Caera Denoir
I sometimes wondered if there was nobody in the world who could ever sit still.
Wren Kain IV was said to be the greatest craftsman the world had seen in an age. But as he floated around the kitchen with a ladle in his hand, shouting profanities at every cook who made a mistake, I found that impression of him gradually wasting away, replaced by something altogether more amusing.
"You cretins will not make a single mistake!" he declared obstinately, zipping by on his quasi-throne. "This dinner will be perfect, you hear? Perfect. I will not have your small-minded tendencies getting a single bit wrong!"
I flowed from an oven where I laid a pie, instead moving to an earlier station where I began to beat at some dough, mechanically working in a rhythm to mold it to the needed consistency. It's not as intimidating when most of our compatriots are unliving golems.
To emphasize my point, I passed the dough to a nearby golem that the titan asura had conjured, watching with a raised eyebrow as it waddled off to another clay figurine who was distributing toppings. They'd pass it back eventually when they were done, but until then…
I slipped to the side, easily evading a snapping hand from one resident Rat. Twitter-fingers quickly reoriented, lunging again, but then squealed in annoyance as I deftly intercepted another batch of dough from a nearby golem, denying my adversary any quarter.
"Vritra's horns," she cursed, standing off against me with hackles raised, the dough held away from her. "You could've just let me have it, Boulders. You're no fun anymore!"
"You could use any other sort of curse, Twitter-fingers," I muttered, backing away slowly. "We have a titan in this room. Maybe curse by his name instead? It'd be funnier! Curse by someone else's horns, not ours! You have so many options now with all the asura about."
"Prickly, prickly," Naereni muttered, licking her lips as she stared at her prize. "Maybe you should stop being so prudish. You can't keep it up forever!"
I narrowed my eyes, then began to rise into the air, taking advantage of my white core. Naereni could only watch in despair as I ascended higher and higher, outside her reach.
"That's not fair!" the Rat called, her hands raised in despair. "Just because you're a white core mage doesn't mean you get to escape this!"
A smirk split my face, banishing some of my earlier brooding. "It's perfectly fair. If you can't figure out how to get up here, what sort of thief are you?"
Naereni's eyes glinted, and I could see plans swirling in her eyes. "Hey, Boulders!" she called. "Did you know that hawks eat snakes?"
I raised a brow, confused as to what she meant. Then I bumped into something in the air. I froze, abruptly sensing the mana signature that had been so mellow for so long. I turned awkwardly in the sky, still holding dough in my hands.
Diella the phoenix looked at me with a disapproving stare, her smoky hair billowing in the haze of the kitchen. Her arms were laden with ingredients, making her look like a farmer fresh from the harvest, rich with bounty. The head cook looked down to Naereni, who had begun to cackle uproariously at my predicament, then back to me.
"Weren't you supposed to be with Lord Cylrit, helping with the actual cooking?" she asked, seeming supremely disappointed. "Not doing… whatever this is?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it. I suddenly became aware of the utter amounts of air traffic going on around us: flying chairs, flying golems, flying ingredients. It was a wonder I hadn't run into anything before Diella. "I promise it's justified," I said instead, opting to go the route of least resistance.
The phoenix let out a puff of air, then dropped a dozen ingredients in front of me, leaving me to haphazardly try and catch the array of strange-smelling fruits and mana-laden vegetables. Even a pie crust! And Naereni was still laughing.
"You are going to cut these up," the phoenix declared, drifting backwards, just as a fruit of some sort hurtled through the air. I was vaguely aware that one of Wren Kain's golems caught it, before hopping over to another station. "And you will make it perfect! No more flying about. This isn't the Hearth anymore; it's a wedding! You'll get your nice clothes covered!"
Diella patted me on the shoulder, which only made me wilt further.
I'll get back at you somehow, I declared, both to Naereni and Diella. The phoenix was already drifting away, fluttering to the next place that needed to be stocked. But even as I drifted back down, I saw the Rat ready to pounce, knowing I was now back on a level playing field. It's unfair.
But then I spotted something that gave me a grin as wicked as Naereni's was. "You know what, Twitter-fingers?" I asked, even as she began to inch closer, her eyes set on the prize as I tried to keep it as far away as possible, "Rats can't be allowed in kitchens. They get into the food and everything. But there are better ways to deal with them."
Naereni sensed something was wrong a moment too late. She whirled around, her dark braid whipping, but Wren Kain's hand was faster. He caught her by the scruff of her jacket, then hoisted her into the air like a kitten. The quirky titan's wizened eyes made him look like a gruff, spiteful little terrier as he looked her over. "A mouse in my kitchen," he muttered, a strange goggle-like contraption—reminiscent of Sevren's goggles—flicking over his eyes, whirring as he inspected her. "You're not supposed to be here."
Naereni's shoulder slumped. She truly did look far more like a cat held by the scruff now, something I relished with utmost joy.
"Mister Whiskers, sir," Naereni said in an immediately failed attempt to extricate herself from her predicament, "do you remember me? We had such a nice conversation the last time!"
She looked up at Wren Kain with the widest possible eyes, doing her best possible interpretation of a child in peril. The gruff titan, however, bought none of it. "You were the one in the Cistern. The mouse or whatever with the poorly made cloaking artifact."
I'd called Naereni Mouse more than once, knowing it got on her nerves. But the way the titan muttered it, not from a wish to irritate her, but genuine apathy, seemed to actually do the job. She puffed up like a balloon, glaring at the titan. "I'm the Rat, hobo," she declared, her chin upturned. "And weren't you a mink once?"
Wren's lips twitched, unamused to the utmost degree. "Weren't you a cook, once?"
Naereni blinked, confused. "No? I make Wade do that."
"Then there's time to learn," the titan craftsman declared. "Your human lives are terribly short. You must fill it with as much knowledge as possible."
"I'm a silver core mage," Naereni declared. "I'll live for two hundred more years at— Wait! No!"
Wren had not allowed her to finish speaking. He'd simply turned around in the air, dragging the Rat with him like an unrepentant child.
I laughed in triumph, wishing I wasn't so laden with ingredients as the Rat was dragged away, utterly vanquished. As she went, she gave me two middle fingers, relishing the fact that I couldn't. I didn't let it bother me: my grin was enough to let her know I'd won.
I let out a breath as she was taken away, falling back into myself. I turned, setting down some of the ingredients and the bit of dough as well, needing to organize. This was supposed to be a pie of some sort, but if I didn't organize, if I didn't keep things straight, it'd fall apart. I also needed to find Cylrit: we were supposed to work together. Or at least I was supposed to assist him.
The entire operation would fall apart, I thought, moving methodically. We need to stay focused.
Focused, right. I shuffled the ingredients off, handing a few fruits to a nearby golem. But as it walked away, I paused. Had those been the right ingredients?
Suddenly a bit more uncertain, I turned back to the pile of ingredients, counting through them again. Yes, I'd passed off the right item to the right golem. But there was something missing, I thought. An oil for lining the baking pans. Where was it?
I turned, looking about, my heart rate beginning to rise. I'd lost it, but where? Where'd I lose it?
I patted myself down, then looked up at the absolute flurry of flying ingredients and flying people and flying thoughts. I felt like I wasn't really seeing them, only their shadows. The sounds around me were muted, happening to someone else. Someone other than me. Somewhere else.
I felt my mind begin to unravel, something spilling through the cracks I tried to keep sealed. I took a deep breath in, then let one out, trying to calm myself. I needed to keep focus: this wasn't a mission like before. I wasn't in danger: it was okay.
I stepped away from the chaos and flurry, leaning against a nearby wall. My fingers dug into the stone. I took in deep breaths, questing out with my mana, searching for something to anchor myself with. Cylrit's mana signature was a ways away, steady and sure, sensible even amidst the asura's and golems. I'd learned to find it quickly.
He was using mana rotation: pulling it in, releasing it again. A self-contained river, swirling about him in a nexus, yet also the most serene lake. And I knew he was approaching, sensing my distress.
Its steady rhythm measured my heart, giving me a place to stand. Deep breaths in, deep breaths out. Mana rotation circulated both energy and breath through me, too. My mind, which had begun to scatter about, found cohesion once more.
"That hasn't happened in a while," I said quietly, blinking past my sweat, burying my forehead in the crook of my arm. Even though Orlaeth was dead, some things refused to die with him.
Vritra's blood, I cursed inside, squeezing my eyes shut tight, still focusing on Cylrit's mana signature. I wish Seris had let him struggle more.
The vision of both the Sovereign's heads lying limp, bleeding from their sockets without a spark of light behind their eyes, sent a shiver of terrible joy through my body. A paradoxically terrible sensation, something he had wanted me to feel.
I let out a breath, pushing thoughts of Taegrin Caelum aside. The scents of the kitchen returned in time, filling me with something warm, helping to banish the cold. Tombs below, the scents were wonderful.
But when I looked back out at the kitchen, I was surprised to see a familiar face, holding something out to me with a burnished metal hand.
"I think you dropped this when Diella caught you in the air," Sevren said, pressing the can of cooking oil toward me. His teal eyes were potent with worry, his lips a thin line. He waited for a few seconds, even as I took the can from him. "Are you okay, Caera?"
I smiled genuinely, though it was tinged with a bit of sorrow. "I don't know if you'd believe me if I said yes," I mused. The can was cool beneath my fingers. Tactile; real. Almost more real than anything else. "But actually… yes. Yes, I'm doing better."
My gaze skated away from Sevren, catching on Cylrit a dozen feet away. He was still cleaning his hands with a rag as he met my eyes, silent communication passing between us. I offered him a reassuring smile, earning the tersest of nods. He turned back around, marching to the oven he had just left sit.
"It's getting easier," I said honestly, turning back to my brother. "I have what I need. It just gets… overwhelming sometimes."
Sevren noticed. Few things got past him anymore, especially with those goggles of his. He turned away, crossing his arms. He stood away from me in that way of his whenever he wished to say something but couldn't quite make up his mind to pull the words from his gut. As he'd done when he'd first invited me on his ascents two years ago, now.
"I wish you hadn't gone into Taegrin Caelum," he said sharply. The same thing he'd said so many times before, that had caused so many of our fights. But there was something blunted in it today. Not a demand for an answer: just a proclamation of pain. "I did everything I did, tried so much. And I hate seeing you struggle these ways. It's too easy to hate."
"Orlaeth is dead," I said after a few moments, noting the way Sevren's hands were clenched.
"Does that make it easier for you, Caera?"
"In a way," I replied honestly. Flickers of that anger, then. That wish for another's pain. "But also not."
"Things would be too simple if we could just flip our emotions about as we pleased," Sevren muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets. He finally forced himself to look at me. "But I guess we learn. But once you've learned, I don't know if it's enough to keep it. Or to let it keep perpetuating."
Another place we've fought, I caught morosely, pursing my lips. On why it's been perpetuated. Or who let it perpetuate.
I had thought that was resolved, though, that Seris and Sevren had come to an understanding. But why…
I chewed my lip, setting the cooking oil down. I knew I'd remember it, now. "Seris has helped me," I said. "I don't think there's anyone else who understands this as she does. In the way I need. We aren't as before: she's not my mentor. I've grown too much."
Something in Sevren's eyes was clouded, a misty sadness there as I spoke. In a split instant, I realized that what I said wasn't quite the right thing to say. It had missed whatever my brother had intended. He pulled his hands from his pockets, tapping his fingers nervously against his metal arm. It made a rhythmic cling-cling-cling that made me think of pennies falling to the floor.
"That wasn't what I meant," he mused sadly, "I meant me, Caera. I meant about me."
He turned to the rest of the kitchen, his eyes sharpening, something hungry in there: but not for the food, not for the scents. "The Vritra have been overthrown. Everything I'd ever worked for, everything I've sought, has become a reality. But even before they fell, I'd realized something else. That it wasn't my total virtue, wasn't my care that drew me on. As much as I pretended it was, as much as I claimed it was for you, and Lauden and Lenora and even Corbett, it wasn't so simple. Someone showed me that."
Sevren scoffed, shaking his head. "I was angry. Angry that I'd been sculpted into a weapon, angry that I didn't have a choice but to be angry. And I caught it before it could hollow me out inside."
I swallowed, feeling it catch in my throat. I always took Seris' defense whenever we had those arguments, but for the first time, I thought I felt my brother's pain. Seris, my mentor… She'd meant nothing but good. But she'd poked and prodded my brother so much as he grew. Where was the justice in that? "I'm sorry, Sevren."
He smiled, half-way mirthful, half-way peaceful. "And I was angry that I wouldn't have it any other way," he mused. "That was what made it so difficult to recognize. Because if I acknowledged that I wanted to be who I was, that I wanted the knowledge I had, then that might make it… justice that it was given to me in such a way."
He looked at me with his teal eyes, piercing and sure. "I think it can be wrong now, I guess, and still appreciate what it gave me. That's what I spoke of with Scythe Seris. And I was surprised to find she agreed."
I nodded slowly, clasping my hands in front of me. "Did she apologize?" I asked wonderingly, part of me still struggling to imagine her doing so.
Sevren laughed, tossing his head back slightly. "She did, actually. And you know what pissed me off?"
Pissed him off? Pissed him off? I chuckled too, taken in by his amusement. "Let me guess," I wagered. "That she did say sorry?"
"Maybe I should've hit Toren for that one," Sevren chortled. "He makes a good target for all my practices now. Practically indestructible. I've already talked to him, though. He's… I'll miss him. I think he was my first real friend."
Our laughter fell away, leaving us like a lake once more, a perfect reflection, still and somber. But I sensed something new coming, a wave out of sight. I looked at my brother: really looked at him. My smile slowly fell as he returned my gaze, meaning passing between us.
"Why are you here, Sevren?" I asked gently, "Why now? Why during the preparations?"
A few heartbeats passed, and the scents of the kitchen were now the scents of home for a fleeting moment. "I'm leaving, Caera."
My heart constricted, and I knew my smile had become brittle. I knew my brother: had known him for all my life. And I knew he did not merely mean leaving for Alacrya, leaving for Dicathen, or leaving for the many new islands popping up over the oceans. When he said he was leaving, he didn't mean he was leaving the land.
He was leaving this world.
I was already going to go soon with Cylrit and whoever else would accompany us, venturing to Earth after Oludari and the rest of the Wraiths. But we had a way there, and we had a way back. It wouldn't take long, I didn't think. But to anywhere other than Earth…
Vritra's horns, the scents were so potent. So much autumn, cinnamon, and apple. It was nearly suffocating. And already I felt tears welling up, threatening to escape my eyes, fighting their way to my surface.
"Where are you going?" I asked, knowing at last what my brother must have felt when he'd seen me take the plunge into becoming a Retainer.
"There's another like me: an engineer, a wonder with gadgets and machines. I don't think I've ever seen something like it, and the possibilities of what we could do if we worked together fascinate me. But that's not what we have most in common," Sevren said quietly, staring away and past me. "He's pissed off. A bundle of rage, struggling not to explode at the world for all its done. And I think I can help him. But he can't be helped here. Here isn't a place he can ever afford to be. He's going somewhere else, another world. A random one, beyond this place."
"A fresh start?"
"Yeah," Sevren replied, looking at me fondly. "And we'll have a few more along for the ride. A few more people who need a fresh start, and that can help when it's needed. And he's decided it's going to be tonight, right after the wedding."
I squeezed my eyes shut tight, feeling a few tears roll down my cheeks. I didn't feel like much of a Retainer. But when I spoke, my voice was steady.
"Oludari's portal tech wasn't perfect. Without something from that world, we won't be able to follow, and it only opens portals from our dimension." I hadn't fully understood it, but it was something about how the aetheric spatial resonance worked. King Arthur had known, though: he'd been able to understand how the technology filtered through worlds, searching for those that were 'habitable,' but only for a fleeting moment before the portal snapped shut once more. "It's a one-way trip."
Sevren wouldn't be coming back. We'd be separated by worlds, not just by the Relictombs.
My brother, though mournful, seemed undeterred. He clapped my arm, a somber smile on his face. "Do you doubt me so much, Caera?" he said, pulling something from his dimensional storage. It glistened with soulmetal, a stake etched with runes. "We mapped the Relictombs together, creating tethers across dimensions."
I blinked, surprised as I bore witness to the item. It looked like a stake: almost like the— "A tethertail? The same way we anchored ourselves across each zone?"
"It's not perfect yet, and I lack the understanding of portal tech to complete it yet: but it's close. And when I'm over and it's complete, I need only to find a source of potent aether and punge the mirror to this stake in, and…"
"And we have a passageway between worlds!" I blurted aloud, laughing with amusement. I punched my brother hard in the arm with force that would have made any lesser mage crumple, but he only rolled with it. The benefits of being a high silver-core mage. "I should have never doubted you."
Sevren let out a sigh. "I don't know how long it will take," he said, staring at the stake, a tooth he'd drive into the next world he found. "It could be years."
I thought for a few moments, still feeling tears at the edge of my eyes. "We have many years in our lives," I echoed. "I'll live for five hundred years at least, you know, between my Vritra blood and white core. You don't get to make universe-altering discoveries without me for long."
"Multiverse," he corrected, pulling me into a hug. "Multiverse, Caera. Aether's possibilities are limitless."
I hugged him back, tears flowing from my eyes like a waterfall. And I knew a few fell from his eyes, too. It felt like home was shrinking, dispersing, going every which way. And I didn't want it to.
"It's sort of strange," I muttered, my voice cracking, still holding my brother tight. "You were so upset when I started to go off on my own. I don't know if Fate is as kind as they all say it is now."
Sevren didn't reply, just kept holding me. I remembered the times when his arm wasn't metal, when I was still a child listening to his stories. In that moment, I could feel no difference. "We'll get a picture before we go. On one of the recording artifacts, and we'll make Toren take it."
"For old times' sake," I agreed, pushing my brother away. "And take more pictures. I want to see what other worlds look like."
"You'll be one of the first Alacryans to breach the next frontier, just as always," Sevren asserted, holding his fist out to me. "Don't get rusty on me, Caera. And… please keep yourself safe."
I bumped his fist, my smile far more sure. "Don't worry, I won't—"
"Sevren!" a voice howled, splitting through even the turbulence of the kitchen. "You little bitch, where are you?! The ceremony's gonna start soon! Stop being slow!"
Sevren went abruptly rigid, his eyes flashing a dangerous shade of green. He whirled on his feet, forgetting me in a fraction of a moment, all sense of home obliterated with it. "We won't even need to go for another ten minutes! I have it fucking timed!"
I blinked in surprise, struggling to connect the pieces of what had just happened. That voice… that was Scythe Melzri.
"You don't wear a watch!" Melzri declared, zipping into the air before us. Her long, silver-blonde hair was unbraided, swaying about her in a chaotic swirl, a paintbrush untethered. Some of it was styled around her horns, making it look as if she'd been crowned in light-gold and adorned in onyx. She wore a brilliant dress of a deep aquamarine, trimmed with streaks of silver. "You can't get away with lying to me. I know your type."
Half a dozen ingredients nearly struck her, but with a wave of her hand, they decayed into practically nothing.
"It's inside my arm!" Sevren shouted back, shoving his arm up toward her in blistering irritation. "Do you need to be such a bitch all the time? We have five minutes!"
In place of my sobs, something else began to build up in the depths of my soul as I watched the two bicker back and forth, one floating obstinately in the air, the other shaking his fist up at her as if he would drag her back down to earth.
And adding onto the absurdity, I realized that my brother's clothing matched Melzri's. They'd come to the wedding as a couple.
"Don't you have any idea how this works? You don't arrive at the wedding time! You arrive before! You're an antisocial piece of shit if you don't—"
"Hey! You!" Wren Kain blurred over, his mana utterly suffusing the atmosphere. "What are you doing in my kitchen? You're ruining everything! Do you have any idea how much tuning was necessary to ensure proper actualization of human and elven taste preceptors, while controlling the function to maximize pleasure for both?"
Melzri startled, looking at the floating titan as if he were a mosquito that had crawled out of a stairwell and just begun to dance. "I don't care! He's ruining everything!"
She pointed rather unceremoniously down at my brother, who practically howled with rage. I was beginning to wonder if he'd really managed to cool that temper of his.
"Sevren Denoir helped with the mana-imbibed ovens! He's managed to not be incompetent with those goggles I gave him. I even bothered to remember his name, unlike you," Wren Kain declared, snapping his fingers. A few golems rose up, grabbing Melzri by the arms and hauling her backward.
The Scythe looked incredibly disgruntled, a snarl on her lips. But as the golems drew her away and toward the door, all she did was holler down at Sevren one more time. "Come on, Sevren! You're not going to escape this!"
I was struck by the sheer similarity to my interaction with Naereni not long ago—who was now sulkily prepping some sort of roasted, mana-laden bird across the kitchen—that I finally burst out laughing. Some part of me still could not believe that Sevren and Scythe Melzri had not torn each other to pieces. But it was as if their attacks were what kept them together. It made no sense.
"Toren must have never let you hear the end of this!" I declared, unable to keep down my laughter, leaning against the wall as I heaved for breath.
Sevren only glared at me, letting out a grumbling sigh. "Damn you Caera," he muttered, running a hand through his silver hair. "Fuck. I'm running short on time."
He huffed, grabbed at his teal cloak, took it from his shoulders, and then tossed it to me. I caught it, surprised. "Keep a hold of that," he ordered, offering out his metallic fist one more time. "It's survived hell."
With a wan smile, I bumped his fist back. "You can't say that if it's never survived a kitchen."
Sevren grinned, then slipped away, easily avoiding every golem around him as he slipped out of the kitchen. And somehow, he took that scent of home with him. The cinnamon and autumn no longer grounded me as before. Now, I…
I turned my thoughts away, instead fastening Sevren's cloak around my shoulders. It didn't really match my clothes. I didn't really care.
"Everything is nearly complete," someone said nearby. "The pies, breads, and other heated goods will need to bake for a time, but the golems can watch them for time. We can go."
I turned to look at the man who'd approached, feeling the rest of the commotion fall away. The sheer opposite of the flurry of chaos around us, Cylrit made me think of a dark slash in a recording, a break where movement should be.
The man wasn't in his armor, not today. Instead, he wore simple black slacks and a loose shirt, with red-gray filigree tracing around the seams. His hair was in a neat part, emphasizing both absolute form and absolute function. A neatly groomed mustache adorned his face, which gave me something to smile for. His eyes, though, showed concern. Though he said nothing, I knew what he meant. Are you safe to go?
I turned to my pile of ingredients, finding that it was still there, enough for one last pie. Something unfinished. "Or we could fix the last bit up. It shouldn't take too long, Scythe Cylrit."
Cylrit's lips twitched. "Very well, Retainer Caera."
I swept past him, pulling my shoulders back. My emotional turmoil, that lack of certainty, evened out as I cast a glance at Wren Kain and Diella. The two of them were indeed readying to go, setting down their tools, washing their hands. One of them grumbled more than the other. And Naereni had somehow managed to slip away during all of this.
It didn't matter. I reached the pie crust, taking it from the counter with a deft flourish. Cylrit was already there, a platter ready to help mold the crust. Together, we helped mold the crust into the platter, pressing it in around the edges. That took hardly a few seconds, each of us working in perfect tandem on one half. My heartbeat, which I didn't know could slow any further, gradually matched the pace of our work. Kneading my fingers over and over, molding the dough to what we needed.
My attention flicked to the other ingredients. Sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a few others I had no clue as to their origin. But from the potency of mana radiating off of them, a taste I could nearly feel on my very skin, I knew they were Epheotan in nature. Cylrit was already beginning to mix a few of them, and without saying anything, I knew the task I needed to do to match him.
And the fruit we were to use sat in a small bushel next to me. They weren't quite apples: too pear-shaped, and the skin oscillated colors from red to orange and back, but it was firm and would survive the baking process as we needed it to. With a flourish of one of my regalias, I pulled a dozen of them into a swirl, then began to dice them into pieces. The skin of the fruit peeled away easily, leaving a center that oscillated with the same strange, mana-laden sheen, but it was almost crystalline. It made me think of a storm, flickers of red-orange ghosting through.
Entranced by the shining, pulsing hurricane I'd made, I raised a gentle hand, plucking a single fruit from the maelstrom. We needed only a few of these to make a pie… and what would it hurt?
I took a single bite: but I was utterly unprepared for the rush of flavor that coursed through me. Sweet, savory, it was less a taste. It was… it was a sense. The same sense that Sevren's absence had taken with him. An autumn warmth settled in my stomach, and I felt like a little girl all over again. I thought of the days with Sevren in the Denoir estate. I thought of rising through the Relictombs, clashing against aether beasts as I found myself. I thought of my endless squabbles with Naereni, Seris' fond eyes, Corbett and Lenora's disapproving but worried stares. And the image of someone else was pulled from my core, slotting into all those other senses of home.
I realized, in a moment of absolute peace, that these wedding guests had no idea what this night would be for them.
I blinked a few times, my rhythm shattered. I sensed Cylrit ease, his emotions so quickly in tune with mine. Before he could ask what was wrong, though, I turned, a dopey smile on my face. I offered the fruit out, dangling it invitingly in front of the stalwart man of steel.
His crimson eyes flicked to it, to where I had bitten it, then back to me. He seemed suddenly unsure, frozen like a statue. Far more a golem than the stone creatures all around us.
"Is the mighty Scythe Cylrit so intimidated by a simple fruit?" I teased, nudging his shoulder. "Come on. Will you be felled so easily?"
He let out a sigh, before taking the fruit from my hands. Our fingers brushed for the barest moment. "I know what these fruits are," he said quietly. "To work with them, I needed to. The jnana. Those who eat of it think of…"
The dark-haired man looked at me, his face creasing like a back bent under a great weight. I didn't look away. "What do you wish to think of?" I asked. Then I thought better of it, knew that this was not the question. No, I knew it. I thought I had for a while.
Cylrit was strange. Even in utmost discomfort, he seemed unable to turn away from those he spoke to. I wondered if it was in his nature, to be so forthright and forthcoming. "We will be leaving this world soon," he said, a blunt way of changing the subject. His eyes lingered on the teal cloak I now wore. "Are you prepared?"
I snorted, then let the chopped jnana fruit slip into a nearby bowl. Cylrit's concoction of spices seeped in next, before he began to mix them, movement helping him think. "I don't know if Oludari has any clue what's coming," I mused. "He probably thought nobody would be able to follow him to Earth. But he's not as safe as he believes."
The fact that King Arthur Leywin was a soul born on 'Earth,' in fact, was the only way we were able to open a stable passageway there and prepare for transport. And with the lack of mana on that world, the Sovereign would die slowly: but not before wreaking havoc. And the many Wraiths he had taken with him…
We'd put an end to them all.
"We'll be there for some time, away from all that we are sure of," Cylrit declared, his face solemn. "To eat a jnana fruit now would be to set us off kilter."
"Will you only think of places here? People here?" I queried, staring down at our half-made pie. Almost ready to bake.
Most would call it brooding, but as the Scythe fell into silence—as the whole room seemed to fade into silence with him—I knew he was thinking, considering in that picturesque way of his. And I found myself watching him again, imagining all the ways he could've been made into a perfect sculpture, with a thousand different poses. Yet all with the same expression, they'd capture some of him.
He looked at me, his brows pinched. I'd made the mistake when I first became his Retainer of thinking that he kept everything he thought to himself. And it was true he rarely spoke with his words: but he said so many things with his eyes.
"I still mean every word," I said stoically, searching the Scythe's eyes, trying to capture everything there. "It is me who wishes this. You know this. I see you do."
I had spoken of Cylrit once of what I felt. Once, after Seris brought her shield across the Central Dominion, and we'd had peace. And Cylrit, for the first time I'd seen, had been truly afraid, deep in that soul of his.
Have I made you this way? I had read there. Has Fate merely repeated itself, from Retainer to Retainer, Scythe to Scythe? Is this need something real, or merely manufactured?
I knew he had loved Seris, once. He still loved her: but no longer in the same way. But he was afraid that he had become the next Seris: an anchor point for one too lost, too vulnerable, making something false and untenable.
I had wondered for a time, questioning in a way he'd accidentally taught me, diving into the crevices of my mind. But I hadn't needed to hold him as my anchor. There was Sevren. There was Naereni. There was Seris. And while I'd relied on them, I had chosen Cylrit's presence to keep me whole in the depths of Taegrin Caelum. Earlier, amidst the chaos of the day, there had been many mana signatures more potent, more sure, more powerful, that could have taken me from my spiral.
But I'd wanted his.
"I am… unlearned," Cylrit said, having deliberated long on those words. "I have always been…" He paused for a few moments, staring into himself more than into the world. "At a distance. In the arena of Victorious, pitted against beasts. Before Seris, her shield always facing away. It is what I am, and I do not know what I am if I am not apart."
I took the jnana fruit from the table, moving closer. Cylrit was forced to turn, forced to face me, as I stood hardly a foot from him. His arms were forced to relinquish his task, no longer able to hold to it. I held the fruit between us one more time, offering it up. "I am facing you," I said gently, laying a hand against his chest. "Would you like to learn?"
He took the fruit from my hand, inspecting it for a time. Then he took a bite, savoring the fruit easily. And as he stared at me, I saw so many more shades of red that I could have never imagined. He set the fruit down, and when his hand tilted my chin up, I rose onto my toes.
The kiss we shared was short and hesitant, but it felt no different from the fruit we'd both just eaten.
A light chuckle escaped me as we separated, and I wondered how much more emotion could be stuffed into a single day. We hadn't even gotten to the wedding yet.
Cylrit only looked at me as if I were an enigma, though it was a tender expression. "We should go," he finally said, his deliberating done. "The ceremony will start in only a minute or so."
I looked down at our half-made pie. We hadn't managed to put the crust over the top, and it'd go stale if we just left it there. "We haven't finished our grand little masterpiece," I said, puffing out my lip. I raised my brow in an exaggerated way. "Are you sure you want to leave that off?"
Cylrit smiled slightly, exhaling a huff of air through his nose. For him, it might as well have been a full-bellied laugh. "We can finish this first, I think. It shouldn't take long."
I turned triumphantly back to the pie set before us, placing my hands on my hips. "I, for one, think we can make it far more extravagant than just a simple little pie. It's special now! We can't leave it without something magnificent to top it off!"
"You acquired this habit from the one called Naereni," Cylrit observed, not disagreeing. "Much is wasted when things are needlessly grand."
"We're Retainer and Scythe," I declared instead, my eyes searching the room for something that would make our little creation perfect. '"We get to be grandiose, and Twitter-fingers can say nothing about it."
And as I rose into the air, zipping over to one of the nearby carafes for ingredients, I realized that, undoubtedly, we would be late for the ceremony. But so many things in this life were filled with change, swirling about and about and never staying certain. Yet this certainty here, this vast kitchen that could make nearly anything humanity could imagine, seemed at this moment to be perfectly sure, no matter what I did within it.
Yes, we'd make something grand.