Sun's Heart

Chapter 22.2 - The Mesmer

Talaris picked his way through the magnificent, gold-lit city like he'd strode through its palaces and remembered them fondly. Some tribesmen greeted Dain with cheerful nods and smiles, ones he recognized from Kunnafedib or Bahittsami, but most stared with open distaste or touched the nearest weapon like they intended to do immediate bodily harm to him.

Dain didn't stray far from Talaris. Not even when a pair of black-garbed men in white wooden masks stepped in his way and said something sounding vaguely like an order to him. He slipped between them and stayed closer to Talaris' back. They were headed upward, climbing stairs and ramps through towers and empty palaces. The closer they got to the top, the livelier the city became until the nighttime air swelled with song and merriment, and the scent of animals and food and flowers. Down one street he glimpsed a group of hunters crouched around a map, sand veils obscuring all but voices.

There were too many people for him to pick out individuals he might recognize. Touching the crystal, he sensed Wil further ahead, toward the "peak" of the mountain city.

Talaris stopped. Dain took in the sight of the columns and archways, gracefully draped sheer, white cloths whispering against torchlit stone as they rippled in the dusk breeze. A palace grander than the rest. Tall, ancient, and unwelcoming despite its beauty.

"Remarkable," Talaris breathed. "The architecture is still perfectly intact. All this time, and it's...still there."

"I thought you'd never been here before," Dain said.

He turned a wry smile on the boy. "Not to Sand Sea, no." Then without further explanation, he moved for a set of stairs leading to the palace's gardens.

The crystal pointed deeper into the structure. Torches lit one hallway, the others dark. Talaris led the way through open corridors and past rooms of cushions and carpets and weapons. Some held bags of grains, others cloths or bottles. Yet more boasted wrapped bundles of weapons piled to the ceiling. As they twisted with the walls and turned to the torch-lit path, voices sometimes came in and out of earshot. Eventually, they became distinct when Talaris and Dain stopped once more, this time before a few black-garbed hunters with the white masks of those he'd seen earlier.

Talaris raised a friendly hand as they turned the corner, opening his mouth to give greeting.

They grabbed their weapons, alarm in every movement, but he flushed his magic into each of them like a heartbeat. Invisible tendrils latched, wrapped, and sank into them. They froze, swayed and stumbled, and all fell as one with a clatter of weapons on stone.

Silence descended within the room ahead.

Talaris sighed. "I was hoping to take care of this quietly."

"They're going to think you killed them, you know."

"Easy enough to prove otherwise."

"Dain?!" A short girl in white strode into view. A ragged tear in her dress left most of her abdomen bare. She ran her gaze over Talaris, who seemed as perplexed as she, before looking back to Dain.

His words failed him not once that day, but twice. "Y-you—"

"What did you do to them?" She frowned at the comatose hunters, then at Talaris.

Dain almost couldn't breathe. "Gale?"

Her honey-colored eyes danced over him. He cleared his throat and patted her head, her dark hair warm. Alive. Real. She frowned and moved as though to shrink away, but stopped, unsure and concerned.

"And Wil," another familiar voice said. The jade-eyed boy slid into view around the doorway. His face was scratched and sunburned, and shadows darkened his eyes. "I hope you realize how much harder you just made things."