The Broken Window
TEORIN
“There are other ways to request my pres—”
He stops. He looks at Asharin. Then at Colsar. Then at Teorin, who watched patiently as understanding dawned over him.
“No,” he says vehemently.
“You do not have a choice,” Colsar says. His voice is calm. Lethal.
Tamal straightens. “It is too much magic. Moreover, should my father find out it will put all of us in more danger than is needed.” He looks at Teorin. “And the way the creatures are in Morrath, she will have little chance of survival anyway—”
The air in the room compresses.
Tamal hits the far wall before he finishes the sentence, Colsar’s power carrying him there with the particular efficiency of someone who has stopped caring about restraint. Tamal slides down it and coughs and the air tightens further, pressing inward around his lungs.
“You will do it,” Colsar says.
Tamal coughs again. His eyes are watering.
He looks between Colsar and Teorin as though expecting them to disagree, for one of them to see reason.
Then he understands that the brothers are aligned.
That he cannot beat both of them, that both are unhinged, crazed with grief in a way that means he will not walk out of here alive if he does not comply.
“Fine.” He holds up a hand. “Under one condition.”
“What?” Teorin says coldly.
“Yvara Dyvarin.” He looks between them. “You give her to me after this.”
“Why would you—” Teorin begins.
“Done,” Colsar says immediately.
Tamal looks at Asharin. Something moves through his expression that is not quite readable. “She may not awaken as she was. For that I am not responsi—”
“Do it,” Colsar says.
Tamal crosses the room and crouches beside Asharin. He is quiet for a moment, his eyes darkening, and then they rolled back and gray smoke began to drift from his nose and mouth, slowly moving toward her, then over her lips like something being breathed into her.
A small rise in her chest. Barely visible. Her lips lose some of their pallor.
Tamal stops. Turns. Vomits onto the floor.
He stays there, braced on one hand. “What the hell did this to her?” he says.
“What?” Teorin says.
“The poison.” Tamal straightens slowly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I have never encountered anything like it.”
“The soldiers are searching for whoever is responsible," Colsar says in a way that Teorin recognizes means the killer will pay, just not now. Not until this is fixed somehow.
Teorin steps closer. “Like nothing you have ever seen?”
Tamal looks at him. “Truly. This is not Yorali poison.”
Teorin and Colsar look at each other. Tamal turns back to Asharin and tries again.
Then again. Each attempt costs him something visible.
His face going paler, his hands beginning to tremble, his breathing coming harder between each pass.
He does not stop. He goes again and again until finally she coughs, a small broken sound, and the gray at her lips recedes to white and her skin moves from the color of ash to something closer to living, though her eyelids do not move and the tips of her fingers have begun to gray at the edges.
Tamal sits back on his heels.
“She will not awaken without Morrath’s magic,” he says.
“And even then they will need an antidote to whatever has been given to her. I have never encountered a poison that pushed back like that.” He looks at Teorin.
“You may think you are strong. But as a Rathmor and as....Teorin, I imagine you have enemies in Morrath. This may not be a good idea.” He pauses.
“Besides. There may be unrest now that their king is indisposed.”
Their king. Sevrin. Teorin grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “Who dares?"
Tamal laughs, which is not the response the moment called for. “This is all very out of character for you. You are known to hate your brothers.”
“Yes, which means they are mine to kill.”
Tamal does not answer. He looks past Teorin to where Colsar sits with Asharin in his arms, rocking her slightly, his hands still pale and trembling.
When Tamal speaks again his voice is careful, though not cruel. “Say your goodbyes.” He pauses. “You may never see her again. And should she die in Morrath you will not be able to retrieve her body for a proper burial."
Teorin uses his power to send him through the door.
“Get the fuck out.”
The door swings closed. Teorin stood in the quiet. Then he turned to Colsar, and his voice comes out almost gently, which surprises him. “It is time. We have very little of it.”
“She did not trust you,” Colsar says. “I cannot leave her with—”
“You do not have a choice.” Teorin keeps his voice even. “She dies or she does not die. Either way your children must live, for her sake. And clearly there are people who do not want them alive.”
“Yes,” Colsar says. “Like the uncle who just arrived in a warship.”
Teorin does not answer that.
Colsar closes his eyes.
The room is very quiet. Then Teorin sighs. He takes a knife from his belt and cuts his palm and lets the blood fall to the floor between them, a slow drip that neither of them looks away from.
“I will keep her safe for as long as I am able. I will protect her with my life or die trying.”
He pauses. “Even without my ships, the King of Thrykis will move on Veynar eventually. The undead scale the walls of Alarna. A mysterious assailant just murdered your wife.” He looks at Colsar directly. “Protect your children. Do not fail them the way you failed her.”
He lifts Asharin from Colsar’s arms. Colsar let her go, then his eye turned copper briefly and a shriek echoed across the sky.
He turns to Arabar. "Is it large enough?"
"By the call, it is. Well done, Majesty. Not every Fyrekin can summon a Wanderer."
Teorin does not know what a Wanderer is. Or care.
The sentinel turns to him. "A bird awaits you, you will ride it to Morrath."
"I do not need to ride a fucking--"
"You will ride the fucking bird." His brother shouts. The air in the room tightens. The remaining glass on the window shatters.
Teorin looks down at Asharin. The bird is likely faster, and whatever small, occasional gasps she still manages will not last much longer. "Fine." He looks at both of them and carries her out.
As he walks down the corridor, a howl rises from the Great Hall. It sounds like either a siakar or a man in pain. It fills the hall, spills into the corridors, and does not stop for a long time.