Light of the Heavens

XXXVII. Into Idle Hands

Vassa's people held a certain maxim to be true: idle hands were infernal playthings. Perhaps that was the root of their malice: that crippling abundance of time. Even as Lysaerys's right hand, there were innumerable quiet afternoons, silent hours in the dark of night, intolerably muted sunrises. Invariably, boredom was quickly ushered out the window in favor of torment, but even that was a relief when faced with the sheer endless enormity of it.

She had heard stories of great elders who had fallen on their own blades to escape the feeling. Lysaerys always called it nintara: twilight. It was a strangely fitting name, as her own people did not possess the dawn and dusk that bordered human lives. Theirs was an unpleasant lingering on the verges, neither in one world nor the other.

It was strange to be here, lodged into a place of being she did not belong, where everything passed in a moment and yet somehow was brighter because of it. The pain of the love she felt for the joys she found felt different from anything that had come before it. Vassa found it heartbreaking, but with a freedom that was intoxicating. Here, her wounds bled freely, and no one took it upon themselves to add poison.

Still, though, she knew better than to stay idle. Her people's urge to twist and trap had to be subverted at every turn. So, while Seben was distracted with preparing to face her final trials to her apprenticeship, Vassa turned to the streets of Sarom. The Gem of the East had enough variety and amusement to distract her from the relentless hammering of her own thoughts and feelings. She wove her way through the crowds with ease, like a breeze flowing through reeds.

Vassa was no fool. She carried only a few coins on her at a time, just enough to buy something that might strike her fancy. Her blade was concealed in a secure wrap of illusion magic even beneath her glamor. If someone stopped and focused their will for a long moment, the blade could be discerned, but attention was a slippery thing. Even short-lived mortals tended to drift and most lacked the requisite wisdom to recognize and contend with her.

Glamor was something she had been unable to describe to anyone. Her brutish approximation for Adéla had been beyond inelegant, but so was the Leyan grasp of magic. They couldn't understand or appreciate subtle magic, both because they had never experienced it and because she could barely explain it. She breathed it like a fish in water, swam in its currents without ever seeing its verges. She envied Adéla in a way: the mage at least possessed the discernment of one watching from the outside, even if she would never in eternity fathom its depths.

Adéla thought of it as an elven spell, careful and constructed, designed to dominate the minds of weaker creatures. Vassa knew it as an exhalation, one that could be shaped and channeled, but happened without need for thought. Not using it was the difficult part, something that required training and experience. It had taken even Vassa years to part with the anxiety and discomfort of holding herself back.

Here, it served a very useful function. While she was very capable of captivating and charming, she hated it. Her disdain for it was not only from being on the receiving end of other manipulations: overuse caused more problems than it solved. It was better to be unobserved, or if observed, the kind of thing that slipped the mind after a few moments—saving enchantment for an emergency.

Vassa wandered through the Grand Bazaar perfectly at ease, mimicking the postures and mannerisms of the vast swarms of people who made Sarom their home. She savored every sight and sound like they were some fine wines to be enjoyed, even when they were not necessarily the most pleasant.

All of this was new.

Elves craved novelty above almost everything else. It was something that led them to interact with the short-lived races, which theoretically might have been a good thing, had not the same novelty led them to the inevitable curiosity about what made mortals tick.