A royal carriage dropped us off at our house. It was the early watch of the next morning, and the neighbourhood was dark. I collapsed onto the sofa and began to shake. Aelyn sat beside me and I leaned into him.

  “Too much?” he asked, kissing the top of my head.

  “Aelyn, I cannot count the ways that tonight could have gone wrong.”

  “And yet, it did not.”

  “I told Kohl I didn’t gamble. That was a lie. I risked everything.”

  “Circe,” he tipped up my head with a finger under my chin, “we have secured the safety of our investments, our alliance with the Empire, and seen off a very dangerous enemy. What else can you ask for?”

  “A future. A future in which we are not always struggling, always on edge, where…”

  “Odd thing, the future. It recedes as we advance.” He thought for a moment. “I suppose the next step is to focus on the south. The Champion that Werner mentioned this evening; is that your companion, do you think?”

  “I do.”

  “You have mentioned him before, but never in detail.” He stood up and went to the sideboard. He began to open a bottle of wine. “How did you meet?”

  I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open.

  “We met by accident. There was a fire—” I remembered the smell of smoke, and the heat from the flames, “—and there were children. We ran into a building…” I shivered. “Well, we succeeded. But I would have never been able to manage without her.”

  There was silence. I looked up and saw Aelyn holding the wine, unmoving. He set it down with a small click.

  “You said her.”

  I felt a coldness in my chest, as if an icy hand was clutching my heart. My lips were dry.

  “Two Champions, a Mage and a Blade.” He watched me like a hawk. “Who are you, Lady Circe?”

  “Your Mage.” My voice was hoarse.

  “I misspoke. Who were you?”

  I watched him as the silence lengthened.

  “I—” I cleared my throat, “I was supposed to be the Blade, Aelyn. But I was hopeless. And my companion,” I shrugged, “had no ability to cast. None. So, our mentor invoked the Goddess, and—”

  “I see.” He stepped away, standing against the wall. “And did you not think I would want to know of this?”

  I blinked back tears. “I did. But I was frightened.”

  “Lady Circe. There is a tale of when the Elves came to Nah’Nua. In the first days, we did not grow our dwellings. We grew them—ever so slowly—from small shoots. It might take decades for a family to create their home. But we abandoned these living abodes eventually. Do you know why?”

  I shook my head wordlessly.

  “Because one careless spark could destroy the work of generations. So we built in stone.”

  “Nothing blooms from stone, Lord Aelyn.”

  “And nothing will stand on a shifting foundation.” He turned and began to ascend the stairs. “Excuse me.”

  When he returned, he carried a bag, his blade, and his bow. He walked to the front door and turned.

  “You’ll need a Blade,” he said. “I will send Lyorn.”

  And he left.

  I slept, and I did not. When I dreamed, it was of fire, and smoke, and Rory bleeding out on the floor. Of the black, emotionless eyes of the collared. Of Aelyn walking away.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  When I awoke, I sat on the sofa for a time, watching the slow spread of blue and yellow on the wall. I climbed the stairs, ignoring the bedroom, and bathed but emerged unclean.

  And then I walked to the Academy. Because really, I had nowhere else to go.

  I cannot remember my classes that morning. In the afternoon I observed the students clustered around tables on which laid their assignments. Each comprised a thick folio containing instructions, diagrams, and maps. Groups broke up and reformed, Mages and Blades argued tactics, and harried instructors attempted to restore order.

  When I walked to the table, I had no papers. Chani and Coral were standing over a pile of documents, gesticulating. Rondar and another Blade had propped themselves on the edge of a table and were watching the two argue with bemused expressions.

  “No, Cori,” Chani was saying, “we can’t go directly to here—” her finger tapped on a map, “—because there’s no harbour. We’ll have to debark up the coast, and head east.”

  “Can’t we just get a ship to drop us off ashore?”

  “No.” Chani shook her head. “My uncle’s a sailor. He says that landing on an unknown shore is—and I quote—‘the fastest known route to a theranaq’s belly’. Trying to save a few days could cost us the whole task.”

  “Oh, very well.” Coral caught sight of me. “Circe, do you have your assignment yet?”

  “Not so far.” I glanced at the map. “So, Sha’Na’Lyona?”

  “Yes. They’ve asked for help. Something about an attack out east.”

  “Where’s your Blade?” asked Chani.

  “He’s at the Embassy,” I said.

  At the front of my house, I saw Lyorn. He was waiting on the stoop, erect and motionless.

  “Aelyn sent me,”

  “I know.”

  “Where do you want me?”

  “The Residence,” I said.

  I shut the door in his face.

  The next morning, he was in the same spot. I stared at him. He stood unblinking.

  “We can play this game for days,” I said. “But it has no purpose.”

  “You need a Blade.”

  “I need none. By the grace of the Goddess, please leave.”

  “Aelyn says—”

  “Aelyn and I are not your concern. Lyorn—” I was near tears, “—I need to be alone. Please grant me that favour, if nothing else.”

  He looked out over the street and nodded.

  I did not see him again.

  On the third day after Aelyn left, I was called to Madam Jaffer’s office. She had me sit and passed me a slim envelope.

  “You were chosen by Mage Aenwyn,” she said without preamble. “Only you and your Blade may view this. Else her vision will be meaningless.” She peered out into the outer office. “Where is he?”

  “Otherwise occupied.” I stood. “Thank you, Madam.”

  I left it unopened on my desk at home.

  On the fifth morning Raina appeared at my door. She walked in uninvited and pulled me into a hug.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  I took her back to the kitchen and tried to find some breakfast. But the bread was hard, the juice had turned, and the fruit had spoiled. Raina looked at me with concern.

  “You’ve lost weight.”

  I shrugged. “Can you give me a minute before we talk? I have things to say that must not be shared.”

  She nodded and I pulled up the blocking spell I had seen Lyora use. When I had set it up, I sat down opposite Raina.

  “What brings you here?”

  She watched me carefully, as if she was worried that I would bolt. “Aelyn showed up half a tenday ago. Without you. He will speak to no one. No one has heard from you. And then Lyorn—” her hands twisted, “—came to me and begged me to see you. He would say nothing else.”

  I grunted in irritation.

  “He cares for you, Circe.”

  “Then he should have kept his mouth shut.”

  She looked at me without speaking. I hung my head.

  “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

  “Circe.”

  “I am not from Nah’Nua. Another place, so far away—” I waved my arm helplessly, “—unimaginably far. I and a woman were trapped in a fire while rescuing some children. We died. And the Goddess had a use for us, so she brought us here. As Mage and Blade. And—” I coughed awkwardly, “—I was a man in my home. But neither of us could fulfill our roles. So—” I held my hands apart, fingers pointing towards each other, and then moved them past each other. “We traded our forms.”

  “And now you are the Mage.”

  “Yes.”

  “So why did Aelyn leave?”

  I gaped at her like a fish out of water. She waited expectantly.

  “He found out five days ago.”

  She looked at me, puzzled.

  “Goddess, Raina. He cannot trust me anymore. And I agree.”

  “Fool.” She was furious, and I recoiled. “Not you, for Goddess’s sake. Him.”

  “But—”

  “Circe,” her voice was trembling, “I am not going to list—again—why the elves love you. But Keishara was mixed up in some business just before Aelyn returned to the Residence.”

  I nodded mutely.

  “And when she returned, she named you Meld’Eldali?.”

  I blinked. “I do not recognize those words.”

  “It comes from the old language and means ‘Beloved of the People’. It is not given by any one person, or by royalty, or because someone asks to be so named. It is simply…understood. By all of us. And you should know that within one day, everyone in the Residence used the title when referring to you. And before the month is out, they will hear of it in Kla'Nath.”

  “That’s an honour, but—”

  “How old am I?”

  “Um.” I looked at her. “I am terrible at judging the age of elves. And I know better than to guess a woman’s years. So…older than me.”

  “Over two hundred years. And the last person to bear the name Meld’Eldali? died long before I was born.”

  I sat silent.

  “And this is whom Aelyn spurned.” Her voice was cold. “Trust. He knows nothing of it. I will—”

  “Raina.” She stopped. “Please do not speak with him. I cannot see Aelyn again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am too frightened. The Goddess brought me here for the sake of Nah’Nua. Not for myself. And—” my eyes were burning, “—I feel like a branch bending under a weight. Bending, I can manage. Just. But for the sake of Nah’Nua, I cannot break.”

  Raina held me as I sobbed.