than the unceremoniously dumped heap Amrah had chosen. Then he took his cloak and tucked it around her, bunching up part of it near her head and turning into a bit of a makeshift pillow. All the movement made the cage sway, but only a little.

Perhaps he imagined it, but the moment her head rested on the “pillow,” she seemed to relax and even smile a bit. 

“I love you,” Artham murmured as he watched her sleep, determined to stay awake until whatever Amrah had given her wore off. Even though he wanted to do something normal and fatherly, like pulling her into his arms or even just resting his hand on her head, he chose not to. Something told him that was a boundary, and he needed to be careful crossing it. 

“I will do anything for you,” he whispered instead. “I will keep you safe. I will protect you. I will never let evil harm you again. I will even die for you. You are my daughter, and you are precious to me.”

When Ilana woke up, she had a dreadful headache, the likes of which she had not experienced before that moment in her very short life. She wasn’t sure if it was bad enough to where one was supposed to groan, and if it was, she had no clue how to make the appropriate groaning noise happen. 

As it was, her head throbbed when she tried turning to find a more comfortable position (her bed was terribly hard), and she groaned without even thinking about it. Several unexpected realizations dawned on her in just a few seconds; one: she must have rolled onto the floor in her sleep, because she knew her bed wasn’t as hard as whatever she laid on; two: when one actually needed to groan, one did it involuntarily; and three: someone unfamiliar was very, very near.

The latter of those three discoveries only occurred when she opened her eyes in the middle of considering the former two, specifically in the moment in which she saw a dark-haired man in a slightly dirty, burgundy shirt sitting just a few feet away from her. And he was smiling! Or doing something else with his face. And—she looked up—she was in a cage!

A flutter of panic entered her heart as a speck of a memory resurfaced, one of her mother, absolutely terrified and white with fear. The message was that her father was there, waiting for her, angry.

“Who are you?” she whispered anxiously, feeling her hand reach for a strand of hair to twirl of its own accord.

The man shook his head. “First, have some water,” he said softly, producing a canteen from his side of the cage and uncorking it. The floor and bars and…well, everything, shifted a bit with the movement, and Ilana realized they were in the hanging cage.  “I tried it; it’s safe,* I promise.”

He sounded rather nice and kind; perhaps he wasn’t her father at all and just an unfortunate prisoner her mother had trapped in Throg. And then, for whatever reason, her father had thrown her in a cage with a stranger, maybe to disorient or scare her. That must be it, she decided. He can’t be my father because he’s far too kind. 

This determined, Ilana reached for the canteen and took a small sip, surprised at how amazing it felt on her apparently dry throat. She took another drink, this one bigger, and felt her headache dissipating. “Thank you,” she said quietly, passing the canteen back to him. He nodded, corked it again, and placed it in between the two of them.

“So we can both drink if we get thirsty,” he explained in response to the look of intrigue on her face.

Ilana nodded, though she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about sharing water with a stranger who was trapped and likely locked in a cage with her. Hopefully she wouldn’t be in the cage long enough to need to share water with him.

“Who are you?” she asked again, feeling no more confident and even more nervous than she had before. 

The man cocked his head, as if trying to find the right way to answer. “If you tell me your name…I’ll tell you who I am,” he told her quietly, his words and tone sincere and his blue eyes reflecting them.

Telling herself over and over again that he couldn’t be her father and that he was just another trapped prisoner, she replied, “I’m Ilana,” the strand of hair brushing her cheek. “What’s yours?”

Silent for a few minutes, the man stared at her, his gaze flickering over her face again and again, always resting on her eyes, always mouthing over and over again what looked like the word (rather, name) Ilana. Frankly, it was strange. And a bit disturbing. 

Finally, the man blinked as if bringing everything back into focus after soul-searching thoughts. “Ilana,” he said, then laughed a bit. “It’s fitting, I suppose. Did you know your name means ‘tree’?”**

Ilana shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Mother might’ve told me a while ago.” 

Thinking about her mother made her scared. Her “monster of a father” had escaped from his cage, then threatened her mother, saying if “his daughter” wasn’t brought to him within the hour, he would kill them both. Had she seen him already, then? Had he knocked her out and thrown her in the cage out of anger? If so, why was this other man, who seemed kind, just a few feet away?

 “Are you going to tell me your name and who you are or not?” she finally asked, the words taking her mind off her thoughts.

The man nodded, breathed out slowly, and ran his hand through his hair before finally answering. “My name is Artham,” he said softly, the word sounding regal and familiar, like it had stepped out of one of her fantasy novels. Perhaps it had. “And I’m…I’m..Ilana, I know this may sound hard to believe but, I’m your father.”

Ilana stared at him, horror and disbelief and excitement and worry and fear and confusion bumping around in her stomach like clumsy flutterflies. “That can’t be,” she breathed, the first notes of real panic entering her heart.

“But it is,” the man—Artham—her father—countered. “I’m here for you.”

Shaking her head vigorously, Ilana backed up as far as she could but was stopped almost instantly; cells were only so wide, and the lurching of the cage at her movement sent another tremor of panic throughout her body. Fear choking her, it was almost impossible for her to force out. “Please, please don’t. We’ve done what you asked, just please don’t hurt us. Please, please, just leave us alone.”

The ma—Artham stared at her in what appeared to be confusion. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said, his tone incredulous. “Where would you ever get such a notion?”

Ilana shook her head, hugging herself tightly now, as if that would protect her. “Mother said you’re a monster and a coward and you hated me and left me to die and—”

“Mother?" he repeated, his brow furrowed. He shook his head, as if to rid himself of a bad memory. "Do you believe that?” Artham asked, now looking rather sad and even distressed. 

“Well, what am I supposed to believe when you threaten to kill us if I don’t come to you and see you, you horrible and terrifying and awful monster! You hate me and her and us and you’re a coward, and I hate you for it!” she shouted back, trying to find some way to keep him away from her. Just because he wasn’t coming toward her then didn’t mean he wouldn’t later. 

Something unexpected happened after she spoke. Artham backed away a bit and tears came into his eyes, then rolled down his cheeks. He wiped them away, but that didn’t do much other than stall them briefly. Finally, he clutched his legs to his chest, occasional sounds of muffled crying coming from him.

Ilana could only stare. She hadn’t thought she could actually subdue the man with words. That hadn’t been the plan. In fact, she hadn’t had a plan. 

She glanced at the door of the dangling cell. She glanced back at Artham, upset in the corner. Would he come after her if she tried to escape back to her mother? Would he be angry and kill them both?

Ilana sighed. She would just have to wait until nightfall, and then maybe both she and her mother could escape from the dreadful place they were in, and her father would never bother them again. She couldn’t hold it all against him, though.

He was a madman, after all.

Chapter Text

As he glanced over at his now-sleeping daughter, Artham struggled to force himself to think rationally. He knew once he convinced himself to, once he had gotten over the previous frustration and grief, he would. Until that point, though, he would wallow in failure. He had done it all his life, and he certainly wasn’t proud of it. There seemed to be no other way, though. Other methods had been attempted over and over, and yet only this maddening yet eventually effective one seemed to work. 

All he had secretly hoped for had crumbled to bits. Perhaps it was selfish, but the thought of having one person in Aerwiar, one person in his life who had never and would never know him as the foolish coward he was, had pushed him forward more than he cared to admit. It was an underlying purpose, of course, not the obvious one, not the one at the forefront of his mind, but it was there, and it was real, and it was painful. Painful because…it had absolutely failed. His daughter, his dear daughter Ilana—how fitting for Amrah to have named her something akin to “tree,” considering he and Arundelle had always loved them—already knew what lay beneath the mask he wore, what resided under the surface, infecting his entire soul.

He was a coward. A fool. He had left her to die. She hated him for it. Of course she did; it was the only reasonable response. Had he really been so blind, stupid enough to think Amrah had told her nothing about him? Yes, he had managed that level of idiocy, and Amrah had told Ilana a mess of truth jumbled with lies. That was her method: mix the two and create a passable art forgery. She wasn’t the first evil person who had done it, and she would not be the last.

What Artham really hated was how well it worked, how expertly it had slipped knives into his heart and mind. The finesse of it all was astounding, really, how perfectly she had predicted Ilana’s reaction to his admittance and his reaction to Ilana’s resentment. 

She had studied them both for years, he supposed. The melding chamber in the Phoobs had been a “recent” addition to Gnag’s forces, so he had seen her many times while imprisoned in Throg. And, of course, she had raised Ilana as her daughter these past nine years. That had provided endless time for observation. 

His eyes drifted toward Ilana again, and despite what her (not, Amrah’s) words had done to him—choked him, suffocated him, stabbed him—he couldn’t help but smile. Truth be told…he would have done the same thing if he had been in her shoes. Oh, perhaps he wouldn’t have begun talking to the random stranger he was locked in a cell with so soon, but he would have opened up eventually, made the discovery, and been absolutely furious. 

The trouble posed now, however, was the issue of getting out of the Phoob Islands together. He had come for his daughter and would not leave without her, yet he could by no means risk threatening, scaring, angering, or deceiving Ilana to do so. If she could not trust him, all was lost. 

It would be quite a risk, convincing her to trust him. He would have to somehow prove his love and loyalty without completely disparaging Amrah. It didn’t matter that Amrah was the “bad guy,” to use the vernacular from fictional tales. He simply could not set himself up as wonderful and Amrah as evil, or even a less controversial “good” and “bad.” Ilana would counter it in seconds and such a drastic tactic could cause her to doubt him. 

But speaking of fictional tales…perhaps they were the key. As a child, he would have readily listened to and learned from a story or legend far faster than from a lecture or scolding or teaching. If Ilana had reacted to his declaration so similarly to the way he would have, maybe the way he would understand was just what she needed as well.

He prayed the Maker would let it work.

“Hello,” Ilana heard a few moments after she woke up. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Where was her mother? Clearly her father was more Coward than violent, angry Beast. Surely her mother could take him on, subdue him easily, at least enough to get her out of the same cell he was in. Though if he had taken the keys, as she suspected, that would pose a bit of a problem. 

“How did you sleep?” were the next words, pleasantly spoken, that came from his mouth. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Surely, he had better places to be. 

Without turning her head to look at him—she continued staring between the bars of the cage, looking at the ground far below, illuminated by the sun coming through the openings in the roof of the cave. The melding chamber was in a corner, barely visible, and she remembered once again how confused she always was regarding her mother’s willingness and even joy regarding turning children into wolves and lizards—she replied drily, “Don’t you have something better to do than sit in a locked cage with me?”

Artham—that was his name; she had forgotten briefly—laughed a bit. “I would prefer going with you to meet the rest of our family, but as of right now we’re both a bit locked up in here, don’t you think?”

Ilana shot him a doubtful glance, only to see something odd that looked a bit like sarcastic merriment—did such a thing even exist?— in his eyes. “You have a key to get out, I’m sure,” she retorted. “You’re the one who wanted me locked in here, after all, and since Mother hasn’t come for me, you must have taken her key.”

Shaking his head, a bit of sadness came into his eyes. “No,” he said softly. “I have no key that will open this lock. I’m just as much a prisoner as you, Ilana.”

Ilana stood and planted her hands on her hips, scoffing. “You think you’re a prisoner? I really just don’t understand you.” Shaking her head in disgust, she plopped down onto the rather uncomfortable floor of the cage. Her stomach growled. She wondered if her mother would get something for them—or at least her—to eat.

“I doubt she’ll bring anything,” Artham spoke up, in answer to the intrusive noise her stomach had made. “She’s brought* nothing other than water since I’ve been here, and though her attempts to keep me and now us from dying of dehydration are appreciated, being hungry isn’t exactly a pleasant state.”

Ilana snorted and narrowed her eyes a bit. “Well of course she hasn’t gotten you anything to eat. Were you crazy enough not to bring your own provisions on your stalking mission? No, I’ve got it. Maybe you were so confident you thought you could pull off whatever it is you’re doing in little enough time to where you wouldn’t even need extra food or water.”

A small muscle in Artham’s face twitched, and he looked away, saying nothing. A twinge of guilt for insulting him repeatedly crept into Ilana’s heart. Rather, not guilt but embarrassment. Even if the man was her beast-of-a-father, he was her elder and deserved some amount of respect.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, wanting to get it in before too much time had passed and such a word would prove pointless and frankly, awkward. “Whatever I think of you and whatever horrible things you’ve done or said or thought to or about me, I shouldn’t be rude.”

Artham was quiet for a few moments before finally saying, “Thank you.” Ilana thought that would be the end of it and clammed up again, but he continued speaking. “I know the words ‘thank you’ can come across as shallow a lot of times. Why don’t I tell you a story to show I really do appreciate it?”

Wrinkling her nose, Ilana looked at him strangely. “Why in Aerwiar would you do that?”

He shrugged. “I have my reasons.”

Ilana shook her head. “I guess you can. But I’ve settled on it, I think. Actually, I settled on it a while ago. I’ve just been thinking about it more, building up a case.”

Artham looked at her curiously. “Settled on what?”

“On what you are,” she replied simply. “You never make any sense. Mother says you’re angry and violent and a coward, yet you’re sitting here asking me if I want you to tell me a story. That might fit the coward side of you, but not angry or violent. You seem nice, actually. So, I’ve decided that you’re not a coward or a beast or a monster or kind or considerate or any of those things. You’re mad. Deranged. Crazy. And that’s the end of it. It’s the only explanation.”

The entire time she had been speaking, all sorts of things had fluttered across her father’s face, confusion, concern, worry, uncertainty. Now, though, joviality settled there. “I’ve been called crazy by many people. In fact, I was the town madman in Glipwood for many years,” he confessed. “So why don’t I affirm your belief in my insanity by telling you that story?”

He seemed so eager and so childlike in his eagerness that Ilana nearly laughed and actually did smile. Something in her spirits lifted when she saw the look on his face, when she saw the way his blue eyes sparkled. She knew part of it came from her re-discovered belief that while what her mother had said was true, it wasn’t all true. He couldn’t help it. It was madness. “Sure. Why not?”

Artham told her a story about two cats and their little kitten. The kitten was lost, taken by a maneleon and raised by her captor, being told she wasn’t loved by her parents. This wasn’t true, of course. Her parents, the two cats, simply watched her die and were told by the maneleon that it was indeed her fate. The little kitten grew older, always wondering why she wasn’t like the maneleon, why she wasn’t vicious, why she had irrational dreams that made her heart soar. 

At that point, Ilana knew Artham spoke of her, the kitten, of her “mother,” the maneleon, and of himself and her real mother, the two cats longing for their lost child. 

The tale ended with the father cat coming to rescue his kitten daughter, but she didn’t want to go with him. She was scared and thought that because he had been gone so many years, he didn’t love her. He hated her, in fact. “But it isn’t true,” Artham said softly. He looked straight into her eyes. “It never was true.”

Ilana rested her head in her hand, thinking. “What did the little kitten do?” she asked quietly, the love that had slowly blossomed in her heart over the course of the story now trembling in suspense or confusion or wonder, which or all, she wasn't sure.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “We haven’t gotten that far quite yet.”

Reaching out and slipping her hand into Artham’s, Ilana smiled at the look of surprise on his face. “I think I know.”

In the next moment, she was in his arms—in her father’s arms—wrapped in the tightest, safest (despite the cage's swinging), most lovely hug in Aerwiar. It was far better than anything she had imagined, and it brought tears to her eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and when she pulled her head away from where she had buried it in his chest, she saw tears rolling down his cheeks.

He opened his mouth, about to say something, but then a shrill voice split the air, though not totally shattering the moment. “How wonderful. The reunion is underway, and I wasn’t even notified. That’s alright. It gives both of you a bit more time to be together before I kill you.”

Chapter Text

“D’ya see anythin’ yet?” Maraly hissed, trying once again to see around Gammon’s hulking, dark form in the even darker night. 

It looked as though he shook his head in response, but since he was not wearing the traditional, enormous, absolutely ridiculous Florid Sword wide-brimmed hat, that sort of thing was difficult to tell when one couldn’t exactly see. 

The moon was hidden by increasingly dark, thick clouds, meaning rain was probable and being sighted was not. Being sighted would not be an issue, of course, at least not too much of an issue, if they were back in Dugtown, making sure no one killed each other on the streets because of a bar brawl gone wrong.

However, they were not in Dugtown. They were still among the Phoob Islands, not all that far away from the monster of them, the one where the Fanging business had taken place for probable years, though, considering how long Green Fangs had roamed Aerwiar, possible months.

And, of course, the reason for them being in such a wretched place: Gammon felt like something had gone wrong with Artham’s mission to save his daughter, and so they were now coming to provide assistance. 

It was not often that Gammon risked everything for a hunch, a feeling. He was the practical sort who normally wouldn’t, and thankfully it was a matter they both agreed on. Doing things based on feeling generally ended in doom and utter failure. However, Maraly had come to learn over the past few months that Gammon was more susceptible to listening to a feeling than she was. Something about the way his brain worked got him a bit paranoid at times, thinking a bit featherbrained, so he would, on occasion, fly into something based on a feeling or a worry. 

This trait came in handy when he was thinking on the fly and trying to come up with another clever line for the Florid Sword. He had even figured out several for her, which was a considerate thing that made her feel a bit guilty, considering she never used the lines. Gammon enjoyed being flashy and obvious in the way he carried out his trysts through town, whereas she preferred stealth and secrecy. The less people who knew she existed, the better. Shadowblade was just what the name suggested: a shadow cutting through the dark, never known by any and only seen by few.

Florid Sword and Shadowblade aside, this slightly-flabbit-chasing-occasional-habit of his also kicked into high gear unexpectedly after Artham had disappeared into the dark, enough to where he had to get up and pace at least once every two hours. And as time had gone by, that pacing had become more and more frequent, as had muttering and eventually speaking out loud about his concerns. 

That had made Maraly uncomfortable, obviously. Yes, she loved Gammon fiercely and in a way she had never loved anyone else, but it didn’t mean she liked hearing his thoughts. It wasn’t just his thoughts, of course. It was everyone’s. Including hers. She hadn’t even really liked hearing Sara’s thoughts at first, but she had paid attention to them out of necessity. Eventually she figured out she really didn't mind hearing thoughts if they were sensible. It was when they weren't sensible that they drove her batty.

In the end, Gammon’s rather irksome paranoia had been what led them to venture into the waters surrounding the Phoob Islands that evening, using a boat he had stashed on another island. This, he had retrieved mere hours after Artham had set out several days earlier, meaning he was not soaking wet anymore. Though he may have complained about his socks still being slightly damp, another detail which Maraly had no desire to hear. 

“What’s the plan?” she finally asked after they had rowed on in silence for long enough that she was growing uncomfortable, especially when considering that if she was seeing correctly in the dark, they were about to bump into the target of the Phoob Islands. 

More silence followed, the sort of uncomfortable silence that follows an unanswered question. Maraly couldn’t help but shift in her seat. Perhaps she hadn’t liked Gammon’s muttering, but at least it had been noise. Now all she heard was the slap of the waves against the boat and the oars and each other.

 “I’m not sure,” he eventually said, slowly, and definitely uncertainly. “My guess is we’re going to be doing a bit of thinking on our feet.”

A rustle, a strangely familiar one, sounded as soon as he said the words, and though she couldn’t see it, Maraly guessed he held a finger to his lips. She didn’t need to be told to be quiet twice. Her hand slowly snaked down her side, and she picked three of her daggers out of various pockets and straps. 

Though she could not see it, she knew Gammon was itching to do the same, but with his sword. She considered offering to row and give him the chance to arm himself, but just then the boat bumped a bit jarringly against the shore and dramatic hissing filled the silence air.

The boat securely stuck on the pebbly and mucky shore, Maraly leapt out, daggers in hand, ready to face whatever scaly or furry or winged creatures stood before her. Nothing moved though, other than the air next to her, stirring as Gammon joined her. 

She heard the slight clang as he grasped the hilt of his sword, then the wonderful zing as it slid from its sheath. As if orchestrated by some unseen force, the moon slid out from behind dense clouds in the same instant, setting the blade aglow and revealing the Fangs facing them: seven, five Green and two Grey, all hissing or growling now they could see their quarry. 

More like their killers, Maraly thought smugly, smirking, waiting desperately for Gammon to give the signal to strike. 

“Art thy souls ready to meet thy dooms?” Gammon asked, slipping naturally into his Florid Sword voice and charging at the same time, "Aha!" also springing from deep inside his chest.

Maraly grinned, let out a whoop! and followed, knowing the two of them could easily take on seven Fangs.

They had dealt with far worse, after all.

As Amrah worked to unlock the cage door, Artham moved himself in front of Ilana defensively, despite the annoying swinging accompanying the motion. “What are you doing?” he asked, glaring at her while simultaneously surveying the cave, checking for Fangs or any other sort of threat. If Amrah planned on keeping her word, one or both of them would likely be dying very, very soon if nothing else was done. He was more than willing and certainly planned to intervene, but it would have to be done in a calculated manner.

“Exactly what I told you, Artham,” Amrah said coolly, taking her time with the lock. “You will be executed in a most brutal manner for the crimes you have committed against your daughter.” 

Behind him, Ilana slipped her hand into Artham’s inconspicuously, making him smile and bolstering the resolve he hadn’t realized would need bolstering. He took the gesture as what physical touch tended to imply: trust, fear of the other person, need for protection. It was good to know Ilana wasn’t listening to Amrah’s lies again. 

Eyeing Amrah cautiously, Artham risked gathering a bit more information. “You’re going to kill me in front of her?” he asked, putting up a front of incredulousness. He really wasn’t that surprised at all, knowing Amrah. “That seems a bit cruel. And if you want to sway her back into listening to you, it’s not exactly your brightest idea. And I don’t see a weapon.” He surveyed her person, checking for any sort of weapon. He didn’t see one, but she could have easily concealed a dagger in the dark folds of her dress or up her sleeve. 

Amrah’s eyes flashed as the lock clicked. “Don’t give me advice,” she growled. “And I never said I would be doing the killing, did I?” 

The sound of growls and hissing began as if on cue, several sets of glowing, yellow eyes emerging from the dark. Artham felt his heart sinking. The chances of getting out of this in one piece with Ilana were growing slimmer by the minute. 

“Now,” Amrah said briskly, almost happily, as if she was about to run a pleasurable errand. “These are some of the more crazed Fangs, the wild ones who’ve been without a stone too long. They’re instructed to kill anything that looks vaguely person-like as soon as I give the signal, so, Ilana, darling, we’d better get out of here.”

A huff sounded from behind, and then Ilana crawled across the bottom of the cage, now sitting next to him. He glanced at her and couldn’t help but smile at the fierce glow in her eyes and the furiously pursed lips. She looked like Arundelle when she got angry. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m still in this cage you threw me in.”

Amrah scowled at her. “I have the key, brat. The door’s unlocked already. You’re welcome to come with me. And who told you I threw you in, this lying monster?”

Ilana crossed her arms in front of her chest. “No,” she said slowly, still fierce and undeterred, despite being called a brat. “Simple reasoning told me. It turns out that telling the difference between lies and truth comes pretty easy when you hear something true.”

Amrah clenched her fists, her knuckles turning white. She reached for the cage door stiffly, then flung it open in anger. In a flash, her hand had fastened itself onto Ilana’s wrist, wrenching her out. “We’re going,” she seethed. 

The sudden change in weight distribution sent the cage swinging madly, the door clanging and Artham tumbling unexpectedly, his heart in his throat as he slid toward the entrance that now led to the far-below rocky bottom of the cave.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ilana stumbling behind Amrah, then yanking her hand away and shouting, “No, we’re not!”

Another surge of panic fluttered through Artham, and he knew he had to get out of that cage and to his daughter quickly, before Amrah did something dreadful to her. Taking a breath, he inched toward the open door and steadied himself there for a moment before springing from the lurching cage.

He landed on the cliff edge, safe, not anywhere near wobbling off, and in time to focus his attention on Amrah and Ilana again.

Spinning around, Amrah stared at his daughter, her dark-cloth-enshrouded face first filled with grief, then anger. She raised her hand, about to slap Ilana.

Artham was standing between horrid-not-crab Amrah and Ilana the same moment, catching the former’s wrist deftly. “You can’t take her if she doesn’t want to go with you,” he said calmly, despite the way his heart pounded at the same time knowing if Ilana stayed with him, he would have to protect her from the Fangs somehow, and he wasn’t sure he could do that. 

Scoffing, Amrah smiled a little bit. “Not exactly your brightest idea, Artham,” she said, mocking him with his own words. “You don’t even have a weapon to fight the coming Fangs.” (they growled again as if to emphasize their presence) “I’m doubtful you can survive this, so how will your daughter? She’s even more defenseless than you are.”

“She has me,” Artham said softly, reaching for Ilana’s hand and squeezing it comfortingly. “And the Maker, of course. I’m sure we’ll manage.”

Amrah stared at both of them, her eyes filled with disdain, her mouth set in a thin line, as if she wished she had a weapon on her so she could kill Artham then and there. She breathed heavily, bent down and kissed Ilana’s cheek briefly, to which the receiver flinched and wiped the gesture away. “Finish them,” she hissed, then picked up her skirts and ran, the dark cloth billowing behind her as she fled. 

The signal was a rather obvious one, and in an instant Artham had gathered Ilana in his arms and run toward the cage. It had begun swinging a bit less, and he reached out for it, pulling back on it when he caught it and steadying the motion. “I need you to stay in here, alright?” he breathed as he set her inside. “It’s the safest place for you.”

Ilana nodded vigorously, her eyes full of both trust and fear. “I will,” she said softly, the words slowing Artham’s racing heart, speeding up with the sound of every claw scratching against the floor of the cave.

He shut the door for another barrier of protection, thankful it was impossible to lock without the key. Accidently locking his daughter somewhere was not what he wanted. “Only leave if I fall, and by fall I mean actually getting killed, not just getting knocked to the ground.” He hated amending his words to make them more direct, but he wanted to ensure her safety. 

Ilana nodded, her breaths becoming shaky and fearful. “Okay.”

Artham smiled a bit. “I love you,” he replied, turned to leave, and turned back. “Close your eyes,” he whispered. “Don’t open them. Don’t look. Close your eyes, Ilana. Please.”

“I will, Daddy,” she murmured, her eyelids shutting, her hands covering them as well. 

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Artham reached through the bars, cupped her cheek in his hand, and turned to face the Fangs. He walked toward them, wanting to put distance between himself and Ilana for safety. Seven Fangs. Could he handle seven crazed Fangs weaponless?

“Maker,” he breathed, beginning to run forward as the first three charged. “Give me the strength and courage I lack.”

Ilana kept her eyes squeezed shut the entire time, her father’s words playing in her mind over and over again, in some vain attempt to block out the sounds of blades clashing and grunts of pain and screams as Fang after Fang was killed. The sound of a Fang lunging against the cage sent her tumbling, shrieking with terror, but she didn’t open her eyes, she didn’t, and soon she heard her father, fighting the Fang, keeping her safe, and the cage swung more gently. 

Even so, it wasn’t long before she began pressing the backs of her ears, closing them off from hearing. She was not tempted to look, not in the least, but she was terrified of hearing the sound of her father’s death. Even the thought was unbearable, so she hummed a little tune that went with a song she had written. When that wasn’t enough to drown out the sound, though, and a particularly horrifying cry of pain that she knew belonged to her father reached her ears, she began singing.

I am safe within your arms, 

Your hold on me will never fail.

I’ll never come to any harm

As long as you prevail.

You will fight for me forever

And with you I know I can be safe

‘Cause these hearts of ours are tethered

And the bond can never break.

I cry in anguish, my heart burning

Wondering why my throat now aches.

My very soul is even yearning

Even as it weeps and shakes:

"Why to these lengths do you go,

When it could send you to your grave?"

But now I simply know 

That’s the kind of love we crave.

Chapter Text

When she had sung through it twice, each line becoming more and more tear-filled because of how scared she was, Ilana paused, realizing all the loud noises of fighting had stopped. She removed her fingers from where they protected her ears, waiting until they popped, indicating they were ready to begin hearing again. All the sounds were gone…but it was too quiet, far too quiet. Her stomach clenched in fear: what if her father had managed to kill all the Fangs, but died anyway?

Tears came to her eyes at the thought, but she still didn’t open them, because that would be disobedient, wrong. She listened harder than she ever had before, desperate to hear something, anything!

Then she heard something, a sort of odd shuffling, the sound of shoes against rock. Relief swept over her—shoes! Her father had worn shoes, and Fangs never would. He was alive!

Ilana opened her mouth to speak, to call out to him, but realized her throat didn’t want to do much more than squeak. She swallowed, then tried again. “Daddy?” she asked tentatively. 

“I’m here, sweetheart,” came his voice, low and breathless. The cage shifted a bit—he must have placed his hand on it, perhaps so he could open it? Or maybe so he could rest?

Ilana waited in silence, waited for him to say something about her opening her eyes, for him to open the cage, for any sound other than his shuddery breathing to reach her ears. None of that happened, though, and she was eventually forced to speak up. 

“Daddy,” she said again, hoping just one question would be enough to trigger other thoughts. “Can I open my eyes now?”

There was a bit of a hitch in his breathing, one that turned into a cough, and then he said, “Aye, of course. How could I forget?”

Her eyes flew open and the door to the cage flew open seconds later, and then she was climbing out and hugging her father, who was now sitting on the ground, one leg bent at the knee, the other pulled in closer, like he was sitting half-cross-legged. 

She was sure to be gentle as she hugged him, since she knew by the sounds, she had heard that he had been hurt, how many times and where, she didn’t know. Being on the safe side was preferred, though, and she leaned back after several seconds, then shifted her position to where she was kneeling. She stared at him thoughtfully, looking over every inch of him, inspecting him for damage.

“What are you doing?” he asked, smiling a bit, though it seemed like a rather tight smile. Like the sort of smile someone would make if they were hurting. She had read books, so that was how she knew about “taut smiles.”

Ilana picked up his right hand (it took both of her small hands to do so) and inspected it, all bruised and bloodied from having little else to fight the Fangs with before he had taken a sword from one of them (which was the only way she would have heard blades clashing). “I’m checking you for injuries,” she said simply before going on to his left hand. “You were fighting alone, and the Fangs had weapons, so there’s bound to be something wrong with you.”

Artham smiled again, this time boyishly, and a bit of the pain fled. “I know how to disarm my opponent, thank you very much. Fang swords are crude, but they work in a pinch. You needn’t worry. I think the worst of them is my knee, which really isn't bad at all, but I’ve dealt with that before. I’m fine.”

Her brow furrowing a bit, Ilana looked down at her father’s right knee (that was the one bent) but failed to see anything particularly amiss. “What happened to it…before?” she asked tentatively.

Artham held up his hand, asking her to wait. “Let’s walk and I’ll tell you, alright? Getting out of here would be wonderful. If this is my last hour in this dreadful place, I’ll be very pleased about it.”   

Ilana couldn’t help but agree, yet she did feel a pang in her heart when she thought about her journal and her stuffed animal she would be leaving behind if they never came back. The pang distracted her from Artham’s trip from the ground to a standing position, but not so much that she didn’t see the way he had to grab hold of the dangerously shifting cage to get there or hear the barely stifled grunt of pain.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” she asked, growing suspicious he was letting on more than he told her. That same, cheery flash of a smile came again, but Ilana was starting to think it was the sort of smile he gave when trying to convince people of something that wasn’t exactly true. 

“Yes, I am,” he replied. “But are you? You’re looking for something, something you’ve left.”

Ilana started a bit, unaware that her gaze had drifted toward the well-concealed place she called home for several months out of the year. “How do you know?”

Artham smiled again, this time more sadly. “Because I’ve seen the same look many times, in the faces of those I love, in my own reflection. So what is it you’ve left?”

Hesitating, Ilana wondered if she should tell the truth. She couldn’t help but think she and her father were rather similar, and if that was the case and he knew how much she loved the things she had left, he would insist on going for them. She was worried, though, that if they did that, her “mother,” who apparently wasn’t her mother at all, would manage to find them, or Fangs would, or someone would and then they would be right back where they were before, hopeless and fighting to the death with no escape.

“Just…a journal. And a little toy, but they’re not important,” she added hastily, even though it was a lie.

“Your journal?” he said softly, an eyebrow raised, and for a few moments he looked off into the distance, as if remembering journals of his own. “Well, in that case, we can’t possibly leave it.” 

He began striding (limping, though his stride was still rather impressive) toward the direction Ilana’s gaze had drifted several times, and she ran to catch up to him. “Wait, no!” she said, almost grabbing his hand, but at the last second remembering how battered it looked and how much it had to hurt. “There’s no time, is there? It isn’t safe! We’ll be, we’ll be—”

“Ilana, it’ll be fine,” Artham said soothingly, taking her hand in his. “Those are your memories in your journal. You can’t leave it behind. My precious journals were cared for by those I love, and the least I can do is take a few steps to get yours.”

Resigning because she knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere, Ilana sighed and steered him in the correct direction, leading him toward the rather hidden door of the odd home and opening it, praying all the while that her “mother” was not inside.

At first glance she wasn’t, thank the Maker, but the room was dark, making it hard to see, harder than it normally was with the lights off. Ilana glanced back to see what the reason was and realized it was her father, partially blocking the door.

“I'd like to check the room first, then stand guard,” Artham explained, proceeding to do just that, and after determining Amrah was not inside, took up his post at the door.

Ilana went in after that, positioning herself so she had a straight shot to where she thought she had left her satchel. She had been in the place many times before and knew exactly where she had left her satchel holding the journal and stuffed animal.

Heading toward the sofa, she did manage to stumble over something—several somethings, in fact, the final of which made her fall—and made enough noise to where Artham’s voice came drifting through the darkness. 

“Are you alright?” he asked, sounding more worried than she wanted him to be.

“Yes,” she replied, pushing herself up and dusting off her dress out of habit. “I think my mo—I mean, Amrah—threw a bit of a temper fit and made the place a mess.”

There was a pause before he spoke again, not so much that she became too worried, but enough that she became concerned. The trouble she was having finding her satchel might have had something to do with it. “Alright. Just be careful.”

Ilana began pushing things around when she reached the sofa, squinting, struggling to see in the darkness. She cast her gaze around, trying to identify the items on the floor—book, half of a lamp, beads, tattered cloth, and...there it was! 

Smiling, Ilana bent down and grabbed the body of her satchel, pulling it up close to her, ready to hug it and squeeze it because she cared about it and its contents just that much. It was stuck, though, stuck to where she couldn’t pull it out. She tugged again, then began moving more unidentifiable objects around to try and free it. Slowly, she realized it wasn’t the satchel that was stuck, it was the strap, caught on something. 

Getting rather annoyed and knowing she was making an unpleasant and possibly concerning amount of noise, Ilana called out to her father. “Don’t worry, it’s just stuck!”

In response, she heard a cry of pain, then a thump, then the shadows in the room shifted, then—and this was most horrifying—a honeyed voice came. “It’s not the only thing that’s stuck,” Amrah said, her eyes flashing in the dark. “You are, too.”

“What did you do to my father?” Ilana demanded, mind racing, fear mounting in her heart, knowing that the cry of pain she had heard belonged to him and hating that she knew it so well. She shouldn’t have to know the sound of something dreadful as well as she did. 

Amrah beamed wickedly from where she stood at the door’s entrance, creating a horrifying shadow on the wall. “Oh, I’ve made him permanently indisposed, that’s all. And it’s fine, because you won’t need him where we’re going. And he’ll never need anyone else again, either.”

As if moving on its own, Ilana’s satchel came loose, but the relief and joy she had expected to feel now faded into grey nothingness with the gravity of what Amrah had said. Was it really true? Had she…had her “mother” killed her father, whom she loved dearly? Who had fought off so many Fangs for her? Who had continued loving her even when she said she hated him?

Anger bubbled up inside of her, a sort of anger she had never felt before. Ilana’s fingers slipped along her satchel, making their way towards the strap, squeezing it tightly. “Did you kill him?” she asked, her voice trembling with grief and fury.

Amrah smiled lightly. “I don’t think he’s dead yet,” —a gasping, a horrible, dreadful gasping sound followed her words, making Ilana want to block her ears so she wouldn’t hear it— “But there’s no one to keep that from happening, is there? Even if I did let you go to him, you couldn’t do anything. You don’t know anything, Ilana. You don’t know about the world or anything you think you do. You can’t learn about it from books, just experience. And that is something you have never had. Which, might I add, is exactly why you don’t really love your father, you just think you do. You feel something else, fascination or some sort of other thing that certainly isn’t love.”

“I do love him!” Ilana shouted, furious, without thinking she flew at Amrah with no plan at all whatsoever, only knowing she wanted her gone and wishing she had never existed in the first place, because then…well then, she always would have been with her father and real mother.

Shock flashed onto Amrah’s face, but before Ilana made contact, the black skirts whisked out of the way. Light poured into her vision in the same moment, but she didn’t care about light or her satchel that now was permanently clutched in her hand or even what had happened to Amrah. None of it mattered, not the slightest bit. Her father was the only thing that mattered; there he was, slumped against the rock wall, eyes squeezed shut, teeth gritted in pain, hand pressed against his side. Something—as she came closer, Ilana desperately hoped it was just scrunched folds of crimson cloth—crept from between the fingers of the hand, first only showing a little, then more as another set of horrendous coughs split the air.

Trembling as she did so, Ilana risked placing her hand over her father’s. Her throat burned when something dampened her fingers, but, unable to actually look, she only squeezed Artham’s hand. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispered, her eyes now burning along with her throat. “I’m sorry.”

Artham drew in a shuddering breath and, pausing a good deal, murmured, “You’ve nothing…to be sorry for. Those first hours…I said I would die for you.” A ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. 

Ilana shook her head. “No,” she choked out, tears now rolling down her cheeks. “You’re not dying for me, you’re not. I won’t let you.”

“Dearest daughter,” Artham began again, this time forcing his eyes open. “You can’t…control it.” More coughs came with those words, blood in these, and Ilana felt herself panicking, looking around frantically for something, anything to help.

Almost immediately she spotted a tall man, clad all in black, slipping a sword into its sheath, and what might’ve been a girl, also wearing black. That they were agents of her mother—all wearing black, it made sense, didn’t it?—came to mind first, and she stood up quickly, positioning herself in front of her father (as if she could do anything against an attack). 

They came nearer, closer, the shorter, potential girl picking up her pace. The panicked bird in Ilana’s mind broke free of its cage. “Don’t hurt him!” she shrieked. “Please, please, whatever you do, don’t hurt him!”

“It’s alright,” the man said kindly, gently, still advancing, just more slowly. “We’re friends. I need to check on you father, make sure he’s alright. Stay with my daughter Maraly, okay?”

He pressed forward, but Ilana blocked him, not trusting him. “If you were really his friend,” she said fiercely, tears spilling again. “You would already know he’s not alright, and you would already know he needs help right now!”

Just then, she heard her father’s voice, now fainter than it had been before. “They’re friends, Ilana. It’s…it’s alright.” 

Turning back to look at Artham, Ilana saw his face, lines of agony etched in it, then turned to the tall dark man and knew concern swam through his eyes. Genuine concern. Maybe he really was a friend. “Alright,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Please, help him.” 

The man rushed forward then, muttering a whole slew of inaudible things that had to be important. Ilana stood there looking on for several seconds before feeling herself being guided away. When she looked up, she saw it was the dark man’s companion, Maraly.

“I can’t leave him,” Ilana whispered, stopping in her tracks. She didn’t want to go another step away from her father. 

“I git that,” Maraly said, her accent rather shocking. “That’s why we’re stoppin’ here, just a bit away, not too far, to give Gammon—he’s me dad—some space to work. Or look. Or check. Or do somethin'.”

Ilana nodded dumbly, a knot twisting itself into her stomach. Her gaze drifted toward the palm of her hand for the first time, the hand she had placed over her father’s. The slow-drying blood there made her skin crawl.

She knew it was bad; she wasn’t stupid. She knew it probably wouldn’t end well. She knew he was probably going to die, which wasn’t fair when she had just met him! And now she couldn’t even stay by his side.

Since she couldn’t be with her father, she wanted to do nothing more than bury her face in her hands and weep. That was what she did for about thirty seconds, but then Gammon jolted her out of her tears with a shout.

“Maraly! Take your friend, make sure the boat is ready. We’re following soon. I want to get to Fort Duid. There may be a chance.”

Maraly nodded curtly, grabbed Ilana’s hand, and began racing. Ilana struggled to keep up, partially because of the speed, but more from the tears flooding her vision and leaving wet, sticky trails on her cheeks. 

Trails like blood.

Chapter Text

An odd sort of familiar music sounded. The barrier thinned. Artham felt it, cold pumping through his veins, through his mind. It was the barrier between life and death, between reality and eternity, between agony and bliss. Everything before his eyes seemed to waver, as if the world was made of water, and a thousand pebbles had been cast into it at once. A colorful shimmer, a shape, a person, he realized, came into view, someone else who wavered on the barrier as well. He wanted to know who it was, it seemed dreadfully important, but a pained gasp jerked his mind away from the person and the rippling water.

The sound of Gammon's rather sailor-like speech patterns brought him the rest of the way back to painful consciousness.

“I cannot believe you, Artham,” his friend muttered angrily, crimson filling his hands. “I tear a piece of a cloth from your shirt to stuff the wound, but what do I find underneath the cloth? More crimson. Except it isn’t a crimson undershirt, it’s a white undershirt stained with your blood.” A few almost inaudible less-than-savory words came off his tongue.

“What’d’ya do, fight off a bunch of Fangs in your undershirt, then put on the crimson one afterward?” Gammon griped, seeming like he was talking to himself more than anyone else.

“And made sure it was crimson so no one would see,” Artham added with a pained wheeze. Gammon didn’t respond to that.

“Where’s Amrah?” Artham asked after what felt like a while.

“Ran off,” Gammon replied shortly, sounding testy. “I opted to save you over pursuing her.”

Artham tried to smile but probably only grimaced. “Thanks for that,” he gasped before a jolt of pain sent him tumbling away from reality. 

Rocks stirred the water again, this time splashing a thousand droplets into Artham’s face. He sputtered and coughed, groaning in agony as he did so. The sight of the person again begged him to focus, and he did, peering closely, trying to make out a clear face through the constantly rippling water. He gasped when he saw, jarring slightly, then spiraled away from the image again, drowning in pain.

He must have passed out, or very nearly, because the next thing he knew, he was stumbling along beside Gammon, barely able to keep his eyes open. Odd sounding mutters reached his ears, as if coming from underwater, and it was several seconds before he realized his friend was speaking.

“Artham!” he shouted. “Artham, did you say something?”

Blinking, trying but failing to clear the smoke filling his head, Artham again whispered what he had said before. “Janner,” he mumbled. “Janner’s no’ safe.”

“Neither are you,” Gammon replied, and that was all he heard before another shot of pain sent him headlong into darkness.

He floated and drowned simultaneously, just as he breathed life and choked on dust, burned like Fang venom and froze into ice water, grieved and rejoiced, felt everything and yet nothing at all. What happened around him was lost, what happened in him just the same. He had not imagined the precipice between life and death many times, but those he did, it always seemed an odd, confusing place to stand. 

Never had it seemed as vivid as it did in the moment. 

Wind whipped through his hair and threw itself at him, making him shiver. It was almost strong enough to knock him over, but not quite. The view when he looked down was dizzying enough, though, that it sent his head spinning, which very well might be enough to send him hurtling over the edge. 

Turning his head so that demise was not so likely didn't seem to help, as the brief motion only spun his senses down further confusing trails.

Sighing, he lowered himself to the ground, slowly, carefully, then rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes, waiting for it to leave him alone. Something told him that wasn't going to happen, no matter how long he waited.

Sitting there and doing little other than waiting reminded him how exhausted he was, and he almost managed to fall asleep. The only thought giving him pause was the one that said if he fell asleep then, it might be the final time. Such concerns were not enough to stifle it though, and he found himself almost panicking briefly—though he was a bit too tired for panicking. 

That was until a voice—a wonderfully familiar voice—poked in and said, “You’re not seriously about to sleep before chatting, are you?”

Janner’s eyes flew open, and in a sudden, trembling motion gasped in a breath of air (had he stopped breathing?) and asked, “Kalmar?”

His cheeky, brown-haired brother sat on a rock nearby, tossing a small object from hand to hand, unable to sit still. An odd smile played upon his face, and Janner wasn’t quite certain what it conveyed. The smile seemed to wobble a bit, but the chances of it simply being because of his shifting vision were very likely.

“Yep,” Kal replied cheerily, tossing the somewhat cylindrical object (was it a ball, of some sort?) up in the air and catching it before continuing. “It’s me.”

As much as Janner hated to do the same as all the people in stories who wake up in unfamiliar places, he couldn’t quite think of another method of finding out what he needed to know. “Where are we?”

Kal tsked, as if jokingly disapproving of him. “With all the books you read, couldn’t you come up with something more original? Something like, oh, I don’t know—”

“Kal, please,” Janner hissed, though not unkindly. He knew he sounded harsh, but he wasn't certain how he was supposed to sound when his entire body was on fire with the strain he placed on it, just that of holding his head (still spinning dreadfully) up. It was the reason he hadn’t rushed forward to scoop his younger brother into the biggest hug imaginable. He simply didn’t think he was physically capable of it.

Rolling his eyes a bit, Kal slipped the ball into his pocket and came over, grasping Janner’s shoulder. Barely making any effort, he pushed, just slightly, and the next thing Janner knew he was laying down, the sudden motion nearly sickening him. He fought to keep from throwing up for about a minute, and when the urge finally passed, he made a point of glaring at Kalmar. 

“Wha’ was that for?” he gasped, seeing that his brother had now planted himself on the ground.

Kal looked at him witheringly. “Janner, this isn’t completely your imagination. You really can’t tax yourself like that. It’s going to kill you.”

Chills seeped into Janner’s heart and went throughout his entire body, making him shiver. “I’m that close, am I?”

“Why do you think you’re lying next to what you’ve nicknamed ‘the precipice between life and death’?” Kal asked him, uncharacteristically somber. Then his tone switched to sounding a bit more like the normal Kalmar.  “And what in Aerwiar is a ‘precipice’ anyway?”

Janner smiled weakly. “It’s a cliff. A steep cliff.”

Kal stood up briefly and craned his neck in the direction of the cliff. He grunted. “I guess it’s a precipice. But, ya, know, it could be steeper.”

“But where am I actually?” Janner repeated, in truth delighted to hear Kal’s ridiculous stalling.

Wrinkling his nose a bit, Kalmar began pulling bits from grass up, shredding it to bits. It was alright. There was more grass on the ground than he could pick. “I don't exactly know,” he began slowly. “It’s sort of like the place we were when I saw you last. After I died and before you came back.”

Janner's heart ached at the memory, and a sob worked its way into his throat, one that sent him into a coughing fit. Pain exploded in so many different places, in his head, his chest, his stomach, his heart. 

When he could breathe again, he opened his eyes only to realize Kal was hugging him. 

“Sorry,” Kalmar said awkwardly as he was gently lowered into a laying position again. “I thought you would fall apart if nothing was holding you together.”

Janner barely managed a smile. “I look that bad?”

Kal grimaced. “Worse.”

Sighing (not outwardly, just inwardly, because an outward sigh might trigger more coughing), Janner forced his leadened hand to press into the side of his head. 

“Headache?” Kalmar asked sympathetically.

Janner nodded. “It's been worse though.”

Looking around for a moment, Kal got up and held out his hands. “Don’t move. I'll be right back.”

The words made Janner smile a bit. He had a feeling he wasn't moving anytime soon, not without help at least. In his brother's absence, he decided pondering what was going on was a decent decision, as long as it didn't worsen his headache. 

Kal wasn't being very forthcoming with information on where they actually were, though that did seem rather "Kal-like." Of course, that was another question in and of itself. Was it really his brother or just a figment of his imagination? He had dreamt of Kalmar many, many times and knew he was more than capable of imagining him alive.

But, no, Kal had already said he was dead. None of the dream-Kals had ever admitted to really being dead. It stood to reason, then, that his Kal was slightly more real than all the others. Why was he wherever he was, then? And why was Kal there?

His brother reappeared in his line of sight, then, some sort of bundle tucked under one arm. He crouched, and Janner felt a hand underneath his head a moment later. 

“This might make you dizzy or something, so sorry in advance,” Kal said quickly, and before Janner had time to ask what exactly was being done to him, his head lifted, spun, throbbed, then lowered, and spun the other way. The throbbing, however, did not stop.

His words scrambled a bit, Janner couldn't reply or retort immediately as he wanted. It worked in his favor, though, because it gave him time to realize that instead of pressing into the ground, his head now rested on something comfortable and makeshift-pillow-like. “Did you make an ad hoc pillow out of a cloak?” he managed to ask. 

The grin of pleasure on Kal's face was certainly worth the throbbing. "Probably, but I’m not completely sure what ‘ad hoc’ means," he said happily, looking rather proud of himself. 

"Why?" Janner asked, not really knowing why such a thing mattered when whatever was happening wasn't really happening. 

Kal rolled his eyes. “Janner, I'm not such a terrible brother that I don't want you to be comfortable. You're sick and miserable and giving you a little bit of something that's kind of sort of pleasant seemed like a decent thing to do. Plus, we need to talk about important things, and you'll pay more attention if you can pay attention.”

Janner felt the corners of his lips quirk up a bit. “Something important? You're initiating this conversation, I would assume, how exactly is it going to go?”

Dramatically throwing up his hands, Kal looked at him scathingly. “I can hold serious conversations, you know. And I've been practicing this one a lot!”

Janner risked a chuckle. “I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.”

“I'm glad you didn't,” Kal said softly, his eyes full of nostalgia. 

There was silence for a bit as they just looked at each other. Janner wondered what his younger brother was thinking and might have managed to at least grasp bits of it by paying closer attention to his face, but that took energy he didn't have.

Kalmar finally cleared his throat, clasped his hands together, and looked off into the distance before beginning to speak. Janner didn't blame him. Talking about serious things was often easier when you didn't have to make eye contact. 

“It’s about you," he began. "About how you won't stop doubting yourself with all the kingship stuff and everything else related to it.”

That took Janner aback. “That doesn't seem quite relevant, considering the situation,” he said slowly, feeling the usual grief and doubt and touch of anger working their way into his heart and mind, only now the threat of death hung over it. Somehow, death didn’t seem like a terrible thing in all respects, just a few. He had seen and felt what it did to those who still lived, and the thought of putting his family through it again broke his heart. Yet, he was so tired of everything and honestly wasn’t sure if he could go on. 

Kal smirked. “It’s very relevant, actually, considering this isn’t going to kill you. You’ll survive.” 

Janner held his tongue to keep from retorting. Something told him Kal had just told him the truth, and that said truth came from a place of authority. Only One could have divulged such information, which made disagreement pointless. He wasn’t sure if weight settled on or was lifted off his shoulders at the revelation, though. If a simple cold had nearly killed him, surely surviving this time was only delaying the inevitable?

“Hey,” Kal said, nudging his shoulder and jarring him out of his thoughts. “I need you to pay attention. Please. I know it’s hard and I promise, you can rest once I finish talking to you, but for now you need to listen.”

Janner did his best to nod and sent up a brief prayer that he would manage to stay awake, despite his body’s best efforts to drag him into unconsciousness again. 

“Okay, so,” Kal began again. “There was the whole thing with the seed, and I was going to sacrifice myself and then you sacrificed yourself in my place, even though the Maker told me I was the one who had to do the sacrificing. So, it turned out two sacrifices were needed, but only one of us came back.

Closing his eyes, Janner felt the familiar guilt churning in his stomach. His initial thought was, it should have been you who came back; you deserve to be happy with the rest of the family. After all, Kal had been far more willing to sacrifice than he, what with preparing for such a thing two separate times for days without telling anyone. Then he checked himself. This in and of itself was proof that Kal did not deserve anything like what he—and the rest of the family—had suffered over the past month or more. 

“All things aside…Janner, you’ve got a life to live! A kingdom to rule! And even a girl to make happy!” Kal added, a cheeky grin appearing on his face. 

Janner did not smile back. “I don’t understand how you think I can possibly enjoy anything when you’re dead…because of me.”

Shaking his head, frustration fluttered into Kalmar’s eyes. “Janner,” he said gently, more serious this time. “I’m not dead because of you. You gave me life again by sacrificing yourself, and then with that life, I chose to give life back to others, including you! Just for the record, I’m more alive now than I ever have been. Don’t you remember that we had a choice? When we were with Papa?”

Janner did remember, though it had been so long since he had bothered thinking about the instance that he had nearly forgotten. They had been given the choice to either stay in the Maker’s World or return to their family. 

“We both chose,” he murmured, feeling a bit of the weight slipping from his shoulders, from his chest. 

“Yep,” Kal affirmed, nodding. “You can’t blame yourself for me dying or for anyone else’s sorrow, since I chose it. I suppose you could blame me, though,” he added sadly, his face falling a bit.

Oddly enough, Janner found himself smiling. He shook his head wearily. “No,” he said, feeling even lighter than before. “I can’t blame you, and I never did. You saw the Maker. Who could bear to come back here after seeing Him?”

Kalmar was silent for a little while, his eyes distant as he thought very, very hard about something. “Janner, do you understand now? I need you to be happy, or at least content. I need you to live a life worth living. And I need you to have a good relationship with Sara, too. You’re both crazy about each other! I need you to stop making yourself miserable because you think it’ll somehow ‘right the wrongs’ you ‘committed’ when my death came around. I need you to do all that because…because I love you. And because that’s what I want you to do.”

Janner closed his eyes in an effort to stop the burning in them. “I will,” he said softly, when he opened his eyes. 

Kal smiled and came neared, leaning down to hug him. “That’s all I needed to hear. Thank you.”

As he drifted off to sleep, still feeling his brother’s arms around him, Janner couldn’t help but sense something shifting, something in his mind or heart or body, he wasn’t certain. What he was certain of was that the next sounds he heard were not those belonging to his dear younger brother, but to Nia and Sara, and maybe even Leeli or her music in the background.

Chapter Text

Ilana shifted her position again, this time drawing her legs up to her chest and wrapping one arm around them. She would have preferred the security of both arms, but she needed the other for her right hand, the one she always used to twirl her hair. She would go crazy if she couldn’t do that.

Before casting her gaze to the left, Ilana indulged in a bit of vain hope. Maybe something had changed in the last…five minutes. She looked—nothing. No change. Her father still lay there, unmoving except for the occasional shift, always followed by an unconscious groan of pain.

The thought of it was enough to bring tears to her eyes, and Ilana rubbed them with the heel of her palm instinctively, trying to keep them from coming again. She had cried a lot since they had arrived at Fort Dwid two days ago, since Gammon demanded a room from a lookout she hadn’t registered the face of and sent Maraly racing for a doctor.

There had been a lot of crying that needed to be done, she supposed, since numbness and fear had filled her heart and mind during the agonizing hours they spent in the little boat, staring every second at her father’s face, watching his eyes as they slipped between awareness and listlessness, holding her breath every time he failed to gasp for air, terrified he had stopped breathing.

She had begged the Maker so many times during those hours that He would spare her father, that He wouldn’t take him when they had only just met, that he wouldn’t fade into a precious, grievious memory so soon. 

The begging still hadn’t stopped, especially not since the doctor—Jebsnun or something like it—had failed to give any good news. Gammon had taken the lack of good news to mean he needed to make contact with her father’s family, with her family, but of course he didn’t see a very convenient way of carrying it out. He mentioned something about talking to a Sea Dragon, but that didn’t make any sense, to the point at which Ilana was sure she had heard him wrong.

A knock, a soft one, one rather ironically attached to the person it belonged to, sounded, and Ilana whispered a quiet, “come in,” that shouldn’t have been audible, but somehow it was.

The door opened, and in stepped Maraly, with a bowl in her hand, a chunk of bread poking out of the bowl. “Hey,” she said gently. “Do ye wanna come eat with me and Gammon, or should I leave this with ye?”

“You can leave it,” Ilana replied, wrapping her arms around her knees tighter, feeling a little like a field mouse and wanting to be as small as one. “Thank you,” she added politely as Maraly set the bowl down on the little end table next to her.

Maraly smiled a little. “Yer welcome. Oh, jest so ye know, the Doc’s gonna be here pretty soon, an’ if ye don’t wanna be in here, yer welcome ta join me on a tour o’ Fort Dwid. I haven’t been ‘ere much, but enough to give a bit o’ a tour.”

Ilana’s first thought was to decline the offer, since she wanted to stay by her father’s side more than anything else in the moment, but then she relented. She hadn’t been out in days and a stroll couldn’t hurt. Her father might not have been doing any better, but he wasn’t worse, and the chances of him dying when she was gone were probably slim. They were at least as slim as the chances of him waking up any time soon.

“I guess I’ll come with you then,” she conceded, still feeling a bit reluctant and guilty.

“Great!” Maraly exclaimed, heedless of Ilana’s lack of real excitement. “I’ll be gettin’ ye then.”

She hurried out, closing the door softly behind her, which, much like her knock, seemed rather uncharacteristic. Ilana looked at the door where she had been moments before for a few seconds, then slid out of her chair, getting closer to the bed, so she could kneel by it. 

When she had done so, she took hold of her father’s left hand and squeezed it, hoping it would keep the tears from coming. “I love you,” she whispered. “Please, wake up soon.”

The tour through Fort Dwid was a rather hasty one, not so much because Ilana wanted it to be, but because Maraly did everything so quickly. And also because Fort Dwid was rather diminutive. She noted almost every structure as the passed it, barely mentioning some and going into disturbingly short detail with others—like the comment when they passed a random street that triggered a memory about someplace in Dugtown called Tilling Court: “Thet’s where yer cousin Janner got kidnapped and chased by zombie people,”—but doing it all so hastily that very little was retained. Except for the one comment about her cousin Janner, to which she did ask who he was and what he was like, mostly for distraction purposes.

Maraly told her bits and pieces after that, not going into extreme detail and threading information about Dugtown’s structures in the middle of all of it, which meant Ilana got a physical tour of Dwid and a verbal tour of Dugtown all rolled up in one.

By the time they were back at the fort’s outpost where they were staying, Ilana desperately wanted to be with her father again, regardless of whether he was awake or not and regardless of whether the doctor was there. It didn’t matter at that point. He was her father, and she wasn’t going to spend another second away from his side. 

The moment she stepped foot into the inn, she raced upstairs, taking them two at a time. She paused at the door to the room, not wanting to seem rude or terribly flustered or anything of the sort. Amrah had managed to teach her manners, for which she was grateful. 

When she paused, though, she heard something. Voices. Coming from inside. At first she assumed it was only Gammon and the doctor (now she heard his name being spoke, Jebsun. So she had been close!), since they were the only ones she heard but then…then…she held her breath, but that didn’t help much, since she couldn’t hear anything over the wild racing of her heart. Could it be?

Turning the knob and pushing the door open without a second thought, Ilana stepped into the room as quickly and politely as she could, her eyes immediately falling on those of her dear, dear father, who was gloriously, wondrously awake.

“Daddy!” she cried, her hands flying to cover her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks immediately, but these were good tears. 

He smiled, said something, but it was quiet, and she couldn’t hear it over the hitch in her breathing, he beckoned her with his hand, then, giving her permission to come near. 

Legs trembling, Ilana went forward, telling herself she just had to make it to the side of the bed, and then she could collapse on her knees and hold her father’s hand, or maybe he would cup her cheek in his hand, because anything other than that and she was worried it would hurt him.

She did make it to the bed and she did fall to her knees and she did take his hand in hers and he did cup her cheek, and then…and then he hugged her. Very carefully, very cautiously, very against the Doctor’s better judgment and advice, but he did it anyway. And she was just as careful and just as cautious because she loved him and she didn’t want to hurt him, not at all, never again. 

At first Sara thought it was her imagination, that she didn’t really see Janner’s hand moving of its own accord, that it was just her eyes playing tricks on her, showing her what she wanted to see as she waited beside his bed for a miracle. 

It happened again, though, even after she had blinked several times, and she risked calling Nia. “Mama!” she raised her voice just enough to alert her.

Nia was coming down the stairs in moments, her sleeves still rolled up and her hands dripping from washing the clothes. “Sara, what is it? Is he…” she trailed off, as if too afraid to place hope in something so futile. 

There was a little sound, a sound like a groan or a grunt, but when Janner’s lips moved, Sara was almost certain it was supposed to be a word or a few words. 

“I think so,” she whispered, getting up from the bed so Nia could take her place. “Do you want me to find Leeli?”

Nia didn’t respond, eyes on her son and only on her son, but, as it turned out, Leeli responded for her. “Find me for what?” came her cheery voice from the castle courtyard.

Neither Sara nor Nia replied, both waiting with bated breath for what had before been only a dream, a hope of a miracle. With the hand that did not hold Janner’s, Sara felt Nia grasping hers, as if clinging for support should hopes once again be dashed to pieces. 

They were not, though, for seconds later Janner blinked, slowly, carefully, squinting, closing his eyes again, then opening them, blinking. He smiled a little, a real smile, one that Sara knew for certain was not shadowed by grief in any way, and whispered, “hey.”

Tears flowed down Nia’s cheeks on hearing the one word. “Oh, Janner,” she said softly, choking on her words a little. “Please, don’t do that to us again. Never, please, please, please.”

“Sorry,” he murmured, still smiling. “It was an accident…but I’ll do my best.”

At those words, joyous laughter bubbled inside Sara and it burst out, along with lovely, lovely tears. She wanted to jump and dance and sing, and when she glanced at Leeli, she knew her surrogate sister wished to do the same. Nia, regardless of caution for perhaps the only time in her life, drew Janner into her arms, hugging him fiercely with the love of a mother whose son was dead, and is now alive again. 

Chapter Text

The next morning over breakfast, Gammon gave the good news that he had managed to locate the dragon who had brought Artham to Skree (“He,” Artham corrected. “And his name is Hyrindale.”) and had both written a note and fastened it to said dragon and gave a verbal explanation of the situation, in case the dragon happened to understand.

Artham had explained the dragon could indeed understand, and as long as Janner hadn’t managed to put himself into a coma in the past few hours, the message would be easily conveyed (his remark referred directly to the contact Leeli had made with him via dragon and whistleharp the previous evening, in which he was assured that Janner wasn’t dying, whatever that meant. Making light of a situation he was concerned about seemed the most reasonable solution).

This comment produced a snort from Maraly, who apparently found it rather entertaining. Gammon shifted the conversation back to the note and message easily, still having something he wanted to say about it.

“It’s mostly for Arundelle, of course,” he began after finishing his scrambled eggs. “I’m pretty sure she’s the only one the others can manage without long enough to come here.”

The thought of her mother, her real mother, her true mother, made Ilana absolutely giddy with excitement, and even the news that it would be at least eight days before Hyrindale returned was not enough to dampen her spirits. Nothing could ever do that, not even the news that Amrah wasn’t actually dead, and that Gammon had opted for saving Artham rather than killing her. 

Well, she supposed that made her a bit crestfallen, but it was nothing in comparison to the jubilation filling her.

As it turned out, Hyrindale was back in a mere six days, an absolutely terrified Arundelle as her passenger. The reunion was a rather emotional one, what with Arundelle crying because she was seeing her daughter for the first time in nine years and because her husband had nearly gotten himself killed and still wasn’t alright and certainly wouldn’t been for a number of weeks at least, not to mention Ilana crying at the memory of being terrified her father would die and because of how happy she was to meet her mother. 

Artham was the most collected of the three, at least until Arundelle detailed how sick Janner had been and that he had almost died, but he was sort of on the mend when she left. That made him groan and blame himself and want to go back immediately, if not the day before, but Arundelle convinced him that leaving that moment by ship, which was the only sensible way to travel considering his condition, wouldn’t do anything to help anyone. 

Ilana, for her part, was still rather confused as to who Janner was, who the rest of her family was, and a good deal of time was spent listening to her parents as they caught her up on the many (tragic) details about the family and Anniera.

On hearing it all, Ilana felt a warmth spreading through her, an odd sort of relief that though she had been broken, she wouldn’t have to be broken alone. Her whole family was that way: broken and healing. It seemed to be their defining factor.

The three stayed in Fort Duid for another week, in which Gammon managed to procure a lovely tabby cat whom Ilana cherished very dearly and named Ginger. 

After said week had passed, the Enramere passed through briefly, and Gammon deemed it an appropriate time for departure. They did a bit of backtracking, of course, but only by a little. Once in Dugtown, he did allow the crew a rest before sailing on to Anniera (which ended up taking another week) and switched out a few of the men who had families waiting for them. 

He and Maraly came, of course, because they really did need to make a first visit to Anniera and catch up on everything, plus having two vigilantes around to make sure no one kidnapped someone else was always a good idea. Maraly, who Ilana was slowly getting to know and quickly liking more and more, took great pride in being called a “fellow vigilante.”

As she stood on deck, up against the rail, smelling the salty sea air mixed with dead fish (she did not like it but was quickly reassured the horrific odor would not follow them too far. Ginger did seem to like it, though), Ilana couldn’t help but smile, hearing her mother and father’s hushed voices, the former telling the latter, “he really needed to be resting below deck,” and the latter replying that, “just a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt.” Arundelle conceded.

A lovely warmth filled Ilana’s heart, the sort of warmth one felt when everything was alright in one’s world, and she reached back to stroke the braid her real mother had twisted into her hair. 

It wasn’t just “alright,” she knew. It was wonderful. It was perfect.

“Do you think it’s them?” Sara asked, turning to Janner.

He looked up from watching the sand he had scooped up in his hand trickle through his fingers, and squinted out to sea, trying to focus on what was probably a ship, but what currently looked like two blobs on the horizon. “Maybe?” he said doubtfully, shifting his gaze toward her. “Is this supposed to be another test, or are you asking me for real?”

Such “tests” had been rather subtly conducted in the weeks following his return to reality. At least, they had been conducted after the point at which he and those around him (meaning Sara) had realized something was wrong. It wasn’t a terrible wrong, certainly not the worst that could have happened, just a more convenient wrong, one subtle enough that they hadn’t even bothered telling anyone. It was issues with little things like balance and coordination and vision. All things aside, the “tests” were meant to, well, determine the state and improvement of what were issues. So far, the only one that had changed at all were the balance issues.

Sara took several moments before responding to his question. “I was just asking, since this is the approximate time when they would be getting back. But I suppose it was killing two birds with one stone, since now I don’t have to think up a way to slip one into a different conversation. So: what did it look like?”

Janner sighed and glanced back at the “ship” that still didn’t really look like one. “I know it’s a ship, but it looks more like a fuzzy blob,” he confessed. “Two fuzzy blobs, actually. Good sized blobs, so it’s probably sort of close. What do you see?”

She was quiet again before saying, “I can tell it’s a ship. And you’re right, it is close.”

Janner sighed and rubbed his eyes, gritting his teeth rather than bursting out in frustration. Was it always going to be like this? Would his world always be blurred and distorted?

He felt Sara taking his right hand in hers and couldn’t help but smile as she did so. He was so glad Kalmar had absolved him of his guilt, because it really was much better this way.

“Hey,” she said gently. “I know what you’re thinking. I can see it on your face. I think…I think it’ll be alright eventually. And even if it’s not, I’m here for you. So is everyone else.”

Janner opened his eyes and looked at her, once again gazing into her beautifully blue diamond eyes, because they weren’t blurred, never had been, and never would be. “Thank you,” he replied, but the melancholy hadn’t quite left his heart yet.

“I’ve got an idea,” Sara announced after several minutes. “Until that ship comes in, we’ll practice walking, and if that works out well, we can talk too, alright?”

Janner nodded and slowly raised himself to a standing position, sensing Sara’s hand hovering over his back, just in case. Once he was up—and without help, he was pleased to say—they began walking along the beach, heading nearer to the water where the sand was damper and clingier, but a bit less shifty. He held Sara’s hand, more for moral support than actual support. 

“Wonderful!” Sara exclaimed happily, truly happy, not patronizing at all. “I think…I think it’s actually going better than it normally does!” 

Janner smiled. Being able to walk on even dirt without wobbling had been fairly simple, grass had been a bit harder, but sand had definitely been the hardest. And it was the only one he still needed to master. “So, talking can happen now, right?” he asked, teasing her a little bit. 

Laughing, Sara shook her head. “Sure, why not. So, what would you like to talk about? Our incompetence in figuring out what was actually wrong?”

Janner snorted. “No, let’s pass on that one. I’ve heard it at least four times already.”

What Sara had referred to was how long and by what measure it had taken them to figure out why he was so sick. Part of it was obvious: the drenching in the chilly seawater had been too much for his already compromised immune system. But what had made it that way in the first place, other than that which was already known to them? 

Galya, in fact, had come up with the solution, a day after he had woken up. She had brought cookies and remarked that Mrs. Striggs had stated that mold and other nasty things often grew in dark, damp places, and just a little mold that was undetectable to normal people could be detrimental to someone who was sick.

The pieces had quickly fallen into place after that, as had the resolve to keep him out of the cellar. Nia had employed Thorn and another young man or two who had been more than willing to create a bit of a decent structure out of the crumbling courtyard, and that had gone very well.

“What about,” he considered as they walked along. “What about Ilana? What do you think she’ll be like?”

Sara tilted her head for just a moment before shaking it. “I don’t know, but I’d rather be surprised than guess. But if you insist on me guessing—”

“And I do,” Janner interrupted her playfully.

“Then,” Sara continued, now smiling broadly. “I think she’ll be a lot like Artham. And other than that, I don’t want to speculate.”

Janner nodded. “Okay, so that was my attempt at a conversation starter. Now, it’s your turn.”

“That isn’t fair!” she retorted, looking at him in mock irritation. “Your conversation starter lasted three sentences!”

Laughing, Janner took one eye off the ground and focused them both on her, just for a moment. “That isn’t my fault,” he insisted, and he knew his eyes were twinkling. “You’re the one who stopped the conversation.”

“Oh, you—” Sara began, but Janner accidentally interrupted her by tripping over something and managing to pull them both to the ground. 

The next few minutes were a jumbled mess of laughter and embarrassment and apologies and futile attempts to brush damp sand off their clothes and their faces and out of their hair. They did manage to figure out what the culprit was—Janner was pleased that it had not been completely his fault; there had been a rather large pale pink and dark-grey-dotted crown conch shell buried underneath the sand. Sara was even more delighted when she found no little sea creature living inside, meaning they could take it home—and proceeded to continue their walk, this time purposely heading toward Rysen. Sara did not want to take any sort of chances, and Janner was more than willing to comply.

By the time all sorts of drying and clean up and changing had taken place, lunch was ready and eaten hastily. Nia would have minded and reminded them about manners the majority of the time, but this was an exception. The ship was drawing nearer and all four of them—Janner, Sara, Leeli, and Nia—wanted to be there when she docked.

The short walk to the port that really did look like a bona fide port for a bona fide town (much progress had been made on Rysentown over the past two months, and she was rising again, as the name suggested) was spent in pitter-patters of excited conversation that was regularly interrupted by both Baxter and Frankle’s barking. They walked quickly, slower, perhaps than they could have, but quickly, and Janner was still out of breath when they reached the port. As he slowed himself to keep from going into a coughing fit while trying to catch his breath, he briefly wondered if breathlessness would always follow him, or if it would eventually subside. 

To take his mind off it, he deliberately looked out at the sea, focusing on the ship sailing into port. He could at least tell it was a ship this time, albeit a blurred one, but still a ship. The rigging was fuzzy, but he could tell it was there.

“The people look like multi-colored tall blobs,” he whispered to Sara, not wanting anyone else to overhear. “But other than it being a bit blurred, the ship looks like a ship.”

“That’s wonderful!” she said back, her voice hushed. “It’s the Enramere, again,” she added.

As it turned out, not only was the Enramere back, but she had brought Artham, Arundelle, their daughter, a tabby cat, three kittens (apparently the cat had been pregnant and given birth during the sail), and Gammon and Maraly! Sara was overjoyed to see Maraly again after more than two months apart, and while Gammon’s presence there was a slightly unsettling one—for Janner, Nia, and Leeli, at least, who had been betrayed by him before learning they were not actually betrayed. Leeli was fairly forgiving, Nia was friendly enough, and Janner was cordial but wary—no one could argue against his vitality in terms of Artham’s survival. 

So, of course, they were grateful. 

Meeting Ilana for the first time was a wonderful experience, a perfect one, really, and while it did involve a few tears, there was, for the most part, only joy and excitement about the newfound member of the family. She and Leeli hit it off wonderfully, which was a good thing, since prior to Ilana’s introduction, Leeli had felt rather uncomfortable in the midst of Maraly and Sara’s reunion. The cat and kittens bonded with Baxter immediately, but Frankle was a bit more suspicious.

Though he had already heard about it in relative detail from Arundelle, Artham still took the time to be appalled at Janner for not telling anyone how sick he was and for getting sick in the first place and for almost dying. Likewise, Janner made certain to scold Artham, even though in the end, it was really all pointless since neither could have stopped the other from dying, and all agreed that someday, years from then—many, many years from then, Ilana and Nia argued—they would probably laugh about the irony, at least a bit. 

EPILOGUE

Later that evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Janner and Sara sat looking out at the sea from the highest crest on the western edge of Anniera. It was the perfect sunset, the sort only accompanying days just the same.

 “We’re getting closer again, aren’t we?” she asked, placing her hand over his. 

Janner shifted his gaze from the sea to her eyes. “Closer to what?”

Sara tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear before answering, perhaps a bit shyly. “Closer to the family being together again, I guess.”

A bit of an ache blossomed in Janner’s heart at the words, since the whole family would never truly be together again, not really.  

“It’ll never be quite the same, I know,” she added hastily. “But it feels like things are a little more complete now, doesn’t it?”

Janner smiled and placed a quick kiss on her cheek, then looked back out at the glistening waves. “You’re right. It does.”

Perhaps Kalmar was gone. Perhaps Podo was too, and his father and Rudric. But memories remained, memories he would treasure for the rest of his life. He knew the pain would fade as time went on and even now, he could smile while thinking of his brother. Surely, there was no better way to remember Kalmar than by fulfilling the duty, the privilege bequeathed to him. 

And when Sara scooted closer and laid her head on his shoulder, he knew everything truly was lovely in the world.