Archive of Our Own

It’s not surprising that those that reside in Castle Torch burn the bodies of their dead. This close to a Barrowdell where night is eternal and the sands are full of hungry shadows, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that some stray thanotropic energy might find its way into the nearest intact corpse and set it walking.

Outside, soldiers are building a pyre. Inside, in a small antechamber, Occtis prepares the body of Dame Gaya Seremai to be viewed before she is to be burned.

“It is not necessary,” Captain Phaedron had said when Occtis had expressed his wish to make the body more presentable. “We have seen worse.”

“She was my vassal,” Occtis had said quietly. “And I am going to do right by her. All I am asking for is an hour.”

Maybe there had been something in Occtis’s tone that he hadn’t intended, or perhaps Captain Phaedron had thought the coincidental dimming of the torches had somehow been Occtis’s doing,“Of course, Lord Tachonis,” he had said quickly. “Whatever you need, we will provide to the best of our ability.”

“Just a room and some privacy,” Occtis had told him. “And if someone could retrieve an outfit for Dame Seremai— if she had ceremonial armor or formal clothing—also any cosmetics she might have owned—”

Captain Phaedron had looked over at the body, eyes flicking up and away from her face.“I don’t—” he had begun to say, then had seemed to think better of it. “It shall be done.”

They had been lead into the antechamber they stood in now, Dame Seremai’s body laid out on a hastily constructed board with handles set on a long table. Occtis had planned on taking care of Dame Seremai alone, but had not turned Vaelus away when she had asked if she could stay. It had made stripping the body infinitely easier at least, Vaelus had the knowledge on how to remove armor that Occtis himself did not. After helping him with that, she had tactfully stepped to the side and watched him prestidigitate the blood and dirt away from Dame Seremai’s skin.

The gaping hole in her chest is the easier injury to deal with. Occtis had already packed it as best he could when they had been in the Barrowdell, the gauze treated to help dry out the cavity and prevent leakage of any fluids. It’s still sound, and Occtis leaves it be. It only has to do its job for a little while longer, and it’s not distorting the shape of her body..

Occtis follows the lines of Dame Seremai’s tattoo, the snake broken now where the ink rendered scales had crossed her torso. The head is still intact, ending just under her chin, and for some reason that’s important, in the way inane things can be important in death. The tattooed snake still has a head. So does Dame Seremai, after a fashion. What she is lacking, just below her eyes, which are clouded over, is most of the rest of her face.

“Mandible still intact,” Occtis mutters, gently probing the hole where Tertia, or at least the undead celestial she had become, had thrust its stinger though her face. Part of his mind calculates the force that must have been involved, and can’t help but marvel at it, even as he formally assess the aftermath. “Maxilla and inferior nasal concha shattered— the mending cantrip can be bent to fuse dead bones together, but the damage is so severe— if I had a day and some mortuary wax, maybe I could restore the general shape of her face— if I was better at illusion magic— I suppose we’ll just have to cover it and put makeup on the post mortem bruising around the zygomatic arches—”

“You’ve done this before.”

Occtis doesn’t flinch at the sound of Vaelus’s voice, but only because very little elicits an automatic response from his body these days. He had completely forgotten she was standing there. “You sound surprised,” he says as he prestidigitates his gloves clean.

“Your family does not seem the type to take care of the bodies they use,” Vaelus says bluntly. “If I am wrong, please forgive my assumption.”

Occtis shakes his head. “You’re not entirely wrong. My family doesn’t care for the dead. But we used to.” He keeps staring down at the body as he speaks. “I believe I was twelve when I found mention of it in the old family histories. How once, the noble House of Tachonis used to embalm the dead, prepare them for funerals. I asked my father about it. I thought— I thought that since I didn’t have magic, that this—” he gestures at Dame Seremai. “This was something I could do that might bring pride to the House, back when that still mattered to me.”

He still remembers that day in his father’s study. Most of his memories of his father take place in that study, and none of them are pleasant. “He informed me that our family was not meant to serve the dead, but to be served by them, to use them as we saw fit. That the dead were tools, and it did not matter what a tool looked like, as long as it could do its job. My father could not teach me magic, but he taught me that. He would say that what I am doing now is frivolous. Like tying a ribbon on a hammer.” He looks Vaelus in the eyes. “I can unlearn things though.” The words come out harsher than he means, a dry rasp that would hurt his throat if he still felt pain the same way.

Vaelus looks back at him, unfazed. “I never said you couldn’t.”

No, she hadn’t, had she? “I’m sorry,” he says. “I am not at my best. My rest yesterday was—not very restful.” There had been too much information to try and process. What his family had been trying to do, what they had done. Tertia’s voice ringing through the darkness of his mind, asking if she had done a good job. When he had opened his eyes hours later and looked out into the eternal night, there had been no sense of the calm in his mind or ease in his body that he now associated with resting. “Still, that is no excuse.”

“I accept your apology,” she says, her brow creased slightly. “Do you need to take a moment?”

He needs many moments, but he has a job in front of him, and he’ll see it through. “No, thank you. This helps, if you can believe that.” Occtis gestures to the body in front of him, frowning as he notices for the first time that Dame Seremai’s carefully braided hair is at least halfway undone. It’s also covered in blood. He can fix at least one of those things. He reaches out, prestidigitating the blood away in sections.

“To answer the question that you haven’t actually asked yet, I learned how to care for the dead at the Penteveral,” Occtis says as he works. “There are few formal classes of the sort found in most schools, but everyone in their first year has to take a class that’s basically spell component appreciation. Learning where the gems for spellwork come from and how much work it takes to mine them. The labor that goes into making high quality paper and spell ink, that sort of thing. 

“If you’re interested in anything with a necromantic bent, you get even more mandatory classes. Cultural studies and community service, to appreciate people when they’re living, then instruction on how to care for and preserve the dead. Necromancy isn’t all raising dead bodies, but I can understand why the school requires that particular focus.” He looks down at Dame Seremai. “She’s the first person I’ve done this for outside of class.”

Vaelus puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Occtis shakes his head again.“Don’t be. I’m glad I can put the knowledge to use. She deserves at least that much.” He’s done cleaning her hair, but he continues to stand there, hand outstretched. “I don’t know how to braid hair, however.”

“I can do that,” Vaelus says softly. “My sister— I used to braid her hair.”

Now it’s his turn to reach out and put a hand on Vaelus’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

Vaelus pulls up a chair to the head of the table and undoes Dame Seremai’s braid, combing through the hair with her fingers before separating it into sections. Occtis watches her hands move, committing the motions to memory the same way he would with a spell.

A spell. Right. “Ah— I need your help with something later, if you don’t mind. If you could come by my room a few hours before sunrise?”

“Of course.” Vaelus doesn’t look away from her task. “What sort of help?”

“The spell you cast to speak with the dead— are there any special materials you need to cast it again?”

Vaelus’s fingers stop moving, just for a moment, as she tilts her head ever so slightly. “Just the corpse you wish to speak to, I believe.” She locks eyes with Occtis, and he sees that she’s already put it together. “Or at least, the head.”

Occtis nods. “I can provide that.”

Vaelus nods like this is normal and not some sort of sign that Occtis’s is following in his family’s footsteps, which is nice. Granted, Julien had been the one to see Occtis take Tertia’s head, and hadn’t given him a withering look or a barbed word about it. Maybe the man is finally getting used to him.

As if summoned by Occtis’s thoughts, Julien’s voice proceeds a knock at the door. “Occtis? A moment?”

Occtis opens the door and is surprised to find Julien standing with his arms full of clothes and armor, topped with a small velvet pouch. He hadn’t considered that Julien might take on the task of collecting Dame Seremai’s belongings.

“I would have been here sooner,” Julien says as he transfers the pile into Occtis’s arms. “But I was looking for something very specific.” He nods towards the pile. “There is a silk handkerchief in there. I believe it should be large enough to cover the lower half of Dame Seremai’s face without looking ridiculous.”

“I--” Occtis blinks. “Thank you Julien. That was very considerate of you.”

Julien gives half a shrug. “Captain Phaedron was correct when he said that we’ve seen worse here at Castle Torch. But that does not mean she needs to be seen so.” He gives Occtis a look, as if considering something. “You carried your vassal through the ruins of Tannesar.”

“With your help,” Occtis says. He never could have done it alone.

“Yes. Do you wish to help carry her to the pyre as well?”

Occtis blinks again. It was something he hadn’t given thought to, but as soon as Julien asks, he knows the answer. “Yes. Yes I would.”

Julien nods. “Good. I will leave you to your work then,” he says, and closes the door between them, holding Occtis’s gaze all the while.

Occtis turns, trying to identify what had been in Julien’s eyes in the last seconds before the door had closed. It hadn’t been something Occtis has ever seen the man express before, at least not at him. He’s halfway through dressing Dame Seremai before he realizes what it had been. Approval.

An hour is barely any time at all when it comes to making a body that’s been so damaged presentable for viewing, but when Occtis assess his work with a critical eye, he does not find it lacking. The body is clean and dressed neatly, the marks of her violent end minimized the best that he’d been able. Vaelus had arranged her braid so that it coiled around her throat like a serpent before trailing over her chest, simple yet elegant. The last thing Occtis does is close her eyes, sealing them with just the tiniest bit of glue so that they don’t spring open during the viewing.

Vaelus had gone to tell the soldiers that it was time to say goodbye to their comrade. Occtis only has a few minutes to say his last words. Thankfully, he’s never had any trouble speaking to the dead.

“Dame Gaya Seremai, you said that the world was mad, and you were not wrong. You said that our mission was doomed, and in this you also were correct, after a fashion. That the doom fell upon you is a tragedy that could not be prevented, as much as I wish it were otherwise. You were a loyal vassal until your last breath, and I give you my thanks, for that is all I can give to you now. You will be missed.”

With nothing left to say, Occtis steps aside as the first soldiers come to pay their respects.

— — —

The pyre has been burning for hours, the light illuminating the darkened courtyard, and for all that time, Occtis has stood, watching the flames. The soldiers that had gathered are gone now, to dinner and drinking, to mourn their losses and to celebrate the fact that they were not the ones who had been lost. So when Occtis hears footsteps in the courtyard, when he takes a breath he doesn’t need and smells, not just smoke and wood ash, but the scent of scorched earth, hot metal and sand baked by the sun, he knows who is approaching him. He does not turn around as the footsteps stop.

“Hey,” Thaisha says softly. “You good?”

A few days ago, she would have put a hand on his shoulder as she spoke, a soft punctuation mark. The absence of it does not cause a pang in his chest where his heart once was, and he feels bad that he doesn’t feel bad about that. It feels like their relationship is shifting, settling in to new channels. Whether it will be better than what they had before or worse, there is no way of knowing. All they can do is weather the change.

“Sure,” Occtis says, looking over at her because it’s the polite thing to do, to look at the person speaking to you. There is concern in her eyes and something else, something unreadable. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

If you already knew the answer, why did you ask? Occtis holds the words tight in his teeth, feeling them struggle against his tongue. What little energy he had today has been long spent, both on taking care of Dame Seremai and on making the dead meat surrounding him keep up the appearance of being a person. Having to talk, to be polite is just another strain on a system under pressure.

“Do any of us?” Occtis makes himself smile when he says it (it takes at least ten muscles to do so and he feels all of them, tight like violin strings) and it must look like the right sort of smile, because that unreadable look in her eyes fades and she actually chuckles just little bit.

“Fair enough.” Thaisha turns her gaze towards the pyre for a moment before focusing on him again. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. And that I’m here. If you want to talk.”

“Thank you.” Occtis does not point out that Thaisha had said this yesterday as well, before she had gone and performed the rites for the dead on Dame Seremai, who had been still been slung over the back of Occtis’s horse. The ritual would be useless for keeping her soul from Occtis’s family, but he had known that Thaisha knew that too, and hadn’t stopped her. Even pointless rituals could be comforting, and he had hoped sincerely that she had taken some comfort from performing the rite. 

Just because Occtis occasionally has a hard time speaking to people (less so now that he’s dead and anxiety doesn’t get in the way) that doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand what Thaisha is doing. She’s trying to give Occtis space while offering him the opportunity to initiate conversation.  

—Or she wants Occtis to talk to her and is being passive aggressive about it. Which is frankly annoying, why can’t she just say whatever it is that she wants instead of pretending this is about his feelings and that she cares—

Occtis feels all the words he’s thinking rising in his throat. It’d be so easy to let them out, and he’d feel so much better afterwards. Thaisha should know that Occtis can see right through her—

Think about what you’re thinking, says the part of his mind that’s been honed to second guess himself since what feels like birth. When have you ever known Thaisha not to speak her mind? 

“I know you just said you’re fine,” Thaisha says quietly. “But you also haven’t blinked for almost a minute.”

Occtis blinks, then blinks again at the uncomfortable sensation of his dry lids against his eyes, the aggravation of a moment ago beginning to fade. His second thoughts are right. Thaisha says what she means. She is sorry. She wants Occtis to know she’s around to talk to. That’s all. That’s all.

“Sorry, I— I’m more tired than I thought,” Occtis says. “Well, not tired but it’s—” He gestures vaguely. “The past few days have been a lot.”

“Yeah. Yeah they have.” This time Thaisha reaches out, her hand on his shoulder like a bird resting on tree branch for a moment before moving on. While he hadn’t missed its absence, the momentary weight is comforting. “Go get some rest.”

“I will,” Occtis assures her. “In just a minute.”

Thaisha nods and takes her leave, Occtis watching her got before turning his attention back to the pyre. He does not need to stay until the fire burns out. He could, but there is no good reason to. The soldiers here have burned bodies before, they don’t  need his help to break up the bones. His part in this is done.

With one last look at the flames, no longer able to see the body that he helped lay there, Occtis turns and walks away.

———

The room that Occtis had been shown to is not a lavish one, but it seems like a luxury compared to the inn rooms they’d shared on the way here, even more so because Occtis has the space to himself. The furnishings are simple; a chair and a small table, a writing desk, a washstand, a fireplace, a bed. Occtis strips off his traveling clothes almost immediately, laying them over a chair where they can be prestidigitated clean later and immediately sets to work washing himself, thankful for the minor charms that refill the pitcher and remove dirty water from the basin.

Occtis misses baths. He doesn’t miss them as much as actually sleeping, and not nearly as much as eating, but he still feels the loss. He should experiment, he knows, find out if he’s water-tight, if his body will bloat. It might not. It’s been— possibly a whole week since his death? Time had been a smudged, blurred thing right afterwards. No more than a week, surely. A mundane corpse would have been well on its way to decomposing by now, but he hasn’t. There is no sign of decay, and Julien or Thaisha would have remarked on any smell of putrescence, one of them with more tact than the other.

Washing up with water leaves Occtis feeling cleaner than if he had used magic. He’s not sure if the difference is psychological or actual, but he’s grateful for the marginal difference in comfort as he cleans his clothes, redresses, and lays on top of the bed. This is the first time he’s been in an actual bed since the night before he died, he realizes. Everything since has been bedrolls in crowded inn rooms where he had tried and failed to sleep, and after Vaelus had taught him how to trance he’s been trancing sitting up. 

There’s a yip from the foot of the bed, then a small weight on Occtis’s chest. He reaches up, scratching Pin behind his sewn on ear. “Sorry. I know you haven’t been out since yesterday.” It’s no wonder that Pin freed himself from his dimensional pocket. Occtis is surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner.

Pin licks Occtis’s hand with his cold dry tongue and then curls up on his chest, just as he has since the first night when Occtis created him. Occtis smiles and keeps petting Pin as he closes his eyes. “I used to wonder if you did something like sleeping, or if you were mimicking me. Do you remember things while you rest?”

Occtis doesn’t expect an answer, but he gets one anyway through the bond he has with Pin. The smell of snow, the crunch of leaves, a flash of a golden eyed wolf with a spectral blue paw. He can’t help but smile. “I’m glad that you have good things to think about.”

What’s easy for Pin is harder for Occtis. He’s only been trancing (he might as well call it that, like the elves do) for a few days, and he sometimes has difficulty focusing on his pleasant memories, not letting his mind drift to something less restful, like last night. He knows he should try to focus on a memory that he knows will restore him, such as the day he first met Thimble, but his thoughts keep turning away, going down other channels.

The first night that he had tranced, he had sifted through his memories of his immediate family, looking for something even tangentially pleasant, and had been found wanting. Now, he casts his mind back, focusing on the cousin whose head lays wrapped in his pack. When they had first met— it had been in a library with shelves all the way to the ceiling, full of windowed, cushioned nooks for ten year old Occtis to climb up into with a stack of books—

He has been told to behave while at his uncle’s house, which means not to inconvenience any of the adults with his presence. He makes a game of not being seen, not being heard, showing up for mealtimes and then vanishing like a ghost. It’s a lonely sort of game. He imagines Thimble is with him, hovering over his shoulder or just out of sight, and that helps a little.

Occtis can’t remember why he had been at his uncle’s house, instead of being left at home with governesses and tutors. Had the rest of his siblings been there as well? There had often been family gatherings where Occtis had been brought along, only to be told to occupy himself away from the rest of the family.

He’s curled up in a nook by a window, happily looking at a book with the most wonderful illustration of scorpions in it when he hears a rapid clicking noise, like something is scuttling over the stone floor. He looks up from his book only to let out a surprised squeak, instinctively drawing his legs up as a scorpion the size of a dog climbs up the steps that had lead up to the nook. Its black carapace is as dark as he imagines the Eternal Night must be, and its many eyes shine with the colors of a raven’s wing. It looks at him, claws half raised, its tail a graceful arch tipped with a stinger the size of his fist.

It’s no wonder that Occtis had remembered, all these years later, what Saharkis looked like. It had felt like he had stared at the scorpion for hours, barely daring to breathe.

He knows that this is his cousin Tertia’s pet, that she raised it herself, that it is tame. Surely it will not sting a Tachonis. But— what if it doesn’t know who he is? His father often says that he’s hardly a Tachonis at all. What if the scorpion thinks he’s a stranger that’s invading its home?

“Ummm hello?” He knows that scorpions don’t hear like people do, that they have special hairs on their legs that detect vibration. That doesn’t necessarily mean the scorpion can’t understand him though. He hopes his voice makes the right sort of vibrations. “You’re Saharkis, right? I’m Occtis Tachonis, Tertia’s cousin. So please don’t sting me?”

Saharkis’s mouthparts move, making a hissing sound. He goes back to barely breathing. After a moment, the scorpion’s claws lower. That’s— probably a good sign.

“You’re very—” Can you call a scorpion beautiful? “Handsome,” he settles on. “I wish I could have a pet. Father says when I can perform magic like the rest of the House, then he’ll permit me, but— it’s not like I’m not trying. I move my hands like everyone else and say the words and nothing happens. Father says I shouldn’t have to try, that I should just know how to do it, but I don’t—”

Saharkis hisses again and he closes his mouth with a snap. Oh no, he shouldn’t have said that he didn’t have magic. The scorpion is going to sting him now for sure. Maybe it won’t hurt for very long before he dies—

“Saharkis?” Tertia’s voice echoes through the rows of shelves. “Where did you run off to? I turn my back on you for one minute—”

He doesn’t look away from Saharkis, doesn’t call out to his cousin that her pet is here. If he doesn’t move, if he doesn’t breathe, maybe—

Saharkis hisses again, raising its claws and clicking them together, a sharp sound. He flinches, hands tightening around the book he’s still holding.

Footsteps on the stone floor, drawing closer. “Oh there you are,” Tertia says. “And you’ve found— you’re the latest cousin? Occtis?”

“Yes,” he whispers, not turning his head.

“Surely you’ve been taught to look at people when you speak to them?”

He bites at his lower lip, still not looking at her. “I’m afraid if I move, he’ll sting me.”

“Saharkis? He wouldn’t sting you. Unless I told him to.” A pale hand which looks all the paler in contrast reaches down to pet the scorpion right behind its eyes.

Could he pet Saharkis too? Should he ask? No one ever says yes when he asks for something. He looks up at Tertia—

Tertia’s face in his memory is an ink drawing that’s faded over time. A suggestion of sharp cheekbones, the merest hint of the shape of her lips. Her eyes are hollows with no hint of the color they might have been. Internally, Occtis frowns, prodding his memory. He remembers Saharkis better than he remembers his own cousin, and that feels wrong. He should remember what Tertia had looked like before—

He holds his cousin’s head in his hands, his smallest fingers resting against what he believes is the fifth or sixth cervical vertebrae. Tertia’s colorless eyes are desiccated, shriveled things, and yet he knows she’s looking at him, seeing him. She draws an impossible breath. “Did I do a good job?”

The horror that Occtis had felt hearing those words, because in that moment he had known, had known all the way down in the blood and bones of him that if circumstances had been different, if he had been born with magic, treated as a member of the House, of the family and not as he had been, a mistake, if he had been in Tertia’s place and the ritual had failed, if the monster he had become had been killed by one of his family— he would have asked the same damn thing.

Had Tertia gone willingly to the altar? Don’t think about it open your eyes. Had she been afraid when the knife had entered her? Cold metal sliding into warm flesh and it doesn’t hurt at first because the shock don’t think about it stop thinking about it—

There’s wire around his throat and a knife sawing up through skin and muscle and Ethrand is doing a terrible job really, would have been bottom of the class and that’s something Occtis has over his brother and everything is pain, pain and his brother’s cold hand reaching inside him and that is wrong that is wrong that is wrong—

Occtis can’t open his eyes, can’t move. He’s gasping, choking on air that he doesn’t need, phantom fear mixing with phantom pain, nerve endings screaming because he himself cannot, screaming against the memory of the knife, the memory of fingers wrapped around his heart—

“Traitor. You should have welcomed the name alone as a gift, even though there has always been something wrong with you." Ethrand is staring into his eyes with anger and disgust—

Experiencing the memory while being slightly removed from it, Occtis can see something else that had been there Ethrand’s eyes, the small part of his mind that’s not in agony noting it, filing it away, even as he doesn’t understand why he’s seeing it. Jealousy. 

Fingers around his heart and Ethrand is going to pull and Occtis is going to die again he’s going to die again he’s—

There’s a noise, loud and sharp, sharper than the remembered knife, the bark of a fox cutting through the memory that holds Occtis fast. His eyes fly open as he sits up, his chest spasming with  his wheezing, useless breaths, the heart he no longer has pounding so hard that his whole body is shaking with it, the jagged incision burning as if the metal sealing it is once again molten.

You’re dead, he reminds himself, his inner voice calm even as his body curls inward, screaming soundlessly. You don’t need to breathe, you have no heart that beats. Your body no longer produces adrenaline. You are dead and done with such things.

It takes several minutes or just short of eternity for Occtis’s body to listen to what its mind is telling it, the memory of old fear and old pain leaving him slowly until only echoes remain. He stays hunched over for some time afterward, occasionally trembling like an earthquake’s aftershock as Pin licks his cheek and whines softly.

Silently, Occtis reaches out and pulls Pin close.

He’s still awake and holding Pin hours later when Vaelus knocks softly on his door.

— — —

Occtis runs his hands down the front of the shirt he died in, (how many times has he done this?) staring at his palms, expecting to see blood even though his wounds are sealed and the shirt is as white as when he first wore it. He’s cleaned this shirt since he died, he knows he has. It still feels strangely stiff against his skin. As soon as this is over, he’s changing back into the clothes he stole from Castle Klippenblicke, and when they get back to Dol-Makjar he’s buying himself some new clothes, even if it takes the rest of what little money he has left to him.

“Occtis?”

Occtis runs his hands over the shirt again. He wouldn’t even be wearing this except that Vaelus had told him about her conversation with Pascard Velmonte, how the spirit of the man had been able to see her, and she him. Occtis needs to look like a proper Tachonis when he speaks to Tertia. It’s entirely possible that she does not know that his family considers him a traitor to the House, and if that’s the case, he might be able to get her to answer their questions if he plays the part of the disgraced son who tried to finally be useful by submitting himself willingly to the ritual, only to have the ritual fail and leave him something other than he had been, just like her.

“Occtis?”

Occtis runs his hands over his shirt again. Maybe cleaning it with water and soap would help. His own body felt cleaner when he used actual water, perhaps the shirt would as well—

A hand falls on Occtis’s shoulder and he steps back in surprise, green flame spiraling down his right arm and into his gloved palm without him even thinking about it. Effortless.

Vaelus holds Occtis’s gaze, her hand still outstretched at shoulder height.

Oh.

“Sorry. I—” Occtis closes fingers around the flame and it goes out. “Sorry.”

“Maybe we should wait until you’ve rested properly,” Vaelus says calmly, as if nothing had happened. “I can convince the others that we can leave later in the day, or perhaps even tomorrow—”

Occtis shakes his head, feeling tendons and muscles creak under his skin like the hinges of a door in an abandoned house. “No. I mean, yes, I need to rest, it’d be better if we didn’t leave today, but I can rest after this. My family might already have Tertia’s soul, I don’t know how this works, but if they don’t, then time is of the essence if we want any answers from her.” 

He looks over at the table, where Tertia’s head, little more than skin stretched over bone, rests in the makeshift holder Occtis had made out of a retort stand and a ring clamp he’d had in his alchemy kit. Her colorless, desiccated eyes stare back at him. “I don’t remember the color of her eyes, Vaelus. I think they were blue, most women in the family trend towards blue eyes, but they could have been green. I can’t remember. I recognized her pet but I can’t remember what color her eyes were when she was alive. How am I supposed to rest if I can’t remember?”

“I could tell you,” Vaelus says gently. “I could cast the spell and speak to her alone—”

Occtis shakes his head again. It feels loose now, like it’s somehow going to fall off. He’ll have to tie it back on with a green ribbon, like the old story he’d read as a child. “She doesn’t know you. Or, if she does, it’s because she remembers you helping to kill what she’d become. She might not thank you for that. Though, it’s possible she might. Who can say?”

“You helped kill her too,” Vaelus says gently.

Occtis turns back to Vaelus and feels his lips stretch into a grin without his meaning to. “I did. But we’re family.” A chuckle escapes, like a fox that’s chewed off its leg to escape a trap. “These things happen. Apparently.”

Vaelus stares at Occtis, her expression above the veil unreadable.

You could take the stone from her. The thought comes from the back of Occtis’s mind, echoing through the cavern of his skull, which feels dark and vast. It’s yours. It’s been in you. You could take it and cast the spell yourself. You could do many things, if you had the stone. You—

Occtis hears a growl, soft and low, and looks down to see Pin, button eyes a bright green, staring at Vaelus, teeth bared.

“Occtis?” There’s a tension in Vaelus’s tone and posture that hadn’t been there a moment before. Her hand doesn’t move towards her censer, but Occtis can feel the energy of that potential action on his skin.

No. No. He will not let this happen. He will not become the person that would do this to someone who has been kind to him, someone that he trusts.

Pin’s eyes fade back to purple and he whines, sitting down.

Occtis closes his eyes and takes a breath that he doesn’t need and offers no relief before opening them again. “Sorry. I-I need to do this. So can we? Please?”

There’s another one of those long and silent moments where Occtis can see Vaelus weighing her options. Then the hand closest to her censer reaches out for his.

The room fades into the background, walls replaced by trees, the stone floor becoming dirt through which a path has been made by centuries of the dead moving from one existence to another. Occtis can just barely make out Tertia’s head on the table in the room before the table fades and is replaced with Tertia herself, her platinum hair stirring slightly in a breeze that Occtis cannot feel. She’s near the path but not on it, standing maybe ten feet away from the two of them, facing away with her head tilted up to the sky.

Occtis looks in the direction Tertia is looking. All he sees are stars, constellations he cannot name. The longer he stares, the more he gets the sense that something is watching them, something far away but coming slowly closer.

“Hello,” Vaelus says softly. “Tertia Tachonis? May we speak to you?”

Tertia doesn’t turn around. As if awoken by Vaelus’s voice, Occtis hears nightingales begin to sing in the trees.

You are dead, sing the nightingales. Walk the path laid out for you. Follow the song we sing. Go to your rest. You are dead. Your time is done.

Occtis feels his whole body sway forwards toward the path before he jerks back, his nails biting into his palms. There is no rest for him. Not now. Not yet.

“Oc— my Lord Tachonis, are you all right?”

Occtis blinks, about to ask Vaelus why she’s addressing him so when he remembers. They had worked this out while he had been getting dressed, how they were going to play this. It’s not an elaborate fiction they’re crafting, and like all good fiction there is some truth. Vaelus is Occtis’s faithful protector. Occtis is a version of himself that is still loyal to his House. They’ve come looking for answers for particulars about the ritual. “I am fine, thank you.”

“Occtis?”

Tertia turns around and for a moment all Occtis does is stare, committing details to memory as if she was a spell diagram that he needed to memorize for class. Her platinum hair, just short wisps on the skull that sits on the table, is long enough for her to sit on here in this place. Her eyes are the blue of a robin’s egg covered in frost, her nose has the same graceful arch to it that Occtis sees on his own face in the mirror, and her cheekbones are not quite as sharp as Occtis remembers Petra or Ryah’s being.

What surprises Occtis though, is how old she appears to be. In his memory, she’d been so much older than him, because everyone in the family was always older than Occtis, the last, youngest and least of the family line. But looking at her now, she can’t be more than five years Occtis’s senior, maybe even less.

“Hello, Tertia,” Occtis says politely, as if this was a family function. He has to stop himself from automatically asking how she is. “I’m sorry we had to meet like this,” he says instead. 

“As am I,” Tertia replies in the same polite tone. Her gaze slides over to Vaelus. “You helped kill me, is that right? Forgive me, my memory of events after I died the first time is a bit scattered.”

“You are correct, Lady Tertia,” Vaelus says without faltering. “I was protecting my Lord and putting an end to your suffering.”

Tertia hums thoughtfully. “Was I suffering? I do remember being in pain, down there in the dark, and feeling like I was supposed to be doing something but not knowing what it was. Not being able to fulfill your purpose is suffering of a sort.” She turns back to Occtis with a smile. “You would know about that, wouldn’t you, cousin?”

The casual cruelty of the statement is so familiar to Occtis that he doesn’t even blink. “I would.”

“But things have changed, haven’t they?” She tilts her head slightly. “I must admit, I found the notion of learning magic a rather odd one, but you have seen to have found your way to our family’s gifts through it. Or was it something else? There’s something strange about you.” Her eyes narrow, then widen. “You’re undead!” She sounds gleeful. “You’re undead but still posses your faculties! Oh how interesting! How did you manage it?”

“I underwent the same ritual you did,” Occtis says, undoing the first few buttons of his shirt so that Tertia can see the beginning of his metal scar. “It failed, and I became as you see now.” All truth, with so much omitted that it hardly seems so.

“Intelligent undead,” Tertia muses. “And you still possess a will of your own. Fascinating. Still a failure, of course, but a curious one, and worthy of study.”

It’s just as well that Occtis can no longer flush with anger or embarrassment. Next to Occtis, Vaelus makes a soft, choked off sound. Tertia’s gaze shifts to Vaelus once more.

“Oh do calm down, I’m just teasing,” Tertia says mildly. “You don’t need to go defending your Lord’s honor. It’s not as if I was any better, after all, just because I became something beautiful and terrible.” She smiles sadly. “You didn’t answer my dying question, Occtis. It was sweet of you to try and spare my feelings, but I know the answer now.” She sighs, an action that Occtis knows is pure performance. “Were you sent to destroy me? One failure cleaning up after the other?”

Occtis could say yes and Tertia would believe him. That’s the sort of family they are. He could easily adjust the script he has in his head to accommodate what she believes. It’d be easier than the lie he’s about to tell. Instead he quickly shakes his head. “No, I—” Occtis stutters. “It wasn’t like that. I— I had thought I was finally going to be useful, and then the ritual didn’t work. Father—” Occtis’s makes his voice tremble. It’s easy to do when you have full command of your vocal cords. He casts his eyes downward for good measure. “He said he no longer had a use for me, that he did not care what became of me now. I thought— I thought maybe if I came to Tannesar, if I figured out why the ritual failed, maybe I could find a way to make it work, find a way to— to help our House. I didn’t know— I thought you were dead. I planned to cast this spell that’s allowing us to speak now, so I could ask you questions. They didn’t tell me you were— what you were.”

Occtis could almost believe the lie himself. He can see it all playing out in his mind, his Father’s disappointment, Occtis’s own need for approval driving him out here. When he looks back up at Tertia, he sees that she believes it too.

“And so you killed me, so you could get your answers.” Tertia says, and there’s no anger in her tone, just a practical reciting of the facts as she sees them.

Occtis, of course, does not correct what she believes to be his motive. “I’m sorry I had to kill you,” he says, and that’s the truth, the truth that he can’t speak to Thaisha or Julien. He’s not even sure that Vaelus understands entirely. Just because Frons’s and Tertia’s deaths had been necessary doesn’t mean that Occtis doesn’t mourn them in some way.

“Well, at least it was one of the family, and not some random tomb robber or adventurer trying to make a name for themself,” Tertia says with a resigned shrug. “I don’t know how much help I can be, but I’ll answer your questions if you answer one of mine.”

Occtis nods. “Of course.”

Darkness surrounds Occtis, bringing with it a wind that chills him in a way nothing has since his death, that sets the trees to shaking and the nightingales to shrieking. Tertia’s voice holds an echo of the undead celestial’s shriek, of the scorpion’s hiss. “Why did you kill Saharkis?”

Occtis feels Vaelus begin to move beside him, either to end the spell that’s allowing this conversation or to try and strike Tertia, Occtis doesn’t know. He throws up a hand regardless, turning his head, though he cannot see. “Stand down!”

A clink of chain, a rustle of fabric, a moment’s pause. “Yes, my Lord,” Vaelus says, her tone conveying that she thinks this is a bad idea. Still, she obeys, and that’s all Occtis needs from her.

Occtis looks back at Tertia, who is glowing slightly, her hair blowing wildly in the wind. She has no wings here, no tail, but she is beautiful and terrible regardless. “I did not kill Saharkis,” Occtis says calmly, even though he feels fear in this moment. Yes, their bodies isn’t physically here, but it’s possible Tertia might be able to harm the both of them regardless either in mind or spirit, though Occtis isn’t sure if he technically has a spirit anymore. Vaelus still does, and he will not see her harmed.

“You carried his tail on you!” Tertia howls. “His blood was on your hands!”

“It was,” Occtis says. “But I did not harm him, nor did I kill him. I was sorry to see him dead. I only harvested his venom so that he could still have some use beyond death, so he could still serve some purpose.” Not a word of what he just said was a lie. The fight had been over so quickly that Occtis hadn’t had a chance to act. “I swear, Tertia. On blood and breath and bone, I did not kill Saharkis, and I am sorry that he is gone.”

Slowly, the wind dies, the darkness fades. The chill remains, however, and the feeling Occtis had before, that was something was watching them from a distance, is stronger, as if whatever it is has found their precise location and is moving faster.

“I miss him,” Tertia says, and her voice is smaller now, the voice of the child she had been that day in the library all those years ago.

“I’m sorry,” Occtis says again. It’s all he can say.

“Ask your questions,” Tertia says quietly. “Ask your questions and go.”

Occtis does. He asks questions about the ritual, the fine details, what she had been told about her part in it. He asks in a more roundabout way about any plans his uncle and father might have had, not just regarding the ritual, but about the Sea Door, and the forces outside the Golden Orchard. Tertia, as far as Occtis can tell, answers as best as she is able, and while some of what she says has already been confirmed in the notes they had found, there are some new insights.

“We have to go,” Vaelus says after several minutes of questioning. “I can feel the spell ending.”

Occtis can feel it too, can see the inn room slowly fading back in to replace the woods. But the spell hasn’t ended. Not yet.

“It’s just as well,” Tertia says, looking up. “It’s almost here.”

Occtis looks where Tertia is looking and sees what he can only describe as a parody of a celestial, the symbol of his house surrounded by runic wings. It’s not upon them yet, but it’s close enough that he can read the runes, can hear them in his mind.

You’re ours. In death you will serve.

Occtis has no heart for fear to quicken, but it lends urgency to his voice as he speaks his last question. It’s foolish, frivolous, but he has to know. “The day we met in your family’s library, when Saharkis found me, I wanted to ask you if I could pet him, but I was afraid you would say no. If I had asked you, what would you have said?”

As the spell fades completely, over the sound of nightingale wings and Tertia’s laughter, Occtis hears her answer.

— — —

Occtis stares at the remains of Tertia’s head and Saharkis’s tail burning in the room’s large fireplace, one of the enchanted coals and some of the incense from Vaelus’s brazier accelerating the process of cremation and making the room smell less like burned necrotic flesh and charred scorpion, not that either smell bothered Occtis overly much. Pin had sneezed five times in a row and then had apparently decided to stop breathing and deal with the temporary loss of his sense of smell. They could have built a small pyre outside, it was early enough that they might not have attracted much attention, but Occtis had wanted this to be as private as possible. 

“Thank you again,” Occtis says softly to Vaelus, who is staring at the flames as well. “For going along with my desire to speak with Tertia. I know I— was rather aggressive about it. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Vaelus replies, but she sounds almost distracted, as if she’s thinking about something else. “It’s understandable.”

Occtis waits, but when silence doesn’t reveal what Vaelus is thinking, he speaks again. “Something’s bothering you. If it is my behavior, you can just tell me. I don’t need coddling.”

“It’s not you,” Vaelus says. “It’s—” Her brow furrows slightly, and Occtis can tell that she’s frowning beneath her veil. “Your cousin believed that you had been sent to kill her, that her own family had decided that she was a failure that needed taken care of.”

“Yes?” It had been a logical conclusion to come to, even if it had been incorrect.

“That you grew up in a family where such an assumption could be made as a matter of course—” Vaelus looks at Occtis, and there is sorrow and pity there, as sharp as a blade splitting skin. “And yet you’re so different from them.”

It’s what Occtis has been saying all along, hasn’t it? That he’s not his family? Certainly, Vaelus had meant what she had said as a kindness. So why do her words make him want to scream?

Too tired to reason out his feelings, Occtis makes himself smile. “I’m glad you think so,” he says politely and looks towards the window, where the sun is just beginning to rise. “I think I can get some rest now, if you can persuade the others to leave a little later in the day?”

“Of course.” Vaelus puts a hand on his shoulder. “May your rest be pleasant.”

“Thank you,” Occtis says, and holds his smile until the door closes behind her.

Pin tugs on Occtis’s pant leg, as if trying to pull him towards the bed, whining softly.

“I know. I’m going, I promise,” Occtis reassures him. 

Occtis changes back into his more subdued travel attire, bringing his spell book and a pencil with him as he sits up in bed. Pin hops up after him, but when he moves to lay in Occtis’s lap, Occtis gently relocates him. Pin grumbles, then sneezes.

“I just need to sketch something,” Occtis tells him. “I’ll be quick.”

There are blank pages in the back of his spell book, and Occtis turns to one now. The paper is expensive, but it seems trivial at the moment. This is as important as any spell. He sketches quickly, getting the rough details down so that he can refine them later. A fifteen year old girl with long hair, her hand resting on the back of a scorpion. The girl, now a woman, standing in a forest. Who Tertia had been. Who she was now. He does not draw what she had briefly become, what she had been turned into. That he’ll never forget.

Occtis brushes his thumb over the eyes in both drawings, leaving them as blue as a clear sky in winter, or a robin’s egg covered in frost. The color won’t last, but it’s enough for now.

“You will be remembered,” Occtis says as he closes his eyes and thinks of a library, and the clicking sound of scorpion legs on stone.