Sun's Heart

Chapter 22.1 - The Mesmer

Dain was sure if he were to remove his soft-soled boots, he'd find his feet a mass of horrid blisters and weeping sores. It was a pleasant enough image to keep him from consuming the last of his personal rations until emergency called for it. It wasn't as if he had much of an appetite anyway.

His stomach growled.

The children were asleep, tribesmen dragging them over the sand on stretchers. It was well they were resting, he thought as he passed an unfortunately familiar sight. A blob of sand congealed with old blood, resting where it had rolled to the base of the dune they wandered along. The winds had brushed away the dry sand around it, letting gravity take it wherever it pleased.

No doubt Kunnafedib's. They'd already found a few hunters, maimed by shadowbeasts and pecked at by wildlife.

Dain squinted at it a few more seconds before looking ahead again to where they'd spotted the rise of Haliculir's walls not an hour before. Sunset rained red on the landscape. What he could see of it, at least, in the crevice between two dunes.

Kunnafedib had done well to clear a path. The attacks were supposed to be more frequent as they approached Haliculir, but there was no discernable difference to him. He had hardly needed to use magic in the past few days, though he wasn't about to start. It was treacherous to tempt fate.

Dain's attention drifted eastward. Tired thighs and aching feet groaned as Bahittsami climbed up the shallower slant of another dune. He touched his crystal. The pulse of magic thrummed in what he imagined to be a greeting. Where his gaze held, distant and fixed, a shadow marred the otherwise fiery beauty of Sand Sea. Whispers around him, but one word they had in common. "Gahao." Reverence, fear, surprise, and relief. He heard them all.

Its bulk was unrecognizable as anything more than a shadowbeast of unimaginable size. As a poorly-built home crumbles beneath its own weight, this lifeless form was cracked and flaking. Chunks fell as he watched. He stopped and shaded his eyes. He frowned.

What...is that...

A woman nudged him, beckoning with what was probably a warning not to dawdle.

"Ah, that's it," he breathed. I almost didn't recognize it. He marched sharply toward the battle site, ignoring the woman.

Of all the people, of all the places...

Steps carrying him around the beast's corpse, he stopped and saw the man whose power had tickled his consciousness. He made no sign of noticing Dain's approach.

His black cloak stirred in the wind. Dark waves of hair tumbled nearly to his broad shoulders. A straight back lent him a powerful appearance, but his bowed head shifted the sight to one of somberness. He inhaled through his nose. "Hello, Dain." Words in his sigh.

"Hello, Talaris." He scrutinized the man's back. "Did you do this?"

"No. But I wish I had seen it."

Dain nodded. Ran his lower lip through his teeth. Narrowed eyes. "Heard from Mum?"

Finally, he saw Talaris' face. No different than the last he'd seen it. Always with the same weary expression. "Why ask a question you already know the answer to?"

"Why avoid the question?"

"What do you want, Dain? Why are you here?"

Dain frowned, a wry laugh worming its way out of him. "Are you...reading my mind? I was going to ask the same."

"You know that's not possible—"

"I'm here because I'm on a job. I'm a student, remember? The Beryllians are trying to teach me to control my powers? Which, by the way, I love. There's nothing like having no home, no control, and no one who can teach me."

"Dain—"

"The first time I see you in, what, five or six years, and you've no apology or explanation or anything. You're exactly the same. No, 'Oh, Dain, look how you've grown! What have they been feeding you?' Me, I'm plenty different. I could tell you all about how Grandfather enjoyed punishing me, and Father played with his dolls as he watched."

Talaris' eye twitched. "You know how busy I am. I can't teach a child the ways of the world and do my job."

"Is that what you told Father after my sister was born?" He smiled. "How does it feel when your excuses don't work anymore?"

"I'm sorry." He spread his hands, shook his head. "Truly, I regret everything that happened. I wish I could do it all over again, but even for me, there are boundaries and laws that must be obeyed. I hate that you had to endure without your mother, but I would not risk a war where there's no winning."

"Why are you here? You didn't come for me, so it must be something to do with...the barrier? The priestess? The tonafang?"

He refused to take the bait. "I've never been to Sand Sea before. When the opportunity presented itself, I had to take it. Call it academic curiosity."

Dain arched a brow. "Full marks for presentation, but you should brush up on your creativity. It's lacking in...inspiration."

His mouth twitched into a smirk. "I'm that obvious, hm?"

"The Beryllians like to say, 'The very old do not easily change.'"

"The Cerulans have one better: 'Elders who teach will rarely learn.'" He motioned to Dain's neck. "What is that? A relic?"

"Not quite." He pulled the leather thong from beneath his shirt again. "It's something I've been using to keep track of Wil. He's one of my peers at the academy."

Talaris held the crystal. Absently, he murmured, "I never thought you one to make friends with other Sarceni. Risky."

"Most of my peers are Sarceni, actually. And how did you kn—"

Magic bloomed across the surface of the crystal. A black rune etched itself onto the material. His expression mild, Talaris handed the crystal back to Dain, who took it with jaw dropped and mind running with what he'd just witnessed.

"You're here to assist with the barrier, I assume?" Talaris nodded to himself. "Makes sense. I'll accompany you. I have business in the city, anyway. The source of its power resides nearby. We can both accomplish what we came here for. Come." He patted Dain's shoulder and turned for the gate Bahittsami was approaching. "I'm eager to see how things have changed."

Dain closed his mouth with a click of teeth. He swallowed, blinked, and slung the necklace back around his neck. Bloody man always having to show off...

He hurried to keep up, reinvigorated by the newest mystery to cross his path.

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