No One Ever Comes Looking
—SEVAHN
In a realm far from here—
The fire has burned low in the curved hearth, throwing long amber shapes across the stone. I stare at the flames. I have always liked this room best at this hour. It is the only hour I am ever truly still.
“Vaelu§,” I call, without looking over my shoulder. (Steady) I know by heart which one of my boys is at the threshold; the softer one comes in carefully, his weight barely touching the floor. “Come in. You do not have to hover.”
He enters. So does his shadow. They are never far apart, my two.
Wherever the smaller one goes, the larger one follows, a half-step behind and a head taller.
Vaelu’s ears are pinned flat, his tail drawn tight against his leg.
Behind him, Ryn§ says nothing—the muzzle sees to that.
(Song) I have told him a hundred times he can remove it, but he chooses to keep it fastened.
He doesn’t trust the teeth behind it. In fairness, neither do I.
“Tell me,” I say, gentling my voice for Vaelu. He startles so easily.
“She’s safe, Father. In the Rhavari’s territory. Andrik has found her.”
“Good.” The tightness in my chest loosens. “Go on.”
He hesitates, his ears flattening further against his head. Ryn’s shoulders draw up, the muscle in his forearm curling beneath his skin as his hands ball into fists at his sides. His tail winds around Vaelu’s ankle.
“And the other one?” I murmur.
“Father, he’s—” Vaelu’s voice drops.
“How many times?”
The fire pops.
“Twelve,” he whispers. “He’s cut them off twelve times.”
The silence that follows is heavier than the stone walls of the manor. The fire pops again, a lonely, bright spark that dies instantly on the hearth.
Twelve sets of calcified wings left to rot in the dirt while he tries to keep himself from clawing back to her. The number settles over me, and I make the mistake I always make—the one I have never in all this time learned how to stop making—I let it become a picture.
A creature I have never met, alone, somewhere cold and far from here, in the dark.
Dragging a blade through his own wings because they refuse to stop growing back, because the pull I wove into the bones of the world will not let him keep what’s his.
Twelve times he has opened himself to the bone, twelve times the wings have returned, and twelve times he has reached for the blade again.
I set that in motion. Threads I pulled ages ago, to keep the broken halves of them apart, to make sure none of them ever held the thing that completed them—and look. Look what it does. Look what it makes of a person.
Vaelu keeps his head bowed, his shoulders trembling. Ryn’s chest heaves beneath his leather harness, a low rumble vibrating against the iron of his muzzle.
Anger erupts through me before I can close my hand around it—I sweep my arm across the desk and everything goes flying.
Glass, ink, and a hundred years of careful paperwork fling across the room.
The decanter bursts against the stone, and a candle tips into the scatter, flames catching hungrily along the spilled pages.
Vaelu flinches back into Ryn.
I stand in the ruins of my composure for three seconds before I make myself do the only thing that has ever carried me through this. I take the picture—the boy, the blade, the wings—and I put it away and lift my eyes to the end of all this instead.
The day every last one of them knows, in their own flesh, what it is to have everything they love taken and no one—no one—ever comes looking.
When they feel it—when I am no longer the only one who has ever felt this way. It will stop hurting then. It has to.
The pages curl darkly at my feet. I inhale deeply, and I am calm again. I am always, eventually, calm again.
“Forgive the mess,” I say quietly, passing my hand through the air. The flames lie down obediently, the spilled ink topples back into the jar, and the wreck sorts into something I will see to later.
Vaelu’s ears are still flat. Ryn has not loosened by a single degree.
“Come here. Both of you. I am not angry with you. You did right to tell me.”
They listen, and settle in front of me.
“The spell on the scythe,” I murmur, “you understand what it does, correct?”
Vaelu nods quickly. “Yes, Father.”
“I need to hear you say it,” I crouch, bringing myself level with him. “I need you to know I am not hurting her.”
He opens his mouth, and his teeth find his bottom lip instead.
“When it takes her, it moves her. That is all. She will arrive here, whole, unhurt, not a mark on her. She will not die. Tell me you are certain, Vaelu.”
“They won’t die,” he whispers.
“Good.” I lift my hand, and then lower it. I want so badly to soothe them, but they cannot bear to be touched. The hands that last held them were not kind, and their bodies have never forgotten.
So I give them the only comfort they will accept.
I get up from the floor and reach into the shallow drawer of one of my bookcases, pulling out a small, lacquered crate I have kept tucked away just for this hour.
I slide it across the smooth stone floor toward them.
Inside is a heavy bundle of raw, unspun cloud-wool, the exact kind of high-pile texture they love to line the dark corners of their quarters with.
Tucked into the center is a large bowl of harvest-cherries, split open and glazed in thick clover honey.
Their noses twitch, and the tips of Vaelu’s ears swivel forward.
He reaches out, his scarred fingers sinking eagerly into the plush wool before he lifts one of the honeyed fruits to his lips.
Ryn’s shoulders drop an inch, his tail uncoiling from Vaelu’s ankle.
“Take it back to your den,” I chuckle softly, stepping back to give them the wide, open radius of space they need to feel safe. “Melt the honey into some tea. Rest. I will handle the rest of the threads tonight.”
The door drifts shut behind them, and I am alone in the dark once again—the way I always have been. I settle into my chair and fold my hands, waiting for the day none of us will ever have to be alone in the dark again.